House of Commons

Thursday 9th January 2014 Commons Chamber

Thursday 9 January 2014

The House met at half-past Nine o’clock

Prayers

Thursday 9th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions

Thursday 9th January 2014 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

1. What steps he is taking to safeguard trees from the threat of disease.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dan Rogerson)]

We have made rapid progress towards implementing three of the independent taskforce’s recommendations: we have produced a prioritised plant health risk register, undertaken work on contingency planning and initiated recruitment of a senior chief plant health officer. We have accepted the remaining taskforce recommendations, and we are working with stakeholders to develop a new plant health strategy, to be published this spring, which will set out a new approach to biosecurity for our plants.

[Sir Tony Baldry]

Is my hon. Friend satisfied that sufficient attention is being given to import checks? Are we doing sufficient to help other countries manage the risks of pests and diseases that may be transferred in plants and woods exported to the UK, and how are we agreeing priorities for action?

[Dan Rogerson]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his question. We have introduced further restrictions on, for example, the import of sweet chestnut and plane trees before the 2013-14 planting season. Our negotiators are successfully influencing the review of the EU plant health regime, which will maintain strict controls and simplify the broad range of legislation.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister will know that this year is the 150th anniversary of the death of one of our greatest poets of the countryside, John Clare. He wrote a great deal about diseased trees—there was a plague of oak disease in his lifetime—and he was certainly a great defender of the English countryside. What does the Minister think John Clare would have thought of giving up our ancient woodland and replacing it with new growth?

[Dan Rogerson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for bringing a cultural dimension to our proceedings so early this morning. I share his concern, and that of John Clare, for ancient woodland, and that is why the guidance is very clear. In any discussions about development, the guidance we offer to all local authorities is very clear that ancient woodland should be protected.

[Mr Speaker]

Not for nothing is the hon. Gentleman known as culture vulture Sheerman.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Which tree species does the Minister regard as most at risk from disease?

[Dan Rogerson]

There are a number of threats, as my hon. Friend will know. We are of course concerned about ash, although ash dieback is a disease that takes several years to progress, and we are obviously concerned about larch as well. Across the range of species, we maintain under review all potential threats that are not yet in this country.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I want to press the Minister on the issue of protecting our ancient woodlands. Today’s written ministerial statement talks about planting lots of new trees, but does he accept that that is no replacement for the destruction of ancient trees? The quantity of new trees will not be a substitute for the diversity and quality of such woodland.

[Dan Rogerson]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to point out that, given the maturity of such ecosystems, ancient woodland has a whole range of things that new planting cannot hope to replicate. That is why the planning guidance is absolutely clear that the hierarchy should protect ancient woodland.

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

2. What assessment he has made of the scope for cutting red tape in the farming industry.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)]

We are committed to freeing farmers from red tape to help them to seize economic opportunities. We are reducing paperwork burdens and making guidance clearer and simpler. Farmers who play by the rules now receive fewer inspections. For example, 740 members of the Environment Agency’s pig and poultry scheme are inspected once every three years, rather than annually. I expect to make an announcement shortly on further opportunities for cutting red tape as a result of the agriculture red tape challenge.

[Nigel Mills]

I thank the Minister for that answer, but for many farmers in my constituency overly complex livestock identification and movement controls remain a burden on their businesses. What plans does the Minister have to simplify this regime?

[George Eustice]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Considerable progress has already been made on livestock identification and the complex rules governing animal movements. We introduced electronic reporting for pigs in 2011, and we will do the same for sheep from the spring. We have negotiated changes to the EU sheep tagging rules for the historic flock, generating savings of up to £11 million for sheep farmers. We will also implement the recommendations made by the farming regulation taskforce to simplify how we define livestock holdings in England to avoid confusion around the rules, and we will phase out cattle tracing links and sole occupancy authorities to further streamline the regime.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

Will the Minister confirm that one matter that is not red tape is the establishment of a food crime unit? Will he indicate when he intends to do that and how he will discuss the matter with the devolved Administrations, particularly that in Wales?

[George Eustice]

The right hon. Gentleman is referring to the interim report by Professor Elliott. We will look at all his recommendations and respond to the final report when it is published later this year.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Farmers in Cumbria and elsewhere have their hands tied by excessive restrictions, such as the six-day movement rule. Given that the Government agreed in full to the recommendations of the Macdonald report two years ago, when will farmers in this country see them put into practice?

[George Eustice]

It is difficult to remove the six-day movement rule because it was a key measure that was brought in to combat the spread of diseases such as foot and mouth. We are clear that we want to get rid of unnecessary regulation, but we do not want to do anything that would compromise animal health or safety. I am willing to talk to the hon. Gentleman about this particular point. It has been raised with me by farmers. However, it is not a simple matter because we do not want to jeopardise animal health.

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

Wholly disproportionate financial penalties for minor and often unavoidable regulatory infringements, such as lost ear tags, have been a characteristic of the common agricultural policy in recent years. What guarantee can the Minister give that the new regime will distinguish between wilful disregard of the rules and the unintentional and inconsequential infringements that are currently being penalised?

[George Eustice]

These issues are a devolved matter. We are looking at the rules in England. The hon. Lady is right, although the EU regulations do emphasise the need for proportionality in the application of sanctions. The regulations are being reviewed. We are making the case to the European Commission that there should be changes to the rules from the beginning of 2015 so that the sanctions are more proportionate. The negotiations are ongoing.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

3. What recent assessment he has made of the sufficiency of flood defences; and if he will make a statement.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Owen Paterson)]

About 5 million properties in England are at risk of flooding. The flood defences protected more than 1 million properties during recent events. More is being spent during this spending review period than ever before. That will better protect 165,000 houses from flooding. In the six-year period from 2015-16, we will invest a record £2.3 billion in capital improvement projects, which will improve the protection for a further 300,000 households.

[Bill Esterson]

That is a remarkable answer, given that on 9 September, the former Minister, the hon. Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), told my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane) that total expenditure on flood defences was projected to fall from £646 million in 2010-11 to £546 million in 2015-16. Given those figures and the scale of the recent flooding, will the Secretary of State say how flood defences such as those in my constituency will be repaired? Will he confirm whether he will press for additional funds for flood defence repairs?

[Mr Paterson]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question, because it gives me the chance to tell the House, yet again, that the Government are spending more in this spending round than was spent by the previous Government and that we plan to increase the amount to a record £2.3 billion up to 2021. Thanks to the fact that we have galvanised local councils through the partnership funding scheme, there will be all sorts of opportunities for his constituents to work with him and his local council to access more funds for flood schemes.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

It is remarkable that the flood defences have held to the extent that they have during the battering that the country has taken. Will my right hon. Friend give a commitment to the House that he will review the budget for repairs to existing flood defences and look favourably on schemes such as the maintenance by drainage boards of the regular watercourses that protect farmland and other properties?

[Mr Paterson]

I thank the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee for her question. What she says about maintenance is absolutely correct. In November, it was found that 97% of the defences were in a good condition and would remain so within our existing budgets. I repeat again that we have made a clear commitment up to 2021. I would love to see the shadow Secretary of State stand up and say that the Labour party will back that commitment.

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

10. Although there were major flood alerts, there was a lucky escape for the vast majority of residents of my constituency. I thank all those involved, particularly Natural Resources Wales, which has improved defences in recent years and, crucially, ensured that there have been no flood protection job losses. Given how severely Wales was affected by the floods, the size of our coastline and our exposure, will the Secretary of State consult the Welsh Government closely about the resource to be given to Wales in the future?

[Mr Paterson]

I thank the hon. Lady for her comments about those who have worked so hard, and that situation was reflected across the country. As she rightly says, this is a devolved issue, and the Welsh Secretary and representatives of the Welsh Government have obviously been involved in our numerous Cobra meetings. I will be happy to pass on her comments, but I suggest that she takes up the matter directly with the Welsh Government and the Welsh Secretary.

[Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)]

The Secretary of State will be aware of the extensive damage along the west Wales coastline, particularly in Ceredigion in the Aberystwyth and Borth areas. Flooding is a devolved matter, as he says, but is the prospect of a bid to the European Union solidarity fund, specifically set up for the restoration of defences and infrastructure, a feature of the discussions that he has had and will have with colleagues in Cardiff and the Secretary of State for Wales?

[Mr Paterson]

My hon. Friend makes a good suggestion, which is well worth the Welsh Government and the Welsh Secretary taking up. We are happy to help liaise with him, but ultimately we have to respect devolution, and if it is an issue of money for Wales, it is down to the Welsh Government to negotiate it.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

When he became Secretary of State in September 2012, the right hon. Gentleman reviewed his Department’s priorities. Why did his new list of four priorities make no reference to preparing for and managing risks from flood and other environmental emergencies, as the old list of priorities and responsibilities had done?

[Mr Paterson]

That gives me a perfect opportunity to explain the huge gain for the economy from our ambitious flood schemes. Very shortly after I took over, I met the noble Lord Smith, the chairman of the Environment Agency, at a brilliant £45 million scheme in Nottingham, which was not just protecting 12,000 houses but, on the other side of the river, freeing up a whole area of blighted land, which is now up for development.

My first priority is to grow the rural economy, and I am delighted to say that our ambitious schemes will help to do that. I just wish that, in her second question, the hon. Lady would say the Labour party endorse our plans.

[Maria Eagle]

When asked by the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs where the £54 million of extra savings from his departmental budget announced by the Treasury in June 2013 would come from, he said:

“We will concentrate on my four priorities, so it is as simple as that. Pretty well every single activity in Defra has to be focused through those four priorities.”

Those priorities do not include flood protection. How can people facing an increasing risk of flood damage due to the effects of climate change have any confidence in a Secretary of State who has downgraded flood protection as a priority and thinks that climate change is benefiting Britain?

[Mr Paterson]

Dear, oh dear, this is lame stuff. We are spending £2.3 billion over the course of this Parliament, with £148 million of partnership money. We have an extra £5 million for revenue, and in the course of the recent reduction across Departments I specifically excluded flood defence, so the reduction is spread across the rest of DEFRA. Uniquely, we have a programme going right out to 2021, with £2.3 billion. Yet again—this is the fifth opportunity—the hon. Lady has not agreed to match our commitment. If you want flood defences, you vote Conservative.

[Mr Gary Streeter (South West Devon) (Con)]

Every time—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I want to hear the voice of South West Devon.

[Mr Streeter]

Every time we have floods in the far south-west, our vital rail link with the rest of the country is either severed completely or severely disrupted. Is my right hon. Friend confident that, within the existing resources and his excellent existing budget in the Department, sufficient priority is being given to flood prevention measures for vital transport infrastructure?

[Mr Paterson]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. When I went to Exeter, I saw the real damage to the economy of the south-west caused by the important link to Exeter being interrupted by floods last year. I can reassure him that there have been senior Ministers from the Department for Transport at our Cobra meetings, and they are fully aware of the consequences and have been working hard to ensure that our transport links have been restored rapidly.

[Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

4. What his Department’s latest evaluation is of the badger cull pilots.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Owen Paterson)]

We are waiting for the independent expert panel to report its findings, and we will consider all information the pilots have generated and decide on our next steps in due course.

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

Everybody wants bovine TB to be defeated, but there is great scepticism out there that this tactic was ever going to work. Will the Secretary of State say when we can expect all the evidence to be published on the risks associated with culling?

[Mr Paterson]

That is a perfectly valid question but we must wait for the independent panel. That panel is independent and I do not want to put any pressure on it. It has a large amount of data from the two pilots that it will analyse for safety, humaneness and effectiveness. We must be patient and wait for it to report.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

The Secretary of State is to be congratulated on taking action to hold the pilot culls, but it is now necessary to analyse them and in particular to look at the Somerset scheme, where trapping was very effective. In Devon we need a full-scale cull to get control of this disease, as they have done in the Republic of Ireland.

[Mr Paterson]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments and he is right to say that we cannot ignore this disease, as the previous Government did. He is absolutely right to draw the House’s attention to the Republic of Ireland. I met Simon Coveney, the Irish Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, at the Oxford Farming Conference, and he told me that thanks to the policies adopted by the Republic of Ireland, the disease there is at its lowest level since records began.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State has delivered an unscientific cull that has spectacularly failed, that his own Back Benchers are openly questioning, that has weakened the reputation of DEFRA and Natural England for evidence-based policy, and from which the Prime Minister’s office is reported to be working up an escape plan. Will he now commit to bring the report of the independent expert panel to this House for a debate in Government time, and put to a vote any further proposals on badger culling?

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question but I remind him that last time this issue came before the House, the Government had a good majority of 61. I am not prepared to put any pressure on the independent panel; it is up to it to take its time to evaluate the evidence and report to us, and we will come back in due course.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

If the panel finds that the pilots were ineffective, what will the Government do?

[Mr Paterson]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. We will obviously analyse the reasons the panel puts forth in its report. He asks a hypothetical question, and all I can say is that we just have to look at other countries. There is no doubt that if we look at Australia, the scientific evidence shows that it is now TB free. We can look at the United States and the white-tailed deer, the brushtail possum in New Zealand, or Ireland, which I have just cited. The Republic of Ireland is a scientific, practical example because by bearing down on the disease in cattle and in wildlife, it has got it down to the lowest level since records began. We will follow its example.

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

5. What progress he has made in requiring water companies to introduce social tariffs; and if he will make a statement.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Owen Paterson)]

The Government do not require water companies to introduce a social tariff. Water companies are best placed to take decisions on the design of social tariffs as part of their charges schemes, in consultation with their customers. Social tariffs are funded by cross-subsidy between customers, so it is vital that they take account of local circumstances and the views of local people. Most water companies will have a social tariff in place by 2015-16.

[Grahame M. Morris]

I am grateful to the Minister for that answer but I draw his attention to the fact that a cost of living crisis is affecting about 2 million households in England and Wales who are classed as living in water poverty, which means they are paying at least 3% of their household income in water bills. Will the Government think again and consider supporting Labour’s proposals to introduce a reduced social tariff to help families who are struggling to pay their water bills?

[Dan Rogerson]

As I made absolutely clear to the hon. Gentleman in my previous answer, many water companies are now taking such action, but there are other things we can do to help people who are struggling with their water bills. The biggest thing we can do is to ensure that we bear down on charges for everybody. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has been clear in his expectations, Ofwat has been clear in the way it has entered into the price review period and companies are now responding. We will see, in the vast majority of cases, bills going with inflation or even perhaps, in some cases, going below inflation. That is a real improvement on the last price review period, given the opportunities companies have had with low borrowing.

[Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)]

Water bills have increased by almost 50% in real terms since privatisation, yet in the past financial year the regional water companies made £1.9 billion in pre-tax profits and paid out a staggering £1.8 billion to shareholders. Will the Minister explain why on Monday his Government rejected Labour’s proposed amendment to the Water Bill for a national affordability scheme with clear and standardised criteria set by the Secretary of State to replace the Government’s failed voluntary approach?

[Dan Rogerson]

I am happy to reiterate to the hon. Gentleman what I said on Report on Monday. His proposal to fund some sort of national affordability scheme out of excess profits relies on the regulator allowing excess profits in the first place. This Government’s robust price review period will press down. Under the previous Government, when the previous spending review took place, there was a lack of guidance. It is a very different situation now.

[Andrew Griffiths (Burton) (Con)]

6. How many cattle were slaughtered as a result of bovine TB in 2013.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Owen Paterson)]

Between January and September 2013, 24,618 cattle were compulsorily slaughtered as reactors or direct contacts in Great Britain. That is an average of more than 90 cattle a day. In Staffordshire over the same period, 2,245 cattle were slaughtered for TB control purposes.

[Andrew Griffiths]

Each one of those instances is a tragedy. Farmers in Burton, Uttoxeter and across the country are having their lifetime’s work destroyed by this disease. Does the Secretary of State share my concern that the Opposition seem to criticise constantly the work to tackle this disease, while having no plans of their own and offering no support to my farmers?

[Mr Paterson]

I entirely endorse my hon. Friend’s comments, particularly as my constituency is so close to his. Having got this disease down to 0.01% in 1972 when we had a bipartisan approach—in those days, there was absolute unity on the need to bear down on the disease in cattle and in wildlife—it is tragic that we let that go. Since then, 305,000 perfectly healthy cattle have been hauled off to slaughter at a cost of £500 million. If we do not get a grip on this, as my hon. Friend says, we are heading for a bill of £1 billion. We just wish that we could get back to that bipartisan approach, which has been endorsed by every other country I cited in my previous answer.

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

TB is causing chaos in the county of Monmouthshire. Does my right hon. Friend agree that we need a completely open-minded and united approach? If culling works, then all sides of the House should support it. If it does not work, after we have seen the independent survey, we should unite in supporting an alternative.

[Mr Paterson]

I have to respect the rules of devolution and the Welsh Government are pursuing a vaccination policy. Our belief is that vaccination is, sadly, expensive and pointless on diseased animals. There is an interesting role for ring vaccination once the pool of disease has been reduced, and I think we can probably learn from both areas.

[Mrs Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

7. What plans he has to propose changes to the responsibilities of the Food Standards Agency following the Elliott review into the integrity and assurance of food supply networks.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Owen Paterson)]

This is an interim report which Professor Elliott plans to discuss further with interested parties in the coming months. The Government are interested in hearing the views of others, as we consider all of Professor Elliott’s interim recommendations, before responding to his final report in the spring.

[Mrs Glindon]

Given the emphasis on criminality in the food chain in the Elliott review, what are the Government doing to ensure that unscrupulous people who deliberately defraud the public will be brought to justice?

[Mr Paterson]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. I can tell her that investigations continue at a number of sites across the UK. The City of London police are the co-ordinating police force for all of those investigations and five arrests have been made. The Food Standards Agency continues to liaise with the City of London police and, through them, is sharing information on UK investigations with Europol.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

8. What assessment he has made of how easy it is to access and use food banks.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)]

No such assessment has been made. I welcome the work of charities providing access to nutritious meals to those who may otherwise struggle. Food aid providers are local organisations responding to specific community needs. It is not the Government’s role to tell these organisations how best to run the service they provide.

[Mr Cunningham]

The Minister will be aware that care professionals issue food bank vouchers to those they identify as being in crisis, but I am concerned that many people are not accessing food banks, either because they cannot contact care professionals because of mobility or disability issues or because they are not aware that they are eligible. Will he take steps to ensure that people are made aware of food bank services and are encouraged to use them if they are in food poverty?

[George Eustice]

Different food banks take different approaches. Some give one-off support for an immediate crisis, and many have people coming through only once or twice in six months, while others enable people to self-refer if they have not been referred by social services or other agencies. There is a range of different approaches, therefore, and the Government would be reluctant to start interfering with these charities and telling them how to run their services. They are on the ground and developing policies to deal with these problems.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

What discussions has the Minister’s Department had with the Department for Work and Pensions about the latter’s decision to remove from forms the tick-box indicating that people might be going to food banks because of benefits changes? Should we not know why people are going to food banks and should his Department not be saying so to the DWP?

[George Eustice]

On delays to benefits payments, the DWP’s performance has improved: 90% of payments are now made within the time scale set out. Benefits matters are for the DWP. My Department deals with food, and I am happy to talk about food prices and food inflation, but I will not interfere in benefits policy.

[Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

9. Whether his Department has any plans to strengthen the enforcement provisions of the 2010 environmental permitting regulations.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Owen Paterson)]

There are no current proposals to alter the enforcement provisions of the 2010 environmental permitting regulations. The 2010 regulations and the Environmental Protection Act 1990 together provide a range of enforcement powers at regulated and illegal sites. I would consider the case for strengthening these or other regulatory provisions if there is evidence that exercising them is proving insufficient in preventing harm to health and the environment.

[Robert Neill]

If the Minister wants evidence, would he like to look at the waste-for-fuel site in my constituency, which has so far had 15 fires in the past two years, at a cost of £568,000 to the fire service and 1,900 hours of firefighters’ time—more than the clear-up cost of removing this rogue operator—and where repeated attempts by the Environment Agency to secure an injunction have so far failed? Will he press the agency to honour its commitment to give my constituents the results of toxicity testing on that site?

[Dan Rogerson]

I am happy to pass on that request to the Environment Agency. As the hon. Gentleman knows, I have met him and local representatives to consider what is occurring at that site, and subsequently I met the chairman and chief executive of the Environment Agency specifically to talk about how it could intervene earlier on new or untested operators to prevent these vast amounts of material from appearing on sites such as the one in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. As he knows, however, there is an action at the High Court, and there is now a deadline to clear the site by 1 May. The agency will have to respect that in the enforcement action it takes.

[Andy Sawford (Corby) (Lab/Co-op)]

The waste gasification plant proposed at the Brookfield site on the edge of Corby is causing great local concern. Will the Minister assure me that any changes to the environmental permitting regulations will not prejudice the proper planning process by allowing a waste permit to be issued in advance of planning consent being received?

[Dan Rogerson]

As I believe the hon. Gentleman is aware, we have been consulting on how the planning and permitting processes can be better aligned. If he would like to raise with me specific problems regarding that potential development, I would be happy to hear from him by letter.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

11. What reports he has received on the recent floods in northern Lincolnshire; and what discussions he has had with the Environment Agency on its plans to improve flood defences.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Owen Paterson)]

I visited my hon. Friend’s constituency on 7 December and saw some of the damage caused. The flooding caused an estimated £40 million-worth of damages to Immingham docks. The Environment Agency is currently updating its Humber flood risk management strategy, which looks at long-term justification, funding and solutions for the management of flood-risk communities along the Humber. Data and learning from recent flooding will also be used in the development of the strategy.

[Martin Vickers]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his reply. I draw his particular attention to the village of Barrow Haven, between Barton and Immingham, which has twice suffered floods in the past six years. It is unacceptable that the local community should have to live in constant fear of a repeat. I urge my right hon. Friend, as part of his review to look at involving more local people in the task of how best to alleviate floods. People who serve on drainage boards and the like want to be able to input their local knowledge.

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman gives the impression that he feels an Adjournment debate coming on.

[Mr Paterson]

I enjoyed the visit with my hon. Friend. It was astonishing to see that that was a one-in-500-years incident. I totally endorse his view that there should be involvement of local people. I am happy for him to write to me, and we can negotiate with the Environment Agency. I strongly urge him to get his local councils involved so that they can participate in our partnership regime.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Owen Paterson)]

DEFRA’s priorities are growing the rural economy, improving the environment and safeguarding animal and plant health. As the country continues to experience significant flooding, I would like to thank the emergency services, the Environment Agency, local authorities and public utilities for their tireless work in seeking to safeguard both life and property. Despite those valiant efforts, eight people have lost their lives as a result of the severe weather conditions over the Christmas and new year period. I know the House will want to join me in extending our deepest sympathies to their families and friends. With water levels still rising in many areas, I ask the public to continue to take heed of the Environment Agency’s warnings. We must remain vigilant. I shall chair a further Cobra meeting this afternoon.

[Lyn Brown]

Children growing up near busy roads in West Ham are, because of the quality of air that they breathe, likely to enter adulthood with smaller lungs. Now that the Secretary of State has abandoned proposals to reduce air quality monitoring—a decision roundly condemned by professionals—will he explain what action he is going to take to deal with this growing public health crisis?

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising an important question about what is a real and growing problem in certain conurbations. In fairness, however, it is exactly the opposite of what she says, as we are consulting on how to bring in more effective regimes. She has raised a key question that affects large numbers of people.

[Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)]

T2. Following the new year celebrations, farmers in my constituency have voiced their concerns about the dangers of Chinese lanterns not only to the welfare of their livestock, but to property and, ultimately, their livelihoods. Following bans in Germany, Spain, Australia and much of south America, is it not time to consider banning these flying death-traps?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)]

We share some of the public’s concerns about the potential risks posed by sky lanterns. However, we commissioned an independent study, which was published in May last year, and it concluded that the overall impact of sky lanterns on animal welfare was quite low. We are therefore focusing our efforts on ensuring that people are aware of the risks and trying to improve voluntary action to deal with the problem.

[Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

T3. I am sure Ministers will agree that we need to be vigilant against rabies. There has been a huge increase in the number of illegal puppies smuggled into the UK, many from eastern Europe. Will the Minister commit to re-evaluating the procedures for protections against rabies entering the UK?

[George Eustice]

An increase in the number of illegal imports of puppies has been reported, but the trading standards authorities are monitoring the position carefully, and intercepted the illegal movement of a number of puppies last year. We consider the pet passport scheme to be proportionate to the risk, but we also monitor the position carefully and work closely with agencies in other European countries.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

T4. Flooding has continued in my constituency, as it has in many other constituencies throughout the country. Seaton sea defences have held, but will the Secretary of State carry on devolving powers and money to parish councils and local land and property owners so that they can clear culverts and ditches when they become blocked? Will he also ensure that silt from rivers can be spread on fields as a fertiliser rather than a waste?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dan Rogerson)]

The hon. Gentleman has maintained an interest in these issues for a long time. Pilot studies are being carried out to assess the impact and potential benefits of the dredging of watercourses, but if the hon. Gentleman wishes to raise any further points about the use of materials or has any other ideas relating to local management of river catchments and watercourses, I shall be happy to hear from him.

[Phil Wilson (Sedgefield) (Lab)]

T6. Yesterday, during Prime Minister’s Question Time, the Prime Minister said that he strongly suspected that the recent abnormal weather events had been a result of climate change. Does the Secretary of State agree with the Prime Minister?

[Mr Paterson]

What the Prime Minister said was that we should consider the practical measures that we are taking, and I entirely endorse his remarks. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will ask those on his party’s Front Bench whether they will now endorse our very ambitious spending plans for flood defences, which they have so far been very reluctant to do.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

T5. Will the Minister confirm that his Department intends to exempt small and medium-sized businesses from its proposed tax on plastic carrier bags? Given that biodegradable plastic in the waste stream is a contaminant and will reduce the number of plastic bags being recycled, will he withdraw that exemption?

[Dan Rogerson]

I am happy to confirm that there is a proposal for the exemption of small businesses. DEFRA’s call for evidence in relation to a charge on single-use plastic bags closed on 20 December, and the results are now being analysed. The Government recognise that there is a significant debate about acceptable levels of contamination from biodegradable plastics in the recycling stream, and have therefore called on industry to develop new ways of separating plastic bags from the waste stream. Two companies have been awarded contracts for the research, and will complete their feasibility studies by April.

[Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

T7. Will the Secretary of State clarify his earlier statement about an increase in his Department’s funding for flood protection? During the second half of last year, the hon. Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), who was then a DEFRA Minister, told me in a written parliamentary answer that in the year in which his party came to power, the Department spent £646 million. Spending in the current year is £113 million less, at £533 million. Did the Secretary of State’s earlier statement mean that the Government have now increased funding for flood protection in this and future years, and does that mean that he can now abandon the proposals to cut 1,700 jobs at the Environment Agency?

[Mr Paterson]

I know that those in the Labour Whips Office struggle with slow learners, but I shall put it on the record again: this Government are providing more than any previous Government in the current spending review. We are spending £2.3 billion, which is in addition to £148 million of partnership money. Exceptionally, the present Government have a £2.3 billion programme of capital spending up to 2021. Will Labour Members please ask those on their Front Bench to endorse that spending programme?

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

In parts of rural Hampshire, the cost of high-speed broadband runs to many thousands of pounds per connection. Can my hon. Friend reassure those living in villages such as Barton Stacey that resources from, for instance, the rural community broadband fund might provide them with high-speed connections?

[Dan Rogerson]

My hon. Friend is right to refer to the benefits of broadband connections to the rural economy. Through the work that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport is doing with Broadband Delivery UK, and also through the rural community broadband fund, we are providing resources that will deliver projects in locations such as the one to which she referred. Some 10,000 properties a week are already being connected to superfast broadband, and we expect the figure to rise to about 40,000 a week by the summer.

[Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

T8. Will the Secretary of State clarify how the remarks he made on allowing ancient woodland to be lost to development meet the spirit of his Department’s forestry policy statement which states categorically:“Protection of our trees, woods and forests, especially our ancient woodland, is our top priority”?

[Mr Paterson]

I am absolutely delighted to be able to reassure the hon. Lady and the hon. Members for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) and for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) that the idea that biodiversity offsetting could be used as a means of imposing unwanted houses on ancient woodland is an absolute travesty. It is absolutely clear: all along we have always said that should we bring in offsetting—I made this clear to the all-party group—all the current protections of the planning regime and all the mitigation hierarchy remain. Only at the very last moment could offsetting be considered, and we have always said that some assets will be too precious to offset and—[Interruption.] Exactly, and that might well be ancient woodland.

The hon. Lady should look at examples of offsetting in countries like Australia, where there has been an 80% shift of planning applications away from fragile environments. Used properly, therefore, biodiversity offsetting could be a tremendous tool to protect those ancient woodlands which she and I value. As someone who has planted an arboretum over recent years, the idea that I am going to trash ancient woodlands is an absolute outrage to me personally.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Following the damage caused by the tidal surges in the Kent estuary on more than one occasion last week, will the Minister confirm that draft flood defence schemes along the whole of the River Kent will now be prioritised?

[Dan Rogerson]

My hon. Friend knows that, as we heard from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, the Government are making investment in flood protection schemes a key priority. We have secured record investment in the next spending review period to do that. If my hon. Friend would like to write to me about those specific schemes, I would be happy to hear more.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

The remit of the independent expert panel was originally restricted to the planned six-week badger cull period and my understanding is that that remit was not extended when the badger culls were themselves extended. Can the Secretary of State reassure the House today that the independent expert panel’s scope and report will cover the whole of the culling period and not just the first six weeks, because it is really important that his decisions are informed by wider experience of the whole cull?

[George Eustice]

The independent expert panel will cover the initial cull period, not the extensions.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

The consultation on abstraction reform has just started. Can my hon. Friend assure me that there will be consultation events, particularly in areas where there is water stress, like Suffolk Coastal?

[Dan Rogerson]

That is part of our programme, which includes the Water Bill, and, as my hon. Friend rightly points out, the abstraction reform consultation opened before Christmas. There will be opportunities for everybody to contribute to that process and of course if my hon. Friend would like to take up some specific constituency issues with me, I will be happy to hear them.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am sorry to disappoint colleagues but we must now move on.

The hon. Member for South West Devon, representing the Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission was asked—

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

1. If the commission will take steps to ensure that political parties are fully accountable to the commission when receiving payment made to candidates for speaking engagements.

[Mr Gary Streeter (South West Devon)]

The Electoral Commission informs me that political parties have to report to it every three months regarding all donations they receive above a certain value, which would include any donation to a candidate that is then passed on to that candidate’s party. The law sets out clearly how political parties and individual politicians are responsible for reporting the political donations they receive, and the Electoral Commission is not aware of any issues that would require a change to the current system.

[Mr Sheerman]

There is a scam that we all know has been going on for some time and it runs like this: a politician has a book ghosted for them—a biography or whatever—and it is then published, and that person is invited to go on a highly paid tour of the United Kingdom talking about the book that was ghost-written by somebody else, and the money flows either to leading candidates of the party or to the party itself. It is a scam. We know it goes on, but what is the hon. Gentleman doing to stamp it out?

[Mr Streeter]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for clarifying the purpose of his question. I must confess that I am not aware that that is a matter for the Electoral Commission at the moment, but if he would like to write to me setting out his concerns in more detail, I will ensure that the commission investigates the matter thoroughly and responds to him.

The right hon. Member for Banbury, representing the Church Commissioners, was asked—

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

2. What assessment the Commissioners have made of the Pilling report, published by the House of Bishops working group on human sexuality in November 2013; and if he will make a statement.

[The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Sir Tony Baldry)]

The report was discussed by the House of Bishops in December and its recommendations will be considered by the College of Bishops later this month.

[Mr Bradshaw]

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that the report’s recommendation that parishes should be allowed to offer same-sex couples some sort of blessing would in effect simply formalise what already happens in practice in many Anglican parishes? Does he agree that the vast majority of Anglicans in this country would welcome a more generous approach to long-term, faithful, same-sex relationships?

[Sir Tony Baldry]

I agree with the principle that everyone should be welcome at the communion rail. The working group did not recommend a new authorised liturgy, but a majority of its members did recommend that vicars should, with the consent of parochial church councils, be able to mark the formation of a permanent same-sex relationship in a public service. I am sure that that is one of the issues that the House of Bishops will be considering very seriously in the context of its consideration of the Pilling report’s recommendations.

The hon. Member for South West Devon, representing the Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission was asked—

[Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

3. What steps the commission is taking to promote national voter registration day on 5 February 2014.

[Mr Gary Streeter (South West Devon)]

The Electoral Commission supports any initiative to encourage voter registration, particularly among under-registered groups, and it provides resources to help others to do this, in addition to its own public awareness campaigns. The commission has provided such resources to Bite the Ballot, which has organised national voter registration day, and it will also be informing electoral registration officers about the initiative so that those who are able to support it will do so.

[Tom Blenkinsop]

What assessment has been made of the commission’s proposals to require people to provide photo identification in order to vote by 2019? Does the hon. Gentleman believe that there could be a reduction in the number of young people voting as well as registering to vote in the first place?

[Mr Streeter]

Those hard-to-reach groups are certainly a matter of concern to the Electoral Commission. There will be a significant public awareness campaign between now and this year’s elections, and it will be reviewed to determine how successful it has been. I think the hon. Gentleman will be reassured to learn that, in the transition to individual electoral registration, those who are already on the register will automatically be transferred to the register for the next general election.

[Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)]

In addition to the hundreds of thousands of expatriate United Kingdom citizens who—like Harry Shindler, 93, who received an MBE in the new year’s honours list—are disfranchised because of the 15-year rule, there are also tens of thousands of expat citizens who could vote but who are not registered. What is the commission doing to ensure that they can be registered to vote?

[Mr Streeter]

My hon. Friend raises an important question; this is a matter of concern across the House. A recent meeting was held between the Electoral Commission and representatives of the political parties and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and attempts are being made to increase awareness among expats that they have the opportunity to register to vote in the next election. There will be a significant public awareness campaign in overseas literature and online to try to encourage more voter registration, and there will also be an expat voter day in February this year. The success of that event will be reviewed after the May elections.

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

Given that the franchise for the Scottish independence referendum will extend to 16 and 17-year-olds, will the Electoral Commission make a major effort on national voter registration day and at similar events to ensure that as many of that group as possible are registered to vote in the referendum later this year?

[Mr Streeter]

The Electoral Commission is keen to ensure that young people who are legally entitled to vote should register and take part in any elections. Let us not forget the vital role of the electoral registration officers in every local authority throughout the United Kingdom. They have a duty to promote voter registration in their locality, and each of us has the opportunity to go to our own local authorities and ask what they are doing in this regard, and to make an assessment of whether they are doing it well enough.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Will the Electoral Commission encourage the Cabinet Office to co-ordinate all Government Departments to ensure that every time a member of the public comes into contact with a Department, a check is made to ascertain whether they are on the electoral register and, if they are not, that they are helped to fill out an application form there and then?

[Mr Streeter]

My hon. Friend raises an interesting idea, which I will certainly take back to the Electoral Commission. This is perhaps more a matter for the Cabinet Office than for the commission, but my hon. Friend has raised it in this forum and it is worth investigating further.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

I was a little disconcerted by one thing the hon. Gentleman said in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop), which was that electoral registration officers will be informed of what is happening on 5 February. EROs are operating in local authorities, which are pressed for cash, and if they do not already know about this important day, the opportunity to increase electoral registration, particularly in constituencies such as mine, where there are many hard-to-reach voters, will be lost. What is the hon. Gentleman doing about that?

[Mr Streeter]

The hon. Lady raises an important point. She may be interested to know that the Electoral Commission has only just been officially notified of the national voter registration day, which is why it is now in the process of informing EROs. Obviously, until the Electoral Commission knows about something, it cannot pass the news on to the people to whom it is responsible.

The right hon. Member for Banbury, representing the Church Commissioners, was asked—

[Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)]

4. What steps the Church of England has taken in Lancashire to support the homeless and people in poverty over the Christmas period.

[The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Sir Tony Baldry)]

A lot happened in the diocese of Blackburn over the Christmas period. In my hon. Friend’s constituency, the Colne and Villages parish held a Christmas café, and many parishioners also worked with local businesses and schools to support food banks. I am told that one local business in Pendle donated more than 60 hampers of food, toys and clothes, which were then distributed by the local ecumenical Church network.

[Andrew Stephenson]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. I have in the past mentioned the work of St Philip’s church in Nelson and its food bank. Does he agree that although food banks are particularly important over the Christmas period, they do not tackle the root causes of food poverty? Will he say more about the Church Commissioners’ work to rebalance the Church’s activities towards addressing the underlying problems and finding long-term solutions to food poverty?

[Sir Tony Baldry]

The Church urban fund would acknowledge that food banks do not tackle the causes of food poverty. We need to know more about why people use food banks, which is why the Church urban fund is undertaking detailed research on this matter. The report was published in September.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

5. What progress has been made in the Church of England’s campaign to save 100 church treasures.

[Sir Tony Baldry]

The 100 Church treasures campaign seeks to protect 100 of the unparalleled array of artworks, including monuments, wall paintings, stained glass, textiles and mediaeval timberwork, which are at risk in our parish churches, in order to keep our buildings open, and our national and local heritage on public display for years to come.

