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Oral Answers to Questions
(11 years ago)
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Mrs Anne McGuire (Stirling) (Lab)
1. What discussions he has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the employment interests of workers in the whisky industry in Scotland.
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr Alistair Carmichael)
I have regular discussions with the Chancellor about a wide range of issues, and I can assure the hon. Lady that the whisky industry in Scotland and its employees are a key priority. My Department has long-standing contact with the Scotch Whisky Association, which aids our understanding of the industry.
Mrs McGuire
Scotch whisky is exported to about 200 countries, and the industry directly employs 10,000 people in Scotland. According to a recent White Paper from the Scottish Government, there will be about 90 Scotch whisky embassies if the Scottish Government have their way after independence. Does the Secretary of State agree that trade agreements brokered by a strong and extensive United Kingdom diplomatic and international trade infrastructure are integral to the success of Scotch whisky exports? I—
Mr Speaker
Order. I am sorry to be discourteous, but the question is too long.
Mr Carmichael
The right hon. Lady is absolutely right. Given that 90% of the product of the Scotch whisky industry is for the export market, it is of supreme importance that Scotland has the best possible access to that market, and we have that facility through the network of some 270 embassies throughout the world and through United Kingdom Trade & Investment. That is what matters, and that is why the Scotch whisky industry makes such good use of it.
Mr Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)
The Scotch whisky industry provides many jobs in my constituency, but I feel that it is very unfair that whisky is taxed at a higher rate per unit of alcohol than beers and wines. Will the Government look again at alcohol taxation with a view to creating a level playing field?
Mr Carmichael
I may be wrong, and if I am I apologise, but I do not think my hon. Friend is right about the relative taxation of whisky and other alcoholic drinks. [Interruption.] I have now been informed that beer duty is 37% and whisky duty is 42%, but in any event it is wrong to play off one part of Scotland’s highly successful food and drinks industry against another. I am sure that the Chancellor will continue to listen to representations from the Scotch whisky industry, which my hon. Friend and I have made jointly over the years.
Mr Brian H. Donohoe (Central Ayrshire) (Lab)
I declare an interest, as secretary of the all-party parliamentary scotch whisky and spirits group. Nearly every week the group receives representations about the whole question of the duty escalator and the unfair treatment of the spirits industry in relation to the beer industry. The Chancellor gave so much to the beer industry in his most recent Budget. What representations has the Secretary of State made to the Chancellor with the aim of overcoming the problem?
Mr Carmichael
I will continue to make representations on behalf of the whole food and drink industry in Scotland, in which the hon. Gentleman and his all-party group play an important part. I have joined the hon. Gentleman on many occasions over the years as part of such delegations, and I will continue to give him as much support as I can.
Angus Robertson (Moray) (SNP)
Does the Secretary of State not accept that 80% of the price of a bottle of Scotch whisky is duty, which is paid to the United Kingdom Treasury? Duty discrimination by the UK Government is widening the gap between the price of whisky and the price of other beverages. How does that help the industry and employees?
Mr Carmichael
The point to which the hon. Gentleman should respond—although I suspect that he will not—is that the Scotch whisky industry does very well as part of the United Kingdom industry, taking full advantage of the string of embassies and UKTI offices that we have throughout the world, and his policy of independence puts that at risk.
Angus Robertson
In opposition, the right hon. Gentleman and I, along with others, lobbied the Treasury to end tax discrimination. In fact, the right hon. Gentleman himself tabled an amendment for that purpose, supported by Liberal Democrat Members and the Scottish National party. Since becoming Secretary of State for Scotland, he has taken the Tory shilling, he is letting the industry down, and he is supporting a discriminatory duty. When will he stand up and be Scotland’s man in the Cabinet, rather than the Tories’ man in Scotland?
Mr Carmichael
I do hope that that sounded better when the hon. Gentleman rehearsed it in the mirror earlier this morning, because it sounded pretty poor just now. There is no escaping the fundamental truth that his policy would be the ruination of the Scotch whisky industry, for no good reason.
Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)
2. What steps the Government are taking to tackle low pay in Scotland.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (David Mundell)
With your permission, Mr Speaker, before I answer that question, may I draw the House’s attention to the fact that Saturday 21 December will be the 25th anniversary of the Lockerbie bombing? That remains the single largest loss of life ever in the United Kingdom, with 270 people perishing on that fateful evening. I am sure that the thoughts and prayers of the whole House will be with the community and with those who lost friends and family on that day. Much of the focus over the past 25 years has been on the perpetrators, but the friends and families of the victims and the community of Lockerbie deserve our respect and admiration for the formidable way in which they have coped with 25 years of unprecedented global attention.
The national minimum wage is one of Government’s key policies to support the low paid, and it is UK wide. On 1 October, the adult minimum wage increased to £6.31 per hour. We have also increased the income tax personal allowance to £10,000, taking 224,000 Scots out of income tax altogether and benefiting 2.2 million Scottish taxpayers.
Mr Bain
I am sure that the whole House will commend and agree with the Minister’s remarks about Lockerbie.
In his subsequent answer, the right hon. Gentleman omitted to say that prices had risen more quickly than wages in 41 of the 42 months he has served as a Minister in this House, that low pay was on the rise in Scotland and that the value of the national minimum wage had declined in real terms under this Government. When are he and the Business Secretary going to do something concrete to deal with all that? Or is he just going to sit on his hands while the cost of living crisis in Scotland gets worse by the day?
David Mundell
The hon. Gentleman is simply wrong. The October 2013 adult minimum wage rate is around 27% higher in real terms compared with the consumer prices index and about 15% higher in real terms compared with the retail prices index than it was on its introduction in 1999.
Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that the best way to tackle low pay in Scotland is to get the economy growing and to create more job opportunities?
David Mundell
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, and I hope that Opposition Members will welcome today’s announcement that employment is up and unemployment is down in Scotland. We are not complacent, but we are on the right track.
Mr Frank Roy (Motherwell and Wishaw) (Lab)
12. Low pay is a scourge that is now affecting thousands of families throughout Scotland. Would those families best be helped by giving them a decent living wage or by introducing a tax cut for millionaires?
David Mundell
The Government support the concept of the living wage, where employers can afford to pay it and where it is not introduced at the cost of jobs. It is something to be encouraged.
Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)
The UK Government’s attitude to the living wage was encapsulated by the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) earlier this year when she said:
“There is no recognised definition of a national living wage.”—[Official Report, 10 June 2013; Vol. 563, c. 211W.]
She went on to explain that the Government had therefore made no assessment of its consequences, were it to be introduced. Should not the Government move quickly to introduce a living wage for their employees, wherever they might be based in the UK, rather than hiding behind the vacuous argument that it is too difficult to calculate, given that we know it will be £7.65 an hour in Scotland and £8.80 in London next year?
David Mundell
It is never a surprise to hear the Scottish National party mention London in the same breath as Scotland. As I said to the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Mr Roy), the Government believe that the living wage is a concept that should be supported, where employers can afford it and where it is not introduced at the cost of jobs.
Margaret Curran (Glasgow East) (Lab)
May I associate myself with the Minister’s remarks about the terrible tragedy of Lockerbie?
Low pay is one of the reasons that people are using food banks in Scotland today. I wish nothing personal towards the Minister, but I am disappointed that the Secretary of State did not answer this question himself, because we know that the Secretary of State has recently begun to struggle with some of the details of his brief. Let me see whether the Minister can do any better. Will he tell the House what the percentage increase in the number of people using food banks in Scotland in the past year has been? Given that it is Christmas, I will offer him a hand. Is it (a) 100%; (b) 200%; (c) over 400%?
David Mundell
What the hon. Lady omitted to tell us was that under her Government the increase in people using food banks was 1,000%. Our Government are concerned about people needing to use food banks in a moment of crisis in their lives. We support the development of food banks and those who operate them, and I was very proud to open the food bank in Peebles in my constituency. But to pretend that these crises are of this Government’s making and that they have not been going on for a continuing period is to mislead the House.
Margaret Curran
The Minister should know that the increase in the past year has been 435%, which is more than 34,000 people, including more than 10,000 children, using food banks in Scotland. Those are shameful figures and all Members of this House should pay attention to them. He has refused to be drawn on why this is happening. Citizens Advice, the Trussell Trust and the Child Poverty Action Group are all saying that this Government’s policies are driving people in Scotland to use food banks. Are they all wrong?
David Mundell
Of course the hon. Lady does not acknowledge the 1,000% rise in the use of food banks under the last Labour Government. We want to look at, and understand, why there has been an increase in the use of food banks. That is why the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has committed to an extensive study on the use of food aid across the United Kingdom, and she will be able to read that when it is published.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
3. What estimate he has made of the number of illegal immigrants in Scotland.
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr Alistair Carmichael)
Given the ability of illegal and clandestine immigrants to move freely within the UK, it is not feasible to produce separate estimates for each part of the UK.
Mr Hollobone
It would appear that the Government do not really know how many illegal immigrants there might be in Scotland. Given the attraction of the whole of the UK to people from other countries, I suspect that the problem might be rather greater than the Secretary of State imagines, particularly in cities such as Glasgow and Edinburgh. Will he reassure the House that he will work closely with the UK Border Agency to ensure that Scotland is not an easy route into the UK for illegal immigrants?
Mr Carmichael
Certainly there should be no easy routes for anyone in these circumstances, but I would caution the hon. Gentleman against devoting too much Government resource to the compilation of figures that do not help us to tackle the problem.
Graeme Morrice (Livingston) (Lab)
What discussion have the UK Government had with the Scottish Government about the operation of border controls in an independent Scotland?
Mr Carmichael
We have had no such discussion so far. The truth of the matter is that either we can have an open area with no border controls or we can have closely aligned immigration policies—unlike the position of the Scottish National party, we cannot have both.
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
For years, immigrants have been vital to the economy—in my constituency, I see the importance of Filipino fishermen—and, since the Union, the problem in Scotland has been emigration, not immigration. But what can we do for Syrian refugees, to enable them to come here as legal immigrants? Although the Secretary of State might have failed to get his colleagues to vote for war in Syria, what might he do this Christmas to help refugees come from Syria, especially given that Germany is taking 80% of the European total and the UK is taking zero, which Amnesty International says should cause heads to hang “in shame”?
Mr Carmichael
This country has a long and proud record of offering asylum to those who seek it and those who deserve it and need it. That will continue to be the case.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
4. What plans the Government have to review the Barnett formula.
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr Alistair Carmichael)
The Government have no plans to review the Barnett formula in this Parliament.
Pete Wishart
That is not quite what the Secretary of State said only a few weeks ago. Gary Robertson asked, “What about the Barnett formula? Will that change post-2014?” The Secretary of State said—because it was he—“Let me be absolutely clear, erm, erm, er, there will be no action taken on the Barnett formula, erm, erm, until the economy has erm, er, stabilised.” Help me Rona! Why is he not just straight with the Scottish people? We all know that the bosses and the paymasters of the no campaign—his Tory friends—want Barnett scrapped. Is that not the real cost to the people of Scotland—£4 billion?
Mr Carmichael
It is a classic of the genre—synthetic outrage at its very best. The hon. Gentleman knows that the Barnett formula is one reason the people of Scotland reject independence. That is why he is operating his own little “Project Smear” to pretend that it is somehow at risk. The position has been put beyond any doubt today by the Prime Minister in a letter to the First Minister. The hon. Gentleman should explain that and tell the people of Scotland that the best way to get rid of the Barnett formula is to vote for independence.
Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Scotland Act 2012 transferred substantial tax-raising powers to Holyrood, and that these complex changes should be allowed to bed in before we start making any further radical changes?
Mr Carmichael
Not only do I agree with my hon. Friend on that point, but I believe that the energies of the Scottish Government would be much better served if they were devoted to dealing with the implementation of those highly complex tax changes, which are due to come on stream in 2016, rather than running around and setting up scare stories of that sort.
Mr Ian Davidson (Glasgow South West) (Lab/Co-op)
Is the Secretary of State aware that what we have seen today is the launch of separatists for Barnett?
Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)
The Barnett formula has served Scotland, and the Opposition believe that it is at the heart of redistribution across the entire UK, which is why we support it. I agree with the Secretary of State that the only threat to the Barnett formula is a vote for independence. Will he share with the House why he believes that the SNP Scottish Government do not understand that they are the only threat to the Barnett formula?
Mr Carmichael
I have a strong suspicion that that is wilful on the part of the Scottish Government. As I said a few moments ago, they know that people in the United Kingdom value the Barnett formula so they try to pretend that there is some threat to it. That is part of their strategy. They identify things such as the pound, the Bank of England and the ability to build complex warships on the Clyde, which are the things that the people of Scotland value from being part of the United Kingdom, and then pretend that they can hold on to them while becoming independent. It is just not credible, which is why they are losing the argument.
Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
5. What recent discussions he has had with the Scottish Government on fisheries policy.
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr Alistair Carmichael)
I have regular discussions with Ministers in the Scottish Government on a range of issues, including fisheries policy.
My ministerial colleagues in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs also work closely with the Scottish Government to ensure that the interests of Scottish fishermen are fully recognised in the UK position in EU fisheries negotiations.
Miss McIntosh
I congratulate the Government on achieving reform of the common agricultural policy and on introducing an element of regional control. What assessment has my right hon. Friend made of the implications for Scottish fishermen, and will they benefit greatly from it?
Mr Carmichael
I have long been an enthusiast for the regionalisation of the common fisheries policy, and I am delighted that, for the second round of reform, we have seen that at the heart of it. There is still more that can be done, but anything that brings fishermen, scientists and other stakeholders together in order to manage fisheries away from Brussels has got to be good.
Fiona O'Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)
Was the right hon. Gentleman as surprised as I was to see Scottish Nationalist party Minister Richard Lochhead claiming that he has secured the quota deal for Scottish fishermen while, at the same time, complaining that he has no voice? Is it not the fact that Scottish fishing is best represented in the EU with a strong voice as part of the UK?
Mr Carmichael
No, I was not at all surprised, because that is exactly the sort of double standard that we have seen from the SNP over the years on this and just about every other issue. The fact is that my hon. Friend the fisheries Minister led the delegation this year to the December Fisheries Council with exceptional skill. He delivered for the Scottish fleet the things that really mattered. In particular, he ensured that there was no further cut in effort and brought home important flexibility on monkfish quotas. He is to be commended for that—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. There is far too much noise in the Chamber. Let us have some quiet so that we can hear a Scottish knight, Sir Menzies Campbell.
Sir Menzies Campbell (North East Fife) (LD)
No pressure, then, Mr Speaker. When my right hon. Friend is giving proper consideration to the future of the fisheries industry in Scotland, will he pay particular attention to the village-based fisheries industry? That is a particular issue in areas such as my constituency, based as it is on Pittenweem and surrounding ports. It is essential that the interests of the village-based fishing industry are not subjected to the sometimes overbearing influence of those who go further out to sea.
Mr Carmichael
I know from my constituency experience that the small inshore fleet is of great importance to the communities represented by me and my right hon. and learned Friend. His point is well made, and it is important that we do what we can to sustain the fleet in those small ports.
Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)
The Secretary of State knows that the postponement of the negotiations with Norway over shared North sea stocks means that the fishing fleet faces an uncertain new year. Will he support the Scottish Government’s calls for an increase in the North sea cod quota next year, in line with the scientific advice?
Mr Carmichael
As the hon. Lady knows, that is a subject to be determined at the EU-Norway talks in January. They have been held over, and although such an increase would be desirable—it is certainly what the industry is looking for—that is not entirely within our gift, as it is an EU negotiation.
Mr Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP)
6. What assessment he has made of the effect of energy prices on consumers in rural areas of Scotland.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (David Mundell)
I know from my own constituency that rural consumers face particular challenges on energy bills. The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon), who is responsible for energy, is working with all interested parties to obtain more secure and affordable off-grid supplies. I am due to meet the Office of Fair Trading early in the new year to discuss the matter.
Mr Weir
I thank the Minister for that answer. As he is well aware, rural consumers who are off the grid are often forgotten in arguments over energy prices. The energy company obligation is supposed to be technologically neutral, but the major energy companies will not include LPG or oil boilers in their schemes, which is surely discriminatory. Will he press his colleagues in the Department of Energy and Climate Change to ensure that such boilers are included in ECO schemes?
David Mundell
I am happy to do that. The hon. Gentleman has championed the issue of off-grid supplies, and I suggest that we hold a round table, as we did on rural fuel, with DECC and interested Scottish MPs to discuss that and other issues.
John Thurso (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
Is my right hon. Friend aware of the particular difficulties in remote rural areas, where there is no access to main supplies for both gas and oil? Will he commend the concept of heating oil clubs, such as the one I am promoting in Landward Caithness? They have done much to depress that cost. What can the Government do to assist?
David Mundell
The Government are keen to support oil clubs like the one in Landward Caithness. I am sure that the issues that concern the hon. Gentleman’s constituents will be ably discussed at our proposed round table in the Scotland Office with DECC and Scottish MPs.
Anas Sarwar (Glasgow Central) (Lab)
14. Why do the SNP, the Tories and the Liberal Democrats all agree that the price should go on the energy bill and the tax bill and that the energy companies should be let off scot-free?
David Mundell
We believe that something should be done about the mess in the electricity industry that the hon. Gentleman’s party left behind. That is why we are seeking to move people on to lower tariffs, that is why we are rolling back green levies, and that is why we are encouraging competition. What his party offers is a gimmick and a con.
Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)
7. What assessment he has made of the interim report by Sir Ian Wood on the future regulation of oil and gas extraction in the North sea.
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr Alistair Carmichael)
The interim report by Sir Ian Wood has given Government and industry alike plenty to think about and that is exactly why we asked him to carry out his review in the first place. After his final report is submitted early next year, the Government will set out our plans to make the most of our offshore oil and gas fields.
Tom Greatrex
I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. He will be aware that Sir Ian Wood’s report refers to much of the North sea as a mature environment and to the need for collaboration to maximise the economic recovery for what is, by record, a volatile and, by definition, diminishing resource. Does he agree that the fragmentation of fiscal and regulatory regimes through separate arrangements for Scotland and for the rest of the UK continental shelf would minimise the chance of achieving that outcome?
Mr Carmichael
I think it is very clear to all who have an informed view of the industry that its best future lies as part of the United Kingdom, rather than as part of a Scotland separated from the rest of the United Kingdom. It is a mature industry that still has a great deal to offer, but it is telling that the Scottish Government’s recent White Paper gives absolutely no guarantees about the future of field allowances in the industry, which will be absolutely crucial to its future development.
Mr Speaker
The Secretary of State will not want to talk out his hon. Friend, Sir Robert Smith.
Sir Robert Smith (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (LD)
Is not the most exciting thing about Sir Ian Wood’s report the consensus he has discovered in the industry, which is that with more regulation and a stronger regulator with more resources there is the potential to unlock even greater investment, supporting jobs, taxpaying and energy security?
Mr Carmichael
The real strength of the Wood report, at least the interim version, is its credibility in the industry, because it has been informed by the industry and led by one of its most respected figures.
Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)
Q1. If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 18 December.
The Prime Minister (Mr David Cameron)
I am sure that the whole House will wish to join me in sending our warmest wishes for Christmas to our armed forces in Afghanistan. Having just returned from there, I saw at first hand once again their incredible commitment and dedication. We should remember the families who will be missing them, especially at this time of year, and indeed we should remember all our service personnel around the world. Our country owes them a huge amount for the work they do and the sacrifices they make on our behalf.
This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others, and in addition to my duties in the House I shall have further such meetings later today.
Mr Anderson
I join the Prime Minister in sending our warmest wishes to our armed forces, and also to all the public sector workers taking care of us over the Christmas period.
Unless the Mesothelioma Bill is changed, 6,000 victims who were criminally and negligently exposed to asbestos at work will not receive any compensation from insurance companies. Will the Prime Minister intervene at the eleventh hour to prevent that from happening? If he does not, it will be fair to assume that he would rather stand up for the insurance companies than for innocent people who were exposed to asbestos at work.
The Prime Minister
I very much respect the hon. Gentleman’s record of campaigning on this issue, but I will say this: the Mesothelioma Bill is a huge step forward. Frankly, for decades there has been no provision for these people, through no fault of their own, who will die from this terrible disease. Once the scheme that we are putting in place is up and running, roughly 300 people a year will receive approximately £115,000 each. I think that is an important step forward. I will obviously look at what he has to say, but I think that we should be proud of the fact that after a long delay we are tackling this issue.
Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend join me in saluting the courage of the hundreds of thousands of people who have been peacefully protesting across Ukraine for the past few weeks against their President’s decision to break off talks with Europe and to move closer to Russia? Does he agree that if there is any further violence against them, those responsible should be held personally accountable, and will he continue to hold out the prospect of closer links with Europe in the longer term, which is what the people of Ukraine want?
The Prime Minister
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that we should pay tribute to those in Ukraine who want a future linked to Europe and the peace, prosperity and stability that that relationship would bring. I think we should also say, as he has said very clearly, that the world is watching what the Ukrainian authorities have done and are contemplating doing in response to the demonstrations. I think we should stand with the people of Ukraine, who want that peaceful, secure and prosperous future.
Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)
I join the Prime Minister in paying tribute to all our troops serving around the world, particularly in Afghanistan. Once again this year, they have done our country proud. They have shown the utmost courage and bravery. All our thoughts are with them and their families this Christmas.
Today’s economic figures show a welcome fall in unemployment, and for every person who gets back into work it benefits not just them but their family as well. Does the Prime Minister agree, however, that it is a major challenge for Britain that at the end of this year there are more people than ever before in today’s figures working part time because they cannot get the hours they need?
The Prime Minister
It is worth looking at these unemployment figures in some detail, because I think they do paint an encouraging picture. Unemployment is down by 99,000 and the number of people claiming unemployment benefit has actually fallen by 36,000 in this month alone. There are 250,000 more people in work. Youth unemployment is down. Long-term unemployment is down. Unemployment among women is down. We have talked before about 1 million more people in work under this Government; there are now 1.2 million more in work. There should not be one ounce of complacency, because we have still got work to do to get our country back to work. Having everyone back in work means greater stability for them, a greater ability to plan for their future, and greater help for their families. But the plan is working; let us stick at it and get unemployment down even further.
Edward Miliband
The Prime Minister did not really answer the specific question I asked. It is good that our economy is creating more jobs, but the problem is that too many of them are part time, low paid or insecure. Today’s figures show what is happening to wages. Does he agree with me that it is a matter of deep concern that at the end of this year average wages are £364 lower than they were a year ago and over £1,500 lower than they were at the general election?
The Prime Minister
Let me answer very directly the question about full-time and part-time employment. Actually, full-time employment has grown much faster in recent months, and overall since the election 70% of the new jobs—and there have been millions of new jobs—are full-time jobs. I agree that we have got more to do. We have got to do more to put in place our long-term economic plan to keep the economy growing. I have to say to the right hon. Gentleman that it is all very well standing up at the Dispatch Box and saying that there would be 1 million fewer jobs; we are still waiting for him to correct the record about that. Of course I want to see more money in people’s pockets. The only way we can do that is to keep on with the economic plan, keep cutting unemployment, keep people’s taxes down, and cut the deficit so that we keep interest rates down. That is our economic plan: what is his?
Edward Miliband
Let us talk about the Prime Minister’s predictions. He said that he would balance the books in five years; he has failed. He said that he would secure Britain’s credit rating; he has failed. The worst prediction of all is that he said he would be good at being Prime Minister, and he has certainly failed at that. He has got no answer—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. Members on both sides of the House need to calm down. It will take as long as it takes, as always; it is very straightforward.
Edward Miliband
Is it not interesting, Mr Speaker, that the thing they want to talk about least of all is the cost of living crisis facing families up and down the country? That is because they know that families are worse off. Can the Prime Minister tell us how much higher the average gas and electricity bill is this Christmas compared to last?
The Prime Minister
First of all, let us deal with the predictions. The right hon. Gentleman said this—
The Prime Minister
They have a programme which will clearly lead to the disappearance of 1 million jobs. Now we have 1.6 million more private sector jobs and 1.2 million more people in work, it is time that the right hon. Gentleman apologised for his prediction talking the economy down. He asks about the cost of living; let us compare our records on the cost of living. They doubled council tax; we have frozen it. They put up petrol tax times 12 times; we have frozen it. They put up the basic state pension by 75p; we have put it up by £15. [Interruption.] Ah, we have a new hand gesture from the shadow Chancellor! I would have thought that after today’s briefing in the papers the hand gesture for the shadow Chancellor should be bye-bye. You don’t need it to be Christmas to know when you are sitting next to a turkey. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. We will wait until colleagues calm down. I do not mind how long it takes; I have all day if necessary.
Edward Miliband
I thought that, just for once, the Prime Minister might answer the question he was asked. Let us give him the answer: energy bills are £70 higher than they were a year ago—despite all his bluster, that is the reality—and £300 higher than when he came to office.
Let us try the Prime Minister on another important issue for families. The cost of child care is crucial for parents going out to work. Can he tell us how much the cost of child care has gone up this year?
The Prime Minister
We are providing 15 hours of child care—of nursery education—for two-year-olds, three-year-olds and four-year-olds. The right hon. Gentleman was never able to do that in government. It is all very well for him to make promises, but the only reason why we are able to keep our promises is that we took tough decisions about the economy. We took tough and difficult decisions to get the deficit down. We took difficult decisions to get our economic plan in place.
What the right hon. Gentleman cannot stand is the fact that this Christmas the economy is growing, 1.2 million more people are in work, our exports are increasing, manufacturing is up, construction is doing better, the economy is getting stronger and Labour is getting weaker.
Edward Miliband
I tell you what, Mr Speaker, that was a turkey of an answer. Why does not the Prime Minister, just for once, answer the question? Child care costs have gone up £300 in the past year—nearly three times the rate of inflation—and he is not doing anything about it.
There is one group the Prime Minister has helped out with the cost of living this year: those on his Christmas card list. I know he does not like my asking about this, but can he tell us how much lower the taxes of someone earning more than £1 million a year are this year compared with last year?
The Prime Minister
The top rate of tax under this Government is higher than it ever was under the right hon. Gentleman’s Government. The fact is that the highest 1% of earners are paying a greater percentage of income tax than they did when he was sitting in the Cabinet. Those are the facts. If he wants to talk about what he has done on the cost of living, we have cut income tax for 25 million people, but Labour voted against it. We have taken 2.4 million people out of tax, they voted against it. We froze the council tax, they voted against it. We froze fuel duty, they voted against it. The only reason we have been able to do this is that we have a long-term economic plan. The right hon. Gentleman ends the year with no plan, no credibility and no idea how to help our economy.
Edward Miliband
We all know what the Prime Minister’s long-term plan is: to cut taxes for those on his Christmas card list and make everyone else sink or swim. That is his long-term plan. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. The usual low graders can make as much noise as they like. Let me just say to them, for their own benefit—I will say it again; some of them do not learn very quickly—that however long it takes, right hon. and hon. Members will be heard. It is so simple, I think it is probably now clear.
Edward Miliband
The more the Prime Minister reads out lists of statistics, the more out of touch he seems to the country. This was the year that the cost of living crisis hit families hardest. This was the year the Government introduced the bedroom tax while cutting taxes for millionaires. This was the year he proved beyond doubt that he is the Prime Minister for the few, not the many.
The Prime Minister
The right hon. Gentleman may not like the facts, but he cannot hide from them. The typical taxpayer is paying £600 less because we cut taxes. The deficit is falling—it is down by a third—because we took difficult decisions. Today, for the first time in our history, there are 30 million people in our country in work. The fact is that at the end of this year we have a recovery Labour cannot explain, growth it said would never come, and jobs it said would never happen. Meanwhile, it is stuck with an economic policy that does not add up and a shadow Chancellor it cannot defend. That is why the British people will never trust Labour with the economy again.
Mr Speaker
Order. We will just have to keep going a bit longer, because I am not going to have—[Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman will be heard.
Sir Malcolm Bruce
I can give the House something to cheer about. Will the Prime Minister join me in welcoming the fact that investment in our North sea oil and gas industry this year will reach a record £14 billion, accounting for an unemployment rate in my constituency of just 0.7%, but is he aware of Sir Ian Wood’s report that says we need collaboration between Government and industry to unlock between 3 billion and 4 billion barrels of oil worth £200 billion that will otherwise be left under the sea?
The Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend makes a very important point: the Wood report is an excellent report and we are looking to put that in place because we want to maximise the returns and the employment and the investment in the North sea. In recent months we have seen very encouraging signs of greater investment in the North sea, not least because of the decisions taken by the Chancellor to bring into play some of the more marginal fields. We need to keep up with that and implement the Wood report as my right hon. Friend says.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
Q2. Does the Prime Minister understand, even if Dr Richard Haass does not, that agreement and consensus in his talks are desirable but will be impossible to achieve if proposals re-emerge that are viewed in the Unionist community as diluting our very essence of Britishness as Northern Ireland seeks to strengthen its position within the United Kingdom, not weaken it?
The Prime Minister
I think we all agree that Richard Haass is carrying out a very important and extremely difficult task: looking into the issues of parades, of flags and, of course, the past. I have met Richard Haass, and I think he is an incredibly impressive individual. We should let him do his work and we should judge his work on the results he produces, but I hope that everyone will try to look at this process with some give and take to try and bring the communities together.
Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)
Unemployment in the Peterborough constituency stands at 5.5%, the lowest it has been since the financial crisis, and there were 1,180 fewer jobseeker’s allowance claimants than a year ago. However, there are too many young people who are jobless and lacking work skills, so will the Prime Minister give an early Christmas present to Peterborough people by giving his personal support to our bid for a university technical college, to be decided in the new year?
The Prime Minister
I know that my right hon. Friend the Education Secretary will look closely at the proposal for a university technical college. They are working well, and I think that is a very good innovation in our education system.
The news on youth unemployment is better—19,000 down this quarter—and the claimant count is falling as well, but there is a lot more work to do. I think we should particularly look at the work experience programmes which seem to have one of the best records at reducing youth unemployment and see what we can do to encourage companies and businesses to get involved in this work experience programme.
Mr Nick Raynsford (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)
Q3. With the Archbishop of Canterbury reminding us of society’s responsibility to support the poor and the vulnerable, and the Archbishop of Westminster specifically criticising the inhumanity of aspects of Government policy, does the Prime Minister regret, as we approach Christmas, his Government’s retreat from the compassionate Conservatism he used to adopt?
The Prime Minister
I do not accept what the right hon. Gentleman says at all. There is nothing more compassionate than getting more people into work. The best route out of poverty is work and what we can see for the first time in our country is 30 million people in work. I enjoy debating and listening carefully to our Archbishops. I have to say that I do not agree with what the Archbishop of Westminster said about immigration, but I think we should be frank and open about these debates and not be concerned when we do have disagreements.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
Q4. Thank you for calling me, Mr Speaker, and a merry Christmas to you and your family. The people of Suffolk have enjoyed a cracker of a Christmas present with the excellent news on the A14, which will encourage greater investment and growth. In that spirit, does my right hon. Friend agree that calls to abandon the Government’s long-term economic plan and adopt the Opposition’s plan to borrow and spend more will raise taxes and mortgage rates for hard-working people in this country?
The Prime Minister
First, I congratulate my hon. Friend on her ingenious way of ensuring that she is called regularly in debates and questions in this House, an example that I am sure others will follow. On that note, a very happy Christmas to you and your wife and children, Mr Speaker.
My hon. Friend has been very clear in her campaign against the toll on the A14, and I am glad that we have settled that issue. She is right to say that the biggest threat to our economy now would be to abandon our plan. We are getting the deficit down; we are keeping interest rates down; we are cutting people’s taxes; and we are seeing the country get back to work. The biggest risk is more borrowing, more spending, more taxes—all the things that got us into this mess in the first place.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
Q5. At the end of November, I visited Handsworth Grange community sports college in my constituency. The head, Anne Quaile, told me about the school collecting food to help their needy families over Christmas. Indeed, there will be a food bank on the school site in the new year. What really shocked me was when she told me about a young girl, aged 15, who arrived on a Monday—just before my visit—not having eaten all weekend, because there was no food in the house. How does the Prime Minister expect that young girl to fulfil her educational potential?
The Prime Minister
We have to do everything we can to help Britain’s families and to help families into work, and that is exactly what we are doing under this Government. We also have to make sure that we protect the income levels of the poorest, and that is why, for instance, child tax credit is up £390 under this Government, protecting the money that goes to the poorest people in our country.
Ian Swales (Redcar) (LD)
Experts said that Labour’s energy price freeze announcement—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. Opposition Members should not yell at the hon. Gentleman. He is asking his question. Let us hear it.
Ian Swales
Experts said that Labour’s energy price freeze announcement would raise prices in the short term and protect the big six by freezing new investment. Since then, prices have gone up. National Grid says that half of new investment—
Mr Speaker
Order. I am struggling to find anything that relates to the responsibility of the Prime Minister in the hon. Gentleman’s question. Therefore, we will proceed with Mr Gordon Marsden.
Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)
Q6. As the Prime Minister sits down for Christmas dinner to chillax with his family and friends, will he spare a thought for my Blackpool constituents and 500,000 others, whose Christmas will be mired in the incompetence and random cruelty of the benefit sanctions imposed by the Department for Work and Pensions? My casework on this includes a woman denied jobseeker’s allowance for doing voluntary work at one local branch of a national charity rather than at another. Will his new year resolution be to resolve the chaos of sanctions and of universal credit?
The Prime Minister
I think the best thing we can do for the hon. Gentleman’s constituents, and indeed everyone’s constituents, is to keep on with the economic plan that is generating more jobs in our country. If we look at the north-west, we see that the number of people employed is up by 37,000 since the election, and unemployment has fallen by 29,000 since the election. We need to keep on with that, while of course making sure that the benefit system works for people who need it, but he does not do his constituents any favours by talking down the performance of the economy.
Mr Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)
Q7. Will the Prime Minister pay tribute to Norfolk’s emergency services and volunteers, who have done such a brilliant job both in tackling the recent coastal floods and in helping to repair the damage? The floods were potentially worse than the floods of 60 years ago that killed 300 people and destroyed 25,000 homes. Does he agree that special mention should be made of two local newspapers, Eastern Daily Press and Lynn News, which have campaigned tirelessly? The former has raised more than £100,000 in its appeal. Will he tell the House what Departments can do, working in conjunction with Norfolk’s local authorities?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise this issue. I was very impressed when I went to Norfolk—to Wells-next-the-Sea—to see the amazing contribution made by not only the emergency services, but, as he said, local newspapers in highlighting this issue and helping to prepare people for what was to come, as well as the flood co-ordinators and the people who work voluntarily to help our communities. I was particularly impressed by what I saw the lifeboats had done. An enormous wave swept through their station but, even with that, they were able to get out there and help people. As he says, because we have put money into flood defences, we protected a lot more homes that otherwise would have been affected, but the work needs to continue.
Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)
Q8. Ministers have admitted to me that there are delays in completing personal independence payment claims. My constituent, Kathy, who is suffering from cancer, made her claim in August, but a decision is still to be made. She had a home appointment yesterday with an Atos assessor, but they did not turn up. Why is the Prime Minister allowing cancer patients to suffer because of the incompetence of his Government?
The Prime Minister
I am very happy to look at the individual case that the hon. Gentleman raises. It is worth noting that Atos worked under the last Government, in which he served. I am happy to look at the individual case to see what can be done.
John Howell (Henley) (Con)
The number of unemployed claimants in the Henley constituency has fallen to 439. That makes it the third best performing constituency in the country. Will the Prime Minister join me in congratulating local businesses for the role that they have played in that?
The Prime Minister
I am very happy to congratulate local businesses on what they have done. What we are seeing, which Labour predicted would never happen, is a private sector-led recovery. For every job that has been lost in the public sector, we have seen three or even four jobs created in the private sector, mostly by small businesses. We need to keep up the economic environment that is helping those businesses to take people on, invest and grow.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
Q9. At the last election, many of my constituents truly believed the Prime Minister when he said“no ifs, no buts, no third runway”at Heathrow. They are now faced with the threat of a third runway and a fourth runway, with thousands losing their homes and schools being demolished. There is even the threat that we will have to dig up our dead from the local cemetery. Does he appreciate that many have lost all faith in him as a man who keeps his word?
The Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman has a very strong view about this matter, but I simply do not accept what he says. We said that there would not be a third runway. We have stuck with that promise. We now have a report that is being done by Howard Davies, which has all-party support. The interim report is very good.
The Prime Minister
I think that people should read that report before they start shouting across the House of Commons in a completely inappropriate way. [Hon. Members: “Order.”]
Mr Speaker
Order. I know what I am doing. I do not need any help from Back Benchers. A reference was made to the treatment of constituents, not to observations that have been made in respect of Members of the House. I am clear on that and the procedure is extremely clear as well.
Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)
In the north-east, all 29 constituencies have seen an increase in apprenticeship starts since 2010. I recently opened an engineering academy in Hexham. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is only through the provision of better skills and apprenticeships that we will improve the living standards of our young people?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I saw for myself on a visit to Stockton and Darlington what a difference the extra apprenticeships and funding are making. We want the recovery to be shared right across our country. In the north-east, unemployment has fallen by 3,000 this quarter, but it is still too high. There are 28,000 more people in work than there were at the time of the election, but we have further to go and we must stick to the economic plan that is delivering.
Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)
Q10. Is the Prime Minister concerned that in the detail of the small print of the autumn statement, it says that by the end of this Parliament real wage levels will be 5.8% lower?
The Prime Minister
The point that I would make to the hon. Gentleman is that disposable income is higher this year than in any year between 1997 and 2010. The reason for that is that, in spite of slow wage growth, we have cut people’s taxes. We can cut people’s taxes only if we take difficult decisions about the deficit and about spending. We have not had the support of the Labour party for a single one of those difficult decisions.
Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)
Will the Prime Minister help to get justice for my constituents, who want to know why an investigation into the meetings that were had by Theresa Villiers, the former Transport Minister, has not been reported on, despite four months of waiting and various assurances that I would have the answer?
Mr Speaker
The hon. Lady was referring to the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Mrs Villiers).
The Prime Minister
I am aware of my hon. Friend’s letters about this matter. She has taken up the issue and I am sure that she will get an answer shortly.
Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)
Q11. On a slightly more seasonal note, may I probe the Prime Minister on the revelation in the autumn statement that over this Parliament borrowing is forecast to be £198 billion higher than originally planned? Will he accept that his pledge to balance the books by 2015 had all the credibility of a proposal to build an airport on a non-existent island in the middle of a bird sanctuary in the Thames estuary?
The Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman always brings a flavour of pantomime to our proceedings. If he is worried about the deficit, and if he is worried about borrowing, he ought to look in front of him, rather than behind him, because we have not had one bit of support for anything we have done to cut the deficit. If he is worried about the deficit, why does the Labour party propose to put it up?
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
It is very good news that a record number of people are in work and keeping more of their take-home pay, but there was another milestone this week when we reached 2 million new pension savers, thanks to auto-enrolment. Is that another example of how this Government are taking the right long-term decisions for this country?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is right to raise auto-enrolment. It means that more people are saving for their retirement, which means more stability and security for them, and a greater ability to plan for their future. There are 30 million people in work—so many more in work this Christmas than there were last Christmas—all of whom are better able to plan for their future and have that basic security that people in our country rightly crave.
Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab)
Q12. Now that the Prime Minister has declared mission accomplished in Afghanistan, will he guarantee that none of our brave servicemen and women who have served there will face redundancy after they come home?
The Prime Minister
I urge the hon. Gentleman to look at what I said when I was praising the role that our armed forces have played. They have carried out the tasks that we asked them to carry out, and they have done it with huge professionalism and skill. As I said, they will be able to leave that country with their heads held high, secure in the knowledge that we put in place what is necessary to stop terrorism and terrorist training camps returning to Afghanistan. Very clear rules are in place about redundancy, which mean that those people about to serve, serving, or having returned from Afghanistan, are not able for redundancy.
Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)
Q14. Today 1,000 fewer people are out of work in Worcester than when unemployment peaked under Labour. With 700 businesses in the constituency likely to benefit from the Government’s extension of small business rates relief, I urge the Prime Minister to continue to do everything he can to help the high street and remove burdens on businesses creating jobs.
The Prime Minister
What is happening in Worcester is welcome news. Across the country not only is unemployment down but vacancies are up, which is good news for the future. I think we have taken some important steps forward with the rate rebate of £1,000 announced in the autumn statement for businesses on the high street, and, of course, the £2,000 employment allowance, which means that businesses do not have to pay their first £2,000 of national insurance contributions. That means that businesses in Worcester and elsewhere will be able to take on more people.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
Q13. Further to the question from the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main), four months have passed since serious allegations were made that the Northern Ireland Secretary broke the ministerial code during her time as Transport Minister. Will the Prime Minister ensure that the Cabinet Secretary responds before the House rises for the Christmas recess?
The Prime Minister
I have seen a copy of the Cabinet Secretary’s response, and I am confident it will be sent in the next few days.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
I welcome the Prime Minister’s acceptance that something needs to be done to stop EU migrants accessing British benefits. Would he agree that what he is proposing—which will probably be found illegal by the European Court—is really spitting in the wind when it comes to the problem we face, and that the only way to get back control of our borders and our benefits system is to leave the European Union?
The Prime Minister
I do not share my hon. Friend’s pessimism and we are taking these steps—including the announcement today that people coming to the UK should not be able to claim benefits within the first three months—on the basis of legal advice, and looking carefully at what other countries in the EU do. I want to do everything possible to ensure that the right of free movement is not abused. There is a right to work in different countries of the European Union, but there should not be a right to claim in different countries of the European Union. Where I would agree with my hon. Friend is that I think we need to do more in future, and we must learn the lesson from the mistake that Labour made by giving unfettered access to our labour market when Poland and others joined the European Union. That led to 1.5 million people coming to our country and was a profound mistake.
Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)
Q15. Average household incomes will be substantially lower in 2015 than they were in 2009. Is the Prime Minister concerned about that? What does he say to my constituents, who are struggling with the cost of living crisis caused by his Government’s policies?
The Prime Minister
The first thing I would say to the hon. Lady’s constituents is that we are raising to £10,000 the amount people can earn before they pay income tax. That is worth £705 to a typical taxpayer. Because of the progress we have already made, disposable income this year is higher than it was in any year between 1997 and 2010. Opposition Members might not like those facts, but they are true. It is worth remembering why we are in this situation in the first place. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. The Prime Minister has a very strong voice, but he should not have to shout to make himself heard. Let us hear the Prime Minister’s answer.
The Prime Minister
The point I was making is that the reason we are in this situation was laid out by the Institute for Fiscal Studies two weeks ago. It pointed out that we had the biggest recession for 100 years under the last Government, which cost the typical family £3,000. Opposition Members should apologise for that before moving on to the next question.
Rory Stewart (Penrith and The Border) (Con)
Christmas in Syria will be defined by unstopping grief and horror in sub-zero temperatures. I encourage the Prime Minister to keep a relentless focus on humanitarian relief in Syria, to encourage the rest of the international community to meet the UN’s demands for £4 billion of assistance, and to ensure that that assistance is much more imaginative and generous.
The Prime Minister
On behalf of the House, I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that issue before Christmas. That is where our thoughts should be. There is a huge humanitarian crisis affecting up to half of the Syrian population. Britain can be proud of the fact that, at £500 million, we are the second-largest bilateral donor of aid going to Syria and neighbouring countries and we are helping people in those refugee camps. We should encourage other countries to step up to the plate in the way we have done, and ensure that we fulfil our moral obligations to those people who will suffer at Christmas time.
Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker.
Mr Speaker
Order. There is to be an urgent question. I feel sure the hon. Gentleman can keep his point of order in the oven until after that.
Local Government Finance
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government if he will make a statement on the provisional local government finance settlement.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Brandon Lewis)
My Department has today published the provisional financial settlement for English local authorities for 2014-15 and 2015-16. The technical details are outlined in a written statement, and associated documents have been placed in the Library and in the Vote Office. This is effectively the second year of a settlement announced last year. We have been consulting over the summer on the detail of the statement, so it should not come as a surprise to any local authority.
This year’s settlement is fair to all parts of the country—rural or urban, district or county, city or shire—meaning that councils can deliver sensible savings while protecting front-line services. Every bit of the public sector needs to do its bit to pay off Labour’s deficit, including local government, which, we should remember, accounts for a quarter of all public spending.
Opinion polls clearly suggest that satisfaction with local government is either constant or even improved compared with 2010, despite the need for councils to make savings to tackle that deficit. Today’s fair funding deal arms councils with a significant spending power average of £2,089 per household.
The autumn statement protected local authorities from further spending reductions for 2014-2015 and 2015-16. Overall, the average spending power reduction for councils in 2014-15 is expected to be limited to just 2.9% per household. Extra funding has been provided for sparse rural areas. With English councils spending £117 billion this year, councils must continue to focus on cutting waste and making sensible savings. There is significant scope for councils to merge back-office services or do more joint working: get more for less and they will do better with their £60 billion a year procurement budget; tackle £2 billion of local fraud; reduce the £2 billion of lost money in council tax arrears or use their record £19 billion of reserves; and get better value for money from their billions in property assets.
Local authorities should be looking to protect their residents and give them help with the cost of living. Extra funding is on offer to councils to freeze council tax for a fourth year in a row. The Government have provided up to £550 million for the next two years, which allows for a fourth year of freeze worth up to £718 for the average bill payer, with more savings to come next year. I am proud to be part of a Government that have allowed that freeze in council tax. In contrast, the previous Labour Government doubled council tax for hard-working people.
From April next year, funding for the 2011-12 and 2013-14 freezes will be in the main local government settlement total for future years. Funding for the next two freeze years will also be built into the spending review baseline, which will give maximum possible certainty for councils that the extra funding for freezing council tax will remain available without a cliff-edge effect. The Government are clearing up the mess left by the previous Labour Government, paying off Labour’s deficit and helping hard-working people with the cost of living. Councils are doing well and playing their part.
Hilary Benn
Given the scale of the cuts affecting local authorities, the Minister really should have made an oral statement today instead of having to be dragged to the House. Will he explain why the further cut of, supposedly, 10% in real terms—announced by the Chancellor in the spending round for 2015-16—is actually a 15% real cut to the settlement funding assessment? Why are the most disadvantaged communities once again the hardest hit? Will he confirm that by 2017 the city of Liverpool, the most deprived local authority in the country, will have lost 62% of the Government grant it was receiving in 2010? How on earth can he justify that? As the Audit Commission recently reported:
“Councils serving the most deprived areas have seen the largest reductions in funding relative to spending.”
Tough times do indeed require tough decisions, but this Government, as they have shown time and again, from the bedroom tax to the top rate of tax and local government funding, take most from those who have least. That is unfair and unjust.
Despite Government talk of a freeze, many councils, including Tory authority after Tory authority, will increase the council tax next year, including for residents who work but are on the lowest incomes and will lose council tax benefit. Why is the Minister top-slicing money from council funding that is based on need, and putting it into the so-called “new homes bonus” in areas where new homes would have been built anyway? Does he not realise that hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people have already been denied social care due to cuts in council funding, while the Government have wasted money on their expensive and failed reorganisation of the NHS? Is it not the case that even more people will lose out because of what has been announced today?
Another week, another Minister in denial—when will the Government realise that the future set out today means that more and more councils in the years ahead will simply not be able to maintain the services on which so many people rely?
Brandon Lewis
I am somewhat surprised; I had been expecting the right hon. Gentleman to outline for the first time these several years exactly where Labour’s promised £52 billion of cuts would come from.
In reality, we have heard nothing new this morning. This statement comes after last year’s statement set out a two-year settlement for local authorities. In fact, whereas more than 3% had been predicted, this year local authorities will get a 2.9% reduction, falling to below 2% next year. So it is a good news day for local government. [Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman’s comments did not match up with the facts of life. The Audit Commission’s recent report outlined how local authorities were coping well with the changes. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. Mr Ronnie Campbell—[Interruption.] Order. Your apprenticeship to become a statesman will never be completed at this rate. I know you are a bit over-ebullient, but you must calm yourself. [Interruption.] Calm yourself. I say two things, if I may: first, Members must not shout at the Minister, and secondly, I think the Minister was deploying a rhetorical device, but he will be aware that on these occasions, a question is put to Ministers; it is not an occasion for another party to set out policy. That is not the nature of the urgent question procedure, but I know, from his wry smile, that the Minister is well aware of that important fact.
Brandon Lewis
Thank you, Mr Speaker. Your point is well made. I think the hon. Member for Blyth Valley (Mr Campbell) must be excited about the local government settlement, as we all are today—it is an exciting day for local government.
If the right hon. Gentleman looks at the figures, he will see that we have gone even further this year to protect the most difficult areas and those councils left abandoned by the last Labour Government through their reduction in the working neighbourhood fund. I am thinking of councils such as my local authority of Great Yarmouth and others such as Pendle and Hastings, which they left with massive black holes that this Government have filled with the transitional grant. Those councils will be protected even further this year with a reduction of no more than 2.9%, which is good news for local authorities working hard to deliver good front-line services—services that Labour left hanging on a ledge.
The right hon. Gentleman referred to councils such as Liverpool. I gently remind him that Liverpool and Newcastle are similar in being among the best-supported councils in the country and having the highest spending power per dwelling. For example, Newcastle receives £2,400 per dwelling, which is about £900 more than areas such as Windsor and Maidenhead. I think that he and his colleagues should look at the figures. [Interruption.]
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Under the leadership of councillor Russell Roberts, Kettering borough council, of which I have the privilege to be a member, has for the past three years offered a policy of “triple zero”: no cuts to front-line services, no cuts to voluntary grants and no increase in council tax. The Minister will know, because he has twice visited Kettering borough council, that it is an exemplary local authority. Does the message not go out that if Kettering can do this, other councils, if they really want to, can also do it?
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. Kettering is an excellent example of a good Conservative council managing its finances properly for the benefit of local residents, keeping down the cost of living by keeping council tax frozen and providing excellent front-line services, as good councils all over the country are doing.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
In the June spending round, the Chancellor stated that in future years local government spending would drop not by the 10% to 15% that the Local Government Association said, but by 2.3%. The Prime Minister has repeated that figure. I wrote to him asking how it was calculated, but got a response from the Chief Secretary to the Treasury that did not do that. Will the Minister now explain where that 2.3% figure is in the document and how it is calculated? If it is not in here now, will he write to me, placing a copy in the Library, showing how it has been calculated?
Brandon Lewis
I am happy to write to the Chairman of the Communities and Local Government Committee with the figures. He will find that the gap between some of the points the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) made and the real figures is explained by the fact that we are interested in how much local authorities have to spend on their residents, not just what they spend on bureaucracy and red tape, through the Government grant.
Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
I welcome for the second year running the one-off payment to sparse rural areas, but many well-run councils of all political colours are predicting a cliff edge in 2015, when they fear they will have to cut services dramatically. What advice would the Minister give those councils following today’s statement?
Brandon Lewis
I am sure my hon. Friend will be pleased to know that the settlement for rural areas will be rolled into the base, giving them a better base going forward, enabling them to continue their good work of sharing services and management and ensuring they are efficient and delivering good front-line services for residents.
Mr Nick Raynsford (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)
I remind the Minister that for many years—in fact, decades—it has been an accepted practice for Ministers to announce the provisional settlement in the House, to allow proper debate and discussion, in good time and preferably around the end of November or early December. I put it to the hon. Gentleman that it does not help local government to have a late—no, very late—provisional settlement put out by written statement, with the Minister subsequently being dragged here to answer an urgent question.
Brandon Lewis
Far from being dragged here, I always find it a pleasure to be at the Dispatch Box. The right hon. Gentleman might like to look back at past records and see that his own party regularly made written statements. More importantly, local government has had two years’ notice, as we made an oral statement on a two-year settlement last year.
Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that it is unacceptable that Enfield Labour council has allowed uncollected council tax to increase over the last three years, against the trend for the rest of London, from £6 million to a staggering collective £32 million, particularly given that those figures already discount uncollectable council tax?
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend makes a good point. There is some £2 billion-worth of uncollected council tax, and councils should be working on the problem. This is not councils’ money, but taxpayers’ money. Whenever there is uncollected council tax, it costs other taxpayers more money. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight this issue; good councils will be working hard on it.
Mr Speaker
The hon. Member for Blyth Valley (Mr Campbell) has often been heard from his seat; it is now time that he was heard on his feet. I call Mr Ronnie Campbell.
Mr Campbell
Thank you, Mr Speaker, and a merry Christmas to you.
Is the Minister aware that in Northumberland, where I come from, we have had to cut £30 million this year and £60 million last year, and we are sacking workers and cutting social services, while education has been cut right down to the bone—and there is no money left? The Minister is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Brandon Lewis
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will go back and convince his local authority, using his great powers of persuasion, to do the right thing by its residents—to cut back-office costs and bureaucracy and perhaps look at our Department’s “50 ways to save” document. That would help the council to protect front-line services rather than try to score political points with people’s everyday lives.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
Last year, hard-working families in my Bury North constituency faced an inflation-busting increase of 3.5% in their council tax, which was put down to the levies imposed by the Greater Manchester joint authorities. Can the Minister assure them that the same thing will not happen again next year?
Brandon Lewis
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. It is unacceptable for council tax payers to have to pay that level of increase when there is so much more local authorities can do to save money—and the good ones are already doing it. Yesterday saw the Third Reading of the Local Audit and Accountability Bill, which contains provisions on levies and council tax referendums that will prevent that sort of thing from ever happening again.
Mr John Denham (Southampton, Itchen) (Lab)
As the Minister will be aware, it has been said that all the cuts have fallen in the north and not in the south. Does he agree that that is not the case and that the Government have, in fact, been just as vicious in cutting the budgets of the most deprived towns and cities in the south of England as they have in the north, looking after the more prosperous councils wherever they are?
Brandon Lewis
Let me tell the right hon. Gentleman that the Government have produced a settlement that we believe is fair to rural and urban areas, north and south. We are having to make tough decisions—difficult, complicated ones—following the complete financial mess left to us by the last Labour Government.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
My hon. Friend will be aware that the Government’s getting rid of many regulations has helped councils with the cost of services. I am keen, however, for the Minister to reinforce the message that district councils should pass on the tax grant to parish councils that have a reduced tax base.
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend makes a good point. I am pleased that 98% of authorities are already doing that. As we made clear in today’s statement, we expect local authorities to pass that money on to the parish councils. My hon. Friend was quite right about that.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
Does not the Audit Commission’s finding that the most deprived areas have been hit with the biggest cuts show that this Government are on the side of the rich and are quite happy to balance the books on the backs of the poor?
Brandon Lewis
As I have said to other Members, the hon. Lady should look at the total amount. Areas such as Liverpool and Newcastle have a much higher spending power than pretty much anywhere else in the country. Even those areas most affected by the black hole left by the last Labour Government—areas such as Hastings, Great Yarmouth and Pendle, which are doing good work to transform themselves—are being protected with an efficiency support grant, which the last Government never bothered to provide.
Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)
I very much back the rural fair share campaign and I welcome the money that has come forward. Given that it is Christmas, I would have liked it to be a little more generous, but can you outline exactly how much extra you are going to give to rural authorities that you would not have given otherwise?
Mr Speaker
I am giving nothing extra at all, but the Minister might do. We will see.
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend has participated in a strong and ongoing campaign with colleagues across the House—including at least one Opposition Front Bencher—about the gap between rural and urban areas. We listened last year and made a one-off payment. This year we have provided increases, which will be rolled into the baseline. My hon. Friend will see that from the figures in the Library.
Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)
Birmingham city council’s controllable spend has been cut from £1.2 billion to £400 million. We will have to cut services. Will the Minister tell my constituents whether we should cut school patrols, school libraries or public conveniences?
Brandon Lewis
I would suggest that the hon. Lady use her powers of persuasion to encourage Birmingham city council to do the right thing and, instead of playing political games with its local taxpayers, be more efficient with its back office, and look at how to use its reserves to invest for the future.
Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
People living in rural areas earn less on average than people living in urban areas, pay higher council tax and get fewer services, which are more expensive to deliver, yet there is a 50% rural premium or penalty, with 50% more going to urban areas than rural ones. We welcome the rolling of this grant into the general fund, but it will do nothing to close the gap between urban and rural, which cannot be defended.
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend has made a passionate and strong case for rural areas throughout the year. That is why we rolled an increased amount into the base. It goes further to narrow the gap. It narrowed last year and narrowed slightly further this year. I am sure that my hon. Friend will be lobbying me on the issue over the next few weeks of consultation procedures.
Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)
Now that the Minister, like most of his Tory Front-Bench colleagues, has referred to debts being left behind, is he aware that in Derbyshire, where the Tories lost control last May, they have left behind the biggest mess that Derbyshire county council has ever had to deal with—£151 million in cuts? Is not the truth of the matter that this Tory Government, with their coalition allies, are intent on wrecking the public sector and bringing local government to its knees? That is the policy of this Government, whose massive cuts have mostly been in the Labour-controlled areas.
Brandon Lewis
If we look at what has happened, we find that even the independent report last year showed that the settlement was fair as between north and south, urban and rural—and we would argue that the same applies this year. It is true that, thanks to the mess created by the last Government, we have had to cut back. Local government accounts for a quarter of all public spending, so it has its part to play. The last Labour Chancellor outlined £52 billion-worth of cuts, which the Opposition have not outlined yet, but they have opposed every single change that this Government have made. That is not a credible position, so I take no lectures from the hon. Gentleman. I suggest that he go back to his now Labour-controlled authority and ask it to do what the last Conservative authority was doing, which was managing better so that local taxpayers do not have to be punished by increased council tax. It should freeze its council tax, as the Conservative-led coalition Government have done, and make things better for its local residents.
Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD)
A significant group of authorities, mainly in rural areas, have been historically underfunded. The Government have recognised that, but does the Minister understand that improving the distribution formula does no good whatever if a damping mechanism is then imposed, which removes the benefit?
Brandon Lewis
I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point. Last year, damping was brought in to avoid volatility in the system. We put in extra grant—the money we are rolling in this year—on top of that, so it is not affected by the issue that the hon. Gentleman raised.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
Can the Minister explain exactly how this is good news for people in Hull, which, although one of the most disadvantaged areas in the country, is experiencing far deeper and more savage cuts than other, wealthier areas?
Brandon Lewis
This is a good settlement for local government generally. Councils’ spending power is being reduced by just 2.9%, and a reduction of 1.8% is predicted for next year. That will ensure that local authorities can manage. More important, the Government are putting money—taxpayers’ money—into a council tax freeze for the fourth successive year in order to help hard-working people. I hope that all Labour authorities will follow the example of good Conservative and Liberal Democrat authorities and deliver that freeze to their residents.
Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)
On 25 November, in the House, I raised the issue of the council tax benefit support grant, which is not being passed on to all the parish councils in Northumberland. On that occasion, my hon. Friend responded by saying that local authorities should be ensuring that that was done. Has he made any further progress in forcing them to do so?
Brandon Lewis
It is true that a very small number of authorities are not yet passing on the grant, and we are telling them that they should. It is a matter for the authorities themselves, but we made it very clear in today’s written statement that they should be passing the money on to the parish councils.
Mrs Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)
This morning I received a phone call from a representative of North Tyneside council, who was very anxious because the council had not received any confirmation that the details of the settlement were to be issued today. Why were they not issued to my local authority through the normal channels?
Brandon Lewis
Let me gently say to the hon. Lady that they were issued through the normal channels. That is the normal procedure. As for the question of timing, which was raised by the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford). we are a prudent, sensible, fiscal Government. It would have been imprudent to do anything before the autumn statement. Perhaps we take the finances of the country slightly more seriously than the last Government.
Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)
Regrettably, some councils are tempted to increase council tax simply to build their base and their reserves. What measures are the Government taking to reward councils that do the right thing and freeze the tax?
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend has made a very good point. Local authorities should indeed be freezing council tax, and we have now adopted a reward-based system. We reward councils that do good work through the new homes bonus, the business rates retention scheme and the innovation fund. All those measures benefit good councils such as my hon. Friend’s in Swindon, which has done some really good innovatory work. The council tax freeze grant is now in the baseline, and there can be no questions, no ifs and no buts: councils should freeze the tax to help hard-working families.
Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)
Bolton will have lost £100 million since 2010. It is not celebrating, but mourning the services that it is losing, and it is desperately worried about its vulnerable residents. When will the Minister stop blaming the last Government and local authorities, and take responsibility for what he himself is doing?
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that enlightened and far-sighted local authorities such as Rugby borough council anticipated several years ago the tough economic environment in which we now find ourselves, and started to put their houses in order at an early stage by taking a hard look at all their items of expenditure?
Brandon Lewis
I do agree with my hon. Friend. There are very good councils all over the country which have been streamlining their bureaucracy and administration, sharing management, sharing services, improving their procurement practices, and delivering great front-line services to their residents. They should be warmly thanked for doing great work while also playing an important role in lowering the country’s deficit.
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
Birmingham is reeling from the biggest cuts in local government history, totalling £840 million, and the other core cities have also been particularly hard hit. Common to all the cuts has been a grotesquely unfair approach. Why has Birmingham been hit twice as hard as the national average, and why is every citizen in high-need, high-unemployment Birmingham losing £149 of local government services while in leafy, low-need, low-unemployment Wokingham the figure is only £19?
Brandon Lewis
If the hon. Gentleman looks at the starting model, he will see that Wokingham had rather less spending power per dwelling than Birmingham in the first place.
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
The Minister accepted in his statement that rural areas were being comparatively underfunded, but I am sorry to say that, once again, the adjustment in the settlement is chicken feed when it comes to addressing the inequality between rural and urban areas. Does the Minister not realise that, at this rate, it will take more than 1,000 years to put that right?
Brandon Lewis
We have actually increased last year’s amount. We have put it into the baseline. I appreciate the point made by Members about the need to narrow the gap between rural and urban areas, but they should appreciate that we are acting against the backdrop of the financial mess in which we were left by the last Government and with which we now have to deal. Obviously, that somewhat restricts our room for manoeuvre.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
Is the Minister aware, or willing to admit, that a council tax freeze is a very regressive measure? Those who did not pay previously receive nothing back, and the higher people’s council tax band, the more they gain. We in Scotland have had a great deal of experience of that regressive tax policy over nearly seven years.
Brandon Lewis
I am not sure whether the hon. Lady is arguing that councils should increase the tax, but that is certainly not something that we would support. We think that freezing council tax in order to make families several hundred pounds a year better off is a good thing to do for hard-working families.
Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)
I thank the Minister for taking the time to visit Pendle and meet the council’s leader, Joe Cooney, and its chief executive, and for meeting them again when they came to London recently. Will he join me in congratulating councils such as Pendle, which has already made significant savings by, for instance, reducing by 35% the disgraceful number of properties in the borough that were left empty by the last Labour Government?
Brandon Lewis
It was a pleasure to meet Joe, the leader of Pendle borough council, a couple of weeks ago, when I met a number of council leaders. Pendle is a fine example of a small authority that has worked hard to make really good savings while protecting front-line services. I congratulate that council, and other councils that are taking similar measures, on their excellent work.
Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)
Plymouth city council has won awards under different administrations. Over the past five years it has cut its back-room staff, innovated, and, sadly, laid off staff. Now it is telling us that it will not have enough money to fulfil its statutory duties over the three-year period, which is not acceptable. Will the Minister please tell us what the council is supposed to do when it is being encouraged to freeze council tax, which is a wholly regressive measure?
Brandon Lewis
If the council freezes the tax, which would be good for its residents, it will receive a support grant from the Government. If it is looking for ideas in order to do more than it has already done, I am sure that the Local Government Association will be happy to help. It could probably learn a lesson or two from Hammersmith and Fulham, which has some good ideas that would help it to cut its tax for local residents.
John Stevenson (Carlisle) (Con)
Cumbria has six district councils and one county council for half a million people. Many Cumbrians believe that the councils should merge in order to save money and improve local services. Were the councils to make such an approach to the Government, would it be favourably received?
Brandon Lewis
As my hon. Friend knows, we are not fans of top-down reorganisation in local government, unlike the last Administration. However, I am very supportive of any local authorities that join forces to find new and innovative ways of saving back-office costs, and I shall always be happy to meet their members and discuss what is achievable for them.
Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)
If the Minister believes in fairness, can he explain why West Oxfordshire, one of the richest local authorities in the country, will gain from the settlement, while, according to the Audit Commission, the most deprived areas in the country will lose from it? Are not the Government pursuing a systematic policy, in local government, health and taxation, of transferring money from the poorest areas to the richest?
Brandon Lewis
The hon. Lady’s argument falls completely flat for a couple of reasons. First, we are helping the hardest-hit councils, such as Pendle, Hastings, Great Yarmouth and Hyndburn, whereas the last Government left them with a black hole to fall into in 2010. Secondly, the hon. Lady is living in the past, because this year the Government adopted a reward-based system that enables local authorities to increase their income through the business rates retention scheme and the new homes bonus. Councils that do good things such as building houses and securing economic growth will experience the benefits of that.
Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)
Like all local authorities, Cheshire West and Chester council has had to tighten its belt in recent years. By cutting waste and sharing services, it has managed to keep council tax increases down while improving local services. Does my hon. Friend agree that if a local authority makes itself more efficient, it can make itself more effective too?
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend makes a good point in naming one of the local authorities that has done great work in proving that the efficiencies deliver not only savings but, more importantly, better services for their residents. I encourage other authorities to look at those good councils and the great work that they are doing through the community budget programme and the transformation network to become more efficient and effective for their residents.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
I am sure that the Minister must have used a public library as a young man. Is he at all worried that community libraries could all but disappear as this squeeze on non-essential council services continues to grow?
Brandon Lewis
I suggest that, if the hon. Gentleman looks around the country, he will also find local authorities that are opening new libraries, where they think that they are right for their area. As I have said to other Members, I urge him to use his powers of persuasion to get his authority to make the savings in the most efficient way possible, and to look at back-office functions, at fraud, at its reserves and at its council tax collection procedures in order to protect front-line services, rather than playing politics with people’s money.
John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
The Minister says that the average cut in spending power is 2.9%, but spending power is a rather slippery concept. What is the average cut in formula grant, and how does that vary by type of authority?
Brandon Lewis
As I said to the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), we use spending power not only because local government has talked to us about using it but because it gives the whole picture of spending power in a local area, rather than just the grant. That is what impacts on the services that residents get, and that is what matters to people.
Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)
Derby city council is already reeling from the unprecedented cuts that have been imposed by this Government since they came to power, yet under this settlement it will have to find another £81 million of cuts from its budget, and it will soon be unable to fund even its statutory obligations. Will the Minister advise the council on which statutory services it should cut? Should it cut services for vulnerable children, or services for vulnerable elderly people? It will not have the resources to fulfil all its statutory obligations.
Brandon Lewis
The hon. Gentleman highlights part of the problem for some local authorities. First, I want to thank him for being one of the great advocates of spending power, and I am sure that he will thank us for ensuring that we make it clear why that matters to people in terms of the services they get. He was right about that, and we have listened and put that formula forward. I know that, if his local authority is playing political games with people’s money, he will want to fight for his local residents and go back to his authority and tell it to think again. If the councillors and officers cannot make the right decisions to look after their local residents, they should step aside and get somebody in who can.
Mr Speaker
The hon. Member for Reading East (Mr Wilson) has only just started bobbing, but I am assuming that he was here at the start.
Mr Rob Wilson (Reading East) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. Labour councils such as Reading are again increasing the burden of council tax on families this year. Does the Minister agree that, during these challenging times, any rise in council tax should be put to a local authority referendum?
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend makes a good point. This Conservative coalition Government have done what they can to ensure that a council tax freeze is available to every resident in the country, and we are proud of that. Any authority that is looking to put up its council tax and to penalise local residents by charging them more should have the courage to hold a referendum and let the public decide.
Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
The Minister knows that quoting spending power levels completely ignores the different challenges that areas such as Newcastle and Liverpool are facing. On the new homes bonus, will he explain the fairness of the north-east contributing £42.3 million to the pot while receiving only £29.3 million in return?
Brandon Lewis
Actually, the spending power formula goes in completely the opposite direction, in that it represents exactly what affects residents. Calculating spending power per dwelling takes account of the entire pot of money in a local authority area. The hon. Lady is quite right to say that Newcastle has a spending power of almost £2,500 a head compared with other areas that have closer to £1,500. The formula does reflect need. With the new homes bonus, the more houses people build, the more money they will get.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
The Minister knows that my borough of Brent has one of the highest levels of deprivation. The leader of the council, Muhammed Butt, has engaged with the programme of shared services and sought to drive efficiencies through, despite more than £100 million of cuts, but the time is now fast approaching when the authority will be able to fund only its statutory service obligations. What does that say about the view of the Minister’s Department on localism?
Brandon Lewis
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman’s local authority will want to come to talk to me during the consultation process. If it looks at authorities such as Hammersmith and Fulham—and, indeed, the whole tri-borough area—it will see the hundreds of millions of pounds-worth of savings that can be made to ensure that it provides great front-line services.
Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)
It is farcical for the Minister to try to spin this as a good day for local government. There will certainly be no parties in the city of Liverpool today. We are struggling to meet our statutory duties, after the 62% cut that this Government have imposed on us, and there are no discretionary pots left. If the Minister and his Secretary of State do not believe me, I will offer them a first-class ticket to come to Liverpool and look at the books, and ask them to tell us where they believe we can cut further.
Brandon Lewis
I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s offer, but we do not tend to travel first class in our Department. We protect the taxpayer’s money. I have met the mayor of Liverpool, and obviously—
Mr Speaker
Order. The financial generosity of the hon. Gentleman is duly noted, but it is somewhat unparliamentary for him to chunter from a sedentary position—[Interruption.] Order. His point has been heard—[Interruption.] Order. I was being good-humoured towards the hon. Gentleman, but I am sorry that he is not showing good humour in the festive season. [Interruption.] Order. I am not debating the point with the hon. Gentleman; I am simply telling him what the situation is. He has asked his question, and he must now have the courtesy to listen to the response. He can make his own evaluation of that response, of course.
Brandon Lewis
I am sure that the mayor of Liverpool will want to talk to us and make his case during the consultation procedure. I met representatives of the core cities last year, and I am happy to meet any individuals. I must also point out to the hon. Gentleman that Liverpool gets one of the highest amounts of spending power per dwelling in the country and that, on top of that, it gets regional growth fund money, growing places fund money and a city deal, all of which are helping Liverpool to be the town that it should be.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
The Minister’s justifications for inflicting cuts on local government sound like something that we would expect to hear from the North Korean regime. When Ministers start talking about cutting back-room staff, we know right away that they have no answers. More importantly, Coventry will have to find between 15% and 20% cuts over the next three years. Translated one way, that means more than 1,000 jobs. Translated another way, it means that we would have to find £48 million.
Mr Speaker
I have to say politely to the hon. Gentleman that I have struggled to find the question mark at the end of his observation. Perhaps he was asking a rhetorical question. If the Minister wants to reply, he is welcome to do so, but he is under no obligation. No? Fair enough.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
The Minister says that this is a really good day for local government, following previous good settlements. Will he explain why 64 Conservative councils have refused the offer of a freeze and are putting up their council tax?
Brandon Lewis
The hon. Gentleman must be a bit of a mind reader or a fortune teller, because councils will not set their council tax for another month or two. We will have to wait and see what happens. I say to all local authorities, whatever their colour and political party, that they should be freezing their council tax to protect their local residents. If they are not sure where they can find more savings, I suggest that they look at good councils such as Vale of White Horse in Oxfordshire, High Peak and Staffordshire Moorlands, which are saving up to 18% in back-office costs by sharing management and chief executives.
Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
In his answer to the original question, the Minister expressed pride. In his answer to the hon. Member for City of Chester (Stephen Mosley), he praised that Tory-controlled council. Is he proud of the fact that that council is closing women’s refuges?
Brandon Lewis
It is up to local residents to take a view on those local services. I say to the hon. Gentleman and to all Members in that area that, if the local authority is making decisions they do not like, they should lobby the authority to get it to do what they think is the right thing. I have to say that, when I have visited that area, I have found the residents to be very happy with the services. Some great work is being done there on shared services and shared management with Manchester, on freezing the council tax and on troubled families, to ensure that people are getting great services and improved services in that area.
Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)
There is no doubt that, either by accident or design, this Government have redistributed money from poorer areas towards the more affluent ones. Let me give the Minister an example relating to the new homes bonus. The bonus excess each year is financed by the redistribution of the formula grant. Because of the collapse in housing completions that this Government have presided over—in Greater Manchester, that involves about a third of the homes that we had been planning for—there has been a redistributional effect away from areas that really need the funds and towards London and the south-east. That funding imbalance then goes into the local enterprise partnerships and the local growth funds that the Government believe should drive prosperity in local economies. Surely the Minister knows the impact of his own policies on councils up and down the country.
Brandon Lewis
The new homes bonus is fairly simple: you build more houses, you get more money.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
The Minister must surely be aware that many local authorities have already committed significant reserves to meeting additional equal pay requirements, especially as a result of the Birmingham ruling. That money cannot be spent twice, so will he cover those additional costs, should they arise, if those councils take his advice and spend the reserves on front-line services?
Brandon Lewis
If the hon. Gentleman looks at the Birmingham case, he will find that we have been helpful to Birmingham, particularly with capitalisation. It would have been better, however, if that authority had made decisions earlier for good financial planning.
Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab)
The level of total spending power is central to the local government settlement, so can the Minister explain here and now how the 2.3% cut in local government spending power that the Secretary of State announced in June turned into a 15% cut for most London boroughs once the detail came through?
Brandon Lewis
That is simply not true; we have got a protection in there. This year, it is even better than last year, so even the biggest cut in the country is only 6.9%.
Point of Order
Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Possibly in anticipation of the fact that I had a question today on the post office network, I received a message—it was not in my e-mail and I could not find it on my computer; it came through my mobile device—from the Minister with responsibility for postal services, the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson). It said that it was going to all MPs and explained that she was having to put £640 million extra into the network reorganisation fund, on top of the £1.34 billion that was already there. My point of order relates to the fact that this did not come through my computer and it was not in today’s written statement from BIS. If she is going to give a statement like that telling all MPs about a massive spending increase because of a shortfall and the failure of her policies, which are destroying the post office network, is she not obliged to do so in a formal written statement or here at the Dispatch Box?
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. Certainly it would be incumbent on the Minister to find a way of disseminating that information to Members of the House other than by purely electronic means. If that did not happen, I understand that there may be some disappointment on that front. It is not something I can pursue further today, but in response to his inquiry I think I have put the point clearly on the record as to what ordinarily is expected. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman is gesticulating from a sedentary position—some people are never satisfied. The inquiry has been made, the answer has been given and that is the end of the situation.
Royal Assent
Mr Speaker
I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified her Royal Assent to the following Acts:
Energy Act 2013
Financial Services (Banking Reform) Act 2013
London Local Authorities and Transport for London Act 2013
Humber Bridge Act 2013
City of London (Various Powers) Act 2013.
Credit Union (Armed Forces)
Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide for the establishment of a credit union for members of the armed forces and family members who live in the same household; and for connected purposes.
The Bill is designed to ensure that our soldiers, sailors and Air Force personnel on lower incomes have access to low-cost loans and other low-cost financial services and, as a result, are not vulnerable to high-interest payday loan businesses. I should declare at the outset that I am a member of my local credit union, M for Money, which serves my constituency in Harrow, and also of the Rainbow Saver credit union.
Credit unions are financial co-operatives. They are one powerful demonstration of how through pooling our efforts and through co-operation with others, we can each become better off. Those of us who champion credit unions have always believed that what makes them different from other financial services providers is not just the lower interest rates they offer, but their mission to operate for the benefit of their communities, to retain money in local economies and to empower people, especially those often unable to access credit elsewhere. Key to credit unions is a common bond between the members, who in turn are the investors and consumers—indeed, they can also serve as directors. It is, in essence, about people in the same community looking out for each other but benefiting directly themselves from a service that they are able to provide together.
As many in this House will recognise, many successful credit unions are already operating in the UK: the police credit union has 21,000 members, has been going for 10 years and has Lord Stevens, the former head of the Metropolitan police, as its president; the former British Airways credit union, which is now known as Plane Saver and covers more than just British Airways, has more than 7,500 staff as members; and the London mutual credit union, with its origins in Southwark, has more than 15,000 member owners, and offers competitive online and affordable payday loan services. For a 30-day, £400 payday loan, the LMCU charges, typically, an interest rate of 27%, or £19. For the same loan, a commercial payday loan company might charge an annual percentage rate of 5,600%, or £127. In short, it might be £108 more expensive for the same amount over the same period. That shows the kind of service that should specifically be available to our servicemen and women, and their families: a low-cost credit union. Only a credit union—a financial co-operative—would be able to offer such a service.
My Bill specifically draws inspiration from the biggest and most successful credit union in the world. A rear-admiral of the US navy and former commander of the American enterprise battle group is probably not the most obvious enthusiast for financial co-operatives, yet Rear-Admiral Cutler Dawson is president and chief executive officer of Navy Federal, the world’s largest credit union. It is based in the United States and serves all Department of Defence and Coast Guard active duty, civilian and contractor personnel, and their families. Rear-Admiral Dawson previously served in the United States navy for some 34 years.
Navy Federal was founded by its members in 1933, when soldiers returning from war were unable to access affordable credit. It now offers a service to US special forces, navy cooks, veterans and the families of servicemen and women. In the US, payday lenders used to target military bases, trying to hook American sailors and soldiers with their high-cost financial services, yet Navy Federal is able to offer some of the most highly competitive financial services in the US market. Indeed, Navy Federal now holds some $55 billion in assets, and has some 4 million members, 235 branches around the world and a work force of more than 11,000 employees. Surely our soldiers, sailors, airmen and women, and their families, could benefit from a similar credit union.
My Bill aims to address the growing fears that low-paid service personnel are having to turn to payday loan companies to get through the last week of each month. Research by the Royal British Legion found that about a third of veterans, including almost half of the recently injured, experience financial difficulties, leading many into unaffordable levels of debt. The RBL’s dedicated benefits and money advice service helped some 2,500 people in its first year, 2007, but last year that figure rose to more than 11,000 Army personnel being helped out, and the RBL predicts that the figure will keep rising.
We know from the Debt Advice Foundation that one in four people who take out payday loans need the money to buy food or essentials, with 44% using them to pay off other debts. Similarly, Citizens Advice research has shown a fourfold rise in just two years in the number of people coming to their citizens advice bureau with debt problems as a result of taking out payday loans. I have spoken to the chief executives of many citizens advice bureaux located close to military bases and I have heard about some of our soldiers and sailors who are facing real financial difficulties. One serving Army soldier who was living in MOD accommodation with his wife and children had two payday loans, one for £435 and one for £375, both due for payment at the beginning of the month. If he failed to repay the loans in full, he incurred an £80 charge for deferring them. He was in a vicious circle. If he repaid the loans, he was left without sufficient funds to finance his monthly expenditure and again had to take out a payday loan to manage until the end of the month.
It is a story that many of us will have heard time and again in our own constituency surgeries—a small loan that, through huge interest rates, gets bigger and bigger. Of course it is true that families across the UK are feeling the pinch, and we need a major expansion in the promotion of and access to credit unions across the UK. A levy on the profits of the payday lenders could help to drive that expansion of low-cost financial services that credit unions offer. I hope the House will recognise that serving personnel and veterans face particular challenges. Surely it is time to inject new energy into the credit union market and take the steps necessary to address this particular problem for our soldiers and sailors.
I must give some credit to the Government. There has been some interest in this matter from the Ministry of Defence, but I say gently that it is at best tentative. Ministers need to show more enthusiasm and energy for this most basic of services that our troops should be able to expect. When US soldiers, sailors and marines are on active service duty, they can focus on their day job without worrying about their financial affairs at home. The British armed forces surely deserve the same support. I commend this Bill to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Mr Speaker
Usually we are content with a factual list, rather than a Member putting a divisible proposition to the House, but we will manage; it is Christmas.
Ordered,
That Mr Gareth Thomas, Mr Andrew Love, Meg Hillier, Stella Creasy, Mrs Louise Ellman, Seema Malhotra, Mr Adrian Bailey, Stephen Twigg, Tom Greatrex, Stephen Doughty, Mr Ian Davidson and Mr Steve Reed present the Bill.
Mr Gareth Thomas 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 148).
Opposition Day
Accident and Emergency
(11 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
15:46 - The House having divided: - Ayes: 242 / Noes: 307 - Question accordingly negatived.
Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House is concerned about recent Government statements on Accident and Emergency (A&E) and Government claims that it is not in crisis; notes that last week, 79 A&Es and the NHS overall missed the Government’s A&E target; further notes that attendances at hospital A&Es have increased three times faster since 2009-10 than in the period from 2004-05 to 2009-10, and that in the last 12 months more than one million people have waited more than four hours; believes there are a range of reasons for the current pressure on Accident and Emergency but that difficulty in accessing GP services is one of the primary causes; regrets the Government’s decision to cut funding for evening and weekend GP opening and scrap the guarantee of a GP appointment within 48 hours; and, to ease the pressure in Accident and Emergency, calls on the Government to reverse for winter 2013 its scrapping of the 48-hour appointment guarantee.
As we approach the end of 2013, it is becoming clear that this has been the worst year in accident and emergency for at least a decade. All year, the pressure has been relentless. It is not just a winter crisis, but a spring, summer and autumn crisis. Across the 12 months, more than 1 million people have waited more than four hours to be seen, which is a threefold increase since 2010. For the past 22 weeks, hospital accident and emergency departments have missed this Government’s target. Last week, the target was missed by the NHS as a whole, which is a warning sign that winter has now arrived and things are getting even worse.
Accident and emergency is the barometer of the whole health and care system. All year, that barometer has been warning us of severe storms ahead, and yet, three weeks ago, the Secretary of State stood at that Dispatch Box and claimed that this was
“a crisis that is not happening”.—[Official Report, 26 November 2013; Vol. 571, c. 155.]
He should try telling that to the families of people left waiting for hours on trolleys in corridors; to the people who have been ferried to hospital in police cars and taxis because ambulances are trapped in queues at accident and emergency; and to the A and E sister who attended our A and E summit here in Parliament last week and said:
“It feels like we’re fire fighting. It’s crisis management.”
David Wright (Telford) (Lab)
Is this problem not compounded by the fact that in many places such as Telford and Wrekin and the wider Shropshire area, the future of full A and E services at many hospitals is in doubt? That situation is bad for morale, and it compounds the other problems such as waiting times. People want some reassurance about the future of their A and E services.
Andy Burnham
That is a question for the Secretary of State. How can it make sense to close so many A and E departments in the middle of an A and E crisis? This year, the facts on the ground have changed. As I have said, it has been the worst year for a decade. Any proposal to change A and E in areas such as that of my hon. Friend needs to be considered in the light of that new evidence. We need to consider whether it is safe to proceed. As the A and E sister said, it is crisis management. That is the view from the real world. In here, it is a different story. It is, “Crisis, what crisis?”
My purpose in holding this debate is to cut through the spin. I want to bring into our debate today the voices of those A and E nurses, occupational therapists, paramedics, community nurses, and NHS 111 staff and mental health professionals who came to our summit. For instance, there is the paramedic who told us of his worries about ambulance response times getting longer because ambulances are trapped at A and E; and of the time when a patient who was held a long time at the door of a busy A and E suffered a heart attack and had to be rushed back to the ambulance. Another paramedic told us about being at the scene of a serious incident in a city centre. After calling for back-up, he was joined by a private ambulance which did not appear to have adequately trained staff to take patients to hospital. A community nurse spoke of her frustration at spending an hour and a half on the phone trying to get a GP appointment for a frail patient. An A and E-based occupational therapist said that she was now regularly diagnosing dementia for the first time in older patients who had ended up in A and E. Surely we can do better than that.
Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend is giving an excellent argument as to why we are in this crisis. Is it not completely predictable given the response that we have just had on the local government grant settlement? Increased pressures on the system will be felt by old people and in deprived areas.
Andy Burnham
I agree. The Government have made grave mistakes. I warned them—they misquote me every week—that it would be irresponsible to give increases to the NHS, which is what they were promising, if they had to ransack local government, particularly social care budgets, to pay for them. That is a false economy. It means that older people have support withdrawn from the home, and they drift towards A and E in ever greater numbers. That is what is happening today on this Secretary of State’s watch.
Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)
Given that we have just heard that Liverpool will face 62% reductions in local government settlements, does my right hon. Friend agree that the obvious consequence will be to put additional pressures on A and E in Liverpool hospitals?
Andy Burnham
The Government are tearing up the social fabric of England’s most deprived city. This is a city in which people struggle to feed their kids and to make ends meet. Council services are utterly crucial in helping people to cope. The Government do not understand, or they do not care, and they just rip up the fabric of an entire city. It is disgraceful.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
Does the right hon. Gentleman share my concern about the impact of the fines that are being levied as a result of delays in ambulance handovers? Many hard-working staff at the Brighton hospital say they are incredibly demoralising because they punish A and E for a problem that is actually hospital-wide, and it is hospital-wide because of cuts to the national tariff and because of the top-down reorganisation that nobody wants and that is hugely costly.
Andy Burnham
As the hon. Lady says, ambulance services and A and E are often now not working well together. I mentioned the paramedic held at the door, and we are hearing of queues at A and E. What we cannot have are perverse incentives in the system. The Secretary of State needs to look at the issue that she raises.
Andy Burnham
I will make some progress because I am conscious that many Members want to speak in both debates.
The picture that emerged from our summit was of a health service on the edge, creaking at the seams, with corners being cut and A and E as the last resort for people failed by other services—people who, in an ideal world, ought not to have been there. We heard of people with severe mental health problems in A and E because of a lack of crisis beds, people with severe dental pain who could not afford treatment, disorientated older people with dementia and, perhaps saddest of all, palliative patients in A and E waiting areas.
It is clear that the cost of living crisis and this Government’s failure to support people through it might also be driving people to A and E. The House is soon to debate the scourge of food poverty that now blights our land. Food banks are growing at an exponential rate. Indeed, we now read that it is Government policy to ask councils to set up more, even though they have just cut the funding of the councils with the most food banks. It is unbelievable. It suggests to me that they expect food poverty to be with us for some time to come and have no real intention of tackling it. People will go on having to choose between eating properly and putting the heating on—[Interruption.] The Secretary of State chunters, but he has no idea what it is like to do that, has he?
People are making other impossible choices that might damage their health. I am told of the growing number of people now taking prescription medicines on an empty stomach because they cannot afford to eat properly. Dr Ellie Cannon, a GP who also writes for The Mail on Sunday, recently tweeted:
“I’m sad to say that at my NHS practice if we have a patient who has unexplained symptoms, we have started asking if they can afford to eat”.
How can that possibly be right in England in 2013? Has the Secretary of State considered reviewing the effect on people’s health of the growing problem of food poverty and has he discussed the effects of benefits policy on people’s health with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions? If he has not, I suggest that he does so immediately.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
As my right hon. Friend is talking about general practitioners, does he agree that the Government’s failure to honour the guarantee that we gave that people could see a GP within 48 hours means that more and more people are going directly to A and E?
Andy Burnham
That is the central point of my speech: the removal of the guarantee that patients could get an appointment within two working days. The Government removed it in June 2010 and, as a result, we all hear stories, do we not, of people saying that they are getting up and ringing the surgery at 8 or 9 o’clock in the morning and are being told that there is nothing available for days. That is a result of the Government’s decision to remove the two-day guarantee. That is why people are facing that frustration. I shall explain that in more detail—[Interruption.] Government Members say that the guarantee did not work, but in 2005 nine out of 10 people said that they could get an appointment within two days. Have those Members checked the figures recently? There is falling satisfaction with GP services and it is happening on their watch.
I asked the Secretary of State whether he had spoken to the Work and Pensions Secretary, and he needs to do so urgently. The truth is that pressure has been growing all year on A and E and he has been ignoring the warnings, sticking to his usual line of blaming everyone else. His original line was to blame the 2004 GP contract, but that was undermined by the Chair of the Select Committee on Health and the inconvenient fact that there was no winter crisis in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 or, indeed, 2009.
Having seen his original spin dismissed, the Secretary of State changed tack. In a message to NHS staff on 6 December he said:
“Our ageing society has meant 1.2 million more people in A&E every year compared to 3 years ago”.
Finally we have an admission that the pressure has built on his watch, but as ever, it is nothing to do with the Government. It is nothing to do with the break-up of NHS Direct and its replacement with the disastrous NHS 111, nothing to do with the closure of a quarter of NHS walk-in centres, nothing to do with the severe cuts to social care and the removal of home care from vulnerable people, nothing to do with the loss of 6,000 nursing jobs and nothing to do with the reorganisation that no one wanted and no one voted for that threw the entire NHS into chaos just when it needed stability and that has led to precious NHS money being spent on redundancy payments only for those people to be re-employed by new NHS bodies. No, it is now all the fault of the ageing society. You could not make it up, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Ms Margaret Ritchie (South Down) (SDLP)
My right hon. Friend is making a compelling case about the problems in accident and emergency. Is he aware that they extend to Northern Ireland? Although devolved arrangements are responsible, we are told that the problems are down to the shortage of doctors, which emanates from Whitehall and the Department of Health. It is no longer a compulsory part of GP training for doctors to do a component in A and E and that is causing a problem.
Andy Burnham
I mentioned the reorganisation, through which we saw the complete disruption of training arrangements in the NHS. The Government’s eye was taken completely off the ball of the growing problem of recruitment, not just of GPs but of A and E doctors. That is a real problem around the country. We now have fewer GPs per 1,000 of population than we had a few years ago, so my hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise that issue.
The new spin is that the Secretary of State admits that A and E has got worse on the Government’s watch, but it is not his fault and it is not a crisis. That is the public line, at least. In private, it is a different story. This is the Secretary of State who has taken up ringing hospital chief executives who are not meeting their A and E targets. I have heard from two senior sources that the Secretary of State has discussed within government whether Cobra should be convened to discuss the A and E crisis. Can he confirm or deny whether that is the case? I have no way of knowing, but he needs to give a straight answer.
The longer we see the Secretary of State in this job, the more familiar we become with his style: spin before substance. That is the real danger when someone holds a job as important as his. If they use spin to distract people from the real causes of the problems, they end up neglecting those problems and precious time is lost.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
I know that the right hon. Gentleman is passionate about the NHS, but he seems to ignore the history. In the last year of the Labour Government, the average wait in A and E was 77 minutes. It is now 33. The Labour-run Welsh NHS has missed every target since 2009. Frankly, I am proud that our Government are putting the patient at the heart of the NHS by tackling the issues in hospitals and in our ambulance services.
Andy Burnham
Last week, the NHS missed its A and E target—the hon. Lady’s A and E target—which is a lowered target. If she is going to maintain that complacency through the winter, I suggest that it might well backfire on her.
Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
My right hon. Friend’s description of rising waiting times in A and E and ambulances queuing outside A and E will be recognisable to my constituents who use Northwick Park hospital. What is his view of the Government’s proposed new funding formula, which, I hear, might mean that £20 million will be cut from Harrow’s NHS budget?
Andy Burnham
Since the change of Government, the previous Secretary of State and this one have talked about a formula based predominantly on need, not deprivation. The worrying thing about that is that it means that we have a formula based on the use of NHS services as opposed to the need to improve health. NHS England has been debating that issue this week and I hope that it has taken heed of what has been said in this House, because to do this to the NHS alongside the local government cuts mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) will be catastrophic for the communities in this country with the greatest need.
Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend recognise the perversity of our having a debate about airport expansion, with the London population rising to 10 million, while at the same time closing A and Es in west London, experiencing problems at St Helier in south London, closing Chase Farm and making changes in the east? Does that make sense with a rising population? Will it not lead to chaos?
Andy Burnham
The Secretary of State really needs to answer for the cuts to London’s A and E departments, particularly at a time of unprecedented pressure, and for the desire to bring forward closures supported by a financial case, rather than a clinical one, as in Lewisham.
I want to set the record straight about the 2004 contract and dismiss the myths that have been put about. The fact is that it gave the public much quicker and more convenient access to GPs and relieved the pressure on A and E. Let me explain the changes it made. First, it created the ability to add an incentive to allow patients to book an appointment several days ahead. Members might recall Tony Blair being challenged on that very point during a live TV debate before the 2005 general election. As a result, he brought forward a new measure to give people that ability to plan ahead. Secondly, it created incentives for GPs to offer evening and weekend opening. Thirdly, it allowed the previous Government to offer people a new guarantee of a GP appointment within two working days. And it worked. In 1997 only half of patients could get an appointment within 48 hours, but by 2005 nine out of 10 patients could do so. As a result, A and E was performing much better than it had been in 1997.
What has happened since? This Government have scrapped all those measures to improve patient access and convenience. They removed the right set out in the NHS constitution to an appointment within two days, stating that it was no longer a priority. It might not be a priority for them, but let me tell them that it remains a high priority for my constituents and those of my hon. Friends. This is the simple truth that they do not like to admit: it has got harder to get a GP appointment under this Prime Minister and this Government. People who call their surgery early in the morning only to be told that nothing is available now know why.
There are now 854 fewer GP practices in England offering evening and weekend openings than there were in July 2009. The Patients Association has found that six out of 10 people said they could not see a GP for at least two days and four out of 10 said they could not book an appointment for at least two days in advance. All that is leading to some people turning straight to A and E and others getting sicker while they wait and then arriving in A and E as a more serious case.
The Government have tried to blame GPs for the problem, but that is unfair, because this Government have cut the funding for general practice, cut the funding for delivering better patient access and convenience and, I have already said, cut the number of GPs per thousand of the population. The analysis could not be clearer. The question is where do we go from here.
The House has got used to the Secretary of State’s stock speech, which takes no responsibility for what is happening now in the NHS and seeks to blame the previous Government for everything that is going wrong. Well I have news for him: that will not work today. A and E is getting worse on his watch. He has presided over the worst year in A and E for a decade. People need an honest assessment of the situation, and of the urgency and the NHS’s ability to cope this winter. Does he accept that there is a crisis in A and E? He has gone quiet, but we will hear from him in a moment. Or does he still maintain that it is not happening? We need to know.
With January just around the corner, people want practical answers to straight questions and some proposals to make things better. First, will he consider making urgent changes to NHS 111 and putting nurses and clinicians back on the other end of the phone line? Evidence from across the NHS tells us that the cut-price model of call handlers with computer algorithms simply does not work. Too often the computer says, “Call an ambulance or go to A and E.” The sensible change back to an NHS Direct-style system was recommended by Sir Bruce Keogh in his report and should be made right now ahead of the winter.
Secondly—this is the centrepiece of what I want to say today—given the evidence to show that the 48-hour guarantee worked to divert people from A and E, there is a clear case for reintroducing it this winter. It is true that GPs might not be so keen on it, but it was valued by patients, and that is the most important thing. The Secretary of State needs to listen to what people are saying about their difficulties in getting an appointment in office hours, not in out-of-office hours. He must do something to address that. Will he divert some of the funding that he has made available to meet A and E pressures to that purpose, or indeed will he reclaim some of the funding he has handed back to the Treasury? It is so important that people can get appointments when they need them.
Those are two practical suggestions that I hope the Government will consider and accept. If the Secretary of State will not accept them, he needs to put forward other suggestions of his own to help people get access to good advice via a GP or over the phone and to avoid A and E this winter. If he refuses to do that, is he really saying that everything possible has been done to ensure that things do not get worse in the months ahead?
In conclusion, the NHS today stands on the brink of its most dangerous winter in years. It is a serious situation and people are looking for straight answers from the Secretary of State. It has got harder to get a GP appointment on his watch and people want to know what he is going to do about it. A and E is getting worse and worse on his watch and people want to know how he plans to turn things around and ensure that all A and E departments and ambulance services can get safely through the winter. He now needs to put away his stock speech, cut the spin and get a grip, and fast.
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)
What we have heard today is a deeply unconvincing attempt by the Opposition to turn A and E into a political football. As a former Health Secretary who missed his own target for 14 of the 26 weeks that covered winter, the shadow Secretary of State should know better than to run down the phenomenal achievements of hard-working NHS staff at this busy time of year.
The right hon. Gentleman threw out numerous statistics—[Interruption.] He asked me to give him some answers, so he should just listen. He threw out numerous statistics, but let us look at the facts he chose not to mention. First, given that A and E departments across the United Kingdom face similar demographic challenges and have similar structures and targets, a comparison with Wales is instructive, not least because, with a Labour-run Government, it is following policies that are closer to those that he favours. The most recent full-month data available for both countries show that England hit the target, with 95.7%, but Wales missed it, with 90.4 %. Last year, England hit the target, with 95.9%, but Wales missed it, with 87.7%. In fact, Wales has missed it every single year since 2009. He also talked about ambulance times. In October, the figure for England was 74.6%, and for Wales 65.2%.
The right hon. Gentleman used some strong language. He talked about complacency and crisis. Will he now demonstrate that those comments were not shallow point scoring by making the same criticisms of Labour in Wales? If not, the House will see those comments for what they are: a hollow attempt to turn an operational challenge—one that he faced, that I face, and indeed that all Health Secretaries face—into a political argument regardless of the impact on patients or staff. Vulnerable people are relying on our emergency services this winter, so to whip up fear and run down performance, as he has done, is frankly shameful. It is putting politics before patients, and not for the first time from the Opposition Benches.
If the right hon. Gentleman does not want to talk about Wales—[Interruption.] I will move on to that later. If he does not want to talk about Wales, let us look more closely at England. Again, the statistics he did not want to share with the House show that NHS A and E departments are actually performing much better than when he was Health Secretary.
Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)
Does the Secretary of State welcome the example being shown by the award-winning Northumbria NHS Trust, which is building a brand-new specialist emergency care hospital in these difficult times, offering 24-hour cover seven days a week with consultants? That idea preceded the Keogh review and shows the way forward that A and E should be taking.
Grahame M. Morris
If the Government are doing so well in relation to targets, why have they downgraded the four-hour waiting target from 98% to 95%?
Mr Hunt
I will tell the hon. Gentleman why. It was done on clinical advice, for the good reason that there are some patients whom it is better to see, even if it takes longer than four hours, so that they can be discharged and sent home, rather than admitting them to the hospital, which is what was happening under the 98% target. Labour agrees with that, because it is following the same procedure in Wales.
Mr Hunt
I am going to make some progress.
I want to talk about what is happening in England, because the right hon. Gentleman wanted to know the truth. These are the statistics he did not want to tell the House about the comparison with his time in power, which he said was so good: 1.2 million more people are going through A and E every year, and more than 2,000 are being seen within four hours every single day, compared with when he was Health Secretary. The average wait to be seen is now 33 minutes compared with 77 minutes when he was Health Secretary—that is 44 more minutes longer, on average, to be seen under Labour than under this Government. For treatment, the average wait is now 75 minutes compared with 102 minutes when he was in office.
Andy Burnham
Will the Secretary of State give a straight answer to this simple question: is there or is there not a crisis in A and E?
Mr Hunt
I refer the right hon. Gentleman to the people who know about this at the College of Emergency Medicine, which says today on its website:
“There is now cause for optimism that the crisis is behind us.”
He should listen to that before whipping up fears of a crisis that the College of Emergency Medicine says is not happening.
Mr Hunt
I am going to make some progress and then I will give way.
There are 216 more consultants and 111 more registrars than during Labour’s time. On ambulance performance, frankly the right hon. Gentleman should be ashamed, because his whipping up of the problem so appalled the ambulance service that he received a letter from the chief executive of the south-western ambulance service, who said about his comments in the House of Commons:
“It is both disappointing and concerning that the information provided to your office has been misinterpreted and misreported in order to present a grossly inaccurate picture for the purposes of apparent political gain...I am astonished that anyone would present such misleading information to the House of Commons.”
Something else that the right hon. Gentleman did not want to tell the House regarding delays is that there has been a 28% fall in the number of 30-minute handover delays compared with the same period last year—that magically did not make it into his speech. Yes, ambulance services are under pressure; yes, there are issues with the performance of some trusts; and yes, this is a busy winter, but the one thing they and the patients they serve can do without is Opposition politicians demotivating crews by misrepresenting the reality on the ground.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
Patients in Trafford will not recognise the Secretary of State’s characterisation of this as a crisis that is in the past. They are reporting long delays at Wythenshawe hospital’s and Manchester Royal infirmary’s A and E departments, particularly, as he will know, because Trafford general hospital’s A and E was downgraded to an urgent care centre and now closes overnight, as of three weeks ago. Does he agree that during transition periods for such reconfigurations it would make sense to ensure that there were adequate resources for neighbouring A and Es to take on the new patients? Those resources have not been provided to these hospitals; will he guarantee to provide them now?
Mr Hunt
I recognise the hon. Lady’s concern for her constituents. I have looked into the issues in the Manchester and Trafford areas very carefully, and I am assured by people on the ground that the problems and challenges they face do not relate to the changes that have been announced in Trafford.
Lorely Burt
We have had a very successful campaign in Solihull to restore two-member-crew ambulances being based in the constituency. However, they still face a big problem with admittance to Heartlands hospital to discharge their patients so that they can get out on the road and back to Solihull again. Can the Secretary of State suggest how the ambulance service could work in a joined-up way with hospitals in order to improve flow-through?
Mr Hunt
My hon. Friend raises an important point. Again, we would not hear this from the Opposition spokesman, but ambulance services across the country are making great strides. For example, in the past year there has been a 10% increase in the number of patients that ambulance services do not take to A and Es, and an 8% increase in the number of patients that ambulance services and paramedics are able to treat and discharge on the spot. Those kinds of things can make a huge difference.
Mr Hunt
I am going to make some progress.
I want to move on to what we have been doing. As I said, every Health Secretary deals with difficult winters in the NHS. However, this year is different because we have taken unprecedented steps to relieve the pressure in the short and the long term. For this winter, we have distributed more financial help—£400 million in total—than ever before. So far, that money has paid for 2,900 additional staff, 1,100 more hospital beds, and 1,200 more community beds. It has also paid for additional support for ambulance services and 111 centres. We distributed that money earlier than ever before. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Copeland (Mr Reed) says that we should not have cut the money in the first place. We did not—we protected and increased the NHS budget, which the shadow Health Secretary still wants to cut, as he reaffirmed today and on Monday. We distributed the money in August, earlier than ever before. We extended the winter flu campaign to two and three-year-olds. Patients who require emergency treatment this winter can be assured that they are getting high-quality and speedy care despite the pressure that we all recognise A and E departments are under.
We have gone further. This year, we have started to tackle the root causes of the long-term pressures in A and E, which are the result of the ageing population, yes, but also, sadly, the disastrous mistakes made by the previous Government, including the 2004 GP contract changes and the 48-hour GP appointment target that did not work.
Mr Hunt
I want to make some progress on this because it was the central point of the shadow Health Secretary’s speech. The reason the 48-hour target was scrapped is very simple: access was getting worse, not better, under that target. On the right hon. Gentleman’s watch, the proportion of people getting an appointment within two days fell, while 25% of people who wanted an appointment more than two days ahead could not get one. They would call wanting an appointment for the following week and be told, “You can only get an appointment by calling less than 48 hours in advance.” But do not take it from me. This morning—
Mr Hunt
Well, the hon. Gentleman should listen to the Royal College of General Practitioners if he does not want to take it from me. This morning, its chair, Dr Maureen Baker, said that Labour’s
“proposal to bring back the 48-hour target for GPs is an ill-thought out, knee-jerk response to a long-term problem.”
Unlike Labour, we listen and act when doctors tell us that Government targets are harming patient care.
Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)
If the right hon. Gentleman feels that scrapping the 48-hour rule for GP appointments was wrong, what would he say to my constituent Mr C, who has e-mailed me today imploring me to get an appointment with his GP because his wife needs a new prescription for her blood pressure drugs and he has spent the past 48 hours on the phone attempting to gain one? How could he help my constituent?
Mr Hunt
I would urge him to urge his own MP to back this Government’s initiative to introduce seven-day GP surgery opening in pilots in every single region of the country, and to back plans like those in north-west London, where seven-day GP opening has been introduced—for which we have not had support from Labour.
Guy Opperman
Does the Secretary of State agree that prevention is the most important thing to alleviate A and E pressure, and that the simplest thing we can do is to encourage the populations in all our constituencies to take up the flu jab, which will prevent a large number of people going to A and E?
Mr Hunt
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This year we have extended flu jabs to two and three-year-olds because we think that prevention is better than cure.
We have been looking at other causes of the long-term pressure on A and E, such as Labour’s 2004 GP contract. The right hon. Gentleman spent the past year telling this House that that contract, which scrapped named GPs, has nothing to do with the problems in A and E. This is despite what nearly every A and E department in the country is talking about—namely, the pressure being caused by poor primary care alternatives, particularly for the frail elderly. What did he tell Sarah Montague on the “Today” programme when we reversed that GP contract and brought back named GPs for the over-75s? He conceded to her, as he never has in this House, that our changes which reversed that contract would help A and E, so he is finally accepting on the radio what he does not accept in this House and what A and E staff have been saying for months—that having someone in the community responsible for frail elderly will help.
Mr Hunt
I am going to make some progress.
Our plans go much further than simply reversing the 2004 contract. GPs will offer the most vulnerable guaranteed same-day telephone consultations, which never happened under Labour. There will be a dedicated telephone line so that A and E doctors, ambulance paramedics and others can get advice from GPs about treatment in urgent situations. GPs will co-ordinate care for elderly patients discharged from A and E to try to ensure they get proper wrap-around care to minimise the chance of needing to go back.
We have done something else that the right hon. Member for Leigh never did to tackle long-term pressure on A and E. One of the biggest problems has been not being able to discharge people from hospital because of poor links between the health and social care systems. Through our £3.8 billion better care fund, this Government are doing something that Labour talked about a lot but never actually delivered: we are merging the health and social care systems. Gone will be people being pushed from pillar to post, because in order to access this fund, clinical commissioning groups and local authorities will have to commit to joint commissioning and joint provision.
Finally, we have looked at the long-term structure of A and E. The previous Government were battered by a succession of failed reconfigurations. We, too, have had challenges over decisions, such as those with regard to Lewisham. Sir Bruce Keogh’s recent review of urgent and emergency care has changed the terms of this debate by setting out a 21st-centruy vision of emergency care. Sir Bruce rightly said there should be more extensive services outside hospital, and this, too, will help to reduce A and E queues. He rightly said that while the number of A and Es is not expected to change, the services offered by all of them should not be identical if we are to maximise the number of lives saved. Our duty to patients is to make that a reality and we will not hesitate to drive that vision forward.
A and E and the ambulance services are performing well under unprecedented pressure. I cannot speak highly enough of the hard-working staff who are working around the clock to deliver vital services. They share our overriding commitment to putting patients first this winter. Unlike Labour Members, we do not seek to turn a tough winter into a political football. If they want to make the comparison between our record and theirs, we are happy to do so: more people being seen within four hours, shorter waiting times, and long-term problems being tackled—not posturing from the Opposition, but action from the Government, and a commitment to do what it takes to support hard-working front-line staff over Christmas. We should get behind them and not undermine their efforts.
Mike Gapes
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. This information was embargoed until two o’clock today, but following an investigation the Care Quality Commission has put King George hospital Ilford and Queen’s hospital Romford into special measures. I tried several times to intervene on the Secretary of State in order to raise the matter, but he refused to take an intervention from me. I therefore seek your advice: how can I draw attention to the matter and the fact that the previous Secretary of State said that King George’s A and E department would close within two years? That is clearly not happening. There is chaos in my local A and Es, yet the Secretary of State did not let me intervene.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Mr Gapes, in terms of getting your argument on the record, you have just done so, although it was not a point of order, as I think you know. As you are fully aware, it is up to the Secretary of State, or any Member of this House, whether they give way to another Member or not. I am sure you will find ways to pursue this matter over the minutes, hours, days and months ahead.
I inform Members that there is a five-minute time limit on all Back-Bench contributions in order to ensure that as many Members as possible can participate in the debate.
Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)
The public look with incredulity at many issues relating to the Government and public services, but highest on the list is the proposal to close A and Es in our NHS when demand for them is becoming greater and stronger.
St Helier hospital in my constituency has asked for evidence and proof of why its A and E department—which sees 90,000 people a year, meets its four-hour target and has a great safety record—should be closed. We are told by the medical establishment that it will be much better for everyone and that primary care will take up the slack. At no point are the public told—I am sure this is also true of other reconfigurations—where their care will be provided, which GP practices will stay open for longer and which extra services will be available. The public, therefore, are being asked to make a leap of faith and lose their A and E, which they know is there for them in times of desperation and need, in favour of wishful thinking that things will be different in the future. The gap between the Government’s credibility and the public is growing.
What evidence do the Secretary of State and the Government have that closing A and E departments that nobody believes to be small will provide better medical services? No research shows that to be the case. All the work done by the university of Sheffield and—I never thought I would say this—The Mail on Sunday in its campaign indicates that wholesale A and E closures, not only in rural areas, but in built-up urban areas such as mine, are not in the best interests of patients, and not just in terms of waiting times, but in terms of outcomes.
We all accept that some specialist services, such as the stroke service, should be concentrated, but there is no evidence to suggest that that needs to happen for what most people go to and A and E for. For those attempting to get a GP appointment in my part of south London, the situation is desperate. I have already referred to an e-mail I received from a constituent only today. It has come to something when constituents are contacting me to ask whether I can get them a GP appointment.
I challenge the Secretary of State to explain why his holy grail of closing A and Es is a good or wise decision. For as long as those GP services are not available, and for as long as the public do not know which surgery to attend or which services will be provided, they will never accept changes. There must be a presentation of the facts, not just a hope that somehow GPs will do more.
