House of Commons

Monday 24th February 2014 Commons Chamber

Monday 24 February 2014

The House met at half-past Two o’clock

Prayers

Monday 24th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions

Monday 24th February 2014 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

1. If he will undertake a cumulative impact assessment of the effects of the Government’s welfare reforms on sick and disabled people.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Mike Penning)]

The Treasury regularly produces analysis of the cumulative effects of the coalition’s changes, including to welfare, but even the Institute for Fiscal Studies says that there are no real results that can be broken down and are reliable enough to show the effect on disabled people.

[Stephen Twigg]

My constituents Natasha Wilson and Katie Lyson are young women with cancer. With support from CLIC Sargent, they applied for personal independence payments seven months ago. Last week, Natasha finally got her money, but Katie is still waiting. Does the Minister agree that a seven-month wait for payment for a young cancer patient is simply unacceptable? Will he look into Katie’s case as a matter of urgency?

[Mike Penning]

I fully agree that that length of wait is unacceptable, and I have been working on this with the two suppliers since I came into office, as did my predecessor. I will personally look into the case and if those involved would like to come to see me, I would be more than happy to meet them.

[Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that although we must always be sensitive in our handling of cases involving the disabled, many people who are extremely disabled welcome the opportunity to be encouraged on pathways to work? The fact that all of us know severely disabled people who work suggests that the broad thrust of Government policy is going in the right direction.

[Mike Penning]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. Interestingly, about 70% of people on the previous benefit, the disability living allowance, were put on it for life. They were, in effect, written off, and this Government will not do that.

[Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

A constituent of mine, aged 52, had worked all her life despite having congenital bone disease, until her condition worsened last year. She has to go into hospital next week to have both hips replaced, just at the time that Jobcentre Plus has declared her fit for work and stopped her benefit. When will the Minister ensure that people with disabilities get adequate support and are not treated in this completely harsh and cruel way?

[Mike Penning]

Assessments were brought in by the previous Administration—admittedly, in relation to the work capability assessment. So assessments are nothing new for this Administration, because the previous Administration introduced them. They did not do that very well, but we agree with assessments. Of course if someone is unfit for work, they can have a sick note put in while they are waiting for an appeal to go through—should that happen—and they will be entitled to jobseeker’s allowance. I completely agree that anyone who has gone into hospital cannot be fit for work at that time, but let us hope that the hon. Lady’s constituent is fit and well soon, and can return to work.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that the emphasis on continuous improvement in the Litchfield and Harrington reviews shows that any cumulative assessment is either impossible or meaningless? Is it not better to rely on the robust statistics on fulfilling potential as the measure of whether the Government’s policy is being successful in this field?

[Mike Penning]

I completely agree with what my hon. Friend says, and that is exactly what our plans are; that is what we want to try to do, and I look forward to working with him on this project.

[Mr Peter Hain (Neath) (Lab)]

How can the Government justify removing all phone lines to local jobcentres such as the one in Neath? How are people, especially disabled and sick people, supposed to cope with the fiendishly complex benefits system, or get into jobs, without personalised help and advice? Does the Minister not understand that the most vulnerable people often cannot get online, afford costly daily travel to jobcentres or hang on for ages on expensive 0845 lines?

[Mike Penning]

The 0845 numbers came in when the right hon. Gentleman was a Minister, and we are eradicating them now. Advisers are in place all the time. Most work is done online these days, but the advisers are there to help people, which is why we have been so successful in getting people into work.

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

Last Saturday, a constituent told me that her husband has throat cancer and is able to breathe only as a result of a laryngectomy and nebuliser treatment. He was found fit to work by Atos and is concerned about the six-week reassessment of what seems to be an inexplicable decision. Will the Minister assure me that there is a direction to improve and get people’s acts together as well as to make the appeals process quicker?

[Mike Penning]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising this issue with me before we came into Question Time. This looks like a case where something should be done. I will wait for the medical professionals to do this; it is a paper-based assessment, not a face-to-face one. I will look into it and come back to my hon. Friend as soon as I can.

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

While the UK Government have resisted calls for a cumulative impact assessment of their welfare reforms, the Scottish Government have undertaken such an assessment. It showed that, overwhelmingly, the £4.5 billion-worth of cuts are falling on disabled people and mothers. Does the Minister accept that the reason he will not carry out such an assessment is because he is scared that it will expose his Government’s priorities and their willingness to punish the poor?

[Mike Penning]

Although I respect what the Scottish Government do, our own Treasury and our own independent forecasts are saying that it is not possible to do that accurately. What I can say to the hon. Lady is that in every year of this coalition Government funding for disabled benefits has gone up, and it will continue to go up through 2015-16—more than was left by the previous Administration.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

2. What recent progress his Department has made on reducing youth unemployment.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Esther McVey)]

The Government’s approach is working. For the 20th consecutive month, we have seen the youth claimant count reduce, so it is down on the month, down on the year and down since the election.

[Mr Robertson]

It is very good news that young people are finding work, but there are still far too many out of work. None the less, engineering and manufacturing companies in my constituency cannot find young people to employ. What discussions is the Minister’s Department having with Jobcentre Plus and with its colleagues in the Department for Education about giving young people the right kind of career advice?

[Esther McVey]

My hon. Friend does a lot in his constituency of Tewkesbury with engineering and manufacturing companies. I know that he regards it as vital that more people are involved in manufacturing and science, and that is a view that we all share, which is why we are doing more on apprenticeships—half a million this year—and on advanced apprenticeships. We have also brought together the youth action groups, so the Minister for Civil Society can now lead the way for all Departments and the voluntary and charity sector to work together.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

The Minister reels off statistics, but will she help me communicate with young people in Merseyside? What are they supposed to think when they see the figures in the Liverpool Echo today that show that more people have been sanctioned in Merseyside than have found work through her Work programme? What are young people supposed to think?

[Esther McVey]

I do a lot on Merseyside—whether it is with the Merseyside youth entrepreneurship scheme or with young kids and helping to provide them with role models. Supporting people on Merseyside has shaped my career for the past 15 years. Indeed, I grew up there during the 1980s. What we are doing should be looked at in its entirety. We cannot look at sanctions in isolation. This is about the claimant commitment, the extra traineeships since 2011—more than half a million—and the extra apprenticeships. We are doing a lot. I am focusing on youth unemployment. It is going in the right direction, but there is still plenty more work to be done.

[Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)]

3. What timetable his Department is working to for the retendering of contracts to deliver work capability assessments; what progress has been made with such retendering; and if he will make a statement.

[Mr Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

4. When he next expects to meet representatives of Atos to discuss its work for his Department.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Mike Penning)]

Although we have seen some improvements in Atos quality, we are still in ongoing commercial discussions. Unlike Atos, we respect the commercial confidentiality of those discussions. It is important to get the procurement right. The previous Administration did not share that view, which is why we are in this mess today.

[Anne Marie Morris]

Will the Minister inform the House of what steps he is taking to address the significant backlog that has been created by the delays in claimants receiving their work capability assessments? In my constituency, individuals say that they have been waiting for up to six months, which has a real impact on their financial circumstances.

[Mike Penning]

The issues to do with the work capability assessment and the unacceptable backlog that Atos has built up over the years are due to capacity and quality. The quality, which was very poor earlier on, has been improved. That means that there is now a huge backlog, which is why we are currently in negotiations with Atos.

[Mr Bellingham]

Given that Atos has now announced that it wants to withdraw from the contract that was negotiated with Labour, does the Minister agree that it would be an absolute disgrace if the hard-pressed taxpayer had to pay any form of compensation to the company?

[Mike Penning]

Since we came into power, we have been warning Atos of the need to improve its service. We are seeking agreements with it to ensure that that is done, some of which have not come to fruition. If we terminate the contract today, as the Opposition have suggested, the financial consequences would fall on the taxpayer and not on Atos, which would be absolutely wrong and something that I will not accept.

[Dame Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)]

I am not sure whether the Secretary of State is glad that he is here rather than in my area where there is a clash of the Cabinets. At least, he has managed to avoid the travel chaos.

Atos has acted as a lightning rod for all that is wrong with the work capability assessment. However, it is delivering a Government contract to Government specifications. What guarantee has the Minister got that any new contract will recognise the problems and the flaws of the system and the sheer misery that Atos has caused in delivering its contracts to ensure that they are not repeated?

[Mike Penning]

That is why we have had five reviews and the rolling reviews continue to take place, and we must learn from the mistakes of the previous Administration, who awarded this contract to Atos—something that they cannot run away from, although they seem to want to do so.

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

Now that the Minister has admitted that Atos is in a mess, notwithstanding when that began, will he give a guarantee that there cannot be a test for fitness for work if no one there has medical experience?

[Mike Penning]

All the assessors have medical experience and are clinicians, but the hon. Gentleman cannot run away from the previous Administration, as he loves to try to do, although he was elected on a manifesto with WCA.

[Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)]

It is no surprise to many that Atos, appointed by the last Labour Government, has now failed its own work capability assessment. Considering that appeals have been upheld for 40% of the original decisions, what can be done to ensure that original decisions are far more accurate and right much more of the time?

[Mike Penning]

We are driving many of the improvements through, and I have actually instigated measures to ensure that we look carefully at what goes to tribunal, because some of the cases should not have gone there. That is why I have instigated the review that is taking place at the moment.

[Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am sure that the Minister will not need reminding that, in fact, his Government extended the contract with Atos and rolled out the move from incapacity benefit, without taking account of the issues that arose in the pilot studies early in his Government’s term in office. Now that Atos has accepted that it cannot deliver this contract, rather than just retendering it, will the Minister take the opportunity to ensure that it is properly fit for purpose, so that it helps those people who want to and who can get into work, rather than hounding those who cannot?

[Mike Penning]

That is exactly what we are doing in the negotiations that we have been involved in for several months now. That is why we are in negotiations with Atos about the future and bringing in more capacity. But this mess was created by the Government—previous Government—and that is the problem, and we extended the contract because we had absolutely no choice whatsoever.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

Atos claims that one of the reasons for getting out of the contract is that its staff have received death threats. Is the Minister able to verify that, and if so, does he agree that, whatever the problems of Atos and the contract agreed by the last Labour Government, there is never any justification for threats of violence or violence against front-line staff—whether nurses, doctors, teachers or, in this case, Atos staff?

[Mike Penning]

I would hope that everyone across the House condemns any of the abuse and the threats against the employees of Atos as completely unacceptable, no matter what their view of Atos.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

This Government have had nearly four years to sort this out, and pinning the blame on Atos will not get around that. Why, knowing the weaknesses of that organisation and all the flaws in how it was working, was it awarded a contract to implement the personal independence payment, which is causing huge delays?

[Mike Penning]

The contract for WCA is completely different from the contract for PIP, with a completely different set of assessments. Four years in, we are still trapped by a contract signed by the previous Administration —something that I intend to get out of, but without penalising the taxpayer.

[Mr David Amess (Southend West) (Con)]

5. What recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of his Department’s work experience programme.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Esther McVey)]

Tomorrow, we will publish the Youth Contract claimant survey research, which contains a range of information on claimants’ experiences and an analysis of the early impacts. However, the latest figures showed that we previously had 113,000 people who started work experience and that 50% of them got a job; that there were 21,000 wage incentive starts and that 30,000 people went to sector-based work academies.

[Mr Amess]

Having run an employment agency before becoming a Member of Parliament, I wonder whether my hon. Friend agrees that, in a tough labour market, work experience provides a useful tool for our young people to gain access to the permanent jobs market. Should we not do everything that we can to enhance the programme?

[Esther McVey]

My hon. Friend, who has such great knowledge in this area, is spot on. Only this morning, I was with a group of young people from Livity, as well as various large employers—Capgemini, Ernst and Young and Tesco—and they all said that it was vital that they had work experience. They felt that they could not get a job without work experience. We have put that in place, and the more people who get on board and support it, the better.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

Work experience can certainly be helpful, but given that the Department has recently published a glowing evaluation of Labour’s future jobs fund, why will the Minister not introduce a jobs guarantee scheme?

[Esther McVey]

That was certainly a rewrite of history, but Labour is used to doing that. The future jobs fund cost £6,500 per person and had only a 50% success rate, but not in the private sector, because most people did not end up there. The hon. Gentleman will be pleased to know that with the work experience programmes and sector-based work academies we are introducing, we are achieving better success rates at one twentieth of the cost—£325 per person.

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

6. What steps he has taken to help those reaching retirement age before the introduction of the single-tier pension.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)]

For those who will reach pension age before the introduction of the new state pension, we have introduced a new class of national insurance contributions, which will allow those pensioners the opportunity to increase their state pension in retirement. More details of the scheme will be announced later this year.

[Lorely Burt]

I am grateful for that answer and it is extremely encouraging. Can my hon. Friend the Minister say what the Government have done to ensure that pensioners in my constituency are able to manage the cost of living rises in this Parliament?

[Steve Webb]

As my hon. Friend knows, the manifesto on which she and I stood proposed a triple lock, which was implemented by this coalition Government. It means that each year the pension will rise by the highest of the growth in average earnings or prices or by 2.5%, so the state pension is now a higher share of national average earnings than at any time in more than 20 years.

[Gregg McClymont (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (Lab)]

The Minister has today laid before the House a pensions written ministerial statement that intimates that following a year-long Labour campaign the Government intend to ensure that pension fund managers in the City disclose the fees that they charge for trading all of our pension assets. That is welcome, but of course the devil will be in the detail. On that basis, can he confirm today that that disclosure will include the number of times that fund managers churn our pension assets for a fee?

[Steve Webb]

I know that the Opposition like to bluster a lot to cover their embarrassment at taking no steps at all on this in 13 years in government. By contrast, this week this Government are legislating to shine a light in the murky corners of the pensions industry, so that value for money is finally achieved for pension savers.

[Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

9. How many people have had their benefits reduced to the maximum of £26,000 (a) nationally and (b) on the Isle of Wight to date.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

By December 2013, 36,471 households had been capped nationally. Local figures obviously vary from area to area. The Isle of Wight is an area that does not get capped as much; some 100 households or fewer have been capped so far. These numbers include single households without children, for whom the cap is less than £26,000.

[Mr Turner]

The average gross wage on the Isle of Wight is just over £18,000, so take-home pay is about £15,000. The benefits cap is £10,000 more than the average islander earns. How can I explain this to islanders? Does the Minister think that I should mention that the Labour party believes that there should be no limit at all on the largesse of taxpayers?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Far be it for me to recommend to my hon. Friend what he should mention to his constituents, but he might well start with the fact that this benefits cap was opposed by Labour when we implemented it. His point about the level is simple. We have embedded the cap now, it has been rolled out and we have made sure that it has worked properly. We have seen a huge number of people move back to work; some 19,000 people who were going to be capped have gone to work and thus avoided the cap. So the cap is successful everywhere. However, we should remember that there are differences in income and in London a lower cap would be a rather severe penalty to put on people. Therefore, although I keep the cap under review, I have no plans at the moment to change its level.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

The hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) clearly wants the cap to be reduced in his area and the Secretary of State makes an important point about London. Does that not suggest that there is some argument for taking into account regional variations in costs, so that the cap reflects what is happening locally?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I am intrigued and pleased that the hon. Gentleman says that he supports the principle of the cap, which is more—in essence—than the Opposition have ever done in any vote. They voted against the cap—just in case they have forgotten. My point to him is a viable one. The trouble is where should regional calculations be made? Cities in regions have different levels of income from some of the countryside, so it starts to become quite a complicated process. Of course, I am willing to discuss this issue with the hon. Gentleman and anybody else who thinks that they have a plan, and I will certainly look at that, but right now the cap is successful, the majority of the public think it is a good idea and it was only his Front-Bench team who decided to vote against it.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State think it appropriate to consider putting a cap on the amount of housing benefit that landlords can receive? Can we at the very least have some transparency, so that we can see how many people who support the Tory party rake in hundreds of thousands of pounds in benefits?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I do not know if it is now Labour policy to cap landlords in that way; I suspect that the immediate effect would be fewer landlords making properties available. It seems to me that that would be a complicated, tortuous and pointless policy. However, I think there is plenty of transparency; some of the papers seem to have found out the facts for themselves.

[Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

10. What assessment he has made of the effectiveness of councils’ use of discretionary housing payments in this financial year.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)]

Details of how local authorities used discretionary housing payments in the first half of this year were published on 20 December. That report gives an early indication of how that funding is supporting people, including disabled people living in specially adapted accommodation, and of the type of choices that people are making in response to the changes, such as seeking to move to alternative accommodation or looking for work.

[Annette Brooke]

Does the Minister agree that councils should use all available funds provided by his Department to offset the ending of the spare room subsidy for those who are disabled and have a clear need for two bedrooms or more, and those who cannot find smaller accommodation? Will the underspending this year affect next year’s allocation?

[Steve Webb]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend that the funding being made available to local authorities for cases where it would be inappropriate for individuals to make up the shortfall should be spent. In addition, this Government have made available an extra £20 million, in-year, but less than a quarter of local authorities bid for that money. We want local authorities to spend the money being made available, so that those who can move do so, but those for whom that would be inappropriate have the top-up that they need.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

One of the worst cases that I have dealt with recently was of a homeless mother with a severely disabled child who receives disability living allowance. That allowance was taken into account in deciding their discretionary housing payment, which left the family with virtually nothing to live on. Will the Minister issue guidance to local authorities saying that they should not take into account disability living allowance when making DHP payments?

[Steve Webb]

The hon. Lady is very knowledgeable about these matters, and she will know that local authorities make their decisions on a case-by-case basis. Clearly, they do not have to include income from DLA, but they are free to do so. If she believes that her local authority should not have done so in an individual case, she should make representations to it.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

Following on from that question, the Minister must know that in assessing entitlement to income-related benefits, entitlement to disability benefits is not taken into account. The one exception to that policy is discretionary housing payments. It is specifically in the guidance that local authorities can take them into account and means-test them in the way that he described. Will he change and reissue the guidance, so that this one area where disability payments are means-tested is removed from the scene?

[Steve Webb]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, the key is in the word “discretionary”. Local authorities can ignore DLA if they think that that is appropriate, but they have the freedom to judge on a case-by-base basis; that seems to be the right way to respond to individual need.

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

11. What progress he has made on implementation of the pot-follows-member model of automatic pension transfers.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)]

I can announce that we have been working closely with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to examine the feasibility of using the pay-as-you-earn data and system to deliver a secure, efficient and straightforward pot-matching element to the pot-follows-member system. A pot-follows-member system leads to more efficiency, potentially better member engagement, greater consolidation and better outcomes in retirement.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his answer, but as we are all living longer, which is great news, it is an ever greater priority to ensure that people save for their retirement. Is he looking at options such as the auto-enrolment system in place in Australia? Will he also consider a savings and retirement account for future pensioners?

[Steve Webb]

My hon. Friend will know that our auto-enrolment programme, which we are in the middle of rolling out, has been highly successful, with nine out of 10 people choosing to stay in that programme. The Australian version is compulsory; we have chosen not to do that in this country. The fact that most people are choosing voluntarily to stay in pensions saving is a judgment that we have made the right choice. I should add that the Australians have said that they wish that they had introduced from the beginning the pot-follows-member system that we are introducing.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

The pensions Minister is consulting on a charges cap. For the avoidance of doubt, will he confirm to the House that he still plans to introduce the cap during the lifetime of this Parliament?

[Steve Webb]

I refer my hon. Friend to the written statement that we issued today, which confirms precisely that we will shortly bring forth our announcement, and that we will see through our agenda during the course of this Parliament.

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

12. What assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the implementation of personal independence payments.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Mike Penning)]

Personal independence payments were only introduced nationally for new claims in June 2013, and reassessment of existing disability living allowance claimants is being gradually implemented from October 2013, so we are at an early stage. However, the process is taking too long—I accept that—and, working with officials, I am pushing through an agenda to change that.

[Jessica Morden]

Newport citizens advice bureau has assisted many clients with applications for PIPs, and has reported that most decisions take about five months, but some people have been waiting for a decision since July. There are serious delays at both the DWP and the Capita end, although we were assured by previous Ministers that the PIP process would be fit for purpose. Does the Minister accept the stress and hardship that that causes vulnerable people, and why has it taken Ministers so long to get to grips with the problem?

[Mike Penning]

The reason we are phasing the measure in is to make sure that we get it right. There are internal DWP processes that are taking too long. The assessment is taking too long, and it is also the case that some claimants are taking too long to return the forms that have been sent to them. We are working on this with both providers, and we will get there.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

Under the current DLA system, it is hard for people with severe mental health conditions to get the higher-rate amount, but will that change when PIP is implemented?

[Mike Penning]

We often hear about the negative side of PIP, and we have heard again from the Opposition today about their opposition to some parts of it, but there is a great success story for people with mental health issues. Under the old DLA system, they would not be able to get the higher rate that they will receive under PIP, which should be welcomed across the House.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

Last year, there were 229,700 claims for PIP, but decisions were taken on only 43,800—fewer than one in five. How can it be right to take up to six months to reach a decision of such significance for severely disabled people? Has the Minister actually set a target for timely decisions, and what penalties will he impose on the assessors—Capita and Atos—for failing to meet it?

[Mike Penning]

It is always difficult to ask a question that has been written before hearing the previous answers. We accept that there are delays: we accept that within PIP, and we accept that within Atos and Capita. We are working closely with them to deal with that. Under the previous system, less than 6% of people ever had a face-to-face assessment; now it is 97%, which we should welcome. We need to get that down so that we can address paper claims quicker, particularly in cases of terminal illness, which we are working on. However, we must push this forward.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

It cannot be too early for my constituents who have experienced waits of between five and six months to get an assessment after they have submitted their PIP claim, and others have been told by service providers to expect to wait up to three months to get a decision after the assessment. Will the Minister tell us what he is doing to make sure that service providers face consequences if they do not improve those times?

[Mike Penning]

There are contractual requirements on both providers, and if they do not meet them they will be penalised financially. I also have to say that there are internal delays in DWP, so I am not going to pass the buck entirely on to them, but we will address the problem, and we are doing so. There are measures that we introduced last week which I hope will address the situation with an accumulative effect.

[Mr Speaker]

Mr Kevin Brennan.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

It is taking months—

[Mr Speaker]

Question 13 is a good idea. The hon. Gentleman, not for the first time, and probably not for the last, is ahead of himself.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

13. What recent assessment he has made of the performance of Capita in relation to personal independence payment assessments.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Mike Penning)]

Latest analysis is telling us that the end-to-end claimant journey is taking longer, as I said previously, than expected with both providers—Capita and Atos. As I previously stated, we are taking urgent action on this.

[Kevin Brennan]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for not allowing me to get ahead of myself earlier.

It is taking months and months for constituents to get these assessments done, and the issue is clogging up a lot of our surgeries as a result of those delays. In his answer to the previous question, the Minister said that claimants were to blame. How much of the problem is he saying is caused by claimants, because I can assure him that, in the case of my constituents, that is not the problem?

[Mike Penning]

As we bed down the new benefit and the new policies, there will be issues within the Department, issues with the contractors and issues not only with people giving advice to claimants, but with claimants themselves. I am not blaming claimants. What we are saying is that there are delays in the forms coming back and delays because they are not filled in correctly. That is something that we need to work on. We need to be more informative about how those forms are to be filled in, and we are working on that. On the terminal illness side, we are working with Macmillan so that it works closely with those claimants.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

My constituent Pamela Brown applied for her personal independence payment in July last year, but the persistent failures by Capita meant that she faced a delay of more than three months just to get an assessment. She had numerous appointments that were cancelled and Capita did not even tell her. It was only after she put in numerous formal complaints that Capita addressed the matter. Pamela’s case is clearly far from unique, so can the Minister say a little more about what he is doing to sort out the mess at Capita’s end?

[Mike Penning]

I get people coming to see me at my surgery about exactly the same situation, but the vast majority of assessments are going through and we are trying very hard. We must make sure we get it right. There were issues of quality, which caused the delays, and we are addressing those. That is why the benefit is being phased in, and as we go through we will get a better result for our constituents across the House.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

14. How many people are currently claiming universal credit.

[Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)]

18. What recent progress his Department has made on the roll-out of universal credit.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

Since October, universal credit has started running in Hammersmith, Rugby and Inverness and it is rolling out today in Harrogate and Bath. It is already out in a number of other centres up in the north-west. Based on caseload projections, some 6,000-plus people are likely to be paid universal credit in the pathfinder. That will be subject to confirmation in the official statistics. Many more claim jobseeker’s allowance using the key elements of universal credit, which are also being rolled out to a wider audience. Some 270,000 jobseekers are now using elements such as the claimant commitment, which is part of universal credit.

[Nick Smith]

Well, the Secretary of State is certainly going faster than universal credit.

Under the Government’s original timetable 1 million people would be receiving universal credit by April this year. When does the Secretary of State now expect this 1 million target to be met?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I have said constantly and I continue to say that we will not be giving out targets for dates. As I said earlier, roll-out has begun. I invite the hon. Gentleman to go to any one of the centres and talk to the staff there and to the claimants. He will find that what is happening is a real improvement in their seeking work and getting work, and in the advisers being able to apply themselves to those with the greatest difficulty. Universal credit will have rolled through by 2016, as I said, with all those benefits merged into one, and people will be claiming universal credit, not any other benefit.

[Mr Speaker]

I call Laura Sandys.

[Laura Sandys]

No. 18, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Lady’s question has been grouped with 14 and therefore she asks her question now.

[Laura Sandys]

Thank you so much—very informative!

[Mr Speaker]

It is always useful to have a bit of information, and I endeavour to be helpful to Members. The hon. Lady need not sound quite so surprised.

[Laura Sandys]

I am a strong believer in behavioural change, and my behaviour will change shortly—but just before it does, what assessment has my right hon. Friend made of the behavioural change that is happening as a result of the introduction of universal credit?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I say to my hon. and highly informed Friend that it is important for us to understand what this is all about. Colleagues on either side of the House should attend centres where universal credit has been rolled out. They will hear from the advisers that we are beginning to see a real change in culture among those who are claiming benefit and those who are delivering it. All the centres that I have visited believe that this is improving the situation for claimants, and it makes life a lot easier and a lot more efficient for advisers in jobcentres.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Would that the Secretary of State were as informative as the Speaker. The answer to the question on the Order Paper—in other words, how many people are on universal credit—is 3,200. Bearing in mind that so far universal credit has cost £612 million, that is £191,250 per person, which does not compare very well with the £6,500 per person that was mentioned for the future jobs fund. It seems that the Prime Minister was right when it comes to Government pet projects: money is no object. When will the Secretary of State allow the Opposition direct access to his officials so that we can sort out his mess?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I rather hope that at some point the hon. Gentleman had a maths O-level, because his maths is so pathetic as to make it risible. He has all the numbers and all the amounts that are relevant to the development of all the equipment that will roll out the complete universal credit. [Interruption.] I am going to answer this question. In truth, the operational running costs of the pathfinder, which is what we are running at the moment, are some £6 million, which equates to £200 per claim. By the way, he needs a little correction. In case he had not noticed, we have already invited him and all his colleagues to come and visit us. I think they are down to visit us this week, so he needs to check his diary, or maybe his colleagues did not want him to come with them. I do not know.

[Graeme Morrice (Livingston) (Lab)]

15. What assessment he has made of the effects of the migration of claimants from incapacity benefit to employment and support allowance.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Mike Penning)]

At March 2013, as a result of incapacity benefit reassessment, over 650,000 people have been reassessed and are now either preparing or looking for work.

[Graeme Morrice]

Is the Minister aware that between October 2012 and September 2013, using his own Department’s figures, the ESA participant group performance was 6.6% against the DWP minimum target of 16.5%? Will he now accept that the Government’s Work programme experiment has been a complete waste of time and money, and will they now scrap it?

[Mike Penning]

No, we will not, because we are already two thirds of the way through the incapacity benefit reassessment process. We have 1 million people in the process and, as I said earlier, 650,000 have already progressed through.

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

I am very pleased that the employment rate for disabled people has now reached 45%. Does my hon. Friend agree that that shows that, with the right support, disabled people can find and keep work and provide for their own families?

[Mike Penning]

I welcome the fact that it is now 45%, but we can do better, and we need to do better for those disabled people who want to get back into the workplace. That is why Disability Confident is going around the country showing employers how easy and right it is that they employ people with long-term illness and disabilities, and that has been very successful.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

16. What assessment he has made of trends in the number of 18 to 24-year-olds claiming jobseeker’s allowance in Bury North constituency.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Esther McVey)]

The number of young people claiming jobseeker’s allowance in Bury North has fallen by 17% over the last year and the number of long-term young claimants has fallen by a third.

[Mr Nuttall]

I am grateful to the Minister for confirming the good news that hundreds more young people in my constituency now have the security of a regular pay packet. Can my hon. Friend tell the House whether that encouraging trend is also reflected in the other age groups and categories of unemployed in Bury North?

[Esther McVey]

I can indeed answer that question from my hon. Friend, who is a particularly active local MP and holds us all to account thoroughly in his constituency. The claimant count is down 17% across the board in his constituency, and nationally we have got record numbers of people into work—more than 30 million—and we have got a record number of women into work, and at a record rate. That really does show that the Government’s long-term plan is working.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

17. What recent assessment he has made of the extent of abuse of zero-hours contracts in back-to-work schemes.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

Under the Work programme, providers are paid for getting people into sustained work, generally a job of at least 16 hours a week, paid at the national minimum wage or more, and which lasts for a minimum of six months. That can be two or three jobs, but none the less, they have to last for six months.

Outcomes are counted on that basis, therefore DWP does not hold information about the employment contract itself. Moving someone on to a zero-hours contract would not count as a job outcome unless it entailed meaningful work that was registered, taking them off benefits.

[Chi Onwurah]

My constituent was taken on by a security company on a zero-hours contract with a promise of 40 hours a week, but he has been given only 17 hours, while the company takes on more staff from the Work programme with more promises of proper hours. He cannot pay his rent, he cannot sign on because he would be considered to have made himself unemployed, he cannot plan and he cannot live. When will the Secretary of State end this abuse of zero-hours contracts?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

As I understand it from what the hon. Lady said, her constituent was not taken on under the Work programme, but others in the Work programme were, which was causing him the problem. If she wants to give me the full details of the case I will look at it, because that is slightly different from what I understood her question to be about. If there is an abuse among the Work programme providers in this regard, I will certainly deal with it.

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

Will the Secretary of State look at those vacancies, particularly in the Ryedale jobcentre, that are the most difficult to fill, which tend to be in the care sector? Will he also look at any abuse of zero-hours contracts in the employment of carers, whether under the Work programme or any other long-term sustainable work?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

First, may I say how pleased I am to see my hon. Friend in her place? It is my personal hope that she remains there and returns to the House again, because she gets great coverage for her constituents. The issue she raises is an important one, but we need to get the right balance between what zero-hours contracts deliver and any abuses there might be. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is carrying out a consultation, and we are fully co-operating in that and will ensure that such contracts do not cause problems in the Work programme. However, it is worth remembering that those contracts also provide people with a flexible way of working and the freedom to arrange jobs around other commitments, and they allow employers to be competitive in response to market trends. I therefore think that we must get the balance right with zero-hours contracts and not throw the baby out with the bathwater. We must recognise that for many people they are positive and helpful, but we also want to end any abuses there might be for others.

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

19. What plans he has to meet representatives of the Trussell Trust.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

Although food banks are not a Department for Work and Pensions or Government responsibility, Department representatives and Ministers—myself included—have on occasion had cause to meet representatives of food banks, including the Trussell Trust.

[Susan Elan Jones]

A decade ago at Easterhouse the Secretary of State said how important small, grass-roots community organisations are. If he really believes what he said then, when he spoke the rhetoric of broken Britain, is not it time he set a date, met the representatives and listened to what they have to say about food poverty in the United Kingdom?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I have two points for the hon. Lady. First, I have just said that all of us have at some point met representatives of the Trussell Trust. Secondly, I absolutely think that those involved in food banks and in supporting those who are in difficulty or in need are very valuable members of the community, and I celebrate the work they do. I believe that it is the right thing for them to do. I think that all those involved in food banks are decent people trying to do a decent bit of work for those in need of help, and we support that in general terms as constituency MPs. However, I must say that the over-politicisation of this issue has done no help at all, as some leaders of food banks have attested over the past week.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

The Trussell Trust has been exposing the real impact of Ministers’ policies, so out of pique they have refused to meet the trust’s representatives since last summer. Now that they have been overruled by the Prime Minister, who met trust representatives last week, will DWP Ministers at last step up to their responsibilities? Was not the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster absolutely right when he said last week that

“there shouldn’t be people living with nothing, in destitution, in a country which is as prosperous as this”?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I have two points for the right hon. Gentleman. First, he, his party and others have deliberately set out to politicise the issue of food banks—[Interruption.] Well, those are not my words. The person who runs the Oxford food bank has said:

“I think this whole debate has become hopelessly politicised.”

Food banks do a good service, but they have been much in the news. People know they are free. They know about them and they will ask social workers to refer them. It would be wrong to pretend that the mass of publicity has not also been a driver in their increased use. The Opposition, notwithstanding the fact that under them the number of food banks increased tenfold, are trying to make a political issue out of this. They have done no service to those who need help and support and no service to those who run the food banks.

[Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

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

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

Today I welcome the latest statistics showing the growth in employment over the past year. Against a rise of 54,000 foreign nationals at work, 360,000 more UK nationals are employed, a far better record than under the previous Government. With new measures to tighten up on immigration still further, such as the minimum earnings threshold announced last week, we are ensuring that those who want to work and who will work hard and play by the rules will see the benefits of Britain’s growth.

[Steve Baker]

The bishops have said that there is an “acute moral imperative” to act on welfare, and I agree, because that has been clear since at least 2006, when the Centre for Social Justice published its report, “Breakdown Britain”. Will the Secretary of State confirm that he is still on a moral mission to break those cycles of deprivation that lead to entrenched poverty so that people can live lives of hope and fulfilment?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I am determined, as I have been since I arrived as Secretary of State, to improve the welfare system so that it supports people back into positive lifestyles, and that is what we are doing. More people have moved from economic inactivity, which is now at its lowest levels, back into work. There are now fewer workless households than there were on our arrival. When we came into government, one in 20—a fifth—of all households were without work; that figure has now reduced for the first time in 30 years.

[Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)]

On 13 January, the Secretary of State told this House that between 3,000 and 5,000 people were wrongly paying the bedroom tax because of a loophole in the legislation. Since then, councils have been trawling through years of records to find out who has been overpaid. Will the Secretary of State update us on how many people were wrongly paying the bedroom tax?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

On the loophole that I talked about when I made that comment, the estimate we had, which was drawn from local authorities and still stands, in our view, was that some 5,000 people may be affected. That is based on the most up-to-date data that local authorities have given. I know that the hon. Lady and her team have made a freedom of information request, but the key thing is that the information we have is based on all the local authorities’ evidence to us, and I do not believe that her evidence is in any way accurate.

[Rachel Reeves]

Yes, we have put in a freedom of information request, because we did not think that the Secretary of State’s numbers were correct, and, as it turns out, they are not. The FOI request shows that with 194 out of 346 councils having responded so far, a staggering 21,500 people have been wrongly paying the bedroom tax, including 4,198 in Tory local authorities, so perhaps they have got their numbers wrong too. There are 275 in Tory Chester, 200 in Tory Peterborough, 234—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am sorry, but the question is too long. I have got Back Benchers to accommodate, so I know that the final sentence, which will be a short one, is on its way.

[Rachel Reeves]

Instead of trying stealthily to close the loophole, will the Secretary of State now do the right thing and scrap the cruel and hated bedroom tax?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Yet again we hear from the hon. Lady a complete failure to mention the fact that in all her Government’s time in power, they did nothing for those who lived in overcrowded accommodation. A quarter of a million people were left to us who suffer every day because they cannot get the right rooms. One million people were left on the waiting list, and the house building programme fell to its lowest point since the 1920s. There is only one answer to her: sorting this out is the right thing to do, and shame on a Government who did nothing for those in greatest difficulty.

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

T2. Will the Minister join me in welcoming the fall in unemployment in my constituency over the past three years? We now have about 2,500 more people in work than in 2010, benefiting young and old, those in full-time and part-time positions, and men and women. Does not this highlight how important it is for the Government to stick to their economic plans and ensure that the well-being of this country improves?

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Esther McVey)]

My hon. Friend is right to say that we have got a record number of people into work across the board. What is most interesting as I travel up and down the country is to see how local Jobcentres Plus are working with local businesses to support their local work forces. In particular, the learning shop at Bluewater is doing tremendous work. My hon. Friend is right. We have done a lot; we have more to do.

[Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

T3. A constituent of mine recently had his benefits wrongly withdrawn. He has severe learning difficulties and cannot use the internet independently, and therefore has great difficulty in applying for jobs online. Does the Secretary of State agree that targeted support would be more successful in getting my constituent and others back into work than damaging, wrongly imposed benefit sanctions?

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Mike Penning)]

It is very important that we help everybody to get back into work, no matter who it is. If benefits have been stopped incorrectly, I promise to look into that for the hon. Lady.

[Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)]

T4. The Minister will be aware of the 16% drop in unemployment in my constituency, along with the 34% drop in youth unemployment. Will he join me in welcoming the support of local businesses at our next annual Enfield jobs fair on 7 March, where employers are coming to support us in helping to find work for the unemployed?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I will do everything I can to make sure I am there to support my hon. Friend, who is also my parliamentary neighbour. He is right to say that what we have seen in the recent employment figures has happened only because we stuck to the course of our economic plan and because the welfare reforms are delivering more people into work. All that would be damaged if that lot were in power.

[Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

T7. Two of my constituents—both of whom are UK citizens—went to other European Union countries to find work, but when those jobs ended and they came home they found they were no longer eligible to receive benefits in the UK. Did the Government mean to penalise UK citizens who go abroad to get off the UK unemployment register, and is not that exactly the wrong signal to give? Will the Secretary of State change the regulations?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

As the hon. Gentleman should know, we are bringing forward tougher sanctions on those who come here just to take benefits, rather than to work. Of course, British citizens working abroad are more likely to have gone abroad with a strong work record in the UK, so when they come back that is taken into account. If the hon. Gentleman is worried about a particular case, perhaps he would like to write to me and I will take it up. The sanctions are fair because they stop people coming to countries such as Britain just because they have better welfare systems than theirs.

[Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)]

T5. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on all the work he has put into getting people back into employment, but I was visited this weekend by one of my constituents, Paul Vachon, who has been unemployed for more than 12 months and is highly skilled. His major concern is that, because he is close to the point of retirement, his employability is diminished. What are the Government doing to encourage and support those such as Paul who are seeking jobs at the point when they are about to retire?

[Esther McVey]

My hon. Friend raises an important question about how we support all people back into work. It really is important that advisers have the flexibility to offer skills and job-search support to people of all ages, including those who might need extra support on the Work programme and, equally, those in local areas that might have an over-50s digital group or 50-plus work clubs. We need to make sure that everybody is getting the support and I would be more than happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss the matter further.

[Jim McGovern (Dundee West) (Lab)]

T8. I have put this question to the Department for Work and Pensions on two previous occasions in the Chamber, but I will try again and perhaps, as the old adage goes, this will be third time lucky. More than 90% of the Work programme participants in my home city of Dundee have not been helped into work by it, so my simple question is: why not?

[Esther McVey]

The Work programme supports those people who are furthest away from the job market. We have helped more than 1.4 million people and we now know that more than 400,000 of them have had a job start. We have to get them closer to the workplace, so it is working well. We always say that there is more to do, but this has done a significant amount for those people who are the hardest to help.

[Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)]

T6. Will Ministers do something about the fact that, of all the people being helped with personal independence payment claims by the Berwick citizens advice bureau, not one remaining in the area has received an assessment since the scheme started?

[Mike Penning]

Of course, as we roll out PIP, this is a really difficult situation and we must make sure we get the quality right. I will look into that individual case for my right hon. Friend and make sure we get it right in his area.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

T9. Further to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee West (Jim McGovern), a number of my constituents have been on the employment and support programme for two years, or nearly two years, and have had not a sniff of a work opportunity. Do the Government have a solution for how to get people with complex needs into work, because clearly the Work programme is not delivering?

[Esther McVey]

The Work programme is working. For those people who are on employment and support allowance, it is about getting closer to the job market and that is what we are doing—putting provision in place. I remind the hon. Lady that, under her Government, those people were not supported in any consistent way whatsoever.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

T10. One of the issues raised during the last debate before the recess was payment of benefits to terminally ill patients. Will Ministers update the House on what additional help and support is available for recipients of PIP?