[Helen Goodman]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that answer. It is remarkable that for only £3 million 100 Church treasures can be preserved. Obviously, I am particularly interested in what is happening to those in the Durham diocese: the William Morris carpet at Monkwearmouth; the Church masonry at St Hilda’s church in Hartlepool; and the painting in Holy Trinity church in Darlington. Some of those communities will find it difficult to raise the money. What more might we do to support them?

[Sir Tony Baldry]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right: for quite modest sums, really important pieces of national heritage can be protected. Let me deal with just one of the examples she mentioned. Holy Trinity church in Darlington needs just £16,000 to restore a painting by the wartime artist John Duncan. The whole point of this campaign is to try to lever in funds from other donors, trusts and individuals who might not normally give money to supporting Church heritage but who would be minded to give money specifically to support a particular piece of artwork or heritage in this way. The campaign is already having some success.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

6. What discussions the Commissioners have had with Government Ministers on recent trends in the number of violent attacks on clergy.

[Sir Tony Baldry]

Figures on these cases are not held centrally, and supporting clergy who have suffered attacks is the responsibility of the individual diocesan bishops.

[Diana Johnson]

I think we all recognise the excellent work that the clergy do in our local communities. Unfortunately, at times, they do put themselves in harm’s way. Would the right hon. Gentleman support a Government review of these attacks, and is it time to look at designating them as religious hate crimes?

[Sir Tony Baldry]

As the hon. Lady says, clergy are often on the front line in supporting the most vulnerable in the community and, sadly, that sometimes results in their being attacked. I wonder whether she would mind if I discussed this matter with the Archbishops of Canterbury and York to see whether they feel that such a review is necessary in these circumstances.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

7. What recent steps the Church of England has taken in the St Albans diocese to support the homeless and people in poverty.

[Sir Tony Baldry]

The diocese of St Albans has supported a number of projects, particularly those working with homeless people in Hemel Hempstead, St Albans, Stevenage, Bedford, Luton and Watford. The annual December sleep-out, which was supported by my hon. Friend, has managed to raise nearly £1 million over the past 20 years to support homeless people in the diocese of St Albans by making funding grants available, encouraging volunteers and helping to raise further money.

[Andrew Selous]

Will my right hon. Friend join me in thanking the staff of the diocese, the volunteer organisers, security guards and the Women’s Institute, which provided hot soup all night for all of us on the sleep-out? The money raised has helped a lot of local homeless charities, not least Linton-Linslade Homeless Service, which does such good work in my area.

[Sir Tony Baldry]

Indeed. Churches throughout the country support a whole number of initiatives that encourage large numbers of volunteers. I know that my hon. Friend is patron of the Linton-Linslade Homeless Service, which offers short-term emergency shelter, supplies and support to people who are homeless or about to become homeless and does invaluable work in the area.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

8. What assistance is available for grade I listed church buildings in need of major repairs.

[Sir Tony Baldry]

The most significant funder of repairs for grade I listed churches is the Heritage Lottery Fund, under the grants for places of worship scheme. The Wolfson Foundation, Garfield Weston Foundation and the Veneziana Fund also provide funding in some circumstances.

[John Mann]

The right hon. Gentleman will be aware of the incredibly diverse array of grade I listed churches in the Bassetlaw constituency. Would he be prepared to use his good offices to ensure that the Church Commissioners can better advise the volunteers running those churches on how to access the funds and that the north of England and the more deprived communities get a fair crack of the whip?

[Sir Tony Baldry]

The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. He is fortunate in having 26 fantastic listed churches in his constituency. Some, such as All Saints, go back to the 10th century. I entirely agree that it is very important that parochial church councils and others know how to access funds such as the Heritage Lottery Fund, and I will discuss with the churches and cathedrals division at Church House how we can better promulgate the way that that advice can be obtained.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

9. What discussions the Commissioners have had with Government Departments on the promotion of religious tolerance.

[Sir Tony Baldry]

I think everyone in this House would wish to see religious tolerance supported. After all, the Martyrs’ Memorial in Oxford is a daily reminder of those who were burned at the stake for their beliefs. It was not far away from here, at Tyburn, that people were hanged, drawn and quartered for their religious beliefs. Indeed, one has only to see the plaque in Westminster Hall to remember where Sir Thomas More was put on trial in part for his beliefs. In this country, we have learned through the Reformation and the counter-Reformation and beyond the essential need for religious tolerance in our nation.

[Robert Halfon]

As well as discussing religious intolerance with Government Departments, will my right hon. Friend discuss it with St James’ church, which has held a shockingly anti-Israel exhibition over the past couple of weeks? Far from promoting religious tolerance, it did much to undermine it.

[Sir Tony Baldry]

My hon. Friend raises a conundrum: to what extent should the tolerant tolerate the intolerant? The demonstration at St James’ Piccadilly was not against Judaism or Jews but against the illegal occupation under international law in the west bank and some of the settlements. In this House, we must be careful about what is seen as religious tolerance and about not tolerating intolerance or breaches of international law.

[Mr Speaker]

The right hon. Gentleman may choose to prepare a detailed paper on the matter and to lodge it in the Library of the House where I feel confident it will be a well-thumbed tome.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

On the subject of religious tolerance, what discussions has the Commissioner had with media outlets such as TV and radio with regard to Christian programming? Does he agree that it is important to retain a level of programming that reflects the Christian status of this nation? What can be done to promote such programming?

[Sir Tony Baldry]

To be honest, I do not think that Christians do too badly. If one gets up early enough, one finds a perfectly good programme between 7 and 8 o’clock on BBC Radio 4 every Sunday. I do not think we can feel that we are in some way discriminated against by the broadcasters.

[Mr Speaker]

Last but not least, I call Fiona Bruce.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

10. What recent assessment the Commissioners have made of difficulties faced by Christians in celebrating Christmas in certain parts of the world.

[Sir Tony Baldry]

The House will, I am sure, have noticed that the Archbishop of Canterbury used his first Christmas day sermon to condemn the treatment of Christian communities in the middle east. Archbishop Justin said that the persecution of Christian minorities represented injustice and observed that Christians

“are driven into exile from a region in which their presence has always been essential”.

Sadly, Christians are attacked and massacred, and we have seen terrible news from South Sudan, the Central African Republic and elsewhere, where political ambitions have led to ethnic conflict.

[Fiona Bruce]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. In the light of the escalation in religious persecution in many countries across the world, will he kindly arrange a meeting with the appropriate Minister and bishop responsible for foreign affairs and international development to highlight the need for the Department for International Development to form a policy to address such issues and that of freedom of religion as a fundamental human right?

[Sir Tony Baldry]

I should be happy to do so, but taking human rights violations into account when aid decisions are made does not necessarily mean refusing to give aid to countries in which such violations take place. It may be in precisely these difficult contexts that we need to be engaging with aid, as religious persecution is often linked to problems in education, economic development and conflicts over natural resources where aid can and does make a huge difference. My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point that is worth pursuing with ministerial colleagues in DFID.

Business of the House

Thursday 9th January 2014 Commons Chamber

10:36

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the business for next week?

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Andrew Lansley)]

First, Mr Speaker, let me pay my personal tribute to Paul Goggins, a colleague held in the highest respect and affection throughout the House. His loss will be felt widely and for a long time.

The business for next week is as follows:

Monday 13 January—Second Reading of the European Union (Approvals) Bill [Lords], followed by a debate on a motion relating to welfare reforms and poverty. The subject for this debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Tuesday 14 January—Remaining stages of the Offender Rehabilitation Bill [Lords].

Wednesday 15 January—Opposition day [17th allotted day]. There will be a debate on an Opposition motion, including on the subject of banking.

Thursday 16 January—General debate on child neglect and the criminal law, followed by general debate on nuisance calls. The subjects for both debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 17 January—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 20 January will include:

Monday 20 January—Second Reading of the Intellectual Property Bill [Lords], followed by business to be nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Tuesday 21 January—Opposition day [18th allotted day]. There will be a debate on an Opposition motion, including on the subject of pub companies.

Wednesday 22 January—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill, followed by motion to approve a European document relating to the Commission work programme 2014.

Thursday 23 January—Business to be nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 24 January—Private Members’ Bills.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 16 January will now be:

Thursday 16 January—Select Committee statement on the publication of the 10th report from the Justice Committee on Crown Dependencies: Developments Since 2010, followed by a combined debate on the second report from the Justice Committee on Women Offenders: After the Corston Report and the fifth report on Older Prisoners.



May I also take this opportunity to congratulate all those who were recognised in the new year’s honours? We take pleasure, of course, not only in Members of this House being recognised for their service but in the recognition of those who give service to Parliament and take part in voluntary and public service. They include Michael Carpenter, the Speaker’s Counsel, John Pullinger, the House Librarian, and Nicholas Munting from the Catering Service. I also congratulate those within government who have been recognised, including the principal private secretary to the Patronage Secretary, Mr Roy Stone.

[Mr Speaker]

I thank the Leader of the House for what he said about those who work in the service of the House and have been recognised. All of them are thoroughly deserving. As many right hon. and hon. Members will know, Michael Carpenter and John Pullinger are especially well known to me, as I work with both of them closely and on a very regular basis. They are deeply deserving of the recognition that has been afforded to them.

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the Leader of the House for his tribute to Paul Goggins and wish to add my own. His untimely death this week has shocked and saddened all Members across the House. He was a kind and caring man who campaigned tirelessly for social justice, including his recent work securing the passage of the Mesothelioma Bill. All our thoughts are with his wife, his children, his family and his many friends.

May I also associate myself with the Leader of the House’s comments, and yours, Mr Speaker, about those recognised in the new year’s honours list? I cannot help wondering, given his appearance today, whether his hairdresser feels somewhat left out—perhaps it is an easier job with hair like his.

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing next week’s business—although, if we take away Opposition days and Back-Bench business, we yet again have very little meaningful Government legislation. Will he tell us whether that is what we can expect for the next 16 months? I note that the Government’s self-proclaimed flagship Immigration Bill is still mysteriously absent from future business, despite its consideration in Committee concluding on 19 November. Can we expect consideration on Report soon, or is the Prime Minister still running scared of the 69 Tory Back Benchers who have signed the rebel amendment?

We expect the Queen’s Speech some time in the spring, but the Government have yet to confirm a date. With the European and local elections scheduled to take place on 22 May, the pre-election purdah will be in force from the beginning of May. Unless the Government are planning a state opening with no announcements at all—I would not put it past them—it looks as though the Queen’s Speech will have to take place in June, after the Whitsun recess, the dates of which the Leader of the House has already announced. What conversations has he had with the Cabinet Secretary on the matter? Can he now tell us the date of the Queen’s Speech?

The universal credit fiasco continued this week as we discovered a war between the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and the Minister for the Cabinet Office over IT support. Last night the Minister for the Cabinet Office slammed the DWP’s implementation as “pretty lamentable”. Will the Leader of the House arrange for him to make a statement to the House on why the Cabinet Office and the Government Digital Service have walked away from that costly chaos?

The Chancellor this week wished everyone an unhappy new year with a speech underlining his ideological obsession with rolling back social progress and shrinking the size of the state to pre-war levels. He announced his ambition for a further £25 billion of spending cuts in the first two years of the next Parliament, with £12 billion coming from the social security budget. The Deputy Prime Minister immediately called it a “monumental mistake”, and even the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions briefed against it. Treasury Ministers were unable to say which benefits would be targeted, but refused to rule out those for the sick and the disabled.

The Chancellor told us in his speech that 2014 would be a year when Britain faces a choice, and he was right—a choice between a Government who give tax cuts to millionaires while prices rise faster than wages, and a party that wants the economy to work for the many, not the few. He is doing his best to hide his failure to balance the Government’s books by 2015, but people across the country are £1,600 worse off under his watch and we will not let him rewrite history to cover up his failed economic plan. Will the Leader of the House arrange for the Chancellor, rather than making these announcements where he cannot be questioned on them, to come to the House and tell us where his £12 billion of extra social security cuts would come from?

I hope that all Members had a good break over Christmas and have returned refreshed and ready for the new year. If the Leader of the House and his Cabinet colleagues had a new year’s resolution to be better at their jobs, I must say that they have made a pretty shaky start. We have only been back a week and we have already seen the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions rowing with the Treasury and the Cabinet Office about the gargantuan mess that is universal credit, we have seen the Education Secretary slapped down by his colleagues for trying to politicise the commemoration of the first world war, and we have had the spectacle of Liberal Democrats frantically trying to distance themselves from a Government they are a part of while simultaneously accusing the Tories of stealing their policies. All the Liberal Democrat press office can do is desperately retweet a BuzzFeed item listing

“ten reasons the British public will fall back in love with the Deputy Prime Minister.”

I would like to disagree with the Mayor of London, who this week called the Deputy Prime Minister a “prophylactic protection device”. Now I know I am not the world’s greatest expert in this area, but I thought you were supposed to be able to trust contraception.

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to the shadow Leader of the House for her further questions. I agree with her: listening to the debate on the Mesothelioma Bill earlier this week, I thought it was a cruel irony that Paul Goggins was not able to be there to see it come into law and to continue to pursue the campaign he had fought so very well on behalf of his constituents and others.

The hon. Lady asked about Government business. We still have 19 Government Bills before the two Houses of Parliament and we are making progress on a wide range of legislation, some of which is of considerable importance, including, as I have announced, the remaining stages of the Offender Rehabilitation Bill. She seemed to dismiss it but it is a very important measure in achieving much higher levels of rehabilitation for those with sentences of below 12 months, which will contribute to overcoming the high levels of recidivism.

I cannot give the hon. Lady a date for the Report stage of the Immigration Bill—otherwise I would have announced it—or for the Queen’s Speech; both are subject to the progress of further business. I will make announcements in due course.

The hon. Lady asked about universal credit. It has always been very clear—I have heard my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions make it very clear to the House on a number of occasions—that the Government have welcomed what the National Audit Office has said and have taken steps to put it in place. Yes, there is an adjusted timetable for the roll-out of universal credit, because we have listened, learned and acted in order to make sure there is safe and sound implementation. Part of that was always in anticipation of the transfer of responsibility from the Government Digital Service to the DWP’s own digital team.

I thought the highlight of the hon. Lady’s remarks was her question on hairdressing. I am quite pleased that people up in the Gallery can have a good look at the—[Interruption]—try to get that one into Hansard, Mr Speaker. When I visit Mr Polito’s in Cambridge, as I perhaps will this weekend, he will be able to advise me. [Interruption.] Mr Polito’s is not a person but a shop. [Interruption.] Actually, it costs £15, so I am getting my hair cut cheaper than the Deputy Prime Minister, which just shows that you can come to the Conservatives for value for money.

The shadow Leader of the House asked about the Chancellor. The Chancellor will be here to answer questions on 28 January. In a way, I would rather he were able to be here more often. Every time he comes here he is, as the hon. Lady says, able to make very clear the choice, which will become increasingly apparent as we go through this year, between a Government with a long-term economic plan that is delivering sustainable recovery for this country and, as we have heard only in the past few days, leading to business confidence at close to all-time highs, with employment in the private sector up by over 1.6 million; or, under Labour, more borrowing, more debt, more taxes, and the consequences of a second Labour recession.

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

I welcome the “help for high streets” initiative announced by the Chancellor in the autumn statement, which will undoubtedly help small businesses to flourish. Nevertheless, small district shopping centres such as Park Farm in my constituency are suffering as a result of seemingly flawed evaluations of rateable value by the Valuation Office Agency, with business owners in Park Farm paying up to £300 more per square metre of floor space than those in the centre of Derby. May we have a debate about our district shopping centres and how to ensure that the rates imposed on them are not too excessive?

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising an important point on behalf of her businesses. I am sure that she, like me, welcomed what the Chancellor had to say in his autumn statement in support of small businesses, specifically in relation to rates, including the announcement of £1 billion of support for business rate payers and the £1,000 discount, which will benefit approximately 300,000 shops, pubs and restaurants. That is very important. My hon. Friend raises the issue of rateable values, which are assessed by estimating rental value in the open market at a standard valuation date, currently 1 April 2008. Of course, any ratepayer can appeal their valuation if they feel it is inaccurate. The Department for Communities and Local Government recently published proposals to help speed up that appeals process.

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister promised—very vocally—action on minimum alcohol pricing, but that seems to have waned as influence from lobbyists has grown. Could we please have a statement in the House on the Government’s precise position on this policy area?

[Mr Lansley]

We have been very clear that we are not at this stage proceeding with proposals on minimum alcohol unit pricing. We are going to learn more, for example, about what the consequences of the introduction of such a policy might be in Scotland. I have two things to say to the hon. Lady. First, it was only ever part of an alcohol strategy that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary announced to the House, and a wide range of measures can have a substantial impact, including local alcohol partnerships, on reducing alcohol content. Secondly, when I had meetings with the drinks industry, they were not about lobbying against minimum unit pricing, but about getting a commitment from the industry to take 1 billion units a year out of the content of alcohol sold in this country, which would be extremely valuable.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

Given the increasing violence and political instability in Niger, the Central African Republic and South Sudan, may we have an early debate on Africa and in particular on improving relations between the French and British Governments regarding capacity and governance building? There is good practice on counter-terrorism issues and if that could be extended to helping one another to build up civic society and political institutions, that would, I hope, play a part in reducing the violence.

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend makes important points. The Government are working very closely with our allies and some of the multilateral mechanisms to try to deliver greater stability in this area. With regard to the Central African Republic, for example, we have welcomed the Africa-led security mission and December’s United Nations Security Council resolution. We continue to work with our partners in the UN and the European Union to support the Economic Community of Central African States and the African Union. Our working relationship with the French Government concerning the Central African Republic and the Sahel is a good one and that should continue.

Given the range of issues in the Sahel, central Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan, my hon. Friend makes an important point about whether there may be an opportunity for a debate at some stage on African issues. I cannot promise one in Government time, because there is pressure on Government time. [Interruption.] I have explained why previously. There may be an opportunity through the Backbench Business Committee. I will, if I may, take the issue away and continue to think about the possibilities.

[Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)]

May we have an urgent statement on the Government’s lost report on food banks? May I suggest that a search party be sent into the Department for Work and Pensions to track it down and then publish it? While that is being done, may I offer the Prime Minister the opportunity to visit a food bank in my constituency that is open, so that he can avoid doing what he did last time—when he visited a food bank in his own constituency that was shut?

[Mr Lansley]

The hon. Gentleman will know that both my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and the Prime Minister have repeatedly responded to questions about food banks, as we will continue to do. For my part, I know, having visited a food bank, the value of food banks’ work. It is important to recognise that, and we have supported them. That is why, when my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State came into office, he changed the decision of the previous Government not to refer people from jobcentres to food banks.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

In February 2009, Zac Knighton-Smith, who was five, was diagnosed with neuroblastoma and given only a few weeks to live without a new monoclonal antibody therapy. That treatment was not available on the NHS, but thanks to the efforts of the former health Minister Ann Keen, John Parkes of Northamptonshire primary care trust and the then shadow Secretary of State for Health—the Leader of the House—Zac received the treatment in Germany, which the NHS paid for. On Saturday, this lovely, full-of-life and happy little boy passed away. He will be sadly and greatly missed. However, without politicians of different parties working together, he would not have had the last five years of life. May we have a statement on how this Parliament can make a difference?

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. I recall the case to which he refers, and he is absolutely right that we in this House can make a difference, not least by working together, but especially where Members of Parliament pursue their constituents’ cases and concerns. I pay tribute to the way in which he did so on behalf of Zac’s family.

We can also make a difference by the policies we bring forward. In that respect, I am proud that as Secretary of State for Health in this Parliament I was able to introduce the cancer drugs fund, which has delivered treatments to 38,000 patients. We also decided to undertake investment in the delivery of proton beam therapy in this country, because the only way patients could otherwise access that treatment was by going to Germany.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

As the Leader of the House will know, 15 world health experts have today launched Action on Sugar, a campaign to tackle obesity and diabetes. Given that the Prime Minister said last year that obesity was one of the biggest challenges facing our public health service, may we have an urgent statement on the content of food and drink, the amount of sugar in food and drink and the links between that and the deaths of so many people each year?

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his question. In so far as the campaign announced this morning models itself on Consensus Action on Salt and Health and its approach, I will be very supportive of it, because I worked very closely with CASH and Professor MacGregor, and we have had significant success in reducing the amount of salt in food.

It must be understood that such campaigns will be achieved only by working with the industry on a voluntary basis—that is what the responsibility deal is about—and only on an incremental basis. The level of sugar in food cannot be slashed suddenly—otherwise, people simply will not accept it—but that is what the campaign intends and we should do that. However, inaccurate analogies do not help: I just do not think that the analogy between sugar and tobacco is appropriate. We have to understand that sugar is an essential component of food; it is just that sugar in excess is an inappropriate and unhelpful diet.

[Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)]

The Leader of the House will recall that on 19 December I raised with him the woefully inadequate 56 days given for people to respond to a 50,000-page environmental statement on High Speed 2, and I thank him for sending me a letter and making a formal correction to his response in Hansard.

Is my right hon. Friend aware that it has transpired since I asked that question that information has been left off the memory sticks and the online and hard copies of the environmental consultation material, and that environmental groups are not able to get hold of vertical profile maps with contours, which are particularly important in the light of the decision to dump 1 million cubic metres of soil in an area of outstanding natural beauty?

Is the Leader of the House also aware of a report in the Lichfield Mercury about HS2 Ltd having confirmed that individuals can petition against the HS2 hybrid Bill only if they have responded to the environmental consultation by 24 January? I do not believe that that can be true—it would have been slipped in as a way to short-circuit the process and to reduce the number of people petitioning against HS2—but will he look into that report and tell me whether it is true? Will he also tell me how the consultation period can be extended, given all the administrative failures by HS2 Ltd and the Government?

[Mr Lansley]

In order to be as helpful as I can to my right hon. Friend and other Members who have a constituency interest in the procedure for the HS2 hybrid Bill, I will, if I may, look into the issues that she raises and, in co-ordination with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport, ensure that we reply to her and place a copy of the letter in the Library of the House so that Members can see the procedure for the hybrid Bill.

[Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

May we have a debate on whether the commercial arms of fire brigades, such as community interest companies, should have to pay to receive publicly funded diesel for their appliances and vehicles, and whether such commercial arms have an unfair advantage over their competitors in the market?

[Mr Lansley]

If I may, I will ask the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis), who has responsibility for fire services, to look at that issue and respond to the hon. Gentleman. Of course, we should always try to have fair competition in markets and there should be no unfair subsidies from the public sector.

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

May we have a debate on the minimum wage, which would enable many Members from all parts of the House to argue that it should be increased significantly now? The cost to the Government of any increase in the minimum wage would be largely met by more income tax coming in and fewer tax credits being paid out. An increase in the minimum wage could simultaneously help the lower paid and save money for the Treasury.

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. I cannot promise a debate immediately. I hope that there will be opportunities for Members to discuss issues relating to the minimum wage, including the situation for low earners, who have benefited from the Government’s approach to income tax. Changes to the national minimum wage are introduced on 1 October each year. I say gently that there are good reasons for that. Changes in October are an established part of the labour market and many companies operate their pay reviews to coincide with them. Although I completely understand the point he makes, I do not sympathise with the idea of accelerating the timing of any increase in the minimum wage.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

I was among the many Members who wanted to speak in last month’s debate on food banks but did not get the chance to do so. The Meadows Advice Group in my constituency tells me that more and more people are being forced to turn to food banks to survive as a result of stagnant wages, rising debts, the bedroom tax and other benefit changes. Will the Leader of the House make time for a debate on the Government’s response to the crisis in the cost of living before the Chancellor hits poor and vulnerable people with even deeper cuts?

[Mr Lansley]

The hon. Lady may not have noticed, but following the debate on the European Union (Approvals) Bill [Lords] on Monday there will be a general debate on welfare reform and poverty, which was selected by the Backbench Business Committee. I do not agree with her about the reasons people are accessing food banks, of which there are many, but the points she wishes to raise could legitimately be raised in that debate.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

May I express my personal sadness at the loss of Paul Goggins, with whom I worked closely on the Intelligence and Security Committee over the past three years? He was a patriotic humanitarian who reflected the greatest credit on the Labour party and on Parliament.

May we have a statement from a Defence Minister on the slow progress of the sale of the freehold of Marchwood military port in my constituency for not very much money and possibly to a company, Associated British Ports, that poses a threat to the New Forest with its burgeoning plans to build a container port on the edge of that precious area?

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend will recall that a commitment was made in the strategic defence and security review to sell Marchwood sea mounting centre during the current spending review period. The intention is to grant a long-term concession that will include the sale of a lease for the port and the delivery of sea mounting services. That will ensure that the military requirement can still be met, while allowing greater economic and commercial benefit to be realised from the site. A concession will be granted only if the Ministry of Defence is satisfied that it represents good value for money. On timing, a prior information notice was published on 29 November last year to initiate a market engagement process. Twenty-five parties have shown an interest in participating, although clearly we cannot identify who they are. The intention is to begin the formal sale process in the spring of this year.

[Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)]

Will the Leader of the House find time for a debate on the disgraceful sentence of 12 months, suspended for three years, handed out to a terrorist involved in the despicable murder of two young soldiers in my constituency? That has outraged my constituents, and I believe it is worthy of debate in the House.

[Mr Lansley]

I can understand how the hon. Gentleman feels about these issues, but if I may say so, generally speaking I do not think it is appropriate for the House to debate individual sentences. That would be a constitutional intrusion by the legislature into decisions made by the judiciary. However, it is appropriate for him to raise the matter, and if he wishes to do so again my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland will reply to questions next Wednesday.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

The UK is currently among the fastest-growing economies in the western world, mainly due to the Government’s tough economic decisions. By contrast, the French socialist economic model that the leader of the Labour party so vehemently supports is crippling its country, with rising unemployment and a probable triple-dip recession. May we have a statement comparing the recent performance of the UK and French economies, which I am afraid would turn into a French tragedy?

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. Comparisons are of course odious, but I would say two things. First, I was interested to see the Centre for Economic and Business Research’s annual review of the world economic league, published on Boxing day. Among other things, it said that the United Kingdom was the west’s second best performing economy after the United States, and that by 2030 it was likely to overtake Germany and become the largest western European economy. That was partly attributed to its being a relatively low-tax economy. By contrast, the CEBR saw France moving to about 13th position in the world economic league by that point—that is only its view, not mine. Secondly, we have to ask the Leader of the Opposition, who said that what President Hollande was doing for France, Labour would do for Britain, whether the Labour party continues to adhere to that philosophy.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

The Constantini family, in my constituency, recently fled Syria, where they had lived for many years. In normal circumstances, as refugees, their children would be granted home student status for fees. Unfortunately, or fortunately for them, the Constantinis are British citizens, and as such they fail to meet the residency requirement. I am sure the Leader of the House will share my concern about the fact that, unlike other refugees from Syria, British citizens appear to be disadvantaged in that circumstance. I wrote to both the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Home Office about 10 days before Christmas, and I have yet to receive a response. I would be grateful if he looked into the matter and tried to see that justice is done for people who have fled the conflict in Syria.

[Mr Lansley]

I will of course, as I always seek to do, try to expedite a helpful response from both Departments to which the hon. Gentleman has written.

It is as well for the House continuously to recognise how we as a country are leading the way in helping Syrians suffering from the humanitarian crisis. Although we contribute in many ways, including by seeking to protect humanitarian convoys taking aid into Syria, there are of course refugees. In the year up to September, we accepted more than 1,100 Syrian asylum claims made in this country in the usual way.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

May I say how much I will miss Paul Goggins in the House? He was not only one of the most able people in Parliament but, crucially, he was also one of the nicest. I will miss him greatly.

I understand that the Labour party and the Liberal Democrats are conniving to prevent the European Union (Referendum) Bill—so expertly steered through this House by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (James Wharton)—from coming into law. If they are successful in blocking the Bill going through the House of Lords in this Session, as they seem to intend, will the Leader of the House introduce a carry-over motion to allow the Bill to be taken forward in the next Session?

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for what he said, not least about our former colleague. I hope that the House of Lords will consider the European Union (Referendum) Bill, but also recognise that it has responsibility to consider it timeously—[Interruption.] Timeously; it is a perfectly normal word, I think—in good time. The Lords should consider the Bill so that it can be passed in this Session of Parliament—[Hon. Members: “Timely!”] Hon. Members must not make me laugh; it makes me cough. Not least, the will of this House must be respected. My recollection is that the Bill passed Third Reading in this House by 304 votes to nil, which I think was a powerful expression of its view.

[Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

Yesterday at Prime Minister’s questions in an answer to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, the Prime Minister said that he was very concerned about fixed odds betting terminals. He also stated that a report would be coming forward in the spring, which I understand is March and April, according to sources. Will the Leader of the House guarantee that when that report comes forward, it will be in spring and that the House will debate it?

[Mr Lansley]

I think that issue was fully covered by the debate yesterday.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

I am proud to be part of a parliamentary party that is seeking to legislate to let Britain decide through the European Union (Referendum) Bill. In the meantime, may we have a debate about greater EU democracy, and in particular the idea that the UK should directly elect its commissioner?

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend and I fully agree with him about giving the British people a say. Given the particular circumstances of this year, I do not think it possible to contemplate what he proposes for the nomination of the next European commissioner. Speaking at the Dispatch Box it is probably sensible for me to say that I do not necessarily subscribe to the view that the Prime Minister is not best placed to make a decision about who our next commissioner should be.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

May I declare an interest as a patron of Gate Safe, for which there is no financial remuneration? Gate Safe was set up following a number of deaths of children, including Karolina Golabek in my constituency. It was to ensure the safety of electronic gates across the industry, which had led to the crushing to death of a number of children. Today I have been contacted by a company that has had its invoice rejected because it followed Gate Safe’s standards, which were said to be merely an attempt to increase prices. May we have a debate on how we can ensure that industry-wide accepted standards can be enforced when it comes to paying bills?

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, and if I may I will raise that issue on her behalf with colleagues in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. There may be a case for a debate, but it may be that my colleagues can take action to help the hon. Lady.

[Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

At the end of this month the Transport Minister will unveil the next generation of Thameslink trains, delivered as part of the £6.5 billion Thameslink programme. Although that will be welcomed in my Hendon constituency and other parts of the country, it comes at a price. May we have a debate to look at rail fares, and consider how the programme has been delivered at the same time as the Government have limited the cap on average regulated rail fare increases to RPI for 2014, and see what further action the Government can take to keep rail fares down?

[Mr Lansley]

I am glad my hon. Friend raises the Thameslink programme, which is part of the Government’s long-term strategy to transform the rail network. He and other Members will know that this is the most significant investment in rail since the 19th century. However, for all its benefits in terms of capacity and reduced journey times there is an implication for underlying costs to the system, which is why we have to look constantly at protecting the families and hard-working people who use the railways and why we have reduced the average regulated fare rise to RPI—to which he referred. We will continue to look at that. I cannot promise a debate immediately, but I can promise that my right hon. and hon. Friends at the Department for Transport will continue to look at how we can reduce underlying costs to protect those who are necessary rail users.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

This week my constituents Mr and Mrs Mann were refused medication for their baby Harley by a supermarket pharmacist because the directions to the parents written by the GP were in Welsh. A greater proportion of public services are now being delivered by private organisations from outside Wales, so may we have a debate on those organisations’ adherence to the principles and requirements of the Welsh Language Act 1993?

[Mr Lansley]

This comes a short while after the sad death of Wyn Roberts, who was such a passionate advocate of the Welsh Language Act and the use of the Welsh language in services, which we have to ensure is maintained. I will raise the issue with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales to ensure that the intentions of the Act are being seen through.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

May we have a debate on effective political representation? The Leader of the House will notice that, while we have the honourable presence of Members from minority parties in the Chamber, there are no Back-Bench Members from the Liberal Democrat party in their place. They apparently have no interest whatever in the future business of the House, and there were no Liberal Democrat Members present at the important debate in Westminster Hall on Romanian and Bulgarian immigration just before Christmas. Is it true that the Liberal Democrats have passed a new year’s resolution to take Thursdays off? Is it not clear that there is very little point in people voting for Liberal Democrats, because they do not turn up and represent them?

[Mr Lansley]

I hear what my hon. Friend has to say. I take an alternative construction, which is to say that Members of the Liberal Democrat party are, as part of this coalition Government, so content with the proposals for business, as brought forward by the Deputy Leader of the House and me, that they do not see any need to question them.

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)]

We have learned in the past 24 hours through leaks to the media that the Cabinet Office has accelerated the withdrawal of the Government Digital Service from the universal credit programme. On a point of order yesterday, I inquired whether the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General, the right hon. Member for Horsham (Mr Maude), would be making a statement to the House. I was therefore surprised to see him making a statement on ITN news last night, not in this House. I was not surprised when he said that the implementation of universal credit had been lamentable and that money had been wasted, but is it not discourteous of him to have made the statement to the media last night? When will he make a statement to this House on the role of the Cabinet Office on universal credit?

[Mr Lansley]

No, there was no discourtesy involved. The ministerial code is clear that when Parliament is sitting Ministers should make announcements of policy to this House first. The Minister for the Cabinet Office made no announcement of policy; he was simply reiterating the fact, which I told the House a few moments ago, that it was always the intention for the Government Digital Service to transfer responsibility to the Department for Work and Pensions’ digital team.

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

I was visited by two constituents late last year who adopted their children in 2005. Will my right hon. Friend make time for a statement to explain why children adopted before 1 January 2006 do not qualify for the pupil premium, whereas those adopted since then do?

[Mr Lansley]

As ever, my hon. Friend is assiduous in representing the interests of his constituents. The Government took the decision to link eligibility for the pupil premium to adoptions under the Adoption and Children Act 2002, which was implemented on 30 December 2005, to ensure consistency with the Government’s policy on priority school admissions for children adopted from care, and in the light of the need to balance competing funding priorities during the current difficult economic climate. The criteria for the pupil premium are reviewed annually. As part of that process, the Government will revisit the decision to limit access to the pupil premium to adoptions under the 2002 Act in time for the 2015-16 financial year.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

May we have a statement on the use of non-custodial sentences for serious offences? The public are rightly questioning why some people found guilty of very serious and violent crimes are avoiding prison. Victims of crime need confidence that those guilty of serious crimes will be properly punished, but there is growing concern that one reason for the many non-custodial sentences is cost.

[Mr Lansley]

The issue that the hon. Lady raises is one about which we all feel strongly. I remind her, however, that the sentencing regime we had was substantially inherited from the Labour Government. We have taken action to improve the very things people are concerned about. For example, if someone commits a serious crime under this Government, they are nearly 10% more likely to go to prison than in the last full year of the Labour Administration, and the average sentence for sexual offences is nearly one year longer than it was in 2008 under Labour and two years longer than it was in 2002.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

Yesterday, I received an e-mail from a pastor in the Central African Republic describing the entire destruction of his village and the slaughter of many innocent men, women and children. This is occurring in many communities across the country. My hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) has already rightly talked about the brave involvement of the French and other forces there doing important work, but may we have a debate on the speed of the UN’s reaction and the implementation of its responsibility to protect? Sometimes I feel it is too slow to respond.

[Mr Lansley]

I will not repeat what I have said previously, but in the light of the points that my hon. Friend and my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) have made, I will talk to Ministers at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, who fully share the concerns of the House and are working with our partners, pressing for the political progress necessary, including the implementation of the agreement in April. Time is not on our side, and our concerns increase day by day.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

May I say how much I will miss Paul Goggins? I was looking forward to working with him this year on holding the Government to account on the promises they made to mesothelioma sufferers in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012—an issue that I know was very dear to his heart.

Has the Leader of the House seen The Times’ letters page, particularly the letter from the chairman of the Criminal Bar Association, who complains that in interviews this week the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Mr Vara), who has responsibility for legal aid, has exaggerated barristers’ average earnings by more than 300%? Is not the problem that, while making the biggest attack on the criminal justice system in a generation, the Government have allowed no legislative time or debate? Will the Justice Secretary now table a debate in Government time so that at least we can get to the bottom of some of these dodgy statistics?

[Mr Lansley]

I know that my hon. Friends would never use dodgy statistics. At nearly £2 billion a year, ours is one of the most expensive legal aid systems in the world. I understood there to be consensus across political parties that savings needed to be made. That is why we are taking these steps. Previously, the Leader of the Opposition said that his party supported cuts in the legal aid budget. If he and his hon. Friends are changing their position, it would be helpful if they would explain how they would pay for it. It is of course open to the Opposition—and to the hon. Gentleman to tell his Front-Bench team this—to raise these matters: they have two Opposition days in the next two weeks, and if they wish to raise these issues, as they have done before, they can do so.

[Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)]

With the economic recovery taking hold, some businesses are now experiencing rapid growth. Oracle Finance in Knaresborough, for example, is dramatically increasing the size of its sales team. This period of the economic cycle places great pressure on companies in terms of recruitment and skills, operational issues and especially cash flow. These challenges are compounded for businesses facing particularly rapid growth, so may we please have a statement from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills on what it is doing to support companies facing such challenges?