St Helier hospital is supported by everyone in my area—not just those who use it, but those who understand that demand on St George’s and Croydon university hospitals will increase should it close. For everybody, A and E is a safety valve to the NHS—it is there when other services are not—and for as long as that is the case, we need to keep our local A and Es.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Kettering general hospital will be well known to the Secretary of State, because he was good enough to visit it a year ago to see the excellent service provided by its doctors, nurses and ancillary staff. The hospital has been in existence for 116 years and it is badly needed and much loved. At one time or other, every resident of Kettering has had a member of their family go through the hospital.
The hon. Member for Corby (Andy Sawford), my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) and I have put our party political differences aside and joined forces to campaign for extra investment for the accident and emergency facility at Kettering general hospital, because it is needed by all of our constituents. We are working as one on the issue. The other good news is that both the hospital trust and the local clinical commissioning groups are working as one on the issue.
I thank the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter), who is not in his place, for meeting all three of us, together with representatives from the hospital and the CCGs, over the summer. He has been good enough to agree to meet us again on 15 January.
All the professionals have come together and agreed that, despite their best efforts and despite following the advice of the Department of Health’s intensive support team to the letter, whichever Government are in power would have to face the fact that the A and E at Kettering is, sadly, not fit for purpose and needs extra capital investment. Their bid to the Department of Health will be for £20 million for Kettering A and E and an extra £3 million to create community hubs—in other words, urgent care centres-plus—in Corby, Kettering and Wellingborough. The three hon. Members, the CCGs and the hospital trust will make a joint bid for that money when we meet the Minister in January.
The challenge the A and E at Kettering general hospital faces is serving one of the fastest growing populations in the country. In the last decade, Kettering’s population growth ranked 31st out of 348 districts around the country and it had the sixth highest increase in the number of households. Few other parts of the country are growing as fast as the Kettering area, which also has an increasingly ageing population.
The A and E department at Kettering general hospital was constructed in the 1970s for about 25,000 to 30,000 attendances a year. In 2001 attendances had hit 56,000 and that figure is now 85,000. The A and E centre is effectively bursting at the seams, and attendances show absolutely no sign of falling off. Typically, there could be between 170 and 230 attendances a day—the highest has been 260 in a 24-hour period this year.
The professional staff—the clinicians—in the A and E have made multiple operational changes. They have adopted all the best practice ideas provided by the Department’s intensive support team, but the key issue remains the estate, and the only way to solve that problem is an injection of capital investment. With that investment and with the development of community facilities in Corby, Kettering and Wellingborough, the professional clinicians are confident that the A and E department could at long last start hitting its A and E targets. At the moment, it is treating only 89% —well below the 98% target specified by the Government—of patients within a four-hour period.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
I apologise for being out of breath, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I just wanted to ask my hon. Friend whether the proposal he is talking about has all-party support in the north of the county?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. Mr Peter Bone has just arrived in the Chamber, but one is normally expected to be in the Chamber for more than just a few seconds so as to hear the debate before intervening. I am sure the hon. Gentleman apologises to the House.
Mr Hollobone
I am very grateful for the intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough because he has many duties to attend to in this House on behalf of his constituents and he has been at the forefront of the campaign to get extra investment into Kettering’s A and E, and also to develop the community hub patient facilities in Corby, Kettering and Wellingborough.
With the £3 million capital expenditure bid going to the Department, one of the options would be for a community hub at the Isebrook hospital, which would help to serve my hon. Friend’s constituents in Wellingborough and, by doing so, would take the pressure off the A and E at Kettering. If we are successful in this cross-party bid, the A and E at Kettering would be transformed into an A and E plus an urgent care centre on the site of Kettering general hospital. It would be a one-stop shop for local patients. The A and E at Kettering has the confidence of local people, but the local population growth means that capital investment is needed more than ever, and we look to the Government to provide that in early January.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
I do not think that is a point of order, but the House has noted it and we will move on now so we do not waste any more time.
Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)
My A and E in Wigan is, like so many others across the country, under significant pressure at present. Earlier this year we saw an unprecedented rise in A and E attendances. That is a result of a series of problems, including the difficulty in getting GP appointments, as outlined eloquently by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), but I think the single most significant cause is the cuts that have been made over the past three and a half years to social care. Does the Minister have any idea what those cuts and the unfair distribution of them—my constituency of Wigan has been cut three times more than Windsor— have meant to people in their lives?
I want to say something about the situation of older people. I have been shocked over the past couple of years by what is happening to older people because of the deep and front-loaded cuts to social care, which have left councils with no option but to cut services. Over the last two years we have seen an unprecedented rise in the number of over-90-year-olds coming into my local A and E and others across the country by ambulance.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Norman Lamb)
The hon. Lady talks about the situation in social care and of course I understand that there is real pressure, but will she welcome the fact that in 2012-13 there were 37,473 fewer days lost in delayed discharge due to social care, so in other words social services are doing better now than they were in previous years?
Lisa Nandy
In the very short amount of time that I have got I will simply echo the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) who said to the Secretary of State that she thought people would be staggered by the complacency of Members on the Government Benches and would not recognise the picture they paint, which stands in stark contrast to the lived experiences of my constituents, some of whom are old and vulnerable and deserve so much better than this. Behind the increase in the number of admittances to hospital lies a picture of older people who are living alone at home, worried, lonely and ill.
The Minister’s Government have not caused all of this, but, like my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh, I have talked about my concern about what has happened in social care and the rise of zero-hours contracts and choosing the lowest bidder over recent years, so, by God, I must also say this: his Government have made the situation so much worse. By the end of next year the budget of my council in Wigan will have been cut by £66 million, and we were told this summer that another 10% is still to come. We have done everything. We have pared that organisation to the bone. The truth is there are no more efficiencies to be had; there are only cuts.
I say this to the Minister as well: this is not just about councils, because what this Government have done, and the Darwinian approach they have taken to the voluntary sector, has severely undermined the capacity of charities to respond to this crisis at the very time when they are needed most. This is the true meaning of the big society.
We are seriously disrupted in Wigan—
Lisa Nandy
I will not give way to the Minister because I presume he will be winding up the debate and I hope he will spend the rest of his time listening to Members rather than trying to explain away such an appalling record.
I cannot understand why, despite all the pressures already being put on my A and E by this Government and despite its still being consistently one of the highest performing A and Es across the north-west, we are being disrupted by the Healthier Together programme, which has caused so much anxiety in Wigan.
Grahame M. Morris
I want to reinforce that point in relation to Durham county council. I have just been advised that Library figures show that it is facing cuts of £222 million between 2011 and 2017. That must have a huge impact on social care and a consequential impact of increased demand in A and E.
Lisa Nandy
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, as always.
The Healthier Together programme has, at this time, caused huge anxiety across Wigan. In June, documents leaked to my local paper the Wigan Evening Post revealed plans to reclassify hospitals as red and green, with several hospitals downgraded, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston knows only too well. That prompted real fears across Wigan that it would lose its well-regarded 24-hour A and E. The decision appeared to be based on population, not on the performance of hospitals. In September when I visited the Healthier Together offices in Manchester to explain my concerns with my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling), I was surprised to see, at a time of funding pressures that are causing real pain, how expensive those offices were, situated in the middle of Manchester. Imagine my surprise, Madam Deputy Speaker, when Healthwatch Wigan found through a series of Freedom of Information Act requests that the total cost of the Healthier Together programme in Greater Manchester to date has been £3 million, with £1.3 million of that spent on third-party organisations. The NHS would not reveal who or what that money was spent on. To date, the programme could, in total, have paid for 90 new nurses, 20 A and E doctors or 9,000 bed days at Wigan infirmary. Instead, this hugely expensive programme has caused huge anxiety across my local area, and communication has been dire. I am not alone in thinking that that is a shocking waste of money.
Despite the chaos caused by this Government, our A and E works well: it is a consistently high performer. We are a big borough, with huge transport constraints. To ask people to travel to the nearest alternative hospital in Bolton just is not feasible. It is 15 miles away, which is at least half an hour by car. What the Minister may not know or understand is that many of my constituents do not have cars or the money to take several buses or use public transport. Our borough typically has large, tightly knit families. When someone’s granddad goes into A and E, not just them and their mum and dad but the entire family visit him, which will be impossible if this shambolic programme goes ahead.
The Secretary of State has caused real anxiety by acting unlawfully in respect of Lewisham A and E, announcing the single biggest closure programme the NHS has seen at a time of unprecedented pressure on A and E, and making changes in the Care Bill that will enable the closure of high-performing hospital services such as those in Wigan. Will the Minister give me a cast-iron guarantee that decisions will be made on clinical, not cost grounds, and will he reassure us that financial constraints do not come into this? Will he tell my constituents that the real-life situation of local people—transport, family networks, income and all the things that have a huge impact on people’s well-being—will be considered by this Government before any decision is taken that affects my constituents’ lives?
Dr Phillip Lee (Bracknell) (Con)
On 27 December 1999, I and two other junior doctors embarked on a ward round at Wexham Park hospital in Slough. We had 72 patients to see that day, and it took us 13 hours to get round to them all. I say that because it was 14 years ago, yet I am hearing that this is the A and E crisis to end all crises. Every year, doctors in the national health service are worried and concerned about the pressures that the winter will bring to bear, and I do not think that this year is any different from 1999.
I want to try to be a bit challenging today and, in view of the motion, perhaps a bit counter-intuitive. We have too many casualty departments in this country. We should look at the mortality statistics—the likelihood of survival. I would say to the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) that, if my grandfather went into hospital, I would want him to go into the one where he had the best chance of survival, not necessarily the one down the road. I do not know about her hospital, but a large number of hospitals in this country unfortunately do not deliver the best care or the best mortality statistics. We need to reflect on that without trying to score petty political points about a variety of different issues.
Grahame M. Morris
I want to query the hon. Gentleman’s point about this crisis not being anything unusual. The Government’s own Health and Social Care Information Centre has published figures showing that the number of visits to A and E departments in England has risen by 11% in four years to 21.5 million attendances, which is 60,000 a day. The numbers are clearly increasing, and our argument is that that is partially the consequence of the Government policy of cutting social services.
Dr Lee
There has actually been a 37% increase in emergency admissions over the past decade, while 65% of hospital admissions are of people over 65. Dementia is doubling as we speak, and 25% of the NHS budget will be spent on diabetes by 2025. I am sorry, but to try to suggest that the genesis of the challenge we face has been during the three years of this Government is simplistic. The most polite way to put it is that the hon. Gentleman is making a simplistic argument.
Kate Green
I do not disagree with the hon. Gentleman about our wanting a configuration of services that ensures that patients get the best possible care and saves lives, but does he not agree that, if changes have to be made, transition planning and resources to support the transition are absolutely vital components of success? I have to tell him that, in relation to the reconfiguration we have just gone through in Trafford, I simply have not seen such resources put in place.
Dr Lee
I agree with the hon. Lady that the plans for many of the configurations have been somewhat made up on the hoof. They have usually been created and pushed by a series of local issues—such as 19th or 20th-century buildings that can no longer deliver 21st-century health care—but I recognise the need for a plan, and I will come back to that at the end of my speech.
I fear that a perfect storm is looming at the moment. [Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) will allow me, I will come on to what I think we need to do. The perfect storm is that we have infrastructure that is not fit for purpose, too many hospitals that we cannot staff properly—one of the contributory factors in Mid Staffordshire was poor staffing levels, because it was trying to work over two hospital sites for a population that is not big enough to support one—and an ageing and increasingly obese society, as well as changes in people’s attitudes to pain and suffering and to seeking health care.
I have not yet heard a speech about the type of presentations occurring in casualty departments. Such presentations are rarely accidents and are extremely rarely emergencies. We must ask ourselves how we can address that. I am standing here with a dreadful cold and feeling pretty lousy. I have seen hundreds of patients who have presented to me as a GP or in A and E feeling like I do, but I will not go either to my GP or to A and E, because I understand that I have a viral infection that will get better by itself. The problem at the moment is that people just rock up at A and E because they think that it is the only place they will get seen, and no one questions whether they should just not bother turning up.
Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)
I am following what my hon. Friend is saying very carefully. Does he agree that part of the problem with A and E is the tremendous back-up of people who are admitted, and the inability to discharge people who ought not to be in hospital?
Dr Lee
Yes, we need to integrate. The shadow Front-Bench team is right to call for more integration, which is part of the issue.
That perfect storm is coming and I suspect it will hit this or the other side of 2020, when we will have such an ageing society with such expectations, and a creaking infrastructure that is not able to deliver the best care that can be delivered.
Given the time available, I shall be brief, but we need to have a cross-party plan. I suspect that we have twice as many acute hospitals as we need, and that we probably need only about 100 in England and Wales. The population served by each acute hospital should be about 500,000, 600,000 or 700,000, which is nine or 10 constituencies, so we would not all be able to come to the Chamber to defend our local district general hospital. I am sorry, but those days have passed. If you think that I am a maverick, I am backed up by every single royal college, the King’s Fund, the NHS Confederation—I could go on. Therefore, we need to deal with the issue.
I recognise that the politics is very difficult. I think that we should convene a cross-party committee and have a cross-party understanding. We will have to do that at some point in the next five to 10 years, and it would be remiss and wrong of us as an institution to ignore that reality. I am tired of sitting here and listening to hon. Members trying to score political points on this issue. Of course we can argue about the funding of health care and there is scope to debate philosophical differences about health care provision, but when it comes down to it, we need a hospital infrastructure that can deliver the best acute emergency and surgical care to everybody at their time of need. I fear that we do not have that.
We need to integrate social care with health care. There are some models—Cambridgeshire has embarked on a very good plan—but it needs to happen up and down the country. We need seven-day-a-week care, but to staff that appropriately, we need fewer hospitals. We will not be able to have seven-day-a-week consultant care on every district general hospital site in this country. I wish I had a bit longer, but I will conclude. I think that we really need to raise the bar, because everyone in this country wants the best care for all.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
The hon. Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee) has just said that there is a perfect storm coming and has appealed for a cross-party approach to deal with the issues in the national health service. I absolutely agree with him about that.
Before the last general election, that is exactly what we had in south-east London. We had a consultation over a couple of years on the “A picture of health” programme, which involved the closure of an A and E. The point is that that was a clinically led consultation. Doctors came to us politicians and said that, if we reconfigured services in a certain way, they could treat patients better and save more lives. I took the view before the general election that the sensible approach was to support those clinicians. It would have been easy for me to man the barricades, defend my local services, say that the reconfiguration was horrible and be a populist local MP. However, I took the view that we needed leadership and cross-party agreement to make the changes that were needed to improve services.
Sadly, when this Government came in, they threw out the whole APOH reconfiguration. After saying in their manifesto that there would be no “forced closure” of A and E and maternity services, the Conservatives came in and said to Lewisham hospital, “Close your A and E and maternity services.”
The Conservatives had said that they would stop the closure of Queen Mary’s hospital, Sidcup. People could have been knocked over in the rush of Tories who wanted to join the campaign to save Queen Mary’s. What happened when they got into power? They closed Queen Mary’s. On that site, there is now a health industrial estate. It will be an incubator for private health care. There will be elective surgery there under Gravesham health care for a short period, but it will go out to tender. We all know where it will go. It will go out to the private sector. There is a site for hire at Queen Mary’s, Sidcup. All sorts of services will come in and compete with NHS services.
Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
That is a familiar story to all of us. There are four A and Es closing in west London and two major hospitals are changing. Charing Cross hospital will no longer be a major teaching hospital and half the site is being sold off. In its place, there will be a local hospital that provides primary care services. The Tories said that those hospitals were closing under Labour when they were not. They are now going back on their promises. In many cases, direct promises were given on site before the last election.
Clive Efford
There is example after example of broken promises. The Conservatives accused people of planning to close hospitals when there was no plan to do so, and then came in and did it themselves.
We have a curious situation. The Secretary of State has been saying, “Crisis? What crisis?” Today, he read out a quote saying that the crisis is behind us. That is a little confusing. Of course, the crisis that he was talking about was a summer crisis. He did not mention that. He presided over a summer crisis. That is pretty unique. I do not think that even Virginia Bottomley achieved a summer crisis, but I could be wrong.
The crisis is of the Government’s own making. The Secretary of State talked about the need for services away from the hospital to protect A and E from being overwhelmed. However, one of the first things that they did was to do away with the 24-hour promise of a visit to the GP. They then introduced 111, which had algorithms and questions that all ended with the advice, “Go to your A and E.” There are now 850 fewer surgeries opening at evenings and weekends, and a quarter of walk-in centres have closed. Talk about reinventing the wheel—the Government are now saying that those are the sorts of things that we need to do. The crisis in A and E is of the Government’s making. It is their decisions that have created the situation.
To return to south-east London, the Secretary of State appointed the trust special administrator to oversee the merger of Lewisham and Queen Elizabeth hospitals. The local authority took on that decision because the powers that the Government took were not within their remit. The Government were challenged in the court and defeated. The Government are now moving the goalposts. Having said before the last general election that there would be no top-down reconfiguration and that they would not enforce closures if the local community did not agree with them, they are taking powers to impose closures on local communities.
In the minute that I have left, I want to say to the Minister that there has been a series of broken promises. It is fitting that a Liberal Democrat is summing up a debate on broken promises on the NHS.
Clive Efford
It is true. Where were any of the things that are happening to our NHS in the Liberal Democrats’ manifesto? None of them was in their manifesto. They never put them before the electorate.
We want no return to the closure of Lewisham A and E. The closure of Queen Mary’s, Sidcup has had the knock-on effect of overwhelming the other A and Es in south-east London. That is clear for all to see. Those A and Es are under serious pressure. It is clear that there is no slack in the system to pick up the additional burden from that closure. We must have a guarantee from the Government that they will not impose the closure of another A and E on the people of south-east London. I would like to hear that from the Minister when he sums up.
Paul Burstow (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)
I want to pick up on a couple of points that were made by the hon. Members for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) and for Bracknell (Dr Lee) about reconfiguration. The hon. Gentleman said that all too often the experience of hon. Members is that reconfiguration feels as if it is being done on the hoof. I agree with the hon. Lady about the proposed reconfiguration in south-west London and about St Helier hospital. Whether that will ever happen is still up in the air—let us hope that it does not. A leap of faith was demanded of constituents across south-west London, not least because the plans did not contain any measures to improve out-of-hospital care, without which it would not be possible to achieve the changes to emergency services that were being proposed. Those points are part of this debate, which is primarily about whether there is a crisis and, if there is, what the nature and causes of it might be. Although the Labour motion acknowledges that there are many causes of the problem, it has a very simplistic solution.
The evidence shows that there is a mixed picture across the country. That is reflected in the allocation of the first wave of additional funding for the NHS to meet winter pressures. That funding went to the health economies that were the most challenged. Some are coping well with the seasonal change from the higher volume, but less complex A and E attendance pattern of the spring and summer to the winter pattern of fewer, but much more complex cases, which often involves more frail and older people, and leads to more admissions. That pattern is repeated year on year and the demographic changes continue year on year. The pattern is well documented and it is very sensitive to the weather. That is why I welcome the Government’s cold weather plans and their support for local government and other agencies to put in place the extra social support that is necessary to avoid admissions in the first place.
Where there are problems, the causes vary. Some of the pressure stems from changes in behaviour. People now see A and E as the easiest point of entry into the system for any ailment. Often, there is confusion about the access arrangements for out-of-hours care. Those behavioural changes are cumulative. They are a consequence of changes that were made some years ago, not least through the changes to the responsibility for out-of-hours care in the GP contract. The implementation of those changes undoubtedly sowed much of the confusion over how to access emergency care.
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that a lot of potential patients are confused about what out-of-hours unscheduled care is available? There are A and Es, minor injuries units, out-of-hours GP services, GP walk-in centres, NHS 111 and so on. Many people cannot discriminate between those services and do not know what they are supposed to provide. They therefore need to be further integrated.
Paul Burstow
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the good things that came out of the work by Keith Willett and Sir Bruce Keogh is the more coherent, communicable and understandable way in which emergency care can and should be organised. Indeed, in some cases there are also staffing pressures. Those are not helped by some of the unintended consequences of changing medical careers, as that has had an impact on the supply of medical doctors.
Labour’s answer seems to be that we should go back to the good old days—whatever they were—of a 48-hour target, but that target was flawed. When it was removed by the Government, the British Medical Association welcomed the change, which it said would give GPs greater flexibility to organise their appointments. Today we have heard—quite rightly—from the chair of the BMA, Dr Maureen Baker, who said the proposal was ill thought out and a knee-jerk response to long-term problems, and that it would make a bad situation worse.
Andy Burnham
Do not the views of patients matter most? The right hon. Gentleman is quoting the professionals, but perhaps it is sometimes inconvenient for them to have to do things. Surely the point is that people are ringing surgeries and cannot get appointments. If he does not like the 48-hour target, surely he and the coalition Government should put forward their alternative so that people can get to see their doctor.
Paul Burstow
With all due respect to the shadow Secretary of State, when presenting arguments in support of his motion he set out a range of professional expertise and opinions for why there should be a 48-hour target. It is therefore not unreasonable for me to quote other professional opinion on why that would not be good for patients. I will come to some of the alternatives that I think are relevant to addressing the A and E problem, because I do not think that simply addressing it through a 48-hour target makes any sense at all.
The changes the Government are making to the GP contract will help—not least having a named person co-ordinating care for the over-75s. I hope the welcome focus on frailty and multi-morbidity will be extended to more people on the basis of their need, not simply their age. Figures show that the average number of diagnosed conditions for patients admitted from A and E has increased over the past five years. In other words, the medical needs of people attending A and E are getting more complex, and that impacts on the amount of time people spend in A and E departments. Therefore, the answer is not one simple solution but must be a combination of actions. Much of that needs to be centred in primary and social care, as well as mental health services. In primary care we must recognise that it is not just about GP services and that we need best practice around the country, for example in engaging pharmacies as first care centres or getting them to play a key role in managing long-term conditions—a big driver of pressure on A and E departments, particularly in winter.
We need concrete action to drive the integration of health and social care—that may be mentioned in the motion, but the Government are delivering it, not least with the £3.8 billion first steps for a better care fund, which is bringing health and social care together in a practical and unprecedented way that has not been achieved before. That must be welcomed as a first step which I hope will grow as more resources are pooled across the system. It is essential to delivering the integrated, co-ordinated care that people want.
Mental health was neglected by Labour, under which there were no access standards or targets for people suffering a mental health crisis. In fact, under Labour two thirds of people suffering from a mental health crisis waited for more than four hours to be seen. I applaud what the Minister is doing to improve that situation significantly by setting standards for the first time to drive improvement in that area.
I conclude with a quote from Dr Clifford Mann, president of the College of Emergency Medicine:
“While this winter will be tough for the NHS and A and E departments in particular—”
I think we should acknowledge that—
“I believe there is now cause for optimism and that the crisis is behind us.”
Yes, there have been problems, but the Government have been addressing them in a comprehensive way. That is why this debate is mis-timed, wrong, and does our constituents no good whatsoever. It does not identify the real problem, although this Government are getting on with sorting the issue out.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
I want to speak about the current situation in Trafford and some of the lessons that Ministers might want to learn from the transition we went through when the A and E department at Trafford general hospital was downgraded to an urgent care centre and closed overnight. Despite assurances that neighbouring accident and emergency services at Manchester royal infirmary and Wythenshawe hospital would be able to cope following that change, problems are already piling up. Those problems may not have been caused wholly—or perhaps at all—by the changes at Trafford, but the impact on Trafford patients is pretty dire and we must take account of that.
Those A and E departments were already exceptionally busy, with the one at Wythenshawe working well beyond capacity. It was built to accommodate 70,000 patients a year but was already dealing with more than 100,000, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins) pointed out from the outset. We welcome the fact that the Department now appears to have unlocked a route to additional funding for capacity at Wythenshawe, but that funding, let alone the additional capacity, is not yet in place.
As the Minister will know, in the past couple of weeks Wythenshawe A and E has reached “black” status for waiting times, and privately there are indications that the quarter 3 target for waiting times at the hospital will not be met. There are also reports that waiting queues for ambulances are doubling outside Wythenshawe hospital, and pressures are mounting at Manchester royal infirmary. The other day a constituent told me that she had visited on the evening of Sunday 8 December with her diabetic daughter and there were not even enough seats for waiting patients. Some people were forced to wait outside.
Those pressures were predicted. Last year, Manchester royal infirmary and Wythenshawe hospital struggled to meet waiting time targets, and indeed failed to meet them on at least one occasion in 30 out of 35 weeks. The Secretary of State was clearly concerned about the pressures on those hospitals because one criterion he set down for the reconfiguration of services at Trafford was that neighbouring hospitals should consistently meet waiting times before the changes were made.
On the basis of performance in the two summer quarters, the NHS asserted that the criterion on waiting times at those hospitals had been met, despite warnings from many people—including me—that not measuring performance during the winter months would give a distorted picture of the capacity of those hospitals to cope. The Minister must recognise that that caused a great collapse of public confidence—they were not very confident about the proposals for the reconfiguration anyway—because it seemed that fudging was going on to present an impression that hospital services could cope, when it then turned out they could not. To use data that are clearly applied in a way that suits the outcome NHS managers want, rather than being in the best interests of patients, is a matter of great concern. Will the Minister say how we can have genuine and robust criteria for reconfigurations in which the public can have confidence? The total absence of clarity and the fudging over the decision at Trafford over the past few weeks has had an unfortunate effect.
When the Secretary of State announced the funding in September, neither Manchester royal infirmary nor Wythenshawe received extra money to deal with winter pressures. I was surprised because we knew by then that reconfiguration would create extra demand on those two A and E departments. I am anxious to hear from the Minister about the Department’s approach to ensuring adequate additional resource to support transition for such reconfigurations.
Grahame M. Morris
My hon. Friend makes an important point about demand in deprived areas. The Government’s health and social care information centre has identified that in each of the past five years at least twice the number of attendances have been from those living in the 10% most deprived areas, compared with those from the 10% least deprived areas. That should be reflected in the allocation of funding, but unfortunately such areas receive no additional money at all.
Kate Green
Two pressures could be highlighted. The first is the way that funding fails to take adequate account of deprivation. Secondly, there will inevitably be a hump at the time of transition, as new arrangements settle down and people adapt to the changing service configuration. When providing resources to Manchester royal infirmary or Wythenshawe, no account seems to have been taken of the effect of that transition and the likely need for additional resource to take those hospitals through that period. Indeed, in a private meeting with the Secretary of State, after the reconfiguration was announced, he confirmed that there would be no additional transitional funding. I could, however, look forward to additional funding to enable greater integration of services, although not until 2015-16. Furthermore, it would not be new funding, but funding that had been moved from the NHS to social care.
I am as strongly in support as anyone of seeing funding directed as much as possible to preventive care and care that can be provided at home in the community, but we cannot take services from hospitals before we put that care in place in the community. Such care is simply not adequate in Trafford today.
The other matter I want to raise was alluded to by the right hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow). There is utter confusion among patients about what services they should access and when. As soon as Trafford was downgraded to an urgent care centre, Trafford patients believed they could not go there. That was not the intention of NHS managers, but the impact was undoubtedly to drive more traffic to neighbouring A and E departments.
Mr Slaughter
My hon. Friend makes an important point. A and Es and anything we would recognise as such are being closed. They are turned into urgent care centres, which deal with minor injuries with GP cover at best. They are called second-tier A and E units, which is incredibly damaging, dangerous and confusing for people. It is done simply as a political fix, so that Tory councils and others can distribute leaflets saying, “There’s still an A and E on this site.”
Kate Green
Whatever the motivation—NHS managers in my area have tried to communicate the changes and how patients should respond to them—there is huge patient confusion about where they should go, what time they should go and what treatment they will receive. The right hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam referred to Sir Bruce Keogh’s report, which highlighted patient confusion. During periods of transition, confusion is heightened as people become used to new configurations. What lessons are being learned on how to communicate effectively with patients so they have proper understanding of what services are available and where they ought to go?
Massive problems are piling up over this winter period, when we might expect additional pressures—we see them every winter. There is a failure of local planning and ministerial engagement in ensuring that those transition processes work smoothly for patients in Trafford. I hope the Minister comments on how transitions will be handled in future. I venture to suggest that Trafford is, I fear, an early example of how not to do it. I look forward to his response.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. I am reducing the time limit to four minutes. It is possible for each of the remaining speakers to have four minutes only if interventions are severely curtailed or if they do not happen at all—let me put it that way. The wind-ups have to start at 3.30 pm at the absolute latest. Those who have been waiting patiently and who have not intervened have had their time cut. Perhaps they will bear that in mind when they are called.
Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), who attempted to make solid, practical suggestions in a debate that has too often become too politicised, as the debate on A and E did in June. I will refer to that later.
I represent a large constituency with a large rural population. Some people are 10, 15 or 20 miles away from the one A and E. To me, it sounds a little bit rich when hon. Members from urban areas talk about the A and Es in their part of town when no account of that distance or rurality was included in any grant formula by the previous Government. I wanted to put that on the record.
From my perspective and, I am sure, from that of all hon. Members, the majority of our constituents get a damn good service from hard-working professionals, who will work at Christmas time when the rest of us are on holiday. Having said that, hon. Members recognise that there has been a big growth in the number of people attending A and E. Those facts are clear. Opposition Members suggest that that happened last year or a few years ago. According to the Opposition motion, the increase has been
“three times faster since 2009-10”.
However, the College of Emergency Medicine report “The drive for quality” shows a sharp upward trend in new attendances at A and E, but its figures start from 2003.
That ties in with local information. I asked my A and E doctors at the Lancaster royal infirmary to give me figures for the past few years. They say that the number of new patients attending A and E decreased between 1989 and 1993 and steadied at about 35,000 admissions a year until 1999, when the number increased rapidly. The figures are clear. There were 35,000 A and E admissions in 1999; 36,000 in 2000; and 37,000 in 2001. There was an increase of 1,000 in every single year to 2007. Funnily enough, there was a 3,000 increase in A and E attendances from 2006 to 2007. The latest figures I have are for 2011, when there were 52,500 attendances. The increase did not happen yesterday but continually over that period, for all the reasons hon. Members have mentioned.
The other side of the problem is the training and retention of A and E specialists. We have all heard stories of vacancies in A and E departments. I understand that it was announced today that Wales is 15% down on A and E specialists. One reason for that is that working in A and E is hard, and there is evening and weekend work, so people move to other specialisms. To increase retention, we need to recognise the work of A and E specialists, which might include through salaries. We need to give A and E specialists the recognition they deserve to keep them in those posts.
The Labour motion mentions the 48-hour appointment guarantee. It is no use having an appointment within 48 hours if it lasts for only five minutes before the doctor moves the patient out just to meet the target, which is what happened in the past.
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
Hon. Members will remember that when the Prime Minister wanted to detoxify the Tory brand, he said that he could spell out his priorities in three letters—NHS—but people in Chesterfield have seen through that cruel joke. Opinion polls show us that the importance of the national health service is going up as the Government’s record is so terribly exposed.
I did a survey across Chesterfield this summer and spoke to people about a range of issues, as I did back in 2009. Back then, satisfaction with the NHS was clear, but now 37% say that GP services have got worse, and just 12% say they have got better. Only 8% say that they think the NHS has got better since 2010; almost 50% think it is getting worse.
I want to focus on the part of the motion that deals with the difficulty of accessing GP services, which is one of the primary causes of those figures. Some 42% of people who appear in A and E have previously attempted to contact GP services. Hon. Members might remember my raising the case of Jemma Hill on 22 October with the Secretary of State. Her GP referred her to a specialist, who recommended hip arthroscopy surgery. She was then told that her clinical commissioning group would not fund the surgery. The Secretary of State promised to look into the matter if I wrote to him. I wrote to him on 23 October but still there is no response. Jemma Hill is still in agony. She sees a fragmented national health service leaving her behind.
The problems in the NHS, and in GP services in particular, are acute in the Staveley area. A recent Care Quality Commission report found that the Rectory Road and Grange health centres failed on five different criteria. I surveyed almost every house in Middlecroft and Inkersall, which are parts of Staveley, and had hundreds of responses. Eighty-six per cent. said that services were unsatisfactory or very poor.
I have here some of the comments of the people who responded. One says, “I don’t bother going to the doctors anymore. I could never get an appointment. I simply self-diagnose on Google.” Someone else said that they are entirely dependent on locums, meaning that when their scans or results come back, the GP is not there. One patient said that a GP broke down in tears in front of them. Another patient said that no one had contacted them after their blood test results. In fact, they should have been urgently sent to hospital—subsequently, they discovered they had cancer.
One person said that they waited eight weeks for a GP appointment. When they eventually got one, they were told that they had a hernia and were sent straight to hospital. Another person waited two weeks for an appointment for a repeat prescription, meaning that they did not have their prescription for more than a week. One 90-year-old said that they had to get a taxi to the surgery and had to queue outside at 8 o’clock in the morning.
I met a partner at that GP surgery and we discussed how it is desperately struggling to recruit people. There is a widespread GP recruitment crisis. I was told that a huge number of GPs have retired, either because they are disillusioned or simply because they want to get out of the service. Forty-three per cent. of GPs told a Pulse survey that they will retire earlier than they had intended because of how disillusioned they are.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) spoke about the massive impact the Government’s cuts to care services have had on A and E, but there is also a huge crisis in general practice. The people of Staveley, and people across the country, do not have proper access to a GP service. The problem is getting worse and it is exacerbating the problem in A and E. The people suffering are not only the brave heroes who work so hard in the national health service, but those in the most deprived communities in our constituencies. It is a disgrace.
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
My expectations for this debate were low, having previously endured shouting matches between the former Labour Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), and the current Secretary of State, with the usual antics of carefully selected and spun statistics thrown at each other. Those expectations were not disappointed. This issue is not helped by being dragged into the gutter of partisan politics. The fact is that the A and E crisis—if there is indeed an A and E crisis—has existed and has been endemic in the NHS before and after 2010. This is largely the result of A and E being seen as an issue that somehow needs to be treated separately and not part of an integrated NHS. Before 2010, there were ambulances queuing outside the A and E in my constituency and in the Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust in Truro. The problem exists. From time to time, there will be those kinds of pressures, which are created by a whole set of things that are not entirely the fault of a failing A and E service.
One aspect of unscheduled care in Cornwall that I raised with the former Secretary of State is the out-of-hours GP service. The previous Labour Government were perfectly happy to see that service put out to tender and privatised, and we saw a fragmented unscheduled care service. I reported the Serco out-of-hours GP service to the CQC, because it was simply putting profit before patients by manipulating statistics to make the outcomes appear better than they were. It was announced last week that Serco will be handing that contract back early. I hope that that will result in an integration of unscheduled out-of-hours care, as that is the kind of thing we need to do. This is not an issue that should be subject to party political point scoring, because that completely misses the target.
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman sat on the Select Committee with me. He must surely accept that there was a top-down reorganisation that nobody wanted and that cost the NHS £3 billion.
Andrew George
Yes, and the previous Labour Government were involved in multiple top-down reorganisations of the NHS. The hon. Lady knows that I opposed that top-down reorganisation; I voted against the Health and Social Care Bill.
We could just bemoan the things that are going wrong, but I want, in two minutes, at least to lay on the table my prescription for what needs to be put right. The two themes have to be integration and prevention. My intervention on my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow) spelled out the theme of integration. Unscheduled care includes not only A and E, but minor injuries units, urgent care services, the 111 service, the ambulance service, the out-of-hours GP service, GP surgeries themselves, and, indeed, GP walk-in centres, which the previous Government created. Significant confusion is created about where the general public are supposed to take themselves if they have an urgent need for medical attention. We really need to find ways to integrate those unscheduled services in a way that does not result in the fragmentation that bedevils the service at present.
On prevention, often in acute hospitals planned work cannot go ahead because patients cannot be discharged from hospital and other patients cannot be admitted because there are insufficient beds. The health service is not integrated, because there are insufficient community beds and the primary care service is struggling and stretched to the limit, unable to provide the kind of care for people in their homes and community hospitals that would avoid them ending up in hospital as emergency cases. Those are the two themes: further integration of the service, which is not helped by the Health and Social Care Act 2012, and significant investment in preventive care and primary care.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
We know that rising demand is concentrated in those aged over 85. Cuts in social care budgets are now widely acknowledged as contributory factors in rising admissions, and the Select Committee’s inquiry heard that from witnesses again and again.
Salford city council has made cuts of 20% to its adult social care budget since 2010, given the cuts it has had from the Government. This year, the city council is changing its eligibility from moderate to substantial, and social care staff estimate that the number of people receiving council-funded care will fall this year by 1,000, from 8,500 to 7,500. That is a very big change to happen in one year.
Cuts already made to the NHS locally have also had an impact. We have seen the closure of two walk-in centres, including one in Little Hulton, a deprived area in my constituency that was under-doctored. The walk-in centre was popular and successful. The Minister’s predecessor will have heard my plea about this again and again. The local primary care trust, when we had one, axed the pilot of an active case management scheme for people with long-term conditions. Those things were done under the umbrella of NHS efficiency savings, but they achieve the opposite. More older people will not be receiving council-funded care, and that will have an impact on family carers. We have no walk-in centres and no active case management for people with long-term conditions.
I want to refer briefly to the Carers UK survey of 3,500 carers conducted earlier this year. Some 55% were caring for people who had been admitted to hospital emergency services, with a significant proportion of those carers referring to support that could have prevented those emergency admissions. We have seen exactly the same message in the CQC state of care report.
I want to take this opportunity to congratulate Salford Royal hospital on its excellent inspection report from the CQC. The hospital was found to demonstrate exceptional leadership qualities at all levels across its staff, but even excellent hospitals such as Salford Royal are now feeling the strain of extra emergency admissions. The chief executive told me that in the winter quarter last year it had 10% more ambulance arrivals, patients were sicker, there was an increase in people staying longer than 72 hours, and there was a significant increase in co-morbidity among the patients. And all that happened before the cuts and loss of council funding of care to 1,000 patients this winter.
I want to touch briefly on the shortage of emergency doctors, which the College of Emergency Medicine has been warning about since 2010. That situation is not going to improve. The fill rate of higher trainee posts has been running at 40% or less since 2010. The latest recruitment round for ST4 trainees filled 37 posts out of 193 vacancies. There is some talk today of increasing the number of vacancies for emergency medicine trainees, but people are voting with their feet. The career pressures in A and E are just too great, and they are putting people off having careers in emergency medicine.
In conclusion, £2.68 billion has been cut from adult social care since 2010. We are seeing the cuts in our budgets in Salford, and 1,000 people will lose care. That will put pressure on their health and that of their families. The Secretary of State briefly mentioned the integration transformation fund, but there is no new money in that fund—none at all. Health Ministers need to think again about the impact that cuts in social care are having on the NHS. Pooling budgets with the same amount of money in the integration fund will not help. They need to deal with the crisis in A and E staffing and try to make it a career that people want to go into. As the motion states, they need to restore the 48-hour appointment guarantee. I support the motion.
Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)
As a jockey, I spent far too much time in A and E departments after coming off race horses. Once, I wandered into Leicester hospital with a broken collarbone and four bones sticking out of my shoulder. On another occasion, I spent a long time with a cut kidney and lost a spleen at Warwick hospital—I thank Dr Mike Stellakis and his team for saving my life that night. Also, two years ago, I collapsed in the House and spent a night in St Thomas’ with a young but capable bunch of A and E doctors. I thank them all and put on the record this Christmas the huge effort made by all our public sector staff, particularly in the NHS.
In Northumberland, we feel that we are leading the way in health care provision. Begun under the previous Government, that has continued under this one. Haltwhistle is a small cottage hospital that in the olden days would have been shut, but which now is being rebuilt as an integrated NHS and local authority facility. It is the first of its kind in the country, it is utterly transformative and it is exactly what the NHS and the local authority should be doing with old buildings, although I urge the trust to resolve the contracts that are not yet resolved. When I visited it last week, however, I saw that it was a truly innovative building and that it would be a great addition.
Hexham A and E is also a fantastic building. This November, I worked there as a hospital porter, and I thank Barry, the head porter, who has worked there 31 years, for keeping me in line and ensuring I did not put anything in the wrong place. Then there is Cramlington, an innovative, pre-Keogh assessment health care centre being built for the north-east. It is a perfect example of where we should be going: a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week, consultant-led facility. As an A and E specialist care facility, it is exactly what Keogh is talking about. Interestingly, it was planned under the previous Government and is being brought forward under this one. It is exactly the direction we should be heading in.
I shall deal briefly with another issue. Northumbria has outstanding health care, but sadly North Cumbria is having some difficulties, and I urge the Secretary of State to expedite the merger of Northumbria and North Cumbria NHS trusts as soon as possible.
I turn now to ways we can keep our constituents and patients out of A and E. I have no spleen—it was kicked out of me by a three-mile chaser at Stratford—so every year I need the flu jab. Consequently, like pensioners, some young children and vulnerable adults, I went to get my flu jab last month at Haltwhistle GP centre. I thank Sarah Speed—it was not painful and took only five minutes. Tragically, however, at least 10% to 20% of the population do not take up the flu jab and are therefore likely to end up in A and E over the winter or possibly die. As constituency MPs, we must ram home their failure to take up the opportunity to deal with their own health care.
Finally, I turn to the hospice and dementia care systems in Northumberland. In the Charlotte Straker hospice and Tynedale Hospice at Home, we have two outstanding hospices, both of which I have assisted and one of which I have fundraised for. Both do a great job keeping people out of hospital. I should also mention the Age UK programme dealing with elderly people in my constituency. It is making a huge difference and ensuring that everyone becomes a dementia friend. Only through such actions will we bring about real change in our health care system.
Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
I wish to discuss two topics. First, I want to raise the issue of funding for the North East Ambulance Service NHS trust, the rising use and cost of private ambulances and other ambulance pressures, and, secondly, I want to raise with the Minister the ongoing Monitor investigations into the two foundation trusts, that serve my constituents, the South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and the Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust.
Over the past 18 months, the A and E department at the James Cook university hospital, which serves my constituency, has come under considerable pressure. In particular, in the run-up to last winter, there were problems with handover times, with ambulances and paramedics waiting up to two and a half hours to admit patients, despite the national target time being 15 minutes. I raised this matter last year with the Secretary of State for Health, who agreed that the situation was completely unacceptable, and with the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter),in a Westminster Hall debate on A and E provision in the north-east on 13 February 2013.
In addition to the issues I raised with the Secretary of State, it became evident that James Cook’s A and E department struggled to manage with the pressure that winter placed on it. In January and February, South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust failed to meet its target of seeing 95% of A and E patients within four hours. With James Cook so clearly overstretched, I was surprised to discover in September that the Secretary of State decided not to award it, or any other hospital trust in the north-east, funding to alleviate pressures on A and E. It struck me as beyond belief that of the £250 million he awarded to 53 trusts, not a penny was to reach the north-east. Thankfully, following pressure from the Opposition, including in my Westminster Hall debate on north-east NHS services on 5 November, the South Tees trust is to receive £2.1 million, as announced earlier this month.
For weeks and weeks, however, I have received recurrent expressions of concern about the increasing use of private and voluntary ambulances in response to 999 calls in my constituency. I wrote to the North East ambulance service about two of these incidents. From its reply, it became clear that central Government funding cuts were eroding the blue-light service. It wrote:
“Each year we have discussions with our commissioners on the forecast number of incidents in the forthcoming year. The outcomes of these discussions for 2013-14 were that commissioners felt it necessary to set our income on activity for the next 12 months at a level less than we were forecasting... So for 2013-14, we have been contracted to respond to 376,000 incidents, although we are forecasting activity at an estimated 415,000. This means that any incidents above 376,000 will be funded on a one-off basis rather than as recurrent annual income. These arrangements do not allow us to enhance our own workforce plan because the money for the additional activity will not be available next year to fund the extra salaries”.
Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)
Is there not an element almost of secrecy taking over the NHS, with trusts not allowed to talk to MPs or tell them the facts and trusts’ financial details not being published? Does my hon. Friend agree that that is not healthy for the NHS?
Tom Blenkinsop
For that reason, I had to put in a freedom of information request to the trust to get the information I shall now detail.
According to that letter, our ambulance service will see more cuts, more private ambulances and possibly a less responsive service. It is not me saying this, but the chief operating officer of the North East Ambulance Service. In 2008-09, private ambulances attended 865 call-outs in our region, costing £86,118. In 2009-10, there were 1,816 call-outs, costing £151,112. In 2010-11, however, there were 6,429 such call-outs, costing £477,575. In 2011-12, there were 9,034 of these call-outs, costing £639,819, and in 2012-13, there were 13,524 call-outs of private and voluntary ambulances, costing £754,461. Since Labour left office, therefore, a fivefold cost increase in private ambulances has occurred in the north-east—these are funds going to private contract firms. It is obvious that from 2010 onwards an explosion of private ambulance usage by the trust has occurred, costing a huge amount of taxpayer funds. As the chief executive states:
“These arrangements do not allow us to enhance our own workforce plan because the money for the additional activity will not be available next year to fund the extra salaries, overheads and vehicles we need to meet the extra demand.”
The police and crime commissioner for Cleveland, Barry Coppinger, has said:
“The bottom line is that police officers are not medical professionals and should not be put in the position of having to transport patients to hospital. Police vehicles are unsuitable and unequipped; it not only puts undue stress on the patient, but also the officer who should be able to continue to fulfil policing duties on the ground… The downward trend in incidents from September to October relates to a policy change by senior officers”—
not the NHS—
“within the Force and a directive issued that officers should not transport patients to hospital unless there is an immediate risk to life. However, there have been five occasions in November of officers being forced to take patients for urgent medical treatment due to ambulance delays.”
I hope for a response from the Secretary of State or a Health Minister. I would be more than willing to talk to them about this subject, because it is a massive concern, particularly in the east Cleveland part of my constituency.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
There is doubtless concern on both sides of the House about A and E and the health service in general, but there is also more than an ounce of political opportunism, some of which we have heard today. Not once did we hear any reference made to the Nicholson savings, which have put local acute hospital trusts under huge pressure, with £160 million taken out of the budget for the Humber area alone.
If we talk to the chief executives of the hospitals, we find that they say that it is not top-down reconfigurations or policy changes since the general election that have placed them under such pressure, but the Nicholson savings. I know that there is cross-party support for those savings, but we should all be as honest as possible in this place and ensure that we all accept a degree of responsibility for that challenge and the funding that it has taken out of our acute trusts, resulting in pressure on A and E departments—not just this year, but last year and in future years.
As I say, there is a huge degree of political opportunism going on about the NHS. It is clear that the Labour party has decided that this is going to be an issue at the general election. In my own constituency, the very people who stood silent when our hospital was losing its beds, when we were losing our hospital wards, when all our mental health beds were being taken away from us—these were the people who represented the town for the Labour party—now suddenly find themselves standing up and pretending to be NHS campaigners. The public see through it—and I am sure they will at the next election, too.
Similarly, we have heard not a single apology from any Labour Member about the 50,000 beds cut under their Government. We have heard a lot about how people turning up at hospital often find that there are not enough beds, but not once did a Labour Member defend the 50,000 hospital beds lost when their party was in government. That tells us all we need to know about the reason for this debate and for the general comments we have heard about the NHS recently. It is all about political opportunism; it is about the next election. I am sorry that our hard-working staff in the NHS—I work with them every weekend when I volunteer as a community first responder—are being placed in the middle of a dirty political game.
In my remaining minute and a half, I would like to talk about a couple of examples from my constituency that are helping to address the problem.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
Does the hon. Gentleman have the same problem in his area as we have in Stockton-on-Tees, where GPs tell me that people are being denied registration because their lists are unofficially being closed? If that is happening across the country, surely it is no wonder that there is unprecedented pressure on A and E departments.
Andrew Percy
The Montague medical centre in Goole had to close its lists down, but if we ask why, we find that it was due to the large uncontrolled immigration we had from the A8 countries. [Interruption.] That is a fact. That is why the lists had to be closed—due to the previous Government’s failure to plan for the number of people coming here—so I thank the hon. Gentleman for that helpful intervention.
Let me deal with a couple of issues in my own constituency. [Interruption.] If Labour Members want to intervene, I am happy to take an intervention rather than be chuntered at. I want to refer to some positive moves locally, which I hope can be rolled out nationally.
First, I called on the NHS ambulance trust in my area to provide advanced paramedics, so that we could use our ambulance service better—a point I have made through the Health Committee—not just to convey people, but to treat them in their homes. We established an emergency care practitioner in Goole, which in the first six to eight weeks saved 56 double-crew manned hours and numerous transfers to Scunthorpe A and E. That has proved to be an effective use of our ambulance services, and I hope that we can start to see it moving through. [Interruption.] Am I running out of time? I am just looking at the clock, Madam Deputy Speaker, and following the time indicated there. I will conclude if the Front Benchers need to sum up—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. The hon. Member is quite right in his watching of the clock, but I am sure that he will have a mind to other hon. Members who wish to speak this afternoon.
Andrew Percy
Because it is Christmas, I am willing to forgo my remaining minute.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
We have had a good debate, with many powerful contributions from my hon. Friends the Members for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh),for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), for Eltham (Clive Efford), for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins), for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) and for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop).
I have to say, however, that people outside listening to some Government Members’ contributions will think that they simply do not get it. They simply do not understand how hard it is to get a GP appointment; they do not understand the real issues facing their own local A and E departments; and they do not understand the pressures hitting the NHS in England. I politely suggest that they do what the shadow Health team has done—go and spend an evening at their local A and E to see for themselves the real pressures that departments serving their constituents are under.
It would be remiss of me not to place on record my own tribute to the doctors, nurses, health care assistants and other dedicated NHS staff who—as I found out myself when I visited Tameside hospital’s A and E department last Friday night—provide such extraordinary and professional care. We have a work force who are completely dedicated and caring, but the House should be in absolutely no doubt that they are under increasing pressure, and that this is a crisis of the Secretary of State’s making. The Secretary of State may wish that Labour Members had short memories, but we remember the summer news reports of ambulances queuing outside hospitals with unacceptably long waits, and some people even having to be treated in tents erected in car parks, while the Secretary of State and his Ministers buried their heads in the sand and the Secretary of State’s “Crisis, what crisis?” strategy unravelled. Labour Members highlighted those problems, as would have been expected of us.
What we are seeing in A and E is also the culmination of three and a half years of mismanagement of our NHS, with a needless top-down reorganisation and the waste of billions of pounds that could and should have been spent on front-line care. It is little wonder that, as we discovered last week, 79 A and E departments missed the Government’s own targets.
As we have heard in the debate, the reasons for the crisis are many and complicated, but it is on the lack of access to GPs’ services that we have focused today. Surely no amount of spin can hide the fact that this Government have made it harder to obtain an appointment to see a GP. All Members will know of constituents who have had to phone their doctors only to be told that no appointments are available and that they should ring back the next day, which they do, only to experience the same problem again.
Is it not obvious to all—except, seemingly, the Secretary of State and his Ministers—that many patients who phone the surgery at 9 am and find it impossible to obtain an appointment will turn to A and E for help? That is not just my conclusion. According to an analysis carried out for the Department of Health, 42% of A and E attenders had attempted to contact their GPs beforehand, and researchers at Imperial College London found that patients who were able to see their GPs within 48 hours made fewer visits to A and E departments.
Here are some inconvenient truths that the Minister and other Government Members need to consider. First, by the time Labour left office, 98% of patients were being seen within four hours at A and E departments. Secondly, by May 2010 more than three quarters of the general practices in England offered extended opening hours at weekends and in the evenings. It is also clear that Labour’s achievement in widening access to primary care is being undone on this Government’s watch: data released by the Health and Social Care Information Centre have revealed that 854 fewer general practices now offer extended opening hours than was the case in 2009.
The truth is that now, during evenings and at weekends, many people are left with no alternative but to go to A and E because of this Government’s actions. It was this Government who cut funding for extended opening hours for GPs’ surgeries, it was this Government who scrapped Labour’s guarantee that patients would be able to obtain an appointment with a GP within 48 hours, and it is this Secretary of State who shows not one degree of regret for those actions: actions that have piled more unnecessary pressure on A and E departments and more misery on patients, at the very time when they need the NHS to help them.
No wonder things are going so wrong so quickly. To put it simply, under this Secretary of State and under this Prime Minister, it has become harder, not easier, to see a doctor, and as a result more people are heading towards A and E. What more evidence do Ministers need that A and E departments in England are under real pressure and that action is needed now to prevent them from struggling further over the winter months? Their confusion has been laid bare today for all to see. In three weeks, they have gone from “Crisis, what crisis?” to “The crisis is behind us.” It does not sound as though the Secretary of State is in control; people will struggle to take reassurance from his mixed messages. The problems in A and E have the fingerprints of the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister all over them. The components of the A and E crisis might be complex, but the real cause is very simple: you just cannot trust the Tories with the national health service.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Norman Lamb)
We have heard a lot of scaremongering about the NHS today, including endless claims about a crisis. If the Opposition are thinking about new year’s resolutions, I have one for them: stop misleading and misinforming the public. Let us look at the evidence.
Norman Lamb
I will not give way; I do not have time.
Up until this week, A and E targets were met in the past 32 weeks in a row. Is that evidence of a crisis? The average wait for people in A and E during Labour’s last year was 77 minutes; it is now 30 minutes. Is that evidence of a crisis? Even though more people are coming through the doors, 2,000 more patients are being seen in less than four hours every day under this Government than under Labour. Evidence of a crisis? I don’t think so. The Opposition are scaremongering, plain and simple. In fact, the College of Emergency Medicine’s president, Cliff Mann, has today said that any crisis in accident and emergency is “behind us”.
Andy Sawford (Corby) (Lab/Co-op)
May I associate myself with the remarks made by the hon. Members for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) and for Wellingborough (Mr Bone)? We are pressing for funding to meet the additional demand in the Kettering accident and emergency department. Will the Minister encourage us in that?
Norman Lamb
I applaud the cross-party effort of those Members campaigning for their community, and I am very happy to engage with them further on that matter.
Norman Lamb
I will not give way again; I do not have time.
Last year, of the 21.7 million people who visited accident and emergency departments, almost 96% were admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours. Target achieved. So far, it is the same this year: target achieved. The right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) missed his A and E target in two of the three quarters when he was in charge. Did he go around telling everyone that there was a crisis at that time? No, of course he did not—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. The Minister is not giving way. He has limited time, and we will hear him.
Norman Lamb
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
The then Secretary of State, now the shadow Secretary of State, missed the target in this very week when he was in charge. We know that the winter is tough, and that performance always dips at this time of year. We also know that the staff are under a lot of pressure. The truth is that we inherited a dysfunctional system that was crying out for reform, with too many people ending up in hospital because of crises in their care, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee) made clear. For years, I have argued the case for a different approach.
We are supporting the NHS to enable it to manage better in the short term. For this winter, we are investing an additional £400 million in total—more than ever before. In the longer term, we need to look afresh at how we organise urgent care. That is why Bruce Keogh’s report into urgent and emergency care is so important, and I hope that the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) will accept the case for a clinically led review in order to achieve the right approach. We will work closely alongside NHS England in putting these reforms into practice. The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) was absolutely right to say that we have to communicate better with the public and ensure that the process is a good one.
In the longer term, we need to do more to prevent people from ending up in hospital as a result of avoidable crises. As my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George) said, we need to make two big shifts. The first involves a move to a much greater focus on preventing ill health and the deterioration of health. The second involves a shift from a fragmented system to one that is integrated and joined up. That is the approach that we must follow.
Integrated pioneers around the country, such as those in south Devon and Torbay, Greenwich and Labour-led Barnsley, are doing great work, joining up care, collaborating with the voluntary sector, providing better care and keeping people out of hospital. That is the vision of the health service for the future. These pioneers will help the rest of the country to make the best possible use of the £3.8 billion better care fund. The fund will encourage organisations: to act earlier to prevent people from reaching crisis point; to offer seven-day services; and to deliver care that is centred on people’s needs. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow) for welcoming that important new fund. We are also introducing named, accountable GPs for the over-75s and improving access to general practice.
We are addressing both the short-term and long-term challenges, giving the NHS the support it needs. I want genuinely to thank the excellent staff throughout our health and care services who are tackling these issues head-on. The measures and changes we have outlined today will support staff to deliver the best possible care, even in the most difficult of circumstances.
Question put.
The House proceeded to a Division.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
I ask the Serjeant at Arms to investigate the delay in the No Lobby.
Food Banks
(11 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
18:59 - The House divided: - Ayes: 251 / Noes: 294 - Question accordingly negatived.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
It will be obvious to the House that a great many Members have indicated that they wish to speak in this debate. It will also be obvious that the time available is very limited. I will therefore have to impose an initial time limit of four minutes on Back-Bench speeches, but I must—[Interruption.] Order. I must warn hon. Members that if everybody takes four minutes, plus the time allowed for interventions, only about a third of those who wish to speak will be able to do so. One would hope that Members, out of consideration for others, might take less than four minutes where at all possible.
Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House notes that the number of people using foodbanks provided by the Trussell Trust alone has increased from 41,000 in 2010 to more than 500,000 since April this year, of whom one third were children; further notes that over the last three years prices have risen faster than wages; further notes the assessment of the Trussell Trust that the key factors in the rising resort to foodbanks are rising living costs and stagnant wages, as well as problems including delays to social security payments and the impact of the under-occupancy penalty; calls on the Government to publish the results of research into foodbanks commissioned by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs which Ministers promised would be made public in the summer of 2013; and further calls on the Government to bring forward measures to reduce dependency on foodbanks, including a freeze on energy prices, a water affordability scheme, measures to end abuses of zero hours contracts, incentives to companies to pay a living wage and abolition of the under-occupancy penalty.
I welcome the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey), who has been put up to speak for the Government in this debate. Despite Ministers repeatedly stressing that
“food banks are absolutely not part of our welfare system”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 2 July 2013; Vol. 746, c. 1071.]
it is regrettable that the Department with lead responsibility for food in our country, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, has not felt it appropriate to provide a Minister either to open or to close the debate.
Is there a more damning indictment of this Government’s record than the number of people who now rely on food aid in this country? Since April this year, over half a million people have relied on assistance from the 400 food banks run by the Trussell Trust, which is double the number of food banks compared with this time last year.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
I am hugely grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way. Why did her Government refuse to allow jobcentres to give out food bank vouchers? It was this Government who changed that. May I also—[Interruption.]
Robert Halfon
May I also mention to the hon. Lady—[Interruption.] They do not want to hear the truth, Madam Deputy Speaker. Why is it—
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman should make a brief intervention, but it must be heard by the House. He may now make his intervention, but briefly.
Robert Halfon
Why has there been a huge rise in the number of food banks in Germany and France, and across Europe? In France, one in 88 people are fed by food banks, yet in the United Kingdom the figure is one in 181.
Maria Eagle
The hon. Gentleman first asked me why the previous Government did not refer people who needed assistance to food banks. In a parliamentary answer in September, his own Government said that Jobcentre Plus only signposts people to food banks and does not refer people to them or issue vouchers, so there is no difference whatever.
Maria Eagle
No. Let me make it clear that I will not take many interventions because of the number—[Interruption.] I am seeking to give hon. Members in all parts of the House a chance to get into the debate, and it will not help if I take three quarters of an hour to open it.
Mr George Howarth
As a fellow Knowsley MP, does my hon. Friend agree that it is a disgrace that, from April to 13 November, 756 children and 1,424 adults were referred to food banks with vouchers? We congratulate the agencies involved in doing that work, but is it not absolutely disgraceful that this is what we are reduced to?
Maria Eagle
I agree. My right hon. Friend and I share food bank provision in our constituencies, so I know that to be true.
Since April this year, over half a million people have already relied on assistance from the 400 food banks run by the Trussell Trust charity—that is double the number of food banks compared with this time last year. Of those half a million people, one third are children. In Britain, the seventh richest country on the planet, in the 21st century, it is a scandal, and it is getting worse. More people have been going to food banks in the past nine months than in the whole of last year. Half a million people have gone to food banks compared with 26,000 before the last general election.
Maria Eagle
I will give way to the hon. Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth).
Sir Gerald Howarth
I am most grateful to the hon. Lady. She seems to be placing responsibility for all this at the door of the coalition Government. Is she aware that the excellent food bank in Farnborough was established in 2009 as the 49th Trussell Trust food bank? Does not that illustrate that it was the destruction of the public finances by her party in government that has been responsible for the disaster that is affecting this country?
Maria Eagle
I agree that some food banks were established before the last election, but 400 have now been established by the Trussell Trust, rather than 49. By the time we left office, 40,000 people were visiting food banks, a tenfold increase on the 4,000 at the start—
Maria Eagle
No.
There are now half a million people visiting food banks—an exponentially larger figure. It is right that this House seeks to find out the real cause of that increase. It is a scandal that is getting worse. The Government now have the humiliation of the Red Cross helping to collect and distribute food aid in Britain for the first time since the second world war.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way; she is under a lot of pressure. I want to inform her and the House that not only are people depending on food banks, but poor people in Slough are now fighting each other in the local Tesco when discount vegetables and fruit come out. A constituent texted me yesterday to say that he observed such fights on three separate occasions and that Tesco now has to put on security to deal with the issue. Is that not shocking in the 21st century?
Maria Eagle
That is shocking. I hope that right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House will appreciate that I want to leave the longest possible time for them to be able to highlight such experiences in this debate, so I will not take further interventions.
Although the rise of food banks is not something that anyone can be proud of, the huge volunteering effort to keep them going is something we should be very proud of. Communities are coming together in outrage and in sorrow at the growing poverty and hardship they see around them. Whether they are organised by churches, voluntary organisations or individuals, people have refused to stand by and watch their neighbours go without food. More than 30,000 volunteers are now giving their time. Others have donated, including more than 3,400 tonnes of food last year.
The rise of reliance on food banks has angered people around the country. That is why more than 141,000 people have signed the Daily Mirror petition demanding this debate—a debate the Government could have held in their own parliamentary time, but chose not to.
Let us be clear about who is now relying on food aid in this country. Although in the past it may well have been those who were homeless, or at least those without an income, that is increasingly not the case. In fact, just 4% of people turn to food banks due to homelessness, while 19% of referrals have been as a result of the Government’s changes to welfare and more than a third are down to the incompetence that has led to delays in payments to which people are legitimately entitled.
Maria Eagle
I have made clear that I am not giving way, because I want to maximise the amount of time available to others to get into this over-subscribed debate.
The majority of people turning to food banks are working-age families. Nearly a fifth are in work, but they are still struggling to get through the month. As the Trussell Trust’s executive chairman, Chris Moulds, said
“2012-13 was much tougher for people than many anticipated. Incomes are being squeezed to breaking point. We’re seeing people from all kinds of backgrounds turning to foodbanks: working people coming in on their lunch-breaks, mums who are going hungry to feed their children, people whose benefits have been delayed and people who are struggling to find enough work. It’s shocking that people are going hungry in 21st century Britain.”
He is right.
The Government have tried to claim that the growth in food banks is a case of supply and demand. Lord Freud, the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, suggested that the rise was down to people seeking out food because it was free. He said:
“by definition there is an almost infinite demand for a free good.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 2 July 2013; Vol. 746, c. 1072.]
Yet everyone who receives food from a food bank is referred there by a front-line organisation and, therefore, verified as being in a crisis situation.
Maria Eagle
No.
To suggest that people can just arrive at a food bank asking for free food shows how out of touch Ministers are with the way food banks work. [Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. I cannot hear the shadow Minister, but she is speaking perfectly clearly. There is too much noise in the Chamber. Members should have the courtesy to listen to the hon. Lady moving the motion.
Andrew Selous
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I believe that the hon. Lady may have inadvertently misled the House by saying benefit delay was rising when it is actually falling by 6%.
Madam Deputy Speaker
The hon. Gentleman knows that that is a matter for debate, and I have no doubt that he will be able to put that point later in the debate. The more time we spend on points of order and on me quietening people down, the less time there will be for Members to make the points they wish to make.
Maria Eagle
To suggest that people can just arrive at a food bank asking for free food shows just how out of touch Ministers are with the way food banks work. The Trussell Trust is very clear: over 50% of referral agents are statutory agencies, and referrers include doctors, social workers, school liaison officers and citizens advice bureaux advisers. These professionals make sure that people turning to food banks are in genuine crisis.
People are using food banks not out of choice, but out of necessity, yet Ministers still refuse to listen. The Education Secretary has claimed that people are turning to food banks because
“they are not best able to manage their finances.”—[Official Report, 9 September 2013; Vol. 567, c. 681.]
How insulting, patronising and out of touch is that comment.
There is a very straightforward way for Ministers to clear up any doubt about the reasons for the increase in reliance on food aid: they can finally publish the official report into the growth of food banks, which was delivered to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in June. That report has now been sat on by Ministers for six months, longer than it took to produce. In April, the then Minister of State at DEFRA, the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath), said:
“The conclusions of this work will be available in the summer and published on the Government's website.”—[Official Report, 23 April 2013; Vol. 561, c. 821W.]
Now Ministers say the report is still being subjected to
“an appropriate review and quality assurance process.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 26 November 2013; Vol. 749, c. 1293.]
I bet it is. It is very clear that the Government are determined to hide the true scale of the growth of food banks. They are right to be embarrassed by the truth, but they should come clean, so I say to the Minister today that she should finally force her fellow Ministers in DEFRA to publish this report.
Even without the Government’s hidden report, the reasons for the rise in food bank use is clear: it is the cost of living crisis facing householders up and down the country; it is because even as we finally see some growth in parts of the economy after three years of failure, that growth is not being shared fairly. Last week’s Office for National Statistics figures were clear: average earnings have risen by less than the rate of inflation for the fifth year running. Figures published alongside the autumn statement showed that real wages will have fallen by 5.8% by the end of this Parliament. Under this Government, we have seen the longest period of falling real wage values since records began, and the consequence is that working people are £1,600 a year worse off under this Government.
Maria Eagle
No.
The number of those paid less than a living wage is up by 1.4 million since 2009, to 4.8 million workers in the UK last year—[Interruption.] No, I have been very clear that I am not giving way again in this debate. [Interruption.] As pay packets shrink in real terms, prices continue to rise, and they rise faster than wages. That has happened for 41 of the—[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. I do not understand why there are conversations going on all around the Chamber. [Interruption.] I can see where they are taking place. If Members are here to take part in the debate, they must listen to the hon. Lady who is proposing the motion.
Maria Eagle
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
As pay packets shrink in real terms, prices continue to rise, and they are rising faster than wages. They have done that for 41 of the 42 months that this Prime Minister has been in Downing street.
Maria Eagle
No, I will not give way.
Let us just take the weekly shop. It is the essentials that have gone up in price the most—food required for a balanced diet. Fruit: up 11.3%. Vegetables: up 6.9%. Meat: up 5.2%. Bread and cereals: up 4.3%—all up by more than inflation. We know from DEFRA’s own annual family food statistics, published last week, that families on the lowest incomes spent 22% more on food in 2012 than five years ago. Those families were already spending the largest share of their income on food. The consequence is that families have been forced to trade down, with a third switching to economy brands. A quarter of those on low incomes are now buying less fresh fruit, with one in five families buying fewer fresh vegetables, which means poorer nutrition for many children.
Not only food prices but household bills have added to the cost of living crisis. Energy bills are up almost £300 for families since the election, while company profits have gone from £2 billion to £3.7 billion. More than 2 million homes in England and Wales, including more than half a million families with children, have been forced to spend more than 5% of their household income on the cost of water. Yet the regional water companies have made £1.9 billion in pre-tax profits, and paid out £1.8 billion to shareholders.
Maria Eagle
I have made it clear why I am not giving way.
For those with children, the rising cost of child care is making it harder and harder to take on work. The cost of nursery places is rising five times faster than pay, while there are 35,000 fewer child care places and 576 fewer Sure Start centres. Most perniciously of all, the Government’s bedroom tax has increased the pressure on 660,000 people, including more than 400,000 disabled people, yet the vast majority do not have a smaller place to move to. The average family affected is now losing £720 a year.
This debate is a vital opportunity for the House to acknowledge the rising reliance on food aid in our country. We ensured that it took place, because the Government were never likely to do so. They will not even publish their own—clearly damning—research into why the rise in food bank usage is so high. Since April, just one charity’s network of food banks has helped half a million people, a third of whom were children. The reasons for that are clear: the rising cost of living, caused by rising prices that have outstripped falling and stagnant wages; the Government’s unwillingness to stand up to vested interests in the energy and water companies; their unwillingness to take action on the lack of available hours for part-time workers, the rise of zero-hours contracts and poverty pay; incompetent welfare reforms and delays in making payments; and the bedroom tax.
Britain can do better than this. We need a long-term plan to tackle the cost of living crisis and reduce dependency on food banks, including a freeze on energy prices while we reset the market, a water affordability scheme and tough new powers for Ofwat to cut bills, measures to end the abuses of zero-hours contracts, Make Work Pay contracts that reduce company’s tax bills to incentivise them to pay a living wage, an expansion of free child care for three and four-year-olds from 15 hours to 25 hours a week to help working parents, and the abolition of the bedroom tax. That is how we, a one-nation Labour Government, will address the scandal of food poverty in our country. That is how we will once again reduce and then remove the need for food aid and the reliance on food banks in our country.
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Esther McVey)
I welcome this debate to answer honestly the points made in the motion and to clarify all this, but to be honest, a far more realistic debate would have been brought by Government Members and the people of the United Kingdom on how Labour derailed the UK, destroyed its finances and made it such a vulnerable place.
Esther McVey
I will continue a little, because the truth must be heard.
While Labour was in office, it gradually wore away the financial strength of this country, eroding its savings and savings culture, and then it crashed the economy. Gas bills doubled, council tax doubled and fuel duty went up 12 times. The only things that grew under Labour were debt and overspending. It left the UK with—[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. This is not a football match. Do not shout at the Minister. She will give way when she is ready.
Esther McVey
It is only fair that I set the scene before taking interventions.
Labour left the UK with the highest structural deficit of any major advanced country. It wiped £112 billion off the economy, leaving a debt of about £3,000 to every household. Personal debt reached a staggering £1.5 trillion. That whirl of living beyond our means—that increase in prices, debt and unaffordability—had to come to a stop. It came to a stop suddenly and, sadly, we are all paying the price. The Government are paying the price, charities are paying the price, businesses are paying the price and individuals are paying the price as we try to balance not only our household budgets, but the budget of the country. [Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. There is no point in having a debate if nobody listens to the person who is speaking. Be quiet.
Esther McVey
As I have said, I will take interventions when I have set out what has happened.
Let us be honest. The Trussell Trust saw what was happening in 2000. It looked at the evolving problem that was caused by personal debt, overspending and people living beyond their means. It set up the first food bank in that year and the food bank network in 2004. The number of food banks had grown tenfold by 2010. Most startlingly, when those food banks started, Labour did not want to know why. When they grew tenfold, Labour did not want to know why.
When the Labour councillor who had set up the Trussell Trust came for support and said, “Allow me to signpost food banks in Jobcentre Plus”, Labour said no. Labour wanted it to be its little secret because, beneath the veneer of what seemed like a sound economy, it was crumbling. It knew what was going to happen. Sadly and shamefully, there has been no investigation by the Opposition. They do not want to know what went on. It took my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) speaking to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to get the food banks signposted.
Esther McVey
Now that I have set the scene, I give way to the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell).
Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
My constituency office took a phone call from an ex-serviceman yesterday who is now thankfully in receipt of a war pension, disability living allowance and employment and support allowance. However, while he was waiting for four weeks for Atos to deal with his appeal, he had to use a food bank. Does the Minister agree that that is an absolute disgrace?
Esther McVey
We have hardship payments and support payments. We have put in a new element of reconsideration to make the process quicker. The speed of the transaction for getting benefits has increased by six percentage points.
Let us not get away from how this started under Labour. What each and every one of us does is important. I have heard nothing from Opposition Members about the news that, because of our welfare-to-work programme, 30 million people are in jobs today. We know that under Labour, the number of households with nobody working doubled—[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. There are too many people standing up. The Minister is not taking interventions at this point. Allow her to make her speech.
Esther McVey
In Labour’s last term in office, the claimant count went up by 82%.
Andrew Selous
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. Does she remember that the Trussell Trust thanked this Government for allowing jobcentres to refer people to food banks? That was a compassionate thing to do and the Labour party refused to do it.
Esther McVey
My hon. Friend makes a very good point, and I will also give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow who negotiated that arrangement.
Robert Halfon
I am hugely grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way and to the Secretary of State for changing that disgraceful ruling by the previous Government. Will the Minister praise Harlow food bank, which was set up in 2009 after the years of plenty? Does she agree it is sad that food banks are being turned into a party-political football by Opposition Members who are trying to destroy the excellent work they do?
Esther McVey
I do indeed. If one thing came out of the disastrous years that made our country more vulnerable because of the disastrous finances of the Labour Government it was the fact that not only are this Government doing more to get people into work—I will say it again, although I heard no positive sounds from the Labour Benches before: there are 30 million people in work—and that businesses have helped to support people and have taken them on, but that the community has come together to support one another. That must be a positive move. [Hon. Members: “ Give way!”] No, I will make a little more progress.
Let us go back to the report that Labour obviously did not want, so as to keep it as its little secret. Labour Members did not want to look into why the Trussell Trust was set up and has grown exponentially, but we did. We looked into the matter, and it is right that we give an accurate report. It was the Labour party that brought us the dodgy dossier and never wanted verification of the facts—why let the facts get in the way of a tale of fiction? It is only correct that we get our facts right and deliver this report at the right time, as we are doing. As we have said, it is positive; people are reaching out to support others in church groups, community groups, local supermarkets and other groups. That is a fact—[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. We cannot hear the Minister.
Esther McVey
In the UK, it is right to say that more people are visiting food banks, as we would expect. [Hon. Members: “ Give way!”] No. Times are tough and we all have to pay back the £1.5 trillion of personal debt, which spiralled under Labour. We are all trying to live within our means, change the gear, and ensure we are paying back all the debt that we saw under Labour.
It is important to look at what is happening around the world. The UK has a population of 63 million and 60,000 people are visiting food banks according to the Trussell Trust. In Germany, however, with a population of 82 million, there are 1.5 million users of food banks. Canada has population of 35 million, and there are 830,000 monthly users of the Trussell Trust. [Interruption.] We must put everything in context and look at what happened, whether that is the overspending and not being able to balance the books from 2002, or the financial crash of 2007. [Interruption.] We must look at how much we have done to balance and rebalance the economy, and get it on a stable footing.
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. [Interruption.] Order. The House should pause for a moment, calm down and listen to the Minister. Everyone will have a turn to make their point in due course. [Interruption.] Order. I call the Minister.
Esther McVey
It is startling that the shadow Minister took only three interventions. We all listened then, so it would be appropriate to listen to the facts now. That is where we go wrong. We do not listen to what is going on.
The coalition Government were brought in to solve the mess that Labour got us in. Nothing more clearly shows what we have done to support people than what we have done on jobs. The best way to help people to get out of poverty is to get people into work. Children are three times more likely to be in poverty if they are in a workless household. Labour is the party that gave us workless households.
I will say this again because the Opposition still have not acknowledged it. Thirty million people are in jobs today. That means that a further 1.25 million people are in jobs since the general election. The Opposition told us—[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. If hon. Members do not keep quiet and listen to the Minister, she will have to repeat her speech over and over again—[Interruption.] Order. If the House keeps interrupting me, I will call order again and again, and very few hon. Members will have the chance to make the speeches they have prepared. Let us have silence. I call the Minister.
Esther McVey
We have 1.25 million more people in jobs than we had at the election. We know that the best way out of poverty is to be in a job. The Opposition said that 1 million more people would be out of work. They were wrong. They said there would be a double-dip and treble-dip recession. They were wrong. They are also wrong on food banks.
That is why we must compare Labour’s legacy of a debt-fuelled boom with what this Government have done. What are this Government doing and how have we supported people? Under Labour, 5 million were on out-of-work benefits, the number of households where nobody worked doubled, and 2 million children lived in workless households. That is what we do not want—[Interruption]—but it is Opposition Members who say, “Shame.”
How are the Government helping families? We want to ensure that work always pays. That is why we have brought in universal credit—to ensure that 3 million people are better off. That is what the Government are doing.
Let us be honest. One thing the Opposition do not understand is that disposable income is different from income. What have we done to support people with disposable income?
Esther McVey
The Opposition spokeswoman gave way three times. We will finish what we are saying. I appreciate that Back Benchers will have only four minutes, but, should there be time, I will give way.
What have the Government done? We have taken 2.7 million people out of tax. We have cut tax for 25 million people, giving them, on average, £700 extra a year. We have stopped Labour’s fuel and petrol price increases, saving families £300 and someone in a business with a van £1,000. All of that is key. The winter fuel allowance and cold weather payments have stayed, and we have given tax breaks to young people who are going to be in a job. That is what we have done to support people. When we talk about what happened under what Government, what happened when and how the Trussell Trust started, and when we talk about the removal of the spare room subsidy—[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. Members must not shout at the Minister. It is clear that she does not intend to give way, and she is not going to give way if you shout at her. Please be quiet, allow the Minister to finish her speech and then everyone will have a chance to make their contribution.
Esther McVey
The Trussell Trust started under Labour—it hid that away—and the removal of the spare room subsidy in the private sector started under the Labour Government in 2008. Rewriting history does not work. The British public want to know the truth: those on the Labour Benches ruined the economy and we are getting it back on track.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
I am very grateful to the Minister. On the one hand, she has spent a long time telling us that there are now many more people in work, although the rate of employment has still not returned to pre-recession levels. But if —[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. The hon. Lady must be brief, but she must be heard.
Sheila Gilmore
If everything is going so well, why since 2010 has there been such a substantial increase in the number of people using food banks? The only explanation can be the Government’s changes to welfare policy.
Esther McVey
Tomorrow, when Hansard comes out, we can read the full explanation, because hon. Members probably do not want me to go through it again. Actually, it was because of the crash, the overspend, the personal debt and the public debt left to us by those on the Opposition Benches.
Another issue that has been raised is zero-hours contracts. They happened under Labour: the numbers in 2013 are the same as the numbers in 2000. In fact, the number of zero-hours contracts went up by 75% from 2005 to 2009, something that those on the Opposition Benches did absolutely zero about. It is the Leader of the Opposition’s Doncaster council that presides over the biggest number, within his council. Again, there is a lot of fluster and a lot of bluster. The Opposition did nothing in government and they are doing nothing to control their Labour councils, yet we are now picking up the pieces.
Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who has spoken eloquently about the price of Labour. Is she aware that in 2009 one could walk down Glascote road, where my food bank is situated, and see repossession notices in window after window as house after house was taken away by banks that foreclosed on them? The grisly legacy of that lot was not just a loss of jobs but the loss of homes too.
Esther McVey
The Opposition like to forget all about that. The industry I know most about is probably the construction industry, which was brought to its knees in 2007 under the guidance of those on the Opposition Benches. Many industries had a tough time pre-2010. That is when it all happened. Equally, the Opposition are so bad with numbers they do not understand that there needs to be a change of gear to rebalance an economy and change things to get back on track. It does not happen overnight; it happens over a long period of time. Something to ponder on for a second is that it was the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), who said that the Opposition want to be tougher on benefits and do more than we are doing. I wonder how Opposition Members feel about that and whether they believe that use of the Trussell Trust would be higher or lower were that to happen.
I will come to a close now. [Interruption.] Sadly, there is chanting from the Opposition. I find how the Opposition left this country—in a vulnerable position—a really sad moment. [Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. Hon. Members will allow the Minister to conclude her speech.
Esther McVey
For the people of the UK, I find that deeply saddening. For me, it is not something to be chanting and cheering about. The Opposition need to reflect—for about the next 20 years—on what they did to UK plc, while we get it right. For those reasons, and many, many more—mainly its inaccuracy—I reject the Opposition day motion. Instead, I welcome the promising signs that we are delivering for jobs and growth: the fastest growth in the G7 this quarter, more people in work, more businesses going, more exports, more work for everybody. That is why we object to the motion and welcome what we are doing on this side of the House.
Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Given the huge interest in this debate, not least among our constituents, is it within your power to extend the time for the debate?
Madam Deputy Speaker
I fully appreciate the right hon. Gentleman’s point. Another way to phrase it would be: if Members had behaved with decorum during the Front-Bench speeches, would there be more time for Back Benchers? He is right that there is a lot of interest in the debate, but sadly it is not within my power to extend the time available. I am glad he made his point of order, however, because it gives me the opportunity to ask hon. Members to be courteous to other hon. Members and keep their speeches as brief as possible.
Paul Murphy (Torfaen) (Lab)
Perhaps I can bring the House back to the issue of food banks. I decided to take part in this debate only last Friday, when I visited the Eastern Valley food bank in Pontypool in my constituency and saw its excellent work with my own eyes. It distributes more than a tonne of food per week and feeds more than 120 local families, and demand is so great it has opened three distribution centres in Blaenavon and Cwmbran. Like many food banks in this country, it is linked to the Trussell Trust, to whose Welsh representative, Tony Graham, I pay tribute.
That situation is replicated throughout Wales, which now has 33 food banks and 74 distribution centres. In the UK, three open every week.
Mr Brian H. Donohoe (Central Ayrshire) (Lab)
I have visited most of my food banks, but there are so many of them that it is very difficult. Has my right hon. Friend noticed, like me, the type of person turning up at these food banks? I saw a woman who was a skilled worker—a draughtswoman—who could not get a job and had not had one for four years as a result of the Government’s policies. Did he see anybody like that?
Paul Murphy
Indeed, I did. I also saw that many people using the food bank were working people who simply did not have sufficient money to feed their families.
The Minister spent some time trying to decide who caused the recession, but in 2010—the year the Government came to power—more than 4,000 people in Wales got food from a food bank. In 2011, it went up to 16,000; to 36,000 in 2012; and in this year, it is estimated that 60,000 people in Wales will have to rely on food banks. That is the population of my town, Cwmbran, the fifth largest town in Wales. That is a disgraceful indictment of society and of what the Government have—or have not—done.
Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
Some people have to go to food banks because of the problems they have with their benefits. On one occasion, a constituent came to see me, having been assessed for their personal independence payment by Capita six months previously, yet had still not had that assessment passed on to the Department for Work and Pensions because of Capita’s failures. Other constituents have waited more than four months. There are serious failures in the benefit system.
Paul Murphy
We know that in 2010, in Wales alone, 13% of those who went to food banks did so because of problems with the welfare and benefits system—and that has gone up to 20% today. That is the reality, but there are other reasons, too. It is, of course, also a matter of electricity, gas and water prices, and the price of food has gone up dramatically over recent years. What is to be done about it? The first thing we should do is properly tackle the issue of the cost of living.
Alun Cairns
When it comes to increases in the cost of living, what contribution does the right hon. Gentleman think is due to the increases in council tax in Wales? There has been a 9% increase over recent years in Wales, yet it has been broadly flat in England.
Paul Murphy
It is nothing like the effect of the cost of electricity and gas on people’s incomes, that is for sure. We have to abolish the bedroom tax, which is a huge issue affecting the need for food banks, and in the meantime I hope people will continue to donate and volunteer.
The truth is that food banks show the best and the worst in our society. Local people in my valley have stepped up to help—Jen Taylor and her excellent team of volunteers have offered their time to help feed people and to give them hope. Churches, charities, offices, shops and individuals have donated huge amounts of food to supply the food bank.
Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the churches in Wales have played a fantastic role in collecting food? In my constituency, the Deva church, the Calgary church, the Catholic churches in Rhyl and Prestatyn and the Wellspring Christian centre in Rhyl are all contributing.
Paul Murphy
I think the churches in Wales have done a tremendous job, often taking the lead right across the United Kingdom in dealing with food banks. The people involved are occasionally rewarded. I was told the story of a little girl in Pontypool in my constituency, who excitedly told a lady that she would have chocolate fingers for Christmas because the food bank was there and had given them to her. That is a very moving story.
The key issue is what an indictment this is. I have been a public representative in my constituency for 40 years, and I have never seen anything like this, other than during the time of the 1985 miners’ strike, when the people of my valley got together as a community to help each other. This is happening again now in a big way, but I never thought that this would happen again in my lifetime. It is an indictment of our society and an indictment of our Government.
Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)
The Minister gave an important description of all the different measures we have taken to support those who face the greatest challenges with poverty and low incomes. We are not here—I hope that the Opposition are not—to celebrate food banks, which are not the answer. They must be seen not as a solution or as something that we want institutionalised, but as a transitional support mechanism for families in stress at particular moments. Opposition Members sometimes seem to relish the number of food banks. If they would mention some of the key reasons for the perfect storm hitting those on low incomes and benefits in particular, we might start to arrive at solutions.
Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)
I agree with my hon. Friend that there is a “relish” about this on the Opposition Benches. Is it not the case that, in her constituency as in mine, food banks did not come into being in May 2010? Next year I shall be reading at the 10-year anniversary service for the Winchester Basics bank. The fact is that food banks have been around for a long time.
Laura Sandys
My hon. Friend is quite right.
Let us return to some of the reasons that lie behind the present situation, few of which were mentioned by the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle). Food prices began to rise in 2008, and since then global commodity prices have risen by 30%. Much of that happened under the last Government. During our first couple of years in office, we linked pensions to inflation and the rise in the cost of living.
We need a solution to the problem of rising global food prices. Why, in 2010, did the proportion of our domestic food production—which would have hedged our exposure to global prices—drop to 48%? This Government are working to increase our food resilience and our long-term food production.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
Is it not rather disappointing that the one group of people about whom we have not heard today are the general public, who donate so generously to food banks? Ought we not to express our gratitude to them?
Laura Sandys
I entirely agree. There are extraordinary people—committed volunteers—in my constituency.
Poorer families in my constituency also face structural poverty. Some families in private rented accommodation have no cookers and are captured by microwaved food, condemned to eat expensive food with no resilience, while others have to feed families of three or four with only one ring on which to cook. We must do something about the quality of our private rented accommodation.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
The hon. Lady is raising some very interesting issues. However, I have been told by the Trussell Trust in Cardiff that half the people who have been referred to a food bank in the last six months were referred because of changes or delays in social security payments, unemployment, debt, low incomes, homelessness or domestic violence. Is the hon. Lady not surprised that Ministers are not willing to take a shred of responsibility for that?
Laura Sandys
That is not so, but the point is that there are numerous background issues for us to address, including education. Where was food education on the agenda before this Government included it in primary school education? It is now at the heart of citizenship. We think it important to build, in the long term, resilient families who can support themselves during a period of change and rising food prices.
Finally, let me say something about the food sector itself. I have campaigned strongly against what we are now seeing throughout the retail sector: shrinking products, promotions that are not really promotions, and even the selling of horsemeat, which is an example of food crime. I urge the Government to set up a cross-departmental taskforce to examine the issues involved in food poverty and develop a resilient set of policies to address the problem that food banks are creating. We need to improve housing and our skills base, and enable the food system itself to support communities throughout the country that are finding prices difficult to manage. We have a wide range of volunteers in the food sector who are supporting food banks in the short term, but we must start looking for long-term solutions. I wish that the motion had focused more on the long term and the strategic problems that we face, and less on short-term tactical politics.
Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)
I regret to say that the laughter from some of those on the Government Benches during this debate says more than words ever could. I want to praise the work of those in my constituency who are doing so much to help those in need. The commitment of the volunteers in the food banks throughout Copeland and across west Cumbria in towns such as Whitehaven, Millom and Workington has been remarkable, and I should like to say thank you to them on behalf of my constituents. I also want to thank those who donate the vast amounts of food, without which the food banks simply could not operate.
The final verdict on any Government is based on how they treat the poorest in society during the hardest of times. The rise in the need for food banks is a horrifying indictment of this Government’s record, and it demands urgent action. The complacency of those on the Government Front Bench and of Ministers in the other place is as distasteful and unedifying as anything I have ever witnessed in Parliament. In July, Lord Freud seemed to suggest that the increase in the number of people using food banks was simply a result of the increased prevalence of the food banks. He claimed that he did not know which came first: supply or demand. He also claimed that there was an infinite demand for what he called “free goods”. In order to access the services of a food bank, a person or family needs to be referred by health services, local authorities or other groups that look after their welfare. I am not going to try to second-guess what was going on in the Minister’s mind, but he seemed to be implying that there was somehow an ambition to reach hardship, and a desire and aim for people to reach poverty in order to get a free basket of shopping to get them to the end of the week.
In order better to inform Members on the Government Benches how food banks actually operate, I shall give them a quick rundown. People who are forced to turn to food banks can receive help only a limited number of times. They go to the local food bank not to do their full weekly shop but because they need the bare essentials in order to get by. Many of those people will already have made extremely difficult decisions, such as whether to sit in a cold room rather than go hungry. There is no more harrowing example of that than the fact that one in five mothers in the UK regularly—not just once or twice a week—skip meals to feed their children.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
Can we deal once and for all with one particular issue? It is partly right to say that food banks have been around for about 10 years, but the truth of the matter is that the Churches set them up to help refugees who were waiting for their asylum status to be confirmed.
Mr Reed
My hon. Friend makes a telling point.
The circumstances in which people have to seek assistance to feed themselves and their families are not usually simple. They often involve a combination of issues, which manifest themselves in a great deal of pain and pressure for those involved. For example, I have constituents who are cancer patients who are forced to use food banks as a result of various combinations of Government policies. I wish I could say that those were isolated cases, but they are not. I wish I could say the situation was improving, but it is not. There are no signs of things getting better.
Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)
In the past year and a half, more than 100,000 kg of food has been distributed in the small city of Stoke-on-Trent alone. My hon. Friend talks about the people who go to food banks. Has he seen, as I have, people who are absolutely on their last legs because they are so desperate? Many people who go to food banks are also embarrassed that they need such help.
Mr Reed
I have indeed seen that, and it suggests that we are seeing only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the numbers of people who need the services of the food banks. Compared with last year, about 600 more people in my constituency are now using food banks to ensure that they can eat. That brings the total to 1,778, including almost 700 children. That is truly shocking, and it is the policies of the parties opposite that have led to this huge growth in the number of people needing help.
It is no coincidence that the wards in my constituency with the highest rise in the number of children being fed through food banks correlate with the wards with the highest rates of child poverty. For example, 41% of the children in the ward of Sandwith are now living in child poverty, and 234 of them rely on the generosity of those who donate to food banks. In Mirehouse, a third of the children are in poverty and more than 200 of them rely on food banks. Child poverty and the use of food banks are inextricably linked, yet the Government have no credible plan to tackle either.
We have repeatedly warned the Government that the legacy of their policies would be felt most keenly by the most vulnerable in our society. The very poorest are bearing the brunt of the cost of living pressures that the Government’s various regressive policies have created, and the consequences are there for all to see. There is a hidden country that is unseen by the Government and dismissed by the Prime Minister, and it shames them both. The working poor are emerging as the Prime Minister’s legacy, as millions of people live in quiet crisis. The explosion in the number of food banks should haunt him, shame him and move him to act, but I doubt that it will.
Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
The quality and quantity of welfare produced by the state has not been good enough for a very long time. It is astonishing and shaming that the welfare state can tax and spend so much, and yet leave people hungry. Some 12,000 children in Buckinghamshire live in income poverty, and one in five children in Wycombe go to bed hungry—that increases to one in three in some parts of my constituency. It is a scandalous indictment of the safety net that is the welfare state that this happens. But I am proud of the One Can Trust, run by Sarah Mordaunt, Kate Vale and more than 100 volunteers in Wycombe, which steps in with emergency food when the state fails.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
A mistaken impression has been created in this debate that all that food banks do is distribute emergency food. What they actually do is give financial advice and debt advice to people who have got into difficult situations—emergency food is only part of what they do.
Steve Baker
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that, and indeed the One Can Trust also provides recipes which help people to get through and use that food effectively. The One Can Trust has delivered 2,859 parcels since March 2012, reaching 3,182 adults and more than 2,000 children—without the trust, poverty in Wycombe would be truly desperate. It operates five pick-up centres, has eight sessions at which people can pick up food and usually delivers within 24 hours. The trust enjoys support from the Big Yellow Self Storage Company, and has matched funding from Barclays and Santander. Warm drinks are provided to volunteers by Starbucks, and the Eden shopping centre provides parking for volunteers. This is an astonishing exercise of social power, and I am very proud of what the trust is doing, particularly because of the story of one young boy.
This is a young boy who about 33 years ago, at the age of eight or nine, bounced down the stairs because his loving father called him down for his tea. This boy bounced joyfully down the stairs but thought it was funny, in his youthfulness and his childishness, to poke the fried egg and say, “Ugh, what’s that?” At that point, his father, with his great working man’s hands, picked up that plate of food and slung it straight in the swing bin, bellowing, “All right, we will both go hungry.” That was my father, a working man who had reached the end of the money and the end of the food. I did not mean to wound my father then, nor do I mean to wound him now, because he loved me and he loves me still. My father did absolutely everything he could, but where was the welfare state? It was not there for him, because it did not know what to do for an independent, self-employed man who had run out of work.
Unfortunately, that went on and on, to and fro, in the legacy of the previous Government; it was tough for a self-employed builder. My father coped by finding further work. My mother took on two and even three tough jobs. I saw her get arthritis in her hands, ageing her early, all because there was no food. What happened eventually is, of course, that they divorced, and my mother went on to live with a man who could at least put food on the table. So I certainly know the consequences—I live with them today—of having too little food in a home.
I am therefore proud of the One Can Trust, because in times of crisis it feeds families. I like to believe that had food been available in my home when I was a child, not only would my father not have had to go hungry, but perhaps my mother would not have had to take on those jobs, perhaps they would not have divorced and perhaps a range of things that ought not to have happened but which did would never have taken place. I am very proud indeed that at this time people across our nation are stepping up where the state is falling that little short. However, I must ask: what is the cause of the crisis? The cause of this crisis—
Steve Baker
I will just make this point. The cause of this crisis has been pretending that there is some magic wand: that prices can be declared to be lower; that wages can be declared to be higher; and that if only Labour Members were on the Government Benches the state would be responsive and in times of crisis would quickly leap in. That is not true now, it was not true 33 years ago and it will not be true in the future. It is essential that things such as food banks step in, but I am encouraged by things such as the community store, which go further and make this kind of mutuality and co-operative approach—this charitable endeavour—much more sustainable by making inexpensive food available to the working poor.
I will leave the final word to the chairman of One Can Trust, David Rooke. He has said:
“David Cameron has got it exactly right. Society needs to be empowered to step up. That’s what The One Can Trust is all about.”
I am proud of it.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
I was e-mailed last Friday by a woman in my constituency who asked me to attend this debate. She said:
“I would ask if you could attend to represent the poverty and daily struggle that can be found in our area. I am writing as a former user myself of the food bank which at the time was a life-saver for me. At the beginning of this year, the DWP sanctioned me for six months due to an administrative error, which I did not ever receive a written apology for. I had to live on £27 a week for six months until my support worker found out and helped to get me back on my feet. I am not a waster or a shirker but having to receive food parcels because you have nothing in your cupboards is embarrassing for anyone. I also know people who work as hard as they can but because of low wages can’t manage.”
That was powerfully put. If the Minister listens to nothing else today, I hope she listened to that.
It is fair to point out that food banks are not new in this country. When I was elected, there were two in Newport—the Ravenhouse Trust and the King’s Church—and they did an amazing job.
Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. Is she slightly shocked, as I am, that there is not a single DWP or DEFRA Minister now sitting on the Front Bench?
Jessica Morden
I thank my hon. Friend for that valuable intervention, which speaks volumes.
The difference is that, back then, when I first went to meet volunteers packing food hampers, the number of people receiving them was much smaller. Predominantly, in that dispersal area, the people receiving them were asylum seekers, people with drug and alcohol problems and homeless people. I am glad that the food banks were there, because those recipients were badly in need of our help. However, there are now four food banks operating around Newport; recently, we were joined by the Caldicot food bank and the Trussell Trust. That now has four satellite distribution centres. In Newport, there is a mixture of independent and Trussell Trust food banks. They all work together and they all say exactly the same thing: there has been a phenomenal increase in demand over the past year or two. They have seen a large number of working families on low incomes in need, and a marked increase in referrals from the DWP and jobcentre staff because of the bedroom tax, sanctions and other benefit changes.
Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)
The food bank in Chesterfield that opened six months ago has reported that 50% of people presenting to the food bank are there because of benefit changes and benefit sanctions and because the DWP has really messed up. In what way is that not the responsibility of the DWP and the Government, who are actively forcing people into food banks?
Jessica Morden
My hon. Friend is right. I wish there were a DWP Minister present so that they could hear her point.
The depressing Wales-wide figures from the Trussell Trust show that, in 2010-11, it supported 4,070 individuals in Wales. This year, just from April to November, it has supported 44,756. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Paul Murphy) said, it expects that figure to rise to 60,000 by the end of the financial year. Those figures are from the Trussell Trust and do not include figures from the independent food banks.
The unmistakeable message that I have been told time and again is that there has been an explosion of working people using food banks. Unemployment may be down, and I definitely welcome that, but the use of food banks by working people has dramatically increased, which should tell the Government something.
Whatever the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions says, the truth is that the proportion of people using food banks as a result of benefit changes is sharply increasing. The Government have shamefully—and it is shamefully—altered the form used by Jobcentre Plus staff when referring clients for food parcels by taking off the tick box that records that they are referring them because of benefit changes. No wonder the Secretary of State can play down the fact that benefit changes are driving the increase in demand—he has stopped his staff collecting the data that prove it.
I thank all those involved in food banks for the work they do in my constituency, not least our churches, which are also running night shelters, and the street pastors. They should be praised for the work that they do. I also thank King’s church in Newport, which partners with FareShare to reduce food waste and feed people at the same time, and businesses such as Newport Bus, which has been collecting for Ravenhouse this Christmas.
Mrs Moon
Does my hon. Friend also wish to thank those people who are donating to the food banks? Today, my office took a phone call from someone who said that they had won a food hamper in a raffle. They cannot eat that food knowing that people are starving, so they are taking the hamper to a food bank.
Jessica Morden
I thank my hon. Friend for her valuable contribution. We should thank those who give to food banks.
However raucous the debate and however characteristically chippy the Minister's response, it is worth reminding ourselves about the people behind the figures. Two young boys came into a Newport food bank recently with their social worker and asked whether they could have one packet of cereal and one packet of drinking chocolate as a treat. Sad stories, real lives.
Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)
At the end of last month, I was privileged to visit the West Cheshire food bank in my constituency. Like all food banks, it is run by a group of hard-working volunteers and supported by generous donations from across Cheshire. My visit to the food bank was an opportunity not just to see the fantastic volunteers who make it happen but to hear first hand the reasons people are using food banks. The results were striking. Figures from my local food bank show that 59% of those who have used the food bank since April have visited because of changes to benefits and a growing number of people are visiting because of sanctions.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman mentions his food bank. The food bank in my constituency, run in a joint venture by the Trussell Trust and Blythswood Care, has seen a six times increase in the number of people using it this year alone, mainly due to benefit changes. The Government will not listen to us on the benefit changes, but, given the wonderful start to his speech, will he put pressure on his Ministers, who have been deplorable in this Chamber this afternoon, to make them see sense and make changes so that people do not starve this winter?
Stephen Mosley
I shall come on to that point.
The Department for Work and Pensions is the front-line organisation dealing with people in that position and that is why I support wholeheartedly the Government’s decision to allow jobcentres to advertise and refer people to their local food bank. That is also why it was such a big mistake for the previous Government to ban jobcentres from referring people, depriving people of the information they needed to get food at times of emergency.
Let us make no mistake about it: food banks were not created by, for or because of this Government. They predate the Government, they predate recent welfare changes and they reflect deep long-term problems with our benefits system. As the majority of people who need food bank assistance are those who face changes to benefits, the clear long-term solution is a more joined-up benefits system. The solutions proposed by the Opposition in their motion do not tackle the root cause of the problem. They are short-term sticking plasters that merely cover up the cracks in the welfare system. We need a long-term solution to fix the problem once and for all.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman can help us with a puzzle. When the Government took office, Ministers perfectly properly made a lot of the announcement that in the future jobcentres would be able to refer people to food banks. However, that appears now to have changed. I received a written answer from the former Minister, the hon. Member for Fareham (Mr Hoban), which states:
“Jobcentre Plus …does not refer people to food banks or issue vouchers.”—[Official Report, 4 September 2013; Vol. 567, c. 373W.]
Can the hon. Member for City of Chester (Stephen Mosley) help us to understand why there has been that change?
Stephen Mosley
Jobcentres offer signposting and advice and point people in the right direction. Unlike Opposition Members, I think that the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions knows what the problem is. That is why he is pushing so hard for universal credit, which will transform welfare, solving many of the issues that still haunt our welfare system and that we have heard about today.
As well as the long-term solution of universal credit, there are some short-term actions that we can take. First, we need to find out more about food banks and I back the call from the Trussell Trust and my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys) for an inquiry into their use. We need a clear picture of the role and extent of the banks and we need to know who uses them and why. Then we can have a debate based on the facts. Otherwise, this important debate will always run the risk of being hijacked by politicians hoping to score cheap political points, which does absolutely nothing to help those in need. The university of Warwick has produced a report for DEFRA on household food security and the provision of food aid. I hope that it will be forthcoming.
Secondly, I am a passionate believer in school meals. In my constituency I have seen the real difference that providing a hot, nutritious meal every day can make for children. I therefore congratulate the Government on introducing free school meals for infant pupils. By opening up free school meals to all children, we can put nutrition first.
Finally, we need to give food banks the support they need. Too often people suggest that we should be ashamed of food banks, but I disagree. Food banks play a key role in a caring society. Dozens of people in my constituency volunteer at the Wesley Methodist church and hundreds, if not thousands, donate food. I am proud that so many Chester residents want to help their neighbours and local communities when they are in need. I offer my heartfelt thanks to everyone who helps the West Cheshire food bank. They are doing a truly fantastic job.
Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Is it a discourtesy to the House that the two Work and Pensions Ministers who have responsibility for this debate have not been in the Chamber for some time, and neither has any DEFRA Minister, even though the debate is on food banks?
Mr Speaker
The organisation of the Bench rota by the Government is a matter for Ministers to decide. I note that the hon. Gentleman regards it as unusual, and that view might be widely shared, but it is not within the power of the Chair to change the situation, even if the Chair were minded to do so. It is beyond my physical powers. Perhaps we can leave it at that.
Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)
It is disgraceful that the junior Minister, having made one of the nastiest Front-Bench speeches I have heard in my 43 years in this House, has now sloped off and not bothered to listen to the views of the House.
Last Sunday I attended a carol service at New Covenant church in my constituency, where a leaflet of activities distributed to the congregation read,
“Food bank to alleviate poverty among the unemployed and low income earners.”
The previous Sunday I attended a carol service at St Chrysostom’s, also in my constituency, at which Canon Ian Gomersall always makes an appeal. In previous years it has been about alleviating poverty abroad—helping a Romanian orphanage, for example. Last Sunday he made an appeal for food for hungry people in the area around the church. He said that the prospect was that there would be soup kitchens—soup kitchens in my constituency! He is not political, but he felt that he had to say that to a crowded congregation.
Andrew Selous
I share the right hon. Gentleman’s concern about the issue, but does he realise that in Germany, a country that is much richer than ours, 6 million people use food banks every month?
Sir Gerald Kaufman
My constituents who are going hungry do not study the foreign affairs pages. They want to know why, after three and a half years of this appalling Government, they have got no food, so the hon. Gentleman should not make silly and useless debating points.
The Salvation Army has sent around an appeal stating:
“In the present economic climate, many families will struggle to feed and clothe their children, let alone afford presents and treats.”
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
Is the right hon. Gentleman not detailing the symptoms of the massive inequality in our society? Professors Stiglitz and Krugman have detailed how the gains of productivity have gone to the top 1%. We are living in the fourth most unequal society in the OECD. Successive UK Governments have failed to address that, which is one reason why I want Scottish independence, but that argument is for another day. What he is seeing in his constituency is the result of the massive inequality that blights society.
Sir Gerald Kaufman
The hon. Gentleman is of course absolutely right.
The information provided for me by Tesco, which is conducting food banks in my constituency, tells the whole story. It refers to
“Tesco’s third National Food Collection”,
which means that within this Government’s period in office it has started to help to address food poverty, and to
“32,000 thousand shopping trolleys…the equivalent of 4.3 million meals.”
That is Britain today.
Sir Gerald Kaufman
Will my hon. Friend allow me to continue for just a moment?
In my constituency we have widespread poverty and deprivation. Today’s unemployment figures show that we are No. 42 for unemployment out of 650 constituencies. This has not come about by accident. It is the direct result of this Government’s policies: the deliberate creation of unemployment, the bedroom tax, which is causing so many people to suffer, the benefits cuts, and the housing shortage. My city has been hit hardest of all the major cities by the Government’s cuts. We are having redistribution from the poor to the affluent.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
Last week I visited Kids Company in Southwark and saw the industrial-scale packing of food bags that were then piled into vans and delivered to vulnerable families across London. When I asked Camila what had changed in the past few years, she said that she is still seeing the same number of abused kids but is now getting hungry kids coming to her directly because they are starving. Does my right hon. Friend think that is a damning indictment of this Government?
Sir Gerald Kaufman
My hon. Friend makes a very powerful point. If I may say so, as powerfully as she made it, it was made much more powerfully by St Matthew, who said in his gospel:
“Unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.”
That is the precise policy of this Conservative-Liberal Democrat Government. I note that the only Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament for Manchester has not even bothered to turn up to this debate. That will be noted by his constituents.
At our Gorton Philharmonic concert at Christmas, we sing “Have yourself a merry little Christmas”. Well, it will be a little Christmas for a lot of people but it will not be merry for many more.
Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)
I am pleased that this debate has entered a calmer, cooler stream, because I felt very uneasy that some of the most vulnerable people, such as those I have met in my constituency, were being used as a political football across this Chamber. They would not have wanted that. They often feel a sense of indignity about going to food banks. They feel that it is in some way their own fault, but in many cases it is not their fault at all. I look to Members on both sides of the House to come forward with considered ideas about how we can best address this matter.
Fiona O’Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)
May I give the hon. Gentleman one suggestion? Why do not his Government meet the Trussell Trust to try to understand the causes of food insecurity instead of refusing to do so?
Roger Williams
I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. [Interruption.] I am being encouraged to say that the Government intend to meet the Trussell Trust. I am pleased about that.
Food banks have come rather late to my constituency, but I really welcome them. I went to the New Life church in Llandrindod Wells and was very impressed by the number of volunteers who were working there. They were members of the church and other volunteers who had gone there particularly to distribute food. I then went on to Tesco. I do not often compliment Tesco on its work, but on this matter it was doing very good work indeed. The church had a stall near the store’s exit and people were encouraged to donate some of the food they had bought. I was overwhelmed by the generosity of people—some of whom were on low incomes themselves—who were prepared to give a little away in order to help others. Tesco also made a 30% contribution.
Duncan Hames
I share my hon. Friend’s sentiments in relation to the food banks I have visited. Does he agree that, even though food banks came to his constituency more recently, during each of his 16 years in this place, in good times and bad, there will have been constituents who would have benefited greatly from the availability of the services of food banks if they had been there at the time?
Roger Williams
I have not quite achieved 16 years, but that is my intention if I am successful at the next election.
My hon. Friend is right. I am sure that every hon. Member will agree that it is not just lately that people have come to our surgeries because they have had problems with their benefits and find themselves in desperate and dire circumstances. Before the food bank was established in my constituency, I had no organised place to refer people to; I had to find churches or philanthropists to help them to get out of trouble and to get them through it. At least now I can direct them to somewhere they will get help.
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
On benefits, does my hon. Friend agree that the best way out of poverty is through work? Is it not also the case that the perverse incentives of the dog’s dinner of a benefits system that we inherited mean that someone who gains part-time work could end up worse off than if they stayed on benefits?
Roger Williams
I agree that getting into work is the best way out of poverty, but work is not always available for people. I am sure that hon. Members know of such experiences.
Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)
But does the hon. Gentleman not agree that a lot of people who are claiming food parcels from food banks are actually in work?
Roger Williams
I am sure that is the case. I am trying to respond to my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood). I believe that the current benefits system is not fit for purpose and that this Government are making progress to make it better, but there is still a huge amount of work to be done. The conditionality of so many benefits leads to difficulties. In my constituency, Jobcentre Plus seems to be using different criteria in different towns to impose sanctions on people. Obviously, when sanctions are imposed, people are left in great difficulty.
Sheila Gilmore
As a member of one of the governing parties, what is the hon. Gentleman saying to Ministers about that sanctioning disaster?
Roger Williams
I have already written to a Minister and I am going to meet them to find out why the sanctions in different jobcentres have different criteria; why they have different systems for writing to and contacting people in order to encourage them to attend meetings; and why, if people do not attend those meetings, they get sanctioned.
Roger Williams
No, I will not. I am terribly sorry. I would have, but I have almost run out of time. I have been very generous.
I think that this country needs a food policy. Huge spikes in food prices add to the difficulties faced by people trying to budget. We need a system to ensure that we have a secure supply of food with levelling prices.
This coming week I will meet the pastor of Elim church in Brecon and I hope we will be able to work with that church to set up our second food bank. I will do so with a heavy heart, but I know it will provide really good help for my constituents.
Mr Speaker
In the spirit of Christmas, I say to the hon. Gentleman that there is nothing so striking as a Member busily congratulating himself on his own generosity.
Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)
Government Members have often cited the use of food banks on the continent, and in my short contribution I want to suggest two things. The first is that there are now movements in western economies that are disadvantaging the poor, and we need to think of solutions to that. Secondly, I want to suggest to the Government where their policies have made this position much, much worse. We may not yet understand the basic forces to which we may want to apply policies, but the Government could raise questions about their own policies and ask how they are impoverishing people. I hope the reason for the absence of the whole of the DWP ministerial team is that it is thinking about what sort of reply it is going to give to this debate, with these possible concessions in mind.