[Mike Penning]

It is very important for the families and loved ones of people who are terminally ill to make sure that we get the PIP payment through as fast as possible. The period was too long; we have got it down now, and we need to get it down more. I said to the Select Committee that the proportion should be below 10%. Working with Macmillan, we are going to a PDF as well as a paper-based system for the 2%, but it is very important that we get that right, and that is why I have changed the rules.

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Mr Speaker, you will remember that during exchanges at the last Work and Pensions questions, the Secretary of State said that Manchester had spent very little of its discretionary housing allocation. I wonder whether he wants to use this opportunity to clarify that allegation, given that only two days later, his Department granted Manchester city council an extra £200,000 of discretionary housing payment in recognition that its money was nearly spent.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I stand by the figures I gave the hon. Lady, and I also stand by the fact that Manchester—[Interruption.] No, the figures I gave her were the halfway cut for the year, when she said that it had already overspent—[Interruption.] No, she cannot run away from it. She said that it had overspent, and the reality is that it had not overspent. Since then, it has asked for more money. We have a pot, and we have allowed it to have more money. That is the point of the discretionary housing payment. Welcome to the world of decision making.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

My constituent Jane has been receiving treatment for cancer since her diagnosis last October, but she was wrongly told that she was excluded from applying for help unless she resigned from her job altogether or became pregnant. Will the Minister meet me to discuss Jane’s suggestions to improve how patients receiving treatment for serious illnesses are referred by the NHS towards help, such as personal independence payment, in the interests of joined-up government?

[Mike Penning]

There is a very simple answer to the hon. Lady’s question: yes, I will meet her as soon as possible.

[Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

Further to all the questions about people who are seriously ill, does the Minister think it right that my constituent, who has a weakened heart, has been told that she will not get the personal independence payment? Surely it is just not right that, to avoid reaching rock bottom, she has to not follow her doctor’s advice not to work, and has to lie about her condition. Surely now is the time to see just how fit for purpose his welfare benefits system is—it is not working.

[Mike Penning]

Assessment was brought in by the previous Administration. I fully accept that there are such individual cases. If the hon. Lady’s constituent has not got PIP, she is entitled to appeal and go to a tribunal and the higher tribunal, and she can also register for JSA and produce a sicknote. I will look into the individual case if the hon. Lady so wishes.

NEW MEMBER

Monday 24th February 2014 Commons Chamber

The following Member took and subscribed the Oath required by law:

Michael Joseph Patrick Kane, for Wythenshawe and Sale East.

Ukraine, Syria and Iran

Monday 24th February 2014 Commons Chamber

15:34

[The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)]

With permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a statement on the situation in Ukraine and Syria and on relations with Iran.

Last week, more than 80 people were killed and 600 injured during the worst bloodshed in Ukraine since the fall of communism. It was the culmination of unrest that began in November, when President Yanukovych announced that the Government would not sign an EU association agreement. I know that the House will join me in sending condolences to the families of those who died or were injured.

On Thursday, I attended the emergency meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels, which agreed to sanctions on those who have been responsible for the violence, as well as assistance to promote political dialogue and help for the injured. On Friday, President Yanukovych and the Opposition signed an agreement, supported by the whole European Union. I pay tribute to my French, Polish and German colleagues for their efforts to bring that about.

Events moved rapidly after that, including the departure of President Yanukovych from Kiev and the removal of guards from Government buildings. On Saturday, the Ukrainian Parliament, the Rada, voted to restore the 2004 constitution, to release Yuliya Tymoshenko and to impeach the President. He has said that he will not step down, but it is clear that his authority is no longer widely accepted. A number of members of the previous Government have been dismissed and appointments have been made to a new unity Government. Speaker Turchynov of the Rada has been appointed acting President until early elections take place on 25 May.

Ukraine has a pressing need for constitutional reform, improvements to its political culture, free elections, an end to pervasive corruption and the building of a stable political structure. We look to the new Government to create the conditions for such change in a spirit of reconciliation, while ensuring that there is accountability for human rights violations.

For our part, the international community must work with the new Government to discourage further violence and agree international financial support. Ukraine’s financial situation is very serious and, without outside assistance, may not be sustainable. An economic crisis in Ukraine would be a grave threat to the country’s stability and could have damaging wider consequences. I discussed that work with the German and Polish Foreign Ministers over the weekend and I spoke to Foreign Minister Lavrov of Russia earlier this afternoon. The Prime Minister has spoken to President Putin, Chancellor Merkel and Prime Minister Tusk, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer discussed Ukraine with G20 Finance Ministers in Australia. Later today, I will go to Washington to discuss this and other issues with Secretary Kerry.

While in Washington, I will hold talks with the International Monetary Fund, which is best placed to provide financial support and technical advice to Ukraine. Such support could be provided quickly once it has been requested by the new Government. It requires a stable and legitimate Government to be in place and for there to be a commitment to the reforms that are necessary to produce economic stability. International financial support cannot be provided without conditions and clarity that it will be put to proper use.

Baroness Ashton is visiting Kiev today and I will visit shortly. Our fundamental interest is democracy, human rights and the rule of law in Ukraine. This is not about a choice for Ukraine between Russia and the EU; it is about setting the country on a democratic path for the future. We want the people of Ukraine to be free to determine their own future, which is what we also seek for the people of Syria.

On Saturday, the United Nations Security Council adopted resolution 2139 on humanitarian assistance to Syria, which the United Kingdom called for and co-sponsored. It is the first resolution that has been adopted by the Security Council on the humanitarian crisis since the start of the conflict three years ago, and it was agreed unanimously. It demands an immediate end to the violence, the lifting of the sieges of besieged areas, and the unimpeded delivery of humanitarian aid including, importantly, across borders where necessary. It authorises the UN to work with civil society to deliver aid to the whole of Syria. It condemns terrorist attacks and demands the implementation of the Geneva communiqué, leading to a political transition. It states that that should include the full participation of women.

The passing of the resolution is an important achievement, but it will make a practical difference only if it is implemented in full. We will work with the United Nations and our partners to try to ensure that the regime’s stranglehold on starving people is broken.

The UK continues to set an example to the world on humanitarian assistance. Our contribution to the Syrian people now stands at £600 million: £241 million has been allocated for humanitarian assistance inside Syria; £265 million has been allocated to support refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt; and £94 million of allocations are currently being finalised. We have pressed for other countries to do more, including at the Kuwait conference last month, which resulted in more than $2.2 billion in new pledges.

The Security Council resolution is a chink of light in an otherwise bleak and deteriorating situation. An estimated 5,000 Syrians are dying every month and a quarter of a million remain trapped in areas under siege. The bombardment of civilian areas with barrel bombs continues unabated, and there are reports of attacks with cluster munitions as well. An inquiry led by distinguished British experts reported on the photos of the bodies of around 11,000 tortured and executed Syrian detainees. Some 2.5 million Syrians are refugees in the region, three quarters of them women and children. The UN expects 4 million refugees by the end of this year.

Against this horrifying backdrop we continue to seek a negotiated settlement to the conflict, but there is no sign of the Assad regime having any willingness whatsoever to negotiate the political transition demanded by the UN Security Council. The second round of Geneva II negotiations ended on 15 February without agreement on future talks. UN and Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi had proposed an agenda for a third round of talks focusing on violence and terrorism—the regime’s stated priority—and a transitional governing body, in parallel. The regime refused this. As a result the talks were suspended, with Mr Brahimi clearly laying responsibility for that at the regime’s door.

The national coalition, by contrast, approached the negotiations constructively and in good faith. It published a statement of principles for the transitional governing body, stating that it would enable the Syrian people to decide their own future and protect the rights and freedoms of all Syrians. Those supporting the regime side, including the Russian and Iranian Governments, need to do far more to press the regime to take this process seriously and to reach a political settlement, as we have done with the opposition. We will continue our support to the national coalition and to civil society in Syria. We are providing £2.1 million for Syrian civil defence teams to help local communities deal with attacks, and improve the capability of local councils to save the lives of those injured and alleviate humanitarian suffering. This includes training, which is now under way, and £700,000 of civil defence equipment including personal radios, rescue tools, fire-fighting clothing, fire extinguishers, stretchers and medical kits.

The UK is also proposing a £2 million package of training, technical assistance and equipment support to build up the capacity of the Free Syrian Police, working with the US and Denmark. I have laid before Parliament a minute to approve £910,000 of equipment, including communications equipment, uniforms and vehicles for the Free Syrian Police. We also intend to make a contribution to the Syria Recovery Trust Fund, established by the UAE and Germany, focusing on health care, water supply, energy supply and food security. We are working with the Supreme Military Council to agree the best way of restarting our non-lethal support, which we halted temporarily in December.

The regime’s foot-dragging is also clear on the removal of chemical weapons from Syria. According to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, only 11% of Syria’s declared chemical stockpile has been removed, and the regime has missed the 5 February deadline for removing all chemicals. That has delayed the destruction operation by months, and puts the 30 June final destruction deadline in jeopardy. This slow rate of progress is unacceptable. The UN Secretary-General and the OPCW have made it clear that Syria has all the necessary equipment to enable the movement of the chemicals. The OPCW’s director general is pressing the Syrians to accept a plan that would see the removal of all Syrian chemicals in a considerably shorter period, enabling the deadline to be met.

Turning finally to Iran, the first step agreement with Iran came into force on 20 January and continues to be implemented. The E3 plus 3 and Iran met last week to start negotiations on a comprehensive agreement, aimed at ensuring that Iran’s nuclear programme is and always will be exclusively peaceful. The talks were constructive. The E3 plus 3 and Iran agreed on the issues that need to be resolved as part of a comprehensive agreement, and in broad terms on the approach to negotiations in the coming months. The next round of talks will be in mid-March in Vienna. The E3 plus 3 and Iran plan to meet monthly in order to make swift progress on the issues that need to be resolved in the ambitious time frame we agreed in the Geneva deal in November. The House should be under no illusion that the challenges remain very considerable. A comprehensive solution must address all proliferation concerns related to Iran’s nuclear programme. To that end, existing sanctions remain intact and we will enforce them robustly.

We continue to expand our bilateral contact with Iran; indeed, Iran’s non-resident chargé d’affaires is visiting the UK today. Last Thursday, the UK and Iran brought protecting power arrangements to an end. This is a sign of increasing confidence that we can conduct bilateral business directly between capitals, rather than through intermediaries. I thank the Governments of Sweden and Oman for acting as protecting powers since the closure of our embassy, and for their strong friendship and support to the UK. We will continue step by step with those improvements in our bilateral relations, providing they remain reciprocal. We are, for example, working together on ways to make it easier for Iranians and British citizens to obtain consular and visa services.

On all these issues, we will maintain intensive diplomatic activity in the days ahead and I will continue to keep the House informed on our work with other nations—whether in Europe, the middle east or on the prevention of nuclear proliferation—to ensure a more peaceful and stable world.

15:46

[Mr Douglas Alexander (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (Lab)]

I thank the Foreign Secretary for his statement and for advance sight of it.

On Syria, I join the Foreign Secretary in welcoming UN Security Council resolution 2139. Despite the progress made in securing this resolution, however, the UN’s humanitarian appeal sadly remains chronically underfunded. Will the Foreign Secretary join the calls we have made for a fresh donor conference urgently to secure additional funds? If not, will he set out for the House the mechanism by which he judges the funding gap can be better closed? The Foreign Secretary acknowledges that those supporting the regime’s side, including the Russian and Iranian Governments, need to do far more to press the regime to take the process seriously and to reach a political settlement. Will he therefore explain his continued opposition to the establishment of a Syria contact group that could get these Governments around the table?

On Iran, we welcome the agreement on a framework for negotiations on a comprehensive deal in Vienna last week, but progress on a comprehensive deal must be made explicitly contingent on Iran adhering to the terms of the interim joint action plan signed up to in November. Iran is reportedly still operating more than 10,000 centrifuges, yet the interim deal sets out a much lower target. Will the Foreign Secretary set out what ongoing steps are being taken to bring Iran into line with the existing demands of the deal it has already signed up to? Will the Foreign Secretary set out the Government’s most recent estimates of the benefits that limited sanctions relief has so far brought to the Iranian economy, and whether the UK has any plans to push for extending, or indeed limiting, the existing relief package agreed by the P5+1, so as not to undermine the twin-track approach supported on both sides of the House?

Turning now to the events in Ukraine, may I join the Foreign Secretary in offering condolences to the families of those killed and injured during the latest violence? Recent days have seen protest, tragedy and change on the streets of Kiev. The first priority must of course be to ensure that the transition to an interim Government is peaceful and that further bloodshed is avoided. We welcome the work already done by the EU High Representative, including on her most recent visit to Kiev today, to try to facilitate this transition, but does the Foreign Secretary believe that the EU should now appoint a dedicated special envoy to support these efforts?

Alongside political turmoil, the Ukrainian economy has been in a long decline and is now on the verge of collapse. Will the Foreign Secretary confirm whether he has established, during his call with Foreign Minister Lavrov, whether the Russian offer of financial support, which was previously made to the Yanukovych Government, has now been withdrawn? In December, I asked the Foreign Secretary about his readiness to call on International Monetary Fund reserves to be used to help to stabilise the Ukrainian economy. At that time, he said:

“If Ukraine is to make use of that facility, it is necessary for it to engage in important structural reforms.”—[Official Report, 3 December 2013; Vol. 571, c. 764.]

Yesterday, two months since I first raised the issue, the Foreign Secretary confirmed that he believes the IMF should be prepared to act. We have all seen in recent months the geopolitical risks of delay in delivering effective financial action, so does the Foreign Secretary recognise that while conditionality is of course necessary, there are potentially urgent issues around solvency that may need to be addressed? If he does accept that, how does he propose that they should be addressed?

The European Union association agreement which sparked the recent crisis could still prove vital in helping to revive the rebalancing of the Ukrainian economy in the long term. Will the Foreign Secretary be pushing for negotiations on the reopening of the agreement, and should the terms of the deal itself be kept closed or be revisited? President Obama was right to say that Ukraine could no longer be seen simply as a “cold war chessboard”, but will the Foreign Secretary tell us whether he was aware of any guarantees from Foreign Minister Lavrov that Russia would not encourage southern and eastern regions of Ukraine to break away from the rest of the country? Of course Ukrainians have divergent views on the future of their country, strongly shaped by geopolitics, language, economics, and indeed geography, but the territorial integrity of Ukraine remains a matter of significance not just to Ukraine itself, but to the whole wider region.

The Foreign Ministers of France, Germany and Poland, alongside Catherine Ashton, have done vital work in recent days, and the Foreign Secretary was right to praise their efforts. Indeed, recent events in Ukraine have made it clear that—as in other instances—the influence of the United Kingdom Government, acting alone, would have had much less impact without our ability to amplify our influence through our membership of the European Union. However, although that important work has been done in recent days, all of us in the European Union and the international community should acknowledge that much work still lies ahead in relation to this troubled but important country.

[Mr Hague]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his support for Security Council regulation 2139, which was passed at the weekend. As he said, only part of the $6.5 billion for which the UN appealed has been provided; $2.2 billion was secured at the pledging conference in Kuwait last month, which means that much more needs to be raised. Given that that conference was held only five weeks ago, I do not think that holding another now would greatly change the position, but it is very important for us to follow up last month’s conference. Ministers from the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development are doing that all the time, and are pressing for other donations. I do not rule out the need for further such conferences—indeed, I am sure that no supportive Government would do so—but if we are to achieve the momentum that will enable us to secure more donations, we shall need a wider gap than the five weeks that have elapsed so far.

The important aspect of the resolution that was passed at the weekend is that, while it does not change the amounts involved, it does allow us to try to help in new ways. The provisions relating to the delivery of aid across borders, which the UN has not previously authorised, and to aid for civil society in Syria, are very important if they can now be followed up. If implemented, the resolution will help to improve the humanitarian situation.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about a contact group. I do not think that I have ever said that I was opposed to such a group, but, as with any issue, a useful contact group must be cohesive in its purpose. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that one commodity we are not short of, in relation to Syria, is meetings about Syria. I do not know how many hundreds I have attended over the past three years, but if they were the solution, everything would have been resolved a long time ago.

Progress is made—and it has been made in relation to chemical weapons and the resolution passed at the weekend—when the five permanent members of the Security Council achieve some cohesion, in this case with the strong encouragement of Australia, Jordan and Luxembourg on the Security Council, and that remains the most promising way in which to move forward on Syria. However, if we could achieve more cohesion in regard to purposes and pressure on both sides, contact groups could be established in the future. I am not opposed to that.

Iran is currently implementing the agreement, as far as everyone—including the International Atomic Energy Authority—can see. We are not considering extending or limiting the sanctions relief of approximately $7 billion in the current six-month period, which is the amount specified in the agreement. The agreement can be renewed after six months, for further periods of six months. If it were renewed, further sanctions relief would need to be negotiated, but within this six-month period, we must and will stick to the agreed amount, and will not extend or limit it. The estimated amount of about $7 billion must be set in the context of about $60 billion to $100 billion of Iranian assets frozen worldwide. That is small relief, relative to the total, but it is an important signal of our seriousness, and it will maintain the pressure on Iran to come to a comprehensive agreement on the nuclear issues.

On the right hon. Gentleman’s questions on Ukraine, it is not clear at the moment how Russia will proceed with financial assistance. He appeared to suggest that there should be unconditional IMF or other assistance for the country. He rightly pointed out that I said, months ago, that there were important conditions to be attached, and I still say that today. It is vital that such economic assistance, through international financial institutions, should not be wasted and that it should not indirectly subsidise Russia. Any such money therefore has to be accompanied by serious reform in Ukraine. The IMF could put together a package very quickly; a programme has been almost ready to go for some time, and the groundwork has all been laid, but the Ukrainian Government’s commitment to much-needed reform is important—as it is in any country receiving support from the IMF.

Ukraine needs to demonstrate the stability of its public debt burden as well as strong prospects for access to private capital markets and the political capacity and will to deliver reform. There is no reason why a new Government should not do those things very quickly. The association agreement remains on the table, but the priority now is to achieve an end to violence, to establish a unity Government and to hold free elections that are fair to all concerned. The appointment of a special envoy is a matter for the High Representative to consider, but it is something that the United Kingdom would support.

[Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend accept that bold, visionary and generous thinking is now required in Ukraine, in stark contrast to the corrupt brutality and incompetence of its Government? If the EU and Russia were to resolve this matter together, without strings attached, it would do a great deal to draw a line under this serious post-war hangover and create law-based liberty for all Ukrainians.

[Mr Hague]

My right hon. Friend is right to call for visionary leadership to bring to an end the pervasive culture of corruption and the divisive politics. That is absolutely what is needed in this situation. It is also important for the EU nations and Russia to work together; that is one of the reasons why I have been talking to Foreign Minister Lavrov this afternoon. Incidentally, I did not respond to the shadow Foreign Secretary’s point on that matter. He emphasised, as I did on the telephone to Mr Lavrov, the importance of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and of the country staying together. It is important that all channels of communication between Russia and the EU should stay open and that we are able to support such a new vision.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

Does the Foreign Secretary accept that the rapacious and endemic corruption in Ukraine is not confined to the regime of Mr Yanukovych, and that it has now spread and infected virtually the whole of Ukrainian society? We should be generous with financial aid, but it is absolutely right that we should insist on stringent conditionality. On Iran, I welcome the steps that the Foreign Secretary has taken. Will he tell us what steps the British Government are taking to implement the clear obligation in the 24 November agreement to designate certain banks and financial institutions in this country as facilitators of sanctions relief?

[Mr Hague]

The right hon. Gentleman’s first point is absolutely right; that is the point that I was making a moment ago, and he might want to reinforce it to the shadow Foreign Secretary when he gets a chance. The word I used to describe the corruption was “pervasive”, and we have to be clear about the conditions attached to any financial support for Ukraine. On his question about banks, there are explicit exemptions under the EU sanctions for transactions made for humanitarian purposes and non-sanctioned purposes. There is no legal barrier to banks in the EU undertaking such transactions, but that is a commercial decision for them. I will look further at the point that the right hon. Gentleman has raised.

[Sir Menzies Campbell (North East Fife) (LD)]

As my right hon. Friend has implied, a common thread runs through the three difficult issues he has discussed: Iran, Syria and Ukraine. In both Iran and Syria, progress, however limited, was made as a result of engagement with Russia. What possible viable future does he conceive of for Ukraine unless there is similar engagement with Russia?

[Mr Hague]

This is a very important point. Again, it is why the Prime Minister spoke to President Putin on Friday, and why I have spoken to Foreign Minister Lavrov today and agreed to speak again in the near future. It is very important that we present this correctly. We are seeking a democratic and free future for Ukraine, one in which it makes its own decisions. We believe that closer economic links between Ukraine and the European Union can be beneficial to that entire region, including to Russia. We are not presenting this as a strategic competition between east and west—it would be a mistake to do so—so continuous contact with Russia and recognition of the fact that its approach to Ukraine will always be important to its stability will be a continuing feature of our policy.

[Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

I welcome UN resolution 2139, but when it comes to ensuring that humanitarian assistance gets into Syria, and indeed across borders into countries where there are millions of refugees, the power brokers are still Russia and Iran. What persuasion is being exerted on those countries to exercise their power in such a way that the innocent civilians in Syria are not left either starving or slaughtered?

[Mr Hague]

The hon. Lady makes a crucial point. The one encouraging sign—I do not in any way guarantee success in this—is that Russia was part of the agreement on this Security Council resolution. It could not have been passed without the support of Russia. The text has been negotiated painstakingly over the past two weeks, including with Russia. Now that it has been passed, we will hold Russia to the implementation of the resolution. It is a step forward—as I have described, it is a chink of light in a depressing scene—but we will continually press Russia to assist with the implementation of this resolution, which means getting humanitarian aid more effectively to millions of people who need it.

[Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend accept that many of the problems in Ukraine have been stoked by the policies of the Kremlin? Will he and his international colleagues take every opportunity to remind the Russian leadership that the era of the Soviet Union is over, that interference in what they regard as their near abroad is counter-productive and anachronistic, and that sovereign nations should be allowed to operate self-determination without hindrance or interference?

[Mr Hague]

We will always stand clearly for democratic nations being able to make their own decisions without outside interference—without duress—from other nations. We have made that clear both in our own statements and those from the whole of the European Union in the conclusions, over several months of the EU Foreign Affairs Council, and we will continue to make that clear. Of course, I pointed out to Foreign Minister Lavrov earlier today that in the events over the weekend many Ukrainians joined in these decisions, including people who were previously of the governing party. They voted in the Rada for the impeachment of the President and for the elections to be held early, so these are decisions that are being made across parties in Ukraine and they are decisions we should respect.

[Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

During the recess, I was in Kiev, at the Rada and on the streets, and I wish to thank our ambassador for his good advice and help. I, too, am convinced that Ukraine’s future lies in a choice not between east and west but between the autocracy, corruption and cronyism of the past and a future of human rights and the rule of law. What will the UK and the EU be doing to persuade Ukraine’s new Government to establish an independent judiciary, a fair and balanced electoral commission and an anti-corruption commission with teeth?

[Mr Hague]

I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman has returned safely, and I will pass on his thanks to our ambassador. We are already conveying those messages through our embassy. I have asked to talk to the Speaker who has been declared the acting President—[Interruption.] I am not sure about encouraging that thought, Mr Speaker. I have asked to speak to the acting President to convey the message from the UK that the new Government should not be as divisive as the old one so evidently was. They should seek reconciliation and be a true unity Government who try to establish a new political culture. If they do those things, they will receive a great deal of international support.

[Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

The Foreign Secretary may know that the EU-Ukraine association agreement is still under scrutiny in the European Scrutiny Committee and will certainly require a debate. It is important that he has mentioned the fact that the International Monetary Fund, and not the EU, should be the lead on this. The amount of money that could be required of the United Kingdom in the light of an EU financial deal could be so horrendous as to make it completely unacceptable.

[Mr Hague]

I have consciously tried to reassure my hon. Friend on that matter. I deliberately mentioned IMF support. There will be opportunities for European Investment Bank or European Bank for Reconstruction and Development support as part of a broader international package, but those options do not involve a quick fix. The focus now needs to be on ensuring that the IMF is at the front and the centre of any package of assistance to Ukraine. I will be discussing that with it in Washington later this week, as I am sure other EU countries will do as well.

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

Like others, I have been disturbed by the violence that we have witnessed in Ukraine in recent days, but I have also been struck by the footage of ordinary citizens who have been prepared to put themselves on the front line to secure accountable government. Will the Secretary of State assure us that protecting human rights and civilians will be the Government’s top priority in their diplomatic efforts in the days ahead?

[Mr Hague]

Yes, absolutely. That is why I emphasise that our fundamental interest is in a free and democratic Ukraine that respects human rights. In that way, it can then make its own decisions, whatever they may be, in foreign and domestic policy. The hon. Lady is right: there is a demand from citizens all over the world for accountable government. We are seeing that in many countries. It reaches fever pitch in countries where the Government are particularly corrupt or where the political systems are unresponsive to public opinion. That is a lesson for many Governments and political systems all over the world.

[Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)]

I am sure that the wide-ranging nature of the Foreign Secretary’s statement today reflects the extraordinary volatility of the new world order. I suggest that the House might like to have the opportunity to debate this matter further rather than simply hearing a statement. In my right hon. Friend’s discussions with Mr Lavrov of Russia, has there been any mention of Crimea, because of course it is the Russian Black sea fleet that is based at Sevastopol? One must bear in mind the fact that a large proportion of the population there have Russian passports. Did Mr Lavrov give the Foreign Secretary a cast-iron commitment that Russia will not intervene?

[Mr Hague]

On the question of a debate, the Deputy Leader of the House is in his place and will have heard that request. My hon. Friend will be pleased and somewhat reassured to hear that Mr Lavrov did not raise the issue of military intervention in Ukraine. My hon. Friend was right to point out that the Russian Black sea fleet is based at Sevastopol, but it is clear, as I said on the television yesterday, that any notion of this kind is manifestly not in the interests of Russia or Ukraine, and I hope that that point is well understood.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

Two weeks ago, Abdul Waheed Majid became the first British citizen to conduct a suicide bombing in Syria. So far, 360 British citizens have travelled to fight in Syria. Estimates of other conflicts indicate that one in nine of those returning will take part in domestic terrorism. What discussions has the right hon. Gentleman had with the Home Secretary to try to prevent British citizens from going abroad to engage in terrorist activities?

[Mr Hague]

Of course we have regular discussions in the Government and with our allies on this very important subject. It is now of serious concern, as I and the Home Secretary have mentioned previously. I cannot go into details, for obvious reasons, about all those discussions, but I can say, as the Home Secretary has said, that we will always protect our national security. I remind people that our advice is against all travel to Syria and that, if necessary, the Home Secretary has the power to remove passports or to revoke leave to remain in this country, and all our security and law enforcement agencies are working very closely together on this.

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that, whether in relation to Iran, Syria or Ukraine, the United Kingdom’s ability to influence events positively is largely enhanced by our being a member of the European Union and that the EU’s ability to influence events is largely enhanced by the fact that it has been able to speak with one voice on these issues?

[Mr Hague]

We work very effectively with other countries in the European Union. Of course, I would point out that being a member of the UN Security Council is pretty key to all this as well, but we will always use our membership of all the international institutions of which we are members to try to address such crises and to resolve them.

[Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)]

As several hon. Members have said, Russia’s role in providing an enduring solution in Iran, Ukraine and Syria is vital. What is the Government’s medium to longer-term strategy for better engaging Russia on these and other issues?

[Mr Hague]

This Government set out from the beginning to create a better working relationship with Russia, which had become very difficult through no fault of the previous Government in the previous few years. Of course, there remain serious difficulties, such as over the murder of Litvinenko and over human rights issues, which are often raised in the House, but for the reasons that the hon. Lady sets out—for reasons of working together in the UN Security Council on many more issues than just this one—it is important to have a good working relationship. We have established a frank and good working relationship. That does not mean that we agree on everything, but it does mean that, at such times of crisis, the channels of communication are fully open.

[Sir Richard Ottaway (Croydon South) (Con)]

I congratulate the Foreign Secretary on the UK’s role in achieving the Syria resolution—I quite agree with him that it was an important achievement. On Ukraine, does he agree that one of the many reasons for the present crisis was the EU’s early hesitation and a lack of clarity in its aid package? Will he elaborate on what his discussions with the IMF and the World Bank will involve? Given that the elections in Ukraine are far from becoming a foregone conclusion, does he agree that it may make sense to wait until those elections are over before concluding that agreement?

[Mr Hague]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his congratulations. Our diplomats in New York again did an excellent job in helping to secure the resolution, by working on it hard over the past two weeks.

On Ukraine, it is not clear that it is possible to wait that long for a financial package. The situation there is very serious. Ukraine has dwindling reserves, a depreciating currency, large foreign exchange debts that are falling due, a large public deficit and a large current account deficit, and it is shut out of private capital markets.

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

Like Britain.

[Mr Hague]

Actually, it is more like Britain was before the current Government came to power, but it is worse even than that. Therefore, the package cannot necessarily wait until 25 May. It is important for the new Government being formed now in Ukraine to show their readiness to undertake the necessary reforms.

[Mr Skinner]

Have I got it right, or not, that a Tory Foreign Secretary has come to the House to take money out of the pockets of people in Britain—flood-ravaged and austerity-riddled Britain—to hand it over to the EU fanatics in Ukraine? Is that correct? Is money no object, and how much money will we give them?

[Mr Hague]

That is not correct—let us be clear about that. [Interruption.] Let me reassure the hon. Gentleman that what we are talking about is IMF support, which does not involve tax rises in the United Kingdom; it does not involve any extra money being taken out of the pockets of anyone in the UK. We are talking about IMF support under agreed conditions, given to people who are willing to undertake economic reforms in Ukraine, and I do not think that they would all come under the description of “EU fanatics” any more than the hon. Gentleman would. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. From a sedentary position, the right hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames) moderately unkindly suggested that the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) was “bonkers”. I do not seek to make any judgment on that matter, but I simply remind the House that the right hon. Gentleman served for some years—he may still do so, for all I know—either as patron or president of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust, a post for which I think the whole House will agree he was extremely well equipped.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

May I express that last question in a slightly gentler way by asking if we can avoid any Russophobia in this debate? “Ukrayina” means “borderland” in Russian, and Ukraine has always been a legitimate sphere of Russian interest. In the shape of the Kievan Rus, it was the foundation of the modern Russian state in 800 AD, so can we accept that only the Russians can bail out this state to any significant extent and we have to work with them?

[Mr Hague]

Russophobia, as my hon. Friend described it, certainly has no place in our diplomacy on this issue. It is very important for Russia to respect the democratic wishes of the people of Ukraine; it is important for all nations to do that. However, it is also important for all of us not to describe this as a binary choice for people in Ukraine. It is important for Ukraine to have a future in which it is able to have close links and co-operation with the European Union and Russia. That should be what we are seeking, and Russian understanding of that is important to long-term stability in the region.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I gently suggest to the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) that homophobia does not have a role in Russia either.

The Foreign Secretary has suggested that there is corruption in Ukraine, and he is absolutely right, but Russia’s involvement since Ukraine gained independence in 1991 has been pernicious, self-serving and corrupt. Is it not time that the whole idea of “my backyard” or “your backyard” was put away, as a means of securing a prosperous future for the people of Ukraine?

[Mr Hague]

Since I am trying to make sure that in the long term we can work with Russia on this, the hon. Gentleman will understand that I have put things in a slightly different way from the words that he is using. It is of course important to have Russia’s co-operation and support in achieving long-term stability and recognition of democracy in a country such as Ukraine. We should always work together on securing that and we should always talk to Russia about those matters.

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Does the Foreign Secretary agree that it would be wrong to lend money to Ukraine before she has a stable democratic Government in charge and one that has the respect of the people, and before she has an economic plan that might work? The British people will not thank him if we lend Ukraine money that we do not get back and the economic crisis there gets worse.

[Mr Hague]

I do not think that anyone in the IMF will want to lend money that there would be little chance of getting back, so the readiness to undertake economic reforms—for instance, any observer of the economics of Ukraine would see that gas price reform is necessary—will be important in Ukraine agreeing an IMF package. That will require some difficult political choices in Ukraine. Nevertheless, there is an urgent need for this, so it is a question of how quickly a new Government in Ukraine can supply the necessary political will.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

Given that Russia has developed a customs union with Belarus, Kazakhstan and, suddenly and more recently, Armenia, is it not the case that despite the Foreign Secretary’s wish—he said that there was not a choice between Russia and the European Union—President Putin sees things in a different way?

[Mr Hague]

It is very important for us, however anybody else may see this, to maintain this narrative and perspective, which is true: we do not intend association between the Ukraine and the EU to be hostile or damaging to Russia. However anybody else may present this, we should be insistent on that point.

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

Prime Minister Medvedev has just described events in Ukraine as an “armed mutiny”. Did the Foreign Secretary make it clear to Mr Lavrov that the whole European Union, while sensitive to Russian interests and concerns, will support the people of Ukraine if they choose a free and democratic future in closer association with the European Union, as well as good relations with Russia?

[Mr Hague]

Yes, absolutely, and both parts of what my hon. Friend says are important: they are what I have been saying. We support that association, including an association agreement with the EU. Our prime interest is in a free and democratic future for Ukraine, but that need not exclude economic co-operation and working with Russia on many issues. We are absolutely clear about that, and he is right that the whole European Union will support that free and democratic future for Ukraine.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

On Ukraine, recognising the popular demonstration against the discredited president, and deploring the killing of demonstrators—this House should not be indifferent to those killings—will the Foreign Secretary bear in mind the activities of the far right? It is important to note that, unfortunately and tragically, Ukraine has a long history, over centuries, of racial intolerance and crimes.

[Mr Hague]

It is very important; and we were clear about this in our comments last Wednesday and Thursday, when the violence was taking place: we called for all violence on all sides to stop. A great deal, but not necessarily all, of the responsibility for that violence fell on the then Government, so it is important to make it clear that our message about avoiding violence is to all sides. It is also clear, however, from events over the weekend, when more than 300 Members of the Ukrainian Parliament voted for various measures that have now been enacted, that there is a great deal of cross-party support in their country for what has happened, including among many who were in the Party of Regions, the party of Mr Yanukovych. That political change is taking place with the support of many more people than just any far-right elements.

[Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)]

May I join my right hon. Friend in paying tribute to the heroes of the Maidan who gave their lives, and will he confirm that the UK will do all it can to work with the new Government to bring to justice all those responsible for the deaths, including possibly freezing financial assets held in London?

[Mr Hague]

Yes; I think that the right way for the new Government to approach this, as I said in my statement, is in a spirit of reconciliation but holding to account those responsible for human rights violations. Of course we resolved at the Foreign Affairs Council on Thursday to impose visa bans and asset freezes on those who we know are responsible for such violence, so we can exercise that power.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

The Foreign Secretary has repeatedly rightly said that Ukrainians must decide the future of Ukraine, and that political change must be achieved peacefully. Accepting those constraints, what does he think, in practice, the EU can and should do to build capacity and support political development?

[Mr Hague]

We can do a great deal, as we have in many other countries. The hon. Lady raises an important issue. Through the work of our embassies, we can give the Ukrainian authorities clear advice, as I have been doing in public today, and shall do in private, about how matters should be conducted to achieve that free, democratic future with financial support from international institutions. However, it is also important to communicate that message more widely across many different sectors of society in Ukraine—our embassy has begun to do that —and it is possible to find in European Union countries funding to support democratic development and political capacity building. We will be ready to do that.

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

Whether we like it or not, Ukraine is a polarised society, with large parts looking towards the west and significant parts looking towards Russia. Does the Secretary of State think, therefore, that the constitutional advice we give should include a recommendation for some form of devolved government so that Ukraine does not become a focus for east-west tension or, heaven forbid, confrontation?

[Mr Hague]

That analysis is correct. I said earlier that it is important not to present this as a binary choice for Ukraine. My hon. Friend’s argument is the reason for that: a binary choice would always make it difficult for a nation with that composition to give a 100% clear answer. It is important to leave open the wider possibilities of co-operation, both with Russia and with the European Union in future. It is for Ukraine to decide its constitutional structure. We can support the objectives of territorial integrity and the workings of a democratic state, but it is for it to decide the means of doing so.

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

In 2011, I visited Kiev with the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) as part of the efforts by the Westminster Foundation for Democracy to try to build a stronger Parliament. Those efforts failed. Has the Foreign Secretary given active consideration to finding fresh funding to restart that process as one of the things that we do to help the Rada move forward?

[Mr Hague]

That is a possibility, as I said in reply to the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman). It is for the Westminster Foundation for Democracy to decide its own dispositions. My job is to maintain the funding for that, which I have done, so that it can make those decisions. We will need a fresh look altogether at how we can support that democratic development under the right conditions.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

I very much welcome my right hon. Friend’s commitment to working with Russia to secure a stable and democratic future for Ukraine and to resolve the problems in Syria and Iran. However, will he make it clear that no nation in today’s world is entitled to establish or to seek to maintain spheres of influence? In this year, of all centenary years, we should remember that that is the politics that leads to war.

[Mr Hague]

I agree very much with my hon. Friend about working with Russia, and that in the 21st century we live in a world of global networks in which the power of ideas has become more important than spheres of influence. Democracy, accountability and human rights are ideas that cannot be suppressed, and should not be suppressed. We look at international diplomacy in that way. I agree that the age of spheres of influence is now over.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

What discussions has the Foreign Secretary had with the Chancellor and others about the role that international financial regulatory bodies, banks and, indeed, other treasuries can play to give practical support to investigations into corruption? Where wrongdoing is proven, what steps can be taken not only to freeze but return assets to the Ukrainian people?

[Mr Hague]

Where we have evidence of corruption, we can act: those who are called politically exposed persons and who live in the UK are subject to that scrutiny. The Treasury is very much in favour of that. The Foreign Office and Treasury will work closely in ensuring that the international financial support I have been speaking about is based on clear conditions and on transparency and that it is used effectively, not in a way that feeds corruption.

[Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (Con)]

What chance does my right hon. Friend think there is of a marked improvement in Anglo-Iranian relations and, besides the enormous nuclear question, what issues must be settled for this important rapprochement to begin to happen?

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend is right to say that this is an enormous issue and that until it is resolved it is an impediment to relations of the sort that we want to see. But we also want to see a wider change in the foreign policy of Iran, which has created great difficulties for the region through the Iranians’ involvement in Syria, Lebanon and other parts of the middle east. We would like them to work much more constructively with their various neighbours, including those in the Gulf, and we would like to see a marked improvement in their appalling human rights record.

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

I am sure I am not the only Member of Parliament struggling to resolve cases of Ukrainians born before 1991 seeking safety in this country who are, in effect, stateless. Would the Foreign Secretary have a gentle word with his colleagues in the Home Office regarding the exceptional circumstances of those who had only internal passports, who have no external passports and find themselves trapped in our asylum process?

[Mr Hague]

This is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, as the hon. Gentleman knows and correctly identifies, so I cannot give a more detailed answer than the Home Office has given him in the past, but I will draw the attention of my colleagues to the point he raises.

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

Some of us on the Foreign Affairs Committee met the Iranian chargé d’affaires this afternoon. He expressed regret at what happened to our embassy. He realises the significance, and apparently Tehran is willing to meet all the assurances sought by London in order to speed up the process of establishing two embassies—something that he himself expressed frustration at. Meanwhile, planeloads of French and German businessmen are visiting Tehran, securing trade deals. Is there at least a chance that the UK is missing a trick here?

[Mr Hague]

I welcome the attitude of many in the Iranian Foreign Ministry to this improvement in the bilateral contact we have been building up over recent months. My hon. Friend understands very well the complex power structure in Iran. At the time that our embassy compounds were invaded in 2011, I doubt very much that this was at the behest of the Iranian Foreign Ministry or with the approval of that ministry. So it is necessary for us to be confident that the Iranian system as a whole is ready to let an embassy fulfil the normal functions of an embassy. Good progress is being made on that, as he has seen for himself. On trade relations, it is very important to uphold existing sanctions, not to send a false signal to Iran that it now need not worry about the economic situation, and the United Kingdom will be careful not to send such a false signal.

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

How does the Foreign Secretary see the implementation of the United Nations resolution on aid to Syria? Surely that will be very difficult to implement.