[Mr Lansley]

I know that my hon. Friend works hard with his local community and local businesses to stimulate the economy, which is doing very well in Harrogate and surrounding districts. We will continue to put weight behind training initiatives, including the new traineeships, the expansion of the number of apprenticeships and support for local enterprise partnerships in delivering focused training to meet the needs of employers. It is also for employers themselves to invest in training. In that respect, one of the many positive results reported in the British Chambers of Commerce economic survey for the fourth quarter of 2013, which was published this week, was that manufacturing intentions to invest in training were at their best level since the third quarter of 2007, while service sector intentions to invest in training also rose to the best level since the fourth quarter of 2007. Companies are thus seeing the intention to invest both in plant and equipment and in training for the future.

[Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)]

May we have a debate on the impact of universal credit on eligibility for other Government schemes? A recent inquiry from a heating company in my constituency to Ofgem found that people who transfer to universal credit will apparently not be eligible for energy company obligation funding, which is designed to make their homes warmer and more efficient and tackle fuel poverty. As a shadow energy Minister who represents one of the pathfinder areas for universal credit, I would be extremely concerned—as would many other Members—if that were the case, so I would welcome any clarification that the Leader of the House could obtain for me. It seems yet again that with this Government and universal credit, no one really knows what is going on.

[Mr Lansley]

On the contrary, I think that some of the decisions about passported benefits in relation to universal credit have been very clear. If I may, however, I will inquire further with my colleagues at the Department for Work and Pensions on the hon. Gentleman’s particular question. It is, of course, open to him to raise the issue with Ministers when they respond to parliamentary questions on Monday.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

Has the Leader of the House seen the recent BBC report showing that councils in England are holding £1.5 billion in unspent section 106 moneys, which are funds paid by developers for community projects when planning permissions are granted? In some cases, failure to spend the money has meant that councils have handed it back to developers. At a time when budgets for councils are particularly tight, people will find it hard to understand that money is being wasted in this way, so could we have a debate to consider the matter further?

[Mr Lansley]

I did see the BBC survey, albeit not in detail. I shall ask my colleagues at the Department for Communities and Local Government to respond to my hon. Friend in detail, but it is important to recognise the benefit that the community infrastructure levy will bring in relation to future practice, as compared to section 106 agreements in the past.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

International women’s day is on 8 March. At a time when the women of the world do two thirds of the world’s work and earn only 10% of its income, when rape is used daily as a weapon of war and when the Prime Minister admits that he has failed to reach his target for promoting women to the Cabinet, may we have a debate in Government time on international women’s day?

[Mr Lansley]

I cannot at this stage clarify the arrangements for debates at or around the time of international women’s day. I hope that the hon. Lady will recall that the Government, the Opposition and the Backbench Business Committee worked well together last year to ensure that Members were provided with an opportunity to debate issues relating to women. Last year, we were able to debate particular issues such as violence against women and girls, and I know that important themes will be taken up this year, too.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

Has my right hon. Friend seen my early-day motion 908?

[That this House is disappointed that the Co-operative Energy company has contacted its customers to say that they will be charged an extra £63 if they do not begin to pay their bills by direct debit; notes that the Government is taking measures to reduce energy bills by an average of £50; further notes that this move will hurt the poorest the most; believes that energy companies should not try to recoup this money by raising money in other areas; and calls for Co-operative Energy to treat all its customers fairly, regardless of their chosen payment method.]

It condemns the way utility companies charge extortionate rates for consumers who do not pay their bills by direct debit. One of my constituents was charged £63 by the Co-op which, amazingly, is at the lower end of the scale. Some consumers are charged as much as £100. This hurts pensioners, the poorest and the most vulnerable. May we have an urgent statement on this issue?

[Mr Lansley]

I have seen my hon. Friend’s early-day motion, and I think that many Members will be concerned by the issue he raises. As so often, my hon. Friend identifies an issue that is of importance not only to his constituents, but to those on the lowest earnings and those most in need. I will take this issue away and discuss it with my colleagues in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to see whether they can assist him in any way. We want to make sure that we do not impose the greatest costs on those who have the least.

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

I shall certainly sign the early-day motion tabled by the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), because I have been campaigning on the same topic for some time in the House. Following the power disruption over the Christmas period, may we have a statement, or indeed a debate, about the power distribution companies? Many of them are making huge profits and pushing consumer prices up, but they did not provide adequate cover over Christmas, and numerous households have suffered as a consequence.

[Mr Lansley]

As the hon. Gentleman will know, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy is currently undertaking a review. We hope that within two months we shall see a report on people’s experiences over the last few weeks of the storms and the response to them by the power companies, not just in relation to reconnections, but more especially—given the sentiments that were expressed in the House on Monday—in relation to the extent to which the companies communicated with customers. I should add, however, that when I was in Anglesey on the Thursday and Friday after Christmas our power was off for 16 hours, and I thought that it was reconnected reasonably promptly.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

As my right hon. Friend may know, Plymouth’s truly excellent Theatre Royal, which is in my constituency, is one of only five production companies in the United Kingdom, and the principal theatre in the south-west. Shortly before Christmas, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport published its response to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee’s report on creative industries. May we please have a debate, in Government time, on the coalition’s arts policy and on regional arts funding?

[Mr Lansley]

I am very glad to acknowledge the excellent work of the Theatre Royal in Plymouth, for which the Government provide more than £1 million a year via Arts Council England. We also support Attik Dance Ltd, the Institute of Digital Art and Technology, the Plymouth Arts Centre and the Barbican theatre, all of which are in my hon. Friend’s constituency.

The issue of the distribution of arts funding is inevitably complex, but the Arts Council is seeking to achieve a better balance between public funding and lottery investment throughout the country. I cannot promise a debate at present, but other Members may share my hon. Friend’s interest in the issue, and may wish to ask the Backbench Business Committee to allocate time for a debate on it. My hon. Friend will recall that the Opposition Front Bench chose arts and the creative industries as the subject of a debate in the middle of last year.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

May I appeal to the Leader of the House not to allow any further debates on the commemoration of the first world war? I am sure that much of the nation has been appalled by attempts to politicise the event over the past week, and by the unedifying trench warfare that has emerged between the Government and the Labour Front Bench. May I appeal to both Front Benches to cool it, to show some dignity and respect, and to ensure that the centenary is marked sensitively and with decorum?

[Mr Lansley]

I felt that the debate that took place in the House late last year exemplified the importance of commemorating the events of 100 years ago. Although I cannot confirm that there are plans for another debate on the subject, I can say that there is probably a case for further such debates in the future.

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

Over the last year unemployment in my constituency has fallen by 25%, from 903 to 682. May we have a debate in which we can consider the policies that have delivered such a spectacular result, and ensure that we continue those policies in order to build on it?

[Mr Lansley]

I think that the figures cited by my hon. Friend are testimony not only to the achievements of businesses in his constituency, but to the effectiveness of the long-term economic plan that the coalition is pursuing. Flexible labour markets are also important. There have been widespread pressures on many economies throughout the world, some of which have manifested themselves in rapidly rising unemployment. The fact that we in this country have been able to produce 1.6 million extra private sector jobs is testimony to the fact that we have been prepared to make difficult decisions in controlling public sector expenditure and the reduction of public sector jobs, and maintaining a flexible labour market.

[Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)]

Members who have walked through New Palace Yard in recent weeks will have noticed a large number of ministerial cars sitting with their engines running for up to an hour at a time. Not only is that an absurd waste of taxpayers’ money, but it sets an incredibly bad example in the context of climate change. Will the Leader of the House arrange for the Department for Transport to announce to all drivers, and confirm to the House, that the practice will cease, given that it is bad for both the environment and the taxpayer?

[Mr Lansley]

I must confess that I had not particularly noticed that, although I spend a lot of time in New Palace yard coming and going, but I will talk to the Department for Transport, which is responsible for the Government Car Service, and see what its view of this is.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

When meeting with the Education Committee before Christmas the Education Secretary gave a commitment to publish the impact assessment on the cut in funding for 18-year-olds. This commitment was reiterated by Ministers at the Dispatch Box on Monday. Having checked with the Vote Office and Committee members, it is my understanding that that still has not been published. One would think that at the time of making a decision the impact assessment would be available. May we have a debate as soon as possible on the impact of this decision to damage the education of 18-year-olds?

[Mr Lansley]

I was in the House and I heard what was said and I will ask the Department when it intends to publish in the way proposed.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

May we have a debate on the Government’s relationship with their public health responsibility deal partners, and not just on alcohol pricing and the issue about sugar, which was raised earlier today? An authoritative report was published last year about the link between fast food consumption and childhood asthma, yet the public health Minister has said that she sees no reason to discuss that with the companies that are responsibility deal partners. If they are not there to discuss issues like that with the Government, what are they there for?

[Mr Lansley]

I am responsible for establishing the responsibility deal, which is there for the Government to work together with health organisations and experts and the industry in order to improve public health. There is a programme of measures under the responsibility deal. That is why the issue of sugar is coming forward. We took action on salt and on fast food with the publication of calorie data—there has been an enormous increase in the visibility of calorie information on fast food and at food outlets on the high street. The hon. Lady’s response may simply reflect the fact that this is not intended to be a wide-ranging debate on all issues relating to public health; it is a focused agenda agreed between the parties.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

May we have a debate on the Chancellor’s failed bank levy, which we now discover has fallen £2 billion short of what it was supposed to collect at a time when the Chancellor is speaking with relish about taking billions of pounds off the most sick and disabled people in this country? Is it not typical that it is not those with the broadest shoulders who get targeted; it is those who are limping already?

[Mr Lansley]

My recollection is that in the autumn statement the Chancellor further increased the contribution from banks through a special levy, but, to respond to the hon. Gentleman’s question, I have announced that the Opposition are intending to have a debate on issues relating to banking next Wednesday during which he will no doubt have an opportunity to make his point and hear the reply.

[Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op)]

This week Russia blocked a UN Security Council statement condemning the Syrian Government for their use of air strikes against civilians in Aleppo. The House last debated Syria in August last year, and an oral statement was provided in October last year. When might we expect a debate in Government time on the issue of Syria?

[Mr Lansley]

If I may, I will just say that I expect that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary will update the House shortly on the situation in Syria. I cannot promise a debate, but the hon. Gentleman will know that we have regularly kept the House informed and we will do so again soon.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

As reported in the media last weekend, TPIM—terrorism prevention and investigation measures—orders on all individuals will end this month because of the way the legislation was drafted. May we have an urgent statement about what the Government’s approach will be to these individuals who will be in our communities without any restrictions, rather than read about it in the weekend papers?

[Mr Lansley]

I will ask my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary to respond directly to the hon. Lady and, if necessary, to inform the House.

[Andy Sawford (Corby) (Lab/Co-op)]

Mr Speaker, I am sure that the whole House was pleased when you chose to grant the urgent question on the written statement on the provisional local government finance settlement, which was put before the House very late on 18 December. Given the scale, pace and deep unfairness of the cuts in many areas of the country, will the Leader of the House confirm that when the final settlement is announced, there will be a proper oral statement in the House so that Members will have the opportunity to question it.

[Mr Lansley]

The publication of the provisional local government finance settlement by means of a written ministerial statement was not unprecedented; that has happened before, including under the last Government. My recollection is that it would be virtually unprecedented for the final settlement to be the subject of an oral statement, although it will be the subject of a written ministerial statement at the very least.

Points of Order

Thursday 9th January 2014 Commons Chamber

11:40

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I notified my right hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry) that I intended to raise this point of order. I have enormous respect for him, and he has been a great help to me over an issue in my constituency. In reference to the answer that he gave me during Church Commissioners questions, I should like to clarify that the anti-Israel exhibition at St. James’s church was primarily about the Israeli fence, of which 5% is wall, and which has prevented 95% of suicides. That is why I argued that it was a one-sided exhibition that would do a lot to harm religious tolerance.

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that clarification. I am sure that the House will now feel better informed.

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek your guidance on the potential use in proceedings of the old Wiltshire word “ganderflanking”. I have sought the help of “Erskine May”, but found none. Loosely translated, “ganderflanking” means aimless messing around. Would you agree that this archaic but colourful word might, if considered to be in order, become a useful tool not only for hon. Members but for the Chair itself?

[Mr Speaker]

Beyond acknowledging the hon. Gentleman’s courtesy in giving me advance notice of his intention to raise this point of order, I would say two things to him. First, I note his implicit and rather interesting distinction between “aimless” messing around and what I presume is to be interpreted as purposeful messing around. Secondly, I am always grateful to the hon. Gentleman insofar as he seeks to protect the interests of Members and, especially, of the Chair. A cynical soul might hazard a guess that he had been in consultation with representatives of BBC Wiltshire, to whom I know this word is a matter of great interest, but it would be unworthy of me to make any such allegation and I do not do so. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, and we will leave it there for today.

Backbench Business

Thursday 9th January 2014 Commons Chamber

Rural Communities

Thursday 9th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Relevant documents: Sixth Report from the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, Rural Communities, HC 602, and the Government response, HC 764.]

11:43

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered rural communities.

I am delighted to have secured this debate, and I should like to thank the Backbench Business Committee for giving us this opportunity to debate rural communities. I am honoured to represent what must be one of the most beautiful rural parts of the kingdom, so I feel particularly well placed to speak in the debate today. I should like to take this opportunity to thank all members of the Select Committee, past and present, and its staff for their help in preparing the report. When we started the inquiry, we were joined on the Committee by the hon. Members for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) and for Brent North (Barry Gardiner), who have now been called to do greater things on the Opposition Front Bench. More recently, the Committee lost my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson), who is now the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. I am delighted to see him in his place today. We also lost my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) when he became the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

It is true that many in rural communities live in relative comfort and prosperity, particularly in my area, but there are also enormous challenges. There are pockets of rural poverty and isolation, as well as poor public services. Public services cost more to deliver in sparsely populated rural areas, where there is also a high concentration of the elderly population. All those factors represent a challenge to the delivery of public services. The extra cost of providing these services to rural communities is evident across the public sector, yet in 2012-13 rural local authorities received less than half of the per head funding that urban authorities received. If we look at areas such as education, we find that the Government are reducing local authorities’ flexibility to allocate extra funding to small rural schools with higher running costs. We urge the Government to recognise that the current system of calculating local government finance is deeply unfair to rural areas in comparison with their urban counterparts. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall, who is now a Minister in the Department and was one of the co-chairs of the Rural Fair Share campaign, whose work I would wish to recognise. The Committee concluded:

“The Government needs to recognise that the current system of calculating the local government finance settlement is unfair to rural areas”

in comparison with urban areas.

I wish to take the opportunity to highlight some areas where that is the case and go on to discuss them in more detail. The cost of heating homes and filling car fuel tanks in rural areas is very high, yet rural public transport is infrequent and, as we know, the bus subsidy is under threat. Off-grid households are currently prevented from accessing the same incentives and finance to improve their properties as are available to on-grid households. I am delighted to see that the Treasury is extending the ability of rural areas such as Thirsk, Malton and Filey to apply for rural fuel duty discount, and obviously we will look to make sure that the EU funding under the state aid rules criteria will apply equally across the board to such rural and sparsely populated areas as mine.

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate and the Backbench Business Committee on allowing it. She is making an important point, because her community, like mine, has to make an application, which is not straightforward to do, and the criteria are not clear. I welcome the steps the Government have taken in other areas, but surely they should examine this issue, do this detailed work themselves and set the criteria so that rural communities across the United Kingdom can benefit from the rebate on fuel.

[Miss McIntosh]

Indeed. Obviously, the purpose of today’s debate, as the hon. Gentleman is highlighting, is the “Rural Communities” report and the Government response to it. We published our report in July and they responded in October. It is a source of disappointment that the Government are leaving it to rural communities to make their own arrangements; some will be better placed than others to do so.

Let me go back to the report’s highlights. We believe that school funds should revert back to varied lump sum payments going to rural schools according to their need. We also looked at the rolling-out of superfast broadband to rural areas, finding that it should be prioritised to those with the slowest speed. We urge the Department to impress upon BT that it must refocus its priorities. It is pointless giving those who have a fast speed an even faster speed; we believe that we should improve access for communities that have no, or extremely slow, broadband. We also urge BT to indicate which areas will be covered by 2015 under the rural broadband programme, thus allowing the areas that will not be covered to make alternative arrangements.

The Department is proceeding to “digital by default” when the next round of the common agricultural policy comes into effect, but we urge the Department to ensure that all rural areas will have fast broadband. We must ensure that the Department is able to provide the outlying farms that are too far from the cabinet and do not have fast broadband with paper copies of things in the interim. Incredibly, when I try to use my mobile phone at home in a rural area, I find that I do not have mobile phone coverage; voice not spots should also urgently be addressed.

[Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD)]

My hon. Friend makes a crucial point about the so-called last 10% in rural areas, such as Devon and Somerset, where roll-out has taken place. Unless we achieve 100% accessibility for high-speed broadband, we will do an immense disservice to people in very rural areas. Does she agree that when those areas or properties are identified, the Government should make funds available to ensure such accessibility? We want not a bidding system or matched funding, which is not available in rural areas, but the Government to finish the job.

[Miss McIntosh]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s intervention, and I will come back and say more on that point.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs must address the matter of higher than average house prices and the lack of affordable housing in rural areas. Allowing the rural economy to grow, overcoming barriers to growth and improving rural businesses’ access to finance should be among its top priorities. We ask local enterprise partnerships to address the needs of rural businesses, and we urge the Government to ensure that financial support is offered to the business sector. The business bank, the single local growth fund and other such funds are available to rural businesses. We recognise the needs of rural communities. Currently, deprivation, affordability and provision of public services need to be addressed.

Let me explain why we called for this report. In 2010, the Government abolished the rural watchdog, the Commission for Rural Communities, and replaced it with a beefed-up rural communities policy unit in DEFRA that operates as a centre of rural expertise, supporting and co-ordinating activity within and beyond the Department. It champions rural issues across the Government. We were told that the unit would play an important role in helping all Government Departments ensure that their policies are effectively rural-proofed before decisions are made.

Earlier this year, we commenced an inquiry into rural communities to assess how successful DEFRA and the new unit have been at championing rural issues across Government to achieve their target of fair, practical and affordable outcomes for rural residents, businesses and communities. Our findings led us to conclude that the rural communities policy unit faces a difficult task if it is to meet that ambition. Too often, Government policy has failed to take account of the challenges that exist in providing services to a rural population that is often sparsely distributed and lacks access to basic infrastructure.

I have mentioned the local government settlement and how rural communities pay higher council tax bills per dwelling yet receive less Government grant and have access to fewer public services than their urban counterparts. I will not go over all our conclusions in that regard, but the Government have, in part, recognised their misjudgment by announcing an extra £8.5 million efficiency support payment for one year only for the most rural councils. Some payments are as small as £650. As welcome as any extra funding is, that is clearly not the long-term solution to the problem of rural councils not getting their fair share. Regrettably, the Government rejected our call for the gap in funding between rural and urban councils to be reduced. We must and we will continue to press the case.

[Stephen Gilbert (St Austell and Newquay) (LD)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on this debate. In Cornwall, the reality is that we have higher than average council tax, lower than average earnings and less money spent per head in the rural areas than in the urban areas. Closing that gap by just 10% a year for the next five years would mean an additional £16 million of income for people in Cornwall. Does she not agree that the Government should push ahead with this idea of getting a fair share for rural areas?

[Miss McIntosh]

Indeed, and I, as an individual, am part of the rural fair share campaign. The reason for calling this debate is to lend support to that campaign, which goes to the heart of delivering public services in rural areas. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for allowing me to make that point.

Let me turn now to housing, another key part of the report. Parts of rural England are among the most unaffordable places to live in the country. Ryedale, in my area, stands out as the people working there earn less on average than those working in urban areas or in other parts of Thirsk, Malton and Filey. Rural homes are more expensive than urban ones. The average house price in the countryside is equivalent to 6.3 times gross annual average earnings, compared with 4.9 in urban areas. Potential first-time buyers are particularly hard hit by high property prices and are increasingly frozen out of rural areas. If we do not address those problems, the consequences for rural communities will be grave. If young people are priced out of rural areas, we lose the pool of labour for the local economy and the service sector, and demand for services, schools, shops and pubs will also decrease, making their existence less viable. Rather than addressing the problems on the demand side, we urge the Government to do much more to increase the supply of housing in rural areas.

We recommended that small rural communities should be exempt from the bedroom tax. In my area, there is a chronic shortage of one and two-bedroom homes. Until such time as we can rehouse those who wish to downsize, allowing larger families to move into larger properties, housing will remain a problem. Sadly, the Government rejected that recommendation. In their response, they suggested that those affected by the bedroom tax should simply work more hours to make up the shortfall or should move into the private sector. When I visited the food bank in my area, run by the local church, volunteers and the Trussell Trust, I found the story of one lady who volunteers there very affecting: she wants to work more hours for her employer, but the work is simply not there.

Regrettably, there are also planning issues—the elephant in the room that no one wants to mention. Whenever a planning authority in a nice area makes a proposal for social housing or smaller units, people always write to their MP—I do not think I am an exception in this regard—to say, “I know just the place for that development: at the other end of the village from where I live.” Until we can get over that barrier, we will have a smaller stock of social homes. The bedroom tax means that tenants are expected to move greater distances, away from friends, family and schools. We must have a policy that allows key workers to live in the areas where they perform a vital role. When the Minister sums up, will he explain what input his Department had into that policy from a different Department, and why he believes that it is suitable for rural communities that lack the variety and volume of social housing stock on which the policy depends?

Let me turn in more detail to rural broadband. It is crucial to rural businesses, allowing economic growth in rural areas and allowing rural businesses to compete with their urban counterparts. I have mentioned digital by default, and we must ensure that any new computer system the Government bring into effect is fit for purpose before it is introduced and that it reaches every farm on which the Department is relying to fill in a digital form. Rural communities and their businesses, schools and households have fallen behind their urban counterparts on broadband access. The roll-out of superfast broadband to 90% of rural areas will, I am sorry to say, be delivered late and it is unclear when the target to which we all aspire of universal access to basic broadband will be achieved.

It seems that some communities, including some in Thirsk, Malton and Filey—the Minister is living very dangerously there—might have to wait up to three years before they see any benefit. That is unacceptable, particularly as the Government are making ever more services digital by default, as I have mentioned. A recent and notable example is the new CAP deal, which will come into force in January 2015.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that even in areas where it is claimed that there is decent broadband coverage, the reality on the ground is that there are so many not spots that many individual houses and farms still cannot get access?

[Miss McIntosh]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, whose experience reinforces the point I am trying to make. We must ensure that universal access is prioritised over increasing speeds for those who already have an adequate service. Will the Minister therefore tell us the date by which all rural homes will have access to 2 megabit basic broadband?

The roll-out of broadband is being funded largely from the public purse, yet many constituents cannot find out whether they will benefit from improved broadband. The Committee insists that communities are told whether they will be covered by rural broadband so that they can seek alternative means if they are not. Some local authorities are now publishing projected coverage maps, but many are not.

The Government have committed to spending £300 million that they are receiving from the BBC on rural broadband. Some rural communities might be hoping that even if they are not included in the initial roll-out, they might benefit from additional funding. We need clarity, which is sadly lacking. Will the Minister therefore tell us how rural communities can find out whether they will benefit from extra funding?

With regard to rural communities going it alone, one source of funding might have been the rural community broadband fund, but last week disturbing reports suggested that it will be wound down in March and that much of the available funding will be returned to Brussels. It aimed to deliver £20 million in funding and to connect 70,000 homes, but so far—I hope that the Minister can correct me—only three projects have been approved, claiming less than £1 million in total, and they will connect just 2,500 homes. A member of the public behind a proposed broadband scheme in Dorset said last week that although funding existed, officials had made it impossible to spend and that therefore the rural community broadband fund was dead. Another member of the public said:

“The officials running it got so tied up in their own process it was impossible to deliver. This has happened because of the incompetence and ineptitude in central government.”

The need exists and the funding exists, so how has DEFRA managed to make such a mess of administering the rural community broadband fund that much-needed financial support might be returned to the European Union unspent? I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will tell me that that is not the case, because that would be serious and regrettable.

I will briefly mention schools. There are concerns about school transport, the extent to which the pupil premium reaches rural areas and falling school rolls, which is partly the result of the lack of affordable housing, which I mentioned earlier. The problem with rural funding is not limited to the finance settlement. The Government are reducing local authorities’ flexibility to allocate extra funding to schools with higher running costs, a move that will affect smaller rural schools in particular. The Government are demanding that all primary schools receive the same level of lump sum funding, regardless of size, location or other circumstances. That also applies to middle and secondary schools. The recent Ofsted report on the achievement of the poorest children in education states:

“The areas where the most disadvantaged children are being let down by the education system in 2013 are no longer deprived inner city areas, instead the focus has shifted to deprived coastal towns and rural, less populous regions of the country”.

I hope that the Minister will use his good offices to liaise with his opposite number in the Department for Education to correct that situation. Will he today explain the benefits that will be gained by removing local authorities’ ability to target funding where it is most needed, and whether his Department was consulted on that?

I commend all the conclusions that I have not been able to cover, particularly those that look more closely at housing, the rural economy, community rights and transport; I briefly mentioned the bus subsidy. I commend the entire report and our recommendations to the House and to the Minister. Again, I thank the Backbench Business Committee for the opportunity for this debate.

I look forward to my hon. Friend the Minister summing up what steps his Department is taking to ensure that pockets of rural deprivation that might otherwise be overlooked in the official statistics are recognised across Government. I urge him to state what is being done to redress the balance between rural and urban spending and to ensure that we eliminate these pockets of rural deprivation. We look forward to receiving the review that the Government have ordered to be conducted by the noble Lord Cameron of Dillington. We are told in the Government’s response that the findings will be included in DEFRA’s annual report and accounts.

I leave the Minister with this question: is not the whole subject of rural communities worthy of an annual statement or update in its own right, giving the Department the opportunity to report to this place on exactly how rural policy is being co-ordinated through the rural communities policy unit?

12:06

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

May I begin, Mr Deputy Speaker, by wishing you and Members of the House a belated happy new year?

I thank the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), for securing this debate and for giving a very measured speech with references to the document that we are considering. It is important to stick to that document, because many of us in the Chamber represent areas that are not covered by DEFRA and have devolved Administrations who deal with many rural issues. However, the House of Commons still retains some reserved matters, and it is very important that Members from Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are present. Obviously, I make particular reference to Wales. It is good to see here representatives from Wales from three of the four parties. Without making any partisan point, Plaid Cymru Members often have a knock when Labour Members do not turn up for debates, and they need to look in the mirror on this occasion.

I will adopt the hon. Lady’s tone in debating these issues, but I will make one partisan point in saying—I will go further than her—that my constituency is the most beautiful area of the United Kingdom. If Members do not believe me, they need only visit the Isle of Anglesey—I know you have been a regular visitor in the past, Mr Deputy Speaker—to see one of the most beautiful areas, if not in the whole world, then certainly in the United Kingdom. It is blessed with rural and coastal communities, and it is those two aspects that make it such a unique place for people to visit. I am sure that many will take me up on that offer.

I want to mention two of my predecessors. Brigadier-General Sir Owen Thomas was the first rural Labour MP to sit in the House of Commons. He won the seat in 1918. He was very independent-minded and fell out with the parliamentary Labour party on a number of occasions, but he did stand as a Labour candidate. The second and only other Labour Member of Parliament for my constituency was Lord Cledwyn Hughes, who was a Secretary of State for agriculture. They were both great champions of rural issues in Parliament.

I know the hon. Lady’s area very well. I often tirelessly promote my own constituency, as I have just done, but it is Yorkshire that I visit in my downtime. I say to those who live in Anglesey that if they want a break in the United Kingdom, Yorkshire is the place to visit.

[David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Albert Owen]

Before I give way, I will finish the punchline: to those from outside Anglesey, I continue to say, “Visit Anglesey.”

[David Rutley]

I am a little disturbed by the hon. Gentleman’s comments. Given that so many members of the public from and residents of Macclesfield and Cheshire visit Anglesey, would it not be entirely appropriate for him to come to Macclesfield and enjoy the Cheshire Peak district rather than travel even further to the Yorkshire dales?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Let us not concentrate too much on which is the best holiday destination, because we know it is Lancashire and the Lake district.

[Albert Owen]

I would welcome people from Lancashire, the Lake district and other areas to debate that question in my constituency.

I am very proud of my constituency and that it is both rural and urban and that there is interdependency between both communities. When we talk about rural communities, we need to point out the interdependency between them and nearby large market towns, villages and larger conurbations. The new A55 means that Lancashire is very close to north Wales. We need that connectivity with other parts of the United Kingdom.

Many rightly say that people choose to live in a rural area, but the challenges mentioned by the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton often lead to many people choosing to leave rural areas due to a lack of work opportunities and facilities. I say genuinely to the Minister that it is a challenge to us all and to all governments—local government, the Welsh Government and the UK Government—to work with the European Union and others to ensure that we get the balance right between industry and tourism. It is not a question of either/or—we can have both. Rural areas can have quality industrial jobs alongside farming and food production and tourism. That is the challenge for us all and I appreciate the way in which the hon. Lady and her Committee have shadowed the Department.

I am at a slight disadvantage because, although I have read the report, I have not read the Government’s response to it. I shall do so after this debate, because some of the issues raised by the hon. Lady are disturbing and I wish that the Government would look more positively at some of the recommendations. We need to get the balance right.

Depopulation is one of the big issues. When an area loses many people, capital grants are reduced and that makes it even more difficult to sustain and regenerate local communities. In the 1980s and 1990s, our county—which is coterminous with my constituency—was the only one to lose population during the two census periods from 1981 to 2001. We lost a lot of talent and a lot of families who had been there for many years. Economic decline is an issue in rural and periphery areas. We have the double whammy of being on the periphery, which has made it very difficult for people to travel to visit in the past. I am pleased with the great improvement in road and rail infrastructure, but a lot more needs to be done to help areas on the periphery such as north-west Wales and Anglesey.

I want to concentrate on an issue that the hon. Lady and her Committee have not addressed on this occasion: energy. I also want to discuss tourism, farming and food and infrastructure, but energy is rightly a dominant issue for debate. As a member of the Energy and Climate Change Committee, I have raised many of these issues for some time.

My area—the facts and statistics bear this out—is a net producer of energy and a net generator of electricity. Wales as a country is a net producer of energy and a net generator of electricity, but it is also a huge, main hub for imported gas. Areas of west and north-west Wales, Pembrokeshire and various other areas actually supply a lot of the United Kingdom with its energy, electricity and liquefied petroleum gas imports, and yet we pay some of the highest electricity prices in the country, which is hugely unfair. Much of that—I raised this issue during business questions and have raised it for many years—is due to the energy market’s failure to provide a level playing field for the distribution and transmission of electricity, particularly to rural areas. We produce the bulk of the energy, yet we have to pay more for it. I hope the Government will look seriously at that issue.

We have highlighted the problems with power outage in rural areas, some of which are blighted by power transmission lines running through their communities. The figures clearly show that households and businesses in north-west and south Wales are paying higher prices for their energy. I stress that businesses are paying more as well. As Members throughout the House will know, energy costs are one of the biggest factors for businesses. Their margins are squeezed in very difficult and austere times and, on top of that, high energy costs are having a huge negative impact on rural communities.

[Mr Heath]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very important point about energy costs in rural areas. He will know—he may intend to go on to say this—that the issue is about not just electricity, but LPG, fuel oil and the fact that houses in rural areas are often much more difficult, if not impossible, to insulate because they do not have cavity walls; they have solid walls and are in damp areas. All those things put together mean that people living in rural areas face very high and unsustainable bills simply to keep warm.

[Albert Owen]

Absolutely. It is good to have the hon. Gentleman back on-side. He and I debated this issue during the previous Parliament and my arguments were very consistent when I sat on the Government Benches. I am glad to see that, now he does not have ministerial responsibility, he is again championing those off-grid, which is the next topic I wish to address.

Energy Ministers are taking the off-grid issue seriously, but not enough practical steps have been taken. I am very pleased that my party is now calling for something for which I have been campaigning for some time: for the energy regulator to take responsibility for those not on the mains grid. This is an historic element of privatisation. When the energy markets for gas and electricity were set up, they encompassed the old generators that were on-grid and left an unregulated off-grid, which means that many people are paying a lot more in energy costs for their gas supplements.

When the Government, the energy companies and, indeed, the regulator talk about discounts and dual-fuel discounts—this issue affects every Member who represents a rural community—that does not apply to people who do not have mains gas. They are paying considerably more for their energy. The average price is a luxury for many people in rural areas. They pay considerably more, not only for the distribution and transmission cost, but for not benefiting from the energy companies.

I have been pressing for many years, with some albeit limited success, for the energy companies—the electricity companies, in this case—to give loyalty bonuses to people who stay with them. It is perverse that the energy market encourages switching and gives dual-fuel deals when it could and should give loyalty bonuses and help those in rural areas who do not have access to dual fuel.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

I very much agree with the hon. Gentleman about the off-grid situation in rural areas. There also does not seem to be enough competition between oil companies to deliver heating oil. Many constituents of ours will probably never get on to mains gas, but heating oil is an alternative. We have to get more competition and get the prices down for people in rural areas who use oil for their heating.

[Albert Owen]

The hon. Gentleman raises a very important point. Many Members, including those from the Cornwall and Devon area, have been campaigning on that issue for some time. The Office of Fair Trading called for a number of inquiries into it and made a recommendation to the Competition Commission. Unfortunately, it did not find that there is no competition, but I think that is blindingly obvious. That is why I welcome—I am not just making a party political point—the Labour party’s intention that Ofgem, the regulator, look at off-grid as well, because it could give the same protection to off-grid customers. It is there to champion consumers and businesses, and that would be a good, positive step forward.

Hon. Members from rural areas will know that many of their constituents try to buy their fuel before winter. In line with a cross-party campaign, I urge the Government to look at mechanisms to allow people in rural areas to get their winter fuel payments earlier, so that they can buy in advance and do not have to pay premium prices for coal, oil and other energy sources. I have pressed my party on that important point, and it has agreed, if it comes into government in 2015, to bring that measure in. I know there are IT issues, but I am sure that postcodes could be used to distribute payments earlier than happens now.

I raise the issue of winter fuel payments because there have been lots of delays and glitches, including in non-rural areas, with people receiving their payments. That is certainly the case in my constituency and those of colleagues I have spoken to about the issue. If the software was amended, people in rural areas would have the advantage of receiving payments earlier so that they can buy in bulk earlier, at prices that suit them.

I have covered the issues relating to off-grid customers and the distribution companies, but I welcome the important energy investment that will be made in my constituency in north-west Wales. I am not someone who stands here and picks winners. There is a nuclear power station in my constituency, and I support moves to low carbon as well as the new build there. However, we have to have the right balance of biomass and other forms of renewables—it is important to have gas and clean coal in that balance—and my constituency is certainly playing its part. I make no apology for repeating that it is unfair that people in our areas pay more for the end product.

Having highlighted energy issues, I want to move on to fuel—petrol and diesel—which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton. In previous decades in this House, many people were encouraged to buy diesel, because it was more energy efficient, with cars able to do a greater mileage on diesel than on petrol. The price of diesel has now of course gone up considerably, which is hampering businesses and individuals in rural areas. There is a massive difference in the price of petrol and diesel on some independent and supermarket forecourts.

I very much welcome the Government’s moving the fuel rebate forward, but it does not cover all rural areas. When they brought it in, there should have been a rule for the whole United Kingdom; it should not have been done piecemeal. I am sorry to make a slightly partisan point, but Scottish Liberal Democrat seats should not have been in the first wave, with other areas having to play catch-up and make applications. There should have been proper criteria covering the whole of rural Britain and Northern Ireland.

[Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Albert Owen]

Even though the hon. Gentleman is not a Scottish Liberal Democrat, I will certainly give way to him.

[Mr Williams]

Is the hon. Gentleman as worried as I am that one of the criteria, about which there is some concern, is distance from an oil refinery? My area was not included in the consultation, while his was; but that means that no areas would be considered because none fits the criteria.

[Albert Owen]

Yes, I agree; that is absolutely ridiculous. I do not think that has come from the EU, but from the Government and the Treasury. I have asked for a meeting with the Economic Secretary and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury to deal with just such problems.

I am pleased that the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton said that her Committee has put pressure on DEFRA, but other Departments have to work with DEFRA to resolve the issue. I am not talking about luxury journeys but essential journeys—people bringing their families to visit relatives, or taking carers, schoolchildren and anybody else who needs to get from A to B in rural areas. They need to have private transport because public transport is not available. They have been penalised not only by the very high energy prices, as I have said, but by fuel prices for transportation. We can all unite on the issue and work towards a solution, and I hope the Government change their mind.