Fifteen months ago the Trussell Trust said that by the general election it would be feeding half a million of our constituents. I asked the Prime Minister at Prime Minister’s Question Time what he was going to do to prevent that prediction from coming true. I did not get a comprehensive answer, to put it mildly. We have learned from today’s debate that that point has already been passed a year and a quarter, or a year and a third, before that general election, and the number will continue to increase.
If we look at the data, we find that in our country the proportion of income the poor now have to spend on food, utilities and rent is rising. I think that gives us an answer to Lord Freud, who said that if we supply a free good, people will turn up and claim it. It might be that if people are worried about not being able to meet their rent or that their electricity will be cut off, and there is the possibility of people giving them food, they will take that opportunity so that they can meet other basic requirements from their budget.
Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)
The figures for food banks are only the tip of the iceberg, of course, as there are many other locations to which people go to get free food, such as soup kitchens. They have also seen a big increase in attendance over the last few years, and that is part of the picture as well.
Mr Field
I totally accept that point and I am going to come back to it by talking about how inaccurate our data are on this whole issue, but the House needs to take into account that something very important is going on in our economy which is disadvantaging the poor the most.
Mr Field
I do not think my right hon. Friend actually knew Friedrich Engels, but Engels prophesied that as countries become richer, the proportion of income spent on food declines. That law has been reversed, so on that score something fundamental is happening. If we combine that with the changes resulting in a greater proportion of income now having to be spent on fuel and rent, we can see that that is difficult for many people, but it is a disaster for the poor.
Mr Field
I will not because so many Members want to participate in the debate.
These are the questions I would like to ask the Government. First, why are they so frit of having a serious inquiry into the causes of what is going on? Are food banks a passing fancy, or are they the outward visible sign of something very serious happening in our economy? We ought to get an answer to that. Secondly, if we listen to the food banks and the other bodies that are handsomely filling the ranks of those giving help in our society, they say the two things that are increasingly important in driving people to food banks are the sanctions regime and the sheer incompetence of the DWP in relaying benefits. Could the Minister—whoever it is and wherever they are—tell us how many of the exceptional payments the DWP is making are the result of benefit delays?
Also, will a twofold instruction go out from this Government? First, will they ensure that anybody who has waited for more than a week for their benefit gets an advance on the benefit they are entitled to? No one is disputing that it will be clawed back later. That would abate some of the demand for food banks. Secondly, given what is happening to those people who are being sanctioned, where the sanctions are later overturned, will the Government urgently review how just their sanctions policy is?
Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
Due to the time limit, I have had to reduce significantly what I intended to say, but I will ensure that a full version of my speech is put on my website.
In following the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field), may I commend to the House the report published by the Church Urban Fund in September, entitled “Hungry For More: How churches can address the root causes of food poverty”, which can be found at www.cuf.org.uk/research? As part of their mission to the communities they serve and as part of their mission as the national Church, thousands of parish churches around the country play an active role in their local community, including by running food banks, the majority of which have been set up in the past two years. The report suggests that if churches are to contribute to a long-term solution to food poverty, there is a need to rebalance church-based activity away from emergency crisis support and towards long-term work that tackles the underlying problem.
There is a policy conundrum that I think the whole House has to recognise. Food banks do not tackle the root causes of food poverty, and they do not aim to resolve any of the underlying problems of food poverty. I suspect that all right hon. and hon. Members would agree that we should view food aid only as a short-term emergency response to problems of food poverty.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The right hon. Gentleman is enunciating what food banks do, and they also give advice on how to recover from debt. Christians Against Poverty is an example of what food banks in Northern Ireland are doing. Does he recognise the good work that they are doing in advising people how best to manage their resources and how to get themselves out of the benefits trap?
Sir Tony Baldry
The research in the Church Urban Fund report shows that some food banks do that, but not enough. Many of them simply give food aid, which is important, but we need to develop longer-term solutions.
Sir Tony Baldry
I will make some progress.
If the situation is to be resolved, the root causes need to be tackled. In April, an online survey was sent to 3,000 Church of England incumbents. The Church Urban Fund asked clergy in parishes right across the country questions about their perceptions of food poverty and what was going on in their parishes. The respondents were invited to indicate what they considered the causes of food poverty, based on their experience of running food banks. These figures come to more than 100% because some clergy selected more than one topic, but 62% chose low income, 42% chose benefit changes and 35% chose benefit delays. As it happens, these three issues match those identified by the Trussell Trust as the most common reasons for food bank referrals last year. It is also worth noting that some respondents believed that individual behaviour was a contributing factor, with 27% selecting poor household budgeting as a significant cause of food poverty.
Alongside others set out in the report, those results suggest that if churches are to contribute to a long-term solution to food poverty, church-based activity needs to be rebalanced away from emergency crisis support and towards long-term work to tackle underlying problems. In its recent report on monitoring poverty, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has observed:
“Making comparisons of people using food banks over time is not easy, as there simply are more food banks now than five years ago. They may well be meeting need that was previously going unmet.”
However, there is obviously a need to look at the impact of benefit changes and, in particular, benefit delays.
Sir Tony Baldry
If I may, I will make my own speech in my own time. I am conscious that many right hon. and hon. Members want to take part in the debate.
I want to say a word of caution about all this. Whoever is in power after the next general election, public spending is going to be difficult. Indeed, as far as I can discern, all three main parties are agreed on public spending limits until at least 2016-17. Although the Labour party has opposed every single welfare change made by the Government, I do not think that the Opposition are suggesting that they would, if elected, significantly increase the overall welfare budget. In those circumstances, it is disingenuous to suggest that a future Labour Government would increase welfare spending, just as it is disingenuous to suggest that they would have the ability to control food and commodity prices.
The Church of England has just embarked on a one-year joint research project with Oxfam, in partnership with the Trussell Trust and Church Action on Poverty, with the aim of exploring why people are using food banks and identifying interventions that would reduce the need for food banks. The findings will be published in September next year.
It is not an adequate policy response simply to say that because people are using food banks there needs to be a massive increase in welfare spending, particularly at a time when everybody is in agreement that the nation has to get welfare spending under control.
Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)
Thirty-three food banks operate in Wales and there are two in my constituency: one in Caernarfon and one in Bangor. In 2011, 11,000 Welsh people were dependent on food banks for limited help. The figure is now 60,000.
People often go to food banks because their benefits have not been paid, as the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) said. There are mistakes, benefits are paid late and people are sanctioned, sometimes wrongly. A man came to see me on Monday who had been sanctioned and had no money. He had been called for an interview, but was not able to go because he had to take his seriously ill wife to hospital for cancer treatment. He could not be 30 miles away at the same time.
Ian Lavery
A gentleman in my constituency faced the same circumstances. He was sanctioned when he was in hospital for a heart condition. He lived for a further three days on field mushrooms and borrowed eggs. Is that what we want to see in the UK in 2013-14?
Hywel Williams
The hon. Gentleman makes an eloquent point about the harshness of the current system.
Significantly, about 20% of the people who go to food banks are the working poor. They are not the scroungers and shirkers who are cited so enthusiastically by some hon. Members and by the popular newspapers.
The growth of food banks in Wales is a symptom of a much more fundamental problem: growing inequality and the failure of wages and incomes to match the increasing costs of living, particularly food inflation. That is a particularly acute problem in Wales, where gross value added in some areas is about 60% of the UK average.
Mrs Moon
Has the hon. Gentleman found that the working poor are finding it difficult to get basic products as well? My food bank has told me that people sometimes talk to staff quietly to ask whether they have toilet paper or sanitary products. It is not just food that people cannot get, but other expensive products.
Hywel Williams
The hon. Lady makes a fine point. I was at the food bank in Caernarfon recently. It provides a range of goods, and at Christmas it provides a few extras, which is very welcome.
Food banks provide a vital short-term service and they deserve our support. However, they must not be a general long-term solution for the individuals who go to them and they must not be a permanent aspect of public policy. Food banks, if we have them at all, should supplement public provision. It is astonishing and shameful that, in the second decade of the 21st century, one of the richest countries in the world cannot ensure that its people get sufficient food.
Mr Andrew Love (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the hon. Gentleman recognise the importance of welfare benefits advice? We have heard that many food banks provide such advice, but many do not. Given that one of the reasons for the growth of food banks is the paucity of welfare advice, is that not an important consideration in this debate?
Hywel Williams
It is indeed. I pay tribute to the services that do exist, but they are patchy. Sometimes they are provided by local authorities and sometimes by volunteers. I mention in passing that the Child Poverty Action Group has made a pertinent point about the value of advice and the level of under-claiming, which is a persistent problem.
In Wales, there has been a consistent decline in economic performance and in people’s ability to buy the food that they need. The figures are stark. Wales’s GVA per head compared with the UK average was 78.1% in 1997. In 2011, it was 75.2%. That is a decline of three percentage points. For west Wales and the valleys, which the European Union recognises as some of its poorest areas, the figures were 67.2% in 1997 and 65% in 2011—a further decline. This is a substantial historical problem, and it is growing. I am sure the remedies are easy to list, and we have heard some already: better economic growth, better income distribution, particularly in the poorest areas, a living wage, and ending fuel poverty.
Hywel Williams
I must conclude my remarks; I apologise to the hon. Gentleman.
We call on the Government to publish the report commissioned by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on food bank use, and to commission further wide-ranging research into the rocketing need for food banks. I say to those on the Opposition Front Bench, however, that I cannot see how regional benefits would help.
My final point is brief but important and has not been mentioned so far. Wales is not a unique case in the UK, and certainly not in the European Union. We must look beyond our borders and those of Europe, and fight to provide food security for people all over the world.
Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for allowing me to contribute to this welcome debate, which provides the opportunity to analyse the role of food banks, their background, and why they are growing at the reported rate. I am extremely disappointed, however, at how the debate has been proposed, and the way political capital is being sought from some of the most vulnerable people who genuinely need support. We need to analyse, understand and get to grips with the longer-term issues that have led people to need to turn to food banks. The tone of the debate, and the motion, undermines the good work that food banks do, and the excellent support given by very many volunteers who work hard for some of the most vulnerable people in our constituencies.
Anas Sarwar (Glasgow Central) (Lab)
Does the hon. Gentleman share my regret that, sadly, the Minister chose to make out that we should be grateful that more people do not have to go to food banks, rather than recognising that this debate is not about economic statistics but about the fact that our fellow men and women in this country need to go to food banks to feed themselves? The tone of this debate is disgraceful and shameful.
Alun Cairns
I absolutely recognise that the tone of this debate is disgraceful, but the issues need to be analysed and addressed in an adult way so we can understand the longer-term issues that have got us to this position. That has not happened since 2010; the issue goes back well beyond that and must be addressed in a proper, adult, consensual way.
Mr Brooks Newmark (Braintree) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend support the volunteers, and particularly Church groups in Braintree and throughout the country, who are doing a tremendous job in supporting food banks? On the point he has just made, this is a long-term problem and the inconvenient truth the Opposition will not accept is that there was a tenfold increase in food banks from 2005 to 2010. The problem did not begin in 2010, and we need a long-term solution.
Alun Cairns
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that powerful point, which gives me the opportunity to pay tribute to those who work and organise food banks in the Vale of Glamorgan: Coastlands Family church, Bethesda chapel in Dinas Powys, and Bethel Baptist church in Llantwit Major. For me, food banks play an extremely important role in bringing people back into the state system of support, or pointing them in the direction of the relevant charity that can help and support them to address an underlying long-term issue that has been missed, or the situation in which they find themselves.
We must recognise that food banks and the Trussell Trust, which facilitates those in my constituency that I mentioned, rightly limit the provision they make available. First, people must have a voucher that comes from a recognised body such as the social services, a GP, or a women’s aid or drug support group. People find themselves in terrible situations, often because of the breakdown of the family or changes that they simply have not been able to manage. We need to recognise that the food bank and the Trussell Trust give food provision for three days only. Food banks are not the soup kitchens that the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) has described. They rightly limit provision because they do not want to create that culture of dependency. They are about bringing those people back into the state support system and the charitable groups that need to address those problems.
Alun Cairns
I will give way in a moment. The limitations on the provision, which are rightly in place—
Alun Cairns
I will give way in a moment.
The limitations in provision, which are rightly in place for that very good reason, mean that only three parcels can be distributed—
Mr Speaker
Order. I fear the hon. Gentleman is not giving way. He has the floor.
Alun Cairns
Only three parcels can be distributed in a six-month period. The right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton spoke of soup kitchens. If his suggestion was right, there would be no such limitations. Our focus must be on getting people the right support from the right place. That might be from their MP, a charitable organisation, a local authority or the state sector.
Mr MacNeil
Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that food banks and soup kitchens are symptoms of a structural problem, as the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) has said? From 1971 to 2011, productivity rose 80%, but workers shared only 10% of that. Income changed from labour to capital. The economist Paul Krugman has said that if that had not happened, workers would be better off by 30% or 40%. A fundamental, structural shift in society is causing those ills.
Alun Cairns
The hon. Gentleman makes a powerful point, but given the regrettable limit of four minutes on speeches, I cannot address the structural economic debate over that period.
I ask those who are responsible for food banks, who play an exceptionally important part that we should recognise, to refer information to their MP, first, because we might well be able to intervene if there is a benefit delay—we can help in some cases—and, secondly, because it is important information with which we can try to influence policy. However, when policy is debated and discussed in the way in which many Opposition Members have done, it undermines the credibility of the strong arguments that need to be addressed. Hon. Members might be in a positive position to intervene, and I am sorry the debate has progressed as it has.
The background is longer-term economic decline. Thankfully, today’s unemployment data show we are turning the corner. That will make a significant difference. Those who are pointing the finger the most need to recognise that that decline has taken place over many years.
Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)
I want to speak only briefly. The hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns) mentioned the tone of the debate. Many of my constituents will be disappointed that the Minister, who is back in her place, showed no contrition whatever for the acceleration of food banks on the Government’s watch. The issue is not whether food banks existed four or five years ago, but the sheer explosion in the number of food banks and demand for them in the past 18 months.
Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is right. I have an excellent charity, the Irish Youth Foundation, in my constituency. It is using its capital money to set up emergency food banks, and to provide emergency aid and relief for desperate young people who are going without food. That has happened as a consequence of this Government’s policies.
Jonathan Ashworth
My hon. Friend makes his point with great eloquence.
Sadly, too many areas of my constituency appear too high up in the various deprivation statistics, and we have had an increase in demand for food banks. The Open Hands food bank in Highfields says it is doubling the number of food parcels it hands out. In the Saffron Lane area, there is an increase in the number of women going to food banks. Primary schools hand out food parcels to parents who are too ashamed to go to the food banks on their estates.
Robert Halfon
No one denies that there is a problem, but does the hon. Gentleman not accept that the Government are doing everything possible to alleviate it? That is why they have introduced free school meals for children in the first three years of primary school and extended free school meals to poorer students who go to further education colleges. That is why they have frozen council tax and fuel duty, are trying to cut energy bills and are linking the basic state pension with earnings. Are those not real examples of how the Government are helping with the cost of living?
Jonathan Ashworth
The hon. Gentleman must recognise that there is a huge cost of living crisis because of the downward pressure on wages. Increasingly, people in work, and people on benefits, are turning up at food banks because of a series of social security cuts implemented by the Department for Work and Pensions. The food banks in my constituency report increased usage because of the bedroom tax, and not just for food parcels—people who have had to move into private rented accommodation but do not have the appropriate furniture are going to food banks that provide furniture. Food banks report increased usage because of sanctions, delays in appeals and delays in benefit decisions. The Atos centre in my constituency does not have suitable disabled access, so people on employment and support allowance have to go to either Nottingham or Birmingham for their assessment. They cannot afford to do that, so they end up going without the ESA they deserve and turn up at the food banks in my constituency. That is a sad indictment of the condition of Britain under this Tory Government.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
Does my hon. Friend share my concern that figures released this week show an increase in diseases such as scurvy and rickets, and an increase in malnourishment? The Government should acknowledge that in the context of today’s debate. Frankly, it is disgraceful that we have not had a Minister from either of the main Departments sitting on the Front Bench for the whole of the debate.
Jonathan Ashworth
My hon. Friend makes a powerful point that is worth repeating: there is an increase in those diseases in 21st century Britain under this Tory Government.
Jonathan Ashworth
I am sorry to the hon. Gentleman, but I am not going to give way again.
Of course, it is not just the food banks. I am proud to represent a tremendously diverse constituency, where all the gurdwaras report an increase in uptake by non-Sikh people who go to them daily for the food that they hand out. Our Muslim organisations and mosques are collecting food to be handed out in our food banks. For Government Members to say that that is all just a continuation of a statistical trend that has been going on for the past few years suggests that they are all completely in denial.
The Minister, who is now shaking her head, boasted that the Government have commissioned a study and a review. I hope that when the Minister with responsibility for the voluntary sector, the Minister of State, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd), responds to the debate—it speaks volumes that the Minister with responsibility for the voluntary sector will be responding to this debate, not a Minister from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs—he will undertake to produce that study, so that Members on both sides of the House can study it. I hope he will also tell us—I am sure the officials in the Box have the statistics—whether the Government, in their considered view, think that demand for food banks will increase or decrease in 2014 and 2015. That would be an interesting statistic and I look forward to the Minister outlining that in his summing up.
We are seeing a series of changes to the way social security works from the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, who stumbles around Whitehall with a bleeding hole in his foot and a smoking gun in his hand as all his different reforms collapse—universal credit and so on. A whole series of changes are affecting our constituents and driving the increased demand for food banks in our constituencies. For the Government not to acknowledge that suggests that they are completely out of touch and completely in denial.
James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)
The Black Country food bank in my constituency is a faith-based organisation that serves the whole of the black country area of the west midlands. It is run by an incredibly dedicated range of staff and volunteers. Having volunteered there myself, I know the focused way in which they approach serving the people who come to their doors. As other hon. Members have pointed out, food banks offer three days of emergency help. That means that the service the Black Country food bank provides is not a replacement for welfare; it is integrated within the welfare system itself.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
James Morris
I will not give way, because many other hon. Members want to take part in the debate.
The Black Country food bank gives food only to people referred to it by an approved agency, including social services. When I volunteered there, I met people who had been identified as suffering from serious mental health problems; I met women who had been victims of domestic violence and who had been abruptly removed, or wanted to be abruptly removed, from their homes; and I met victims of family breakdown. Every single person I met had been referred to the food bank with a unique set of circumstances.
The Black Country food bank plays a vital role in fighting poverty in my constituency. It is true that usage of it has increased, but that is partly due to increased awareness of what it does. Inevitably, when people get to know that it is providing a vital resource, linked in with other agencies within the welfare system, they will start to use it more. Better links are also being created between food banks and local agencies. Local health services are aware that the food bank is on hand to help people who have serious mental health issues. As people are more aware of the vital service it provides, it is not surprising that its use has risen.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
My hon. Friend is paying handsome tribute to the Black Country food bank. Will he join me in paying tribute to his own food bank and many others, including mine in Gloucester, run by the excellent Anneliese Sterry and her volunteers, which provide a fantastic service for many people? My office hands out vouchers and appreciates the help they are giving.
James Morris
My hon. Friend makes a good point about the valuable work being done in his constituency.
The Black Country food bank does other vital work in the community. Like the food banks that other hon. Members have mentioned, it helps families learn how to prepare cost-effective and nutritious meals. Such courses and information can have a greater impact in the medium term than the three-day supply of food it initially provides to those referred to it. Like other poverty-fighting organisations in my constituency, such as the Hope centre and the charity Loaves ’n’ Fishes, it provides vital work experience and apprenticeship opportunities for many people in my constituency, particularly those in long-term unemployment. That, too, is linked to jobcentres and the whole welfare system. Such organisations provide valuable skills and work, and not just on a voluntary basis; they provide real work experience and apprenticeship opportunities that are helping the local economy.
The food bank is providing not just essential food support, but community facilities and skills that are vital to my local area. I agree with other hon. Members that to try and make political capital out of, and fight political battles over, groups such as the Black Country food bank and the work they do in my community is very disappointing. Those who run such food banks deserve our respect and support for the committed and dedicated work they do for some of the most vulnerable in my community.
Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)
There is no desire among the Opposition to make political capital out of those who have set up food banks or use them; we are representing our constituents. In my constituency, there has been an exponential growth in the use of food banks since 2010, and I and other Opposition Members are giving voice to those constituents. It is disgraceful for the hon. Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris) to suggest that we are trying to make political capital out of this.
I listened carefully to the Minister earlier, but what we heard from her was a striking combination of denial and complacency. Both the tone and the substance of what she said today failed to meet the scale of the challenge that communities up and down the country face.
Stephen Twigg
It is simply not acceptable for the hon. Lady to sit in her place, shaking her head, when she knows the damage that this is causing to communities up and down this country.
Stephen Twigg
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw our attention to that.
I would like to draw attention to some of the fantastic things happening in Liverpool to address the crisis of food poverty. My right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Paul Murphy) said earlier that food banks demonstrate both the good and the bad in our modern society. I want to thank all the volunteers who have made a success of food banks in my constituency, and I refer specifically to the North Liverpool food bank, which has 90 volunteers who see about 150 people a week. It opened two years ago in November 2011, and now has eight separate distribution centres in north Liverpool, including in my constituency, in Croxteth and Norris Green. Norris Green is the council ward in Liverpool that has the largest number of households directly affected by the bedroom tax—more than 1,000 households in that single ward—which the food bank tells me is one reason for the increased uptake.
Another food bank was set up by Labour councillors in the Dovecot area of my constituency, providing crucial support. There is also the Next Steps project, to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth) referred, which was set up by Councillor Peter Mitchell, one of my constituents. Next Steps provides both food banks and support for people to get back into work. Peter told me earlier today of a wonderful example of a 58-year-old man who used the programme to find a job after a long period of unemployment. He was so happy at the support he had received that he burst into tears when he got that news. In December alone, the food bank will feed 1,000 people and expects to have fed 7,000 people this year.
Finally, let me refer to a brilliant initiative by Joe Anderson, the mayor of Liverpool. He set up, with Tesco, the mayor’s Hope fund, which is to launch an innovative project to aid the relief of poverty in Liverpool. Anyone shopping in Tesco can make a donation to support the running of the food banks across Liverpool. That is a practical example of a Labour local government leader working with the private sector to deliver and support food banks. I finish by appealing to whichever Minister we are to hear from at the end of the debate to listen to what my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) said when the debate opened.
Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that it is an absolute disgrace that we have to have food banks and the initiatives that he describes in the sixth richest country in the world?
Stephen Twigg
Absolutely. Those among my constituents who do not have to use the food banks look in disbelief when they learn about the scale of the increase in their use over recent years, so I absolutely concur with my hon. Friend. I appeal to the Government to publish the DEFRA report and to do what my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead said the Government should do, which is to have a proper inquiry into the causes of the growth of food banks, so that in future we see not further exponential growth, as we have seen over the last three and a half years, but a decline in the use of food banks, which surely we could all support.
Mr Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)
Poole food bank does a valuable job, supported by a wide range of people, largely from the churches, but including people across the political spectrum. They are all dealing with what must be a very difficult personal crisis for many when they cannot put food on the table. As a parent, one cannot conceive what it must be like to worry about what can be provided for children in an evening meal. In some respects, food banks provide a perfect example of the third sector at work, doing what it can to plug a gap at a particularly difficult time.
When all this started, I was sitting on the other side of the Chamber, watching the Budgets and the economic management of the country. At that time I was told that boom and bust had been abolished, yet we had one of the biggest busts ever—nearly 7% of GDP. However we look at it, if GDP falls by as much as that, living standards will take a hit.
Let me make an important point. It could have been a lot worse if people in work had gone for high pay increases to compensate for high bills, but they did not; they priced themselves into jobs. It could have been worse if people had been irresponsible, but they have not been irresponsible. Given the scale of the bust, it is a miracle that only 7.4% of people in the country are unemployed. The figures in Germany and Holland are lower, but, among European countries, Britain is not doing too badly.
Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that, while we should all support churches, charities and organisations such as the West Northumberland food bank in my constituency, we should praise the Salvation Army in particular, because it has been providing food assistance for generations?
Mr Syms
That is a very good point.
We all know that many people in work, as well as those who are out of work, have experienced a big drop in their living standards, and we know that that is because of the economic crisis, but the good news is that there are still a great many people in work and we have a growing economy. It is inevitable that living standards will start to recover as incomes rise, the market recovers and we start to export more.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman’s description of the macro-economic picture is not as connected to the micro-economic picture as he may assume. According to volunteers at the food bank in my constituency, they have been told that the need for food banks has been caused by the move from benefits to work. People’s weekly benefits stop and their pay cheques come at the end of the month, which is too far away. I fear that the recovery will not reach all parts of the economy unless we make it do so. Can he tell us what we can do to ensure that that happens?
Mr Syms
One of our purposes in introducing universal credit is to make the transition from unemployment to work much easier. The scheme is complicated—we all know that—but I think that it is a worthwhile venture, because anything making employment easier must be a good thing.
Mr Syms
I will not, because my time is limited. I have already taken two interventions.
I am sure that, as the economy recovers, living standards will recover as well, but there is a short-term problem and a long-term problem. The short-term problem is the need for us to recover from the recession, which, as we all know, will take several years. The long-term problem is that, while those in the western world who have benefited from globalisation—particularly people at the higher income scale working in, for instance, financial services—can secure large rewards, many people in ordinary jobs have not managed to increase their living standards. That is a feature of the United States economy and it may be a feature of ours, which is why the Government are interested in apprenticeships and are trying to make our education system far more robust and resilient.
Statistics issued by the OECD the other day demonstrated the importance of ensuring that people are proficient in English and maths and that we have a skilled work force, because that enables those people to generate income and higher living standards. I think that the Government have the right instincts and the right answers, but the fact is that it will take a long time to sort the problem out.
Steve Baker
Given that the money supply was allowed to triple during the 13 years when Labour was in power, it should not surprise us if those nearest to the source of the new money got rich while everyone else went backwards.
Mr Syms
There is an argument to be had about the impact of that. Certainly it helped people with assets rather than those without assets. Nevertheless, I think that progress is being made, and that this morning’s unemployment figures represent a good staging post.
We need to do much more to educate and skill our work force so that we can compete in the global race and improve everyone’s living standards. All the statistics show that some of the more equal societies in Scandinavia are happier societies. What any Government must do in this country is ensure that, as the economy recovers, all sections of the community can earn a living, and can enjoy rising living standards.
Dame Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)
At the moment, Aberdeen is doing well. Despite the recession, the economy there is booming. There is so much activity in the North sea oil and gas sector that we are experiencing a labour shortage, and today’s unemployment figure in my constituency is down to 1.5 %, which comes pretty close to full employment. In spite of all that, something else is booming: the use of food banks.
The Secretary of State said this morning that the rise in the use of food banks was a result of decent people wanting to help those who found themselves in temporary difficulty, but I do not think that that is the case. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field), I think that there is something fundamental going on.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
Will my hon. Friend give way?
Debbie Abrahams
Does my hon. Friend agree that it is a real worry that the demand for food banks seems to be related to the targets relating to social security sanctions? That is certainly the experience in my food bank in Oldham. One of my constituents has been waiting for an appeal against a sanction for four months without any money. For him, the food bank has been a lifeline.
Dame Anne Begg
My hon. Friend, like me, has been lobbied by a number of organisations saying that failures in the benefit system are causing much of the increase in food bank use.
If the use of food banks were just a passing phase born out of the global banking crisis and the recent years of austerity, we would not be seeing their growth in places such as Aberdeen. If their use is temporary, why is it still growing when the Government say that the economy is picking up? If their use is nothing new, why are more families depending on food parcels than at any time in history?
Dame Anne Begg
I might give way later, if I get through my speech quickly.
The number of organisations operating food banks is growing, as is the number of food parcels that are distributed each week. Before 2010, there were some people who required food parcels but their numbers were tiny and the food parcels were a stopgap measure to get them over an immediate crisis. However, in the first six months of this financial year, 27 tonnes of food were distributed across Aberdeen by just four of the organisations operating food banks. That figure does not include the food distributed by the Trussell Trust. Something must have changed between the financial crash and today. One thing that has changed is the Government; another thing is the Government’s social security reforms. The attitude of the Government towards those on welfare has changed, too. So even in relatively affluent areas such as Aberdeen, families are depending on food parcels to eat.
Many organisations point to failures in the benefits system as the primary cause of the increase in the use of food banks. Oxfam and Church Action on Poverty thought the situation serious enough to encourage their supporters to lobby their MPs and ask them to lobby the Work and Pensions Committee to look into the link between the increase in the use of food banks and the increase in the use of sanctions, as well as the increase in long delays and mistakes in benefit payments by Jobcentre Plus. A large number of MPs on both sides of the House—reflected by the large number in attendance here today—passed on their constituents’ concerns to us on the Committee.
The belief that much of the problem is caused by errors in benefit payments is shared by Citizens Advice Scotland, which reports that 73% of the people using food banks cite problems with their welfare payments, that 30% are experiencing delays in getting the payment to which they are entitled, and that 22% are the subject of jobseeker’s allowance sanctions. However, people who have been sanctioned make up less than a quarter of those who are using food banks. All too commonly, people are using them because they have fallen on hard times through no fault of their own. People are still falling ill and losing their jobs as a result, only to face a long delay in getting any benefit. Those delays have got worse in recent years. It also seems to be taking longer and longer to get benefits reinstated once they have been stopped, even by accident. Cuts are also being made to the benefits that people get, including the most pernicious of all—the bedroom tax—and this is all before the largest change of all, universal credit, has been introduced. So things could get worse.
We should be breaking dependency, not making it worse. The Government need to recognise that the increase in the use of food banks is no accident, that it is not just a result of the economic downturn, and that it is not happening just because the food banks are there. It is a result of the policies being actively pursed by the Government. The use of food banks will not drop until the Government realise that and do something to ensure that those who have fallen on hard times are able to feed themselves, rather than having to rely on charity.
John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)
It is a privilege to contribute to this debate, and a privilege and honour to represent the headquarters of the Trussell Trust in Salisbury. The trust’s food banks were established in my constituency more than 15 years ago. This started in 2000, when the trust was working in Bulgaria, looking after 60 street children who were sleeping at railway stations there. The founder of the charity received a call from a desperate mother in Salisbury who said, “My children are going to be hungry tonight. What are you going to do about it?” That happened in 2000, and in 2004 two food banks were set up. The people of Salisbury support the trust’s food bank very generously all the year round. Yes, there are people in Salisbury, which has 1.6% unemployment, who use food banks. I want to pay tribute to the individuals I have got to know over the past three and half years from Salisbury who lead the work of the Trussell Trust.
Robert Halfon
My hon. Friend speaks powerfully. The spirit that he mentions in relation to the food bank set up by the Trussell Trust has extended to Harlow with its food bank, which was originally set up by the Michael Roberts Charitable Trust but is linked to the Trussell Trust. An extraordinary amount of work is done there, and it has become a very important part of our community. Will my hon. Friend celebrate that? Does he agree that we should support that and not try to use it as a political football?
John Glen
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention. Of course, we all support the work of the food banks and the individuals who work in them. I wish to finish my tribute to Chris Mould, David McAuley, Molly Hudson and Mark Elling. I have got to know them, and their responsibility has been to roll out the growth of food banks. That may be uncomfortable for some Government Members, as might its implications and the way the tone of the debate has taken an unfortunate turn this afternoon. We have to acknowledge the growth in food banks. In 2005-06, there were fewer than 3,000 users, but that had risen to 40,000 by 2009-10. I accept that we have seen a similar scale of use. The question is: why, and what are we going to do about it? [Interruption] We are talking about a factor of 10, to about half a million users at the moment. I am not trying to deny the scale of food bank use. If Labour Members would stop trying to make political points, that would be helpful.
The important issue is getting to the bottom of why so many people are using food banks. The Trussell Trust says that this is about not only homelessness, benefit delay, low income and changes to benefits, but domestic violence, sickness, refused short-term benefit advances, debt and unemployment.
Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)
A constituent of mine has had to go to our Trussell Trust because she was a victim of domestic violence. She was separated, had nowhere to go and her husband was not prepared to fund anything. I pay tribute, as my hon. Friend has been doing, to the trust. Hope for Belper and the Belper News, our local paper, have been supporting it to increase the amount of food given by volunteers to the Trussell Trust in Belper and thus spread the amount of food it can give out to people requiring it.
John Glen
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her intervention, which speaks for itself. On the deeper causes, it is not a question of isolating one particular change. I recognise that the Trussell Trust has acknowledged from the data it has collected that the benefit changes have presented significant challenges. But what I find lacking in this debate is a serious estimation of what alternative measures could be put in place; all I have heard is, “Remove the sanctions regime. Give more money.” Where is that money going to come from? How will the incentive effect—
John Glen
I will carry on. How will the incentive effect of the benefit changes that the Government so desperately want to bring in have a chance of success if we do not make those changes? Some of the benefit changes have taken a long time to come through, and we need to let them take effect so that we can deliver the deeper change that needs to occur. People are motivated to go to the Trussell Trust and other food banks across the country for a whole number of reasons. They may find themselves in chaotic situations; they could be in debt and have no financial management skills to know how to prioritise their spending. I am not saying that that is true in every case, but we must be honest about the breadth of the problems faced by the individuals who use the food banks. We must come up with a solution that addresses all the issues. We should not tritely simplify the matter and say, “It is all about the benefit changes and the Government must do something, but by the way I will not specify what we would do as an alternative, how much it would cost and how we would pay for it and in what time scale.” Unless alternative policies are advanced, the things that some Members are saying ring very shallow for everyone involved in food banks.
It is regrettable that the relationship between the Trussell Trust and the DWP has broken down. I hope that a dialogue can reopen and we can see some progress. I do not believe that any Member in this House is happy to see people in their constituency going hungry, but we should be honest and holistic in our view of what needs to be done to sort it out.
Mr Roger Godsiff (Birmingham, Hall Green) (Lab)
I was one of the lucky generation who was brought up in a country with a social market economy that was run by Governments—both Labour and Conservative—who believed that the state had a duty to provide a safety net for their citizens and should not abandon them to the instabilities of unregulated markets.
There was a post-war consensus of politicians, including many one nation Conservatives—I am talking about people such as Macmillan, Butler and Macleod—who rejected what Prime Minister Ted Heath called the “unacceptable face of capitalism”. Images of mass unemployment and soup kitchens—the repercussions of the 1929 stock market crash—were to be banished for ever. I never believed for one moment that 50 years later, I would be a Member of this House, living in a country with the seventh largest economy in the world, and discussing why 41,000 people in the west midlands and countless others throughout the country are having to rely on modern-day soup kitchens—food banks—to feed themselves and their families.
Mr MacNeil
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me the opportunity to support his point. He is probably aware that the gap between the richest 1% in the United States of America and the rest of the country is now the largest since the 1920s, the very decade he mentioned. The incomes of the top 1% have gone up by 20%, while the incomes of the remaining 99% have gone up by only 1%. Those tectonic plates are changing.
Mr Godsiff
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments, and I am aware of those facts.
In my constituency, the Sparkhill food bank feeds hundreds of people every week. I want to share with the House the comments of somebody who has used that food bank. She is a young lady who lives in the Moseley area of my constituency. She says:
“This time last year I was working full time in a well-paid job but lost my job. I found temporary work that ended in February this year. I also suffered bereavements and the breakdown of my long term relationship and ended up in receipt of benefits. I got into debt with all my utility bills and most of my JSA was used to pay npower and Severn Trent Water.”
Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)
I have been told by the food banks in Widnes and Runcorn in my constituency that they are seeing an increasing number of people without gas or electricity, which means that the food they can supply is inappropriate. They are now having to consider what type of food they provide. It is not a matter of what is donated but of what people can use.
Mr Godsiff
I agree exactly with what my hon. Friend says.
My constituent goes on to say:
“At my lowest I was living off £5 per fortnight…I eventually sought help and was referred to fantastic local charities who helped me deal with my debts and in turn referred me to Sparkhill Foodbank. I will never forget going to the foodbank, it was a humbling experience and I spent 40 minutes crying as I was so ashamed but the workers at the foodbank were fantastic and put me at ease whilst assuring me that my circumstances were not my fault and in no way a reflection of me as a human being.”
She then says:
“Luckily my circumstances are going to change for the better very soon as I have recently found a job…but I will never forget the kindness of strangers who helped me fill my belly in England in 2013.”
The Government ought to be ashamed of presiding over a situation in which such people must go through what that young lady, who is not feckless or a shirker, has had to experience. At the end of the day, lives will be scarred by the humiliation of forcing people into food banks—not just the lives of those individuals, but the lives of their children, too. Whatever the Government say, their MPs should be ashamed of that.
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to speak in this debate on an important subject. I pay tribute to my Stroud food bank, which is an excellent example of exactly what should be delivered for those who are desperately in need. It is a fantastic organisation that demonstrates precisely what we need to do. It is operating in difficult circumstances and has moved from premises with a difficult landlord in London road to some elsewhere, with a new landlord. It will launch itself yet again as an exemplar of what is needed.
We need to ensure that people have the opportunity to have a fulfilled life, which comes through work and by contributing themselves.
Albert Owen
The hon. Gentleman represents a region that contains many rural areas. Will he join me in paying tribute to the special work done by the independent trusts that help to run food banks? Food and fuel poverty are a lot higher in rural areas, which makes their job even more difficult.
Neil Carmichael
Absolutely. Fuel poverty is an issue, and I fully accept that, but I think the greatest issue is the need for people to recognise that there are opportunities in the work force—opportunities to seek employment and opportunities to fulfil their lives. That is where we need to go.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
Of course, finding a job should be the way out of poverty. Is that not why it is so shocking that the majority of working-age people living below the poverty line are now in working households and that two thirds of all children living in poverty are living in working families? What should the hon. Gentleman’s Government be doing about that?
Neil Carmichael
The Government are ensuring that more people are in work and we have discovered today just how that policy is working. The opportunity we must give all people, including young people, is the ability to engage in a working life.
Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)
My hon. Friend is very generous in giving way. Is there not quite a lot that we can do as MPs? My volunteer team works alongside the food bank volunteer team to ensure that food bank clients get all the help that is available to get them and their families out of poverty and to improve their lives.
Neil Carmichael
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. It is about a holistic approach to helping people. I recognise that certain individuals get into situations in which they need emergency help, and I am grateful to Stroud’s food bank for providing it, but I also think that it is important to ensure that they are pointed in the right direction so that they make decisions that benefit them and their families overall, because that is what matters to them. That is the key issue.
I will finish with this observation: it is critical that we recognise the economic value of supporting people into work.
Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)
Food banks have become the shameful symbol of Britain under a Tory Government. They have turned us into a country in which, despite being one of the richest in the world, a rapidly rising number of British people, many of them in work, are being forced to turn to charity to feed themselves and their families. But this Government have the affront—we heard it from the Minister—to say that all is well, when for most people things are getting harder, not easier. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) said, the Government just will not admit that they are part of the problem. Ministers are sitting on the independent report that they commissioned, presumably because they are ashamed and embarrassed about what it tells them.
The Trussell Trust states that one in three of those fed by food banks are children, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) noted. Many are disabled, including those hit by the cruel, callous and unworkable bedroom tax, which my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) spoke about. Many are in work but earning less than the living wage. Indeed, the majority of people in poverty today are in work, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Paul Murphy) and my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg) mentioned.
Dr Whiteford
Is the hon. Lady aware that Citizens Advice Scotland published research earlier this week suggesting that the main drivers for the increased use of food banks relate to the benefits system, particularly the increasing use of sanctions and delays and administrative errors?
Rachel Reeves
Sanctions, delays and the bedroom tax are all contributing to the increase in the number of people having to turn to food banks. Today we heard the powerful human stories behind the statistics.
Stephen Doughty
I have compared the use of food banks in my constituency in the festive period over the past two years. In Cardiff the number has doubled since last year, and Penarth has seen an eightfold increase. Is not the real tragedy that this is also a Christmas crisis for food banks?
Rachel Reeves
Yes, and although my hon. Friend refers to the festive period, for many it will not be festive at all.
A fortnight ago a young women with an 18-month-old daughter came to see me in my constituency. She had left her ex-husband to escape domestic violence but was worried sick because the benefits office had cut off her benefits when her ex-husband falsely claimed to have custody of her child. She has been waiting for weeks without any support while it fails to rectify the mistake. Without the food banks in my constituency, run by St George’s Crypt, St Bartholomew’s church in Armley and the Trussell Trust, that woman and her daughter would have gone without food. She has been badly let down by this Government and by their delays and sanctions.
Rachel Reeves
That is a really important point, but some Government Members and Ministers have suggested that people go to food banks because the food is free. The welfare reform Minister, Lord Freud, says that there is an almost infinite demand for that but, as my hon. Friend points out, people have real pride and are ashamed to go to food banks. As my hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) said, those are sad stories and real lives.
Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)
First, I would like a Government inquiry into food poverty. Secondly, can the hon. Lady tell me whether she believes that unmet need for emergency food relief is currently increasing or decreasing?
Rachel Reeves
The number of people going to food banks is increasing. The demand is there because they are not getting the support they need from the welfare state. The Red Cross, FoodCycle and the Trussell Trust are all saying the same. It would be useful if the Government published the report that they commissioned on the growing use of food banks.
What is the Government’s response to this crisis? The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions—it is nice to see him here—said on the radio this morning:
“There has been a growth in food banks, as they grow people attend them.”
In the world of the Secretary of State, the rise in food bank use to half a million people reflects an increase in supply, even though people need to be referred to a food bank—they cannot just turn up. The logic of this Government is like blaming the number of house fires on the number of fire engines. I say shame on the Secretary of State and shame on this Government. We have to ask how many children will have to go hungry this Christmas before the Government take action—before the Secretaries of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and for Work and Pensions acknowledge that there is a problem and then finally do something about it.
The charities, churches, community groups and volunteers who run the food banks show us Britain at its best—a country of generosity and solidarity, of one nation where people pull together to do what they can for the least fortunate among us. We should, and we do, applaud them, as many hon. Members have said, particularly my hon. Friends the Members for Copeland (Mr Reed) and for Newport East (Jessica Morden), and, most recently, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr Godsiff), who spoke about the kindness of strangers. When the Prime Minister promised us the big society, is this really what he had in mind—homelessness rising, a boom in payday lending, more and more lives scarred by long-term unemployment, and half a million people relying on food banks to feed themselves and their families?
It is downright Dickensian, a tale of two nations: tax cuts for the rich and food banks for the poor. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) said, as we in this Chamber look forward to Christmas, we must spare a thought for those who are not going to have any sort of Christmas at all.
Ann McKechin (Glasgow North) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that it is a basic human right that people should have sufficient food that they do not need to go hungry, and that in this country they should not have to rely on charity?
Rachel Reeves
My hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point. While we all applaud and thank the food banks, the volunteers and the people who donate food, that is not how our basic needs should be met. The basic need for food should be met through wages and a social safety net when it is needed. The basic need for housing should be met by our wages or by a social safety net when it is needed. The basic need to be able to heat one’s home and turn on the lights should be met by having a decent wage or a social safety net when it is needed.
Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)
Has my hon. Friend seen, as I have, the study by the Children’s Society showing that under this Government the real value of the adult national minimum wage is 50p an hour less than it was when Labour was in office? Is this low pay crisis not one of the key drivers of the explosion in the use of food banks?
Rachel Reeves
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. The national minimum wage was one of the proudest achievements of the previous Labour Government. It lifted millions of people out of poverty pay, the majority of them women, and employment increased when Conservative Members said that unemployment would increase as a result. We also know today that the real value of the national minimum wage has not kept pace with average earnings or with the rising costs of energy, food prices and everything else, and so people who are in work are increasingly having to turn to food banks to be able to make ends meet.
Although we welcome today’s unemployment numbers, we know that a record number of people are working part time who want to work full time, and that for 41 of the 42 months that this Prime Minister has been in office, prices have risen at a faster rate than earnings. For all those reasons, my hon. Friend is right to point to the problems with the minimum wage, which has not kept pace with the rising cost of living and is not even being enforced. With more than 5 million people being paid less than a living wage, we know that we need to redouble our efforts to ensure that more people can support themselves and their families, rather than having to turn to food aid.
Seventy years ago, William Beveridge spoke of the five giants that he said a civilised country must overcome: squalor, ignorance, want, idleness and disease. Under this Tory-led Government, those giants are rearing their ugly heads again. We need a Labour Government to slay them.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mr Nick Hurd)
The hon. Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) talked about sad stories from real lives and she was right to do so. That is why the House is so packed—because of the concern of Members on both sides about what is going on.
A number of contributors have regretted the tone in which the debate has been conducted and they have a point, so let me start, as the Minister for Civil Society, by joining the many colleagues on both sides of the House, but particularly my hon. Friends the Members for Gloucester (Richard Graham) and for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris), the hon. Members for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams) and for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr Godsiff) and my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael), who went out of their way to thank the people who set up food banks and who volunteer at and donate to them in their constituencies.
Mr Hurd
I will not give way at the moment.
Frankly, there has been an enormously impressive human, civil society response to need. That need is not new and perhaps it has been under-recognised by Governments of all colours, but the response is entirely resonant with the very proud traditions of this country’s voluntary sector and churches. It is entirely right that we should start our response by congratulating them.
Mr Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con)
Some years ago I spent five months living homeless in London among the dispossessed and the mentally ill. [Interruption.] It was for a television programme; Opposition Members should try it. Does the Minister agree that food banks can be enormously helpful for people with very chaotic lifestyles?
Mr Hurd
Food banks are enormously helpful. It was not entirely clear from the debate whether the Labour party is for or against them, which is why I want to place on record the Government’s recognition of the enormously valuable work they do.
It was right that my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen) had the opportunity to place on record his admiration for the work of the Trussell Trust, which was founded in his constituency. My hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker) spoke very powerfully of his own family’s experience and mentioned the community store. I pay tribute to FareShare, a national charity that feeds more than 51,000 every day through a unique and amazing partnership with the food industry, which has not been recognised in this debate. The strides made by Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Asda and other big retail partners and organisations such as Nestlé and Gerber make what FareShare do possible, and they should be congratulated.
I should also say that the Government are actively supporting these organisations.
Mr Speaker
Order. It is quite clear that the Minister is not giving way at the moment.
Mr Hurd
Support is being provided through the Cabinet Office. I am extremely proud that through our social action fund we have granted £1.7 million to Tearfund, which runs programmes in partnership with the Cinnamon Network that aim to tackle a variety of local issues such as food banks and food poverty. I am proud to say that 81 Trussell Trust-run food bank franchises benefited from that funding. More funding is being made available and more franchises are applying for it. This Government are very proud to place on record our acknowledgement of and congratulations to food banks. We have an active programme to support them
Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
Will the Minister join me in congratulating those who recently helped set up a food bank in Beverley, those who have run the Holderness food bank from Hornsea—the church groups and others—for the last two years, and the Real Aid children’s charity in Tickton outside Beverley, which does so much to help those in crisis? There will always be people in crisis; we need to make sure we have in place the measures to support them.
Mr Hurd
I am not going to give way because I want to address this point and we are running out of time. Many Members who contributed to the debate complained about the tone, which was set by the Labour Front-Bench team, who came here to play the blame game, which turns the public off. They are in total denial about the past and the actions of the last Government that precipitated the economic crisis that underpins the demand and the need. They came here almost pretending that there was some golden age before 2010 when the social system worked perfectly, the economy worked perfectly and the big state in all its glory was there to help everyone in need, which is absolute rubbish.
Simon Danczuk
Does the Minister accept that scrapping the national social fund has made it more difficult for people to get crisis loans, which has pushed people towards food banks? [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. There are strong feelings on both sides but the Minister must be heard.
Sir Gerald Kaufman
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Hurd is exactly what he is.
Mr Speaker
That is not a point of order, but I am sure the right hon. Gentleman found it humorous.
Mr Hurd
There was no acknowledgement of the past and no real acknowledgement of some of the complexities underlying this situation. The Labour Front-Bench team came here simply to make political capital and I think lost the respect of the House. It would have been nice to hear some acknowledgement from the Opposition Front Benchers or Back Benchers of the improvement in the economy and the fact that we now have more than 30 million people in work—a record number—and of the performance of this Government in a few years to get this economy back on track.
Sheila Gilmore
I thank the Minister for giving way. I think he was somewhat churlish in not acknowledging that many Opposition Members are also extremely grateful to those who work in food banks. When I went to my local church-run food bank, I found that the people there were not political; the one thing they wanted to tell me was how shocked they were that so many of the people coming to them were suffering from sanctions—and sanctions not as a last resort but as a first resort.
Mr Hurd
I agree that these magnificent volunteers are not political, and I therefore warn the Labour party against politicising this issue, because that is the gravest charge against it. I think it has forfeited any respect with regard to the sad stories in real life through the approach it took. We had a Labour Front-Bench spokesman come here to talk about a problem with absolutely no indication of a solution. We have had Labour Members standing up to say the welfare system is the problem, and we have a shadow Front-Bench spokesperson who is on record saying she will be tougher than the Tories on welfare, so what does that actually mean for food banks? Would there be more or fewer of them under her leadership? We have no idea at all.
Stephen Mosley
Was my hon. Friend as disappointed as I was by the Opposition Front-Bench Member, who in a 10-minute speech did not outline one policy that the Opposition would put in place to put this right?
Ms Rosie Winterton (Doncaster Central) (Lab)
claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).
Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.
Question agreed to.
Main Question accordingly put.
Waveney (Coastal Flooding)
(11 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
I am pleased to have secured this debate as I believe that the coastal flooding that took place on 5 December should be considered on the Floor of the House. The storm surge has had a devastating impact on many coastal communities, and there is a strong sense in those communities that Parliament has not properly considered what was a narrowly averted national crisis. Many have seen their homes destroyed, while other homes have been seriously damaged and people will not be able to return home for many months. People have lost possessions that were built up over a lifetime, and many small businesses—some of which had difficulty securing full insurance cover—have been seriously hit.
On small business Saturday when MPs were out promoting small businesses, many firms in coastal communities were busy trying to salvage what was left of their livelihoods. Many of those communities face significant economic challenges, and I am concerned that such events might make it more difficult to attract the inward investment needed to create new jobs.
Although Waveney and Lowestoft are the focus of my remarks, I am aware that these events affected many communities along the North sea coast and that colleagues will have their own specific concerns, some of which I hope I shall be able to address on their behalf. I am conscious that my colleagues, the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis) and the Minister of State, Department of Health, my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), have been particularly active in support of communities affected in their constituencies, but they are unable to participate in this debate due to their ministerial responsibilities.
Although no one lost their life as a result of the flooding, my constituent Robert Dellow died in the course of his work as a lorry driver as a result of the high winds. I offer my condolences to his family, friends and work colleagues. Although geographically small areas in Lowestoft and Oulton Broad were affected, the impact has been dramatic. Levington Court is a complex that provides housing and care for vulnerable older people. The residents of the 19 flats on the ground floor have been evacuated, their possessions have been destroyed and they will not be able to return to their homes for some months. The Fyffe Centre provides accommodation for the homeless. Twenty-seven people have been flooded out. It will take some months to refurbish and repair the building before they can return. Other residential areas, including St John’s road and Marine parade, have been hard-hit. Many of the homes are in the rental sector, and people have seen all their possessions destroyed.
Businesses have been hard-hit, including Lings car showroom, the East Coast cinema, Britain’s most easterly cinema, and Buyaparcel. The traders in Bevan Street East, which runs parallel to the street where my office is located, were dealt a particularly savage blow.
Infrastructure was damaged. The A12 from Ipswich was closed for 36 hours, and both train lines—to Norwich and Ipswich—were out of action. A full service on the latter has resumed only today. There was structural damage to coastal defences, and infrastructure at the port of Lowestoft was damaged. The doctor’s surgery at Marine parade has had to move and will probably not return from its new location.
To the south, at Kessingland, the flood defences around the Anglian Water pumping station that serves the community have been badly eroded. There is an urgent need to produce a new flood defence scheme. Until two weeks ago, it was envisaged that that would not be necessary for some years.
The scene is a sad one, but good things come out of adversity. It is important to point out that, owing to the investment in flood defences in the past few years and the way in which coastal flooding is managed, many properties were protected that otherwise would have been flooded. The various statutory authorities, including the Environment Agency, the Met Office, the police and fire services, the Flood Forecasting Centre, Suffolk county council and Waveney district council, were prepared for the event.
Flood warnings were issued in good time, the evacuation generally went smoothly and rest centres were open several hours before high tide. During the evening and the night, they and voluntary organisations such as St John Ambulance and the churches rose to the challenge, co-ordinated their efforts and worked around the clock to support and assist people. Many gave their time voluntarily without being asked to do so. Special thanks are due to them. Thanks should also go to Radio Suffolk and Radio Norfolk, which ensured that vital information went out throughout the night.
The clear-up work began the next day and will take several months to complete. Community champions are emerging. People are giving their time, money, goods and services free of charge to those who have been hard-hit. Malcolm Gibbs, a self-employed painter and decorator, is working for free redecorating properties; Danielle Bailey has launched a Facebook appeal for clothes, carpets, furniture and other goods; and customers of the Oddfellows pub have cleared up Pakefield beach.
It is appropriate to thank the Eastern Daily Press, its editor, Nigel Pickover, its staff and its readers for setting up and giving so generously to the Norfolk and Lowestoft flood appeal, which has raised more than £100,000. The House goes into recess tomorrow. I wish you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and all colleagues a happy and restful Christmas, but we must not forget that many people, not only in Lowestoft but all along the east coast, will not be as fortunate as ourselves.
In the Secretary of State’s written ministerial statement of 10 December, he stated:
“In the next few days, the Government will be discussing with every local authority area affected by the flooding what further help they need to ensure places can quickly get back on their feet.”—[Official Report, 10 December 2013; Vol. 572, c. 26WS.]
I would welcome an update from the Minister on how those discussions have gone and what further help is being provided. I would also welcome an assurance that all clean-up costs will be recovered.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate and on putting the case for his constituency. Barrow Haven, a village in my constituency, was badly hit. The residents are grateful to North Lincolnshire council for the work it is doing. The council is somewhat reassured about reclaiming money through the Bellwin formula and so on, but a lot of the work is dependent on the Environment Agency. Does my hon. Friend agree that we would like assurance from the Minister that additional funding, if necessary, will be available to the agency?
Peter Aldous
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. It is important that additional funding goes to local authorities for the costs they incur—I will come on to talk about the Bellwin formula—and to the Environment Agency, for capital works. I pay tribute to the EA, in particular, for the warning it gave leading up to this tragedy.
It is important that the Government review the policies and strategies they have in place to deal with such events. Concerns have been expressed to me that they were not devised with serious coastal flooding in mind. The Pitt review, which was set up by the previous Government after the storms in autumn 2007, appears to have some deficiencies in that it does not address coastal flooding and erosion properly. Its recognition of the need to protect the economy is too limited. Similar criticisms can be made of the new flood and coastal erosion risk management plan that was introduced in 2011. It, too, places insufficient weight on the need to protect the economy or recognise fully the differences between inland flooding, which is temporary, and coastal flooding and erosion, which can be terminal for affected properties and assets.
I would be grateful if the Minister advised on whether the Government have reviewed or plan to review Flood Re, the flood insurance scheme, which is being taken forward at present. Does it fully take into account, and provide for, the events that took place on 5 December? If not, will the Government make amendments so that it does?
The Bellwin scheme is the main vehicle through which the Government will deliver financial support to local communities by reimbursing local authorities for immediate costs incurred in the storm surge. Based on the feedback I have received there is a concern that the scheme, which was originally established in 1983, is no longer fit for purpose. I would be interested to learn what feedback the Government have had in that regard, but I will draw various conclusions to the Minister’s attention.
As a result of recent changes in the localisation of business rates, any rate relief granted by councils to affected businesses will in part be met by them rather than entirely by the Government, as was the case in the past. The scheme is too time-limited and restrictive. It does not cover the costs incurred in repairing sea defences that have been weakened by the event, and is not generally supportive of capital expenditure, which is necessary to repair sea defences. In Waveney, that is estimated at £120,000, while I am advised that in North Norfolk it could be £1 million.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
My hon. Friend is my neighbour and we share Waveney district council. We were both astounded by the level of the surge and I agree that we need extra capital funding. My understanding is that in Southwold alone an extra £2 million is needed. I join my hon. Friend in praising the Environment Agency—in particular, Dr Charlie Beardall and his team—and the councils for ensuring that people were aware in advance and could prepare as much as possible. They definitely need the resources to fix the problem again.
Peter Aldous
I am grateful to my hon. Friend and neighbour for that intervention, with which I agree wholeheartedly.
A further problem with the Bellwin scheme is that the two-month limitation that applies to expenditure means that extensive capital works are excluded if they cannot be completed in that time scale, which in the current circumstances could be very difficult to achieve. The costs of employing additional temporary staff or contractors are also not covered.
In the light of those and other concerns, there is a worry that Bellwin on its own will not be able to achieve the Secretary of State’s objective of getting places back on their feet quickly. In the short term, there is a need for communities to look at a variety of measures that manage flood risk. They include the provision of flood boards and valves in air bricks and in WCs, and liaison with the insurance industry to ensure that, where such protection measures are in place, it provides cover on realistic terms. It is also necessary to plan for the future. I believe that owing to rises in sea levels such events will occur with increased frequency, and I am conscious that in Lowestoft there have now been two such events in the past six years.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
I concur with a lot of what my hon. Friend has said, and I congratulate him on securing the debate. As the Minister knows from our debates on the Water Bill last week, hundreds of properties and many villages in my constituency were flooded. My hon. Friend has talked about the future. Does he agree that we urgently need a review and reassessment of all our flood strategy management plans, including the Humber flood risk management strategy plan, so that we can bring forward the works already identified in such plans as necessary to deal with rising sea levels? We need that to happen quickly and we need the funding in place to support whatever works are necessary.
Peter Aldous
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention, and I agree wholeheartedly that we need to address this issue as soon as practicable. One will lead on from the other.
We have had two such storm surges in the past six years, and arguably in both 2007 and 2013 we escaped by the skin of our teeth. In 2007, the wind dropped in the nick of time, while two weeks ago we were fortunate that the wind was blowing in a northerly direction and that there was no heavy rainfall, which would have exacerbated the surge up the rivers. It would be foolish to assume that we will be lucky a third time.
The challenges of rising sea levels and climate change mean that such events will take place with greater frequency. It is important to remember that sea levels along the Suffolk coast have been rising by 2.4 mm per annum since the 1950s. In Lowestoft, research carried out by Halcrow and Bam Nuttall concludes that a 1953-type flood, which was previously considered to be a one-in-1,000-year event, could well now take place every 20 years. There is thus a need for new and improved sea defences, and it is important that these be put in place as soon as practicable.
Preparatory work on a Lowestoft flood defence scheme is nearing completion. It should be submitted to the Government shortly, and I hope it will receive favourable consideration. It is important to the town’s future that work on the scheme starts as soon as practicable. There is the opportunity to attract considerable investment into the town, particularly in the oil and gas and offshore renewables sectors, and the inclusion of this part of Lowestoft in the draft assisted area map will help in this respect. However, businesses will think very carefully before making such commitments unless adequate flood defences are in place.
I have raised a number of issues, but I return to the most important, which is obtaining an assurance from the Minister that the Government are doing all they can to ensure that local communities affected by the storm surge get back on their feet as quickly as possible. In what is the season of good will, we owe it to those many people whose lives have been turned upside down this Christmas to provide an undertaking that they will not be forgotten.
On that note, Mr Deputy Speaker, happy Christmas to you, to the staff of the House and to all colleagues on both sides of the House. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dan Rogerson)
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for calling me to respond to this important debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) not only on securing it, but on how he opened it and the measured way in which he raised issues that are important to his constituents and others across the country who either were affected by the surge or, as he pointed out, escaped being affected this time but are concerned that we prepare for future events.
The coastal surge that struck the eastern coast of England on the night of 5 and 6 December was a significant flood event. It was the largest surge since 1953, and in several places the water height exceeded that experienced 60 years ago. It caused flooding to about 1,400 properties and some damage to infrastructure. I know all our thoughts are with those whose homes and businesses were damaged during these powerful storms. However, through investment by Government, and improvements to the way we manage this type of flooding, we were able to protect up to 800,000 properties countrywide that might otherwise have been flooded.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney pointed out, there was a multi-agency response to this event, with all relevant authorities pulling together to protect people and their property. I am grateful for the excellent response from our front-line emergency services, including the police, the fire services, the Environment Agency and, of course, local authorities, as well as all the volunteers who assisted. They all worked tirelessly to respond to the surge, both as it happened as well as in the ensuing recovery effort.
Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (Con)
In Essex, we all acknowledge how well Tendring district council and Essex police did—they did a fantastic job in organising the evacuation of Brooklands and Jaywick. Thousands of people were moved; it is to the great credit of people in Jaywick and Brooklands that thousands of people were moved with such minimal fuss. Does my hon. Friend accept that absolutely key to the whole process was the fact that the Environment Agency put the information out in the public domain early? By mid-afternoon, it was available through mainstream media and, in particular, social media, which allowed people to take responsibility and act responsibly. Often, they did not need the authorities to do things for them because they were able to make arrangements themselves. That shows a key way to move large numbers of people quickly and safely in future.
Dan Rogerson
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. I visited his constituency on the Sunday after the events, as he knows, and I was very impressed with the feedback I received from local residents about how the evacuation had proceeded and how reassuring it was for them, with everything well handled. I spent some time with Dr Charlie Beardall, whom my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney mentioned, and with officials from Tendring council, who talked about not only the response to the events, but how they were engaging with our programme for partnership funding to ensure that further defences in that part of the coast can be brought forward. I shall say more about that.
As well as the agencies I have mentioned, I would like to praise the work of the Flood Forecasting Centre, run by the Met Office and the Environment Agency. More than 160,000 homes and businesses received a flood warning, as my hon. Friend illustrated from his own constituency, and they received advice in advance to enable them to put the flood plans into action.
Nationally, the Environment Agency issued 71 severe flood warnings, five of which were for the Waveney district. Emergency service partners were aware of the event 36 hours in advance of the tide, and strategic goal controls were established in Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex on Wednesday 4 December. Those remained in place throughout the event. The combination of accurate forecasting and extensive planning and preparation allowed us to co-ordinate the response to ensure the focus was on protecting communities at risk and the key infrastructure that supports them.
The extremely severe conditions were caused by a rare combination of factors: very low atmospheric pressure over the North sea, causing the sea level to rise, which, combined with the high astronomic tides and gale force winds, resulted in a tidal surge of unprecedented sea levels on some parts of the coast. The extreme conditions put sea defences to their greatest test in 60 years, with record tidal surge levels experienced at many locations along the entire length of the east coast. In Lowestoft, the record high tide, or the recorded high tide, was the same as in 1953, and over half a metre higher than the more recent surge of November 2007.
With the changing climate, there is more of a risk of extreme weather events. According to the climate change risk assessment, the probability of coastal flooding is projected to increase as the climate changes. I assure the House that the Government, in this and all their policies, take full account of the potential impact of climate change on our flood defence strategy.
Let me refer to a number of important local aspects that my hon. Friend has raised. Our thoughts are, of course, with the family and friends of Mr Robert Dellow, who tragically lost his life as a result of the high winds. I pay tribute, too, to Malcolm Gibbs, Danielle Bailey and, indeed, the customers of the Oddfellows pub and the Eastern Daily Press for all they did to help the community recover.
As for the local impact, the latest Environment Agency estimate suggests that 87 properties were flooded in the low-lying centre of the commercial heart of Lowestoft. The area of Oulton Broad, which lies at the western end of Lake Lothing in Lowestoft, also suffered a second inundation by flooding from the River Waveney, some two hours after the initial tidal surge. The road crossings at the bascule bridge and Mutford lock crossing were both closed, effectively cutting Lowestoft in half. Flooding also resulted in the closure of the A12 at Blythburgh. Rail services between Lowestoft and Norwich and between Lowestoft and Ipswich were disrupted as a result of flooding at Lowestoft Central station and damage to the signalling network. The Lowestoft to Ipswich line remained closed some 11 days after the tidal surge.
Further south in the constituency, there was limited flooding at a number of locations in the Blyth estuary. Recent defences protected the vast majority of properties in Southwold. It was confirmed that seven commercial and three residential properties had been flooded in Southwold and the surrounding marshes, while 133 properties in the town had been protected from flooding. My thoughts go out to all who have been affected by the floods: it is especially difficult for them in the run-up to the season that we are about to celebrate. The internationally important designated coastal habitats between Lowestoft and Southwold were all subject to breaching of the fragile sand and shingle barriers that offer them limited protection, but the Environment Agency has inspected the sites and expects the barriers to repair themselves naturally over the next few tides.
The principal coast protection authority in the Lowestoft area is Waveney district council, while other defences are maintained by Associated British Ports, the harbour authority. The Environment Agency has worked closely with the council’s engineering staff throughout the event and its aftermath. The damage to defences has been assessed and appears to be relatively minor except on Lowestoft south beach, where more detailed engineering assessments are still taking place. Separately, Suffolk county council has been preparing a flood alleviation scheme for sections of the A12 that were flooded at Blythburgh. The scheme is expected to become operational in 2014. There are 550 properties that lie outside Lowestoft in the Waveney valley. The Environment Agency has spent approximately £12 million on strengthening flood defences along the valley over the past 10 years under the Broadland flood alleviation project.
During the event itself, a number of people were temporarily re-homed, and advice has been offered to businesses and householders. A multi-agency information centre has been established in the worst-affected area. The district council has removed damaged goods and possessions free of charge, and has granted rate and council tax relief to affected properties. The multi-agency response to the surge is now focusing on recovery, and the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government has set up a Bellwin scheme to reimburse local authorities for their immediate costs caused by the storm surge. My hon. Friend asked about the configuration of the scheme. As he will appreciate, such matters are for the Department for Communities and Local Government, but his comments are on the record, and I shall ensure that they are conveyed to those at the Department so that they can respond to him.
The Government have begun the process of discussing with all local authority areas affected by the flooding what further help they need to ensure that they can get back on their feet quickly, and we stand ready to assist where we can do so. Waveney district council has already notified the Department for Communities and Local Government that it has in mind a potential claim under the Bellwin scheme.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
Can the Minister reassure Waveney district council, North Lincolnshire council and other councils that they will not be out of pocket as a result of having supported their communities following this natural disaster?
Dan Rogerson
As has been made clear, measures in the Bellwin formula enable the Government to reimburse councils. As one who represents an area that has been flooded, I have seen how the system operates. For example, there are always different implications for two-tier and single-tier local government areas. The Department for Communities and Local Government takes those issues very seriously in its interaction with councils, and it will be discussing with councils what is necessary in this instance.
Local resilience forums and the various front-line responders all along the east coast have been planning and preparing for an event such as this for some time. A prime example is the east coast flood framework document that was published in January this year, which sets out local response arrangements. It was prepared by a wide range of local authorities and other front-line responders, including those in the Waveney constituency, working with central Government to ensure alignment with wider national resilience planning. It is testimony to their efforts that the impacts, although, as we have heard, devastating for those directly affected, are on a much smaller scale than those of the comparable coastal flooding event in 1953. However, there are always lessons to be learnt from our response to events such as this. I assure the House that the Government will review their approach, and that we will improve our planning and preparedness accordingly.
Flood management is a top priority for the Government. It has a vital role to play in protecting people and property from the damage caused by flooding and in delivering economic growth and supporting a strong economy. I was particularly impressed, when I visited Clacton, to hear about its plans to use the flood defences to restore the sandy beach, which should also have economic benefits. There is a clear case for investing in flood defences not only because of the economic risks attached to flooding but because of what they can bring to the local economy. That is an excellent project. I know that the situation in Lowestoft is being considered, as my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney has outlined, and I look forward to hearing about the proposals for its flood defences. Commitments have been made by local partners to invest in them, and that will no doubt make the case for investment in the scheme even better.
Dr Thérèse Coffey
I thank the Minister for his response so far. Will he also lobby the Department for Communities and Local Government on the use of the coastal communities fund, which exists to promote jobs and growth, to see whether funds could be made available to improve flood defences, which could protect existing jobs as well?
Dan Rogerson
My hon. Friend makes a good point about the pots of money that are available for local communities. Sometimes a case can be made for linking them to various projects. I have learned about a case in the past week for investment in economic growth to be joined with work on flood prevention. It is an excellent example—
Ministerial Correction
(11 years ago)
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Prisons
(11 years ago)
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Ian Lavery
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what capital expenditure projects his Department commissioned at (a) HMP Blundeston, (b) HMP Dorchester, (c) HMP Northallerton and (d) HMP Reading in each of the last five years; what the cost of each such project was; and if he will make a statement.
[Official Report, 8 October 2013, Vol. 568, c. 75-6W.]
Letter of correction from Jeremy Wright:
An error has been identified in the written answer given to the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) on 8 October 2013.
The full answer given was as follows:
Jeremy Wright
The following table shows the centrally-funded capital expenditure projects commissioned at HMP Blundeston, HMP/YOI Dorchester, HMP/YOI Northallerton and HMP/YOI Reading in each of the last five years and their cost. As at 6 September 2013 there have been no projects in those prisons in 2013/14. The total projected maintenance requirements for the four prisons over the next five years would have amounted to £17 million.
The Department needs to modernise the estate to provide prison capacity at much lower cost and in the right places to deliver our ambition of reducing re-offending. That is why MOJ are replacing older accommodation that is expensive to run with newer, cheaper and more efficient accommodation that will provide better value for money.
Year/Establishment | Project title | Total (£) |
|---|---|---|
2012/13: | ||
HMP/YOI Dorchester | Healthcare Unit | 1,823,270 |
HMP/YOI Reading | Fire Alarm Upgrade | 1,144,946 |
2011/12: | ||
None | — | — |
2010/11: | ||
HMP Blundeston | Replace Perimeter Intrusion Detection System (PIDS) | 1,774,311 |
HMP/YOI Dorchester | New Healthcare (cancelled scheme) | 881,454 |
HMP Blundeston | Pipework and pumps | 3,417,550 |
2009/10: | ||
HMP Blundeston | Relocation/Expansion of laundry | 2,450,457 |
2008/09: | ||
HMP Blundeston | Repair/Replace roofs to B and D wings | 420,891 |
Note: The fire alarm upgrade at Reading began over a year before the decision to close the prison was taken and was initiated on recommendation from a fire safety inspection by the Crown Premises Inspection Group (CPIG). Due to the modular design of the new health care centre at Dorchester, commissioned in August 2011, it will be relocated to another part of the prison estate. |
The correct answer should have been:
Jeremy Wright
The following table shows the centrally-funded capital expenditure projects commissioned at HMP Blundeston, HMP/YOI Dorchester, HMP/YOI Northallerton and HMP/YOI Reading in each of the last five years and their cost.
Year/Establishment | Project title | Total (£ million) |
|---|---|---|
2012/13: | ||
HMP/YOI Dorchester | Healthcare Unit | 1.5 |
HMP/YOI Reading | Fire Alarm Upgrade | 1.0 |
2011/12: | ||
None | — | — |
2010/11: | ||
HMP Blundeston | Replace Perimeter Intrusion Detection System (PIDS) | 1.6 |
HMP/YOI Dorchester | Roofs and window grilles | 0.5 |
2009/10: | ||
HMP Blundeston | Replace Perimeter Intrusion Detection System (PIDS) | 0.1 |
HMP/YOI Dorchester | Roofs and window grilles/replace visits building | 1.8 |
2008/09: | ||
HMP/YOI Dorchester | Roofs and window grilles/replace visits building | 3.9 |
Note: Figures rounded. The fire alarm upgrade at Reading began over a year before the decision to close the prison was taken and was initiated on recommendation from a fire safety inspection by the Crown Premises Inspection Group (CPIG). Due to the modular design of the new health care centre at Dorchester, commissioned in August 2011, it can be relocated to another part of the prison estate. |
Westminster Hall
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Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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Homelessness and Rough Sleeping
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Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Chope. I am grateful for the opportunity to hold a debate on a matter that is a growing concern in my constituency and that now accounts for an increasing proportion of my constituency case load. As Members look ahead to the Christmas break, this debate is a stark reminder that for a growing number of people in our country Christmas and the new year will not be a time to enjoy celebrations with their family and friends in the comfort and security of their own home.
I was going to set the debate in context by looking at some figures, which are obviously worrying and stark, but behind every homeless statistic is a story, so I thought that I would instead start with the story of one of my constituents, whom I met at my advice surgery only a couple of weeks ago. She did not want me to give her name or anything that might give her away, which I will respect, but she came to my surgery with her two daughters, one of whom is 15 years old and the other is five or six years old. Some months ago, she had left an abusive relationship with a partner who was prone to fits of rage and had been occasionally violent. She eventually found enough courage to decide to leave that relationship, but her journey into homelessness then began. She and her daughters unfortunately found themselves in temporary bed-and-breakfast accommodation, which was not fit for purpose, for much longer than the six-week limit. The media often talk of councils spending money on Premier Inns and hotels, but the bed and breakfast that this woman and her two daughters were in was frankly disgusting. It was mice-infested. There was grime everywhere. I was struck by the fact that her two daughters’ only request was for somewhere clean to live.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and for securing this debate. More and more people are now using food banks and does she agree that people are being driven to use them because of the bedroom tax and the rise in the cost of living? Previously, food banks were set up essentially for asylum seekers waiting for benefits, but ordinary members of the public, particularly in Coventry, are now becoming refugees from this Government and their policies.
Shabana Mahmood
My hon. Friend makes an important point and I will come on to the issue that he raises later in my speech.
My constituent and her two daughters were eventually moved from the awful bed-and-breakfast accommodation temporarily into a small, one-bedroom flat, which again unfortunately happens to be in a state of disrepair. The heating is not working properly and there was an issue with the water supply in the first few days. Again, it is not a particularly clean environment, and she of course does not have the means to do it up and make it a comfortable, warm, secure place for her daughters. She is still waiting to be placed in what she hopes will be permanent accommodation and a decent home for herself and her daughters.
As she was talking to me, she expressed how utterly terrified she was when looking ahead to Christmas and how the lack of security she felt from the lack of a permanent roof over her and her daughters’ heads was a ball of tension sitting in the pit of her stomach that affected her from morning until night. Every minute of every hour of every day, that is all she could think about. She feels that she has let her daughters down and that she might have been better off had she not left her former partner, because the temporary terror of the occasional rage was better in her view than the permanent terror that she now lives in.
I was moved by her story. The last thing that she said to me was that she and her daughters were alive, but they were not really living. That was a really powerful example of how just having a roof over one’s head can be the difference between being alive and actually living. It would mean her having a decent quality of life and a decent future that she could look forward to with her daughters. Despite my best efforts to help her, the lack of housing in the city and the waiting list are real problems, meaning that there is a limit on what I can do to assist her and her daughters.
Although that case was tragic, moving and upsetting for me to hear, it is not unique. In 2012-13, nearly 6,500 households approached Birmingham city council due to homelessness, which is an increase of 30% over three years. Some 4,000 were accepted as statutorily homeless, which is an increase of 17% over three years.
Mrs Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend acknowledge that this is a problem not only for our big cities? In North Shields in my constituency, Nite Bite, a once-a-week food provision for homeless people, has been running for several years. That just shows the extent of the problem.
Shabana Mahmood
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that the problem is national. I am an MP for the country’s second city—despite what my Mancunian colleagues might think—which has the largest local authority in Europe, so the pressures in Birmingham are stark, but homelessness presents itself across the country in different ways.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is already making a powerful case. Does she share my concern that local authorities, in particular those facing the highest levels of need—I am sure that Birmingham is similar to Nottingham in that regard—are actually facing disproportionate Government cuts? Homelessness prevention services and other discretionary services are increasingly being cut to meet those demands. Is she as worried as me that that will actually lead to an increase in those seeking help with homelessness?
Shabana Mahmood
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I will come on to some of the issues she raises later in my speech and I will use the example of SIFA Fireside, a charity in my constituency, to illustrate the pressures that homelessness services are under. Where are people supposed to go when services are being cut? I hope that the Minister may be able to provide some guidance on what I can say to my constituents when they ask me, because I simply do not have any answers for them.
In 2012-13, 922 households in Birmingham were in temporary accommodation, which is up 32% on the previous year, and 115 of them were in bed-and-breakfast accommodation. Just like my constituent, households have often found themselves in bed-and-breakfast accommodation that is not fit for purpose. When I was first elected in 2010, the majority of homelessness-related cases that came to me involved people who could be described as vulnerable, such as women escaping domestic violence, people with mental health problems and people with drug or drink issues. I had several cases of people who had left the care system without adequate support and had found themselves homeless. There were also people who had come out of prison and who may have been in and out of prison over many years. A chunk of my casework involved people with unregularised status in this country, such as the people living in a twilight world while waiting for a decision on their asylum case from the UK Border Agency, as was, or the Home Office. Such people had no recourse to public funds and were homeless as a result.
Now, however, although those groups remain well represented in my homelessness case load, I am seeing an increase in the number of people—families, in particular—who have been made homeless as a result of their private sector tenancy coming to an end and their being unable to find or afford anywhere else to live. Some months ago, for example, I met a couple who had a business a few years ago, but it had run into trouble as a result of the recession. They had lost it and could not keep up the payments on their home, so they lost their home as well. They managed to get other jobs, earning much less than before, but a job is a job. They are working hard and were renting in the private rented sector, but the rent went up and they could not afford the increase, so they found themselves homeless. They were struggling to find anywhere else to live that they could afford on their budget.
I am seeing many more cases of that nature. The end of a private sector tenancy now accounts for 22% of all homelessness acceptances nationally, a rate that I fear is likely to increase further and, in my constituency, the biggest rate of increase that I am seeing in my own case load. The two main, connected reasons are that the cost of renting is going up—since 2010, it has increased by more than twice as much as wages—and house building is at its lowest peacetime level since the 1920s. The failure to deal with housing supply is not only causing a huge strain now, but storing deep problems for us as a society for the future.
To go back to the case of my constituent, let us think about the effect on her two daughters. Even when I met them in my surgery, they were quite down and displaying a nervous disposition; their mum told me how their performance at school had dipped; and they were upset. As I mentioned earlier, I was struck by how their only ask was somewhere clean to live. The pressure on families and young people, children in particular, from always being desperate to move and never being able to put down roots causes those young people lasting harm, which will present itself in different ways in the future, whether in educational outcomes or in their level of confidence. Those are deep problems.
Homelessness is an isolating and deskilling experience for the people affected. It affects their health and well-being in a significant and often lasting and damaging way. It affects the educational outcomes of the children who find themselves homeless alongside their families. In addition, as my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) said, the organisations that are there to help when people find themselves homeless are also under acute pressure.
If we look at Birmingham city council first and foremost, it is facing some of the largest cuts in local government history. Over the next few months, the council will have to make difficult choices that will permanently change the social fabric of the wonderful city of Birmingham. There are a number of pressures, but housing supply is key, and the waiting list for people who want to transfer to other council housing is large.
Mr Jim Cunningham
Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the problems is that sufficient social housing is not being built, which puts pressure on private landlords to put up rents, because of the laws of supply and demand? Is it not time that the Government got some sort of social housing programme under way?
Shabana Mahmood
My hon. Friend makes a powerful point, and I absolutely agree. The lack of housing supply is the key problem, including in Birmingham. We are simply not building enough homes of all descriptions, and social and affordable housing has certainly not kept pace with demand.
That major issue has been compounded by the introduction and imposition of the bedroom tax. In Birmingham, a little more than 5,000 city council tenants are affected. As of yesterday, a little more than 2,000 or so of them were in arrears as a result of the bedroom tax, while the city had only five bedsits and 54 one-bedroom flats available for some of them to move into—that is not only from the city register, but includes the properties available from the registered providers as well.
Those numbers speak for themselves. The question that I have, which I cannot answer—perhaps the Minister can—is about where those people affected are supposed to downsize to once the five bedsits, the 54 one-bed flats and the tiny number of other suitable properties have gone. How will Birmingham as a city cope if the 2,000 or so in rent arrears as a result of the bedroom tax find themselves homeless? The city simply does not have the resources to meet that level of need or the surge in demand that will come as a result of those people being homeless.
Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
I want to make one point—one genuinely non-partisan point. Given the problem that the hon. Lady is talking about—the lack of housing in her constituency—is it not the case that there is some logic to the end of the spare room subsidy, so as to enable families that are homeless or in hopelessly overcrowded conditions to be able to move into accommodation that meets their needs? Obviously, it is an issue for those who have spare bedrooms—whether one, two, three or in some cases four—but can she see that there is logic in enabling those people who are homeless, with many children and nowhere to go, to move into those flats, or does she not accept that at all?
Shabana Mahmood
The hon. Lady’s starting point would be logical were there somewhere for those people to move into. The reason why I cited the Birmingham figures of five bedsits and 54 one-bed flats is that, as of yesterday, that is what is available in my city—the second largest city in this country and the largest local authority in Europe—for waiting lists that number in the many tens of thousands. The problem is stark. Were there many hundreds or thousands of properties for people to downsize into, allowing homeless larger families to move into the larger properties, her position would be logical. I am afraid, however, that that is simply not the case in the area that I represent or in many instances up and down the country.
Andrea Leadsom
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way again. When she says that 54 one-bed flats are available, does she meant that 54 are empty? With how many is a home swap possible, so that those who are homeless with multiple children could swap into homes with the space that they need? People in homes that are too big for them could swap with people who are hopelessly overcrowded. If people buy or sell in the private sector, they do not only move into empty homes, but buy from others who want to downsize or upsize.
Shabana Mahmood
The ability of people to swap depends on appropriate accommodation for the people who want to downsize or upsize to go into, and my point is that housing supply throughout my city is simply not enough for all kinds of homes. I spoke about the lack of affordable and social housing, but there is also a lack of housing for people to buy privately—not enough is being built anywhere in the city. The numbers simply have not kept up with demand. Swapping and other such solutions therefore will not deal with the large numbers presenting themselves in Birmingham. I am afraid that unless we could build thousands of homes overnight, my city will not be able to cope with the issues that it is facing, some but not all of which result in homelessness.
Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. Does she agree that the Government’s own impact assessment assumes that 90% of the people hit by the bedroom tax will simply not move? As to the cost projections, the fact is that people will not have the smaller homes to move into, as she is suggesting.
Shabana Mahmood
My hon. Friend the shadow Minister is absolutely right to cite the Government’s own impact assessment. If people who are moving are forced into the private rented sector and their rents go up, that puts extra pressure on the housing benefit budget as well. I have not focused on welfare and benefits in my speech, but that is an additional pressure and an additional cost for the state, as it meets the increased demand and as rent in the private rented sector goes up.
Organisations under pressure include not only Birmingham city council, but many that provide support to the homeless. I have mentioned SIFA Fireside, a charity based in my constituency that works with the homeless. Its representatives visited me and my hon. Friend the shadow Minister in Parliament a couple of weeks ago. They brought a group of homeless people from across Birmingham and the west Midlands, so that they could speak to parliamentarians about the problems they face. It provides practical support to homeless people, including daily drop-in sessions, a resettlement service, a specialist alcohol support service and an employment and training programme.
In 2012-13, SIFA Fireside provided just over 35,000 meals, 500 food parcels and 3,700 showers. We are talking about real basics: food, somewhere to have a wash and somebody to help people make some phone calls to try to get their lives back on track—the charity made just over 4,000 phone calls on behalf of people who are homeless to help them sort out somewhere else to move on to and ultimately, they hope, somewhere permanent to live. But rising prices are causing a cost of living crisis for families up and down the country, and neither businesses nor charities are exempt from that problem. Rising costs have forced SIFA Fireside to cut by half the number of meals it will provide in the coming year, because it can now afford to put on only one meal a day for homeless people.
SIFA Fireside provides a vital lifeline for Birmingham’s homeless people, especially over the winter months, but is facing real challenges just to stay open. Although I am sure that all Members are grateful for the safety net that charities such as SIFA Fireside are providing in constituencies across the country, we cannot take that for granted: charities are under significant pressure and the availability of their services will be significantly curtailed—certainly, that is what I am seeing in my constituency.
Several systemic problems cause homelessness. The primary one is the issue we face with house building, and the fact that housing supply has simply not kept up with demand. Also, the private rented sector is not fit for families, as it does not give people the security they need or predictable rent rises that would allow people to plan their household budgets. Finally, the bedroom tax is causing acute concern. We need to look at those issues in order to deal with the problem of homelessness. Doing so will not fix the problem entirely, as people find themselves homeless for many reasons, but I believe that for the 80,000 or so children whom we expect to be homeless—that is according to the official figures, and I think the real figure is probably higher—dealing with the problems with both house building and the private rented sector and scrapping the bedroom tax would be pretty good places to start.
Mr Christopher Chope (in the Chair)
Order. There is considerable demand to participate in the debate, so I hope that Members will reduce the length of their remarks accordingly.
Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) on securing this important debate.
As the nights draw in and the winter chill becomes more apparent, the thoughts of many Londoners—I am sure the hon. Lady will agree that this is the first city of the United Kingdom—turn to the homeless people who, each night, lay down their blankets and boxes in dark corners of this great city of ours. Their presence makes all of us ask questions about where we as a society are falling short. I am afraid that to many of us who live in and represent central London, it seems that the number of homeless people and rough sleepers is increasing very quickly.
I live, with my wife and two children, a stone’s throw from Westminster cathedral, and from The Passage, a charity sponsored predominantly by the Roman Catholic Church that has provided succour for the less fortunate for a century and a half. One need only look around the streets literally a few hundred yards from this Chamber and witness the many people, young men in particular, sleeping rough in Westminster station to understand that the situation has become markedly worse in recent months. Constituents from all over my constituency worry about the people they find each morning in their doorways.
All of us know that local authorities have a statutory obligation to undertake regular counts of people sleeping on their streets. Figures from Westminster city council indicate that the number of rough sleepers has increased sharply: a total of some 2,440 people were recorded bedding down as rough sleepers in 2012-13. Although that was a slight reduction on the figure for the previous year, the number in 2009-10 was only 1,693, so there has been an increase of over 40% in the past three years. Meanwhile, in the other part of my constituency, the City of London, the most recent figures available, for the period from 1 September to 31 October, indicate a marked increase of 39% in the number of rough sleepers when compared with the same period last year.
To understand how to respond, we must first grasp why people sleep rough. To be honest, for as long as big cities—particularly ones such as London—have existed, people have slept on the streets. There are myriad reasons why, but over the past few years, and certainly in the time that I have represented my central London seat, we have tended to see two quite distinct categories of rough sleepers, with very different stories to tell.
The number of so-called traditional rough sleepers in Westminster has remained relatively static. They tend to be people with an addiction problem—some 52% of the homeless take drugs, and 20% drink alcohol at harmful levels—people who have been affected by family breakdown, or, of course, people with mental health difficulties: nearly half of the people on our streets have long-term mental health needs. Colleagues will recall the “Street Stories” exhibition that I sponsored in this House only a few years ago, for the homeless charity St Mungo’s, which aimed to educate parliamentarians about why that very diverse group turned to the streets.
That group of rough sleepers is well known to outreach groups. Local authorities and established charities patiently conduct long-term and meaningful work to rehabilitate such people into mainstream society. Homelessness services provide support to over 40,000 homeless people a year, delivering cost savings to public service budgets, and better outcomes for the most vulnerable. It has been estimated that a single rough sleeper on the streets of London costs some £35,000 a year in crime, emergency health and social services alone.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Obviously, the Churches and charities that the hon. Gentleman referred to are major contributors to helping homeless people, but the Salvation Army and the Simon Community also do tremendous work with homeless people. I want to underline the importance of that work.
Mark Field
A huge amount of charitable work is done by voluntary groups, many of which have grown out of nothing in recent years. We should welcome that.
As the Minister knows, the Mayor of London has a programme that aims to ensure that no person spends more than one night sleeping rough on the streets of London. That is now the case for eight out of 10 rough sleepers, but of course, logically, that means that for one in five rough sleepers, the promise of only one night on the streets is not being kept. I support the broad thrust of the changes that have been made to housing benefit entitlement, and have done so repeatedly, both in TV studios and in this House, but both the Mayor and I continue to make the case to the Government that those changes will continue to have a disproportionate impact on central London, where rents, to which the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood, has referred, are at their highest. I have expressed those concerns to the ministerial team in Parliament. It is also deeply concerning that although rough sleeping continues to rise, there is a reduction in the amount of available support. Hostel bed spaces are being reduced at a concerning rate, and are at their lowest number since 2008.
There is a second group of homeless people, namely foreign nationals, many of whom have no recourse to public funds and therefore require an alternative policy response. In the midst of the changes that will go through Parliament over the next 24 hours and that will impact on Romanians and Bulgarians—all of us agree with those changes—we should remember that those who do come here could be an even bigger strain on public services in the first few months of 2014.
People from central European countries now make up 32% of all rough sleepers in Westminster. That is no surprise: following the enlargements of the European Union in 2004 and 2008, Westminster experienced a sudden influx of new arrivals from eastern Europe, often via Victoria coach station. In advance of the enlargements, both Westminster city council and I warned repeatedly of the increased dangers of jobless and unqualified nationals from the new EU accession countries ending up sleeping rough, but the previous Government failed to put into place proper plans to deal with the sudden influx. I am afraid that the situation has not improved in the three and a half years since the coalition came into office.
Those nationals were particularly at risk of homelessness, as the law prevented them from accessing benefits provided by local authorities to residents, as well as state benefits such as income support, shelter and drug treatment services. Many new arrivals had a firm idea of where they would live and work, and I emphasise that many are making a fantastic contribution to our economy, but for others, the likelihood of them descending rapidly into street life was exacerbated because they had no other means of support. Westminster city council has done a lot of work to help those individuals, sometimes by trying to reconnect them with their families back home, assisting with repatriation, providing language services, and so on.
The issue of rough sleepers from central and eastern Europe has taken on a new dimension in recent months. I have repeatedly warned that my constituency may prove to be the canary in the mine on many of these issues. Many of us have seen at first hand the Roma Gypsy encampments that sprung up around Marble Arch during last year’s Olympics. Some of the people living in those encampments were part of an organised begging operation deliberately targeting the lucrative west end tourist market.
I receive weekly reports from exasperated constituents who find spontaneous bedrooms in their doorways and litter and excrement in garden squares, and who are harassed daily by aggressive beggars. One St James’s resident reports rubbish bags being ripped open almost nightly, covering the pavement with litter. The problem is real and must be dealt with. It must be put into the public domain as thoughtfully as possible, not least at this time of year, and it must be recognised that the significant number of people who come to this country make a positive contribution, but the minority is getting ever bigger and may end up causing major social issues.
I have so much more to say, but I respect the fact that other hon. Members want to contribute to the debate. I would like to make one more point before finishing. I appreciate that the Government are doing a lot of work behind the scenes. They have launched a £1.7 million gold standard support and training scheme to help local authorities to tackle homelessness. The concern of all of us is not that the will is lacking, but the lack of resources. We have no idea of the numbers, and the extent to which the problem is likely to be exacerbated in the months ahead. I am interested to hear what the Minister says today, but more importantly, he should keep a watching brief on the issue in the early weeks and months of 2014, because urgent remedial action may be required, not just here in central London, but in many parts of the country.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
It is a pleasure, Mr Chope, to serve under your chairmanship. For clarity, I will refer to homelessness, but I mean homelessness and rough sleeping.
Since my election, I have had the privilege of shadowing one of St Mungo’s homelessness teams in Westminster, and have spent time with some Rotherham charities and social enterprises that support rough sleepers. I would like to discuss the link between homelessness and health care, because I have seen that it is at the root of many people’s homelessness. Poor health is not only a consequence of homelessness; it is often its cause.
A report by the Department of Health suggests that as many as two thirds of homeless people have a serious chronic health problem before they become homeless. Many of the people St Mungo’s works with have complex physical and mental health needs. Their latest client need survey showed that 64% have physical health conditions, 70% have mental health conditions and 64% have issues with drugs and alcohol.
Andrea Leadsom
Does the hon. Lady agree that physical and mental health needs often go hand in hand and cannot be separated? For example, back-ache is strongly correlated with depression, and it is often the combination of the two that results in homelessness.
Sarah Champion
I completely agree with the points that the hon. Lady raises, and will speak about them, a little, later.
We know that homeless people use four times as many acute health services and eight times as many in-patient health services as the general population, at a cost of around £85.6 million a year. However, despite that, homeless people often find it difficult to access health services that can provide suitable treatment, because their complex needs may make them ineligible for traditional health and social care support. Some report facing discrimination when they do seek support.
Common health conditions for homeless people include mental health issues, foot conditions, dental problems, infections, sexual health issues and tuberculosis. One in 10 people diagnosed with TB has a history of homelessness. Lack of suitable washing facilities can aggravate those problems and increase the spread of infection. Not surprisingly, people sleeping rough often find that the cold and damp exacerbate their health problems and cause the onset of respiratory illness. Some rough sleepers even wake up covered in frost.
The links between homelessness and health are cyclical. Although many homeless people are struggling to access health care, more must be done at an early stage to encourage people at risk of homelessness to access public services. Mental health issues particularly are one of the key triggers that lead to homelessness. Up to 70% of homeless people suffer mental health issues and 14% suffer a personality disorder. In London, almost one fifth of rough sleepers have mental health needs combined with substance abuse. Perhaps the most depressing news of all is that rough sleepers are 35 times more likely to commit suicide than the general population.
I am extremely fearful that in Rotherham, the problem will be dramatically compounded, because our excellent NHS mental health foundation trust—Rotherham Doncaster and South Humber NHS Foundation Trust, or RDaSH—is facing a £7 million budget cut next year. Unfortunately, I believe it is inevitable that this funding crisis will lead to people not receiving the support they need, and consequently to increasing rough sleeping on our streets. Is it not time for the Government to tackle these problems head on? Is it not time to acknowledge that we must make it easier for homeless people to access health care, not harder?
Under this Government, the sad fact is that in London alone, almost 6,500 people were seen sleeping rough between 2012 and 2013, and the number is increasing, year on year. Under this Government’s watch, rough sleeping has increased nationally by 31% in the last two years. Shockingly, the average age at which a homeless person dies is now 47.
Money directed at homelessness prevention is sent to local authorities, but is not always ring-fenced. Often, it is not used effectively to stop people becoming homeless, or to encourage preventive health interventions. Homeless people experience significant regional health inequalities, which should be recognised, measured and addressed in local needs assessments. If health and wellbeing boards are to meet their duty to reduce health inequalities effectively, they must recognise, measure and address the health needs of vulnerable and excluded members of society, and that must include homeless people.
Some local authorities are including homeless people in joint strategic needs assessments and joint health and well-being strategies, but this group of vulnerable people is often not accounted for. The needs of the local homeless population should be reflected in joint health and well-being strategies, and in the commissioning of appropriate services. The emphasis on setting a small number of priorities across the wider community may mean that the specific needs of small, marginalised groups are overlooked.
The mobility of homeless people, who may move from borough to borough, should also be considered, and a pan-borough approach should be taken to commissioning specialist services when appropriate. Local strategies should reflect the needs of the most excluded, as well as setting goals for wider public health improvement.
Commissioners and providers should be monitored to ensure that they are reducing health inequalities, including between the homeless and the general populations. When it comes to signing up with a GP, homeless people are turned away because they do not have an address. There is a shortage of specialist drug and alcohol services, particularly dual diagnosis services for people with substance addiction and mental health problems. Many homeless people with learning disabilities find it hard to live in the community and to access specialist support.
People in Rotherham tell me about the problems that homeless people have in finding accommodation when discharged from hospital. That is not just a problem in Rotherham; it is a national problem. Too many people are discharged from hospital with nowhere to go. We need integrated health and social care provision that includes homeless people. That approach could help to address health inequalities and ensure that some of the most excluded members of society have a better experience of the health and social care system. They deserve that.
Mr Adrian Sanders (Torbay) (LD)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) on securing this timely debate. We have heard about the growing extent of homelessness and the staggering number of people it affects. The problem reflects some serious structural problems in the housing sector and welfare system. We have also heard about the long-term problems that homelessness can cause. Many are profound, but are not easily quantifiable. However, they are cumulative because homelessness prevents people from finding or staying in work and has a cumulative impact on their health, sometimes provoking them to engage in criminal activity and so on.
Homelessness is part of a wider problem of social exclusion and it is obvious that the solution, especially for harder-to-reach cases, must be comprehensive. It is not just about finding a new home for someone to stay in and leaving them to get on with it. It takes an average of seven years for someone to get to the point of sleeping rough on the streets and it is unrealistic to expect that they can be turned round and brought back to independent life within a matter of months. Helping people in that situation is a long-term commitment.
A huge range of hostels and temporary accommodation schemes have been the bulwark of the response to homelessness, quite often for those who do not fit the priority needs assessments of local authorities, as well as those who do. Many are run by local charities and although they often have generous benefactors, they are reliant on public funding to stay solvent. The Government’s strategy from 2012 was accompanied by promises that funding for such organisations would be protected as much as possible, with more than £400 million being devolved to local authorities and voluntary groups. Unfortunately, that does not lead to steady investment on the ground. More than half of all homelessness services are seeing cuts in their funding, and that will become far worse when local authorities start to make cuts for 2014 onwards.
In my constituency, for example, the elected mayor is consulting on cutting £150,000 from the Leonard Stocks centre. If that goes through, it would make the whole project financially unviable and leave many dozens of vulnerable people every year with nowhere else to go. We urgently need a solution to stop local authorities cutting these services indefinitely. If the Government were to look at a ring fence or upgrading the statutory protections for homeless people, we could see a great improvement and not the impending social disaster that might occur in my constituency and in other places.
Andrea Leadsom
Does my hon. Friend agree that there is also a problem with the SWEP—the severe weather emergency protocol? At a minimum, it only requires local authorities to provide shelter when the temperature reaches zero for three nights in a row. There is a great temptation for local authorities to go to the minimum, which can of course be fatal for many rough sleepers, rather than raising the temperature requirement to a more humane level.
Mr Sanders
That is a very good point. I represent the English riviera, where the temperature does not always drop that far, and there are still problems, even at 3° C.
The history of Torbay’s provision for the roofless is somewhat unique. During Christmas in 1990, representatives of local churches came together to open south Devon’s first direct access hostel for homeless people, in an old warehouse in a backstreet in the centre of Torquay. With the support of Torbay council, which owned the property, it was converted to create a single male dormitory with 12 beds. Initially, there were just two paid members of staff.
The story of the project goes back to 1989 when three local church leaders—Reverend Peter Larkin of St Matthias church, Captain Jim McKnight, the Torquay Salvation Army commander, and the Reverend Mike Blunsum, chaplain at Brunel Manor—began praying about how the local Christian community could respond to a growing number of people sleeping on the streets. In the autumn of 1990, the Reverend Mike Blunsum persuaded the Woodlands House of Prayer Trust to back a homeless project in Torquay with money and resources. Separately, Leonard Stocks, a member of St John’s church in Torquay, was deeply moved one day when he saw a woman begging and holding a sign that read:
“I am homeless please help me.”
He raised the issue at the next meeting of the deanery synod. Leonard was put in contact with the Reverend Blunsum and his committee, which led to a meeting in October 1990 attended by representatives of 40 south Devon churches, together with 20 local agencies, looking for a community response to the homelessness crisis. Those agencies included the citizens advice bureau, Youth With A Mission, social services, the Women’s Royal Voluntary Service, Shelter and officers from Torbay council, notable among them the then head of estates, Peter Lucas, himself a committed Christian.
Funding from the Woodlands House of Prayer Trust and a considerable personal contribution from Leonard Stocks saw the hostel open—appropriately—on Christmas eve 1990. The original lease was for just three months, but such was the need that it has never been able to close. The Torbay Churches Homeless Trust decided to merge with the Langley House Trust in 2003 when it became clear that the project could benefit from the robust management systems and training provision that Langley provided. The bedrock of its support, however, remains the Christian community across south Devon.
It may be a long way from the inner cities, but Torbay’s social problems are as acute as anywhere. The Leonard Stocks centre does brilliant work. The hostel was rebuilt only three years ago at a cost of £2.5 million, and staff and volunteers work wonderfully together to get people back into stable accommodation and on the road back to independence. The story is unique, but the facility will be recognised by all hon. Members here, because it is typical of centres around the country. I hope that the Minister will address the suggestions I have made to ring-fence funding or strengthen statutory protections for the homeless, or is there some other remedy to ensure that adequate provision exists for those who find themselves roofless, not only at this time of the year, but at all times of the year?
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) on securing the debate and on making a very powerful case. As she and others have said, in recent years, we have seen homelessness up overall. We have seen rough sleeping up by 60% in London in just two years alone, and we have seen homelessness in London rise by more than a third in just three years. All that was entirely predictable and it was predicted, because it has arisen not entirely by accident, but by a foreseeable combination of circumstances. There is the continuing squeeze on house building and particularly affordable house building—last year we saw the lowest level of housing completions since the 1920s—and the failure, which many of us have been flagging up for several years, of the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Department for Work and Pensions to have even the most basic conversation about how their policies interact.
What is most striking in London and the south-east is the extent to which the Government’s policies on social security, especially the housing support safety net cuts, have led directly to the rise in homelessness, particularly in London. A staggering figure was flagged up by the estimable Crisis and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in their 2013 homelessness report: there has been a 316% rise in homelessness due to the end of assured shorthold tenancies in London—that is private sector tenancies. Overwhelmingly, the end of those assured shorthold tenancies is either because the tenant can no longer afford the rent—they were relying on the assistance of housing benefit—or because landlords, in an increasingly competitive market, are withdrawing those properties from the sector, which is a point that I will briefly return to in a minute.
London is not the only area affected, although with that 316% rise it is at the sharp end. We saw a 128% increase in homelessness due to the end of assured shorthold tenancies in the south, and even in the north of England, which does not have the same housing pressures, there was a 73% rise. The Government’s welfare policy is without doubt driving homelessness, especially for families.
The problem is by no means over. The Money Advice Service told us just this week that rent arrears are the fastest growing debt problem. We have seen an average of 60%—nearly two thirds—of household income in the private rented sector being taken up by rent. That is clearly unsustainable. People are struggling to keep the roof over their heads. They are relying on a safety net that is increasingly being stripped away from them, and it is driving homelessness.
Lilian Greenwood
My hon. Friend is making a very powerful speech. Does she share my concern that things are only going to get worse, with council tax support being further withdrawn, and particularly with the loss of transitional relief, which provided a little bit of leeway this year? Next year, it will be far more difficult for low-income families to get by.
Ms Buck
Of course. That is absolutely true. As my hon. Friend says, many families are facing a multiple attack on their living standards. The same families who are affected by cuts in housing support are also being affected by cuts in council tax support, and it is adding to their crisis.
At first, homelessness led to a surge in the use of bed-and-breakfast accommodation, as hon. Members have said, which is ridiculously expensive and wholly unsuitable. The Labour Government were absolutely right, more than a decade ago, to make it illegal for local authorities to keep families with children in bed-and-breakfast accommodation for more than six weeks. The growing pressure of homelessness meant that local authorities, including Westminster, were breaching that six-week standard, which cost an absolute fortune—millions and millions of pounds. Local authorities had to place people in the Premier Inn hotel and the Jurys Inn hotel in Chelsea, because they could not find accommodation. Of course, they were breaking the law and were roundly told off by Ministers for doing so.
I am delighted that Westminster, in particular, is no longer using bed-and-breakfast accommodation for more than six weeks. That has been a significant change in the past few months. But what has happened? It is like squeezing a balloon: unless the circumstances change, the pressure simply builds somewhere else. What has happened is that local authorities are beginning to use something called annexe accommodation which, in some cases, is merely bed-and-breakfast accommodation with a gas ring. It is not always; sometimes it is different kinds of accommodation. It is basically self-contained, but it is booked nightly and has no time limit on its use. Local authorities—in particular, inner London authorities under pressure—are now using that nightly booked accommodation, which means that families, including many of those I am dealing with, literally do not know from one day to the next where they will be going for their accommodation. Many of the annexes are out of borough, so families have to commute their children in from the outskirts of London to maintain their school places. They cannot move their child’s school to the local authority area in which they are now placed—it may be Hounslow; it may be Enfield; it is many miles away—because they do not know whether they will still be in the same local authority area tomorrow.
Families tell me that they are getting up at half-past five in the morning to get their children, who are sometimes five or six years old, ready for school, because it takes them two hours to get there. They have to go by bus because they cannot afford the train. Those families are commuting their children two hours to school and two hours home at night. Understandably, the schools then come to me and say that children are falling asleep at their desks because they are being put under that pressure. Even children with special needs were being placed in this accommodation, despite the local authority telling me that that was not the case. We hope that is now being addressed, but unfortunately we are now seeing more and more such loopholes being used.
We were told by Ministers that other than in very exceptional circumstances local authorities should not place homeless families from their areas well away from their communities, in out-of-borough placements. In fact, out-of-borough placements have risen in every quarter bar one since 2011 to more than 4,000. Out-of-borough bookings rose to 14,535. This is according to London Councils’ monitoring of the issue last year. Local authorities made 11,262 out-of-borough nightly bookings, which is a total scandal. I do not believe, and I hope that the Minister will tell us that he does not believe, that people should be treated in that way. These are families and children. They are often very vulnerable families. They are often families facing multiple pressures and difficulties.
The Minister’s predecessor, the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr Prisk), told us that local authorities had been using “unacceptable and avoidable” measures and that they should offer accommodation locally as far as possible. Indeed, speaking in response to a press story in December 2012, a Department for Communities and Local Government spokesman said:
“Councils can meet housing need through social housing or high-quality private rented housing in their area. Unless there are exceptional circumstances, there is no excuse for moving homeless families to other areas, and they must absolutely not apply a blanket policy of relocating families out of the capital.”
What we are seeing in London and in the south-east more generally is a surge in placements out of borough, completely in breach of that assurance that we were given. We are seeing more and more pressure building up; it is a pressure-cooker situation. Many local authorities are competing for increasingly scarce accommodation for these placements and the situation is unsustainable.
I hope that the Minister will today tell us that he will ensure that local authorities do not place families well away from their children’s schools, their communities, their support networks and the elderly relatives for whom they provide care; ensure that local authorities can access temporary and emergency accommodation for families; deal with the scandal of long-term nightly booked accommodation; and provide the framework for a sustainable policy to help those vulnerable families who are facing this terrible crisis of homelessness.
Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
It is a thorough and utter disgrace that anyone should be homeless in the 21st century in our country. It makes me wonder whether the welfare state safety net has any meaning whatever when people are out there, dying on our streets—and I do mean dying on our streets, because on Christmas day in 2006, Josie Razzell died in the stairwell of Easton Street car park in High Wycombe. She died of exposure. As a result, the churches in High Wycombe came together in a story similar to that told by my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Mr Sanders). They were determined to ensure that never again would anyone die of exposure on our streets.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) mentioned the severe weather emergency protocol. The fact is that that protocol is a last resort and it simply is not good enough. Were it not for Wycombe Homeless Connection, my goodness—the number of people who would suffer in Wycombe. Were it not for the YMCA, what a state we would be in.
The hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood), who opened the debate, mentioned one particular cause and one particular story and made the case very movingly, but if only that man had not treated his partner violently, that problem perhaps would not have arisen. I think that every hon. Member present knows that the causes of homelessness are complex and wide ranging. They include addictions, debt, worklessness and educational failure and, of course, are compounded in a dreadful cycle of health problems, both physical and mental. Those of us who have worked in night shelters for a number of years will have seen, I suspect, altogether too much suffering in that regard.
It is not enough to talk only about the suffering that has happened recently. It is the case that the numbers have increased, but we heard earlier that some of the efforts at non-state provision go back as far as 1989—I think that that is what my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay said—and of course the problem extends far before that. Opposition Members talked about the housing market and the shortage of supply. The housing market is characterised by state land-use planning and state intervention in the credit markets. If there is too little housing, it can only be the case that the state has made a mess of it.
When I look at all these stories, I see a number of things: the failure of individuals to live in the right relationship with one another, the failure of a man to look after his partner and the failures of people to get a good education, get a job and build up their lives. What I want to see is the shortest possible route to minimising this human suffering, but what I see at the moment is a constant recourse to state action at a time when the quality and quantity of welfare, health and education produced by the state simply is not good enough and we also, very clearly, cannot afford it, because we have resorted to quantitative easing to suppress interest rates just to keep up the borrowing necessary to sustain this level of failure.
Therefore, what I have to say to my hon. Friend the Minister is twofold. First, what is he doing to end the complex cycles of state failure that are ruining people’s lives? Secondly, will he please take every possible—every conceivable—step that he can to remove the obstacles that the state places in people’s way, preventing them from just getting out there and helping people across the wide range of complex causes of chronic and abject poverty.
Mark Field
My hon. Friend will realise that I very much agree with what he has to say on the macro-economic side about the very insidious—dangerous—long-term effects on the British economy of quantitative easing. Will he accept that part of the difficulty with housing law, which goes back almost 100 years—the first rent Acts came in at the end of the first world war—is that, every time, we try to add another elastoplast to the system when there needs to be a much more imaginative approach by politicians, academics and the like to looking at the way in which our housing market operates? All too often, we have seen short-term problems, which we have tried to solve with new legislation, rather than recognising, as my hon. Friend rightly said, that it has been state action and legislation in the past that has helped to produce all the absurdities and anomalies currently seen in our private rented sector.
Steve Baker
I agree, but it is not enough for us just to look at increasing supply. We should be looking at those factors that increase demand, such as the tragedy of family breakdown, which perhaps I will go into in more detail in the debate in the main Chamber later on hunger.