[Mr Hague]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that that is going to be difficult to implement, because the presidential statement of the Security Council agreed on 2 October last year was certainly not implemented. That is why we have gone back to the Security Council for a resolution. This has the additional force of a resolution. It has the force of international law behind it and the world behind it, including Russia’s agreement. So it is a much more substantial product of the Security Council and I hope, therefore, as I said, that Russia will now join in the pressure on the Syrian regime to permit its implementation, but nothing is yet guaranteed on that.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

My question has just been asked, so I will waste the House’s time no more.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

Members of Nottingham’s Association of Ukrainians assembled yesterday to remember those killed in the recent violence, and I am sure that they will welcome the Foreign Secretary’s statement today. What discussions has he had with colleagues in other Departments about how we can support Ukraine and its economy at this critical time?

[Mr Hague]

I was just thinking, Mr Deputy Speaker, that the precedent of not asking a question that had been asked before could revolutionise proceedings in this House—and indeed the answers.

The hon. Lady has asked a different question though, and a very important one. Our discussions are primarily with the Treasury about support from the IMF programme. The Chancellor has been discussing this with his G20 colleagues at their meeting in Australia this weekend and I will discuss it with the IMF in Washington this week, so we are in close touch about how not just Britain but the world can provide that financial assistance, but in a way that meets conditions so that we know that it will be used for genuine and productive purposes.

[Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)]

I thank the Foreign Secretary for making this statement, as it is vital that there is clarity about what is in our national interest and what we are prepared to do to protect it for the benefit of a domestic audience as well as a foreign one. Is there similar resolve among the foreign ministries of other EU member states?

[Mr Hague]

Yes, I hope and believe so. I think we are all clear that what I set out earlier is our primary interest here—a Ukraine with democracy and freedom of expression that respects human rights. That is then the basis of everything else. It can then make its own decisions about how it wants to work with the EU and Russia. I will certainly continue to make this point, and I think we have it in common with our EU partners.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

I take it from what the Foreign Secretary said earlier that he did not seek any specific assurances from Foreign Minister Lavrov about the possibility of military intervention. Will he explain why that is the case and who the UK Government recognise as Head of State in Ukraine?

[Mr Hague]

I put it to Foreign Minister Lavrov that Ukraine would benefit from reassurance from Russia about this situation and about how we will all try to work with the new Government in Ukraine. As I mentioned earlier, he was very clear, as I was, about the importance of the territorial integrity of Ukraine. Those points were made very clearly. We are working with the new Government in Ukraine. There is, of course, a dispute constitutionally about who is the President, but in this situation it is clear that whatever the constitutional provisions, the authority of Mr Yanukovych as President is no longer widely recognised. In order to achieve the objectives that I have just set out it is necessary for us to talk to the Speaker, who has been declared the acting President.

[David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)]

I welcome the steps that are being taken to seek to stabilise the Ukrainian economy and the recognition that urgent action is required, but what further steps are being taken on the other vital task, in the Foreign Office and with other Departments, to help with the constitutional reform that is required across the political landscape in Ukraine?

[Mr Hague]

The Ukrainian Parliament has voted to adopt the 2004 constitution, a system with less presidential power, although that remains to be implemented and will be bound up in the elections planned for 25 May. Our embassy will make it clear that the UK has a great deal of expertise, including in tackling corruption and transparency in government. For instance, the UK is very much at the heart of the Open Government Partnership, which we advocate all over the world to combat corruption and give citizens confidence in the administration of their country, and we can bring the benefits of that to Ukraine as well.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

The Foreign Secretary will be aware of recent reports that Hezbollah forces are now fighting alongside the Syrian army loyal to President Assad close to the Syrian-Lebanese border. Given the potential that has for wider regional instability, what more can be done beyond the Geneva II process to prevent other parties from being drawn into what is already a highly volatile and bloody conflict?

[Mr Hague]

Yes, there have been reports of that on and off for a long time, as the hon. Gentleman will know, particularly in early 2013, when large numbers of Hezbollah fighters were clearly in Syria. Indeed, quite a large number of them were killed. It is important for us to help stabilise neighbouring countries so that they are less likely to be drawn into the conflict. We are doing that in a big way in Lebanon, where we are assisting with education and humanitarian aid and helping the Lebanese army with its border observation posts. However, the only answer to the risks he spells out is a political solution to end the crisis, and that is our top priority.

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

My right hon. Friend has recognised the importance of economic stability to the long-term structural stability of Ukraine. Does he agree that long-term economic stability also requires transparency and national and international trust in Ukraine’s legal systems and systems of public administration, which it currently lacks, as does Russia? Will Britain see what more it can do, in addition to economic aid, to assist in enhancing Ukraine’s legal systems, both directly and through our membership of the Council of Europe?

[Mr Hague]

I will make that important point to the authorities in Ukraine when I visit. Britain has a lot to offer when it comes to well-functioning legal systems that create confidence in the rule of law and in property rights, which encourages investment. I can assure my hon. Friend that I will be making that point.

[Mr Ben Wallace (Wyre and Preston North) (Con)]

Further to the question from the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), UK banks are often intimidated by extraterritorial US congressional sanctions on any business with Iran, even if those transactions are licensed by the Treasury and are in accordance with EU sanctions requirements. If we are to meet our Geneva accord obligation, I urge the Foreign Secretary please to do more than just leave it to commercial decisions and proactively to nominate a UK bank to handle future EU and Iran humanitarian transactions, in the same way that the French and German Governments have done.

[Mr Hague]

As my hon. Friend knows, and as I said to the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), there are explicit exemptions, but he is well aware of that point. As he and the right hon. Gentleman have raised it, I will certainly look at it again.

[Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

When the Foreign Secretary refers to democracy, human rights and the rule of law, I trust that that applies to all peoples and nations. In the concluding paragraph of his statement, he referred to

“intensive diplomatic activity… to ensure a more peaceful and stable world”

and he specifically mentioned the middle east. Why, then, does Britain have double standards when it comes to the Palestinians?

[Mr Hague]

That is not the focus of today’s statement. However, respecting the hon. Gentleman’s question, he will know that we give strong support to the middle east peace process and to the negotiations now taking place between Israelis and Palestinians. We want to see a viable and sovereign Palestinian state as part of a two- state solution. That is not double standards; it is trying to bring about peace and stability for everyone in the middle east.

[Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)]

I have raised with my right hon. Friend before the matter of the compensation due to the British Government for the Iranian Government-sponsored mob smashing into the British embassy compound some time ago, doing millions of pounds worth of damage and frightening diplomatic personnel to death. While we are talking about advancing relations with Iran, is not the reality that the British taxpayer is due some compensation under the Geneva protocols for the damage done?

[Mr Hague]

Yes, absolutely, the British taxpayer is due compensation by Iran for the very serious damage that was caused to our embassy compound. As I indicated earlier, there are a number of issues to be resolved now in taking forward our intensified bilateral contact, and that is one of those issues.

[Dr Phillip Lee (Bracknell) (Con)]

As others have noted, each of the countries mentioned in the statement suffers from the malign influence of the Russian state. Although I fully recognise that the Foreign Secretary must maintain relations, does he agree that our long-term approach towards Russia, and that of other European democracies, needs further thought, and that that would be greatly aided by making Europe less dependent on Russia’s mineral resources, access to which it continues to use as a geopolitical weapon?

[Mr Hague]

In our dealings with Russia, and with any other country, we should always be clear, as we are, that we support freedom, democracy and universal human rights around the world. We are committing to working with Russia in many ways, as I have described, but on energy we are also committed to a diversification of energy supplies into the country. In December I was in Baku at the inauguration of what will become a new pipeline route for gas into Europe. That diversification is strategically important.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

Ukraine is a historical name but some parts of its territory are less historical than others—for example, the Crimea was incorporated into Ukraine by Khrushchev as recently as 1954. While I welcome my right hon. Friend’s response to my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), will he reiterate that if the difference of opinion between east and west Ukraine translates into a different trajectory, we will be mindful of those aspirations?

[Mr Hague]

Yes, we should be mindful of the history. Like any country, Ukraine is a product of many different histories, as we are in the UK. That requires a political system that accommodates that, and achieving it is a major political and constitutional challenge for Ukrainian leaders. As I mentioned earlier, Ukraine is a sovereign nation and we cannot lay down to them what the solution is, but we can encourage them to have political leadership and a political system that is responsive to the concerns of different parts of their country.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

On Syria, does the Secretary of State agree with certain comments and reports that the situation on the ground does not allow for transition or dialogue because the Assad regime is so strong, which is why it refused to accept discussions on a Government in Syria? What steps are being taken to overcome that? Linked to that, the Secretary of State has said that the United Kingdom will be providing technical assistance. Does that include providing intelligence sharing so that the Free Syrian Army would have certain targets to look at?

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend is right that the fact that the regime feels itself to be in a strong military position, relatively, is probably behind its intransigence at the Geneva negotiations. In the long term, of course, that will be an illusion, because it is in that position in a collapsing country. This conflict has gone backwards and forwards over three years now, and its tide can easily turn against the regime in future. I think it is making a great mistake. I would never comment in the House on intelligence matters, as my hon. Friend knows, but I stress that this is one of the reasons we must help a moderate opposition to stay in being. There will not be a political solution in Syria without the activity of a moderate opposition, and that is what we must support.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Last but certainly not least, I call Neil Carmichael.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is a great pleasure to be here for the final question.

It is absolutely right that the issue of political and constitutional reform is a priority, and that the integrity of Ukraine remains an objective. However, does the Foreign Secretary agree that any economic support through the IMF should also be supported, in effect, by development of international trade through and with Ukraine in order to embed political reform and to avoid any binary choice, which he correctly notes is a threat?

[Mr Hague]

We must strongly encourage international trade for Ukraine, which currently has a current account deficit of more than 9% of GDP. The absence of sufficient exports is part of its very serious economic problem. We will tell it very clearly that one of the things that can be achieved if the right economic programme is implemented and political stability and unity is achieved is, of course, a serious improvement in that position.

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Monday 24th February 2014 Commons Chamber

Second Reading

16:50

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Grayling)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

The Criminal Justice and Courts Bill represents the vital next stage in this Government’s mission to deliver a more credible justice system that keeps the public safe and secure, reduces reoffending and puts victims first. Under the previous Government, we had a plethora of criminal justice Bills as they jumped from one bandwagon to the next, but that was all to distract us from the real truth that Labour is the party of soft justice and unsafe streets. Too often, those who broke the law got away with a slap on the wrist, did not receive the punishment the public would expect, were released from prison even though they were still dangerous and were allowed to continue the cycle of more reoffending and more victims. This Government, on the other hand, have a consistent and clear approach: the justice system must be on the side of those who work hard and play by the rules, keeping our communities safe and secure.

We are already delivering on that promise. We have ensured that those convicted of a second serious sexual or violent offence face an automatic life sentence, and we are committed to having more prison places for adult males by the end of this Parliament than we inherited in 2010. We have toughened up community sentences, so they are no longer a soft option. I am pleased to say that proposals brought before this House through the Crime and Courts Act 2013 are now law. All community sentences now contain an element of punishment. It is extraordinary that that was not the case already, but it is now.

We have changed the law to give greater protection to householders in defending themselves against burglars—we have dealt with that issue once and for all. We have transformed the regime in our prisons so that they are now places of hard work and discipline, where prisoners are expected to engage with their own rehabilitation and work hard to earn their privileges. We are implementing fundamental reforms to transform rehabilitation by bringing together the best of the public, private and voluntary sectors and paying providers in full only if they reduce reoffending. The Offender Rehabilitation Bill, in its final stages before this House, will finally address the unacceptable situation whereby 50,000 short-sentence prisoners are released each year with no support, free to return to their criminal ways.

We have already achieved a lot, but there is more we can and must do. Too often, the system is inconsistent in the way it deals with offenders, especially those offenders who repeatedly flout the law. It cannot be right that muggers and rapists get off with a caution, or that those who abscond on licence can do so safe in the knowledge that, if caught, they will serve no more than the remainder of their sentence. There are too many offenders who commit serious crimes but are released automatically midway through their prison sentence. We will take action in this Bill to address those issues.

Perhaps most striking of all is the situation with youth offenders. Nearly three quarters of young people who leave custody reoffend within a year. The system simply is not working. We need to equip young people with the skills and self-discipline they need to turn their backs on crime, and that change needs to happen now, starting with this Bill.

My reforms do not stop there. I do not believe it is right that at a time when public finances are tight, the taxpayer continues to shoulder such a heavy burden for the cost of the criminal courts. In my view, the burden should be shared with those who are responsible for giving rise to the costs in the first place—the criminals themselves. Provisions in this Bill will make that a reality.

This Bill also contains some important measures as part of our long-term economic plan. Reforms to judicial review in this Bill, alongside those implemented in the first stage of the reforms last year, will tackle lengthy delays in the system, which put an undue burden on the taxpayer, act as a brake on dynamism and hold back economic growth. The reforms, which have been extensively consulted on, will rebalance the financial elements in judicial review cases so that anyone making a claim shares a fair level of financial risk. That will encourage those who bring claims to consider the merits of their case before doing so, and ensure that public resources are focused only on well-founded claims. I shall return to those provisions after I have dealt with the criminal justice provisions in more detail.

Part 1 of the Bill introduces a firm but fair package of sentencing and criminal law reform. I am determined that those who commit crime will be properly punished so that the public can both have more confidence in the justice system and feel safer in their homes and communities. I strongly believe that serious and repeat offenders should face the full force of the law for their crimes. It is not right that such offenders can be let off with a simple caution time and again.

I want to ensure that victims receive the justice they deserve, and that criminals know that they cannot lightly get away with what they do. That is why this Government are clamping down on the use of simple cautions. Offenders will no longer receive a caution for the most serious offences, such as rape and robbery. For other offences, the Bill will prevent the repeated use of cautions for the same or similar offences committed within a two-year period.

One of the aspects of our justice system that causes me most concern is the concept of automatic early release. As I have said before, I cannot abide a situation in which serious sex offenders and terrorists may serve only half their sentence in prison and—regardless of whether they have been rehabilitated and regardless of the risk they may continue to present to the public—are then simply released automatically midway through their sentence.

I do not think that early automatic release should be a right. That is why I am making a start on tackling it in the Bill, which introduces measures to end automatic early release for anyone given an extended determinate sentence, or sentenced to custody for the rape of a child or for serious terrorism offences. No such offenders will be released before the end of their custodial term, unless the Parole Board judges that they no longer pose a risk of serious harm to the public. I would like to do away with automatic early release in one step. In times of tight resource, I cannot do it in one go, but I can make a start, and that is what the Bill does.

Terrorism poses a serious threat to our society. Terrorists who commit or try to commit horrific crimes in this country must face the very toughest punishments. The Bill will close a loophole that desperately needs to be closed. It will increase to life the maximum penalties for a further range of terrorism offences, and it will extend the enhanced dangerous offender regime so that courts can impose the most serious sentences necessary for such crimes. I want to create a situation in which when courts view somebody as a junior member of a terrorist plot—until now, that might not necessarily carry a life sentence—they can decide to impose a life sentence because they view them as a serious threat to the public, and the Bill will enable the courts to do that.

Once prisoners are released, it is vital that they comply with the conditions imposed on them. If an offender is repeatedly or wilfully non-compliant with the terms of their licence, they should not be continually recalled to custody for short periods and re-released. The measures in the Bill will introduce a statutory test for the release of offenders who have been recalled to prison for breaching their licence conditions that takes into account not just public protection, but the likelihood of the offender committing further breaches, including reoffending.

I want to ensure that we increasingly use cutting-edge technology to monitor better the whereabouts of offenders while they are under supervision. Innovative GPS tagging technology will allow location monitoring of offenders, as well as the monitoring of compliance with other conditions, such as curfew and exclusion. I want us to be ready to harness the potential of this new technology, as it becomes available, to assist with public protection, reducing reoffending and crime detection.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

Will the Secretary of State say what the cost of that programme will be and how successful prosecutions have been in the courts against people who have broken tags? I understand that there have been a lot of problems with tags not being reliable.

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that the existing radio-based tagging technology has been pretty unreliable. I have seen the new generation of emerging technology in action and it provides some good options. It provides the ability to monitor a curfew or to prevent somebody who has been convicted of child sex offences from going near a school. Some offenders can actually benefit from the use of this technology. On one visit, the police showed me that they had excluded somebody from suspicion in the case of a household burglary because it was possible to demonstrate that they had not been in the area at the time.

As I have said clearly, I want to start using this technology for release on temporary licence. We have seen some very difficult cases over the past few months. The vast majority of people who are released on temporary licence commit no crimes and simply want to be reintegrated into society. However, when dangerous offenders come to the end of their sentences and have to be released on temporary licence, this technology has the potential to ensure that we know where they have been and to provide a degree of restraint as we integrate them back into the community.

The cost of the programme will depend on its scale. The technology that we are introducing to take over from the existing systems will save money. It will cost tens of millions of pounds a year less than what we have spent until now. It will be possible to extend the use of the technology to other groups, such as offenders on temporary licence, at a relatively low cost.

I want us to be ready to harness the potential of the new technology. That is why I am seeking to take powers in the Bill to enable mandatory location monitoring of offenders who are released on licence. As the technology becomes available, we will then have the discretion to be able to use it to the best possible effect to protect the public when people are released on temporary licence and, potentially, when people have committed very serious offences.

I am creating a new offence for offenders who go on the run after being recalled to custody, so that those who try to avoid serving the remainder of their sentence do not go unpunished. There will be a new maximum penalty of two years’ imprisonment.

The final provisions in part 1 deliver on a commitment that is important to me and the Prime Minister. The Bill will make it a criminal offence to possess pornography that depicts real or simulated rape. I am sure that both Houses will share my view that such images are wholly unacceptable and that it is right to close this gap in the law.

That brings me to part 2 of the Bill and how we deal with young offenders.

[Sir Edward Garnier (Harborough) (Con)]

Before my right hon. Friend moves on to part 2, will he provide an estimate of the additional costs to the prison aspect of his departmental budget that will be caused by the welcome changes to the criminal law that he is introducing?

[Chris Grayling]

The cost will build up over the next five or 10 years because, as my hon. and learned Friend knows, one cannot apply sentencing rules retrospectively. The proposals on automatic release for the most serious offences are containable comfortably within the existing prison budget and within the expected resources of the Department. Only a relatively small number of people commit the most serious and brutal offences, and those are precisely the people whom we do not want to release automatically halfway through their sentences because of the risk that they pose to the public. I am therefore confident not only that this is containable comfortably within the departmental budget, but that it is the right thing to do.

On part 2, I believe that it is right that young people who commit crimes should face appropriate punishments. That is and always should be a matter for the courts. When young people commit serious or persistent offences and there is a need to protect the public, custody is a necessary option. However, we have taken positive steps over the past three years to ensure that we deal better with young offenders who do not pose an immediate risk to society.

On becoming Justice Secretary, I was appalled to discover that so many young offenders who are released from custody go on to reoffend within a year. Currently, the rate stands at 69%. That is an astounding percentage that far exceeds the reoffending rate for adults on leaving custody. It is simply too high. We spend as much as £200,000 a year per place in some institutions, but the reoffending rate is consistently around 70%. That cannot be right, it cannot be sensible and we have to do something about it.

We must do more to help young offenders back on to the straight and narrow and ready for adult life, and high-quality education is a key part of that. Most young people who end up in our youth offender institutions or secure training centres have dropped out of school, have few or no qualifications, and do not have the skill foundations they need to leave and get into work. We must address that and do more to help them back into having real prospects of an apprenticeship or work. Otherwise, the danger of reoffending will be ever great.

At present, young people in young offenders institutions spend on average just 12 hours a week in the classroom, and latest figures suggest that more than half of 15 to 17-year-olds in YOIs have literacy and numeracy levels expected of seven to 11-year-olds. The Bill contains provisions to create what we are dubbing “secure colleges” so that we can trial a new approach to youth custody, with a stronger focus on the education and rehabilitation of young offenders, equipping them with the skills they need to stop reoffending and become law-abiding members of our society.

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Lord Chancellor for giving way and I am interested in where the £85 million for his secure college is coming from, and from which year’s budget?

[Chris Grayling]

It comes from my Department’s capital budget and it will lead to a reduction in the annual running costs of institutions. We are creating an institution that provides both high-quality education and better value than we get from the current system, which underperforms and is excessively expensive because of the nature of the provision out there. I believe this institution will be a major step forward and deliver high-quality education in a modern environment and campus setting, with the focus on education rather than simply detention. That is a key difference.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

If this model is considered to be as successful as the Lord Chancellor obviously believes it will be, can he say whether it will be extended to young women as well as young men, and whether they will be co-located in the college?

[Chris Grayling]

On co-location, there are a number of places in our current system where men and women, or indeed different age groups, are located near each other without being mixed together. I expect the secure college to have a range of age groups, but for them to be separated so that 12-year-olds are not mixed with 17-year-olds. Living on the same site, using the same facilities at different times, and maximising the effectiveness of the resource we put into creating those facilities must be a sensible way forward. If the secure college model works, I do not rule out having women’s units on site as well, but that does not mean we mix them. At Peterborough prison, a women’s prison and a male prison adjoin and share many of the same facilities, although the two sides do not mix. It is about making the best use of our resources to deliver the highest quality educational skills outcomes to a group of young people who will not get on in life unless we help them develop those skills. That is the whole purpose of what we are trying to do.

This is a different kind of institution. A few people are saying, “This is just the biggest children’s prison in Europe”, but that is complete nonsense. This is much more akin to a school or college with a fence around it on a site that can deliver quality education and a mix of skills development, in a way that will genuinely help take young people—while we have them under our control—through a period of skill building of the kind they desperately need. That will be a whole lot better than having young offenders institutions with big iron bars and 12 hours in the classroom. This is a new approach that I think can make a real difference.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I apologise to the Lord Chancellor for missing the first part of his speech. I welcome his approach and it is important to provide more education within a secure setting. I have raised with him in the past the concerns that I and the Home Affairs Committee have had about the number of young people who acquire the drug habit while in prison or at a young offenders institution. Does he intend to ensure that there will be lessons to get people off drugs when they attend the institutions he has described? That would be a positive step to stop reoffending.

[Chris Grayling]

As the right hon. Gentleman knows, we already make intense efforts across our detention estate—for young people and others alike—to try to get people off drugs and prevent them from coming into those facilities. He will also know that it is a constant battle because there are people out there making a determined effort to get those drugs in. This is not a problem that simply affects this country; it exists in most other major industrialised nations and elsewhere. We will continue to do everything we can to combat it, and in this institution I want to see treatment available for those who have a problem, but also a real effort to ensure a drug-free environment.

Part 3 introduces a suite of provisions to reduce the burden of court costs on taxpayers by making criminals pay towards the cost of their court cases, streamlining the way magistrates deal with low-level offences and modernising the law on the work of juries. As we work to bring down the costs of the justice system and deliver better value for money, I am clear that it is not fair to continue to ask UK taxpayers to fund a criminal court system, or to ask law-abiding members of the public to pay increased fees in the civil courts, without offenders being expected to make a greater contribution. The provisions will allow us to recover from offenders the cost of criminal courts and make a contribution to the day-to-day running of court services. This is not a novel concept: courts can already order offenders to make payments to victims and victim services, and to pay fines and prosecution costs. There is currently no power, however, to make offenders pay directly towards the cost of the court proceedings that convict them.

[Dr Huppert]

The Justice Secretary is absolutely right that there are other powers. The latest figure I could find is that £1.3 billion of debt is owed as a result of these orders. What fraction of the charges does he think will actually be paid?

[Chris Grayling]

The collection rate of fines and other charges levelled in the courts is in excess of 80%. There is a large block of historical debt, much of which is owed by people who, for reasons that include that they have simply died, for accounting reasons have to stay on the books. I accept that that is daft and it is a matter of debate among accounting figures in government. The figure my hon. Friend cites is not a sum of money that could ever realistically be recouped by the taxpayer, but, of the money that is levied in courts every year, we currently collect about 80%. I have no reason to believe that we will not continue to do that, and I have no reason to believe that these reforms will not lead to the collection of the many tens of millions of pounds we seek to collect to make a contribution to the running of the court system.

[Kate Green]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way; he is being very generous with his time. When funds are being recovered, will he say in what order they will be disbursed? In particular, will priority be given to payments to the victims compensation fund, ahead of reimbursing court costs?

[Chris Grayling]

We will not change the order of the collection of fines and victims’ charges. The collection of court costs will come after that. It is worth saying that the repayment of the charge will, as is normally the case in the courts in relation to fines and victim surcharges, be set at a rate that offenders can afford, so there will always be an incentive for them to find a job and to work hard. Offenders will be able to earn their way out of the charge if they do not reoffend. We will make provision for the charge, or any outstanding sums of money, to be written off if the offender does not reoffend. There will, therefore, be an incentive to go back into work, get on with it and make regular payments. Then, when they do not reoffend, an amount of money will be written off. That is a fair and balanced way to ensure that we secure a contribution from those who can afford it—there are people in our courts who will be able to afford this money on the spot—and create a system whereby if people do the right thing, we will do the right thing by them and write off any outstanding money.

I reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) that we take the enforcement of such payments extremely seriously. We continue to work hard to improve enforcement levels and we will address some of the historical debt by outsourcing the collection of criminal financial impositions in a more effective way. I hope that that will enable us to recover some of that debt. I want to ensure that those who have the means to pay but refuse to do so, do not escape without consequences. The reality is that many people work very hard to avoid paying money to the courts and we need to use every tool at our disposal to ensure that they pay.

We must continue to look at ways to make the court system more efficient and proportionate to crimes committed. Too much of magistrates’ time and court time is currently spent simply going through the motions of hearing a case where the defendant has pleaded guilty by post or has not responded. We currently have the absurd situation of valuable court time being spent on hearings where paperwork is simply read aloud by lawyers. The Bill allows a single magistrate to deal with such cases away from the traditional magistrates courtroom. It will free up valuable court time to focus on cases where they make a real difference to victims and their communities, while preserving a defendant’s right to request a hearing in open court.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State not think it a bit dangerous for such cases to be dealt with by a single magistrate? Would it not make our justice system more secure for three magistrates to sit on the bench, so that they could at least discuss the case and reach a collective decision?

[Chris Grayling]

We have a high-quality magistracy in this country, and I am confident that, in simple cases—when someone has pleaded guilty to, for example, a motoring offence by post, and the facts are very clear—our magistrates are capable of reaching a decision themselves. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that there are great strengths in a system that provides for a bench of more than one person to deal with a criminal prosecution when someone’s liberty may be at stake, but I am confident that, when it comes to dealing with simple offences and guilty pleas that are submitted by post, our approach is realistic.

[Mr Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon) (Con)]

Is it not the case that, if one magistrate is allocated but the defendant wants there to be three, the defendant can request that?

[Chris Grayling]

Indeed, but in my experience, most magistrates would regard themselves as perfectly capable of dealing with relatively simple processes of this kind. I think that the provision will free up court time and create a smoother process.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

At what level would it be decided whether there should be one magistrate or three, and what would be the appeal process in the event of a magistrate’s refusing to call in colleagues if the defendant wanted that to be done?

[Chris Grayling]

Typically, these will be uncontested cases. A contested case in which the defendant wished to plead not guilty would not be dealt with outside the courtroom. These are simple cases in which there is no doubt about the defendant’s guilt because the defendant has pleaded guilty, and which can be dealt with out of court by magistrates, without the formality of a court hearing.

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

Does my right hon. Friend not agree that in most instances not only is the case uncontested, but the defendant does not even turn up, and there is then the rigmarole of a prosecutor reading out the facts to an empty courtroom? In those circumstances, it is obviously sensible to adopt the proposed reform.

[Chris Grayling]

I would say to my hon. Friend, and indeed to the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), that if someone wishes to contest a charge, it is probably a good idea for him to turn up in court to do so.

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

Will my right hon. Friend ensure that when this streamlined procedure is adopted, pre-hearing consultations take place with defendants about their ability to pay a fine? A proper written means test would enable realistic fines to be imposed, and to be much easier to collect than fines imposed by means of an exercise that would be theoretical without such information.

[Chris Grayling]

That is a very good point, which we should certainly take on board.

[Kate Green]

In the context of this part of the Bill, I should place on record my interest as a life member of the Magistrates Association.

When decisions are made outside open court and entirely on paper, with no public pronouncement being made, how can the public be made aware of sentencing practices in relation to the offences that we are discussing?

[Chris Grayling]

I have made it very clear that we must not lose transparency as a result of our reforms. In today’s world, the local paper reporter obviously will not sit through cases of this kind, because there are not the necessary resources. However, it is vital for the local media, for example, to have access to information about what happens in the courts, and we cannot allow the new process to take place behind closed doors. I am a strong believer in transparency in the courts, and we will provide mechanisms to ensure that the public have access to court decisions. That is only right and proper: we cannot have secret judgments.

Part 3 also deals with the important issue of jury misconduct. Trial by jury is a fundamental feature of our justice system, and juror misconduct can have a devastating effect, causing delays, cost, and damage to public confidence. I am clear about the fact that people should be tried by the courts, not by the internet. When an individual is before the court, the jury must decide on the basis of the evidence presented and principles of justice, not the results of a Google search. The Bill introduces a number of criminal offences in order to tackle such behaviour, based on recommendations by the Law Commission. It also deals with the publication of potentially prejudicial materials during court proceedings, on which the current law is outdated and in need of reform. I think that these provisions represent a careful balance between the right to report and publish freely, and the right to be judged only on the facts before the court, and I thank the Law Commission for its work in this regard.

[Sir Edward Garnier]

I commend my right hon. Friend on the provisions relating to juries, and on clause 39 in particular, which will raise the upper age limit for jurors to 75. That was a lacuna that needed to be dealt with. May I ask him to go a little further on age limits? Would he consider putting the age limit for judicial retirement back up to 75, because we are losing a great resource at the moment? That would not mean that everyone had to stay on until they were 75, but there are plenty of judges who could do so—[Interruption.] I will speed up my intervention, Mr Deputy Speaker. At this rate, I will be 75 before I get to the end of it. There are plenty of good judges who would like to, and who could, stay on beyond the age of 70, and I hope that my right hon. Friend will consider that point.

[Chris Grayling]

I hear what my hon. and learned Friend says, but I am not sure that we could afford to raise the retirement age for judges. I do not mean that in a financial sense. Since I took over this position, I have spent quite a lot of time approving the appointment of retired judges to a number of important roles in society, such as chairing commissions and leading reviews. We would lose that expertise if we allowed them to continue as judges until they were 75, and I am not sure that we could afford to do so.

I shall turn now to the final part of my reforms. Judicial review represents a crucial check on public bodies. It rightly allows individuals, businesses and others to ask the courts to consider whether, for example, a Government Department has gone beyond its powers, whether a local authority has followed a lawful process or whether an arm’s-length body has come to a rational decision. However, I am concerned about time and money being wasted in dealing with unmeritorious cases which are often brought simply to generate publicity or to delay implementation of a decision that has been made properly. Moreover, a significant proportion of these weak applications are funded by the taxpayer, through the expense incurred by the defendant public authority, by the court resource entailed, and in some cases by legal aid or by the public authority bearing the claimant’s legal costs.

The first stage of my judicial review reforms sought to tackle unnecessary delays in the system. Provisions in the Bill will build on those—for example, by making it possible for more cases to leapfrog from the court of first instance to the Supreme Court, speeding up a final decision. We will also seek to change the rules on who has to pay the legal bills for cases, so that all parties have an interest in ensuring that unnecessary costs are not racked up.

Provisions in the Bill will result in stopping taxpayers having to subsidise cases unnecessarily by limiting the use of protective costs orders to exceptional cases with a clear public interest, and only when the court grants them permission to proceed. The provisions will also ensure that details of anyone financially backing a judicial review are disclosed to the court, even if they are not a named party, so that costs can be allocated fairly. They will also make third parties who voluntarily join in a JR case as interveners responsible for paying their own way.

[Dr Huppert]

Perhaps I have misunderstood clause 53, but it seems to suggest that interveners will have to pay not only their own way but the costs of everyone else involved. That seems rather harsh. The courts have said that they welcome interventions that help to clarify the law. Does not the Secretary of State feel that this measure might go a little too far, and make it hard for people to intervene even though it would be constructive for them to do so?

[Chris Grayling]

My real concern is when pressure groups use individuals as financial human shields in cases that the groups wish to bring. They find someone who has no financial means, and use them to challenge the Government, and whether or not they win, the Government—that is, taxpayers—are guaranteed to have to pay the bill. The taxpayer will have to foot the bill because there is no prospect of recovering the costs from the individual who is fronting the case. That is what I am seeking to change.

[Kate Green]

I suppose I should declare an interest in this context as well, given that I used to run a pressure group that brought judicial reviews—[Hon. Members: “Ah!”] Against the previous Government, I must say. Those judicial reviews always addressed matters of significant public interest. How does the Justice Secretary intend to deal with complex cases whose costs are likely to be high, but in which it would be helpful to the court to have the matters properly argued, analysed and brought to the court’s attention, as the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) described? Does the Secretary of State have a means of ensuring that his proposal will not shut people out from bringing such complex cases?

[Chris Grayling]

The hon. Lady certainly did bring cases against the previous Government, but the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and I discovered to our surprise when we went into that Department in 2010 that the practice of the previous Government was to guarantee to pay the costs of the pressure group from day one. We got a call from one pressure group saying, “We are going to bring a judicial review. Can we assume that the usual arrangements will apply and you will pay the costs?”, to which the answer was, “Well, actually, no.” It was a strange way for the previous Government to do business.

As I said, protective costs orders will still be available for cases of genuine public interest, but my fear is, and my experience has been all too often, that cases are brought for public relations and campaigning reasons in a way that leaves the taxpayer guaranteed to pick up the bill. I do not think that is fair on the taxpayer.

[Keith Vaz]

The Government have taken away the right of appeal in a number of immigration cases, and the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes), who is sitting by the Justice Secretary’s side, was very vocal in the campaign against the abolition of the right of appeal in immigration cases. There has been a huge increase in the number of judicial reviews in immigration cases. Is it fair that we should cut off every single judicial route, enabling people to have nowhere to go if they want to challenge decisions?

[Chris Grayling]

We assess carefully each immigration case that comes before the Border Agency and there is then the opportunity to challenge in the courts, but just how many times are we going to give people the right to appeal? There have been many cases, and indeed occasions when our judges have said, “This is not good enough”, where the case has simply been brought as a delaying tactic to stop people being asked to leave the UK—that is in nobody’s interest.

[Robert Neill]

Will my right hon. Friend take on board the fact that, unfortunately, previous interventions have highlighted the error that has crept into many people’s thinking? They believe that rather than being a process of procedural review—an administration of the propriety of decision making—judicial review should be used as a re-run of the merits. That is not what it was ever intended to be.

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about that, which is one reason why we have sought to ensure that cases where there is no material likelihood of a different decision having been taken cannot simply be brought on a technicality relating to the process. If a minor error of procedure has been made, the decision should not be able to be delayed for months and months when there is no realistic prospect of a different decision being reached.

The Government have consulted extensively on this package of reform, and we did so with an open mind. Concerns were raised, both practical and principled, about proposals to reform “standing”, which determines who can bring a judicial review, and I have decided not to pursue those. Judicial review must continue in its role as a check on the powers that be. It is an important tool for our society which allows people to challenge genuinely wrong decisions by public authorities. These reforms do not change that, and I would not want them to do so. They make it more difficult for pressure groups simply to use judicial review as a campaigning tool and for those with a financial vested interest—for example, one developer judicially reviewing another—to delay a process of investment, to derail a competitor or to derail a major project that is strategically and economically in the interests of this country.

The Bill contains a vital set of proposals as we work to deliver a justice system in which people can have confidence—a justice system that deals robustly with those who repeatedly commit crimes. The Bill toughens sentencing for some of the most serious crimes and ensures that serious offenders will be released only if they can show that they are no longer a threat to society. The Bill requires offenders to contribute to the cost of the criminal courts, and allows us to test a new approach to youth custody and to reduce the delays and expense involved in unmeritorious judicial reviews. The Bill draws a line under Labour’s soft justice culture, provides hard-working families with greater safety and security in their communities, and removes barriers to economic growth. I commend it to the House.

17:28

[Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

Let us be frank: this Bill has come from nowhere. If the Government really wanted a new justice Bill, the obvious place to trail it would be in the imminent Queen’s Speech, not today with a Second Reading towards the dreg ends of this parliamentary Session. So what is going on? With 15 months to go until the general election, experienced heads around Parliament say that it has never been so quiet.

We know the old saying that the devil makes work for idle hands. Recent weeks have certainly shown that to be the case, with the Government suffering a number of troubling episodes with their own Back Benchers, perhaps in no small part because the thin legislative programme leaves their own sides twiddling their thumbs. Nature abhors a vacuum; so too does Parliament. Disquiet, plotting and rebellions tie the Government in knots, leading to the absurd situation in which the Opposition had to step in and vote down a Tory Back-Bench amendment on the Government’s own Immigration Bill—an amendment that broke the rule of law—while the Conservative majority in the coalition sat on their hands. Has anyone heard of anything so pathetic? We have a governing party that could not even vote in favour of its own Bill, and a Lord Chancellor who swears an oath to uphold the law but who could not even bring himself to vote for that rule of law.

We can guess what happened. The Prime Minister had probably sent out a desperate memo, pleading with Cabinet colleagues to bring forward legislation—any legislation—to fill the pitiful gap in parliamentary schedules and to keep Tory Back Benchers happy and busy. Who was the only willing and eager star pupil to respond? Who was as keen as mustard to be top of the class? Yes, it was the Justice Secretary. I can see his response to the Prime Minister. It would start, “Dear Dave”. I appreciate that that is not parliamentary etiquette, but he is known as the “Call me Dave” Prime Minister.

The letter would go on, “I read your memo, begging for legislation to make it look like this Government are doing something, and also to keep those pesky, ungrateful Back Benchers happy. I know they hold you responsible for not winning the last general election. I am only too willing, Dave, to rush forward some legislation. It is a bit of a Christmas tree Bill, but it does mean that we can shove on as many baubles as we want. After all, the more tabloid friendly stuff might keep UKIP off our backs, along with those ungrateful Back Benchers of yours. Yours sincerely, Chris.”

[Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)]

rose—

[Sadiq Khan]

I give way to the Chair of the Justice Committee.

[Sir Alan Beith]

Does the right hon. Gentleman see real benefit in returning to the days of a Labour Government when there was a criminal justice Bill every year—sometimes there were two—that often repealed a previous Bill and was often not brought into force?

[Sadiq Khan]

I am really pleased that the right hon. Gentleman asked that question. This is the third justice Bill of this Session. Two of the Bills have not yet received Royal Assent, and the Government are having a third bite of the cherry. Furthermore, the Justice Secretary tried to rewrite history. During our 13 years in government, crime did not go down by 5%, 10% or even by 20%; it went down by 43%, and that was according to independent statistics and not to dodgy figures that the Justice Secretary likes to rely on.

This latest criminal justice Bill is having its Second Reading before either of the other criminal justice Bills —the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill and the Offender Rehabilitation Bill—that the Chair of the Select Committee was so keen to support have even received Royal Assent. Talk about desperation! The Select Committee Chairman should listen. We know the Government are in a mess when they bring in new laws to amend laws that they passed only a year ago, as some parts of this Bill seek to do. That is the mess this Government are in, and that is the shambolic way they are running our justice system.

I will not go through every one of the Bill’s 63 clauses, but I want to make myself clear. There are some elements of this Bill we support, some need further work and there are some we downright oppose. In part 1 of the Bill, the Government attempt to make up for the error they made when they abolished indeterminate sentences for public protection. I know that the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) feels strongly about that. They cannot admit they got it wrong and do a 180° U-turn, so they are doing a partial U-turn by bringing in a raft of new sentence proposals

Of course we support keeping the public safe from the most serious and violent criminals. That is why we opposed the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), the previous Justice Secretary, when he removed from judges the power to make IPPs to protect the public. To be fair to the current Justice Secretary, he would never have countenanced abolishing that power, but he cannot admit that because he voted for its abolition. We therefore have clause 3 and schedule 15 eligibility for life sentences and extended determinant sentences to try to address the mistakes of the Legal Aid, Sentences and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012.

Giving the Parole Board a say in whether some of the most serious criminals should be released at half time or when they reach two thirds of their sentence is no substitute for judges having the power when sentencing to impose an indeterminate sentence to protect the public. That will give the Parole Board an extra work load, yet I bet that the Justice Secretary cannot tell the House what extra resources he will give it to do its job properly. Silence. The Ministry of Justice’s impact assessment estimates that there will be at least an extra 1,100 parole hearings owing to the Bill. If all the supplementary work involved is added, there will be a huge addition to the Parole Board’s work load. How will that be resourced? Silence.