Governments—including mine when they were in office; I make no bones about that—at first resisted taking forward the rebate scheme because of European issues. Now that it is up and running in certain areas, we have a responsibility to introduce fairer criteria so that all rural areas are covered. I do not buy the idea that people will come from towns to buy their petrol in such areas: if they do, that would be good, but it is unlikely to happen. People currently have to travel great distances to get cheaper fuel in rural areas, which is obviously counter-productive from a carbon emissions perspective. We need to look at the issue very seriously, and I am pleased it has been highlighted by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee.

I want to move on to food and farming, because it is important to have a balance between industry and rural issues. I want to pay tribute to the farming industry—[Interruption.] No, I am not going to take note of the time, because I want to cover these significant issues. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen) waves at me to sit down, but it is important to go through this dimension of the debate. I agree with the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton that the Government should hold an annual debate on rural communities, as they do on fisheries, so that hon. Members can express their views. Not enough Government time is given to rural issues, which is why the Backbench Business Committee has given us this time. We should use it, so I make no apologies for extending my speech. I have taken several interventions, including from Government Members.

On food and farming, it is very important to have a brand: we should brand British goods and local goods. There have been a few hiccups with labelling issues, but I again give credit to the Government for moving in this direction. People want to know exactly what they are buying and where it comes from. Some bland labels just say, “British” or “European”, and I want labelling to be more localised, so that local farmers can sell their produce in their area and have marketing opportunities if they choose to export it to other areas. Food is a very important industry, and we should take a greater lead on labelling issues, including clear labelling and transparency. Those issues are important, and I welcome the progress that has been made.

My final point is about broadband and infrastructure, which is also important. I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady that although the Welsh Government have certain responsibilities, the provider is British Telecom: Wales is a monopoly area in which there is no competition. It is a fallacy to say that, since privatisation, there is competition, because there is not; there is a mass monopoly called BT. In my view, BT Openreach has not been rolled out to rural communities as quickly as it should have.

Let me give an example. In the last century, everybody in the United Kingdom, wherever they were located, could have a telephone line and telephone poles—including in some very remote areas in my constituency, and I am sure in others—so it is important that, in the 21st century, the same communities should get fast broadband at equal speeds to those in the rest of the United Kingdom. We need to work towards that position. Unfortunately, the market does not help, because many companies start off in urban areas where there is a large customer base, while rural areas very much have second-class status when it comes to broadband.

Broadband is of course more important in rural areas, because it can cut down on the need for transportation. Many people locate businesses in rural areas because that is where they want to be, but they cannot access broadband. I will certainly push the Welsh Government on this, and Governments at all levels should work together to get the best broadband connectivity and high-speed broadband across all rural communities.

It has been a great pleasure to participate in this debate, and I again thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing it to take place. I agree wholeheartedly with the Chair of the Select Committee that there should be an annual debate on rural communities, as there is on fishing, on the Floor of the House.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

May I just say that nine hon. Members are due to speak? I will not impose a time limit, but they should bear in mind how long they take.

12:28

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

My hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) has done the House a great service in ensuring that we have a debate on rural affairs—a subject we do not talk about enough.

There is an altogether too rosy picture of rural life, particularly in metropolitan circles. Some of the people who write our national newspapers seem to think that we all live in lovely stone houses in Cotswold villages inhabited by media moguls and retired admirals having country lunches. That is not to say that retired admirals can afford to live in the Cotswolds any more—it is probably only retired hedge fund managers who can. However, the reality of life in remote rural areas that are, dare I say it, less fashionable than the Cotswolds or Buckinghamshire, such as the part of north Lincolnshire that I represent, which is three and a half hours from London whatever form of transport one takes, is often very tough indeed. That is why this debate is important.

My hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton and the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) outlined in a very measured way some of the extra costs of living in rural Britain. I will deal with those costs in a few moments, but first I will talk about planning and localism.

If I walk out of my cottage on the edge of the Lincolnshire wolds, which is an area of outstanding natural beauty, I can walk up the hill and have an uninterrupted view over the vale of Lincoln to the Lincoln edge. The hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) knows that view very well. It is a fantastic view. Perhaps it is not as good as the view that you have, Mr Deputy Speaker, in the forest of Bowland, but we do almost as well in Lincolnshire as you do in Lancashire. We are very proud of that.

It is likely, however, that local people will soon be ignored by the planning authorities and that vast wind farms, higher than Lincoln cathedral, will be built along the Lincoln edge. This is not a debate about wind farms, but it is a debate about rural areas and surely it is a debate about the right of local people to have a say. The planning committee of West Lindsey district council has opposed unanimously the application for those vast wind farms. I believe that the planning process should respect the views of local people, particularly given that there are good planning reasons relating to local archaeology and the proximity to RAF Scampton, as well as the famous view that I have mentioned.

Localism affects other parts of the planning process. If Members read the front page of The Daily Telegraph today, they will see a banner headline that contains remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), who sits in the No. 10 policy unit and is therefore a man of some influence. He talks about the national planning policy framework and makes the point that the views of local people about new housing must not be overridden by central Government.

Local councils are not naturally nimbyist. The people who sit on them are democratically elected. They recognise the need for new housing and for new affordable housing in particular. Surely we believe in localism. I thought that localism was a primary undertaking of the coalition Government. It does not behove central Government to impose their views about the nature of house building on rural councils. I am all in favour of encouragement and of a broad framework. However, if people of worth and ability are to be encouraged to serve on councils in Lincolnshire and other rural areas, they must believe that they will have some influence and power, and that knowing their local areas gives them some right, in broad terms, to determine how much new housing should be built.

To turn to a vexed issue, I want to disagree with one of the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton, because there is no bedroom tax—it really is a spare room subsidy. In rural areas, we have to try to find a way—she was feeling her way towards this point—to distribute low-cost housing and to move people on from housing that is under-occupied so that younger families can get into it. As she said, this is a complex issue because there is not enough low-cost, single-bedroom social housing in rural areas. Local councils such as East Lindsey and West Lindsey district councils in my area are working on the problem and the local housing associations are very aware of it. I agree with her to the extent that localism comes into this. In this complicated area, central Government must work with local councils to ensure a good supply of low-cost housing.

The cost of living in rural areas is often not recognised. One can get bogged down in statistics and details, but it is important that we, as Members of Parliament who represent rural areas, put on the record the sheer cost of living in rural Britain, compared with living in urban Britain. People who live in entirely rural seats a long way from the capital are very under-represented in this city. Often, our voice does not get through. That affects all essential public services. In policing, despite high rural crime—I am a victim of rural crime myself—Lincolnshire is bottom of the heap for funding per head. It affects transport and hospital services. Again and again, despite the fact that incomes are lower in rural areas, the funding that we receive from central Government is inadequate. Our political voice is not powerful enough. We do not have a sufficient number of Members of Parliament or, dare I say it, Members in marginal seats, but we have a right to speak out because there is a clear injustice in the national funding formulas against rural people, who are often living in poverty.

That is not just rhetoric; it is fact. There have been a number of academic studies on the minimum income standard. That concept was invented by researchers and is carefully worked out. It is based on what members of the public think people need in order to have the minimum acceptable standard of living. There is no doubt that people in rural areas tend to have to spend 10% to 20% more on everyday requirements than those in urban areas, even though they often have lower wages or salaries. To reach a minimum living standard on 2010 levels, the research indicates that single working adults need to earn at least £15,600 a year in rural towns, £17,900 in villages and £18,000 in hamlets or remote countryside. Those in urban areas need earn only £14,400. For couples with two children, the annual earnings requirement is much higher at about £33,000 to £42,000, depending on the circumstances. I assure the House that many people who live in rural areas do not earn anything like £42,000 a year. The Minister, who is an excellent Member of Parliament, knows the scale of the problem in Cornwall. Rural poverty is a real problem.

The hon. Member for Ynys Môn mentioned fuel poverty. The Government’s statistical digest of rural England for 2013 notes that, proportionally, more households in rural areas are in fuel poverty than the national average. That is obvious—it is a clear fact. Fuel poverty is even greater in sparse villages and hamlets than it is in rural towns. Some 36% of rural households are off the gas grid, as the hon. Gentleman said, as opposed to only 8% in urban areas. As we all know to our personal cost, those households are reliant on much more expensive domestic fuels than others. I do not pretend that I know the answer to that problem, but I know that the Minister will address it when he sums up.

Average weekly household expenditure on transport in urban areas is £55. In rural towns and their fringes it is £62, in villages it is £78, and in hamlets and isolated dwellings it is £90. The average for England is £58. In rural areas, the highest proportion of income that is spent on an individual commodity or service goes on transport. We should consider the sort of wages that people in rural areas earn. There are a lot of retired people on relatively modest pensions. They have to spend an average of no less than £90 a week on transport if they live in hamlets or isolated dwellings, which is an enormous burden.

It is obvious that most people who live in rural areas travel further than other people—45% further per year than the English average and 53% further than those who live in urban areas. Plainly, the very DNA of rural existence requires travel over longer distances. We in Lincolnshire know all about long distances. Some 96% of urban households have a regular bus service, and the 72 Members of Parliament who represent constituencies in Greater London have fantastic tube and bus services. Only 42% of households in rural areas have a regular bus service. Famously, in my constituency in north Lincolnshire, we have the train service between Gainsborough, which I represent, and Cleethorpes, which runs once a week. Imagine a train that runs once a week—it is truly bizarre.

We cannot assume that everybody in a rural area, in the type of village in which I live, has access to a car, although there have been tremendously impressive efforts such as dial-a-bus services. Even if they do have access to a car, the cost that I have mentioned—£90 a week—may be truly prohibitive. There was a local couple from north Lincolnshire on television who could not even afford to go on holiday in England, because they could not afford the petrol to get where they wanted to go on the coast. People are having real difficulty in affording petrol, and some people in rural areas do not have a car and so have virtually no transport.

I do not want to say a great deal about access to broadband internet, because my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton dealt with the matter so skilfully. However, we all know that average broadband speeds are much slower in rural areas than in cities, and that a higher proportion of rural households have slow or no broadband. I am a bit technophobic, I admit, but when I am sitting in my cottage trying to use my local wi-fi and get on to broadband to do my parliamentary business, it is ridiculously slow. It is absurd—if I were trying to run a business, I would be out of business by now. I simply could not work in my own rural area. I have to do all my work from a computer in London. The internet simply does not work fast enough in rural areas.

In 2010—again, this is fact, not rhetoric—only 5% of urban areas had broadband speeds lower than 2 megabits a second, whereas the figure was 23% of rural areas. Surely that must be a priority for the Government. We are going to encourage people to avoid heavy transport costs and so on by working at home, are we not? How can we charge the rural economy if we have such slow broadband speeds?

I turn briefly to support for farming. I welcome my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State’s announcement that the Government will reduce the planned common agricultural policy modulation rate from 15% to 12%, which shows that the Government are listening. Like many rural Members of Parliament, I have been approached on the matter by farmers, and the National Farmers Union has rightly been concerned about it.

I know it is a matter for Europe rather than for us, but my personal view is that we should still try to transfer more agricultural subsidies from larger farms and estates and towards working farmers, many of whom are struggling. We need to help them more.

It is obvious that we have a problem of poverty in rural areas, and that there is not sufficient political weight to address it. The idea of minimum income standards is, in some ways, tied to that of the living wage. There has been a lot of debate about the living wage, but mainly focusing on areas such as London and the other big cities. I believe that the concept applies even more powerfully to the countryside. The social teaching of the Churches, which is a rich vein of thought and very much to be recommended as a read, puts strong emphasis on justice in the relationship between employers and their employees. For an employer to deprive a worker of his justly earned wage is traditionally described as “a sin crying out to heaven for vengeance”. It is that important. Provided that an individual is working full time, it is basic justice that he or she be paid enough to support himself or herself and their family.

We Conservatives would be foolish to concede the forum of debate on economic justice to Opposition Members. Conservatism has never existed, and should never exist, in some hyper-capitalist vacuum. Of course, we know the value of economic freedom and the marketplace, because we can see the unimaginable leaps in prosperity and the reduction of poverty that have taken place under free market economies over the past 200 years.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman regret the abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board, which provided some of the very things that he is speaking about, such as decent levels of pay and a clear indication of what work is worth what pay?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

That is an interesting point, but we cannot go back in time to a structure created under the Attlee Government whereby agricultural wages boards determined what wages were paid in the agriculture sector. Let us look at the farming economy in Lincolnshire. I live on an estate of 5,000 acres—I do not own it, I hasten to say. When the boards were created, there would probably have been 40 or 50 agricultural labourers working the estate. Now, there are only one or two. Although the hon. Lady’s point is fair, I do not believe that agricultural labourers’ wages are quite the problem in current rural Britain that they were in the immediate post-war period. I am thinking more of the problems that are loaded on to the great majority of people in the countryside, who are not farmers and do not work for farmers but who are living in fuel poverty, are retired or find difficulty with their transport costs. Their children have difficulty in getting housing, and they perhaps work in low-paid jobs in the catering industry in local towns. That is more typically the structure of the current rural economy than the historic structure of large numbers of people working in agriculture.

I was talking about economic freedom and the value of the marketplace, but also about the common good, and I want to finish on that point. The freedom of the marketplace must be protected within an orderly context, with the best being conserved and the important and vital things that might otherwise be destroyed by the cold calculations of mere profit being preserved. In rural areas such as mine in Lincolnshire, that means businesses, farmers, employers and local and central Government coming together to co-operate for the common good, whether on agricultural subsidies, flood defences, the price of petrol or many other matters.

I am sure the Government are trying to listen to country people, but it is important that we speak out and put pressure on the Government. We need action on fuel poverty, the cost of living and disparities between rural and urban areas, particularly with regard to Government funding, which is in the Government’s control. I hope and trust that the Minister will give us good news in those regards when he responds.

12:47

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) and her Committee on their report and the issues raised in it.

I believe that all Members taking part in today’s debate represent rural communities, and I am no exception. In fact, Banff and Buchan has one of the highest proportions of any constituency in these islands of people living in the countryside or in very small settlements. Although there are many positive things to be said about rural life, it undoubtedly presents day-to-day challenges and generates a lot of extra costs, not all of which are justifiable. Those costs put huge pressure on the household finances of people on low and middle incomes who live in rural areas.

This is an extremely broad topic to debate in limited time, but I wish to touch on a range of public policy issues where rural communities have distinct needs and where I believe Westminster is currently letting them down. Many of those concerns echo the issues that other Members have raised, and the first is the cost of getting about.

Petrol and diesel prices are significantly higher in my constituency than in urban areas or less remote rural areas. People in areas such as Aberdeenshire and Banffshire are much more dependent on private cars than those in other parts of the country. They have further to travel and very few public transport options—we have no trains at all in my constituency, and as one would expect in a remote and not densely populated area, bus services are not particularly frequent.

I am concerned about the fact that more than 60p in every pound spent at the pump goes straight to the Exchequer. That means that there is a disproportionate, largely invisible and unavoidable extra tax on people who live in rural areas and have to cover long distances to access shops, amenities and public services and often to get to their work. Those people often have no option other than to use a private car. That places an additional tax burden on rural businesses and households alike, which will not be fully mitigated by the Government’s fuel rebate measures.

It is not only the cost of road fuel that adds to household expenses. It is a supreme irony that although North sea gas comes ashore at St Fergus in my constituency, many people living in the surrounding rural area—including, probably, some who work at the gas terminal—are not on the gas grid and have to depend on more expensive forms of domestic heating. My part of the world is one of the colder and more exposed parts of Scotland during the winter months, and everyone, without exception, has taken the hit of soaring energy prices in recent months. The points raised earlier about that issue by the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) were salient, particularly on the energy market.

People who are off the gas grid tend to spend a higher proportion of their income heating their homes and are more susceptible to fuel poverty. Even those on respectable incomes, who one would think are doing quite well financially, find that they are not because it costs so much to heat their homes through the winter. One simple and cost-neutral way the Government could help low-income households that are off the gas grid to stay warm in winter is by making winter fuel payments to those households in advance.

My hon. Friend the Member for Angus (Mr Weir) recently brought forward the Winter Fuel Allowance Payments (Off Gas Grid Claimants) Bill, which would provide for the early payment of the winter fuel allowance to pensioners whose homes are not connected to the mains gas grid, and whose principal source of fuel is home fuel oil, liquid petroleum gas or propane gas. Bringing forward payment of the winter fuel allowance would allow low-income consumers who have no access to reduced tariffs and no possibility of changing supplier, to fill their tanks prior to the onset of winter, at a time when prices tend to be a little lower. Unlike those of us who get quarterly bills, those with oil tanks have to pay large four figure sums up front to fill them, and it would cost nothing for the Government to simply re-sequence payments for those affected.

Another key issue for our rural communities is postal services. Our post office network has shrunk dramatically over the past 10 years, and it is critical to protect our remaining post offices in rural areas. Often the post office will be the last business in a village, and the last vestige of any accessible financial services. A reliable universal mail service is essential to businesses in rural areas and to efforts that encourage the growth of such businesses, particularly as online retail continues to expand and create new opportunities. If we are to re-energise small businesses in the rural economy, they must have access to a full, reliable and—above all—reasonably priced postal service that will ensure they can send and receive packages quickly and efficiently. We must recognise that post offices are an essential piece of our economic infrastructure in the digital age. Despite all the good intentions and words, however, the reality is that postal services continue to decline. Until we see the establishment of more Government and financial services in post offices, the future does not look all that bright.

Given that the regulator has already removed price caps from every service apart from second-class mail, I have little confidence that it will provide rural consumers and those in remote areas with protection against big price increases in postal services. The record of regulators in other privatised industries has shown how ineffective a protection they can be—we need only look at the energy market to see that in action.

Another aspect of our essential rural infrastructure is broadband and mobile connectivity, and a lot of attention has been paid to that today. Parts of my constituency are still black holes for phone reception, and many households in rural areas have wholly inadequate broadband speeds, if they have it at all. Sizeable areas of my constituency are simply not online. Moreover, in areas where broadband is available, it is comparatively expensive and people will pay around £40 or £50 a month for a service that they would easily get for less than £10 a month in London. As somebody who pays phone bills in both areas, I know that there can sometimes be a £45 difference in the monthly charge. That hidden cost for people in rural and remote areas does not necessarily come to the fore very often, but even when they have access to the internet, they are likely to pay through the nose for it.

To my mind, the underlying problem is the way that spectrum licences have been issued. It is all very well to say that 90% or 95% of the UK will have broadband by a certain date, but if the remaining 5% is mostly in rural Scotland, that is a problem. As Government services increasingly move online, digital exclusion is becoming an ever more pressing problem in rural areas, compounding economic exclusion and the existing challenges of rural life that already create a lot of hurdles for people in our rural communities. Other countries in Europe with similar geographical challenges have done a much better job than the UK of delivering access to mobile and broadband connectivity, and we could—and should—learn a great deal from them.

I will conclude by touching on agriculture. The economic vitality of our rural communities is underpinned by our agricultural industries and the food and drink processing and distribution sectors that derive from them. In many parts of rural Scotland, common agricultural policy support is essential to the viability of primary producers and the sustainable development of our rural areas. CAP rural development funding has played a crucial role in enabling the 52% rise in exports of food and drink since 2007, mainly by investing in the facilities and infrastructure that those businesses need to grow.

However, keeping up with our neighbours in Europe is increasingly difficult. Historically, Scotland has had low levels of CAP support relative to the area of land in agricultural use. Currently, we receive an average of €130 per hectare, compared with an EU average of €196. Within the UK, Scotland’s €130 per hectare compares with an English average of €265 per hectare, a Welsh average of €247 per hectare, and a Northern Irish average of €335 per hectare. Therefore, compared to other parts of the EU and UK, Scotland has been short changed on the CAP for a long time, putting our agricultural sector at a competitive disadvantage. In that respect, moves towards convergence are an important step in the right direction, but Scotland’s rural communities will not benefit from that process because the UK Government have decided to use the £230 million convergence uplift they received because of Scotland’s historically low levels of support to plug gaps in CAP funding elsewhere in the UK, instead of using it as intended.

By 2019, Scotland will have the lowest levels of CAP funding per hectare of any country in the EU—money that could be used to make tremendous investments in our rural communities, improve our rural environment, and support jobs and economic growth in rural areas. Scottish farmers, those living in rural areas and running rural businesses do not want special treatment, but they do want equitable treatment and parity with their neighbours in the UK and the rest of the EU.

Around 30% of Scotland’s economic output is generated by the rural economy, so the issue is critical for our future development. With better support, we could do a whole lot better and on all those issues—rural development funding, fuel costs, heating costs, postal services and broadband—the UK could, and should, be doing a lot more to support rural communities such as the one I represent. I hope Ministers will use their opportunities in the remainder of this Parliament to give the issue the priority it deserves.

12:57

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

This hugely important debate is of great interest. I often speak in debates in the House, but if I raise an issue about rural areas or rural policy, it is usually tangential or an add-on to another debate. A debate wholly about rural affairs is, therefore, hugely welcome and I am pleased to take part.

I have always lived in rural Wales. I was born on a hill farm in rural Montgomeryshire, where I have always lived, and nearly all my relations are still from there. Throughout my public life—now decades old—my interest has been the promotion of the economy of rural areas, and that involves not only farming, which was my occupation, but the recognition that rural areas must change and develop other forms of employment if they are to thrive.

The report, which was so ably presented by my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), covers a huge range of issues. One could probably speak for days on this topic, but I want to consider those areas that have an impact on my constituency. Inevitably, most of those issues are related to policy in England, but they have a big impact on Wales and particularly on my constituency. Montgomeryshire is a beautiful constituency that marches alongside another beautiful constituency in Shropshire, and many policies in mid-Wales depend on what is happening there. Wales is developing as its own nation in a great and welcome way that I support. The reality, however, is that the economy of mid-Wales is still connected and dependent on Shropshire and the west midlands, so the link between Shropshire and Montgomeryshire is important.

The four headings I want to speak on briefly relate to the cross-border issue: health care; transport infrastructure; rural community empowerment, touching on onshore wind farms; and farming, which is not covered massively in the report but is important to all of us.

The report covers the difficulty of access to health care for people living in rural areas. Strokes and heart attacks in particular require quick access, and that is problem for those living in rural areas, especially when the ambulance service is nothing like as good as it should be. Although a relatively small number of people in the west of my constituency depend on Bronglais general hospital, we depend substantially for specialist services, including obstetrics and paediatrics, on those in England, in Shropshire. A £38 million development is going ahead in Telford, which will serve my constituency of Montgomeryshire. The situation is the same in relation to orthopaedics and elective care, which are crucial.

Devolution affects how the Governments in Westminster and Wales work together. There has been a tendency, certainly with some Ministers in Wales, to want to develop a Wales solution, and that influences policy in Shropshire to the huge detriment of my constituents in Montgomeryshire. If the people developing services in Shropshire are seeking to serve their community of Shropshire, that almost inevitably points to the middle of it, which is Telford. Although the £38 million development is going ahead at Telford hospital, the area served is Shropshire and mid-Wales, so Shrewsbury should be the centre. Any sensible consideration, which looked not at two separate Governments but at the people they serve, would make investment in Shrewsbury hospital more likely. That point needs to be made here and in the National Assembly for Wales.

The second issue, which I have touched on previously, is transport infrastructure. Transport is largely devolved, but investment in cross-border issues depends on commitment from both sides of the border. There are schemes where the Welsh Government are keen to go ahead and would make the commitment to go ahead, but they require a commitment from England. When the Welsh Government are making their assessment of the value of a scheme, they know how important it is to have access to markets. From an English perspective, there is no access to markets consideration. Devolution is, therefore, resulting in schemes that would have gone ahead, because the Welsh Government want them to, falling with no prospect of going ahead at all. That is not the way devolution is supposed to work. In relation to cross-border road schemes, it is causing great disbenefit to my community. I have mentioned this on a number of occasions and I will probably do so on a number of occasions again. I hope that in the next few months, as we consider the Silk commission, we will have opportunities to return to the matter.

The third issue is tangential to the onshore wind debate. Mid-Wales and Shropshire are again linked together by the Mid Wales Connection. I should say briefly that the Mid Wales Connection takes in north Shropshire and Montgomeryshire and amounts to between 500 and 600 wind turbines on top of what is there now—there are probably more in Montgomeryshire than anywhere else. It is a monster, with about 100 miles of cable, that will completely transform the whole area. Politicians of all parties, including my two Liberal Democrats colleagues in mid-Wales, have exactly the same view as me.

[Mr Mark Williams]

indicated assent.

[Glyn Davies]

The hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) is here and is nodding in agreement, and I am sure that my opponent in the forthcoming election will be of the same view. We know the massive impact it will have and it is exactly the same for north Shropshire.

One important point is how the communities feel. Having a public meeting in Montgomeryshire is difficult to organise because people have to travel big distances and make a big effort—they cannot just walk down the road. Despite that, 1,500 people not only turned up at meetings I organised, but travelled, in 38 buses, all the way from Montgomeryshire to Cardiff to emphasise their point. They feel that their opinion has been completely sidelined. We sometimes read, usually in The Telegraph, that the Government are listening and that perhaps more weight will be given to local opinion and that there might be some change to the way in which planning policy works, but it is not happening. Rather than promises to secure favourable headlines, we want something real delivered. The people of mid-Wales and north Shropshire have a sense of hopelessness and helplessness about how central Government, both in Cardiff and in Westminster, are responding to the views of people living in cities and other urban areas by imposing something on rural areas that they do not want. We have to be very careful that we do not just look at numbers and the big populations, and ignore the opinion of rural areas.

The final point I want to touch on relates to farming. There is not a huge amount in the report on farming, but I want to touch on the impact of bovine TB on farming communities, which is not properly understood. This has always been a difficult issue for me. I have a good understanding of the farming industry, but I have always been involved in the local Wildlife Trust and understand the implications and sensitivities. We must, however, have a policy that deals with the issue. Most of my eight years at the National Assembly for Wales was spent as Chairman of the agriculture Committee. The position was that the Welsh Government wished to go ahead with a cull, but the United Kingdom did not. There was a mistake in introducing the legislation, so that did not happen. The Minister was removed and a new Government came in and pursued a vaccination policy, which is a reversal of the position here. We must consider all the ways of dealing with the issue to find the most effective and best way of going forward. If we can recognise that we must deal with the issue in the most effective way, there will not be so much sensitivity about it.

I would have liked to raise a number of other issues on farming, but I am conscious of time, so I will just mention how the levy is distributed for promoting food. The promotion of food in England and Wales depends on the levy for slaughter. A lot of the livestock in Wales is slaughtered in England, so the levy is available to the Meat and Livestock Commission in England, not Wales, so we are probably about £1 million down and at a huge disadvantage. We should look seriously at how to introduce a degree of fairness in the system for distributing the levy so that food promotion can follow where the animals are farmed and bred, rather than where they are slaughtered. In my constituency, an awful lot of animals go over the border to Shropshire to be slaughtered.

Finally, to reinforce the point made by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs earlier in the week, it is important for everybody to eat British food wherever possible. I cannot imagine anyone not wanting to eat Welsh lamb. Why go anywhere else? Why eat anything but British beef or British dairy products? It seems crazy not to do that. If we want beer, there are microbreweries dotted all over the country, and there are two in Montgomeryshire. Why import when we have wonderful stuff at home? I appeal to everybody in Britain to help our rural areas by, whenever possible, using British produce.

13:08

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) on her excellent work as Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and her very good exposé today.

My constituency is a mix of rural, semi-rural and urban. Some choose to live in the countryside, some go for more space, some were born and brought up there, but there is a real problem of rural poverty. Some of the hardest-hit areas are former mining areas, places nobody would ever have dreamt of building houses had there not been mines there. We have people from mining families who were born and brought up there, many in old terraced or social housing, and the difficulty for them is that costs escalate, it is hard to find work, transport costs are high and all the local costs, such as buying in the local shop rather than a supermarket in town, are much higher, yet their incomes are not comparable to those of the sort of people who can commute, have two cars and all the rest of it. Rural poverty is a major issue, therefore, particularly in many of the former mining areas of south and west Wales.

On social housing, in the past people were allocated rooms, bedrooms and homes on the basis of what was available in their village. I am pleased that the EFRA Committee has identified the bedroom tax as a major problem for these areas, but I am disappointed in the Government’s response, which repeats a fallacy peddled by Ministers from the Department for Work and Pensions: that a person needs only two or three hours’ work at the minimum wage to make up the £15. Worryingly, given that these are DWP Ministers, this completely misunderstands how housing benefit is calculated and the idea of clawback. Things such as housing benefit and tax credits depend on a person’s income, so extra hours do not simply equal extra income because there is a clawback; they do not get the extra housing benefit when they do the extra work, so they actually have to do an awful lot more hours, which obviously is a major problem for people in rural areas, where sometimes even getting the bus to do an extra day’s work can be almost counter-productive. Unless they do six, seven, eight hours’ work, the price of a bus, if they only do three or four hours or have a split shift, makes it completely impractical. There are some particular difficulties in rural areas, therefore, and I am pleased that we are committed to repealing the appalling legislation that has brought in the bedroom tax.

In rural areas there is very little employment. Interestingly, there was recently a campaign to keep open Pontyates fire station, which was run by retained firefighters—people who work in other jobs but get called out when there is an emergency. Obviously, whereas there used to be many miners and other people working in the villages and valleys, some of those areas now have nobody there in the daytime, because people commute out. One of the problems facing the fire station, which I am pleased to say we convinced the fire authority to keep open, is that it now needs a major recruitment campaign to identify people it can train up as retained firefighters. That is symptomatic of the lack of working-age adults in the community during the day.

That brings me to the issue of transport out of the villages and how much more difficult that is for people in rural areas. As more and more people have acquired cars, it has become even more difficult because bus services have become less and less viable. If it were not for the pensioners with their passes, some buses would not have any passengers on them. That is a major issue we have to consider, particularly when transport costs make it difficult for people to take up work opportunities.

Rural areas face much higher fuel bills—both types of fuel: the fuel people put into their vehicle, if they have one, and the fuel they use to heat their home. As hon. Members have said, there is much less choice in rural areas. If someone is not on mains gas, they cannot benefit from dual fuel deals, and many areas in my constituency are not on mains gas and so face either higher oil prices or even higher coal prices. On liquid petroleum gas, there are real problems with tied deals, where groups of houses have to order and switch at the same time, which raises competition issues. How can anyone escape from the provider they are forced to take on when they move into a property? I raised this matter with the former Member Chris Huhne and with the regulator, but it was not entirely sorted out. We need a regulator that can deal with these off-grid issues, which is something Labour is committed to doing. As was mentioned, Wales also has particularly high electricity costs—electricity usage in rural areas tends to be higher because of the lack of gas, and again, a tough new regulator could look into that and make much sharper recommendations.

I welcome Labour’s decision that the winter fuel allowance should be paid earlier, and if we get into government, we will certainly implement that proposal. It is important that people be able to buy when prices are low in the summer months and prepare for the winter, but of course, the Government have cut the winter fuel allowance—we had forgotten that. One of the very early cuts, it took £100 off the over-80s’ allowance and £50 off the over-60s’ allowance. It is a significant cut that has affected many people, particularly in rural areas, over the past few years, as prices have rocketed.

I wish to repeat my dismay at the abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board, which was supported by the Farmers Union of Wales because it provided a framework for settling disputes and enabling farmers to calculate how much to pay neighbours, friends and relatives—people it is sometimes difficult to bargain with—for the work they did. Furthermore, there was its “standard of accommodation” clause for workers working on agricultural premises. Especially disappointing have been the Government’s efforts to prevent Wales from retaining an equivalent board. Having spent £150,000 going to the Supreme Court to dispute Wales’ right to pass the byelaw legislation, they have spent more money this year going to court over the board. All this could have been easily sorted out through discussions between the Welsh Government and the Government here and need not have cost the taxpayer all that money. It is a real shame, particularly as it obviously went against the will of people in Wales.

I turn now to Royal Mail. In my Christmas visit to Royal Mail, it was interesting to learn that the big rush now takes place in November, not December, because so many people shop on the internet. The preference for internet shopping is even higher in rural areas. I was told that proportionately, more packages were going to rural areas than to urban areas, because obviously—it all makes sense—if it costs someone too much to get in the car and drive to the shops, they will be more tempted to go on the internet and pay the postage costs. But, of course, those postage costs are also an important issue for rural businesses, many of which rely on postal services, particularly where internet access is not as fast as it might be.

It is worrying, therefore, that with the privatisation of Royal Mail, we might see the erosion of the universal service obligation. Moya Greene has openly said, “Well, in Canada, a delivery once every two or three days is sufficient in rural areas.” Given that she is the head of Royal Mail, we can see the direction of travel, and it is worrying because it could affect the many rural businesses that depend on Royal Mail. The other problem is whether Royal Mail will keep its link with the post office network, because without that link, the network will be much weakened. While I welcome a recent announcement on safeguarding several rural post offices in my constituency, others have not benefited from any safeguard.

Whatever issue we are considering, right across the board, it is important to think about the impact on people in rural areas. We must continue, time and again, to look at how to decentralise our employment opportunities—whether it be through better broadband or investment in small villages and communities— and we must not let everything become centralised. Decentralisation is the key to building more prosperous rural communities.

13:20

[Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)]

It is a privilege to be called in this debate, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for providing the opportunity and, of course, the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), the Chair of the Select Committee, for her report. Many Members with Welsh constituencies, as well as friends from Scotland and, of course, Cornwall, are present today, so the Celtic nations are well represented here. Speaking as a Welsh Member, I note that many areas of the Select Committee report relate to the responsibilities of our National Assembly Government—and rightly so—but there are some specific issues relating to UK Government responsibility that I shall also mention.

One of the messages in the Select Committee report is about rural education, which will resonate in the communities of Dihewyd, Llanafan and Llanddewi Brefi in my constituency, whose village schools are under threat. Another issue is funding for rural health care, which affects the Cardigan and Bronglais hospitals in my constituency. There will be a huge public meeting in Aberystwyth tomorrow night on the challenges of delivering rural health care. There is thus huge commonality between the issues identified in England and in Wales.

Let me deal with the specific issue of the derogation of rural fuel duty and some of the experiences we have had—or, rather, not had—in Ceredigion in trying to get included in the list of areas to be considered for it. As the Select Committee report notes, those who live in a rural area are likely to travel 10,000 miles a year, whereas those who live in urban areas travel 6,400 miles. That, along with poor access to public transport, means that our cars are a necessity, not a luxury. There is simply no other means of getting around, as the hon. Members for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) and for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) both argued: there is simply no alternative. A single rail line comes into the top of Ceredigion, passing through beautiful Montgomeryshire and the beautiful parts of my constituency, ending in Aberystwyth, which is very much the end of the line. There are no other rail lines across the constituency and we have somewhat fragmented bus routes. There is no choice other than having a car for oneself and one’s family, so the cost of fuel has a huge impact on household expenditure. As the Select Committee report also notes, average expenditure on transport accounts for 17.7% of total expenditure for rural residents, compared with 14.5% for urban residents.

The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan talked about travel costs to work. The Countryside Alliance did some useful work, and I am pleased to see in his place the hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart)—whatever his association with it. The Countryside Alliance showed that in Ceredigion, people were travelling 540 miles a month just to get to work. We are not talking about a little trip around the corner; we can be talking about long distances and round trips of 100 miles a day across large rural areas. That has been recognised in part by our Government, who have abolished the fuel duty escalator, made cuts at the pump of 20p a litre—over and above what the previous Government were planning—during the last three and a half years and frozen fuel duty, which has been welcomed.

The Government have talked specifically about the challenges of living in rural areas. My party has long supported proposals for a rural fuel duty rebate from the EU, and I am glad that the Government said in their response to the report that they would consider extending it. Indeed, when questioned on the issue at the end of the comprehensive spending review statement on 5 December, the Chancellor said:

“We would like to extend the scheme more widely, but we are constrained by European Union rules, which we are challenging.”—[Official Report, 5 December 2013; Vol. 571, c. 1123.]

I very much welcome that. It was immensely frustrating when, on 1 August, the Treasury set the wheels in motion to gather data from different areas, but my county of Ceredigion was not included. There was a lack of clarity about the collection of that data, which the hon. Member for Ynys Môn mentioned. I have been disappointed by the breadth of evidence being gathered and by the lack of clarity about how it was to be collected.

A call for evidence went out, although I am not sure whether it was directed at the retailers themselves, at county councils, at the Welsh Assembly Government or at the Scottish Government. It was so unclear that I took on the initiative myself in my constituency and contacted all 27 fuel stations, trying to gather data that could then be submitted on their behalf during the allotted time frame. I did that, despite not being included in the list. Very late in the day, the Treasury said it would welcome any data for Ceredigion, but there was this lack of clarity, as I say. When the list was published by the Treasury, 10 areas in the UK were included, seven of them in Scotland, one in North Devon, another in Yorkshire and the other in Cumbria—sadly, none in Wales.

Then, in November last year, we had an unexpected second call for evidence, which this time included additional criteria—not just price, as before, but additional criteria about population density. I was confident that Ceredigion could be included because it is sparse, with 147 communities scattered across a large area and 600 farming families. We could meet those criteria. The additional part, however, was that it did not allow for data gathered from an area situated 100 miles from an oil refinery.