I want to finish with this thought. We are coming up to Christmas—the anniversary of the death of Josie Razzell in High Wycombe. But Christmas is a time of celebration, because it is a time when we realise that the process of God offering to mankind salvation from all these difficulties began with an event that we celebrate at Christmas. We are not here to preach the gospel, but I have to say that these problems and cycles will continue for ever unless people start to learn that they must love their neighbour and, first and foremost, love their God.
Simon Danczuk (Rochdale) (Lab)
I appreciate the opportunity to speak in the debate. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) for introducing this timely debate. It is timely because we always, rightly, think more about homelessness and homeless people as we approach Christmas. I should point out that before I entered Parliament, I worked as a social researcher and spent some 10 years researching homelessness issues. I interviewed hundreds of homeless people during that time to learn what circumstances led to them getting into that situation and what the solutions were.
I am in absolutely no doubt that homelessness is getting worse. When I have been around Rochdale, and when I went into Manchester the other day, it has been clear that more people are living out on our streets and sleeping rough. It is as though we are returning to the 1980s and early 1990s. We do not need anecdotal evidence to see that homelessness is getting worse. The Government are keen to devise policies on the back of anecdotal evidence, but there are statistics to prove that homelessness is getting worse. The figures that I have been given show that in England, there has been an 11% increase over the past two years in people approaching local authorities saying that they are homeless. The number of people housed in temporary accommodation during 2012 rose by 10% and the number of people in bed and breakfast accommodation rose even faster, by 14%. In 2012, there were an estimated 2,309 people sleeping rough on any one night across England, which is a rise of 31% over two years.
The Minister will be aware, because he was present at the hearing, that the Minister for Housing, the hon. Member for Keighley (Kris Hopkins), gave evidence to the Communities and Local Government Committee on 9 December. When I questioned him about rough sleeping at the Committee, the Housing Minister said that it had reduced by 8%. I now understand that there is no truth in that whatsoever, and there is no evidence to suggest that rough sleeping has fallen. I hope that the Minister takes the opportunity to correct the record today. The latest figures show that last year in Rochdale, 717 households approached the council as homeless, which was an increase of 180% over two years, and 280 households were accepted as being statutorily homeless. That is an increase of 324% over the past two years.
The Government are cooking up a homelessness crisis, and I do not say that lightly. All the ingredients are being added to create such a crisis: in go economic and social instability problems, dramatic benefit changes, major cuts to support services and a lack of suitable accommodation for people who find themselves in difficulty. Whether they accept it or not, the Government are steadily mixing the dish to create a severe homelessness problem similar to that of the 1980s. The irony is that we have learned how to deal with homelessness. Levels of homelessness and rough sleeping and the numbers of people going into bed and breakfast accommodation were dramatically reduced in the mid to late 1990s and into the 2000s, but we are having to re-learn the solutions, which is exceptionally unfortunate.
As the hon. Member for Torbay (Mr Sanders) has pointed out, more than half of all homelessness services have seen their funding cut. The Petrus homelessness project in Rochdale has achieved an incredible amount on an exceptionally tight budget, even though it has faced severe budget cuts. If it were not for Petrus, dozens of people in Rochdale would have died prematurely as a result of homelessness. If politicians are serious about addressing homelessness, they should watch a video called “RoofLess” that Petrus produced with Community Arts North West which shows homeless people telling everyone about their fragile, damaged lives and how they ended up becoming homeless. I went to the launch of that video a week ago, and it is well worth watching.
I conclude with a final thought. In October I celebrated my 47th birthday. If I had been homeless, I would probably be dead by Christmas this year, because 47 is the average age of death for a homeless person.
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this morning, Mr Chope. I refer to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) on securing this important debate, and on the passion with which she spoke.
As we approach Christmas, I am conscious that too many families are without a permanent home or are worried about what the new year will bring, when many of us are looking forward to spending time with our families. At this time of year, I am reminded of the incredible generosity of local people, particularly on Wearside. It is lonely and isolating to be facing Christmas in temporary accommodation, or to be worried about whether your children will be able to receive any Christmas presents. That is why it was always so comforting for the women and families that I used to support in a women’s refuge to know that others were thinking of them at Christmas and that the local community were always willing to help and support them in their time of need.
The rise of homelessness is deeply troubling. Across England, as we have heard, the number of people found to be statutorily homeless has risen. Regional figures may vary, but that is also the case in my local authority. Since 2007, Sunderland city council has focused on preventing homelessness, on the understanding that it is always best to work with people to try to find alternatives and manage their difficulties, and to support landlords to try to prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place. However, Sunderland city council reports that the number of people that it has been able to prevent from becoming homeless has fallen, which is of great concern. In the 12 months up to September 2013, there were 577 preventions, which fell from more than 700 during the previous year. The disproportionate cuts that councils such as Sunderland face are having a serious impact on their ability to prioritise work to prevent homelessness. Over the same period to 2013, the number of people found to be homeless increased by 54%. Councils tell me that they fear that 2014 will be worse still, once the impact of welfare changes such as the bedroom tax starts to be reflected in the figures.
I turn to the problem of women who find themselves homeless as a result of domestic violence. As my hon. Friend indicated earlier when she spoke of the difficulties faced by her constituent, that is a problem across the country and no doubt we all see it in our constituency surgeries. Figures vary, but we know that domestic violence accounts for a significant proportion of homelessness acceptances. Many women who are forced out of their homes by domestic violence do not approach councils and are not counted in those figures, so the real numbers will be higher still.
There is some way to go in shifting perceptions about what women’s refuges are like and the services that they offer to women and children. Understandably, many families this Christmas would rather be settled in a permanent place that they can call home, rather than in a women’s refuge. Equally, in my contact with women’s refuges, what I saw at Christmas was women and children who were able for the very first time to enjoy a peaceful Christmas without fear. Children did not have to worry about whether their mother would be beaten before their eyes. They did not have to worry about whether their father would shout at them or smash their presents, or whether they, as young children, would be subject to abuse. I saw the incredible generosity of local people who provided presents, enabled children to have Christmas parties and supported them so that they could try to enjoy a normal, peaceful Christmas after the difficult and traumatic ordeal that they had been through.
For those reasons, I am concerned about reports that the number of spaces available in women’s refuges is contracting. Providers across the country report that they are having to turn more and more women away. As part of an inquiry into access for justice for women, the all-party parliamentary group on domestic and sexual violence recently took evidence from providers, which explained the real pressures on their services. Providers told us that they face big cuts to their budgets, which are affecting their ability to offer families a safe place to turn. So much progress was made in that area under the previous Labour Government, and it would be tragic to see that progress undone.
The Government must act to stem the rising tide of homelessness. Ministers must accept that disproportionate cuts to local councils are not without consequence. I fear that the situation will not improve in 2014; indeed, my growing concern is that things will simply get worse.
Mr Christopher Chope (in the Chair)
Order. I have had a look in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, and I was not able to see what the nature of the hon. Lady’s interest was. Does she want to tell us?
Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure, as ever, to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Chope. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) on securing such an important and, unfortunately, timely debate. Christmas is coming and we are looking forward to spending time with our families, but we know, as she said, that many families across the country will not be celebrating this Christmas; they will be in temporary accommodation, and many people will be sleeping on the streets.
I pay tribute to the work of the charities hon. Members have mentioned, and the volunteers who work all year to provide invaluable support to those who are homeless and those sleeping on the streets. The UK is the seventh richest country in the world, yet homelessness and rough sleeping are increasing year on year. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk) explained, the figures are getting worse; since the Government came to power, rough sleeping and homelessness are up by one third. It is heartbreaking that 80,000 children will be without a permanent home this Christmas. The number of families with children living in bed and breakfasts is at a 10-year high. My hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) spoke movingly about that issue in her constituency.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood, set out, the reality of living in a bed and breakfast is absolutely shocking. She spoke movingly about the case of her constituent and her daughters. In more than half the cases investigated by Shelter this year, children in such accommodation were sharing beds with their parents or siblings, and two thirds of families said that their children had no table to eat meals on, and often had to eat on the floor or bed. As my hon. Friend points out, homeless children living in temporary accommodation are more likely to fall behind at school, and lose vital opportunities at that formative age to develop and grow in a healthy living environment.
Rough sleeping is increasing, and has gone up by a third. Hon. Members referred to the wide-ranging and complex reasons why people end up living on the streets. I pay tribute to the work my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) did, even before she became an MP, in providing support for victims of domestic abuse. Many women and men end up living on the streets as a result of such abuse. Some have come out of institutions, such as care settings or prison. The effects of sleeping rough are enormously damaging to people’s physical and mental health, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) set out in her excellent speech. As the hon. Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker) movingly described, many people who live on the streets are at risk of dying prematurely. My hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale pointed out that the average age of death for rough sleepers is 47, which is a tragic statistic.
The previous Labour Government were determined to tackle the problem, which is why we introduced the Supporting People programme, bringing together seven income streams from across Government to give the necessary support to those at risk of homelessness, or those who were already homeless. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale mentioned, we had great determination to bear down on and tackle homelessness. As a result, it decreased by 70% during our period in government. Although it is clear that the reasons for homelessness are complex and wide-ranging, under the current Government, figures show that homelessness and rough sleeping have grown significantly worse.
The Government have failed to tackle the chronic housing shortage so central to the cost of living crisis. The cruel and iniquitous bedroom tax is putting many social tenants at risk of eviction, because they are falling into arrears for the first time. The 60% cut to the affordable homes budget when the Government came to power has had an impact on the number and affordability of homes available. The Government have also cut away support at a time when there are more and more homeless people, who are in need of help. As my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South pointed out, cuts to local government budgets are hitting homelessness services disproportionately. We have seen a fall in the number of beds that homeless shelters can offer.
I pay tribute to the work of my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey). Last year, he brought together a group of 100 people in the first ever young homeless people’s parliament. The Minister met that group in December last year. Although it is good that the Government have continued the initiative, I am sad to report that they did not do so on a cross-party basis, and we were not invited to the meeting earlier this week with young homeless people who came to Parliament to discuss their concerns. I hope that the Minister will implore his colleagues to organise the next meeting on a cross-party basis.
As the young people who came to Parliament last year demonstrated, vital services need to be brought together to help those at risk of homelessness, but other factors also contribute to homelessness. Hon. Members talked about the lack of homes in our country. The sad truth is that the Government are presiding over the lowest peacetime level of house building since the 1920s. We are not building even half the number of homes needed to keep up with demand. While home ownership is falling for the first time in more then a century, private rents are soaring, particularly in our big cities. In London, 59% of an average income is consumed by rent; outside London, the figure is 41%.
As many hon. Friends have pointed out, the loss of an assured shorthold tenancy is now one of the key drivers of homelessness; more than one in four households are accepted as homeless for that reason, and that number has tripled in the past three years. The Government said that they would introduce a tenants’ charter, but I worry that it will be a meaningless and toothless initiative if it does not deliver what we desperately need: longer-term, more stable tenancies, with predictable rents. The truth is that the 9 million people who live in the private rented sector are being let down by poor standards in the sector. It is the worst type of housing to be in, because, according to the English housing survey, one third of homes in the private rented sector do not meet even basic standards. Tenants will seldom complain to their landlord because it puts them at risk of eviction. We must redress the balance of power between the landlord, letting agents, and tenants. Tenants simply do not have the protections in law that they need; those protections that they do have are seldom enforced. The Government need to look at those issues seriously.
A Labour Government would tackle the cost of living crisis and the chronic shortage of housing. We have pledged to build 200,000 homes a year by 2020. We would scrap the cruel and unfair bedroom tax. We would freeze energy bills for millions of hard-pressed families. Crucially, we aim to reform and regulate the private rented sector to bring about more secure, longer-term tenancies, especially for families with children. We will introduce a national register of landlords; in fact, we had the measures in place to introduce such a register at the end of our time in office, but the current Government got rid of the plans within weeks of coming to power. We will empower local authorities to bring in licensing schemes across the private rented sector. At the moment, they have to jump through a lot of hoops to prove that a licensing scheme is needed and can introduce one only in a particular geographical area, or for a particular type of accommodation.
It is regrettable that the number of families in temporary bed-and-breakfast accommodation is rising. As the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) pointed out, the number of people sleeping on our streets is also on the increase. We know that the Minister is one of those Ministers who are willing to speak truth to power—there are not many. We heard him do so in recent weeks in a dramatic fashion, so I implore him to make demands of his Government to get a grip on the issue sooner rather than later. It is a tragedy that so many families with children are living in bed-and-breakfast accommodation over Christmas, and that so many people find themselves with no option other than to sleep on our streets.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Nick Boles)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Chope. I hope you will forgive me if I am a little croaky in my speech; I am grateful for the amplification. I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) on securing this extremely important and sobering debate. We heard some truly harrowing stories from her most of all, but also from my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker).
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood, for taking a bit of time to talk about her constituent and her two daughters. I can only hope that Birmingham city council and the other organisations that she talked about will find a way to enable her constituent to find a secure home, so that her constituent does not have to think that she made a mistake in leaving a man who was violent towards her.
We also heard from a number of hon. Members about the vital role of charities, Churches and other voluntary groups. I might get some of the names wrong, because I was interpreting them at some speed, but we heard about SIFA Fireside in Birmingham, the Leonard Stocks centre in Torbay, the Wycombe Homeless Connection and Petrus in Rochdale. It is clear that all those organisations do vital work, which would be necessary however much money Government had to spend on programmes. Those organisations bring a personal touch, a commitment, whether from faith or general good will, and an innovative approach to helping often some of the most troubled people in our society.
In the relatively short time I have, I could run through the myriad initiatives and schemes that the Government have created to try to help sort out the problem of homelessness. I could talk about the gold standard scheme, the rough sleeping social impact bond, Homeless Link, the Homelessness Transition Fund, the Crisis private rented sector access development programme, the homelessness prevention grant, discretionary housing payments, the sanctuary scheme, the “Places of Change” programme, the “No Second Night Out” scheme and StreetLink. We all know that those schemes—all of which are valuable, important and well intentioned—are not the fundamental solution to the problem.
One of the most startling facts about homelessness over the past 10 or 20 years is that it was at its height when the economy was booming, and when Government spending was growing as fast as it has ever grown. Homelessness peaked in 2003-04; sadly, it only reached the level it is at now in 2008, just when the financial crash hit. Throughout a period when the economy was booming and public expenditure was growing, homelessness did not fall. It was only brought down to its current level in 2008. The devastating financial crash in 2008 has had economic and social ripples that will continue for years and decades to come, and one of those ripples has affected some people’s ability to afford to maintain their tenancies. We heard a lot about the rising importance of the ending of private sector tenancies in explaining the rise in homelessness.
Mark Field
I am afraid that the financial crisis and the ongoing difficulties that any company, large or small, has in borrowing money mean that the ability of house builders, large or small, to borrow to build will also be affected for many years to come.
Nick Boles
My hon. Friend is absolutely right and anticipates a point I want to make. We all accept that the fundamental solution to the underlying problem that produces homelessness and rough sleeping is simple to explain and very difficult to achieve. The solution is, as the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) mentioned, the consistent delivery of more housing of all kinds, all tenures, all numbers of bedrooms and in all parts of the country; the consistent delivery of more jobs that pay more than the minimum wage and are stable and secure; and a consistent need to do a better job than we have been doing in controlling immigration, particularly by those who do not have the means to support themselves in this country.
In winding up the debate—I am happy to take any particular questions that Members raised to my colleagues in the Department, if there is an answer or a meeting that they would like to have to follow up—I want to reflect on those fundamental solutions and why I believe, for all the difficult decisions that we are making on welfare reform and benefits, that the Government’s strategy is the only strategy that can successfully produce an economy that supports a society that does not allow homelessness to continue at its current rate.
Mr Sanders
Members have mentioned not only homeless hostels under threat, but women’s refuges. I often wonder why there is not a refuge or a hostel in every local authority area. Often, those refuges or hostels serve people from other local authority areas. Is there some mechanism that Government could use to ensure that the appropriate funding goes to refuges and hostels that serve wider areas, so that the burden does not fall just on that local authority?
Nick Boles
If my hon. Friend will allow me, I will come back to him in writing on that question, which is important. He also made the important point on the possibility of ring-fencing the homelessness prevention grant. I will allow the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Kris Hopkins), to respond to that in an intelligent way, rather than make it up on the hoof.
Ms Buck
Will the Minister take this opportunity to confirm what his predecessors said, which is that local authorities should, other than in exceptional circumstances, care for their own homeless locally in recognised local connections? Alternatively, does he think that local authorities should give their homeless to other councils to have to worry about?
Nick Boles
It is clearly right that local authorities should do everything in their power to house people within their own boundaries, whether temporarily, if that is unfortunately the only possibility, or ultimately permanently. It is deeply regrettable that some authorities have found that they are not able to do that. We are constantly writing to them, speaking to them and putting pressure on them to ensure that they fulfil that duty, because it is clear and important.
Briefly, on the bigger argument, the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East pointed out that we have been building far too few homes, not just recently, but over the past 20 years. We can all make political points about whether house building rate are lower than they were five years ago, but the fact is that we have had the most devastating financial crash and the deepest recession in 100 years. It is not surprising, at a time when several of our major banks had to be nationalised and others bailed out by the taxpayer, that the possibility of lending money to builders to build and to people to buy houses has become severely constrained, and that has led to a dramatic fall in house building.
The Government are utterly determined—I am utterly determined—to do everything we can to reform the planning system, the funding streams for mortgages and the lending for builders, to enable the rate of house building to increase. It is also clear that we need more housing of a tenure type and cost that makes it available to many of the people likely to be affected by homelessness. I simply point out that nobody’s record is perfect on this matter. The previous Government presided over a dramatic fall in the number of affordable houses available to people, and under this Government, the number has gone up. We have managed to build just less than 100,000 affordable houses in the three years that we have been in office, but that is not enough and we accept that. We hope that we will build 170,000 over the life of this Parliament. Are 170,000 houses enough to deal with the problems that we have, and the 20-year backlog in house building? No, they are not.
At the same time, however, we have created 1.5 million jobs, and I am sure that all hon. Members will accept that the long-term solution, to prevent more people falling into homelessness, and to help the people whom Members have all admirably mentioned, is to enable those people to get stable jobs that pay them more than the minimum wage, and ideally more than the living wage. That will enable them to hold down a tenancy, whether in social housing or private rented housing. That is the solution to the homelessness problem of our country.
Crowdfunding and the FCA
(11 years ago)
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Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
It came as a slightly early Christmas present to learn that I had managed to secure a debate on crowdfunding and crowdsourcing, and the implications for the Financial Conduct Authority’s current inquiry into the regulation, or the possible need for regulation, of crowdfunding.
I came to crowdfunding in a rather peculiar way. I kept hearing people talking about it, and I am a serial and committed social entrepreneur. In fact, the other day a journalist said that I must be one of the few MPs who own a church, a poet’s house and a pub, all through trusts, foundations or charities that I chair.
As I say, I am a social entrepreneur and social entrepreneurs always want money. I do not mind asking rich people, big corporations, trusts and foundations for money, but sometimes—especially since 2008—it has been harder raising money from those sources than it was before.
Increasingly, I heard about social impact investment and crowdfunding, so I decided that I needed some more information. I got in touch with the House of Commons Library, but the staff there said they had never heard of crowdfunding; it was the first time that the staff of the Library of this great House has ever said that it could not help me. I then tweeted about crowdfunding, and all sorts of interesting people pitched up in the House of Commons and started to educate me about it. We formed the Westminster crowdfunding forum, we have an all-party group on crowdfunding and non-banking finance, and suddenly we have what I think is the first debate on crowdfunding in Parliament; I am grateful that we have it.
What is so exciting about crowdfunding is that it gives power to the crowd—to ordinary people—to say that there is a problem in their community and that they can form a small group to head something up. They can form a community enterprise and they can fund it through the crowd on the internet, on a platform; there are now many platforms out there that enable crowdfunding. Some of them specialise in education, others in financing films and theatre, and others in community enterprises. However, that is only one side of crowdfunding.
For me, crowdfunding is one of the most vibrant, exciting and important industries to appear in the past decade. The possibilities of crowdfunding are endless, first because all of us know that most people who are entering employment in this country today will work for small and medium-sized enterprises. If we can have more and more SME start-ups and they can grow successfully, the country will be so much wealthier and so much more successful.
The fact is that start-ups have the most difficulty in getting money from the conventional banks. Very often, the banks have failed them, because start-ups have no track record and no history; consequently, banks are very cautious about lending money to them.
Crowdfunding enables and empowers people who want to start a business to do it in their own way, and to raise the money to do so. It often starts with friends and family, and then a wider range of people become excited about the enterprise and put a little bit of money in to help it start. The history of the last few years has been that many more businesses have started up successfully using crowdfunding and the new social media to reach out to a broader audience and involve them in a very interesting way.
Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising many small amounts of money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. However, people become confused about what is crowdfunding and what is not. I will talk briefly about four kinds of crowdfunding.
First, there is equity crowdfunding. It is very simple indeed. Someone wants to start a business and they give a share in their business to someone else. It may be worth a fiver, or fifty quid, but it is usually only a small amount—an amount that I am sure you, Mr Chope, and I could afford to put into an enterprise that we believed in and that might make us money in the longer term. It is also possible for someone to invest in the little corner shop that they do not have in their village or community, or in a failing pub that the community wants to take over. There are lots of enterprises that crowdfunding can help.
However, there is the very interesting issue of starting businesses—private sector businesses. There is nothing wrong with starting businesses. As chairman of both the all-party group on manufacturing and the all-party group on management, I am a passionate supporter of well-managed enterprises and start-ups.
Equity is one way that crowdfunding works; someone can invest money in that way. However, it is also possible to borrow and lend money through the internet and crowdfunding; that is the second form of crowdfunding I want to discuss. Some people in the peer-to-peer lending area are a little cautious about being called part of the crowdfunding empire, but—in broader terms—they certainly pitch up to the Westminster crowdfunding forum. Such lending allows people to borrow money at very low rates of interest, and it also allows people to lend money at quite high rates of interest. People might think that is impossible, but the fact is that we have a system that gets rid of the intermediary. It is peer to peer—very direct. There is no big bank, with glass panels and marble halls, to go into, or a network of branches of banks, with all the people that have to be employed in them. There is a very simple relationship, and it means that the facility to lend and borrow money is made quite radically different.
Thirdly, there is rewards crowdfunding. That is the kind of crowdfunding that you, Mr Chope, and I might be most interested in; I realise that I am interpreting your wishes in saying so. Rewards crowdfunding means that someone asks someone else to help them with an enterprise, such as the John Clare Cottage Trust, which I am involved with and which is a national centre for learning outside the classroom. We run a campaign called every child’s right to the countryside. What we do to raise money is to ask people, “Will you adopt a school in less affluent area of the country, whose pupils would benefit from coming to the countryside and learning in the countryside for a day?” We look to crowdfund up to £500 to bring a whole school class to the countryside for a day. We can do that by offering rewards, because we not only give the reward of a day in the country to the pupil but—as we will do in the new year—we will give a limited edition of John Clare’s love poetry to those giving money. It is a collection of poems that were never published in his lifetime, because they were a little steamy for Victorians. We can give the reward of a limited edition, or free entry to the lovely John Clare poet’s house in Helpston, which is right next to Burghley house. So, with rewards crowdfunding, people do not get their money back, but they get the engagement, and the reward might be, at the bottom end, with a small amount of money, a mug or a tea-towel. Further up the scale, there are more substantial crowdfunding rewards.
Fourthly, there are donations. Mr Chope, you will know about the success of justgiving.com, which is estimated to have raised £3 billion for good causes, in direct donations. As I say, there are various types of crowdfunding, and I hope that I have educated those attending this Westminster Hall debate about them.
Crowdfunding gives all of us access to the money to make things happen. According to a recent report—published only this week—by the charity Nesta, Cambridge university and the university of California, Berkeley, the alternative finance sector raised £939 million in the UK in 2013. That is a hell of a lot of money, and it was up by 91% from the £492 million raised in 2012. The UK alternative finance market provided £332 million-worth of early stage growth and working capital to more than 3,700 start-ups and SMEs in the UK in 2013 alone. So this sector is not small beer; it is big and it is going to grow.
If we play it right, the UK is likely to become the centre of crowdfunding in the world, partly because the United States, in its haste to regulate crowdfunding, has, many argue, strangled the baby at birth. That is the truth; the US has overregulated and made it almost impossible, certainly for equity crowdfunding, to carry on.
Those of us who are passionate about crowdfunding want to make this appeal: whatever the Financial Conduct Authority does in regulation—it is currently consulting—it must get it right. We are not against all regulation, but it must be appropriate, and it must be quite soft regulation. It can be effective, but if we go down the US route, we will lose the opportunity to have one of the biggest growth sectors and most interesting phenomena of the modern economy.
The FCA should not present an obstacle to the growth of the sector. The criticism that I am getting is that if the FCA is not careful, it will take the “crowd” out of crowdfunding. I am not against the FCA. I was quoted in The Independent earlier this week or late last week as asking for a halt to the consultation process. I did not say that; I never spoke to the journalist in question, and I do not believe that. The consultation process is good, and we have certainly had a good face-to-face relationship with the FCA over many months; we just want to ensure that we get it right, and that is what this debate is partly about. We want to ensure that we do not make a mistake.
Certain language used by the FCA and people around it would I think horrify your constituents, Mr Chope, as it would mine. The FCA suggests that only “sophisticated” investors should have access to crowdfunding; in other words, those who have a relatively high net worth. The FCA’s consultation paper makes a distinction between retail and sophisticated investors. That kind of language makes me nervous, because it is insulting to ordinary people, suggesting that they do not know how best to invest a little bit of money.
My constituents can go down to a bookie’s, play fixed-odds betting, and lose thousands in a day. Those machines are dreadful things, and I have campaigned against them. My constituents can also go next door and borrow money at ruinous rates of interest from payday lenders. They can go online to gamble and, especially at Christmas, spend a lot of money that they do not really have. Why should ordinary people not be able to put a fiver, £10 or even £50—small amounts—in something that they think will grow?
I will give an example that might interest you, Mr Chope. A plethora of universities are now getting into crowdfunding. If your university is like mine, Mr Chope, the only time you hear from them is when they want some money. That angers a lot of people, because that is the only communication that they have with their alma mater; I am looking at the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) on that.
Crowdfunding allows universities such as the university of Huddersfield—university of the year last year and entrepreneurial university of the year the year before—to be able to have a crowdfunding relationship, so that when graduates and postgraduates come through, they can say, “Not only can we help you find the money for your start-up business, our first port of call is our alumni, who might want to invest back in a new generation of entrepreneurs coming out of their university.” There is so much excitement here.
There is a common-sensical way of having regulation that does not cause damage. I want to make it clear today that there has been a good dialogue with the FCA. I hope that it is listening to what we are saying. I also hope that the Treasury, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and all the other people in government who know about the issue will learn about it and realise the enormous potential for growth in the British economy.
Crowdfunding can bring communities back to life. Political parties have hardly any membership. There are low levels of voting in general and local elections. Here is something through the social media—look at 38 Degrees and its achievements—that will reinvigorate our communities, grow them and make them wealthier, and will be a new way of funding social and economic activity in our country.
Mr Christopher Chope (in the Chair)
Does the hon. Member for Cambridge have the consent of both the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) and the Minister?
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
Thank you for calling me to speak, Mr Chope. I will try to be brief. I congratulate the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) on securing this important debate. I also pay tribute to my noble Friend Baroness Susan Kramer, who did a lot of work in this area before her elevation to a ministerial role, which has somewhat curtailed it.
The sector is huge; we can read about just how big it is in the excellent “The Rise of Future Finance: The UK Alternative Finance Benchmarking Report”. I am delighted that Cambridge was able to play a part in that; £939 million is a large sum of money. The sector is also incredibly varied. In my constituency, for example, SyndicateRoom is doing equity crowdfunding, and the Future Business Centre is using social impact bonds to build an entire building for social enterprises. RealVNC, a software company, was set up though merchandising; it sold products with its logo on to get the money to build a better product. There is also Frontier Developments and its game, “Elite: Dangerous”. Those are all crowdfunded. The area is so varied that there is a huge challenge for regulation.
The sector must be regulated to avoid problems—none of us wants to hear the story of the granny who loses all her savings on something like that—but we must ensure that the regulation is not disproportionate. We must ensure that we have principles regulation, not firm tracks that lock everyone down and kill off the excitement, as the hon. Member for Huddersfield said. That is my aim.
The Government are supportive; I will finish with a quote from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills in response to the excellent benchmarking report, “The Rise of Future Finance”:
“Alternative finance is playing an increasingly important role in helping businesses access the finance they need to grow and contribute to the economy.”
Let us ensure that that can continue.
Mr Christopher Chope (in the Chair)
I shall call the Minister now. If the hon. Lady wishes to intervene, it will be up to the Minister.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Sajid Javid)
Welcome to the Chair, Mr Chope. I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) on securing this debate, and on the important work that he does as chair of the Westminster crowdfunding forum. I share his enthusiasm for crowdfunding and the peer-to-peer alternative funding platforms that he mentioned. I cannot think of a single thing he said that I disagree with; it is quite rare for me to say that to him. I say that not in a spirit of good will because it is close to Christmas, but because I thought he talked a lot of common sense. Clearly, he knows a lot about the issue, and I hope that he stays involved in it for a long time to come—it sounds like he will—because I think he can add great value to this area.
Small and medium-sized enterprises are a vital part of the UK economy and contribute significantly to economic growth, as we have just heard. In particular, access to finance is important to ensure that businesses reach their full potential. At times when there are greater constraints on credit, alternative finance markets, including crowdfunding, become even more crucial. That is why crowdfunding, though it may be a relatively new industry, is growing quickly.
Meg Hillier
May I draw the Minister’s attention to a donation-based crowdfunded organisation called Turning Earth in my constituency? It raised more than £13,000 through Crowdfunder and sells work spaces and classes in pottery. It says that, critically, the money levers in other money, because there is confidence in the community that the organisation will work. Does that not do something to tackle the asymmetry of banks, which are frankly letting down small businesses, and the challenge of funding small businesses?
Sajid Javid
The hon. Lady is right. There are examples of banks letting down small businesses. That shows the power of crowdfunding. I had not heard of Turning Earth before, but I am glad that she has brought it to my attention. I will take more interest in it now. If I heard her correctly, she mentioned that it has already raised £13 million—[Interruption.] Oh, £13,000. Well, that is an excellent start. There is great growth potential in that number.
Over the past two years, in total, more than £700 million has been lent through peer-to-peer platforms. There has been a 600% increase in equity platforms between 2012 and 2013, raising approximately £28 million this year. There has been significant growth in debt-based security platforms of more than 370% in a year, raising almost £26 million over the past three years.
The crowdfunding market has huge potential to expand much further, and the UK has a strong global position in crowdfunding investment. Like the hon. Member for Huddersfield, I am keen to ensure that we maintain and grow that position. As such, the Government have taken a number of steps to support this burgeoning industry. We have invested £30 million in peer-to-peer platforms through the business finance partnership: £20 million has been provided to Funding Circle, which facilitates loans to small businesses, and £10 million has been provided to Zopa, which has facilitated £432 million of lending since its launch in 2005.
Our generous tax reliefs, granted through the seed enterprise investment scheme, are widely used by equity platforms. Some platforms have reported that 80% of investors are using that scheme, which provides an important incentive for investors to invest in smaller, perhaps riskier businesses, allowing them to grow.
Meg Hillier
One of the FCA’s considerations is separating the sector into debt crowdfunding and equity crowdfunding. I represent Seedrs, which is based in Shoreditch and does a great deal of good work in this area. The sector is very diverse, so will the Minister comment on whether the Government desire to keep that diversity while ensuring that there is regulation, without making false divides and pigeonholing the diverse crowdfunding industry into the categories of debt, equity or, indeed, donations? Donations are not within the FCA’s remit at the moment.
Sajid Javid
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I am just about to address regulation; that might help to answer her question. This is also a good opportunity to pay credit to Shoreditch as an area that is heavily involved in crowdfunding. It is a growing space, and I would like to see it continue to grow.
We listened to the peer-to-peer side of the industry when it asked about regulation. We are working with the FCA to regulate that side of the industry and develop a proportionate framework. The framework has been well received by the peer-to-peer industry. Although the equity and debt security side of the crowdfunding market is already captured by some regulation, it is keen for a more tailored framework. The platforms’ view is that regulation provides them with credibility and helps to attract investors. They actively lobbied the FCA for inclusion in the consultation, and we supported them to achieve that goal.
Although we recognise the importance of regulation for the industry at the request of the platforms, it is essential that regulation be proportionate, as all hon. Members have said, if we are to ensure that it does not stifle the market’s growth. The Government therefore continue to work with the platforms and the FCA to ensure that the optimum framework is implemented—a framework that satisfies the industry, provides increased certainty to investors, and enables the crowdfunding industry to continue on its upward trajectory.
Before I close, I would like to say that having proportionate regulation is also key to ensuring that there are no unnecessary barriers to entering the industry. One of the industry’s successes over the past few years has been the very light barriers to entry. The Government and the regulator are keen to ensure that we have regulation that is proportionate enough to achieve the objective of protecting consumers, both borrowers and lenders, without creating barriers to entry that make the industry grow at a slower pace or stifle growth.
Meg Hillier
I welcome the Minister’s comments, because some years ago I called for regulation, but not to such an extent that it might put people off. Perhaps he can write to us if he does not have this information. NANA in my constituency is a café run by older women that was funded through donations on Kickstarter. Nana is located in former toilets on Chatsworth road in Homerton, and people fund it by buying a tea towel or donating a cheque. At the moment, the FCA is not considering the regulation of that sector. Does the Minister have any information on whether regulation of the donation sector will at any point be considered by the FCA or the Government?
Sajid Javid
As the hon. Lady kindly suggests, I will write to her and take a closer look at what plans the FCA does or does not have.
Mr Sheerman
Will the Minister do some missionary work with his colleagues? This is a cross-departmental issue, and one does worry. The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills is well apprised of the issue, and we have met him. We want a better relationship with the Treasury team, because people are having to think about this business of investing only 10% of their portfolio. Most people who invest, or who will potentially invest, in crowdfunding would have no idea what a portfolio was if it jumped up and bit them. Every time I complain about “sophisticated” investors, the FCA and other people say, “Well, it’s part of the literature.” It is demeaning to say that people can do something only if they have a certain net worth and if they are a “sophisticated” investor. I do not mind “experienced” or another term, but “sophisticated” upsets many people in crowdfunding.
Sajid Javid
I share the hon. Gentleman’s concerns, and if there are too many barriers to investment, it could stifle growth. I have relayed my concerns to the FCA. As we have heard, one of the consultations has just closed, and the other is about to close. I believe that we will get a report from the FCA by February. He makes an important point.
Mr Sheerman
Last week, here in Parliament, we hosted the founder of Indiegogo, which is a pioneer. Is it not interesting that bright, talented women are coming into crowdfunding because there are fewer barriers? Many sites are run by people such as Karen Darby. The sites are successfully changing the world, but they are also giving women an opportunity to use their talent, when, in some areas, they do not yet have that opportunity.
Sajid Javid
The hon. Gentleman again points out one of the successes of this growing industry. We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) that more young people are involved in the industry and, in some cases, are perhaps finding it an easier platform than banks for raising money.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Huddersfield again on securing this debate. I reassure him and all other hon. Members that we would like to encourage the growth of this industry.
Hospices (Children and Young People)
(11 years ago)
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Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)
It is nice to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Osborne. I am pleased to have secured the debate on an issue that is important for me personally.
I have mentioned on a number of occasions that it was my privilege to work in the hospice movement for some 16 years, mostly in the children’s hospice movement. Although being elected to this place was one of the proudest days of my life, it was tinged with a little sadness, because it meant that I had to leave Martin House children’s hospice. Through my time there and at Hope House children’s hospice, I got to see and hear at first hand the incredible stories of so many children, young people and their families. I got to witness people offering care and support not only because it was their job, but because they cared passionately about the families they were caring for. I got to see some remarkable courage and resilience on the part of children and of families living with the constant prospect that their child would not live into adulthood.
Many of my friends often said that they could not understand how I could work in such a place. Their perception was that a children’s hospice was a depressing place, filled with sadness and despair. For someone who walks into any children’s hospice in this country, however, that preconceived idea simply disappears. Of course there are sad days, when a child has deteriorated or come to the end of their life, and there are moments of pain, but for the most part it is rare to visit a children’s hospice and not to hear the sound of music in the background and children laughing, and an atmosphere of warmth and support, not to mention the wonderful smell of cooking and baking by the volunteers.
Martin House hospice is not only the hospice that I worked at, but it serves the children in my constituency. When it opened its doors for the first time some 25 years ago, it was only the second children’s hospice in the UK and it served most of the country. As time moved on and more hospices were built, so its catchment area changed. Today, Martin House offers practical help and support through a range of services to some 400 children and their families. That is the critical bit: it is not only about caring for the child.
When I spoke to many of the families, they would try to describe their feelings on learning that their child was going to have a short life. The most memorable reply that I ever heard was from someone who described it as the loss of hopes and dreams. At the birth of their child, they had dreamt about the child’s first steps, first words and first day at school, about the child going to university, getting married and eventually having children of their own. The family said that they had to make new dreams when they realised that their child would not be able to do those things. Martin House was there to do just that: to help them to build a life for their child.
The hospice offers a host of services that have developed over 25 years through knowledge, experience and listening. The impact on a family in which there is a child or young person with a life-limiting illness is difficult to imagine, but Martin House—like all hospices around the country—is committed to being alongside the children and their families. Such close work has helped Martin House to develop and fine tune what it has to offer, providing truly family-led care and support. The ongoing day-to-day care of a child with a life-limiting illness, which may go on for a number of years, can be a physical and emotional strain on the whole family. Martin House shares that care with them, and it can take various different forms from symptom control, through emergency and respite care to terminal care.
Respite care offers the opportunity for a short stay to give the family a break. I spoke to one father who said that if he got up eight times in the night he would consider it a good night’s sleep. His daughter was eight years old at the time. Imagine doing that for more than eight years—it is no wonder that they need respite and support. Sometimes they may all stay together as a family, or sometimes they leave the child at the hospice, but it is an opportunity for them to recharge their batteries. Many a time I saw them looking exhausted when they arrived on a Friday, but was pleased to see them looking much more relaxed on Monday morning after a weekend of not having to think about feeding the child, doing the ironing, washing or cooking—all of that was taken care of by the wonderful staff.
Emergency support is there for when the families hit those everyday problems that we all experience. If a relative falls sick or there is a problem at home, it is difficult enough for us to deal with, but for someone with a child with a life-limiting illness such things are much harder. Knowing that there is someone at the end of a line, in a hospice, who is able to help is a great relief.
We must also think about the terminal care. No one really wants to think about a child or young person dying, but to be able to think about or, where possible, plan for that time is something that those care teams do with great skill and compassion.
Mr Lee Scott (Ilford North) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Does he share my admiration for the way in which staff deal with parents, such as at my own local children’s hospice, Haven House, which serves the young people of my constituency in that terrible situation. The care, the passion and the compassion that they show to the parents enables them to deal with something that, in honesty, no parent would want or should ever have to deal with.
Stuart Andrew
I certainly agree. I got to know Haven House through my time working in various hospices. It and the other hospices do tremendous care—even at the most difficult and challenging times, they manage to do it with a great sense of dignity, which we should all be proud of.
Ensuring that the families are supported through the most difficult period is paramount, but also beyond that, through bereavement support. What is good about many of the hospices, Martin House included, is that the services are offered not only at the hospice, but in the family home, to ensure that as much as can be done is being done. The first head of care at Martin House was an inspirational lady called Lenore Hill. I remember that her phrase to the families was: “The answer is yes; now, what is question?” Such a philosophy is what makes the hospices so wonderful.
Time has gone on and medical advances have been achieved, so many of the children are now living longer. For example, when I joined Hope House children’s hospice in Oswestry, boys suffering from Duchenne muscular dystrophy would invariably live to about 18. By the time I left Martin House, however, some 14 years later, some sufferers were living into their mid- and late 20s. Naturally, that is good and wonderful news, but it presents new problems.
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s dedication and loyalty to the hospice movement over 16 years and for representing the movement today in Parliament. He mentioned Hope House. Will he join me in paying tribute to all the volunteers and staff at Hope House in Shropshire and at the Severn hospice, which my hon. Friend also knows? They do such a great job week in, week out.
Stuart Andrew
During the course of the debate, all the hospices are going to be mentioned, which is wonderful and exactly what I want from the debate. My hon. Friend is absolutely right.
Stuart Andrew
I will give way in a moment, but I must deal with the previous intervention first. Hope House deals with the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard), as well as with the Welsh area through Ty Gobaith, so I will also take an intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies).
Glyn Davies
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for allowing me to intervene. I, too, want to laud the services from Hope House, which serves most of my constituency. Will he also accept how important it is to have a good relationship across the border between England and Wales? So many services simply fall apart because of the border, but at least it does not for this particular service, because of the activities of Hope House.
Stuart Andrew
That is absolutely right. A lot of lessons can be learned from the hospice movement on providing care, because what matters at the end of the day is the children and the families—they should be able to access services as easily as possible.
I was talking about the youngsters living longer, but the hospice environment was generally geared towards young children. It started to become less appropriate or even desirable for young adults to go into the same building. The trustees at Martin House took the brave decision to build a new, separate teenage unit in the grounds. Through generous public donations, Whitby Lodge opened its doors in 2002, the first hospice of its kind in the United Kingdom. It has been a huge success, and is being replicated around the country, because young adults get to behave just like that: as young adults. The conversation is more appropriate to their age, and they can share and talk openly about their own needs, fears and hopes. As a result, the care team can learn more about the young people and help them where they can with their particular ambitions. While I was based at Martin House, a number of young people went to university, encouraged by the care team. The team also tried to help those young people when they were going through the transition from child care to adult social care.
Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on the important and passionate case that he is making for children’s hospices. As he has pointed out, people are now living much longer with complex conditions, so transition is a key area. Does he welcome the work that Acorns children’s hospice is doing with the Help the Hospices movement to design better pathways for transition?
Stuart Andrew
Absolutely. I will talk in a little more detail about transition later. The Care Bill had its Second Reading on Monday, and I raised specific points about transition during that debate, because it is a big issue for many of those young people.
The conversations those young people had were very moving. I will never forget one particular young man. We were recording a promotional video to show to health professionals and as a fundraising tool, and we asked the young people at the hospice to say what it meant to them. The head of care was interviewing them, so that they were with somebody they knew and felt as comfortable as possible; she asked that young man, “What is the most difficult thing about your condition?” He considered the question for a moment, and what he said had a profound effect on me. He said: “Falling in love.” At that moment, it hit me that despite their physical limitations or their conditions these are still young people, with all the same feelings and hopes that we all experience. He wondered if anybody would ever love somebody who was, as he put it, “Like him.”
That local experience at Martin House is but one piece in a huge jigsaw. Support and palliative care do not come only through hospices such as Martin House, Hope House or the others that have been mentioned. I want to cover three areas: NHS funding for children’s palliative care; short breaks; and support with mobility for children under three.
Fabian Hamilton (Leeds North East) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. Two organisations that help hospices and the hospice movement throughout the country are the National Council for Palliative Care and the Help the Hospices movement, which has already been mentioned. Both ensure that the high standards that all hospices aspire to and achieve are maintained through mutual good practice and the sharing of experience. Does he agree that those organisations give superb support not just to Martin House, which he has mentioned, but to St Gemma’s in my constituency and all the other hospices that hon. Members have mentioned?
Stuart Andrew
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Those umbrella organisations help to share best practice, and it is through them that the hospice movement has grown so significantly. The movement is something that we can be proud of worldwide: we now have visitors from all over the world coming to our hospices to see how it is done—and, frankly, it is done brilliantly.
As I was saying, the national picture is much bigger. There are some 49,000 children and young people in the UK living with a life-limiting or life-threatening illness that means that they need palliative care. There are some wonderful and committed professionals providing that care in some inspirational places—not just in hospices, but in the family home, in hospitals and in community settings. Families with children with life-limiting illnesses are some of the people most in need in the UK, but many are still not getting the help and support that they require. Although services offer a day-to-day lifeline to families, many of the challenges that they face can be addressed only by changes to policy, both nationally and locally.
In November, I was proud to co-host a reception in Parliament for Together for Short Lives, the UK charity that supports all children with life-limiting illnesses. At that event, the charity launched its policy priorities for the next Parliament. During the reception, the audience heard from Lucy Watts, who is 20 years old. Lucy described the impact that her condition has on her life, the care that she receives and the needs of young people like her. She became ill at 14, and was diagnosed just after her 15th birthday. Lucy is fed straight into her bloodstream, via a central line, and can sit up only for up to five hours a day. She is wheelchair-bound, but has to spend the majority of her time in bed. Speaking about the gap in services for young people with palliative care needs, she said that
“what has been forgotten is that in between children’s and adults, there are the young adults. We deserve the same recognition and distinction as children’s and adult services, but it’s barely recognised. There is the transition period, but young adult care goes beyond transitioning from children’s services to adult services. As a result, the transition can be a huge leap, too many changes too soon without factoring in the needs of people who are not children, but not mature adults yet either.”
That is a powerful quote from that young lady.
Making sure that the right children’s palliative care services are available, in the right place, at the right time, is crucial. Those services should cover the whole spectrum of care, including short breaks for children and families. Commissioned and delivered effectively, children’s palliative care can play a cost-effective role in supporting early discharge for children from acute care settings through step-down care. It can also help to reduce unplanned admissions among children to acute care settings. A Government-commissioned funding review has highlighted that hospital admissions in the last year of life for children who need palliative care can cost an estimated £18.2 million. That far outweighs the cost of providing palliative care to children outside the hospital setting.
Research has also shown that short breaks provided by children’s hospices, which often include health care interventions, help to reduce stress on families and demand on public services. Children’s palliative care services, including children’s hospices, must be funded fairly and sustainably. Families need to know that their local services will continue to be able to provide the care that they need—an issue that was reflected in the 2010 coalition agreement.
I pay tribute to my field within the hospice movement: the wonderful fundraisers, who raise millions and millions of pounds for hospices. My job as head of fundraising was made much easier by the dedication of many volunteers and supporters. We had to raise over £4 million a year to run the hospice, and somehow—I do not know how—those volunteers managed to do that year in, year out.
Karen Lumley (Redditch) (Con)
I am grateful to be able to contribute to this debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker) mentioned Acorns, the hospice that serves our community. Does my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) agree that volunteers do an amazing job, and that the NHS could learn a great deal from how we run our hospices?
Stuart Andrew
That is a very valid point. Hospices do inspiring and innovative work.
Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. He is making an incredibly powerful speech. We know how important fundraising is to the hospice movement. In my constituency, I have been working on and fundraising for Martin House’s “good night’s sleep” appeal, which is sponsored by BBC Radio York. It aims to provide the respite care that parents need—an issue that my hon. Friend touched on at the beginning of his speech. Will he join me in expressing his support for that appeal?
Stuart Andrew
Absolutely. I gave an interview to BBC Radio York this morning, and assured the people involved that we would get a mention of their fundraising efforts into this debate. My hon. Friend has managed to do that, and I am extremely grateful to him for ticking that box for me.
Stephen Gilbert (St Austell and Newquay) (LD)
I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. He is making a powerful point about funding. Demand for beds at Little Harbour, run by the Children’s Hospice South West in my constituency, has doubled recently. Since 2006, we have seen a 30% increase in NHS funding, but only a 10% increase in hospice funding. Does he agree that the balance needs to be redressed, and that we need to do our bit to make sure that hospices have the funds that they need?
Stuart Andrew
Absolutely. My hon. Friend makes a valid point, and brings me on to the issue of funding from NHS England. Children’s palliative care is commissioned by the NHS using two separate methods. The first is through NHS England specialised commissioning. The care is commissioned directly by NHS England, and covers functions such as prescribing unlicensed medicines and managing complex symptoms. NHS England has published a specification for specialised children’s palliative care services, which came into force in October.
The second means of commissioning is through clinical commissioning groups, which should commission the more general aspects of children’s palliative care. There is confusion among some CCGs about which elements they should commission. I hope that the Minister will provide the answers, today or later, to ensure that the CCGs know that they are responsible for commissioning children’s general palliative care and know what that should be.
Overall, statutory funding for children’s palliative care in England is patchy and inconsistent. For example, local NHS commissioners contribute an average of only 13% to the care costs of children’s hospices. However, that masks significant variation. Three hospices in England receive no local funding from their NHS commissioners, and three organisations account for one third of their total income. The Government currently provide a central grant of more than £10 million through NHS England to address the shortfall, and they have committed to introducing a new per-patient funding system for children’s hospices as part of the coalition agreement.
The umbrella organisation, Together for Short Lives, shares the aspiration and vision for a transparent funding system that is fair to all sectors, and it is supporting NHS England to develop it. However, there is growing concern in the children’s palliative care sector about whether an NHS tariff will deliver a more sustainable future, and how practical it will be to implement. I have a couple of questions for the Minister. Will she set out an implementation and commissioning plan for the tariff, including a commitment to consult on the detail and fully test the tariff? Will she commit to a simple tariff that includes the central elements of children’s palliative care, including short breaks when there is an assessed need?
Many families rely on short breaks to recharge their batteries and spend time together. However, not all of them can access such breaks, because commissioners do not always commission them appropriately. Children’s hospices receive less than 2% of their care costs from local authorities, despite £800 million being available to fund short breaks. Half of children’s hospices receive no funding from their local authority. Will the Minister ensure that local authorities ring-fence money allocated to them for short breaks, and audit local authority spending on them, to ensure that as many families as possible are able to have them?
I am conscious that time is passing, and I am sure that other hon. Members want to make a contribution, so I will write to the Minister about the final point I wanted to talk about—mobility. Children’s hospices in the UK are a beacon of a decent and civil society. People in other countries look to them with awe and admiration. They do truly amazing and innovative work, and always strive to make the best of short and difficult times. There is a wonderful saying in the hospice movement: “While we cannot add days to their lives, we can add life to their days.” It is no exaggeration to say that my outlook on life changed significantly through working in the hospice movement. My opponents in my constituency referred to me in their leaflets a couple of times as “our ever-smiling MP”. After what I have witnessed and been inspired by, I am pleased by that remark. All the families have been determined to enjoy life, and I think how lucky I am.
I would like to finish with the words of Lucy Watts, the young lady I mentioned earlier, who movingly said:
“Quality of life is of the utmost importance when you have a life-limiting illness, as you want to be able to enjoy the time you have left. Although our bodies might be dying, our minds and spirits are fighting to live. I'm still a young person with wants, needs, hopes and dreams. I want to have fun and enjoy myself, do things people my age normally do, and I have plans and goals for the future.”
I hope that we as a country and as a Parliament can help her to fulfil those dreams.
Mr Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) on securing this debate. I will try to keep my contribution as short as possible as other hon. Members want to speak. First, I think it right and proper to say a few words about Bluebell Wood children’s hospice in North Anston in my constituency. It is in 6.5 acres of land that was regenerated after closure of the local coal mine, and has its own exclusive access road. Its highly specialised care team look after children with a vast range of complex medical needs and support the whole family on their life journey, offering short respite breaks, day care provision, community support, crisis intervention and end-of-life treatment and care.
Families often come to Bluebell Wood hospice exhausted after caring for a child with a life-limiting condition requiring 24-hour, seven days a week care. It is there to help, and offers respite care to the whole family and gives them the opportunity to spend quality time together knowing their child is in safe hands. It gives families the chance to recharge their batteries and to come and go as they wish. It is a relaxed, fun and happy place to be, where brothers, sisters, mums and dads can enjoy the fun and games. Its motto is “living with love and laughter”.
The hospice provides eight beautifully appointed bedrooms for children and young people as well as accommodation for families. It also has two end-of-life suites, “Primrose” and “Forget-Me-Not”, which are self-contained accommodation suites where parents can stay after their child has passed away. The deceased child can stay in a special adjoining room to be close to them. They can stay until the funeral, giving family and friends the opportunity to visit at any time. The staff are also on hand to help the family with any funeral arrangements if necessary.
The hospice boasts a music room, messy play room, sensory room, cinema room, soft play area, teenage room and Jacuzzi. It is surrounded by beautiful and tranquil gardens, including a dragonfly remembrance garden, which was built by Alan Titchmarsh and was featured on his ITV programme, “Love Your Garden”. It offers care and support for children and young people with a shortened life expectancy, both in their own homes and at the hospice. There are only 43 children’s hospices in the country and Bluebell Wood cares for more than 170 children from south Yorkshire, north Derbyshire, north Nottinghamshire and parts of north Lincolnshire.
Fundraising for the hospice started in 1998 after the death of an 11-year old boy, Richard Cooper, who had a rare degenerative disease and longed for care and support outside a hospital environment. The charity was established, and community support to build a children’s hospice in south Yorkshire was quickly forthcoming. After a lot of fundraising and working with families in the community for two years, Bluebell Wood children’s hospice proudly opened its doors to children with life-limiting conditions on 19 September 2008.
Fabian Hamilton
I would like to pay my own tribute to Bluebell Wood, as well as Martin House, both of which I know. Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the best ways in which all hon. Members here can help to support the hospice movement—as he and the hon. Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) have done—is to come and support the all-party group on hospice and palliative care, which meets regularly in this place, at least every three months, and brings together professionals from hospices all over the country? Will he please endorse the request to attend those meetings and support the all-party group?
Mr Barron
I am a member of the all-party group—indeed, I am an advocate of all-party groups—and I believe that bringing together professional people from the hospice movement leads to advancement and educates us about what is happening out there in the real world.
Bluebell Wood has 90 employees, including the care team and administrative staff, and currently more than 350 active volunteers. The hospice and I are extremely proud of them. It would not be the place it is today without them. They work on reception and in the kitchen, they help with the housekeeping and administration, they dig the gardens, paint rooms and help in the shops, to name but a few tasks they carry out. The hospice has eight shops in the surrounding region which raise funds. They are based throughout south Yorkshire, and there is also one over in Derbyshire, in Bakewell. I want to point out to the Minister that it costs more than £3 million for Bluebell Wood.
Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)
I join in congratulating the hon. Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) on securing this important debate. Would the right hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron) allow me to offer my thanks and support, on behalf of my constituents, to the Northern Ireland children’s hospice, which looks after 600 life-limited children and young people, and to the volunteers and staff there? The recent announcement by the Minister of Health in Northern Ireland to allocate £2.3 million towards the hospice movement, including the adult hospice in my constituency, has proved an enormous boost to all those involved in looking after the terminally ill in Northern Ireland.
Mr Barron
The right hon. Gentleman makes his case very well. As I was saying, Bluebell Wood costs £3 million a year. I notice that my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) is in the Chamber today; she was the chief executive at Bluebell Wood hospice until what I think I could call her “elevation” to become the hon. Member for Rotherham just over 12 months ago—I see that she is not too sure about that phrase. Bluebell Wood costs £3 million a year and as we know, adult hospices in England receive an average of about 34% of their funding from Government. Children’s hospices typically receive much less Government funding—somewhere in the region of 15% of their running costs—although some get next to nothing, and I have to say that Bluebell Wood falls into that category. It receives 5% of its funding from Government and, were it not for the volunteers, the rest of it would not be there at all. It certainly would not be in the shape that it is now, providing that vital service, not only in the hospice itself, but at home.
In the summer of 2010, the Government set up a review of palliative care funding and in July 2011, they published a report, which I recognise stated that there is
“a stunning lack of good data…for palliative care in England.”
I know that finding a tariff, finding out the right costs and what should be paid is very difficult, but the national health service is, far too often, taking decisions without evidence. I see a need for that evidence to be collected.
Pilot sites were offered in November 2011, and I do not know how many sites were set up in March 2012. Can the Minister say when those pilots are likely to have enough good data that we are able to take real decisions about how the NHS, although it should not take over hospices such as Bluebell Wood, should perhaps contribute a bit more to the vital care that those children, young adults and families receive in hospices?
Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) on securing the debate. He has covered much of what many Members would say. There are 49 hospices in the United Kingdom, so there will be probably be 49 interventions and press releases.
I need to declare an interest, as I shall focus on Shooting Star CHASE, which is a fantastic organisation that serves south-west London, west London, Surrey and West Sussex. My interest in it is that I have a family member deeply involved in it. I am stunned—merely going on to the website is such an education. It looks after 600 families in the area, 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. The basic cost is £23,000 a day, because it is not just about what is done at its hospices. They are out helping the families and so on. They are working outside, right across the board in the area—in the homes and in the various organisations outside that support them. I shall focus, because everybody is hankering to get in, only on some of its costs.
At the moment, Shooting Star CHASE does not appear, from my research, to receive any money apart from charitable funding and from the Government. As has been mentioned, NHS England provides £10.7 million, which is shared among 49 organisations, but that money has remained the same since 2007. Shooting Star CHASE receives £630,000 a year for its programme. A quick back-of-the-envelope or iPhone calculation will indicate that huge amounts of money have to be found over and above that. It is vital not only that that money is there, but that it gets charitable backing.
As has been mentioned, it is not unreasonable that the coalition Government have decided that they want to review how all hospices—by that, I mean adult and children’s hospices—are funded by the state. As has been mentioned, the review was launched in 2010. The aim was to produce a new per-patient funding system. NHS England, as I understand it, has set up a series of pilots across children’s and adult’s hospices to collect the data so that the tariff can be developed. I get the impression that the children’s hospice movement agrees that a consistent and rational method is needed. We are still waiting for that—it has been three and a half years to date.
Staying with that development, it is perhaps worth emphasising how I see it, as someone who has worked in the national health service in dentistry. I have watched review after review, and I have seen how they have become more complicated and more difficult for organisations, such as those hospices, to understand. It is absolutely vital that the resulting method of funding is not complex, nor should it be—as is classic with the national health service—over-bureaucratic. An adequate process for transitional funding is also necessary, because the new funding method will undoubtedly bring in changes and shifts, with dips and rises in funding.
I am sure that the Minister in her heart of hearts will agree, even if she cannot say so, that funding has not been increased since 2007, and that we need to recognise inflation and the changes in service that many such organisations have made. A tapering increase in funding could perhaps reflect inflation and even the increase in service delivery.
In terms of the new scheme, it is vital that there is no sharp change—I mean positively rather than negatively; I hope that there will not be any negative changes. With any changes, we need a commitment to transitional funding, so that there are no sharp bumps in the funding. It is progressive—these organisations are looking after children over a long period and any sharp bump would mean a dramatic change.
Let me go to my back-of-the-envelope calculation. This one small, two-unit facility, plus all the group’s work outside, gets £630,000 from NHS England. That is vital. Three hundred and sixty-five days at £23,000 a day comes to about £8.4 million. This Government, the previous Government and future Governments must be thankful that they are not being landed with the full bill. It is vital that we recognise that we should move with the times, that we should give people results, and bring in the transitional funding to buffer them, as well as having a system of funding that is sensible, non-bureaucratic and easily understood—soon.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a pleasure to say a few words in relation to this topic. I thank the hon. Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew)—his constituency is wonderfully named—for his contribution. It summed up and set the scene for how we all feel about the matter. We thank him for his compassion and knowledge on the issue; it was a real pleasure.
Whenever I think of this issue, I think of Northern Ireland Hospice and its good work, and of all the other hospices throughout the United Kingdom, which other Members have spoken about, and of the scourge of cancer and specifically how it affects young people. Yesterday we had a debate on rare diseases. Perhaps the two debates could have been merged together—one on rare diseases and palliative care—because they very much go hand in hand.
As well as praising the hospices, I would also like to mention the Macmillan nurses, who, in many cases, make life just that wee bit easier for the families and those concerned. I pay special credit and thanks to those caring men and women who manage to make life that little bit less stressful for those suffering from cancer and for their families.
Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)
I, too, thank the hon. Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) for securing the debate, and there is also a hospice—the Donna Louise children’s hospice—in my constituency, which does marvellous work. Will the hon. Gentleman join me in commending the caring professionals, whether volunteers or paid staff, who will be working in hospices over Christmas and new year, caring for people in often difficult, if not tragic, circumstances?
Jim Shannon
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I do join him in commending them, as does everyone inside and outside the House. We recognise the tremendous work they do—they are on call at all times. I sometimes wonder how they handle the sadness and emotion they have to confront each and every day as part of their vocation.
Northern Ireland Hospice is committed to fostering, encouraging and supporting a quality research culture internally, regionally, nationally and internationally, and it is known for the high level and quality of care it gives. My right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds), who has just left, referred to the Northern Ireland Assembly Health Minister’s commitment to contribute £2.3 million to hospices, and that commitment by elected representatives shows the appreciation of what hospices do.
It is essential that those receiving end-of-life care have the best care available and are made as comfortable as they can be in their last days. It is also essential, as the hon. Member for Pudsey said, that the family have all the information they need, whether that is in a hospice setting, the patient’s home or through a palliative care package—those are the three areas that have to be looked at.
Some 49,000 young children in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland live with a life-limiting or life-threatening condition and need palliative care. There are inspirational professionals working alongside them in their family homes, hospitals, community settings and hospices across the United Kingdom.
It is horrifying to think that if we had more children’s hospices, they would be filled, because the need continues to grow. Every time we find a drug that works against a strain of cancer, for example, a resistant strain appears. For that reason, it is essential we put money into not simply hospices and nurses, but research, and I am convinced the Minister will take the issue of research on board in her response.
I recently read a report stating there is a real danger that palliative care and palliative medicine will be the least evidence-based subjects in medicine in a few years’ time unless vastly more research is done. While palliative care is vital, research is equally important, so perhaps the Minister can give us some thoughts on that.
I hope we are all blessed with young children and grandchildren who are bubbly and full of life, but some families are not. Those families have to live with a child who is ill, and it is tremendously heartbreaking to acknowledge that. Before yesterday’s debate on rare diseases, the Teenage Cancer Trust sent us some information saying that 30% of children with life-threatening diseases will die before they reach the age of five. Again, that puts things in perspective.
Macmillan nurses told me that the sufferer’s mood is affected by their family. If the parents are content and relaxed, the child is likely to reflect that. This is about the family and everyone involved. It is also about the day trips and the residentials, which the hon. Member for Pudsey referred to.
We have fantastic charities, such as the Make-A-Wish Foundation, that help children with terminal illnesses live a dream. However, that in no way absolves us, as MPs, from our responsibilities to the families, and nor does it absolve the Government or the regional Assemblies from theirs.
Together for Short Lives has also highlighted an issue to me. Will short breaks for children who need palliative care be fairly and sustainably funded from ring-fenced funding allocated to local authorities for short breaks? We look forward to the Minister’s answer, and I trust it will be yes.
Another issue highlighted to me was benefits for families. As soon as the child is taken to the next scene of life—as soon as they leave this life—the parents are left to deal with their grief and their debt. Sometimes, handling the first overrides handling the second. There must be some leeway over cutting off benefits, so that the family has time to realise their financial situation and handle it accordingly. The Minister does not have direct responsibility for the benefits system, but will she say how we can help families get through the switchover at a time when grief is the ultimate driver of where they are? What can we do to ensure that they are entitled to time off and that their benefits are reduced gradually?
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
On the point about families, no parents separated as a result of the death of their child in the four years I was at Bluebell Wood, whereas the average in the country is 50%. Hospices are also very good at helping families to secure benefits and housing and to deal with their grief. The hospices therefore give holistic care.
Jim Shannon
I thank the hon. Lady for contributing her personal knowledge on that matter. I ask the Minister to tell us how the Government will improve support for the families of children with life-threatening or life-limiting diseases who die, to ensure that family members are entitled to time off and to have their benefits reduced gradually.
To conclude, a child’s illness is the most stressful thing a parent can face. We are failing the family and, by extension, the child if there is a lack of support. That can and, indeed, must change. I ask the Minister to outline what will be done to bring about the changes the hon. Member for Pudsey and others have outlined. We cannot heal these children—I wish we had that talent, but we do not, as much as we might want it—but we can make the journey easier. When will we start to deliver the extra, full care that is so needed?
Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Osborne. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) on securing the debate. I certainly like the description of him as the smiling MP. He has much experience to bring to this whole debate.
I should declare that I am a long-standing supporter and patron of Julia’s House, a children’s hospice in my constituency. I am pleased we have this opportunity to recognise the plight of families with a seriously ill child, as well as the role of children’s hospices and other palliative care providers in supporting them. I endorse many of the comments that have been made.
I would like to use this opportunity to highlight a vital type of support that is lacking in many parts of the country for these children and their families, but which Julia’s House has helped to pioneer. Most children’s palliative care focuses on end-of-life care, emergency care and some respite, but Julia’s House, in response to parental demand, mainly provides all-year-round, frequent respite care at homes throughout Dorset and south Wiltshire, as well as in the hospice in Poole, in Dorset.
For families with a child with a life-limiting or life-threatening illness, sleep deprivation, exhaustion and anxiety about the child’s health can take a heavy toll on family relationships. Parental break-up rates in families with a long-term seriously ill child vary, but they are known to be higher than the national average. People commonly report isolation, lack of time as a couple or as a family, and physical and mental exhaustion among their worries. Knowing that a specialist service will take the pressure off them for a few hours at a time of their choosing each week can be the difference between coping and not coping. It is even better if the service comes to their own home, as many families cannot easily transport their fragile child.
In the more than 10 years since Julia’s House began to provide this care, evidence has emerged that many parents see frequent respite as a factor in helping them to stay together as they try to cope with their child’s complex round-the-clock care needs. The impact of the frequent respite service and the flexibility afforded by offering much of it in families’ own homes earned Julia’s House the accolade of health care charity of the year at the 2012 national charity awards.
Julia’s House and Bournemouth university are now researching the extent to which frequent respite care helps couples with a seriously ill child to stay together. Their three-year study will conclude in autumn 2015, with interim results available in autumn 2014. Reliable data from the research could point the way towards a change in policy. It is in nobody’s interests, including the welfare state’s, for the parents of seriously ill children to separate. If frequent respite can play a preventive role, and if successful models of support are emerging, health and wellbeing boards should be asked to make frequent respite for families a strategic priority. As well as involving Julia’s House the research project will widen early next year to include client families from a selection of children’s palliative respite providers in England.
When the research started, the Julia’s House chief executive Martin Edwards met officials at the Department for Work and Pensions and the family policy unit to explain the research aims. The officials were naturally interested in tracking the results. I hope that the Department of Health and the Department for Communities and Local Government will take a similarly close interest, along with policy makers in all the main political parties. We all like to talk about reducing family break-up, but we struggle to find levers for that, and the project could provide one. Julia’s House will share the research results with the children’s palliative care sector and representatives of the three main political parties.
Emergency and end-of-life care, whether provided by the state or the voluntary sector, is very important, but it may come after a process of several years. Many children diagnosed with a life-limiting or life-threatening condition will live into their teenage years or beyond, and it is important to make that time as happy as possible. The cumulative effect on parents of sleep deprivation, exhaustion, isolation and anxiety is enormous. Which of us can say that we could survive such pressure?
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
I want to praise my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) for initiating this emotional and important debate. I hope that he will keep smiling; I know that his constituents smile a lot because of the hard work he does in his constituency.
The hon. Lady makes a great point about respite care. The Forget Me Not children’s hospice in Huddersfield opened its doors formally this year, but for a couple of years its nursing teams have been going into the community, helping 50 families. I volunteered with them last summer and remember vividly a single mum with a very ill child, whom they would help two mornings a week. She has not had more than two hours of unbroken sleep in the past six years, and those two mornings a week are the only times when she gets a little time to herself, whether to have her hair done or meet a friend. The contribution of those teams to her life make her a better mum, and help her to care for her child better. It is an excellent point.
Annette Brooke
That was an excellent intervention. How could any of us maintain a good family life under such unrelenting stress? What a difference that respite makes.
A family in my constituency likened the pressure to slowly drowning, in exhaustion. In their words, “The only name on the life raft reads ‘Julia’s House’.” For families elsewhere in the country, in the numerous places where there is no genuinely year-round respite, there is no life raft. I commend the initiative to the Minister and look forward to her response. The research is likely to show the great benefits to commissioners of spending more money on respite care.
Mr Simon Burns (Chelmsford) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) on securing this important debate. It was refreshing to listen to such a fluent and interesting speech by someone who has done so much work in the hospice movement before entering this House three and a half years ago.
As many hon. Members have said, and others will know from constituency experience, the hospice movement is fantastic. The dedication of those who work in it, whether providing the care or, equally importantly, raising the finances in their community, is vital. We cannot thank them enough for their dedication and hard work.
We have concentrated in the debate, as people often do when talking about the hospice movement, on children’s and adult hospices, which are vital. However, there is an area in between that is all too often overlooked: the need for more palliative care, and hospice care and treatment, for young people aged between 18 and 40. The needs of someone in their late teens or 20s are completely different from the needs of children, or of aged adults, who make up a large proportion of the people cared for in adult hospices. Things have been improving in recent years, with greater recognition of the situation, but I do not think enough account was taken in the past of the age group in question.
I will be honest: 10 years ago it would never have occurred to me that there was a problem. I assumed that someone who was not a child would go to an adult hospice, where the care would be wonderful—as it is—and that would meet the needs of even a young adult. However, when I met my constituent Denise Whiffin, and the friends around her, it was brought home to me how much extra attention and concentration is needed to meet the special requirements of that age group. Denise Whiffin’s son Jonathan was diagnosed, aged three, with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Of course he was cared for through the children’s hospice movement. However, when he was in his late teens that was of course no longer the most appropriate form of care. He moved to an adult hospice, with people who were much older, and whose needs, outlook, attitudes and requirements were totally different.
Denise Whiffin and others in my constituency looked around and came across a role model. I believe that it was the first hospice to be created in this country—in Oxfordshire—specifically for those aged 18 to 40. The group was inspired to try to replicate that in Chelmsford, to provide the same sort of help for mid-Essex. Those involved have done sterling work in the past decade, raising money from scratch. For some years they have been able to provide a wide range of badly needed services for young adults, in the patient’s home setting. Those things include specialist advice and support; unique care packages for each patient, drawn up by the clinical nurse specialist; expert advice on transition from children’s to adult services; practical nursing care; respite care in the home; counselling—which is vital for many families and young people; and a chaplaincy service and music therapy. They have expanded because of demand for specialist care for the age group, and their hope and ambition now is that in due time they will acquire premises in which to provide health care and palliative care.
Sarah Champion
My colleague has hit the nail on the head, and his example of a hospice is exemplary. However, aside from the social aspect, one of the most shocking things for a child is that on their 18th birthday the support of the paediatric consultant who has been with them all the way through is taken away. They are given an adult consultant who might not be able to see them for three or four months.
Mr Burns
The hon. Lady makes a valid and important point, which comes as no surprise, given her distinguished professional work before coming to this House after the Rotherham by-election. It is about continuity of care. Just because someone reaches a cut-off point in their age and lifespan, they should not necessarily—automatically—have to change from those who have been providing their health care up until that point. The individual’s needs and requirements might progress or change so that their consultant or other health care practitioner needs to change because of the skills that they have, but that is a totally different argument. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister and the Department of Health as a whole will look at the matter to see how we can provide greater continuity of care from health care professionals where that is appropriate, so that there is not an arbitrary cut-off point.
I do not want to detain hon. Members much longer, because I know that others want to contribute, but I do think that we must bear this in mind. Fantastic work is going on, as has been shown by a number of interventions and speeches during the debate, in children’s hospices and, equally, in adult hospice care, but let us concentrate more on developing for the young people in the 18-to-40 age group provision that meets their specialist requirements, so that they, too, can have provision and quality of care that is tailored to their requirements and demands.
Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)
On the point about supporting people in the age group to which the right hon. Gentleman refers, does he agree that it is important for Government at all levels to encourage not just the hospice movement, but housing associations and good providers of sheltered housing models and supported housing models to think about how they might style particular developments and units precisely to accommodate people in that age group, so that they can live in a supported context but have premises that guarantee them more independent living, which is more appropriate to that age group?
Mr Burns
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman, too, for that constructive intervention. I know that, particularly in health debates, the term “holistic approach” is for ever used and can become rather hackneyed, but I do think that such an approach is crucial both in general health care in the NHS and in specialist areas such as palliative care, hospice care and end-of-life care. There really must be an holistic approach, and this is not simply about different sections of the health care community. As the hon. Gentleman says, it also involves housing and, as the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) said, the benefits system, where that is appropriate, for a number of people, because it is at this time in someone’s life and the life of their family and friends that they want the minimum amount of hassle, as they are going through some of the most difficult parts of their lives or their loved ones are. We want to minimise the extra pressures, concerns and worries, and that can be done through a more joined-up, holistic approach to the whole provision of care.
I know that the Minister will be listening very carefully to the comments made in the debate. I know that the Department of Health is extremely committed to the whole area of palliative care, end-of-life care and the hospice movement. I know that my hon. Friend will go away from the debate, reflect on a number of the points that have been made and do her best to help to address a number of the issues that I and other hon. Members around the Chamber have raised in the course of the debate.
John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mrs Osborne. I join other hon. Members in applauding my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) for securing the debate.
I would like to make some observations and reflect on the journey that I have been on this past year in engaging with this subject, starting with a question to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on 5 December last year. In that question, I raised the issue of Naomi House hospice, which serves Wiltshire, Hampshire and Berkshire and does amazing work, along with all the other hospices mentioned this afternoon. Naomi House hospice also has a facility, opened in recent years, for young people in the 18-to-25 age group, reflecting the fact that, previously, young people with some of these conditions did not survive for very long, but now they have a greater life expectancy. The facility is adjacent to the Naomi House site, and they work together.
Professor Khalid Aziz, who was the chairman of Naomi House hospice for well over 20 years, observed that he received funding from three different primary care trusts, as they then were—they are now clinical commissioning groups. Wiltshire, which is my local authority area—it was the PCT at the time—had agreed a very simple tariff arrangement whereby it gave £308 per night for any child who was staying at the hospice. Naomi House had not managed to secure a similar agreement with Hampshire or Berkshire. It therefore relied on a share of the grant from the Department of Health and some other statutory local authority funding, but, as with all hospices, it fundamentally relied on raising money through fundraising activities. I think that the figure was about £4 million a year.
A little time passed and then, on 13 February, I, along with Professor Aziz, had a meeting with the Prime Minister. He understood the issue very well. He was aware of the review that is being undertaken of palliative care funding across all age groups, and we went away greatly encouraged. A few more weeks passed, and I was a little concerned that progress was not being made. I sensed that there was some reticence to separate the issues about children’s palliative care and the palliative care review that is under way. In the end, we had a meeting on 19 June with the Minister of State, Department of Health, and we set out our concern that the very simple arrangement that works so well for Wiltshire, securing a guaranteed amount of funding, should be rolled out across the children’s hospice movement as the way forward. There was general agreement, I think, among the officials at the meeting that that amount of money was the appropriate amount.
I came up and had another meeting on 29 July. That time, I met Professor Alan Craft, who is the head of children’s health, and Dr Bee Wee, the national clinical director of palliative care, and they took me through all the work that is being done to understand the profile of need, how we calibrate what the tariff would look like and what conditions would go into it. I recognise that that is a very difficult piece of work and we definitely need it to be data led, as I think the right hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron) mentioned, but we were told that this work was going to progress and basically it would happen in 2015.
I was somewhat disturbed because the system that works so well for Naomi House could easily be rolled out. It is a very straightforward arrangement whereby a CCG is engaged with a local hospice and has said, “This is a contribution to the costs.” We know that there is a significant differential between the 38% funding that adult hospices receive—38% of their costs—and the 10% to 15% that children’s hospices receive, so this was a very simple measure.
I had a meeting on 15 October with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Government Policy. Then, on 25 November, I received a letter that said that the Government would include the local commissioning example in their national tariff document. Basically, the process that the Government are going through to review the whole arrangement for palliative care funding would continue and we would wait for the outcome. In the meantime, although Wiltshire and Naomi House would be put on the table as an example, it would not be presented in a compelling way so that it could be taken up as, I think, a very reasonable interim measure.
I am somewhat disappointed by that final response after all those meetings and all that dialogue, because what is needed sometimes is yes, rigorous analysis of the facts and the issues, but also promotion of quick solutions that would work in a very helpful way—that would ease the enormous burden on fundraisers in making up the gap in funding. There is great support in our communities for children’s palliative care. I sometimes feel that because of the very emotive nature of the work done by children’s palliative care providers and the fact that it pulls at the heart strings, there is always a sense that money will be found for it. I plead with the Minister to accelerate that process if she can, because we need to address the funding gap and ease some of the considerable pressure on providers.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) on securing this debate on a topic about which he is clearly passionate. I pay tribute to him and to all the members of the all-party parliamentary group on hospice and palliative care for the work that they have done to bring this important issue to the fore.
As we have heard, there are 49 children’s hospices across the UK, which all do fantastic work for young people and their loved ones. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron) said, much of the hospice movement is supported by volunteers and millions of pounds of charitable donations. Many hon. Members from both sides of the House made passionate representations on behalf of their local hospices and the holistic care that they provide. Hon. Members have raised many powerful points, and I hope to touch on several of them. I want to focus on three points covered in the debate. First, I will set out the full scale of the care crisis facing young people with complex health and care needs; secondly, I will explain why that is an issue not simply for individual families but for society at large; and thirdly, I will touch on some of the areas that need attention to make life better for those young people, particularly those receiving palliative care.
As we have heard, more than 40,000 children and young people in England have palliative care needs. That includes children suffering from curable and chronic conditions, children with severe disabilities, and children and young people nearing the end of their life. That represents a 30% jump over the past 10 years. There has been a particularly marked increase in the number of 16 to 19-year-olds requiring palliative care, as we have heard from several hon. Members, to around 4,000 young people, which accounts for roughly 10% of young people under the age of 19 with complex care needs. That is in many ways a positive sign, because it demonstrates the great advances made in science and medical technology, and the fact that they have resulted in people living longer.
Cancer accounts for around 14% of young people diagnosed. Cancer Research UK figures show that five-year survival rates for teenagers and young adults have risen significantly across all cancers across the past 25 years. In the late 1980s, less than three quarters of young men lived longer than five years after having cancer, but the rate is now better than eight in 10. For girls and young women, the five-year survival rate now stands at 84%. There has been a particular improvement in leukaemia; the survival rate has jumped from less than 50% to more than 60%.
We are moving in the right direction, but as we have heard from hon. Members today, that presents a particular challenge, because more young people live beyond the reach of children’s care and transition into social care. Too many young people who receive care from children’s services turn 16, 17 or 18 and then fall off a cliff during the transition to adult social and health care. The right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns) and the hon. Member for Pudsey highlighted the specific challenges facing young adults, and we heard an emotive quote from Lucy Watts, who summed up the situation well. Much more needs to be done to make the transition work better. Some of my constituents who have accessed wonderful services at the Alder Hey children’s hospital struggle when the health professionals and familiar surroundings that they have been accustomed to for so long change—a point that my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) articulated. Many families are shocked by the reduced support that they receive in many aspects of adult social care after they have made that switch.
Transition is a hugely stressful process, and in most cases families are moving from dealing with a single, comprehensive agency to managing several different agencies with up to four points of contact. It is easy for gaps to emerge in that fragmented process. Many conditions reach crisis point in late adolescence, so it is all the more important that young people and their families receive responses from care and health agencies in an appropriate, sensitive and timely fashion. There are too many instances of people having to endure the agony of being put on hold, or waiting for a reply to an e-mail, when their loved one has an urgent care need.
That is all in the context of a crisis in adult social care. Since 2010, £1.8 billion has been cut from council budgets for adult social care, and we await the impact of the local authority settlements which have been released today. That means that fewer people receive help with paying for their care and more people face increased charges for vital services that help them to get up and get washed, dressed, fed and helped to bed at the end of the day.
Let me make a brief comment on the wider costs to society. Demand for care is growing at a time when resources are being reduced. The costs to society of a bad care transition—whether those costs take the form of greater illness, negative social and educational outcomes, or possible early death—are far greater than the cost of putting in place adequate resources to ensure a good transition. I welcome some of the modest measures that the Government—[Interruption.]
Sandra Osborne (in the Chair)
Order. The sitting is suspended for a Division for a minimum of 10 minutes.
Luciana Berger
Before the Division, I was sharing with the House my welcome for some of the modest measures the Government put forward in the Care Bill, which the House debated on Monday. It represents a small step towards a better social care system, and builds on the Labour Government’s work to provide stronger rights for carers and improved access to information and advice.
Let me conclude by looking at some areas that still require attention, and with a few questions for the Minister. I praise the many charities working in the sector, particularly Marie Curie Cancer Care, which has a hospice not too far from my constituency, and Together for Short Lives, the leading UK charity for children with life-threatening and life-limiting conditions. Their joint “Don’t let me down” report, published last year, set out sensible and important proposals, a number of which the Government adopted, but four areas of concern remain.
First, we need a much more joined-up approach to commissioning health and social care services for children with palliative care needs. Currently, we have a split: NHS England commissions specialist care, and local authorities manage social care. That fragmentation means that the very high variation in access to and quality of services, depending on where people live, will continue. I would be grateful if the Minister told us the Government’s assessment of that postcode lottery, and what they are doing to address the disparity.
Secondly, children and young people need to be consulted, so that their care caters for them and their needs. There is a particular role for health and wellbeing boards in that. More than half the health and wellbeing boards have explicitly examined care for terminally ill adults, according to the National Council for Palliative Care. The likelihood, however, is that far fewer will have engaged with children and young people on the same scale. I would welcome a response from the Minister on that specific point. Thirdly, the different agencies that provide hospice and palliative care to children and young people need to talk to one another much more. Local authorities are unable to share data. What solutions are Government considering to address that problem? Fourthly, a solution needs to be found to enable all the information and records about a young person’s needs to travel with them. Too many young people have to tell their story all over again when they need to access a new service, or when they are transitioning.
The debate this afternoon has been positive and constructive. On this side of the House, we are ready to work with the Government to improve outcomes for young people and children who need hospice and palliative care. We hope to deliver an integrated, whole-person approach to health and social care. Whole-person care is about meeting the needs, whether physical, mental or social, of people of all ages, so that they are able to live an independent and dignified life. That is ultimately what the future of health and social care needs to look like, with world-class hospice and palliative care front and centre. That is what we are committed to delivering, so that we can help those who need it most.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Jane Ellison)
I congratulate hon. Members on an excellent debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) on securing it, and on speaking, not for the first time, with great passion and knowledge on this subject. The debate rather gives the lie to the lazy cliché that MPs bring no real-life experience to the House. It has been enormously informed by the life experience of a number of Members, and I congratulate everyone who has taken part. I will do my best to respond to the various questions put to me, but if by chance time defeats me, I undertake to write to colleagues. The Minister of State, Department of Health, my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), is sorry that he cannot respond to this debate. As Members will have observed a few minutes ago on the Annunciator, he is otherwise engaged in the main Chamber.
Hospice care and palliative care for children and young people is an important and sensitive subject. From what the shadow Minister said, I can see that there is a good degree of cross-party consensus on the need to take the subject seriously and to sustain the way we serve the sector. The coalition placed great emphasis on palliative care in the coalition agreement, which included several specific commitments, such as a commitment to placing hospice funding on a more transparent and sustainable footing—that has been the subject of many comments today—and to introducing a new per-patient funding system for all hospices and providers of palliative care, so that the most gravely ill children and adults can receive care in the setting of their choice.
We have committed £10 million a year to support children’s hospices, as well as an additional £7 million in this financial year to support capital projects. In 2012, that allocation increased by over £700,000 to support new providers entering the sector, and we are keen to continue that substantial level of support now that responsibility has transferred to NHS England. We recognise the need for change in how children’s hospices are commissioned and funded. While a new funding system will be introduced in 2015, and while we have provided money to support hospices until then, we know that more needs to be done to support effective local commissioning. That, rightly, has been the focus of many of the speeches today.
Many hospices do not have as effective a relationship with their local commissioners as they might like, and funding from health commissioners is a relatively low proportion of the incomes of most children’s hospices and hospice-at-home providers. That is not universal, however. There are examples of local good practice where primary care trusts, formerly, and clinical commissioning groups, currently, have entered into funding arrangements with their local children’s hospice. My hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen) has not returned from the main Chamber, but he spoke about the arrangements in his area for Naomi House, which has a per patient, per night tariff that has been arranged with the local CCG in Wiltshire.
We want the principle of CCGs supporting children’s hospices to be embraced widely across England. Monitor and NHS England are looking to include the arrangement between Wiltshire CCG and Naomi House in the national tariff document as a case study of good commissioning arrangements. Obviously, it is important that any nationally mandated or recommended tariff is based on a robust body of national evidence and provides clarity for commissioners on the services provided. I know that the working group has discussed the Naomi House example.
The charitable sector and the excellent fundraising work it does will always have a role. It has made an absolutely magnificent achievement over many years in all parts of the country; we have heard about that today. We are keen to see more effective and sustainable commissioning for hospices. We want commissioners to assume a more active role with their local providers, and we are keen to engage with the sector to see how we can support that. A lot of work is going on to develop that new model.
As has been referred to, the independent palliative care funding review, which reported in 2011, found that the absence of a clear funding model, or even a proper understanding of the costs of palliative care, was a major impediment to developing that care. The right hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron) mentioned the “stunning” absence of good data on the costs of palliative care, and the first step in developing a new funding system had to be improving the evidence base. We established eight pilots to collect a range of data and to test the review’s recommendations. The pilots—seven for adult palliative care, and one for children’s palliative care—are running for two years, and will provide the evidence to underpin decisions on how best to transfer to a fair and transparent funding system, which we intend to introduce in the 2015-16 financial year.
Hon. Members challenged us on the implementation plan and its timings. As part of the development of the tariff, there will be a plan for testing and implementation. Once we have clarity on the funding model, we will continue to ensure that the stakeholders are involved. Many of the hospices and their umbrella groups are closely involved in that work, and they will continue to engage in it.
I have heard the mood of the House on consultation. Although this is an NHS England lead, and I cannot commit it to carrying out a consultation, I can strongly encourage it and relay the mood of the House. The details of the tariff are still being worked on, but given that the new system will come into effect in 2015-16 and the sector needs to be able to plan ahead, we hope that that will happen in autumn 2014. That should be feasible, but I cannot commit to it. The sector is closely involved in that work and will be closely involved in the timing arrangements as well. It is key to say that we will not let this issue drift. The hospices are involved in the data collection and the discussion, and are key to the NHS England working group. The Government have made a commitment on that; we are conscious of that, and Members are right to push us on it.
NHS England is leading the work, and more than 80 organisations are involved. Barbara Gelb, the chief executive of Together for Short Lives, is a member of the Secretary of State’s children and young people’s health outcomes forum, so there is good read-across there. I emphasise how closely the sector is involved in the work, and how important it is to ensure that it supports the new funding model, which will be simple and non-bureaucratic—all the things that Members have alluded to today.
Having that clear, quality-assured information on the real costs of providing complex, costly care to a relatively small number of children will make a significant difference to commissioners. That has been emphasised by a number of Members. Concerns have been focused on that transitional period and the commissioning guidelines. The Department will consider in the coming months how we might further support that local understanding and preparedness among not only CCGs, but local authorities, as commissioners of social care.
Jane Ellison
I will struggle to respond to the points made in the debate if I give way. I hope my hon. Friend will forgive me, but I am happy to pick up points after the debate.
We realise that health and wellbeing boards need to be involved, and that sits firmly in my area of public health. I will think about how we can take that forward and publicise that more.
The transitional period and the challenge for older children and young adults was referred to a great many times, and has given much food for thought. The Department of Health has given section 64 funding to Together for Short Lives to support development and research around appropriate pathways and the transition to adulthood. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has been commissioned by the Department to develop guidelines around that transition. A number of areas of Government policy come back to that same challenge of how we deal with transition, and stop there being a cliff edge when a child becomes an adult. We all recognise that in real life that is not a cliff edge. In other policy areas, in other Departments, people are looking closely to see where we can get that right.
The Government have made short breaks a priority, and have put money, albeit not ring-fenced, into local authorities. We have introduced the short breaks duty, which requires all local authorities to provide a range of short break services for disabled children, young people and their families. A statement has to be developed in consultation with families and published. That is one thing that local authorities can be judged against. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke)spoke about Julia’s House, which is an interesting case in that regard. We will ensure that that is brought to the attention of the national clinical director. I will bring all the points that have been made in this debate to their attention.
In the final few seconds that I have left, I wish to put on record my thanks to all the volunteers and staff who work in this sector. I know that in the coming weeks, which will be a difficult time of year for families with a loved one who is ill, they will bring both comfort and joy to the people they care for, and for that we thank them very deeply.
Electrical Safety (Private Rented Sector)
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Mike Thornton (Eastleigh) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Osborne, and it is a privilege to see the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams), in his place. I congratulate him on his appointment to his relatively new position.
I am delighted to have secured this debate on electrical safety in the private rented sector. How we live is changing. According to Shelter, the proportion of homes rented privately in the United Kingdom has rocketed by nearly 70% since 2001, with the private rented sector now home to 3.8 million households in England alone. There is no doubt that the private sector is playing an increasingly important role in meeting housing needs, especially for families. However, this rapid expansion in the market has been marked by a few rogue landlords and some well-meaning but ill-informed landlords, who are failing to ensure that the homes they let comply with basic safety standards. Electrical safety in the private rented sector is an issue that needs addressing urgently.
Paul Burstow (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. There are a number of Members from across the House who are concerned about issues of electrical safety. Every year, nearly 5,000 fires are caused by electrical appliances, and many of them can lead to loss of life or serious harm to the individuals caught up in those fires. Does he agree that where a landlord is letting a property with appliances in it, there should be routine and proper inspection processes in place to ensure that the tenant knows that the equipment that they will be taking on is safe?
Mike Thornton
I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention and I entirely agree with him. When I used to work in various offices, everything had to be subjected to portable appliance testing to safeguard me as a worker. It seems a bit unfair that people living in properties should not be protected in the same way. His point is a very good one.
Mr Andrew Smith (Oxford East) (Lab)
I also congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. My constituency has one of the highest proportions of private rented sector accommodation and so I take a close interest in this issue. Further to the point made by the right hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow), does the hon. Gentleman agree that where houses are in multiple occupation the sort of licensing regime that there is in Oxford, which requires inspection, has a very useful role to play in promoting safety?
Mike Thornton
I entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman. That is one of the points that I was going to make. Houses in multiple occupation are covered, but other sorts of rented property are not. That is a very good point indeed and I thank him for making it.
When I was a student in Manchester in 1972—I know that is going back a fair way—I entered the house in Whalley Range where I had my digs and a loud hum could be heard. It was coming from the fuse-box situated near the front door. As I was curious, one day I looked inside. The reason for the noise was clear—in place of fuses, there were several three-inch nails. Until very recently, I assumed that nothing like that could happen today. As we have already heard, however, according to Government statistics the cause of more than half of all accidental fires in homes is electrical. Tragically, last year 25 people died in fires that started because of an electrical fault, and we also know that other people have been electrocuted. However, current rules mean that landlords are under no obligation to provide tenants with electrical safety certificates. They do not even have to prove when the electrics were last tested unless their properties are registered as shared houses, as the right hon. Member for Oxford East (Mr Smith) mentioned. That is despite the fact that a gas safety certificate is required.
The problem with electricity is that very often faults are not visible. Unlike a gas leak, someone cannot smell an electrical fault. This means that it is possible for properties to be rented with dangerous or faulty electrics that neither the landlord nor the tenant are aware of until it is too late, which can mean the loss of a loved one. “Too late” is just not good enough. Luckily, Mr Parker, my constituent, who raised this issue with me, was aware of problems in his rented property. He was seriously concerned about the electrics in his rented house in Eastleigh and came to me. He showed me alarming pictures of exposed wiring that quite frankly looked like a death-trap. Shockingly, there was loose wiring, some of it in close proximity to water. This was self-evidently not a new problem. If it had been and if his landlord had immediately taken action, as a responsible landlord would do, none of this would have come to my attention. But unbelievably Mr Parker’s landlord would rather run the real risk of injury or death to his tenant and damage to his property than repair the defects.
Of course, on hearing Mr Parker’s concerns one of my first reactions was to ask if he had any kind of electrical safety certificate for the property. Imagine my shock when I discovered that, under the current regulations, landlords do not have to certify the safety of the electrics in a rented property in any way. As a result, the judgment of what is classed as safe comes down to a personal opinion rather than scientific fact. Gas safety testing is mandatory on a yearly basis. Both gas and electricity are dangerous if there is a fault. So we apparently believe in protecting tenants and their neighbours from fire and injury caused by gas, but fire and injury caused by electricity is fine. Of course, if someone is renting a room in a house of multiple occupation, or in a hotel or bed and breakfast, electrical checks are required, meaning that if someone is staying in a hotel or renting a bedsit they are safer than they would be in their own home.
It is evident that current laws are just not up to scratch. The Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, and the housing health and safety rating system brought in under the Housing Act 2004, have proven to be inadequate, mainly because they neither protect the landlord nor the tenant against unknown faults. The law assumes that the tenant is aware of faults. When I moved into my house in Bishopstoke in 1994, all the electrics looked perfect. However, an electrical safety check showed up several worrying faults that could have had tragic consequences. Needless to say, they were repaired. A simple five-yearly check, similar to the gas safety check that landlords must carry out on a yearly basis, would ensure that tenants and landlords are protected against such risks.
As hon. Members are surely aware, the Communities and Local Government Committee agrees that a change in the law is needed. In its latest report on the private rented sector, which was published in July, the Committee recommended that the Government develop an electrical safety certificate and legislate to ensure that landlords carry out full wiring checks every five years. This recommendation is backed by the Electrical Safety Council, the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, the National Private Tenants Organisation, the Residential Landlords Association and the National Association of Professional Inspectors and Testers, an electrical certification body. However, the Government have rejected this proposal, arguing that it would increase red tape. Their response reads:
“The ESC recommends that safety checks are carried out every five years and we think that strikes the right balance between having safeguards in place to protect the tenant and avoiding regulating the sector”.
There is red tape and then there are regulations that save lives; a £200 five-yearly safety check is definitely the latter.
Any administrative aspect of electrical certification could be minimised by including such documentation alongside existing gas installation work. Most qualified gas engineers are also qualified electrical engineers. It is also important to remember that the introduction of the type of measures proposed in the Select Committee’s report would protect not only tenants but landlords. Accidental landlords, such as those people who inherit a property, are very often unaware of their obligations. Indeed, a study by the ESC showed that almost half of all landlords and tenants admitted that they had no idea who was responsible for electrical safety. Therefore, landlords are exposing themselves to significant financial risks, from fines and invalidated insurance, by not meeting their electrical safety obligations. That is not to mention their conscience if a tenant is injured or killed by an electrical fault in their property, which could result in a lifetime’s burden of guilt.
One of the last points that I want to make is a wider point about tenants having the confidence to complain about such important issues as electrical safety. Both the ESC and Shelter have significant concerns about the power imbalance between tenants and landlords. I welcome the recent announcement from the Department for Communities and Local Government that it will be looking into the possibility of restricting the use of section 21 eviction orders that apply to assured shorthold tenants following the receipt of such a complaint. I have been made aware of instances where a tenant has been issued with a section 21 eviction notice simply for identifying a hazard. I am sure that the Minister will agree that that is completely unacceptable.
For the sake of the 1.3 million renters that the ESC estimates are currently waiting for electrical issues to be resolved, I ask the Government to review the current legislation before another entirely preventable tragedy wrecks another life.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Stephen Williams)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Mike Thornton) on securing this important debate. He is raising the issue on behalf of his constituent, Mr Parker, although he is drawing on his own life experiences, as we heard, albeit from a few decades ago while a student. Many hon. Members will have lived in private sector accommodation, whether as a student or later on, early in adult life—that experience is common in my constituency—and will have had such experiences and have views on this subject.
The private rented sector is an important part of the housing mix in England. It is growing and the Government wish to encourage that. Nine million people in England live in the sector. In my constituency, a significant proportion of people rent in the private sector; indeed, it is the second largest cohort in the country, after Kensington and Chelsea. The issues raised by my hon. Friend are of interest to me, as a constituency Member and as the Minister with responsibility for this area.
The quality of private rented housing has improved rapidly during the past decade. The English housing survey shows that 83% of tenants are happy with the service from their landlord. Obviously, that should not give rise to complacency, because it means that 17% are unhappy. Many of those experiences of unhappiness may fall within the issues that my hon. Friend is raising.
There is a general statutory duty on landlords to ensure that their property is in good repair while being let, and that is deemed to include electrical installations, to ensure that any appliances supplied with the property are safe. Where the property is licensed—the right hon. Member for Oxford East (Mr Smith) mentioned this in his intervention—for instance, in houses in multiple occupancy, the local authority can require that electrical installations in the property are periodically checked and that an electrical safety certificate is produced on demand. But it is up to each local authority to decide what that periodic interval is.
Paul Burstow
The Minister knows, from a meeting I had with his predecessor and through written parliamentary questions, that I have been trying to establish the outcome of a survey that the Department commissioned into the extent to which voluntary arrangements for licensing conditions are being taken forward. I wonder whether he has any further information about that and whether that has led him to conclude that there needs, at least, to be much clearer best practice guidance for local authorities, to ensure that the minority of landlords who let their tenants down by not adequately checking their appliances do not do so and are properly licensed in future.
Stephen Williams
I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. I shall mention various actions that the Department is taking in this area, which I hope will satisfy him.
Apart from circumstances in which properties are within an existing licensed scheme, landlords are not required to have electrical installations regularly checked. Although it is not a requirement, the Electrical Safety Council recommends that such installations should be checked every five years, as matter of good practice, and this recommendation is endorsed by the Department. A brochure has been produced for landlords and, as it is Christmas, I have a copy for my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh. I am sure that he will find it useful in giving advice to his constituents.
Turning to points made by my right hon. Friend—I hope that this will satisfy him—the Government are reviewing the service that tenants can expect from landlords. In October, the Department launched a consultation on a tenants’ charter that will consider various issues, including electrical safety. The first stage of this will be the publication of a discussion document on the issues early next year. I hope that it will be available by the end of January. This comprehensive review of property conditions in the sector will also include actions that we may be able to take to stop the practice of retaliatory eviction, which my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh mentioned, where a tenant has made a reasonable request of their landlord for improvements or repairs to installations in their property.
The review will also consider whether there should be any changes to existing health and safety rating systems and whether smoke and carbon monoxide alarms should be required in rented homes. At the moment, such alarms are required only in certain circumstances, where particular sources of heating, such as solid fuel, are installed, but we are reviewing whether that duty should be extended. We are looking at existing licensing and voluntary accreditation of landlords, building on the discretionary licensing scheme that exists in several urban areas at the moment. Bristol city council has just started a discretionary licensing scheme to improve the standard of private rented stock in the eastern area of my constituency.
We are also considering what redress might be available for tenants; for instance, whether landlords should be required to repay rent where a property has been found to contain serious hazards. I agree with my hon. Friend that it is shocking that retaliatory evictions might occur where a tenant has made a reasonable request of their landlord for an improvement to be made to their property. They should not face the threat of deprivation by losing their home. The Department does not, at the moment, have any comprehensive evidence that retaliatory eviction is a widespread problem. My hon. Friend mentioned evidence from Shelter. Perhaps he would be kind enough to share that with me after this debate, so that I can raise the matter with Department officials.
On the health and safety rating system, local authorities have strong powers to inspect properties and make sure they are safe, healthy and free from harm. The process involves looking at 29 possible risks to health, including electrical hazards. Powers are available to local authorities where serious hazards are found in properties, including prohibiting use of the dwelling; undertaking the works directly themselves; and prosecuting the landlords, if necessary. The system provides an important safety net, ensuring that homes are safe and decent.
I mentioned that we are looking at the related issue of whether to require the installation of smoke and carbon monoxide alarms. This was the subject of an amendment and a debate in the other place, during the passage of the Energy Bill, when the Department announced that it is undertaking that review. Smoke alarm ownership is quite high, with 86% of all domestic buildings having at least one smoke alarm. Ownership of carbon monoxide alarms is much lower, estimated at about 15%. We are reviewing that.
Licensing gives local authorities some degree of control over the condition of privately rented housing in their area. Large HMOs are subject to a mandatory licensing scheme. As part of that, a smoke alarm must be installed in the building. A local authority can also require that an electrical safety certificate is produced on demand, but that is in the narrower circumstances of HMOs—narrower than those my hon. Friend is talking about—which are already subject to a local authority licensing scheme.
Local authorities can decide to license other rented housing. I mentioned the discretionary licensing scheme. At the moment, this can be applied where general antisocial behaviour is found in an area of high private sector rented accommodation or low housing demand. Our review will look at whether those conditions should be widened. Where that licensing is in place, an authority can impose conditions requiring regular checks of electrical installations of the sort that my hon. Friend requires.
In the review into property conditions, we will also consider whether a landlord could be required to pay rent if they let out a property that contains serious hazards. Landlords are already liable for fines if they are found to be breaching certain conditions, but we are considering how tenants may receive redress and compensation, and the repayment of rent seems to be a good way of doing that. That is subject to the review, and I urge all hon. Members present to contribute their views to that review.
As part of the review, we are also considering the letting agents market. As I am sure many of us know from the experiences brought to us by our constituents, and possibly from our own personal experience, many private rental properties are secured through a letting agent. The majority of agents provide a good service, but some do not and charge tenants excessive fees for a poor service, which might include not giving information about electrical installations or white goods in the property. From 2014, all letting agents will have to belong to a redress scheme, which will ensure that tenants have access to an independent adjudicator, who will be able to investigate complaints about a letting agent and order compensation to be paid, if appropriate.
Before concluding, I reiterate my thanks to my hon. Friend for securing this important debate. The Department recognises that, if we want to grow the private rental sector, as the Government certainly want to do, it is vital that we ensure that tenants have confidence that the homes they are renting are safe and decent.
Our review will conclude next summer, and I again urge all hon. Members to contribute to that review. Perhaps next year my hon. Friend will again be successful in securing a debate, and I hope that he will find that many of the issues he has raised today have been addressed by the review.
Television Services (Scotland)
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Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)
I know people say this at the beginning of Westminster Hall debates, but it is a genuine pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship, Mrs Osborne. We are old friends and old colleagues, and it is good to see you sitting in the Chair for a vital, and hopefully positive, debate.
I hope the Minister will agree that television in Scotland is now in a good place. We had many years of differences, disputes and debates—the Minister can call them what he likes—between ITV and STV, which caused great problems for those who wished to plan the future of television in Scotland. I am glad to say that those problems have been resolved, and the relationship is positive.
I am a great supporter of television media generally, having spent a short time in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport back when I was Parliamentary Private Secretary to the then Minister with responsibility for film, my right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr Clarke). We met a number of people who, through Channel 4 and other production companies, made a great contribution to the UK’s film industry.
I have a positive view of television media, and I was pleased to attend a recent meeting at which ITV said that it is debt free. It is wonderful, in a world in which the banks will rip to shreds people who owe them money, to find that a company such as ITV is debt free. I do not know the financial standing of STV, and I do not seek to discuss that today, but I know it is in a positive mood.
I see STV as the Scottish broadcaster in a devolved nation, and its unique position has now been recognised. Without seeking comment from the Minister, I would say that, as a broadcaster, STV makes a good contribution to Scottish dialogue and to the field of production, which I will not discuss today. We have to recognise STV’s impact on Scotland’s creative industry. There are very few people at the centre, in the production team. STV sucks in, develops, encourages and grows the other independent organisations that are required by television production, which is a very good thing.
The second part of moving forward into Scottish television’s future of broadcasting to a devolved nation is recognising that the various localities in Scotland have differing perspectives on the world. People often look through the prism of the cities in which they live, such as Edinburgh or Glasgow. There are many jokes about the differences, but they are real. I am a west coaster, but I now live near the east coast. My constituents often see things through an Edinburgh-centric prism, and people on the west coast often see the world through a Glasgow-centric prism. The people of Ayrshire complain that others do not recognise the importance of Ayrshire, and they may in fact have a perspective of their own. I would say the same for the local areas around Stirling, the Forth valley and Falkirk.
There is a similar debate in Wales on the role of local television in Wales. In Scotland, I believe the intention is to call for local city television. The question is how we get people who wish to use that new service to recognise and access it. That turns on the question of what will happen in the regions of England. People in England will look at their digital channel list, and their local service will be on the first page at channel 8. The local television service in Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham and other cities will be at channel 8. People in Wales will use the same channel as people in Scotland, and Welsh colleagues will debate that with the Minister separately.
Scotland is a much bigger landmass with a much more diverse population, and with greater distances between populations. People in Scotland will have to find channel 26 to watch city television—it started off at channel 45—so they will have to wade through online shopping and various baking, cooking and travel programmes to find their local television service. I know that in the longer term, given the way digital is developing, people will design a menu for themselves, which will be a great incentive, but that is not the case at the moment.
David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate, and I echo his point. He is talking about the issue generally, but in Wales there is a specific problem with the location of the channel. I agree entirely that we need to make local television services as prominent and as near to the top of the list as possible so that people can access local TV.
Michael Connarty
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention but this debate is on television services in Scotland. His point is very well made.
When city television is launched in Scotland it will at first be based in Edinburgh and Glasgow. Because city television is independent—although it is a public service broadcaster—the question will be whether it is viable. Will it have enough users in each area so that advertisers fund the channel properly and allow it to develop correctly? In the future, people might have their own digital menus and the channel will be there for them to use, but at the moment that will not be the case. Obviously we see public service broadcasters in the first 10 channels. I understand that Ofcom has a responsibility to provide “appropriate prominence” to public service broadcasters, and I would define Scottish local television as a public service broadcaster. The first 10 channels include Sky and—no offence to ITV—ITV2, but the public service broadcaster for Scotland will not be found until channel 25 or 26, which seems to me to be inappropriate. There is too much of one thing and not enough of the other. If we really are saying that we want Scottish local television to develop as a recognised public service broadcaster for a devolved nation, not a separate nation—I am totally opposed to the idea of independence—we must recognise it as a public service broadcaster. We should be supporting it, the Minister should be supporting it and Ofcom should be doing whatever it can.
The Minister and Ofcom will say that it is not really in their gift to make one broadcaster give up a channel to another and that it is Digital UK, the operator of the digital terrestrial television platform, that needs to be persuaded or perhaps instructed to do that. I am unsure of the Minister’s powers here, but he may outline their limitations later. I would be happy to hear that his focus and control could be extended, although it may require a change to Acts of Parliament. It is incumbent on the Government to recognise the position of the devolved Scottish Parliament, the aspirations of the Scottish people and the significant contribution that can be made by Scottish television.
I am not criticising BBC Scotland. We do that to its face when we have things to say about its biases, prejudices and lack of use of Members of this Parliament for good, fact-based commentary on matters of political debate in Scotland, but then again every party criticises the public sector broadcaster. The point is that STV gives a different view. We have seen that most people now tune into “Scotland Tonight” on STV and do not necessarily watch “Newsnight Scotland”—or “Newsnicht Scotland” as I pronounce it when it changes from the normal BBC programme—so STV has a particular role to play. Local people would also like to see their news interests on city television, which means that it should be in the first 10 channels.
I want to make some comments about BBC Alba, but I will not criticise it as it is a public sector broadcaster that has a particular position. Of the 90,000 or so Gaelic speakers, I would imagine that those who use BBC Alba would know where it was were it at channel 26, although I am not suggesting that it should be put there. Some of my Gael colleagues say to me that there is something odd about running rugby with Gaelic commentary, because it is not necessarily a natural selection of sport for people in the Gaeldom, who would perhaps rather watch something else. Borderers watching rugby, and even sometimes football, often have to listen to Gaelic commentary, which can be confusing. It may be of interest to the Gaeldom, but not necessarily to others. I am not suggesting that we should push BBC Alba off the first 10 channels in order to include STV city television, but we should seriously look at moving somebody off that first 10 to recognise the role of STV and what will become city television.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He is making a good case, and I am supportive of his appeal to ensure that we get the matter resolved. The most sensible thing to do would be to move STV to where ITV1 sits, and ITV1 could be moved further down the electronic programme guide. That is the sensible approach. Most people who watch STV want to see it and not ITV in that slot. What is the problem with fixing it that way?
Michael Connarty
I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point. I understand that both ITV1 and ITV2 are in the first 10 channels, so we should certainly look at one of them. There is also a question about Sky and whether people want to see it alongside the public sector broadcasters. Should we not have the public sector broadcaster and the local city TV channel, under STV’s banner, in those first 10 channels, rather than Sky? Options are available to the Government, to Ofcom and to Digital UK.
I have said all that I need to say, and I think the Minister has acknowledged that my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Jim Sheridan), who sits on the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport, wants to contribute to the debate.
Jim Sheridan (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate on the television situation in Scotland. We on the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport have been discussing the matter for some considerable time, and the Minister has also spoken to us. It is a big issue for viewers in Scotland.
Public service broadcasting is an important way of supporting local economies and local culture. There is clear evidence that STV is in danger of losing advertising revenue, because advertisers are concerned about it moving to channel 26, 27 or wherever. Investment in UK-originated public service content has declined by some 20% in the past five years, so we need to ensure that we are incentivising local television. As has been mentioned, the electronic programme guide could be used as a lever to encourage further investment, so public service content should be given prominence.
I am also concerned about people with visual impairments. If they have to search through channels in order to access their favourite programmes, that will cause them serious distress.