Surely even this Justice Secretary understands that a poorly resourced Parole Board making the wrong decisions about whether to release someone is as bad as automatic release. Wrong decisions made by the Parole Board because of an overburdened and stretched staff help no one; nor do delays in getting a hearing because of a backlog. There are problems and delays in prisoners getting the courses and treatments that they need as part of their sentencing plans and delays in getting a parole hearing, but let us imagine what the future holds.

Increasing the maximum for a handful of offences still leaves many offences uncovered that would have previously allowed a judge to give a more appropriate sentence to protect the public. By the way, although we do not oppose them, let us be clear that the provisions to increase the maximum life sentences for certain terrorism-related offences look tough, but the Ministry of Justice impact assessment confirms that this is a classic con trick. Do hon. Members know how many offenders were convicted in 2013 for the offences of either weapons training for terrorist purposes or training for terrorism? None. What about 2012? None. This new toughness will affect no one. None of those offences is being brought before the courts, so there is no one to punish and no one to deter. I wonder how the Justice Secretary intends to measure the impact of the change. He does not know. This is all about appearing to look tough.

[Chris Grayling]

If the right hon. Gentleman looks back, he will see that in the latter part of the past decade in the wake of the London bombings, our security services did a fine job of intercepting a number of terror plots. In that time, a number of people received 10-year jail sentences, which is the maximum available to the courts. On at least one occasion, the judge bemoaned his inability to provide a longer jail sentence because of the risk he believed the individual posed to the public. Happily, there are not large numbers of such cases. I think we would all agree that we do not want to see more of them. I hope that the provision will not be used very often, but it needs to be there in case it is necessary.

[Sadiq Khan]

The right hon. Gentleman confirms that he made a huge error in abolishing the indeterminate sentence to protect the public. He is trying to give the impression of being tough and providing the facilities that our security services need, but in fact the evidence suggests that there have been zero prosecutions for such offences.

Labour has led calls for something to be done about the inappropriate use of cautions for serious and violent offences, such as rape, and to stop those who repeatedly receive cautions. Those are not my words but something that the Library paper that accompanies the Bill says. The shadow Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), has raised this, as indeed have I, at Justice questions. It has taken the Government some time even to admit that there is a problem with the growth of inappropriately used cautions for serious and violent offences.

I can remember the Justice Secretary getting into a tangle at Justice questions when trying to explain cautions for rape and saying that victims are to blame and that cautions are given because victims withdraw their statements. We must study in detail the proposals to see whether they will indeed address the public’s growing concern that the overuse of cautions is another example of this Government’s doing justice on the cheap.

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the Library briefing paper. He will have noticed that the highest number of both cautions and fixed penalty notices were issued in 2007, under the last Government. They are down by 45% today, which shows the contrast between the last Government and this Government.

[Sadiq Khan]

If the hon. Gentleman had done some more research and read the Bill as well, he would have seen not only that the number of cautions had started going down considerably but that this Bill does nothing to address the increased use of fixed penalty notices, penalty notices, warnings and conditional cautions. I expect that he will support our amendments in Committee when we try to improve this hopeless Bill.

Taken as a whole, the changes in part 1 of the Bill will see more people in our prisons. Indeed, the Government’s own impact assessment estimates that an additional 1,050 prison places will be needed. However, as of last Friday there were just 510 places left in the whole prison system, with the secure estate operating at in excess of 99% capacity, which usually sees Operation Safeguard kicking in. The Justice Secretary needs to be straight about where he plans to keep these additional prisoners: with his flagship Titan prison not due on stream until 2017, the public have a right to know that.

[Chris Grayling]

If the right hon. Gentleman looks at the numbers, he will see that we are planning in the next 15 months to open up around 2,000 new adult male prison places.

[Sadiq Khan]

The problem is that the Justice Secretary is closing down prisons and does not explain where the money for these additional prison places will come from. His own impact assessment is silent on that.

[Chris Grayling]

There is a simple answer—those figures are in the budget.

[Sadiq Khan]

They are not in the budget, because the average cost of a prisoner is £42,000 a year. If we multiply that figure by the increased number of prisoners that the Justice Secretary’s impact assessment says there will be—1,050—it comes to a total of £44 million a year. That is not in the budget.

[Chris Grayling]

The right hon. Gentleman needs to spend a bit of time doing maths. I simply point, for example, to the new house block that will open at Parc prison in south Wales in the next few months, where the average cost per prison place is about £15,000.

[Sadiq Khan]

I am happy to have a ding-dong with the Justice Secretary. That figure applies in prisons such as Oakwood, which are failing—new purpose-built prisons. In a prison such as the one I visited last week in Winchester the average cost is £42,000; in a prison such as Wandsworth, it is £44,000; in Brixton, £46,000; and in Pentonville, £48,000. He is just plucking figures out of thin air and assuming that all 87,000 prisoners have the same £15,000-a-year cost. That is not the case and he has to be honest enough to recognise that there are far too many expensive prison places because of the legacy of his cancelling the new prisons and closing down too many over the last four years.

The concern is that the Justice Secretary talks a good talk, especially when briefing the right-wing media, but he simply does not care about or pay attention to detail, as he is working on the basis that he will be long gone before any of his mess needs to be cleared up. After all, he left a huge mess in the Department for Work and Pensions with his Work programme. He is assuming that somebody else will be left to pick up the pieces of privatising probation, of legal aid and of this prison population crisis.

[Dr Huppert]

While the right hon. Gentleman is in the mood to do mathematics, will he advise us of the extra cost to the public purse of the extra 30,000 people in prison between the beginning of the last Labour Government and the end of the last Labour Government? Will he give us an estimate of how much that cost?

[Sadiq Khan]

If we did a cost-benefit analysis of the number of people who were saved the misery of being the victims of crime as crime went down by 43%, and of the additional cost of having extra police officers, which led to a record decrease in crime, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would accept that there was value for money.

[Keith Vaz]

As my right hon. Friend knows, there is a large number of foreign national prisoners in the prison estate, costing the taxpayer, as he says, an enormous amount of money. What we need is not legislation but a focus on trying to get them removed to their country of origin. Making sure that that is done would be a better use of the Government’s time than building more prisons.

[Sadiq Khan]

My right hon. Friend will know that the number of foreign prisoners in our prisons is just a bit above 10,000. That has been the figure for the past four years, and the Government have done nothing to get it down. They would do better to pay attention to getting it down, rather than to getting headlines in the Daily Mail or The Daily Telegraph. That would free up places and lead to a huge improvement.

We broadly welcome the direction of travel on electronic monitoring, subject to clarification on costs and technical developments; the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) raised some of the concerns that we have that need to be addressed. We will closely scrutinise the ability of the Ministry of Justice properly to monitor the private companies awarded the contracts, to ensure that the public get value for money and the Ministry is no longer taken for a ride.

We do not oppose the plans relating to automatic release and recall, and we welcome clause 16, which bans the possession of extreme pornographic images depicting rape. A number of victim groups and experts have called for that change, and the Government and the Justice Secretary should be commended for listening to the evidence.

I turn to the second part of the Bill, on youth justice. It is worth pausing to reflect on the dramatic fall over the past 10 years or so in the number of young people held in custody. The most recent figures show a drop of more than 60%. I pay tribute to the hard work of the Youth Justice Board and youth offending teams up and down the country. I am proud of Labour’s record in setting up the YJB, which led to these falls. I wish the outgoing chair well and the new chair the best of luck in his endeavours. The YJB’s innovative ways of working have delivered enormous economic and social benefits to society, and I for one am delighted that we were successful in keeping it doing its important job, rather than it being abolished two weeks ago, as the Government had wanted.

We have reached a hard core of young offenders in our youth justice system, and that brings a different set of challenges. As has been said, reoffending rates for this hard core remain stubbornly high. The Government’s preferred solution is secure colleges, and the Bill paves the way for their introduction. Ministers have announced only one so far, in Leicestershire. Construction will not start until 2015. There is no clear idea of where the £85 million that it will cost will come from, or what will be cut to find the money. It smacks of another commitment made by this Justice Secretary for which the next Government will be left to pick up the tab. In Committee, we will need to get down to the details, but already a number of groups have expressed concerns about the plans. There will be just one secure college; either it will be a huge college for the whole country—a teenage Titan prison, with all the problems that will entail—or only those in the east midlands will benefit.

There are also concerns about how restraint is planned to be used in the new secure college, and how the college will address the problems underlying offending, such as mental health problems, drug and alcohol addiction—mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), the Chair of the Select Committee on Home Affairs—and histories of abuse, trauma and violence. It is also unclear, despite the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), what provision is planned for young females. There is a concern, to be frank, that this is a return to the discredited borstal system.

Nor have the Government made clear their intentions for the network of secure children’s homes. Granted, those are expensive, but I have visited them and seen at first hand the range of severe problems that young people there have to deal with. Extreme caution is needed before this group of highly vulnerable people is lumped in with the wider youth justice system.

We will want convincing that forking out £85 million on bricks and mortar is better than spending the money on improving the amount of education and rehabilitative work in the existing secure training centre network. I see that the Chair of the Select Committee on Justice is here; the Justice Committee recently argued for a “fundamental shift” of resources from custody to early intervention with young people at risk of reoffending. It also made the point that most young offenders would not be in custody long enough—the average is 79 days—for the secure college to do any good in improving basic skills and addressing offending behaviour. A number of experts have also raised concerns, which we shall explore in Committee.

The third part of the Bill proposes changes in our courts. On the face of it, efforts to speed up court proceedings and make them more efficient—for example, by ensuring easier and quicker appeals to the Supreme Court, and by having magistrates courts deal with lower-level offenders faster—are to be welcomed, but this should not be to the detriment of proper open justice or due process. The Civil Justice Council, the Magistrates Association and others have expressed concerns that we should explore in Committee. Similarly, no one opposes convicted criminals being made to make amends for their crimes. The Government now wish to tack a charge on to those found guilty towards the cost of their trial. There have been difficulties collecting fines and the victim surcharge from guilty criminals, sometimes as a result of organisational problems, but sometimes because criminals simply do not have enough money. There are between £1.4 billion and £2 billion in uncollected fines, and only this weekend it was reported that £13 million in victim surcharge had failed to be collected by the Government. I am sure that the Justice Secretary did not mean it when he said that that was because they are all dead, or that outsourcing all of this will solve all the problems. We will seek guarantees that this will not be yet another trumpeted announcement that ends in failure down the years as non-payments rack up and are written off.

It is right that the law on jurors and the use of the internet keeps up to date with the march of technology. I, too, am pleased that the Government have listened to the recommendations of the Law Commission in that respect. However, as Members will recall from the high-profile trial of Vicky Pryce, there are problems with juries not understanding their role sufficiently, and we shall explore what steps can be taken to educate and inform the public and jurors about the important civic function of jury service so that it is less of an alien process to them. I welcome proposals to raise the juror age limit to 75.

The fourth part of the Bill deals with changes to judicial review. In a country without a written constitution, we tinker at our peril with important checks and balances such as judicial review without proper thought. We know the Lord Chancellor’s view on judicial review from a piece for the newspaper that he and his SpAds prefer to brief—the Daily Mail. He said that

“judicial review…is not a promotional tool for countless Left-wing campaigners. So that is why we are publishing our proposals for change…Britain cannot afford to allow a culture of Left-wing-dominated, single-issue activism to hold back our country from investing in infrastructure and new sources of energy”—

news, I am sure, to Conservative Back Benchers and local authorities that have been involved in JRs against Heathrow expansion, High Speed 2 and, no doubt in future, wind farms and fracking.

Let me explain the position to the Justice Secretary in plain English without any long legal words or gobbledegook. MPs, individual citizens, community groups, organisations and local authorities are not

“part of a culture of Left-wing dominated”

campaigners when they legitimately ask the judiciary to review decisions made by public authorities, including Ministers.

To be frank, delays in HS2 or Crossrail 2, the lack of houses being built or of big infrastructure are more to do with the incompetence and policies of this Government than with judicial review. It is hardly surprising that people believe that the Justice Secretary’s true intentions are to insulate his Government’s bad decision making from any kind of challenge. The Government have also sought to rein in legal aid and no win, no fee cases; to gag campaign groups with their shoddy Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014; and constantly to attack human rights laws—there is a pattern. These are the tools by which our citizens hold Governments to account, and the Government are weakening them.

[Kate Green]

I am glad that my right hon. Friend makes that point, because the Justice Secretary is quite wrong to suggest that the majority of judicial review cases are about campaigners making campaign points. They are about individuals who have suffered personal injustice at the hands of an over-powerful state, and we ought to maintain that ultimate protection for those individuals, many of whom are disabled, many of whom are vulnerable, and many of whom are poorly educated. Does my right hon. Friend not agree that, whatever the Justice Secretary presents as the effect of these changes, the reality is that it is vulnerable individuals who lose out the most?

[Sadiq Khan]

Absolutely. The concerns are that as a consequence of the changes decisions made by Ministers and other public authorities will be put above the rule of law. Those authorities will almost be free to do as they please, to the ludicrous extent that breaking the law appears to be of no concern to the Justice Secretary.

It is clear the Justice Secretary’s measures are underpinned by a majoritarian view of the world in which democracy is only about elections, and those who win can do as they please in between. I would be more sympathetic if the Conservatives had actually won the last general election. The Justice Secretary’s policies are dangerous. Democracy is more than elections: I am not alone in that view, and neither is my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston. Lord Dyson, the Master of the Rolls, said that

“there is no principle more basic to our system of law than the maintenance of the rule of law itself and the constitutional protection afforded by judicial review.”

The former Lord Chief Justice, the esteemed Lord Woolf, said:

“In our system, without its written constitution embedded in our law so it can't be changed, judicial review is critical.”

He also said that the Ministry of Justice has shown a

“remarkable lack of concern for the precision of the facts”.

Joe Rukin, co-ordinator of the Stop HS2 campaign—that infamous left-wing dominated campaign group—said:

“The government seem to be making out that they believe any of their infrastructure plans should be above the law and do not realise that it is essential in a democratic society to be able to hold the government to account”.

[Chris Grayling]

It is the case, if I am not mistaken, that HS2 can happen only if the relevant measure is passed in legislative form by both Houses of Parliament. Does the right hon. Gentleman believe that the courts and people outside Parliament should be able to override democratic decision making by the elected House and the House of Lords?

[Sadiq Khan]

That question raises so many concerns about the Justice Secretary’s lack of knowledge that it is really worrying. Citizens should be able to challenge the decisions that are made by Ministers, including him and Labour Ministers. That might mean that the courts find that some Government decisions are wrong. For example, they might find against plans to expand Heathrow with a third runway. We have to accept that decisions made by the Executive should be able to be challenged by the judiciary. He should accept the important concept of the separation of powers. We provide checks and balances for the judiciary, the Executive and the legislature. We are not a country in which the Cabinet can do whatever it likes.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I am slightly perturbed by what the right hon. Gentleman has said. These are not decisions that my right hon. Friend the Justice Secretary has said the Government would take—he was talking about decisions that Parliament would take. What is essential in a democratic system is that the will of the people exercised through Parliament is sovereign, not judges who have been elected by nobody.

[Sadiq Khan]

I do not subscribe to the view that citizens have a role to play only once every five years. They have a role to play in an active democracy between elections as well. That is the difference between the hon. Gentleman’s majoritarian view and mine. The irony is that the Foreign Secretary gets it. If the hon. Gentleman had listened to the Foreign Secretary in the statement on Ukraine and Syria, he would have heard what he had to say. It is a shame that the Justice Secretary and the hon. Gentleman did not listen to what the Foreign Secretary said about the importance of the rule of law.

[Robert Neill]

rose—

[Sadiq Khan]

I shall make some progress, but I shall come back to the hon. Gentleman.

I hold up my hands up as a former Minister and admit that for someone who is part of the Executive the threat of being judicially reviewed can sometimes feel like a nuisance. Judicial review can be a pain for decision makers, but that is the point. It is about making sure that decisions are taken properly, follow due process and are within the laws of the land. If we expect our citizens to abide by the rule of law, the Government should be no different, which means acting lawfully, not scaring off opponents before the game has begun, or imposing huge consequences on the team that loses. To stretch the sporting analogy further, under their proposals, the Government would be playing down a steep slope for the full 90 minutes, defending a much smaller goal than the one into which they would be trying to score. Their opponents would be running uphill for the whole game, and have a much smaller set of goalposts to aim at. That is not fair, and it is not justice.

It is worth noting what is not in the Bill. Despite all the Government’s recent talk about victims, there is nothing about a victims law—what a missed opportunity—which will disappoint not just victims and potential victims but no doubt the hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel), who has been vocal in her support for the victims law proposed by Labour. Instead, victims and witnesses will have to wait for a Labour Government to serve that law to stop them being ignored and trampled by the justice system. There is also little in the Bill to address the specific problems faced by women, those with mental health problems and ethnic minority communities in our justice system.

I have to congratulate the Lord Chancellor. He has achieved something in his short time in the job that few of his predecessors could ever have dreamed of: he has managed to alienate every part of the justice system. Prison staff are more under pressure and threatened in their day-to-day work environment than ever. Probation staff feel betrayed. They have done all that has been asked of them, then been sold off to the likes of those serial under-performers, G4S, Serco and A4E. Legal professionals are horrified at the erosion of access to justice and the insulation of the powerful from challenge that has happened under the Lord Chancellor’s watch. Charities and community groups are demoralised at the ignorance shown towards the European convention on human rights and the Human Rights Act. Things are so bad that there is even the threat that the legal profession might boycott the Justice Secretary’s planned celebrations for the 800th birthday of Magna Carta next year. What is more, he has managed to deliver the first ever industrial action by barristers.

The Bill is all about trying to create some work for rebellious, bored and troublesome Back Benchers, some of whom we will hear from later. The Bill may well succeed in doing that, but the idea that it will do anything substantive to reduce crime, help victims to be at the centre of the justice system, improve our courts system or keep our communities significantly safer is a joke, a bit like the office of Lord Chancellor has become with this incumbent.

18:01

[Mr Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon) (Con)]

I am not sure whether I have been described before as a bored, troublesome Back Bencher, but I wholeheartedly welcome the Bill. Its proposals are sensible and move forward the Government’s position on criminal law reform. I congratulate the Lord Chancellor on his earlier presentation, which I note to the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) was very well received on the Government Benches.

Part 3 allows summary trials for non-imprisonable offences “on the papers” only and without the defendant being present. This is an entirely sensible proposal, but it forms just a small part of a wider debate about which case should be going to which court. Of course, all criminal cases start in magistrates courts, and the vast majority of them are disposed of there without ever going to the Crown court. This is important, first because most of us wholly support the ancient British tradition of low-level crimes being judged by magistrates, but secondly because the cases where an election can be made cost about £3,400 in a Crown court compared with the £900 they would cost in a magistrates court. There is the further question of what should be a criminal offence at all. I would be happy to debate, for instance, whether TV licence evasion is suitable for criminal rather than civil trial.

One of the main stumbling blocks to those part 3 proposals in the past has been disagreement between Government Departments, and I congratulate the Lord Chancellor on knocking the right heads together. The other problem has been the magistrates, who have been unwilling to lessen their work load, give that that has already reduced by more than one third during the last five years or so. Furthermore, the moving of traffic cases to a single traffic court in each police force area, which I think is being proposed, will leave some magistrates courts light-handed and more open to a merger proposal with another local court. There is significant volume here. For instance, speeding alone accounts for some 10% of all convictions. So the issues here are slightly more complicated and need to be placed into context.

Magistrates have also felt a bit under attack in recent years owing to the efficiency changes that really had to be made, and my concern here is that we could be reducing their work load further, without giving them the extra quality work that they deserve. Not only do justices of the peace cost less, but cases go through much faster. Sentencing is not for longer periods if a case goes to the Crown court, juries are more likely to acquit than magistrates, and the Crown procedural delays often mean that witnesses are not available. There are three interconnected issues. The first concerns bulk non-serious cases, which is handled in the Bill. Secondly, there are the magistrates courts that these cases are being dealt in, and, thirdly, as we reduce magistrates input into these bulk areas, there is the question of how to increase their involvement in other areas.

On the first bulk issue, I agree that it is ridiculous that three JPs need to hear a small traffic case in open court with prosecutors involved in reading out case details. I appreciate and agree that defendants should retain the right to a full hearing in open court should they so require, but let us also appreciate that around half of traffic proceedings have no plea entered at all, a point that came up earlier.

On the second issue of magistrates courts being used, will the Minister please confirm that traffic work will be moved to a single court per police area? This is sensible, and I hope that a thorough review of procedure will be undertaken at the same time. I am sure that significant savings and a better service could be provided through better IT and procedures, but this could go yet further and be put into the context of a wider review. Of course, I would maintain that the closure of around 140 courts by the Government was correct, not least because as a result cases are proceeding quicker and at a lower cost. One of the keys to effective court procedure is to have larger court centres where listing and delays can be better managed. If we add to this continued use of technology and more virtual courtrooms in police stations, there is much more we could do. The bulk processing of non-imprisonable cases is part of this, but it would be better placed in the context of the wider whole.

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is right to make the point that he does about minor traffic offences, but along with many others no doubt, I have been contacted by constituents who are concerned about the boundary between a traffic offence that could be dealt with in the way he describes, and where it spills over into what is, in effect, a criminal offence. Does he agree that if the approach he advocates is adopted, great care needs to be taken to set the boundary?

[Mr Djanogly]

I certainly agree with that. The Minister may wish to come back to this, but I think that that would be done in discussion with prosecutors, and there would be the ability for someone to request three magistrates if they so wished.

The main possible gap that I see here is on the third issue of wider JP powers, and we should be reviewing part 3 in the context of new summary only offences and an increase of maximum JP sentences to 12 months, not least to give a clear indication to the magistracy of our support. I had heard of some limited Government proposals to make shoplifting a summary only offence where the stolen goods are valued at £200 or less. Perhaps the Minister will advise the House on his proposals in this regard. The Magistrates Association has been advocating new summary only offences for some drugs possession, making off without payment, going equipped for theft, small benefit fraud, some affray and driving offences, some assault charges and failure to surrender to bail. I appreciate that this could result in a rise in the prison population, which the Magistrates Association considers to be about 1,000 people, but on the other side there would be court savings of £30 million to £40 million. Again, I would appreciate the Minister commenting on these proposals.

My second point relates to raising the upper age limit for jury service from 70 to 75. That sounds sensible given the upward age of people in the UK, but will the Minister say a little more about the research that has been done to confirm this? Will the change have any negative implications for younger people not being called? The problem that I found here was the reluctance by the judiciary to allow research to be carried out on jurors. My instinct is that fewer people are now willing to be called than was the case in the past. I would be concerned if the Bill exacerbated that, on the basis that it could allow working people to be let off more easily. My suspicions here are not reduced by a Government note that I saw, mentioning that they expect some savings to result from a reduction in the number of jurors in employment. I do not see that as a good objective for our democratic system.

When I did jury service, on the first day a man rushed in shouting at the court staff that he had 2,500 chickens being delivered that day and who would look after them. He was let off service on the spot, despite presumably having had long notice of his jury date, although perhaps not of his chicken delivery. The point I am making is that jury service is an important part of citizenship; so much so that I think we should be putting as much effort into educating the young in school about its benefits to society, and ensuring that people serve when called, as we are into pushing up the service age. Perhaps the Minister will comment on that.

My third issue relates to the new contempt of court provisions on jury misconduct. That is important not only for ensuring a fair trial and saving costs, but for retaining confidence in the jury system. If a whole trail needs to be started again because of, say, internet research carried out by one juror, that is hugely frustrating for the other jurors on the case, who could be put off doing service again. My wider point is that access to technology is having such a huge effect on so many areas of our lives, and across all Departments, that perhaps we need a cross-departmental review of its impact on existing legislation.

Clauses 29 to 31 relate to criminals paying their own court costs, as was mentioned earlier. That sounds sensible, and it is something I support, but I note that the payment is made by the criminal after money penalties, after compensation to victims, after the victim surcharge and after prosecution costs. I would not confuse that with the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) on prior debts, but will the Minister please provide more information on what proportion of those costs are likely to be recovered and whether administration recovery charges make the proposal cost-effective?

Finally, on judicial review, I recall that as a young law student in the 1980s we had to learn about administrative law, but the striking thing then was how rarely it was used, and then only for very serious abuses of power. We have since seen a huge growth industry in which a willing judiciary has now opened up three or four courts across the country to hear those applications, which increasingly resemble appeals, rather than judicial review, or cheaper alternatives to proper cases, often funded by third-party organisations, some of which stay anonymous. That must change, and I am pleased, without addressing the detail, to see those provisions in part 4 of the Bill.

18:12

[Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

I am pleased to have an opportunity to take part in this debate, although several provisions in the Bill worry me intensely. The Bill has more to do with posturing on the part of the Government than with any real policy initiative. The Justice Secretary has presented it at a time when two other crime-related Bills are still awaiting Royal Assent. Indeed, some of its provisions seem to undermine those set out in the Offender Rehabilitation Bill, which is yet to reach the statute book.

Similarly, the Bill’s proposed reforms to judicial review, as set out in part 4, cut across provisions contained in the Immigration Bill—a point ably made by the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee. Most people would agree that there is a need to introduce a more robust process to weed out the unmeritorious cases, but we must be very careful not in effect to deny individuals who really rely on it. Furthermore, everybody accepts that the review process is a vital component of a healthy democracy: the individual’s right to challenge the over-mighty and to secure justice in properly decided administrative law cases. We limit those rights at our peril.

I will quote from a very interesting article that appeared in last Thursday’s edition of The Times, penned by a Member of the other place, a very experienced Queen’s counsel who has taken judicial review cases on many occasions and defended Governments in such cases as well. He wrote:

“Clause 50 provides that courts and tribunals must refuse to allow a judicial review application to proceed to a full hearing if the defendant shows that it is ‘highly likely’ that the outcome for the applicant ‘would not have been substantially different if the conduct complained of had not occurred’. If the case does not proceed to a full hearing, the court must refuse any remedy to the applicant if that same test is satisfied.

The proposal is objectionable for constitutional reasons. The clause will instruct judges to ignore unlawful conduct and to do so in a context where the government itself is the main defendant.

All governments come to resent the power of the judiciary to identify and remedy unlawful conduct. But until now they have, with greater or lesser enthusiasm, recognised the value of what is central to the rule of law. After all, they will not be in power indefinitely…It tells the Government, and the world, that what has been done is unlawful. Ministers and civil servants know that they must change their conduct for the future, and they do so.”

He concludes the article by stating:

“Over the past 40 years, judicial review has helped to prevent abuse of power by governments of all complexions. It is ironic that judicial review now needs protection from a politician whose reforms would neuter its force by the use of political slogans that have no factual basis and are ignorant of legal and constitutional principle.”

Those are strong words from an expert in the field. I think that we would do well to take them on board and consider their purport.

The timetabling of the Bill is also a little confusing. Although it is having its Second Reading today, we must assume that its introduction has been orchestrated so that it will be carried over at the end of the Session, no doubt to make the Government appear proactive and to mask the fact that so few significant pieces of Government legislation remain.

[Dr Huppert]

The right hon. Gentleman, as ever, is making some interesting points, but is he really saying that the test of a Government is the number of pieces of legislation they pass? I would have thought that he, like me, thinks that Parliament has much more to do than simply pass legislation.

[Mr Llwyd]

No, I am not saying that. In fact, I was a long-time critic of the Blair Administration, who introduced criminal Bills almost every teatime. That is not a test at all. Also, several measures that the Justice Secretary referred to in his opening speech today are rehashes of various things we have seen in the press over the past few months. All I am saying is that when a Government run out of steam, the benchmark is not how many pieces of legislation they pass—otherwise, heaven knows where we would end up.

I am mindful that other Members wish to speak and so will try not to detain the House for long. Part 1 of the Bill creates a number of offences, many of which are considered unnecessary at best and, at worst, vindictive provisions that are likely to increase the prison population considerably. Clause 4 introduces a drastic change to release arrangements for offenders serving extended determinate sentences, who are currently entitled to automatic release after they have served two thirds of their sentence. Instead, they will now be required to appear before the Parole Board so that it can assess whether they are fit to be released on licence.

It is important to note that extended determinate sentences were enacted by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, a very recent piece of legislation. That is not the only example in the Bill of the Government seeking to amend provisions introduced by their own justice Bills. Extended determinate sentences from the outset increased the minimum tariff a person was required to spend in custody from half of their sentence to two thirds. By stipulating that offenders will also have to satisfy the Parole Board before being considered for release, the amount of time that is available for supervision and rehabilitation back into the community is further decreased.

Furthermore, the Government appear to have drastically underestimated the impact those changes will have on the Parole Board’s resources and the size of the prison population. In their impact assessment, the Government predict that the changes introduced in clauses 1 to 5 will result in an increase of 1,000 prison places and an increase of 1,100 Parole Board hearings per year between implementation and 2030. The Prison Reform Trust has written to Members of Parliament urging us to seek clarification from the Government on how they calculate these figures. After all, the Government of the time underestimated the impact that IPP sentences—indeterminate sentences for public protection—would have on the prison population. When those sentences were first debated in Parliament—I recall the debates—the Government were insistent that the new sentence would increase the prison population by 900 places. By June 2013, 5,620 offenders were still in custody serving the now-abolished IPP sentences, 3,549 of whom were being held beyond their tariff date. The impact on the operation of the Parole Board has been nothing short of overwhelming. In August 2013, the backlog of cases still awaiting hearings by the Parole Board was 1,352, with IPP offenders accounting for 61% of indeterminate review cases. Yet the Government think it apposite to increase the workload of the Parole Board yet again by introducing changes to the automatic release of offenders—and this at a time when Parole Board staff numbers have been reduced by nearly one in five.

The release test for recalled prisoners provided for in clauses 7 and 8 will similarly place an extra burden on the beleaguered Parole Board. At present, recalled offenders serving determinate sentences undergo a fixed-term recall whereby they serve 28 days in custody and are then automatically released. Under clauses 7 and 8, however, these offenders will serve the remainder of their sentence in custody if the Secretary of State determines that an offender is likely to breach a condition of their licence. The Parole Board would need to conduct a release test before certifying that the offender can in fact be released. The Prison Reform Trust has drawn attention to the fact that this pays scant regard to the peculiar circumstances of offenders with learning disabilities and mental health problems, many of whom find it difficult to understand the terms of their licence.

Once again, the Government’s estimate of how many offenders will be affected by this change seems worryingly off the mark. The impact assessment calculates that the change will result in 75 offenders per year being affected and an extra 50 prison places being required. However, this blatantly fails to take into account the likely impact of the changes being introduced concurrently by the Government’s Offender Rehabilitation Bill, still being considered by the other place, which will result in mandatory supervision being given to all offenders serving sentences of 12 months or less. The impact assessment for that Bill estimates that 13,000 extra offenders will be recalled or committed to custody each year, with an increase of 1,600 places in the prison population. I would be grateful if the Minister clarified how the Ministry of Justice has calculated that so few offenders will be affected by the combined impact of this Bill and the Offender Rehabilitation Bill.

Clause 8 gives the Secretary of State the power to use the affirmative resolution procedure in order to change the release test for recalled prisoners serving determinate sentences. I am worried that the Government are proposing to use secondary legislation to implement such a significant change, and I hope that they will reconsider this provision ahead of the Bill’s Committee stage.

Clauses 10 and 11 introduce a new statutory offence of being unlawfully at large following a recall to custody. This would be triable either way and could result in a convicted offender being imprisoned for up to two years. Once again, the Government seem to have omitted any safeguard for vulnerable offenders with learning disabilities or mental health problems that would impair their ability to understand the full terms of their release. It would be beneficial if the Government inserted such a safeguard ahead of the Bill’s later stages. For example, it would be useful if the Bill made a distinction between offenders who abscond wilfully and those who do not report as a result of a misunderstanding or a miscommunication. According to research conducted by the Prison Reform Trust in 2007, between 20% and 30% of offenders were estimated to have a learning disability that affected their ability to cope with the complexities of the criminal justice system and the co-operation expected of them. During debates on the Offender Rehabilitation Bill in the other place, the Government pledged to produce special versions of licence conditions for individuals with learning difficulties. I would welcome the Minister’s assurance that they intend to keep true to that pledge, and indeed any other provisions that they will be making for vulnerable offenders so that they can understand what actions are strictly required of them.

My final point on part 1 concerns the new offence introduced in clause 16 that criminalises the possession of pornographic materials depicting rape and non-consensual sexual penetration. I truly applaud the Government’s efforts in this regard to minimise the use and dissemination of extreme pornographic materials, and particularly the work they are doing to minimise the opportunities for children to come into contact with this filth. In my view, however, there can be no benefit to society or to the individuals involved if persons convicted of sex offences are left languishing in prison without treatment or, worse, released into the community without treatment. I welcome what the Government are doing, but ask them to go one step further in ensuring that these perpetrators are dealt with positively, if that is the right word.

Although the internet sex offender treatment programme is available for offenders on supervision in the community, it is, rather perplexingly, not available in prisons. In relation to the availability of the sex offender treatment programmes which, conversely, are available in custody, I understand that as of July 2012, 21 prisons offered these programmes, despite the fact that offenders are serving time in relation to sex offences in over 100 prisons. This means that a person convicted of a sex offence has roughly only a one-in-six chance of being able to access treatment that would address his or her offending behaviour. I urge the Government to improve their provision of treatment programmes for these offenders before incarcerating yet more for similar offences.

In summary, the changes in part 1 will result in greater overcrowding of the prison estate and a greater burden being placed on the Parole Board, despite no mention being made, at least as yet, of any extra resources being allocated to deal with this increase. The proposals appear to be rushed and ill thought out, and I hope they do not end up being shambolic, but I would not be surprised. I urge the Government to reconsider the motivation behind these new offences before the Bill reaches its later stages.

I wish to make a few remarks about the changes to youth custody introduced in part 2. The proposal to introduce new secure colleges for children aged 12 to 17, which would be implemented by the passing of clauses 17 to 19, was first published in a recent consultation entitled “Transforming Youth Custody”. I agree with the views posited by the Howard League for Penal Reform and the Prison Reform Trust that the introduction of secure colleges may result in an increase in custodial sentencing for young offenders and longer sentences being handed out. I am particularly concerned that clause 18 would allow for these secure colleges to be contracted out to private companies, and that under the terms of schedule 4 those companies will be granted the opportunity to use reasonable force and restraint to enforce “good order and discipline”.

[Chris Grayling]

The right hon. Gentleman refers to contracting out to private companies. It is worth putting on record that the expertise we want to see in those running secure colleges is educational expertise. That skill does not exist within the public sector, and we need to bring it in from those who have real expertise in education and training. I would not want the door to be closed on that for ideological reasons.

[Mr Llwyd]

I hear what the Secretary of State says. He also said earlier that this will basically be a college, but with a fence around it. I accept that and hope that that is what will happen. That is fine, but I will mention in passing that the director of the Howard League for Penal Reform has said that she is concerned that

“restraining children for not doing what they are told is dangerous and gives the erroneous lesson that might is right.”

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child posited in 2007:

“Restraint or force can be used only when the child poses an imminent threat of injury to him or herself or others, and only when all other means of control have been exhausted.”

I will accept at face value what the Secretary of State has said and I hope this will result in a benign regime that will be useful to the individuals concerned in turning them away from further misbehaviour and criminal behaviour.

Will the Government make clear what inspection arrangements will be made for the proposed secure colleges? The Magistrates Association has argued that if the running of secure colleges is to be contracted out to private companies, they must be given specific targets and must be rigorously inspected. I would also point out that, at present, neither the Bill nor the explanatory notes make any mention of what provision will be made for girls in the secure colleges—a point that has already been raised by other Members. I am sure that the Minister, in closing, will be able to tell the House what the inspection regime will be. Will it partly involve the Education Department, and what provision will be made for young women and girls under the new set-up?

Finally, I wish to make a few remarks about the proposals in part 3, which would impose court charges on defendants in criminal cases. Clauses 29 and 30 stipulate that, in setting charges, the Lord Chancellor should have regard to a number of factors, including whether a defendant pleaded guilty and thus whether they proceeded to trial. As Justice has pointed out, the imposition of such a charge may perversely incentivise defendants to plead guilty so as to avoid paying higher charges, and so undermine the presumption of innocence. That is certainly not fanciful, because defendants I have come across in my professional career were more keen on finding out what the cost would be at the end of the day than anything else. That may seem strange, but it is true.

It is also possible that further charges will be brought against an individual if he or she pursues an appeal, which would place another barrier to fair and equal access to justice. As Justice points out, restricting an individual’s access to a court or tribunal could well be incompatible with article 6(1) of the European convention on human rights. A thorough impact assessment should also be made of the impact of bringing the proposed charges against any defendant, to ensure that it is reasonable and just to do so in all the circumstances.

The Magistrates Association has argued that courts should be given discretion in deciding whether to impose the fees, so as to ensure that it is both appropriate and reasonable in all the circumstances. After all, the Government should not ignore the fact that prisoners—and defendants, in fact—are far more likely to be in financial difficulty than members of the general public. According to figures recorded in the “Bromley Briefings Prison Factfile” of August 2013, 68% of prisoners were unemployed in the four weeks prior to custody and 13% have never had a job, compared with 3.9% of the general population.

In summary, the Bill introduces changes that will increase the already stretched prison population and place undoubted further burdens on the Parole Board. It is highly disappointing that instead of working to encourage rehabilitation, the Government have chosen to introduce new criminal offences and to curtail the release of prisoners. They have also chosen to use this justice Bill as a vehicle for implementing ill-considered changes to youth custody, but I accept what the Secretary of State has said and await further detail. The priority surely must be that people are dealt with and rehabilitated properly and that the public are protected.

It is my belief that nothing is being done in this Bill to tackle the root causes of crime or to help victims, which should be the driving force of any criminal Bill. The problem, of course, is that the larger parties, as always, are dancing to the tabloid drumbeat. It is virtually impossible to have a sensible discussion in this place about penal policy, because of our friends at the tabloids. That is regrettable, but I am afraid it is a fact. All in all, there are many things in this Bill that need to be put right in Committee and I hope that hon. Members from all parties will consider it their duty to do so over the coming weeks.

18:35

[Nick Herbert (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

Unlike the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd), I welcome many of the sensible provisions in the Bill. These amendments to the operation of the law seem to me to make common sense.

I am not sure whether I understood the Opposition’s point about judicial review. If we accept that there has been a threefold increase in the number of applications for judicial review since 2000, are the Opposition making the case that there is nothing wrong with judicial review procedures or the way in which they are being used, or are they saying that there has been an increase in the number of poor-quality decisions by the Government and other public bodies? If the latter, the Opposition would be conceding that that happened largely on their watch. If we accept that there has been a very large rise, surely it makes sense to make a number of careful changes that will ensure that the system operates as intended, which is not to provide a vehicle for those who simply object to a decision and wish to test it in an alternative body—in this case, a court—but to ensure that decisions are made properly and subjected to the right and appropriate judicial scrutiny.

[Sadiq Khan]

I am surprised by the right hon. Gentleman’s comments, because he is usually thorough in his research. He should be aware that if we exclude immigration from judicial review, we will see that the situation has been static since the 1990s. A Bill passed 18 months ago by this Government moved immigration from judicial review to the tribunal system, so the problem they are seeking to address was dealt with nearly two years ago.

[Nick Herbert]

The right hon. Gentleman seems to be confirming that he does not believe that there is a problem, but that view is not shared on the Government Benches. In our view, the increase in the extent of judicial review does not just impose a cost—which is a serious matter in itself—but also means, dangerously, that decisions by the courts are increasingly substituting for decisions that should be made by Ministers, which was not the original purpose or intention of judicial review.

In his closing remarks, the right hon. Gentleman railed similarly against previous measures introduced by this Government to deal with legal aid and said there had been restrictions on access to justice. The Opposition’s problem is that they are very quick to criticise every proposal in the area of justice and criminal justice that is designed to ensure a sensible use of public funds and necessary savings. They are not able to explain how they would deal with the very real budgetary challenges that confront every Government Department, not least the Ministry of Justice, which has been required to make substantial savings. If, along the way, the Opposition oppose every measure and criticise sensible provisions such as that under discussion without saying how they would make the savings required, they simply have a credibility problem.

I welcome the Government’s proposals to deal with the problem of automatic early release and, in particular, the scale of the Justice Secretary’s ambition to go further in doing so. There is no doubt that automatic early release undermines public confidence in sentencing. When victims in particular, but also members of the public more widely, hear a sentence handed down in a court but later learn that offenders are, without question, automatically released much earlier—halfway, or earlier in the case of home detention curfew, which is described as early release—it undermines confidence in the system.