If we look at the location of oil refineries, we find them on Merseyside and in south Wales, for example. There is Milford Haven, and the hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) will recollect that the Select Committee visited the refinery there. That criterion automatically excludes Wales from consideration, giving rise to the question why in the initial consultation there was a call for evidence from the good counties of Gwynedd, Powys, Monmouthshire and the Isle of Anglesey.

In response to questions to the Treasury and to Wales Office colleagues, it has been asserted that the criterion has been directed from Europe. I remain unclear about its origins. However, if, as the Chancellor says, we are constrained by European Union rules, I am confident that our Government will challenge them robustly to encourage the breadth of the scheme. On the other hand, might this be not so much an EU instruction as the Treasury’s interpretation of what is more likely to be successful? If that is the case, I understand it, but it does not address the many concerns we have about rural areas. I believe that the criteria being pursued are too tight and too much focused on proximity to an oil refinery. Ceredigion is an incredibly sparse area. I have no doubt that the initial criteria used the first time the Government applied to gain the derogation for the islands in west Cornwall, the Isles of Scilly, and for the Scottish islands were appropriate. I have frequently been to the Scillies, so I understand the cost of transporting fuel by boat from Penzance over to the solitary pump in St Mary’s. I understand the criteria used there, but I hope that in this new round and for future rounds, we can be much more flexible so that the large tracts of rural England represented here today, rural parts of Scotland and rural Wales can be included.

It may not sound like it, but I commend the Government for what they have done so far. We waited a long time. I remember sitting in Westminster Hall debates in the last Parliament making the case for rural fuel derogation; we did not get very far and we have not gone far enough. We have certainly not gone far enough if we look at the proportion of income being spent, as the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) reminded us, on travelling to work, taking children to school, going to the dreaded supermarket because the village shop or the post office shut some years ago or getting a friend to drive to a pub elsewhere because the local pub shut some time ago. Those are the challenges that face my communities. I hope that the scheme can be extended to encompass large parts of rural Wales.

This has been a good debate in which, as ever, we have observed a huge amount of commonality between different parts of United Kingdom. Let me give two anecdotal examples from my constituency. The first concerns a couple whom I met in the village of Penrhiwllan. They were forced to decide whether it was more worth their while to pay an extra fiver to get Tesco to deliver their shopping to them, or to pay for petrol so that they could take the car and do it themselves. The second concerns a farmer who was required to submit his VAT return to HMRC online. Of course, he had no internet provision, so he rang HMRC and asked whether he could submit it on paper. HMRC said yes, and he did not expect to receive the £100 fine that was subsequently delivered to him. He had no alternative: HMRC advised him to submit his return from a library in future, but he would have to travel many miles to find a library in Ceredigion.

Let me end by making a more general point. We should put ourselves in the place of people who move into our village communities in Wales. Will someone who has a young family and is lucky enough to have a job, go and live in a village if the school, post office, pub or shop has shut, if public transport is minimal, and if he cannot afford to put petrol in his tank? That is the reality for many of us in rural parts of Britain.

13:30

[Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)]

I want to change the tone slightly, because many of the points I wanted to make have already been made by other Members.

As we all know, “rural communities” is a broad term that covers many issues. It is easy to envisage every rural community in an idyllic picture-book setting, and admittedly that is true of my constituency—now that you are in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, we can go back to saying that ours are the most beautiful constituencies; Mr Deputy Speaker has left, so he cannot tell us off—but no matter how desirable my constituency and, no doubt, many others may be, they face challenges that are very different from those faced by inner-city areas.

I was born and bred in High Peak, and grew up in a rural community. When I was elected to this place, I moved to London and lived in a city for the first time. I am not ashamed to admit that, and indeed in many ways I appreciate High Peak even more when I go home on a Thursday evening or a Friday. Living in a city during the week—as all Members do—made me realise how many things are much more available than they are in rural areas.

Examples have been given today by Members in all parts of the House, one of which is public transport. I know that a bus will arrive every five or 10 minutes in the city, whereas in High Peak they are nowhere near as frequent. Another example is broadband. Urban areas have superfast broadband and fibre but rural areas do not, and the potential impact of that is huge, as I have often observed in the House. I consider broadband to be the fourth utility, because it is vital to businesses. That is of concern to me in High Peak, because broadband can not only attract new businesses into the area to create employment, but enable us to retain the businesses that we already have.

Another example is the cost of fuel. I applaud the Government for what they have done with fuel duty, because, as others have pointed out, a car is not a luxury but a necessity in rural areas.

I have made many of those points in other debates, so I shall not expand on them on this occasion. Let me instead say something about the power of rural communities, and what people within them can achieve when they come together and work together. High Peak contains many rural communities, and every one of them has a tale to tell. Good things are happening throughout the constituency. I could stand here and talk about all of them for the entire length of the debate, but as I am conscious of the time, I shall focus on just two .

The village of Furness Vale sits in the middle of my constituency, between the larger towns of New Mills and Whaley Bridge. It contains a football field that has been close to the hearts of the local community for many years, but is not level and has had dreadful drainage problems. People have wondered what to do about that for a long time.

Six years ago, some of the villagers got together and decided to make the field usable again, so that it could benefit the community. They formed a group called Furness Community Organising Green Space, or COGS, with the aim of turning a dream into a reality. They approached the local authority, the county council and me; they consulted local residents; they had plans drawn up; they worked out a budget; and they even produced a 3D model of what the field would look like eventually. They encountered some difficulties along the way—there was, for instance, an obstacle involving land use notifications—but they stuck at it, and, as a result of their own tenacity and their work with elected representatives at all levels, an outbreak of common sense enabled them to keep their dream alive.

The group’s aim, stated on its website, is simple: it is

“to provide a much needed recreational and sporting facility that can be used all year round”.

Last June COGS was awarded £50,000 by Sport England, which provided a huge boost. Moreover, the field has now been granted QE2 status, which means that it will be protected for ever. Through its work, its fundraising, its energy and its commitment, the group has made a huge amount of progress. I am proud of those people, and I want to place on record my tribute to the way in which they came together as volunteers. That is the power of the rural community as we have seen it working in Furness Vale.

At the other end of my constituency is the village of Bamford, which is in the Hope valley and is part of the Peak District national park. It is a truly beautiful village. In Bamford sat an empty pub, the Anglers Rest, which was put up for sale. Fearing that the pub would be sold to developers and redeveloped, a group of residents formed the Bamford Community Society with the aim of securing its future by bringing it into community ownership. At the time, the post office was looking for a new home. The BCS saw an opportunity to bring the post office into a newly operating Anglers Rest and help to make it a viable proposition.

The BCS used the Localism Act 2011 to register the pub as an asset of community value, which gave it time to work towards purchasing it from its current owners, Admiral Taverns. Like COGS, it developed a business plan. It launched a share issue, and embarked on discussions with the Post Office about the transfer of the local branch to the newly opened Anglers Rest. I met the group’s members, looked at their plans, and listened to what they had to say. It was apparent that a great deal of work and thought had gone into their business plan, which had been professionally prepared. The share issue among the villagers raised nearly £200,000, which, along with some further finance, made the purchase of the pub a reality.

At the eleventh hour there was a hiccup that threatened the whole deal, but I am glad to say that we managed to work around it, and the pub was duly purchased in the autumn. A few things had to be pulled out of the fire, but again, following discussions between the BCS, Admiral Taverns and me, an element of common sense broke out, and the post office will be opening in the Anglers Rest soon. This week saw a development that appeared to be problematic as recently as yesterday, but that difficulty was ironed out as well.

I pay tribute to Post Office Ltd, which, following rapid discussions over the last 48 hours between its representative Adrian Wales, representatives of the BSC and me, considered its position and, despite recognising that the project might involve problems, concluded that having a branch in the Anglers Rest could be of advantage to it. I must emphasise, to be fair to the Post Office, that it has done the right thing, gone the extra mile, and made this project possible.

So, yet again, the power of the community has yielded great results. The big companies, Admiral Taverns and Post Office, have seen the potential benefits of the project, and—after their initial hesitation and, it may be said, some mistakes—adopted a flexible approach. They are dealing with the community, and they have played their part in making the dream of the Bamford Community Society a reality. I pay tribute to the residents of Bamford, as I paid tribute to those in Furness Vale, for all their efforts: they have provided us with a fantastic example.

We have heard a great deal today about the challenges facing rural communities, and I agree with most of what has been said about, for instance, fuel, access, roads and transport. However, I have made numerous comments about those issues in the past. What we must never underestimate is the feeling of community in rural areas. As I said at the outset, I was born and bred in a rural area, and I know that better than anyone. The power of the rural community has ensured that the Yeardsley Lane playing field in Furness is being improved and remains available to all, and that is thanks to the community of Furness Vale. The Anglers Rest in Bamford is saved, the village post office will open soon, and the new café that operates in the Anglers Rest during the day is going great guns. That, too, is thanks to the local community.

On occasions such as this it is very easy for elected representatives to clamour for the opportunity to bask in the reflected limelight, but we should never forget that the progress made in those two instances was due to the enthusiasm, work, drive and commitment of a local community. Nowhere are the power, drive and potential of a rural community more apparent than in the two areas in the High Peak about which I have spoken today.

13:39

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

May I add my congratulations to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee on its work on this report and the issues it raises? I cannot deny that I am slightly underwhelmed by the turnout in the Chamber this afternoon. The manifestos of all the political parties have always over the past few years stressed the importance we attach to rural communities and rural voters. When we have an opportunity to express that support, albeit on a one-line Whip Thursday, I think we should all reflect on the fact that we mustered a maximum of 15 Members—I could probably have fitted them into my office—and at our worst, at the moment, about 11, and at least 50% of the representation has come from Wales, as has been said. It is important to have debates such as this, however, because minorities are important and the fact that the rural community represents a small voice at times—and a numerically small one when it comes to elections—is all the more reason we should treat it with the greatest respect, and with enhanced respect in our political deliberations in this Chamber.

I want to touch on a few matters that I have extracted from the report and which to some extent are treated differently in Wales thanks to the devolution settlement, but first I want to comment briefly on the definitions that are tucked away in an appendix towards the back of the report. The definition of “rural areas” we would have come up with 20 years ago would have been very different from the current definition. That is in part down to the fact that there is no longer an area we can describe as exclusively or truly rural, any more than we can describe an area of London as exclusively urban. The fact is that we have a much more dynamic population that spends a lot of its time, if it possibly can, in other areas. The—almost geographical—line that used to exist separating city centre from suburb and suburb from countryside does not really exist any longer and we need to be very careful not to isolate elements of the community and describe them as being different from other parts. That contributes to what can be an unhelpful element of this debate, when people say, for instance, “Townspeople do not understand us” and some sort of cultural distinction is drawn between those who live in the countryside and derive their living from it and those who love and respect the countryside and wish to visit it from time to time. If through our loose use of words in this Chamber we create a distinction between those two valuable contributors to the rural economy, we will do ourselves harm rather than good.

The first subject I want to discuss is broadband, which all contributors have mentioned. It is seen as almost essential when people are buying or renting their house that it has a decent electricity or gas supply, and estate and letting agents say that one of the first things a client will now do when walking into a house is look at their mobile phone and see what the reception is like and ask what the broadband provision is like, and if it is not up to the standard they expect or require there is a pretty good chance they will look at other properties instead.

The role of BT and the broadband roll-out has been mentioned, and the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen), who is not in his place, rightly pointed out that the situation is slightly different in Wales. We need from BT, through the relevant Minister, a little clarity about exactly what criteria BT is applying to its roll-out because that is not immediately obvious to the average customer and voter. This is not a selfish request, and there is also the encouraging news that in Wales the 100,000th household has been connected to superfast broadband this week, so thumbs-up to the Government for having achieved that milestone. The clarity we require from BT is not a selfish request because we want to enable those people who may be further down the priority list and who may not be due superfast roll-out for a number of years to make sensible decisions in investing in alternative providers, whether wireless or satellite. At present they feel restricted in doing that because they do not know where they sit in the list of BT priorities. A perfectly straightforward and justified commercial interest is being expressed by businesses across the UK and, I suspect, especially in Wales: that they should be able to make some sensible decisions based on BT being a little more open about its criteria. For BT to cite commercial sensitivities as a reason not to do that—as I believe it has done—is not a satisfactory answer because it creates a two-tier society, particularly in Wales, with those who know they are going to get it and know when they are going to get it and those who have absolutely no idea and have no idea how much they can spend on alternative provisions.

The hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) and I have previously exchanged comments in the Chamber and Westminster Hall about mobile phones because it does seem ludicrous that in parts of our two constituencies we seem to be somewhat behind the Alps, Norway, parts of Africa and, indeed, Kazakhstan in people being able to communicate with one another via mobiles. Again, this is not about kids being able to have a laugh by texting each other; it is about sensible, commercial, contemporary requirements. Indeed, the emergency services are a whole lot more dependent on decent mobile coverage for providing the protection we expect from them than they were five or 10 years ago. Mobile fingerprinting machines will not even work in certain parts of rural Wales because there is not a mobile signal to support them. This is not about luxuries, therefore; it is about an everyday essential commercial requirement for people going about the sorts of businesses we want and need and providing the services that keep us safe. There are economic consequences of our lacking the mobile coverage that in other countries is seen to be absolutely standard.

I have been raising for some time the topic of planning and affordable housing, particularly in the context of the national parks. In a Westminster Hall debate just before Christmas I raised the problem of affordable housing provision in my own national park on the basis that the affordable housing subsidy—a policy that is not universal across all national parks in the UK, but is certainly adopted by some—was acting as a deterrent to people developing affordable housing, rather than encouraging it. I am pleased to say that that has resulted in an internal review of this policy by Pembrokeshire coast national park. It accepts that the policy has not worked as well as it would like and that there was a distinction between rural and urban, and, most encouragingly, this month it is engaging with all rural stakeholders and interested stakeholders in my area to see if the policy can be improved so that the landscape can be enhanced and protected at the same time as kick-starting the currently flagging affordable housing building and provision in the county. The message, therefore, is a thumbs-up and full marks to Pembrokeshire coast national park for recognising in the first instance that there was a problem and, secondly, for doing something about it, not through its own auspices but by inviting all those in the area with an interest in this topic to engage in a process. I hope other Members will take some encouragement from that and perhaps try to persuade their own national parks to undertake a similar exercise if there is a similar problem, because that returns influence and power to the communities where it should be held and where these decisions can have a huge benefit if decided correctly—or a huge negative impact if not.

My penultimate subject is fuel and fuel costs. Other Members have made quite a lot of this, but one point has not yet, I think, been mentioned: the steady decline in the number of filling stations in rural areas over several years. Slowly but surely where there was once one five miles away there is now one 10 miles away or even 15 miles away, and each and every closure not only imposes greater expense and inconvenience on rural communities, but some other services often go, too—a shop, or an outlet where people can buy their gas canisters or whatever. This has been another little difficulty layered on top of all the other difficulties of living in rural areas.

When we talk about rural-proofing, we sometimes overlook the fact that Treasury decisions on fuel duty for independent fuel retailers can have a disproportionately hard-hitting effect on rural areas. I believe that, at present, the duty is payable within 28 days of the moment the fuel leaves the refinery. A small independent fuel retailer in a rural area will therefore have to fork out a significant amount—80% of the value of the load—before they have a chance to sell any of it on to the customer. Consequently, they are uncompetitive. They place small orders, and their supplies often run out when the weather is bad. This can contribute to a delicate and fragile situation with regard to fuel resilience.

That problem could easily be rectified by altering the date by which the fuel duty became payable. The Treasury would be no worse off, and the independent fuel retailers in rural areas would be much more competitive. They could buy more, and they could compete better against the bigger suppliers. To coin a phrase, everyone would be a winner. I wonder whether the Minister or anyone else here today could persuade the Treasury to do that in a way that came as close as possible to being cost neutral. I suspect that that is a matter for the Department rather than for those on the Back Benches. Such a change would make a significant difference to the ability of those independent retailers to run sustainable businesses and support rural communities.

Almost no legislation is passed here or in the House of Lords that does not have a significant consequence for rural dwellers. We might not think that that is the case, but it almost invariably is. As I said earlier, there is no longer a big black line between rural and urban communities; we are not as diverse a society as we once were in that respect. I urge the Government to pay as much attention as they can—perhaps even more than they already do—to the unintended consequences of their legislation on rural communities. Fuel duty is but one example; there are countless others.

The latest statistic I have seen suggests that rural Members of Parliament represent only 2% of the electorate, but we represent a great deal more than 2% of the national value of the UK, and of Wales in particular. We rightly champion rural communities and rural landscapes, but when it comes to double-checking and rural-proofing the legislation that affects them, we sometimes fall short of the standards that we should attain. I hope that the Government will refocus their attention on the unintended consequences of their legislation.

The Government’s commitment to doing things for rural Britain, rather than to rural Britain, is largely welcome. I was pleased to hear the examples from my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Andrew Bingham) just now; he illustrated how things can go well. We are all accused of moaning like mad and complaining about everything, but there are lots of success stories in rural Britain at the moment, even if some of them are happening despite the Government rather than because of them. By and large, we can commend the EFRA Select Committee for the balanced way in which it has addressed these issues, and commend the Government for the progress they have made so far.

13:53

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

It is a great privilege to be able to speak in the debate. I represent Salisbury, which I always think of as a constituency of two halves: one half is a suburban area; the other is full of rural communities. The two work closely together. I echo the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart). He hit the nail on the head when he said that it is unhelpful to make too clear a distinction between the interests of rural and urban communities.

I want to focus today on the challenges to rural businesses. Those businesses in Salisbury and south Wiltshire are growing, and they form a vibrant and wholly necessary part of the economy, which is now doing better. The jobs that they provide are also really welcomed by members of the local community. Those people tell me that the most significant challenge they face is what the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee report calls a “key barrier to growth” for the rural economy—namely, the lack of superfast broadband provision. As other Members have said, it is no longer a luxury but a necessity for everyday life, and certainly for everyday business life.

Significant challenges relating to flows of information have still not been overcome. We wholly welcome the substantial investment to ensure that 95% of households will have access to superfast broadband, but there is a real sense of frustration among those in the most rural parts of my constituency about when that is going to happen and whether they will be included. If they will not be included, what alternatives exist?

I want to mention the Dun Valley Broadband Group, a well organised and well motivated group located primarily around the village of Pitton. Members of the group first approached me more than six months ago, when they were unsure whether they would fall within the zone or which phase of the roll-out they would be included in. We have had meetings with Wiltshire council, which has been excellent in trying to move things forward and pressing BT for more clarity. The maps and the postcode check-up have been mentioned today, but we have found them quite inadequate for identifying specific communities. People do not want general answers about 95% coverage; they want specific information on whether they will be able to access superfast broadband and when they will be able to do so. Those communities that are unable to access it want to be able to take steps to move forward with alternatives. This particular group has been working with Gigaclear, a wholly commercial scheme, and it has been challenged to reach a certain threshold of applicants.

As the report states, the biggest challenge faced by smaller companies is the ability to meet up-front costs. I am also concerned about the challenge to poorer households that fall outside the 95%. What will they do if a well motivated group reaches the threshold for alternative provision that is outside the protection of the regulator in regard to the escalation of costs in subsequent years? They will have no option but to sign up and go along with the alternative provision that the rest of the community has put in place.

My hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) suggested that we should start by concentrating on the communities with the greatest eligibility. I am not an expert on these matters, but I would urge caution with regard to the “spidering out” process. As I understand it, BT will work out the logical location for hubs, stations and bases. If any of that were then skewed according to deviations of speed within those communities, there could be a massive escalation in costs, which could undermine the end result for the community.

The information flows should be improved, so that communities can get organised and find alternatives. It is important that those who are outside the current intervention areas should have access to a superfast service, but that must not be at the expense of those who cannot afford to pay an additional subsidy. If the smaller schemes are to be commercially viable and accessible to the whole population, we need to look at how public subsidy can effectively address the initial costs for small businesses and poorer rural householders.

The other thing I wish to mention is my concern about the plans to extend to 95% coverage for superfast broadband by 2017. My local authority is concerned about not wasting time planning for that when there is a lack of clarity about whether and when the money will be delivered, and how it will be delivered. Wiltshire council has invested considerable time and money in an outstanding programme, but it wants clarity about what is going to happen. It is keen to extend its existing contract arrangements with BT so that it can bring more households into the remit of the roll-out, but it does not want to spend hours of council time and lots of resources on tendering, and it does not want to spend months dealing with the state aid issues and so on. We need to ensure real clarity and that things do not get lost in conversations which seem to go quiet when we get within 12 months of a general election. We must be clear about what local authorities can expect until 2017, so that rural communities in my part of Wiltshire know what is going to happen.

There is no doubt that local authorities and villages are working hard to secure superfast broadband. It will be the measure of the Government’s success or otherwise when going into the next election. Small businesses will not be able to function reliably without it. If they need to transfer lots of data to clients abroad or in London, there must be no doubt about the quality of the provision in their rural business. I welcome the steps that have been taken so far, but I hope that the Minister will address the point about the resources that will be available. I hope that he will also address improved information flows and the point made earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire about commercial confidence and sensitivities, which prevent a good deal of progress from being made in the most rural areas. I hope we can ensure that this happens because this is all that rural businesses want to talk to me about, and I am anxious to ensure that we deliver.

14:02

[David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)]

I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for facilitating this debate, and I recognise the important work done by my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) and her Committee, which enables us to have this debate. It is much appreciated, because rural life is vital. It is a mix of tradition and innovation, and it is such a distinctive part of English and British culture. We need to protect and nurture it. Most importantly, all of us here, and the Government in their work, need to enable it to thrive and flourish for decades to come.

One of the greatest privileges in my role is working with rural communities, from prime Cheshire dairy farms to those in the hills of the Peak district; there are real contrasts in such a beautiful part of the world, which adjoins the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Andrew Bingham). I hold regular farmers forums with the Macclesfield branch of the National Farmers Union. The work that our farmers do is essential. Despite the fact that their number has been declining in recent decades, it is clear that they punch well above their weight in ensuring that our communities thrive and flourish, and we need to support them. To have a vibrant future, we need to ensure that these communities are able to innovate and diversify to seize the opportunities before them. That is what this debate is about: making sure that we can shape the future, as that will be vital.

Last year, I was able to participate in four fell races. I needed to do that because the work we do here is not particularly conducive to physical fitness. I also thought I would do what I could to support local community events. The Wincle trout run is to be commended, with its 350 participating runners each getting a trout at the end of the race—so there is an added incentive if anyone wants to participate. I should also mention the Macclesfield sheep dog trials, which also has a wonderful fell race. The organisation that runs it is wonderful and I am proud to be a supporter, although the race is particularly gruelling. All the events in which I participated brought home to me the fact that even our traditional village fêtes are adapting to new trends, and to increased interest in physical and outdoor activities, and how important physical pursuits are to our rural communities. I co-chair the all-party group on mountaineering—I will avoid doing the usual thing of saying that it is the summit of all APPGs. I draw hon. Members’ attention to the register of interests for APPGs, and to the benefits of rural diversification and of getting involved with these vital outdoor pursuits, be it walking, fell running, climbing, mountaineering, cycling or kayaking.

[Andrew Bingham]

May I politely remind my hon. Friend that he has forgotten potholing? He and I went down a pothole some time ago, at which point he managed to get me stuck. I would like to thank him for that publicly.

[David Rutley]

I was not going to draw attention to that memorable event, but it is true that potholing is another outdoor pursuit that should be remembered.

It is a privilege for me to be able to work with these organisations, be it the Outdoor Industries Association or the British Mountaineering Council. The economic benefits of these pursuits are clear. The Ramblers organisation has recently produced evidence to support that, which says that in 2010 alone £7.2 billion was spent on visiting the countryside. In England walkers spend about £6 billion a year and thus support 245,000 jobs in the rural community. The figures are staggering, and the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs recently reminded the Oxford farming conference that in rural England £33 billion is spent on tourism, which accounts for 14% of employment and more than 10% of businesses.

So the contribution made by these outdoor pursuits should not go unnoticed; it should be encouraged. These pursuits have health and well-being benefits, not only for me when I participate in the occasional fell race. It is clear that physical inactivity is one of the public health challenges faced by this country. It leads to long-term health conditions; it is estimated that 37,000 premature deaths result from this lack of activity; and it costs the NHS and the wider community about £10 billion a year. So real action is required, and this is a good debate in which to point to that.

Let me give some examples. The Britain on Foot campaign, brought about by the Outdoor Industries Association, in conjunction with the National Trust, the Ramblers and all the other organisations I have talked about, is helping to draw attention to the need to get active outdoors. The GREAT campaign, being taken forward by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, VisitBritain and VisitEngland, also helps to draw attention to our great outdoors, which is a part of our tourism mix. Sadly, it is under-appreciated by visitors from overseas, as it is sometimes by visitors from home. We could be supporting a vast array of other local initiatives, be they, as in my case, the Bollington walking festival or other such festivals across the country. Walkers are Welcome does vital work in trying to accredit local communities and welcome walkers in. The Peak District national park also provides walks for many people to access and enjoy. The Ramblers organisation has highlighted the case for the English coastal path. I know that Wales has benefited significantly from such a path, as have the communities along it. We in England need to take steps forward to ensure that our coastal communities get similar benefits.

Thinking a little more radically, there is a case for clinical commissioning groups and our general practitioners to recognise the role that walking plays and, on occasion, to prescribe walking for people as a way for them to improve their life; I agree that it may be difficult for grumpy teenagers, but there is a case to be made for encouraging more people to do this. I very much hope that in the year ahead we can make significant progress on walking and connecting that to our rural communities, just as the cycling lobby has been very successfully doing over the past couple of years. It has to be commended, and I support that fully, but we now need to get to the next level and bring that to walking, which is an important and sustainable form of transport.

[Albert Owen]

The hon. Gentleman rightly highlights walking and the coastal paths in Wales. Many voluntary organisations have taken things a step further and are merging with health bodies and local health groups. They are going “from the couch to the 5K” and are training people. These organisations have obesity, health and fitness in mind, and they are going that step further, whether we are talking about walking or running.

[David Rutley]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that point. He spoke eloquently earlier, and I know that he feels passionately about these issues, too. We need to get behind these things, because not only are they good for society, for residents and for our citizens, but they are vital to our rural communities.

I want to say a few words about broadband. From having helped to prop up the back of a fell race, I know that it is not great to be left behind, and when we look at what is going on in our rural communities, particularly the isolated ones, we find that there is a sense that they are getting left behind. That is particularly the case in one of the most important parts of our infrastructure in the digital age—broadband. We have to make sure that it is provided across our communities, including in the rural areas. That was brought home to me recently when I was in the not-so rural area of Tytherington—the part of Macclesfield in which I live. For two days, I had no access to broadband. I could not do my work, access banking accounts, or keep in touch with friends and family, and my children could not do their homework. Broadband is now such a fundamental part of our everyday life that it just has to be made available to people.

When I was campaigning in Gawsworth recently, broadband was the issue raised at every other door—it was not the health service or the local economy. Everybody was saying, “What are you doing to improve rural broadband?” We all need to wake up to that concern in our rural communities. I recognise the work that the Government are doing in this area and that the Connecting Cheshire partnership and the council are doing in my part of the world. Along with my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen), I encourage Ministers to accelerate the pace of the roll-out wherever possible. They should also make it clear where the roll-out will take place next, so that people can plan and prepare for what might take place and then be clearer about where the not spots are. Those communities that will not be part of the roll out will need to be able to work out what solutions are available to them.

I was encouraged to hear from my hon. Friend about the community-led solutions that are available in his part of the world. Since I have been working for communities in the Macclesfield area, I have been staggered by the lack of information out there—the lack of case studies and other best practice that is available for these communities. There is an important role for BT, Government and local authorities to communicate on what community-led solutions are available, and I urge them to do that as soon as possible.

As I am on my soap box, I will make one final point about rural broadband. If internet service providers such as BT charge for a particular broadband scheme and businesses or households receive a substantially slower speed than is advertised, it is down to the internet service providers to improve the quality of the service or revisit their pricing tariffs. Our rural communities should not be taken advantage of in that way. They should not be sold a product and then not receive the speeds that they have been promised.

In conclusion, there are some fantastic and vibrant opportunities out there. My hon. Friend the Member for High Peak highlighted the power of rural communities. I cannot add anything to what he said; he made his speech incredibly well. The opportunities are about diversification, and outdoor pursuits are an important part of that. Innovation is critical, whether it is through encouraging entrepreneurialism among our local rural businesses or even in public services. The area between Port Shrigley and Bollington St John’s, for example, is home to a great federation of small local schools. We must be innovative in the way that we provide local services in a cost-effective way. The future must be underpinned by proper infrastructure and proper and adequate funding that recognises sparsity, which comes back to the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton.

I support the principles that are being put forward on both sides of the House today. I hope that through the efforts in this debate, we can help shape and provide a future for our rural communities in the decades to come.

14:12

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to take part in this excellent and wide-ranging debate. There have been experienced and knowledgeable contributions from all Members who have taken part. I thank the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, under the sterling stewardship of the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), for its sixth report on rural communities. There are 143 pages of recorded evidence—written and oral—from, among others, the Rural Coalition, the County Councils Network, BT, the Dispensing Doctors Association, Calor Gas, the Consumers Association, the Plunkett Foundation and all other groups with strong rural interests. It is a thorough piece of work that should be commended.

This has been a good debate, and I want to touch briefly on some of the contributions. First, the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton summed up all the matters raised in the sixth report, which was a real tour de force, and I will return to some of them in a moment. Interestingly, her proposal for an annual debate on rural communities received good feedback from all parts of the House. In fact, there has been a great deal of support for it in the Chamber today. I am sure that you, Madam Deputy Speaker, will have noticed that, as will have the Leader of the House and the Minister. It is certainly something that we would support in line with other good debates we have on matters such as fisheries.

Let me turn to the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen). I can vouch for the beauty of his constituency, which he waxed lyrical about. It is second only to the beautiful hidden gem of the sources of the Rivers Ogmore and Llynfi and the surrounding acres of heaven.

My hon. Friend mentioned the fact that transmission costs of energy are much higher in rural areas such as north-west Wales. He also talked about off-grid energy costs. More than 126,000 people in Wales rely on off-grid energy, and they are not all in areas that we would customarily regard as peripherally rural. They are often in mining communities such as my own. I pay tribute to him for championing these off-grid energy issues for many years.

Like other Members, my hon. Friend raised the issue of petrol rebates. He made the interesting observation that the rebates seem to be going to those areas that are of a particular colour on the political map of this country. I am sure that that will change over time with his strong representations.

The hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) spoke well for his constituents and highlighted the fact that poverty and deprivation can be hidden behind this idyllic rural image of thatched cottages and leafy lanes, or even, as he mentioned, hedge-fund millionaires’ mansions. He also talked about the additional costs of living in rural areas and of accessing services and said that 20% more is spent on everyday goods than in urban areas. That theme was picked up by other Members including the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford), who also mentioned petrol costs.

The hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies) —we had a lot of Celts here today from the Celtic fringes, from the south-west of England, through Wales and elsewhere—talked about the costs of providing rural services such as health in places like Powys and the need for good cross-border work on this and on other aspects such as transport. I certainly subscribe to such a view as my wife works for the NHS in Powys. It is a very real issue.

The hon. Gentleman also talked interestingly about a potential review of the red meat levy and how it is properly allocated around the regions and nations of the UK. He recognised, though, the good work that is done centrally. His call on that matter is timely, and hopefully the Minister will have heard him.

My hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) powerfully reminded us that some rural communities, including my own, were previously at the heart of the industrial and extractive industries such as steel and coal. Curiously, they are often missed from these debates on rural areas. In a fairly short time frame, those areas have been exposed to all the problems characteristic of rural isolation and peripherality, so it is good to see them strongly represented today.

My hon. Friend also picked up on the abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board, which was opposed in Wales not just by Labour but by the National Farmers Union in Wales, the Federation of Young Farmers and others, but I suspect that that matter is for another day. She also touched on the fears over the long-term future of rural post office deliveries and the link between Royal Mail and the health of the post office network.

The hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) spoke well for his constituents, but was slightly derogatory about the fact that his area had not been included in the rural derogation for petrol proposals, and a few other Members picked up on that, and put in pitches for their area as well. He also talked about the additional costs of living in rural areas.

No one has talked specifically about the research that has been done to show the additional cost of food in rural areas, which was mentioned in the report. I am sure the Minister will remark on that matter when he comes to speak. The hon. Member for High Peak (Andrew Bingham) talked about the power of rural communities to come together to help and protect each other. It reminds me of much of the co-operative movement or even, dare I say it, the old slogan used by Labour and the union movement, which says, “In unity is strength.”

The hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) observed that the numbers in the Chamber were not as high as we would all like. Perhaps they will be in future debates. We may be in few in number, but we are among the best. He summed up well the false and dangerous metaphorical wall that we put up around “rural” issues and communities. In fact, the health and wealth of our cities, market towns, hamlets or crofts and all points in between are seamlessly interwoven, a point also made by the hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen).

The hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire mentioned in closing that 2% had been suggested as the proportion of the electorate represented by rural MPs. I would challenge that, as it depends on how we define rurality. As I said earlier, a wide range of rural issues also affect places with industrial parts. My area is 20 miles from the M4 corridor and the main south Wales rail network, yet it has issues with off-grid energy, rurality, isolation and so on.

The hon. Member for Salisbury talked about the roll-out of superfast broadband and said that it would be the measure of success as the election approached. At that point, I looked across and I am sure that I saw the Minister gulp. I know that he is not at all worried about it—[Interruption.] The Minister is indicating from a sedentary position that he was smiling.

The hon. Member for Macclesfield (David Rutley) talked with passion about his constituency and mentioned the Wincle trout races. He also mentioned the Macclesfield sheep dog trials—not guilty, say I. The old ones are the best. He talked with some fluency about the economic impact of the Ramblers, and I declare an interest as president of the Glamorgan Ramblers and vice-president of Ramblers Cymru. We need to do more and to see a speedy and resourced roll-out of the England coastal path. That will be a huge benefit for rural coastal communities.

As I was preparing for today’s debate over my breakfast, I picked up my daily breakfast reading. I was surprised by the fact that who knows what glorious conjunction of the stars had brought about, on the same day as we were to debate rural communities, the front-page headline, “Coalition’s legacy could be harm to the countryside.” I spluttered over my Weetabix. One might expect such a headline ripping into the coalition’s record from the Morning Star, or from revolutionary pamphleteers such as The Guardian or The Independent, but from the Telegraph—The Daily Telegraph, the voice of the Tory shires? Incidentally, I must say that the Telegraph’s rugby coverage is very good.

One might expect such a headline to have been generated by a clarion voice of the left—a flag-waving, “Red flag” singing, barricade-storming sentinel of socialism, attacking the serried ranks of landed privilege and wealth—but I spluttered again over my breakfast, this time toast and jam, when I read that it was inspired by the criticisms of the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), a Conservative Member of Parliament and, apparently, an adviser to No. 10, too. I have cancelled my subscription to Socialist Worker, so taken am I by the successful attacks on the Government by this new revolutionary cell in No. 10 and our fourth estate. Rumours are circulating that the hon. Gentleman is what we term a “sleeper”, who has spent years burrowing into Tory high command and is now under instruction to tear the house of cards down from within. Time will tell.

Ultimately, the debate is set against a rural backdrop of tough times, including for working families. We know that across the UK working families are struggling because of the impact of the policies being pursued. A typical family will be £1,600 worse off at the end of the Prime Minister’s tenure, but research shows that there is an added impact on rural communities across the country, where wages fell in real terms by £1,300 between 2010 and 2012. The nature of rurality means that rural families are spending £2,700 more on everyday goods than their urban counterparts.

We know that the bedroom tax hits rural households disproportionately severely, as working families, who are already struggling to find affordable homes where they were brought up, close to where they work and to their families, are displaced further and further afield, weakening community ties, driving up the cost of living and working and ultimately undermining the sustainability of those rural communities.

The viability of rural communities is intimately tied up with their ability to access markets, to sell goods, to trade, to access services and to engage with Government and agencies remotely and digitally. Whether we are talking about a farmer sorting out forms for single farm payments on his handheld device or at the kitchen table on a laptop, a bed and breakfast or a field of yurts selling accommodation, a surf school in Cornwall, a school-child accessing online educational materials for homework, or just Mr and Mrs Jones trying to take up the Prime Minister’s advice to switch energy providers and save money or looking to make a fleecy purchase after taking up the Energy Secretary’s advice to wear a jumper to cut down on heating costs, they all need access to the internet. However, the National Audit Office damned the Government early last spring for being two years behind schedule and £200 million over budget, a point that has also been picked up by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee in its work.

Things might be changing, but as the days of autumn closed in last year, the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath), who was in the Chamber earlier, freed from the shackles of DEFRA ministerial office, said:

“A man with a stick would be quicker at delivering a message than my so-called broadband”

and as we approached Christmas, he further complained:

“The rural equivalent of waiting for Godot is waiting for high-speed broadband”.—[Official Report, 4 December 2013; Vol. 571, c. 912.]