The feasibility of such services will be jeopardised and more time and resources would have to be spent on making people aware of the new location of channels. Such resources could be better used elsewhere in Scottish television, and there is a danger that money could be spent where it should not have to be. The Communications Act 2003 requires Ofcom to provide “appropriate prominence” to public service broadcasters, such as STV and local TV services. Just yesterday, the Culture, Media and Sport Committee had the opportunity to question the preferred candidate for the chair of Ofcom. While it is doing well at a challenging job, it is somewhat limited in its powers on this issue. Ofcom maintains that it does not hold the power to force a move or to transfer a channel number between broadcasters. Perhaps the Minister could look at giving Ofcom the opportunity or powers to do so.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has the matter under consideration, but there has been a delay in the legislation coming through, which has resulted in STV launching local channels in the new year. That is extremely unhelpful.
I strongly believe in public service broadcasting. STV is a credible organisation on which many people in Scotland depend for their news. To move it to channel 26 would cause great distress among many of our constituents. It beggars belief that a channel that delivers good news programmes and quality programming is being put behind something that sells products on television. I would suggest that people who want to watch teleshopping channels will search anyway, but if someone wants to watch the news or their favourite programme, be it football or even “Coronation Street”, they should be able to know exactly which channel they need to go to. I ask the Minister to clarify where we are and to keep STV either where it is or certainly within the single-digit channel numbers.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Osborne. I want to say at the outset that I regard the views of Ayrshire as very important and they should dominate the tone of this important debate, which I thank the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) for calling. It was good to hear him praise ITV, and I agree that ITV is in a very good place. I do not think that that is related to the fact that its chairman is a former Conservative MP, but that it is debt-free and doing well is something to note. He also praised STV, and I want to say how much I admire its chief executive, Rob Woodward. As a Minister, dealing with such an effective chief executive is good news, because whenever he comes to lobby Ministers, he has a clear and specific aim and does not mess about. He asks for something and gets a straight answer back, so it is good to deal with him. STV is in a good place with its support of independent production.
Despite the presence of my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies), this is a very Scottish debate, and so much so that the Secretary of State’s Parliamentary Private Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mary Macleod)—my mother lives in her constituency—is in fact from the highlands, which may explain her Conservative perspective. I will try to focus on the Scottish issue.
We all know that the electronic programme guide is the list of TV channels that appears on the screen and is navigated via the remote control. It is important as the gateway to digital TV services. The EPG is regulated by Ofcom under the powers in the Communications Act 2003. We recognise that, with growing convergence, we need to update the approach to regulation of the EPG. That need was reflected in the tone of the speech made by the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk. We and he recognise the importance of certainty in the EPG regime for commercial broadcasters, because it is important for them to be prominent to maintain their levels of investment, and for public service broadcasting, which also needs to have appropriate prominence. Our objectives are therefore both economic and cultural. We want to ensure that viewers have easy access to valuable content and to public service broadcasting services, including local television, and to enhance the vitality and sustainability of public service broadcasting.
We are also debating the advent of local television. I pay tribute to the former Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, now the Secretary of State for Health, my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Mr Hunt). It was his vision to bring local television to the United Kingdom, and it is very much down to him that we are in the position that we are in today. He drove the policy forward and made it happen, despite considerable obstacles placed in his way.
This Christmas will see the country’s first local television channel—in Grimsby, Hull and surrounding areas—Estuary Television, which launched at the end of last month. The transmission network that will support local TV has been completed and, thanks to the efforts of Ed Hall and his team at Comux, the new control centre in Birmingham went live at the end of November. It is also important to pay tribute to the work of Ofcom and the BBC Trust in getting local TV up and running. As the hon. Gentleman said, next year is when local TV starts in earnest, with 19 stations in the first phase going on air by the end of the year, including the two new services for Glasgow and for Edinburgh, which will be run by STV, because it won the new licences. It is also important to note that Ofcom will offer new licences for Dundee and Aberdeen next year.
The hon. Gentleman also mentioned that local TV has been allocated the channel 8 slot in England and Northern Ireland on Freeview, but in Wales Channel 4 has the channel 8 slot, because S4C has the channel 4 slot; BBC Alba has the channel 8 slot in Scotland. Before the local TV licences were advertised in May last year, DMOL— Digital Television Multiplex Operators Ltd, a consortium of the Freeview operators—was asked to set out the position on EPG slots to Ofcom, which it did in April 2012. At that time, the best available slot in Wales and Scotland was channel 45.
Jim Sheridan
Will the Minister clarify the criteria for awarding the slots? Are they based in any way on viewing figures? I would hazard a guess that the viewing figures for BBC Alba compared with those for STV are disproportionate for the slots.
Mr Vaizey
As I might mention later in my speech, the criterion for public service broadcasting is “appropriate prominence”—that is in the guidelines, but it is a relatively vague term, which is one reason why it is important that we update the regulations. I will write to the hon. Gentleman, setting out in detail the criteria for the licence slots. It is important to note at this point, however, that local television is a new service; although it is public service broadcasting and should therefore have due prominence, that must be balanced against the fact that other stations already had slots that their viewers had got used to. There would be resistance from those stations to being moved off their slot.
I need to make a number of points. First, we are talking about new channels, so we should celebrate the fact that we are getting local television in Scotland. Secondly, when bids were invited, those who bid for local television slots in Scotland knew at the time that they would get channel 45. Importantly—and in a testament to the importance of local television and to the fact that Digital UK, which has in effect now taken over DMOL, also considers it important—when new slots became available, local television was moved up the EPG. It moved initially to channel 41 and then to 34; it has now reached 26, as it moves up the virtual hit parade. That is a significant improvement.
I have also had had discussions with Digital UK about the issue, because I have a lot of sympathy with the points made by the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk. Furthermore, the policy is one that we came up with, so we want to see it successful—albeit it had welcome all-party support.
Another aspect of the mix is that, because STV has won the licences for local television, it will be able to promote them on channel 3 to help viewers to find the new service. That is an additional element of support.
Michael Connarty
I may be anticipating the Minister’s comments, but I will draw him out anyway. My point is that if money has to be spent on advertising for people to find their local channels, revenue is being taken away from use on other things—I mentioned my positive view of production by STV—and advertising time on the main channel, which could have been sold to other people, is being taken away to advertise the new channels. If we believe in local television, we need to get it in parts of the country other than England and Northern Ireland. We have to give some incentive to cut down the cost—the opportunity cost—from someone else using that time.
Mr Vaizey
It is important that I do not say too much, in case I get anything wrong, but it occurs to me that STV can certainly use its continuity announcements to make regular reference to city television being on channel 26. STV need not detract from its commercial advertising time, which is incredibly important to its finances. STV will take an imaginative and innovative approach to ensure that its viewers are aware that it is running effective local television. Furthermore, it is worth making the point that STV has already pioneered the way with web television, with—off the top of my head—about eight local web TV services for viewers to access.
As I hinted earlier, I am in regular touch with Digital UK about local television. It understands the importance that I personally attach to getting the best outcome possible, in particular given the challenge of the new services and getting them established. As I said earlier, I hope that the hon. Gentleman recognises that we have made considerable progress. I am due to meet Caroline Thomson, the chair of Digital UK, in the new year and will raise the issue again with her, as I recognise that stations need to have certainty before they firm up their marketing plans for launch.
The hon. Gentleman pointed out that local TV services have been designated as public service broadcasters, so they should benefit from the requirement that such services are prominent on the EPG. As I said, that does not automatically guarantee a particular slot on the Freeview EPG, given that the Freeview platform has contracts in place with existing channels. That gives me the opportunity to move on to what I hope we might do about the EPG in the future.
As the hon. Gentleman pointed out, we published our strategy paper, “Connectivity, Content and Consumers”, in July and we raised the issue of prominence and whether the right channels are being made easily discoverable, as the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Jim Sheridan) indicated in his remarks. That does not apply only to local television; I think it applies to children’s television as well, for example.
Sandra Osborne (in the Chair)
Order. I am sorry to interrupt the Minister. May I point out to him that the debate need not finish until 5.10 pm, so he still has time?
Mr Vaizey
I will finish early, I am afraid, Mrs Osborne.
We will launch a consultation early next year, and seek views on the prominence regime. Indeed, I would welcome the views of the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk and all hon. Members when we launch the consultation.
The hon. Gentleman made a number of points about BBC Alba, pointing out its prominent spot on the Freeview EPG in Scotland. BBC Alba is an important service and is designated as a public service broadcast channel, as local TV is. It was launched in September 2008 and took the free channel 8 slot when it joined Freeview in 2011. That has helped it to attract viewers, which in effect makes the hon. Gentleman’s point. It now has 0.5 million viewers a week on average, with 3.4 million tuning in via the BBC iPlayer last year. In fact, there was an 86% increase in iPlayer viewings in that year compared with the previous year. The decision to allocate the channel 8 slot was made by DMOL, now taken over by Digital UK, in line with its code on EPGs. I do not want to comment on whether the new local television service should take precedence over BBC Alba, but no doubt both the BBC and Digital UK will be watching the debate and reflecting on the points the hon. Gentleman has made.
Michael Connarty
If the Minister was listening clearly to the points I made he will have heard that I was not making a plea to move BBC Alba. I was passing on comments from my friends in the Gaeldom about the inappropriate things that are shown in Gaelic on BBC Alba, rather than saying that the channel should be moved.
Mr Vaizey
I stand corrected by the hon. Gentleman.
We recognise the benefits of having a single, easily accessible channel for local television: it would help with branding and advertising sales for all local TV companies and would help new viewers find the new services. It is unlikely that that we will see a change before the launch of the new STV services in Edinburgh and Glasgow, but, as I hope the hon. Gentleman recognises, we have made progress since April 2012.
Jim Sheridan
I have no wish to be rude about BBC Alba, but if we took the viewing figures for football away from BBC Alba I think we would find a big difference from the figures for STV. I have two questions. First, is it the case that BBC 1 will have the channel 1 slot, BBC 2 will have the channel 2 slot and BBC Alba will have the channel 8 slot? That gives the BBC a good run in the top 10—the hit parade that the Minister mentioned. Secondly, does he see any role for Ofcom in these discussions?
Mr Vaizey
As I say, the current arrangements are likely to be the case for the foreseeable future. We all welcome the arrival of local television. As I said earlier, it was very much the vision of my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey but it came about because of all-party support and has been, dare I say it, one of our more popular policies.
There is an idiosyncratic situation in Wales and Scotland because of the presence of S4C and BBC Alba and the effect of that on the channel 8 slot; that is not the case in England or Northern Ireland. Originally, local television was allocated the channel 45 slot. The Department and others engaged with Digital UK and it clearly took notice—although I would not claim that it was as a direct result—because local TV has effectively been first in the queue when channel slots have become free, and has moved up to the channel 26 slot. That is in line with the regulatory system, which requires due prominence for public service broadcasting—and local television is designated public service broadcasting—balanced against the contractual situation with existing channels, which have a right to certainty.
We recognise that in a converging world the EPG plays a crucial role in ensuring that public service broadcasting remains prominent for the viewer. That is important both economically and, more importantly, culturally. Next year, we will consult—I apologise to the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North if he thinks the process has been delayed, but we will consult as soon as we can—on how we can secure prominence for public service broadcasters within the EPG regime. That will be an open consultation and we would welcome views from hon. Members and other interested stakeholders.
Mr Vaizey
I do not have a firm date for when the consultation will be launched. Normally, when asked about the launch of any consultation I always say that it will be launched in the spring, mindful of the fact that in Whitehall spring runs from February to November. So I will say that the consultation is likely to be launched in the spring. I do not know how long it will last, but I suspect it will be about three months. I hope that will be time enough. There may even be a short inquiry by the Select Committee into the role of the EPG in a converged television world. We will certainly take on board any recommendations from the Select Committee.
That is the process we have undertaken. We have made progress. Perhaps we have not made as much progress as the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk would like to see, but at least on one level we are travelling in the same direction. We both recognise the importance of local television and we also recognise that an anomaly exists in Scotland, so there is a need to consult and to make progress.
Question put and agreed to.
Written Statements
Parliamentary Written Answer (Correction)
(11 years ago)
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The Attorney-General (Mr Dominic Grieve)
I regret to inform the House that a written answer I gave on 5 December 2013, Official Report, column 809W, to the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) was incorrect.
The right hon. Member asked me how many libel settlements and of what value the Crown Prosecution Service made in each year between 2007 and 2012.
The data concerning the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) were incorrect and it was stated that the CPS made no libel settlements between 2007 and 2012.
The correct answer is as follows:
Details of individual payments in respect of libel settlements are not specifically identified on the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) accounting system. A review of manual records retained on civil claims indicates that in the period from 2007 to 2012 the CPS made two libel settlements:
Financial Year | |
|---|---|
2008-09 | £52,000 made up of £25,000 initial damages, a subsequent additional £2,000 damages and £25,000 costs. |
2010-11 | £59,035 made up of £5,035 damages and £54,000 costs. |
Although every effort has been made by the Department to ensure that the information provided is correct and comprehensive the manual nature of the records means that it is not possible to provide complete assurance. To do so would require a review of all payments made since 2007 which would incur a disproportionate cost.
Banking Reform
(11 years ago)
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The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Sajid Javid)
In July 2013 the Government published a consultation, “Banking reform: draft secondary legislation”, which invited comments on four draft pieces of secondary legislation proposed under the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill. The consultation closed on 9 October 2013.
The consultation set out key details on the ring fence, including the scope of the ring fence, the prohibitions on ring-fenced banks’ activities, and on the framework for applying loss absorbency requirements to systemic banks. It also set out provisions to enable expenses incurred by the Treasury as a result of UK participation in international organisations concerned with financial stability or financial services to be reclaimed from the financial services industry.
The Government are today publishing a summary of the responses they received to the consultation. The summary can be found on the Government website. The Government will take into account responses to the consultation document when producing revised and final versions of the secondary legislation.
I am placing copies of this document in the Libraries of both Houses.
Assisted Areas Map 2014-20
The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Michael Fallon)
I am today launching the “2014-2020 Assisted Areas Map Consultation Stage 2: Draft Assisted Areas Map and Government’s Response to Stage 1”. This consultation will establish the map of areas in the UK in which regional aid will be available during the period 2014-20. The new map will replace the current version which expires on 30 June 2014; it will cover the period 1 July 2014 to 31 December 2020. The second stage consultation will be open from today until Friday 7 February 2014, and follows the first stage which closed on 30 September 2013. Copies of the consultation document will be placed in the House Library.
The European Commission regional aid guidelines define the parameters for assisted areas for 2014 to 2020. Under the guidelines the UK’s overall regional aid coverage may cover a maximum of 27.05% of the UK population.
Assisted area coverage permits the UK to provide additional investment to firms in the designated areas. It does not bring specific funding, instead offering eligibility for certain forms of financial support. Other forms of financial support are available inside and outside assisted areas, including aid for research and development, to improve access to venture capital and to support environmental projects. Additionally, all areas of the UK will be eligible to apply for European structural and investment (ESI) funds, particularly through the European regional development fund or the European social fund.
Working within the Commission’s guidelines, the draft map published today represents a thorough, evidence-based approach to allocating the UK’s population coverage. We have proposed assisted areas based on a combination of the potential to use regional aid to encourage economic growth in localities through levering private sector investment, as well as the economic need of the locality. A strong principle underpinning the proposed map is to use our coverage to focus on areas that are able to use the flexibility provided. There are many deprived parts of the UK that do not have the scale of industrial or development sites necessary to exploit assisted area status.
The Government are seeking to refresh the map, not simply add coverage to those places that already have it. Economic geography evolves along with the rules which dictate coverage, and assisted area status does not benefit every ward in the country that currently has designation and could be economically beneficial to many wards that currently do not. Local enterprise partnerships (LEPs) in England and local authorities (LAs) in Scotland and Wales led in responding to stage 1 of the consultation, and 41 out of 49 of their returns sought increased coverage. We have ensured that allocation is given to those areas where it can make the most difference, and difficult decisions have had to be made as to which areas are included on the draft map. We now look forward to receiving the responses which will help shape the final assisted areas map 2014-20.
Contingencies Fund Advance
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Jo Swinson)
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills wishes to report that a cash advance from the Contingencies Fund has been sought for the Office of Fair Trading (OFT).
The advance is required to meet an urgent cash requirement on existing services pending parliamentary approval of the 2013-14 supplementary estimate. The supplementary estimate seeks an increase in net cash requirement in order to facilitate the consumer credit fee rebate programme announced by the Government and to be operated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The OFT currently regulates the consumer credit market and this responsibility will transfer to the FCA from April 2014.
The Government have announced that, subject to certain eligibility criteria, OFT licence holders will qualify for a rebate of a proportion of the fees paid in recognition of the service that the OFT will not be able to provide after its closure on 31 March 2014.
Parliamentary approval for additional resources of £30 million will be sought in a supplementary estimate for the Office of Fair Trading. Pending that approval, urgent expenditure estimated at £30 million will be met by repayable cash advances from the Contingencies Fund.
World Trade Organisation (Accession of Yemen)
The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Michael Fallon)
My noble Friend the Minister for Trade and Investment, Lord Livingston, has today made the following statement:
The WTO ministerial conference took place in Nusa Dua, Bali from 3 to 6 December 2013. The Trade Foreign Affairs Council meeting was held in the margins of the conference. My predecessor Lord Green of Hurstpierpoint represented the UK at both and acted as a vice-chair at the WTO ministerial conference.
The Trade Foreign Affairs Council was held in the margins of the WTO conference to allow any essential business pertaining to the conference to be finalised and only dealt with issues directly relating to the WTO summit.
The conference was a success with an agreement on Government’s objectives. The conference resulted in:
Political agreement on the text of an ambitious and legally binding trade facilitation agreement worth $100 billion annually to the global economy and $1.5 billion annually to the UK.
Agreement on a limited number of agricultural issues which would be of benefit to developing and least developed countries.
A monitoring mechanism for special and differential treatment for developing and least developed countries.
WTO ministerial decisions of interest to least developed countries (LDCs): the operationalisation of the services waiver—preferential rules of origin and cotton;
Extension of the moratorium on charging customs duties on electronic transmissions and the extension of the moratorium on bringing non-violation and situation complaints under the trade related aspects of intellectual property agreement.
The accession of Yemen to the WTO.
UK JHA opt-in to Council Decision relating to the Accession of Yemen to the WTO
I also wish to inform the House that the Government have opted in to the Council decision relating to the accession of Yemen to the World Trade Organisation. Opting in will help to achieve the Government’s trade policy objectives of expanding the WTO’s membership.
The Government have supported the accession of least developed countries (LDCs) such as Yemen to the WTO. Becoming a Member of the WTO will allow Yemen to benefit from WTO market access and global trading rules and the transparency of the WTO trading system. It will also be able to use the WTO dispute settlement mechanism to solve its differences with other members and fully participate in the ongoing negotiations to design the trade rules of the future.
The accession of Yemen (and therefore the Council decision) extends the geographical scope of the EU’s commitments in mode 4 (the temporary movement of persons who supply services across national borders). These commitments are an integral part of our trade commitments at the WTO. It is the presence of these commitments which triggers the UK Justice and Home Affairs opt-in.
In the case of the decision on the accession of Yemen, I regret that it was not possible to allow the normal eight weeks for parliamentary scrutiny. This was due to the late conclusion of the negotiations and the consequent late presentation by the Commission of the relevant draft Council decision, while we still needed to agree positions in Council ahead of the WTO ministerial on 3 to 6 December.
UK Commission (Triennial Review)
(11 years ago)
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The Minister for Skills and Enterprise (Matthew Hancock)
The coalition Government made a commitment to review public bodies, with the aim of increasing accountability for actions carried out on behalf of the state. The triennial review of the UK Commission is one of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills’ (BIS) reviews of non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs) scheduled to commence during the third year of the programme (2013-14). The review will commence in January 2014.
The review will be conducted as set out in Cabinet Office guidance, in two stages.
The first stage will:
Identify and examine the key functions of the UK Commission and assess the requirement for these to continue;
If continuing, then assess delivery options and where the conclusion is that a particular function is still needed examine how this function might best be delivered, including a cost and benefits analysis where appropriate;
If one of these options is continuing delivery through the UK Commission then make an assessment against the Government’s “three tests”: technical function; political impartiality and need for independence from Ministers.
If the outcome of stage 1 is that delivery should continue through the UK Commission as a non-departmental public body, then the second stage of the project will be to ensure that it is operating in line with the recognised principles of good corporate governance, using the Cabinet Office “comply or explain” standard approach.
When completed the report of the review will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
Firefighters Pension Scheme
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Brandon Lewis)
People are now living much longer and, as a result, the cost of public service pensions has increased by around a third. Despite recent reforms, most of these increased costs are being met by taxpayers. As a result, all public service pension schemes, including the firefighters’ pension scheme, are being reformed.
I have today published a consultation on regulations to implement the firefighters’ pension scheme 2015 as set out in the proposed final agreement (May 2012). The consultation will run for 12 weeks and will conclude on 12 March 2014. My proposals will ensure that firefighters continue to get one of the most generous pensions available in the public sector, with guaranteed levels of benefit and inflation proofing. The proposals are fair to both firefighters and to taxpayers.
Firefighters are the only public service work force where new recruits will not see any increase in their retirement age. A normal pension age of 60 was introduced in 2006 and will be the same as for the police and armed forces. A greater proportion of firefighters are protected from changes than any other large public service work force and less than a quarter of firefighters will see any change in their retirement age in 2015. All benefits accrued up to April 2015 will be linked to the member’s final salary on retirement and can be taken at their current pension age.
For every £1 a firefighter pays into the scheme, taxpayers now pay in an extra £5 to meet scheme costs. A firefighter, who earns £29,000 and retires after a full career aged 60, will get a pension of £19,000 rising to £26,000 with a state pension. The same pension from a private sector provider would require double the level of contributions that will be made by firefighters.
A consultation on fitness and capability issues concluded recently and a Government response will be published in due course. This builds on the constructive round table discussion that I held on 4 December including the fire service representative bodies and the employers.
I have placed a copy of the consultation paper on reforms to the firefighters’ pension scheme in the Library of the House
Local Government Finance
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Brandon Lewis)
I am today publishing the coalition Government’s formal proposals on funding for English local authorities for 2014-15. This is effectively the second year of the two-year settlement that was published last year, and represents a continuation of the new decentralised system of local government finance following the Local Government Finance Act 2012.
Delivering sensible savings and improving services
The autumn statement recognised that the local government sector has risen to the challenge of reducing the budget deficit left by the last Administration. Indeed, opinion polling suggests that satisfaction with local government is either constant or improved compared to 2010, despite the need for councils to make savings to tackle that deficit.
The autumn statement ensured that the local government budget is protected next year so that councils can deliver a council tax freeze. Councils now have more stability and certainty to plan budgets and move ahead with transforming local services and ongoing efficiency. English local government accounts for £1 of every £4 spent on public services, and is expected to spend some £117 billion in 2013-14. So the settlement that we are proposing recognises the responsibility of local government to find sensible savings and make better use of its resources. This settlement marks the second year of business rates retention, and leaves councils with considerable total spending power, with an overall reduction, excluding the Greater London Authority, for next year of just 2.9%. We expect the average spending power per dwelling to be some £2,089.
Supporting rural areas
We accepted in 2013-14 that, based on the available evidence, rural areas had been comparatively under-funded. We therefore made an adjustment to recognise the additional costs of delivering services in rural areas. We will be providing an efficiency support for sparse areas grant worth £9.5 million so that the most rural local authorities can continue to drive forward efficiencies in their area. This is an increase on the grant paid for this purpose in 2013-14 and we intend that the grant will be rolled in to the settlement in 2014-15, offering further protection for the most rural authorities.
Protections for councils
Alongside this we have increased the protection that the safety net will offer, so that no council will face a loss of more than 6.9% in their spending power in 2014-15, a higher level of protection than we offered both last year and the year before. We have achieved this by increasing the amount we have made available to protect councils through the efficiency support grant, now worth some £9.4 million in 2014-15. But we will expect the councils in receipt of that funding—in line with the efficiencies that we are asking all councils to deliver—to improve services. It is unfair on the rest of local government to expect them to subsidise other councils’ failure to modernise public services. In order to further facilitate effective budget planning, we are also making available illustrative figures for 2015-16, and we announced in June that we will be making £3.8 billion worth of pooled budgets available between health and social care. This is the largest ever financial incentive for councils and NHS organisations to jointly plan and deliver joined up services.
In 2013-14, we introduced business rates retention which ensures that those councils who bring in jobs and business will be rewarded for backing local growth and local jobs. Similarly, the new homes bonus remunerates those councils who build more homes and bring empty properties back into use. The new homes bonus is worth more than £650 million this year and will be some £916 million in 2014-15, as announced to the House on Monday. In response to consultation we have also reduced the amount that we proposed to set aside in the settlement to pay for new homes bonus allocations.
Keeping council tax down for hard-working people
We expect local authorities to protect taxpayers and help bear down on the cost of living. That is why we have provided up to £550 million of extra funding to local authorities so they can freeze council tax for the next two years. This means we have provided an unprecedented five years of freeze funding worth potentially up to £1,100 for an average band D taxpayer over the lifetime of Parliament.
From April 2014, funding for 2011-12 and 2013-14 freezes is now in the main local government settlement total for future years. I can also announce that the Secretary of State has agreed with the Chancellor that the funding for the next two freeze years will also be built into the spending review baseline. We hope this will give maximum possible certainty for councils that the extra funding for freezing council tax will remain available, and there will not be a “cliff edge” effect from the freeze grant disappearing in due course. We have done our part—we now expect councils to do theirs in helping hard-working people with the cost of living.
We will announce the council tax referendum threshold principles separately in the new year. We are particularly open to representations suggesting that some lower threshold be applied to all or some categories of authorities, given the strong need to protect taxpayers wherever possible from unreasonable increases in bills, and given next year’s elections on 22 May across the country allow for referendums to be held at minimal cost. We should trust the people.
The final referendum principles will then be subject to the approval of the House of Commons. In addition, subject to approval by Parliament of the Local Audit and Accountability Bill, which is currently before Parliament, the principles will include levies and will therefore be based on the level of band D council tax. This will mean the principle will relate to the actual increase which appears on people’s bills—again reducing costs for taxpayers.
Parish councils and local council tax support
We have also set out previously that there is some £3.3 billion in the settlement this year for council tax support schemes. There is an element within this national pot that is there specifically to reflect reductions in the parish tax base. We have not separately identified the money because it is not ring-fenced and as caseloads change and schemes evolve, the amount that different parishes need will change. It would be wrong to try to manage that centrally. But we have been clear that we expect billing authorities to carry on passing on support to town councils and parishes to help mitigate any reduction in their taxbase due to the local council tax support scheme.
Consultation process
Today marks the start of a period of statutory consultation with local government on the settlement and I welcome their responses. Consultation closes on 15 January 2014. I shall be making available full supporting information online at:
www.gov.uk/government/collections/provisional-local-government-finance-settlement-england-2014-to-2015.
I have placed copies of the consultation paper and supporting information in the Vote Office and the Library of the House. The House will have the opportunity to debate and vote on the settlement in due course.
We have tried to be fair to every part of the country - north and south, rural and urban, metropolitan and shire. Of course, it is inevitable that individual local councils will wish to call for more funding for their area. Unlike the old system which encouraged councils to talk down their local areas to win more funding, the decentralisation of local government finance now puts councils in the driving seat: rewarding them for supporting local enterprise, building more homes and backing local jobs.
Onshore Oil and Gas Development (Planning Applications)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Nick Boles)
The coalition Government are committed to a diverse, efficient and low-carbon energy supply, but recognise that gas and other low-carbon technologies, will continue to play an important role in our energy mix in the coming decades as the country moves to a low-carbon economy. In particular, shale gas has the potential to provide our country with greater energy security, growth and jobs.
As announced on 2 September 2013, Official Report, column 9WS, my Department has been consulting on making technical improvements to the process for planning applications for handling extraction of onshore oil and gas (including shale gas). Today, my Department has laid secondary legislation in relation to application requirements for onshore oil and gas development. These seek to amend the way in which landowners and tenants are notified of an application.
We have introduced these changes because underground operations for oil and gas operations are different in character from other forms of development. This is because the development on the surface is limited in scale and takes place on a relatively small surface area. The associated underground extraction takes place very deep below the earth’s surface, over a wide geographical area. As a result, it is often not possible to identify the exact route of any lateral drilling.
Without the changes to the secondary legislation, the widely-drawn area on planning applications for onshore oil and gas projects would require the notification of a disproportionately large number of individuals and businesses. This would be unnecessarily excessive when other forms of complimentary notification exist.
In practical terms, in place of the blanket notification, the changes mean that applicants who are applying for planning permission for onshore oil and gas projects will now be required to publish a notice in a local newspaper and put up site displays in local parishes. In addition, a new requirement has been introduced for a site display to be set up in every local authority ward where no parish exists, or where the parish only covers part of the ward.
These measures do not affect or alter any voluntary pre-application consultation between the applicant and local communities (including landowners), or any other publicity or consultation requirements that planning applications must go through. The local authority and local councillors are also able to supplement this with any further moves to increase public awareness that they deem appropriate.
We consider that these measures strike the right balance between the need to notify land owners and tenants, while ensuring the implementation for applicant is proportionate and pragmatic in the unique circumstances of onshore oil and gas development.
My Department has also published the technical draft regulations to clarify the arrangements that the fee payable for onshore oil and gas should be calculated on the basis of the area of the above ground works only. Together, we consider that these changes will help provide certainty to councils, residents and industry.
I would add that the planning system is accompanied by separate environmental and health and safety provisions (overseen by the Department of Energy and Climate Change, by the Environment Agency and by the Health and Safety Executive) ensuring that a robust, comprehensive and safe regulatory regime is in place.
Electoral Administration
(11 years ago)
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The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Greg Clark)
Following the debates in Committee of the House of Commons and House of Lords this month to consider the statutory instruments necessary to commence individual electoral registration, the Government confirm their intention to bring individual electoral registration into force as planned on 10 June 2014 in England and Wales and 19 September 2014 in Scotland.
This confirms the intended date for the introduction of individual electoral registration which was envisaged in the Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013, and which was set out in the Government’s White Paper, “Individual Electoral Registration”, in 2011.
Confirmation of this timetable follows the advice of the Electoral Commission, who published in October their assessment of readiness for implementation, which advised that there is no reason to delay implementation. The Government agree with this judgment.
Individual electoral registration will provide a secure, modern way to register to vote, replacing the outdated system whereby a “head of household” is responsible for registering to vote all members of the household without a requirement to confirm the identity of those placed on the electoral register.
Instead, people will be individually registered, with their identity being confirmed either automatically, through a check against existing Government databases, or by submitting their date of birth and national insurance number, or if this is not available, other approved evidence. Initial testing has established that over three quarters of voters will automatically be included in the electoral register without any requirement to fill in a form. It will be possible, for the first time, to make an online application to be on the electoral register.
The Government will fully fund the costs of transition to individual electoral registration. All electoral registration officers have been notified of the funding they will receive next year to deliver the change at a local level. This has been welcomed by electoral registration officers, who have also been advised that if local circumstances incur higher costs, they will be reimbursed where they have been credibly established.
This extra funding is in addition to the local resources that are annually devoted by electoral registration officers to meeting their statutory obligation to produce a complete and accurate register. The Government expect local authorities to continue this level of funding. The Government will fund and promote work to maximise registration during the transition to individual electoral registration, at a local and national level.
As a transitional arrangement, eligible electors who appear on the electoral register before the introduction of individual electoral registration will continue to be entitled to vote in elections, including the 2015 general election, whether or not they have registered individually. It remains the Government’s intention to conclude this transitional arrangement in 2015, but the Electoral Registration and Administration Act will allow the next Parliament to make the decision, following the advice and assessment of the Electoral Commission, as to whether the transition should conclude in 2015 or 2016.
Funding Allocations
(11 years ago)
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The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)
I am today announcing capital funding to provide the extra places needed for our growing population, and to implement the universal infant free school meals entitlement. I am also pleased to publish Sebastian James’s review of progress since his original 2011 report on education capital. I am also announcing the Government’s main school funding allocations for 2014-15 through the dedicated schools grant (DSG) and the education services grant (ESG).
This Government’s overriding priority for capital investment is to ensure every child has a place at school. Demographic pressures have put strain on schools in many parts of the country. That is why we have more than doubled funding for new places to £5 billion in this Parliament. By May 2013, this investment had already helped to create an additional 260,000 school places with more still to come.
Today I am announcing further funding for new school places up to 2017. We are giving local authorities longer-term allocations for new school places, which will give them more certainty in their planning. We are targeting funding more effectively, based on local needs, through using data we have collected from local authorities about the size of schools and forecast pupil projections. We are also analysing local authority capital expenditure on new school places, so that there is greater accountability and transparency around how they use these funds.
The major investment I am announcing today will enable local authorities to make sure that there are enough school places for every child who needs one in the years to come. The number of pupils in England is rising and is set to continue to rise well into the next Parliament. Ensuring that every child is able to attend a good or outstanding school in their local area is at the heart of the Government’s comprehensive programme of reform of the school system. To achieve this we will provide an additional £2.35 billion to support local authorities to plan and create new school places that will be needed by 2017. This is additional to the £5 billion that has been allocated between 2011-15. Extending the allocations to a three-year period will allow local authorities to plan strategically for the places they need. I have listened to the particular challenges faced by London, and therefore the methodology used to allocate funding for 2015-17 takes into account the higher costs of building in the capital.
I am also announcing further details about capital investment in 2014-15 to support universal free school meals for children in reception, year 1 and year 2 in state-funded schools. As part of the autumn statement the Chancellor confirmed £150 million of capital funding for improving school kitchen and dining facilities in order to offer every infant pupil a free nutritious school meal at lunchtime. Universal free school meals for primary school pupils were a key recommendation of the independent school food plan produced for the Department by Henry Dimbleby and John Vincent in July 2013. The aim is to improve academic attainment and healthy eating, and save families money.
Turning to revenue funding, the distribution of the dedicated schools grant (DSG) to local authorities will continue to be based on the current “spend-plus” methodology for 2014-15, set out in three spending blocks for each authority: an early years block, a schools block and a high-needs block. The underlying schools budget will be kept at flat cash per pupil for 2014-15. To protect local authorities with falling pupil numbers we will continue with arrangements to ensure that no authority loses more than 2% of its budget in cash terms.
Although the overall schools budget will stay at the same level on a per pupil basis before the addition of the pupil premium, the actual level of each school’s individual budget will vary. To protect schools from significant budget reductions, we will continue with a minimum funding guarantee that ensures that no school sees more than a 1.5% per pupil reduction in 2014-15 budgets—excluding sixth-form funding—compared with 2013-14 and before the pupil premium is added.
As part of the DSG, I am announcing 2014-15 revenue funding allocations to local authorities to secure early learning places for two-year-olds from lower income households. From 1 September 2013 early learning became a statutory entitlement for around 20% of two-year-olds across England, which will extend to 40% of two-year-olds from September 2014. To deliver this, the Government are today allocating £760 million to fund the extended programme in 2014-15.
The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) announced on 10 December 2012, that all state-funded schools in England will be withdrawn from participating in the CRC energy efficiency scheme from April 2014. This means that local authorities will no longer be required to administer the CRC energy efficiency scheme on behalf of schools. A deduction of £50.5 million will be made from the DSG for 2014-15 to compensate the Exchequer for the loss of revenue resulting from local authorities no longer needing to meet the costs of purchasing carbon allowances for schools under the scheme. As schools will no longer need to meet these requirements, they will be no worse off as a result of this change.
The distribution of the education services grant (ESG) is based on a total figure of £1.03 billion transferred from local government funding as announced in December 2012. The new grant will be allocated on a simple per pupil basis to local authorities.
Details of today’s announcement will be sent to local authorities and be published on the Department for Education website. Copies will be placed in the House Library.
EU Energy Council
The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Mr Edward Davey)
I am writing to report discussions at the Energy Council on 12 December, where I represented the UK.
The Council discussed the proposal to amend the renewable energy directive and the directive relating to the quality of petrol and diesel fuels with the aim of reaching political agreement. 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 Council was unable to reach agreement on the proposal as Ministers could not find a compromise between those who wanted high ambition on ILUC—including the UK—and those who wanted to protect the interests of their biofuels industries. It is hoped that this dossier will be taken forward under the Greek presidency.
The Council report on the internal energy market was approved by the Council with one amendment relating to the need to prioritise interconnection between member states that were below the 10% electricity interconnection target, endorsed by the European Council in 2002. A number of Ministers emphasised that member states should protect the internal energy market by adopting EU solutions to address security of supply concerns rather than national measures.
The Council agreed the progress report on EU external energy policy with no changes. The Commissioner presented a round-up of recent and upcoming events and developments in international energy relations. He welcomed the decision to extend the energy community for another 10 years and suggested that there was a need for stronger interconnections in south-east Europe, in particular a new interconnector between Bulgaria and Greece.
The incoming Greek presidency outlined its priorities for the next six months. It will focus on the internal energy market, particularly ending energy isolation for the EU’s peripheral regions and funding options for infrastructure projects; energy costs and vulnerable consumers; and the nuclear safety directive.
The presidency gave an update on nuclear energy. A number of member states noted that they considered the proposal for the nuclear safety directive to be premature. Over lunch, Ministers discussed energy prices and competitiveness.
Smart Meters
The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Mr Edward Davey)
Today, I am pleased to announce the publication of the second DECC annual progress report on the roll-out of smart meters.
Smart meters will transform consumers’ relationship with energy, bringing considerable benefits for both them, for the energy industry and for Great Britain. Smart meters will for the first time put consumers in control of their energy use, allowing them to take energy efficiency measures that can help save money on energy bills, offset price increases and reduce carbon emissions.
The annual report provides an explanation of smart metering and its benefits. It describes the work that is being undertaken by the Government, energy suppliers and other stakeholders during the foundation stage of the roll-out and in particular the progress that has been made during 2013, to prepare for the period between autumn 2015 and 2020 when most consumers will receive smart meters. This work will help to ensure that everything is in place to handle a roll-out of this scale—over 50 million meters to be installed in 30 million premises—and that consumers will have a good experience, which is crucial for realising the benefits. Energy suppliers are already testing and trialling the new technology, and some consumers are already receiving smart meters from their energy suppliers and starting to see the benefits.
The annual report is being placed in the Library of the House and can also be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/annual-progress-report-on-the-roll-out-of-smart-meters.
State Aid
The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Mr Edward Davey)
The European Commission has today announced its decision to open an investigation into the state aid case for the proposed Hinkley Point C investment contract. I welcome the investigation and the consultation that will follow which will seek views to enable the Commission to make a legally robust decision. Such investigations on the part of the European Commission are a standard part of the process for interventions that are novel and complex and the raising of doubts, questions or concerns as part of this process is also to be expected. Indeed, this is what happened on the Royal Mail, property tax on telecommunications infrastructure and Nuclear Decommissioning Authority state aid cases, all of which were subject to investigations by the Commission and all of which were ultimately cleared by the Commission.
The European Commission’s decision represents another important step forward in progression of the state aid case for Hinkley. Alongside Royal Assent, today, of the Energy Bill and my Department’s publication tomorrow of the electricity market reform (EMR) delivery plan and revised version of the contracts for difference (CfDs) terms, this opening decision for Hinkley demonstrates excellent progress in delivering the Government’s EMR programme. Investment contracts, such as those proposed for Hinkley, are in effect early CfDs and, like CfDs, they are a market-oriented instrument designed to incentivise investment in new low-carbon generation while ensuring an appropriate allocation of risks between generators and consumers. This investment is needed at scale if the UK is to play its part in meeting the EU’s common security and diversity of supply and decarbonisation objectives, all at least cost to the consumer. EMR, taken together with our other energy interventions, for example in relation to energy efficiency and the pursuit of interconnectors with other member states, will help ensure that the UK is able to make its fullest contribution to achieving a single EU energy market.
The UK’s electricity market reforms are groundbreaking, with much of Europe following our progress with close interest. This is particularly so in the case of CfDs. CfDs are necessary given the current market failures and are an innovative intervention, with impacts on competition and trade limited to the very minimum required to ensure that security of supply and decarbonisation objectives can be achieved. For example, as set out in the commercial agreement on key terms for the proposed Hinkley Point C investment contract that I announced on 21 October this year, any contract awarded to EDF for Hinkley would include in-built mechanisms to prevent overcompensation. These include construction and refinancing gain shares and operating cost reviews taking place at 15 and 25 years into the contract term. Indeed, CfDs are less distortive and less generous to generators than some other interventions, which have previously been approved by the Commission.
We have already provided a substantial amount of information and evidence to the Commission to support its assessment of the Hinkley case and have been discussing the case and EMR more generally with the Commission for the past 18 months. I now look forward to considering the opening decision, and continued close engagement with the Commission on Hinkley and other EMR-related state aid cases. The Hinkley investigation will include a public consultation period during which third parties can provide views to the Commission and there will of course be opportunity for the UK Government to provide further evidence to the Commission on why the agreement we have reached with EDF is consistent with state aid rules under the European treaty.
I would encourage all interested stakeholders to participate in the consultation. Investment contracts and CfDs are a vital measure which the UK must implement in order to achieve its energy objectives and I have no doubt that we will be able to provide robust responses to any lines of inquiry which the Commission sets out as part of its opening decision on Hinkley.
Health Council
(11 years ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Jane Ellison)
The health part of the Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs (EPSCO) Council met on 10 December 2013 in Brussels. I represented the UK.
The presidency provided a progress report on the medical devices regulations and asked member states for an exchange of views on how to improve the supervision process for medical devices and on the reprocessing of medical devices intended for single use. Member states provided a range of opinions on these questions and the presidency and Commission thanked member states for their views. The effectiveness of market surveillance and safety of medical devices was also addressed in a lunchtime discussion.
The Council adopted the Council conclusions on the reflection process on modern, responsive and sustainable health systems.
Under any other business, the presidency provided progress reports on the clinical trials regulation, the European Medicines Agency pharmacovigilance fees regulation and the tobacco products directive.
The Commission provided information on the transposition of the cross-border health care directive and the joint procurement agreement on medical countermeasures.
The Italian delegation—supported by several other member states—raised concerns about the UK voluntary nutritional labelling system, to which I responded. I highlighted that the UK scheme is non-discriminatory and certainly does not label certain foods as “bad”, nor, being entirely voluntary, will it negatively impact on EU quality schemes. The Commission confirmed the legality of the UK scheme.
Police Funding
(11 years ago)
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The Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims (Damian Green)
I have today placed in the Library the Home Office’s proposals for the aggregate amount of grant to be paid to local policing bodies in England and Wales for 2014-15, for the approval of the House. Copies are also available in the Vote Office.
Today, the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) will be publishing proposals for the distribution of funding to English local authorities for 2014-15. Council tax freeze grant relating to the 2011-12 and 2013-14 schemes and local council tax support (LCTS) grant previously paid to police and crime commissioners (PCCs) in England by DCLG will in 2014-15 be paid to PCCs by the Home Office. This is a result of our ambition to simplify police funding arrangements.
The Welsh Government will shortly be setting out their proposals for the allocation of funding in 2014-15 for local policing bodies in Wales.
Earlier this month, the Chancellor announced further reductions to departmental budgets for 2014-15 and 2015-16 in his autumn statement. For 2014-15, the Home Secretary has decided that central Government revenue funding to the police will be protected from further reductions. This decision means that the overall police funding settlement for 2014-15 will remain at £8.5 billion, as announced at the time of the spending round.
Decisions on the impact of the Chancellor’s autumn statement on police funding for 2015-16 will be made at a later date after careful consideration of all Home Office budgets. This decision will take time and we have therefore decided not to publish indicative allocations for 2015-16 in this statement.
In my statement accompanying the provisional police grant report 2013-14, I announced that current damping arrangements would continue in 2014-15. This means that every police force area will face the same percentage reduction in core central Government funding.
The police reforms we have introduced have seen the biggest change to the policing landscape in a generation. These reforms are working and crime is falling. We have put policing back in the hands of the public through directly elected police and crime commissioners. We have given chief constables greater operational independence by scrapping national targets. We are improving police skills through the new College of Policing. We have made sure we reward skills, not just time served, through the Winsor reforms to pay and conditions. And we have established the National Crime Agency to lead the fight against serious and organised crime.
These are the most radical reforms in the history of policing. And as Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary’s July 2013 “Policing in Austerity” report states, the police continue to rise to the financial challenge. The proportion of officers on the front line is increasing, crime continues to fall and victim satisfaction is up.
In 2014-15 we have decided to establish a police innovation fund worth £50 million, funded through a top-slice from police main grant, which builds on the recently announced £20 million precursor fund for 2013-14. The police innovation fund will provide police and crime commissioners with the opportunity to submit bids on initiatives that will promote collaboration, including with other forces, emergency services, criminal justice agencies and local government, and improve their use of digital working and technology in order to deliver sustainable improvements and efficiencies in the way their police force operates in future.
The Home Secretary has also decided to allocate funding to other specific areas where there is a national policing interest. We have already announced that the Independent Police Complaints Commission will be expanded in order that it is able to deal with all serious and sensitive cases involving the police. In 2014-15 we are providing an additional £18 million from the police settlement to build up the resource and capability of the IPCC to begin taking on additional cases from next year. We are also providing funding of up to £0.8 million from the wider Home Office budget in 2013-14 to help with transition costs as well as a further £10 million in capital in 2014-15.
In 2014-15 the Home Secretary has also decided to provide HMIC with £9.4 million from the police settlement to fund a new annual programme of all force inspections. This will enable the public to see how well their force is performing when it comes to cutting crime and providing value for money.
Our decisions on police funding in 2014-15 will provide the police with the resources they need to carry out their important work. We recognise that the funding settlement remains challenging. However, as HMIC has identified, there are areas where the police can continue to make further savings without affecting the level of service to the public, for example through greater collaboration across operational and support services, through improved procurement of goods and services, and by improving productivity. The Home Secretary and I are confident that police and crime commissioners will continue to deliver these efficiencies.
I have set out below how we propose to allocate the police funding settlement between the different funding streams in 2014-15.
The Police Grant Settlement 2014-15
2014-15 | |
|---|---|
£m | |
Total General Funding | |
Comprising: | |
Police Core Settlement | 4583 |
of which Home Office Police Main Grant | 4407 |
of which National, International and Capital City Grant (MOPAC only) | 176 |
DCLG | 2949 |
of which formula funding | 2924 |
Of which Ordnance Survey | 2 |
Of which Legacy Council Tax Freeze | 23 |
Welsh Government | 140 |
Total Home Office Specific Grants: | 728 |
Comprising… | |
Welsh Top-up | 13 |
Counter Terrorism Specific Grant | 564 |
Police Innovation Fund | 50 |
National Police Co-ordination Centre | 2 |
Independent Police Complaints Commission (for the transfer of integrity functions) | 18 |
College of Policing (for direct entry schemes) | 3 |
City of London Capital City Grant | 2 |
HMIC for regular force inspections | 9 |
Legacy Council Tax Freeze Grants** | |
of which Council Tax (11-12) Freeze Grant | 59 |
of which Council Tax (13-14) Freeze Grant | 7 |
PFI | 73 |
Total Government Funding* | 8479 |
% cash change in Total Government Funding*** | -3.30% |
*Includes a small amount of contingency funding which is not shown in the tab. **The police will separately receive £434.4 million in Local Council Tax Support Grant. This will be paid by the Home Office. ***This is the difference in total central government funding to the police compared to 2013-14 which included additional funding relating to the PCC elections. The reduction in core Government funding (i.e. funding that is subject to damping) is 4.8% |
Provisional allocations of these grants (with the exception of counter-terrorism police grant) for each force area in England and Wales for 2014-15 are set out in table 3.
Counter-terrorism
I will continue to allocate specific funding for counter-terrorism policing and have provided ring-fenced funding for this throughout the spending review period to ensure that critical national counter-terrorism capabilities are maintained. We have allocated at least £564 million to support counter-terrorism policing in 2014-15.
Police and crime commissioners will receive full counter-terrorism funding allocations in the new year. For security reasons these allocations will not be available in the public domain.
National Police Co-ordination Centre (NPoCC)
Funding will continue to be provided from the police settlement to the National Police Co-ordination Centre for ensuring effective mobilisation of national assets when required. It will provide a co-ordination facility in times of crisis, assessing national capacity and capability in relation to the strategic and national policing requirements, and maintaining information on availability of specialist assets.
Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC)
From 2014-15, I will start providing funding from the police settlement to expand the IPCC to deal with all serious and sensitive cases involving the police. I expect it to take three years for the IPCC to reach full capacity. In 2014-15, I am providing £18 million from the police settlement. This will be used to build up the resource and capability of the IPCC to begin taking on additional cases from next year. I am also providing funding of up to £0.8 million from the wider Home Office budget in 2013-14 to help with transition costs as well as a further £10 million in capital in 2014-15.
New Funding Streams
College of Policing
Funding will be provided to the College of Policing to commence direct entry schemes at inspector and superintendent level. This will cover the costs of the courses concerned and initial salaries of the officers on the courses.
City of London Police
The City of London police will be provided with additional funds in recognition of the national and international capital city functions they carry out. My decision to provide this funding follows an assessment by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary.
Council Tax Referendum Principles
The Communities Secretary, following consultation with the Home Secretary, will today give an indication of the council tax referendum principles he is proposing for 2014-15. After considering any representations, he will set out the final principles in a report to the House and seek approval for these in parallel with the final report on the local government finance settlement. Council tax in Wales is the responsibility of Welsh Ministers.
Legacy Council Tax Grants
From 2014-15, I will start providing council tax freeze grant relating to the 2011-12 and 2013-14 schemes and local council tax support (LCTS) funding previously paid to PCCs in England by the Department for Communities and Local Government. This will total £500 million. The Common Council of the City of London and the Greater London Authority (on behalf of the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime) also receive council tax freeze grant relating to the 2011-12 freeze grant scheme (the GLA also receive an amount for the 2013-14 scheme). These amounts will continue to be paid outside of the police funding settlement. This will also be the case for any future council tax freeze grants.
Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC)
In 2014-15 I have decided to provide HMIC with £9.4 million from the police settlement to fund a new annual programme of all force inspections. This will enable the public to see how well their force is performing when it comes to cutting crime and providing value for money.
Other funding
Police Capital
As in previous years, a portion of capital will be top sliced in 2014-15 to fund the National Police Air Service. The proposed figures are set out in table 2.
2014-15 | |
|---|---|
£m | |
Capital Grant | 109 |
National Police Air Service | 10 |
Special Grant Capital | 1 |
Total | 120 |
I still intend to allocate the majority of capital funding directly to local policing bodies. Like last year all local policing bodies will receive the same percentage change in capital grant. I win also continue to maintain a capital contingency. These proposed allocations (set out at table 4) are the same as those announced in the written ministerial statement laid in January 2012.
Royal Parks Policing
Funding in respect of policing the Royal parks will be provided by the Home Office to the Greater London Authority on behalf of the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime. In 2014-15 a total of £6.8 million will be provided from outside the police funding settlement.
Local Policing Body | 2014-15 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
HO Core (incl. Rule 1) | Welsh Top-up | WG | Ex-DCLG Formula Funding | Legacy Council Tax Grants (total from HO) | |
£m | £m | £m | £m | £m | |
Avon & Somerset | 112.5 | 58.7 | 14.7 | ||
Bedfordshire | 43.2 | 24.3 | 4.6 | ||
Cambridgeshire | 52.0 | 25.3 | 6.0 | ||
Cheshire | 65.9 | 46.7 | 7.7 | ||
City of London | 19.7 | 35.4 | 0.1 | ||
Cleveland | 49.4 | 40.3 | 7.7 | ||
Cumbria | 30.8 | 32.3 | 4.8 | ||
Derbyshire | 66.6 | 39.3 | 8.7 | ||
Devon & Cornwall | 110.1 | 65.7 | 15.5 | ||
Dorset | 44.2 | 17.9 | 7.3 | ||
Durham | 45.8 | 38.7 | 6.1 | ||
Dyfed-Powys | 33.2 | 6.2 | 13.6 | 0.0 | - |
Essex | 110.1 | 58.1 | 13.1 | ||
Gloucestershire | 36.8 | 20.3 | 5.6 | ||
Greater London Authority | 1101.1 | 782.9 | 119.7 | ||
Greater Manchester | 242.8 | 189.7 | 24.5 | ||
Gwent | 46.2 | 30.7 | 0.0 | - | |
Hampshire | 128.6 | 65.6 | 12.9 | ||
Hertfordshire | 76.5 | 37.7 | 8.9 | ||
Humberside | 72.0 | 48.6 | 10.0 | ||
Kent | 113.9 | 69.4 | 13.3 | ||
Lancashire | 107.7 | 82.7 | 12.8 | ||
Leicestershire | 70.0 | 41.3 | 8.9 | ||
Lincolnshire | 41.1 | 21.1 | 6.8 | ||
Merseyside | 131.2 | 118.2 | 15.6 | ||
Norfolk | 53.8 | 29.9 | 9.3 | ||
North Wales | 47.9 | 6.9 | 22.3 | 0.0 | - |
North Yorkshire | 44.7 | 28.2 | 7.9 | ||
Northamptonshire | 46.2 | 25.1 | 6.6 | ||
Northumbria | 118.0 | 112.5 | 7.8 | ||
Nottinghamshire | 83.5 | 50.1 | 9.7 | ||
South Wales | 95.8 | 73.4 | 0.0 | - | |
South Yorkshire | 107.8 | 81.0 | 10.9 | ||
Staffordshire | 71.2 | 41.6 | 10.7 | ||
Suffolk | 43.6 | 23.8 | 6.4 | ||
Surrey | 66.6 | 30.3 | 9.2 | ||
Sussex | 104.8 | 56.0 | 13.2 | ||
Thames Valley | 151.3 | 76.7 | 15.3 | ||
Warwickshire | 33.2 | 18.1 | 5.2 | ||
West Mercia | 71.1 | 45.2 | 12.0 | ||
West Midlands | 268.7 | 188.2 | 19.0 | ||
West Yorkshire | 183.8 | 135.1 | 16.7 | ||
Wiltshire | 40.2 | 21.5 | 5.2 | ||
Total England and Wales | 4583.3 | 13.1 | 140.0 | 100.5 |
Local Police Body | 2014-15 |
|---|---|
£m | |
Avon & Somerset | 2.4 |
Bedfordshire | 1.0 |
Cambridgeshire | 1.2 |
Cheshire | 1.5 |
City of London | 0.9 |
Cleveland | 1.2 |
Cumbria | 0.9 |
Derbyshire | 1.5 |
Devon & Cornwall | 2.6 |
Dorset | 1.0 |
Durham | 1.2 |
Dyfed-Powys | 0.8 |
Essex | 2.2 |
Gloucestershire | 0.9 |
Greater Manchester | 5.5 |
Gwent | 1.1 |
Hampshire | 2.8 |
Hertfordshire | 1.4 |
Humberside | 1.7 |
Kent | 2.5 |
Lancashire | 2.6 |
Leicestershire | 1.6 |
Lincolnshire | 0.9 |
Merseyside | 3.2 |
Metropolitan | 29.0 |
Norfolk | 1.3 |
North Wales | 1.1 |
North Yorkshire | 1.0 |
Northamptonshire | 1.0 |
Northumbria | 3.0 |
Nottinghamshire | 1.8 |
South Wales | 2.3 |
South Yorkshire | 2.6 |
Staffordshire | 1.6 |
Suffolk | 1.0 |
Surrey | 1.5 |
Sussex | 2.2 |
Thames Valley | 3.5 |
Warwickshire | 1.0 |
West Mercia | 1.7 |
West Midlands | 5.9 |
West Yorkshire | 4.3 |
Wiltshire | 1.0 |
Total England and Wales | 109.3 |
Parliamentary Privilege
(11 years ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Andrew Lansley)
The Government made a commitment in the programme for government to
“prevent the possible misuse of Parliamentary privilege by MPs accused of serious wrongdoing.”
In April 2012 the Government published a Green Paper that gave detailed consideration as to whether a change in the law is needed with regard to parliamentary privilege. The Green Paper focused on the following main areas:
freedom of speech and whether the protection of privilege should be disapplied in cases of alleged criminality;
exclusive cognisance and the desirability of a number of possible reforms in this area, for example codifying the two Houses’ enforceable powers; and
other privileges that do not fall under the two main headings of freedom of speech and exclusive cognisance such as the desirability of changes to the law on reporting of parliamentary proceedings.
These issues were scrutinised by a Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege, whose subsequent report made a number of recommendations. The Government’s responses form part of the Command Paper on parliamentary privilege, which has been published today.
The Government are grateful to the Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege for its detailed consideration of this issue; these are Parliament’s privileges and it is therefore right for Parliament to have a proper opportunity to reflect on their continuing purpose.
The Government continue to believe, and share the opinion of the Joint Committee, that there is no strong case for a comprehensive codification of privilege. However, as rightly recognised in the Joint Committee’s report, this does not mean that steps cannot be taken both by Parliament and by Government to clarify and improve the application of privilege where appropriate.
Further details of the Government’s response to the report of the Joint Committee are in the “Government’s Response to the Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege” Command Paper (ref Cm 8771), laid before Parliament today.
Draft Wales Bill
(11 years ago)
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The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr David Jones)
On 18 November, the Government announced their response to the Silk commission’s part 1 recommendations on fiscal devolution to Wales.
I am pleased today to publish the draft Wales Bill for pre-legislative scrutiny. The Bill implements almost all of the recommendations from the Silk commission’s first report on the devolution of tax and borrowing powers to the National Assembly for Wales and the Welsh Government.
Specifically, it will enable the Assembly to legislate about devolved taxes—a Welsh tax on transactions involving interests in land (replacing stamp duty land tax in Wales) and a Welsh tax on disposals to landfill (replacing landfill tax in Wales); it establishes a mechanism by which the Assembly can trigger a referendum in Wales on the question of whether a part of income tax in Wales should be devolved; and, subject to a vote in favour in a referendum, the Bill will enable the Assembly to set a Welsh rate of income tax, in the same way as the Scottish rate of income tax is set in Scotland.
These changes will give Wales more fiscal autonomy, and will make the Assembly and the Welsh Government more accountable to people in Wales for raising the money they spend.
The draft Bill also grants the Welsh Government new powers to borrow for capital expenditure and extends the circumstances in which they can borrow in the short term to manage their budget. These powers will enable the Welsh Government to borrow to invest in renewing Wales’s infrastructure and support growth in the Welsh economy.
In addition, as I announced to the House in March, the draft Wales Bill sets out how we intend to implement important changes to elections to the National Assembly for Wales. The draft Bill extends Assembly terms permanently from four to five years, making it less likely that Assembly elections will coincide with Westminster parliamentary elections in future; it will remove the prohibition on candidates in Assembly elections standing in a constituency and on a regional list; and it will prohibit “double jobbing”, by preventing MPs from also being Assembly Members.
The draft Bill also makes minor changes to the Welsh devolution settlement that we have agreed with the Welsh Government. These include changing the name of the Welsh Assembly Government to the “Welsh Government”; providing for HM Treasury to set an aggregate borrowing limit for local housing authorities in Wales and for the Welsh Ministers to set limits for each local housing authority; and enabling the Law Commission to provide advice and information to Welsh Ministers on devolved matters.
Taken together, this is a significant package of reforms which provides the opportunity for devolved governance in Wales to be fairer, more accountable and more able to support economic growth in Wales.
Grand Committee
Pensions Bill
(11 years ago)
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The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall)
My Lords, I remind the Committee that in the event of a Division in the Chamber, the Committee will adjourn for 10 minutes from the sound of the Division Bell.
Clause 2: Entitlement to state pension at full or reduced rate
Amendment 9
“(c) regulations may provide that spouses or partners accompanying Service personnel abroad shall receive ten additional credited years backdated to 2000.”
Baroness Hollis of Heigham (Lab)
My Lords, this is a very simple and brief amendment about service wives. Service wives without children who accompany their husbands abroad have in the past relied on receiving the 60% married women’s pension as a default. Obviously the option for NI contributions through work does not easily apply if you are abroad, and voluntary NICs become expensive if you are there for a long period.
The married women’s dependency pension is going to disappear. The previous Government recognised the particular difficulties of service wives when in 2010 they introduced credits for spouses or partners accompanying service personnel abroad, so the principle is rightly established. Since then, there has been easement for JSA and ESA entitlement.
However, if you are in your late 30s you may have a decade behind you with no NI cover until the 2010 provisions kicked in. This amendment simply allows backdated credits for, frankly, an arbitrary 10 years which, if he is on a 22-year contract, should allow her sufficient cover, and later sufficient time to make up the rest of her contributory years. I do not know the numbers, and I do not know the cost. I hope the Minister will help me out. There may be a better way to do it—for example, as with the reduced married women’s stamp election, which is being turned into a 60% dependency pension, which retains the service wife’s eligibility for a 60% dependency pension, although the problem there will be split years.
I believe that the Government may have found a way to address the problem—this was a hint I received from the Minister in the other place. I hope so. If it is true, it would be great to know about it; and if it is not, this amendment, or something similar offered by the Government, might do the job. We owe it under the service covenant to support wives who do the right thing, perhaps, by accompanying their husbands abroad and then pay the price by lacking a pension when they retire. I beg to move.
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde (Lab)
My Lords, some years ago I was chair of the Armed Forces Pay Review Body and I saw the way that wives were discriminated against. I remember one case. We went to Belize, where the commanding officer had been offered promotion conditional on his wife accompanying him. She was a very successful lawyer in London and they had to make a decision. She decided to give up her career. While she was abroad—a two-year posting—she was unable to contribute to a private pension fund because she was not doing recognised work. She was working as his partner in Belize on behalf of the British people looking after Army wives. She gave up her career and she lost the opportunity of a good private pension here as she could not contribute because she was not working in this country. She was also losing out at the end of her life because she could not contribute to the state pension scheme either. The changes made in 2010 helped, but this Bill will almost send us backwards. The changes made by my Government in 2010 did not fully resolve this issue. That is one case.
Among the officer cadre in all three services you still find wives giving up their job to accompany their husband, and they get a very raw deal. Until recently, other ranks would have gone to Germany for a two-year posting, and they, too, would lose out. Under the Armed Forces covenant and the updated report issued only this week by the noble Lord, Lord Astor, it is taken into account that we should be looking after families. I have no idea what it would cost and I cannot imagine that it would cost an awful lot of money, but maybe the Minister can help us. As my noble friend says, this may not be the way of dealing with the problem, but somehow it has to be recognised that, in bringing in a Bill that has cross-party support and in general terms is certainly advantageous for most, if not all, women, here we have a group who will continue to lose out, despite the changes that are being made. So it is with a deal of pleasure that I support the amendment, and I hope that the Minister will agree to go back and look at the issue. Perhaps he will come up with something that may not use this wording but which recognises the contribution that these women have to make—and, indeed, by which they lose out when they help their husband’s career, because the post requires accompaniment. If that solicitor, going back those few years, had said, “No, I’m not giving up my career”, the husband would have had to refuse that promotion. There are parts of the Armed Forces where the divorce rate is higher than normal. I am not suggesting that this is the only reason, but I think that it is perhaps one of a whole number of reasons, stress and overreach being another couple.
Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)
My Lords, I speak briefly in support of my noble friends and the thrust of this amendment. I should like to ask one or two questions. As I understand it, there is currently a class 1 credit going to people in this service category, which helps to build up not only pensions but access to contributory benefits such as JSA and ESA. In respect of the latter, there is also an easement that was introduced in 2011 in respect of the first contribution condition, because for contributory ESA and JSA you need both to pay an amount in a certain period of time and to have sufficient credit. My first question is whether that credit arrangement is going to continue under the new regime and whether the easement will be continued, because that is important, too.
Of course, the credit has to be claimed; it is not automatic. I wonder whether we could do something to address that issue, because we have a group of people here who would qualify only under certain clear conditions, and one would have thought that arrangements for these individuals could somehow be organised centrally, or perhaps by the separate Armed Forces, so that the information goes in directly and there is an automatic credit, rather than people having to claim. I understand that the take-up is limited at the moment, with only 601 applications in 2012-13, or maybe in the previous year. That is not as many as one might have expected. Perhaps we could also have clarification as to who is treated as a member of the Armed Forces for these purposes. I am not sure that the TA or reserves will be included within this.
This issue draws a wider question about crediting national insurance contributions. My understanding, based on some helpful information from the Bill team this morning, is that if, at the moment, you are in a category of benefit or activity that gave rise to a class 1 credit, that would continue post-April 2016. If you are receiving a class 3 benefit for a particular activity or being in a particular position, that would become a class 3 contribution credit also, under the new regime. So nothing has changed in that respect. These things are important, because a class 3 contribution builds up entitlement only to the state pension and bereavement benefits, not to contributory benefits. This gives rise to the broader question of universal credit. At the moment, if you are on JSA or ESA, you would get a class 1 credit. In the world of universal credit, my understanding is that you would get a class 3 credit, which means that you do not build up entitlement thereby to contributory JSA and ESA, which sit outside universal credit.
I apologise for this rather convoluted series of questions, but this very important issue prompts them, and it would be useful to have clarification on them either today or later by correspondence.
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Hollis for tabling the amendment, for the very reason that it allows your Lordships’ Committee to engage in this important issue. As we have already heard, successive Governments have committed to end any disadvantage that armed service causes members of the Armed Forces and their families—a group of people who have come to be known in these circumstances as the service community.
In July 2008, the Government set out to put flesh on the bones of that commitment in a command paper entitled, A Nation's Commitment: Cross-Government Support to our Armed Forces, their Families and Veterans. In pursuit of the ambition of that document, the DWP announced and introduced on 6 April 2010 new rules that allow spouses and civil partners accompanying service personnel serving overseas outside the United Kingdom to be eligible to claim class 1 national insurance credits during such periods.
In certain circumstances, spouses and civil partners may get credits on their national insurance contribution record for state benefit purposes, and as my noble friend Lord McKenzie pointed out, that helps protect their eligibility to a state pension and contribution-based benefits. Application for the credit is made at the end of each accompanied assignment outside the United Kingdom, but there are complications about that. My noble friend is right to say that it has to be claimed. I understood that the services had in place default arrangements to ensure that everyone who could be entitled to make such an application was advised fully of that. Can the Minister elucidate the current situation?
I do not think that one need go into the complications that service abroad generates for service families, but one can imagine that service abroad may mean that the family is split up. For example, some of our troops are based in Germany, or the families may be there but the service member might be serving somewhere else overseas. All of these complications are accommodated. Indeed, circumstances may arise where there is a need to make an application part way through an assignment, and provision is made in the regulations to facilitate that. There is helpfully discretion—and the DWP is to be commended for this—as to the time that an application can be made. It is already provided for to accommodate the lifestyle of the armed services community. Importantly, however, this improved benefit was not made retrospective.
We have already heard from my noble friend Lady Dean’s experience of her engagement with the service community the sort of circumstances that can lead to the need for this provision. At the heart of it, there is a clear and good reason why we need this. Members of our Armed Forces are commanded to work in overseas environments. If they stay in the services, they have no choice where they work, and often they are there for extended tours. Often their spouses and civil partners are unable to accrue a full national insurance contribution record because of that. Fairness demands that they not be disadvantaged by that service in so far as is possible.
When my noble friend Lady Hollis introduced this amendment she described it as simple, but it has become slightly more complicated in the debate. I am not seeking to complicate it because it is a relatively simple policy issue, although it may have complex consequences. She implied that the trend would suffer regression as a consequence of implementation of the Bill. My noble friend Lady Dean specifically said that the Bill would have a consequence of regression in relation to the position of service wives in particular. It is important for the Minister to address that position. If it is indeed the case that the direction of travel is being regressed as a consequence of the Bill, that needs to be identified. I am sure that all parties, including the coalition parties in the Government, would wish to deal with that situation in the context of this Bill. I do not think that there will be any division, in terms of policy, in relation to ambition here.
Unfortunately, when the change was made in 2010, it was realised that this was a “start”. My noble friend Lord McKenzie has identified, with his characteristic care in these matters, that there has already been a minor change in relation to this provision to improve it. Indeed, the coalition Government are to be congratulated: they have built on the work of the previous Government in pursuing the commitment of “no disadvantage” which is at the heart of the military covenant. In May 2011 they published the Armed Forces covenant. In paragraph 5 on page 7, under the heading “Scope of Covenant”, it states:
“Members of the Armed Forces community should have the same access to benefits as any UK citizen”.
Page 33 of the guidance document that accompanies the covenant, The Armed Forces Covenant: Today and Tomorrow, states that,
“the Government has no plans to make further adjustments”,
to the benefits rules. Importantly, however, it goes on to say that they will,
“keep this issue under review”.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud) (Con)
My Lords, the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, concerns the position of spouses or civil partners of service personnel who accompany them on overseas postings, a group in which I know the noble Baroness has a keen interest. The amendment would enable people in this position to be credited with national insurance contributions for the full 10 tax years between 2000-01 and 2009-10.
We have already taken steps to shore up the contribution records of this group. In 2010, arrangements were put in place to allow the spouses of Armed Forces personnel to gain a national insurance credit for time spent accompanying their spouse or civil partner on postings abroad. These credits are awarded for tax years from 2010-11 and provide entitlement to all contributory benefits, including the state pension. Their main purpose was to provide access to contributory working-age benefits to spouses and partners who might have difficulty in finding employment when they return home. I confirm to the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, that no changes are planned to those crediting arrangements.
The amendment would enable a person to meet the minimum qualifying period for the new state pension and therefore qualify for a reduced single-tier pension. However, if we were to combine the qualifying years that could be gained under the 2010 credits with those available under this amendment, a person could be credited with up to 16 qualifying years.
We should caution that the existing arrangements incur administrative costs for HM Revenue and Customs and the Ministry of Defence. Applications for the existing national insurance credits need to be validated by service welfare officers and processed by HMRC. Similar arrangements would need to be put in place for these new credits, but that would involve more onerous administration because any validation would relate to periods some years past.
The noble Lord, Lord Browne, made a point about difficulties with take-up of the current credits. We are not aware of any difficulties but, on the back of his concern, we will check with the MoD on that.
Currently, around 500 to 600 people a year have been awarded the credits that have been in place since 2010, but it is unclear how many are likely to benefit for pension purposes from the noble Baroness’s proposed retrospection measure.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
The Minister obviously agrees with my noble friend’s figure of 500 to 600 people, but how many eligible non-recipients does he think there may be? In other words, what would be the total population, of which 500 to 600 are claiming? Does he know the answer to that? I certainly do not.
Lord Freud
Unless I am rapidly informed otherwise, I do not think that we know either at this stage. It is likely that most of the people in this group will have been at work or be covered by other credits during the past periods covered by the amendment. Over the course of a 50-year working life, we would expect many to build the 35 qualifying years to qualify for the full single-tier pension in their own right. That is where this problem lies. That said, I understand the concerns of the noble Baroness and would not want to ignore the position of this group of people if they have genuine difficulties in building the qualifying years that they need.
The Committee will understand the Government’s general concerns about going back in time to treat particular groups in different ways, because there are always issues of fairness and parity when you do that—the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, talked about some of the relationships with people moving into UC and so forth—and that is the case even though special consideration is reserved for the Armed Forces and their families. However, turning to the point raised particularly by the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, and the noble Lord, Lord Browne, we will consider this further.
I have to warn noble Lords that this is a difficult matter, so I am not promising that anything will come out of that consideration. Sometimes, in saying that, one suggests that there is a solution, but we are finding this quite difficult. We are doing that exercise and I am sure—
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
Why is it difficult? I understand that when most people in civvy life claim X years ago to have done Y it is very hard to check that, but the one thing that the MoD will have is records. So why is it so difficult?
Lord Freud
I will be in a much better position to explain the difficulties in a little while. So, rather than presuming on this, I would say that we are considering it. It is difficult, and I am sure that we will have the opportunity to return to it on Report.
Lord Browne of Ladyton
I am extremely grateful to the Minister for giving way at this stage, and I am not ungrateful to him for his undertaking to consider this and report back. That is the most that we could have expected. However, I ask him to consider two things. First, there is certainty that the Ministry of Defence will have records—there is no question about that. Secondly, I direct his attention back to the provision in the guidance note issued on the covenant, in which the Government promised to keep the issue of access to benefits under review. It might be helpful if the Minister explored why that promise was made and what was in mind at that time. Clearly some consideration was given to it, which instructed that promise. Surely it was not just a cosmetic promise, with nobody having any idea what could possibly be offered in the future.
Lord Freud
Let me take the two issues there. It is not necessarily the case that the MoD will have records on this, especially of an accompanying partner. That is clearly one of the issues. I think what was envisaged was exactly to look at this kind of thing and other benefits, which is exactly what we are doing. We are, as I say, treating it very seriously, but that is not the same as being able to say that there is a ready solution. We will come back to this issue.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
I am not sure whether the Minister confirmed that, whatever happens with the impact of this amendment, there is no suggestion that the existing arrangements both in respect of the crediting and the easement of the first contribution condition are not going to continue post-April 2016.
Lord Freud
I am pleased to confirm that the crediting and the easement will continue post-2016.
Lord Browne of Ladyton
Can the Minister also confirm whether the Bill, if it becomes law as drafted, will have a regressive effect on the position of service spouses or civil partners, as is believed to be the case by at least one of my noble friends and suspected by another, and whether that will in fact be the case when the review is conducted?
Lord Freud
I will not answer what could in practice be a huge review of everything to make a hard statement on that, but I will write on that point. Having finished, I hope, all the questions asked, I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, I thought this was short, sweet and simple. It is now long and less simple but still very sweet, in the sense that I think there is consensus all round the Committee. I welcome that and I am very grateful to the Minister for his responsiveness to the concerns that we raised. Clearly this amendment was a peg for the discussion that we have had. My noble friend Lady Dean is highly knowledgeable about service families and speaks from very real experience. I am very glad that my noble friend Lord McKenzie was able to get on record from the Minister what the Government’s intentions were about easement, which was very useful. I am still slightly surprised that we did not have this information about the eligible population base for claiming credits since 2010-11 and how many have actually claimed. Is it 500 of 5,000 or 500 of 700? We do not know and I would have expected that information, but I am sure that the Minister will write to us with that because it gives us some sense of how problematic it is when you rely on people to claim, as we have experienced with means-tested benefits for pensioners, for example.
Lord Freud
It is a little early to get into the practicalities, but I am sure that we can arrange, one way or the other —either from a spontaneous governmental unleashing of information or in response to an amendment —to get the latest information on the record at Report.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
I thank the noble Lord. What I would love to see—I know that this has been done in the past because I have done it—is an amendment jointly in the names of my noble friend Lord Browne and the Minister, which will amaze and command total support. In that context, I ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Turner of Camden
Baroness Turner of Camden (Lab)
My Lords, this amendment is about the level of the full rate of the single state pension. As we know, the Bill states that it will be specified in regulations and, as we know, the Government propose an entitlement of about £144 in 2016. The amendment would raise the level by about £40. Although that is calculated by reference to 40 qualifying years under the current system, it still represents only 80% of working age years and an earnings level which will by then be about £15,000 per annum. Only at that level would the single state pension make a genuine improvement to the state pension. That would address the concerns of those many millions of current employees with contracted-in careers who will see their state benefit reduced under the current proposals.
As I said at our previous sitting, I have had discussions with the pensions officer of Unite, as a result of which I have tabled some amendments, including this one. I am told that Unite policy is for the restoration of an earnings-related pension to supplement a higher level of basic state pension, as it is felt that that will provide a better foundation for employees in company and private pensions. I explained to the officer with whom I had discussions that the single state pension is the model before us which we have to discuss today but, on the other hand, it is believed that it has merit only if it is set at a realistic level. The amendment before the Committee is intended at least to produce a discussion about what a realistic level would be. I am not alone in suggesting that we need to look at the realistic level, because my noble friend Lord Whitty has tabled a similar amendment, Amendment 17—a very well worded amendment, in my view—which also proposes 40 qualifying years and requires a realistic assessment of what the benefit should ultimately be.
Lord Whitty (Lab)
My Lords, as my noble friend said, I have an amendment which is very similar to hers. It is worded slightly differently and in my view, and with no disrespect to my noble friend, it is in a better place—in other words, it relates to Clause 3 rather than Clause 2. However, the central issue is that for a lot of people who have worked most of their working life and have paid into the earnings-related pension in its various guises over that period, a figure of £144 or thereabouts will be a significant drop compared with what they might otherwise have expected.
If we are to have a scheme that is going to achieve a reasonable degree of support and consensus across the workforce and among potential and future pensioners, we need to pitch it at a level where existing workers do not miss out. I think that most of us are reasonably convinced that a single-tier answer is the right one, but it has to be structured on the basis of people’s existing expectations. The exact formula that we have in these amendments may not be acceptable to the Government but it needs to be a lot closer to current expectations for this reform to receive the kind of support that the Government are hoping for. At the moment, I know that £144 is, in a sense, a guess—or, if I am being nice to the Government, an informed guess—but it has raised alarm bells, certainly among the trade unions and those who, on pension schemes, represent the workforce who have hoped for more from the earnings-related element of the state pension.
I do not expect the Government to accept these amendments but I hope that they take the issue seriously before we reach the final stages of the Bill, and certainly in the regulations that are coming forward to define the level of the new single-tier pension.
Baroness Donaghy (Lab)
I support my noble friends Lady Turner and Lord Whitty. The pension letter that I receive reads a bit like a history book. Having completed the 40 years, I have a bit of graduated pension, some SERPS and some S2P. Obviously it all adds up penny by penny but, as I said at Second Reading, one of my concerns is that simplicity is not of itself the best objective. If the amount is set too low, the middle earners will not buy in to the new system. Any system that does not have a buy-in from the middle earners will, in the future, give rise to enormous political pressure from those people for some form of opting out, which I do not believe anyone in this room wants.
When we looked at all the charts at the briefing, we found the crossover point—which I think was in about 2040—before people start losing out. The discussion that took place on Monday about net versus gross may well place that crossover point a lot earlier, and people will see that they are going to lose out much earlier. They will then make a judgment about whether this flat rate is any good and, again, either there will be pressure to opt out or there will be pressure—dare I say it?—for SERPS, graduated pensions or S2P in about 20 to 30 years’ time. Therefore, this gives rise to very important issues.
I know that we are going to have another discussion about net versus gross when we come to later amendments, but I want to make the point that this is not a straightforward issue. I realise that there is cross-party consent about the flat rate but I am slightly sceptical about its long-term holding, although the Minister has said very confidently that it will last for more than 10 years. I hope that he is right, because the last thing I want to see is Governments tinkering with this. As I said, I do not want my grandchildren to have a history lesson in 40 years’ time in which they are reading about the different names for the pension.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, perhaps I may raise a point about the level of the single-tier pension, and couple it with a reference to passported benefits in the impact assessment. I looked at the assessment again this morning and there was a point that I had not identified, or did not understand before. This is to do with the interaction with the guarantee credit. This passage is about passported benefits, but it says:
“Receipt of Guarantee Credit passports pensioners to the full amount of Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit, if the pensioner is eligible for these benefits. There is little reduction in Guarantee Credit eligibility resulting from the single tier”—
about 1%. I thought that the whole thrust of this simplicity as a base for people to be able to make judgments about saving was that, in a sense, it floated people at a level which was above the guarantee credit. Here we are saying that only 1% of people who get STP will not be affected by guarantee credit in the future. Can the Minister explain that to me, please?
Lord Browne of Ladyton
My Lords, by tabling and moving these two amendments my noble friends have done the Committee in general and the Minister in particular a favour by creating an opportunity for him to expand on what his right honourable friend the Pensions Minister was able to tell the House of Commons about Clause 3. Despite the fact that my noble friend Lady Turner’s amendment is to Clause 2, I think that most of the issues raised can be dealt with within the context of Clause 3.
The provisions of Clause 3 set out a mechanism for calculating the full rate and the reduced rate of the single-tier pension for those whose contribution record commences post 6 April 2016. As we have already established, that does not actually set out in monetary terms the full rate; and as much of Monday’s debate made clear, that is at the root of some nervousness, not to say anxiety—or, on the other side, a possibly optimistic expectation—on the part of future pensioners, a state which, rightly, we anticipate will heighten as we approach these provisions’ implementation date.
Many are concerned as to what the single rate will be, whether they will be worse off as a consequence of change versus their expectations of the continuation of the status quo, and whether the actual rate will keep the new single-tier pension rate above the level of the pension credit sufficiently for it to prove an incentive to save, which is the relevance of my noble friend Lord McKenzie’s point, based on his characteristically forensic examination of the paperwork that is before us, and picking up this key point which instructed much of the debate in the House of Commons on these matters: the degree to which a prime objective of this policy—that is, to reduce in the longer term dependence on means-testing—will in fact be achieved by the full implementation. In addition, people need some predictability of future pension arrangements to enable them to make appropriate decisions to prepare for their retirement, confident that they will live up to society’s expectations of them now and avoid financial difficulties in life and a life of poverty. My noble friend Lord Whitty described the central issue as whether there could be certainty that this figure would not disappoint people’s expectation to such a point that they would fail to support the policy. By the device of these amendments, my noble friends have created an opportunity for the Minister to engage with these challenges.
Lord Freud
My Lords, the amendments relate to the single-tier pension. I have to confirm that the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, is in a better place, but I think we all knew that. I covered quite a lot of this in detail on Monday, so I will keep my comments relatively brief.
The amendments describe a minimum entitlement at a level broadly equivalent to the state pension entitlement that a person with 40 qualifying years could receive under the current scheme through their basic state pension and the additional state pension. For someone on low earnings, that equates to around £180 a week. That is the question that the noble Lord, Lord Browne, was seeking an answer to.
I fully appreciate the sentiment behind wanting to set the rate higher than the illustrative rate of £144, which is from last year's effective equivalent rate. Indeed, under the Bill, future Governments will be free to make above-earnings ad hoc increases in the light of economic conditions at the time, but setting a starting rate that cannot be afforded within the current spending projections would instead force the hand of future Governments, siphoning off greater and greater amounts of GDP into pensions spending. Setting a minimum starting level of £180 a week would add a further £12 billion in real terms to the single-tier costs by 2030—that is a per annum figure. Over the longer term, it would increase annual pension expenditure by another two percentage points of GDP in 2060 and squeeze out other spending pressures from an ageing society.
Sustainability is a core principle of the reforms. Our proposals work within projected expenditure on the current system, and our current modelling, including the illustrative start rate of £144, stays within 1% of current expenditure until the late 2030s.
During Second Reading, much was made of the consensus following the Pensions Commission report, which recommended that the state move away from providing earnings-related pensions. I was pleased to see that the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, had moved her scepticism out from 10 years to 30 years in the space of a few weeks, so there is hope that we may move her to the 100-year objective. To this end, under previous reforms, the earnings-relation provided by the additional state pension was effectively being squeezed out of the system, moving over time to a flat-rate state pension but, as many respondents to the Green Paper pointed out, that was not doing enough to support private saving and underpin automatic enrolment.
I have said this before, so I will go on record twice on this. These reforms are not about increasing pensions expenditure. They are not about reducing it. They are about spending the money differently, so that we can move to a flat-rate pension quickly to tackle an urgent problem of undersaving.
To respond to the pointed question of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, about why the single tier does not lift many clear of the guarantee credit, that is largely because many people on the guarantee credit have a higher standard minimum guarantee. About 37% are entitled to one or more additional amounts—for instance, for disability—and we do not want to remove those additional amounts.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
I understand that point, but what does that do to the argument that this is all about having a very clear platform so that people know that it will pay to save and that they will be above means-tested benefit levels? On the basis of this information and what the Minister just said, 99% of people who will get STP will still be eligible for the guarantee credit. Indeed, annexe C to the impact assessment states that total spending on the guarantee credit and the savings credit will actually go up by the end of the period in the tabulation. That does not make sense to me. I understand that it is the additions that mean that guarantee credit is above the level of STP, but that seems totally to undermine the whole thrust of the rationale of the Bill.
Lord Freud
Despite the guarantee credit not changing a lot, there is roughly a halving of the overall reliance on means-tested benefits, so there is a move, but I acknowledge that it is not by any means a complete elimination of the use of means-tested benefits.
Baroness Sherlock
I think the Minister may be offering a rather dramatic understatement. It is not an elimination; it is a change of 1%. As we established in the Committee on Monday, most of the reduction in means-testing is related to the abolition of the savings credit, which is removing access to something for people. If my noble friend is right, he has hit on something quite extraordinary, which is that despite the Government saying that the STP will be pitched at a level above the means-tested level for the pension credit, it is in fact, according to his modelling, pitched at a level that will not lift anyone but the 1% who get it out of means-testing. Surely the whole argument collapses at that point.
Lord Freud
My Lords, the guarantee credit does go down in absolute terms. It is already a small percentage of the total. When one gets into arguments about data it gets very confusing, so I will set this issue out very clearly. As I understand it, the issue is about the number of people on means-testing as we look forward into the single tier over the decades. The subsidiary question behind that is what it does to the incentive to save. I will address those two questions with some proper data in a letter rather than trying to do so off the top of my head when I am not absolutely confident about providing exactly the right information.
The start rate of the full single-tier pension should not be viewed in isolation but in combination with the private pension income that some 6 million to 9 million people will gain from having been automatically enrolled in a workplace pension. An inflated start would be unaffordable and unsustainable, and I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Sherlock
I am very grateful to the Minister for his offer to write to all Members of the Committee. Will he prioritise that letter and write it before the Committee next sits, rather than waiting until we come back at a later stage of the Bill?
Lord Freud
Yes; I am trying to get letters out at great speed. I am expecting to sign letters relating to the questions from Monday later today in order to get them to Members of the Committee as quickly as possible, so that is a three-day turnaround. I will aim to do something rapidly for today as well.
Baroness Turner of Camden
I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate, which I found extremely interesting. My noble friend Lord Whitty was quite right that this amendment is in the wrong place and should have been on Clause 3 rather than Clause 2. However, it has enabled us to have a discussion about what the full rate of the single state pension ought to be. A number of noble Lords expressed a view that indicates that it is certainly worth considering, although I am not surprised that the Minister’s argument relied heavily on the cost if we got what we wanted, which is a great deal more than I think most people contemplated.
Even so, there is a case for looking again at the level that is being paid, because a lot of people will rely on this. They rely on the basic state pension—they do now—and few of them will have savings or access to a decent pension provided by an employer, although we hope that the new arrangements with regard to automatic enrolment in the new pension schemes will enable people to save. That needs to be looked at, and we will have an opportunity to do so later in the passage of the Bill. In the mean time, I thank all noble Lords for their contribution, and I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say, particularly about the cost. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
“( ) Regulations may provide for circumstances in which a person may opt to have a year treated as a qualifying year if by aggregating income from two or more jobs, that person’s earnings is equal to or greater than the earnings factor for that year.”
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, this is an amendment about multiple jobs below the lower earnings limit, LEL. There are about 40,000 women and 10,000 men who we know about with two or more jobs each, each of which is below the LEL but which, aggregated, bring them above the LEL and should, I argue, bring them into NI and the state pension.
Who are they? Let me tell some of their stories: all people whom I have met, talked to and canvassed. They are rural women in their 40s with their youngest child over 12, who are patching together what we grandly call a portfolio, the components of which vary over the seasons in rural Norfolk. It might be six hours caravan or boat cleaning on the Saturday—handover day—during the summer, three small house-cleaning jobs during the week for the affluent incomer retirees on the northern coast, some mushroom or fruit picking for a few weeks and, during the winter, two or three evenings working at the nearest pub or newsagent.
One woman averages about 20 hours paid work a week, most of it at minimum wage—as much as she can manage given the danger of five to 10 hours a week travel time between jobs. She has no private car, there is extremely limited public transport in rural counties and she has teenage children to care for and feed. In any case, there are few if any decent 20-hour part-time single jobs, let alone full-time jobs, in rural Norfolk for unskilled middle-aged women without their own transport and with a family to care for. This could be her life for 10 or even 20 years.
Half the jobs in Norfolk, for example, are located in my city of Norwich, which is a 30-mile to 40-mile bus ride away for many people living near the coast, and buses are few. She will never be able to access those jobs, with their better pay and hours. She needs and deserves a pension, and if she cannot build one for herself she will not—this is key—be able to rely in future on any from her husband through the married women’s 60% pension.
A second person whom I met was a divorced Norwich woman in her 50s working as a receptionist for an alternative medicine practice, who told me that her employer would not allow her to work more than 15 hours a week, although she would like to because she enjoys the job, so that he can avoid paying national insurance. He pays three women each for 15 hours a week—because he works a long week—in order to avoid paying NI on any of them. At the time, she was topping up her income, although not her eligibility for BSP, by working extra hours in a florist’s shop. She was desperately worried about her pension situation but did not see what she could do about it.
Another woman’s work patterns are shaped by her caring responsibilities. She does not qualify for carer’s credit, but she fits some pieces of paid work around supporting three elderly relatives in my former ward, plus some cleaning and working in the local launderette.
All those women are working sufficient hours to bring them into the NI system for a pension but because they cannot aggregate them, they do not qualify. When some of us campaigned on this in the past, we were told, first, that you could not reasonably divvy up the employers’ national insurance if there were two or three such jobs, secondly, that the women would not want to pay class 1 contributions and that, in any case, they were few in number, only 15,000, and they were passing through. We were next told that it was a temporary problem for them and they had plenty of time to make up their missing years; finally we were told that they could always buy voluntary NICs and, if all else failed, there was pension credit.
The Government’s supporting papers rebut every one of those arguments and show them to be wrong. We now know that we have 50,000, not 20,000 people caught in this dilemma; two or three times as many. If we do not bring them into NI, they may well cost almost as much on pension credit down the line. That keeps more people in the means-tested legacy system, which we surely want to avoid. The second argument run by the Minister in the other place was that this was a temporary period of their lives. We simply do not know. The Minister is guessing. Some, certainly, may become entitled to a credit or move house into, say, the city of Norwich, and thus have a wider choice of jobs, and as a result may be able to come into NI, but others are stuck. Their patchwork life goes on for years because that is all that is available. We do not have the statistics for them, but 40% of the self-employed have been self-employed for more than 10 years. They include some of the poorest self-employed. The women I have described likewise tell me that they expect their position to continue for many years, often because they need the flexibility that it offers around their caring responsibilities or because they lack realistic alternatives, especially in more rural areas.
They can certainly buy voluntary NICs but, frankly, at £13 a week that is not usually feasible or realistic. It is five times more than we expect a self-employed man to pay. Bluntly, she probably cannot afford it. Is it fair? If she were working those 20 hours on the minimum wage for a single employer, she would get her national insurance but she would be below the PTT and probably would not pay a penny. She would come into national insurance without paying because she would come between the two thresholds. If she were on JSA or a disability benefit and not working a single hour, she would, again, get her NI and not pay a penny. Where she is conventionally self-employed, she will pay £2.70 a week and get NI. If she is employed with one employer, she will pay nothing and get her NI. If she is unemployed, she will pay nothing and get her NI, but because she works 20 hours a week, splintered, she will get nothing at all. Perhaps someone can explain to me why that is fair.
I accept that it has been hard to find a way through in the past, even for those who were sympathetic and did not dismiss mini-jobs as pin money. The Minister has never done that when we have been talking about UC and I am grateful to him. The Bill—bless it—gives us a way through. At last, it is now very simple. HMRC—and the Minister will know infinitely more about this than I do—is building real-time information. Rightly, we are giving the new state pension to all those who are self-employed: 4 million self-employed people will, I understand, gain significantly. Surely we are not going to say to them that we can afford to help 4 million self-employed people, largely men, but not 40,000 people with mini-jobs, mainly women.
Let us now class this woman as self-employed. If she pays the flat rate £2.70 a week, she can, by choice, buy herself a pension for the current year and opt in. We can discuss any backdating rules on retrospective purchase. Equally, we could, say, by regulations, agree that by working a certain number of hours—say, 16 or even 20—she conforms to JSA work search conditionality. She could, if necessary, discuss this with Jobcentre Plus—I have no problem with that—so that she meets the threshold. However, it would be absurd to say that to get an NI contribution she has to stop working 20 hours a week in real, convenient jobs and go and work in Poundland as part of an internship to meet work search conditionality. She is already doing 20 hours a week in work that fits around her caring responsibilities. In this way, she will qualify for a credit just as does someone on JSA who is not working at all.
UC may or may not be available to help her in due course. We do not know how many people it would apply to and by what route. In any case, it would be wrong to rely on it, given the current delays in rolling it out. Realistically, it may be several years beyond April 2016, although not too many, I hope—all years in which she continues to miss out. What number of women in a patch of mini-jobs does the Minister expect to still be unable to build their NI by 2020?
I want to make one final point. I have been describing older women, family women and often rural women, but I ask noble Lords to look around them. I think—it is only an estimate—that 5 million people are estimated to be on zero-hours contracts with uncertain hours, largely in the service sector and usually on the minimum wage. They work perhaps 10 hours one week and 20 the next, and they cannot run a regular job, as we understand the phrase, alongside it, as they always have to be available, so this involves evening and weekend top-ups. It is a major and growing problem in my view. Some may, over the year with one employer, come above the LEL. How many, I do not know. If the Minister has figures, that would be good. However, others on zero-hours contracts will not do that.
Employers love such a flexible, low-paid, semi-casualised labour force—what is not to like for them?—with staff patching together a living wage as best they can around their zero-hours contracts. The price paid is in tax credits from us. There is a burgeoning tax credit bill which, despite the wildly erroneous statements of the Secretary of State, does not come from those who do not get up in the morning but from the working poor, many of whom are on these contracts, as the Minister and this Committee know very well. That cost is paid by us in tax credits and by the worker in poverty, low wages and insecurity in their working lives, and poverty, insecurity and a relatively low pension in their retirement years.
The Bill gives us a way through, either by classifying them as self-employed or possibly by saying that they now conform to JSA conditionality. There are other ways I can think of by which we can do this, but this is a decent opportunity to rectify a problem that has gone on for far too long—that women who are doing their best for their family while contributing to the economy find themselves penalised. We can rectify that. It could be the decent and right thing to do, as I hope noble Lords will agree. I beg to move.
Baroness Drake (Lab)
My Lords, I support Amendment 11. It is always a great pleasure to follow my noble friend Lady Hollis. The disadvantage is that she mobilises the argument so compellingly that one feels rather depleted before one even starts to come in to support her. I will try, in a slightly depleted way, to give support on the very important issue which she has identified.
In the numerous iterative debates on the UK pension system in recent times certain criteria key to the design of that system and appraising outcomes have held constant. One of these has been that it must work for women. We cannot wholeheartedly say yes to that, notwithstanding the reforms that we have seen in the Bill. Clearly there is still room for improvement, and two weaknesses are frequently referred to. First, the level of the earnings trigger set for auto-enrolment is too high and excludes too many part-time workers, mainly women. Secondly, women who undertake mini-jobs—each of which delivers earnings below the lower earnings limit of £5,668, the access point for the national insurance system, but which if added together would put them above that level—do not have access to the state pension system under the contributory system because there is no provision for people with mini-jobs to aggregate their earnings in a way that would allow them to enter the NI system.
If we strip that back to its essentials, a woman with two part-time jobs, earning £100 per week from each job, will not be accruing pension rights unless she is covered by some alternative credit arrangement. Someone who may be working fewer hours but earning £110 per week from one job would accrue pension rights. However, £100 equals about 16 hours on the national minimum wage, so if one was doing more than one mini-job, one would be doing a lot more than 16 hours. Yet in the way that the system operates, they are not allowed access to the NI system.
As my noble friend Lady Hollis so clearly explained, this amendment would allow women and men to aggregate income from two or more mini-jobs and opt to have a year treated as a qualifying year for state pension purposes, and to pay national insurance as though they were self-employed. Having said that, I note from the Peers’ briefing pack that the rate of national insurance payable by the self-employed will be a matter for the Government to decide closer to implementation. If the Minister is able to give us indications of the Government’s thinking on that, which would go to the efficiency of the solution, that would be helpful.
As my noble friend confirmed, the DWP analysis found in 2012-13 that 50,000 people—40,000 women and 10,000 men—had two jobs with a combined income above the lower earnings limit, but were not accruing qualifying years towards their pension. Those may be relatively modest numbers—although the real figure may be higher, given that these things are difficult to measure. However, fairness is not simply a function of the number of people affected, because the disadvantage for these people is very real. As my noble friend Lady Hollis pointed out, the changes in the contemporary nature of the labour market may indeed increase the incidence of what the noble Baroness refers to as a “portfolio of mini-jobs”. We are increasingly seeing an intensity of flexibility requirements within contracts when it comes to the hours of work that employers want in any one week. Certainly, therefore, we need an NI system and a state system able to reflect the developments in the labour market so that it stays fair for people who are working.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
I hesitate to follow those two powerful speeches, but I wanted to ask the Minister a question around RTI. It is understood that, so long as an employer has a PAYE system, RTI requires reporting of all earnings whether or not the individuals are earning each week at a rate in excess of the LEL. That would not apply to an employer where all employees were below the threshold and nobody was issued with a tax code. We are now in a position whereby, at least in theory, HMRC has within its system details of earnings per paid period of each employee with each employer. Even if that is not the basis of a calculation, it would at least provide a basis on which individual claims might be verified. That seems a potential change that ought to help with this important issue.
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde
My Lords, I shall not detain the Committee long except to give my support to this. It is quite interesting that the changes that HMRC has carried out actually help this particular argument. The situation as it stands is completely counterintuitive to what the Government are trying to achieve, which is that we all save while we are working so that when we retire we have built up a state pension. If people do not have a state pension, they will be reliant on welfare benefits, or whatever the Government of the day decide. So it is a matter of independence.
My noble friend Lady Drake is so right: women find it offensive that they are excluded from contributing when they are able to towards their own pension. I said “women” deliberately, because the nature of work today will change that argument. Since the recession, we have seen more and more men also working part time. So what has been traditionally an argument on equality for women is being diluted by the nature of work in the country today. The argument that we are putting forward is not just for women—it is for citizens who may, by force of circumstance or choice, have more than one job.
The Inland Revenue has no problem in finding solutions to quite complex issues when it comes to collecting tax, and this goes hand in hand with that. Citing the excuse or reason that it is very complex and impossible to do is wearing very thin. Given the remit to do it, I am sure that the Revenue would have to find a way through. The issue is not going to go away; it will be raised at every opportunity, and it is one that runs four-square with what the Bill is trying to achieve, which is for us all to contribute to a state pension while we are working.
Lord Browne of Ladyton
My Lords, in engaging with this issue, your Lordships’ Committee has had the benefit of comprehensive speeches by my noble friend Lady Hollis and, despite her reluctance, my noble friend Lady Drake. Between them they have demonstrated a level of adequacy on the detail of this which, for the rest of us, makes her feeling on following our noble friend Lady Hollis pale into insignificance.
In the interest of brevity I intend to ignore a substantial number of the notes that I have before me and engage with just two issues in order to focus the Minister’s mind on them. I shall make these two points because we also have the benefit of the Government’s position. It is summed up in one sentence, which is that addressing this issue by combining hours in some way addresses a problem which is a perception rather than a reality. That is not a direct quote, but it is what the Pensions Minister said in the House of Commons. That argument relies on all those elements that my noble friend Lady Hollis articulated. I have a list of them here which is presented in a slightly different way.
At the heart of them, there are two arguments. The first is that this is a temporary phenomenon, often coming at the end of a working life, and as one will get a pension for 35 years’ contributions over a working life of about 50 years, the better option for most people is not to pay national insurance. It was argued that at present many of these people are not paying insurance and would not thank the Government for requiring them to do so because no one volunteers to pay tax. If that is true, it is a powerful argument.
The other argument is that the Government’s estimate is that only in the order of 50,000 people are in this position, that that number has grown only slightly recently and that, in any event, one in five of them may be on national insurance credits as a result of claiming universal credit. If that is true, that is also a powerful argument. It does not undermine all the arguments that my noble friends have made, but it is powerful.
I want to address both arguments. Of course it is difficult to challenge them because the data do not exist, but we all live in this world. My sense is that large numbers of people working two or more low-earning jobs, many of them on zero-hours contracts, is a phenomenon that is growing throughout the country. That is my experience of living in the United Kingdom and of travelling, because of where I live for parts of the week, across two very distinct communities. I see it growing in both communities that I have contact with.
In fact, I believe that this is a strong and growing characteristic of the modern UK labour market. It is at the heart of the flexibility that has allowed the UK labour market to be able to maintain and grow jobs in circumstances where one would intuitively have expected unemployment to have increased significantly more because of recession. It is a part of the flexibility of the labour market that, in a sense, we celebrate, and spent a period trying to get other countries to follow.
My sense is that this is much greater, and I shall share this short anecdote because it is instructive about how it is affecting people in the communities in which we live. On my way home from our debates on Monday, I overheard a conversation among three young people in a very quiet overground train. I sometimes find it difficult to estimate age, but they were all in their mid-20s. They were all coming back from employment with one employer, which was a mini-job. From their conversation, it was clear that they had, by my reckoning, seven jobs among them at least. Each of them had at least three jobs. Most importantly, they had all had the benefit of a tertiary level education. I could not guarantee that they were all graduates, but at least two of them were, from what they said, and the third also had the benefit of a tertiary level education. These were not your traditional B&Q employees at the end of their life. They were well educated young people coming into a labour market where that was the expectation. That fundamentally challenges the idea that this is a temporary phenomenon and that it can be dismissed, as it has in the past.
Lord Freud
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, for tabling this amendment on an issue which I know is of great concern to her: access to contributory state benefits, including pensions, for those who have more than one job but do not earn above the national insurance low earnings limit in any one of them.
We have debated this issue over the years. She will be aware that I have equal concern about this issue. Before we get into the specifics, we have a policy to seize this issue head-on, and that is through universal credit. When you look at the debate this afternoon when we talked about the present system—JSA, tax credits, the problems of going through—universal credit basically combines in-work JSA where you are credited for your pension, and in-work benefits. Therefore, the low paid will be credited in the same way as people on JSA are currently credited. Our estimate is that 800,000 more people will be credited as a result of the adoption of universal credit. Noble Lords may well say that universal credit is taking its time coming in: one or two noble Lords have made that point to me. I can only say that we are going as fast as possible. We are rolling it out.
That is the fundamental solution. Any of the adjustments suggested today would be time-consuming changes to make. One has to take a strategic decision. Does one have a system that sweeps away these problems, or does one make itsy-bitsy changes with HMRC here or there? They all take time. I think it was the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, who said that HMRC is slow to make adjustments, but they are genuinely difficult to do. I have been involved in quite a few government change programmes now and even relatively modest changes are time-consuming and soak up the energy of the people doing them.
The question asked by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, about cutting into the RTI system ahead of universal credit is an interesting one. Clearly, we are looking very closely at how we use RTI in different ways. One of the issues in terms of a comprehensive solution for this relatively small group is that we have to be sure they are on the PAYE system in order to use it as a comprehensive cut through. My instinct—again, data are short here—is that this is not a comprehensive solution in the same way as catching them at the UC level. If you are not on PAYE, you can self-declare and get the system to work. I do not think that RTI is the solution.
As noble Lords have pointed out, the numbers are relatively small—some 50,000—but just because the numbers are small does not mean that we should not worry about the issue. That is what universal credit is trying to catch.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
The Minister said that the numbers were small, which is to restate the 50,000 figure. I thought that my noble friend exploded that pretty effectively. Not only is that itself pretty doubtful, but we now have the issues associated with zero-hours contracts. We specifically asked whether they had been taken into account and what would now be a reasonable basis on which to go forward with shared information.
Lord Freud
My Lords, as I said even before the noble Baroness intervened, even though the numbers today are relatively small, I am not decrying that particular issue. I was referring to the 50,000 figure—the current estimate of those affected. Let me get on with my argument and not worry about that at the moment.
The drive to universal credit is to allow greater flexibility in the labour market, so zero-hour contracts work with universal credit. There may be elements of zero-hour contracts that are of concern, particularly if the balance of power between the employee and the employer is unfair, but universal credit works with that flexibility of the labour market.
Baroness Sherlock
I understand the argument the Minister is making, but let us suppose that the woman described by my noble friend is in a relationship with a civil partner or a husband. What is the most the husband could earn before she would effectively be excluded from universal credit? As they do not have children, if her earnings are low but his are at a reasonable level, she would no longer be able to benefit from his pension. So you cannot assume that she would be caught up in universal credit because her earnings are low.
Lord Freud
I accept that. This is for low-paid households. That is what universal credit is. There will be some people in higher paid households who will have to take a view on how to make their arrangements through voluntary NICs or whatever. I accept that point.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
The Minister proffers universal credit as a solution, but as I understand it, universal credit will generate only a class 3 credit, not a class 1 credit. Therefore, it would help towards pension entitlement but not to contributory JSA or ESA.
Lord Freud
The noble Lord is exactly right. It goes to the point of what we are discussing. It would get you the pension entitlement and the bereavement benefit entitlement but not the contributory entitlements. The current arrangements for crediting a person with national insurance contributions are comprehensive. They cover all the main reasons why someone may not be working, or working only a small number of hours, such as ill health and unemployment, or where people are caring for a child aged nought to 12 or for someone with a disability. They also cover those currently entitled to working tax credit, and we have recently introduced credits to protect the contribution record of working-age grandparents looking after their grandchildren.
Those who fall outside the scope of the crediting arrangements and who can afford to do so—higher paid households are clearly in that category—can make payments on a voluntary basis. The current rate of voluntary class 3 national insurance contribution is a very fair price at £13.55 a week, or £705 a year. The person could recoup the cost within four years of receiving basic state pension benefits.
Using this approach to establish whether a person’s combined earnings exceed the lower earnings limit would require the collation of tax and contribution returns for employees with multiple jobs. That clearly would place a burden on business and require HMRC to develop complicated IT which would take time and money and benefit a small number of people. We would also need to consider collecting the employer’s national insurance contributions in proportion to the earnings in each job, which would add considerable administrative complexity.
The question that one needs to consider is whether those who have aggregate earnings above the primary threshold should be credited or should pay a discount rate of national insurance. That is a question I address to the noble Baroness. It could be seen as quite unfair on someone who is earning just over the threshold in one job and has to pay full national insurance, whereas someone else just below might be credited.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
That applies if someone is in one job and £1 below the PTT for these purposes; they will still be credited and not pay a penny. I do not see the difference at all.
Lord Freud
That is the issue about whether one wants to introduce this kind of system across for mini-jobs.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
We already have. All my lifetime, I think, we have had exactly the same cliff edge between those who are below or above the PTT when that diverged from the LEL. That exists now, so there is no difference at all.
Lord Freud
Clearly, under universal credit, there would be a crediting arrangement for everyone within that system anyway, so I accept the point to that extent. I agree with the point on zero hours made by the noble Lord, Lord Browne, in that robust data are currently simply lacking and we are waiting to see the ONS data when they arrive. As I say, the universal credit system that is coming in adapts very elegantly to that kind of flexible labour market.
Lord Browne of Ladyton
Before the Minister moves off the question of the data, the fundamental point about the zero-hours contract estimate that I was attempting to make was that that was despite it being part of the Labour Force Survey. There was an apparently robust basis for a figure that turned out to be, potentially, 300% wrong. We are being asked to debate this against an estimate of a figure that every single part of our experience of life suggests to us is grossly wrong—that is, the figure of 50,000.
Lord Freud
The previous estimate for zero-hour contracts—which is what we are talking about—was that there were 250,000. Let us see the figures today for those on part-time work. I cannot remember the figure offhand—is it 1.5 million? There is a boundary, therefore, about what proportion of flexible working is formally on the zero-hour contracts. Rather than speculate on what the real figure is, I think that we should wait until the ONS comes out with a figure, if it is going to revise that.
On the pointed questions about self-employment rates raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, rates of national insurance are clearly a matter for HM Treasury. However, we have not assumed that self-employed contributions will increase single-tier cost estimates.
I know that the noble Baroness has been a champion of this group and has genuine concerns about it losing out. As the new systems come into sharp focus—universal credit, RTI, single tier—there will be a chance to look at this issue properly when we know exactly what is happening, where the remaining issues are and then to find a precise way of dealing with it. It is simply too early, right now, to get a clean and elegant solution, but we do intend to look more broadly at crediting arrangements to examine the possibilities of modernising and simplifying the arrangements in that light. So there is a process. Her point is taken: it is just about what is the most efficient and effective way of solving a particular problem. What I do not know and cannot offer now is a timetable. It is something to be looked at some years—not a lot of years—in the future, in terms of exactly what should happen. I think that there will be a solution in the medium term. For those reasons, I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
I am extremely grateful to everybody who contributed, including the Minister. The debate was very interesting and revealing and a lot of new issues were raised that had not been raised on previous occasions when we have debated jobs below LEL. That suggests that it is worth going back to some of these issues, as the information that we get and the changes in the labour market make those new concerns increasingly relevant.
My noble friend Lady Drake spoke with all the appropriate authority of one of the pensions commissioners. She rightly emphasised—and sometimes I feel that we are simply retreading the same territory—that every pension issue has to be judged through the perspective of how it affects women, because if we get it right for women we get it right for everybody. Actually, that is not usually what we do; we tend to go on bulk numbers, which are made up by men because they are more reliably, through their working life, attached to a pay grade in the labour market that takes them over the LEL level. As a result, we ignore pockets of women here, there and everywhere, around the system, because, for very good reasons indeed, they do not conform to patterns of male working life.
I honour the Minister in his appreciation of the need to have the recognition of mini-jobs through universal credit. He has never tried to underestimate the significance of these issues, and I put it on record that I appreciate that. However, where we have got to today is not quite good enough.