It would be much better to move to a system of honesty in sentencing, in which the sentence handed down bears a proper relation to the one actually served, whether that is a system of minimum and maximum sentences, as proposed by the Conservative party in its last manifesto, or sensible measures to curtail automatic early release of the kind that my right hon. Friend the Justice Secretary has just introduced for more serious offences. We should not accept the principle of automatic early release; it would be much better if release were earned and bore some relation to the prisoner’s conduct, progress in rehabilitation and suitability for release.

Even Members of the House of Commons find it difficult to understand or accept the early release of offenders. Many of us noted with surprise that when the courts handed down to a former Member a determinate sentence of eight months, we had no sooner said the words “Liberal Democrat” than that offender was released early, in that case to serve a period on home detention curfew and, subsequently, to enjoy a new career writing articles for The Guardian. All that undermines confidence in the criminal justice system.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is making a very good speech. To take him back to his more serious point, does he agree that linking the sentence and early release to passing drugs tests for a drug addict or to passing a literary examination or literacy tests is very much the way we should go?

[Nick Herbert]

My hon. Friend is right to bring me back to my serious point, and I wholly agree with him. That is exactly the way we should go, and that is what I meant by the concept of earned release.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for making a very good point. I have listened to him carefully. Is it not fairer that a person who has committed a crime should serve two years, say, but that if they do not satisfy proper criteria, the sentence would be three years? The public would then totally understand the sentence.

[Nick Herbert]

That is what I meant by the concept of having minimum and maximum sentences. There would still be a determinate sentence with a maximum term—it would not be an indeterminate sentence, which is reserved for much more serious crimes—but release after the minimum point would nevertheless depend on fulfilling certain conditions, including those referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman).

I particularly welcome the measures relating to the electronic monitoring of offenders and provisions for the greater use of tagging for the supervision of offenders released from custody. There is no doubt that the advance of technology and the use of satellite tracking mean that a huge and so far largely untapped potential exists to ensure greater confidence in the criminal justice system and enable the safe and secure monitoring of offenders. Whether that is for offenders who receive some kind of curfew as part of their sentence, or whether the purpose is to ensure their safe and effective supervision on release, much more could be done, and has already been done in other countries.

There are two particular lessons. The first is that we should question how quickly the criminal justice system can embrace new technology. The criminal justice system is very centralised, which does not always make it easy to have local innovation in its operation, whether in relation to how certain courts operate—I will come on to that—or to this use of technology. As the Secretary of State knows, some very impressive pilot schemes have been conducted by Hertfordshire police in relation to satellite tagging.

There is, however, a feeling that we have been slow, perhaps unnecessarily slow, to ensure that such technology is made available to other police forces or is used more widely. That is partly because of the understandable caution that results from a determination to ensure that technology is used properly and that public safety remains paramount, but it is also partly because of the centralised nature of the system and the bias against innovation.

If we want a greater use of such technology, we must move towards a system that is more distributed, and in which local criminal justice innovation is encouraged. Through a more decentralised system, we have such opportunities. For instance, police and crime commissioners, who are keen to take on such a role, could supervise its use to ensure that there was some kind of local democratic accountability.

[Guy Opperman]

I entirely endorse my right hon. Friend’s point that localisation is surely the key to driving up the performance of the system and to improving it. Does he agree that the Ministry of Justice—we all acknowledge that this monolithic beast is exceptionally hard to tame and alter—could follow examples in other places, such as Norway, where there are community prisons and a much more localised approach to criminal justice reform?

[Nick Herbert]

I strongly agree with my hon. Friend. Having been a Minister in both the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice, I recognise that Ministers face the challenge of having an imperative to ensure public safety, and an imperative to drive value for money and ensure that contracts are written in such a way as to provide best value for the taxpayer. Nevertheless, there is an opportunity to decentralise and to be more open about the potential use of technology to innovate in the justice system.

The second lesson about the use of electronic tagging in criminal justice and the provision very sensibly set out in the Bill is that technology is not necessarily our enemy or the enemy of justice. In debates in this place and outside, technological advance is too often seen as some kind of enemy of justice and of the public. In fact, the advent of technology has been responsible for incredibly important strides in the delivery of a justice system that works for the public.

The same debates apply to electronic monitoring as apply to the use of CCTV, the development of the DNA database or other things raising civil liberties questions that must be addressed. For instance, how far is it appropriate to go in restricting the civil liberties of those to whom such sentences are handed down, even though they are convicted criminals? We must remember that they have been convicted, and that the alternative is a custodial sentence or, if they are not to be released, a continuing term in custody. Far from posing any kind of threat to civil liberties, such technology presents a real opportunity to protect the public. We should sometimes accept that the use of technology in the criminal justice system can be the public’s friend and can help to ensure that the interests of justice are served.

[Keith Vaz]

I agree about the use of technology, but, as the saga of G4S and Serco has demonstrated, in handing over contracts to private sector companies, sometimes we trust them too much. Those companies were overbilling the Government. We have to monitor such contracts, ensure that there are benchmarks and be very careful when we hand over public money.

[Nick Herbert]

As ever, I do not disagree with the right hon. Gentleman. That is an issue of accountability. We must ensure that contracts are written properly. The behaviour of some companies has been appalling and they should be held to account. There were also problems with the earlier trials of satellite tracking technology and there have been problems with use of simpler electronic monitoring. However, the technology can be made to work effectively and those who deliver the contracts can be held properly to account.

The potential benefits to public safety and, as we have heard, to criminals, who may find that they are no longer constantly approached by the police as a suspect in other investigations because it can quickly be established that they were nowhere near the scene of the crime, are too great to dismiss. We have an opportunity to introduce curfewing and semi-custodial sentences into our criminal justice system in a way that was not possible before. We can make the effective supervision of offenders outside a custodial environment a reality and we should embrace that.

I welcome the changes that the Justice Secretary is proposing to out-of-court disposals in the Bill. Many Government Members and observers of the criminal justice system have long been concerned that the growth of out-of-court disposals has led to problems. Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary produced an important report on this matter a number of years ago, in which it identified the repeated use of certain out-of-court disposals and their inappropriate use for serious offences as a cause for concern. I commend the Justice Secretary for acting on that and making sensible changes to simple cautions in the Bill to ensure that they are not used inappropriately. Again, we can debate the nature of the proposals, but the direction of travel is exactly right.

The growth of administrative justice—for that is what it is—has a place. The previous Government described it as a programme of summary justice, but it is a programme of administrative justice whereby, without recourse to any kind of court, disposals are handed out on the spot. Although it has a place, we must ensure that it does not get out of hand.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) mentioned, the use of administrative disposals peaked in 2007, driven by the unwise target to bring offences to justice. There was a famous case close to my constituency in which a police officer found a corpse hanging from a tree. In the pocket of the corpse was a penknife. The police officer attempted to record the offence of possession of an offensive weapon. It was very unlikely that the corpse would have used the knife in a dangerous manner. That was due to the target culture that drove the growth of administrative disposals. That culture has fallen away, but the proportion of disposals that are out-of-court disposals is still twice as high as it was a decade ago. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is important that such disposals are used appropriately.

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

Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is a problem of unforeseen consequences? One reason such disposals are used widely by the police is that it is so difficult and time consuming to put together the MG forms to bring a case to court. The temptation is always to dispose of a case out of court if it is at all possible.

[Nick Herbert]

My hon. Friend speaks from his experience as a special constable. What he says is certainly the case. One of the dangers of using the growth in administrative justice as a solution was that the previous Government took their eye off the important task of dealing with the bureaucracy in the criminal justice system as a whole and making it more efficient, so that cases that had to be brought before the courts could be brought before them swiftly and effectively. I therefore welcome the proposals to deal with the problem of simple cautions being used wrongly.

The growth in administrative justice should give us pause to reflect on the proper role today of the important institution that is the lay magistracy. I was struck by the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), who, when he was courts Minister, had the difficult responsibility of closing a number of under-utilised magistrates courts. There is no doubt that magistrates have faced challenges owing to a reduction in business, which was caused originally by the growth in administrative disposals and has been partly caused by the reduction in the level of crime and by cases being taken by professional district judges, rather than by traditional magistrates courts. All those factors have led to the magistracy feeling undervalued.

Although I welcome the proposals in clause 24 for single justice procedures, which are entirely commonsensical in respect of high-volume, uncontroversial cases in which there are guilty pleas, I believe we should think further about the right role for the magistracy in the operation of the summary justice system. That will be particularly important if the budgetary position with which the Ministry of Justice is confronted means that there have to be continuing court rationalisations. The development of new justice hubs and centres is not necessarily a bad thing. They can be fit for purpose and very useful, but they also mean that magistrates sit further from the communities from which they are drawn.

[Guy Opperman]

I speak as someone who battled my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) over the closure of Hexham magistrates court, even though I understood why it was being done and the difficult circumstances that existed. Does my right hon. Friend agree that, as we get centralised hubs of magistracy, we must ensure that there is a resident rural magistrate who understands that matters 50 miles away from the city are often greatly different from crimes that take place in the city itself?

[Nick Herbert]

My hon. Friend, who represents a very rural constituency, makes an interesting point that leads on to the suggestion that I want to make. I wonder whether there is a role for the magistracy outside the formal setting of the courts in respect of less controversial offences, so that we can retain the presence of magistrates in communities. As we move towards the use of justice hubs and as traditional courts are closed, we should consider that.

A similar proposal was made last week in an interesting paper, “Future Courts”, by the Policy Exchange think-tank. The paper picked up on proposals that were made in a Government paper that was published in 2012, “Swift and Sure Justice”, for which I had responsibility. We were very drawn to the way in which the criminal justice system had operated rapidly to deal with the offences that were committed during the riots of the previous year, and we started to question whether a leaner and more efficient justice system could be developed. I urge the Government to consider the potential of involving magistrates in a programme of neighbourhood justice. That would ensure that they are retained in their local communities.

Neighbourhood justice panels are an interesting development in the area of restorative justice. Many Members from all parts of the House believe that they have great potential in dealing with low-level offending. Only last month, the Lord Chief Justice expressed the view that magistrates should play a formal role in neighbourhood justice panels and that they should not be a separate tier of justice.

The magistracy is an institution that has been with us for six and a half centuries, and as the late Lord Bingham said, it is a “democratic jewel beyond price”. If we are moving towards greater use of technology, the potential for justice to be delivered remotely, and individuals not having to be in a formal court setting, we have the opportunity to ensure that justice can be delivered locally, without having to be delivered administratively. We can still have confidence that somebody appointed from the community who exercises a judicial—not administrative—function, is dealing with offenders. That is a potential way to rebuild the magistracy and tackle the growth of administrative justice and the excessive use of out-of-court disposals, and a powerful way to rekindle the notion of neighbourhood justice. I hope that the Government, who welcomed the Policy Exchange report as an interesting contribution, will take that on board.

In conclusion, as with so many other areas of public policy, the urge to centralise and rationalise into ever bigger units is great when it comes to delivering greater value for money. We see that in policing with those who urge us to create regional police forces, in health care with those who urge us to create ever greater units with larger hospitals and so on, and we face such pressures across our public services. Such rationalisations need not be a bad thing if innovative ways are found to deliver services at local level, and technology is an enabler of that. What undermines confidence in the process, however, is when a salami-slicing approach results merely in services being centralised for cost reasons, without any rethinking or redesigning of how they can be delivered at local level. Let us enable that innovation, localise, have confidence in the new democratic institutions we have created at local level that can hold the criminal justice system to account, and—above all—let us value the lay magistracy as an institution that has served this country so well over a long time.

19:02

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) who served as a distinguished Minister in the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice. It is still a puzzle to me why he is not in the Government, because I know they could use his considerable skills. He obviously enjoys being on the Back Benches more, even though we miss his appearances before the Home Affairs Committee.

I was fascinated by the exchange between the hon. Members for Hexham (Guy Opperman) and for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), but the House did not get to know what happened at the end of those discussions, and whether Hexham magistrates court is still open. Did the hon. Member for Hexham win his battle? He is my next-door neighbour in Norman Shaw North, and I need to know whether he wins such battles with the Government.

[Guy Opperman]

Despite 20 years of advocacy and despite what I felt was a very strong case, my youthful appearance in this House, and a vigorous campaign, the fact that the magistracy was not able to survive in the rural town of Hexham for the first time in 500 years was sadly a fact in the end. To be fair, the right hon. Gentleman will be pleased to know that the system is working relatively well with an urban core, but the Ministry of Justice—which is, of course, not at all a bureaucratic or difficult organisation to get control of—should be aware that although it is working, we do need a rural element in the magistracy going forward.

[Keith Vaz]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that long explanation. I am surprised that he lost the battle, but I know he will continue with it.

When I was the sole Justice Minister in the Ministry of Justice—then the Lord Chancellor’s Department—I felt that the work load was quite high. We now have four Commons Ministers representing the Ministry of Justice, and of course it has taken on new responsibilities. I congratulate the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) on his appointment. I think this is his first Second Reading debate; I do not know whether he will be winding up—

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Simon Hughes)]

indicated dissent.

[Keith Vaz]

Then I admire his patience in sitting through the entire debate and I wish him well in his ministerial career. I am not sure whether, had he got to the Ministry of Justice before the Bill was signed off, he might have opposed some of these points.

I will start by raising a few concerns. I agree with the shadow Lord Chancellor that there are some good parts of the Bill, and I hope that we can make it better between now and it becoming law, should the House decide to support it. I have about five points to make, the first of which concerns judicial review. The previous Labour Government were embarrassed on a number of occasions when they lost judicial review challenges, and I believe it is extremely important that that remains an avenue of choice for those who feel that the justice system does not provide them with the kinds of solutions they need to their problems.

In particular, I am thinking about those who face difficult immigration cases, who have seen the right of appeal taken from them—not by the Ministry of Justice but by the Home Office—and who now face only the prospect of applications for judicial review to bring their cases to the attention of those who make such decisions. I agree that there are many frivolous cases, and many people go forward and make judicial review applications, sometimes for the sheer hell of it. It is right that citizens should use this power carefully, but once we take away the right of appeal in immigration cases, we leave people with no choice other than to apply for judicial review. That is why we have seen an increase in judicial review over the past few years.

[David T. C. Davies]

Have the Government had to consider this matter because with the encouragement of various—dare I say it?—left-wing non-governmental organisations, people who clearly had no right whatsoever to be in this country were able to put in one appeal after another and be legally funded all the way through? Is it not about time the taxpayer had a bit of representation as well?

[Keith Vaz]

The hon. Gentleman served on the Home Affairs Committee and therefore knows how the Home Office deals with such cases. If we were satisfied that decision making was robust and that entry clearance officers and those who reviewed their decisions always made the right decision, we would not need a right of appeal. As he knows, however, having sat through the Committee’s deliberations, 50% of appeals on immigration cases are won by the applicant. That does not mean that judges are cleverer than entry clearance officers, but it does mean that decisions have not been looked at carefully enough. If we take away that right of appeal, all people will have is the ability to challenge in the courts. Of course I do not believe it right for people to play the system and have multiple appeals, but if we take away the last vestige by which they can challenge decisions, we will leave them with absolutely no choice.

As I said, the previous Government suffered because they tried to stop citizens marrying foreign citizens in our courts. They were taken to court and judicially reviewed, and the court said, “You cannot do this”. Spouses had to go back and make applications, but the previous Government—as successive Governments have done—lost a number of such applications. I think we should look carefully at this issue. On its own it may not seem like a bad idea, but if we take away the right of appeal in immigration cases, as section 11 of the Immigration Bill does, that will create a number of problems. After all, 32% of deportation decisions and 49% of entry clearance applications were successfully appealed last year. We must look carefully at the issue.

[Guy Opperman]

I served on the Immigration Public Bill Committee and the overwhelming view was that, yes, the Home Office needs to get better—with respect, as the right hon. Gentleman will know, it is getting better at reviewing under the appellant procedures—but the fundamental point is that it cannot be right for there to be in excess of a dozen, and potentially up to 15 or 16, separate rights of appeal. The state, in the form of the Home Office and the Government, is right to review the number of times an appellant can go through the appellant process.

[Keith Vaz]

I have no objection to that. I agree with the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies) that we do not want multiple applications, but we should at least give people the chance of one application. It is not the case that they get legal aid right the way through. Many of my constituents come to me wanting to go to judicial review. I tell them that their best course of action is to leave the country and make an application from abroad. They will go through a better system and obtain a quicker result than they would by constantly staying here and going through the courts again and again.

[Guy Opperman]

With great respect, the implication of the last comment is that there is no right of appeal whatever in an immigration case. I am sure that that is not what the right hon. Gentleman meant to say.

[Keith Vaz]

The right of appeal will be taken away by clause 11 of the Immigration Bill. An application can, of course, be made in certain circumstances, but my understanding is that that Bill will reduce dramatically the occasions on which the Government can be judicially reviewed. We heard that from the Lord Chancellor earlier. He was quite delighted and thought it was a very good idea. I prefer that these decisions are taken by judges rather than by civil servants.

The hon. Gentleman has been a Parliamentary Private Secretary for the past four years, so of course he welcomes the improvements made by the Government. That period is too long and he too should be serving in the Government and I hope I have not damned his career by saying that. He has spent enough time dealing with civil servants. If he thought they were the most perfect creatures on this earth, we might as well hand over everything to them, let the officials decide and not give people the right to go to court. All I say is this: let us be cautious. The Government should look at this in the round and be sure that people have some avenues left to challenge decisions.

On new technology, I agree with the right hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs, the former Home Office Minister. When he was in the Home Office, he led the campaign for new technology. He is a Twitter person. On one occasion, he tweeted to ask me to go to the airport to meet him, as I had done with other members of the Select Committee—I agreed to do so, but he would not tell me his flight number—so I know that he likes new technology. The fact is that we need to be careful about allowing Ministers and officials to make decisions on new technology that they do not understand. He will remember the e-Borders project, which has so far cost the taxpayer £750 million. It was agreed without benchmarks and the litigation is still going on—it is still costing the taxpayer huge amounts of money. We should have new technology and we should pursue this programme, but we need to be very careful and very cautious not to hand everything over to those who come to us and say that they know everything. That is what happened under the previous Government in relation to G4S and Serco, and that has continued under this Government. As we now know, G4S overcharged the Government by £24.1 million. We will need a more extensive use of tagging, but if the tagging companies are not monitored, the contracts will not be properly dealt with and properly monitored. I hope that, in making better use of technology, we ensure that we have the accountability that the right hon. Gentleman and I have been talking about.

On the creation of a secure college, my worry is that we need to be very clear on what powers those who run the college will have. It sounds like a very good idea and we want to make sure that people spend more time in training. However, of the 16 deaths of children in custody since 2000, all occurred in youth offenders institutions and secure training centres. We need to learn the lessons of the deaths of those young people before we set up new institutions that are not capable of proper scrutiny. The Bill will allow a secure college custody officer to use reasonable force to ensure good order and discipline. It is important that we look at training and do not have any unfortunate incidents that result in the death or injury to young people in custody.

Drugs are a big problem, as we have discovered in Home Affairs Committee inquiries. Many young offenders acquire a drug habit when they are in institutions. I will give another plug to the book, which I have on my desk, by the hon. Member for Hexham. I am sure that all Ministers in the Ministry of Justice have read it. I am sure that the new Minister will have had in his briefing a copy of the book on rehabilitation written by the hon. Member for Hexham. If he has not read it, I will make sure that he gets a copy, because the hon. Gentleman is my next-door neighbour. There is very sensible stuff in the book, including the fact that people pick up the habit of taking drugs when they are in prison. That is why we believe there should be mandatory testing.

[Guy Opperman]

rose—

[Keith Vaz]

The hon. Gentleman is going to tell us which bookshops his book is available in.

[Guy Opperman]

The book, “Doing Time” is actually still available. Amazingly, there are a few copies left. I hasten to add, Madam Deputy Speaker, that all proceeds go to charity.

The serious point is this: the right hon. Gentleman, who served in the previous Government with the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), will recall that in 2008, when he was the police and justice Minister, he was asked a specific question. I cannot, off the top of my head, quote Hansard, but he indicated that evidence from the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice showed that 20% of all people who took drugs in prison acquired the habit for the first time in prison.

[Keith Vaz]

That is a stunning figure, one that has probably remained the same, or even increased, in the past few years. That is why we suggest there should be mandatory testing in prison and after people leave prison. The Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright) does not like that idea. Whenever I raise it at Justice questions, he is never enthusiastic about it and thinks his system is better, but such testing would be a good thing.

I hope the new secure college will run sufficient courses. We will not write the curriculum right now, but let us ensure that as well as providing the basic education for young people that they so desperately need—another theme in the book by the hon. Member for Hexham—we teach them the dangers of drugs and try to get them off drugs.

I am a little concerned about the punitive elements in paragraph 2 of schedule 15, amending the Criminal Justice Act 2003. The figures show that 72% of male and 70% female sentenced prisoners suffer from two or more related mental health disorders. It may not be appropriate for them to be punished in a similar way to others. We must try to identify those who have a mental illness and end up in the criminal justice system and remain in it for years. In September, the Select Committee will undertake an inquiry into how the police deal—I say to the Chair of the Justice Committee, the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), that we are not treading on his toes—with offenders with mental health disorders and see how that feeds into the rest of the criminal justice system. The figures are very worrying. We want to be tough and to punish people, but we need to remember that there are reasons why we perhaps should not send people to prison.

The Director of Public Prosecutions announced this morning that she would deploy six specialist lawyers abroad—in Dubai and in one or two other places—in an attempt to seize more assets from criminals linked to British cases. I welcome that announcement, because I think that we need to strengthen the way in which we investigate and then charge those who move their assets abroad. According to the National Audit Office, 80% of the £920 million owed by convicted millionaire criminals is yet to be repaid. My mathematics is not perfect, but I think that 80% of £920 million is nearly £850 million. Is that right, Madam Deputy Speaker? You seem to think that it is about right; you have probably been helping your son with his maths. Anyway, it is a huge amount of money.

We try to challenge the Mr Bigs, and the Mrs Bigs. They go through the criminal justice system, we fine them huge amounts of money, and then we find that about £150 million less than £1 billion has still not been collected. The Bill does not deal with that situation. I hope that, if it believes in joined-up government, the Ministry of Justice will look carefully at the DPP’s statement, and that amendments will be tabled in Committee to ensure that when judges fine billionaires and multi-millionaires, those people pay up. At present they simply go through the system, come out of prison and then disappear, and we suffer because our justice system has allowed them to get away with it.

19:21

[Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)]

I am very pleased to follow my fellow Select Committee Chairman, whose wise and thoughtful comments have, I think, raised the level of the debate to where the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd) wanted it to be. I am not sure that the mental arithmetic of the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) is quite up to scratch, but I am sure that he can improve on it with a little practice.

The Bill contains many provisions, covering matters ranging from misconduct by jurors to automatic release, and I have no intention of commenting on all of them. However, I will make one passing comment on the issue of trial “on the papers”, which strikes me as a perfectly sensible way of dealing with summary offences of a minor character involving guilty pleas when the defendant was not going to be present anyway. It is important for the public record to be clear and immediately accessible, and I hope that we can find a way of ensuring that that happens. There should be no secret justice; it should be readily apparent what sentences have been handed out by the courts, and to whom.

I want to concentrate on three issues. The first is the issue of the simple police caution, along with the wider issue of out-of-court disposals of which it is part. The Government’s consultation on out-of-court disposals ended in January, and I should be interested to know when they will respond to it. I think that the magistrates were right to be concerned about the dangers of inconsistency around the country, and about the fact that people did not really know what was happening. However, I also think that there is real value in police officers’ ability to exercise discretion in many circumstances, and that out-of-court disposals, as a broad group, open up numerous possibilities, including possibilities for simple restorative justice.

Restorative justice exists in many forms. Obviously it exists in post-sentence form, but there are simple kinds of restorative justice which I have experienced in my constituency. In the past, a police sergeant would say to an offender “The best thing that you can do is go to the person whose property you have damaged, give that person money to pay for the damage that you have caused, apologise, and ask whether there is any way in which you can help to make good what you have done.” Such measures are worth developing as part of neighbourhood justice.

I do not want the necessary codifying of the system of cautions to be seen as in any way discouraging the use of alternatives to traditional court procedures. As was suggested earlier, magistrates can be involved in the process. The Justice Committee visited Stockport recently, and observed that magistrates had been involved in a number of developments in the Greater Manchester probation area. When I asked why they were not hostile to those developments, the answer was that they had been involved from the start. I do not want us in any way to undermine the scope for out-of-traditional-court disposals in matters of this kind, because they may offer the best opportunity to enable young people, in particular, to move away from crime rather than becoming institutionalised into it.

The Union flag that flies outside my constituency office on the Queen’s birthday and other state occasions was once torn down by some people who then rather unwisely boasted about having done so, and were therefore quickly picked up by the police. The friendly sergeant instructed them to put together the money necessary to replace the flag and to write a letter of apology, which they all did. At least one of them was planning to go into the Army, and the sergeant pointed out that that person would not want to start off with a criminal record. It was a very sensible way of dealing with the matter.

The second issue that I want to raise is that of secure colleges. I do not think that there is any disagreement with the Government’s objective in that regard. A clear indicator of the likelihood of reoffending is a lack of basic education and skills. The evidence for that is overwhelming, and I think that the Government are right to focus attention—and, indeed, resources—on the provision of basic education for young people who have been caught up in the criminal justice system.

[Guy Opperman]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Alan Beith]

I will, although I want to raise a number of points that the hon. Gentleman may wish to follow.

[Guy Opperman]

May I compliment the right hon. Gentleman on what he has said so far? Does he agree that there is potential for secure colleges to be run not just by the state, but by individual institutions, churches or charities? Academies have transformed education, and there is surely no reason why academy-style secure colleges could not be established in the longer term.

[Sir Alan Beith]

That sounds like an attractive idea. However, there are some problems to which I do not yet see a solution, although I agree with my neighbour from Hexham that plenty of people in both the charity sector and the private sector have something to contribute to the process.

The first problem, which was identified by my Committee, is that the average length of custody is 79 days. That is not a period in which a programme of education can be developed, and greatly extending periods of custody is not part of the Government’s policy. Secondly, people going into custody do not do so neatly at the beginning of a term or an academic year; they go when the courts have sentenced them. It is difficult to provide a range of basic educational courses for people who go into custody for relatively short periods and at different times, and it involves paying a price. Some of those people will be much further away from their local communities than they would have been if they had been dealt with under the previous system, especially if the college has been created at the expense of, for example, secure children’s homes. I should be very concerned if those ceased to be available because a college was being opened in a much more distant place.

I think that the Government have quite a bit more thinking to do about how they can realise their very desirable objective of providing basic education by means of some kind of secure college framework. It would be wrong to assume that it is possible simply to set up a large institution in one part of the country, and that people who are in custody for relatively short periods in a constant turnover will fit neatly into a programme of education. The objective is right, but the means have yet to be fully explained.

The “reasonable force” argument was mentioned earlier. I had a word with the Minister about that. I think that there may be some confusion about it. It needs to be made clear that there will be no breach of article 3 of the European convention on human rights in secure colleges, and that reasonable force is used for the purpose for which it is provided—that is, for the safety of those in custody or of those around them, including those who are superintending the education for the purpose of which they have been placed in a secure college. There needs to be a safe environment.

By way of offering the Government a warning of the difficulties involved, I shall quote what the chief inspector of prisons, Nick Hardwick, said in his oral evidence to the Select Committee. He pointed out that the youth custody population is not what it was two or three years ago, for the obvious reason that it is much smaller. That means that we now have the more intractable and difficult cases in youth custody, to which we are trying to apply this new system. He said that

“the nature of the juvenile population you now have in custody is different from what it was a year or two ago. The Government need to take that into account…What you now have is a higher concentration of the most troubled, most at-risk and most risky young people, concentrated in a very small number of establishments…You have to make sure that your future accommodation arrangements can guarantee the safety”

of those young people. He went on:

“It is not simply about the number of teachers you have; it is about whether you have the staff to get young people safely from their unit to the classroom, without trouble occurring en route, and to make sure that the teaching environment is safe and secure.”

Those are big challenges for the programme that the Government have set out.

My third topic is judicial review. The Public Bill Committee will need to look closely at the proposed change in the threshold for exclusion of judicial review from it being “inevitable” to being “highly likely” that the successful challenge would not change the outcome. There could be a risk of the argument becoming about the substance of the case, rather than about process. Judicial review is supposed to be about process. It is not an appeal mechanism in which the decision is considered by an alternative decision maker; it is a review of the process that has been carried out. However, if an argument had to take place about just how likely it was that the success of the review would make no difference, that would involve going quite deeply into the substance of the matter. The wording of that proposal will therefore have to be looked at carefully.

More generally, judicial review is inconvenient for the Executive. It is a nuisance, and the initials “JR” strike fear into the hearts of Ministers and, even more, of the civil servants who are always reminding Ministers about judicial review. However, it is a discipline by which we ensure that proper process is followed. It would be unsatisfactory to strip away that discipline completely and to say, “It doesn’t matter if you get the process wrong, as long as you make sure it’s not likely to affect the outcome.” The wording of this proposal also needs to be looked at, as do some of the cost attribution issues that have been raised today.

There is a problem when judicial review is used to try to delay a case sufficiently for the window of opportunity for something to happen to be closed, but such cases are few and far between. If we leave aside immigration cases, the increased use of judicial review is nothing like as big a problem as it was thought to be. The increase was identified as being primarily a result of immigration cases. I hope that the Bill Committee will look carefully at the wording of those measures. We must recognise that we need to maintain the discipline and that, if the law requires us to go through certain processes, we must go through them. If we do not, we run the risk of bringing trouble into court. I am referring not only to the Government in this context; this applies also to a wide range of local authorities and major infrastructure industries.

It would be wrong for me to conclude without referring to a point that has been underlying much of the debate—namely, that these are aspects of the criminal justice system whose primary purposes will be addressed only if we achieve further long-term reform. I see that reform as involving primarily what my Committee has called justice reinvestment—that is, taking resources away from the damaged end of the system and putting them into the beginning, so that victims do not become victims in the first place because crimes do not happen. We must ensure that we direct the resources to the appropriate areas, just as the Government have sought to do in the transforming families programme, so that they prevent crimes from happening in the first place. We need to create a virtuous circle in which we do not need so many prison places because fewer crimes are happening. We had an opportunity to do that, and crime levels have been falling, but that opportunity has unfortunately been compromised by the difficult financial situation in which the Government have found themselves. That means that it has been much harder to prime the pump, or to put in extra resources.

That brings us right back to the ultimate purpose of justice reinvestment, which is to move resources. In order to do that properly, we need to address a matter that the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) mentioned earlier—that is, something that the Select Committee calls local commissioning. In such a system, the decisions about the resources needed to deal with crime are made by all the agencies that have to handle crime at local level. Many of those decisions are now made locally, which is a good thing, but one crucial one is not: the decision on how much money is spent on prisons and where that money is put. That is still very much a national decision and it will remain so under the Government’s present policy.

I believe that we will achieve more in crime prevention when we have a rational allocation of resources at local level by all the organisations involved. They include the police, the courts, the magistracy and the judiciary, as well as the youth offending teams and all those in the voluntary sector who are becoming involved in these processes. Quite a lot of good practice has developed—in youth offending teams, for example—and the lessons from that need to be learned throughout the criminal justice system as a whole.

19:36

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to follow the Chairman of the Justice Committee, the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith). As a former member of his Committee, I know that he always speaks with great knowledge and is very considered in his views. I agree with much of what he has said today.

The Bill is a wasted opportunity. It makes no mention of victims, of probation, of legal aid, of women in the justice system or of ethnic minorities. The Government have missed an opportunity, especially in relation to important issues like the huge changes to criminal legal aid that the Lord Chancellor is about to announce. We await that announcement with bated breath; he has been promising the legal profession that he would make it, but we are still waiting. The Bill could have considered those huge changes to legal aid. The entire legal profession is completely against the Lord Chancellor’s views and the Government’s proposals. On 7 March, criminal solicitors and barristers will be taking a day of industrial action. I think that the solicitors are describing it as a training day, in order to get round certain issues. The Government could have used the Bill to debate those important changes properly.

I do not disagree with everything in the Bill. In fact, I agree with a lot of it—including, for example, the restrictions on the use of cautions. I have expressed my concerns and complained about the use of cautions, along with other Members on both sides of the House.

[Keith Vaz]

I should like to praise my hon. Friend. He served briefly on the Home Affairs Committee after he served on the Justice Committee—has he served on every Committee in the House?—and he asked for an inquiry into this matter and we were going to have one. I congratulate him on his long campaign to make this a subject worthy of discussion.

[Karl Turner]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for making those remarks. He rightly said that I raised the issue when I was briefly a member of his Committee, and I wrote to him formally after I had left the Committee to ask for an inquiry, which he kindly agreed to have. This issue has been a problem for a relatively long time. Government Members said that it has become a particular problem since 2007, and that is probably right, but in my experience, from my constituency, it has increased dramatically since 2010. That is a point of debate and hon. Members may wish to disagree with me on it, but I am glad that the Government have finally accepted that this is a definite issue and that they are going to deal with cautions for indictable-only offences and for repeat offenders.

I have some concerns about single magistrates sitting for summary only, non-imprisonable offences. If someone pleads guilty by post for a road traffic offence, I have no problem with their being dealt with by a single magistrate. However, the Bill does not state that this approach will be confined just to road traffic offences, and I have concerns about that. Justice must be done and be seen to be done, and this approach also completely undermines the notion of collective decision making.

Let me now deal with the sentencing provisions. I was a criminal law practitioner before I was elected to this House, and I am on record as saying that I was never a fan of indeterminate sentences for public protection. However, the provisions in the Bill are undoubtedly a knee-jerk reaction by this Lord Chancellor to the fact that his extended sentences in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 simply have not worked—the Government are reacting to that.

I do not wish to speak for too long on my next issue, as other Members have made the point well, but part 4 of the Bill is of particular concern to me because it seems to undermine the possibility of challenging Executive decisions in a judicial review. The Lord Chancellor is on the record, commenting to his favourite newspaper, the Daily Mail, describing judicial review as

“a promotional tool for countless Left-wing campaigners”.

With respect, that type of comment could be made only by this Lord Chancellor, who simply does not appreciate the importance of the rule of law.

[Kate Green]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Lord Chancellor is completely missing the point, as the majority of judicial review cases involve individuals—disabled people, people with learning difficulties, children and other vulnerable people—who are having to challenge inappropriate state decisions, in a situation where there is huge inequality of bargaining power? Portraying judicial review as being about campaign groups prosecuting an agenda is simply a misrepresentation of what it is predominantly about.

[Karl Turner]

My hon. Friend made the point better than I was about to and has hit the nail entirely on the head. This measure is populist stuff; it is the Lord Chancellor trying to be popular. Judicial review is not the only thing he attacks—he attacks human rights. As a lawyer, I find it frustrating to listen to him when he debates in this House because he seems not to understand the relationship between the European convention on human rights and the Human Rights Act 1998: he confuses the two. He is attacking the system. He has attacked human rights, judicial review, legal aid and no win, no fee arrangements. He has attacked any opportunity for people to challenge the Government or organisations the Lord Chancellor seems not to be terribly impressed by.

My main concern is clause 50, which seeks to change the threshold for bringing judicial review. People who bring reviews often have legitimate claims; these reviews are not some spurious attempt to challenge the Government, and these people often have lawyers advising them. Solicitors and members of the Bar will discuss the possibility of success in these cases and will give advice. I respectfully submit that judges do not just let spurious cases go through, so I think the Lord Chancellor could do with a lesson in the entire system.

I know that other Members wish to speak, Madam Deputy Speaker, so I will leave it there.

19:46

[Simon Reevell (Dewsbury) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner). I declare an interest, in that I still practise at the Bar, so to a certain extent I comment on this Bill as someone who may have to make its provisions actually work. In that context, I think the Bill contains some very positive measures, especially on sentencing and cautions.

I had not appreciated that the entire Labour party was against the policy of cautioning that it introduced or that one consequence of the general election of 2010 was that the use of cautioning suddenly escalated. I had understood that this policy was introduced and promoted by the previous Government, and that it has been absolutely corrosive to the criminal justice system. It has undermined the public’s confidence in the police, who are perceived to use cautioning as an easy solution; and it has caused problems in the criminal justice system, where co-accused are separated, with one being cautioned and the other being prosecuted. I am glad that this Government are doing what they can to start to turn around that ship, but let us not forget who launched it and pushed it on its course.

[Karl Turner]

The hon. Gentleman speaks on these issues with real knowledge as a member of the Bar—he is a member of my old circuit, so I know him well. Does he not accept that when budgets are constrained and the police have had something like a 30% cut to their budget, there is a temptation for them just to go for a caution without a referral to the Crown Prosecution Service for advice on charging? Is that not possible?

[Simon Reevell]

My recollection is that the hon. Gentleman was a member of my circuit, but I will have a think about that. Cautioning has been utterly corrosive, and even when people have been prosecuted the sentencing procedures that have been put in place have been difficult for lawyers, and impossible for non-lawyers, to understand. The point has been well made that the idea of someone serving no more than half a sentence is difficult for people to take on board, but when somebody reappears after a few days or a few weeks the public simply cannot comprehend it. A good start is linking the release of serious offenders to the scrutiny of the Parole Board. It is an important link and I am glad that it is being reintroduced. I say “reintroduced” because it worked very well in the 1990s, but since then we have had indeterminate sentences for public protection, and judging by some of the comments today it is clear that the party that introduced them still does not understand the problems they caused.

The Bill has the advantage of introducing a system that imposes a period of imprisonment that will be served unless, after a substantial time, the Parole Board approves early release. The Bill retains the incentive for the prisoner and provides a valuable safeguard for the rest of us—that is a good piece of legislation. What a pity that we had to have those years of messing around with alternatives before going back to something that worked well in the 1990s.

When someone is released, is it wrong to use technology to monitor them? I understand that some people will be uncomfortable with the idea of tracking humans with a global positioning system, but is it any different from putting a tag on someone and using different technology to monitor whether or not they enter or leave a building? Surely when people are precluded by court order from going to certain locations, there is nothing wrong in monitoring that with technology. There is always a line with technology that we should not cross, but this Bill falls far short of it.

If someone on licence breaches the terms of that licence and will do so again, why should they not have to serve the remainder of their sentence? Most people probably assume that that is what happens anyway, and would be surprised to learn that the system provided for anything else. People have the licence terms explained to them: if they breach the licence and it looks as though they will do it again, they should serve their sentence, and there cannot be anything wrong with that.

One aspect of the Bill that has received media attention relates to proceedings for judicial review. Is it really controversial that those who wish to be involved in someone else’s case may have to pay towards the cost of those proceedings? Those who appear as interveners are free to provide their assistance, knowledge and experience to any party in any case, but if they want to appear themselves, why should it be assumed that one of the parties will automatically pick up their costs or that they will have no responsibility for the costs that they incur on behalf of others? They are free to pass on their expertise and knowledge, but if they want to take part in the litigation, some responsibility may come with that.

[Kate Green]

The hon. Gentleman’s point sounds reasonable, but the reality is that one of the parties is the state, with all the resources and the power that the state can bring to bear, and the other parties are simply not in the same position. They are trying to challenge an exercise of state power in a situation where there is a gross inequality of bargaining power. At times, that means that positions and points that are important for public policy will not otherwise be considered. That would be a price worth paying if it actually meant that public policy was improved.

[Simon Reevell]

I do not disagree, and that is why the Bill provides for circumstances in which that can happen. However, in a large number of cases, expertise can be provided without intervention and representation being needed. As an aside, organisations that oppose this measure and that frequently appear as interveners should make it clear in their lobbying that they stand to be affected by the changes that they oppose.

The leapfrogging provisions of judicial review are not controversial and are a good idea. Only last week, the Supreme Court exerted its authority. As confidence grows that it will be, as it should be, the final court in this jurisdiction and that that is where issues will ultimately be determined, why incur cost and delay calling in at the Court of Appeal if a matter will automatically be referred to the Supreme Court?

Is it really controversial to suggest that a case that offers the prospect of nothing more than a pyrrhic victory should not take up days of court time? I find the opposition to clause 50 surprising. It seems to come from the left, yet the argument that has been advanced recently in the High Court, especially in relation to ballots by trade unions on industrial activity, is that if we have thousands of members and we only have the addresses wrong for half a dozen or so, why should we rerun the ballot when it will not affect the outcome? Is that not precisely the sort of point that should be dealt with at a preliminary hearing? If it is quite clear that there was no mischief in the error and that changing the error would not affect the outcome, is there any need for full judicial review proceedings? Something that is argued on behalf of the trade unions as perfectly sensible in the High Court seems, when it appears in a Government Bill, to be worthy only of criticism from the Opposition Benches.