Those words came from a former Minister. At least with “Waiting for Godot” some deep philosophical point is being pondered—the wait is the very thing—and there is ultimately an end point as we all return home from the theatre. People in rural communities cannot see the end of the long-running broadband and mobile drama.

I realise I risk sounding a little negative about the Government’s record on rural communities, so let me be a little more positive by suggesting some ideas that would help the hard-stretched rural communities, businesses and households struggling under a prolonged cost of living crisis. We know that the Government have turned their back on one proposal that would help many rural households by refusing to accept a price freeze while the market is reset for the consumer—we will have to wait for the next election for that—but they could do something for off-grid energy users in two ways. First, they could bring off-grid under a regulatory structure to bring long-term thinking to the sector and give certainty to consumers and investors that their interests are being looked after. Secondly, they could bring forward payment of the winter fuel payment so that vulnerable elderly householders could purchase oil and gas outside autumn/winter when typical costs can increase by hundreds of pounds, as I know from experience. The Government could also look at the lamentable delivery to those same households of the energy company obligation and green deal installations on energy efficiency. Of 379,297 measures installed before the end of October 2013, how many have been delivered under the carbon saving community obligation rural sub-obligation? Only 51. That is not good enough.

Labour would, with no additional spending commitment and within existing resources, transfer £75 million from the super-connected cities programme into a digital inclusion fund of clear and direct benefit to the businesses, communities and households in rural areas that could make the internet work better for them. As my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins), the shadow Business, Innovation and Skills Minister, has made clear, Labour’s proposals on business rates would lead to an average reduction of £410 in year one for the 1.5 million businesses with turnover below £50,000, a disproportionate number of which are in rural areas. That initial saving would be followed by a business rates freeze the following year.

Affordable housing has been talked about by many Members from all parties. As we have heard, purchasing a home in a rural community requires six and half times the rural average wage. More must be done.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

So, a Labour Government are going to transfer resources and funding from marginal seats in the great cities to Conservative seats in rural areas, are they?

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

The point raised by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee on funding allocations in rural and urban areas is interesting and merits consideration. There are pockets of deprivation.

The point I was making about affordable homes when the hon. Gentleman intervened is that we need to build more homes, but they need to be the right homes in the right place, well designed and with bottom-up input from communities. We need to get on with it. The hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire made exactly that point: the obstacles to planning and providing affordable houses to rent and purchase are stopping those communities growing and forcing young people to move away from the area.

I do not have time to touch on the cultural, social and economic importance of farming, on the food and drink sector or on transport, education and so on. Other Members did.

If I have been provocative in parts, let me be consensual in conclusion. I think we can all agree that this has been a good and strong debate and we thank the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton and the Select Committee for securing it. Perhaps we can all support her call to make it a regular fixture in the parliamentary calendar.

14:29

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dan Rogerson)]

I, too, pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), and indeed the other members of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee—I want to be inclusive—for the report. I thank the Committee, and all those who have an interest in these matters, for bringing forward evidence and engaging with the Government on a number of other areas.

I disagree with a number of the points that the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) made, which I will come to later, but I agree that there is sometimes an artificial divide between urban and rural areas when it comes to service provision. The fact is that both rural and urban areas depend on each other for different services, whether outdoor activities, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (David Rutley), the natural capital that is cared for and provided, the food that is grown and all the opportunities provided in rural areas, or the economic and other activities provided in urban areas, such as industrial activities, which support rural areas. The hon. Gentleman was absolutely right about that artificial divide, although I disagree with him on many other points and will come to them in due course.

Rural growth is a key priority for DEFRA, just as growth in general is for the Government. The Government have placed a strong emphasis on unlocking the potential of rural communities and businesses to allow them to grow and thrive sustainably. We have established five pilot rural growth networks aimed at tackling the barriers to economic growth in rural areas, such as the shortage of work premises, slow internet connectivity, fragmented business networks, competitiveness, skills and support for micro-enterprises.

Several hon. Members mentioned the resourcefulness and resilience of rural communities. For example, we heard about what is going on in High Peak to provide community facilities and safeguard resources. My hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies) talked about rural life in general and the great contribution that people in rural areas make to the wider economy, something that I think we should all reflect on and celebrate in this debate.

The pilot rural growth networks expect to create up to 3,000 new jobs and support up to 700 new businesses through a local approach to local issues, but their legacy will go beyond that. We are evaluating the lessons they learn and will share them with local enterprise partnerships and local authorities. LEPs are working with local partners, including those with rural economic and social interests, to agree draft European structural investment fund strategies. DEFRA is discussing the development of those strategies to ensure that they give appropriate consideration to rural economies. It is absolutely right that some LEPs are very rural in focus while others have a balance between urban and rural. We must ensure that the rural interest is at the forefront as they introduce their strategies.

DEFRA’s rural development programme for England has invested more than £400 million in projects, created over 8,500 new jobs and safeguarded a further 9,700. An impressive area of delivery, and certainly one that has helped bring forward the local engagement that other Members have talked about, is the 64 LEADER local action groups in England. They were allocated £137.9 million from the total £3.7 billion of the current programme. They are on target to spend that in full by the end of the programme. Their key achievements include over 1,000 civil society representatives involved; over 4,200 projects approved; over 21,000 training days delivered; over 2,600 jobs created; 700 micro-enterprises supported; and nearly 200 new micro-enterprises created. There are other sources of funding from other routes, whether the public sector or charitable sources, that unlock the potential of the community schemes that hon. Members have talked about, which will make significant changes in their communities.

Under the new rural development programme, which will run from 2014 to 2019, we will transfer 12% from direct payments to go towards environmental, farming competitiveness and rural growth schemes in England. That is a significant change in the way we administer CAP money and it is important that we get the change right. In 2016 we will review the demand for agri-environment schemes and the competitiveness of English agriculture with the intention of moving to 15% for the final two years of this CAP period. The overall investment equates to £3.5 billion for environmental and rural development schemes over the next seven years. That means that, even with a smaller overall CAP budget, the Government will be spending a bigger proportion on the environment than before.

We want growing the economy to be an important part of that. There will be a meaningful role for LEPs to help deliver growth. Some 13% of the new rural development programme funds will be spent on growth-focused schemes. Some 5%—£177 million—will be allocated to LEPs through the growth programme, with LEADER and farming and forestry competitiveness being allocated around 4% each, or around £140 million.

Many hon. Members spoke about the delivery of rural broadband and mobile communications. Indeed, we must remember that the report was from the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, not the Welsh Affairs Committee, because so many hon. Members from Wales spoke. There was a certain commonality in the contributions we heard from across the United Kingdom on connectivity and the need to ensure that we get the injection of investment absolutely right. It is important for unlocking the potential of rural economies and communities. We know, for instance, that online small businesses, whether rural or urban, grow between four and eight times faster than their offline counterparts, and broadband allows more services to be delivered directly into the home. We heard how important that is in many contributions from both sides of the House.

The Government are investing £530 million to 2015 through Broadband Delivery UK. BDUK’s rural broadband programme, which is being delivered by local bodies, will deliver superfast broadband of 24 megabits a second and above to 90% of premises in each local authority area. The remaining 10% hard-to-reach areas will receive standard speed broadband of at least 2 megabits a second.

A number of hon. Members asked how representatives can access more detailed aspects of those programmes. I urge those who have concerns about how the programme is running in general to write to me or to the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey). If there are specific issues, they should raise them with the local delivery bodies to ensure that their voices are heard. I think that BT, which has been mentioned, will welcome engagement with local representatives on how the programme will make a difference in those areas and what the expectations should be.

Under the rural broadband programme, the pace of progress is accelerating, as 42 out of 44 local projects are contracted, which accounts for 98% of the Government funding. We are currently connecting 10,000 rural properties a week. It is anticipated that the figure will rise to around 25,000 per week by the spring and 40,000 per week by the summer.

My hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton talked about the smaller rural community broadband fund and asked what progress DEFRA was making with delivering the scheme. We have approved five projects, starting with Rothbury in Northamptonshire, which got its first live cabinet in time for Christmas—the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), was there at the time. We continue to work hard with BDUK, local bodies and community groups to develop the remaining projects. Local authority-led projects have until 28 February to complete their applications. Of course, there are important things to consider to ensure that we get the best value for money in all those projects, so we need to consider each one carefully. Universal coverage of 2 megabit broadband is expected by 2016.

I will turn to local government finance settlements. The Committee, and indeed many hon. Members, highlighted their concerns about the system for calculating local government finance. Addressing the needs of rural and urban authorities is a difficult balancing act. As my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton pointed out, I have been very much engaged in that from the Back Benches and continue to be in government, talking with colleagues, communities and local government about how the funding formula works and the implications for rural communities.

The Efficiency Support for Services in Sparse Areas grant of £8.5 million during 2013-14 helped the top quartile of rural authorities by sparsity of population. The Government will be providing further support worth £9.5 million so that the most rural local authorities can drive forward efficiencies in their areas. That is an increase on the grant paid for this purpose in 2013-14, and it offers further protection. Let me be clear, however—I hope that my hon. Friend would not expect me to say anything else, given my past interest in this area prior to coming into Government—that we need to change the approach towards assessing the longer-term funding needs of rural local authorities, and we must bear that in mind as we move forward. We need to consider how we support rural local authorities in increasing their income from business rates retention, and we need to develop a longer-term solution to supporting the transition.

On rural-proofing, I want to leave the House under no illusion. The Government take rural-proofing incredibly seriously, and my ministerial colleagues and I champion it strongly across Government. We are supported in that role by DEFRA’s centre of rural expertise, the rural communities policy unit, which was mentioned extensively in the report. Lord Cameron’s review of rural-proofing will report separately from what we are doing in Government. In a new element, all Government Department annual reports and accounts will report on their rural-proofing activities. It is very important to DEFRA that we have that level of engagement in reporting back, and I welcome it. At our last count, we were actively assisting other Departments with over 60 different policy areas to ensure that rural dimensions are being appropriately and proportionately considered. Importantly, we do not do this in isolation from the rural communities and businesses we serve. I am grateful to the EFRA Committee for recognising DEFRA’s comprehensive engagement framework with key rural stakeholders and civil society groups and representatives.

I should like to highlight some particular examples of this. My hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton mentioned education funding. The Government recognise that in some areas, particularly where schools are small, it is unreasonable to require pupils to travel long distances to alternative schools. That is why, following a review of the funding arrangements conducted with DEFRA’s rural communities policy unit, the Department for Education announced in June that it would allow local authorities to use a new sparsity factor when allocating funding. The Government have made it clear that the sparsity factor will be kept under review to consider whether adjustments need to be made in 2014-15 and as we move towards a national funding formula in the longer term.

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

All the aspects that the Minister has mentioned so far will really help rural communities such as my constituency. On school transport, the Government have been generous in funding new places in rural schools, but the local authority has cut the transport budget allowing people to take advantage of those new places. Is there anything he can do to allow county councils to use that money to ensure that children get to school safely?

[Dan Rogerson]

Local authorities have a statutory role in the provision of school transport, but there are a number of other ways in which they can engage with the wider transport infrastructure in their areas to provide opportunities not just for school transport but for all the other vital forms of transport that we have been debating.

I agree that providing affordable homes is crucial in allowing rural economies to grow and welcome the fact that this Government are investing in affordable housing. When the hon. Member for Ogmore discussed this, he did not say that under the previous Government the number of affordable socially rented homes that were available fell, a trend that this coalition Government will reverse through the investment that we are making. It is important to recognise that that applies in rural areas as well as in urban areas. The Government support rural exception sites, which, as hon. Members will know, are small sites that can be used for affordable housing in perpetuity, making a crucial difference.

The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) was the first speaker to refer to post offices and postal services in general—a very important matter. On 27 November, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills announced a further £640 million for the post office network to complete its network transformation programme. That programme is not suitable for about 3,000 post offices. Those branches predominantly serve small, often remote communities, and they may be the last shop in the village. For the first time in post office history, the updated programme specifically allocates £20 million to this part of the network. As a Member of Parliament during the previous Government’s period in office, I saw what happened when their network review closed so many rural post offices and the effect that that had on those communities. We are now looking at opportunities to secure the network that now exists to make sure that we are not dropping back into that territory.

Returning to rural transport, which I mentioned briefly in reply to the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin), who is no longer in his place, the Government have distributed £20 million to rural transport authorities in England to support the development of community transport schemes, which provide services that are vital in many rural areas. We are funding more than 20 Wheels to Work schemes through the local sustainable transport fund. Those schemes enable many young people to access employment and training opportunities. We have protected the statutory entitlement to concessionary bus travel, ensuring that older people can maintain greater freedom and independence. As we stated in the Government response to the EFRA report, the Department for Transport has committed to setting up a monitoring and evaluation framework to assess the changes to the bus service operators grant.

The issue of fuel was regularly raised, with regard to transport fuel and the fuel duty discount. I am pleased that hon. Members across the House acknowledged what the coalition Government have done in opening the door to the concept of recognising rurality and the challenges faced in relation to fuel prices. Many rural communities aspire to explore whether the scheme is a good fit for them, with processes that are appropriate for their areas. Several Members, particularly those from west Wales, suggested that it could operate slightly differently. I am sure that if they write to my colleagues in the Treasury about how they think it could be changed, their contributions can be borne in mind.

Several hon. Members talked about domestic fuel and the people in communities in rural areas who are off the gas grid. We are working with the Department of Energy and Climate Change to support the promotion of buying groups to bring down costs for gas and oil. On winter fuel payments, as part of the ministerial round table on heating oil and liquid petroleum gas, we are working with DECC and the Department for Work and Pensions to look into bringing payments forward. A number of hon. Members raised that issue.

[Albert Owen]

Will the Minister give way?

[Dan Rogerson]

I am afraid that I cannot. However, I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution and for extolling the virtues of his constituency; he set off a rash of such remarks around the Chamber, as was entirely justified.

I am afraid that, given the time available, I may have been unable to engage with all the issues in as much detail as I would have liked. I am happy, as always, to hear from the Select Committee, from all hon. Members who have been present, and from those who have not been able to join us, about how we can build on the work that the Government are doing to support rural communities, and how we can ensure that we are challenging, in a helpful, constructive and friendly way, all Government Departments to ensure that they are delivering for rural communities and having at the heart of their policy making the interests of those rural communities as well as urban ones. I hope that this debate demonstrates that the Government have strong rural credentials, that we are serious about advocating the needs of rural areas, and that we are driven towards unlocking the potential of rural communities and businesses.

14:47

[Miss McIntosh]

I thank everybody who has participated for their positive and constructive contributions to this excellent debate, which has demonstrated that this matter is not just to do with DEFRA but relates to all the tentacles of Government—it is multi-agency and multi-departmental.

I very much enjoyed the beauty contest as to who has the best constituency, but no one has yet come close to Thirsk and Malton. I fell into a trap at one point, so to save any grief in any quarters, let me say that of course I meant to refer to the spare room subsidy in the context of the importance of affordable housing.

I welcomed the contributions on the sheer cost of living and the fact that rural communities are under-represented and underfunded. The examples given show that we look to rural communities to give the sort of help we need, but we expect the Government to remove some of the barriers. I referred briefly to the fact that off-grid energy households have to be able to access the same incentives and finance to improve their properties and reduce their heating bills as those on-grid.

No one can doubt after today’s debate the importance of rural growth, and in particular broadband, to farming and other rural businesses. We would have liked the Government to keep to 9% modulation—I will just throw that into the mix—but 12% is still less than 15%.

We now have a better understanding of what it is like for those of us who live in and represent rural communities and a better idea of how best to meet the challenges. I hope we can persuade the Government and the Backbench Business Committee to hold an annual debate to give the Department the say each year as to how we are bringing rural communities to the heart of Government, and that policy formation, whichever Department is responsible for a particular policy, will reflect the needs of rural communities.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered rural communities.

Inter-City Rail Investment

Thursday 9th January 2014 Commons Chamber

14:50

[Ian Swales (Redcar) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered inter-city rail investment.

As well as London, the eight largest English cities have city deal status and another 20 are being agreed at present. I want to talk about rail travel between these city regions, especially those journeys that do not involve London. My speech will not be about HS2, except in passing, partly because that subject has already been aired at length, but also because journeys between the 29 city regions involve 465 possible trips, only 13 of which are directly covered by HS2. Those figures do not include Welsh or Scottish cities, but I am sure other Members may wish to comment on them.

If we look at past priorities for inter-city rail investment, we see that there has often seemed to be an assumption that the only thing people want to do when they get on a train is travel to or from London. Research shows that prioritising transport heavily on connections to a capital tends to suck economic activity into that capital. As Chris Murray, director of Core Cities, observed recently, this over-concentration is bad for the national economy in the long term. In contrast with other developed countries, such as France and Germany, the UK remains one of the most economically centralised countries in the world. The vast majority of significant companies and other institutions are headquartered in and around London.

London itself has major capacity issues, whether they be housing, schools, airports, local transport, water, sewage treatment or even land and labour. Immigration pressures from abroad or from elsewhere in the UK are felt heavily in London as it deals with its overheated economy. A London MP recently exemplified affordable housing in her constituency, it being defined as a two-bedroom flat costing £750,000. There is constant pressure for billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money to be spent addressing those capacity problems in the capital. Meanwhile, other areas, such as the one I represent, have all those assets freely available, including houses, none of which cost £750,000, surplus school places and capable people ready to take jobs.

The Government have a stated aim to rebalance the economy and I believe that inter-city rail investment can play a pivotal role in that endeavour. Others share my concerns. The former Business Secretary, Lord Mandelson, said recently:

“There are literally dozens of rail and public transport projects urgently needed across the country that would make a significant economic and social impact.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 24 October 2013; Vol. 748, c. 1228.]

He also commented on the cuts to other inter-city services that accompany the HS2 proposals, including loss of service from Stoke, Stockport, Coventry and Wilmslow, and long journey times to Carlisle. The Institute of Directors reports that 80% of its members support increased investment in the existing inter-city network.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman on what he has said so far. Does he not also agree that a spinal, dedicated rail freight route capable of carrying lorry trailers on trains and serving the north-east would have an enormously beneficial effect on the economies of the regions?

[Ian Swales]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I certainly agree with him and will mention rail freight later in my speech. He makes a powerful point which I know he has raised in the House before.

With excellent assistance from the House of Commons Library, I have conducted research on all the journeys between the English city regions, comparing fastest rail journey times against road miles as the best indicator of the actual distance between them. Many interesting facts emerge. The fastest journey times from nearly every single city region are on the lines to London. Average speeds range from 63 mph from the south coast to well over 100 mph from many other parts of the country.

For journeys between cities outside London, however, the overall fastest miles per hour speeds are in the 20s, and many are in the 30s and 40s. Fastest journeys can involve absurd dog-legging through London—for example, Cambridge to Sheffield, Ipswich to Newcastle and Swindon to Leicester—and journeys between the 29 key city regions can involve as many as four changes. Those figures are the consequence of past investment focused on hub-and-spoke systems based on London, and of under-investment on other routes, which has helped to concentrate economic and administrative power in the capital.

The record of the previous Government was poor, with too much micro-management but only nine miles of electrification investment. Fares went up by 66%, but subsidies went up £1.7 billion as well. Journey times are slower than they were 15 years ago, and 61% of UK businesses are concerned that the UK’s transport infrastructure lags behind international competitors.

I welcome the steps that this Government are taking. A good example of the work needed is the Milton Keynes to Oxford route. At 22 mph, it is one of the slowest possible journeys, so the Government’s decision to revive the east-west route to join those two city regions is very welcome and will provide the connectivity to help release potential. However, the Milton Keynes to Cambridge route, at 24 mph, will remain one of the slowest in the country. Other examples of very slow connectivity are the routes from Leicester to Coventry, Bournemouth to Bristol, Southend to Ipswich, Sunderland to Darlington—I could go on.

It is certainly welcome that the east coast main line is at last due to get modern rolling stock. Despite being one of the most profitable lines in the country, botched franchising deals have led to a sense that it is somehow a basket case, with consequent high fares and old trains. Passengers richly deserve the investment in new rolling stock and, as a regular user, I suppose that I should declare an interest.

It is worrying that a briefing I received for today’s debate from the Rail Delivery Group, a consortium of Network Rail and the train operators, states that the east coast line

“essentially serves two main destinations…Leeds and Edinburgh”.

It makes no mention of services that terminate in Newcastle or Aberdeen, of the 750,000 people in the Tees valley served by Darlington, or of numerous other towns and cities served directly or through connections. Sadly, the geography of many of the decision makers seems to get sketchy outside the M25.

One area that I want to highlight is the wide corridor of national importance through south Yorkshire and south Lancashire. It contains four of the six biggest cities in England, as well as many significant towns and other cities, and it is home to more than a quarter of the UK’s small and medium-sized businesses. Although it is already an economic powerhouse, it could be so much better with proper inter-city rail investment. Our forefathers recognised its importance by building one of the first cross-country motorways, the M62, to link Hull and Liverpool. How is the rail service through the region? The answer is, very poor. The 120-mile journey from Hull to Liverpool takes 30 minutes longer than the 214-mile journey from Hull to London, which means that it is at exactly half the speed. The vital commercial centres of Leeds and Manchester are joined by a service that runs at only 46 mph, whereas they both already have services to London at more than 100 mph.

Slow train times lead to far more people travelling by road, which in turn has an impact on train passenger numbers. They also give the appearance of low demand: no doubt that affects perceived investment, but this is surely a classic case of “Build it and they will come”. Getting people, and of course freight, off the roads also has major environmental benefits.

I welcome the many improvement projects contained in the northern hub initiative and the associated forecast of growth in passenger numbers, but they fall short of providing the kind of radical improvements that could transform the economy of the region. We need speedy train services to link our northern cities to each other, not just linking them separately to London and the south.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a very strong point, but does he agree that the issue relates not only to the north, but to the south-west and the west country? Frankly, we have not had the kind of investment in our railways that we would like.

[Ian Swales]

I absolutely agree. I look forward to the speeches of other hon. Members who have stayed late on this Thursday to hear more about other regions. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Stephen Gilbert) is likely to talk about the south-west.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. With hon. Members piling in to put their own inter-city and other rail services on the table, may I make a plea for the Brighton main line? We need more capacity, with a second line from Brighton to London so commuters do not get stuck in Brighton, as they do on the many occasions when that line is not operating.

[Ian Swales]

I thank the hon. Lady. I am sure the Minister is logging the various bids that are being made.

My area of the north-east has good journey times to London, but very poor journey times to other places. Is it right that it takes longer to get from Darlington to Manchester on a single train than it takes to get to London? The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills was stunned recently when he discovered how long he had to spend on the train when travelling from Liverpool to Darlington. Ironically, he was making the trip to be present at the inauguration of the new inter-city train factory at Newton Aycliffe, which is hugely welcome in my part of the world.

Rail investment is not just about passengers, but about freight, as the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) mentioned. It was good to see the recent but long-overdue investment by the Government to enable modern-sized containers landing at Teesport to join the east coast main line. However, a large modern port needs good connections to a wide hinterland and, again, the cross-country links are very poor. If such a container was destined for Preston, which is less than 100 miles away, it would have to go via Birmingham, so poor are the trans-Pennine links.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman is talking about freight, even though this debate is essentially about passengers. Some 80% of freight in Britain and across the channel goes by lorry, not by container. Containers are splendid things and lorries are the problem. Do we not need to be able to get lorry trailers on to trains? To do that, we need a dedicated route with the height and gauge capacity to deal with it.

[Ian Swales]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. I am certain that the current trans-Pennine links would also be inadequate for that solution. I agree with what he says. This matter needs to be considered seriously. What is the point of investing heavily in rail freight handling in the Trafford area of Manchester, which is going to happen, if there is no easy route to the major ports on the Tyne, the Tees and the Humber? The ability of east coast ports to collect goods from northern businesses for export and to deliver imported goods and materials to them by rail should be a key economic driver.

As part of rebalancing the economy, the Department for Transport should be accelerating inter-city investment in the regions for three reasons. First, the economic benefits of constructing that infrastructure would be felt most strongly in the regions concerned. Secondly, the manufacture of infrastructure materials tends to be concentrated away from the south-east. An example is Tata Steel’s construction beam mill in my constituency. Finally, the provision of good infrastructure tends to lead to more economic development in the local region.

Rail investment should be used proactively to drive our regional economies, not just reactively to address overcrowding. Quicker travel would make existing businesses more efficient. Better city links would allow regionally based businesses to set up and expand more easily, and to take on London-based competitors.

As Jim O’Neill, the chair of the City Growth Commission, observed in a recent article in The House magazine entitled “Going for growth”,

“We already know that around the world, mid-tier cities generate higher economic growth relative to their populations.”

In the same magazine, Alexandra Jones, the chief executive of the Centre for Cities, noted that

“most of the UK’s largest cities…punch below their economic potential.”

The underperformance in the UK is due partly to our transport infrastructure. The excessive focus on London recently led the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills to say that London

“is becoming a giant suction machine draining the life out of the rest of the country”.

In closing, I want to emphasise the following points. A business person’s time is just as valuable when they are travelling from Newcastle to Bristol or from Norwich to Liverpool as it is when they are travelling to or from London. It should be possible to run an effective, competitive national or international business from any of our city regions, not just from London. The Government have a key aim of rebalancing the economy. I commend the work that is being done on city deals and through the regional growth fund. The Department for Transport needs to take up the challenge and play its full part in that rebalancing. After decades of under-investment, I welcome the renewed focus on rail investment that the Government are driving. I hope the Minister will explain how the Department’s inter-city rail investment policy will meet the ambition of making the whole economy more successful, and not just that of London and the south-east. I look forward to his response.

15:04

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

It is a real pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Redcar (Ian Swales). I was pleased to hear him say that we should talk about something other than High Speed 2. The money being spent on it is an issue in the far south-west, but we also have a lot of common concerns with his constituency. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing this debate, which is important to my constituents and those of other Members who are in the Chamber.

I have lost count of the number of times that I and other Members with seats in the south-west have raised concerns about the need for investment in our inter-city services and improved resilience. Yet again, extreme weather is causing pressure, so we need that investment, but we keep getting batted away by London and Whitehall.

My constituents, local authorities and businesses all rely on rail connections, which have to be reliable and affordable. They also have to work around the need for freight, the importance of which I know my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) will speak about again today. He is right—if we want to grow our economy in the south-west, we need freight services that work and that fit around essential inter-city services.

We need to manage and plan growth to ensure that people are not priced off trains because of massive rises in ticket prices. Plymouth is more than three hours away from London—it can be three hours-plus-plus, depending on how fortunate people are on the day, and in the not-too-distant future it will take even longer because of the continuing works at Reading. Those works, which were started under the last Government, will make a difference, and there is no doubt that they are valuable, but they will extend the travelling public’s journeys for the moment. Of course, there is also the work on the Whiteball tunnel, which I suspect will mean a journey of closer to five hours.

We also have no air link to the city of Plymouth, and people often ask whether that is sensible for a city of such a size. Frankly, it is unlikely that there will be an airport, despite the hard work of a lot of local groups, without some guarantee of slots in London when the airport there is extended.

We have only two strategic road links into Plymouth. When I chaired the South West Regional Committee in 2010 and we reviewed transport across the south-west, the evidence that we received made it clear that the infrastructure, whether road, rail or air, was inadequate and could not support the level of growth that many local authorities and businesses feel we are capable of producing and adding to the wider UK economy.

Over the years, we have had less investment than any other part of the United Kingdom, with the possible exception of the north-east. Journeys to major cities such as Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool all take much longer than a journey to London and are convoluted. Part of the problem that we have on our stretch of line—the main line between Penzance and Paddington—is that to get to those cities we have to go on the slow, shared section of line between Taunton and Plymouth, which goes along Dawlish sea front and is frequently disrupted.

Inter-city train services that connect with community rail services and buses, with reasonably priced car parks at hubs, come at a price, a large part of which has to be borne by the passenger. I was gobsmacked to read the lobbying document that we received prior to the debate from the Rail Delivery Group, which made me ask whether its members ever travel on trains. The main thrust of the document was to act as an apologist for the privatisation process and laud the fact that it has

“significantly increased revenue whilst controlling operating costs.”

Really? Apparently, that has led to a financial surplus, but who benefits from that? Passengers on my wi-fi-less inter-city trains to Plymouth, who sometimes have to stand as far as Exeter, are certainly not feeling the benefit.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I wish to reinforce my hon. Friend’s point about privatisation. Sir Roy McNulty concluded that our railways cost 40% more to operate than continental railways that are integrated and publicly owned, and that before privatisation, British Rail had—believe it or not—the highest level of productivity of any railway system in Europe.

[Alison Seabeck]

My hon. Friend makes a strong point about the different ways of managing a rail network. When we compound that with the botched franchising process, which exacerbated problems, particularly in the south-west, I think the travelling public are beginning to lose faith. Of course those companies have invested in their services, and there is no doubt that their staff are working hard to ensure that the passenger experience improves—indeed, it has improved and they deserve credit for that. I am still not sure, however, how much that increased revenue has reached down to the far south-west where we still have slam-door rolling stock.

On our line, the new fare for an anytime standard open return from London to Plymouth with First Great Western is £271, and to Penzance—where at least some consideration has been given to the needs of the area—it is £284. If families who are struggling with the cost of living decide to holiday in the lovely south-west—who would not want to come to the south-west?—that starts to look like a very expensive option, unless they can get one of the cheaper deals which, as we know, disappear very fast indeed. I genuinely feel that passengers do not think they are getting value for money.

Plymouth’s inter-city connections are vital to the city’s growth plans, yet spending per person in the south-west is now in negative real-term figures—the hon. Member for Redcar spoke about how his region is suffering in a similar way in terms of investment. How does that square with the supposed policy of regional growth? The total identifiable expenditure on rail in my region has slumped from £286 million in 2008-09 to just £218 million in 2012-13. So much for a Government who believe that growth and investment in infrastructure are linked. Actions speak louder than words.

We in Plymouth are also concerned that we are not on the strategic national corridor, which for some bizarre reason stops at Exeter and does not go on to the 15th largest city in England. As long as that continues and we are not part of the strategic national corridor, we will continue to see poor levels of investment in our routes in inter-city services. Indeed, I would go further and suggest a real lack of interest in Whitehall in any area outside that corridor.

There is no doubt that distance and accessibility impact directly on the way business costs are assessed and on the logistics of companies. It has been estimated that for every 100 minutes of travel time from London, productivity drops by 6%. Tackling that underperformance by supporting our rail links, inter-city services and connections to the main line could be hugely beneficial to the wider UK economy. We are, however, talking a little bit about jam tomorrow. I am sure the Minister will mention the benefits of electrification, but those will not percolate down as far as Plymouth—certainly in the immediate future—partly because of the unresolved issue of the line between Exeter and Plymouth via Dawlish. Any benefits of electrification are decades away, and whoever is in power after the next general election must stop pushing the issue away. That is why we must ensure—as those on the Labour Front Benches have insisted—that High Speed 2 is not some open-ended cheque, and that we keep a lock on how much money goes into it.

I have not even mentioned resilience and the importance of keeping the rail line open to rail companies as well as our local economies. Some £178 million was lost when the line was closed last year because of flooding at Exeter and further down the line, and we had no inter-city service for some considerable time. I cannot understand why it has been so difficult to get the heads of the Environment Agency and Network Rail to agree on a plan. We were told that £31 million had been earmarked for work to ensure the trains could get through, but we now hear that that has gone down to single figures. What is going on? Perhaps the Minister will answer that when he responds to the debate. Is the CEO of the Environment Agency correct when he says that cuts will impact on that type of maintenance? In questions to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for South West Devon (Mr Streeter) asked a question on that issue. Significant remedial investment is needed if the far south-west is to have more than a fair-weather inter-city service.

My key asks for Plymouth and its inter-city connections are: that the Secretary of State continue to guarantee the money for the resilience work at Exeter and beyond, and that it is clearly aimed at keeping the network open and not just blocking it off; that we get an early morning arrival in Plymouth from London, which was promised by the franchisee but appears to have drifted off the agenda, like so much else; and that we benefit from newer rolling stock, rather than the ancient units that currently serve our railway and undoubtedly slow the service down. Demand is expected to outstrip capacity on both branch and inter-city services, so we need confirmation from the Minister today that the displaced diesel stock following the electrification of the main line in south Wales will be cascaded on to the main line between London and Penzance. On that, I will finish and allow other Members to express their concerns.

15:14

[Simon Kirby (Brighton, Kemptown) (Con)]

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak and to follow the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck), who made some interesting points.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Redcar (Ian Swales) and the Backbench Business Committee on securing this debate on an issue that is very important to people in my constituency. He will not be surprised if I mention London and that other great city, Brighton and Hove.

I am one of the many people from Brighton who frequently commute to London for work, and over the years I have come to know the Brighton main line very well—better than I ever wanted to know it, if the truth be known. I know how important the train service is to people in my constituency and to the whole economy of the south-east. I also know, unfortunately, how frustrated regular rail users in Brighton are with the service they receive.

When I tweeted about this debate on my way up to London this morning, I was inundated with responses from fellow passengers who have simply had enough. One person told me that he has been late to work every day this year because of the trains. Another pointed out that 44% of Southern trains operating on the Brighton main line last year were late. Another tweet described the daily commute as “grim” and rightly protested that people in Brighton deserve better.

Concerns about rail services are raised with me by constituents every week, perhaps more frequently than any other issue since I was elected in 2010. Concerns over cancellations, delays, overcrowding, cold and dirty trains and a lack of information feature most prominently. Last year’s Which? survey confirmed that rail passengers in the south-east have the lowest customer satisfaction in the whole of the UK. First Capital Connect, which operates on the Brighton main line, finished bottom of the pile with a 40% satisfaction rating. The understandable anger among commuters is exacerbated by increases in rail fares, which went up again last week. As one constituent put it to me, people simply do not feel that they are getting value for their money. That is backed up by the 2013 national passenger survey, which revealed that only 32% of First Capital Connect customers and 36% of Southern customers feel that they get value for money for the cost of their ticket. That is hardly surprising when only about 40% of customers feel that they are likely to get a seat.

Clearly, there are serious problems that need to be addressed. At their root is the problem of capacity. The huge demands on the line present challenges for Network Rail and the train companies, and their current failure to meet them is having a terrible effect on passengers. Projected employment growth along the main line between Brighton, Crawley, Gatwick and London means that demands on the line are only going to increase. A report from WSP group last year revealed how serious the situation could become. It concluded that the capacity problem on the Brighton main line would reach critical levels within the next 20 years and prevent rail services from operating efficiently, but none of the people who use the service today would say it will take 20 years to reach critical levels; they would say it is operating inefficiently as we speak.

A number of solutions have been proposed, all of which would require significant investment as a matter of urgency. The WSP report proposed an upgrade of the current line to allow more trains to more destinations and reduce journey times. Another option, which I have thrown my weight behind, is the Brighton main line 2 proposal. I am happy to work with my Brighton colleague, the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), if it means that we can make it a reality. It would provide a new line between Brighton and the capital and obviously reduce pressure on the current line while avoiding the bottleneck that is Croydon, which currently causes many of the problems. Network Rail is assessing plans to link Lewes and Uckfield as part of its long-term planning process and acknowledged the attraction of a new route that does not involve the congested east Croydon corridor.

Last year, in the House, I received assurances from the previous rail Minister that the Government were considering Brighton main line 2 as a potential solution to the capacity problems affecting the south coast and would be looking to take the issue forward in due course. My constituents would welcome an update from the new Minister. If he can reassure me this afternoon that Brighton main line 2 is still being considered, I, like many of my constituents, will be very grateful. I would also like to take this opportunity to invite him to Brighton to experience the daily commute and see at first hand some of the issues that my constituents face every day.

In closing, I welcome the work being done to improve the Brighton main line in the short term and the £18 million of improvements carried out over the Christmas period—not without their own inconveniences—which will deliver benefits, but clearly they are not the long-term major investment solution required to expand the rail network in the south-east and to give my constituents in Brighton, Kempton and Peacehaven the service they deserve.

15:22

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to speak in this debate on a subject about which I feel very strongly and in which I have a great interest. I congratulate the hon. Member for Redcar (Ian Swales) on securing the debate and on what he said during his speech, which contained a good deal of common sense. In fact, it reflected the conclusions of the Eddington report of some years ago, the focus of which was on improving the network as it was, rather than on more adventurous schemes.

Railways are clearly the major mode of land travel for the long-term future. Anyone who tries to drive by car to and from London these days has a problem, despite some improvements in motorway traffic. It is the railways that will provide the transport of the future. Passenger numbers are increasing massively in spite of privatisation and higher fares because rail travel is the only practicable way to get to and from work. I speak as a 45-year rail commuter on Thameslink and its predecessors from Luton. I see every day the problems on the other side of London—on the same line that the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Simon Kirby) mentioned. Fortunately, I live far enough out to get a seat most days, but by the time we get to St Albans passengers have to stand. Indeed, yesterday, there simply was not enough space on the train and many passengers were left on the platform, having to wait for later trains—it was that crowded.