My noble friend Lady Drake emphasised the need to put up the gender filter and, absolutely rightly, emphasised that women are locked out twice over—in their own ability to get into the NI system and by their ability to go through their husband or partner. They are suffering a double whammy. This Bill makes their default position disappear, which is why the problem has increased urgency from when we discussed it around the universal credit and welfare reform proposals some 18 months ago.
My noble friend Lord McKenzie emphasised the practical feasibility of doing this through HMRC arrangements. Given his lifetime of experience in working with businesses on issues like that, I think that his expertise should be taken very seriously by the department, which may not have had similar experience.
My noble friend Lady Dean, like my noble friend Lady Turner, has fought for women’s pensions since the 1990s, as far as I am aware. She got it absolutely right when she said that this amendment, or an alternative way in which to meet that need, would conform to the spirit of the Bill, and that it should not be left in the hope that, in four or five years down the line, the world may be different.
My noble friend Lord Browne made a devastating critique in talking about the inadequacy of the statistics, how every month the number seems to double—geometrically, not arithmetically—and that very soon we will find that the whole basis on which the Government have estimated their costings and needs, on the basis that it is a tiny minority, will be undermined. He certainly makes me even more uneasy about the neglect of this group than I was before we discussed the issue today.
The Minister is relying essentially on universal credit. I see why he would want to do that, but I am trying to do some back-of-the-envelope calculations. Let us take a group of women and say that the system comes into effect and is rolled out nationally in 2020. It may happen a year earlier than that, but it is unlikely to be more than a year earlier. Following the example of my noble friend Lord Browne, let us say that people leaving school at 18, or college or university, are going to a patchwork or portfolio life for much of the rest of their lives, given the increasing dominance of labour market flexibility. I calculate that when they come into the labour market, if at 2020 they subsequently need 35 years, which they will get through some universal credit arrangements—and thanks to my noble friend there is a big question mark over that—that means that they will qualify for a basic state pension in 2055. They therefore have to have been born in 1990 and are currently aged 23. Under the Minister’s own figures, as far as I can tell, any young woman or man who is older than that probably will not qualify under UC for a full pension by the time they retire.
Lord Freud
My Lords, I cannot leave that unchallenged. People will have inherited rights, including credits, before 2016. Clearly, many of the examples quoted by the noble Baroness related to people who had had children, so 12-plus years would be credited under the existing system to be pulled forward into the system with the foundation amount, building up beyond that. I also need to remind the noble Baroness that the intention with the universal credit schedule that we have announced is to bring in all people, certainly in the working population, by 2016 and 2017, with a group of ESA recipients left beyond that point for very good reason, because we need to deal with them very carefully. Therefore, under the timings that we have announced, the people about whom she is concerned would be brought in very shortly after the introduction of the single-tier pension.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
I hope that the Minister is right but I do not believe that he is. It is very unlikely that the UC system will be sufficiently stable to be rolled out to the entire working-age population—the Government are not catching these people in their labour statistics—before about 2019 or 2020. I would like to be proved wrong but I very much doubt that I will be. Even somebody who has had two children, which means that they will have had 14 years-worth of credit under the new rules, would still be stuck at about 43 or 44 with no ability to add to those years if they came within this category of having no single job that took them above the LEL. Therefore, we wipe out people who are something like 20 years off their pension life, and they will go into retirement with a fairly trivial amount barely over the minimum qualifying amount. I do not think that the Minister can rely on that.
He is right that some women will manage. Particularly if they have children, they will be fine, but if they have no children, they may have a husband. They may both be on perfectly modest incomes but when, taken as a household, they are tested for their eligibility for working tax credits, where the threshold is relatively low, she will not qualify through that either under the joint claim.
Therefore, I am not at all confident but I would be delighted to receive the statistics from the Minister about the coverage, under the circumstances identified in today’s discussion, for those whom UC is intended to help.
The Minister wants a clean and elegant solution. The clean and elegant solution would be to get as many people as possible into the new system and not to rely on pension credit, a legacy system which will otherwise continue for 30 or 40 years. Unless we can get this group into the system as early as possible, he will not find clean and elegant solutions to sustain the Bill. I am glad that he is going to work on it. I hope that, certainly before Report, he can come back and give us an idea of how he is going to address this issue, even if it is about extending conditionality as a credit into JSA conditionality. That would work for me. I want some way of bringing these people in. I promise the Minister that, if he does not address it, this problem will not disappear; it will grow. It is his responsibility to bridge the deficit between where people are and where some of them may be when he has introduced UC three, four, five or six years down the road. Under the circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
“( ) Regulations may provide for the transitional rate of the state pension for a person who is ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom and who reaches pensionable age before 6 April 2031 to be increased where the person would have received a higher pension under the previous system based on their spouse or civil partner’s contribution record.”
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, I apologise to the Committee that I want to raise another substantial issue. After this, I promise that the issues that I raise will get smaller, but other noble Lords’ amendments may be appropriately substantial.
This is about the married women’s dependency pension. This is the first of three amendments. The second amendment is intended to address the issue that widows may face and the third amendment addresses those that divorcées may face. They try to avoid the cliff edge for some vulnerable women—please forgive the political incorrectness. This also applies to men and civil partners, and later amendments apply to male divorcés and widowers.
The peak cost of some £200 million which was suggested by the Minister in the other place would fall in the 2030s for all three groups, including overseas spouses, I gather, which suggests a lower figure, perhaps £100 million a year, during the next 10 years or so. I am grateful to the Box for giving me some additional information on numbers, although I am still not clear about costs. If the Minister can clarify that, that would be helpful.
The Government have rightly helped 10,000 women—it is a diminishing number—who paid a reduced stamp and have put them effectively on to the equivalent of the former 60% dependant pension. At the same time, they are taking that same pension from about 5,000 married women who would otherwise qualify for it each year. This amendment calls for a transitional period of 15 years, as urged by the Select Committee on Work and Pensions on this part of the Bill, having taken a considerable amount of evidence, including some very effective evidence from Age Concern.
This amendment seeks to help women, not many of them, who have, for one reason or another, lived their lives among an older, shall we call it—although I do not mean this to be patronising at all—Daily Mail model, without any expectation that the Government were going to change the rules around them.
On the one hand, the Government are about to reward about 4 million non-working wives with a marriage tax allowance for their husband worth £3.85 a week, costing £700 million a year, and on the other hand they are taking away a £66 per week pension, also derived from marriage—bingo for marriage—at a fraction of the cost of the marriage tax allowance, from older women who have no time to rebuild. The Government are giving to married women with working husbands and taking away from married women who now face retirement with no pension of their own. Husbands—younger men—immediately benefit from a tax allowance transfer which has come as a windfall, while older women lose support that they have been promised all their lives. It is bizarre. Why not spend the first on the second? It will pay for itself several times over and will be far more useful and far more fair for, given their age and such short notice, older women can do little or nothing to build a pension of their own greater than the 60% that they would get as a derived right. That would take 16 years.
Women approaching retirement age had expected the 60% pension and planned their retirement around it. They had, and have, a legitimate expectation. The younger woman and her husband—they are not just cohabiting—receiving the £3.85 household income have not built their lifetime around it and planned for it, unlike the 60% pension. That is simply a windfall. It is unexpected and unplanned and, in my view, much less deserved than the pension that older women were entitled to expect. That younger woman is likely to have many years ahead both to work and gain income and to secure her own retirement with a full pension. I cannot think what mentality, frankly, has produced that juxtaposition and this disjuncture between those two groups, both of whom derive their rights through marriage.
In the other place, the Minister made much of the fact that a significant proportion—more than two-thirds—were male spouses or partners who were born or lived overseas. I now calculate, with the revised statistics that we have had, that huge number to be all of 2,000. However, I have tried to cover that with my,
“ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom”,
which has a good case behind it and which will not trouble the Government.
Indeed, the Minister may also argue, as Steve Webb did in the other place, that he finds it hard to conceive of women who might fall into this group given the wide array of credits—the up to 50 years of working life, which would mean that you start collecting credits at the age of 15 to bring you up to 65, and the 35 years’ NI record requirement. Let me help him, if I may, with two possible categories of women, both of which I am familiar with; I am sure my noble friends have other examples.
I am aware of at least two groups of women who continue to need transitional protection. To get the equivalent of 60% of the future pension equivalent, they would need cover on their own record of at least 16 years—less than that, and they are worse off. Younger women, I readily agree, have time to reshape their plans. They also have appropriate childcare credits, not HRP, which required you to earn actual NI years for it to come into play. Many may have undertaken part-time work above the LEL and may have signed on for JSA, all of this bringing entitlement to a pension of their own. That is as it should be. But women in their 50s do not have that, hence the 15-year transitional period.
Who are likely to lose? The first group is older women with patchy NI years. They got HRP and perhaps did not understand what happened when we replaced it with childcare credits. They did small jobs below the LEL for many years knowing that they would get the 60%. That is what women have told me. They did miscellaneous caring for elderly relatives, credit for which was introduced only in the past five years, which is too late to benefit most of them.
Perhaps their husband’s job took them around the country and they were unable to keep finding new jobs above the LEL for themselves while they moved house and supported his career. As we have discussed, service wives are an extreme case of this. They juggled untidy lives; lives which did not conform to NI requirements. But they knew—or they thought they knew—that they could count on their husband's pension to give them a dependent’s fund. Virtually overnight, as there are no transitional arrangements, that has been taken away.
The Pensions Advisory Service, which I quoted on Monday, completed its survey of nearly 1,000 women and women often commented with additional views. I quote from one of them.
“Had to give up my part-time job when my grand-daughter was born to look after her full-time while her mother and father worked. I’m now desperately looking for work”,
because the NI years have risen to 35. She thought that with 30 years she was all right. She is now 58 and has tried hard to find work but without success. She continues:
“I am getting very worried about the future. I go to bed thinking about it and wake up to face it all again”.
She has a patchwork. She has missing years and we are told that she cannot buy them back before 2006 once universal credit comes into play. Even if she had voluntary NICs, she could not deploy them in circumstances such as hers.
The second group is women who have had poor health for most of their lives—depression, arthritis, angina or diabetes—and they either did not think about or know about incapacity benefits or perhaps believed that the condition was not so incapacitating that they would qualify, especially given the somewhat deliberate stigmatising in the past few years of benefit claimants. Frankly, there has been humiliating treatment of certain claimants by ATOS. I know that the Minister will not want me to recite some of the cases that I have experienced, but they are relevant to this. Their husbands earned enough and, given their poor health, keeping house and perhaps helping out neighbours or local charities was as much as they could manage. If this sounds improbable to the Minister, we are talking about women approaching pension age where the DWP’s own research on benefit take-up among entitled but not claiming pensioners shows how deeply ingrained is the reluctance to claim means-tested benefits.
Such women may have had a few years of NI work behind them but not enough to bring them over the 10-year threshold. If they had nine NI credits or years, they could at least have received £36 a week that they do not in the conventional way, which would normally not have needed to come into play because the 60% was more generous. That de minimis has been removed, although I hope and expect that some women affected will buy an extra year to get over the 10-year hurdle and enjoy £40 a week. However, they probably do not have the time, good health or employability, or in some cases the income, to bring it up to 16 years, or the 60% level that they reasonably expected.
Let me again quote from the TPAS survey. Asked about how they would cope, one woman wrote that she was,
“sick and disabled so unable to save or plan, though very worried as had break in NI due to illness but never claimed benefit”.
Some, but few, I suspect, of the 30,000 affected will be able to afford to buy back missing years. I am not sure whether they can buy them back previous to 2006—we had confirmation on Monday that they could not—where the missing years may have occurred. That relaxation appears to expire in 2015 and the Minister is not continuing it from 2016 onwards.
The Minister at the other end several times argued that if the DWP introduced any transitional period, this would be found by the courts to be arbitrary and would presumably be overturned. He seemed very nervous about the courts; he introduced this argument at least twice when reading his speeches. I am surprised by this. In my experience, if Parliament’s policy intent is clear—see Roe v Wade—it would not fall to judicial review unless it could be shown that it was a decision that no reasonable person could have made. That is quite a high hurdle and clearly not the case here, so if the Minister is going to argue that, may we have proper information about the legal advice that the DWP has received on which the Minister at the other end so heavily relied?
We phased in the rise in people’s pension age over a decade. We are scrapping the pension that they might have drawn at pension age, effectively overnight. I do not think that is fair. If we feel the need to give adequate warning when raising the state pension age, as we did, we should provide adequate warning and therefore transitional arrangements for the most obvious group of real, not notional, losers. It is not difficult. We have the precedent of the reduced married women’s stamp, which we should follow. I beg to move.
Baroness Sherlock
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 23, which is in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Browne, and to Amendment 12 in the name of my noble friend Lady Hollis, who has outlined the basic issue at stake here. I need not repeat that. As we know, the single-tier pension will be based solely on an individual’s contribution or credit record. Everyone will get out depending on what they put in; as they sow, so shall they reap. But we are concerned in this group with people who chose to sow as a couple, expecting to reap in like fashion, when from now on it will be every reaper for himself or herself.
Changes in labour market participation rates and social structures mean that we recognise that, in future, a system built on individual contributions is the right way forward. This year, 75% of those retiring will have complete contribution records of 30 years. It will be interesting to know what happens when that moves up. However, it is obviously important that the appropriate protections remain in place for those who have caring responsibilities or childcare responsibilities and that adequate information is put out. Subject to those caveats, we accept the direction of travel.
However, we are concerned to understand fully the impact of this provision in the short term on those who will lose entitlements derived from a partner’s NI contribution record on which they may have done their retirement planning. It is crucial, for the reasons that my noble friend outlined, that the transitional arrangements are fair and seen to be fair. We have had representations from groups working with older people, particularly older women, highlighting a range of circumstances in which women did not build up any entitlement. There are women who were entitled to credits but did not bother to claim them as they were planning to piggyback off their husbands’ records and there was no advantage in doing so. Then there were women who worked part-time around caring commitments, as my noble friend described here and in the last amendment. There were women who chose to do voluntary work, knowing that their husband’s pension would support them and who were often the pillars of their local community. I see a lot of them in Durham, who helped to support their neighbours and really were the backbone of the local community.
Lord Freud
My Lords, there are three amendments that are closely related, of which this is the first. I welcome the fact that there seems to be general agreement in principle that what I will loosely call “derived entitlement”, established in the 1940s, is past its sell-by date and has no place in a modern state pension system.
I apologise for the fact that I am going to speak at some length, but it is important that I lay out the Government’s argument for removing derived entitlement by reference to the criteria for judging single tier as laid out by the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, at Second Reading: that is to say fairness, simplicity, sustainability, the provision of a decent standard of living for all and, at the same time, the encouragement of private saving through clarity of outcome.
First, we believe that fairness means ensuring an adequate state pension for people who have contributed to the system. That is why we are recycling the savings from aspects of the current system being abolished, including derived entitlement, to give a boost to individuals who have historically been excluded from additional state pension, such as carers, the self-employed and the low-paid. Indeed, around 650,000 women who reach state pension age in the first 10 years of single tier will receive an average of £8 per week more in state pension due to the single-tier valuation.
Sustainability and affordability are also key qualities that the Opposition have made it clear that they are looking for. Let me be absolutely clear that we are ending derived entitlement from principle and not to save costs. However, as we have been asked a number of times about this, and as affordability is one of the criteria of interest to the Opposition in judging single tier, I shall respond to the question raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, and deal with the cost issue.
Our analysis shows that to continue running the basic pension derived entitlement provisions for people reaching state pension age up to 2030-31, the cohorts targeted in these amendments, would cost around £200 million per annum in the early 2030s, and those are just the costs for Great Britain. We do not think that it would be possible to restrict transitional protection to those ordinarily resident in the UK, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, hoped. While it is difficult to quantify the cost for those overseas, we think it likely that it would cost about the same amount again as in the UK, meaning transitional protection for the first 15 cohorts could have further costs peaking at another £200 million a year.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
Why does the Minister think that the courts would not support us in having transitional arrangements for those who are ordinarily resident? I am not a lawyer, but, in my somewhat limited experience of judicial reviews, there have been a number of challenges. The two criteria I lay down are: was Parliament’s intention was clear—Roe v Wade—and would it be a position that a reasonable person would think was not unreasonable. The addition of ordinarily resident would seem to fit the criteria for transitional arrangements. If the Minister could help us on why that is not the case, I would be interested.
Baroness Sherlock
My question is slightly different, but perhaps the Minister could answer them both at once. Are the costings net of any additional expenditure on pension credit?
Lord Freud
Yes, it is a net figure. On the legal position, clearly the noble Baroness will remember that we are in the European Union and there are definitions of which kind of payments are transportable, so to speak, and which ones can be restricted. That is where our legal issue comes from. Therefore, rather than go into huge detail on that—
Lord Freud
Perhaps I can make sure that the noble Baroness is briefed on that outside the Committee. The question of which types of benefit are transportable around the EU and which you can justifiably keep is immensely complicated. I think that the definition is that a social support you can keep within an area but a pension tends to be transportable. However, I can arrange a detailed legal session for the noble Baroness if she would like that.
Perhaps I may turn to the figures that the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, was talking about. Some 290,000 people would be affected at some point up to 2030, which represents less than 4% of those reaching state pension age up to that point. The 30,000 figure is a snapshot in 2020 of the number of people projected to be receiving less at that point in time. That is the explanation of those two sets of figures.
One point concerning payments abroad is that it does not seem fair on our taxpayers and pensioners who have made contributions to the UK, or indeed even affordable, to spend money on those claiming overseas who have never set foot in the UK.
Simplicity is another virtue that the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, concentrated on. If people are to save for their retirement or make sound decisions on purchasing voluntary contributions, they need clarity of outcome. Extending the derived entitlement provisions would run counter to the goal of achieving simplicity of outcome for tens of millions of today’s working-age people. At the moment, we are in the position where we can tell people shortly after April 2016 what they have, in the words of my colleague Steve Webb, banked to date.
The key to being able to do that is to have a full rate of single tier that people work towards and a base entitlement on an individual’s own record. At the moment, we will crystallise people’s national insurance record as at 2016, recognising past contributions, and we will move on from there into the single-tier system. We can say, “You’ve got this to date. If you get this many more qualifying years, then you will get the full rate of single tier”.
However, let us imagine what would happen if we were to put in place provisions that allowed people to continue to draw a pension based on someone else’s record. We would have to tell people, “This is what you’ve got on your record but if you’re married or divorced, or if you get married or divorced between now and state pension age, or you get divorced or are widowed after state pension age, then your entitlement might be different. We can’t tell you what it might be because you would have to look to your partner’s, or even ex-partner’s, record”.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, I support the Government's position on this, as I think we all do, but what will be the position for the reduced married women’s election, where you are effectively introducing—I was going to say inventing—a 60% dependency pension for a whole new group of women which is rather larger in number than the group we are talking about?
Lord Freud
Because we can at that point tell those married women exactly what they will be getting. The difference here is that it is very hard to trace those people to tell them definitively what they will be getting. That takes us back to today’s problem, which is, when you phone up to ask what your pension is going to be in three years’ time, we can give a guesstimate at best. That will remain the case if it is open for lots of people.
Turning to the aim of providing a decent standard of living, we already have an underpin that guarantees pensioners living in Great Britain a minimum amount of weekly income. I confirm the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, that the very purpose of pension credit is to provide support to people in Great Britain who, for whatever reason, have not built up sufficient savings or pension entitlement through their life.
If the current system were to carry on, we project that by 2020, fewer than 10% of people reaching pension age after 2016 would be on the standard minimum guarantee. We have also looked at the group of people who would, under the current system, have been claiming a basic state pension on their spouse’s record—either at the point of reaching state pension age or later, on bereavement. Even if the current system carried on for ever, 40% of the people in that group would be on guarantee credit. That group of people—this 40% of all of our people losing out from the removal of derived entitlement—will get their loss in state pension replaced pound for pound with more guarantee credit. But there will be people not on guarantee credit who experience a loss. If we look at the average changes to household income as a result of removing derived entitlement, we see that the median loss for households affected is about £6 a week. The mean average is about £10 a week. There will undoubtedly be examples where people do lose larger amounts, but again, pension credit is there for them.
I hope that by now it is clear why we have not put in place transitional arrangements and why we have no intention to undertake a review to this effect. We have, however, put in place some protection, specifically to ensure that women who had paid the reduced rate election within 35 years of pension age will get roughly what they thought they would receive. Putting in place protection for these individuals is right: they have clearly participated in the labour market and have contributed. The difference between them and the wider group of people who would have relied on derived entitlement is that those people made an explicit deal with the state.
Furthermore, to address the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, those who have paid a reduced rate election are, crucially, easily identifiable. The message of simplicity for the wider single-tier population will not be affected, and the size of the group enables a bespoke calculation. Were we to apply such blanket protection to everyone, we would simply be awarding everyone with any history of work or credits a 60% basic state pension and, later, a full basic state pension; clearly the costs would become an issue and would not be tenable. We would ultimately be awarding people with just one qualifying year a full basic state pension.
On the point about the married women’s pension, if their entitlement under normal transitional rules would be higher, we will give them that instead, but we are not looking at their husband’s record for that; we will be assuming that they have a full record and award them a pension accordingly. Indeed, we project that, with the vast majority of couples involved, the husband will already have 35 qualifying years. It may be possible for people who are long-term sick but not claiming benefits to apply for credits for a past period. It is not essential for a person to be receiving a benefit to qualify for credits for periods of incapacity, but they would need to meet the entitlement criteria for incapacity for work or limited capability for work each day within the meaning of the legislation that applied at the relevant time. Provided that medical evidence for the whole period can be obtained, it may be possible to apply to a local Jobcentre Plus for credits for past periods. Clearly, I cannot comment on people’s success in that regard or otherwise, but I am glad to be able occasionally to provide some new information to the noble Baroness.
For the individual with 30 years who is looking for work, perhaps after looking after grandchildren, and is now worried, in the example that the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, gave, we have credits for national insurance for exactly that type of situation.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
I was talking about someone who had cared for her grandchild before the credits were introduced.
Lord Freud
Okay. On the specific case of someone who has 30 years and wants to get 35, that is part of the issue that we discussed at length at the last sitting. That individual should be able to benefit from the transitional arrangements. I draw your Lordships’ attention to the analysis in our recent ad hoc publication, which shows that the equivalent of the married person’s pension would be achievable even for the majority of those reaching state pension age in the initial period to 2020 through the purchase of voluntary contributions to cover years back to 2006, or by working or engaging in an activity that earned credits between 2016 and pension age.
I turn to the suggestion that we review the possibility of putting in place transitional arrangements. Such a review would be unnecessary and unhelpful. Noble Lords will agree that, in the interval between Royal Assent and implementation of the new scheme, communications will be crucial. A review at a time when we are preparing the implementation of the new state pension system would create great uncertainty just when we are being urged to ensure that we provide clarity. We had a discussion on that matter on Monday.
I make the general point that one problem here is that we are moving from the current system because it is too complicated for anyone to understand. The risk of some of these arrangements is that we just re-import all the complexity that we are trying to get rid of. That is a real and substantial risk, which we believe we must try to avoid.
In summary, we have had to make decisions about how we move over to the new system. In a system where changes to society and to the existing pensions system mean that a majority of women and men already receive a full state pension, these provisions, designed for the post-war era, are now an anachronism. I hope that I have set out the case that our approach in this respect has been as fair, simple and sustainable as possible. I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
Thank you. I would like to push the Minister on the comments made by my noble friend Lady Sherlock, who rightly warned against hindsight and applying modern attitudes to labour market decisions made some time back. That discussion will be repeated when we come on to widows in a moment. The Minister’s references to women being eligible in certain situations to claim pension credit precisely missed the point raised by my noble friend. If someone is in a couple with a husband who has acquired full contributory years, possibly with some minor additional savings, they will be floated off pension credit, so they will not be entitled to claim it, nor will she be entitled to claim it in lieu unless she is indeed solo.
I am grateful for the Minister’s help on “ordinarily resident”. I should like to see the legal advice, because I think it is arguable which side of the bridge it falls on. We have had plenty of debate on that in the past.
The Minister cited the four tests raised by my noble friend on Second Reading. I remind him of the tests in the impact analysis in October 2013: what are the policy objectives and intended effects? Four were offered. It stated that the intended effect of state pension reform was that,
“individuals have a better understanding of the state pension system,”
and how much they can expect to receive,
“and therefore engage more actively with planning for retirement”.
The people we are talking about understood the rules perfectly well. It is the Government who have changed the rules around them, not that they have failed to do anything that the Government think that they should have done at the time. We fail the first test in the impact assessment.
The second test is that the,
“inequalities of state pension outcomes within the current system are reduced”.
Some are reduced, but the Minister is substituting new ones, including those involving the green stamp and the women I am talking about. The third test is that,
“individuals have reduced interaction with means-tested benefits in retirement”.
That is highly doubtful, given discussion on previous amendments. The amount so far established is pretty trivial. The final test is that,
“the state pension system is more affordable and sustainable in the long-term”,
whereas the Minister has been arguing that it is cost-neutral. He failed to address the fact that there appears to be adequate money—£700 million—to introduce a marriage allowance while taking away support for marriage when it comes to pension arrangements. It is a modern world when it comes to pensions; it is what I do not doubt that the Minister would call a Beveridge world when it comes to married women’s tax allowances. I noticed that he did not venture a comment on or pray the modern world in aid against the Beveridge assumptions behind the married women’s tax allowances, as he would no doubt have described them if we had proposed them and he was criticising them.
The Minister says that the present arrangements are an anachronism. I am sure that it will be a great comfort to those women who are going to lose their 60% entitlement virtually overnight to be told that they are an anachronism and that it is their fault that they cannot shape up in the limited time available to change their situation.
Women have always had a lousy pension deal; it has never worked for them. By refusing to permit a transitional arrangement, we are colluding in that lousy deal by picking off an easy, voiceless, vulnerable group. I have to say that I am disappointed by the Minister’s response, but I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
“( ) Regulations may provide for the transitional rate of the state pension for a person who is ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom and who reaches pensionable age before 6 April 2031 to be increased where the person would have received a higher pension under the previous system based on their deceased spouse or deceased civil partner’s contribution record.”
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, I will be pretty brief.
Until the Bill comes into force, a married woman would qualify for 60% on her husband’s record on retirement. A widow would get his full record, which was usually the full 100%. That is a different issue because they claim entitlement to different sums. In future, under the new state pension, she is on her own. If she does not herself have the requisite number of NI years, she gets no derived pension either as wife or as widow; she will be reliant on means-tested pension credit. To change the system in that cliff-edge way is quite wrong.
We know that mortality and morbidity rise sharply with age. There is a threefold increase in deaths between 55 and 65. In that decade, twice as many men die as women. Usually, they will have died from lingering illnesses, such as cancer, heart disease, Parkinson’s or similar, unlike younger men who tend to die from external accidents and so forth. Their wives may for many years have been home, been around, reassuring them, helping and caring but not perhaps sufficiently to get a carer’s allowance, and carer’s credit has only recently been introduced and is not sufficiently known about or claimed. Then, after 2016, he dies. Her own pension record is considerably incomplete and she cannot substitute his contributions for her own.
Baroness Sherlock
My Lords, I shall speak briefly on this amendment. I was exceedingly brief last time, but since the Minister did not feel any compulsion to do likewise, I shall take my time this time round. The amendment again raises a particular question about transitional protection. I will not revisit the substantive debate that we have just had, but I want to highlight a couple of points. To do that, I want to use a case study given to us by DWP officials.
In this case, we have a couple who have been named Jack and Jill—a slight lack of imagination, but better than the DEL and AMI beloved of Treasury case studies. Jill reaches state pension age in 2020 and her husband Jack reaches state pension age in 2018. Conveniently, they have average life expectancy, so Jack survives until 2040 and Jill until 2044. In this case, Jill had 15 qualifying years of contributions.
Under the current system, Jill would get a married woman’s pension of £64. Under the new system she would get £62. But the real crunch comes when Jack sadly dies. At that point, Jill would receive £113 a week under the current system. Under the new system she would receive only £62 in single-tier pension. That is a huge difference and a real worry to the real Jills of this world, and even more so to those who outlive their husbands by more than two years. The Minister may say that Jill can claim pension credit, but the DWP did not tell me how much Jill has in the bank, so it may be that her savings would preclude that. Even if they do not, I have reason to believe that Jack always thought that his contributions would be enough to ensure that Jill got a pension without having to turn to means-tested benefits. I would be grateful if the Minister could comment on Jack and Jill.
There is some transitional protection in place and I want to be sure that I have understood it properly. If I understand the rules correctly, if the dependant—in other words the person seeking to benefit from the derived entitlement—reaches state pension age before 6 April 2016, he or she would be entitled to derived and inherited state pension as under the current system, but only based on the other person’s national insurance contributions as paid up to 4 April 2016. If he reaches state pension age before April 2016 but she does not then she gets no derived or inherited entitlement. In either case, it is possible for the surviving partner to receive 50% of the additional state pension accrued after 2002 and before April 2016, and between 50% and 100% of the additional state pension accrued under SERPS before 2002, depending on when the contributor reached or would have reached state pension age. I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm whether that is correct.
If it is, perhaps the Minister could answer a different question. He spent a lot of time in his response to the last amendment stressing the simplicity of this case in order to respond to a concern that I had made at Second Reading. I am flattered that he read it so carefully. However, does the Minister think that Jack and Jill’s case or the description that I have just outlined passes that simplicity test? If I am right, will the Government then tell the Committee two other things? First, what consultation have the Government done with the real Jacks and Jills of this world and, secondly and more crucially, what steps are the Government taking to identify and warn those couples who are in this situation and may still be married, widowhood not yet having broken in, what the impact of these changes will be so that they can start to make provision as soon as possible?
Lord Freud
My Lords, I have already set out the Government’s position on the issue of the ability of one individual to derive a pension based on another’s national insurance record. As the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, pointed out somewhat bitterly, I did that at some length, so I will try to be as brief as she was in dealing with this. I appreciate that the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, wishes to discuss the three interrelated issues separately, so I want to address her specific concerns here.
It is the ability for individuals to receive a survivor’s state pension, often called a widow’s pension, to which we have now turned. Let me outline the different groups that this amendment concerns. These are, first, those who would otherwise have gained a married woman’s pension and, secondly, those who would not have been entitled to the married woman’s pension because they have more than the equivalent of a 60% basic state pension in their own right but less than 100%, so would otherwise have received a widow’s pension. There will also be some who, regardless of whether they derive any basic state pension, may have expected to inherit some additional state pension.
We are putting in place transitional arrangements for that last group for inherited additional state pension. This will mean that where a survivor is in a marriage or civil partnership with someone in the current system they will inherit additional state pension, as now. For those where both parties are in the single tier, the survivor will be able to inherit 50% of the protected payment, where one exists. This is what Clause 7 and Schedule 3 achieve.
Limiting inherited additional state pension and the ability to derive a widow’s pension will, however, mean that some people receive less. In terms of how much those losses are, we estimate that the figure will be about £8 per week in 2025. That is the median figure and is made up mostly of people receiving less by way of inherited additional state pension. This loss is also due to the fact that people cannot carry on building up additional state pension after 2016, limiting the potentially inheritable amount.
However, around three-quarters of people reaching state pension age in the first 10 years of single tier who would have inherited some additional state pension under the current system will receive more single-tier state pension over their lifetime than they would have in the current scheme. This is because the gain from current system inheritance at the point of bereavement—and, potentially, very late in retirement—will be more than offset by the gains in state pension as a result of the single-tier valuation and uprating arrangements.
I think that this particular point feeds through into the issue of fairness. We are giving less to some people but we are using those savings to fund higher entitlements at state pension age for many people. Many people will benefit when they are younger—and by that I mean at the point of state pension age as opposed to widowhood—and are more likely to spend the money than would be the case towards the end of their lives.
On the simplicity test, I have to acknowledge the point from the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, that there are elements of complexity in the transition. However, that is because of the current system, not because of the single-tier system.
On the related issue of communications, the core objective of our strategy on communications is to raise awareness of the changes, particularly among those significantly affected by the reforms or those reaching state pension age shortly after the reforms are introduced. As I said on Monday, I will be producing our communications package in the new year.
The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, mentioned two examples. I think that it would be best to take up the Jack and Jill example with officials later, but her second example seemed to be correct, and I have confirmation of that. I think that she interpreted correctly the different groups—that is, who is in single tier and who is out.
Baroness Sherlock
My Lords, when I used the example of Jack and Jill, I was not asking whether it was correct. Unless the officials have made a mistake—in which case I am sure they will let me know—I presume it to be so. I was simply using it to demonstrate how much somebody would lose under the system.
Lord Freud
I am sorry, I was not referring to the Jack and Jill question; I was referring to the second example, where the noble Baroness asked me whether she had interpreted it correctly. I have the pleasure of telling her that, as always, she is absolutely correct, except of course where she disagrees with me.
I will not go into the arguments on simplicity and clarity or fairness, because the same arguments apply. In the light of my response, I hope that the noble Baroness will withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, my noble friend was referring to Jack and Jill. I assumed when I read this that HMRC, with perhaps unsuspected irony—perhaps the people who drafted this have young children—remembered that Jack fell down the hill and no doubt departed from this life, and Jill came tumbling after, thereby losing her 100% derived rights. I suspect that that is what HMRC may have intended, in which case it was all too accurate.
I simply think that what the Minister is doing is harsh, unnecessary and not costly to remedy. People made decisions and plans for their lives many years ago and he is now—this is the same point that my noble friend made about hindsight—projecting current takes on the labour market and women’s role in it back on to a previous generation who shared no such perceptions and perspectives. I think that in all decency we should give them a chance to remedy their situation through transitional arrangements.
We may revisit some of these issues when we come to bereavement payments, and I am sure that the noble Lord is looking forward to that. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
“( ) Regulations shall provide for the transitional rate of the state pension for a person who is ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom and who reaches pensionable age before 6 April 2031 to be increased where the person would have received a higher pension under the previous system based on their former spouse or civil partner’s contribution record.”
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
This amendment is the last in the series and is, I hope, equally short.
Some dozen years ago, with the help of my noble friends Lady Dean and Lady Turner, we established pension-sharing on divorce. For many couples then, the man’s pension, especially his occupational pension—and it was usually his—was more valuable than the home, but it was not regarded as a matrimonial asset. Even now, not enough solicitors, in my view, seem to be fully aware of that, although couples will often trade: she the house, he the pension.
For less well-off couples, his additional state pension was a structured income that could be shared to help her too. Therefore, at the point of divorce—usually, perhaps, in the couple’s early 40s—she could substitute his NI record, so far accrued, which might be 20 or 25 years, for her own, and in addition they could have attributed to her half his additional pension. As I understand it, in the future she will be eligible to pension-share his SERPS or S2P—that is, his additional pension acquired up to that point—but not to substitute his basic NI contributions for her pension if hers are also more favourable. She is on her own.
Again, it is a matter of age. Younger divorced women, with or without children, will have enough time, through either NI contributions or child credits and, I hope, universal credit, to build their own pension. However, older divorced women in their 50s do not have that head space or do not always have that resilience; they may have been looking after his elderly parents for him or have helped him, as we learnt at the time, unpaid, to build his small, self-employed plumbing or taxi-driving business, keeping the books and booking the jobs. When looking at this in 1995, my friends and I found countless stories of this exploitation where she sinks her labour into his work, he builds up his pension—assuring her that it is for both of them—and then, at quite a late age, she gets dumped, as the phrase goes, for a younger model. I would be sorry to see history repeat itself. We can avoid that by permitting a transitional period of 15 years. I beg to move.
Baroness Turner of Camden
I support what my noble friend has just been saying; nobody likes being dumped. I do not know whether noble Lords have seen from the newspapers lately that there has been a rise in the number of older women divorcing. It is quite remarkable; people who are quite elderly and approaching pension age are getting divorced, whereas formerly they simply put up with it. It can be quite a problem.
Lord Freud
My Lords, I will avoid the issue of divorce rates because I am aware of the quagmire in which I will incredibly rapidly end up if I say anything at all.
The final amendment tabled by the noble Baroness on the issue of derived entitlement focuses on the impact upon divorcees and people whose civil partnerships have been dissolved. Under the current system, divorcees can—through a somewhat complex mechanism colloquially known as “substitution”—use their former spouse’s or civil partner’s contribution record to qualify for a full, or enhanced, basic state pension. With the ability to derive a pension ending for post-2016 pensioners, we accept that some divorcees may be affected, and they are likely to be those divorced relatively late in their working life. We estimate that these individuals could number about 70,000 up to 2031.
Turning to the specific situation of divorced women, it is likely that single individuals who themselves have not achieved a record sufficient to build up a full basic state pension will be eligible to claim guarantee credit, which is considerably higher than the maximum a divorcee could derive from a former spouse through the current, complex substitution arrangements.
These provisions are extremely complex and, as with the married woman’s and widow’s pensions, there is no longer any substantial need for these arrangements because the vast majority of women will receive a pension in their own right.
I repeat that in designing the transition to single tier, we have had to make decisions about the way that we spend the money we have available and about how to achieve the simplicity needed for people to make decisions about their retirement plans. A safety net will remain in place and absolute losses will, on average, be relatively small. I therefore urge the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, the Minister is absolutely right to say that it is a problem for late divorcees, as it is for widows or for women who married in their 50s and expect but then have removed from them the married woman’s dependency pension. Those people do not have time to rebuild their lives. My calculation is that that involves perhaps fewer than 5,000 people a year.
What interests me is that, given that the impact analysis claims that the Bill is determined to reduce means-testing, I have checked back in my notes and in something like five out of the last six amendments to which he has spoken the Minister has referred to pension credit and top-up, thus re-importing back into the system pension credit means-testing for cohorts of people that he could perfectly well take out if he was willing to contemplate transitional arrangements. He is getting rid of complexity for him and giving it over to them, because they will be required to go through all the stumbling blocks of pension credit and a reluctance to claim a means-tested benefit, which we discussed at some length on Monday. His position is harsh and unfair on all three amendments, particularly when we take into account that the Government are willing to find money for the married women’s tax allowance—which he still has not addressed, after three amendments—but not on these amendments, when older women are losing rights around which they have built their lives. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
“( ) Within 12 months of the passing of this Act the Secretary of State shall report to Parliament on a strategy to improve the take-up of National Insurance Credits.”
Lord McKenzie of Luton
This amendment moves us into somewhat gentler waters. The amendment calls for a strategy to improve take-up of national insurance credits. It is by way of a probing amendment, seeking clarity on what is planned to encourage greater take-up. In a sense, it is a subset of the debate that we had on Monday about communications in general, which we have touched on today. We had a very thorough note from the Bill team, which confirms that the NI crediting system is comprehensive but also highly complicated. There is a low level of awareness of some credits, carer’s credits in particular, the very aim of which is to protect state pension provision for individuals who take time out of paid work due to caring responsibilities. Of course, the issue especially affects women.
The importance of ensuring take-up of maximum credits is increased under S2P because of the increase from 30 to 35 years in the number of years required for a full state pension and the 10 years’ minimum threshold. This is a reversal of the position whereby the reduction in qualifying years from 44 and 39 to 30 meant that the gaps were not so important. The increase in the number of years to 35 has in part rebalanced that, although the value of credit in the new system would be higher.
We are promised a review of the national insurance recording and operating systems and an HMRC review of deficiency notices. Perhaps the Minister will say a little more about that. There was reference to deficiency notices being suspended for those due to retire on or after 6 April 2016, and the Minister might like to take the opportunity to clarify that. Some awards of credits, of course, are automatic; some have to be claimed, including class 3 credits for foster carers or kinship carers and those caring but not receiving carer’s allowance, and class 1 credits for maternity, paternity or adoption pay, for non-governmental sponsored training, jury service, for those wrongly imprisoned and, as we discussed earlier, for Armed Forces spouses or civil partners. There is also a new issue for those with high income who would be excluded from claiming child benefit.
Our briefing note identifies the carer’s credit as achieving take-up significantly lower than the 2007 legislation anticipated. We acknowledge that those in receipt of universal credit will automatically get a class 3 credit and that this would cover some of these circumstances. However, universal credit will not be fully in place for a number of years and, in any event, there will be some credits which will be claimable. Crediting entitlements has come a long way in recent years, and universal credit looks to improve the position further, but some are still missing out and this needs to be addressed.
I will revert to one point that I touched upon earlier. As I understand it, the credit for universal credit is a class 3 credit and therefore is focused on pension and bereavement entitlements only. Given that employment and support allowance, jobseeker’s allowance and working tax credit are at the moment a class 1 credit—obviously those benefits will be subsumed within universal credit—it seems that we are worsening the position of some groups. I will be interested in the Minister’s response. The purpose is to give the Minister a chance to focus on those who have to claim where take-up is not as it should be and to see what can be done. I beg to move.
Baroness Sherlock
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord McKenzie for giving us the opportunity to touch on this issue and for setting out the challenges in his characteristically clear and well informed style. I shall be very interested to hear what the Minister has to say in response.
I would be grateful if the Minister would answer the following questions. First, will he clarify whether all the routes to gaining national insurance credits which are currently available will continue to be available in the new system on the same terms? Secondly, if not, or if there is any doubt about that, have the Government consulted on changes or will they commit to a public consultation before making any changes? I include within that any changes that are implied or necessitated by the switch to the new pension system or the universal credit system.
My noble friend raised an issue concerning the Government’s strategy. In particular, I am concerned about the categories of people who have actively to make claims for credits and will not get them automatically, even under universal credit. I think he cited all the ones that I have been able to identify, plus child benefit, which I had not noted. Will the Minister tell us whether the Government’s strategy will include elements targeted at those categories of person? Within that, will they consider how they engage with direct routes, rather than just generalised campaigns? My noble friend Lord Browne mentioned that the Armed Forces look for ways to make sure that members of the forces community can take up those credits. Will the Government consider other routes to that—for example, through adoption services or the ways in which the Government already communicate with those in receipt of maternity, paternity, adoption or sick pay? Is the department in discussions with other government departments about the way to take this forward?
My noble friend Lord McKenzie also mentioned take-up. It would be helpful if the Government could report on take-up now and under the new system and tell us how they will monitor that and report to Parliament on it. Finally, will the Minister tell the Committee whether the Government have considered ways in which people might actively be supported in claiming credits for past years, which might now become important, where they would not have been previously?
Lord Freud
I thank the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, for this amendment. I hope that I shall be able to offer some reassurances about the current arrangements and those within the context of the work that we are planning. The existing arrangements provide for national insurance credits to cover a wide variety of contingencies and activities, as he acknowledged. They are generally available to people who are unable to work and pay contributions. This could be because they are unemployed, incapacitated or caring for others, but credits are also available to cover a range of other circumstances—for example, jury service or if an individual is employed but is in receipt of working tax credit.
Credits protect a person’s national insurance record and their future entitlement to benefits. Under the current system, all classes of credits protect the basic state pension, and in certain circumstances an earnings factor credit can be awarded to protect state second pension entitlement, mainly for caring responsibilities and long-term incapacity. I can confirm that the crediting arrangements will be brought forward to the new system and that people will still be able to get credits to protect their single-tier pension position.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
Before I do, will the Minister comment on the issue of universal credit being just a class 3 credit, whereas some of the benefits that will be subsumed into universal credit—ESA, JSA and the working tax credit—are class 1 credits? Is that not a diminution in the crediting opportunity?
Lord Freud
JSA is, I think, already a class 3, is it not? I have a comprehensive list of national insurance credits. Rather than running through them all, perhaps I should just forward it to the noble Lord and the Committee to make the point.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
I am grateful to the Minister. I think that I have the list, which probably came from the same source as his did. I was interested in the rationale for the universal credit just being a class 3 credit, because that is a change for somebody who would previously have been on JSA or ESA in particular. Has any assessment been made of the extent to which people are likely to lose out on their contributory JSA or ESA as a consequence of that?
Lord Freud
The principle is not to allow access to contributory benefits through claiming another benefit. That is fairly logical, if you think about it. If you were purely claiming unemployment benefits and you were on them for a year, you would automatically go into contributory unemployment. That is the logic that we are pursuing when we move to class 3 in universal credit.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply and my noble friend Lady Sherlock for her questions. On the latter point, I am not sure that the Minister specifically dealt with whether there would be individual strategies focused on those types of people whom we particularly need to reach, such as carers. On the issue that was just raised about not accessing the benefits through other benefits, the point about contributory ESA and contributory JSA, as I understand it, is that you cannot achieve them only by credits; there has to be a payment arrangement as well to qualify. If the credit is changed, that makes it potentially more difficult than it is at the moment. The Minister mentioned the earnings factor credits but, as I understand it, those disappear because S2P obviously disappears as well in the new regime.
I am comforted by the fact that deficiency notices, perhaps in their new form, are to be reactivated once we get to the stage where the April 2016 data are available, which is helpful. I suppose that, broadly, one accepts that there is going to be a big communications strategy. I see that my noble friend Lady Sherlock is poised to ask a question, so I will give her that opportunity.
Baroness Sherlock
Before my noble friend withdraws his amendment, the reason I asked the Minister generally at the beginning about whether all the currently available routes to gaining NI credits would continue on the same terms was precisely to try to draw out the kind of things that my noble friend has been highlighting. If the Minister finds anything else which could possibly fall under that category when he goes back and consults more with his officials, perhaps he might write to us.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
I am grateful to my noble friend and to the Minister. I am happy to read the record on this but, in the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
“( ) Where the state pension is uprated other than by reference to the triple lock for any period to 6 April 2020, the regulations shall require a calculation of the difference between the actual uprating and what uprating by the triple lock on a cumulative basis would have provided.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, as the Minister will have spotted, this is a device to continue the debate on the level of the STP and the associated costs and savings in the Bill. The Bill assumes that STP, but not any projected payments, will be uprated by not less than earnings but the impact assessment is predicated on the triple lock applying, with uprating by the higher of earnings, CPI or 2.5%. Looking long term, these two bases of uprating produce materially different results, as illustrated in annexe B to the impact assessment.
Overall, we know that these reforms will reduce the overall percentage of GDP going to pensioner benefits. As we discussed briefly on Monday, by 2060 the share of GDP, compared to the current position, would fall by 0.6% if uprated by the triple lock but by 1.3% if uprating was just by earnings. Over the long term, the cumulative effect of uprating by earnings rather than the triple lock would lead to STP being 10% lower than if uprated by earnings. This is not a small difference and although the long term— 2060—may seem a long way away, it is the scenario which those in the labour market today will face. Annexe C shows projected expenditure in total support for pensioners at various points over the period to 2060. It shows, in 2013-14 prices, that state pensions in total will be £30 billion less than they would have been under current arrangements. This is why we need to keep an eye on how things are uprated.
One message we take from all this is that the Treasury has undoubtedly taken advantage of a progressive proposal—the STP—to claw back support from pensioners where it can. The figures just discussed do not, I think, include amounts being withdrawn from the systems because of the introduction of the minimum qualifying period, now confirmed at 10 years and saving some £650 million a year, nor the changes to the rules on deferrals, with savings rising to something like £300 million a year. We will obviously come on to debate those in due course. We do not have clarity on the savings that may be made from restrictions on passporting although, as we discussed earlier, these may be limited. None of these figures take account of the increases in national insurance which the Treasury will garner: some £5 billion in 2016, £4.6 billion in 2020 and £3.7 billion by 2030, which are very significant sums.
We heard much praise on Monday for the triple lock and we should acknowledge its significance. However, my noble friend Lady Sherlock explained previously why our priorities had to be elsewhere—to tackle the legacy of pensioner poverty. Given the manner in which the Treasury has clawed back money where it can, it is reasonable for us to at least ask about the Government’s aspirations for the triple lock without, of course, conceding the likelihood of them being in a position to implement those aspirations. I beg to move.
Baroness Sherlock
My Lords, I can understand why the Minister might be reluctant to commit his Government—or indeed a future Government, should one appear before too long—to a particular level of uprating of any benefit. However, the device of my noble friend Lord McKenzie is very interesting. I realise that the Government are finding themselves under increasing pressure to agree to the triple lock, but I suppose that to a degree they are caught in a trap of their own devising, in that the more they trumpet the importance of a triple lock, the more people will expect them to carry on being committed to it. As we discussed on Monday, all the assumptions in the impact assessment and the various illustrations with which we have been furnished are based on the single-tier pension being uprated by the triple lock.
Obviously, the Opposition are in no position to commit to what they might do in any future Government. They would have to make a judgment based on the state of the public finances when they arrived. In the mean time, my noble friend Lord McKenzie makes a very interesting suggestion—that the Government should, if they choose a route other than the triple lock, have to tell Parliament and the public what they have and have not done.
Earnings have been lagging behind prices in all but one of the months since David Cameron became Prime Minister, but we live in hope that that will not always be the case. At that point, the difference could be quite significant and that would have to be taken into account by any future Government. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply.
Lord Whitty
Before the Minister replies, the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, who has an amendment in this group, has had to leave. She apologises.
Lord Freud
My Lords, the engagement of the guaranteed minimum 2.5% uplift in April this year saw the basic state pension reach a higher share of average earnings than at any time since 1992. Next year, in 2014-15, the basic state pension will be more than £8 a week higher than if it had been uprated by earnings alone in this Parliament.
This Government believe that, like the basic state pension, the single-tier pension should be uprated by at least earnings to ensure that it retains its value compared to wages, but there is flexibility in legislation for above-earnings increases. I therefore reassure the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, that the triple lock could be used for the uprating of the single-tier pension, as it has been in this Parliament for the uprating of the basic state pension.
Clearly, the noble Lord would not—and the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, was generous enough not to—expect me to commit future Governments for the next 47 years. Looking back 47 years would take us back to 1966. That was a long time ago. Was it the summer of love? Perhaps that was 1967, but in any case it takes us back a long way. Therefore, I do not think that one could commit any Government to anything, and I am sure that there will be lots of different Governments over the next 47 years. However, when you look at the proportion of GDP taken up on the assumption of a triple lock, it is possible that Governments will want to stick to it. The Office for Budget Responsibility adjusts for the triple lock by applying a 0.3 of a percentage point premium to the annual uprating of the basic state pension over and above the earnings rate.
Clearly, the triple lock has insulated pensioners from periods when the inflation rate has been relatively high, and has been particularly important in the unusually uncertain economic climate that we have seen in recent years. The Government do not want to constrain future Administrations by placing a requirement to uprate by the triple lock in primary legislation. It must be up to future Governments to decide, based on their annual reviews, whether uprating above the minimum of earnings is applied.
In response to the noble Lord’s question, the expenditure figures include the impact of the minimum qualifying period and deferrals, but the chart in chapter 3 of the impact assessment—there is a loser’s chart there —does not. No savings are assumed from passporting.
On the provisional outcomes on the basis of earnings upratings, the White Paper set out the assumption that the triple lock would be extended until 2060, but we have nevertheless demonstrated the impact on earnings upratings on expenditure in our impact assessment. That is in chart B2 in the impact assessment, which shows that the triple lock uprating has a progressively greater impact on expenditure, and therefore pensioners’ incomes, over time.
The annual uprating process for the state pension is transparent, based on a review made by the Secretary of State with reference to the general level of earnings and the overall economic situation. The indices for earnings and prices are published by the Office for National Statistics before the uprating decision is announced and are readily available. As a result, we see no advantage in committing in legislation to providing a relatively straightforward calculation. I therefore ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. I did not expect him to announce that it was going to be triple lock for the next 47 years; my noble friend Lady Sherlock made our position clear.
There is nothing wrong in looking back 47 years to 1966. England won the World Cup. Harold Wilson was Prime Minister and in his ascendancy. Those were halcyon days and well worth reflecting on.
As I said, the amendment was just a peg to get a debate to highlight that the Treasury is withdrawing quite a lot from the S2P. To an extent, we accept that that is a progressive measure. The Treasury has been chipping away at various bits and I have by no means listed them all. We will probably have another go at listing them in the interim, but in the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Whitty
Lord Whitty
I shall speak also to Amendments 20 and 21, 24, and 41 to 43. We are now moving to a different implication of the Bill. The strategic objective of the Bill to simplify the state pension system is broadly recognised, but, of course, the state pension is only part of the pension scheme. To some extent, the relatively low expenditure on state pensions in this country compared with some others is due to what was a very healthy occupational pension system covering a significant proportion of the population, although by no means everyone. Those occupational pension schemes will seriously be hit by the Bill.
That impact has not been highlighted in the Government’s public presentation of the Bill. You have to get to page 39 of the impact assessment before it is mentioned. Page 39 clearly states that the net impact on occupational pension schemes will be £5 billion a year.
I shall speak generally about public sector schemes, and most of these amendments relate primarily to them. I declare a non-pecuniary interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and a member of the GMB. I was also, until relatively recently, chair of one of the funds in the local government scheme, the Environment Agency scheme.
As I mentioned at Second Reading, I have a longer historic interest in this, but not quite as far back as 1966—I was at the cup final, by the way, and have not had such a high point since. In the early 1970s, I was instrumental in setting up an occupational pension service in my union, now the GMB, to establish in the private sector schemes which covered manual workers for the first time and to make improvements in public sector schemes to allow, in particular, part-time women workers into them for the first time. Those who were in their 30s and 40s at that time retired on a pretty decent pension. As has been in the headlines over the past few days, it is clear that those who retire in a few years’ time—those who are in their 40s and 50s now—will have less good pensions and a less good life in retirement than their parents.
There are many reasons for the withdrawal of occupational pensions, particularly defined benefit pensions in the private sector, and their dilution in the public sector, including the recession, the fall of asset values and, I would argue, the rather overrigorous way in which we judge the assets of pension schemes. They have also been affected by this Government’s activity, particularly the Public Service Pensions Act, which had a direct effect on public sector pensions, and the very significant indirect effect of this Bill.
This arises at various points in the Bill. Schedule 1 and Clause 4 deal with the ending of contracting out. Aspects of this are covered in Clause 24, Schedule 13 and Schedule 14. The net result is that, as a result of the withdrawal of the rebate arising from the ending of contracting out, employees in such schemes on between £109 and £770 a week—in other words, the vast majority—will have to increase their contribution as employees by 1.4% and employers will have to increase their contribution by 3.4%. In the case of the LGPS, this means an increase for employers of £700 million a year, plus £300 million for employees, or £25 per month for the average employee member of the scheme. Equivalent levels will arise in other public service schemes. It will be £0.9 million for employers in the National Health Service, for example.
It will have a very significant impact on the viability of these schemes. It is a logical effect of the Bill, and there is a real dichotomy at the heart of the Bill which by simplifying one part of the pension system is undermining the other. There is no obvious solution. These costs of £4.2 million in the public sector and £0.7 million per annum in the private sector will somehow have to be compensated for, either by the Treasury—I assume that, as of today, the Minister has no agreement to that, but one of my amendments addresses that situation—or by those who are in charge of the governance of such schemes. In the private sector, many such schemes have already been forced to reduce benefits, and to some degree that has applied to the public sector as well. In the public sector, it took a lot of negotiation between employers and the unions to ensure that we are now in the process of implementing the changes due to the Act earlier this year.
Baroness Turner of Camden
My Lords, I do not want to add anything to what my noble friend just said about public sector schemes, but at Second Reading I referred quite briefly to the fact that DB schemes have been under threat for a very long time. I can well remember when I was head of the pension committee of a well known charity that had a very good DB scheme. While I was there, there was a suggestion that in future new people would not be entered into the DB scheme. Gradually, it would be phased out. I spent a whole day persuading the executive not to go down that path. Time went on, and I ceased to be in that office. I went to a dinner on one occasion several years afterwards and somebody said, “Remember that? It’s all changed now. They waited until you’d gone and changed it”. It is absolutely dreadful, quite obviously, as far as my union is concerned.
I have tabled amendments further on that deal with the private sector. My noble friend dealt with the public sector, but also mentioned the private sector, for which we have very much the same cover as far as DB schemes are concerned. I am sure that a number of us have had letters from public sector unions that are very concerned about the future of their schemes, and they have every right to be. I hope very much that the Government will consider very carefully what has been said this afternoon. It is very important.
Lord German
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, on his success in having a ticket for the 1966 World Cup final—very exciting for those of us who can remember it—and for raising these issues. At Second Reading, I also raised the issue of public sector schemes and how we should try to deal with them. I want to address Amendment 41, which I will not support in its directive approach to the Government, but I echo some of the issues that the noble Lord raised as being significant to the discussion of the Bill. Undoubtedly, we will return to them later when we get to the appropriate clause, Clause 24.
The abolition of contracting out will result in additional national insurance revenue to the Exchequer: £6.1 billion in 2016, of which £3.7 billion comes from public sector employers and £1.5 billion from public sector employees. If you project those figures forward from the £6.1 billion in 2016, they go to £5.6 billion in 2020, £4.3 billion in 2030, £3.8 billion—which is the lowest point in projections—for 2040 and start to rise again to £4.7 billion in 2050 and back to £6 billion in 2060.
So far the Government have allocated some of the funding they see coming back to them already up front. They have allocated to the Dilnot proposals and to some employment measures; but that leaves a significant tranche of money, of the money available, for the Government to deal with as they see fit but also, I hope, to use to deal with some of the problems that affect public sector pension schemes.
The first question that we have to ask ourselves is: what is a public sector pension scheme? I am a recipient of the Local Government Pension Scheme, although I did not work for local government, because I worked for a charity that was a company limited by guarantee and a member of the Local Government Pension Scheme. I transferred my teacher’s pension scheme to the local government scheme, as it was, but I have never been an employee of local government. I was a councillor, but that was not a time when councillors were entitled to retirement benefit.
A public sector scheme, therefore, could mean a scheme that has private sector people within it. We need a definition of whether that is just one single member of a scheme, because it can work the other way round for a private scheme. Does a single member make it a public scheme, or does it mean a group of members or which organisation came into it? The effect of having no, or very little, room for manoeuvre in public sector pension schemes means that there is going to be an effect on the employers, or those public sector services which we all cherish.
The point about local authorities is probably the most relevant. I took the opportunity to try to work out, with some help, what might be the effect upon the small Welsh council, because they are smaller than those in England. I did choose not the one that I live in, but the one alongside it. The extra cost on that Welsh council, if it simply had to meet the cost of the reduction in NIC, would probably be a £33 rise in council tax. If you took a council in the south-west of England—which shall remain nameless, but is probably far west—you would see an increase in its expenditure of £2 million that it would have to find, simply in the first year of the new scheme. Of course, it is possible to work out the impact on a specific council by doing the figures—working out what is 3% of payroll or 3.4% adjusted. Not all their employers are in the scheme, but you can work out what might apply to each local authority in the land.
Some public sector pension schemes can make adjustments through their investment policies; but I think the noble Lord was probably right that not many public sector pension schemes have the ability to match and manage this change. Therefore I believe, quite sensibly, that it is important that the Government use some of the tranche of money that they will have available by not having to pay out national insurance contributions to smooth over the process of changing from one to another. Over time, pension schemes are able to make adjustments through their investment policies. These are important issues.
I have a plea to make to the Government, and I hope that my noble friend can help with this. I know that it is the Exchequer, and not the DWP, that will make this decision. As the Government have made some forward commitments in relation to this money and have forward-spent it in advance, I think that it would be right for them to say now that they are prepared to help these public sector schemes to smooth the transition over the period in which they can make those adjustments in order that we, the council tax residents and people who use public services, will not have to pay more for those services in the immediate future. These are crucial issues and I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, for raising them, but the Government are going to have to make some effort to compensate the way in which these changes impact upon the public services that we all cherish.
Lord Flight (Con)
My Lords, these amendments raise some issues that relate back to the previous Pensions Bill and, at least as far as I was concerned, some not very clearly answered questions about the potential size that the cash-flow deficit would grow to with regard to pay-as-you-go pensions.
First, my understanding is that, whether it is a pay-as-you-go public sector scheme or a funded public sector scheme, with the ending of contracted-out contributions, the money that the schemes will no longer receive will go towards financing part of the new state pension. Therefore, it has gone off to one box for that purpose. So we are left with pay-as-you-go public sector schemes and the impact that there is on them, and financed public sector schemes, such as local government schemes. My understanding is that, with pay-as-you-go public sector schemes, the money is no longer going to come in from contracting out and therefore the impact will be on the extent of cash-flow deficit going forward relating to public sector schemes. I should be interested to know the aggregate amount that pay-as-you-go public sector schemes will lose per annum as a result of no longer receiving the contracted-out contributions.
I think that there was some discussion during the passage of the Public Service Pensions Bill about the extent of the potential cash-flow deficit. Mr Michael Johnson and I calculated that it could be as large as £25 billion on the basis of including an estimate of the loss of contracted-out contributions. I think that the Government argued that it was not going to be as large as that but I could never quite get my head round the figures.
With regard to contributory public sector schemes, such as local government schemes—which is what these amendments are particularly concerned with—it will automatically become the financial liability of local government to make up the loss of the contracted-out contributions. How is that going to be financed? Not just in terms of what it might mean for a particular local authority, what is the extent of the aggregate cost to public sector schemes which are financed, and what is the average proportion that local government schemes, in particular, will have to make good as a result of the loss of contracting out?
I do not expect the Minister to be able to answer those questions with figures off the cuff, but it is desirable that they should be known and understood. Indeed, the impact on funded local government schemes may be very substantial, implying either significant increases in local council tax or the need for yet further substantial reductions in local government expenditure to finance the loss of contracting out.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, briefly, I commend my noble friend Lord Whitty and the noble Lord, Lord German, on trying to focus on solutions to deal with what seems to be a major problem, particularly in relation to local authorities. My noble friend Lord Whitty said that the annual cost of losing the 3.4% rebate is in the order of £700 million a year. Today, we had the local government finance settlement, which reinforced what was announced in the spending round: a further real terms cut of 2.3% in overall local government expenditure. Sir Merrick Cockell, who is a Conservative and the chairman of the Local Government Association, said that local authorities will have lost one-third of their budget by 2015. He said,
“This is the calm before the storm. We do not know how big the storm will be or how long it will last”.
The Audit Commission last year found that 29% of councils showed some form of financial stress. Council tax increases to cover this, even if they were contemplated at the level that the noble Lord suggested, simply are not on because of the need to have a referendum to go beyond a very small increase. Do the Government see this as a new burden which central government is placing on local authorities and therefore a burden which it should it meet?
Lord Browne of Ladyton
My Lords, I am content to join in commending my noble friend Lord Whitty and other noble Lords for bringing and developing this argument. They will forgive me if I do not join in the nostalgia for 1966. The removal of contracting out from April 2016 has significant implications for all occupational pension schemes. I shall make my speech short, given the time. It is bad enough to be between somebody and their dinner; it is impossible to be between somebody and Christmas.
It is clear just how significant are the figures quoted by the noble Lord, Lord German. I did not immediately recognise them, but they are in the same ball park as the figure, which I understand to be the Government’s figure, which suggest in excess of £5 billion a year going to the Treasury in extra NI contributions from 2016 when the new state pension scheme begins. Because of the scale of public service pension schemes, the lion’s share of that increase will come from them. It is far from clear, in the complexity of the Bill, how the increased NI contributions in the public sector can be met. Not surprisingly, those who have responsibility for these schemes—bearing in mind that they have just, in many cases, entered into agreements to reform them—are seriously concerned about the impact these changes will have on local authorities, health services, fire and rescue services and policing.
I note that in Committee in the Commons, Oliver Colvile correctly also put the Armed Forces Pension Scheme in the frame in the context of public service pension schemes. If that is correct, if the Minister is minded to accept Amendment 42, the definition of public service pension scheme will include the Armed Forces, which will answer more clearly the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord German, about what is a public service pension scheme. Rightly, Oliver Colvile was concerned that the defence budget should be spent on defending our country and should not be directed back to the Treasury. If it encourages the Minister to engage with this issue in a positive way, I promise not to tell noble and gallant Members of your Lordships’ House that this issue may impinge on that aspect of public policy. If he considers that, I will keep it quiet in the mean time until we see whether we can make some progress on this issue.
The Local Government Association has been in touch with all of us and has advised us that it supports my noble friend Lord Whitty’s amendments, which defer the end of contracting out for public service pension schemes until the tax year beginning 2018, and require the Government to credit public service pension schemes with amounts equivalent to the money lost through the end of contracting out.
It is understandable why it supports them, because, in the absence of an alternative from the Government, the choices they face are extremely unpalatable. They include loss of services or increased council tax, for example, or, as we are advised, the certainty that low-paid workers will leave the schemes or that settlements, including the settlement of the public service pension scheme, would have to be renegotiated. I am also told by those who know that it will mean the renegotiation of a lot of contracts in relation to privatised services, because assumptions were made about commitments in relation to pensions in the TUPE environment that no longer stand true.
It is not unreasonable in those circumstances to ask the Government how they will resolve the additional expenses and how they expect those who run public service schemes to deal with the increased cost and, for that matter, how they expect the individuals affected to deal with the increased costs. Will the Minister address the advice that we have been given and the concerns of those who run these schemes? Does he accept that there will be a perverse incentive unless this is resolved and that low-paid workers may decide to opt out of their public sector pension schemes? Does he accept that there is genuine worry that this will undermine agreements to reform that have already been reached? Does he accept that there is genuine concern that this will impact on existing contracts for provision of services by the private sector?
Lord Freud
As a consequence of ending the additional pension for those reaching pension age after 2016, we are ending contracting-out. This means that individuals in defined benefit schemes—public sector and private sector—and their employers will no longer be entitled to pay a lower rate of national insurance contributions by contracting out of the state second pension. At the moment, they receive a rebate of 1.4% for employees and 3.4% for employers on earnings up to £40,000.
The abolition of contracting out will result in additional national insurance revenue for the Exchequer. Of this, about £4 billion is national insurance contributions from public sector employers and employees. That is the money that the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, is most concerned about.
The extra information that I can provide to my noble friend Lord Flight is that the cost of the public sector schemes of paying extra employer national insurance is about £3 billion per annum. We do not have any breakdown of which schemes are at local authority level. I will speak to Her Majesty’s Treasury to find out whether any further information is available.
Noble Lords will know that the Government have not set a fixed spending envelope, nor one for individual departmental budgets, beyond 2015-16, and contracting out is abolished in 2016-17, so is outside the current settlement. Public sector employers will have to absorb the burden, as is always the case with tax changes. Any spending review in the next Parliament will, of course, consider the £4 billion cost in the round. This does not affect our commitments on protecting spending on health and education in this Parliament. Treasury officials have already met with Local Government Association officials concerning the impact on the local government pension scheme. This follows conversations between the Chief Secretary and the Local Government Association, and I would expect similar discussions to take place concerning other schemes when settlements are set.
Turning to the noble Lord’s amendments, I note that he moved back from 1966 to 1963, but then he would, would he not? The amendments would effectively defer the loss of the rebate to public service pension schemes for two years—until April 2018—but in doing so would defer the introduction of the single tier to more than 4 million people.
Amendments 19, 20 and 21 would change Clause 4 by redefining pre and post-commencement qualifying years, so that public service pension scheme members have them counted up to and from 2018 rather than 2016. Amendment 24 would change Schedule 1—the detail of the transition—to bring into account the old scheme and introduce the new scheme two years later for public sector workers, with a tidying-up clause in Amendment 43.
Lord Whitty
I thank the Minister and noble Lords who have intervened, largely in support of doing something about this situation. The Minister has kicked a ticking time bomb down the road, effectively saying that this threat to the future of occupational pension schemes, in the public as well as the private sector, will only be dealt with by the next Parliament and probably not then. Whoever is in power at that point is going to have a problem. We have long relied on occupational pension schemes to provide an assured income in retirement as part of the terms and conditions of working within that particular public sector or that particular company. If we are reneging on that—and it is a reneging—then the Government of the day will find themselves in some difficulty if we pass this Bill as it currently stands. The Government need to think again.
As I said, there may be other ways of dealing with this, or at least cushioning it. Yes, there will always be winners and losers in the short and long term, but it must surely be the Government’s intention, in the long term, that effective, well run and well funded private occupational pension schemes—a non-state occupational pension scheme—should continue to be part of our landscape and available on good terms to workers of all sorts.
This indirect effect of the Bill threatens that and is a very serious prospect for the future pensions landscape. I hope therefore that the Government will think again, preferably by Report. I welcome the round table, as long as Merlin is also present, because this will require some degree of ingenuity. I am not sure that the Minister has demonstrated that appropriately today but for the moment, I will withdraw my amendment.
House of Lords
Royal Assent
Small Businesses: Late Payments
Lord Harrison
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress has been made in ensuring that small businesses are not penalised by the late payment of bills.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Viscount Younger of Leckie) (Con)
The Government take the problem of late payment very seriously and have taken a number of steps to support small businesses. We have strengthened the UK’s legislative framework on late payment; we have put pressure on large companies to commit to good payment practices, resulting in the majority of FTSE 100 companies signing up to the prompt payment code; and we have helped small businesses help themselves by improving their access to working capital.
Lord Harrison (Lab)
My Lords, given that the Forum of Private Business says that action is now long overdue on this issue, and given that 94% of the firms in the British Chambers of Commerce are habitually paid late, when will this quixotic Government, forever tilting at the wrong windmills of public policy, implement the late payment on commercial debt legislation so that government departments pay on time and big businesses do not use small businesses and suppliers as shadow banks? Will the Minister institute a kitemark for those good firms that do pay on time and that are currently unprotected by this idle Government?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
My Lords, we need no lessons from the former Government opposite on how this matter is handled. The fact is that tackling late payment requires a change in business culture and that the Government alone cannot solve the problem without interfering in the freedom of businesses to contract with each other. However, the noble Lord makes an important point about a kitemark and, in effect, an accreditation system. The Prime Minister decided to consult on this issue and on 7 December we published a discussion paper on building a responsible payment culture in the UK. We are working with business organisations to ensure that we get views from a wide range of businesses, and we will decide what further legislative or non-legislative action to take based on responses to this paper.
Baroness Maddock (LD)
My Lords, I welcome the Government’s consultation, but I am sure that the Minister is aware that huge quantities of money are held up through retentions and that many small businesses never get complete payments at the end of their contract. As I understand it—I would be grateful if he could confirm this, and, if it is the case, do something about it—neither of these issues is part of the consultation that the Government have put forward. I hope he can assure me that they will be included.
Viscount Younger of Leckie
I cannot reassure my noble friend on that particular point, but I can reassure her that the discussion paper, Building a Responsible Payment Culture—from my department, BIS—seeks views on changing the business culture by increasing accountability and transparency, on encouraging small businesses to make better use of the statutory rights that they already have, on whether there is a case to enhance those rights and on how we can empower small businesses to help themselves reduce the risk of late payment.
Lord Peston (Lab)
My Lords, first, I congratulate my noble friend on asking this important Question, although I hope he would agree that it is not only small firms that suffer from the late payment problem. All firms tend to find that the problem arises. Does the Minister agree that there are two aspects to this Question? One is an ethical aspect: namely, businesses simply should not, as a matter of course, use late payment as their method of financing themselves temporarily. Do the Government agree that this is a serious ethical problem and that businesses ought to start to behave better? The second aspect is an economic one. Does the Minister agree that, rather like the parable of the fleas, if a big firm does not pay the next firm down, it in turn will not pay the next firm down and it will go on ad infinitum until eventually someone will go broke? When they go broke, lots of firms will go broke and the system will become destabilised. Does the Minister agree that the last thing this country needs is any new form of destabilisation?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
The noble Lord makes a couple of important points. It is an ethical issue. The previous Government brought in the prompt payment code, which is voluntary. My honourable friend in the other place—the Minister of State, Michael Fallon —contacted a number of FTSE 100 companies and managed to increase the number signing up to the code from 30 to 72. The noble Lord is completely correct on the economic issue. That is why we have made some good progress in ensuring that supply chains are properly managed.
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho (CB)
Is the Minister aware that only 30% of the UK’s small and medium-sized businesses are able to transact online? Therefore, does he agree that building their digital skills and encouraging them to use them is a fundamental part of addressing this problem?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
I know that the noble Baroness has a long and very successful history in this field. Of course, I very much support what she says and, with her, I encourage businesses to do just that.
Baroness O'Cathain (Con)
Can my noble friend give a copper-bottomed guarantee that no government department goes beyond the pay days to pay its debts? If he cannot, can he make it very clear to his lords and masters that that is what is demanded of them and that in future we will need that guarantee?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
The Government aim to lead by example. Since 2010, all central government departments have been committed to paying at least 80% of their invoices within five days. I am pleased to say that my own department, BIS, pays 97.3% of its invoices within five days. My noble friend makes a good point. We want small businesses working on public sector projects to benefit from prompt payment.
Lord Wills (Lab)
Can the Minister say what instructions or suggestions the Government have given to the state-owned banks to show understanding when small firms find themselves in difficulties through late payment?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
That is a very specific question. I will certainly write to the noble Lord on the specific aspects of that.
Lord Methuen (LD)
Is the Minister aware that, due to the inefficiency of the Stortext system used by the Treasury Solicitor’s Department to pay its accounts with firms such as costs lawyers, some of these small firms have outstanding accounts going back to May? This compares unfavourably with HMRC, which pays its accounts with minimum delay.
Viscount Younger of Leckie
My noble friend makes a good point, of which the House will certainly now be aware—as am I.
Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)
My Lords, in January the Minister of State said that he would name and shame FTSE 100 firms that failed to sign up to the prompt payment code. However, companies that pay their small suppliers in 90 or 120 days could still be signatories to the code. In fact, at least one FTSE 100 company extended its payment terms and then signed up to the code. The Government know that 2,000 firms went bust last year due to late payments. Is it not time that they implemented minimum standards for all signatories to the prompt payment code? That is not really a lesson, but a strong recommendation for practical action.
Viscount Younger of Leckie
There are two points there. First, on the example to which the noble Lord alluded, my honourable friend the Minister of State in the other place followed up quickly on that particular issue. That major company spoke to its suppliers, which were content that there was no particular issue. As far as we are aware, none of the suppliers has complained to the Institute of Credit Management, which they are entitled to do, so it is not possible to judge the merits of that particular case. However, the noble Lord makes a good point.
Railways: High Speed 2
(11 years ago)
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Lord Roberts of Llandudno
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they plan to establish training facilities in relation to the extra jobs anticipated to be created by the HS2 project.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Kramer) (LD)
My Lords, we expect the construction of HS2 to generate up to 50,000 jobs, which represents a huge opportunity for the UK workforce. HS2 Ltd is developing skills and procurement strategies that will identify the skills required to deliver HS2 and set out the approach to promoting skills and training throughout the procurement process. The Government will, in responding to the task force of the noble Lord, Lord Deighton, set out what we will do to support and build on this work.
Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD)
I thank the Minister for her encouraging reply. With the likely approval of this new railway link and the need for 19,000 construction and engineering employees, what action will the Government take to ensure that our youngsters throughout the United Kingdom are adequately trained in sufficient time to take advantage of these opportunities? Secondly, can the Minister tell me whether the Government would consider setting up scholarships related to HS2 so that youngsters throughout the United Kingdom will be able to apply for and, we hope, find employment in this new construction?
Baroness Kramer
I thank my noble friend. He is exactly right that the demand for skills would be significant, not only with HS2 but with all the other infrastructure projects that are being launched thanks to the actions of this Government. My noble friend will take some comfort from the fact that the National Skills Academy for Railway Engineering, which was established in 2010 with wide railway industry support, is helping to tackle the current and future skills needs within the industry. It is working closely with HS2 to identify skills gaps and promote railway engineering skills. We obviously have the Tunnelling and Underground Construction Academy, which has played an important role in the Crossrail project; one would assume that it would do so with the super-sewer for London and then HS2. The skills academy is one of the participants, along with BIS and the DfT, with some support also provided by Siemens, in looking at training entry-level employees as well as skilling up others to respond to new technology developments in the industry with initiatives such as the Siemens Rolling Stock Academy.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, when the Prime Minister recently visited China, he announced that the Chinese would help us build HS2. Can we expect several thousand Chinese people to flood into this country, and will they be welcomed in the same way that Romanians and Bulgarians apparently will be?
Baroness Kramer
My Lords, the discussion was primarily about finance, rather than the range of engineering skills and jobs on which I have just reported. I can assure the noble Lord that the programme that HS2, along with various engineering companies, is taking out is targeted at schools in Britain rather than those overseas. For example, HS2 sent a contingent of 30 people to the skills show in Birmingham to which youngsters came from all over the country. I am confident that a large number of these skills can be achieved in the UK, creating a base for our youngsters to participate not only in HS2 but in a wide range of engineering projects. However, we will always consider financing from overseas.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, my noble friend’s enthusiasm is almost infectious but I have not caught it yet. Can she assure the House that no report on the implications and costs of HS2 will be withheld, either in whole or in part, by the Government?
Baroness Kramer
My Lords, I can confidently say, looking at the size of the body of documents that was disclosed with the hybrid Bill, that the Government have been putting out more data than most people have ever seen around a project of this size and interest. It is crucial that we are open and transparent and, although there will be times when we have internal discussions, the transparency has been quite exceptional in this case.
The Earl of Listowel (CB)
My Lords, will the Minister look at the very successful National Grid Transco young offender programme, which has trained more than 1,000 young offenders to become workers in the utilities, and see whether it can be applied in this instance? Will she also consider whether young people leaving care, who are overrepresented in the NEET category, can be drawn into this?
Baroness Kramer
My Lords, we are looking at this infrastructure project in an exciting way. Rather than treating it within a transport silo, we are looking much more at the regeneration possibilities. The idea raised by the noble Earl has real potential and I will definitely take it back.
Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)
My Lords, in the spirit of Christmas, I have two presents: two easy questions for the Minister at this stage. Will the HS2 jobs and skills strategy, to which she referred, be published and, if so, when? Will she also clarify a little more how we will protect the skills developed through Crossrail—to which she also referred—and ensure that they will be available for HS2?
Baroness Kramer
My Lords, there is never an easy question from the noble Lord, Lord Davies, but I do appreciate it. As he knows, the noble Lord, Lord Deighton, is going round the country with a series of consultations looking at the economic growth issues, of which skills are a very important part. Work is happening through many strands: HS2 itself, the work of the noble Lord, Lord Deighton—whose report is expected in the spring—and other more general work with the industry. I will see whether there is a way to pull these strands together into a more comprehensive piece that would give the noble Lord the picture he is seeking.
I have now completely forgotten the second issue. Would the noble Lord mind telling me?
Baroness Kramer
Crossrail has done two crucial things on skills. It has played an important role in the tunnelling academy and we want that to carry over. It has also been excellent at engaging with British companies in the supply chain. By number, rather than value, 97% of contracts have gone to British-based contractors. We hope to see that repeated by using the same techniques of outreach.
Health: Birth Defects
(11 years ago)
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Lord Rooker
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their current approach to reducing the number of children born with neural tube defects; and whether they will consider fortifying white bread flour with folic acid as an additional measure.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe) (Con)
My Lords, we encourage women to plan pregnancies, and advise those seeking to become pregnant to take folic acid supplements before conception and for the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, and to increase their intake of folate-rich foods. We are considering our nutrition advisers’ full recommendation to fortify flour with folic acid and will take into account new data on the folate status of the population in reaching our decision.
Lord Rooker (Lab)
My Lords, given that folic supplementation needs to be taken before most women know that they are pregnant, is the Minister concerned that less than 6% of 20 year-olds actually take folic supplements? The follow-up research published earlier this year is now available—on top of the scientific advice that the Government received in 2007 from independent committees and the Food Standards Agency—and shows that putting folic acid in flour causes no side effects for males. Is it not therefore time to change policy and put folic acid in white bread flour, which the BMA says is the most cost-effective way of avoiding the misery of hundreds of affected pregnancies, and to join 50 other countries that are doing the same?
Earl Howe
My Lords, mandatory fortification of food is, by any standards, a big step; it is not a decision to be taken lightly. The issue that we have been facing is that the survey data used by the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition is more than 10 years old. The latest data available on the folate status of the population will be available early next year, and we feel that it is prudent to use that information to assess the risks and benefits of fortifying flour with folic acid before we make our decision.
Baroness Brinton (LD)
My Lords, international academic research since 2005 has shown that including folic acid in bread and cereal products is important and that it reduces neural tube defects by between a quarter and a half, so it undoubtedly helps raise the levels of folic acid in women before and during pregnancy. However, it is not at the level that would remove all possibility of NTDs. Research says that folic acid supplements are recommended, too. What will the Government do to alert women who are thinking about having a baby to take supplements before becoming pregnant?
Earl Howe
My Lords, we recognise that some women do not always access maternity services early or attend regularly for antenatal care, and that poorer outcomes are therefore reported in some cases for mother and baby. Maternity services need to be proactive in engaging all women. To help reduce variation and improve services, NICE has published a comprehensive suite of evidence-based clinical guidelines and quality standards for maternity services. We are also promoting the taking of folic acid supplements through a number of channels including Healthy Start, NHS Choices, Start4Life, and the Information Service for Parents.
Lord Patel (CB)
My Lords, what do the Government think are the contraindications for fortifications of flour with folic acid, knowing that the evidence shows that it would cause a reduction of about 300 in the number of babies born with neural tube defects?
Earl Howe
My Lords, I recognise the opinion that is shared among many members of the medical community on this. However, the advice we received from SACN, our expert adviser, clearly showed that there are risks and benefits associated with this proposal. It is not an open-and-shut case. Among the things that we have had to consider are the practical implications of implementing SACN’s advice, which is no small matter.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, does the noble Earl not recognise that in fact the scientific committee he referred to has looked at the issue that he raised and has upheld its previous recommendation that the Government should go ahead? Some 50 countries have already done that; the scientific advice is clear; why on earth are the Government not getting on with it?
Earl Howe
My Lords, as I said, SACN’s recommendations highlighted both the risks and the benefits of this proposal—and I certainly acknowledge that there would be benefits. However, there are also implications. For example, SACN recommended that mandatory fortification should proceed only if accompanied by:
“Action to restrict voluntary fortification of foods with folic acid; measures for careful monitoring of emerging evidence on any adverse effects of long-term exposure to intakes of folic acid … and guidance on supplement use for particular population groups”.
We have to take those recommendations into account before taking any long-term decision.
Lord Turnberg (Lab)
My Lords, is the Minister aware of a recent publication that suggests that folic acid deficiency in men, too, may lead to birth defects in their offspring? Is this not another good reason for fortifying flour?
Baroness Hayman (CB)
My Lords, the Minister said that this was not a decision to be taken lightly, and that is absolutely right, but we now have the experience of 50 other countries. We have had scientific evidence on this issue for many years. The fortification of white bread flour is a targeted measure that could significantly reduce the number of pregnancies, not just births, that involve neural tube defects, and thus prevent a great deal of unnecessary and painful suffering. Will the Minister undertake to look at this matter again as a matter of urgency?
Earl Howe
My Lords, we are looking at this as a matter of urgency. I recognise what the noble Baroness says about the experience of other countries, but we must make policy in relation to the population of our own country, and that involves weighing up both the potential benefits and the potential downsides of any policy.
North Korea
(11 years ago)
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Lord Alton of Liverpool
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the impact of events in North Korea on security and human rights.
The Senior Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government & Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Warsi) (Con)
My Lords, North Korea continues to have one of the worst human rights records in the world. The recent execution of Chang Song-thaek provides further evidence of its disregard for even the most basic human rights. We are closely monitoring the situation, and we are consulting allies in order to understand the implications of recent events.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, is the Minister aware that even before last week’s execution of Chang Song-thaek, the Times reported that there had been 80 public executions in seven cities on one day alone, the victims tied to stakes, hooded and killed by machine-gun fire? The United Nations estimates that there are some 300,000 people in the gulag network in North Korea—a network which, according to Amnesty International, is being expanded. Will the Minister read the report An Unmet Need, launched this morning at Westminster, which calls for the extension of BBC World Service broadcasts to North Korea as a way of breaking the information blockade, of exercising soft power—as we have done so successfully in places such as Burma—of promoting democratic values and of challenging a regime that relies on Stalinist purges, show trials, the obliteration of opposition and a cruel reign of terror?
Baroness Warsi
I will of course read that report, and will ensure that it is brought to the attention of the Minister with responsibility for North Korea. I understand the noble Lord’s position in relation to the BBC; indeed, he has asked questions on this subject in the past. I also understand that the BBC has recently conducted a feasibility study of, for example, radio broadcasting in North Korea, but has concluded that because of the North Korean Government’s ability to jam broadcasts, the reach that would result from such broadcasting would not provide sufficient value for money. The noble Lord will know that the BBC has full editorial, operational and managerial independence on such issues, and we understand that it is not currently persuaded that a Korean language service would be an effective use of its funds. However, I will look at the report.
Lord Bach (Lab)
My Lords, the whole House is of course united in its condemnation of recent shocking events. The Opposition are at one with Her Majesty’s Government in their concern about the impact of this unpredictable regime on regional stability. Given China’s important role, both now and in the future, did the Prime Minister discuss North Korea with his Chinese hosts during his recent visit? In any event, is it the Government’s intention to have some discussion now, as a matter of some urgency?
Baroness Warsi
The noble Lord may well be aware that Chang Song-thaek was closely involved with China. At the time of the execution, China issued a statement but said that it was an internal matter for North Korea to deal with. The noble Lord is right that this is an incredibly unpredictable regime. We engage with human rights in North Korea in so far as we can, but he will also be aware that North Korea has refused to engage in any form of meaningful dialogue on human rights.
Lord Alderdice (LD)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, has regularly and rightly brought our attention to this matter in terms of the internal implications within North Korea. However, I think that the situation is now coming to the point where the whole Korean peninsula is at risk and there are wider elements. Did the Prime Minister in his engagement with the Chinese raise this wider question of whether the problems within North Korea are now in danger of spilling into the wider peninsula and perhaps even beyond?
Baroness Warsi
My noble friend will be aware that there are six-party talks which deal with the issue of the wider peninsula, which involve China, South Korea, Japan, Russia, the US and North Korea. We are not a party to those talks but we feel that that is the best forum to take some of these discussions forward.
Baroness Cox (CB)
My Lords, what specific measures are Her Majesty’s Government taking to pursue a twin-track approach with the DPRK regarding accountability for crimes against humanity, which we have been hearing about this morning, alongside robust, critical, constructive engagement, in an attempt to open up that most closed nation and alleviate the suffering of the peoples of North Korea who have suffered at the hands of that regime, which acts with impunity, for so long?
Baroness Warsi
We are taking exactly that approach. The noble Baroness will be aware of the UN commission of inquiry, which we co-sponsored, which began in March this year and I think is due to report to the Human Rights Council session in March 2014. Human rights, including the issue of prison camps, will be dealt with as part of that report. We also engage with North Korea bilaterally. As I said earlier, North Korea does not engage in any form of meaningful dialogue on human rights, but it must be remembered that we are only one of 24 countries that have an embassy in North Korea. We have had a diplomatic relationship with it for the past 30 years, which provides us with some opportunity to engage with it.
Lord Kinnock (Lab)
My Lords, for clarification, did the Prime Minister raise the issue of North Korea at all in the course of his lengthy conversations with senior members of the regime in the People’s Republic of China during his recent visit?
Baroness Warsi
I do not have details of that in my brief, but if I have any further information I will certainly write to the noble Lord.
As we approach the end of Questions, I take this opportunity to wish all noble Lords a very merry Christmas and a peaceful new year.
Syria: Aid
(11 years ago)
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Baroness Boothroyd
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of reports about the impact of winter weather on rapid increases in food prices in the region, what steps they are taking to ensure that aid reaches the refugee camps in Syria.
Baroness Boothroyd (CB)
My Lords, I beg leave to ask a Question of which I have given private notice.
Baroness Northover (LD)
My Lords, according to the World Food Programme, food prices fluctuate. There has been a steady increase in prices since October, but there is no evidence that this is due to the onset of winter. We are providing £500 million of humanitarian support for the Syrian crisis—£276 million for those in Syria and £224 million to support refugees and host communities in the region, including £60 million to help with the onset of winter.
Baroness Boothroyd
I appreciate the Minister’s reply, but are the Government aware that the International Rescue Committee, led by David Miliband, has found severe shortages of food and basic medical items in eight regions of Syria, and a complete lack of blankets and warm clothing for refugees as winter sets in? Is the Minister aware that the Miliband report says:
“Syria is truly on the road to hell”,
and the world’s leaders must,
“pull out the stops and do something about it”,
at least to staunch the dying by ensuring greater access to life-saving assistance? If the Paris conference next month fails to restore peace, will the Government press their partners on the UN Security Council to stiffen their declared support for humanitarian access to the war zones by passing a resolution that ensures the needs of humanity are a priority instead of pleading there is no easy option as a reason for inaction?
Baroness Northover
We agree with the position that the noble Baroness has just outlined. It is an absolutely dire situation. There is a catastrophe in Syria and also, in terms of the effects, outside. As the noble Baroness knows, getting access is extremely difficult. We have been pressing extremely hard on this issue as well as making a financial contribution. She will be aware that the UNSC made a presidential statement on access on 2 October. If implemented, that would deliver a huge amount, but putting it into effect is the difficulty that she rightly identifies. We will continue to work extremely hard to try to achieve that.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, as we are to have a debate in January, I stress the point that now is the time for all sides fully to implement the presidential statement on humanitarian access. We cannot wait. Can the Minister update the House on the funding of the Save the Children and Oxfam aid programmes for Syria?
Baroness Northover
I cannot give the noble Lord specific answers on Save the Children and Oxfam, but he will know that both of those organisations are major recipients of aid. In answering a previous Question I was asked about Hand in Hand. It is receiving aid from DfID via Save the Children. I can provide detailed answers on that in due course. We are working with a number of international organisations to try to get aid into every part of Syria. As I emphasised before, access is exceptionally difficult.
Lord Wright of Richmond (CB)
My Lords, the Minister is, I am sure, aware that I asked a Question on 2 December calling for resumed contact with the Government of Syria. I received a rather guarded reply from her colleague. Can the Minister update us on where we stand on direct consular and diplomatic contact in Damascus?
Baroness Northover
I am aware that the noble Lord thinks that this is extremely important. It is important to engage with everybody in this conflict, both within Syria and in the countries around, and those countries which appear to have an interest in its continuing instability. It is extremely important that the United Kingdom is involved in widespread engagement.
Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)
My Lords, given the wise decision not to intervene militarily in Syria, will the Minister accept that there is therefore an even stronger obligation on us to attend to the desperate needs of these refugees? If we are not dealing directly with Assad or the Syrian regime, and in view of the importance of Iran in the region and the tentative but significant steps that have been taken on engagement with Iran on other issues, can the Minister tell the House to what extent we have engaged with the Iranian regime as regards what should be, objectively and neutrally, the priority for all of us, which is dealing with the humanitarian refugee crisis?
Baroness Northover
It is in nobody’s interest to have instability increasing in this region, which is exactly what is happening at the moment. That is why it was incredibly good news when relations were improved with Iran. As I did before, I pay tribute to our colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, for the work she did on that. Iran is indeed an interested party in the area.
Lord Alderdice (LD)
My Lords, on behalf of the United Nations, the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, made an appeal for direct access for humanitarian need. The Foreign Minister of Syria publically stated a few days ago that the Government of Syria would now facilitate this. Can my noble friend indicate whether the statement by the Foreign Minister of Syria is evidenced in actual fact or is this yet again a statement from the Syrian Government that has no real strength and basis in fact?
Baroness Northover
DfID is managing to get into all 14 governorates of Syria. However, there are 2.5 million people in hard-to-reach areas and 250,000 in besieged areas, which bears out the point that my noble friend makes. We call on the Syrian Government—we have not had an adequate response as yet—to remove some of the bureaucratic constraints that they have put in place which hinder humanitarian relief operations.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean (Lab)
My Lords, the Miliband report very specifically pinpointed the issue of the shortage of vaccinations. Can the noble Baroness tell us a little more about what is being done, as the lack of vaccinations endangers public health in general and is particularly dangerous, of course, to young children?
Baroness Northover
The noble Baroness is absolutely right. That is a major concern of ours, but it hinges so much on access. She will be well aware, for example, of the cases of polio in an area where it had been eliminated. As we try to seek the elimination of polio worldwide, to see it going backwards in this region is extremely concerning. It is a problem of access. We are working to try to ensure that all medical supplies, including for the vaccination of children, get through.
Lord Elton (Con)
My Lords, I presume that the most difficult people to reach are those who are being targeted by the various forces active in Syria. Can my noble friend tell us in particular whether aid is able to reach and support the Christian communities in Syria, which are under very great pressure?
Baroness Northover
They are indeed under great pressure and a number of them are in hard-to-reach areas. Those who are blocking humanitarian access come from all sides in this conflict and we urge all parties to the conflict to remove those barriers to humanitarian operations.
The Earl of Sandwich (CB)
My Lords, we have all seen thousands of refugees crossing the Lebanese border. What are this Government doing to assist the Lebanese Government in bringing their shelters for refugees up to international standards? Have we considered sending British troops, who are very well versed—as we knew in Macedonia—in meeting these appalling conditions and building structures that will be durable?
Baroness Northover
We are contributing £89 million to Lebanon, and that will contribute shelter, food, medical consultations, water and sanitation. Lebanon has recently come out of a long, protracted civil war and we are very concerned about its stability. In terms of troops, the noble Lord will be well aware from his work with Christian Aid and other organisations how essential it is to make sure that any apparent military intervention is separated from humanitarian intervention, and I think there would be risks in what he proposes.
Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Bill [HL]
Privileges and Conduct Committee: Ninth Report
The Chairman of Committees
That the Report from the Select Committee on the Conduct of Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate (9th Report, HL Paper 95) be agreed to.
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Sewel)
My Lords, in speaking to this Motion, I shall speak also to the three following Motions in my name on the Order Paper.
The facts in the cases of Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate and Lord Laird are set out at length in the reports printed as House of Lords Papers 95 and 96. The two Lords were subject to what might be described as a sting operation by the Sunday Times newspaper. Lord Laird was, in addition, a subject of an undercover operation by the BBC television programme “Panorama”. In the course of conversations with undercover journalists posing as intermediaries for legitimate businesses or as communications consultants, the two Lords said things that the House’s Commissioner for Standards found to indicate a clear willingness to breach the House’s Code of Conduct, contrary to the requirement that they should always act on their personal honour. The commissioner found that Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate had in addition breached the code by improper use of the House’s facilities for hosting functions and by entering into an agreement to accept payment in return for providing a parliamentary service.
The Sub-Committee on Lords’ Conduct has the function of recommending the appropriate sanction for breaches of the code and has recommended suspension of Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate for six months and of Lord Laird for four months. The Committee for Privileges and Conduct has the task of reviewing the findings of the Commissioner for Standards and the recommended penalty in the event of any appeal by any Member of the House investigated by the commissioner. The Committee for Privileges and Conduct considered appeals by both Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate and Lord Laird and heard evidence from both of them. The committee decided not to uphold their appeals. Accordingly, I beg to move the first Motion in my name on the Order Paper.
Privileges and Conduct Committee: Ninth Report
The Chairman of Committees
That Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate be suspended from the service of the House for six months.
Privileges and Conduct Committee: Tenth Report
The Chairman of Committees
That the Report from the Select Committee on the Conduct of Lord Laird (10th Report, HL Paper 96) be agreed to.
Privileges and Conduct Committee: Tenth Report
The Chairman of Committees
That Lord Laird be suspended from the service of the House for four months.
European Union Committee
The Chairman of Committees
That Baroness Quin be appointed a member of the Select Committee in place of Lord Carter of Coles, resigned.
Procedure Committee
The Chairman of Committees
That Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall be appointed a member of the Select Committee in place of Lord Filkin, resigned.
Draft Modern Slavery Bill Committee
(11 years ago)
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Lord Hill of Oareford
That it is expedient that a joint committee of Lords and Commons be appointed to consider and report on the draft Modern Slavery Bill presented to both Houses on 16 December (Cm 8770) and that the committee should report on the draft Bill by 10 April 2014.
Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013 (Transitional Provisions) Order 2013
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
That the draft order and regulations laid before the House on 17, 23 and 30 October be approved.
Relevant documents: 9th, 11th and 12th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, considered in Grand Committee on 9 December
Armed Forces and Reserve Forces (Compensation Scheme) (Consequential Provisions: Primary Legislation) (Northern Ireland) Order 2013
(11 years ago)
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Lord Astor of Hever
That the draft order laid before the House on 19 November be approved.
Relevant documents: 15th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, considered in Grand Committee on 17 December
Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill
(11 years ago)
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Lord Taylor of Holbeach
That the amendments for the Report stage be marshalled and considered in the following order:
Clauses 1 to 10, Schedule 1, Clause 11, Schedule 2, Clauses 12 to 86, Schedule 3, Clauses 87 to 96, Schedule 4, Clauses 97 to 105, Schedule 5, Clauses 106 to 120, Schedule 6, Clauses 121 to 138, Schedule 7, Clause 139, Schedule 8, Clauses 140 to 142, Schedule 9, Clauses 143 to 166, Schedule 10, Clauses 167 to 171.
Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill
(11 years ago)
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Lord Hardie
Lord Hardie (CB)
My Lords, in moving Amendment 166, I wish to speak also to Amendment 166B. At Second Reading, a number of noble Lords expressed concern about the changes to the existing limits on controlled expenditure that Clause 27 seeks to introduce. Justification for such a change is obviously necessary. The Explanatory Notes provide no assistance in understanding the rationale for this change. In his response at Second Reading the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, did not explain what problems had been caused by the existing limits. I am confident that if there was sound justification for reducing the expenditure limits based on past experience of the operation of Section 85 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 within its limited scope of activities, the Minister would have advised the House of that. That is particularly so where justification was sought by noble Lords, but none was forthcoming.
If there have been no problems, why reduce the limits which have been in existence for at least 13 years? Moreover, how can the Government justify reducing expenditure limits while at the same time increasing the range of qualifying activities? In his reply, will the noble and learned Lord the Advocate-General please answer the following questions? First, what is the reason for Clause 27(1)? Secondly, what problems have been caused over the years by having the existing limits? Thirdly, in proposing to reduce the limits, what assessment did the Government make of the likely increase in expenditure caused by the extension of controlled activities introduced by Clause 26? If the noble and learned Lord has no answer that justifies this extreme provision, will he acknowledge the strength of feeling that exists that this clause is grossly unfair, is a disproportionate interference in the right to freedom of speech and political engagement, and is an obstruction to democracy?
Lord Tyler (LD)
My Lords, we have Amendment 166A in this group. Before I come to it, I have a great deal of sympathy for the approach of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, but with an important reservation. I noted with interest that he referred to the advice of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, but the committee gave much more detailed consideration to some of these issues in its later report of November 2011. That is the context in which we are having this discussion. Our amendment seeks to return to the existing, well known situation of the registration threshold, with one very important qualification, to which I will refer when I also speak to the amendments being proposed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, and others.
Nursing my cold and cough yesterday evening, I carefully read the whole of our Hansard proceedings on Monday. If anybody has been having as much difficulty in sleeping as I have recently, I fully endorse that as a very good way of avoiding insomnia. I was struck that almost all the constructive amendments to make this part of the Bill more workable and effective came from the Cross Benches, and from the Conservative and Liberal Democrat Benches. This clearly reflects the reality outside the Houses of Parliament. The organisations potentially affected by its provisions want to ensure that the Bill deals with the doubts and the defects in the existing law, the PPERA 2000, rather than simply maintain some of the unsatisfactory features of that status quo.
I have met representatives of literally dozens—scores, perhaps even hundreds—of organisations over recent weeks, some charities and some not, to discuss the perceived effects of the Bill. It is becoming increasingly clear that all serious organisations recognise that the loophole that could enable a single-issue-obsessed multimillionaire or campaign group to target huge sums of money into one or more marginal seats must be addressed. One of the problems with the other amendments in this group is that they do not restrict that targeting into a small number of seats. Our amendment does.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)
I am sorry to stop the noble Lord in full flow, but we have all had many conversations with charities over the past weeks and not one charity has mentioned that to me personally or to my noble friend. Can the noble Lord name the charity that has these grave fears?
Lord Tyler
My Lords, they are innumerable: NCVO, Bond and a whole number of organisations have said to us that targeting into one constituency or a small number of constituencies is recognised as a possible problem. It is not something that they necessarily want to do but they recognise that there could be a threat.
As my noble friend Lady Williams pointed out so powerfully on Monday evening, this type of deliberate distortion of our electoral process is far advanced elsewhere, in the USA in particular, but is already on its way this side of the Atlantic as well. By definition, however, we need to ensure that the net is not of so fine a mesh that we create a totally inappropriate bureaucracy for much smaller, much more locally based groups. Here I think I share the objectives of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, and others.
I referred on Monday to this essential balance between transparency and accountability on the one hand and excessive regulation on the other. The collective contention of very many organisations is that while the 2000 legislation was a concern and is defective, many of them simply did not have to worry in the past because their spending came beneath the existing thresholds.
In evidence to the Commons Select Committee, the chair of the Electoral Commission described the threshold as the measure that determined how far you go down in the pyramid of organisations engaged in campaigning. I think she described the situation very well. It is not a simple, two-dimensional triangle; it is a three-dimensional pyramid, so the further you go down in terms of the threshold, the more small organisations—huge numbers of organisations—potentially feel threatened and have to look to the way in which they are operating. At the top are a small number of large organisations that might seek deliberately and decisively,
“to promote or procure electoral success”,
of a party or candidate—the now accepted definition in the Bill—and at the bottom are a whole range of smaller bodies that are concerned that their activities might be perceived to be doing so.
We can continue to seek to reassure them as to whether they really would be caught by definition or we can provide explicit reassurance in the Bill by lifting the threshold to its existing level. I think we should do just that. Our amendment on this subject deals neatly with the conundrum that the Government have faced in so doing. My noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire said in his letter to colleagues on 5 December that in increasing the thresholds the Government would,
“need to take account of the consequences for the constituency limits set out in the legislation and the Government will reflect further on the detail of how to bring this about”.
This comes to the nub of the issue I referred to earlier. I hope that the amendment helps my noble friend.
The Minister was right, of course, that it would be plainly illogical to have a simple threshold of £10,000—or a much bigger one of £20,000 or £25,000—and then have a constituency spending limit during the post-dissolution period of £5,800. An organisation could be spending the whole limit of £5,800 and beyond without even being registered and therefore without declaring the expenditure. This would undermine the whole spirit of transparency and accountability that runs through the Bill. In the second part of our amendment, we stipulate that a higher threshold can apply unless all the spending is targeted in one constituency. I have heard the argument that this somehow adds complexity, but I do not accept that.
Of course, in a later group we will come to other detailed amendments, which clarify and make more workable the application of constituency limits. A whole section will do just that. I am sure that the Committee will recognise how crucial these are to the success of the Bill, and to its acceptance by MPs in the other place. After all, they themselves face very stringent expenditure limits at elections. When Amendment 166A in this group is taken in conjunction with our later Amendment 170A, which clarifies the scope of the constituency limit, it will be very clear when spending has occurred only in one constituency.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)
My Lords, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, and my noble friend Lord Tyler have fought this issue pretty well. I will make a short contribution to the debate on this important topic. Amendments 167 and 168 accept that there need to be limits, but seek to change as little as possible. As was pointed out by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, the reason for this is that there is not evidence that the limits so far have caused great difficulties or given rise to many problems. The amendments therefore seek not to reduce the amounts from £10,000 to £5,000 and from £5,000 to £2,000, but merely to restore the purchasing power of those figures. I must say to my noble and learned friend on the Front Bench that I think £2,000 for a single constituency is a very low sum indeed. Hiring a hall and some audio equipment would make a very sizeable dent in that sum.
The Bank of England’s inflation indicator, a wonderful thing to play with of an afternoon, enables you to check purchasing power on any day from 1750 to 2012. The purchasing power of £1 in 1750 is equivalent to £187.76 in 2012, just as an aside. The relevant figures are from 2000 to 2012. The purchasing power of £1 in 2000 was equivalent to £1.42 in 2012. In other words, inflation has averaged 2.9% per annum, and therefore the purchasing power of £1 is now only 70p. On that basis, applying that across the piece, you come out with a figure of £14,200 from £10,000, or £7,100 from £5,000. I have merely rounded it to the nearest £1,000.
The reason for my contribution to this debate is that I think we want as few changes as possible. This matter was debated at great length during the PPERA proceedings, and all we seek to do is restore the status quo ante in terms of purchasing power. I hope that the Government will look with favour on this contribution to the debate on an important topic.
Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB)
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 167A and 167B. The Government have indicated quite clearly that they will raise the registration threshold, so the question at issue is what the sum should be. We have had various alternatives put before us already today. The recommendation of the commission that I have the privilege of chairing is £20,000 for England and £10,000 for the other three nations.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, reminded us of the Neill committee’s recommendation in 1998 that the limit should be £25,000 and that that should be the figure also for Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. He posed a very sharp question: why should the registration thresholds be lower for those nations? Although our commission eventually plumped for the figure of £10,000 for those three nations, we were very tempted to put it higher, particularly because of all the difficulties in Northern Ireland, the key role that charities are playing there and their great desire not to be identified with any particular political party at this time of emergence from conflict to democracy. There is therefore a very strong case for Northern Ireland’s registration threshold to be higher.
The reasons for the raising the thresholds are obvious. The Electoral Commission says that they should be raised to at least the present PPERA levels. The argument for raising them higher than that is, first, the increased range of activities—even if you take out staff time, as we hope the Government will, there is still an increased range of activities which will cost more money. The second is inflation. Perhaps most important of all is the stated aim of the Government to give smaller charities in particular more freedom of manoeuvre without the fear that they might overstep the line.
In our report, we summed up what all smaller charities were saying. They had said that,
“they limited or stopped altogether some campaigning activity in order to ensure they did not get close to the registration threshold. For many organisations, the perceived issue of reputational risk associated with registering as a third party was important in addition to the administrative burden. The reputational risk was a particular concern to some NGOs”.
This was the case with Oxfam. Evidence gathered for the report stated that:
“Oxfam deliberately chose to ensure their spending was capped under £10,000 so they didn’t have to register, because for charities, they see it as a real brand reputational risk, they have to register as a third party because we are meant to be really apolitical NGOs. But yes they do have large budgets but have chosen not to spend them on election campaigns”.
That question of reputational risk for charities in particular is an important consideration.
So much of this legislation, and the lowering of the thresholds in particular that we are talking about now, represents an attempt to escape the influence of the super-PACs in this country. It is as though a huge net has been thrown in order to catch some great fish which might swim across the Atlantic, but the only effect of which is to trap smaller fish quite legitimately swimming freely in the waters of democracy. I hope that the Government will raise the threshold very high indeed in order that their stated aim might be achieved; that is, that smaller charities can get on with their legitimate business of campaigning on policies without fear of being caught.
On Monday, the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, referred to his 15 years working with the Countryside Alliance. He said that,
“we were punctilious about not promoting or procuring the electoral advantage of a party or candidate”.
I am sure that they were. He continued:
“We were punctilious about these matters”.—[Official Report, 16/12/13; col. 1097.]
In fact, we understand that the Countryside Alliance had specific legal advice that its activities would be subject to PPERA regulations if it spent enough on materials to breach the registration threshold. It did not register, but that is only because it did not spend enough on printed materials. As the case study in the second commission report shows, it would clearly have needed to register under the Bill because of the new activities subject to registration. Its activities were not just to become transparent through regulation but would have been restricted because of the lower spending cap and the very low constituency limits.
In our report we set out the particular case of the Countryside Alliance and the difficulties that it would find itself in as a result of the Bill, and I wonder whether the Minister was aware of that legal advice at the time. The Government have given lots of reassurances to charities that they are not in the business of promoting or procuring the electoral advantages of a particular party, but that reassurance does not work because the sting is in not that sentence but the qualifications. A charity campaigning on policy can suddenly find that inadvertently, even if it has not mentioned a political party, and even if its primary purpose is something else altogether, it is coming up to the line where it might be caught by this regulation. It is this in particular that the commission wishes to draw to the attention of the Minister as we debate this amendment on thresholds; they need to be as high as possible in order to allow the maximum freedom that should properly be allowed in a democratic society.
Baroness Williams of Crosby
I ask the noble and right reverend Lord to give us his view about the last part of the amendment spoken to by my noble friend Lord Tyler. All the way through this, we are trying to find a balance between the very legitimate arguments put forward by charities, not least by the noble and right reverend Lord himself, and the real danger—I am sorry to have to say this again—of there being very heavy expenditure within one or a few constituencies that might, almost inevitably, alter the outcome of an election, despite the fact that it was not the intention to elect a particular candidate. At a certain point the level of material, campaigning and so on begins to reach such a high volume that it is very hard to make that distinction; indeed, it is an unreal distinction in those cases.
Secondly, it is crucial that we hear from the noble and right reverend Lord on the issue of bunching together different kinds of campaigns in a particular constituency. Does he recognise that it is not difficult to find all kinds of ways around our incredibly complicated registration and election regulations? It is therefore true that those small fish can grow to be quite big fish, and there is a temptation to follow the examples elsewhere. Not only does that give an illegitimate basis on which to hold the election but, perhaps equally important, it discourages people of moderate income from standing for Parliament because of the very large figures that they are supposed to meet. Will he address that part of the issue before he completes his presentation?
Lord Harries of Pentregarth
I have listened with great attention to what the noble Baroness has said, as I did on Monday when she suggested that the commission had not taken that point seriously enough. I was going to address it when we came to talk about constituency limits because there are a whole range of issues related to them. I notice also what the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, said about constituency limits, and I take very seriously what he has said: there is clearly a major issue there that has to be addressed. There are other issues connected with constituency limits that also need to be taken into account, though, not least all the complications of trying to ascertain which constituency it might be attributed to. I take seriously what noble Lords have said but, if I may, I will address it when we come to address the amendments on constituency limits.