For all the focus on judicial review, I agree with the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) and others that the clause on which people should reflect concerns the magistrates court, which deals with 95% of all criminal cases. Clause 50 creates a system for trial, not for guilty plea, so the idea of guilty plea by post is not what the clause is about. It creates a system for trial, the determination of proceedings that are not admitted. These proceedings could involve criminal damage, assault and public order. They are not matters that will attract sentences of custody, but they could have implications that affect people’s livelihoods. They could be determined behind closed doors, and in a process that involves nobody who has any legal qualification whatever. It could be a single lay magistrate in a private room with papers provided by a police officer. I hope the Government will reflect on that.

One solution is to have at least two if not three magistrates. Another is to say that if it is a single justice, they should be a district judge. The idea that a file can be submitted, that there is no intervention from a prosecutor and that a lay justice in private can decide whether someone has committed a criminal offence is quite a significant step. It may well be that some of these people have not bothered to reply or that some know they are guilty, but there is some significance to that step and it is something on which we should reflect.

The Bill also makes provision in relation to wasted cost. I will tease the Minister a little by reminding him that there is one party to criminal proceedings that often causes trials to be adjourned owing to lack of court time or lack of jurors, and there are no cost implications for them, and that is of course the Court Service.

It is impossible to speak in a debate on criminal justice and courts without making mention of the current problems over proposals regarding remuneration. My recollection is that it was the previous Labour Government who first saw industrial action by the Bar. It was in relation to remuneration for very high cost cases and proceeds of crime cases some six or seven years ago. My view now is the same as it was then. I know as well as anyone the talents and strengths of those who practise at the independent Bar, but there must be a balance between those who practise in the courts and those whom the courts are there to serve. Pursuit of remuneration should never tip the balance away from timely remedy for those seeking justice, whether it is because they are complainants or victims or because they are awaiting trial.

Finally, those who would never reverse these proposals if ever the opportunity arose should be slow in hinting that they might.

19:57

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Simon Reevell), who brings a great deal of expertise in this area. He and the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) made a number of pertinent points about the administrative proposals for judicial process that are introduced by this Bill. They raised their concerns over the idea of single justices dealing with some of these administrative processes. As someone who was once a magistrates legal adviser and read out some of the mitigation statements and dealt with some of the TV licence courts for hours on end, I can say that having a single justice can be very effective. A single justice is capable right now of making a bail decision on someone charged with a very serious offence such as murder. A single justice of the peace can decide on that. They can adjourn matters and send them to the Crown court. I am not aware of that causing any particular difficulties. The proposal that we have a single justice looking at these measures is far less of a power than some of the powers that they currently have. I hope that some of the fears that have been raised today can be allayed with that information.

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate. The Bill covers a wide range of areas—I will concentrate on just a few of them—because it has always been necessary for the criminal law to keep up with society and evolve to meet the modern challenges and changes in behaviour that we all see. The Bill will help to ensure that that continues. For example, it will use developments in modern technology to track offenders more accurately and therefore far more reliably.

It must be a welcome development to ensure that offenders contribute more to the cost of their cases when they are convicted of a criminal offence. That just makes plain sense. We have always had a system of cost payments on conviction, with the legal test that those cost awards should be just and reasonable. These measures, however, take that situation further by matching the total cost incurred by the taxpayer. A crucial aspect of the Bill is the awarding of costs to be picked up by the wrongdoer. In other words, the Bill will ensure that the polluter pays and that the polluter pays for all his pollution. I have long felt that we have had something of an anomaly in the system, where the costs created by an offender and incurred by the victim can be reimbursed, quite rightly, and the costs incurred by the prosecution can also be reimbursed, quite rightly, but the costs incurred by the court cannot. That places expense on the taxpayer that has been incurred owing to the offender’s actions or inactions, yet nothing has ever been done to tackle this anomaly. Therefore, I am pleased that this situation will be rectified.

I am also pleased that the Bill seeks to formalise the cautions system. Cautions can be effective when used in appropriate cases, but they must command public support. That support can be lacking if people feel that offenders are receiving cautions for offences that are too serious or for repeat offending. Clearly, if a first caution has not prevented reoffending, there is little hope that a second caution will achieve that objective. There will always be exceptional circumstances where they should apply, but the Bill correctly recognises that situation. Generally, we should not allow cautions to be given where the public would see that as a betrayal of justice and basic fair play.

Successive Governments have sought to try to tackle reoffending rates. This Government have sought to do so by assisting short-term prisoners. Previous Governments have tried to work out other ways to reduce reoffending rates. To the credit of cautions, when they are given at their best, they have the most successful rates of tacking reoffending. Reoffending rates are lowest when cautions are given in appropriate cases. The criminal justice system should ensure that they are given only for minor, isolated offending.

The same concerns that people have about cautions are also held about penalty notices for disorder—or the so-called fixed penalty notices—that are issued at the police station. If they are given in inappropriate cases, people also rightly feel let down. It is therefore essential that the issuing of PNDs is not used to get around the intentions of the Bill. If it is inappropriate to give a caution—for example, owing to the serious nature of the offence that the police are dealing with—it should also be inappropriate to give a fixed penalty notice, and that person should be put before a court instead of being given a PND.

I have alluded to 2007 because that was the year when we saw the highest number of not just PNDs but cautions given at a police station. I saw back in that year that, in my constituency, repeat shoplifters were given PNDs again and again, when that was clearly as inappropriate as giving cautions again and again. If an out-of-court disposal has shown itself to be ineffective, we need to have court actions.

The Bill effectively places into legislation the guidance that is already given to the police on the issuing of cautions. It does not, however, include the necessity to consult the victim wherever, as the current guideline stipulates, it is appropriate and possible. I hope therefore that the Minister will agree that the victim’s views will continue to be an important factor when the police or the Director of Public Prosecutions decides to offer a caution, so that the victim’s views are canvassed before that caution is administered at the police station.

I also welcome the moves to place education at the heart of the youth offending process. Youth offender institutions have the ability to show children and young adults in their establishments what can be achieved through education. Giving young people the confidence that can come with education is vital if we are to maximise the potential to reduce reoffending. It gives young offenders the confidence that they very often lack. These measures have been criticised, but secure colleges simply make common sense. It must be right to educate young people when they are in prison, to help to tackle the very high reoffending rates that we are seeing among those inmates when they leave young offenders institutions. The programme of secure colleges will take time to roll out, but they can complement, not simply replace, the efforts that are in place to challenge offending behaviour.

In conclusion, I would simply say that there are clearly measures in the Bill that we can all welcome. Despite what we have heard, it is some time since we have seen a criminal justice Bill taken through the House. The Bill will help to bring up to date some of the laws that were falling behind and close the gaps that offenders have taken advantage of, so I hope that it will be unopposed today and that it will go through to the next stage of proceedings.

20:06

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I doubt whether the Bill will be opposed today, but I hope that there will be time to consider amendments that might improve it at a later stage. I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker, for coming so late to the debate. I heard the opening speeches and then had to chair a meeting elsewhere, but I will be brief.

I want to make three simple points. With regard to secure colleges, sometimes if we stand still long enough, things come round again. They will smack very much of the old approved schools if we are not careful. The proposed £85 million project seems to involve a 320-bed institution. All the evidence in recent years has demonstrated that tackling young offenders and rehabilitating youngsters to ensure that they do not offend in the future is better done in smaller units, rather than large ones. That is why we moved away from the old approved schools, so that more intensive work could be done with young offenders and young potential offenders in smaller units. The proposal flies in the face of all that evidence and seems to take us back, rather than forward. However, if the Government are to experiment in this way, it is important that at least some provision remains in smaller units, particularly for those young people who are vulnerable. We have had briefings from the Children’s Rights Alliance and others, and they have interpreted the Government’s commitment to maintain small secure children’s homes as somewhat ambiguous. It would be useful to hear from the Minister tonight about what the future is for small secure children’s homes under the proposed new structure. The vulnerable youngsters who are cared for in those units would be lost within the bigger establishments proposed by the Government today. There would be anxiety if we were to lose that element of specialism in the system in the future.

The second issue relates to the proposal for magistrates to sit alone when taking decisions. I read the Magistrates Association briefing, and I share some of its concerns that there is a need to ensure that justice is seen to be done. Removing cases from the courts into a side room in a police station or elsewhere with a magistrate sitting solely with a clerk may not be as open and transparent as in the past. I would welcome hearing the Government’s view on the magistrates’ recommendation about at least ensuring that lists of cases are published. Perhaps that should be incorporated into the Bill, so that we can give the assurance that openness and transparency will continue for two reasons: first, it is important that people know that justice is being done and that it is visible; and secondly, some people want to know that the perpetrators have been prosecuted appropriately and have received the appropriate sentences. Therefore, listing cases would at least maintain an element of openness and transparency in the system. I hope that the Government can take on board the Magistrates Association recommendation and build it into the Bill.

The third issue, which I am anxious about, is judicial review. In my own experience, judicial review has largely been used by an individual or small organisation to challenge decisions by state bodies; in my own area, those have largely been decisions made by local councils. At the moment, judicial review is incredibly hard to undertake, largely because of the costs involved. It takes about £10,000 to £15,000 just to get into court in any form to have a judicial review heard, which is beyond the means of most individual and many organisations, but at least there is the opportunity to challenge a decision.

In my area, a judicial review took place recently when the local authority closed down special needs centres, or undertook the exercise of closing them down. That decision was challenged by the parents of the centres’ clients. They won at judicial review, forcing the local authority to reconsider its decision and to consult properly. That is the appropriate mechanism for judicial review. The Government’s current proposals will bear heavily on those individuals or organisations that are challenging decisions by bodies such as local councils.

I refer back to the debates that we had during the passage of the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014, when evidence was brought forward by Transparency International about the problems with local government decision making: its closed nature and the use of commercial interests to drive decisions into part 2 of the cabinet decision-making processes. In other words, it revealed the secretive nature of decision making by some local authorities. Again, judicial review becomes the last resort for many organisations and individuals—certainly in my community—to try to get some form of appropriate and reasonable decision making, or at least some form of supervision of that decision making by the courts themselves.

I fear that these proposals will restrict the opportunity of the most vulnerable in our society to hold the powerful to account. I welcome the Government’s reassurances that there will perhaps be an opportunity to consider some amendments to the current proposals, which would allow the current process to be maintained and improved.

The Government have included a commitment to cost orders within the process itself. I agree that we should try to ensure a limit on costs overall. The problem is that the cost orders come too late in the process, The decision-making process will be more at the permissive stage, so a lot more work will be required of representatives before a cost order can even be applied for, which would provide protection from the heavy burden of costs during the process.

I would like the Government to look again at where the cost orders can be implemented. Under the Government’s proposals, just to get to the permissive stage an individual will either have to fund a considerable amount of work or it will have to be done at risk by an individual lawyer, before there is even a discussion about the cost order and cost-sharing.

This is largely about individuals fighting institutions that are well-resourced. Again, I will give an example from my own area. Many times, individual councillors have been protected by the council’s insurance against any legal action that is taken about their own decision making. So the individual is at risk, but the individual councillor or the council body is protected, bizarrely using—most probably—part of that individual’s council tax payment to enable that protection to be given. The problem in these proposals is that the cost burden, or the cost deterrent, will fall more greatly on the individuals concerned. I would welcome the Government considering, perhaps during the progress of this Bill, a more effective way of ensuring that the cost burden is limited—overall, of course, but also as it falls on the individual concerned.

The issue of interveners was referred to earlier. Every time I have been involved in a judicial review process in my area, interveners have played an invaluable role in bringing their expertise to the table and to the discussions within court itself. I would be wary of restricting the ability of specialist organisations to intervene in a particular case. I could give example after example of what is happening with my own local authority not only of individual housing cases but of individual health cases, where interveners have helped by bringing their health expertise to a case, because it then merits a wider debate about a particular aspect of that case that has a wider public interest.

I am glad that the environmental issues have been separated from this process—largely as a result of European conventions, I see—because in my own area judicial review has been one of the mechanisms by which we have at least been able to seek to protect ourselves against adverse planning decisions that have had an environmental impact on my community. That may well be an issue that we will want to come back to when we debate the proposals for a third runway at Heathrow, because we will be looking for a judicial review of the Government’s decisions at every possible opportunity if they wish to proceed with those proposals. Therefore, it is good that environmental matters are excluded from the heavy burden of costs, as far as I can see.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

indicated dissent.

[John McDonnell]

I see that my hon. Friend on the Front Bench is shaking his head. I am happy for him to correct me on that matter.

[Mr Slaughter]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his excellent speech. However, I think that some matters under the Aarhus convention are protected but other environmental matters may well not be.

[John McDonnell]

I see. Again, we may well table amendments to broaden that protection, because we will rely on judicial review powers to challenge Government decisions—we will certainly do so in the case of the third runway at Heathrow and we might do so in the case of High Speed 2 as well—if we feel that the Government have not acted appropriately or reasonably in their decision-making process.

Having made those three points, I will finish. They are about critical issues that the Government need to address. There is no opposition to the overall legislation tonight, but I hope that there will be opportunities in this process for the Government to consider amendments to improve the legislation, so that certain rights can be protected, particularly those of the individual taking on the powerful within our society.

20:10

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I am in a slightly unusual position this evening, in that I rise to support the Government on this Bill. It is a particular pleasure to be able to support them on matters relating to criminal justice and courts, because that was not always the case when my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Justice’s predecessor, the Minister without Portfolio, was in place.

I start by congratulating my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on reversing the trend that we saw under his predecessor, which seemed to go against every Conservative principle on law and order. He was trying to send as few criminals to prison as possible, culminating —as the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) made clear in his remarks, with which I agreed—in his treatment of indeterminate sentences for public protection. That was the particular low point of this Government in criminal justice matters. I suspect that, as the right hon. Gentleman hinted at in his speech, if the current Secretary of State had been in place all the way through this Government, indeterminate sentences would still be in place. I do not think that he would ever have got rid of them, and some of the measures in this Bill are trying to undo the damage that was done by getting rid of those sentences in the first place. I am delighted that he has had the courage to revisit some of the issues that his predecessor failed on.

I say that I support the Government, and I do; I support this Bill wholeheartedly. However, as we have heard from other speakers, when we have legislation as extensive as this Bill—it is quite a wide-ranging piece of legislation—there will always be areas where one thinks the Government could have gone further, areas where there are missed opportunities and areas where one might have a few reservations. I am no different from other hon. Members in all those respects. I hope not to take too long, but I will go through a few of the areas where I particularly support the Government, where there have been missed opportunities, and where I have reservations, many of which I hope can be dealt with in Committee or on Report, so that in the end we have a much better Bill.

On clauses 1 to 3, anything that toughens up sentencing for criminals, particularly dangerous criminals, will always have my full support, so I am very pleased that the maximum sentence for certain dangerous offences is being increased to life imprisonment. Terrorists are a great threat to our national security, and measures to prevent them from carrying out their terrible crimes certainly have my full support.

With regard to clauses 24 to 28, I see no real problems with single magistrates dealing with very simple matters that do not require a bench of three to deliberate over. Should anyone object to the measure, I note the safeguards that are in place. I am pleased that single magistrates will deal only with straightforward and minor offences, such as television licence evasion. That should not be a criminal offence anyway, because a licence should not be forced on people; paying for a subscription should be a matter of personal choice, but that is a debate for a different day. Single magistrates will also deal with things like road tax evasion cases.

[Dr Huppert]

The hon. Gentleman talks about road tax evasion; he is presumably aware that road tax was scrapped in the 1930s.

[Philip Davies]

I am not entirely sure what the hon. Gentleman is on about, but people do evade their road tax.

[Dr Huppert]

No, they do not.

[Robert Neill]

Their vehicle excise duty.

[Philip Davies]

Their vehicle excise duty. I am afraid that the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) has reinforced his reputation for concentrating on the things that are not important, and not concentrating on the things that are.

[Dr Huppert]

rose—

[Philip Davies]

I certainly will not give way to the hon. Gentleman again. We have wasted enough time on his nonsense; we will not waste any more on it. I have learned a lesson tonight: not to give way to him. Many people learned that lesson a long time ago, but in my naivety I had yet to learn it. I have learned it now.

I was making a point about single magistrates. The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) expressed a reservation about the provision being extended to cover more than just the most basic and simple crimes. I share that concern. A system of single magistrates will never be appropriate for cases such as shoplifting, because magistrates have very different ideas about what should happen to offenders, particularly persistent offenders, in those types of cases. I hope that the power will not be extended. I sometimes worry that when a power is granted, it will be the thin end of the wedge and the power will be rapidly extended to other areas. I hope that will not be the case for this power. It will be introduced for very basic offences, and I hope it will stop there, and not be extended.

On clauses 37 to 39 and 40 to 48, I understand the concerns that have perhaps influenced the introduction of the new offences relating to jurors, especially given changes in technology. We already have the Contempt of Court Act 1981, so I am not entirely sure how necessary some of the measures are, but they may well be necessary.

I note the reasons given for increasing the maximum age of jurors from 70 to 75. I could not agree more with the rationale for that change, but I am tempted to table an amendment—my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier) mentioned this—to extend the change to magistrates and judges. I cannot see any difference between a juror of that age being able to determine the guilt or innocence of somebody in a serious criminal trial, and a member of a bench of magistrates or a judge of that age passing sentence. I do not really see why a person is capable of doing one of those things between the ages of 70 and 75, but not the others.

As the Ministry of Justice helpfully explained,

“According to the latest figures published by the Office for National Statistics, the healthy life expectancy of both men and women at age 65 is at least 10 years in England and Wales.

The existing age limit for jury service, which was set in 1988, does not reflect the current health of older people. Official figures show that healthy life expectancy of 65 year olds in England and Wales has risen since 2000.

We believe the selection of jurors should reflect that fact.”

If that is the case for jurors, presumably the case is exactly the same for magistrates and judges. There would be a cost saving if we extended the measure to magistrates, as they can claim for loss of earnings when they sit, and clearly magistrates who are aged 70 to 75 are less likely to be earning, or concerned with covering their loss of earnings, than those who are younger. Magistrates would still be subject to appraisals, so their competence would not be an issue. I have raised the issue of increasing the age limit before in this place. As my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) once pointed out, it was ironic that the then Lord Chancellor, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), was past the retirement age for the magistrates of whom he was in charge. The amendment that I would like to see would rectify that anomaly.

I very much welcome the changes relating to judicial review. I hope that they mean that we will have less interference with decisions by judges who hear such cases. Parliament should set the law. Very often, as people will know, I do not particularly agree with Parliament’s decisions, but that is the price of democracy: sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose. Parliament should set the laws of the land, and judges should implement the law as it stands. I do not like—we have seen this far too often in recent years—judges thinking that they should determine the law. If judges want to decide what the law is, they should give up being judges and put themselves up for election like everybody else. If they are not prepared to do that, they should accept the will of Parliament, whether they—or I—like it or not.

On clauses 29 to 31, I certainly understand the principle in the Bill that criminals should contribute to the costs of running courts. I note that the proposed criminal courts charge means that in future, somebody could be ordered in court to pay the following financial penalties: a fine; a victim surcharge; compensation; prosecution costs; and now this extra courts charge. The victim surcharge, which is basically a tax on offenders, has been a rather unhelpful development, particularly when it applies to people who are being sent to prison for long periods of time. When it was first introduced, for most offences, it was levied in cases where there was no victim. It seems bizarre that the victim surcharge was paid by offenders solely in cases where there was no victim. If the courts charge replaced the victim surcharge, that might make more sense. I certainly agree with the principle of making offenders pay; I just have reservations about how these things tend to work in practice.

[Kate Green]

I am slightly puzzled by what the hon. Gentleman says. My understanding was that the victim surcharge was applied on a case-by-case basis—

[Philip Davies]

indicated dissent.

[Kate Green]

I advise the hon. Gentleman that when I was a magistrate sitting on the bench, we applied the surcharge, as part of our sentencing decision, with regard to individual cases. Does he agree that there should be a pecking order when it comes to how payments are applied? We should put the victim surcharge and compensation payments to particular victims ahead of recompense for the cost of the court.

[Philip Davies]

I am all for making sure that the victim is at the head of the queue when it comes to payments, but the victim surcharge was specifically targeted by the previous Government at offences in which there were no victims. That is the fact of the matter, whether the hon. Lady recalls it that way or not.

I welcome the sentiment behind the changes to release on licence. I am pleased to see any proposals that mean that more of the sentence given by the court is served by offenders. In fact, I have long argued that the sentence given by the court should be served in full by offenders, and that people should not be released early for good behaviour—they should be kept in longer for bad behaviour. At the very least, offenders should not be released automatically halfway through their sentence. That was an absolute scandal that was introduced by the previous Government. I would like to see the Bill go further to rectify that, but I appreciate the point made by the Secretary of State that even though he cannot rectify it in full, he wants to make a start in doing so, and I support him in that.

According to research carried out by Lord Ashcroft, more than 80% of the public think that sentences should be served in full. I cannot improve on the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert), who spoke earlier today. On Second Reading of the Bill that became the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, he said, as shadow Secretary of State:

“We have said that there should be a policy of honesty in sentencing. The fight against crime depends on integrity in the criminal justice system and on courts that deliver swift, effective justice, with punishments appropriate to the crime and the criminal. In the Criminal Justice Act 2003, the Government introduced automatic release on licence halfway through the sentence for all determinate sentences of longer than 12 months…If this were our Bill, we would introduce provisions to restore honesty in sentencing, in order to reassure victims and leave criminals in no doubt that justice is done.”—[Official Report, 8 October 2007; Vol. 464, c. 79.]

I think that many people went out and voted Conservative at the last general election on the basis that we would restore that honesty to sentencing. The provision is a small step in that direction, but a welcome one. I should like the Government to make clear their intention to remove early release altogether. I appreciate that coalition restraints often do not make such things possible, but I am bound to say that this does not go far enough.

I am pleased that, under clause 6 offenders could be ordered to be subject to compulsory electronic monitoring. I am a big fan of electronic monitoring, particularly monitoring that uses tracking technology, which I hope will have an effect both as a deterrent against future crime and as a means of convicting and punishing those who reoffend while on licence. Similarly, I welcome the changes to the recall of prisoners released on licence, but with some reservations, as the changes do not go nearly far enough. The fixed-term recall, in which the offender is returned to prison for breaching their licence for just 28 days—not, as most people would expect, the rest of the period of their original sentence—is a very bad law. It means not only that offenders are released early but that they are released extremely early again if they fail to abide by their licence conditions both the first time round and if they reoffend. That is outrageous, and the Government need to clamp down on it.

For life sentences, the proposed changes could be going in the right direction, but I still believe that life should mean life. I have highlighted that many times: in my view and that of most of the constituents I speak to there should be no release of a prisoner sent to prison for life. We would not have to deal with the issue of release after the recall of a life prisoner if we did not release life prisoners in first place. The issue of prisoners absconding or not returning to custody is something I have been concerned about for a while. As I mentioned earlier, anything that increases sentencing or toughens up the current position is something I shall happily support. The new offence created by the Bill and the increased penalties for the existing offence are changes that certainly have my support. I only wish we were not releasing people who went on to reoffend or breach their conditions.

Figures I obtained from parliamentary questions show the alarmingly high number of absconds and people not returned to custody after recall. The most persistent are murderers and attempted murderers. Not only my constituents but people up and down the country are asking why on earth we release so many of these murderers on licence.

Cautions were mentioned by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner), and I agree with him. For some time, I have highlighted, along with him, the use of cautions for very serious offences. I am pleased that the Bill seeks to address the issue. It is worth repeating that a caution is given only when an individual accepts responsibility for the crime—they admit that they are guilty—so their use for serious indictable offences has naturally concerned me and many others. I welcome the curbing of the use of repeat cautions, which has always seemed bizarre to me. A person is given a warning for doing something, they do it again, and instead of being sent to court to face the music, some people are given yet another warning, and yet another warning, and even another warning after that. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has said, recent Ministry of Justice figures apparently showed that 62,000 offenders given a caution in the 12 months to March 2013 had already received a caution previously. The figures also showed that 8,800 criminals who were handed a caution last year had accepted at least one caution for the same offence previously. Perhaps more staggering is the fact that an offender in Northumbria had been given cautions on 50 occasions, and over 50% of persistent offenders do not receive immediate custody. This is an absolute scandal and makes a mockery of the criminal justice system, so I welcome these changes.

I will not detain the House on the issue of young offenders, but I would like some clarification that the proposals will apply equally to boys as well as girls. I would not want to support any proposal that treats them differently, particularly when they have committed the same offence.

I will certainly be tabling an amendment to extend the time limit for an appeal by the Attorney-General against an unduly lenient sentence. I am concerned that the strict 28-day deadline has been, and could be in future, missed in some serious cases. Victims and the public in general need to have confidence in the judicial system, and in the case of an unduly lenient sentence, if the deadline is missed simply because the victim was not made aware of it in time and so did not ask for it to be referred, that confidence could be undermined. I understand the desire to have these things treated quickly, so I would not be looking for an extremely lengthy extension of time. I pay tribute to Jean Taylor and the campaign group Families Fighting for Justice, who have done a lot of work campaigning on this issue. I hope that the Government will be responsive to an extension, perhaps to 90 days, for the most serious offence where people are in custody for a long time, but perhaps not long enough given the seriousness of the offence. I hope that the Government will look favourably upon such an amendment.

I would also like the Bill to end the ludicrous position where time spent on a tagged curfew is credited as if it was time spent on remand in prison. In 2008, on the subject of allowing a curfew whilst on bail to count as credit towards a prison sentence, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier), speaking as the shadow Minister said:

“If someone has committed an offence that crosses the custody threshold—an offence that is serious enough to warrant a custodial sentence—it will cause a great deal of scepticism, undermine public confidence in the justice system and make the Government look increasingly ridiculous if the court is then required to say, ‘By the way, all the time that you have spent at home in bed is time that can be taken away from your custodial sentence.’”—[Official Report, 9 January 2008; Vol. 470, c. 369.]

I agreed with his comments then and I still agree with them now. He was absolutely right to say that when the last Government introduced this ridiculous rule. I hope that the Government, even if they will not do it in this Bill, will seek the earliest opportunity to scrap that ridiculous state of affairs.

I would also like to have seen magistrates allowed to sentence people to prison for up to 12 months for one offence, instead of the current six-month limit. The Conservative party was committed to that at the last election and it is something that I certainly still support. Magistrates have the power to sentence offenders to prison for 12 months for two or more either-way offences and nobody seems concerned about that. There is a possibility that this measure may also cut the cost of our judicial system by allowing more cases to be dealt with in the cheaper magistrates courts compared with the more expensive Crown courts.

I would also like to see consideration given in the Bill to making judges accountable for their decisions, particularly where they do not hand down custodial sentences that would be perfectly justifiable and possibly even expected, and where the offender then goes on to re-offend. I do not think I need to say now what the consequences of the collection of this information should be, but it should be quite clear to many that there should be consequences for a judge who consistently allows offenders to avoid prison, if those offenders go on to make others suffer as a result of their continuing crime sprees. At the very least there should be some assessment of their ability to perform their role.

I talked about boy and girl offenders earlier and I would also like to place on record my continued interest in seeing male and female offenders treated in the same way, particularly when they are convicted of the same offences. That should apply not just for sentencing purposes but for all aspects of the criminal justice system. I am pleased that it is becoming increasingly accepted that women are treated far more leniently than men in the criminal justice system, and that needs to be addressed.

I would like the Bill to have included the principle of a sentencing escalator. The principle was proposed in a private Member’s Bill introduced by my hon. Friends the Members for Kettering and for Bury North (Mr Nuttall). It is extremely popular with the public. Thanks to polling carried out by Lord Ashcroft, we know that it has the support of at least 67% of the British public. The British public clearly think, as I do, that if someone commits an offence and then does it again, the punishment on the second occasion should be more severe than the punishment on the first, and that the punishment on a third occasion should be more severe than the punishment on the second. I would like the Government to make progress on that.

Despite those omissions, on which I would like to see the Government make progress, either in this Bill or in future, the Bill can still be seen as a substantial step forward for the criminal justice system in this country, and the Government and the Secretary of State should be commended for that. Even when the Bill reaches the statute book—hopefully with some of the amendments I propose—I will still be here on the Back Benches urging the Government to go much further.

20:41

[Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak in this important debate on our criminal justice system. It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), who made an excellent speech.

Although the figures on overall recorded crime over the past few years have been encouraging, it is clear to me and to many of my constituents that the deterrent for a number of crimes still needs to be increased so that the courts can be tougher in a variety of cases. As a result of high-profile cases in the media, as well as the terrorist threat facing London and other parts of the UK, there seems to be a perception that crime is increasing, despite what the statistics show. Members of the public need to be reassured that the courts system is keeping pace with the challenges it faces, and I believe that the many sensible measures in the Bill go some way towards achieving that.

My constituency was in the news not so long ago because of a fugitive. Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed sliced off his security tag and vanished from Acton’s An-Noor centre dressed in a burqa, spreading considerable concern throughout the community. We welcome the measures in the Bill designed to clamp down on being unlawfully at large.

I also very much welcome the introduction of life sentences for terror-related offences, including training and manufacturing weapons for terrorist activity. Although very serious in themselves, those offences are also a factor in the wider problem of radicalisation of young British citizens, which threatens the peaceful future of some of our communities. That dangerous manipulation of vulnerable young minds must be addressed with the toughest of sanctions. The case of Abu Hamza, a long-standing resident in my constituency, aroused considerable concern that the law as it stood was ineffective in dealing with someone who was proud to boast about his support for terrorist activity or with his dangerous proselytising outside the Finsbury Park mosque.

It is vital that those fears are addressed. I believe that the widening of the enhanced dangerous offenders sentencing scheme will help achieve that. The sanction of a life sentence must be available to the courts when dealing with those convicted of terrorist offences. I understand that mandatory life sentences for those convicted of a second terrorist offence and the end of automatic parole for terrorism offences would affect as many as 30 people a year.

The issues of sentencing for certain serious crimes and the use of cautions are well covered in the proposed legislation. For too long criminals have operated in the knowledge that custodial sentences are often half what the term suggests, in many cases automatically so. I am pleased that under the proposed changes those guilty of terror offences and certain sexual offences will no longer be automatically up for parole. It is quite right that no one serving an extended determinate sentence should be released without going before a parole board.

The use of police cautions for repeat offenders has resulted in serial offenders regularly escaping jail sentences and has left many of my constituents asking whether the law of the land has any serious role to play in certain crimes. Figures published by the Centre for Crime Prevention last year show that over a five-year period the number of offenders with at least 10 or more previous cautions and subsequent convictions rose by a quarter to 140,000, which suggests that cautions offer very little deterrent, especially to the hardened repeat offender. I am also caused to wonder how much police time and resource is wasted in having to issue cautions time after time to the same people. Given that cautions are intended to represent a warning for relatively minor offences, it is appropriate that they will no longer be used in cases such as rape, possession of an offensive weapon, or sexual offences against children. In fact, it seems extraordinary that such crimes could ever be treated so leniently.

While welcoming the tougher sentences, I also support the idea that some straightforward criminal justice processes need to be streamlined. It is hard to see why a bench of three magistrates is needed to make decisions on charges such as evasion of a television licence or road tax. While not trivialising such offences, the focus of magistrates’ expertise must surely be on more contentious issues. The imposition of financial charges on those convicted in the criminal courts will not only relieve the burden on the taxpayer but provide an additional deterrent. I welcome the sense of fairness that such a charge would engender, which is important for the justice system. The Government must continue to be on the side of those who stick to the rules.

I support the proposed legislation to deal with juror conduct in the internet age. While there may be an absence of malicious intent, jurors need to be very clear that researching cases in which they are involved or disclosing jury deliberations by electronic means are grave offences that could prejudice fair justice. Guidelines on this have suffered accusations of inconsistency, and the courts need a clear message. The provisions outlined in the Bill do a great deal better to equip the courts to deal with the modern challenges they face.

It has surely always been true that there is an implicit deal between those who administer and deliver justice and everyone else—that is, “Leave it to them and they will not disappoint.” However, that deal requires trust, and any breakdown in that trust has serious consequences, as a great previous Conservative Home Secretary, now Lord Howard, well understood. At this point, I should add that I am truly delighted that our Court of Appeal has rejected attempts by the European Court of Human Rights to prohibit our judges from imposing whole life sentences on the most heinous murderers. This is a common-sense victory for our justice system and its ability to decide what is in the best interests of this country.

When crimes are brought to court, society needs to feel that justice has been fully done and seen to be done. If the system begins to fail on this count, that is when people begin to lose faith in the law. The Bill will do much to restore confidence in this regard. I would be delighted, if selected, to serve on the Bill Committee to help ensure that it emerges perhaps improved even further as it progresses to its next stage.

20:47

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

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Angie Bray), an old colleague on the London Assembly where we attempted, among other things, to scrutinise the Metropolitan Police Authority in its early days. I strongly agree with the sentiments she expressed.

I am delighted to see the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan), back in his place. With respect, his was very much a speech of two parts. When I listened to the first part, I thought, “Well, he clearly wants to stand for Mayor of London because he is doing a south London knockabout comic turn.” I was glad that he turned serious in the second part, although I do not agree with all of his analysis. I gently say this to him: keep the day job going because potential Mayors of London are now expected to be various turns, comic or otherwise, from north of the river rather than south. Leaving aside our political disagreement, I say with respect that the one thing that did trouble me—I hope it was perhaps a slip of the tongue—was his saying, as it certainly appeared to a number of Government Members, that judicial review should be capable of challenging primary legislation. I cannot believe that is what he meant to convey.

[Sadiq Khan]

indicated dissent.

[Robert Neill]

Given how the right hon. Gentleman shakes his head, I will take his word on that. I think we all accept that judicial review was not and never should be intended to challenge the will of Parliament. It does, though, have a legitimate role in relation to secondary legislation and the Executive, and I will return to that later. I am grateful that he has clarified his view on that point, which troubled me because it was surprising, if I may put it that way.

I warmly welcome the thrust of the Bill and congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on introducing it. I will not touch on all parts of the Bill, but I want to discuss some areas that remind me of my past life—although that may be a dangerous thing to talk about at too much length in this House—and professional experience, namely the 25 years or more that I spent at the criminal Bar. I am delighted with some of the changes to make sentencing more realistic. I do not take the view that sentencing must always be draconian and that all those convicted in the courts are beyond a degree of redemption. That is clearly not the case. It is important, however, that sentencing has the confidence of the public, the victims and the majority law-abiding community. It is also worth remembering that sometimes the families of offenders are themselves victims to a degree. It is very important to have confidence in sentencing, so the greater transparency proposed by the Bill with regard to the amount of time served and the consequences of bad behaviour is a valuable step forward.

The same applies to the use of cautions. I have sympathy with the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) and the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner), who is another former practising barrister and to whom I apologise because I was not present to hear his speech. It degrades the value of cautions to use them for serious offences for which any ordinary, right-thinking member of the public—in other words, to use the famous lawyer’s test, any man or woman on the Clapham omnibus—will conclude that they were never intended to be used. Cautions were intended to be used for trivial matters, so using them for more serious offences degrades their value in those areas where they have a legitimate role. I hope there will be no suggestion that there has been any pressure in terms of targets or resources. The Government have taken a step in the right direction.

A logical step on from that is recognising the importance of making best use, at all levels, of the available judicial resources. Just as it is important to use such resources to prosecute really serious crimes before the court, rather than use cautions, it is entirely sensible for the Bill to free up resources to deal with what are not regulatory, but essentially non-contentious—in so far as anything can be in the criminal justice system—matters. Many of us with experience of the criminal Bar will have been instructed as young, junior advocates on behalf of the prosecution—no doubt happily for us and our fortunately moderate bank balances—to read through and prove a whole list of traffic offences, even in instances of non-appearance. The empty courtroom could have been used for other cases, but time and again we would read out section 9 statements and produce various certificates of conviction that the traffic lights were working properly and heaven knows what, just to prove a case that nobody was arguing about. Removing that anomaly is an important, valuable and major step forward. I will not repeat the point that there are sensible safeguards built into the system for those who want to argue their case.

By way of digression, once upon a time there was—I think there still is—an offence of failing to provide a statutory statement of ownership. In those days, my earnings at the Bar were greatly boosted by being standing counsel to Croydon council and invariably turning up to prosecute such matters without anyone turning up to contest them. That is an extreme example, because sometimes cases got appealed and nobody turned up at the Crown court to prosecute the appeal either. Removing that sort of nonsense from the system has to be in everybody’s interest.

Ensuring that there is an open and publicly accessible record of the system is sensible, because it means that we need not clog up a fully equipped courtroom with witness facilities and other valuable resources that could be used for a contested hearing. It could be done in an anteroom and the press could be provided with access to the results. That is an entirely sensible and proportionate response, for which the Government are to be commended.

A number of the other changes are very useful and sensible. I will not go into the details, but I welcome the changes in relation to rape. Pornographic depiction of rape does seem an obvious matter to deal with—Rape Crisis South London in my constituency has done a lot of work on it—and I am glad that that has been recognised. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton would agree with me that there may still be gaps in the adequacy of sentencing for other sexual offences, particularly in relation to videos and DVDs of various kinds—we might be able to look at that in due course—but the change is a valuable step forward that we should all welcome.

I am pleased about the arrangements for costs. I was very often instructed to apply for costs against a convicted defendant. That was fine as far as it went—effectively, only the prosecution costs could be awarded, and whatever legal aid contribution was made—but it is legitimate to go further. After all, we are talking about only those who have been convicted. It is currently regarded as a legitimate and proper means of sentencing to give a discount for a guilty plea to reflect, first, remorse; secondly, the potential avoidance of trauma for witnesses; and thirdly, the saving to court time. Those are all legitimate factors, and if we regard the saving of court time as a legitimate factor in the equation for a penalty in the broadest sense, it is not unreasonable to calculate costs more realistically in terms of the totality of court time, rather than just of prosecution costs or an amount towards legal aid. The very sensible change will add to the transparency of the arrangements being put in place.

The change in relation to jurors is valuable. I am particularly pleased about that because my constituent Mr Graham Pound from Bromley specifically raised that matter with me. I received a very sympathetic response from the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, who was of course not able to indicate exactly what he had in mind, but I know that Mr Pound is delighted with the outcome, which reflects reality. Although I accept that there are differences, I have a measure of sympathy with the suggestion that we might go further. My only query with the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley is that there is a difference between the burden of jury service that we expect someone to undertake, which is generally for a comparatively limited period, and the burden of being a busy member of the bench in a busy magistrates court or of sitting full time as a circuit judge.

In relation to the judiciary—I suspect that such matters could be dealt with by regulation—there might be an advantage in bringing back some recently retired senior circuit judges to sit in the Court of Appeal, as they perhaps did before they retired, while sparing them the burden of presiding over their home courts as resident judges. That might be a very modest first step in maintaining a degree of judicial independence, particularly in the criminal system, because by no means all High Court judges will have the degree of experience of criminal cases at first instance and of regularly sentencing heavy crime that those recently retired circuit judges have. I commend that thought to the Minister as a means of building on the welcome proposals about juries.

I also welcome the changes on the whole question of judicial review. A different part of my experience kicks in on that—as a local councillor and a Minister. I accept the proposition made by the shadow Secretary of State and other Opposition Members that there is a role for judicial review, which can have the salutary effect of concentrating the mind of decision makers and those who advise them. After all, it is not proposed to abolish judicial review, but, equally, it must be approached with a degree of proportion. One difficulty has been a lack of balance and proportion in its use. That is a shame, because there is a risk that a valuable tool, which can be a safeguard for individuals, may become discredited by overuse and exploitation by individuals or groups for what are often seen as partisan, if not party political, means or entirely self-serving ones. The Bill rightly seeks to rectify that.

I am perhaps even older than my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), who talked about being a young Bar student in the ’80s and learning about administrative law. When I did my law exams in the 1970s, judicial review was a very recent concept. It was coming back into existence, thanks largely to Lord Denning. Nowadays, we do not consider him to have been a judge with the most liberal of sentiments, but he was seen as rather radical in those days.

Until the late ’60s and early ’70s, there was virtually no administrative law in this country. It is therefore slightly over-egging the case for judicial review to say, as even some distinguished judges do, that it has been an inherent part of our system since Magna Carta. That is not correct. It has grown up from a root that was in the common law. Through the various prerogative orders, such as mandamus and certiorari, it was constructed by judges into a judicial tool as society and government action became more complex in the ’50s and ’60s. It is a fairly recent feature of our system and it fulfils a valuable role.