There are severe difficulties on those commuter routes, but we are talking today about inter-city rail. Forty years ago, I was responsible for transport policy at the TUC. In those days, railways were seen to be in decline and people lauded the car as the future. Even then, I passionately believed that railways were the future and that we had to preserve what we had. Fortunately, we hung on to just enough to make it credible, and we still have the great Victorian-built lines providing city centre to city centre travel, which is so valuable. The convenience of being able to get on a train in a city centre and be taken directly to another city centre is an enormous advantage.

I urge the Minister to support specific investments, some of which are already moving forward—rather too slowly and very late, but they will, I hope, get there eventually. It is vital to continue the electrification of all major routes, so that we have electrified major routes across the country.

[Oliver Colvile]

The hon. Gentleman makes a serious point about electrification. Tim Smit runs the Eden project. In the last five or six years he was asked what one thing would make a great difference to the south-west. He told the then deputy leader of the Conservative party that electrification down to Plymouth would do an enormous amount of good for the west country.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I entirely agree, and I was intending to mention the point later in my speech.

We need to extend direct electrified services not merely to cities on the major routes. I support electrification to Hull, so that direct electrified services can run from King’s Cross to Hull without the need to change trains. I see in his place the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers), who represents an area on the other side of the Humber. Electrified services to Grimsby and Cleethorpes would be a good thing, too. My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck) mentioned the south-west, and it is clear that that area needs improvements.

[Ian Swales]

As we are all bidding for electrification, let me point out that the Grand Central service from Sunderland to London runs on a non-electrified line north of Northallerton through Eaglescliffe and Hartlepool.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I think we are well behind the rest of the world in electrifying our rail routes and we need to do a lot more. It is happening, but it is going to take some time yet. We should have done this years ago.

Hon. Members have mentioned some of the corridor routes I intended to speak about, such as that from Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds to York. A modern, electrified fast service linking those great cities would be a tremendous boon to the north. I am obviously not speaking on behalf of Luton here; I am speaking about my interest in railways and in the country in general.

A second electrified route should link York, Sheffield, Derby, Birmingham, Bristol, Exeter, Plymouth and Penzance, which would provide a real chance for growth, particularly in the south-west, as my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View said. Those are two important corridors, and I could provide more detail on others. Fast electrified services would greatly benefit the relevant regions.

In a rail debate on 31 October I set out a scheme for upgrading and improving the east coast main line from London to Edinburgh. I shall not go over the detail again now, as I want to reserve my time to deal with other schemes, other than to say that this is another important investment that should go ahead to improve capacity and speed on the east coast.

I want to focus today on a particular scheme. I have mentioned it before, but I want to re-emphasise its importance. I believe it would be a major advance to upgrade the Birmingham, Snow Hill to London line, which passes through Solihull, Leamington Spa, Banbury and other towns, on which only a handful of trains currently run each day to and from Marylebone. The line also runs directly to Paddington—a much more useful London terminus that links directly with Crossrail and thus to the City. Snow Hill is in the centre of Birmingham and easily accessible to the business district.

There is, however, a much more compelling and exciting possibility for this route. If it were to be electrified, a simple link to Crossrail at Old Oak Common would provide direct passenger services between the centre of Birmingham and the City of London and, indeed, Canary Wharf. Business travellers would have available direct travel from city centre to city centre with no changes required, thus saving time and inconvenience. But there is more: the electrified Snow Hill to London line could also branch off at Greenford to join Crossrail going west, thus providing a direct service from Birmingham city centre to Heathrow. The electrification of that line and those two links with Crossrail would together cost no more than £500 million.

There is still more. The Snow Hill line has a branch at Leamington linked to Birmingham airport, which opens up the possibility of direct, non-stop electrified 125 mph services between Birmingham and Heathrow airports, as well as a direct link between Birmingham airport and the City of London via Crossrail. A journey time of one hour between the airports would be a boon to both of them, making Birmingham effectively a satellite of Heathrow and possibly removing some of the pressure from the growth of passenger traffic there, as well as being advantageous to workers in Birmingham.

I believe that the scheme would be enormously beneficial economically at both ends of the route. It would breathe extra life into the economy of the west midlands, and it would take a bit of pressure off London. It would also be helpful to services going further north. It would be possible to travel to the airport from Birmingham New Street and on to that route directly as well. There are numerous exciting possibilities, provided that the whole line is electrified and upgraded. Even now, it would be capable of 125 mph services, which I think would be sufficient for the journeys to which I have referred.

I urge the Minister, Opposition Front Benchers and Network Rail to give serious thought to my proposal. It is not just my own idea; it is based on detailed advice from experienced railway engineers. It would work, it would be easy to construct, and it would bring great benefits at modest costs. I commend it to fellow Members, and especially to those on both Front Benches.

15:31

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins), who always speaks so knowledgeably about railway matters.

I join others in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Ian Swales) on securing the debate. It has given us an opportunity to praise the Government for a remarkable and very welcome increase in funding for our rail network—a network which, since privatisation, has seen a staggering increase in passenger numbers and in the amount of freight carried. It has also given Members an opportunity to argue in favour of yet more investment in their constituencies, or, at the very least, the transfer of some of the existing resources to their own areas. I shall say more about that shortly.

My hon. Friend the Member for Redcar spoke of the importance of connections to London and, indeed, to other areas. My constituency suffers badly as a result of its lack of such connections. There was a time, in living memory, when it was possible to get on to a train in Cleethorpes and travel to other major cities such as Leeds, Birmingham and Leicester. I know that Ministers are fully aware of the importance of good transport links to the economic development of all parts of the country, but I must emphasise their importance to more peripheral areas such as northern Lincolnshire.

The Government have recognised the importance of northern Lincolnshire and the wider Humber region as a major centre for the renewable sector, and have demonstrated their commitment to the area by creating the largest enterprise zone in the country and providing support through the recently signed Humber city deal. More recently, the Department for Transport gave Able UK permission to go ahead with its South Humber energy park and associated developments, which should provide thousands of new jobs. That is all good news, but if we are to maximise the benefits to the area, we shall need improved rail connections.

The main passenger services to northern Lincolnshire are provided by First TransPennine Express. There is a good hourly service between Cleethorpes and Manchester airport in each direction, which, with stops at Doncaster and Sheffield, connects with the wider network, but changes are inconvenient and add to journey times. Let me give a couple of examples. Last autumn, I attended the annual dinner of the Grimsby and Immingham Chamber of Commerce and Shipping. One of the guests was the Finnish Ambassador, who expressed his surprise at how long it had taken him to travel to Grimsby from London. Another example can be found in an article in The Sunday Times on 29 December. The journalist A. A. Gill travelled to Cleethorpes last October and in his article he says that he could have flown from London to Moscow quicker than it took him to get from London to Cleethorpes.

The Grimsby-Cleethorpes area needs more direct train services, particularly to London, in order to achieve the full economic potential I mentioned. To give an historical perspective, until 1970 there were two direct trains between the Grimsby-Cleethorpes area and London via the then east Lincolnshire line through Louth, Boston and Spalding through to Peterborough and on to the main line. I remember travelling on the last service train on 4 October 1970. The service fell at long last after a seven-year fight; it was sacrificed to the Beeching plan.

For the following 22 years we retained direct services to London. They ran via Market Rasen and Lincoln. That remains one of the options for a new franchise-holder. Certainly improvements are needed on that line, which is the Cleethorpes to Lincoln line. Most of the services are provided by a single car unit.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned Beeching, and there are still a large number of corridors that are unused. Does he agree that it is vital to protect those corridors for possible future use, when, hopefully, we invest in even more railways than we have now?

[Martin Vickers]

I certainly agree with the hon. Gentleman and I think that even people who were connected with producing the Beeching plan have since acknowledged that the closure of the east Lincolnshire line was a marginal decision at the time and certainly in today’s climate it would not have been closed. Unfortunately, however, at various points that line has now been blocked off and it would take billions of pounds to reinstate it.

I was mentioning the services on the Lincoln-Cleethorpes line provided by a single unit. When passengers get on the conductor says. “When we reach Market Rasen, passengers will have to stand. Please make sure that all seats are clear.” East Midlands Trains acknowledges that the service it provides with that single unit is inadequate, but apparently there is such a shortage of units that it is unable to improve on it.

The Government have an excellent record on electrification. Electrification of the route from Manchester to Sheffield is edging nearer and the possible extension through to Doncaster is being considered. If that becomes a reality, which it must, then completion of the final 50 miles into Immingham, Grimsby and Cleethorpes must surely be worthy of inclusion.

Immingham is a major centre for railways; indeed, it was the railways that built it. It was a creation of the Great Central Railway just over 100 years ago in 1912. Today, measured by tonnage, around 25% of the freight moved by rail starts or ends its journey in Immingham, much of it of strategic importance—oil, coal and the like. That, together with the growing potential for passenger traffic, must make a case for, at the very least, a feasibility study into the viability of electrification of the final section of the south Trent-TransPennine line, the Doncaster to Immingham and Cleethorpes section.

Despite considerable capital investment over recent years the main route from Cleethorpes to Doncaster, which covers just 50 miles, takes 70 minutes. We must do better than that, particularly since we describe the trains on that route as TransPennine Expresses.

In this afternoon’s earlier debate on rural communities I heard my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) refer to the Saturdays-only service from Sheffield through Gainsborough and Brigg to Cleethorpes. This line was the Great Central main line and yet it has come to this—a once-a-week service. It provides a shocking service not only for my hon. Friend’s rural community, as he said, but for the industrial centres around Immingham and Grimsby and for the east coast premier seaside resort of Cleethorpes.

[Ian Swales]

I am sure that it will be no consolation to my hon. Friend that I have just done the maths in my head and discovered that the rest of the trans-Pennine service is no quicker than the service he has just described.

[Martin Vickers]

I have experienced that full journey on a number of occasions, and I have to agree with my hon. Friend on that.

I was describing the Saturdays-only service on the Gainsborough to Cleethorpes line. It begins its journey in Sheffield. I believe that that service illustrates the need for more flexibility in the franchise system. Northern Rail operates the service and, because of the type of services it operates, it is highly dependent on public subsidy. I would have thought, however, that if it had any sort of commercial drive behind it, it would see the possibilities in that route. It is already running a train to Cleethorpes on a Saturday, and it would surely be even more viable to run the service on a sunny summer Sunday as well. There should be some incentive to try to expand the market in that way.

My constituency contains 10 railway stations, the largest port complex in the country and an international airport, yet it has no trains to London. It does not even need investment to provide such a service; it just needs the Minister’s say-so. It just needs him to insist on it being part of the new east coast franchise, or to give the go-ahead to one of open access providers such as Alliance Rail, which is currently exploring the possibility of providing such a service.

The debate pack states:

“Inter-city rail investment covers a wide-range of projects, including electrification, line enhancements, service improvements and new rolling stock.”

My constituents would be happy with just a little progress under each of those headings. I should like to draw the Minister’s attention to one urgent enhancement that is needed on the east coast main line, which is plagued by the wires being brought down in high winds. I know that the Department has committed £1.2 billion to transform the line, but I am not aware that the upgrading of the electric wires is included in that. My understanding is that a relatively modest investment in certain sections of the line could deal with the problem to some extent.

There are electrification plans for the Great Western line, which provides services into Wales, and the northern hub will greatly enhance services in the north-west. My hon. Friend the Member for Redcar has described the needs of the north-east. My plea is, of course, for northern Lincolnshire and the Humber region in general. As I have said, the area has great economic potential, but if we are to maximise that, we need better rail and other transport connections. We need to close down the arguments about nationalisation, even if only in the context of the east coast main line. Privatisation has revitalised what was a dying industry. Let us also get on with HS2. The Cleethorpes to Manchester services run via Meadowhall, which would provide our link into HS2. However, that 70-mile journey to Meadowhall currently takes about 90 minutes. My plea is for direct services to London—an absolute necessity—and for a feasibility study into the electrification of the final section of the south TransPennine line between Doncaster and Immingham, Grimsby and Cleethorpes.

15:40

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Redcar (Ian Swales) on securing the debate, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing it to take place. I cannot help but reflect that, should our predecessors of 40 years ago walk in here today, they would be surprised to see the extent of the interest across the House in rail investment. We might disagree on some of the mechanisms for achieving it, but there is now a high level of agreement that this is the way forward. This follows a period in which, sadly, we were diverted towards the wrong future, and I hope that we are now heading towards the right one.

Regrettably, some decisions are still going the wrong way. For example, the Scottish Government have chosen to build a new road bridge across the Forth, connecting Fife and Edinburgh, without any new rail connection. That is a missed opportunity. We had an opportunity to put in some sort of double-decker bridge; there are ways to build both road and rail together, if we did indeed want more road capacity. We are going to regret this decision in the not-so-distant future. The building has started, so the bridge is, unfortunately, going to go ahead, but I think that within months of it opening the call will be, “What on earth did you do that for when the congestion in the area and the car drive into the city are going to get worse and the rail link would have been a fantastic advantage?” Of course, we do have a rail bridge, of considerable antiquity. It is an iconic piece of rail architecture for the whole UK, but it does act as a bottleneck on a journey that more and more people want to make, in a way that they did not before. Even in a general atmosphere where railways have come back into their own, we are at times in danger of making the wrong decision.

I wish to discuss the mechanisms and the Government’s decision to re-privatise inter-city services on the east coast main line, because that is having an impact on investment on other inter-city routes. I have raised this matter previously and I do not apologise for doing so again, because it is important; I have not yet been given any clear answers from Ministers, so I am going to ask some of the same questions.

I wish to make some brief remarks on High Speed 2 and public investment in inter-city rail generally. There are different views across the House on HS2, but those of us who support it must deal with the danger of a perception that it will not have any benefits for the rest of the network. HS2 will enhance capacity on other key routes: trains will continue on the classic network to serve other destinations; space will be freed up for services to smaller towns and cities; and, providing high-speed platforms are properly integrated into existing stations, people across the country will have access to high-speed trains. We need that form of travel, in both directions. I understand the fear about the pull to the south-east, but that pull is happening in any case, for all sorts of other reasons, not least the lack of employment in the north. We need to address that, but not grasping the nettle is the wrong way to go.

Futurologists from 40 or 50 years ago might well have thought that people would not need to travel now because they would be able to talk to each other by all sorts of new mechanisms, and indeed they can. I used to tease my husband, who works in IT, in the academic community, which has always been quite far ahead on things such as networking, by asking him why he needed to travel to conferences and to London because he could do everything by video conferencing. I asked why on earth he was going yet again. Of course, as I pointed out to him when I thought about it, people cannot have conference dinners by video conferencing. That is not an entirely facetious point to make, because, as we all know from our party conferences, when people meet at events what goes on outwith the main setting in terms of networking, catching up with people and having those debates and conversations is hugely important. Human communication has not been supplanted by all the technology at our fingertips.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

My hon. Friend is making a sensible point. Does she agree that trains also provide opportunities for human interaction, business talk, discussion and work to be done? Trains are wonderful things in that respect.

[Sheila Gilmore]

They certainly do provide those opportunities, but occasionally I hear more about other people’s business on the train than I want to know. For that reason, I am glad to see more quiet coaches. When my father used to complain about people talking on mobile phones on the train, I used to think that he was being an old fusspot. However, I have to say that although it is good to have some sort of business interaction on the train, it would be nice not to have it right in my ear when I am trying to work. Interestingly, on the east coast main line, the quiet coaches are now the most popular and most booked up of all the coaches. That suggests that I am not in a minority on the matter. It is true to say that we can do a lot of work on trains that we cannot do flying.

[Alison Seabeck]

Does my hon. Friend agree that there is perhaps a case for a business class on some of these long-distance trains, rather than a first class?

[Sheila Gilmore]

I suspect that the quiet coach operates to a large extent as a business class. Perhaps operators should consider expanding the number of those coaches. Many people want to use that time on the train—whether it is two hours, three hours or more—productively, even if they are only recharging their batteries and reading a book or whatever. If we are serious about the environmental advantages of rail over air, we need to make that journey as productive and as comfortable as we can, and also to speed it up. The big advantage of HS2 in Scotland would be a cut in journey times, even without the high speed rails reaching us. The city centre to city centre advantage of HS2 is huge, and it works both ways. For example, 11% of employment in Edinburgh, even after the recession, is in the financial service sector. The links from Edinburgh to other financial centres are important. If we are to continue to be the headquarters of some very important financial institutions, rather than a sub-office of somewhere else, it is just as important that people can come to us as it is that we can go to them.

[Ian Swales]

The hon. Lady mentions HS2, so I ask this question in a spirit of genuine inquiry, because I only know the figures for Newcastle. How much will HS2 enable trains from Edinburgh to save time? Does she think a similar time could be saved by investing in the straight and relatively flat current east coast main line, as referred to by the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins)?

[Sheila Gilmore]

My understanding is that when phase 2 is in place, we could save a full hour—perhaps slightly more—of the journey time. As we are talking about a long time scale, I am not averse in any way to looking at ways of improving the speed on existing rails. One thing East Coast has done, which is helpful, is introduce a train that leaves Edinburgh early in the morning and arrives in London at a time that allows people to attend meetings. It does that by having fewer stops, so there is always a trade off. By only stopping at Newcastle and then coming straight through, it has shaved off time. The only downside is that the train departs very early in the morning. We are privileged here in the House of Commons. As we go through until 10 pm on a Monday night, we do not start work at 10 am, which would be difficult.

Leaving aside the whole HS2 debate, we welcome the fact that intercity lines in other parts of the country are receiving significant public investment for electrification, new rolling stock and so forth. Of course, it is important to emphasise that all that investment is public and coming from the taxpayer. That fact was reinforced last month when the Office for National Statistics announced that it would reclassify Network Rail as a central Government body from September. That is an acknowledgement that it is not outwith the Government.

Part of the promise of privatisation was that it would generate investment, but it has not done so. We must be realistic about that. What about the level of private investment in other inter-city routes following the Government’s decision to prioritise the franchise competition for the east coast? I am sure that Members will remember that under the Government’s initial franchising timetable, a new contract for the west coast main line was due to start in October 2012, with Great Western starting in April 2013 and east coast in December 2013.

After the debacle of the west coast bidding process, a new timetable was announced last March. The east coast main line, which was previously last in the queue of those big franchises, was brought forward so that it would be let before April 2015. As the Government accepted the recommendations of the reports produced after what happened with west coast that only one major franchise should be dealt with at a time, that was only made possible by giving the current operator of the west coast main line—Virgin—a four-and-a-half-year franchise extension to April 2017. The operator of the Great Western line, First, was given a two-and-a-half year extension to September 2015. That is 77 months of extensions between the two operators.

Ministers who prioritised the east coast franchise and justified it by referring to the Brown review are presumably reiterating their belief that competition in the bidding process should drive private investment. Although franchise competition might achieve that, franchise extensions clearly do not. The Government have lost any bargaining chip they had in the process. Having made that set of decisions, they had no option but to negotiate with the existing operators. The only bargaining chip Ministers could use would be to threaten to call in East Coast’s parent company, Directly Operated Railways. The operators know the Government’s reluctance to do that and the very fact that they want to extract the east coast franchise from DOR shows that, quid pro quo, they would not want to put the other routes into DOR’s hands. That means that competition is effectively absent.

The companies have no incentive to invest during the remaining time for which they are operating the routes and have every incentive to demand significant subsidies. The extensions are likely to cost us, the taxpayers, dearly. In 2011-12, Virgin paid the Department a premium of £165 million and First Great Western paid £110 million. Will the Minister confirm that following the agreement of the extensions, payments of such an order are unlikely to be made? Perhaps he could confirm what sort of payments he anticipates. Will the Minister also confirm that apart from the roll-out of wi-fi on First Great Western, which we would have expected from any operator, the two extensions offer no improvement for passengers?

My key contention is that if the east coast franchise had not been prioritised, those extensions would not have been necessary and the competitions for the west coast and Great Western franchises could have been held much sooner had the Government wanted to pursue them.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. Does that not illustrate that the determination to re-privatise the east coast main line is driven by dogma, not reality?

[Sheila Gilmore]

I think that it is. I do not propose to reiterate all that has been said by so many of my Opposition colleagues in several of the debates we have had on this subject about how East Coast has performed. Given the history, it is particularly frustrating. As I have campaigned on the issue and talked to people about it, I have found that the levels of support we get are extremely high.

People who are not politicians and who are not involved in the debate at that level are baffled as to why, when the east coast main line has already been through two difficult franchising periods, this should be happening in that way. Given what we have learnt, they ask, “Why are we doing this if it is working well? If it is working well, why not leave it in place and see what happens?” As I have said, that would not necessarily have prevented the Government proceeding with other franchises, if that is what they were determined to do—some people would certainly have preferred it if they had not been. It seems particularly perverse to pick this one. That is what many members of the public feel, and not just those who travel on the line regularly.

There is a lot of concern about how this will work out. If East Coast had been performing badly in the public sector, it would have made sense. An imperative to turn it around might have trumped the disadvantages of negotiating extensions on the west coast main line and the Great Western main line. But East Coast was and is performing well, and that defence is simply not available to Ministers.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Stephen Hammond)]

I have listened carefully to the hon. Lady, who says that there is no excuse. She will of course want to point out that, in terms of punctuality, the east coast main line is the worst performing long-distance franchise and that it has been so for at least the last year.

[Sheila Gilmore]

It is quite clear from the figures on punctuality that the problems East Coast has faced have been substantially about track and weather. A previous speaker referred to the problems with the lines, particularly in the Peterborough area, over the past couple of years. Those problems need to be addressed well in advance of any other changes. If we discount those problems, I do not think that anybody in the rail industry is suggesting that that has been due to the operator.

My contention is that we have reduced our ability to get improvements on other important lines and that that is regrettable at a time when there is real support and appetite for rail investment, and for good reasons. That has given us an opportunity to move ahead with this and perhaps make up for past mistakes. It seems to me to have been an opportunity missed.

16:02

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

May I start by wishing you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and the staff in the Speaker’s office, a rather belated happy new year? I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Ian Swales) on securing the debate and the Backbench Business Committee on having the common sense to try to ensure that we have a debate on rail, because we have not had one for some time. I have been pressing for such a debate for the past three years, particularly in relation to the south-west, but have failed miserably—my hon. Friend is obviously much more charming that I am.

Transport in general in my neck of the woods is an incredibly emotive issue. I hope over the next few moments to speak with one voice with the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck), because we have been working very closely over the past three years to try to improve the transport infrastructure. Frankly, without her help we would not have got as far we have.

Plymouth is the 27th largest urban conurbation in the country and the 12th largest city. That its transport infrastructure is so bad is a bit of a disgrace. I recognise that that issue has affected not only the coalition Government, because they inherited many problems, but we need to work as hard as we can to improve the transport infrastructure into the south-west, especially down to my constituency.

Plymouth has a global reputation for marine science engineering research. That includes not only one of the most famous naval dockyards in the country, but the seventh largest university, which has a brilliant reputation for marine engineering research.

I have known my hon. Friend the Minister for more than 30 years, so he and I know each other very well, and no doubt if I say something very wrong he will take me to one side afterwards and put my cap on straight. However, I am going to use this opportunity to remind him, as I always remind other Ministers, that Plymouth is not Portsmouth. We are not 20 minutes away from Bristol, and we need to make sure that a large amount of attention is paid to our part of the world. Plymouth is an economic motor for what happens in west Devon, and also down into Cornwall. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Stephen Gilbert) will want to express a view on that.

Some 38% of people who work in our city work in the public sector, so there is a strong wish to get primary investment into the place in order to build on that. We need to make sure that the city deal that I hope is about to come to fruition is a success, because that will mean that in return for some money being paid to clear up and decontaminate the dockyard, 10,000 new jobs could be created at the marine energy park, for which I have been campaigning.

Plymouth’s is a low-skills and low-wage economy. In that sense, it is very similar to Portsmouth and places such as Gravesend and Chatham, where unfortunately there has been too much dependency on the public sector, which has always wanted to make sure that it gets all the bright boys and girls to go and work for it, especially in places such as the dockyard. If we are to rebalance our economy, we need to make sure that we not only have a better skills base but try to increase private sector wages.

We desperately need better transport links. The really big issue for Plymouth and the west country is that every time it rains, everybody holds their breath, because we do not know whether there will be enough resilience to allow us to continue to travel from Plymouth up to London following any damage caused by the storms that take place. I urge my hon. Friend to consider an alternative line going north through Tavistock, because that would be very helpful should, at any stage, the Dawlish route fall to pieces. Last year, landslips caused very big problems on the line. Unfortunately, we have also lost our airport. I am afraid that there is therefore a sense in Plymouth that we are somewhat isolated from the rest of the country. Others have been campaigning to try to get Newquay involved. There is great concern about this, and 37,000 people in Plymouth signed a petition to keep the airport open.

Other than the trains, we are dependent on our roads as the only way to get in and out of the peninsula and into Plymouth. I thank my hon. Friend for his work in ensuring that there will be a case study on the dualling of the A303, which will be incredibly important. During the past two or three weeks when I have been going to and from Plymouth, I have somewhat aquaplaned my way down the M4, M5 and bits of the A38, and I have found that incredibly worrying. Dualling the A303 will be just one activity whereby we end up with good transport links, and I am therefore grateful that my hon. Friend has been able to press for it. We also need real political leadership. I am delighted that Labour Members, as well as the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, have been campaigning hard to make sure that we have the necessary level of investment and continuing to press the Government to take note of that.

There are several little things that I would like to ask for. I have already called for electrification of our line, and I thank the Government for sorting out the junctions at Reading, because that will certainly help, but there are several other things as well. First, we need more three-hour train journeys between Plymouth and London, as well as better links to Manchester and other parts of the country, including the north, the north-east and the north-west. Secondly, we need to get trains into Plymouth from London before 11.17 am, as is currently the case. If I were a business man seeking to do some work, I would want to make sure that I arrived in Plymouth at 9 am, rather than 11.15. That is incredibly important.

Thirdly, I am delighted that progress is being made on getting free wi-fi on our railway line. We also need to make sure that people who catch a train can be certain that not only will they sit on it for three rather than seven hours—which is what I am campaigning for—but that it will actually go through. It is incredibly important for there to be resilience in the network.

Another small point is that the Environment Agency proposed at one stage that, if there was going to be bad flooding, it would cut off the line at Exeter, which would have created real problems for those of us further west. I hope the Government will address that important issue.

We also need to make sure that the travelling public in Plymouth are given certainty. Given that 90% of the Devon and Cornwall MPs are members of the coalition parties, this is a real opportunity for the Government to demonstrate that we are serious about delivering better infrastructure in the south-west.

I want to set my hon. Friend the Minister a very small challenge. In 2020, Plymouth will commemorate the Mayflower. The founding fathers left Plymouth to find America; I think it was called the American colonies in those days. This is important because we will potentially get a flood of tourists from America. I and others have been pressing for the G8 to be held in Plymouth. It would be brilliant if we could get the President of America to visit the homeland of civilised activity in America. I am fully aware that President Obama will not be in office then, but his successor will be very important.

I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to give me a commitment. First, would he be willing to meet me and the other Plymouth Members of Parliament to discuss how we can deliver a more resilient and better train service? Secondly, if we deliver a proper transport infrastructure by 2020—I wish to carry on being here for much longer than that—there will be real hope and my hon. Friend will have demonstrated true political leadership.

16:12

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Redcar (Ian Swales) on securing this important debate. I apologise, as others have, for the fact that I shall discuss a line that connects to London. I accept his broader point that we should not be so southern-centric, but I hope he will forgive me, given that my constituency depends a lot on the line between Brighton and London.

I find myself in agreement with the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Simon Kirby), who is not in his place—I hope this is an area on which we can have cross-party agreement—that the current rail system is failing our constituents in Brighton and Hove. The Brighton-to-London commuters I meet almost every day are, without exception, frustrated and angry about the poor quality of the service that they pay through the nose to use. It is a huge amount of money and, as has been said, the cost just went up again earlier this month. An annual season ticket between Brighton and London Victoria is nearly £4,000; to be fair, there would be £28 change, but that is still a huge amount. What do people get for their £4,000? The main line from Brighton is in dire trouble. It struggles and creaks through inadequate capacity.

Last month I attended a Network Rail event on the future of the Brighton main line to make the case for more capacity between the capital and Brighton. The connection between the two cities is critical to my constituents and we do not want to wait for the crumbs from the table. Many Members have said that this is not a debate about HS2 and it certainly is not, but I think we should remind ourselves of the amount of money that can be found when the political will is there to invest in our rail infrastructure. I would far rather that that money was invested in the general rail systems on which so many of our constituents depend, rather than what I see as pretty much a massively expensive vanity project that will not deliver the gains that we need.

Brighton is a dynamic, internationally successful city and a major tourist destination, but it needs more investment in its rail lines: far too often the city is cut off because of problems at East Croydon or elsewhere on the line. We need some real vision and commitment to invest to get Brighton the second London line that we so desperately need. It is essential to have not only increased capacity, but a fast alternative route for passengers at times of disruption.

In October, Baroness Kramer, the Transport Minister in the other place, said:

“It is anticipated that Network Rail will provide a copy of its Brighton Main Line Pre-Report…to this Department before the end of the year. It will include…the potential role of new line schemes, including Lewes to Uckfield.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 22 October 2013; Vol. 748, c. WA166.]

Have Ministers received that report, and if so when will it be made public so that we can see it? In the autumn statement, the Chancellor said that he will accelerate the Network Rail study into improvements in the Brighton main line. Is that the same pre-report that was supposed to have been done by December, or is it an additional study? Weary commuters would welcome some clarification. Either way, we need to know the exact official terms of reference of the report and when we will get to see it. It is critical that the study should be a thorough review of capacity between the Sussex coast and London, covering all the options to end the chaos that we so regularly experience on this critical rail artery into London.

As well as talking about the specific needs of Brighton, including for a Brighton main line 2, I will say a few words about this country’s broader rail system. I believe that it is failing us, which is unforgivable in the sense that there is an alternative to the overcrowded, unreliable, overpriced and fragmented private services that we have to put up with. We could have an integrated, publicly owned and run railway that does not waste money on profit, and there is a model for doing that gradually and affordably.

Despite the standard mantra that privatisation saves money, the cost to the public purse of running the railways has risen by a factor of between two and three since they were sold off. The report “Rebuilding Rail” from the Transport for Quality of Life group makes clear the key reasons for that increase, which include high interest payments to keep Network Rail’s debts off the Government balance sheet—the Government have recently been made to put those debts on the books—as well as debt write-offs, costs arising from the fragmentation of the rail system into many organisations, profit margins of complex tiers of contractors and subcontractors, and dividend payments to private investors.

The only way to sort out that mess and waste, as well as the rising fares, overcrowding and the rest is for the state to take back control of the railways. That is why I am actively campaigning for them to be brought back into public ownership through my private Member’s Bill, the Railways Bill. I hope that the official Opposition will make it clear in their response whether they might back that Bill. If we want to improve our inter-city services, we have to nail the myth that buying back assets that have been sold off would be too expensive. The step-by-step approach in my Bill would allow the assets of the railways to be reacquired for the public at minimal cost, with substantial ongoing savings over time as franchises expire or companies break the terms of their franchise agreements. There is strong current evidence that it is better for passengers, railways and taxpayers when franchises are in public hands.

The Minister has been chuntering—if I may use that word—during my speech. I have not picked up what he has said, but I suspect that he is not entirely in agreement with me. I challenge him about the east coast main line. He put some facts and figures to the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore), but, frankly, they are misleading. The east coast main line was brought back into public hands because of market failure, but it is the UK’s most successful rail franchise. Its passenger satisfaction levels are the highest on record, and it pays millions back to the taxpayer, as opposed to most other train companies, which deliver millions to shareholders.

The Minister mentioned punctuality, so let us look at that. The facts show that the punctuality of the east coast main line is 0.1% different from that of the west coast main line: on the east coast main line, with very little Government investment, it is 82.8%, but on the west coast main line, with massive Government investment, it is 82.9%. That seems to suggest that on overall efficiency, the east coast main line is doing very well.

The Office of Rail Regulation agrees with me. It says clearly that the east coast main line is the most cost-efficient line. Even the Financial Times says that it is

“the most efficiently run rail franchise in terms of its reliance on taxpayer funding”.

It receives the lowest level of Government funding.

However much the Minister chunters, there is plenty of evidence—this Government like to say that they are an evidence-led Government—from the east coast main line that bringing rail back into public hands works. It is precisely the threat of a good example that makes the Government want to sell it off as quickly as possible, so that it is not there as a standing embarrassment to the rest of their rail policy. It really does beggar belief that the Government want to re-privatise the line.

[Stephen Hammond]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Caroline Lucas]

With pleasure.

[Stephen Hammond]

Let us look at the evidence if that is what the hon. Lady wants to do. She should know that the rolling stock costs for the east coast main line came in at £85 million in 2012, whereas the bill for Virgin was £302 million. That is a substantial difference. The access charge costs are substantially lower and are likely to rise. Those are two pieces of evidence that place question marks over her line that it is the most efficient railway line.

[Caroline Lucas]

It is not just my line. As I have said, it is the line of the Office of Rail Regulation. I would suggest that there is cherry-picking going on in the figures that are being presented. There are questions over what the start time is and over how much of the responsibility for the costs can be laid at the door of Directly Operated Railways and how much at the door of the previous private franchises, given the lack of investment that went in earlier. My position stands strongly and I am backed up by independent regulators and others.

If the Government really want to make savings and to improve our transport network for everyone, they should recognise that privatisation has failed and bring railways back into public ownership as the franchises expire. According to calculations in the “Rebuilding Rail” report, reuniting the railways under public ownership could save more than £1 billion a year of taxpayers’ money. To put that figure in context, if all unnecessary costs were eliminated and the resulting savings were used entirely to reduce fares—I am not saying that that would necessarily be the best thing, but it gives one a sense of what we are talking about—it would equate to across the board cuts of 18%. Fares that are price regulated because of their social importance could be cut substantially more.

Under public ownership, all the public money that is invested in the railways could be used to deliver a better service for passengers, while also achieving wider social and environmental goals, rather than to line the pockets of private shareholders. Train travel could once again be a pleasure and something to be proud of. That is the kind of bright future that I want for our railways. I urge Ministers to wake up to the potential of public investment in our inter-city infrastructure and to look at the evidence clearly and objectively, rather than cherry-picking the figures, as I fear the Minister has done this afternoon.

16:22

[Stephen Gilbert (St Austell and Newquay) (LD)]

It feels appropriate to be the last speaker in this debate, given that the journey time from my constituency to London to talk about inter-city rail travel is probably the longest of anyone here. I think that it is longer than that of the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) at four and a half hours from St Austell on the main line. I join other Members in paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Ian Swales) for securing this debate.

I congratulate the vast majority of Members on avoiding long and drawn-out references to High Speed 2. As I have often remarked, in the south-west of England, we would just like average-speed rail, please. I am very supportive of the plans for high-speed rail. It is a necessary part of our economic diversification and of the future-proofing of our rail infrastructure and network. However, the journey time of almost five and a half hours from Penzance to Paddington means that one can fly from London to New York in about the same amount of time as one can get from Cornwall to the Commons. We would therefore very much like to see investment in average-speed rail.

As hon. Members will know, rail connectivity is vital for the peripheral parts of our country, whether to deliver the visitors to Cornwall who spend so lavishly and support a good quarter of the local economy or to enable businesses in Cornwall to take their goods and services to markets in London, the south-east and further afield. That rail connectivity is a vital part of the overall transport network, which also includes Newquay airport, to which colleagues have referred, and the A30 and the A38. That network enables businesses and others to travel around our country, with all the benefits that that brings.

I wish to place on the record my support, along with that of my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) and the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck), for the Government to make a priority of resolving the issue at Cowley bridge in Exeter, which threatens to cut off the south-west every time there is significant rainfall—or, as we say in Cornwall, if there is rain in Exeter, England is cut off. That is part of the future-proofing and resilience that we need to ensure happens promptly in the rail network if we are to continue to experience weather events such as those at the moment, which I am sure we will. Such events have become all too common.

I welcome some of the developments on the network, such as the wi-fi that First Great Western is rolling out. I have long campaigned for that, because it has been absurd that inter-city travellers from Penzance to Paddington have not been able to access it. A business man or any other worker has had to sit on a train for about five hours without being able to access reliable internet services, meaning that they could not use that time as productively as they might have done. I am delighted that my campaign, along with others, to secure wi-fi on the network has been successful.

[Simon Kirby]

Would my hon. Friend be surprised to learn that in the south-east many First Capital Connect trains not only have no wi-fi but no sockets, and that some Southern trains have no toilets? It is a long way to go without them.

[Stephen Gilbert]

I am surprised and shocked, as I am sure my hon. Friend is, and I can only assume that the Minister has heard his pleas and that that will be part of the ongoing discussions with the train operating companies. We need trains that are fit for the 21st century so that people can use them as part of their daily routine. Where businesses use them, we need to ensure that they have wi-fi, food, sockets and, of course, toilets.