Baroness Mallalieu (Lab)
My Lords, I put my name also to Amendments 167A and 167B on which the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, has just spoken. Essentially they are amendments about registration thresholds and I will confine what I am going to say, quite briefly, to that aspect. It is clearly accepted that the thresholds are going to go up from those proposed in the Bill, which are very low indeed. The question is clearly: how far? If the aim is to catch wealthy organisations and individuals and to prevent undue influence on the electoral process by those with money, the response has got to be proportionate, as I am sure the Minister would accept.
As the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, said, the mesh of the net has got to be set so that small NGOs and charities can carry on with their campaigning work without being frightened off by the fear of the expense and the staff time that registration and its associated bureaucracy—which I hope later we will cut down to a degree—will entail. The larger organisations are to be caught; the smaller ones should not be, so that they can carry on with their usual activity.
The current thresholds under PPERA have done just that; hence the lack of problems arising from the drafting of the definition. This was revealed only by the most recent consultation, because most small organisations simply did not meet the existing threshold. However, those thresholds will not be enough if the activities covered by the Bill, even the non-contentious ones, are included, as everyone agrees that larger staff costs will be included with them.
I remind the House that the Electoral Commission said in relation to this very aspect that,
“we think the Bill’s Impact Assessment under-estimates both the regulatory burden that the Bill would impose on registered campaigners, and the number of non-party campaigners that may need to register with us as a result of the Bill’s provisions”,
and the lower threshold. The Electoral Commission is going to be faced with a great deal more work.
I am sorry hear to that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, has been having difficulty sleeping. Indeed, the speech from the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, on Monday caused me some lack of sleep. She chided me about what I had said about ogres coming out of the woodwork, so I had a further look at it. Because she has just raised the point now, I will say this. She produced shocking figures about what was going on in America and raised the spectre of this somehow creeping across the Atlantic and affecting our electoral process. No specific evidence has been produced for the need for specific constituency spending limits. The Government have produced no specific examples in defence of their argument on this topic—for example, of disproportionate spending in one constituency that has had undue influence on the outcome.
However, this is not the only piece of legislation that deals with this matter. There is also the Representation of the People Act 1983. Even if there were to be targeting of a specific candidate in a specific constituency, that Act covers constituency spending by candidates and also—this needs to be restated—spending by non-party campaigners who have campaigned for or against a specific candidate. What is more, breaches of the Representation of the People Act are the responsibility of the police to investigate, with all the sanctions that follow from that. The Electoral Commission does not have the enforcement powers for these rules. So, if these people exist, we in this country already have the powers to deal with them and the mechanism to do so.
The Earl of Sandwich (CB)
My Lords, I have not been part of the commission, but I support what the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, and my noble and right reverend friend said about Amendments 167A and 167B. I was convinced by these amendments and then, when I heard the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, with his extraordinary mathematics on inflation, telling us how much it actually costs to put on a show, be it a conference or a different occasion, I was completely convinced. Then the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, said that these things were costing far too much. Has he seen printers’ bills lately and does he know how much 3,000 leaflets will take out of your pocket in no time at all? These figures are still really quite limited, and I hope that the Government have seen sense. I have a feeling that we are not going to hear their answers because they are reserving them all for Report.
The issue I mentioned in relation to Clause 26 was that of smaller charities. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, was quite right in describing the role of smaller charities. My particular question for the Minister was: what happens if these charities are linked in a coalition? I know that we are going to discuss the coalitions again, but it hinges on this a little bit. Many of these charities which were spawned by the larger charities—Oxfam and Christian Aid—are now growing in their own right but nevertheless have a symbiotic connection and are often seen together in conferences. Will the Government reflect on that effect on smaller charities as well?
Lord Ramsbotham (CB)
My Lords, I support Amendments 167A and 167B. I have two questions for the Government that have not been raised. First, we have had no specific evidence from the Government that the previous spending limits were overly permissive, resulting in undue influence on the outcome of general elections. Therefore, I would be grateful if the Minister would outline what specific evidence gave rise to this clause.
Secondly, because it again comes from the Government, I note that the Electoral Commission thinks that the regulatory burden that the Bill would impose on registered campaigners has been grossly underestimated in the Bill’s impact assessment. With many Bills coming before this House, I have had occasion to question the depth of the impact assessment. It really must go into the impact on others who will be affected by the Bill, and that has not happened in this case.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
My Lords, noble Lords from across the House have made it abundantly clear that the Government’s decision to significantly reduce the threshold at which organisations register with the Electoral Commission was not based on any evidence and would significantly hamper the ability of civil society organisations to participate in democracy in the run-up to an election. I add to that the comments from committees of this House and of the other place about the lack of an evidential base for this policy.
The Joint Committee on Human Rights said:
“We are not yet satisfied that the Government has sufficiently explained the need for the reduced registration thresholds (particularly in light of the increased range of regulated activities)”.
The Political and Constitutional Reform Select Committee said:
“In the absence of any evidence that there is a need to lower the threshold for third parties to register with the Electoral Commission, we recommend that the Government revert to the existing levels”.
The reductions are patently unreasonable and unfair, but they give rise to a particular concern because of the cumulative effect of provisions in the Bill. The evidence of that is overwhelming in the report of the commission. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, was right to ask what assessment had been made of the cost of the new obligations and bureaucracy. I look forward to the Minister’s answer.
The decision taken by the Government when they drafted the Bill to lower the thresholds at the same time as increasing the range of regulated activities—including, astonishingly, staffing costs, which we debated on Monday—suggests that the Bill is more about stifling dissent in the run-up to an election than about taking big money out of politics; at least, that is certainly the effect of the proposals that they have come up with. The Network for International Development Organisations in Scotland has said that,
“a prevalent fear is that it will put a halt to all activity. If the threshold is as it stands, that would be one member of policy staff. Everybody else would have to stop work. It would effectively cut down some organisations”.
The Electoral Reform Society agrees, and says that:
“I think that this will kill small organisations. They just won’t participate. There is just too much bureaucracy. They’ve never had to register before”.
Finally, the RSPB corroborated both these statements, saying that,
“it is illogical to halve the thresholds and caps at the same time as widening the activities that count towards them; this could seriously curtail legitimate charitable work”.
I wonder why the thresholds were changed and I would be grateful for an explanation from the Minister.
The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, was, in many ways, fear-mongering about the flooding of organisations by big money. I have looked at Bond, because the noble Lord quoted it. It said that big money in a constituency was “theoretical” and that no one had provided a specific example. As the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, said, we are casting our net to catch the large fish but it is the small fish—which play a hugely important part in making our civil society vibrant—that are being caught, and the governance of the country will suffer.
My noble friend Lady Mallalieu was very clear about the issue. The Commission on Civil Society and Democratic Engagement says, in its report:
“The most important measures to avoid undue influence, such as US style super PACs, are already in PPERA and the Representation of the People Act. In addition, none of the measures introduced effect undue influence in relation to political parties or candidates”.
I look forward to the Minister’s response.
In closing, I will say that I, like others, am particularly concerned about the situation in Northern Ireland, where the reduction to £2,000 is not just unfair and unworkable but absurd. On Monday, we all agreed that civil society has a vital role in sustaining the peace process in Northern Ireland, where the situation is still fragile, and the reduction in the threshold can act only as an impediment to the fantastic work of its vibrant and valuable civil society. I look forward to hearing from the Minister that the Government have, indeed, listened and will move on this issue.
The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Wallace of Tankerness) (LD)
My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, for introducing these amendments. It has been obvious since Second Reading in this House, and indeed before, that the registration threshold has given rise to considerable controversy and debate. As noble Lords are aware, third parties that incur controlled expenditure are not subject to any electoral controls on their activities provided they campaign only up to a particular expenditure threshold in a relevant election.
The 2000 Act sets this threshold at £10,000 for third parties campaigning in England and at £5,000 for third parties campaigning in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. As has been said by numerous contributors, the Bill amends these amounts to £5,000 and £2,000 respectively. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, perfectly fairly asked the purpose of this. The aim is to increase openness. There is a good argument that those who spend money in a way that can reasonably be regarded as intended to promote or procure success at any relevant election—to promote not a policy but the advantage of a party or candidate—should do so transparently. Amendment 166, tabled by the noble and learned Lord, seeks to return the thresholds to their original PPERA levels. The amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Tyler seeks the same result, but proposes a third threshold of £5,850 where spending has been incurred solely in a single constituency.
My noble friend Lord Hodgson goes a step further and suggests thresholds of £14,000 in England and £7,000 in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The amendments tabled by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, go further still and propose thresholds of £20,000 and £10,000 respectively. Finally, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, suggests a registration threshold of £25,000 applied to each of the constituent parts of the United Kingdom.
Noble Lords will know that when a third party registers with the Electoral Commission, it becomes a recognised third party. Upon registration, the third party becomes subject to spending and donation controls for the duration of the regulated period of the relevant election. The Bill intends to ensure greater transparency of campaign finance, which is why it revised the current registration thresholds to £5,000 and £2,000. It was intended to have the effect that more third parties would be required to account for expenditure and provide details of the donations they receive, bearing in mind that the fact of registration means that the expenditure can reasonably be regarded as intended to promote or procure success in a relevant election for a particular party or candidate.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
I was going to bring this up in our stand part debate, because it is important. With the permission of the Committee, I will do so now. On Monday an impression was given—I am sure misleadingly—by the noble and learned Lord, which he has just now repeated. He said that,
“organisations … will incur controlled expenditure … only where their activities, ‘can reasonably be regarded as intended to promote or procure electoral success’, of ‘parties’ or ‘candidates’”.—[Official Report, 16/12/13; col. 1042.]
He keeps using that phrase, which is accurate, and in the Bill. However, that is only part of the definition. The House needs to recognise the point that my noble friend made on Monday. It is not simply about promoting but also, of course, about reducing the chances of electoral success. I think that the examples given were of the campaign against the war in Iraq or against the bedroom tax.
I will make just one other point. The law goes on to state:
“In determining whether expenditure can reasonably be regarded as intended to promote or procure electoral success … it is immaterial that it can reasonably be regarded as intended to achieve any other purpose as well”.
That, therefore, could be activity that is aimed at some other purpose, but which may damage a party, and so it would be covered. I am sure that the Minister did not want in any way to give a misleading impression, but by continuing to concentrate only on activity to promote a party rather than to harm it by discussing a policy—a policy that could suddenly become it—that is wider than his words perhaps suggest.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I hear what the noble Baroness says. I am sure, as she recognises, that it is difficult to be criticised for quoting directly from the Bill. However, she makes the point that there could be detriment to a party. It is quite proper, too, that if a third-party organisation was to campaign to try to defeat the Labour Party’s chances in a range of constituencies and its activities could be quite reasonably seen as aiming to thwart the Labour Party in a campaign, it is important that there is transparency—that people know where the money comes from and what is behind the campaign to do down a particular party. On Monday we had a debate on principal purpose which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, introduced. Of course there can be other purposes. It may be that in trying to do down the Labour Party that group hopes to raise funds and increase its membership. However, that does not detract from the fact that there is an electoral purpose, which is what we seek to catch. I see the noble Baroness shaking her head, but it is important to remind the House that the definition we are talking about is one that her party put into legislation in the 2000 Act. It is slightly ironic that I am having to defend that definition, when her own party put it into the original 2000 Act.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
That Act covered publications, which are quite clearly and easily defined as this. The worry about this clause is that it includes rallies that might happen. They are not aimed at harming the Labour Party. On Iraq, they were aimed at stopping the war. The effect was to affect a political party. Therefore again, the Minister is suggesting that the activity has to be aimed at electoral outcome rather than at a particular policy. Every group that has spoken this morning about this as a result of reading his words on Monday, says that his words are narrower than what its lawyers tell them is suggested by the wording of the Bill.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, it is not a subjective test—we made that very clear. The Labour Party did not put a subjective test into its legislation in 2000. It is an objective test. Therefore, to say that it is solely about what a particular third-party organisation aims to do is not a fair representation of what it says. It is about what can reasonably be regarded. That is an objective test, and we rehearsed all the arguments for and against an objective or subjective test. Therefore it is not unreasonable to remind the Committee about what is here in the Act, which is a definition that the Government introduced by amendment in the other place because people clearly expressed that they wanted us to use the tried and tested definition that was used in the elections of 2005 and 2010. However, I accept that there has been a perception of the possibility of a chilling effect. I think I said that on Monday, and I accept that representations have been made to me and to my noble friends.
Baroness Mallalieu
In the light of what the noble and learned Lord is saying, could he clarify what the position would be if a charity, or a non-charity, had a core campaign on which it had been working for some time, and during the regulated period the Government of the day, or an opposition party, adopted that policy—or, indeed, adopted a policy directly contrary to it? A party might adopt that campaign objective as policy—or, indeed, a party might introduce legislation affecting it. If the organisation steps up its campaigning because of the change in the political situation, does that core policy not then become something that is brought under the Bill, where it would not otherwise have been?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I think I addressed that point in our debate on Monday, and I quoted from the Electoral Commission’s guidance on the subject. The noble Baroness’s final sentence was interesting, because she asked what would happen if the organisation stepped up its campaign. I think I gave reasons on Monday why, if an organisation had a campaign that had been going on for many months or even years, and one party subsequently decided to endorse it, that should not affect the organisation. However, if it seized on that development and sought to ratchet up its campaign by several notches, and encouraged—at least by implication—people to vote in a certain way, that would make a difference. That is reflected in the Electoral Commission’s guidance. On Monday we had a discussion on whether it would be better to clarify such things in the Bill or to leave it to guidance. That is a perfectly legitimate question, and as I said then, it is one on which the Government would obviously want to reflect.
Baroness Mallalieu
Will the Minister, during the reflective period, focus on the idea of something that suddenly becomes topical because the Government of the day introduce a Bill that does exactly the opposite of what the campaigning organisation wishes to achieve? He talked about “ratcheting up”, or increasing the volume. Surely that would be an inevitable part of campaigning if the organisation were suddenly faced with what it saw as a piece of hostile legislation. Would that organisation not then be able to campaign actively against the measure—although presumably, that is not something to which a Government who were anxious to encourage democracy would object?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
We had a very thorough debate on this subject on Monday; I do not want to go over again everything that I said then, and rerun that debate. I will certainly reflect on what the noble Baroness has said; indeed, I spoke on Monday about some of the clarity sought. I think that the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, was encouraging me to act, and said that a number of people wanted to put things in the Bill. He listed a number of things, and I said that there had to be a balance between what we put in a Bill and what we leave to guidance. That is a perfectly proper matter for us to reflect on, and we shall bear the noble Baroness’s comments in mind.
I was about to say that charities and other campaigners had expressed fears that because low-level campaigning and expenditure could be regulated as a result of the Bill, small organisations would face a disproportionate reporting and compliance burden. Those concerns have been reflected in most of the contributions this morning. My noble friend Lord Tyler talked on Monday about the balance between transparency and regulation. Almost inevitably, the more transparent we seek to make the arrangements, the greater will be the amount of regulation. That point was echoed this morning by my noble friend Lady Williams.
This is the balance that we are trying to get right. We believe that there should be greater clarity about who is campaigning for the electoral success of parties or candidates—but equally, we do not want small campaigners to be dissuaded from taking part in public debate by fear of having onerous burdens placed upon them. Therefore, in line with what my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire committed in the House on 5 November, as I have said, and, indeed, as I said when opening the first set of amendments on Monday, the Government will bring forward amendments on Report to increase the registration thresholds.
Lord Tyler
Will my noble and learned friend make one point absolutely clear to the Committee? If, as has been suggested this morning, the registration threshold was moved as high as £25,000, it would be perfectly possible for an organisation or individual to spend £24,999.99p in one constituency without being in any way accountable for how that money was spent and without having to be transparent about where the money came from, even though that sum would far exceed what we might expect to have as the limit on spending. It simply would not be known that that was happening because the registration threshold was so high; hence the significance of the measure that my noble friends and I have tabled.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My noble friend anticipates what I was about to say. However, he is right, subject to the caveat in the Representation of the People Act and its interplay with the restrictions on spending in individual constituencies, that sum would be almost twice what the candidate could spend. It seems a bit perverse that, if you have a campaign, you cannot answer for it if you are a candidate or party. However, we will come on to the constituency limits and the important interplay with the Representation of the People Act.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, referred to the figure of £25,000, which, as my noble friend says, would allow quite a lot to be done without the need for transparency. Nevertheless, the noble and learned Lord made an important point abut there being the same threshold in each of the constituent parts of the United Kingdom. At a very early stage—I think before I had been given the “hospital pass” —I met a group of citizens in my former constituency as my successor thought that it would be a good idea for me to meet them. One of the points that they made was that, in reducing the thresholds from £10,000 and £5,000 to £5,000 and £2,000, there had been a bigger pro rata decrease for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. I have certainly raised that issue. It is an important issue with regard to what the threshold is in the different parts of the United Kingdom. I certainly undertake that we will consider that point. I think it was also raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, specifically in relation to Northern Ireland.
I reiterate the point made by my noble friend Lord Tyler with regard to constituency limits, consistency and not subverting the constituency limit by having a threshold that is too high. I accept that some of those who argue for a higher level do not want a constituency limit at all, but we shall deal with that in greater detail later.
I repeat that our objective is to ensure transparency, but we need to strike a balance. We do not want to have a chilling effect, even if it is just a perception on the part of smaller organisations that they would exceed the threshold even if their activities were not necessarily ones that would require them to register. Therefore, I repeat that we believe a substantial increase from the level in the Bill would, indeed, be appropriate.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, possibly in a festive mood, tried to be seductive by suggesting that we accept his first amendment and restore the status quo. It is seductive but, at the risk of spoiling the Christmas spirit, I do not think that the legislative hokey-cokey of “in out, in out and shake it all about” is the best way to do this. The Government will bring forward an amendment on Report which, as I have indicated, will introduce a substantial increase from the level in the Bill. On that basis, I urge the noble and learned Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Hardie
My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords in all parts of the House for speaking in this debate. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, suggested that the 2011 report was the more appropriate one. I went back to the 1998 report because that was the one which founded the 2000 Act, which set out the limits that we are discussing. On that basis, I went back to that report to find the justification for the legislation.
I hear what the noble and learned Lord the Advocate-General has said in response. I am disappointed that despite his white hair he is not Father Christmas and will not give me the gift that I was seeking. But I look forward to the amendment on Report and hope that it sets appropriate levels, and may not be confined to the £2,000 and £5,000 levels, but will be above that, if the Government are truly listening to the concerns of the third sector. With these observations I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Hardie
Lord Hardie
My Lords, Amendment 169B also stands in my name.
The issues here are similar to those raised in the previous group of amendments, except that they apply to the total control of expenditure that may be incurred by a recognised third party in the various constituent countries of the United Kingdom. The current limits are contained in paragraph 3(2) of Schedule 10 to the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act Act 2000. Clause 27(2)(a) proposes to alter these limits by substituting them for,
“2% of the maximum campaign expenditure limit in that part of the United Kingdom”.
The effect of that provision is that the relevant figures for the countries are: £319,000 for England, reduced from £793,000; £35,000 for Scotland, reduced from £108,000; £24,000 for Wales, reduced from £80,000; and £10,080 for Northern Ireland, reduced from £27,000. My concerns about these reductions are similar to those about the reductions in registration limits.
I will not repeat the figures, but I will ask the noble and learned Lord the Advocate-General to justify the changes in this particular paragraph. The activities subject to control have been extended, yet it is proposed to reduce the total permissible expenditure. Moreover, the period covered is 12 months before an election. At Second Reading I drew attention to the following anomaly: in the context of Scotland, I doubted whether a campaign group could fund a national rally about an issue of importance to it, within a budget of £35,000. Even if it could, such a rally would exhaust its budget, leaving it unable to campaign effectively in any other way.
The unrealistic level of expenditure is highlighted when one has regard to the provisions in paragraph 5 of Schedule 10 to the 2000 Act about elections to the Scottish Parliament. The relevant figure for controlled expenditure is £75,800 and the relevant period is four months prior to the election. At the risk of showing my lack of the mathematical expertise that the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, has, I say that a simple arithmetical approach of multiplying that figure by three would produce an equivalent annual figure of £227,400. But that, I acknowledge, is oversimplistic, as the greater part of any allowance will be expended in the last few months prior to an election. Accordingly, although probably still higher than the current annual figure of £108,000, the equivalent extrapolated figure would be approximate to it. If the proposed figure of £35,000, represented by the 2% introduced by Clause 27(2), is implemented, the discrepancy between the allowance for UK elections and elections to the Scottish Parliament is vast. Such a discrepancy for the same country in the same schedule to the 2000 Act demands an explanation and justification. In his reply will the noble and learned Lord the Advocate-General provide the House with the required explanation and justification for this disparity?
The deletion of this subsection will restore the status quo as far as limits are concerned, although the burden on that expenditure will be greater if the definition of controlled expenditure is expanded as proposed. I invite your Lordships to conclude that the effect of Amendment 169 would be to restore some public confidence in the democratic process and to avoid the absurdity and likely confusion that will arise from such disparate figures in Scotland, where campaign groups will be subject to different regimes within the same geographical boundaries.
Amendment 169B was tabled in case the previous amendment was not accepted, and the Government remained determined to reduce the overall figures and could justify such a policy. This amendment is a proposed compromise. By increasing the percentage from 2% to 5% the figure for England is more approximate to the current figure, and might even be slightly higher; but the decreases for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are less dramatic. The equivalent figure in Scotland would be £87,500. I beg to move.
Lord Harries of Pentregarth
My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendment 169A. I would like to ask the Minister what the rationale was behind such a drastic reduction in the spending limits. For England it was a 60% reduction; for the other nations it was 70%. This is a vast reduction, for which no reason was given. The commission which I have the privilege of chairing simply wishes to revert to the original PPERA figures plus inflation. Those are written in the amendment, and would mean £1,125,000 for the year for England; the comparable figures for Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales would be £155,000, £86,000 and £40,000. We are simply recommending the original PPERA figures plus inflation.
I will give one example of a big spending campaign which is concerned about the cap. In the 2010 general election, Hope not Hate registered £319,231 of spending in England with the Electoral Commission. It is a national grass-roots organisation that seeks to challenge and expose openly racist political parties, candidates and policies. It works on the assumption that there is a risk that far-right racist policies might be campaigned on vigorously at election time, and it wishes to oppose that with racially tolerant policies. For example, in an area like Barking and Dagenham in 2010 where it mobilised people, its spending included printing of leaflets and Hope not Hate newspapers, staff time to write campaign literature, media coverage costs, communicating the campaign to supporters, and its battle bus bill. Of course, an organisation such as this, quite properly, needs to register and needs to be totally transparent in what it does, but the spending limits proposed in the Bill would severely reduce what that organisation would be able to do. It spent in 2010 £319,231, which is above the limit in the Bill. There is clearly a strong case for reverting not only to PPERA but to PPERA plus inflation on the cap.
Lord Tyler
I wonder if I may ask the noble and right reverend Lord a question. He and his commission have justifiably encouraged us to see the package—how different elements of the Bill stick together. I draw his attention to the fact that his amendment, combined with other amendments to remove all constituency limits that he and his colleagues have proposed, would, if they were to be implemented, mean that the sum of £1.25 million could be spent in a small number of target marginal constituencies. That is a huge sum of money. When we come to the other sections that deal with constituency limits, will he think about the implications of the interaction between those two propositions from his commission?
Lord Harries of Pentregarth
The commission is keen to emphasise that every aspect of the Bill is integrated with every other. Clearly, constituency limits have to be taken into account very seriously when we are thinking about raising either the threshold or the cap.
Lord Horam (Con)
I intervene briefly to support the Government and oppose the amendments put forward from the Cross Benches because the overall argument about undue influence is important here. As the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, has just said in his intervention, it is not only a question of the total amount of money spent but of the way in which it is deployed in any geographical area, whether it is in one constituency, a number of constituencies, Scotland, Wales or England. That is the problem and that is why the Government are right to try to reduce the spending limits, with a view to reducing the possibility of undue influence.
There has been some discussion of the figures of a 60% or 70% reduction, and I obviously do not know exactly how they were arrived at in detail, but I know, as we all know, what happened at the last general election. As the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, rightly pointed out, spending by the Hope not Hate campaign throughout the whole country totalled £319,000. It was the third biggest spender, and only two registered third parties spent more than the Government are proposing—the public services union, Unison, which spent £671,000, and Vote for Change, which is a Liberal Democrat-backed organisation wanting change to the electoral system. Those are the only two organisations, apart from Hope not Hate, which spent anywhere near or above the amount proposed by the Government.
I fully accept that there will now be a different definition of controlled expenditure, and on previous amendments I pointed out that the Government should look very carefully at what is included in controlled expenditure, particularly in relation to staff costs. If they were to be removed from the definition of controlled expenditure, most of the problems in that regard would be solved. However, leaving that aside, the fact is that the spending of most other organisations that registered—all the fuss is about only the 30 or so organisations that took the trouble to register in the last general election—was way below £319,000, which is the limit proposed by the Government in the Bill. There is plenty of headroom there for people to run a proper campaign, given that they can concentrate those resources in a particular area. However, it is the overriding view of the Government that such a campaign should not unduly influence the result in any particular constituency. It is therefore entirely consistent with the logic of their position to reduce the spending limits as they propose.
Lord Harries of Pentregarth
I hope that the noble Lord is not suggesting that the Hope not Hate campaign unduly influenced the election with that £319,000, which was spread right across the country. Was it not a fundamental expression of democratic rights that that campaign should have been able to do that? I am sure that he would not want its work to be hindered.
Lord Horam
I would not want its work to be hindered but there should not be undue influence in any particular set of constituencies or a constituency. That is what concerns me. If the noble and right reverend Lord says that this campaign was across the whole country, then clearly there was not an undue influence. None the less, if a campaign is focused on particular areas there may be undue influence.
Baroness Mallalieu (Lab)
My Lords, I rise very briefly indeed to support the proposal contained in the commission’s amendment, and simply to say in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Horam, that I am unaware of an example—I still await one, although I have asked a number of times—of where there has been undue influence as a result of excessive spending in one constituency or spending specifically directed against a candidate in the last election. It does not appear to have happened. This is a pretty draconian cut of between 60% and 70%. It is perhaps right that I should simply add that, so far as the commission is concerned and the package that has been spoken of, those figures reflect a period of 12 months. If, as I hope happens, the period is to be reduced to six months, those figures would need to be adjusted accordingly.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett
My Lords, I wish briefly to draw attention to what the Joint Committee on Human Rights said about this. I am a member of that committee and I apologise because I have a meeting this afternoon and will not be here for much of the rest of our debates. The committee acknowledged that the Government were right to review the maximum spending limits; I imagine that they need to be reviewed every so often, not least because of inflation, which the amendment addresses.
The committee’s report makes the point about the lower limits now being,
“applied to a wider list of controlled activities (such as media events, rallies, canvassing)”,
and that,
“the Government admits that it is difficult to assess how much is currently spent on these additional activities by third parties and therefore it is difficult to assess the impact of the measure. The Government’s inability to provide this assessment is of concern, and adds to the overall uncertainty and lack of understanding regarding the Bill”.
Is the Minister able to provide some assessment of what this will mean and allay the concerns that have been raised? In the absence of that and of decent evidence, which is generally lacking around the Bill, I strongly support the commission’s amendment.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, it will probably come as no surprise that the Labour Party supports reducing the cost of politics, not simply because that is right nor just because of the warnings sounded by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, who is not in her place, on Monday and this morning, but perhaps because Labour is outspent by the Conservatives. The current situation is bad for democracy, not simply for ourselves, and the major reason is because money and politics rarely mix. We want all groups, candidates and parties to be able to put their views to the electorate without needing to raise large sums or without having to be rich enough to fund a campaign themselves.
Although we are slightly unsure about the wording of the Bill, we think we have much in common with the intention behind the Government’s changes, in that we support transparency and lowering costs. However, we are concerned, for the reasons that we have just heard, about what they have sought to do and the figures that they have chosen. Neither the noble Lord, Lord Horam, nor the rest of us know where the figures come from. The Electoral Commission quite rightly says that it is for the Government to propose and for Parliament to decide on the appropriate limits, in order to balance that freedom of expression against controls of undue influence. The commission listed some of the factors we ought to think about, such as inflation and the wider range of activities. However, we find it difficult to see how the Government have thought about those matters in the way that my noble friend Lady Lister suggested because we have seen nothing of the assumptions that they have made about the costs associated with policy research, press, meetings, debates and staff, which will now be covered by the Bill—and over a 12-month period.
In the earlier debate the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, compared what a third party might be able to spend against what a candidate might spend; of course we are talking about a 12-month period, not when the candidates are affected in the short campaign. So, as others have done, we ask: what are the factors that led to these figures? Were they grabbed out of the ether, rather like the 500 seats in the Commons that the Government, as the House will remember, were set on last time? Did these figures just come out of a roulette wheel without rhyme or reason, or is there something that we could look at to test the Government’s assumptions that these are the rights figures? Without that, it is very hard to see the logic behind them.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, again we are grateful to the noble and leaned Lord, Lord Hardie, for introducing this part of the Bill and the consideration of the overall spending limits. As no doubt the Committee is aware, third parties are subject to limits on the amount of controlled expenditure that they may incur during the regulated period of a United Kingdom parliamentary general election. The initial figures set out in PPERA 2000 set the limit at £988,500 for the whole of the United Kingdom and this Bill, as has been heard, seeks to amend that limit to £390,000. The limit in either case is of course the aggregate of individual limits of each part of the United Kingdom. That means that expenditure is allocated in accordance with where its effect is most significantly felt. If a body has its head office in Scotland, for example, but undertakes and targets its campaign work only in England, then that spending will be allocated to the English limit and not the Scottish one.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, has tabled amendments so that the spending limit for third parties remains as it is in PPERA 2000, and the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, has proposed limits that would take the spending limit to £1,406,000 across the United Kingdom as a whole. This substantial increase, as I understand it, is to reflect inflation since the original limit was set 13 years ago. There has been considerable discussion, not just in this House but also in the other place, about third-party campaigners and the potential to incur significant amounts of expenditure in campaigns. This was spoken about very eloquently by my noble friend Lady Williams. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, indicated that her party has no desire to see the cost of politics increase, nor, indeed, do we want to see a disproportionate effect on elections by those who have lots of money to throw around.
There is also the potential, given that limits are imposed on political parties—let us remember that, if we look at this in its full context, there are limits on political parties—that we would undermine that regime if their supporters could still demonstrate their backing by diverting funding to a formally or informally aligned party. Allowing very large sums to be spent to the benefit of parties that are candidates in this way risks, I believe, undermining the basic rules that have evolved over the years in terms of restriction of political spending in elections. The nature of third parties means that controls on their spending are necessary. I do not believe that we have really debated limits, but I do not think that anyone has challenged the principle that there should be some control on substantial spending.
There is some evidence of third-party expenditure increasing. In 2010, eight third-party organisations spent more than £100,000, although, as I think my noble friend Lord Horam correctly pointed out, most who were registered—and only 30 were registered—spent considerably less than that. Indeed, some who were registered spent nothing at all. Although there were eight who spent more than £100,000 in 2010, in 2005 only two groups did so. I believe, and we have said all these things many times, that it is about trying to strike the right balance to ensure transparency. We believe that the figure in the Bill is a reasonable limit for national third-party campaigning. Most campaigns in the last election did not spend anywhere near either the total amount that was available then or the amount that is proposed in this Bill.
It has been argued that these previous campaigns did not require third parties to account for a much wider range of activities, but it is worth reflecting on the fact that the Green Party, a political party, spent £330,000 on its national campaign in the 2010 general election. That campaign activity included incurring expenses on advertising, unsolicited materials, manifestos, market research, transport, media events and rallies—all activities that third parties should also account for. No one can doubt that the Green Party had a very strong voice in that campaign and indeed succeeded in getting its first ever Member elected to the House of Commons. It was a voice within a national debate. In fact, only four out of well over 100 registered political parties spent more than £390,000 in 2010: the Conservative Party, the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats and the UK Independence Party.
We are setting a limit which, as I said, only four political parties exceeded in 2010, and a party that was recognised as having played a full part, albeit without standing in every constituency, in a national election in all its activities spent less than £390,000. We do not believe that third parties should be dominating the electoral landscape—by “third parties” I do not mean political parties but such as we have discussed in this debate, as of course I think third parties have an important role to play in the party-political scene—and creating campaigning inequality among political parties. We believe that the spending limits are appropriate and proportionate.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, drew attention to the differential that exists in Schedule 10 to the 2000 Act, and I accept that this Bill is looking at the UK limits. It will also recognise that while you might have a campaign to be undertaken on a pan-UK basis, it is not quite the same as if you were focusing solely on Scotland for a Scottish election and so I think that there is some scope for a differential.
We believe that, having reduced the limit to a sum that has not inhibited, or would not have caught, the Green Party at the last election or indeed the vast majority of third parties that were registered and campaigned, this is not an unreasonable balance to be struck. I invite the noble and learned Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Harries of Pentregarth
Will the Minister not acknowledge, in relation to the spending by the Green Party, that of course it did not have to include staff costs in the figure that he quoted? As the Bill now stands, third-party campaigners have to include staff costs, so there is not an even playing field. Furthermore, will he acknowledge that the whole political landscape now is very different from what it was, say, 20 or 30 years ago, with a dramatic decline in political-party membership and the rise in membership of third-party campaigners? Does the apparent indifference of so many people, sadly, to political-party campaigns and their enthusiasm and commitment to third-party campaigns not indicate that third-party campaigns should be treated equally seriously as a fundamental feature of our democracy along with political parties, particularly at election time?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, makes a fair point that, as a party, the staff costs were not included, but I think one of the reasons was referred to by my noble friend Lord Gardiner on Monday. Political parties’ staff are fully committed and are very transparently fighting an election, whereas one might reasonably assume that, when larger organisations undertake political campaigning—and we accept that they are registered because they believe that their campaigning could reasonably be judged to give an electoral advantage, or disadvantage, to one party or another—their staff’s time is not entirely taken up with it. He makes a fair point, but there is also a distinction because it would not be the entire staffing costs of a particular organisation that would be taken into account.
I wholly accept the point that has been made about the richness of the debate, with groups contributing in ways they have not done before, much of which is made possible, I suspect, by electronic media. Those of us who have had to stuff envelopes in the past probably realise that there are easier ways of campaigning and getting the message across, as well as being cheaper than the printed material which the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, mentioned in his earlier intervention. In some respects, campaigning costs themselves have gone down over the years because of the nature of much of modern campaigning.
Lord Aberdare (CB)
I have been listening to the debate in as objective a fashion as I can manage. The noble and learned Lord has made a strong case for why the limits should perhaps not be increased, and to me he has also made a strong case for why the existing system is working well. The bit that still puzzles me, particularly in the light of the increased coverage of the new definition of controlled expenditure, is the justification for actually reducing the limits. That, I am afraid, I have not been convinced by.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, I think I indicated that even with the reduced limits, on the list I have before me there were only two organisations that went above them, one being UNISON and the other being Vote for a Change Ltd, and neither of those got anywhere near the limits set out in PPERA. Even with the reduced limits, most organisations would not get anywhere near them. I take the point made about staffing made by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries. Even a political party, the Green Party, which fought a fully fledged election campaign, admittedly not in every constituency but one that registered in the national campaign, did not reach the reduced limit. In trying to strike these balances, these limits are not unreasonable.
Lord Hardie
I am grateful to noble Lords on all sides of the Committee for participating in the debate. I hear what the Minister has said about what the effect of these limits would have been had they been applied to the last election and I want to reflect on that. I note also that the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, referred to the experience of the last general election.
I think that the noble and learned Lord also acknowledged that much of the difficulty might be removed if staff costs were taken out of the equation. Certainly that is a point the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, raised just now. I wish to reflect on these matters before Report, but in the meantime I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, we gave notice of our intention to oppose the Question in order to say some of the things that have now been covered, so the Committee will be pleased to learn that I shall not repeat them. One of them is the lack of rationale given for the figures for the threshold and, indeed, for the spending limit. I congratulate the Minister, who has managed to give a whole answer without explaining why the figures were chosen. Given the questions that he was asked, it is a clever move. It remains the case that the Electoral Commission, which after all is the Government’s independent adviser, has called on them to raise the thresholds and put up the spending limits, because everything is going to be covered. Some organisations have been mentioned already, but the BMA, NCVO, RSPB, Oxfam, the Royal College of Nursing and ACEVO, which have to work with this, all say that they do not know why the changes to the thresholds and the spending limits are there, or how the new figures were chosen. That remains our worry about this clause.
I want to add one point, but I do not want to repeat the exchange that the noble and learned Lord and I had on the first group of amendments today. He again used the phrase that the provisions will cover only those things that are done in a way to “influence” an election. But as we know, the law says that it is immaterial whether something can be regarded as intended to achieve any other purpose as well, and therefore things that can be done not with the intention of influencing an election could well be covered. The definition of electoral material goes on to include, for example, a definition of a “candidate”, which,
“includes a future candidate, whether identifiable or not”.
There is no need to mention parties or candidates by name for an activity to be deemed to be controlled expenditure. That, I think, is one of the issues that remains with us even after the debates today. I think the Government still feel that the NGOs are exaggerating the potential damage. However, the NGOs will continue to worry about what is covered by both sets of limits in this clause, and by the lack of a rationale for the new figures.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for raising these issues once again. The Government accept that the figures for the spending threshold for registration set out in the Bill need to be revisited, and I suspect that the outcome of that will reflect the concerns that have been expressed. However, I do not think I can honestly say that there is a scientific means of arriving at a figure, any more than I suspect the Labour Government used a scientific method to reach their figures for spending limits and thresholds in 2000. I repeat that the balance we seek is one that will secure greater transparency but not lead to unnecessary regulation, particularly taking into account the concerns that have been expressed by a number of smaller organisations. I hope that when we come back with our amendment, it will meet the test of not imposing undue burdens but providing for fair transparency.
I shall not rehearse again all the arguments that were made in the debate immediately prior to this on the total spending limit, but we must have regard to the fact of what one political party is able to do, and bear in mind that the fifth report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life thought that the existing limits were quite generous. Of course, no science will ever get this absolutely right, but the figure will nevertheless still allow the healthy involvement of a number of campaigning organisations.
The possible difference between us is that the noble Baroness takes the view that a subjective test should apply, whereas we are sticking by the objective test. That is a perfectly legitimate difference of view for us to have, but I believe that the objective test is more rational. It is reasonable and is the one that informed the legislation currently on the statute book. In respect of some of the concerns that the noble Baroness has expressed, organisations which are properly campaigning on issues and trying to persuade Governments to change policy or reinforce policies they already have would not be seen, on an objective test, as trying to secure an electoral advantage.
I hope that that reassurance will be passed on because it is important that those organisations continue to play their very proper role in trying to persuade Governments, Oppositions or whoever about particular policy issues. There is certainly no desire on the past of this Government to try in any way to inhibit that. With those remarks, which I hope were reassuring, I ask the Committee to agree that the clause should stand part of the Bill.
Lord Tyler
(a) sending election material falling within paragraph 1 of Schedule 8A which is—(i) addressed to, or(ii) by virtue of delivery instructions directed to,any person registered, or entitled to be registered, in the register of parliamentary electors for any particular constituency, or to households within a particular constituency;(b) unsolicited telephone calls falling within paragraph 2 of Schedule 8A, made to such persons or households.( ) For the purposes of this paragraph, “election material” is defined as in section 143A.”
Lord Tyler
My Lords, I should apologise to Members who were anticipating that by now we might be moving on to the QSD. It is certainly not at my insistence that this group of amendments should be taken at 1.41 pm. However, as we have been gathering from all sides of the Committee during discussions this morning, the constituency limits, which are the subject of Clause 28 and therefore of this group, are very important and of central significance to the Bill.
We have heard that the Government did not bring this legislation forward to affect charity campaigning or to stop NGOs having their say about policy issues. The purpose of the Bill is to stop big money flooding into constituencies in the year before an election in an attempt to, in one direction, augment or to subvert candidates’ own spending limits. As I have already had occasion to say to the Committee, even if we in this House did not think that was important, there will be Members at the other end of the building who would think that it was extremely important—not least, perhaps, those pro-Europe Conservative MPs and candidates who might well be targeted by substantial sums of money, let alone others who may be in a similar position and a target for single-issue campaigning by individuals, multimillionaires or organisations.
Clause 28 is very important but it is by no means perfect, as has already been made apparent by many noble Lords this morning. The Bill talks about activity that has “significant effects” in a particular constituency or group of constituencies. The difficulty is that some of the groups that we have all met might, for example, hold a rally in one constituency which would have an effect on a great many others. I recall chairing just such a constituency rally, but if it had that significance for neighbouring constituencies in Cornwall, it would be very difficult to allocate the actual expenditure in any particular way. It would be very difficult to see what relative effect this was going to have in different adjoining constituencies. Frankly, as a former candidate, I rarely worried about somebody holding a meeting in the neighbouring constituency—or, for that matter, even in my own constituency—in terms of that affecting the outcome of the election. What affects elections most strongly is direct communication with electors and, as has already been mentioned this morning, the means of doing that have become more effective and cheaper in recent years. That is what can really sway a constituency result one way or another.
Lord Harries of Pentregarth
My Lords, I take seriously what the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, has said and what earlier on the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, said. Clearly, if there is a possibility of abuse, that must be guarded against. The commission takes that seriously. However, we must also take into account a number of other factors, not least that the Electoral Commission regards constituency limits as they are in the Bill at the moment as unworkable and unenforceable. It states:
“In our previous briefings on Part 2 of the Bill we have noted that except in extreme cases, the new year-long constituency controls may be unenforceable within the regulated period, given the difficulty of obtaining robust evidence to determine and sanction breaches”.
That seems to be a key point. If the Electoral Commission believes that these controls cannot be enforced, there must be something fundamentally wrong with the law.
It should also be noted that political parties’ national campaigning during the year before a UK general election is not subject to limits on spending at constituency level. Why is there one rule on this for political parties? Perhaps I can ask the Minister to reply to this. Why, when according to the Bill there is to be a limit on what third-party campaigners can spend, should the political parties have a rule that says that there is no limit on what they can spend in a particular constituency? Furthermore, PPERA did not contain the provision for constituency limits. We have heard a lot about the threat of abuse at constituency level, but there was no clear evidence of abuse at the 2010 general election.
The Electoral Commission states:
“The existing controls for constituency level campaigning are set out in separate rules under the Representation of the People Act 1983 (RPA)”.
These controls cover constituency campaigning by candidates who are standing for election and spending by non-party campaigners who campaign for and against those candidates, as, for example, in “vote for this candidate”. Earlier on the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, made a point of this. Any potential abuses of the kind that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, have pointed out are the responsibility of the police to investigate. The Electoral Commission does not have any enforcement powers in relation to these rules.
The main burden of the commission’s report, backed up by a number of vivid case examples, is that it would be impossible to comply with this law because a fair amount of campaigning crosses a number of different constituencies. For instance, the Save Lewisham Hospital campaign operates across three parliamentary constituencies. So far, the campaign has collected and spent around £36,000. The hospital serves a number of different constituencies. How on earth would the campaigning groups involved in the campaign allocate the different amounts of expenditure per particular constituency?
A similar problem arises in relation to Stop HS2. As well as the national organisation, there are 120 local action groups. In the Kenilworth and Southam constituency alone, there are 11 separate action groups. Stop HS2 goes through a whole range of different constituencies. How are the groups that are part of this campaign to allocate their expenditure to the different constituencies? Even if they were able to do that, how would the Electoral Commission be able to enforce it?
I shall not repeat other examples because of the shortage of time. They are all set out at the back of the report. One example relates to stopping climate change. We must take seriously what the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, has said. It may be possible for the Government to bring forward a very sharply focused amendment to deal with that problem. As it stands at the moment, for the reasons I have given, it would be difficult if not impossible for campaigning groups to comply with the law and the Electoral Commission would have great difficulty in enforcing it.
Baroness Mallalieu
My Lords, I, too, intend to oppose the Question that Clause 28 stand part of the Bill. I shall be brief.
Clause 28 needs to come out altogether. First, it is written in gobbledegook. At Second Reading I took up some of the House’s time by reading out part of Clause 28. I recommend it to the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, for his insomnia. It is impossible for a criminal lawyer like me, not a charity lawyer or an electoral lawyer, to begin to understand it. It is inconceivable that any small charity or campaigning organisation without its own legal team would be able to look at it and understand it. They would be bound to have to seek expensive legal advice that would take money and staff away from the objects and the work that they were doing. Whatever else happens in relation to Clause 28, this present clause should be taken away and written in English.
Secondly, if the Government insist on having a clause of this nature, perhaps I may also point out, as has already been done by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, that it is unworkable. It is impossible to divide some of the expenditure by campaigning organisations between constituencies. Where does it leave the rally that draws people from a number of different constituencies? Where does it leave the battle bus that drives around the streets and crosses some constituency boundary? How on earth does an organiser who is running a national campaign apportion the particular pieces of his time to the various constituencies that may or may not be covered?
Thirdly, it is unenforceable. The Electoral Commission, comprising the people who are meant to be doing that, has said so, as your Lordships have just been reminded. One can well imagine the avalanche of complaints that are likely to be made to the Electoral Commission during and after a campaign, especially if a result has been close. Its resources are now stretched beyond what it is being required to do. It is unlikely that it will receive adequate additional resources to help with the Bill. If it does, they will be inadequate for investigating and dealing with the process of investigation and adjudication of these complaints.
Lord Tyler
Should I interpret the noble Baroness’s remarks that she is supporting the very carefully targeted Amendment 170A that I moved? That would deal with all the uncertainty to which she understandably refers.
Baroness Mallalieu
That would certainly be a much better step than what is included at present. I would say that it is absolutely unnecessary. If it is right that the spending limits are to be reduced, does that not provide one safeguard? I return to my old friend, the Representation of the People Act 1983, which in any event provides the safeguard that people are concerned does not exist now. For all those reasons, Clause 28 needs to be scrapped.
Lord Horam
My Lords, I agree with the noble Baroness about the way in which this clause has been written. I thoroughly applauded her speech at Second Reading in which she drew out the extent to which this is incredibly complicated, even for someone with some arithmetical skills, which I do not possess, let alone any understanding of law by a non-lawyer. None the less there is a supremely important principle in this clause and my noble friend Lord Tyler drew it out perfectly. In many ways it is the heart of this Bill.
The fundamental issue is that spending by political parties is controlled because we do not want there to be a free-for-all spending-wise in this country in the way there is in America. Therefore, we have control of political parties’ spending. We have control at a national level and we have control in a regulated period; we can argue about the length of the regulated period but we have one. We have control at the constituency level. That control must be strong. Therefore, we are really arguing about what the level of control should be.
I am quite amazed that the commission of the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, said quite specifically that there should be no constituency limits on spending by third-party campaigners. That must be absolutely wrong in principle because they are not standing in the election. Why should they have an unlimited influence in a particular constituency as opposed to the people who have actually got the guts to stand for election and put their name, personality and fortune on the line in the hope of coming to Parliament? It must be wrong for them to be outbid financially by some third party, who is not willing to put their name and person up for election in the way the candidate has had the courage to do.
I hope that the noble and right reverend Lord will reflect on this. The idea that there should be no constituency limits is wrong in principle. Therefore, I think there should be a clause of this kind, although I would hope it would be very much better drafted than the one we have at the moment.
Secondly, the argument is put forward by the commission that any limits placed are unenforceable. Obviously, the commission is making the point that it is being asked to do a new task. Previously, the commission has looked post hoc at what has happened in a general election; here it is being asked to do it in real time, during the course of the election, to find out exactly what is going on and whether the system is being abused. That is a very difficult task and the commission is right to say that it is having tasks imposed on it that it has not done before and which therefore may well be very difficult to enforce, to the point of being unenforceable in some circumstances.
Those of us who have fought elections know that the existing limits on what parties can spend in elections are very often unenforceable in practice. As I know to my personal cost, parties find all sorts of devious ways around the amount that can be spent in a general election and it is very difficult to track them down. In that sense, the existing rules are unenforceable, but they do have a restraining effect. As a candidate in a general election, when I came to fight the election I knew that I had to get a little war chest together. The general assumption was that you had to try to get together about £10,000 to fight an election.
I will say in passing that most associations and local parties are extremely poor. Getting together £10,000 is quite hard to do. At the penultimate general election, when I was defending a majority of 269 against the Liberal Democrats, I reached £10,000 only by having a gift from the noble Lord, Lord Ashcroft, of £6,000; otherwise, I and the local party would have had to fork out. We are living in a poor world. Local parties do not have the resources of Oxfam and all those large organisations that want to home in on an election and put their view—as they rightly should, within proportionate limits—to the people who stand in elections.
Having constituency limits acts as a clear restraint on what parties think they can spend and what third parties think they can spend. Therefore, if there was a restraint of the kind the Government recommend, that would exercise a good influence on the whole electoral system.
The issue has been raised, in relation to the Save Lewisham Hospital campaign, that you cannot have a spending limit related to one constituency. There are three constituencies in Lewisham; of course you could have the expenditure divided between three constituencies. Some expenditure would not be allowed in a particular constituency. In Orpington, for example, there was always a huge banner, usually taped up by the Labour Party, in one main road in my constituency and it was never accounted for in the local expenses of the Labour Party in Orpington although it would actually influence people going round the M25 and other roads nearby. These things can be dealt with and there is no real difficulty in trying to apportion expenditure in the way that is described.
It is all perfectly possible, it is doable and it is essential if we are to have a proper democracy in this country. Indeed, I would argue that what the commission is proposing is actually anti-democratic.
Lord Harries of Pentregarth
I feel I ought to point out something that the commission made quite clear at the beginning of its report: that its recommendations were for the 2015 election only and that there should be a proper review post-2015. We had only six weeks to consult, despite the recommendation of a lot of bodies, including ourselves, that there should have been a proper three-month or six-month review. In the six weeks, we could not find a workable solution to this, so for the 2015 election our recommendation was that we should not have limits. We could not get our minds round this to find one that is really workable. The Government may be able to do this—we will just have to see—and they may accept the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Tyler. In defence of the commission, I point out that this was only for the interim because we had such a short time to consult.
Lord Horam
I understand what the noble and right reverend Lord is saying and I accept that. None the less, I want him to understand that, in running a proper democracy, at a constituency level this is a very important issue.
Lord Tyler
I know that the noble Lord speaks in a personal capacity but he has also the very important, practical experience of being a member of the Electoral Commission. For the avoidance of doubt, I will read again the specific recommendation of the Electoral Commission on my Amendment 170A, which deals with this very important practical point of being able to tie down where precisely a campaign is aiming its efforts. The commission says:
“In principle we see potential benefits in defining the scope of activity covered by the constituency controls more specifically than in Part 2 of the Bill generally. For example, costs relating to material sent to specific addresses can be identified and evidenced with some confidence”,
which will deal with precisely the circumstances to which the noble Lord is referring. I hope, therefore, that there may be support from the Government for what I think is a very practical approach to this otherwise quite tricky problem.
Lord Horam
I hear what my noble friend says and I think he will also recognise that the Electoral Commission made the point of practicality—whether this really is a practical way forward. Whether it is workable in practice has to be the test.
As the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, knows, I have supported quite a few of the recommendations of his commission, which was a very thoughtful and helpful exercise. But on this point, I am very certain that the Government must hold their ground for the sake of democracy in this country.
Lord Ramsbotham
My Lords, because constituency-based limits seem to be even more inappropriate than some of the other sanctions we have been discussing when related to non-party charities and other organisations working in the criminal justice system, as the noble and right reverend Lord pointed out—and I have referred to these organisations already—I would like to preface my contention that Clause 28, which was so admirably described by the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, should not stand part of the Bill in its present form.
On Monday, we took almost six and a half hours to complete four groups of amendments in Committee, which not only confirmed what many other noble Lords have felt since it appeared—namely, that this is a thoroughly bad Bill—but caused me to reflect on its actual aim. My reflections were stimulated by the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, who suggested that its purpose was to prevent money taking over politics as it is doing in the United States.
On rereading Part 1, which is all about professional or consultant lobbyists, the scales fell from my eyes. The noble Baroness’s description of young people being trained to lobby by the Tea Party called to mind a conversation on the steps of Washington Cathedral one Sunday in September 1973 when I was accompanying my then boss, the Chief of the General Staff, to Matins during an official visit to the American army. A delightful elderly ex-ambassador to South Vietnam whom we met earlier in the visit said to him, “The trouble with this country is that it’s governed by whizz-kids, and the trouble with whizz-kids is that they haven’t got time to listen. You see, I’d told them that the Watergate building was in the Foggy Bottom district of Washington, and if they’d only called it the Foggy Bottom incident nobody would have taken them seriously”.
Then it dawned on me. Looking around Whitehall, I am struck by the numbers of whizz-kids advising every ministerial office. I understand that this is soon to be increased by 10 more per Secretary of State. They are not civil servants but whizz-kids: clever young people employed because they are uninhibited by practical experience. They are not afraid to put forward blue-skies theories, many of which I suspect that the more experienced Ministers would confine to the waste-paper basket.
The Bill is nothing more than a whizz-kid panic attack, brought on by the spectre of hordes of Tea Party-trained consultants flooding across the Atlantic and rotting up the 2015 election. Having panicked, they then tried to prove their virility by dreaming up preventive measures, which in their headlong rush they tried to process without submitting them to the normal procedures which, as we know, rubbished them once they saw them. This House too was swept along by this rush, until on Monday the voice of experience had a chance to make itself heard. I hope that on looking through Hansard their bosses will have realised that something is wrong and the whizz-kids need to be told to calm down. These hordes are not going to stream across the Atlantic, and even if they did we already have mechanisms in place that can cope with them.
Our political system, including our electoral system, may be at risk, in which case we may need to take remedial action. However, let us watch what happens in the 2015 election to see what action may need to be taken. Having made so much noise about the big society, the very last thing the Government ought to do is risk alienating voters by threatening the contribution of the voluntary sector, which is one the UK’s jewels. Rather than risk doing any more damage to ourselves and our reputation, surely we should now withdraw the Bill until we know whether we need such an instrument after 2015. I wonder whether any other noble Lords share the pious hopes of an old general.
I turn now to Clause 28. Again, we have had no examples from the Government of where disproportionate expenditure in one constituency has had an undue influence on the outcome of an election. Non-party organisations and charities, particularly those which work in the criminal justice system, are not organised into political constituencies. I cannot imagine how it is possible to divide their activities and apportion them to what is going on in constituencies, as my noble and right reverend friend pointed out. For example, consider the Shannon Trust, which provides the Toe by Toe reading programme in every prison in the country. Would it have to report how it is campaigning for funds in each of the constituencies which are involved in an election?
As has been pointed out, the Electoral Commission said that controls may be unenforceable within the regulated period, given the difficulty of obtaining robust evidence to determine and sanction breaches. If all of that is so abundantly clear to anyone looking at the whole system, why on earth are we presented with what the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, so rightly called gobbledegook which I defy anyone to understand?
Lord Hardie
My Lords, I rise as a fairly junior judge, and I also have pious hopes about the future of the Bill. My name is among those who oppose Clause 28 standing part of the Bill. I associate myself with the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, my noble and right reverend friend Lord Harries of Pentregarth and my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham. I will not repeat what they have said. Much of what I wanted to say has already been said, but I want to concentrate on two things.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, we have talked about taking money out of politics. If I heard the noble Lord, Lord Horam, correctly, he received a donation from the noble Lord, Lord Ashcroft, of £6,000. It is Labour Party policy that donations should be limited to £5,000, so perhaps the most important thing that we could do to get money out of politics—not under the Bill—would be for him and other members of his party to sign up to a maximum donation of £5,000.
Whatever the intention of constituency limits, we have heard that they are unworkable for campaigning organisations and certainly unenforceable by the Electoral Commission. As the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, said, political parties do not have these rules for national campaigning, let alone for a whole 12-month period. They do not have to account for staff costs nor try to parcel up their national spending by ward or constituency boundaries. However, political parties at least have a very good reason to organise by constituency; campaigning organisations do not. They campaign against wind farms, for a new zebra crossing, against payday lenders, or in favour of badgers. As we know, badgers move, as does HS2, which will run through hills and dales, counties and boroughs. Such campaigning does not fall into neat little constituency boundaries, which of course the Government anyway want to change for every election under their new law.
The new limit is £9,750 per constituency spread over a full year. That must cover costs of staff, hire of halls, adverts for meetings, posters and publicity. It will cause difficulty for small organisations which run a campaign limited to a geographical area but also for national campaigns with a federated structure. The boundaries for national and even local organisations rarely follow the constituency boundaries that we in politics know well.
Those organisations will need to estimate whether their campaigning costs relate to activity in particular constituencies and ensure that their planned spending will then stay within the new limit for each activity in each constituency. That will be problematic. First, they will have to find what the constituencies are. Many of them will not know—they are not political anoraks and they do not know the boundaries of those constituencies. They will then have to see which bit of spending lies where. It will be different for local organisations, but it will also be, as has been mentioned, virtually unenforceable within the time limit of this election by the Electoral Commission, particularly where breaches occur in the last few weeks of a campaign. It will require real-time monitoring; it will require the commission to respond to allegations across 650 constituencies during a whole 12-month period—that is, starting in May. I defy anyone who, like me, has run an organisation to be up and able to do by then something of that nature.
As has been said, this clause is incomprehensible, unworkable and unnecessary. The Conservatives, of course, have form on Clause 28. I suggest that they get rid of this one so that they do not have the same trouble as they did with the last one.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, it was clear from many of our previous debates that the issue of constituency limits had attracted considerable discussion, not to say controversy. The fundamental point here, which was very well made by my noble friends Lord Tyler and Lord Horam, is that it would be wrong if a third party could choose to direct its entire national spending limit at only one small part of the UK, thereby focusing the full force of the considerable spending available to it on that very small part. It would be disproportionate if that was one constituency. That point was articulated. It would be a travesty of the democratic process if so much was focused on one constituency.
To prevent such occurrences, the Bill introduces what I admit is a new provision whereby third parties will be permitted to spend only a certain proportion of their controlled expenditure in individual constituencies. Clause 28(6) limits per constituency spending to 0.05% of the maximum campaign expenditure limits applied to political parties. This amounts to £9,750. The limit applies for the duration of the regulated period for a UK parliamentary general election.
It is proposed that a third party’s expenditure would be wholly attributed to a constituency provided that the expenditure had “no significant effect” in any other constituency. It is of course possible that expenditure in a local area may be attributed to a number of constituencies—for example, in Lewisham, where I think that it would be relatively straightforward to see three constituencies.
I accept that if someone was handing out leaflets in Princes Street in Edinburgh, it would be very difficult to say that that was focused on a constituency—which I think used to be Edinburgh Central, but these boundary changes happen so often—and was not having an effect elsewhere. If anyone was handing out leaflets in the constituency which I formerly had the privilege of representing, in Kirkwall or in Lerwick, it would be almost impossible to suggest that it was intended to have an effect on any other constituency, as it would be focused in the one place. The concerns that have been expressed about how you identify boundaries will often be easier to determine with regard to specific case examples.
In response to a point that the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, raised on a number of occasions, I should stress that the limits on constituency spending do not remove or replace the important existing controls of the Representation of the People Act 1983. These rules are long-standing and stipulate that third parties campaigning for a candidate or candidates in a particular constituency—which includes negative campaigning against others—may spend only up to £500. Clause 34 would raise this amount to £700. While introducing a limited requirement to keep a record of such expenditure, the Bill does not otherwise affect the provisions of the Representation of the People Act. Third parties campaigning in local campaigns would be well advised to heed the strictures of the Act. First and foremost, if a particular organisation or group intends to go into a single constituency to promote a particular candidate, or to attack a particular candidate, it would be well advised to have regard to the provisions of the Representation of the People Act.
Lord Tyler
Will my noble friend confirm that that applies to the post-dissolution period in a constituency and not to the 12 months leading up to a poll?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My noble friend is absolutely right, but it is important that we do not lose sight of that provision.
There are other types of campaigning that are already regulated under PPERA and that we consider should be subject to the national third-party controlled expenditure campaigning limits and the constituency limits which this clause introduces: first, campaigning for or against a particular party; and, secondly, when a campaign is intended, or may reasonably be regarded as being intended, to support groups of candidates because they are of a particular type or because they support particular policies or hold particular views. For instance, if a third party campaigns with the message “vote for those candidates who support green taxes”, this would be spending regulated under PPERA and subject to the national third-party controlled expenditure campaigning limits and the proposed constituency limits. For both types of campaigning, a third party could choose to direct this entire national spending limit at only a small number of constituencies. That is why we consider this clause to be necessary.
A number of amendments have been proposed. The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, has proposed Amendment 170, which would remove constituency limits altogether. I accept his point that this would be for the 2015 election, and that we must look at it in that context, but I think that there is concern that a huge loophole could be created.
Some have said that there was no evidence of a problem in 2010—or, as the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, said, that there has been no example of a constituency being completely swayed or influenced by third party expenditure. But how many times do Ministers receive strictures because they did not anticipate a problem? If this were not in place, what would happen after the 2015 election if the kind of event to which the noble Lord refers had taken place in a constituency and there was felt to be a considerable travesty? I rather imagine that some would say, “Ministers knew they had a Bill going through Parliament. Why did they not do something about it at the time?”. Is it the case that we always have to wait for a problem or travesty to arise before we take action?
The constituency limits will be enforced by the Electoral Commission. I have heard the concerns that have been expressed about that. The Government have been in many discussions with the regulator on this issue, and we believe that the commission can regulate spending in constituencies in the same manner as it regulates national spending. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, asked whether an Electoral Commission enforcement officer would be needed in each constituency. That is certainly not what is anticipated.
Lord Hardie (CB)
I did not say that. I was not anticipating 650 enforcement officers. I was suggesting that if there was to be contemporaneous enforcement of this provision, it would be necessary to monitor each of the 650 constituencies, and for the appropriate enforcement officer, who might be covering several constituencies, to take action.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I accept that clarification and apologise if I misrepresented the noble and learned Lord. As I think my noble friend Lord Horam indicated, the current political parties expenditure rules are not always the easiest to enforce. Very often the best enforcers are the opposition—because, as those of us who have had active experience of political campaigns know, if there is any hint that somewhere or other there has been jiggery-pokery or money spent that should not have been, the candidates on the receiving end will be very quick to alert the regulatory authorities to what has gone on.
The same applies to the question that was raised, quite fairly, about how expenditure could be attributed to a constituency. We believe that it would be in line with the current guidance that attributes spending between different parts of the United Kingdom. Where spending in constituency A has a minor effect in constituency B, the entire spending amount should be allocated to the constituency that it was aimed at. For example, if a third party advertised in a local paper in constituency A that just happened to be distributed in a small part of constituency B, the entire amount should be allocated to constituency A.
That was really brought home to me when the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, asked, “How would we allocate the timing of the activities of a battle bus?”. I say this with no criticism whatever, but those who have not been involved in party election campaigning do not understand the difficulties that are sometimes experienced by those who have to act as election agents in allocating and working out expenditure returns for those who are involved in it. The noble Baroness wishes to intervene but I am just going to give an example. In 1979, my noble friend Lord Steel of Aikwood, then David Steel, the leader of the Liberal Party, probably introduced the battle bus to British politics. Immediately after that election in May 1979, I was adopted as the Liberal European candidate for the south of Scotland, which included the constituency of Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles. I had as my election agent the agent for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles, who had been David Steel’s election agent in the general election that immediately preceded it. He went by the wonderful name of Riddle Dumble, and, as my election agent, he told me, “I’ve got this nightmare of trying to do David’s election expenses return; I have to sit down and allocate the amount of time that his battle bus was in the constituency, and what part of it represented constituency campaigning and what was part of the national campaign”. This is not something that is new.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
We are professionals in a party. It is our job to run elections. That is the whole point that we are making. It is core to us; it is what we are trained for. I ran European elections. We know about it; we train our agents; we have the systems and have our computers set up for that; and we know ward boundaries and constituency boundaries. Here we are talking about different organisations that are here to help people with a drink problem, people in poverty and people who are going to be affected by the bedroom tax. They do not get trained in the way that we do.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I hear what the noble Baroness says, but if we are dealing with a situation where an organisation is trying to intervene in a constituency for the purpose of promoting the electoral advantage of one particular party, one particular candidate or a series of candidates in an area, then it is not unreasonable that there might be some responsibilities that go with that, particularly with the kind of substantial volume of money that we are talking about being spent in one or a number of focused geographical areas. No one is asking them to account for the work that they are doing in trying to tackle mental health issues or alcohol problem issues—that does not arise. They are caught by this only if the amount that they are spending in one particular constituency or group of constituencies is caught by these provisions, in which case there might just be a responsibility that goes with that. The point that I am making is that there is nothing new about that in terms of its enforceability. It is something that people, not least the Electoral Commission, have been grappling with for some time.
My noble friend Lord Tyler tabled a series of amendments that he hoped would add clarity to the provision. The word “clarity” is something that the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, and the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, would certainly echo. My noble friend quoted the Electoral Commission with regard to his Amendment 170A, which would mean that election materials—leaflets, mailshots, adverts and so on that were specifically addressed to or delivered to households in a constituency, and unsolicited telephone calls to households—counted towards constituency limits. The main issue that I have with this amendment is that there could be key activities, such as rallies or events that were deliberately focused on an area, which would not be regulated, and it would not restrict material from otherwise being distributed or displayed. As I said, leaflets being handed out in the middle of George Square in Glasgow are different from leaflets being handed out in the marketplace of Thurso, for example, in the Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross constituency, which could not be said to be influencing any other constituency. However, I hear what numerous contributors have said in this debate about simplification, and there is an obligation on us to look at the provisions, without giving any commitment, to see if there is the possibility of looking generally at the question of simplification.
My noble friend also tabled Amendments 170B and 170D, altering constituency limits so that the figure was £10,000 for the whole of the regulated period and £5,000 for the post-Dissolution period. He has already pointed out that RPA kicks in for the post-Dissolution period. As for the proposal that there should be an opportunity for the Secretary of State to amend the constituency limits by order, there is already provision in Clause 30 for the Secretary State to amend constituency limits by order on the recommendation of the Electoral Commission. I hope that that covers his concerns, but no doubt if he thinks that they do not meet what he was proposing, he will indicate that to me.
His final amendment was one that I thought had much to commend it in terms of, as he said, trying to encourage political engagement. Amendment 170G would allow the constituency limit to be exceeded to a maximum of £15,000, or £10,000 in the post-Dissolution period, if a third party’s controlled expenditure was being funded by donations of less than £250 from donors within a parliamentary constituency. It would also allow a third party to spend up to 50% more than the national limit that would otherwise apply.
Because amounts below £500 are not currently considered to be donations under PPERA, the amendment would require a third party to carry out permissibility checks and record all donations, however small. This would be a fundamental change to the PPERA donation rules and would be likely to involve unmanageable compliance. Given the concerns that have been expressed about compliance and regulatory burdens, that factor would have to be borne in mind. It would increase the burden and would also risk having the opposite effect to what was intended. A large third party organisation with members and donors across the country may be able to identify sufficient donors in each constituency to give itself a disproportionate advantage, whereas a small organisation funded by very small donations would not be able to benefit in the same way.
I referred earlier to the Representation of the People Act. We are also concerned that linking expenditure to local donations in constituencies in this way could quite easily risk confusion with and undermine RPA rules or third party candidate campaigns, and I know that my noble friend would not wish to have such confusion between the two regimes. I hope that noble Lords agree that there is a need for constituency limits and that these can be properly enforced. I urge my noble friend to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Tyler
My Lords, I will respond very briefly to the debate. I think my noble friend the Minister will accept that there is real concern about making sure that we have—if we are going to have—applicable, effective and manageable constituency limits. Therefore, I am sure that we will return to this on Report. If we do not and were to remove the whole of Clause 28, I am sure that it would be put back, in one form or another, by our colleagues in the other place, who have a considerable interest in the extent to which their constituencies are subjected to considerable investment—
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
My Lords, perhaps I may point out that it has already been through the other place and it was not thus amended.
Lord Tyler
The very fact that it has come to us is making the point for me. I think that the other place would consider it essential to retain some constituency limits. However, I accept that there are concerns about workability. I hope my amendments will improve the extent to which they will be manageable and enforceable, but in the mean time I am happy to withdraw the amendment.
First World War: Personnel from the Indian Subcontinent
(11 years ago)
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Lord Sheikh
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to commemorate the role of armed forces and other personnel from the Indian sub-continent in the First World War.
Lord Sheikh (Con)
My Lords, I am pleased that this important subject was called for debate today. The centenary of the First World War is almost upon us. This war saw conflict and suffering on an unprecedented scale. The four war years serve as both a reminder and a commemoration of the struggles and the sacrifice of so many people across the world. I hope that time will encourage us all to honour and appreciate the lasting impact these events have had and will continue to have for generations to come.
In March this year I spoke in a debate on the centenary of the war in your Lordships’ House. I specifically focused on the contribution of Indian forces then and I want to expand on those points today. The significant part they played is not widely acknowledged and the sacrifice made by the Indians and the suffering they endured need to be fully appreciated. I hope today’s debate will serve to inform others and help address the situation.
This matter holds a special significance to me; I trace my family heritage back to India. That is where my father originally lived before moving to Uganda in the 1920s. I feel a deep connection with the many stories documented by Indian soldiers throughout the conflict. On the outbreak of the First World War all opposition to the British Government ceased, and the feelings of Indians at large were well summed up by the Honourable Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, a former president of the Indian National Congress. He assured the viceroy and the governor-general that,
“India would ensure the sacrifice of men and money in order that the British armies shall triumph”.
India raised the world’s largest volunteer army, with a total of 1.5 million people, during the First World War. Indians from all over the world, from such remote countries as Australia and Argentina, came forward to serve the Empire in its hour of need. More than 1 million of these personnel were sent overseas and 140,000 were engaged in active service on the western front. This marked the first time that Indian soldiers had ever fought on European ground.
They were originally called on to help when the British forces were suffering heavy causalities, which reinforces just how historically important their role was. The great Mahatma Gandhi was instrumental in making the case for Indian assistance. On 13 August 1914, he and 50 other activists signed an important circular, which stated the decision,
“for the sake of the Motherland and the Empire to place our services unconditionally, during this crisis, at the disposal of the Authorities”.
The seven Indian expeditionary forces provided crucial support and fought directly alongside British Forces in Europe. For example, at the battle of Neuve Chapelle they provided half the attacking force. A British general described them as a magnificent body who performed the most useful and valuable service. The expeditionary forces also saw action in east Africa, Mesopotamia, Sinai, the Suez, Gallipoli and Palestine. The Royal Indian Marine also served alongside the Royal Navy in a number of functions. Some ships served as gunboats and others as coastal minesweepers. Their merchant services in transport and supply were also crucial to the war effort. More than 74,000 Indian troops were killed or declared missing in action during the First World War, a number that is testament to the level of sacrifice and loyalty shown by the Indians in supporting the Allied Forces.
Participants from the Indian subcontinent were recognised for their bravery and valour in combat during the First World War with more than 9,200 decorations, including 12 Victoria Cross medals. Sepoy Khudadad Khan was the first native-born Indian to win the Victoria Cross for his gallantry in the face of overwhelming numbers in Belgium. He served in the 129th Duke of Connaught’s Own Baluchis regiment. Similarly, the courage of Naik Darwan Singh Negi of the 1st Battalion of the 39th Garhwal Rifles was recognised in 1914. He was one of the very few soldiers to have the great honour of being personally presented with the Victoria Cross on the battlefield in France by King George V. A notable example of the spirit and pride of the Indian subcontinent soldiers is that of a platoon of Sikhs, who in 1914 died fighting in Belgium to the last man, who shot himself with his last cartridge rather than surrender to the enemy. The soldier believed in the concept of chardi kala, which gave him the strength to be courageous and not to surrender.
The participation of the Indian subcontinent was not confined to the battlefield alone. Doctors and students from the Indian Medical Service provided care and rehabilitation to the wounded and many Indian military hospitals were set up across the UK, perhaps the most famous of which was the Royal Pavilion Hospital in Brighton. This housed more than 600 wounded soldiers from the western front. As shocking as these facts and figures are, we must also remember the personal and social hardship that was felt by Indian citizens and families not directly involved in the conflict. Much of the essence of the war is captured in writings from the time, and India contributed in this respect, too. One of the greatest poets during those years was an Indian called Rabindranath Tagore. Tagore wrote in a letter on 18 November 1915 that the war was fought,
“for the cause of liberty”.
Speaking in 1921, upon the placing of the foundation stone of the All-India War Memorial, Lord Chelmsford, the viceroy of India, remarked that the,
“immortal story of the endurance and valour of the sons of India is a legacy which their sons and their sons’ sons will treasure above all the wealth the world can offer”.
This memorial, completed in 1931, remains a testament to the sacred memory of the Indian soldiers who fell in different parts of the world. There are indeed numerous similar memorials in existence across the world to commemorate those soldiers who gave their lives during the First World War. A site called the Chattri exists on the South Downs, at Patcham near Brighton. It is associated with 53 Hindu and Sikh soldiers whose remains were cremated at that spot. A memorial service is held there every year. There is also a Muslim burial ground on Horsell Common in Woking, where 17 Indian soldiers were originally buried. Further burials took place after the Second World War. Renovation works are currently taking place there in preparation for next year’s anniversary. In Neuve Chapelle in France, there is a memorial that has been erected to honour the memory of the Indian soldiers who died fighting in Europe. In addition, I know that some years ago the noble Baroness, Lady Flather, led a successful campaign to erect a memorial on Constitution Hill to soldiers from India and other regions of the British Empire who served in the two world wars.
The commitment of these brave men to the war effort often emerged from a strong sense of personal duty to the Empire. Many letters written by Indian soldiers at that time reveal the honour they felt in fighting for their king. It was this loyalty and dedication that endeared many British troops to them. Indeed, alongside the military assistance they provided, there was the opportunity for social interaction between our different cultures.
I know that the Government have been proactive in developing a substantial programme of tributes and events, including last month’s announcement that a series of lectures will be held to commemorate the contribution of Commonwealth countries to the war effort. I shall be obliged if my noble friend the Minister can explain to your Lordships’ House what plans have been formulated to honour the contribution by the people of India during the First World War. I am looking forward to sharing in the commemoration and honouring their memories.
Lord Parekh (Lab)
My Lords, next year we commemorate the centenary of the First World War, which until 1939 used to be called the Great War. The Government, the British Library and various organisations have provided a syllabus of a wide range of activities that should be undertaken, and adequate resources for this. I welcome this, but have two reservations. First, I am not sure that those organisations are entirely clear about what they are commemorating. Commemorating the war: what can that mean? Do they mean our victory in the war or remembering those who died? We need to be clear about what exactly we are commemorating. Secondly, how should we be commemorating? Are we proceeding along the right lines?
On the first question, the war needs to be placed in a context. We need to ask how the war started. How did it become a world war, so that it was not just an ordinary war but had to be given a special name: the Great War or, after 1939, the First World War? What were we doing in the war? How did we use the war to break up the Ottoman Empire? How did the Germans intervene in the war in order to urge the Ottomans to declare jihad against Britain and France, while we in turn asked the Arabs to revolt against the Ottoman Empire and change the geography of the Middle East, as it is now? In short, we ought to understand the origins of the First World War and draw important lessons. It was a horrendous war which resulted in enormous tragedy and pain, as seen in the letters and poetry that grew out of it.
We could use the event to exorcise the fascination with war that has sadly been an important part of our psyche. We have more statues devoted to military generals and heroes than many other countries. It is about time that we asked ourselves whether there are some elements of our national psyche that need to be addressed more carefully than we have done so far.
Secondly, we need to commemorate the fact that the war was a collaborative effort. We were able to survive, maintaining our liberties and prosperity because of the enormous contribution of the Commonwealth troops. Indians alone contributed substantially: 1,250,000 Indians were involved, of whom about 72,000 died, 12,000 won medals and about 11 won the Victoria Cross. We must also not forget that about 200 Army nurses died, of whom more than 50% were Indians. Many of the Indian soldiers fought in a climate which was not at all familiar to them, in the European theatres of war. Many of them spent weeks in freezing, waterlogged trenches.
Since the war was a collaborative effort, in which others countries helped us, it is important to highlight the fact that this is not peculiar to the First World War. The situation was only slightly different in the Napoleonic wars. You need only to walk down the Royal Gallery and see the fresco on the right, which depicts Nelson’s death. In that picture, you see a black gentleman and an Arab, showing that even during the Napoleonic wars, countries other than our own contributed. Those are the two things that I would like to see commemorated.
How do we commemorate? Obviously, exhibitions, lectures and information packs for schools are all important, but I suggest three things in particular as relevant to commemorating the Indian contribution. First, the Indian community here should be involved in the planning and execution of the various projects, because the whole thing seems to be operating over their heads. Secondly, we should commemorate in such a way that the multi-ethnic character of Britain is highlighted and our people are able to feel at ease with it. In those areas where large numbers of ethnic minorities are concentrated, it might be useful to devote greater attention than we have done to commemorating the Indian contribution to the First World War so that Indian kids grow up knowing that they were part of this country’s history long before they arrived, and white kids grow up recognising that Indians are not simply arrivals after the Second World War but have also been making an important contribution.
We should also use the occasion to consolidate consciousness of the Commonwealth in our schools and the Commonwealth as an international institution, because the Commonwealth played an extremely important part. If we are lucky, in emphasising the Indian contribution we might also be able to bring the Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis together and create, here in Britain, the kind of harmony that should obtain, but sadly does not, in the subcontinent itself.
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, for initiating the debate. We shall for the next five years be marking the centenary of the Great War and remembering the horrors that it represented. I pay tribute immediately to all those who are planning events to commemorate the war, from the Imperial War Museum, to local museum services and to the thousands of community and local groups.
In the UK, we tend to think of the war in terms of family memories, local war memorials, the volunteers who responded to Kitchener’s call to arms, the Somme, Passchendaele, the war poets, literature, plays and so on. However, the role of the Indian Army in World War I is not as widely understood in the UK as it should be. I hope that the centenary commemoration over the next five years will be an opportunity to redress the balance.
The Indian Army played a critical role in France and Belgium in the early days of the war because it plugged the line on the western front before Kitchener’s army was ready to cross to Flanders and France. As we have heard, it was the first time that troops from the Indian Army had fought in Europe. The Indian Army also played a critical role in Mesopotamia in the early months of the war. In 1914, it was the largest volunteer army in the world and, during the course of the war, over 800,000 volunteered for the army and 400,000 for non-combatant roles. Some 657,000 troops went to Mesopotamia; 144,000 to Egypt and Palestine; 138,000 to France. Troops also went to East Africa and Gallipoli, and there were of course people in the navy and merchant navy. In autumn 1914, troops were moved from India to Mesopotamia to secure the oilfields if Turkey came out in support of Germany. As I mentioned, the movement of troops to Europe at the end of September 1914 was to help hold the western front against the German invasion of Belgium and France.
How do we mark the role of those from the Indian subcontinent and all that they did? There are two ways: places and people. On places, we have to have specific events on the western front. First, the role of the Indian Army in the first battle of Ypres in October 1914 was particularly important. In the first attack, on 26 October, the Indian Army demonstrated huge bravery, with over 200 soldiers killed. Secondly, its role at Neuve Chapelle, 25 miles south of Ypres, two days later on 28 October, when the German troops had driven a gap in the British lines, was marked. Its troops were engaged for six days in house-to-house fighting in Neuve Chapelle: 500 Indian Army officers and men were killed and almost 1,500 wounded. On 23 November, when German troops broke through at Festubert, near Ypres, Indian Army troops were ordered to recover the line by dawn, which they did showing immense bravery. I suggest there should be events at all three of those places, on the relevant centenary dates, to mark their massive contribution in those early days of fighting on the western front.
More troops were committed to Mesopotamia, which was largely an Indian Army campaign. Despite eventual success, by October 1918 11,000 Indian Army troops were killed, with 4,000 more dying from wounds and 12,500 from disease. Some 51,000 were wounded, many of whom were shipped home in inadequate hospital ships because they had to use ordinary troop ships. We should also mark the disaster at Kut, in the spring of 1916, where 9,000 Indian Army soldiers were captured and marched northwards. They were not treated as prisoners of war and 2,500 died on the march. We have heard about the East Africa campaign and Gallipoli, where another 1,700 died in 1915.
Turning to people, we have heard about the award of Victoria Crosses. There were nine on the western front, eight in the first two years of the war and they were won in Mesopotamia, Palestine and Egypt. Is there a case for commemorating the award of those crosses in the towns and villages the recipients came from in the Indian subcontinent or, perhaps, through their descendents? Some practical demonstration of our thanks to them is particularly important.
In conclusion, we have to express our appreciation to the people of the Indian subcontinent. Last year, I stood at the India Gate in Delhi pondering the enormous contribution made by so many individuals. Let us not forget that people from the Indian sub-continent kept volunteering throughout the war. We owe them a very great deal for the sacrifice of so many so far from home.
Baroness Flather (CB)
My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, for securing this debate. Part of me is sorry that there are not more speakers, and part of me is very glad because it gives me a few more minutes to speak. I hope this is not because of lack of interest: perhaps holidays have started for most people.
This is an important issue and is particularly so for me personally because my father volunteered in the first war—I was going to say “Great War”. Gandhiji said to Indian students that they should volunteer but not fight to kill. So my father was a stretcher bearer in Mesopotamia. Goodness knows what kind of a time he had there. He would not speak about it, which tells us it was a pretty awful time for him. All I know is that he lived on bully beef. I remember him saying that and it was the first time I had heard the word.
Young people who were studying in this country also volunteered because Gandhiji said so. Gandhiji himself was an amazing man who had fought in the Boer War—I know we are not talking about that war—and was at the battle of Spion Kop. Spion Kop was a hill that some noble Lords will know about. All the stretcher bearers at that battle were Indians and Gandhiji held the rank of sergeant-major. It is good to remember his contribution. As the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, said, he actually canvassed people to join the British Army in the first and second wars and said, “We have to save the Empire”. Even Mark Tully got that wrong.
When I was deputy mayor and then mayor of Windsor and Maidenhead, I laid the first wreath on the war memorial. During my mayoralty, one of my fellow councillors asked me if Remembrance Day meant anything to me. Noble Lords might feel the same shock I did that an educated man, an elected councillor, had no idea what the Indians had done in the two world wars. This was so shocking to me I started to think about the memorial mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh. It took me many years to get people to agree to work for it and I am not sure anybody really believed we would get a memorial in the end, but we have one. I note what the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, said about the Indian community. I have been very disappointed indeed by the interest it has shown—or not shown—in the memorial. It is their memorial, built not by the Government but by people giving money. However much I have tried to get them interested in visiting, I have not been very successful. Every year, we have a commemoration—a gathering not a service—when we try to remember the people. The noble Lord, Lord Parekh, asked, “What is war?”. War—whichever war it is—is horrible but we should never forget the contribution of the people and that is what this debate is about.
I remind noble Lords that when the British Expeditionary Force went to France the British standing army was very small and it lost. The first group who came to support them were 150,000 members of the Indian standing army. When they arrived in November they had no warm clothing. It was not just that they were not used to the cold: the army had not thought to provide them with the appropriate clothing. This has happened in many wars. There was also a lot of racism, and many problems with food. Nevertheless, our people were stalwart, and stayed with the Army and fought—and in such a way that they cannot be said to have been just cannon fodder. They were wonderful people and had a very important role to play in both roles.
Brighton Pavilion is an interesting place, because the then Prince of Wales thought that if he put the wounded Indian soldiers in Brighton Pavilion they would feel at home. Those people were from villages and had never seen any kind of palace, not even an Indian one, let alone the English Brighton Pavilion. In any case, they were put there; I hope that they were looked after but do not know whether they were—probably not terribly well, I should not wonder.
We have to work on the curriculum. We have to get some information about the Indian contribution in the curriculum—not just to the First World War, but even more importantly to the Second World War. I urge noble Lords to try their best to influence those who should be influenced.
Lord Lexden (Con)
My Lords, this short debate made possible by my noble friend Lord Sheikh, to whom we are all greatly indebted, provides us with an opportunity to recall and to reflect upon the immense contribution made by the peoples of the Indian subcontinent during the First World War. There is so much to remember, and so much to hold firmly in our minds with gratitude and veneration as the centenary of the outbreak of this terrible conflict approaches. The part played by the Indian Armed Forces and by all those who assisted them in their many tasks in three continents, on which my noble friend Lord Shipley has elaborated, should feature prominently in the period of commemoration that lies ahead.
Speaking as a historian, although I lack the eminence of the noble Lord, Professor Lord Morgan, who is to follow me and who can correct all my mistakes, I am particularly glad that the Imperial War Museum—the world’s leading authority on conflict and its impact, which as many noble Lords know is so conspicuously involved in the work of commemoration—has incorporated within its plans full recognition of India’s role as the biggest imperial contributor to the war. The museum’s famous First World War galleries will re-emerge next year, utterly transformed. One of the central objectives is to ensure that a proper understanding of India’s contribution and of the sacrifice made by its peoples is conveyed vividly and powerfully to visitors. Film, photography and representative items of warfare, which can stir the imagination so strongly, will all be deployed effectively for that purpose. Nor will the disappointment that was so widely felt in 1918 and thereafter be neglected. The final section of the renovated galleries will make clear the widespread discontent aroused by Britain’s decision to withhold from India the large measure of self-government that was conferred elsewhere as dominion status emerged.
I very much hope that the Imperial War Museum’s plans will be widely noted, as I am sure the Minister will agree. The plans need to be reflected at all levels throughout the country to make commemorative activity full and complete. That is particularly important where India is concerned, since among British historians there was for too long a tendency to underrate the contribution its peoples made. It was suggested, for example, that the Indian Army Corps, dispatched to France on the outbreak of war, failed to come up to expectations. Nothing could be further from the truth, as the current generation of my fellow historians has now properly acknowledged. Indian troops—and they alone—made good Britain’s acute shortfall in trained manpower in the first year of war on the western front. As one senior British officer emphasised,
“they filled a gap in the line when we had no other troops to put in”.
It should be added that that was at a great cost to themselves. By 1915 the Indian Army Corps had lost 50% of its original strength. Indian troops taught the rest of the British Expeditionary Force the art of patrolling in a form that would be suited to trench warfare on the western front. Skills that had been learnt while skirmishing in the Himalayas were adapted to a new purpose in the first night raids on the western front.
We can hear the voices of brave men from India, caught movingly in the letters they sent home. Here is one written on 1 May 1915 from the hospital established for them at the Royal Pavilion in Brighton:
“Do not be anxious about me. We are very well looked after. White soldiers are always besides our beds—day and night. The King has given a strict order that no trouble be given to any black man … in hospital. Men in hospital are tended like flowers, and the King and Queen sometimes come to visit them”.
I hope that that might provide a measure of reassurance to the noble Baroness, Lady Flather, who wondered about the treatment that had been accorded to Indian soldiers in hospital in Brighton. The Indian troops, to whom so much is owed, speak to us across the century through such letters published in a fascinating volume entitled Indian Voices of the Great War.
At the moment we know rather less about what courageous Indian troops had to say about the grave hardships which they faced in Mesopotamia, where most of them served—some 650,000 altogether, as my noble friend Lord Shipley mentioned. It was very much an Indian campaign from first to last. In Britain today it is not remembered with the gratitude that it deserves, or with sufficient consciousness of the sacrifices that were made. My noble friend Lord Shipley referred to the siege of Kut in early 1916, where Indian soldiers endured terrible privations. After the inevitable surrender they were held captive by the Turks in conditions so appalling that more than half of them died. Next year’s commemorations must give full and proper recognition to those sacrifices.
There is one thing above all on which our country should reflect. As we look back across the century to the First World War, it is surely always important to remember that the magnificent contribution of the peoples of the Indian subcontinent to the great common endeavour in war also contributed to strengthening ties with the people of Britain—ties that would survive all the political difficulties, violence and crises that were to follow.
Lord Morgan (Lab)
My Lords, this debate, admirably launched by the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, is very welcome. It enables us to pay proper tribute to the courage and sacrifice of the over 1 million Indian troops who took part in the First World War, as well as enabling us to test the Government’s resolve: how far will they subscribe to what we heard from the Minister, that the commemoration of the war would not be a celebration of militarism but would deal with matters such as the role of women, trade unions and new currents in poetry, and that in the case of Ireland it would focus not only on the Irish troops who volunteered to fight in the war, but also on the fact that it led to the Easter Rising and to the domination of Sinn Fein?
So it should be in India. As we have heard in a series of admirable speeches, Indian troops fought in very large numbers on the western front and in east Africa; enormous numbers fought in Mesopotamia and at the terrible siege of Kut al-Amara. The names of Indian troops are recorded in monuments in at Neuve Chapelle and on the Menin Gate. My own father served with Indian troops in the First World War in Palestine and always spoke with enormous warmth about that experience.
Gandhi encouraged Indians to volunteer for the British Army. At the same time, it is important to say how Gandhi shows how the war changed the perceptions of so many public figures in India. He was not at first the major nationalist in India—that was BG Tilak, who founded the Home Rule League. By the end of the war, Gandhi was convinced that the experiences of India in the war—the sacrifice of Indian troops—had given a new sense of unity and identity to all Indians; as we know, Gandhi worked a great deal with Muslims as well as with Hindus. The war gave the movement for home rule—swaraj—and Gandhi himself a new historical significance. Gandhi therefore illustrates what we should perhaps most fundamentally commemorate about the First World War.
We should note how the war encouraged movements in India to expand and to take up wider horizons. At first, Gandhi himself focused on internal issues within India—famously, the role of the untouchables, which he worked in a dedicated fashion to cope with in his own community. But by the end of the war he was adopting a much wider viewpoint, and challenging what he saw as the harshness of British rule, and how far a war supposedly fought to liberate subject nationalities was in fact reinforcing British control over his country. It is enormously important both for Gandhi and for the Indian nationalist movement that the First World War within India encouraged the famous non-violent strategies with which Gandhi is associated to work against the grain of imperial policy and win support for Indian nationalism outside India. Gandhi did this very conspicuously, if I may say so, within the Labour Party.
The First World War should be commemorated above all because in India, and thereby in a wider world, it was a period of historic change. The legacy of the Indian troops fighting so gallantly, on the western front and elsewhere, was not a stronger commitment of Indians to imperial rule; it marked the beginning of the end for the Raj. It was followed by the Rowlatt Bills against what was called terrorism, and by the terrible massacre at Amritsar. General Dyer was sacked after Amritsar, but Indians were appalled by the sympathy shown by many people in this country for his conduct. It is deeply to the discredit to the House of Lords that at that time it passed a Motion sympathising with and supporting General Dyer.
The legacy of the war appears to be commemorated in the imperial architecture of Lutyens and Baker in New Delhi. But the most prescient observer of these developments was the former French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, who said that it would be,
“the grandest ruin of them all”.
That, perhaps, is what we should be commemorating.
Viscount Slim (CB)
My Lords, it is with pride that I am able to speak to you today, because I was an officer in the Indian Army. We had quite a few here when I first came to your Lordships’ House, but we are withering away. I am old, but not old enough to have fought in the First World War. Lord Weatherill was probably the most famous officer of the Indian Army in World War II who has been among us. He had a great record of gallantry and service in a very wonderful Indian cavalry regiment in Burma.
My father was in the Indian Army too, as was the father of the noble Baroness, Lady Flather. He too fought in Mesopotamia, and also in Gallipoli. He was then in the British Army, but fought alongside a couple of battalions of the Indian Army. He was so impressed by their gallantry, by the way they fought and by the way in which they were commanded and organised that he said to himself, “If I get out of this mess, I shall transfer to the Indian Army.” And he did—for the next 30 years.
We have talked loosely and happily about the bravery of the Indian Army, but I would like to take you into a battalion of the Indian Army as it was then, and show you the various components. As the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, said, there was no conscription: every man was a volunteer. Some regiments were strictly of one warrior, martial tribe; others were mixed. There were about 14 or 15 Punjab regiments, and in those there were Sikhs, Muslims, Hindus and Christians, completely integrated. There is a lesson there, you know, for the good people of Bradford and elsewhere in our nation. Of course they lived, not separately, but alongside each other, because they all ate different types of food, but there was a mosque, a Hindu temple and a Sikh gurdwara, there was the nearest Christian church, and there was often a Buddhist temple. We used to go to each other’s—and that was really rather good. It was the first real sign of integration of the people in India in those days. The Indian Army led, and later the police in India did much the same.
There was a difference of content, in that we had two types of officer in the battalion—the King’s commissioned officer and the Viceroy’s commissioned officer. They were probably the most important part of the Indian Army. The average British battalion had probably 30 or 40 British officers. But in an Indian Army battalion we had only about a dozen, because underneath those 12 or so officers the Viceroy commissioned officer was also an officer: he had his own officers mess, soldiers saluted him, and he provided the stability and the junior leadership of the Indian Army battalion—a rather special sort of battalion.
I do not think that it is generally known that in peacetime, the British officer was not accepted in the Indian Army unless he passed very high up out of Sandhurst. My father was the Indian Army instructor at the Staff College next door to Sandhurst, and I remember all those hopefuls coming to him to be looked at to see whether they were up to the very high standard of British Army officer required. He took some, and I know that he rejected one or two. You certainly needed to pass out in the first 25 or 30 at Sandhurst to be accepted.
May I end on a story? The Duke of Wellington always said that he learnt his soldiering in India, and he was damn nearly beaten by the Marathas, who had been led by probably one of the greatest guerrilla leaders in history, a man called Shivaji. The Duke, like all of us, learnt a lot in India.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)
My Lords, as this is a time-limited debate and we have to give the Minister time to give a complete response, I am time-limited to one minute. I shall try to observe that limit, but I may slightly exceed it. I do not think it is important for me to say what I would have said if I had had time, because I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, will give us other opportunities to reflect on some of the important issues that have been raised today. So many good speeches have been made that anything I would have said would have been relatively uninformed and lacking in authority.
However, I would like to say two things. It seems to me that the legacy of the Empire and Commonwealth soldiers, like so many aspects of the First World War, will be argued about. The centenary debates must capture the fact that the tale of the Empire and Commonwealth soldiers is a contested, complex story—a human story of valour and tragedy, of victory and futility, of respect and racism, and of forgetting and re-remembering. What cannot be doubted is that these events and encounters provide an important foundation stone for an understanding of the making of modern Britain. If we know the history, we can hope to understand how we became the country we are today. It is important to recognise that the British and Empire Army that fought the First World War a century ago had more in common, demographically, with the Britain of 2014 than that of 1914.
A number of noble Lords have asked the Minister to give us more details about what events are planned. Within that response, will he think hard about what my noble friend Lord Morgan said about the resolve of the Government to make sure that this is an all-inclusive, non-celebratory event?
Lord Bates (Con)
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, for generously curtailing his speech to allow me more time to respond. On behalf of all who have spoken in this debate, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, for giving us the opportunity to discuss how we commemorate the role of soldiers from the Indian subcontinent in the First World War. As the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, said, the emphasis on commemoration, not celebration, is absolutely central to everything that we will do. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, for what he has done not only in initiating this debate but in ensuring that we are reminded of, acknowledge and recognise the contribution made by people from the Indian subcontinent to business and our culture in general.
The noble Baroness, Lady Flather, spoke of her personal story and experience at the war memorial in Maidenhead, and of people’s ignorance of the enormous contribution made by forces personnel from the Indian subcontinent. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, spoke very powerfully about the need to ensure that that contribution is not forgotten in any way. That is one of the reasons why I reassure noble Lords that the commemorations will have education and the curriculum at their centre.
The noble Lord, Lord Morgan, who is a distinguished historian, will recognise that this is not about the Government handing down a sterile statement or version of history that people must discover. What we want to do—this is the purpose of all the Government’s action in this area—is simply to encourage people to pause, think and take note of the scale of the suffering, and the reasons for it, and to engage with it in a very personal way and draw their own conclusions about what happened.
The most powerful contributions in this debate came from noble Lords who brought their personal experiences to it, such as the noble Viscount, Lord Slim. We appreciate their comments very much. The noble Viscount, Lord Slim, said that the Indian Army was an entirely voluntary army. The fact that it raised so many volunteers to fight in a different continent should be humbling for all of us who cherish our freedom won through their efforts, energies and sacrifice. That is another reason why we want to ensure that that is not forgotten.
I want to mention a couple of things that the Government plan to do. The British High Commission in New Delhi is working with the Indians on a number of projects to mark the centenary. These include a guidebook about the Indian Army’s role in France and Flanders, the digitisation of the Indian Army’s war diaries and the production of a number of books about India’s contribution and experiences. My noble friend Lord Lexden spoke about the voices that we can hear down the generations emanating from moving letters, and how those will be central to the Imperial War Museum’s new galleries’ commemoration of the contribution which India made.
The Government plan to recognise the outstanding contribution of Victoria Cross recipients. The Indian corps won 13,000 medals for gallantry, including 12 Victoria Crosses. We will create lasting memorials to all those who served with courage and valour. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, asked how these people might be commemorated in their own country. There are plans for paving stones to be inscribed with the names of the recipients of the VC in the cities, towns and villages from where they came, but Her Majesty’s Government cannot dictate how other countries commemorate these people but we are coming together as a Commonwealth to recognise them.
A number of noble Lords referred to the importance of the Commonwealth. Indeed, the commemoration process will begin at the end of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow next year. The first service will be a Commonwealth service with the entire Commonwealth coming together to commemorate the First World War and recognise its effects. That service will be held in Glasgow cathedral. More countries were involved in the war than not—from the vast Indian subcontinent to the small island of Nevis. All should be remembered for the part they played, and I assure noble Lords that that is central to the commemoration plans.
The noble Lords, Lord Morgan and Lord Parekh, and the noble Baroness, Lady Flather, referred to the role of Gandhi. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, has written extensively on the life of Gandhi. It is absolutely appropriate that his life, example and story should also be part of the commemoration process. Indeed, my noble friend Lady Warsi has initiated a series of lectures with the Curzon Institute to explore the stories of the individuals involved. The noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, referred to soldiers such as Sepoy Khudadad Khan, the first soldier from the Indian subcontinent to be awarded the Victoria Cross. I would mention also Walter Tull, the first Black British officer and George Blackman of Barbados, the last survivor who served in the war from the West Indies, who passed away in 2003 at the age of 106. We will come back to these personal stories time and again as we realise that they are the most powerful way of communicating the horrors which affected the world at that time, and that they shaped a generation.
My right honourable and noble friend Lady Warsi has visited Grootebeek military cemetery and the First World War graves of soldiers from her parents’ home village in Pakistan—another personal story. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, asked whether there would be commemorations at Neuve-Chapelle. Those preparations are being discussed and I think that my noble friend Lady Warsi will find the contributions to this debate very helpful.
I am afraid that because of the time constraints I have not been able to cover this matter in as much depth as I would like. Nevertheless, this has been a very important debate. There is no doubt that we could not have prevailed in the First World War without the support and sacrifice of our Commonwealth partners. As we came together then, so the centenary gives us an opportunity to come together now, not just people in this country but also people in the subcontinent, as noble Lords said, with the different faith traditions and nationalities which make up that subcontinent. We should come together to reaffirm our shared values, forged through experiences that will not be forgotten, and that bind us together inseparably.
Recognition of the important role that those from the Indian subcontinent played is an integral part of the Government’s plans for an inclusive commemoration —the inclusive commemoration that the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, implored us to establish. This commemoration will not airbrush the horror of the war nor shy away from the concept of victory. We approach the centenary in a spirit of reconciliation, acknowledging that the loss and suffering recognised no national boundaries and that those who were once our adversaries are now our partners in building a better world.
Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill
(11 years ago)
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Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB)
My Lords, in putting my name down to oppose Clause 29 standing part of the Bill, I hope that the Minister will be able to explain what this whole clause is really about, and what mischief it is intended to block. I went to the Public Bill Office, whose staff have been extraordinarily helpful on this occasion, as on so many others. In order to run through my amendments and to make sure that I understood the Bill properly and what I was putting forward, I asked about this clause, and what it really meant. I said to them, you are all highly trained lawyers; you will be able to tell me what it is all about. They said that they deliberately do not have lawyers in the Public Bill Office because it is very important for people to understand legislation, and that is why they are lay people and not lawyers. I said, “That’s very good—I’ll leave this with you for a day, and perhaps you can tell me what all of this is about”. I went back the next day and they said that they were very sorry but they did not think they would be able to help me with this one. I then contacted the lawyer who specialises in electoral law who has been advising the commission, and asked her. She sent me a reply. I am still not quite sure that I understand what it is all about, but this is what she says:
“Clause 29 imposes limits on the amount non-parties can spend on activity that could reasonably be regarded as promoting a particular party and none other, to £38,500, unless they have the party’s authorisation. This limits the freedom of expression association beyond the limits of proportionality”.
She adds:
“Although not a focus of the commission’s work, it is another position that would leave groups open to inadvertence, and the onus on what parties do, as opposed to campaigners’ intent. If the rest of the commission’s recommendations are implemented, this would be a highly peculiar—and, from a regulatory viewpoint, bizarre—provision to remain”.
I hope that the Minister will be able to explain what this clause is really about, and what mischief it is intended to block.
Baroness Mallalieu (Lab)
My Lords, my name is also down to oppose the question that Clause 29 stand part. We had some powerful speeches from Welsh Members of your Lordships’ House the other day about the living language that is Welsh. This is another part of the Bill that is written in the living language of gobbledegook, although that is living only in parts of Whitehall. I, too, was completely puzzled by it. I obtained the Explanatory Notes, read them with care, and was none the wiser at the end of it. This, I hope, will also be included in the undertaking that the Minister gave when he said that he felt an obligation to look at those parts of the Bill that are incomprehensible. This certainly needs translating; it has been written by lawyers for lawyers—of a specialist sort—yet not for the people who have actually to apply it, particularly those in small charities and organisations. They have to be able to understand the detail of the Bill. I hope this clause can be completely rewritten, if indeed large parts of it are at all necessary.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, I also put my name down here. I apologise to your Lordships for not being able to participate for the latter part of Monday, and earlier today. However, the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, and the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, have both indicated something that ought to be of prime and absolute concern to every Member of both Houses of Parliament: legislation should be intelligible. People to whom this will apply ought to know what the law says they can and cannot do. In this House and in another place, I have often advocated a redistribution of Sir Ernest Gowers’s famous book Plain Words. If anyone needs a copy, it is those who give—devoted and conscientious, I am sure—service to my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness, because what has been produced here is utterly incomprehensible, to moderately intelligent people in all parts of this House. First, we need my noble and learned friend to give us a child’s guide from the Dispatch Box, to tell us what is intended. He should then take this clause away, which is total gobbledegook, as the noble Baroness said a few moments ago, and after Christmas, bring us a new year’s gift of something which we can all understand.
The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Wallace of Tankerness) (LD)
My Lords, I hear the message. The current provisions of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 do not prevent political parties benefiting from expenditure by third parties in a way that would enable the political parties to avoid party spending limits. Although measures exist to regulate political party spending, third-party spending and the notional campaign expenditure of political parties—that is, spending by third parties for or on behalf of a political party—those measures are not necessarily effective in ensuring that all spending for the benefit of a political party is properly captured. Our concern, which influences or informs this clause, is that that risks undermining trust in the controls on party spending.
Clause 29 therefore introduces a new measure that requires third parties that spend significant sums in a way that can reasonably be regarded as supporting a particular political party or its candidates to be specifically authorised by the relevant political party to campaign in that manner. I heard and will certainly reflect on what the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, of Pentregarth, said—that this might somehow be something that innocent people or groups can stumble into, but I rather think that the political reality on the ground is that if a particular group is, to all intents and purposes, supporting the Liberal Democrats—I am being neutral about this—it will not do so innocently or without any notion that that is what it is doing.
Under proposed new Section 94B(3), authorisation would be required only in instances where the third party wishes to incur expenditure that exceeds 10% of its spending limit for a part of the UK. This would be treated as “targeted controlled expenditure”, and the Bill defines it as more than 0.2% of the maximum campaign expenditure limit for political parties in that part of the United Kingdom. That limit would be £31,980 in England, £3,540 in Scotland, £2,400 in Wales and £1,080 in Northern Ireland. If a political party does not want the third party to spend more than 10% of its spending limit in support of it, or for that expenditure to count towards its limit, it can simply withhold authorisation. A third party will commit an offence if it either exceeds the targeted expenditure limit without authorisation or exceeds an authorised cap set by a political party. In other words, if such a group comes to the Liberal Democrats, in the highly unlikely event that the Liberal Democrat treasurer says, “Sorry, we are not going to accept your offer of going beyond the 10% limit and we are not giving you authorisation”, it would be an offence if the group then spent money in obvious support of the Liberal Democrats beyond the 10%.
The intention of this clause is to bring a greater degree of transparency where third parties campaign to support a particular political party or its candidates. Requiring expenditure incurred as part of that campaigning to count towards the spending limits of both the third party and the political party, and for this information then to be disclosed to the public, will prevent political parties evading their spending limits by relying on co-ordinated support from campaigning groups. Clause 29 will not prevent third parties campaigning up to a significant limit without needing any kind of authorisation from a political party. Nor will it curtail third-party expenditure that cannot reasonably be regarded as intended to benefit a particular party—for example, because that expenditure supports multiple parties or candidates who support the third party’s aims.
This is an important provision to try to prevent the spending limits on political parties being circumscribed or undermined by third parties campaigning on their behalf. It does so by requiring authorisation at 10% of the third party’s spending limit. I take the point that what I believe is a relatively simple and important principle or objective may not have been expressed in the most felicitous terms. I would normally share my noble friend Lord Cormack’s desire to see legislation in much plainer English. I confess that having negotiated a coalition agreement with the Labour Party in the Scottish Parliament in 2003, including a commitment to making progress towards drafting legislation in plain English, I fear that we failed to honour that commitment. That suggests that it is easier said than done. Some challenges are bigger than others.
I do not know whether delivering the objective can be done in much simpler language. In the previous clause, much of the apparent complexities related to an interrelationship between different relevant periods because of different elections. However, judging by the mood of the House, we at least ought to look at this clause to see if something can be done in that regard. However, the underlying objective, to stop the subversion of the limits on party political funding, is a proper objective.
Lord Tyler
“Third parties acting in concert
(1) Section 94 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (limits of controlled expenditure by non-recognised third parties) is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (6)(b) after “arrangement” insert (“the plan”).
(3) In subsection (6), at end insert “in pursuance of the plan”.”
Lord Tyler (LD)
My Lords, I have tabled this proposed new clause with my colleagues, my noble friends Lady Williams of Crosby and Lady Tyler of Enfield and, in a private capacity, the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth. We have given it the heading:
“Third parties acting in concert”.
We think that that is a better definition of the problem that has been brought to our attention on many occasions than using the word “coalition”, which might have other overtones.
Among all the groups that we have met, the present PPERA 2000 rules on this type of working between different organisations have emerged as a major area of concern. Indeed, they have caused great confusion and, more than anything else, given rise to the alleged chilling effect among smaller organisations. I checked with the Electoral Commission earlier this week about what exactly is meant by the present rules. Suppose organisation A contributes £15,000 to a combined operation, which acts in concert in some form of policy coalition. Then organisation B contributes £375,000 to that same campaign. Therefore, under the present rules, A and B have to record £390,000 as having been spent. However, vitally, organisation A, which has spent only £15,000, is recorded as having spent right up to the total of £390,000. That creates an extremely difficult situation for small organisations. Just by being caught up by some joint operation, they get clobbered because they might very well want to take on some different campaign activity that is nothing to do with that original campaign, and then find that they have already exceeded the limit. That is the nature of the present law, and that is the nature of the present problem that so many organisations have drawn to our attention.
The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, and his colleagues have a good amendment that would deal with this for small organisations making a contribution below the registration threshold and, of course, that is welcome. Our amendment goes further: it embodies the principle that any one group or any one campaign should be capped at the level of the national or constituency limit. We do this by engaging in the amendment with the phrase,
“common plan or other arrangement”,
which is already referred to in the 2000 Act. We are effectively saying that the money spent on that plan should be capped—it should not then be carried forward for any other campaign of a different nature—or that that money spent by a different organisation should be capped. If, in my example, organisation A was spending only £15,000, that would be the limit of the restraint on it because it clearly would not be contributing a huge sum. Just because organisation B has spent a considerable sum in pursuance of the common plan, it should not be effectively restricted by what has happened with one of their allies.
There is a way around these rules at present, which is to set up an umbrella organisation to accept donations from all the different organisations involved, but if they simply campaign together then they will be caught by the present rules. There is a defect in the 2000 PPERA rules and the Bill is our opportunity to deal with it, remove that uncertainty and assist a number of organisations that feel that this is a real constraint on what they are permitted to do. I should say briefly that, on these Benches, we strongly refute the case for Amendment 182A, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall of Blaisdon, which would seek to take away all the coalition rules. It would mean no constraint whatever on organisations, allowing them simply and artificially to multiply and then provide multiple spending limits. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, is not here to explain exactly the rationale for those original 2000 PPERA rules, which were thought at the time to be both necessary and desirable. Unfortunately, they have proved to be, to a large extent, not very effective and, in some respects, a discouragement to small organisations being involved in perfectly proper campaigning operations.
The amendment of the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, goes a long way to dealing with the problem, but we think that our approach goes a little further and we hope that the Government will accept the direction in which it is going. I beg to move.