Judicial review came into existence because the system needed to be flexible. Perhaps Members will remember Lord Denning telling a former Labour Attorney-General,

“Be you never so high, the law is above you.”

That was in reference to a Labour Government behaving in a peremptory fashion. If the system needed to be flexible at that time, it is equally reasonable to say now, when the industry that has grown up around judicial review has become so oppressive that it has overbalanced the system, that we should pull it back into proportion. That puts what the Secretary of State is seeking to do into its proper context.

Some of the proposals are sensible and straightforward. I do not think that anyone disputes that it is sensible to have the same time limit for a judicial review as for a statutory challenge under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. Nobody has argued with the reduction in the time limit, because anybody who has dealt with planning matters knows that, particularly now that there has to be so much pre-application disclosure and there can be written representations from objectors and so on, the issues are very well crystallised in people’s minds. I suspect that that is not the most contentious issue.

There are issues with clause 50, although I do not share the criticism of it. I approach it from a slightly different angle. It seems to me that it is not unreasonable to move from the current inevitability test to a test of whether the outcome is likely to have been affected. Ironically, the current inevitability test seems to import something rather like the criminal burden of proof of reasonable doubt—or perhaps an even greater burden of proof—into what is essentially a civil procedure. It is not unreasonable to move to something that is closer to the normal test in civil proceedings of the balance of probabilities.

It is argued that we must act almost punitively to be a constraint on bad decision makers. However, I would have thought that clause 50 contained enough flexibility to provide a more balanced approach, to prevent judicial review from falling into disrepute when somebody wins on a purely technical error by a decision maker that was under no circumstances taken in malice or made negligently, and that would under no circumstances make any difference to the outcome. It is not unreasonable to say that the costs of a judicial review should not be fully provided in those circumstances.

We generally expect much more transparency in decision making in this country. In relation to clause 51, I think that that ought to apply, to a degree, to judicial decision making and to the judicial process generally. Because more and more judicial reviews are, in reality, supported and funded by groups—sometimes lobby groups, sometimes commercial groups that may have an interest—it is legitimate for the taxpayer and law-abiding citizens to have an idea about the source of that funding and, to some degree, the real motive behind the judicial review. Clause 51 is a proportionate means for dealing with that. Similarly, interveners must be aware that a considerably greater cost will occur through a legitimate intervention, especially when—as we have all seen in some cases—the intervener may become the principal driver of the judicial review, and do much more to extend the length of the hearing than the initial parties. Under those circumstances, it is not unreasonable that they should bear the bulk of the risk, since they have driven the bulk of court time as a consequence of the way they pursued their intervention. I would argue that the Bill contains a balanced package on judicial review that should commend itself to the House.

I will not dwell on what might have been in the Bill as I think what it contains is good and valuable. I am, however, a little tempted by the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley on the accountability of judges. I do not think the Bill is necessarily the right vehicle for that, but we are talking generally about improving the accountability of decision making, and about accountability and transparency within the system. Given that judicial decisions—in judicial review or otherwise —sometimes affect not only large bodies or the state but can affect individuals, there is perhaps an argument to be had about whether our current arrangements to ensure consistency of professionalism in the judiciary are adequate.

There is a strong case for saying that Parliament must be wary of trespassing on the independence of the judiciary. However, I had in my casework a constituent who was seriously aggrieved in the national press because of an inaccurate judgment. In the obiter dicta of the case, the judge quoted wrongly from the papers before him, but released the judgment to the press, with considerable adverse publicity for the person concerned. There is, therefore, an argument for saying that when the Office for Judicial Complaints says, “Unfortunately that is not within our powers because he turned up and he wasn’t drunk and he wasn’t abusive in these terms. There is nothing we can do about this”, we might think that is not really fair. Would we not expect a professional judge to get the facts right and to have read the papers properly? That is an interesting area to consider.

That brings me to my final point, which is that, ultimately, the court system is about transparency and balance. Sometimes balance shifts one way or another, and it is the job of this House, and Parliament as a legislature, to decide on the appropriate balance in the circumstances in which we find it. I agree with the Secretary of State that the balance has moved too far one way, and the Bill seeks to redress that. I therefore commend it to the House.

21:08

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me in this important debate. For far too many years we have had a tradition of Governments—Conservative and Labour—trying to talk tough on crime and repeatedly aiming for the tabloid commentary, rather than dealing with the underlying causes of crime. That is why I am pleased that we are taking a different approach now, ensuring that we work on rehabilitation and reducing reoffending and initial offending, and tackling the causes of crime together with other Departments. That is an important process and it is good to have restorative justice and various things such as that in the proposals.

The mark of a good and functioning society is low prison numbers and low crime, not how many people we can fit into prison. In 1980, the prison population was 44,000. The then Home Secretary, Willie Whitelaw, described that as “dangerously high”, yet we saw numbers continue to rise year after year, helped of course by the previous Government’s 3,600 new criminal offences. We saw a huge 54% increase in the prison population under the previous Government, who wanted to increase capacity to 96,000—almost two and a half times the number described by Willie Whitelaw as “dangerously high”. That is deeply alarming.

It is not just me who thinks that the previous Government made a huge mistake. It is good to see the shadow Justice Secretary, the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) back in his place. He has said:

“in office…it was a mistake to not focus more on the issue of reducing reoffending. We became hesitant in talking about rehabilitation and the merits of investment in bringing down re-offending rates. We got into the position whereby a focus on rehabilitation and reducing re-offending was seen as being soft on crime when in fact it is effective in reducing crime.”

He was right then—he clearly had not been previously—and it is good that this Government are acting on that, because it does make a huge difference. What we saw was a Government who jailed more people than anywhere else in Europe just to sound tough. We can take a better approach that will reduce crime, and that makes a big difference.

That applies to young people in particular. It is astonishing to look at the figures for young people. We have managed almost to halve the number of children serving custodial sentences, from 2,136 in May 2010 to 1,168 in December 2013. I am incredibly proud of that. In 2009, 600 children aged between 12 and 14 were locked up, some for summary offences. There may well be rare cases where somebody as young as 12 should be locked up, but they should be incredibly rare and I find it bizarre that hundreds of children suffered in that way. The Howard League for Penal Reform states:

“the refreshing approach of police forces across England and Wales to reduce the number of unnecessary child arrests, has allowed a renewed focus on crime prevention and alternatives to custody. Youth justice reinvestment pilots in Manchester and inner London boroughs have also shown how investment in diversion rather than criminal justice can yield benefits in terms of public safety.”

We can make the public safer and not lock children up.

[Philip Davies]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Dr Huppert]

No. We heard enough from the hon. Gentleman in his rather long speech earlier. I know he disagrees with Churchill. He probably finds Churchill far too liberal for his own tastes, as he probably was when he criticised road tax.

What I do not want to see is children and young people languishing in detention and coming out and reoffending. That is absolutely not the right thing to do. It is not right for anybody—the Offender Rehabilitation Bill aims to help people with short sentences, which will help—but it is particularly the case for young people. I was pleased to hear the Justice Secretary and the Deputy Prime Minister say that we will double the time that young offenders spend in education from 15 hours a week to 30 hours a week by 2015. That was a manifesto commitment we made in 2010—the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) very much remembers that—and something that we are delivering. It makes a difference. Education is a really important thing for these people, so that they can leave custody with skills and an education they can build on.

The secure college has to have an educational focus and that is what makes it good and worthwhile. By making it progressive rather than punitive, we will really engage with people, give them skills and help them to have a life later that does not involve going into crime. Many of these young people are vulnerable and damaged. We have to provide them with care and support in a safe and secure environment to help turn them back into citizens who will reintegrate into the community on release.

That is all very good, but I have some concerns that I will explore in Committee. Schedule 4 allows restraint to

“secure good order and discipline”.

That sounds worryingly Victorian. The courts have already said that that is not appropriate. I hope we can have clarity from the Government on what exactly is intended. I hope that that is not the intention of this Government.

Before I leave the subject of the number of people in prison, it is worth highlighting the changes in the female prison population, which has declined substantially. It was more than 4,000 when we came into office; it is now substantially below 4,000. That makes a big difference. Women’s prisons will become resettlement prisons, so that offenders serve their sentences as close to home as possible to maintain crucial family relationships, especially with children. There are times when women need to be punished in this way, but we need to help to ensure that afterwards they are able to engage better into society and do not suffer the problems that they could be left with.

I am concerned about the criminal courts charge. I heard what the Justice Secretary said, but I am still concerned that it will end up being unenforceable and skew the way our system works. Justice has made it clear that it is

“concerned that the imposition of a charge may have an unfair bearing on the exercise of a person’s right to plead not guilty, and therefore the presumption of innocence.”

How will it apply to appeals? Will people not be able to take advantage of their right of appeal because of concern about cost?

I was interested by what the Justice Secretary said about the £1.4 billion that was owed to the Courts and Tribunals Service. He talked a lot about dead people; I did not fully understand what he was saying. However, if another charge is added to the list, given that he said that that this would be the lowest priority, far less of it will be collected than the 80% that goes to the top priority. That seems obvious, because it will decay faster and faster.

The Justice Secretary said that if people did not reoffend, the charge would be written off. I should like to know more about how that would operate, but, again, far less would be collected. I am also very concerned about how the charge could be recovered without disproportionate enforcement costs, particularly in relation to the contractors involved. I am also worried about whether there is sufficient discretion in the process.

I am still concerned about tagging. I believe that there have still been no successful prosecutions for violations of tagging curfews when people have challenged the prosecutions and pleaded not guilty. Professor Ross Anderson of the University of Cambridge and others have been expert witnesses in cases that have been dropped on the basis of their evidence, because the tags have been proved not to be sufficiently reliable. I should have thought that there were better ways of spending money, especially given that the tags are not satisfactory.

I am very pleased that the Justice Secretary has given ground on judicial review. Many of us have been pressing him on that for some time, and I am glad that he has now taken some sensible steps. It is really important for ordinary people to be able to challenge the Government. We need transparency, and the Government are pushing for it; shielding the Government from legal challenge by clamping down on judicial review would run completely contrary to that. However, I am still concerned about the changes in relation to interveners. Third parties add important value and expertise to cases, at great cost to themselves and in the wider public interest. I did not think that the Justice Secretary addressed my concern about cases in which people intervene, as opposed to cases involving the “human shield” that he described. That is not the only kind of case involved.

Courts already have strong powers to control interveners. They accept only interventions that are in the public interest. Baroness Hale, the deputy president of the Supreme Court, has said:

“Once a matter is in court, the more important the subject, the more difficult the issues, the more help we”

—the judges—

“need to try and get the right answer… interventions are enormously helpful… . They usually supply arguments and authorities, rather than factual information, which the parties may not have supplied.”

Interveners play a very important role, but the Bill would require them to bear not just their own costs—which are not recouped, which I understand—but those of other parties whose involvement results from their intervention. The application of that could be incredibly broad. If someone intervened and that person’s intervention generated extra work to be done by someone else, the intervener would be billed for all of it. That would deter experts from giving useful and potentially instrumental evidence. We would shoot ourselves in the foot: court decisions would become worse, as the courts themselves have said.

The courts already have discretion to control who intervenes, how people intervene, and for how long they can intervene, and they can fine interveners whose interventions are unreasonable. That strikes me as a sensible balance. I think that the Bill goes too far in clamping down on interventions, and I hope that the Government will look at it more carefully. I understand that there may be cases in which intervention is inappropriate, but the Government must protect appropriate and important interventions,

There is much else that we shall need to consider in Committee, because the Bill contains a great deal of detailed material, but I think that the focus is right. I welcome much of what the Government are doing, but I think that they should concentrate even less on how many people can be locked up, and more on how much crime can be reduced.

21:18

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

It is curious that a Government who did not think that they needed a Bill to dismantle criminal legal aid or to privatise the probation service should decide that they do need one to encourage courts to report wasted costs orders to the Bar Standards Board. It is also curious that a Lord Chancellor who is reluctant to debate the restriction of access to justice, or risks to public safety, can find plenty of parliamentary time in which to discuss age limits for jurors.

The Government have a curious sense of priorities; but the clue is in the phrase “find time”. We heard earlier that the Lord Chancellor was the only Cabinet Minister to volunteer to conjure up a Bill to fill the yawning void that is the last 15 months of the current Parliament—a carry-over Bill intended to mark time while the coalition parties manufacture disagreements to keep their own core voters happy. His reward—and I am pleased to see him in his place—was to miss the Cabinet’s day out in Aberdeen. There is no justice for the Justice Secretary.

However, I do not want to denigrate the Bill; I merely wish to set it in context. Although there are parts of it that we strongly oppose, much of it is unobjectionable, and some of it is even laudable. It makes sensible administrative changes, and introduces new offences that clarify or reinforce important parts of the law such as contempt, or address failings in the Government’s own legislation or practice. We are not going to find reasons to oppose such measures and, on balance, we will not oppose the Bill tonight, in the hope that improvements can be made before Third Reading.

I can do nothing but praise the quality of the debate today. We are fortunate to have heard from some of the most experienced and thoughtful Members on both sides, and I hope that the Minister will take on board their observations not only when he responds to the debate tonight but when he reviews the Bill in Committee. We have heard former Justice Ministers, including the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) and the right hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert), and from Select Committee Chairs including my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) and the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith). We have also heard from eminent practitioners such as my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) and the hon. Members for Dewsbury (Simon Reevell) and for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill).

I hope, however, that none of those Members will be offended if I say that the most perceptive comments often came from those who show a lay interest in these matters. The hon. Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) talked about exercising caution over the use of cautions and about education on the secure estate, and I agreed with much that my neighbour, the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Angie Bray), said in her tour d’horizon of the Bill. I was slightly confused, however, by the contributions of the hon. Members for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) and for Shipley (Philip Davies). Both seemed to love the Bill, but one of them thought it was about restorative justice and reducing the prison population by 30,000 while the other thought it was about punishment and increasing the prison population by that number.

[Sadiq Khan]

They can’t both be right.

[Mr Slaughter]

Indeed, but the Lord Chancellor has at least managed to make both of them happy, and he should be praised for that, if for nothing else.

I want to make specific mention of the contributions from my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd), who made robust defences of judicial review and of open justice. They correctly echoed the view expressed in the Campaign to Protect Rural England’s briefing that judicial review is

“used rarely by community groups in relation to planning decisions because it is costly and a significant and daunting undertaking.”

No one would imagine that, from what the Government have said today.

I shall take my cue from my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington and the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd in dealing first with the most contentious and objectionable part of the Bill—part 4, which covers judicial review. What is it about this Lord Chancellor and judicial review that the mention of it makes him behave in an irrational and unreasonable way? He has taken to the columns of the Daily Mail to denounce one of our most important constitutional safeguards as

“a promotional tool for countless Left-wing campaigners.”

It is unclear whether those left-wing campaigners include the Countryside Alliance, the Daily Mail, The Daily Telegraph, UKIP’s Stuart Wheeler and numerous Conservative councils, all of whom have initiated judicial reviews in recent times. However, the senior judiciary’s response to the Lord Chancellor’s consultation shot that particular fox when it stated that it had seen no

“evidence of inappropriate use of judicial review as a campaigning tool, and it is not the experience of the senior judiciary that this is a common problem.”

The Lord Chancellor has already taken bites out of judicial review by imposing additional fees and limiting the time for bringing a claim, in some cases to six weeks. He is also going to restrict the use of legal aid by statutory instrument, rather than through primary legislation. He would wish to hobble applicants more by restricting the recovery of costs until beyond the permission stage and allowing defendants to intervene at that stage with the prospect of recovering their costs. The Bill contains a variety of additional ways to discourage judicial review by increasing applicants’ costs or putting them at risk of paying defendants’ costs. Protective costs orders will not be abolished, but they will be available only in narrow circumstances and once permission is granted.

The worst aspects are in clauses 50 and 53, attacking both the raison d’être of judicial review to correct Executive error in decision making and the ability of third parties to intervene in the public interest and to assist the court. Already heavily criticised, the new test in clause 50 refuses permission where it is “highly likely” the outcome for the applicant

“would not have been substantially different if the conduct complained of had not occurred”.

This confuses unlawfulness with remedy. It will encourage bad decision making and it is likely to lead to a full trial of the issues at permission stage. Lord Pannick, in an article that has already been quoted today, has said that the clause will give the Government a

“get out of jail free card”,

and allow public bodies to

“avoid a hearing and judgment on the legality of their conduct.”

Under clause 53, third parties—often non-governmental organisations, charities and human rights organisations—that intervene in judicial reviews to clarify issues that often assist the court will now be severely discouraged from doing so by cost penalties. Yet Lady Justice Hale of the Supreme Court has said that

“interventions are enormously helpful…The most frequent are NGOs such as Liberty and Justice, whose commitment is usually to a principle rather than a person. They usually supply arguments and authorities, rather than factual information, which the parties may not have supplied.”

In aggregate, these proposals mean that only applicants of substantial means will be able to bring a claim or risk the costs of losing it. In a country without a written constitution, judicial review is one important way of holding the Executive to account. This Government want to insulate their bad decision making from legal challenge and place themselves outside the rule of law. They are strengthening Executive power and weakening a critical check on the power of the state. This Lord Chancellor, for misguided party political motives and as part of a sustained attack on access to justice, is undermining our civil liberties, and these changes should be against everything the Liberal Democrats stand for. Under this Government, seeking justice is getting harder and these proposals show them on the side of their corporate friends, not of individual citizens and communities. Politicians in power might find judicial review an awkward irritant, but that is precisely what it is intended to be. Combined with the cuts to legal aid, limitations on no win, no fee cases, and threats to the Human Rights Act and European convention, this proposal amounts to a sustained attack on the rights of individual citizens to hold those in power to account. As the President of the Supreme Court, Lord Neuberger puts it,

“one must be very careful about any proposals whose aim is to cut down the right to judicial review”.

He has also said:

“The courts have no more important function than that of protecting citizens from the abuses and excesses of the executive.”

We have serious concerns about other parts of the Bill. As they stand, the plans for secure colleges may prove damaging to thousands of young offenders in our criminal justice system. The Bill leaves a question mark over the future of secure children’s homes, which cater for the most vulnerable young people. Such homes typically house small numbers of children, provide intensive support and are staffed by highly qualified specialists in social care. The homes have good educational outcomes and are recognised as the preferred model of youth custody, but they look set to lose out to the Lord Chancellor’s new and untested pet project. It is untested according to the Government’s own impact assessment, but still £85 million is needed to build just one secure college.

The Justice Committee pointed out in its report last March that the average time in youth custody is only 79 days, so most young offenders would not be in a college long enough to improve their basic skills. What levels of training or qualification would the college staff have? Why will college custody officers be empowered to use “reasonable force” for the maintenance of “good order and discipline”? That may well be unlawful under the European convention on human rights, according to a Court of Appeal 2008 ruling and the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, which stated in 2007:

“Restraint or force can be used only when the child poses an imminent threat of injury to him or herself or others, and only when all other means of control have been exhausted. The use of restraint or force, including physical, mechanical and medical restraints, should be under close and direct control of a medical and/or psychological professional. It must never be used as a means of punishment.”

As regards part 3 of the Bill, we support the use of single justices, given that their jurisdiction will apply only to summary, non-imprisonable offences where an adult defendant pleads guilty. However, we object strongly to taking these cases out of the courtroom and into offices away from public view. Such an approach damages the principle of British justice that cases are heard and the results made known in public. This Government are too fond of secret courts, and even in minor cases the principle of open justice should be rarely departed from. We agree in principle that convicted criminals could contribute to the costs of trial, but the substantial amount of uncollected fines from criminals already totals more than £1 billion and it is likely that this proposal will just add to the total of uncollected moneys from criminals. We have no objection in principle to leapfrog appeals, for example, on issues of national importance, though they are most likely to be used by government trying to hurry the process up. The danger is that this simply overloads the Supreme Court and that the issues it has to deal with are insufficiently refined by earlier hearings.

It is a good idea to update the jury room process and the rules on reporting cases to accommodate the social media age. The Attorney-General is to be commended for taking a personal interest in the limitations on reporting and in discouraging jurors from using social media to research or publicise details of trials. However, the Government fail to provide any support to juries in explaining their roles and remit as part of any new offences, and it is not clear whether they have considered the full implications of the numbers of people using social media and the variety of methods available. We have no objection to raising the age of jury service to 75.

There are two glaring problems with part 1 of the Bill. It does not do what it says on the tin, which is to protect the public adequately from violent and dangerous offenders, but it does incur costs and prison resources that the Government do not have in place. I fear that the hon. Member for Shipley may have been slightly taken in by the rhetoric rather the actuality of what is in part 1. The changes to sentences for the most serious and violent criminals are a poor substitute for indeterminate sentences for public protection, which this Government abolished in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012—[Interruption.] I do like to mention that, because it is the one thing that we both agree on.

[Philip Davies]

Absolutely.

[Mr Slaughter]

I am afraid that the Government have been playing catch-up ever since IPPs were abolished, but none of what is proposed offers the same level of public protection. The Government’s own impact assessment states that the sentencing changes will require 1,050 additional prison places, but there are fewer than half that currently available. It also states that the costs of additional custody are not quantified. We noted with concern the Lord Chancellor’s inability to answer any of the questions about his Department’s budgets. Proposals in part 1 will also see a greater work load for the Parole Board, with an additional 1,100 Parole Board hearings a year, according to the Government’s impact assessment. However, no additional resources are being made available, at a time when Parole Board staff numbers have already been cut by nearly one in five.

We support the ban on the possession of extreme pornographic images depicting rape and other non-consensual sexual penetration. That is a welcome victory for campaign groups such as Rape Crisis South London and the End Violence Against Women Coalition. We support the restrictions on the use of simple cautions.

Criminal justice Bills have a reputation for being Christmas tree Bills, and this one is no different. It is a mixture of the minor and non-contentious with some major, damaging and poorly thought-out measures, such as those in part 4, which, if they survive here, will be butchered in the other place.

This is also quite a mean little Bill, reflecting the character of its author. It further limits the rights of the citizen against the state, and it scratches around to find some more savings because the Treasury has been overpromised. Desperate to impress the Prime Minister, this is the best that the Secretary of State could come up with. Much of it is unexceptional or unobjectionable. It is legislation for legislation’s sake, and is designed to fill an intellectual and actual void in the Government’s programme. It is irrelevant to the big issues being played out in our justice system. It reinforces the growing view in the country that it is time for this failing Lord Chancellor and this Government to move on.

21:33

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Shailesh Vara)]

May I start by thanking all Members, on both sides of the House, who have spoken today? The debate has been both considered and thorough, and the number of points that have been raised confirms the importance of the issues before us.

As my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor set out at the start of this debate, the Bill represents the next stage of our reforms to deliver a cost-effective justice system in which the public can have real confidence. The key elements of the Bill will deliver a firm but fair package of sentencing and criminal law reforms, which will properly punish serious and repeat offenders and better protect victims and the public. We are clear that people who break the law will not escape the law.

The Bill provides for the creation of secure colleges, putting education at the very heart of youth custody, giving young offenders the tools they need to lead a life away from crime. We are modernising the law to tackle the influence of the internet on trials by jury to ensure that defendants receive a fair trial, reflecting how technology and the wealth of information available at the touch of a button has changed the way in which we live. We will reduce the burden of the cost of courts on hard-working taxpayers by making sure that criminals pay towards the cost of their court cases. The Bill will make critical reforms to judicial review, to tackle unmeritorious claims and unnecessary delays in the system.

Members have raised a number of issues, many of which will, of course, be debated further in Committee. However, I should like to touch on some of the points made by colleagues. They will forgive me for not being able to mention every point made in every speech, but I shall try to cover as many of them as I possibly can.

My hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) started by commenting on the proposals for single magistrates to deal with low-level, uncontested cases. This issue was touched on by a number of other colleagues. Let me be clear that we are talking about low-level, uncontested cases. Let me also be clear that where someone wishes to contest a case, they can have it heard before two or three magistrates and it can be dealt with in the usual way. This proposal is for cases—the vast majority of them—where people simply do not bother to turn up or reply, or if they do, they plead guilty.

[Karl Turner]

If that is the Government’s intention, why does the Bill not say that?

[Mr Vara]

It does.

My hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon spoke about the age limit for jurors being raised from 70 to 75. The reason is that we must recognise that people are now living longer and healthier lives. It is important that jurors reflect society at large. If society is growing older, we need to ensure that jurors, who decide cases, reflect that. I accept that we have a problem in attracting young people to become magistrates, and we must continue to try to address that issue, but that is not to say that we should not increase the age.

On court costs, several colleagues were concerned about the rate of recovery. Let me clarify the point. At present, the recovery rates for compensation, fines and the victim surcharge stands at 80%, and there is no reason to believe that court charges will not be recovered at similar rate.

[Dr Huppert]

We heard earlier that such charges would be the lowest priority of claim. The Justice Secretary was clear on that. Surely, if only 80% of the higher priority claims are collected and some people run out of money when they have paid the highest priority, a lower proportion of the low-priority claims will be collected.

[Mr Vara]

My hon. Friend needs to appreciate that the time lag will be longer. This will be the last element to be claimed. It will be claimed after the others. There will be a priority element, and this will be the last bit. There is no reason to conclude that, if the other four criteria have been met with an 80% collection rate, the fifth one will not.

The right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd)—I hope that I have pronounced the constituency name correctly, or close enough—had concerns about prison places. As the Justice Secretary said in his opening remarks, in the next 15 or so months, we expect that there will be some 2,000 more places, and Wrexham prison will have more than 2,000 places by 2017. He raised secure colleges. I emphasise that the aim is to reduce reoffending and have the expertise to provide for educational needs.

[Kate Green]

rose—

[Mr Vara]

I will give way, but this must be the last intervention because I want to cover a number of points.

[Kate Green]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. How does he think that the public will react to the concept of 350 fairly seriously offending young men living on a single site in their neighbourhood?

[Mr Vara]

There are institutions of a custodial nature in which the numbers of people are far more than that at the moment. They will not all live in one unit. There will be separate units and different age groups and categories of people. I see no reason why, at a more cost-effective rate, we cannot seek to do what is not happening at present: reduce reoffending rates.

The right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd also spoke of the possible use of force, and that issue was also raised by a number of hon. Members on both sides of the House. I will just point out that the Bill sets up secure colleges but it does not speak of using force. That issue needs to be addressed later, when it comes to dealing with the rules for secure colleges. I recognise that it is an important issue, which needs to be dealt with sensitively, and I am sure that when those rules are drawn up, that is how it will be dealt with.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) gave a very supportive speech and spoke with experience of having been a Minister both in my Department and in the Home Office. His arguments were well reasoned and he spoke about early release, electronic tagging and a number of other issues. He pointed out to the House that the magistracy that we have been discussing has been with us for some 650 years.

The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) also raised the issue of magistrates sitting on their own and I hope that I have covered that. He also touched on the issue of judicial reviews, as did the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), in a number of interventions, and other hon. Members. Let me be clear about this point too. My right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor did not say that all claims were being made by left-wing campaign groups, but it is a fact that some claims have been or are made by such groups. The hon. Lady herself admitted, in one of her interventions, that before she entered the House, she ran a group and was regularly involved in judicial reviews. If people are going to throw ammunition at this side, it is important that they at least put things in context.

My hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) spoke with experience and was right to put education at the heart of secure colleges. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston continues to mutter away, but I suggest that she looks at Hansard tomorrow morning. My hon. Friend was right to highlight the issue of education and I am grateful for his general approval for all that the Government are doing.

The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) also spoke of secure colleges. I emphasise to him that, as I said earlier, there will be separate units to cater for different categories of people in those colleges rather than everyone being in one structure.

As far as the magistrates courts are concerned, there was concern about openness and transparency—

[John McDonnell]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Vara]

I will not give way, as I want to make progress. I believe that I have been generous in taking a number of interventions, but I have limited time.

The issue of openness and transparency was raised, and I want to make it clear that each magistrates court publishes within its court buildings daily lists of cases being heard at that court. All magistrates courts routinely make lists of case results available to the local media, and the criminal procedure rules also oblige courts to give certain additional information on cases in response to third-party requests. I also want to put on the record that we are looking at further ways of making court processes and outcomes more transparent, including exploring the possibility of publishing court outcomes electronically.

My hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Simon Reevell) reflected his experience at the Bar in the issues that he raised, and I am grateful for his support for the measures that we are introducing.

My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) was characteristically robust and raised a number of issues. I am delighted, as I am sure the Chief Whip is, that he supports the proposals that we are seeking to introduce today, and I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor is appreciative of the personal congratulations that he conveyed to him earlier on introducing these measures.

My hon. Friend mentioned the magistrates courts; I assure him that our intention is to ensure that the proposals are confined to low-level offences. He also asked an important question: why can the maximum age of jurors be raised from 70 to 75, when a similar age increase is not allowed for magistrates and judges? One of the reasons is that jurors will work on one trial, and then return to their daily, routine lives, whereas magistrates and judges have to play their role day in, day out, and of course that is completely different from jurors sitting on odd cases.

My hon. Friend will be aware that there are transitional arrangements in place. When the rule about the age of 70 came in for the judiciary, those judges who were still in place could opt to work until they were 75. He also spoke of judges being held to account. All I would say to that is that we have to be mindful that the judiciary is an independent section of our constitution.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Angie Bray) for her supportive comments, and my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), who, again, spoke of his personal experience at the Bar. He was right to refer to the man on the Clapham omnibus and the use of common sense. Many of the proposals that we are introducing are absolutely that: common-sense proposals with which the majority of the public would agree.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) is right to highlight Labour’s record in government, because all that Labour Members, and certainly its Front Benchers, have been doing is complaining, rather than acknowledging their errors when in government. He also spoke about secure colleges. He is right to say that no one wants young children to reoffend. He is absolutely correct when he says that we have to give them education, and the skills and discipline to ensure that they can lead productive lives. Like others, he referred to the issue of force, but I hope that he accepts that I have given reassurance on that. He was concerned about the court charges that we propose, and I have dealt with that issue.

I thank the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), both senior Members of the House and Chairmen of important Select Committees. Their contributions reflected their expertise and breadth of knowledge.

The Bill toughens up terrorism and terrorism-related offences and ends automatic early release for certain serious, violent and sexual offences. The new secure colleges will place education at the heart of youth custody, ensuring that young people acquire the skills, qualifications and self-discipline to lead productive lives on release, and break away from the cycle of reoffending.

It has to be right for criminals who use the courts to pay towards the cost of running them, thereby reducing the burden on hard-working taxpayers. We are also putting in place important measures to deal with the growing number of unmeritorious judicial review applications that are clogging up our court system and putting additional burdens on public services. The consequences of the internet world that we live in simply cannot be ignored. That is why we are ensuring that jurors base their decisions on the evidence put before them, and not on the results of a Google search. These and the other measures in this Bill are important, sensible and necessary. They represent a critical next step in strengthening confidence in our justice system, and providing safety and security for people and their communities. I welcome all the contributions made today, and I assure the House that many of the issues raised will be debated in further detail in Committee.

Finally, I note that we have a new clock, which shows seconds, and not just minutes as the one before did. Happily, I can assure the House that I do not have to rely on the seconds today; I am more than happy to finish a little early—by minutes, rather than seconds. I commend the Bill to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND COURTS BILL (PROGRAMME)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83A(7)),

That the following provisions shall apply to the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill:

Committal

(1) The Bill shall be committed to a Public Bill Committee.

Proceedings in Public Bill Committee

(2) Proceedings in the Public Bill Committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion on Tuesday 1 April 2014.

(3) The Public Bill Committee shall have leave to sit twice on the first day on which it meets.

Consideration and Third Reading

(4) Proceedings on Consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour before the moment of interruption on the day on which those proceedings are commenced.

(5) Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on that day.

(6) Standing Order No. 83B (Programming committees) shall not apply to proceedings on Consideration and Third Reading.

Other proceedings

(7) Any other proceedings on the Bill (including any proceedings on consideration of Lords Amendments or on any further messages from the Lords) may be programmed.—(Claire Perry.)

Question agreed to.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND COURTS BILL (MONEY)

Queen’s recommendation signified.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 52(1)(a)),

That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of:

(1) any expenditure incurred by a Minister of the Crown under or by virtue of the Act, and

(2) any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable under any other Act out of money so provided.—(Claire Perry.)

Question agreed to.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND COURTS BILL (WAYS AND MEANS)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 52(1)(a)),

That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill, it is expedient to authorise:

(1) the imposition on persons convicted of offences of charges relating to the costs of providing criminal courts; and

(2) the payment of sums into the Consolidated Fund.—(Claire Perry.)

Question agreed to.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND COURTS BILL (CARRY-OVER)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 80A(1)(a)),

That if, at the conclusion of this Session of Parliament, proceedings on the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill have not been completed, they shall be resumed in the next Session.—(Claire Perry.)

Business without Debate

Monday 24th February 2014 Commons Chamber

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (25 FEBRUARY)

Ordered,

That, at the sitting on Tuesday 25 February:

(1) notwithstanding the provisions of Standing Order No. 16 (Proceedings under an Act or on European Union documents), the Speaker shall put the Questions necessary to dispose of proceedings on the Motions in the name of Secretary Iain Duncan Smith relating to pensions and social security not later than three hours after the commencement of proceedings on the first of those motions; proceedings on those Motions may continue, though opposed, after the moment of interruption; and Standing Order No. 41A (Deferred divisions) shall not apply; and

(2) notwithstanding sub-paragraph (2)(c) of Standing Order No. 14 (Arrangement of public business), the backbench business set down for consideration may be entered upon at any hour, may be proceeded with, though opposed, for three hours, and shall then lapse if not previously disposed of.—(Mr Lansley.)

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (26 FEBRUARY)

Ordered,

That, at the sitting on Wednesday 26 February, paragraph (2) of Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments) shall apply to the Motions in the name of Edward Miliband as if the day were an Opposition Day. —(Mr Lansley.)

ESTIMATES

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 145(3))

That this House agrees with the Report of the Liaison Committee of 12 February:

(1) That a day not later than 18 March be allotted for the consideration of the following Supplementary Estimates for financial year 2013-14:

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, in so far as it relates to managing flood risk

Department of Energy and Climate Change, in so far as it relates to Government levies on energy bills; and

(2) That a further day not later than 18 March be allotted for the consideration of the following Supplementary Estimates for financial year 2013-14:

Ministry of Defence, in so far as it relates to defence and cyber-security

Department for Communities and Local Government, in so far as it relates to the private rented sector.—(Mr Lansley.)

Delegated Legislation

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)),

Road Traffic

That the draft HGV Road User Levy (Exemption of Specified Roads) Order 2014, which was laid before this House on 16 December 2013, be approved. —(Claire Perry.)

Question agreed to.

Constitutional Law

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)),

That the draft Scottish Parliament (Constituencies and Regions) Order 2014, which was laid before this House on 18 December 2013, be approved. —(Claire Perry.)

Question agreed to.

Committees

Monday 24th February 2014 Commons Chamber

Justice

Ordered,

That Graham Stringer be discharged from the Justice Committee and John Cryer be added.—(Greg Hands.)

National Parks

Monday 24th February 2014 Commons Chamber

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Claire Perry.)

21:52

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

I am proud to represent a constituency that extends from the hill farms of Dartmoor to the coast, encompassing some of the loveliest areas of outstanding natural beauty. I am proud, too, to say that we are very much open for business, despite the recent battering from the storms.

I am fortunate to have lived and worked in rural Dartmoor for 21 years. I have no conflict of interest in this debate, but I have real concerns about the unintended consequences if we proceed with permitted development rights without the need for planning permission to convert up to three dwellings or to replace existing farm buildings across rural Dartmoor and areas of outstanding natural beauty. I commend the Minister for his comments and entirely agree about the need to address the inter- generational unfairness that exists within housing. We should allow people to aspire to affordable housing. I absolutely agree that we need to build more homes, but we need to build homes that people can afford to live in. That is my concern.

Permitted development rights would allow buildings of up to 150 square metres—nearly twice the guideline amount for affordable housing—so we will see development of larger properties. Within AONBs and the national parks—the measure will affect all 10 national parks—I fear that that will lead to the creation of more second homes and luxury homes, rather than the affordable housing that we need to breathe life into our rural communities. I hope that the Minister will also look at the unintended consequences. As he will know, one of the chief ways to lever in exception sites is deployed when landowners know that there is no other mechanism to obtain planning permission. That is a genuine concern, and we have already seen a chilling effect on land prices and the availability of affordable land for development.

There is a further concern. The historic farmstead survey of Dartmoor looks at pre-1914 farmsteads, of which there are 1,100 across Dartmoor. Each of those has three to four outbuildings. Clearly, not all of those would be suitable for development, but it is estimated that around 2,000 would be suitable for conversion, and that is within Dartmoor alone. That does not include the 1,500 to 2,000 properties that are non-heritage buildings. So we are potentially looking at up to 4,000 properties, each of which could be converted to three dwellings. On top of that is all the accompanying infrastructure in terms of driveways and parking.

There is a real concern in our national parks about the impact that such development could have on our landscapes, but even more important is what will happen when we lose 4,000 farm buildings from the moor. If there are 4,000 fewer farm buildings, there is less agriculture on the moor. Having lived for two decades on Dartmoor, I have seen the changes that there have been to grazing. If cattle and sheep are lost from moorland, there is a degradation from heather towards gorse. It is important that we keep farming on the moor. In lower lying areas, we are already seeing more pony paddocks and we are losing the unique environment that is part of the reason why tourists come to Dartmoor in the first place. The landscape that we see across the moor is critical to our environment.

[Nick Herbert (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

As the name of my constituency suggests, half of it falls within the South Downs national park, the newest one to be created. Was not the whole purpose of creating national parks that protection of the landscape should have primacy wherever there is a conflict with economic development? We are at risk of losing that if we allow the creation of a suburbia within the national parks and inappropriate development, new haciendas and gin palaces, instead of maintaining the character of the parks and the landscape, which was precisely why they were created.

[Dr Wollaston]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. We do not want to kill the goose that lays the golden egg—the very reason why people come to Dartmoor. The creation of the national parks was described as the people’s charter for fresh air. These are crucially important landscapes for us to protect. Overdevelopment would destroy that. This is not about saying that we should stop all development within national parks. All of us recognise the need to support hill farmers. They may be asset-rich but they survive on very low cash flows.

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

I broadly agree with my hon. Friend’s argument that we do not want to see overdevelopment in our national parks, or major development of any kind, but does she agree that some of our national park authorities have been over-negative in the past in not allowing reasonable and sympathetic development, which perhaps would persuade the Minister, who I know is listening very carefully to my every word, that we do not need a sledgehammer to crack a nut and there is some compromise to be had?

[Dr Wollaston]

I entirely agree. A lot of this is about streamlining the processes; but I know that the national parks want to support affordable housing. Within the national park the average house price is in excess of £270,000. That is nine times the median income, and 16 times the lower quartile income, so we do need development.

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

I have some experience of this scenario in the Snowdonia national park. Does my hon. Friend agree that some of the buildings she refers to are unsuitable for agriculture these days, and if we just leave them, they will deteriorate over time and will not be of any attraction to tourists either?

[Dr Wollaston]

My hon. Friend adds to the point that we are not asking for no development across our national parks, but rather for discretion on a case-by-case basis. Absolutely, they must support farmers. We want farmers to have the ability to diversify, but we do not want a wholesale shift towards development, with farmers losing agriculture and moving entirely towards running holiday businesses and letting properties. It is a matter of degree. Yes, I would like to join him in encouraging national parks to support development, but to do so in a sustainable way that recognises the importance of keeping agriculture and sustaining our most precious and fragile ecosystems across the country for all our national parks. That applies not only to national parks, but to areas of outstanding natural beauty—

22:00

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 9(3)).

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Claire Perry.)

[Dr Wollaston]

With regard to areas of outstanding natural beauty, I would like to mention some points that have been raised with me by a local councillor in the village of South Pool in my constituency.

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

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing an Adjournment debate on such an important topic. Does she share my concern that removing such buildings from agricultural use means taking away a route for young entrants into farming and preventing them from engaging in the farming community?

[Dr Wollaston]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that extremely important point. We need to attract young farmers into farming, and not only to lowland farms, but to hill farms.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I, too, congratulate the hon. Lady on bringing the matter before the House for consideration. I represent Strangford, a constituency in Northern Ireland that is just as beautiful as her own—perhaps a little more beautiful, in my opinion—and also an area of outstanding natural beauty. Strict planning controls laid down by the Northern Ireland Assembly enable farmers to build their dwellings but at the same time retain the countryside. Does she feel that that example in Northern Ireland could be followed here on the UK mainland?