I also welcome the project to refurbish the Night Riviera, which is the sleeper service between Paddington and Penzance. It is a vital service for the business community, allowing people to come to London for early-morning meetings, spend the day here and leave again. It is welcome that we are to have additional coaches, that they are to be upgraded and that there is to be a new lounge.

One of my frustrations when I have used the Night Riviera service, much like the one that my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Simon Kirby) mentioned, has been that there are no sockets inside the cabins. Someone can sit down on the train hoping that they might be able to do some work or watch a movie on their iPad, only to lose power and have no ability to charge up their device. That is a point of detail, but I hope that the Department might be able to raise it with the people who are designing the new sleeper carriages.

[Alison Seabeck]

The hon. Gentleman will also have noticed that, as those sleeper trains are currently designed, if someone wants to stretch out on the seats because they have not managed to get a berth, of which there are too few, they find that the arms of the seats are fixed. They have to spend their time sleeping either wrapped around a fixed metal arm or on the floor.

[Stephen Gilbert]

The hon. Lady will know that, often, what happens on the sleeper train must stay on the sleeper train, but she makes a good point about the comfort of the seated part of the service. If we are to invest significant money in that important service, we need to ensure that we get it right for the future. That includes moveable arms, as she says, and sockets to charge mobile and other devices.

The introduction of wi-fi, the revamped sleeper service and the intercity express programme, which will see more rolling stock delivered to the south-west, are all welcome. For too long now, customers on the Penzance to Paddington line have had to put up with a patchy service, often with no food aboard and with frequent delays and cancellations, out-of-date rolling stock, no wi-fi, as I have mentioned, and expensive ticket prices.

The Liberal Democrat party is clear that long-term investment in our rail network can secure an 8% dividend boost to the local economy in Cornwall. One key project that I hope the Minister will address is improving signalling in the south-west. Up to £15 million needs to be spent before 2017, which Cornwall council and the local transport board are keen to co-fund. That will improve capacity on the line by creating the prospect of a half-hourly main line service, improving journey times, and helping the route absorb the predicted increase in passenger numbers. I also put on record my support for the proposed Traincare centre in Penzance, which is a £14 million investment to house the new First Great Western rolling stock and the new sleeper. It will create up to 60 new jobs and move the maintenance of the bulk of the First Great Western fleet to Cornwall.

I will conclude with a couple of parochial points that I hope the Minister and I can correspond on in the future. There is a real need for improvements to St Austell station as there is currently no waiting room on the up platform, and no disabled access between the up and down platforms. The Minister’s predecessor and I were in correspondence about additional Government funding to make those renovations. The funding has been forthcoming but the project has not yet been delivered, so I hope the Minister will be able to return to his Department tomorrow and kick the necessary people into ensuring that the project stays on time and—excuse the pun—on track. People in Newquay value the fact that over the summer months a direct Newquay to other cities service comes through the branch line into Newquay, providing much relief for local traffic, particularly on the A30. That service needs to be maintained.

In summary, in recent years the south-west has fallen behind other parts of the country in terms of rail infrastructure. The Government have taken action through the extension of the franchise to encourage investment. I welcome much of that, but we continue to need a concerted long-term approach to ensure that the entire region—Cornwall, Devon and indeed the rest of south-west England—benefits from what our rail services could, and should, be.

16:32

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Redcar (Ian Swales) on securing this debate, which has addressed some national issues. Important constituency concerns have been raised by hon. Members, including those who represent Plymouth, Brighton, Cleethorpes, Luton, Edinburgh, and St Austell and Newquay.

There has been shared agreement across the House that strengthening rail links between our cities is an important step to achieving balanced economic growth for individual cities, city regions, and the nation as a whole. I am sure that all Members who have spoken today will work to ensure that although individual disagreements may arise, the commitment to an ongoing programme of investment endures.

There has been much positive talk today about future developments, and I know that for many hon. Members, those projects cannot be delivered fast enough. I entered Parliament with a pledge to campaign for the electrification of the midland main line, and although some issues still need to be addressed, the improvements look on course to reach the east midlands by 2019, and Sheffield by 2020.

Electrification will ensure faster, more reliable services, as well as delivering environmental and efficiency gains. We have heard other examples of how planned projects will benefit communities, including from my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck), and other south-west MPs who are very much looking forward not only to electrification, but to modern Intercity Express Programme trains, investment in improved resilience, and even wi-fi and power sockets.

As we begin to plan for control period six spending in the next Parliament, we must consider how other links can be strengthened, new links made, and Beeching-era lines reopened where there is a clear business case to do so.

It is worth remembering just how far the rail industry has developed in the past 15 years. The 1997 Labour Government inherited a fragmented rail network. Years of underinvestment had left a dated fleet, much of it still using slam-door carriages, which was to prove inadequate against a backdrop of rising passenger numbers. The popular and successful inter-city brand had been broken up. There had been 1,000 days without orders, which had caused permanent damage to the supply chain. Disastrously, the recently privatised infrastructure body had little understanding of its assets, and Railtrack’s over-reliance on subcontractors put passengers’ safety in danger.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on her speech. Would she say that it is a tragedy that Britain, which gave railways to the world and built them all over the world, is now importing railway equipment because in some cases we cannot build it ourselves?

[Lilian Greenwood]

I certainly agree with my hon. Friend that it is important that we support and develop our railway engineering industry, which has such a proud history and continues to provide important sources of employment, particularly in my area in the east midlands.

Contrary to what the hon. Member for Redcar said—I have to disagree with him on this—I think we should be proud of Labour’s achievements. After ending the failed Railtrack experiment and establishing a tough new regulator, our railways became the safest major European network by 2010. There was a major programme of investment in rolling stock. More than 5,000 new vehicles were ordered between 1997 and 2006 alone, both to replace older trains and to allow for an expansion of services. The number of long distance passengers, and the services run to accommodate them, doubled since the mid-1990s, and with that growth came new pressures on our existing lines. We are now accommodating the same number of passengers as we did in the 1920s, but on a network that is less than half the size. That is why the previous Government committed to a number of important projects to improve capacity and overall performance of the network, including the electrification of the Great Western main line to Swansea and key lines in the north-west, and a new generation of inter-city express trains to replace the ageing rolling stock on the Great Western and east coast main lines.

It was the Labour Government who committed to Crossrail and introduced a £6 billion upgrade of the Thameslink route that will massively increase capacity on one of the busiest stretches of track in Europe. After the completion of HS1 in 2007, Lord Adonis set out plans for a new network to relieve capacity constraints on our north-south main lines, and to provide better connections between cities in the midlands and the north. They will address some of the very slow journeys highlighted by the hon. Member for Redcar, and provide improved capacity and connectivity to our national network.

[Caroline Lucas]

The hon. Lady is talking about Labour’s successes. I welcome the fact that Labour has agreed to keep the east coast main line in public hands. Will she confirm whether it will follow the logic of that position and support my Railways Bill, which would bring all the franchises back into public hands as they expire?

[Lilian Greenwood]

As the hon. Lady says, we think the east coast main line is providing an important public sector comparator that will help us to evaluate the future of the rail industry. What is clear is that the current structure is not delivering enough for passengers. That is why, unlike the Government parties, we are prepared to review it and to look at alternatives that will deliver the best deal for passengers and taxpayers.

Unfortunately, all of the essential projects that I set out a moment ago were subject to delays after the general election. That caused uncertainty and, in some cases, pushed back completion dates.

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

I have been at the Westminster Hall debate this afternoon, otherwise I would have been here earlier. My hon. Friend mentioned the east coast main line. May I endorse the comments, which I know were made earlier by hon. Members on both sides of the House, on the need for the excellent services on the east coast to be improved by ensuring that the electrification system works and that the overhead lines do not come down too often and disrupt traffic in a way that, unfortunately, they have done all too often in the recent past?

[Lilian Greenwood]

I will return to the east coast main line in a few moments.

Electrification of the Great Western main line, which has come up several times today, is a case in point. After pausing the project in May 2010, electrification to Newbury was announced in November that year, but the project’s extension to Cardiff was not announced until March 2011. Ministers said then that the line to Swansea would not be electrified, and it was not until they faced further pressure that, over a year later, they agreed that the route to Swansea would be electrified after all. In other words, thanks to the Government’s prevarication, a project initially announced in July 2009 was not confirmed until three years later. Given the importance of bringing forward infrastructure projects to deliver sustainable economic growth, even a Tory-led Government can surely do better than that.

There has been a similarly sorry tale in rolling stock procurement. In March 2011, the Prime Minister met the chairman of Bombardier and said that he was

“bringing the Cabinet to Derby today with one purpose – to do everything we can to help businesses in the region create the jobs and growth on which the future of our economy depends”,

but just four months later, Bombardier announced 1,400 job losses as a result of his Government’s decisions. Even after this debacle, there was an unacceptable two-year delay before financial close was reached on the contract. The Public Accounts Committee said recently that it was

“sceptical about whether the Department has the capacity to deliver the remainder of the programme by 2018.”

After the Government’s failure to keep HS2’s cost under control and the collapse of rail franchising on their watch, it is difficult to have faith in the political leadership of the Department. The failure of the franchising system has cost the taxpayer at least £55 million, and the Government’s refusal to consider Directly Operated Railways has left civil servants in an exceptionally weak bargaining position when agreeing direct awards. Under the terms of the Great Western contract extension, FirstGroup will pay only £17 million in premium payments next year, compared with £126 million in 2012-13. Investment has been delayed and orders have been put on hold, hurting the supply chain and threatening jobs and skills.

At a time when Ministers have been overtaken by problems of their own making and the Department is struggling to get essential projects out of the sidings, it is remarkable that the Government’s top priority is selling off the east coast main line franchise before the next election. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) and the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) for their persistence in raising this question with Ministers. Since 2009, East Coast has gone from strength to strength. It has delivered a new timetable, achieved better punctuality and passenger satisfaction scores than the previous failed private operators, won multiple industry awards and developed a five-year plan for improving inter-city services on the line.

The casual reader will be forgiven for not getting this impression from the Government’s franchise perspective, but thanks to a leaked draft of that document, we know that positive references to the company’s performance were removed at the last minute, as Ministers desperately tried to rewrite history. But East Coast’s commercial performance speaks for itself. By February 2015, it will have returned almost £1 billion to the taxpayer in premiums, and it has invested every penny of its profits—some £48 million—back into the service, but under the Government’s plans, that money would be split between private shareholders instead.

Before Christmas, East Coast announced that half its fares to London would be frozen and that most of its fares would be cut in real terms in 2014. Will the Minister tell us how many private operators have announced a cut in the average cost of their fares? The truth is that the Government have allowed train operating companies to raise prices by up to 5%—more than double the rate of inflation—and the average season ticket is now 20% more expensive than it was in 2010. So at a time when passengers are facing a cost-of-living crisis, why are the Government seeking to abolish the publicly owned operator that is cutting the cost of fares?

It is difficult to resist the conclusion that East Coast has risen to the top of the Secretary of State’s to-do list because it has proven itself as a successful alternative to franchising, and that is why Ministers are so determined to push it out the door before the election.

We know from written answers that the public cost of refranchising could reach £6 million, along with other wasted millions lost due to the west coast shambles. All this money could have been spent instead on alleviating the cost-of-living crisis or investing in the railways. As it stands, the refranchising of East Coast represents the triumph of ideology and short-term political calculation over passengers’ best interests and a wilful disregard for public resources.

I urge Government Members, particularly Liberal Democrat Members who before the election were opposed to selling off East Coast, to think again and halt this un-needed, unwanted and wasteful privatisation. The priority must be delivering a fair deal for passengers and ensuring that the essential projects that so many Members wish to see are completed.

[Ian Swales]

The hon. Lady makes an interesting point about East Coast. During the 13 years of the Labour Government, how many times was the franchise renewed and did the Government consider taking it into state ownership?

[Lilian Greenwood]

I would accept that we were perhaps too accepting of the overall franchising model. There were many problems on the railways that the Labour Government had to sort out, but we are at least prepared to look at alternatives, which is more than can be said at the moment for the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. With all the inter-city franchises expiring in the next Parliament, we are right to look again at the best way to structure the railways to deliver real value for passengers and taxpayers.

My message to the Government is clear: “Call off the privatisation, get the Department in order, and make sure that essential investments in our inter-city lines are kept on track.”

16:46

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Stephen Hammond)]

It is an honour to address the debate this afternoon. I congratulate the hon. Member for Redcar (Ian Swales) on securing the debate and on the way he conducted it. His speech was interesting and thoughtful, and he proved by his journey time calculations and recalculations that he can do mathematics.

We heard some fascinating contributions from a number of other Members. The three Members from the south-west were united across the political divide in wanting to see improvements to train services in the south-west, particularly the three-hour train to Plymouth. I remember campaigning in the city, along with the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck), back in 2007. The failure of investment about which she complained has not happened only under this Government. I can, of course, bring her good news. She quoted a fare of £271. Should she choose to travel tomorrow morning, there is a return fare of £92, so one needs to be careful about saying that only one fare is available.

I heard the pleas of my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) about Mayflower 2020 in Plymouth. I do not know whether he will see President Christie turning up there. He invited me to come to a meeting, and I would be delighted to do so. I follow his lark in saying that I hope he is here for rather longer than just for 2015, and I am sure he will be.

I say to the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Stephen Gilbert) that I can only imagine how frustrating it must be to go back to the constituency in the middle of the night to find that the film has been lost. The prospect of corresponding with him fills me with unbounded joy. I look forward to receiving and acting on his suggestions none the less.

The two Members representing Brighton shared a moment of political unity. I certainly hear their pleas. I can confirm that the Department received a draft in December of the report to which Baroness Kramer referred—the London to south coast rail study, which was carried out by Network Rail—and I expect to see a final version within the next couple of months.

I can bring some good news to my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Simon Kirby) on the basis that Thameslink will see 116 new trains of eight and 12 cars coming into operation, which will directly benefit his constituents. I am delighted to tell him that when he opens his post tomorrow morning, he will find a letter from me accepting his challenge to come and travel on the early morning train. I very much look forward to doing that.

I was not entirely surprised to hear the contribution of the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins). He and I have enjoyed sparring over issues for the last few years. I listened with interest to his comments about the Birmingham Snow Hill line, and I am sure that he will want to raise his point about it with us again.

I understand the call of my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) for more initiative and private sector innovation in franchising. I hope that, through the direct award and the new refranchising process, we will be able to deliver that for him.

I enjoyed the contribution from the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore), although I had obviously heard it before in previous debates of this nature. The simple fact is that the east coast main line is the worst-performing of the long-distance franchises. Its passenger satisfaction figure may be up, but it is still six points behind the figure for the west coast main line.

We heard a wide range of contributions today, and I am grateful to Members for taking the time to be here. The debate has shown how valuable the railways are to our country, and to communities throughout it.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

Will the Minister give way?

[Stephen Hammond]

I am sorry, but I do not have time.

As for what was said by the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood), let us have some honesty in this debate. When Labour was in office it crashed the economy, and gas and council tax bills doubled. Had her party been in office today, the average fare would have risen by 11% rather than 3.1%. Moreover, in 13 years, we saw just 9 miles of electrification. Just as we are dealing with the economic mess that was left behind by the last Government, we are determined to deal with the massive infrastructure deficit that we inherited. [Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) must not shout from the Dispatch Box. She was listened to in silence for a considerable time, and she must let the Minister finish his speech.

[Stephen Hammond]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

According to the World Economic Forum, in 1998—just after the last Conservative Government left office— the United Kingdom ranked seventh in the world for infrastructure spending. By 2009-10, we had fallen to 33rd. I am pleased to note that we are rising again, but there is much more work to be done. The failure of the last Government is epitomised by the fact that, according to the Civil Engineering Contractors Association, between 2000 and 2007, the UK’s infrastructure investment was lower than that in any other OECD state.

Rail is just one part of an unprecedented programme of transport investment that this Government are introducing to drive growth and job creation. As a result of the tough decisions that we made in order to get the public finance mess that we inherited under control, we have been able to achieve the longest period and the largest amount of rail modernisation since the Victorian era. That will mean faster journeys, more seats, improved access to stations, better freight links, and a rail network of which the country can be proud. The Government are delivering their vision of a railway that will be more financially and environmentally sustainable, support growth and deliver benefits for both passengers and freight customers. It has been agreed on both sides of the House that since privatisation the railways have been successfully carrying more passengers, more safely, on many more and newer trains, many of which arrive more punctually, and that levels of passenger satisfaction have been higher than ever before.

At the heart of the growth to which I have referred, and at the heart of today’s debate, are the historic inter-city routes, which provide a vital link between the towns and cities of the country. The impact of those routes is clearly significant: they provide links for communities, businesses and freight, and drive the country’s economy. They are important because they do exactly what a railway should do. They serve local communities, they serve people, and they serve markets. They move people to jobs, connect industry with its markets and suppliers, and connect regions with one another. The high capacity and reliability of inter-city networks is crucial.

As was pointed out by the hon. Member for Redcar, it is easy to think of inter-city services as merely connecting one end of a route to the other, but it is important to recognise the importance of intermediate stops and the rail networks that spread out from them. They provide the inter-regional and intra-regional connectivity that allows us to keep the country moving. Good inter-city rail services make it possible to live in one place and work in another, or to live in one place and socialise in another. They open up opportunities for employment throughout the country. We must therefore continue to invest in increasing, extending and enhancing services that are already improving rapidly during the current period of investment.

As many Members said, the inter-city network is all too often seen only in terms of connections to London. It must not be so. It is a driver of change in the economic geography of the country, decreasing journey times and improving links between all our nation’s major cities and regions, providing agglomeration benefits for business, increasing productivity and, importantly, providing access to new markets. The major cities of the north—Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield—will soon benefit from the huge investment in the northern hub, a transformative package of rail enhancements radiating from Manchester.

Investment needs to flow not only from the Government and Network Rail. We must continue to find ways to adapt our contracts and contacts with the private sector to ensure that we work in partnership with them, allowing them to bring real innovation through their own investments in projects that will genuinely benefit their passengers. The west coast main line is a great example of successful inter-city investment. Working in partnership with Network Rail, over £9 billion has been spent to modernise the route and improve journey times from 2008. That investment has been so successful that in order to meet the increased demands and expectations of passengers, further investment on the franchise has been necessary. Some 28,000 more seats per day were provided on the line by 106 new Pendolino carriages procured when the direct award was negotiated with Virgin at the end of 2012. To those who say no benefits come from direct awards, I say I suspect that the passengers who fill those 28,000 extra seats may well feel there is some benefit.

This Government are also investing a huge amount in electrification. Our rail investment strategy included our plans for the “electric spine.” This major investment links the core centres of population and economic activity in the west, east midlands and Yorkshire with the south of England. It will complete the full electrification of the midland main line out of London St Pancras and provide electrification of the lines from Nuneaton and Bedford to Oxford, Reading, Basingstoke and Southampton. All this will provide faster, more reliable services on many important strategic routes, and not just routes into London. This is massive investment from this Government on a scale not previously seen. By 2020, three quarters of the passenger miles travelled in England and Wales will be on electric trains, compared with 58% today and under 40% previously.

The Department has big plans for the inter-city East Coast and Great Western franchises. At the heart of revitalising those railways is the £5.8 billion intercity express programme, which will deliver 122 new state-of-the-art trains across those vital routes. The majority of the construction for those new trains will be carried out at Hitachi’s new factory in the north-east. This investment is great news for British manufacturing, creating more jobs for the area and strengthening the supply chain in the UK. This programme, together with the major investment in Thameslink in the south-east, will open up the opportunity for a cascade of rolling stock to other parts of the network, where, as we recognise, it is needed. This is all aimed at upgrading rolling stock and improving inter-city services.

As we have seen in recent weeks, regardless of the levels and types of investment, some situations will always prove challenging. The rail network’s performance and resilience has, with some exceptions, been sorely tested by the severe weather this autumn and winter and done reasonably well. There is no room for complacency, however, and I hear the points made by Members from the south-west about the spend on resilience and I am sure that will be borne out in Oxfordshire and a number of other places. The Government are determined to ensure we have the best resilience in place.

The Government’s commitment to investment in inter-city rail services cannot be in question. We must work with the industry to ensure investment is used to its maximum potential across the country and delivers real benefits for passengers and taxpayers. This significant investment in our inter-city routes will transform travel across the nation, and future capacity challenges must also be met. Only by committing to this new route and this investment—we are making the hard decisions and putting the economy right—can the Government continue to promise a programme of investment in inter-city routes unparalleled and unseen before.

09:30

[Ian Swales]

I thank all Members who contributed to the debate. We had a wide-ranging discussion and I learned more about train design than I probably ever wanted to. More importantly, we learned about the importance of inter-city rail investment for economic development. That was the thrust of my speech, and my view has been supported by many others across the House. I thank the Minister for the tone and the content of his response. He should feel emboldened by the cross-party enthusiasm for investment in our rail system. More power to his elbow, and I hope we hear of a lot more plans in the future.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered inter-city rail investment.

Draft modern slavery Bill (Joint committee)

Resolved,

That this House concurs with the Lords Message of 18 December 2013, that it is expedient that a Joint Committee of Lords and Commons be appointed to consider the draft Modern Slavery Bill presented to both Houses on 16 December 2013 (Cm 8770), and that the Committee should report by 10 April 2014.

Ordered,

That a Select Committee of seven Members be appointed to join with the Committee appointed by the Lords;

That the Committee shall have power–

(i) to send for persons, papers and records;

(ii) to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House;

(iii) to report from time to time;

(iv) to appoint specialist advisers; and

(v) to adjourn from place to place within the United Kingdom;

That Fiona Bruce, Michael Connarty, Mr Frank Field, Fiona Mactaggart, Sir John Randall, Mrs Caroline Spelman and Sir Andrew Stunell be members of the Committee.—(Mr Gyimah.)

Barking, Havering and Redbridge NHS Hospitals Trust

Thursday 9th January 2014 Commons Chamber

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Mr Gyimah.)

17:00

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to ask you to convey my thanks to Mr Speaker for selecting this Adjournment debate today. On the last sitting day before Christmas, I asked for this debate because of what I considered to be the bad behaviour of the Secretary of State for Health. I was informed on 17 December that an announcement would be made the following day—embargoed until 2 pm—that would have profound implications for my constituents and the many other people in the London boroughs of Barking, Havering and Redbridge. That announcement, by the chief inspector of hospitals, Professor Sir Mike Richards, was that the Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust was to be put into special measures following inspections by the Care Quality Commission.

I attempted to raise the matter by intervening on the Secretary of State during a debate that took place following the announcement. I waited until after 2 o’clock so as not to break the embargo. I stood several times, but he did not accept my intervention. I therefore thought that the least I could do was to put in for an Adjournment debate on the subject, and I am grateful that it has now been chosen. I have also raised a point of order about this matter.

That was not the first time that I have found Ministers reluctant to engage with me directly on the question of the NHS trust that covers the King George hospital in my constituency as well as the Queen’s hospital in Romford. Nearly a year ago, on Thursday 7 February, I took part in a debate on accident and emergency provision in London. I asked the then Minister, the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry)—who has since been moved away from Health—to respond to my request to set aside the decision of the previous Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr Lansley), in 2011. I also asked for the decision to plan for the closure of the accident and emergency department at King George hospital within two years of October 2011 to be reconsidered. The then Minister failed to respond or even to mention the King George or the Queen’s hospitals in her response to the debate.

I have tried on several occasions to get ministerial responses to my requests to reconsider that decision. It was clearly a strange decision, given that we are now in 2014 and that—for reasons I shall outline—the timetable and the absolute chaos of this failing NHS trust make it absolutely impossible to close the accident and emergency department at the hospital in my constituency. Sadly, in 2013, we lost our maternity services, which have been transferred to Queen’s hospital.

I asked the Secretary of State to reconsider this issue, but on 15 January 2013 he said:

“The decision has been taken”.

However, he also said that

“we have made it absolutely clear that we will not proceed with implementing it until there is sufficient capacity in the area, particularly at Queen’s hospital in Romford, to cope with any additional pressures caused by it, and that undertaking remains.”—[Official Report, 15 January 2013; Vol. 556, c. 734.]

I asked him again in May, and I got a similar answer. I was told that it

“will not be closed until it is clinically safe to do so.”—[Official Report, 21 May 2013; Vol. 563, c. 1064.]

What is the current situation? The Care Quality Commission published its report in December. That report does not just deal with accident and emergency; it also raises issues relating to other departments in both Queen’s hospital and King George hospital. On Queen’s hospital’s accident and emergency department, it states:

“The service is not responsive enough to people’s needs. People were waiting too long to be either discharged or admitted. The trust is not dealing with enough people within the national four-hour target. The initial care pathway for children does not meet their needs, and unnecessarily delays their initial assessment.

Queen’s Hospital has consistently failed to achieve the 95% NHS target for the number of attendees that were discharged, admitted or transferred within four hours of arrival. Between the 1 April 2013 and 8 September 2013, 9,359…out of 59,038 patients were not seen within four hours of arrival. The department struggles to meet the target at all times, however, Mondays and Sundays provide the greatest difficulties. The A&E at Queen’s…performs significantly worse than at King George Hospital. These delays mean that patients are more likely to have poor outcomes.”

So the report said that there was “significantly worse” performance at Queen’s hospital, yet the Government are still planning the closure of the A and E at King George hospital, even though they know that Queen’s hospital has been failing, is failing and will continue to fail unless massive investment is made there, and that the King George is the better performing of the two hospitals in the trust. My constituency has a very young population with a large number of children. Some 30% of the people who go to A and E at the two hospitals in my local trust are children, yet the children in my constituency will have to move, with their parents, to the Queen’s hospital to attend A and E, rather than be treated in the better performing of the two hospitals in this failing trust.

The CQC report is absolutely damning. It points out:

“The trust faces significant difficulties in recruiting medical staff for A&E, and has done since 2011.”

Of course, October 2011 was when the Government decided that King George hospital would be run down and that this trust would have only one hospital in around two years. I do not think that date is a coincidence. The reality is that there is a damaging impact on morale and on the future of the services in my borough and the neighbouring ones as a result of this decision.

The report also states:

“The College of Emergency Medicine recommends that, for the number of patients seen in the A&E at Queen’s Hospital, it should have 16 consultants to provide cover 16 hours a day, seven days a week.”

A separate part of the report reveals that about 10 consultants would be needed at King George hospital, yet:

“The trust has eight consultants in post out of an establishment of 21 to cover both A&E departments at Queen’s and King George Hospitals. The heavy reliance on locum staff is putting patients at risk of receiving suboptimal care. Joint work with other trusts has not achieved the desired results and additional work is underway, including recruiting staff from overseas.”

Will the Daily Mail, the Daily Express, the UK Independence party and Ministers please note that the suggestion is to recruit staff from overseas to deal with the crisis caused by a lack of consultants in NHS trusts in north-east London?

The report criticises the inadequate record-keeping. It talks about the need for significant management improvements. I do not have time in this short Adjournment debate to go into the great detail that is in the report, but I will say that there are hard-working and dedicated members of staff and good practice in some departments in the trust.

I must declare an interest. This week, I was an out-patient in the ear, nose and throat department at King George hospital. I was seen quickly and before my appointment time and I was dealt with in an efficient manner. I want to place it on the record that the morale of the staff in the two hospitals remains remarkably high, but they are to some extent lions led by donkeys. They are suffering from years, perhaps decades, of problems in the health service in north-east London. I have been an MP for 21 years and have seen a succession of chief executives and significant reorganisations, and yet the fundamental problem is that the trust has a deficit of £100 million, which is clearly one of the driving forces in the reorganisation, and, at the same time, it has a massive catchment area of between 700,000 and 800,000 people. It is one of the largest trusts in the country with a huge, diverse population, a lot of churn and movement of people, and, as a result, some inadequate GP and primary care services and problems at the A and E. The fundamental issues are not being solved by whatever reorganisation is happening.

Let me make a few more remarks before the Minister responds. The report says:

“There was widespread concern from staff that the trust has not fully supported the A&E”

when concerns were raised. One member of staff said:

“We never see any of the management over here and all the important meetings are held at Queen’s.”

The larger of the two hospitals, the hospital built for 90,000, now has 140,000 admissions in a year. The report went on to say:

“The staff also felt that they were not kept up to date on the planned closure of the A&E at King George Hospital by senior management in the trust. One nurse told us, ‘There is a lot of unrest about the closure; we feel they are doing it by the back door. It makes it more difficult to recruit and keep staff.’”

The problems we face at the King George and Queen’s hospitals cannot be resolved even by a change of management. I understand that the current chief executive has indicated that she will be leaving in a couple of months. Having been involved in the reorganisation and running down of Chase Farm, she has now done her job at King George hospital and will no doubt be moving on to some other unfortunate trust. I also understand, although it is not yet quantified, that there will be some form of special new management structure and things associated with special measures. Perhaps the Minister can clarify what special measures mean as regards the day-to-day running of the organisation.

Will there be additional financial support? Will there be additional resources? The Barking, Havering and Redbridge clinical strategy document—I have the presentation for stakeholders, patients and the public in my hand, as well as the document itself—contains interesting phrases. For example, it says that areas of King George hospital will be “liberated” for use by other services and facilities. I thought when I read that that it was some sort of Maoist cult trying to have a people’s liberation army of consultants and NHS bureaucrats coming in to seize the stable base areas in the centre of my constituency. The NHS bureaucracy’s jargon sometimes amazes me. What is being talked about is running down services in Ilford and transferring facilities out of other buildings in the borough or elsewhere that will then be sold off, presumably for use as housing to add to the population demanding services from the trust while the total number of beds is run down drastically from 1,250 to about 800 to 900.

King George hospital serves a population that includes some of the poorest people in north-east London. I worry about the long-term implications. We were told—this has been repeated in various trust documents—that the original plan was to wait for about two years, until new facilities had been established at Queen’s hospital, for the A and E at King George to be run down. That has obviously slipped, as we are now two and a half years on. I was told informally a few months ago that they were talking about the end of 2014 to the early part of 2015, yet the clinical strategy reveals that the new facilities at Queen’s hospital will not be ready until the middle or the autumn of 2015. One document says that the plan is to:

“Move all emergency medicine and surgery to Queen’s Hospital by mid 2015”,

whereas another says that that will be done by early 2016.

The whole process is still uncertain. Given the uncertainties, the problems, the management issues that have arisen and the poor morale of the staff, there should be a moratorium with a review. My ideal solution would be to go back to having a trust that would run the hospital in Ilford—the better performing of the two A and Es—and keep an accident and emergency department in Redbridge, as we have had since 1931. That would mean that the people of my borough, which at that time had a population of 85,000, would today, with a population approaching 300,000, have a hospital to serve them when they need it to meet their emergency needs.

I hope that the Government will seriously reconsider the situation, given the unprecedented action of the CQC—this is the first time an NHS trust has been put into special measures in this way—recognise the serious problems and recognise the dysfunctional nature of the Barking, Havering and Redbridge trust.

17:18

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Jane Ellison)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) on securing the debate. I have heard him raise this issue in the House before, and it is clearly one of enormous interest and importance to his constituents. Like him, I wish to pay tribute to NHS staff in his area, particularly in the trust, as it has faced significant financial and performance challenges over recent years, as he outlined, including substantial problems with recruitment and retention. It is therefore particularly important to pay tribute to those front-line staff who have endeavoured—with some success, it sounds—to deliver an acceptable level of patient care in the face of a difficult situation. We thank and pay tribute to them for that.

I do not have a huge amount of time, so will give an undertaking now to get in touch with the hon. Gentleman after the debate if there are any issues that I cannot respond to or that I have not picked up on. It is worth saying—he will be disappointed, but it is better to say it straight away—that there has been no change in the position on the reconfiguration plans as laid out by the Secretary of State in the most recent official correspondence. I will therefore focus my remarks on the special measures situation and some of his questions about it, as I have some more detailed information to put across.

As we have heard, the NHS Trust Development Authority has decided to place the trust in special measures. The decision was not taken lightly; it follows the findings of an inspection by the Care Quality Commission’s chief inspector of hospitals, which demonstrated unacceptable failings in the trust. The chief inspector acknowledged that the trust has demonstrated improvements in some areas, such as the maternity service, but that good work has not been replicated throughout the trust. He highlighted that long-standing difficulties in the two A and E departments are clearly affecting patients and that attempts by the trust to address the problems have not had the hoped-for impact.

I share the hon. Gentleman’s disappointment that the much-needed improvements to A and E have not been achieved. All our constituents—I am a fellow London Member—deserve the best health care that we can provide. I recognise his characterisation of the local catchment area, as I see many of the same characteristics in my constituency. London is an extremely challenging health economy. The city’s diversity brings both exciting challenges and big pressures, so I understand what he is alluding to. Those are some of the reasons why the chief inspector recommended that the trust should be placed in special measures, whereby the trust’s leadership can get the support it needs to tackle the scale of the problems it faces.

Special measures provide an open and transparent way for the trust to take swift action to improve the quality of the services it provides for local people, which is what we want to see. I have been informed that the TDA has set out an intensive and focused programme of support. It includes the development of an improvement plan by the trust, which the TDA expects to see implemented over the next 12 months, and the appointment of an improvement director to support the development and delivery of the trust’s improvement plan. I recognise that the hon. Gentleman feels that he has seen people come and go with that objective in mind, but clearly it is extremely important that the improvement director is appointed, grasps the situation and makes a real difference.

There will also be a review of the capability of the trust’s board and senior management team, to be undertaken this month by Sir Ian Carruthers. It aims to ensure that the organisation has the capacity and capability to respond to the chief inspector’s report and deliver the improvement plan. I hope that it will report very soon after this month’s assessment so that it can be one of the building blocks on which the trust can move forward.

The trust’s plan will also need to identify the support it needs from partner organisations to improve services, including its commissioners and local authorities. I understand that the relationships are not as good as they could be and that there have been problems for some time. Work is already under way to identify partners to support the trust in recruiting and retaining staff. I recognise that the figures on vacancies that the hon. Gentleman set out, particularly for A and E, which were given to me in the briefing for this debate, are not acceptable. That is a real challenge, and one that the trust needs to respond to.

I can reassure the House that the trust’s plan will be published on the NHS Choices website and will be freely available to the public. We also expect regular updates to demonstrate how the trust is progressing. I believe that progress will be posted against that plan in a transparent way as the period for improvement progresses. The TDA will keep close to the trust as it works to make the necessary improvements and will hold board-to-board meetings with the trust. It has also arranged to buddy-up and provide support, as appropriate, with a high-performing foundation trust. Special measures are designed to produce results quickly. The trust will have one year to improve sufficiently, as judged by the chief inspector of hospitals, in order to exit special measures.

As the hon. Gentleman said, the safety of A and E departments is very important. The trust has been subject to an external clinical review of the safety of its A and E services commissioned by the local clinical commissioning groups and undertaken by the London Clinical Senate. I understand that this was in response to a request from local CCGs following concerns raised about potentially unsafe levels of medical staffing within the A and E units, as we have discussed. The TDA has confirmed to me that this review, which published interim findings in September 2013, concluded that neither the A and E at King George hospital nor the A and E at Queen’s hospital was unsafe, but it made a number of recommendations to improve the service. It has also been made clear to me that the A and E review was very much independent of the chief inspector of hospitals’ inspections at the trust and the TDA’s decision to put the trust into special measures.

Let me touch on some of the support that has been put in for A and E. We have provided further support to the trust through the funds available to respond to winter pressures. The local health economy in the hon. Gentleman’s area has received about £7 million, while the trust itself has received £3 million. Some £1.4 million has been earmarked for A and E recruitment, and another £4 million was allocated throughout the local health economy by the urgent care working group responsible for the area. That money was allocated based on clinical need and went to a range of organisations, including the local mental health trust, the London ambulance service, and the local authority.

There is no time to talk about this in detail now, but the Government are taking longer-term action with regard to reducing demand at A and Es. Some of that falls within my own portfolio of public health in seeing what health and wellbeing boards can do to reduce demand as regards people going to A and E when that is not the appropriate place for them to be. Of course, the extension of GPs’ opening hours through new contractual arrangements is highly relevant in a population that is, as the hon. Gentleman described, to a large extent young, highly mobile, highly diverse, and often working in London’s 24-hour economy.

I strongly recommend that the hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members on both sides of the House who have expressed concern about the situation for some time should continue to engage with the trust at every opportunity—clearly, there have sometimes been challenges in the relationship—and with their local health and wellbeing board. The challenges facing the trust cannot be tackled alone and will best be tackled by the local NHS and all the partners—local authorities and so on—working together. It is absolutely vital to get that right.

The priority now is to make sure that the trust is able rapidly to improve the care that it provides to the hon. Gentleman’s constituents. The TDA will work closely with the trust to help it to improve and will take every necessary action to make sure that the issues raised in the chief inspector’s report are addressed. I will meet the London team within NHS England shortly. I will raise the issues highlighted in this debate, among others, and I will continue to keep the hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members who are interested in the situation informed as we go through this important year for his local NHS.

Question put and agreed to.

17:28

House adjourned.