Lord Harries of Pentregarth
My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendment 170M. First of all, the charities and campaigning groups have indicated very strongly that what the present Bill puts forward on coalition working is totally unacceptable. All charities are encouraged by the Charity Commission and by their own trustees to work together in coalitions. We have seen many very successful examples of coalition working, but under the law as it is put forward in Part 2 of the Bill, the total amount of money spent by the coalition is attributed to each single member of the coalition. This must be, by any standard, totally unfair. We have racked our brains for the past six weeks and do not feel that we have come up with any solution to the fundamental problem. Therefore, in the first week after we come back, we will be calling a round table conference to which the Minister has agreed to come and various other people will be invited, to see whether, together, we can crack this fundamental problem of coalition working and how it can be fairly regulated. I am sure that the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, to which I put my name in a private capacity, will be very much on the table to be considered at that point.
However, as he mentioned, our Amendment 170M will go some way towards solving the problem for smaller groups. In that amendment, we mark the difference between a minor third party and a nominated third party. A minor third party is one that has not yet reached the registration threshold. If it is working in coalition with other parties, on the basis of my amendment it will be able to nominate another party, called the nominated third party. With the agreement of both the third party and the nominated third party, the money that the minor third party spends on that campaign will be attributed to the nominated third party as part of its overall expenditure and the minor third party will simply be able to indicate to the Electoral Commission that it is below the threshold and has, as it were, contributed this amount of money towards the nominated third party, which is very likely to be regulated. We believe that this is quite a neat way of ensuring that smaller parties—those which do not hit the registration threshold and certainly are very anxious to work in coalition —will not be brought within the scope of regulated expenditure. The Electoral Commission, in examining this amendment, remarked that it is “attractive in principle”, but wants to think about it further to see whether there are any unintended consequences.
The issue of coalition working is one of the key areas about which charities and campaigning groups are concerned. I will not go through any of the examples set out at the end of our report, but I would draw the attention of noble Lords to the Human Rights Consortium in Northern Ireland, which has been referred to at least once in this debate already, where something like 180 NGOs work together on a crucial issue. That gives some indication of why getting coalition working right is absolutely fundamental to the charity sector and, indeed, to the workings of our democracy.
Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)
My Lords, I add my support for Amendment 170H, to which my name is attached. As my noble friend Lord Tyler has already explained, the amendment seeks to apply the limit of £390,000 to any one registered third party or to any one coalition campaign, but not to limit the spending of one body by virtue of the spending of another. That is a key point.
As I looked into this issue, it became clear that, under the existing 2000 legislation, if a number of organisations campaign together on one issue, each member has to account for the full amount spent on that joint campaign, regardless of their individual contributions, however large or small. As I understand it, this aggregated reporting of coalition spending was put in place at the time as a form of anti-avoidance mechanism for these rules. My concerns are based on my own experience of working in coalitions of charities, and focus on the impact that this can have on collaborative working across the voluntary sector. I am particularly concerned about the impact on small and medium-sized charities and other organisations. In the year before an election, small organisations are quite unlikely to join coalitions for fear of having to deal with the related administrative burdens, while larger organisations are likely to walk away from such coalitions in order to avoid reaching the maximum expenditure limits.
I have also looked at the work of the Commission on Civil Society and Democratic Engagement, and I pay tribute to the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, for highlighting the issue of the impact on coalitions of charities. I was struck by how charities would be affected, because they will have to deal with two regulators. I know very well that the Charity Commission encourages coalition working in order to achieve the efficient use of resources—and, frankly, because when smaller charities work together they are likely to have a far greater impact on the policy area they are concerned about.
My personal experience is based on three things. For two and a half years I was the chair of the Kids in the Middle coalition—an interesting coalition of around 30 charities in the children and families sector, working with 30 of the country’s agony aunts and one or two agony uncles. It was all about the impact that very high-conflict separation of parents can have on children. I like to think that it was a rather effective campaign in terms of the things that were achieved, but I fear for how such a coalition of charities would be able to operate under the Bill as it stands.
I am also currently the chair of a coalition of charities called the Making Every Adult Matter group, which looks at how organisations trying to help adults with multiple and complex needs can better work together to produce more joined-up solutions on the ground. It is very difficult for small to medium-sized charities, given the size of their resources, to campaign individually. They simply do not have the resources to do it, and it is probably not a very good use of their very limited time.
I will finish by making a couple of broader points about coalitions and how they could be affected by this legislation unless these amendments are taken on board. It is really important that coalitions are able to campaign effectively, often over a long period of time, to get their point across. I think, for example, of the Mental Health Alliance, which has existed for nearly 10 years. The lead organisations in any alliance or collaboration need to have clarity that they themselves will not be penalised by excessive regulation if their campaign happens to straddle election periods. They also need to be absolutely sure that their governance responsibilities are clear.
I feel quite strongly about federated charities. I was chief executive for five years of Relate, a federated organisation in exactly the same position as federated charities such as Mind or Age UK. They are federations of local independent charities that operate under an umbrella and are federated with a central charity. My concern is that, unless an amendment of the type that we are talking about is taken forward, individual charities that work as part of an umbrella charity will find themselves in a very difficult position and will perhaps feel that they would not wish to be involved in any campaigning work. That would be very unfortunate.
Baroness Mallalieu
My Lords, my name is on Amendment 170M. This issue creates a number of problems, some of which have been mentioned and some of which have not. One concern is that it gives a completely misleading impression of what each partner in a coalition has spent, because it has to include everybody else’s contribution with its own. This does not give the impression of transparency—if that is what we are trying to achieve—but just the opposite. It gives the public a picture of smaller organisations, and the campaign as a whole, spending far more than they have actually done.
It also of course reduces the amount that can be spent by those groups on other messages or campaigns that they may be conducting. It is inhibiting in both ways and provides the opposite of transparency—it draws a veil over the whole coalition and does not give a true picture to those who want to see how much each of them is spending. Others have said that it is a discouragement to coalition working, which charities are encouraged to do.
We also know from the evidence we have heard that there is very considerable concern about coalitions that involve charities and non-charities working together. How does the Minister see such a coalition working if he were tempted to agree to the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, which sought to take charities out of the Bill? If that was done, the charity would of course be under no obligation to register or, indeed, to record its contribution, but the non-charity would. If he has a chance to do so, I would be grateful if the Minister could deal with my worry about that particular situation.
It is quite clear, as we grapple with this, that five weeks is totally insufficient to reach a proper conclusion that would create transparency but at the same time not inhibit proper campaigning. The Electoral Commission has said that, ahead of Report in this House, it is looking at all the options for mitigating the burdens on campaigners with a common plan that spend less than the registration threshold, and that it will publish its conclusions to help the House before that stage.
Lord Ramsbotham (CB)
My Lords, I have added my name to the amendment. I have done so in relation to the organisations involved with the criminal justice system that I have mentioned before. I refer in particular to the two initiatives being driven at the moment by the Secretary of State for Justice. One is Transforming Rehabilitation, which involves establishing new partnerships working with prisons. The other is the transforming of the probation service, which involves setting up community rehabilitation companies. These consist of a mixture of private companies, charities and other non-voluntary organisations.
They are being encouraged to do this and to do it on a payment-by-results basis. The results are not yet clear. It should be borne in mind that 50% of the rehabilitation work in prisons today is done by voluntary organisations, many of which are very small. Have the possible implications of them joining in coalition with larger organisations that may well fall into the catch of this amendment been explained to the Ministry of Justice and does it have any comment to make? In theory it should explain the implications to those who are minded to join in the coalitions under its leadership.
Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab)
My Lords, there is little wonder that there is so much concern in the charitable and voluntary sectors about the idea of collaborative working being detrimentally affected by the Bill. That is because collaborative working coalitions are the most effective way of campaigning and bringing about policy change. They bring together large and small organisations, single-issue and multiple-issue organisations, service providers and self-help organisations, and charities and other types of organisation. As well as enabling a powerful voice, collaborative working moderates the kinds of demand that are made and makes them more realistic. You have to achieve some kind of consensus, if, for example, you are putting together a manifesto, as many coalitions do in the run-up to an election. This may mean moderating the demands of the more extreme and pushing along the demands of the more cautious. These coalitions are very effective and this is why it is important that we get this right. This issue requires much more detailed consideration. In the mean time, the amendment proposed by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, gets us some way along that road. I very much support it.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)
My Lords, I should like to emphasise the challenge posed to coalition working by the present PPERA rules. I have an amendment in a later group about the practical reporting requirements that flow from it.
My noble friend Lord Tyler laid out the challenges, but the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, put his finger on the issue. Our big challenge is to come up with the answer. Charities, particularly smaller ones, will always work in coalitions and therefore we must find a way to facilitate that, for the reasons given by several previous speakers. The noble Baroness, Lady Tyler of Enfield, explained this clearly from her personal experience. I can see that we are not there yet, but I hope that the round-table conference taking place early in January, to which the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, referred, will produce something that will address the weaknesses of the present system. I also hope that my noble and learned friend on the Front Bench will be able to approach that with an open mind so that we can tease out the right solution to this undoubtedly difficult but fundamental challenge.
The Earl of Sandwich (CB)
My Lords, I have already expressed my concerns about the smaller charities and the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, has articulated this so much better than me. I think that the Minister has been waiting for this amendment to reply to me and to others.
I back up what my noble and right reverend friend Lord Harries has said about encouraging charities to work together. Let us look at the example of slavery, which is in the minds of the Conservatives at the moment. We are rather surprised about that because that campaign comes from the voluntary sector and the Liberal party and not the Conservatives. Why is that? It is because the ecumenical coalition against trafficking and Anti-Slavery International came up with legislation. They have been working on this subject for 20 years, not five or 10 years, and the Prime Minister has embraced it at the forefront of present legislation. I am delighted about that but the Government have a lot of difficulty in the voluntary sector at the moment. If they are proceeding along these lines, they are going to have to think of something else soon.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, the last example given by the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, is a really powerful one and it adds to the criticisms, which I endorse, of the catch-all provisions that have been added to the existing rules, which worked in the past but have become unworkable because of the increased range of activities, the addition of staff, travel and other costs, the reduction of thresholds, and the cut in the spending cap. This is what makes what was a quite innocuous concept now very difficult.
We endorse the criticisms but go further and suggest in Amendment 182A, which is in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Royall, that the combined effect of all of that is so serious and could so jeopardise joint working that it is time to review whether such an anti-avoidance dollop of restrictions, red tape and responsibility for another organisation’s spending is actually worth the candle.
Of course, had we had pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill and known about this in advance, we might have ironed it out before, but we did not, so we are left with a situation in which restrictions on coalition spending—or, at least, subjecting it to joint limits and reporting—seem aimed at anti-avoidance only in the belief that 10 groups will get together and campaign and they will all spend £100 less than the limit. Again, we have had no evidence of this. It seems to be a solution in search of a problem.
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, which supports our amendment, has pointed to the increased significance of the rules because they will now apply to such a wide range of activities, and with new constituency limits. It thinks that this will threaten legitimate coalition campaigning, especially locally. For example, the RSPB works locally with other groups on infrastructure projects that affect the natural environment, such as an M4 relief road, when public reports or press events may be used. This may well be caught because one party may be in favour of a road and another party against it. Even if that is not the purpose of its work, the RSPB risks being caught if its particular objective chimes with—or is at variance with—one party, even though the RSPB’s objectives are based on the interests of birds rather than politics. It is particularly worried about how its spending would count against every member of the coalition’s spend and each member’s £9,750 limit would in a sense be double- or treble-counted if each group had to declare it as if it was its own. As the RSPB says, the combined effect of all the different rules is likely to limit what it can do.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews, also looking at the confusion surrounding coalition spending, was worried that simply having its logo on something, with therefore a bit of cost involved, would mean that that would have to be apportioned to a coalition, which could present problems and reduce its ability to support a campaign. The Libel Reform Campaign, which is made up of Sense About Science, English PEN and the Index on Censorship, believes that if it was pooling all those expenditures over a year, all those three organisations would hit their limit even if the combined limit was still below what is permissible.
NAVCA highlights that £5,000 is a lot of money for one small charity alone to spend. However, as my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley said, working in partnership can be much more effective for charities and what they want to achieve for the groups they support. Yet because all the funding is put together, the thresholds create a burden. This could discourage small charities from working in partnership to gain a voice, because they would fear everything that went with that.
It has been mentioned that the Electoral Commission itself, which traditionally saw the old coalition rules as a good anti-avoidance tool, now acknowledges that there are strong concerns about the impact, particularly on small local campaigns. If a local campaigner which is spending only a few pounds enters into a coalition with another which is spending more than the registration threshold, it may then be required to register. One campaigning group would have to take the other party’s spend as part of its own, and then comply with all the rules.
Of course, the amendment proposed by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, might appear attractive. It allows a bigger organisation to take responsibility for some of the spending of a smaller organisation. The problem is that a smaller organisation may have decided to spend only £1,000 on something over a year, but then something happens—it gets another member of staff, or the car breaks down and it has to hire a bus—and its expenditure suddenly goes up over that year. It will be the bigger organisation, the responsible body, which will suddenly have to answer for a new range of expenditure that has not been agreed in advance. I am afraid that for small voluntary organisations that is often how spending takes place. They do not spend with a budget in advance, as the Government do. Spending is often as and when.
Problems remain, despite the attempts to answer this. As has been said, the Electoral Commission itself has failed to come up with a response, only promising us its ideas by Report. This highlights the fact that not only was this not subject to pre-legislative scrutiny but the Government did not even consult the Electoral Commission before they brought in the Bill. It is a little worrying that neither the Government nor the Electoral Commission have found a way to answer these very serious questions. For that reason, we suggest removing the old requirements on all participants to be responsible for the actions of the other. We ask the Government to find a better way of tackling any attempts by various bodies to circumvent the very proper objectives of PPERA.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, from almost every meeting I took part in with charities or representatives of NGOs, I was certainly aware that the issue of what we described as coalition or co-ordinated planning was of considerable importance to them. That said, it is worth reflecting that the Bill does not actually make any changes, apart from the technical changes to take into account the other activities. The basic architecture on expenditure by organisations going towards a coalition plan was set down in the 2000 Act. I am not quite sure whether there was pre-legislative scrutiny before that particular architecture fell into place. However, it is not the case that the law was put forward in Part 2, as was said by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries. That law is already there in PPERA.
What has happened has perhaps been fortuitous. The Bill has brought activity and greater focus, which have targeted minds on what is actually there. I accept that there is more activity now, as I am sure would be said by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter. Yet in fact, as the law stands at the moment, if 10 groups each contribute £1,000 to the activities or to the election materials covered under the present Act, they would each be required to register. This is therefore an important issue. The noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, made this point about the concern of smaller organisations in a number of his contributions. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, that we should remember to put this in the context of what the controlled expenditure is. If we are talking about the valuable and important work that is done in our prisons in terms of rehabilitation, it does not readily strike me how that would be the kind of expenditure envisaged, albeit that the groups concerned might be engaged with other bodies which fall within the ambit of the Bill and of what would lead to controlled expenditure. However, it is important that we recognise that this issue has now been identified, and I think that we all agree that we should seek to address it.
The rules on coalitions are necessary. In its evidence to the Commission on Civil Society, the Electoral Commission said:
“In our view, rules that limit what different campaigners can spend on co-ordinated campaigning are a vital element of the controls on election spending. Without them, individuals or organisations seeking to spend more than the limits on campaigning at elections could do so by setting up multiple organisations working together, with each organisation able to spend the full amount”.
As I have said, the existing provisions have been in place for both the 2005 and 2010 general elections. They seemed to work well and they remain unchanged by the Bill.
There has been some confusion about the operation of the rules, so perhaps I should take this opportunity to clarify them. Section 94(6) of PPERA stipulates that where two or more third parties work together as a group or coalition in pursuance of a common plan, the whole of the expenditure they incur as part of that coalition must count against each third party’s individual spending limit. As my noble friend Lady Tyler pointed out, that is a key anti-avoidance provision. If total spending by a group of third parties acting as part of a common plan was not counted in full against each individual third party’s limits, it would allow third parties to form many coalitions on single issues in order to evade their spending limits.
However, the amendment put forward by my noble friend Lord Tyler perhaps does not have the effect that, I am sure from what he said in moving it, he intended, because it would appear simply to reinforce what is already provided for in PPERA. I am sure that my noble friend seeks a different outcome, which is perhaps the cessation of third parties accounting for aggregated coalition expenditure. Nevertheless, his amendment has raised an issue which I see as current and, as will be clear when I come to respond to the specific amendment proposed by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, the Government want to look carefully at what more can be done to deal with these concerns. My noble friend mentioned a round-table conference—when we broke for lunch, I think that dates and times were being arranged for that.
The amendment proposed by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, would create a category of what he described as “minor” third parties which are exempted from having to account for any coalition expenditure provided their individual contribution is below the registration threshold. The third party must not have incurred expenditure in any other circumstances, and a “nominated” third party must be willing to absorb the “minor” third party’s spend and report it as its own to the Electoral Commission.
I accept that that is a constructive approach to addressing the problem that has been identified. Already, if a coalition campaign is organised by a lead third-party organisation which alone incurs, or decides when to authorise, regulated spending for the campaign, only the lead organisation is required to register with the Electoral Commission. The lead campaigner may receive contributions or donations from other organisations towards the campaign. These will be considered as donations. Where other organisations provide services or materials to the lead campaigner, these will be regarded as both in-kind donations and “notional” spending on behalf of the lead organisation. I reiterate: it is only where there is no lead organisation, and several third parties co-ordinate their campaigning while making their own decisions on when to incur regulated expenditure, that they will be covered by the rules on coalition campaigning.
I hope that in indicating what the present position is on when donations are made I have gone some way to reassuring the noble and right reverend Lord, but we recognise the concerns of small organisations which may wish to join a larger coalition to campaign on an issue. We will continue to look carefully at what more can be done. I hope that, when we meet, the benefit of a break might have enabled us to find a way to address an issue which, as I said at the outset, already exists even under the law as it stands.
In the same vein, the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, specifically asked what the position would be with regard to charities. If charities were exempted, they would not incur the controlled expenditure so it would not be counted towards spending on a common plan. As I indicated in my response to the amendment moved on Monday by my noble friend Lord Phillips of Sudbury, though, while there is certainly an issue there to be addressed and we want to consider it, the Government’s position has not been to exempt charities. If we were to go down that path, the kind of issue that she has raised is one of those that would have to be considered.
Lord Tyler
I am very grateful to the Minister but also to others who contributed because, if we have done nothing else in recent minutes, we have demonstrated that there is a basic misunderstanding of the current law. It is therefore not surprising that many organisations outwith Parliament, large and small, have been confused by this issue. We should be absolutely clear, and my noble and learned friend’s latter remarks underline this, that if we are not very careful, if it were removed completely from the current 2000 Act by this Bill, this could result in those who have a direct interest in avoidance using this as a cunning plan to get around the constraints of the current law. I have read the Hansard from the time and this was anticipated as a potentially dangerous loophole in the debates in 2000 that led to the PPERA Act, and it would be totally wrong to just tear it up and throw it out.
Incidentally, in that connection, there have been comments about the role of the Electoral Commission. As I have frequently reminded your Lordships, I have a role as a member of the cross-party informal advisory group to the commission. I think that the commission should be taken to task for not identifying that this was a problem over 13 years of experience. It is unfortunate that in that respect it did not recommend to the previous Government and to Parliament that this needed to be looked at, whatever future legislation was going to try and tackle it.
It is clear from the contributions right around the House that many here who have contact with small organisations and charities know that in the past there has been a chilling effect, to use that expression, on those who wish to work in a collaborative way, which, for the reasons that have been explained so well by my noble friend Lady Tyler, needs careful attention. We need to try to avoid the existing distortions that have been identified as having been there for some time, although obviously are now more pressing, given the other changes in the Bill.
Obviously I, too, hope that between now and Report the promised discussions will result in a fairer, more rational approach for those who wish to campaign in an election together. I therefore hope that in the next two or three weeks we will see a practical solution. A number of ideas have been put forward to the Minister and I have every confidence, given what he has just said, that the Government will look at them very carefully. In the mean time—
Lord Hardie (CB)
Can I just clarify the noble Lord’s comments about the Electoral Commission, as I did not fully understand them. The criticism of the commission for not identifying this problem—was it that it ought to have identified it before the 2000 Act or between the Act and now? It was set up, as I understand it, by the 2000 Act so it could not have done it in anticipation of that.
Lord Tyler
My Lords, I am so sorry if I did not make that clear. Since the 2000 Act it has become increasingly evident that this was having an effect and discouraging a number of organisations from working together. This has come to a head now but the principle was explicit in PPERA in 2000 and it is unfortunate that the commission allowed some discussion to continue at a low level but was never in a position to nor felt able to recommend to government and to Parliament that this matter needed close attention.
Lord Hardie
“Publication of guidelines for third parties regarding regulation of expenditure
(1) As soon as is reasonably practicable after the passing of this Act, the Electoral Commission shall publish guidelines to assist third parties to determine what procedures are necessary for them to ensure compliance with the provisions of this Act.
(2) The provisions of this Act regulating expenditure by third parties shall not come into effect until three months have elapsed after the publication of the guidelines mentioned in subsection (1).
(3) In the event that the effect of subsections (1) and (2) is that the period remaining prior to the 2015 general election is less than the relevant period, the limits on expenditure by third parties will be reduced to the relevant proportion of the maximum permitted expenditure.
(4) In subsection (3) the “relevant proportion” means the proportion of the maximum permitted expenditure represented by where A is the number of days remaining after the expiry of the three month period specified in subsection (2) until the date of the poll for the 2015 general election and B is 365.”
Lord Hardie
My Lords, I will speak also to Amendment 170K. Both amendments introduce new clauses into the Bill. Amendment 170J introduces a requirement on the Electoral Commission to publish guidelines for the assistance of third parties to ensure that they comply with the provisions of the Bill, when it is enacted. I understand that it would be normal for the commission to provide such guidance, but subsection (1) of the proposed new clause requires publication to be:
“As soon as is reasonably practicable after the passing of this Act”.
That provision recognises that the commission may not be able to prepare such guidance until the final version of the legislation is known.
Unlike many pieces of legislation where one might be able to prepare guidelines in anticipation of enactment, the Bill has a number of issues of uncertainty. There remains a considerable amount of uncertainty about the final provisions of the Bill in view of the extent of the opposition to different clauses and the commitment by the Government—which is welcome—to come back on Report with amendments. The Government’s response to the report from the Commission on Civil Society and Democratic Engagement is also awaited. Until all of that is known it would not be sensible to embark on preparing guidelines because one might ultimately be dealing with different provisions. It would be a waste of resources to commence work until the picture was much clearer.
Subsection (2) of the proposed new clause thereafter allows a period of three months after the publication of the guidance to enable recognised third parties to put in place procedures necessary to ensure that they comply with the Act’s provisions. It is clear from the discussion in Committee that there will undoubtedly be a bureaucratic burden on third parties. Once the guidelines are known, the procedures might well involve the recruitment and training of staff. It will certainly involve administrative procedures, including measures for recording and monitoring expenditure on a constituency basis—if the constituency provisions come in—and it will involve procedures for making returns, including weekly ones, as mentioned by my noble and right reverend friend Lord Harries of Pentregarth.
We should not underestimate the huge bureaucratic burden imposed on small organisations by this legislation. It is appropriate that, if this legislation is to work, they should be given a reasonable period to make arrangements to enable them to comply, particularly as a failure to comply will expose them to criminal conviction and sanction.
I recognise that by furthering this approach, one might well be encroaching into the year before the election. Subsections (3) and (4) of the proposed new clause are my attempt to address that difficulty. They provide, in that eventuality, for the regulated period to be reduced below the 365 days before the next election. Their effect is to reduce the period and to reduce the maximum amount of allowable expenditure in proportion to the amount of the year that is left.
The provisions of my proposed new clause are fair and reasonable. They will not prevent the Bill, when enacted, having effect prior to the next election, if that is the will of Parliament. However, I recognise, having regard to other possible approaches, that the new clause will be unnecessary if the relevant period is reduced to, say, six months, which other noble Lords suggested. However, it is lodged in anticipation that the period will remain at one year.
The second proposed new clause is in Amendment 170K. It would ensure that the Government recognise—as I am sure that they do—the significant additional burden that the Bill would impose upon the Electoral Commission. This is reflected in the various new provisions, requiring guidance, monitoring and enforcement, particularly if the commission has to monitor and enforce contemporaneously the provisions on constituency expenditure. I referred to my concerns about that when opposing the Question that Clause 28 should stand part of the Bill, and I do not intend to repeat them here.
In addition to those concerns, I anticipate that if we are in the realms of monitoring constituency expenditure and taking contemporaneous action, and stopping campaign groups or whatever from doing particular things in the course of an election, there will be a great increase in the work of the courts in the form of judicial review. Some campaign groups will just not accept the decision of the commission and will challenge its action. Has provision been made for that eventuality by the Government in making some allowance for the commission to resist such actions, should they arise?
There will be an added burden on the commission’s resources due to the time constraints occasioned by the history of the Bill. Many noble Lords expressed concern about this at Second Reading. Again, it is unnecessary to repeat those concerns today. Suffice it to say that the limited consultation and the short period of time available before the general election, coupled with the 365-day relevant period, combine to impose additional pressures on the commission’s staff to produce guidelines that will be effective within a very short timescale.
Of necessity, that will involve the commission in expenditure that could have been avoided, or at least reduced, if the Government had followed a different course. The commission should not bear that cost or the additional cost of monitoring and enforcement. This clause seeks to ensure that they do not do so. There is no point in passing the Bill if the Government will not give a commitment to provide adequate resources to those who are charged with the responsibility of regulating and enforcing the regime that the Bill introduces. I beg to move.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie. Amendment 175 picks up the early part of Amendment 170J and seeks, as a probing amendment, to require the production of joint guidance between the Electoral Commission and the Charity Commission. During all the debates on Part 2 of the Bill, the underlying theme has been the practical implications for individual charities, especially smaller ones, many of which—as has been pointed out on several occasions—were not yet aware of their responsibilities. As the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, pointed out on Monday, the overwhelming proportion are run by people of the utmost integrity. The challenge is how to do this so they can discharge their responsibilities at minimum commensurate cost and disruption.
As we have discussed, there is guidance. The oft referred to CC9 from the Charity Commission is 35 pages long but is commendably clearly written and laid out. There are two parts to the Electoral Commission’s guidance: one is entitled Overview of non-party campaign material and the other is on non-party campaigners. That runs to another 15 or 20 pages, so we are talking about something north of 50 pages in total. That is what it looks like for a small charity. I suspect my noble friend Lord Tyler would call it a very good aid to sleeping.
These are two separate sets of guidance which are not easy to integrate. For example, in section G of CC9, entitled, “Campaigning: getting it right”, it says:
“This section is aimed at charities that have already decided to campaign or work in the political arena. There are a range of detailed questions and issues that may arise, along with the need to comply with charity law, and other laws and regulations.”
Strangely, the Electoral Commission is not mentioned at all in the text that follows. What is mentioned is the Advertising Standards Authority, a body which has not hitherto featured large in our discussions. In the Electoral Commission guidance on non-party campaign material, the focus is on two tests: the purpose test and the publicity test. These form no part at all of the CC9 guidance and the overall impression is of two ships passing in the night. This will pose considerable challenges, especially to smaller charities, so the amendment is intended to require—force is perhaps an unattractive word—the Electoral Commission and the Charity Commission to produce an integrated set of guidance laying out how to comply with the new Act.
This is a challenge but not an insuperable one. It will, of course, be opposed by both commissions. Members of your Lordships’ House will already have had an opening salvo from the Electoral Commission:
“We think that a legal requirement for us and the charity regulators to produce joint documents is unnecessary and likely to be inflexible. It may also be counterproductive because it could hinder our ability to respond quickly to the needs of charities whose activities fall within our regulatory remit, especially as new questions will arise during the regulated period.”
I do not find these arguments persuasive at all. I see nothing in them that will be made more difficult by requiring a joint approach. Indeed, if the Electoral Commission is proposing to introduce new guidance during an election campaign without the agreement of or consultation with the Charity Commission, this has the potential to put charities in an extremely difficult position.
I do not underestimate the challenge this will pose to my noble and learned friend on the Front Bench. I have been trying for some three years to encourage greater co-operation between Companies House and the Charity Commission to save 30,000 charitable companies making two returns where one could and should suffice. That has never seemed an insuperable objective but progress to date has been glacial. The same applies to collaboration between HMRC and the Charity Commission. However, that issue of collaboration between the Charity Commission and the Electoral Commission is altogether more pressing because of the short timescales and the imperatives created by a general election campaign.
If the requirement to produce joint guidance is not made a statutory one, I confidently forecast that none will be produced. The two commissions will keep to their own separate turfs, and the affected charities will be left in no man’s land in the middle. I therefore hope that my noble friend will appreciate the importance of tackling this matter.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, for his amendments and I welcome the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, who just pointed out the ghastly complexity and challenges that will be faced by charities as a result of the Bill. It is eminently sensible to have an integrated set of guidance, and I very much hope that the Minister will accept this amendment so that it will be clear that this House and the Government want there to be a requirement for an integrated set of guidance.
On Monday the Government made a great deal of how the guidance that would be issued after the Bill becomes law would clear up many of the apparent difficulties contained within it. The Minister—I do not know if it was the noble and learned Lord—said:
“The Government believe that it is essential that campaigners have clarity on how they are to comply with the third-party regulatory regime. The Electoral Commission has a power to produce guidance for third parties campaigning in elections, and indeed has exercised that power in previous elections”.—[Official Report, 16/12/13; col. 1040.]
Indeed, the Minister placed such a heavy emphasis on the guidance that would be given that the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, was moved to say while speaking to his amendments:
“However, perhaps I may anticipate, rather too boldly, the response that the Government are likely to make: that these kinds of issues can be dealt with in guidance”.—[Official Report, 16/12/13; col. 1057.]
Charities and NGOs need to understand how the Bill will affect them as the Bill passes through the House. To place the amount of weight that the Government place on guidance is effectively another way of avoiding proper consultation.
The first amendment from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, would ensure that the Electoral Commission is able to give charities and NGOs guidance in good time before they are subject to the regulated period, and would reduce the spending limits in line with the reduced regulated period that would result. The second would ensure that the Electoral Commission is resourced to apply these changes. As the Electoral Commission has said itself,
“The current PPERA rules on non-party campaigning are relatively narrow in scope … and the definition of what is covered is relatively clear, so we are able to produce guidance that builds on the legislation”.
However, it goes on to say with regards to the Bill before us:
“This will be particularly challenging for campaigners because of the need to apply the definition of ‘election purposes’, which is new and untested in the context of non-party campaigning. In the limited time available we will aim to produce guidance to assist with this, and will offer advice on particular queries where possible, but our experience strongly suggests that it will not be straightforward to apply the new rules to many specific types of activities”.
I know that the Electoral Commission will do all in its power to produce the guidance, but it will need time because of the complexities.
I say to the Minister that of course the best way of ensuring that the Electoral Commission is able to issue clear guidance in time is to draft clear law—to draft a very clear Bill. These sensible amendments would therefore assist in that. However, notwithstanding the desired clarity, this is a complex Bill, and time will be needed to ensure the best possible guidance so that the voluntary and charitable sectors understand their new obligations and do not unintentionally fall foul of the law. Like the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, I think that small charities and voluntary organisations that do not employ lawyers as a matter of course could well find themselves unintentionally in breach of the law. As in so many things we do in this House, the lawyers will gain the most, and we cannot allow that to happen. I therefore very much hope that the Minister will signal that the Government will accept these or similar amendments in due course.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, Amendment 170J, tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, would require the Electoral Commission to produce guidance for third parties, so that they are clear what actions they must take to comply with the provisions of the Bill. The Bill, should it have received Royal Assent by the time that guidance is produced, would not be permitted to take effect for a further three months. The noble and learned Lord further proposes that the Electoral Commission be given the extra resources it might need to produce this guidance and to comply with its other obligations under this Bill.
My noble friend Lord Hodgson has tabled Amendment 175, which, similarly, would require the Electoral Commission to produce guidance, but jointly with the Charity Commission. This would be designed to address specifically the impact upon charities.
The debate surrounding this Bill has made clear just what a lack of awareness there was, not only among third parties but among the public at large, of the existing provisions of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000—PPERA. I have certainly heard from more than one of the organisations that I have spoken to that they had not been aware that they might just have been edging towards a registration threshold back in 2010. They had not appreciated that fact. This lack of awareness has highlighted the crucial importance of comprehensive and clear guidance for all third parties, not just charities, so that they understand whether they could be affected by the provisions of this Bill as it amends PPERA.
As I said in at least one of the debates on Monday, when the original Committee on Standards in Public Life was considering the architecture and proposing the idea of an Electoral Commission it accepted that in some ways we could never achieve an absolute definition, and that, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, predicted, some cases may have to go to the courts. However, much of that uncertainty could be avoided through guidance. That was one of the functions and roles that the Committee on Standards in Public Life saw for the Electoral Commission that it proposed should be set up.
The Electoral Commission already has the power, under PPERA, to produce guidance for third parties. As I said on Monday,
“The Electoral Commission has a power to produce guidance for third parties campaigning in elections, and indeed has exercised that power in previous elections. Campaigners require clear guidance to support them and help them understand the revised regime, and I am reassured that the commission recognises this too”.—[Official Report, 16/12/13; col. 1040.]
I think that I went on to say that the sooner the guidance can be produced in draft, the better.
Although there is existing guidance on third parties and the PPERA rules, noble Lords will be aware that the commission has already indicated that it will indeed produce fresh and enhanced guidance in time for the 2015 UK general election. It did so in its briefing to members in the other place, as recently as 29 August. Both the Electoral Commission and the Charity Commission will be aware of the demand from campaigners for clear and detailed guidance of this sort. I have no doubt that today’s debate, and the amendments tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, and by my noble friend will have reinforced that message.
As in previous elections, the Electoral Commission and the Charity Commission will work closely together to develop guidance that will assist campaigners and charities to have a clear understanding of how the provisions in Part 2 relate to them. Again, the Electoral Commission made this clear in its briefing of 4 November. The Government stand ready to support this work.
I hope that the fact that the Electoral Commission and the Charity Commission have indicated an awareness of the need for clear and comprehensive guidance is of some reassurance to the Committee. However, the Government are also keen to reassure campaigners and charities that the provisions of the Bill and the PPERA rules will, and should, be clearly communicated to them. It is our view that the Electoral Commission should produce guidance in consultation with the Charity Commission, and provide specific consideration of charities. I am not sure whether a particular statutory provision is needed, but the benefit of that is very evident.
The other point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, in his amendment, which was also spoken to and supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, was about the funding of the Electoral Commission. It is important to be aware—
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
Before my noble and learned friend moves on, may I ask him a question? When he was speaking so encouragingly about the joint guidance, I was not quite clear whether, in his mind’s eye—I know that he will not wish to commit himself yet—this will be one document produced by the two commissions? I ask this because once the two bodies are able to produce two documents they will do just that and leave the charities to connect them. They should be doing the connecting. They are the regulators, and they really need to do that. Is that how my noble and learned friend sees it?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I am not sure that that is entirely how I see it; my point was that whatever is produced should be produced in collaboration. I certainly am wary of saying anything that might be seen as a direction to two independent bodies, which must act independently of Government. That is why I hesitate, as I am sure my noble friend will understand. Ministerial colleagues have had meetings with the Electoral Commission—I have not done so personally—and, I think I am right in saying, with the Charity Commission, and I am sure that the message conveyed by noble Lords here will also be conveyed by Ministers.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
My Lords, as the noble and learned Lord says, he cannot give directions. However, if the measure were included in the Bill, both the Electoral Commission and the Charity Commission would be obliged to produce joint guidance.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
Obviously, if Parliament wishes that to be the case and the measure is included in the Bill, we would have a different proposition, and we would want to reflect whether that was one which the Government would wish to support. Notwithstanding whether or not the measure is in the Bill, the respective commissions will no doubt hear the concerns that have been expressed and the legitimate expectation as regards their response in respect of these matters.
As I said, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, and the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, referred to resources. It is important to recognise the position of the Electoral Commission. It is an independent body established by Parliament and is overseen by the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, which oversees the Electoral Commission’s annual estimates. I checked during the debate and I am not aware of it having asked for more resources in respect of this legislation. However, if the commission requires extra resources to perform this or any other duties, including producing this guidance, it would be for the Speaker’s Committee to come to a view on the resourcing of the Electoral Commission in the light of its roles and responsibilities. I think that there is agreement across the Chamber on the importance of proper guidance and clarity. I hope that this debate has been helpful in communicating that message to those who have responsibility for that. I therefore invite the noble and learned Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Hardie
I have certainly found the debate helpful. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, and the noble Baroness, Lady Royall of Blaisdon, for their contributions. I should say to the noble Baroness that, as a lawyer who has benefited in the past from gaps in legislation, it may seem a bit churlish of me to deprive the modern generation of that. However, I agree with her that we in this House should do what we can to avoid gaps arising of which people can take advantage because of the uncertainty that causes for others. I thank the Minister for his response. I note that the Electoral Commission will produce guidance. I had not appreciated the niceties about funding, but I am grateful to him for those comments. In those circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
“Controlled expenditure
(1) Schedule 10 to the Political Parties Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (limits on controlled expenditure) is amended as follows.
(2) In paragraph 3(3)(a) for “365 days” substitute “six months”.
(3) In paragraph 3(3)(b) for “365 days” substitute “six months”.”
Lord Harries of Pentregarth
My Lords, this is a blessedly simple and straightforward amendment. It would reduce the regulatory period from the current one year to six months. There are two reasons for the amendment. The first is that a year is a very long time for charities to be burdened with the regulation of electoral law. In the debates today and on Monday, we have begun to see exactly how burdensome that could be. It would be a huge relief to charities if they could focus on what is required of them for election purposes only in the last six months leading up to the election. The second reason for the amendment is that it is supported by the Electoral Commission, at least for the 2015 election. I do not want to say that it is committed to it beyond that but it supports the measure for the 2015 election.
There are particular complications about this one year length in other parts of the British Isles. For example, Oxfam reports:
“Oxfam Scotland is concerned that Scottish organisations may end up being in a regulated period repeatedly for the next three years, with the UK elections in 2015, and Scottish national elections in 2016. It seems to be a disproportionate amount of time for a regulated period”.
Obviously, if the regulated period was six months rather than a year, the problem in Scotland and elsewhere would be lessened.
It might be argued that if the Government accept this amendment, or the other amendment which we are to debate, there should be a change in the registration threshold and the cap—that both of those should be lowered. But to anticipate that argument, the charities have made it quite clear that their expenditure—if there is any—during campaigning, in so far as it is directed towards an election, is loaded up very close to the end of the election period. They do not start thinking about the election right at the beginning of the period. This simple and straightforward reduction from one year to six months would be a huge help to the charities and campaigning groups generally. I cannot see that by making that change there would be further opportunity for abuse by unscrupulous organisations or people. I beg to move.
Lord Ramsbotham (CB)
My Lords, I have put my name to this amendment and also added Amendment 170P in the spirit of what the Army refers to as KISS: “keep it simple, stupid”. That is because there is already an allowance that the Bill reduces the period to four months before European elections and elections to the devolved Administrations. I know that a number of organisations would be very happy if the period were four months rather than six months, because it would mean that there was one period for all elections. That is why I have tabled my amendment. But the great thing is to have the period reduced.
Lord Tyler (LD)
My Lords, the argument does appear to be very simple. I wish it was so. I will illustrate the complexity that could be caused by one or other of these amendments. Amendment 170L would create a fourth regulatory period in electoral law; there are already three. One would be of 12 months for both non-party and national political party expenditure. One would be of four months for candidates’ long campaign, introduced for the 2010 election by the PPE Act 2009. There would then be the traditional four to six-month period post-Dissolution of the so-called “short campaign”, which was imposed by the Representation of the People Act 1983 but which originated from the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act 1883. So there is a little more complexity than both of the noble Lords who have already spoken suggested.
As the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, indicated, there are of course implications for a number of other parts of the Bill. If either of these amendments were to be passed, they would have an impact on spending caps. It would surely be very odd if his commission’s recommendations for the higher spending limits—that is, £1.25 million in England—applied over half the regulated period. This would make the proposed new limit equivalent to £2.5 million if it had been over 12 months. There could then be an argument for no constituency limits. This could mean an unlimited sum being spent in constituencies up to four or six months before an election. I do not accept the argument that nobody is interested in what is spent in the longer period leading up to an election. It can be very influential, as those of us who have fought elections know. After that period, a further £1.125 million could be spent in one constituency—a target constituency, a marginal seat or a small number of constituencies—which would vastly outspend the candidates themselves. The argument is very seductive. The two noble Lords who have spoken are regularly seductive in this House and speak with the tongues of angels, but I have to say that this particular case is not as simple as they suggest.
Lord Deben (Con)
My Lords, I am hoping to be seduced. There is a kernel to this that is more important than the detailed argument we have just heard. The kernel is that it might be more sensible to have a shorter period in which this whole thing operates. If I may say so to my noble friend, it is not a sensible argument to say, “It’s awfully inconvenient to do this because all sorts of other things might have to be reorganised”. I hope that the Minister will take seriously the following argument. We now have a system whereby we know when the next election and the election after that will be. If you think about it in those terms, you realise that no one is going to get anything much under way at this point just before Christmas. The real period will in any case be that from 1 January onwards. That is what is going to happen.
Given that there is so much unhappiness about this bit of the Bill and that so many people are concerned—I have checked my Twitter feed and seen how many people remain unconvinced by what the Government and the Minister are saying—it might be sensible to think about making a clear change, and saying to people, “Look, we have listened and we can see that there is still a concern about the weight upon organisations, and therefore we will at least think about the possibility of integrating into the Bill a shorter period”. That would of course mean that my noble friend’s concerns would have to be looked at. After all, this is the Committee stage. One of the things that you do in Committee is raise matters that do not actually fit at the time but might lead one to wonder whether there might be a little bit of a shift.
I was hoping perhaps not to be seduced but, in a gerundive sense, to be put in a state to be seduced. In other words, it would be helpful for the Minister to say that he will look at this and see if there is a possibility of giving confidence to people that their fears would be at least more limited.
The only other thing that I will say is that I am concerned about the immediate effect, because all the arguments about referenda and other things fitting at the same time create a very complex web. That is the second reason why I have difficulty with the views of my noble friend Lord Tyler, with whom I often agree—even though I am not supposed to. There is this difficult web in any case, and therefore it is not unreasonable to take apart the pieces and knit them together in a different manner.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, I am not going to repeat the points that have been made, which in part arise from two issues. One is that there are so many bits in the Bill that change the way in which a number of organisations are going to have to work that a lot of them are concerned. The changes are also bureaucratic—and none of us likes that.
We have to place the other issue on the shoulders of the Government, I am afraid, because they brought the Bill in so late. We must remember that the Bill was introduced the day before the Commons rose for the Summer Recess, had its Second Reading on the day the Commons returned, and so on. That added to the feeling among organisations that there was such haste with the Bill that their views were not being heard. I fear that some of the questions that have been asked are still not getting answered
From the point of view of the organisations, how on earth are those that are affected going to get all their bureaucracy up and running before the regulated period? It starts in 23 weeks and two days’ time. In fact, it really starts at the beginning of April, because virtually every organisation’s financial year runs from 1 April to 31 March. Therefore, all their systems have to be up and running by then. That is adding to the concerns.
I remain worried that we are not going to see a number of workable proposals. We talked earlier about the ones relating to coalitions in Part 2 coming in good time. I know that the Minister was unable on Monday to promise that we would see the new government amendments on 7 January. It was for the sake of this House that we should have them, but of course it is the affected groups that will also need to see those amendments in order to even begin to work out how to respond in good time.
The noble Baroness, Lady Williams, who is not in her place, said that Part 2 had to be reconstructed from the ground up. We know that that is what she wants and what the outside groups want. Failing that, perhaps the noble and learned Lord could explain what changes the Government will make to ensure that organisations can prepare for the regulated period well ahead of the due date.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, has proposed an amendment that would reduce the length of the regulated period for third parties from 365 days to six months. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, has tabled a similar amendment, reducing the regulated period to four months under the banner of “keep it simple”, although as my noble friend Lord Tyler has illustrated, it is perhaps not quite as simple as it might appear on the surface.
I am aware from the engagement in meetings that this is an issue that has come up on a number of occasions and not least because, for the first time, some bodies that might have been getting pretty close to being regulated in 2010 but did not realise it have now realised that there is something that they will have to address. I will explain by way of background the different regulated periods that operate for different elections. The regulated period for UK general elections is 365 days and for devolved Administration elections and European parliamentary elections it is four months. The reason why we have put these in is that we believe that it is not unreasonable that third parties and political parties should adhere to the same regulated period for an election. This is because the campaigns relate to the same election. I am sure, if one thinks about it for a moment, that it would be somewhat unusual and unfair if third parties were allowed to incur unlimited amounts of expenditure campaigning for or against a party or candidates in a period when the political parties themselves would be faced with a limit on their spending. That is the principle that underlies why we wish to keep the periods in tandem.
As we have discussed earlier, particularly on whether the clause would stand part—when we talked about expenditure by a third party, which is ostensibly and is indeed intended to support a registered political party—there could be a scenario where a short third-party regulated period really detracted from the rules on the political parties, as political parties could use these third parties as expenditure vehicles for a considerable period of either six months or eight months. I do not believe that this is the sort of situation that we want to end up with. That said, believing that it would be possible to have the relevant guidance in time before the regulated period starts for the 2015 election, I recognise that there are issues; my noble friend Lord Deben highlighted some of them that relate to the first election under this. Of course there will be a review, which we will come on to but the Government have already indicated that there will be a review post-2015. I hear the points made that there are still concerns with regard to the immediate prospect facing a number of organisations. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, made reference to that too.
I can say this in a spirit of consideration but not promise, because the principle involved here is to keep the times so that they march together. Not doing so could undermine an important aspect of the restriction on expenditure by political parties. That is why it is important that we do not disregard that principle and I invite the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, to withdraw his amendment.
The Earl of Sandwich
My Lords, can the noble and learned Lord explain why he always goes back to parity with political parties? We are not talking about political parties; we are very different in kind.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, I am happy to explain that. The very nature of the expenditure that will fall to be covered by Part 2 will be expenditure that is very much geared towards an election, the same election in which the political parties will be fighting. It would seem rather odd if the political parties themselves are restricted in what they can spend over a period of one year. If, for example, we were to accept the amendment spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, for eight months of that year other third-party bodies, some of whom would be endorsing quite unashamedly the policies and perhaps the candidates of one of the political parties, would be able to spend freely without any restriction at all while the political parties themselves are campaigning with restrictions. That is why I make the comparison because it would create a sense of unfairness and imbalance if those who are actually fighting an election, those whose heads are on the block on polling day, as it were, were under restrictions but third parties did not have any such restrictions for a substantial part of that time.
Lord Harries of Pentregarth
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Deben, for his support in principle for reducing the regulation period. Perhaps I may remind the Minister that the Electoral Commission, at least for the 2015 election, is supportive of a six-month period. It will be reviewed after 2015, but there is a great deal to be said, at least for the 2015 election, in support of testing the six-month period. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
“Returns as to controlled expenditure
(1) Section 96 of the Political Parties Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (returns as to controlled expenditure) is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (1)(a) after “expenditure” insert “in excess of the limits in section 94(5)”.
(3) After subsection (1) insert—
“(1A) Where—
(a) during any regulated period the total controlled expenditure incurred by or on behalf of a recognised third party is below the limits in section 94(5) in any relevant part or parts of the United Kingdom, and(b) that period ends,the responsible person shall submit a declaration to the Electoral Commission that it has not spent in excess of the limits in section 94(5) in respect of the relevant part or parts of the United Kingdom.””
Lord Harries of Pentregarth
My Lords, this amendment is about reporting requirements, and I shall speak also about the two clauses included in the grouping. I think that the Government are sympathetic to the idea that the regulatory burden, particularly on charities, should be reduced if at all possible. The Electoral Commission has noted that the current provision in the Bill appears to be onerous as far as reporting procedures are concerned. At the moment, charities and campaigning groups have to report every month, and every week during the post-Dissolution period. Amendment 170N provides that those organisations which register because they think that they will be above the registration threshold, but do not in fact go above it, will simply have to report that they have not spent above the limit. They would not have to submit detailed accounts, they would just note the fact that they had not spent above the limit. It is a simple way in which the regulatory burden on them could be lessened.
I have called for a debate on whether Clauses 32 and 33 should stand part of the Bill because we need to go way beyond that. Surely it must be possible for smaller organisations in particular, but even slightly larger ones, to make a single report of expenditure after the election period rather than having to submit monthly reports and, in the post-Dissolution period, weekly reports. I hope that the Government will be sympathetic to doing all they can to minimise the regulatory burden, particularly on charities. I beg to move.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
My Lords, I have tabled a couple of amendments in this group. They follow the line of attack of the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, and they deal with reporting requirements. They are quite simple and entirely deregulatory. As regards Amendment 173, if at present a body makes a donation which has to be reported under PPERA rules as part of the quarterly reporting procedure, that triggers a requirement to make returns in subsequent quarters even though the body may not have made any further donations; that is, the body has to make a nil return.
This situation becomes rather more pressing during an election campaign, where a single report of a donation may require a series of weekly nil returns during the rest of that campaign. That arrangement will apply to all charities and all non-party campaigners under the new regime. I have argued quite strongly that nil returns are superfluous—indeed, they may be worse than superfluous, in that a blizzard of nil returns may distract the Electoral Commission from its regulatory role. Amendment 178 seeks to achieve a position where, if a reportable donation is made, it must be reported, but if no further donations are made, then no further reports are required—we dispense with the requirements to make nil returns.
Amendment 174 takes us back to the challenge from a couple of groups ago about the reporting of coalition working, where groups and charities collaborate to work on a particular issue. I referred a moment or two ago to the quarterly and then weekly reporting requirements. Extraordinary though it may seem, as we heard in the earlier debate, every member of a coalition has to report the record of all the members, even of expenditure for which they have no responsibility. That of course is immensely time-consuming and duplicative.
I will give the Committee a quick example. A group of charities may wish to raise the issue, say, of the export of live animals. They establish an agreement and a budget of £200,000. One large charity puts up £150,000 and five smaller charities put up £10,000 each—all are therefore above the reporting requirement. The consequence is quarterly reporting, and weekly reporting during the general election, for all six organisations, which have to make the return to the Electoral Commission. This surely cannot be a sensible use of resources for any of the parties involved, not least the Electoral Commission itself.
Amendment 174 would permit a coalition of charities to nominate a lead charity, which will make the return on behalf of the group. My noble and learned friend may fear a loophole being created. Indeed, in his remarks when we were discussing coalition working an hour ago, he hinted at this particular concern and fear. However, I am not sure that he needs to be concerned, because the lead charity will have to take the responsibility —and all that implies under electoral law—for all the activities of all the members of the syndicate. It is unlikely to take on the leadership role unless it is satisfied that its fellow coalition members will behave properly and legally. Amendments 173 and 174 are supported by the NCVO and have the support, in principle, of the Electoral Commission. They are of course also in tune with the Government’s general deregulatory approach and policy. I hope the Government will study the amendments, which are in a purely probing form at the moment, and perhaps come back with some reaction on Report.
Lord Deben
My Lords, I will say one thing. I am very puzzled by the way in which, almost every day in our debates, something happens which reminds us that it is entirely out of kilter with the Government’s generally stated opinions. This Government have generally stated their opinion that they wish to get rid of unnecessary red tape. They are always saying that and yet, every now and again, we have a Bill that seems to have absolutely forgotten that.
We owe a great debt to my noble friend for raising this particular example. It is not the only example—there are a whole lot of examples in the Bill where the Government have suddenly decided that they will do precisely the things that they said they will not do, for very much better purposes, in a whole lot of other areas. For example, we could do with a lot more regulation on environmental matters to get things going, but every time one raises that, one is told, “We don’t want more regulation”. However, in this particular area, regulation appears to be not only implicit, and explicit, but continuous and extensive.
Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)
My Lords, may I add a small rider to what the noble Lord, Lord Deben, has just said? I have been involved to a certain extent with raising funds, mainly in the arts, but also for charitable work. One of the questions that people are most frequently asked is: how much of the money will go on administration and bureaucracy? We must bear that in mind and minimise it as much as possible.
Baroness Tyler of Enfield
My Lords, I support Amendment 174. As my noble friend Lord Hodgson said, it relates to our earlier discussion about coalitions of organisations working and campaigning together. As my noble and learned friend the Minister said when summing up that debate, it is important to get the balance right between not creating loopholes in the rules, or rules that can turn into avoidance measures and things like that. But we must balance that with not just allowing but recognising in many cases that it is a good thing for small and medium-sized charities, in particular, to work together in their important campaigning. That should not be made overly burdensome or difficult for them. The amendment proposed by my noble friend Lord Hodgson is a sensible way of allowing coalitions to nominate a lead charity to deal with the reporting requirements, and I look forward to hearing what my noble and learned friend the Minister has to say about this in his summing up.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
On this side we very much support getting rid of red tape for small organisations. I think that it is tomorrow that the Joint Committee on the Government’s draft Deregulation Bill will produce its report, so it will be slightly ironic if there is that on the one hand and, on the other, we are regulating these small groups. I look forward to what may be the time when the Minister gives us a “yes” today.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, Amendment 170N would insert a new clause that would remove the requirement for recognised third parties to provide a spending return after the election if they had not incurred controlled expenditure above the registration threshold. Instead, a recognised third party would be required to submit a declaration that they had not spent in excess of the registration threshold.
Amendment 173, spoken to by my noble friend Lord Hodgson, would amend Clause 32 so that a recognised third party would not have to submit a nil report where it had not received a reportable or substantial donation. Amendment 174 would amend Clause 32 so that a recognised third party would be able to appoint a responsible person who had been a responsible person for another recognised third party.
I will give some background before addressing specific amendments. To improve transparency and to ensure that people can see who is funding a third party before the poll takes place, third parties will be required to report any large donations in advance of the poll. This will align the reporting requirements of third parties more closely with those of political parties, and will take two forms.
First, recognised third parties will be required to provide quarterly reports of donations for each reporting period that falls within the regulated period for a UK parliamentary general election. Secondly, between the dissolution of Parliament and polling day, recognised third parties will be required to provide weekly reports of any large donations.
I am not sure if I heard correctly whether the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, suggested that the quarterly and weekly reports also applied to spending. To clarify, the quarterly and weekly reports prior to the election apply only to donations—of more than £7,500—and the spending return will continue to be a requirement after the election.
Both the quarterly and weekly donation reports would be submitted to the Electoral Commission, which would publish the information. The quarterly reports must be accompanied by a signed declaration from the responsible person of the recognised third party, stating that all reportable donations accepted were from permissible donors. The Bill introduces measures that are necessary to achieve this increased transparency. The Bill proposes that third parties provide information about large donations in advance of the election, in quarterly and weekly donation reports.
At present, recognised third parties have to provide details of their campaign income and expenditure to the Electoral Commission after a UK parliamentary general election, and after the poll for certain other elections. To improve transparency by providing a clearer understanding of the finance of those involved in elections and to align the reporting requirements of third parties more closely with those of political parties, a statement of accounts would form part of the return third parties already provide to the Electoral Commission.
To ensure that this additional obligation is proportionate, individuals are excluded from this requirement. The Government believe that not to exclude individuals would result in an unwarranted intrusion into their personal financial matters, although they will still be required to provide details of their campaign income and expenditure, as is currently the case. Third parties, such as companies, charities and trade unions, which are required to prepare a statement of accounts under another legislative framework would be able to submit these accounts as part of their return to the Electoral Commission. I hope that this is an example of proportionality.
Turning to the amendments, I hope that noble Lords support the principle of providing information on reportable donations during the election period. However, the Government acknowledge that the correct balance has to be struck between increased transparency and overly burdensome requirements. With this in mind, the suggestions of the Electoral Commission in relation to nil reporting have provided a very useful starting point. The Government want to consider these matters very carefully and to revisit them on Report, to ensure that adequate and proportionate reporting requirements are included in the Bill.
Amendment 174, spoken to by my noble friend Lord Hodgson, concerns the role of the responsible person. When a recognised third party seeks registration with the Electoral Commission, they must nominate a responsible person who ensures compliance with the provisions of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000.
It is for the recognised third party or coalition to nominate a responsible person who they feel is best placed to ensure compliance with legislation. That could be a person who is already a responsible person for another third party. There are therefore no restrictions placed on who the recognised third party can nominate as a responsible person, except where an individual registers as a third party, where they will automatically become the responsible person.
In relation to Amendment 170N, the Electoral Commission made a similar suggestion in its June 2013 regulatory review. The Government see merit in the suggestion, which underpins our aim that smaller bodies should not be subject to overly burdensome reporting requirements. As a result, the Government will want to consider this issue carefully and revisit it on Report.
We have heard the—understandable—strictures from my noble friend Lord Deben. In that spirit, I ask the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Harries of Pentregarth
I thank the Minister for his response. It is probably the most positive response we have had this afternoon—it must have been the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Deben, which tipped the balance. He has been useful on one or two things on that side in recent years.
I accept the Minister’s assurance that the Government will do all they can to reduce the regulatory burden on both donations and expenditure. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
“( ) In subsection (2), after paragraph (c), insert—
“(ca) a body incorporated by Royal Charter, or”.”
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 172. It is with some relief that I reassure the Committee that this is not, for the moment, about charities. It is about the position of royal chartered bodies. At present, royal chartered bodies cannot register with the Electoral Commission, but nor are they charities. They are floating in the electoral ether, so to speak. These amendments attempt to regularise their position.
Amendment 171 amends Section 88 of PPERA, which is concerned with recognised third parties, by adding royal chartered bodies to the list in subsection (2) of those who may make returns to the Electoral Commission. Amendment 172, which is consequential, adds the officers of the relevant chartered body to the list of relevant participators at the end of Clause 31(3). I have tabled these amendments on behalf of the Law Society. Sections 94(3) and 94(4) of PPERA set out that where a third party is not a recognised third party and exceeds the limit of expenditure, which under the Bill will be £5,000, it will be guilty of an offence if it knew or ought reasonably to have known that the expenditure would be incurred in excess of that limit.
The fact that the Law Society cannot register as a third party, together with the Electoral Commission’s clear guidance that campaigning on policy issues could be deemed to be controlled expenditure, leave the society vulnerable to possible criminal sanctions for any campaigning it does on issues which arguably have a political dimension. Without the ability to register, the Law Society may have to cease such activity to avoid such sanctions.
There is inevitably a human rights argument that the position of chartered corporations breaches Article 10 of the ECHR, which is on freedom of expression, combined with Article 14, which covers discrimination. As these bodies do not have the options available to other bodies to come under the Act’s system of proportionate control subject to transparency, their freedom of expression is stifled. This is nothing to do with party political activity. Chartered corporations such as charities must not be party political. The exclusion of chartered corporations from being donors in Part 4 of PPERA is right, and is not touched by the amendment.
Until now, the Law Society has been able to live with the low level of uncertainty as to its precise legal position. Two developments have altered this. The first is the provisions and implications of the Bill we are discussing today. The Electoral Commission noted in its briefing of 22 October 2013 that:
“The combination of lower registration thresholds and spending limits, new constituency limits, and the wider scope of regulated activity, is likely to create a much higher level of allegations of breaches of the rules by non-party campaigners than at previous elections”.
Further, the detailed guidance on the width of controlled expenditure given by the Electoral Commission at a 22 October briefing is new. Whether it is right or wrong, it represents the regulatory enforcement approach it proposes to take. The second issue is developments in public policy—for example, the already referred to European Convention on Human Rights—which have an increasingly political dimension. They bring organisations such as the Law Society, which represents a substantial body of membership, increasingly close to the complex line between policy research and campaigning.
The Electoral Commission is sympathetic to this. Its briefing states:
“We support the principle of this amendment and agree that this is an issue that should be considered and note that any organisation that does not fall within one of the categories listed in PPERA as having appropriate links to the UK will not be able to register. This effectively means that their spending on matters covered by this Bill is capped at the registration threshold”.
It goes on to make a further point, which I had not focused on and which is an issue the Government will have to consider:
“There are other organisations that are currently ineligible to register, including Charitable Incorporated Organisations (CIOs)”.
Of course, that came into force only in the past 18 months and was not in existence in a corporate form at the time when PPERA was passed. It will be an increasingly important corporate form, because of course it offers the trustees of charitable trusts limited liability. We will therefore need to address this issue at some point during the passage of the Bill, but I had not come across it until this moment.
I have tabled these amendments on behalf of the Law Society, but it will not just be the Law Society that is affected. Other relevant bodies which may or may not be aware of the fate that awaits them include the Chartered Institute of Taxation, the Institution of Civil Engineers, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and the Royal College of Surgeons. The full list of royal chartered bodies contains no fewer than 1,002 corporate bodies—whose names I shall not read out—but it may interest the Committee to know that the list of establishment, which is set out in date order, begins at No. 1 with the University of Cambridge, established in 1231, and ends with No. 1,002, the Marylebone Cricket Club, or MCC, established by royal charter on 12 December 2012. That is not a bad pair of bookends for this amendment, so I hope that the Government can be persuaded to look sympathetically at the plight of this important and widespread set of bodies. I beg to move.
Lord Harries of Pentregarth
My Lords, Clause 31 is entitled, “Notification requirements for recognised third bodies”. My plea to the Minister is simple and straightforward, as it was with the earlier clauses. The regulatory burden under this clause should be as small as possible for charities and other campaigning groups. The great list under subsection (3) includes company directors, friendly societies, building societies and so on. At the very least, someone will have to give some very clear guidance—I presume that it will be the Electoral Commission—not only to charities, to which the measure might be clear, but a whole range of campaigning groups to which it may not be clear who is the governing body or the accountable body among them. Again, I look to the Minister to give some assurance that the regulatory burden regarding notification requirements will be kept to a minimum.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble (Con)
My Lords, in respect of the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Hodgson, I have some further positive news. The Government acknowledge that, as 13 years have now passed since PPERA was enacted, there may be other bodies which should now be added to the list. My noble friend mentioned a number of bodies, including the Law Society. Organisations incorporated by royal charter are among them. The Government would like to consider what other bodies should be added to the list of bodies which can register with the Electoral Commission. The Government are committed to ensuring that those bodies which would like to register as a third party are able to do so.
I entirely agree with the noble and right reverend Lord that it is important in all that we do that we do not overburden organisations, be they small or indeed large. Looking through the list, it is my understanding that for companies the relevant participators would be the company directors; for trade unions, it would be the trade union officers; for building societies, it would be the directors; for limited liability partnerships, it would effectively be the partners; for friendly societies, it would be the management committee; and for unincorporated associations, it would be members or, if there are more than 15 of them, the officers of the association. It is certainly not intended to be an extensive list, but it is important to ensure that the activities of third parties are transparent. We think that the change will assist that, but, clearly, we do not want to burden people. Being a director of a company myself and a partner, I know that one has always to put down the names of the directors of the company or the partners, but, certainly, one does not want in any way to make this a difficulty for charities and non-party organisations. That is why these details are included in Clause 31. I hope that, in these circumstances and with that positive news, my noble friend will feel encouraged to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Harries of Pentregarth
Before the Minister sits down, it is crystal clear in the case of company directors and lawyers who are in partnership, but if you take, let us say, Save Lewisham Hospital, a great campaign group with perhaps lots of other little groups, it may not be at all obvious who it has to put on its paper to report. Then there is the Stop HS2 campaign, with thousands of smaller groups. It will not be obvious which is the organising group or body or the equivalent of directors for those kinds of campaign groups.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
I tried to explain what would be the case with unincorporated associations but, given what the noble and right reverend Lord has said, I will certainly look into that.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
It is the fate of those of us who scrutinise legislation to spend most of our time pushing against a door that remains firmly shut. When the door suddenly opens, one is inclined to stagger into the room slightly off balance. I am extremely grateful to my noble friend on the Front Bench for that very constructive reply. I invite him to confirm that charitable incorporated organisations will be on the list that is being considered. If he cannot tell us that now, perhaps he can write and let us know. For the charity sector, that is going to be an increasingly important corporate form because of the limited liability that it affords to trustees, who otherwise have unlimited liability. As the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, would say, it will apply to Scottish CIOs as well. Can he give us any further reassurance?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
I have a note that includes the CIOs. We will be looking into this issue, including the Scottish incorporated organisations, so I can give my noble friend as positive a reply as I am able.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
It is therefore with great pleasure that I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
“Part 2ATax relief on donationsTax relief on donations
(1) In the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, after section 70 insert—
“70A Tax relief on donations
Tax relief shall be given, subject to Schedule (Tax relief on donations), to individuals who make donations to a registered political party.”(2) Schedule (Tax relief on donations) has effect.”
Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)
My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 177. Amendment 176 is an attempt to reduce some of the controversy over the funding of political parties. It would incentivise a system of donations by individuals by allowing taxpayers to reclaim the basic rate of tax on their donations to political parties. It would limit the relief to the standard rate. It would operate in the same way as gift aid to charities or covenanting to your local church.
The objective is to help to build a more participatory democracy where a far larger section of the population can sign up to more active forms of political engagement. It would widen the donor base, as Obama managed during the course of his campaign for the presidency in the United States of America. It would be far healthier for democracy than a system where a few large donors and organisations stand accused of exercising undue influence over the democratic process. We all know that while that may be the case on occasion, more often than not it is not the case, but the public simply do not believe us. I argue that an arrangement that widens that donor base and reduces the reliance on large donors is to be welcomed.
I have support for my amendment right across the parties and there is wide support in both the Commons and in this House. I know that there are many who would have been here today if the debate was not taking place at this time of day shortly before the Christmas Recess.
Why has it not happened before? Why has my simple proposal not been considered and implemented in law? To examine the reason for that we have to go in the history of what has been a very difficult debate. Over the past century there were repeated scandals involving political donations. By 2000 the debate had become sufficiently heated to provoke the Government into introducing legislation in the form of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act, which has been referred to repeatedly during proceedings on this Bill. However, that Act dealt with only part of the problem. Deficiencies in the legislation surfaced around the 2005 general election when a series of arguments broke out over the use of loans—or what were described as loans—as a means of funding political campaigns. As a result, the parties were driven into all-party discussions on reforms which, predictably, broke down. That breakdown and the inevitable stalemate that followed led to the 2007 review undertaken by Sir Hayden Phillips. It was hoped that this review would lead us out of the impasse but its report indicated only the nature of the problem and did not provide a solution. However, the review paved the way for further talks between the three main political parties, under Sir Hayden Phillips himself. Again, the inevitable happened as the talks broke down in October 2007. In May 2010, after aborted discussions and a general election, a reference to the problem surfaced in the coalition agreement:
“We will also pursue a detailed agreement on limiting donations and reforming party funding”.
The coalition agreement was followed in July 2010 by the Committee on Standards in Public Life, which re-energised the debate with its 2011 report. The report was accompanied by caveats in the appendices from both Labour and Conservative party representatives. We were back on the old merry-go-round with caps on contributions, trade union donations and the usual differences and suspicions—what appeared to be irresolvable problems. Two months later the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee called for heads to be banged together and a solution found to this intractable problem, which is so damaging the political class. The committee, despairingly, called for a resolution of the problem to help avoid further party funding scandals. Not that that plea had much of an effect. Within two months we had a further scandal, with the Cruddas affair: an allegation that led to a libel action against the Sunday Times, which Peter Cruddas, incidentally, won. Once again, Parliament had been submerged in sleaze allegations and more damage was done to its credibility.
Following the Cruddas affair, in the same month, Francis Maude, a Minister in the other place, announced a new series of talks. In his statement establishing the talks he said:
“We could also look at how to boost small donations and broaden the support base”,
for the parties. I could not agree more. That is the basis for this amendment. I understand that there were seven meetings in 2012 and 2013. Once again the predictable and the inevitable happened. The talks collapsed. They have been described to me as, “collapsed talks” that “fizzled out”. On 4 July this year, the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Clegg, announced that there was no agreement between the parties and it was, in his words,
“clear that reforms cannot go forward in this Parliament”.
Where does that leave us? It leaves us with a totally discredited donor regime in place. Personally, I am fed up to the back teeth with all this ducking and weaving. All we are doing is bringing the entire political establishment, particularly Parliament, into disrepute, while increasing the disconnect between Parliament and the people. The rot has got to stop.
My amendment is the embryo of a scheme. It provides a framework on which a tax-relieved donor regime can be built. Discussions about what constitutes a political party or levels of tax-relieved donations, although defined in my proposal, can be the subject of negotiation and more precisely defined at a later stage. Today, I am simply moving a probing amendment, and I look forward to the considered response of Ministers.
Lord Tyler
My Lords, I was delighted to be able to put my name to this amendment, which indeed has cross-party support. It would be fair to say that the four Members of your Lordships’ House who have put their names to the amendment have all had extensive experience, long commitment and real concern about the maintenance of our parliamentary democracy and its health. My noble friend Lord Marland has also had considerable responsibilities in this field, and I hope that he will be able to address your Lordships’ House in a minute because he will have a particular dimension to add.
I do not think that any of the four of us are dangerous radicals, exactly, but we have all of us given a great deal of thought to this issue and have a common concern. I and my Liberal Democrat colleagues have long recognised that a broad range of small donations is preferable to a small number of large donations; that is where we come from. Tax relief along the lines of gift aid would be a good way to embody this principle in regulations about donations. As your Lordships’ House is aware, we believe that those regulations should also include a comprehensive donation cap on individual and corporate donations; that is not for this evening’s debate but I very much hope it will come in due course. With colleagues in the other place, I launched a cross-party draft Bill earlier this year, which would have made specific provision both for tax relief and for a cap.
The amendment before us has the potential to move the debate forward. After so much self-interest has thwarted progress so far, I welcome a further attempt to put momentum behind this change. The amount of money that this would cost is clearly limited in the noble Lord’s amendment, which makes clear that the maximum tax relief for the first two years of operation would be only £16 per taxpayer, and in later years a figure of £96 or another figure set by the Secretary of State. We do not have figures before us for the total cost of such a measure, but we do know that there are ways to find this money without increasing the overall cost to the taxpayer of political parties. I think that it would be the common experience of Members of your Lordships’ House that this is not exactly the best time to be persuading our fellow citizens to spend more on political parties, or even the political process.
However, I have advocated before that the freepost election addresses from which candidates at UK and European parliamentary elections can send at the cost of the Treasury—of the taxpayer—should be converted into booklets of the kind used in the London mayoral elections. It is a staggering fact that a saving of something in the region of £50 million per Parliament could be secured by doing this, and could be put into a tax relief measure of the kind being suggested. Therefore there would be no necessary net increase in taxpayer subsidy to the political parties or the political process. Now that Royal Mail is privatised, it may be increasingly attractive to taxpayers to divert some money away from their coffers and profitability into this very simple way of improving how our political system is funded.
There is no reason for anyone in this House to fear this simple change. It seems that it would apply only to small donations and would roughly affect and benefit the parties equally. Given the desire for consensus in this area, that ought to be enough to recommend it to us. It is a very good measure which has my strong support and I hope it will make some progress.
Since I am an optimist, I hope I will not have to speak again in Committee. I am sure other members of the Committee will be glad to hear that. I therefore take this opportunity of hoping that colleagues on all sides of your Lordships’ House have a very collaborative, transparent, enjoyable campaign of partying during the Christmas recess.
Lord Marland (Con)
My Lords, I also support the amendment. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, for tabling it and for being associated with the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, who does so much thinking on this subject it is a joy to behold.
I speak with some experience as a former treasurer of the Conservative Party for three and a half years. I may not be entirely supported by the Government on this amendment but most politicians I know think that money grows on trees when it comes to fundraising for a political party and have no concept of how incredibly difficult this is whatever time of the electoral cycle you are in. Working with former Prime Minister Blair, I was one of the instigators of the Phillips report. I participated keenly in that and was disappointed when it came to naught, largely over the issue of trade union donations.
I approach the amendment by asking myself three questions. The first question is: why do people join and participate in political parties? The simple reason is that they have a keen interest in politics and democracy. However, in my experience it is also—as the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, said—fostering a hobby in the same way as you might join a museum society or any other club or society. It is therefore quite reasonable that a donation to a political party should be treated on the same basis. It also allows people to foster political debate. We are the home of democracy and, as the Prime Minister’s trade envoy, I have been proud to be able to use this as a message throughout the world. Democracy is created by political parties; political parties are created by the individuals who work for them and fund them. Democracy is therefore dependent on giving. New political parties like UKIP, for example, would not have been able to start had a large number of people not donated to it. That, in turn, fosters democracy.
We must also recognise that, as I said earlier, fundraising is incredibly difficult. Very few people like doing it, are good at it or like to be asked. Because funding is so important to our political parties, it is also incumbent upon those of us who are involved in politics to stop the continual denigration of people and institutions for giving money to them. In my experience of three and a half years as a treasurer there were very, very few people who wanted something in return for giving money and most of them were not treated with any respect. There are, of course, situations where people want to persuade a Minister or shadow Minister of the benefits of their ideas, but they will probably not take a blind bit of notice unless the idea has reasonable resonance with their political approach. It is incumbent on us to resist the temptation to criticise people who give political donations or to show them up in a bad light for doing so. It is they who allow us to promote democracy.
The next question I ask myself is: do we want to continue a mix of public and private funding of political parties? Let us not kid ourselves: political parties are funded by public money. There is something called Short money which is £6.5 million a year given to all the opposition parties. There is also the Cranborne money, which is given to opposition parties to support their shadow Ministers in action, which is public money, and a considerable amount. The future of political-party funding should be that blend of public and private support. Of course, the problem with Short money is that it goes only to opposition parties, and believe you me, there are times when parties in government suffer from a complete dearth of funding and therefore require financial support, which at the moment they do not get. Therefore the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, is worthy of support.
The final question I ask myself is: do we want to encourage parties to focus on increasing their membership and their small donations? Of course, there is overwhelming support for that. We have to rebuild our donor base of small donors and our membership, just to excite people into the task of politics and support for politicians, which has, sadly, been under attack and under threat. Every argument leads to a mixture of public and private funding. This is a very good start on the road to trying to find the best route to doing it, and so I have great pleasure in supporting the amendment.
Lord Cormack
My Lords, I will speak briefly in support of my three noble colleagues. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, has done a very good service to the House by tabling this amendment, and I hope that there will be a sympathetic and encouraging response from the Minister who replies. I take issue with just one point made by my noble friend Lord Tyler. I would not like to see the booklet sent out in place of the individual election addresses which candidates are able to send out, one to each elector, at public expense. That would be a further depersonalisation of our politics in this country. Every candidate should be encouraged to send out an individual election address which reflects that particular candidate and his or her interests—that should continue. However, I agree with all that my noble friend Lord Marland said about encouraging participation. It is right for us to give that modest encouragement and assistance, because, after all, it is capped—at a realistic and modest level—and it would not transform politics in the short term. One of the problems we have in this country is the declining membership of political parties. Nevertheless, that would be a move in the right direction and it has my total support.
Lord Finkelstein (Con)
My Lords, I apologise for not having spoken at Second Reading, when I was not present, and I declare my interests in charities that are in the register of interests.
It is natural for us, as people who are involved in politics, to think that it would be a good idea to subsidise politics in a way that other activities are not subsidised, and for us to be keenly aware of the difficulties we all have as members of political parties in raising money for our political causes. However, our problems in doing that are the same as those that other people have. We should therefore think very deeply about appropriating for ourselves a privilege that is not given to other people. Although this is a modest proposal, and does not go as far as other proposals for state financing of political parties, it would be naive of us to think that if we asked the electorate to treat political parties as if they were charities, they would not in return begin to expect political parties to behave as if they were charities and ask us to do all sorts of things that justify our claim that subsidising our activities is something of public worth. Therefore, although I respect the intention behind this amendment, and I understand why we all feel that our work is incredibly important and therefore should be exempt from the normal taxation that other people’s important work is subject to, we should be careful before appropriating to ourselves that privilege.
Lord Campbell-Savours
Does the noble Lord know by how much the state already funds political parties now? Does he know what the figure is?
Lord Finkelstein
I know it is already many millions of pounds, and I am very nervous and worried about that. That money leads to the state beginning to suggest to political parties how they should spend that money, in a very restricted way. In the end, to avoid the problems that the noble Lord talked about in his speech, we would have to impose all sorts of restrictions on political parties’ funding. Otherwise, political parties would be able to raise that money on top of the other money that has been given to them.
Lord Marland
Before the noble Lord sits down, perhaps I could reiterate what I said earlier. The state gives political parties £7 million a year. Does he not agree that, because he did not know that himself, this has not been transparently demonstrated to the world at large—and that the proposition in the amendment is much more transparent than what currently exists?
Lord Finkelstein
Yes, I think I would agree that it is more transparent, but the noble Lord is assuming that for that reason I agree with the original proposal that we should be spending all that money in the first place. I am very nervous about the amount of money that the public are already giving to political parties. It is not very transparent to people, and I think that if they knew what was being given they would not agree with it. Although I can see why this idea might be an improvement, it is being proposed not as an alternative but as an additional sum.
Lord Cormack
Does my noble friend not accept that we are talking about voluntary donations? Nobody is going to be compelled to give anything. All it means is that if my noble friend decides, in his generosity, to give a modest sum to a political party—I cannot guess which party it would be—that would be his voluntary decision, and a very modest subsidy from the Treasury would come with it. This will broaden the base of political parties in a way that both he and I would surely desire.
Lord Finkelstein
I am going to gain an exemption from my other duties as a taxpayer, in order to do this. It therefore constitutes a privilege that I am being given for giving that money to a political party. Naturally, we are all in favour of doing that because we are all involved in politics.
Lord Deben
I am sorry to interrupt, but if we are starting to talk about taxation in that form, I must say that I do not want a state in which it is a privilege not to pay taxes. That is a very peculiar Conservative view, if I may say so.
Lord Finkelstein
We are required to give money to the state to pay for all the services that we enjoy, and the amendment suggests that instead of doing that, we should be given an exemption from that duty merely by dint of the fact that we wish to give money to a political party—a privilege that is not granted to us in respect of any other decision that we may take. Any other decision that I may take about what to do with my money is not granted that privilege; I am not to be granted an exemption from my duty to fund the National Health Service—except, by coincidence, in the opinion of a group of political activists, if I give money to the cause of political activism.
Lord Deben
My noble friend has just admitted that he has a large number of charitable activities. I am very happy that that should be the case. The real problem with not extending this provision to political parties is that it says that a political party is somehow less worthy than charities. My concern is that that is an insult to the noble nature of a political party.
Lord Finkelstein
Being a member of a political party is not a charitable activity.
Lord Finkelstein
If it were a charitable activity, the party would be a charity. It is not a charitable activity; it is a political activity. There is a distinction between a charitable activity and a political activity. I am sure that the noble Lord is motivated in his politics by a charitable instinct, but that is very different from a political party being a charity. There are rules that govern what is a charity—rules that we have determined should exist. If we wished political parties to be charities, my point is precisely that the electorate would begin to expect us to impose on political parties the same sort of restrictions that we place on charities.
Lord Campbell-Savours
In the light of these interventions, might the noble Lord not wish to revise his article on these matters in the Times this morning?
Lord Finkelstein
It is hardly to my surprise that I discover that in a group of people who are involved in politics, everybody thinks that political activity is very special and ought to be granted privileges not granted to other activities. It should not come as a surprise to any of us that we are all very keen on it and understand its importance. My question is whether we think that because we have an interest in politics and believe it to be a noble and important activity, we have a right to expect the electorate to grant us that privilege—an exemption from our other duties as taxpayers. I would argue that we do not.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
My Lords, I wish to add a few words. This discussion shows that in the area of political funding, for every solution there is a problem. I take a more sympathetic view of the issue than my noble friend Lord Finkelstein because I think that it is dangerous for parties to depend for their existence on a few major donors, wherever those donors may come from. We therefore have to find a way to replace those donors either with the state or by encouraging more people to make their donations worth more: for example, by means of gift aid, thereby taking them into the charity arena.
At the moment, there is a disconnect between the general public and Parliament. There are a number of reasons for that but the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, put his finger on it: a large proportion of that disconnect is due to difficulties in the area of funding. Some reports are blown up by the newspapers but the public is left with the impression that everybody has their nose in the trough. Even when people are found not guilty of offences in this regard or libel suits are successful, that impression is nevertheless left behind.
I offer a personal view on this. I am on the Lord Speaker’s outreach panel, the members of which give talks in schools, mostly to sixth forms, but sometimes to members of luncheon clubs and so on. It is interesting to see the reaction of 17 and 18 year-olds to talks about Parliament. After you have told them a bit about what we do, you ask them what they think about Parliament and the subject of money always comes up. It is not a question of one party or the other but of a general “smell”. At the moment, we are not passing the “smell” test as far as 17 and 18 year-olds are concerned. I am not suggesting that this amendment is perfect, but it provides a way for us to begin to address the “smell” test and start to deal with some of the issues that so far we have failed to grasp. If we do not grasp them, I fear that the reputation of Parliament will continue to decline because the newspapers and the media will continue to make hay with our reputation.
Although my noble friend is absolutely right about his narrow point, he has to decide where the balance of advantage and disadvantage lies. We should tell our fellow citizens that this process should mean a lot to them as it is the means by which irreconcilable policy issues are reconciled, and that if we do not reconcile them inside this place, we literally fight it out in the streets; and that is not very attractive either. Although I do not think that the amendment is the answer to this problem, I am sympathetic to it because it is the beginning of the answer and deserves to be explored further.
Lord Deben
My Lords, I have always been an agnostic about this issue and it is rare that I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, but I thought that his speech was remarkably informed. However, the important point is that those who do not want this measure have to find an alternative; and that is the trouble. Every time you talk about party political funding, people do not like whatever you suggest, so you end up with a system which is clearly not acceptable.
This measure is the best solution I can think of for the very reason that the noble Lord who has just spoken put forward: that is, whenever you give a talk in schools, money is the universal and everlasting concern that is always raised. I am not sure that it is easy to answer it because I know perfectly well that, in all the cases I have ever known, donors to the Conservative Party did not get what the newspapers thought they got. I think of a specific occasion when I was a Minister when, because somebody dared to tell me that a particular person was a donor, I am afraid that the opposite happened to what would otherwise have happened. I am sure that the noble Baroness on the Front Bench opposite would agree that such things happen on the opposite side of the House as well. That is what decent people do but it is not what indecent newspapers pretend those people do.
If our whole body politic is being poisoned by the present system, it is incumbent on those who object to the measure being put forward to suggest a different, better solution. I hear none, so, although I do not particularly like this measure, I do not know of a better one. We need to think about this issue much more seriously. The political parties should not wander on saying, “Well, we cannot think of anything better so we will go on with this”, because it is damaging the whole system.
Lord Finkelstein
Is the noble Lord proposing that there should be a cap that accompanies this amendment? Because if he is not, why would it affect the problem that he is talking about? It only affects the problem that the noble Lord is talking about if you ban people from making the bigger donations.
Lord Deben
I am sorry; my noble friend misses my point. I am an agnostic on this. I am merely saying that as an agnostic listening to the debate, having listened to this debate for many years now, I think that those who defend the present system should not be allowed merely to say, like my noble friend did just then, that this is a problem, and that that is a problem. They have to explain how we can go on with the present system without the poison constantly dripping down into the system in which we live. It is rather like climate change. I never understand why I am supposed to explain that it is dangerous to put vast quantities of gases into the atmosphere. They should have to explain why it is safe to do so. That seems to me to be the right way round. I am in exactly the same position here. Those who defend the present system have got to explain why it is that we should go on with something that is clearly poisoning the body politic.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
My Lords, that is an interesting idea in an interesting debate. I certainly do not defend the present system. I agree with all of the noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours, that funding causes a disconnect with the people of our country, and that we have got to do something about it. We have to lance the boil, or whatever metaphor one wants to use. People have made various suggestions, including about the cap and about other things such as those that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, talked about. It is absolutely clear that we have to find a solution. I am sure that all of us who are engaged in politics, and all of us who are here would agree, that politics is a “noble activity”, as the noble Lord said. It is a fundamental part of our democracy, and we are here to protect our democracy and to be vibrant activists.
However, it is my party’s strong view that whilst this is an interesting idea, it should not be looked at in isolation, and that what we have to do is to knock each other’s heads together, and find a solution in the round. My party—our party—wants to resume the all-party talks. It can be done; we have got to find a way through. It is not that I am being complacent. I can see that the noble Lord, Lord Marland is getting frustrated by what I am saying, but I can assure him that I spend a huge amount of my time raising funds for my party. I know how difficult it is, and I know all the problems with the media and everything else. We have to find a solution. It may well be that this is part of the solution, but it cannot be dealt with in isolation. But I am very grateful to my noble friend for raising this very interesting issue.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I, too, would like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, for raising this. Having spent much of the earlier part of the Committee discussing non-party organisations and the limits on party expenditure, I think that it is interesting that we now move on to party revenue and how it is raised. Indeed, there is much in this debate in which I find myself in considerable sympathy, as there is a disconnect and there is a problem.
As my noble friends Lord Deben and Lord Marland and the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, reminded us, politics is a noble calling. It is not always seen like that, and we understand sometimes why it is not seen like that. But much of the work that is done in this House and in the other place, and in the various devolved Administrations and council chambers up and down the land, requires people to make a commitment and very often a sacrifice in order to make the system work. It does not work perfectly, we know that, and it will not always produce the policies that people like, but nevertheless, without the people prepared to do that work, the system would completely break down and democracy would be seriously imperilled. Democracy does not come cheap, and if people are going to have proper choices at election times it is important that funding and resources are there for particular programmes to be put before voters, who should have an opportunity to respond.
Lord Campbell-Savours
To illustrate the point, I was making a distinction between a monthly contribution and an annual contribution.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I am grateful to the noble Lord for explaining that.
It will not come as any surprise that the Government do not feel able to support the amendment. There have been discussions among the three main parties, which have been guided by the principle of consensus. There has been not total consensus but substantial consensus in your Lordships’ House this evening—a consensus that was not found in the discussions that have taken place. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, said that there had been seven such discussions. In a Written Ministerial Statement on 4 July, my right honourable friend the Deputy Prime Minister indicated that the talks had not produced results and that it was,
“clear that reforms cannot go forward in this Parliament”.—[Official Report, Commons; 4/7/13; col. 62WS.]
From what has been said, it has been a source of considerable disappointment that agreement could not be reached. I do not necessarily think that the Bill is the best place in which to start to do these things without that wider consensus as to what other things might be needed. However, it is important that we have had this debate, which has shown that there can be consensus across the parties.
I therefore say to my noble friend Lord Cormack that, while I am sympathetic, I regret that I cannot be encouraging. I therefore ask the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Campbell-Savours
My Lords, I do not know whether to describe that as a disappointing reply. I hope that behind the scenes wise heads get together and further consider these matters.
All that I have tried to do in the amendment is break a logjam. These talks go on and on, collapse, start again and collapse. That is the history of this debate and we are getting nowhere. Meanwhile, our Parliament is submerged in a reputation of sleaze nationally, and some of us really resent it. Whether it is due to Hanningfield, Mackenzie and all these people, it is all part of the same reputation that is developing and surrounding Westminster. We cannot go on forever talking and nothing happening.
I say to the political parties that this is the beginning and is a way through. It would mean that we would have to re-engage in discussions about how to go forward. I am grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Deben, Lord Tyler, Lord Marland, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, Lord Finkelstein, and Lord Cormack, and my noble friend for their comments. The fact is that more people spoke on this amendment than on most amendments to this Bill, because people really are conscious of this matter and they know that there is a problem of credibility outside in the country.
I beg leave to withdraw my amendment, but I hope that at some stage in the future heads are banged together to sort this problem out.
“Operation of this Act
The Minister must before the end of the period of two years, beginning with the day on which this Act is passed, appoint a person to review generally the operation of this Act.”
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
My Lords, as we approach this last group for debate I shall be as brief as I can. This amendment inserts a new clause into the Bill and provides for the operation of the Act to be subject to a review. Whatever one’s views on the purpose of the Bill and whether it is sufficiently necessary, proportionate and effective, whatever one’s views are on the process of the Bill and whether it is too quick or perfectly adequate or whatever one’s views are on the implications of the Bill, one thing is certain: it has proved controversial. If this were not so, I am sure that the Government would not have agreed to the pause during the past few weeks. As the NCVO said in its briefing on this particular part of the Bill, three senior parliamentary committees have raised their concerns about it: the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, the House of Lords Constitution Committee and the Joint Committee on Human Rights.
Yet at this stage, all our views and opinions are so far merely supposition. We have yet to meet my noble friend Lord Tyler’s unintended consequences. This probing amendment is designed to ensure that the operation of the Act, in particular Part 2, is reviewed once we have had some real-life experience on its operation. My amendment suggests a review within two years of it coming into force. This will, I presume, mean a review commencing in the spring of 2016—that is to say, about nine months after the next general election, close enough that the lessons learnt in that election will remain fresh, but not so close that those lessons are distorted by the passions inevitably aroused during the campaign itself.
This approach, which is supported by the NCVO, offers the Government the opportunity to say to the doubters, “Let us see what happens in the run-up to and during the general election in 2015, let us then have a formal review and then Government, Parliament and the parties affected, including the charity sector, can decide and lobby for whatever changes need to be made”. I beg to move.
Lord Harries of Pentregarth
My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendments 181A, 181B and 181C, which all move in the same direction as the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, on reviewing the Act. We made it clear from the standpoint of the commission, from the word go, that our recommendations, as a result of only a fixed five weeks of consultation, were only provisional for the 2015 election and we were very glad to learn from the Minister that he thinks that it should be reviewed.
Amendment 181B, also in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, and the noble Lords, Lord Cormack and Lord Ramsbotham, puts forward the recommendation that the review should be undertaken within six months of the next parliamentary election. Amendment 181C, also in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Mallalieu and Lady Williams of Crosby, provides that the review should be undertaken within one year. That one-year recommendation is closely linked to Amendment 181A, which provides a sunset clause so that the Act would cease to have effect on 31 May 2016, and therefore at the end of Amendment 181C we say that the committee set up by the House to review the Act should report on its conclusions and those should be debated in both Houses before 31 May 2016. There is a clear timetable for this, and I hope that the Government will accept it.
It has been borne in upon the Government that there are issues here which are far more difficult and complex than they first thought when this legislation was put before the other place in July. We have seen this in particular in relation to constituency working, in relation to coalition working, and in relation to what is the actual heart of this, which is the definition of controlled expenditure. These are major issues that will need to be reviewed after the 2015 election.
My final point is that it is clear that the Government have approached this legislation from the standpoint of how electoral law might be abused. It is the contention of those who are heavily engaged in the democratic process, charities and other campaigning groups, that in trying to clamp down on potential abusers, they have severely curtailed the legitimate activities of people who want to contribute during an election year. The Electoral Commission has said that much of the present Act would be a burden on charities and NGOs generally. When the Minister goes away and thinks about what has been said today, I hope very much that he will do all he can to give NGOs that want to contribute to the democratic process much greater freedom and the liberation to do so without fear of crossing registration thresholds and so on, as would happen if the present Bill goes through unamended. I hope that not only will he think about what has been said both today and on Monday, but that he will support the idea of a sunset clause and a review within a year.
Baroness Williams of Crosby (LD)
My Lords, I rise briefly to support what has been said by the noble and right reverend Lord and to make two precise points. The first is that the original amendment provided for a period of nine months, which is too short. As we know from many experiences, there is a complexity about elections and everything does not surface as quickly as that. It is sensible and important, if we are to have a review, that it should take into account all that has happened during an election—some of that will be local and some national—and that it is allowed to take note of all the propositions that have arisen. That is because a review that comes too early is one that might well get it wrong.
My second point is the importance of the sunset clause, as has been mentioned by the noble and right reverend Lord. I am afraid that I am a little cynical about government reviews. In my experience they do not always happen, sometimes they happen with some very odd persons being involved in them, and sometimes they just disappear into thin air. The great thing about a sunset clause is that it concentrates the mind of Government wonderfully. It is like a wicket in cricket. It makes it possible to consider very carefully what is at stake. I therefore strongly support the noble and right reverend Lord in calling for a sunset clause to be linked to the review because the sunset clause makes it certain that the review will happen and be taken seriously. The Government of the day will then have to consider in detail, in the way that the noble and right reverend Lord has asked for, many aspects of this very complex law.
Lord Cormack
My Lords, we had no pre-legislative scrutiny and many of us are unhappy about the way in which this Bill was produced. I think that a sunset clause would set our minds at rest to a considerable degree and there is, frankly, an unanswerable case for having one. I sincerely hope that my noble and learned friend, who has already been helpful and has indicated that he accepts the need for review, and who gave us the five-week period of grace—it was not enough but nevertheless it was appreciated because it marked a recognition on the part of the Government that they had not got it entirely right—can give us an assurance that there will be a sunset clause. That, I think, would send us all off to the Christmas festivities and the new year celebrations with a spring in our heels.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
My Lords, I will briefly say that I am in favour of both a review and the sunset clause. I also very much hope that the noble and learned Lord has been listening attentively—that is a stupid thing to say as I am sure he has been—over the two Committee days that we have had on this really important part of the Bill. Amendments have been put forward by all sides of the House, notably by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, but both the review and the sunset clause may well be too late because some charities and NGOs may well have been silenced by then—not necessarily by the legislation itself but by the fear of the legislation and its consequences. This legislation needs time and good guidance, as we discussed earlier today. It desperately needs amendment and I am sure—at least I very much hope—that the Government will come forward with the appropriate amendments, including an amendment saying that there will be a review.
Lord Alderdice (LD)
My Lords, I have listened carefully to what has been said. One of the important developments in your Lordships’ House over the past year or two is that of post-legislative scrutiny. Noble Lords have focused on the usual way of addressing such things, such as a sunset clause and a plea for a government review—my noble friend expressed some scepticism about government reviews and about who gets asked to do them and so on—but Parliament now has it within its own hands. We would do well to consider not so much depending on government to produce a review at some stage down the line, or putting in a sunset clause, but rather whether we should use post-legislative scrutiny more regularly, after an appropriate time, whether that is two years or otherwise. I say that because it is so easy for us to put taking responsibility for something we ourselves feel strongly about on to somebody else. It is now in our hands to conduct post-legislative scrutiny.
Lord Cormack
The fact is that post-legislative scrutiny—which I am a great advocate of—is no substitute for a sunset clause, which brings the Bill to a proper stop. We do not have the power to do that.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, I will very briefly say that of course we need to be aware of the effects of any legislation and that often these effects do not become clear until after the legislation is in force. As far as Part 2 is concerned, the Electoral Commission already has, under PPERA, the statutory function of reporting on the conduct of elections. That report will include how third-party campaigning is carried out.
I reassure your Lordships that we agree that the impact of the provisions of Part 6 of PPERA, which would include, if it passes, the measures in Part 2 of this Bill, should be subject to a review after the 2015 UK parliamentary general election. The passage of the Bill has shown that the provisions of PPERA are not necessarily as widely known as they ought to be, and even less well understood. The 2015 election will provide an opportunity to review the effectiveness of the provisions of Part 6 of PPERA as enhanced by Part 2 of this Bill.
The Government are still considering the precise details of the review but we commit to laying the review before Parliament, and a government amendment to that effect will be tabled on Report. Such a review was recommended by the Commission on Civil Society and Democratic Engagement, led by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, and we are grateful to him for that recommendation. When the review is carried out, it is only right that Parliament should have the opportunity to consider how to respond to its findings.
The reason I hesitate in agreeing to the sunset clause is that Amendment 181C calls for the report to be debated “before 31 May 2016”, whereas Amendment 181A would have the effect that Part 2 would expire “on 31 May 2016”. It is important that, if we have a review, it is a proper one. If there are things that need to be done, there should be an ample opportunity for Parliament to take steps and consider any amendments that are required. That would not necessarily give a proper opportunity for a full review and for Parliament to take any necessary legislative steps. The spirit is that there should be a review. It should be brought to Parliament. It is clear to all parties, regardless of who is in government after 2015, that the will to have a review and learn the lessons that any review might teach us is there. In these circumstances I hope that my noble friend Lord Hodgson, who set the ball rolling in this, will be prepared to withdraw his amendment.
I hope this will be the last time that I will be on my feet in this Committee stage. I thank noble Lords in all parts of the Chamber for their contributions. It is important that we have had them. I also thank noble Lords for the good nature in which, debating pretty complex matters, our deliberations have proceeded. The Government have been listening and will reflect over the Recess on the matters that have been raised in your Lordships’ House.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
My Lords, for the second or maybe the third time this afternoon I can say how grateful I am to my noble and learned friend for his very positive response. It has been a long afternoon and I take this opportunity to thank him for the courteous way in which he has dealt with the extensive probing to which he has been subjected. In withdrawing my amendment I hope that it is not out of order if I wish him and all members of the Committee a very happy Christmas.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns (Con)
My Lords, it is customary at this point of the year for the Chief Whips and the Convenor to pay tribute on behalf of the whole House to the dedicated, patient and courteous staff who have facilitated our work this year, and whose efforts are sincerely appreciated by us all. The adjournment is also an opportunity to record our particular thanks to long-serving members of our staff, who have perhaps left us recently or are about to leave the service of the House.
I begin with the name especially well known to the scholarly among us, Isolde Victory, the recently departed director of library services. I do hate the word “departed”. It sounds as though she has gone not only from here but even further afield; she is still very much active. Isolde joined our House in October 1984 and became a Library clerk a year later. In her 29 years of service, she brought her sharp intellect to more than 4,000 pieces of individual research that covered issues as varied as Lords reform, Alpine skiing and tractors, or, given those who are here today, I might mischievously suggest the Recess itinerary for many of my noble friends. Perhaps her most enduring piece of research concerned delegated legislation, for which her briefing note is considered to be the definitive reference material on that subject. Isolde also took the lead in developing Library services. As the Library’s first head of research services and then as its director, she oversaw a significant period of expansion. In doing so, she kept at heart the Library’s core purpose of providing reference and research services to Members and she leaves a wonderful legacy for her successors. In retirement, Isolde has already enjoyed a family trip to Canada. To her other pursuits she will no doubt bring the same thoughtfulness and, I understand, dry sense of humour that characterised her time in our House.
I also note the departure of Kathryn Colvin, who retired as clerk of the Committee Office after seven years. Kathryn joined the Lords after a career in the Diplomatic Service, which culminated in her appointment as our first ever female ambassador to the Holy See. In that role, she represented Her Majesty’s Government following the death of Pope John Paul II and hosted a visit from the Prince of Wales. Her service saw her recognised not only as a Commander of the Victorian Order but, perhaps uniquely among the staff of this House, as an Officer of the Légion d’honneur. Kathryn’s Lords career was similarly devoted to foreign affairs in her role as clerk to the EU Sub-Committee on External Affairs. She brought her diplomatic ability and intellect to bear on the fast-moving work of that committee, granting it levels of access to the Foreign Office that were previously unknown, and guiding it in the production of notable reports on relations with China and Russia. Outside the House, she has played a leading role on the UK national committee of UN Women, and I have no doubt that she will continue to fly the flag for gender equality during her retirement.
Finally, Anne Bannerton also retired from the House this year after 17 years of service. Anne is perhaps best known for 14 years in the Peers’ Dining Room, first as a waitress and latterly as a wine steward. She became a warm and familiar face to many. In all that time, my experience was that she never lost her enthusiasm and diplomacy in dealing with all manner of occurrences in the Peers’ Dining Room. Perhaps Peers are not always quite as patient as they might be. Anne was a very popular member of staff with colleagues and Members, and her presence will be missed.
I also pay tribute to John Rogers, an attendant who served the House for 14 years. He first worked for the Law Lords as a senior clerical officer, where he prepared legal bundles and provided administrative support on what I am told was the notoriously hectic Law Lords’ Corridor. Other colleagues may feel that it is hectic on every Corridor. After the establishment of the Supreme Court, John wisely opted out of the confines of Middlesex Guildhall and instead joined the corps of attendants, where he worked in our Peers’ Lobby until his retirement in February this year. He was a popular figure throughout his time in the House. As with all other members of staff who retire, we wish him a long and happy retirement.
All that remains for me to do is to register the thanks of all of us to all the marvellous staff of this House and wish them all a very festive period ahead. I will formally adjourn the House later, but will now leave the matter of other tributes to the noble Baroness the Leader of the Opposition, a representative from the Liberal Democrat Benches and the Convenor of the Cross Benches.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)
My Lords, I echo the thanks that have been given by the noble Baroness the Chief Whip to our marvellous staff in this House. The fact that I am standing here in almost splendid isolation does not mean that my Benches do not think that the staff of this House are not just unfailingly helpful and courteous but amazingly patient and superb in dealing with the many daily challenges and problems that arise. I am particularly grateful to staff when some of our noble friends are ill. Two noble friends of mine were taken ill of late and the staff were impeccable and I am extremely grateful.
It should be my noble friend Lord Bassam standing at the Dispatch Box this evening but I am afraid he has been transported to the TARDIS. He has gone to see a “Doctor Who” film—I would say another great British achievement—and that is why I am here. I seem to have rather different notes from the noble Baroness, because I have some different aspects of the lives of some people.
First, I pay tribute to Mr James McWhinnie, who is clearly a very interesting character with great joie de vivre. I am told that Mr McWhinnie asked for a day off for a doctor’s appointment. Of course, his request was granted. When he came in the following day, everyone asked him how he got on, and he said, “Oh I’m absolutely fine, no problems at all”. However, a number of weeks later his colleagues from the RAF were looking through an RAF magazine and came across a picture of Mr McWhinnie with a wide grin on his face at a top table lunch, on the day he asked to go to the doctor. So I am glad that he has other things in his life apart from the House of Lords.
For the past number of years, a group of the doorkeepers go on what is called a “jolly boys’ outing”. The outing takes place over a weekend and they cruise the high seas. During the cruise, Mr Edwards gives a lecture on whale watching, so it is not just a drinking exercise. On one particular occasion Mr McWhinnie was at his muster point by the bar when he reached out to lean against a chair. However, he missed the chair, fell on the floor and, in falling, managed to fuse all the electrics that operated the bar, including the tills and, more importantly, the pumps to the barrels. I am told that the chap who ran the bar was not too happy. I am sure that we will greatly miss Mr McWhinnie, and I am glad that he did not cause that havoc in this House.
Next I pay tribute to Mary O’Keefe, who was a housekeeper. I pay tribute to all the housekeepers, who do a fantastic job in the early morning before we arrive. When we arrive every day, the House of Lords looks splendid. Mary worked as a housekeeper for 10 years and spent almost all her career in Old Palace Yard. She was highly regarded by all the Members and the departments which occupied the building. She ended her career in the Lords working in the Royal Gallery and the Sovereign’s Entrance. Both these areas were kept to her usual meticulous standards, and she will be missed by all those who worked with her and by the House in general.
Maria Teresa Rey has retired on medical grounds after many years of service to the House, working as a catering assistant in the River Restaurant since its opening in 2006. During that time she served many customers including Members and staff of both Houses, and we wish her well in retirement.
Finally, I pay tribute to Mr Paul Langridge, who joined the Corps of Attendants in April 1996 after a career in the London Fire Brigade. He rose rapidly through the ranks, becoming a principal attendant in 2001 and then moving on to become deputy staff superintendent in Black Rod’s department, in charge of all the attendants. His career included some memorable moments, not least when a Member collapsed here in the Chamber. Paul attended and, using his first aid training and a defibrillator, without doubt saved the Member’s life. Other notable events were the lying in state of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, along with state visits by the Pope, Barack Obama and many more during his 17 years of service to the House. He retired on 17 May 2013. Our great thanks go to these valued members of staff.
I also take the opportunity to thank the staff who work in the Government Office, in the Liberal Democrat Office, the Cross-Bench Office and my own staff. They all do a fantastic job, ensuring that noble Lords opposite are an effective Government in this House and we are an effective Opposition. My thanks go to all the staff of this House.
Lord Alderdice (LD)
One of the extremely valuable services that we all use every day in this House is Hansard, the Official Report. This does not only serve us now, but continues to provide a remarkable resource into future decades and indeed centuries. One of our senior Hansard officials has recently retired, and I would like to express our appreciation to Glenice Hoffmann. Glenice joined House of Lords Hansard as a reporter on Monday 12 January 1987, and worked as a chief reporter before being promoted to managing editor in 2004. The welfare of her colleagues was always a priority for her, as she showed in her work as union representative, health and safety officer and, perhaps most importantly, founder of the department’s tea club. Glenice gave a remarkable 26 years of service to the House and we owe her an enormous debt of gratitude. Thank you, Glenice.
Most of us also use the House Library facilities regularly and I would like on all our behalves to say a word of appreciation to Sian King for her service. She retired earlier this year, having joined the House of Lords Library in March 2003 as an assistant librarian. Later, she became technical services librarian, with responsibility for the Library’s core systems and infrastructure—invisible but vital for a modern library. One of her outstanding achievements and legacies is the successful introduction of a new library management system in 2011. She also played the key role in implementing the new e-deposit system whereby in 2007 both Houses moved overnight and seamlessly from a paper-based to a fully electronic deposit system for documents, which was a huge advance and a major achievement on her part.
Sian’s technical expertise and commitment to the Library profession were legendary and she did notable work with CILIP, the professional body for librarians and information scientists. She was a mentor for younger librarians early in their careers and she took every opportunity to champion the cause of libraries, promoting the collections and pursuing opportunities to move from print to digital, which is a very important element of the Library transition these days. On her retirement, Sian and her husband show no sign of taking things easy, as they move to Wales to self-build a new home and spend time with their new grandchild. Thank you, Sian, and very best wishes to you.
The housekeepers look after us quietly and unobtrusively. Patience Owivri has given nine years’ service as a housekeeper here in House of Lords. During that time, she worked in Millbank House, Fielden House and in all areas of the Palace. She was one of the group of housekeepers who volunteered for State Opening duties, working in the Moses Room helping the team of attendants dressing Members in their robes prior to going into the Chamber for the Queen’s Speech. Thank you, Patience, for all your work here in the House.
I say thank you from these Benches not only to those staff who depart in 2013 but to all of those who continue with us. We are mindful and deeply appreciative of the warm and courteous way in which you enable us to do our parliamentary work. I was asked to express particular appreciation on behalf of some of our Members who suffer from disabilities and need assistance to continue their parliamentary work. The staff are impeccable, courteous, warm and helpful at all times. We trust that you all, our staff, have a restful and enjoyable time over the festive season and look forward to continuing together with you to serve our nation in the new year.
Lord Laming (CB)
My Lords, on behalf of the Cross-Bench group, I associate myself with the warm tributes that have already been so well expressed. It is always a pleasure to take part in this important tradition in the House, because it rightly gives us the opportunity to make some time to express our gratitude to the many staff who have served us so well over the years.
We are all agreed that we owe a great deal to the staff of this House. Many are required to work late into the evening and sometimes unexpectedly, as was illustrated this year during two occasions when the House was recalled. Throughout the year, the staff carry out their duties with care and thought, and their support is of immense value in enabling the House to function so effectively. We are fortunate to have such dedicated and resilient staff who are committed to their task.
It is a pleasure to make special mention of three former staff who have served the House in different but equally important roles. The first to mention is Lieutenant Colonel Edward Lloyd-Jukes, who was widely known and respected by all Members of this House. Ted worked in Black Rod’s Department for more than nine years, first as administration officer and, for the last four years, as Yeoman Usher. Of particular note, was Ted’s ability to act at very short notice as Black Rod during the absence, caused by serious illness, of Sir Freddie Viggers in 2010 and 2011.
During nine months as Black Rod, Ted conducted the introduction ceremonies of no fewer than 108 new Members, a number thought to be a record for such a short period. At the State Opening in May 2010, Ted carried off the ceremonial duties of Black Rod with great assurance and, later that year, played a leading role in ensuring that the visit to Parliament by His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI was such a memorable occasion.
Throughout his tenure, Ted was at the heart of the arrangements for all the state events in the Palace of Westminster. His tally of visits by heads of state is no fewer than 18. The State Opening of Parliament in 2013 was his ninth. Just as for all previous State Openings of Parliament, it was his task, in which he took enormous pride, to direct and supervise in minute detail, and of course because of that the results were always flawless. Ted’s service was rightly recognised in June this year when he was appointed LVO in the Queen’s Birthday Honours.
Next, I pay tribute to Michael Walsh. Mick joined the House of Lords in 1997 as one of the two judicial doorkeepers after a career in the London Fire Brigade. Two years later, in 1999, he joined the Palace of Westminster Fire Service, where he remained until 2002. He was clearly bitten by the doorkeeper bug because he returned to us and remained until 2011 as a senior doorkeeper. He then joined the Department of Facilities as a facilities manager for property and office services. In this role Mick was in charge of the housekeepers and the training for the whole department. He remained in this position until his retirement on 11 December this year. We are most grateful to Mick for his dedicated service to the House and to us all.
I also pay tribute to Felicia Ojo. Felicia was a housekeeper in the House of Lords for six years, and until her retirement was part of the team that cared for the Peers’ Entrance, the Peers’ cloakroom and the Peers’ staircase. The area that she worked in presented a number of challenges, not least being the importance of not disturbing any papers that Members of this House had left around their pegs or on the floor by their pegs. Despite all this, the area was always maintained to a very high standard, which reflected well on Felicia’s work ethic and attention to detail. We thank her and wish her a very long and happy retirement.
I end by adding my own thanks to all the staff, and wish them and noble Lords a very happy Christmas.
Lord Brougham and Vaux (Con)
My Lords, I speak on behalf of the Lord Speaker and all the other Deputies. We associate ourselves with all the tributes paid to everyone in the House and wish everyone a happy Christmas.