[Dr Wollaston]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that point, reiterating what many hon. Members have said. This is not about saying that there should be no development; it is about allowing controlled development on a case-by-case basis, rather than having an automatic permitted development right, which I think could lead to something altogether different and entirely unintended by the Minister.

Councillor Elizabeth Bennett, a parish councillor in South Pool, has made an important point about the effect on localism, which I know the Minister feels very passionate about. He has made the point that localism does not mean that we should see no development at all, because communities have to take responsibility for supplying housing for local people. It is about deciding where and how that takes place. The current arrangements deny parish councils the ability to comment on planning proposals.

Councillor Elizabeth Bennett also raised the concern about communities such as South Pool never being able to attain access to exception sites because they are not on a bus route and do not have the amenities of a village school. Nevertheless, those communities are desperately short of housing for local people. In fact, South Pool has some of the highest property values in the country. The ratios between earnings and property value are in excess of 10, so any access to local housing is entirely beyond the means of local people. Will the Minister look at extending that access so that projects such as the wonderful village housing initiative can be encouraged to bring in more exception sites within areas of outstanding natural beauty.

This is not about asking for no development; it is about asking for the right development, and for homes that people actually live in. I would not wish the Minister to think that I am saying that all second homes are bad. As he knows, many second home owners become permanent residents within a few years. They bring in a huge amount of income to local communities, particularly when they let out their properties when they are not using them. However, it is a matter of degree and scale, and he will know that there are many parts of our AONBs and national parks where the balance has shifted too far in the direction of second home owners. That can lead to dormitory communities where the lights are hardly ever on, except in season and at the weekends.

[Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)]

Much of the debate so far has been about Dartmoor, half of which is in my constituency, so I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the opportunity to contribute. I agree with her that we do not want some kind of blanket arrangement that would allow absolutely every application to convert a barn into a residential dwelling. We need to cherry-pick the right options, as she has suggested. What changes to the current planning arrangements, as exercised by Dartmoor national park, for example, does she think would introduce that flexibility in the appropriate manner?

[Dr Wollaston]

I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour from Dartmoor for making that point. The change I would like to see would give our national parks and AONBs the ability to opt out of the arrangements as they stand in allowing automatic permitted development rights. I would like a change in the wording so that they have more powers to lever in land for affordable housing developments, because that is what we crucially need for our communities. My hon. Friend will know about the effect whereby we lose young people and families from rural communities, which might mean that we cannot find nurses who will work in a community hospital or, on the coast, we find that there are not enough people to man the lifeboats.

It is really important that young people and families are able to live, work and volunteer within our local communities. I would love to see whether the Minister can bring in any measures to make that easier so that we can genuinely get affordable housing rather than asking for a change to no housing. We must recognise that our national parks and AONBs need our protection; they do not need unrestricted permitted development rights. I hope that the Minister will give some encouragement to the national parks and all those who love them that there will be a change to the wording.

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

In order to cheer my hon. Friend up a bit, may I ask my hon. Friend whether she thinks that the Government are exercising a degree of expectation management? The proposal that national parks such as the New Forest should be open to this sort of unregulated development is so preposterous that I cannot help wondering whether it has been put up as a kite so that the Government can then dismiss it and make a great concession by doing the obvious thing, which is to exclude places like the New Forest and Dartmoor from these ridiculous provisions. I wonder whether she agrees with the New Forest National Park Authority, which says:

“It will make a mockery of our planning rules when a resident in Southampton will still need planning permission for a dormer window, but three houses can be built in the middle of the New Forest National Park”

without any such permission?

[Dr Wollaston]

I thank my hon. Friend. His final point is very pertinent, but I do not share his cynicism, because I know that the Minister is absolutely committed to the important aspiration for people to be able to have access to housing. Having lived on Dartmoor for a long time and seen the pressures that people are under, I feel that there are genuinely some unintended consequences that I hope he will encourage us to address.

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

Does my hon. Friend recognise that people in my constituency use Dartmoor very regularly and do not want to see it deteriorate at all? Conservation at the national park is a great asset to the local community.

[Dr Wollaston]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. This is not just about people who live within national parks and AONBs but those who use them and feel passionately about their importance and the need to conserve this very precious landscape.

It would really help us all to hear the Minister’s comments on the many wonderful projects that are out there encouraging affordable housing. I know that he has visited Don Lang of the Land Society. I am very encouraged to hear today’s comments by the Secretary of State about how we can bring down costs for self-builders. It would be helpful if the Minister were able to elaborate on that. I hope that he is able to provide the reassurance we are all seeking that we will not see unrestrained building across our national parks but, rightly, the building of affordable housing that sustains living communities and brings young people and families back into our national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty.

[Mr Speaker]

To reply to the debate, I call the Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Communities and Local Government, Mr Nicholas Edward Coleridge Boles.

22:09

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Nick Boles)]

I hope it is not cheeky of me to observe that the best debates and discussions tend to take place within the Conservative party with a contribution from the Democratic Unionist party, and that we do not miss Her Majesty’s Opposition on this occasion.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

Or the Liberal Democrats!

[Nick Boles]

I will glide over that point.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) on securing this debate. I have rarely seen so many Members stay voluntarily until a late hour in order to contribute to an Adjournment debate. It is important that we have the opportunity to discuss the issue, especially because the proposal on which the Government are consulting does not require primary legislation and would not therefore trigger a debate on the Floor of the House. I greatly welcome the fact that my hon. Friend has raised it.

I will briefly set out the context of the broader proposal before moving on to the question of its application to national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty. It will not be news to you, Mr Speaker, that I seem to spend quite a lot of my life fending off attacks from people who suggest that we should not build any new houses on green fields. I have listened to that concern—I sometimes hear it from hon. Friends, some of whom are present this evening—and have concluded that it is very important that we reassure people that we are making the absolute best possible use of every existing building in the country and that we are maximising the value we get out of developed land so that we do not need to build on undeveloped land more than is absolutely necessary.

I am the first to admit that we are not going to be able to satisfy our housing needs entirely from currently developed land, but it is important that everybody is reassured that we are trying to be inventive in thinking about ways to reuse buildings that no longer serve the purpose for which they were originally designed, and to do so in a way that meets their maximum economic and social value.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

The Minister is being very courteous, as always, in giving way. Surely, in judging areas of such sensitivity as national parks, the body that has to be able to decide these matters is not central Government with a blanket rule but the national park authorities themselves, so why is there this blanket rule which will take away their discretion?

[Nick Boles]

My hon. Friend anticipates the question of whether the proposed relaxation, or permitted development right, should apply to national parks. I was setting out the broad case for introducing a permitted development right in the country that would make it easier to convert agricultural buildings into homes. Having done so, it is now entirely legitimate to ask whether it would be appropriate to extend that right to national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty—or, in the planning jargon, section 15 land. We have undertaken a genuine consultation on the issue; it is not an issue on which the Government had a firm view and were just pretending to consult.

[Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)]

rose—

[Nick Boles]

It is a matter that we wanted to hear debated and on which we wanted to take many representations, including from my hon. Friend.

[Andrew Bingham]

I congratulate the Minister, because he has been to High Peak and has sat with the chairman of the Peak District national park authority, Councillor Tony Favell, who has made the point that surely this should remain within the gift of the national park authorities. They are the local people: this is localism and it is about the local area. Surely it should remain with them, rather than there being a blanket rule and away you go.

[Nick Boles]

I thank my hon. Friend for having invited me to his glorious constituency and arranging the meeting with the chairman of the Peak District national park authority. That is one of four meetings I have had in the past month with National Parks England, the Campaign for National Parks in High Peak, a group of Members of Parliament who represent national parks, and a senior representative of the South Downs national park. This has been a genuine process of engagement with national parks and those who represent them and of understanding the particular issues.

You know how much trouble I would get into, Mr Speaker, if I were to presume to anticipate the conclusion of a Government decision-making process and the securing of Cabinet clearance for such a decision. I can, nevertheless, point to the fact that in other areas where we have introduced an extended permitted development right, we have listened to the concerns raised and modified the original proposals, so I can reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes and all other hon. Members who have spoken. They include, not least, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon (Mr Streeter), who must forgive me for being in some awe and fear of the deputy Chief Whip, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr Foster), and therefore being slightly distracted. We have listened to the very powerful and very persuasive arguments made, and we are genuinely taking them fully into account in reaching our final conclusion on how the permitted development right should work.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

I know that the Minister never wants to be in trouble, but back in September, when he showed a bit of leg on this matter, he said that national parks

“are some of the most beautiful parts of the country”—

I represent a bit of the South Downs national park—

“and it is right that we accord them a different status from other beautiful landscapes and approach development issues slightly differently.”—[Official Report, 11 September 2013; Vol. 567, c. 302WH.]

I suggest that he was hanging something out there for us back in September.

[Nick Boles]

My hon. Friends—and good friends they all are—have accused me of flying kites, showing leg and hanging out there, which I venture to suggest is borderline unparliamentary language.

I want to reassure my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) that no such cynicism could ever possibly enter into these considerations. Sometimes a Minister genuinely asks an open question because they do not quite know the answer. I do not represent a national park—I represent some very beautiful countryside, but I am relatively persuaded that the permitted development right would be appropriate there—but my hon. Friends in the Chamber and many other hon. Members represent national parks, and they understand the difficult balancing act between their preservation and the encouragement of life and vigour. It is very right and proper that hon. Members and national park representatives should make the arguments that they have made.

I simply say that if the Government were to decide that the permitted development right should not apply to section 15 land, it would nevertheless be important to encourage national parks to be positive about proposals for conversions of agricultural buildings that no longer fulfil a purpose in modern agriculture, because of their scale and materials, to housing—and not just affordable housing, although that is desperately needed in national parks, but sometimes housing for owners of second homes. We are all aware of cases of national park authorities being reluctant ever to entertain the possibility that a modern—sympathetic, sensitive and well-designed—reconversion of an old building might benefit a national park or the beauty that makes it a national park.

[Miss McIntosh]

Will my hon. Friend address the issue of agricultural buildings being taken but not used, particularly in relation to new entrants who find it so difficult to enter into agricultural business in national parks, areas of outstanding natural beauty or any hill area in North Yorkshire, because they do not have family there and there is nowhere for them to live or work?

[Nick Boles]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. That is not directly within my ministerial brief, but it is a serious point. I simply venture to suggest that in relation to keeping old barns as old barns—if they are not currently used in modern agriculture—it would be relatively rare that a new farmer could start up a business from one of those buildings in a way that they could not do elsewhere. My hon. Friend’s concern is absolutely valid, and I would be very happy to talk to Ministers in the responsible Department about how to address that concern, and how to ensure that when we announce a final position, nothing we propose undermines such a possibility for new farmers.

[Mel Stride]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Nick Boles]

I have very little time, but I am happy to give way.

[Mel Stride]

My hon. Friend is being most generous in giving way. To clarify, is he saying that if permitted development rights were not applied to national parks, the Government would probably come forward with further proposals to change the way in which national parks operate, such that some of the derelict barns that he has described would be brought into more effective use?

[Nick Boles]

I thank my hon. Friend for that helpful question. As he will know, the Government are considering the planning guidance. It has been out for consultation and many hon. Members have made useful contributions, which we will take seriously. We may look at whether we can give a slightly stronger nudge to national park authorities in that guidance about being positive in their view, while nevertheless retaining the right to decide whether something should receive planning permission.

[Dr Wollaston]

rose—

[Nick Boles]

I will give way to my hon. Friend in what little time I have left.

[Dr Wollaston]

One point that has not been covered is that some derelict buildings play an important role in sustaining wildlife in national parks. I hope that the Minister will also say whether, if permitted development rights are allowed for such areas, there could be a mechanism whereby exception sites are pulled in. Although I recognise that there will be some second homes, we must do something about affordable housing—that is the housing that is crucially needed in our national parks.

[Nick Boles]

I am relieved to hear, Mr Speaker, that the cut-off is not after half an hour, but at 10.30 pm. I am therefore happy to take as many interventions as Members want to make.

To address my hon. Friend’s question briefly, she is absolutely right that the critical need, particularly in national parks, but also in many of the most beautiful and highest value areas of the country, is for affordable housing of various kinds. I have visited a couple of excellent community land trust projects, not in her constituency but in other parts of my home county of Devon, where I was born and grew up. It is important that we support great projects such as those and make it easier for them to persuade landowners to provide land for affordable housing development, perhaps in exchange for the right to undertake more profitable development. I am happy to look at anything more that we can do on that with the Housing Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Kris Hopkins).

[Nick Herbert]

If my hon. Friend goes down the route of guidance, may I caution him against using the guidance to give national park authorities a nudge in the direction of saying that buildings should be converted, as he suggested? We should allow national park authorities to exercise their judgment on these matters and allow the Sandford principle to apply. That principle states quite clearly that, in the event of a conflict, conservation trumps economic development. These are often sensitive matters. In my constituency, a beautiful old barn is being considered for development. The national park authority is weighing that up carefully. A push in one direction would not be helpful and could be contrary to the principle on which the park was set up.

[Nick Boles]

My right hon. Friend is always helpful in raising concerns about unintended consequences, but he is unnecessarily worried about that particular point. I did not say that the guidance should tell national park authorities that they should approve applications; I said that they should view applications in a positive manner. He knows how guidance works. It does not require anybody to do anything; it simply says, “You should take this into account as a material consideration in your decision making.” Nothing in guidance can undermine the much more important established legal duties that are unique to national parks. This is simply a question of balance.

Development might be appropriate for some national park authorities—there are differences between them. Some national park authorities are more open-minded and willing to try out different forms of development than others. All we are saying is that before they immediately say no because they think that the best way to preserve the beauty of their national park is for a particular building to stay exactly as it is, unused by modern agriculture, we would like them to think creatively about whether it could be used in a more positive way. I do not think that that in any way undermines the fundamental principles that national parks must prioritise above all other considerations according to their original, founding duties.

[Oliver Colvile]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way again. It is incredibly important to ensure that homes in national parks also have broadband. In south Devon, one of the biggest small industries is the financial services industry, and we must ensure that it can help with growth. We must also ensure that we have a railway line so that we can get there.

[Nick Boles]

I am an optimist and I think that such tensions can almost always be resolved positively, but my hon. Friend puts his finger on the potential tension between allowing modern life to take place so that these parks do not become theme parks, while preserving the very beauty that makes them so special in the first place, and makes people want to live and set up businesses there. That tension is real, but I am sure it can be resolved.

[Simon Hart]

On flexibility, does the Minister agree that there may sometimes be a situation where conservation has to trump economic activity, and that that is restrictive? Something that has a minimal impact on conservation might have a positive impact on economic development, but at the moment national parks are hamstrung when it comes to making a measured judgment on that. It should be more flexible.

[Nick Boles]

My hon. Friend had made this argument to me before in various settings—including a Westminster Hall debate that was almost equally lively—but I have not yet been persuaded by his argument. What is the point of a national park if conservation is not the prime duty? On the other hand, I do not think that that duty always trumps other arguments. Of course there are other responsibilities, and every national park authority that I have spoken to takes those other responsibilities seriously. It is reasonable, however, that in national parks a greater weight is placed on that fundamental duty to conserve the landscape than is true in the rest of the English countryside.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Nick Boles]

I am slightly buffeted about with interventions, but it would be nice to hear from the other side of the House.

[Jim Shannon]

May I encourage the Minister to look at the example of Northern Ireland? Permitted development is not a carte blanche to go ahead and do whatever we want, and a sustainable rural community must survive as well. He mentioned balance about 10 times in his speech, and I suspect that the balance is Northern Ireland is one he would be glad to see.

[Nick Boles]

I would be delighted to look closely at that, not least because this gives me the opportunity to tell the hon. Gentleman—whom I long to call an hon. Friend—that I lived in his constituency about 25 years ago on Sketrick island, which is one of the most beautiful settlements in the stunningly beautiful Strangford lough. As a Devon boy, I find myself deeply divided between the beauties of Dartmoor, which I grew up with, and the beauty of Strangford lough, which I enjoyed for but one summer—but what a summer it was. I would be happy to look at those examples.

[David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)]

I would like to build on an important point made by my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Andrew Bingham). The Minister is expressing eloquently the need for balance in this discussion, and it is also important to achieve balance across the different needs and characters of different national parks. In some, buildings are often very isolated—in the peaks, for example—but not so isolated elsewhere. Building and constructing on isolated barns, or whatever else, would be entirely inappropriate in one national park, but might be more appropriate in others where there is less space and geographic expanse to fill.

[Nick Boles]

My hon. Friend succinctly makes the argument for why it might well be appropriate for national parks to retain the ability to decide on a case-by-case basis whether such development is possible. I hope that I have explained that the intention behind the proposed permitted developed right is to bring forward more housing on land that is already developed, and to make maximum use of the buildings that our ancestors saw fit to build, so that we do not have to put up any more buildings on green fields than is necessary to meet our housing and other needs.

I recognise, however, and the Government recognise, that national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty are so called for a reason and have a special status. It is a status we must respect, and it is important that we think hard and listen to the arguments put to us about the appropriateness of this measure in those areas. Although I cannot anticipate the Government’s final position, I reassure you, Mr Speaker, my hon. Friends, and my honorary hon. Friend, that the Government have heard the arguments loud and clear.

Question put and agreed to.

22:30

House adjourned.

Petitions

Monday 24th February 2014 Petitions

Monday 24 February 2014

Public Interest Disclosure Act

Monday 24th February 2014 Petitions

The Petition of Eileen Chubb of the Bupa 7 whistleblowers, and Director of the charity Compassion in Care,

Declares that following the Petition of 15 July, in which the Petitioner urged the former Government to address the failures of the Public Interest Disclosure Act (PIDA), the response was one of “No comment”; further that the House should note the report “Breaking the Silence: Part 1”, which is available via www.compassionincare.com and contains evidence of 1500 whistle-blowers who have been failed by PIDA and that the information contained in this report is a damning indictment of any civilised country; and that the Petitioner believes that the report shows that recent changes to PIDA will be entirely ineffective as will the recommendations of the Francis Inquiry.

The Petitioner therefore requests that the House of Commons urge the Government to take action by considering the evidence submitted in the report and replace PIDA before any more needless suffering and loss of life occurs.

And the Petitioners remain, etc.—[Presented by Charlotte Leslie, Official Report, 8 November 2013; Vol. 570, c. 609.]

[P001283]

Observations from the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills:

The Public Interest Disclosure Act was introduced after receiving cross-party support in 1998. This followed a number of major incidents where it became evident post event, that staff had been aware of risks but were either afraid to raise concerns, or had done so but were ignored, or the concerns were not raised in the right way. It was hoped that the existence of a legal framework would remove the fear of reprisal if individuals raised the alarm about matters which were of public interest.

Prior to the introduction of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act (ERRA) 2013 there was debate both within Government and with interested parties about the effectiveness of the whistleblowing protections, and a number of areas were highlighted as needing improvement.

Changes to the following areas were made through the ERRA:

The introduction of a public interest test—requiring an individual who brings a claim at an employment tribunal to show they had a reasonable belief that their disclosure was in the public interest;

An amendment to the good faith test—ensuring that in the event a person is unable to show that they have not made a disclosure in good faith, they do not automatically lose their claim as had been the case previously, but may incur a reduction in any compensatory award the tribunal may award in respect of that claim by up to 25%;

The introduction of vicarious liability—ensuring that an individual who has suffered a detriment from a co-worker as a result of blowing the whistle, can bring a claim against both the co-worker and the employer, who may be vicariously liable for the actions of the co-worker; and

An amendment to the definition of “worker” to include contractual arrangements in the NHS. Previously certain NHS workers, including GPs were not covered by the whistleblowing protections in the Employments Rights Act.

These changes came into force in June 2013 and, as such, it is too early effectively to evaluate their impact.

Between July and November 2013, Government ran a call for evidence on the remaining areas of the framework which were unaffected by the changes introduced through the ERRA. The call for evidence sought to understand if there were further areas which may need changes.

Responses to this call for evidence, including “Breaking the Silence Parts 1 and 2” (referred to by the petitioner), are currently being analysed and the Government expects to be able to publish its response before Easter.

Future governance in Kashmir

Monday 24th February 2014 Petitions

The Petition of residents of the UK,

Declares that the Petitioners believe that the ongoing Kashmir dispute is a threat to regional and global peace; further that the dispute is causing insecurity, instability and human rights violations; and further that the State of Jammu and Kashmir should be given the right to self-determination.

The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons debate this matter on the floor of the House and further requests that the House urges the Government to facilitate a negotiated settlement.

And the Petitioners remain, etc.—[Presented by Fiona Mactaggart, Official Report, 12 December 2013; Vol. 572, c. 446.]

[P001312]

Observations from the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs:

I recognise the importance of finding a lasting solution to the difficult situation in Kashmir. However, it is not for the UK to prescribe a solution—this is a matter for India and Pakistan to resolve, taking into account the wishes of the Kashmiri people. This is the long-standing position of the UK Government.

I also recognise that there are human rights concerns in both Indian and Pakistan administered Kashmir. We monitor developments in Kashmir closely including the political, security and human rights situation and recent incidents on the Line of Control.

Officials from our High Commissions in both New Delhi and Islamabad regularly travel to the region and raise concerns about the human rights situation with both Governments. The UK has consistently called for an end to all external support for violence in Kashmir. UK funding supports human rights and conflict prevention programmes on both sides of the Line of Control in order to help build constituencies for peace.

I welcome the fact that the Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan met in New York last September and the commitment they made to maintain a ceasefire on the Line of Control. This has been followed up by a meeting of senior military commanders from both Pakistan and Indian Administered Kashmir, which has helped to restore calm and is an important step towards maintaining regional security. The Commerce Ministers from India and Pakistan also met in Delhi recently. This is encouraging, as greater economic ties will increase contacts between ordinary citizens and help other confidence building measures.

The right hon. Baroness Warsi, Senior Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, debated the issue of Kashmir in the House of Lords in early 2013, so I do not intend to call a debate in the House on this issue. The full record of the House of Lords debate can be found at:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201213/ldhansrd/text/130123-0002.htm#13012364000064.

Planned closure of the Portland coastguard helicopter base

Monday 24th February 2014 Petitions

The Petition of residents of South Dorset,

Declares that the Government plans to close Portland coastguard helicopter base, despite protests from local people, MPs and hospital consultants; and further that the Petitioners believe that there may be lives lost as a result of losing this search and rescue facility.

The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Department for Transport to reverse the decision to close Portland coastguard helicopter base.

And the Petitioners remain, etc.—[Presented by Richard Drax, Official Report, 4 February 2014; Vol. 575, c. 243.]

[P001317]

Observations from the Secretary of State for Transport, received 21 February 2014:

When agreeing the new Search and Rescue Helicopter contract, the Government looked at the national picture, and that picture is much improved overall by a new basing configuration and fleet of aircraft.

The decision to close Portland was taken by Ministers on the strength of independently commissioned advice contained in the Assurance Review of Search and Rescue Helicopter Basing Report, which has been published*.

The new helicopter arrangements will be introduced incrementally from 2015 and will be fully operational by summer 2017. Services from Portland are scheduled to cease in June 2017.

The bases under the new contract that will most commonly cover the Portland area are Lee on Solent, Newquay and St Athan, near Cardiff. Lee on Solent and St Athan will be equipped with Agusta Westland AW189 aircraft. Newquay will be equipped with Sikorsky S92 aircraft. Two aircraft will be positioned at each base to provide high availability.

Portland is approximately 20 minutes flying time from Lee on Solent. With the more modern S92 aircraft, Newquay is 42 minutes flying time to Portland compared with Culdrose which is 61 minutes in a Sea King. The AW189 at St Athan can reach Portland in 27 minutes compared with Chivenor which is 40 minutes in a Sea King.

It is also important to remember that search and rescue helicopters are not the only means and not always the fastest means by which to reach those in danger. Her Majesty’s Coastguard can call upon a range of people and assets to respond to an emergency, including members of the Coastguard Rescue Service and the RNLI.

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20120606175016/http://assets.dft.gov.uk/publications/uk-sar-helicopters-services/assurance-review-sar.pdf.

Westminster Hall

Monday 24th February 2014 Westminster Hall

Monday 24 February 2014

[Mr Andrew Turner in the Chair]

BackBench Business

Monday 24th February 2014 Westminster Hall

Holiday Pricing

Monday 24th February 2014 Westminster Hall

16:30

[John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the e-petition relating to holiday companies charging extra in school holidays.

I would like to start by referring to an e-mail I received a few minutes ago from a parent who hopes to take his three children to Turin next February half term, in 2015. According to his e-mail, the British Airways website gives a price of £54 for a single person on Tuesday 10 and Wednesday 11 February 2015. On the Thursday, the price goes up to £112, and on the Friday it is £344. That is for a one-way flight for a single person. My correspondent asks how on earth parents can ever afford to pay such prices. That is what this debate is about, in essence. The fact is that many parents across the country are having great difficulty in being able to afford to go on holiday with their children.

The e-petition that we are debating was initiated some time ago by Donna Thresher, although Paul Cookson has been campaigning to get signatures for it since he found that Center Parcs doubled its prices at half term. Donna has said:

“Firstly we the undersigned are grateful that our voice is to be heard. The news of the debate is welcomed by all of us as we feel this is a positive step towards an outcome that we deem extremely important to the well being of family life. For those of us that work hard, pay our bills and taxes, a family holiday is the only time off we get to spend QUALITY time with our families. The government are struggling to understand why we have ‘Benefits Britain’ and one of the reasons is simple, broken families. Parents need time off, they need to enjoy their children and have time together as a unit. With holidays being priced out to such a degree that makes them unobtainable and means families are not getting this important time together.”

The e-petition was tabled before the changes to the regulations came into force on 1 September 2013. I thank the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), for allocating time for this debate. The comments I am about to read were written after the new regulations, which are very relevant, came into force. Donna said:

“The original petition still stands in its own right but we do feel that the change in legislation has impacted the costs even further.

However, there are things to be considered—the petition was raised almost a year ago and the legislation with regard to the change in the discretionary rights of head teachers to allow pupils time of in term time had NOT at the time been made public.”

Donna’s thoughts since the change in legislation are:

“Holiday prices have increased even further. Schools will no longer know when children are being removed for a holiday as parents may decide to not say, this could constitute a safeguarding issue and end up with social service involved! The 10 days discretionary was working, why did it have to be changed? Fines are sought by the school and yet they don’t receive the money; it goes to the council and not back into the schools themselves. Therefore this seems to me to be another stealth tax.”

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

Will my hon. Friend confirm whether the previous rule used to be about 10 days or 10 sessions? I think he will find that a session is actually half a day.

[John Hemming]

My understanding was that it was 10 days.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey]

I think that is wrong.

[John Hemming]

My hon. Friend may be right, but that has been changed anyway.

There is also the issue of the new regulations, which we discussed with the Backbench Business Committee. A group called Parents Want a Say was established following the introduction of the new regulations, and it has a website. A number of e-petitions relate to the issue of school holidays. E-petition 49640 is entitled “Reverse the changes to school term time family holiday rules”.

E-petition 53002 states that it is

“calling on the government to help British families manage the ‘Parent Trap’ of inflated holiday prices in summer by suspending or reducing the rate of Air Passenger Duty (APD) for the annual school summer-holiday period of July and August.”

E-petition 45247 states:

“Relax the strict rules on term time holidays for school children.

Give parents the right to take their child on holiday in term time if the holiday would benefit the child.

Respect the rights of the child and bring term time holiday regulations in line with UNCRC (specifically article 3,4,5 and 31).

Standardise the criteria for term time holiday approval to prevent inconsistencies.”

E-petition 46455 states:

“Family time is so much more essential in the current working world, but so many people cannot afford holidays in school holidays. A break at home is not the same as getting away from it all where there isn't any house work or DIY to get done, instead focus is on family. Its time to stop the holiday companies cashing in on school holidays and let parents have some guilt free family time! Enforce action that caps the percentage increase on holiday prices in school holidays.”

There are also e-petitions 55426, 51533, 42884 and 23709, which I am not going to read out. This debate is a very good example of how effective an e-petition can be in getting an issue of considerable concern to many constituents across the country raised and debated in Parliament. It looks to me like an example of the success of the e-petition system.

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

I apologise for not being able to stay for the entire debate, but I wanted to support my hon. Friend. I have received a lot of letters on this issue from my constituents in Shrewsbury. They feel strongly that the Government must show innovative thinking to resolve the situation for hard-working families who, on rare occasions, need to pull their children out of school for a holiday.

[John Hemming]

I thank my hon. Friend for that comment. As I talk about specific examples, we will see that different families have different circumstances, and a one-size-fits-all approach is not necessarily the best solution.

It is interesting that the tensions that have arisen beyond the initial problem of high prices during the holidays are the result of the new regulations, passed in statutory instrument 2013 No. 756. For those interested in procedural issues, as I am, I should say that the regulations went through Parliament under a negative resolution—that is, they would pass as long as Parliament did not vote against them. Parliament would have had an opportunity to discuss the regulations had anyone tabled an early-day motion praying against them, but no one did. There was no discussion.

The regulations were laid before Parliament on 4 April 2013. There was no request to debate them on the Floor of the House of Lords either. That House differs from the House of Commons in that it has a Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which looked at the regulations and decided not to comment on them. However, we have heard from our constituents that there are considerable problems across the country. That shows the strength of the e-petitioning process. Something went through Parliament on the nod, but constituents had a mechanism to express concerns. The issue has been raised and now everyone present is here to debate it.

I must disagree with the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey). The Department for Education website states that the regulations were changed from allowing up to 10 school days—not 10 school sessions—per year for holidays to allowing children to leave school only in exceptional circumstances. As I said, I will come to specific examples. Although there was some form of consultation on changes to the regulations, that did not get across to people and Parliament was not aware of constituents’ concerns when the changes were made. However, that has now changed.

How do we deal with the issue? Obviously, many of our constituents face a serious problem; that is evidenced by the number of people in the Chamber. Concerns have been expressed about the extent to which companies can be forced to charge the same price throughout the year. I do not think that that is a practical solution, particularly given that the market includes people visiting this country—we could end up with holiday touts and all sorts of things.

There are two solutions for dealing with demand. First, we could have flexibility in holiday periods: we could stagger holidays. Secondly, we could have more flexibility—moving back towards how things were previously, although not necessarily all the way—and allow people to take their children out of school in term time, in the right circumstances. I think that would be reasonable in some circumstances.

Looking further at how the issue is regulated, we already have Ofcom, Ofwat and Ofgem; I do not think we can have Offonholiday—that would not work. A reduction in air passenger duty has been proposed, but there would be problems with that. First, it would not benefit UK holidaymakers. Paul Cookson, who I referred to earlier, was worried about the doubling of prices at Center Parcs. As Center Parcs is in the UK, a reduction in air passenger duty would not have an effect on people going there. If the APD proposal reached the Treasury, it would go into a nosedive; we would find that it was not a flyer—[Interruption.] Sorry about that. I will give up on the jokes now.

We come to the question of what will happen as far as flexibility for holidays is concerned. I have found an interesting copy of Travel Trade Gazette from 1963, which reports:

“It was in the House of Commons on February 12, 1960, that approval was first given to the setting up of a committee to examine the question of extending the U.K. holiday season.

The subject was introduced by Mr. Robert Mathew, M.P. for Honiton, in a motion which read:

‘That this House, recognising the need to extend and adjust the holiday period so as to relieve congestion at the peak period, asks Her Majesty’s Government to set up a committee to examine this question urgently with special reference to the educational, tourist trade and transport interests concerned, and the problem of summer time, with the power to recommend early action.’ ”

We are now a good few years on; we did not have the early action. That was in 1963. In 1964, the heads of Germany’s regional governments, which are responsible for state education, were called together to stagger the summer holidays in such a way as to prevent all the region’s leisure seekers from leaving for and returning from their holidays at the same time, with the corresponding detrimental effect on traffic and demand for accommodation in tourist areas. They divided the country into five roughly equal population blocks, which were all to have different holiday periods that moved around. It is interesting that Germany managed to do something. In fact, I understand that the Republic of Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Finland and France also have such a facility.

Interestingly, schedule 14 to the Deregulation Bill, currently being discussed, allows head teachers to decide when holidays are. The general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, Russell Hobby, said recently that the NAHT has been saying for some time that there is an argument for more flexibility over term times, to relieve the pressures that drive up holiday costs. However, it is important for schools to co-ordinate timings across a town or region; parents with children at different schools would not welcome the inconvenience and child care costs of different term dates. That is obviously sensible. We must also think of the teachers; those with children would not like their children’s holidays to be at a different time from theirs.

Staggering holiday dates can definitely be done, but it will need co-ordination; it will not be something to wash our hands of. It may be for the Select Committee on Education to consider, in conjunction with other people, how we might stagger holidays across the country so that we do not end up with everyone trying to go on holiday at the same time and prices rocketing.

That is one question. The more difficult question is when people should be allowed out of school during term time and what exemptions should apply. Again, I will quote from what people have said to me. One person says:

“This coming Tuesday is my uncle’s funeral in Folkestone…Our three children were quite close to him. We enquired of their schools (primary and secondary) whether they would be prepared to grant exceptional circumstance leave for one day only and in both cases they said they felt unable to do so under the new rules.”

There we have a specific example of children being refused permission to go to the funeral of their great-uncle. Personally, I think that is wrong.

Other parents do not have a choice as to when they have holiday. A lady who returned from maternity leave to her post as a staff nurse in a bone marrow transplant unit at a hospital put in an early request for annual leave during the Easter or summer half-term break. Her requests were not granted, as too many other nurses were off during those periods and the unit must remain adequately staffed. In addition, her husband has been unable to secure annual leave during the summer. They have always made their best efforts to book holiday time during school breaks, but the only week that they could secure together this year was in June, when there is no school holiday. That lady spends her time saving lives. She is committed to that, so she does not have flexibility in her holidays, and the new rules say that she cannot go on holiday with her children. I think that is wrong, too.

[Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman also recognise the particular problems faced by members of the armed forces? Some schools have been pragmatic in allowing members of the armed forces, particularly if they are being deployed, to spend a holiday with their children. It is particularly shoddy when they are not given that opportunity, especially now that we have the armed forces covenant.

[John Hemming]

I thank the hon. Lady for making that excellent point. I would happily have made it myself, but I now no longer need to.

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

I draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention to the situation of my constituent Amanda Wooding, who is a child care specialist. She, of course, finds herself particularly in demand during the school holidays, but she has children of her own, so she can never take them on holiday at other times because of her profession.

[John Hemming]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. The issue is all about considering individual cases. Perhaps the hardest case is that of the police, who not only often do not have any choice as to when they take holiday, but also can be fired if they are fined. That is a double whammy. Not only is taking holiday difficult; they also face losing their job. That is clearly unfair to those people.

Another constituent of mine says that they have one family holiday a year. Until this year they have been fortunate enough to take it for a week during the school term, always authorised by the school, but they cannot afford to take the same holiday during the school holidays, although their children’s attendance is otherwise excellent. That is my constituent’s point: they ensure that their children’s attendance is excellent and that they maintain their educational standards, do work and so on. Now, from a cost-effectiveness point of view, it is cheaper to pay the fines. It is not very good to have a structure in society that effectively encourages people to break the criminal law because it would cost them thousands of pounds not to.

I have another story from some people from Australia who have difficulty visiting family if there is no flexibility at all. They say:

“What is clear is that this ruling actually favours the rich. Those who can afford it pay the fine for taking their children out—I know of one family who recently took themselves skiing to do this—while those on low incomes who cannot afford the fine but feel they must go will get a criminal record. The ruling is draconian.”

Similarly, I have a constituent with links to Pakistan who has concerns that the ruling is damaging their family links as well. Those examples give us some idea of the exceptions that are now not being treated as exceptions.

On mechanisms for change, we should first look to the Taylor report itself, as that drove the changes. Recommendation 6 was that

“changes are made to the pupil registration regulations to strengthen the rules on term time holidays. While head teachers should continue to have discretion, holidays in term time should be the exception rather than the rule.”

Actually, they are not happening at all now. One obvious question in all this is what pressure Ofsted is placing on head teachers to reduce the numbers. The numbers were that 7.5% of absence in primary schools and 2.5% in secondary schools was related to holidays. Obviously, if head teachers are under pressure to reduce those numbers, there will be an effect.

We must consider the mechanisms for change. One is for the Government to produce guidance saying clearly that going to a great-uncle’s funeral, for instance, is reasonable. Secondly, the Government could introduce a new statutory instrument changing the regulations. The final question is whether a judicial review under article 8 of the European convention on human rights, or using the UN convention on the rights of the child—a point made in one of the other petitions—could have an effect.

There is undoubtedly a problem. The fact that so many constituents have highlighted the issue and so many people have signed online petitions about it demonstrates that. There are numerous solutions, including working with schools to stagger school holidays or changing regulations. We need to do something.

16:49

[Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Turner, for calling me to speak in this important debate. I also thank my colleague on the Backbench Business Committee, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming), for securing it. When the e-petition came to us, we recognised its importance, not only because it reached 100,000 signatures, but because of the number of constituents who talked to us about the issue. His comprehensive speech—I hope I do not repeat any of it—highlighted how this is about individual cases. A big national policy that is supposed to apply to every single case will simply not work. I want to use a couple of examples from my own constituency to highlight how a more sensible policy would look at each individual case—each individual child and each individual parent—and give schools far greater discretion to allow people out of school and for how long.

We all agree that education is crucial and that the more time a child misses from its education, the worse it is for that child. Nobody is arguing for taking children out of school indiscriminately just because it is a little cheaper to go on holiday. We are talking about the people who are least able to afford to go on holiday, who have already got the greatest pressures on them.

A constituent of mine, Tim Farmer from Dronfield, has written to me. He and his partner share child care. One of them starts work at 6 am and the other finishes work at 11 am. They cannot afford to take their children on holiday during term time, and not spending time together means that the family is put under pressure. Heaped on top of that, they work absolutely punishing hours and never get the chance to spend time together as a family. That puts additional pressures on family life, and we are seeing, especially at a time of austerity, more and more families breaking up. We must look at the costs of not doing anything about it.

I have a distressing case in which the school’s response illustrates how a national policy does not really work in individual cases. The case involves a man who is separated from his wife. His seven-year-old daughter goes to a school in the constituency; he lives 120 miles away and visits on alternate weekends. The girl has just been diagnosed with a brain tumour, and they do not know what will happen to the child. He has asked the school whether he can take the girl on holiday for a week. The school has cited Government legislation to say there will be no unauthorised absences. It sounds quite threatening, but the school has no option, because of the rules. The school wrote:

“As from 1st September 2013 any holidays during term time will not be authorised, unless there are exceptional circumstances, for which there are set strict criteria. This is Government policy and parents who take their children on holiday without permission will incur unauthorised absences for their child. These remain on the child’s record and will be monitored for further action by the Education Welfare Service. Parents could be issued with a fixed penalty notice and/or court action.”

That is quite threatening language, but it is national policy. If a child with a brain tumour does not fall under the category of a special case, I do not know what does.

Tim Farmer’s children have got 99% to 100% attendance at school. He wants the best for them, but he also says that going on holiday with the family provides a cultural experience, a broadening of horizon and a stability for the children that helps them. Education is much wider than what people get at school.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey]

Has a teacher or head teacher approached the hon. Lady on this topic, and, in this particular case, has she had a chance to speak to the teacher at the school, because head teachers do have discretion?

[Natascha Engel]

Absolutely, and the case is ongoing. I was citing it as an example of using a massive hammer to crack a nut. Everything is with good intentions. We all want the best education for our children. We all know that the less time a child spends at school, the worse its outcomes will be, and there are lots of different reasons for that. There are children from chaotic families and children who truant, but we are talking about looking at an individual child and the family’s circumstances and seeing whether it would be possible, not to have a week a year taken out of school time, but to have a week occasionally to make sure that that family can spend some quality time together. I am so glad that we are having this debate, and I am looking forward to hearing about other individual cases from constituencies, because they will highlight the fact that we do need to revisit the matter.

Obviously, we cannot force holiday companies not to raise their prices during school holiday times, but we do need to have a far more sensible and pragmatic approach. We need to give schools greater discretion to allow families to have holidays together.

[Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

I agree with many of the points the hon. Lady is making, but I have a concern about putting the onus on to head teachers without very good guidelines. Head teachers would find it difficult with parent against parent, and there would be inconsistencies across areas and across the country, so I think we need to dig into the criteria and guidelines that are issued.

[Natascha Engel]

That is an excellent point. I know the hon. Lady has a background in education, and she is absolutely right. All I am asking for is that we allow greater discretion. At the moment, there is not enough discretion, and that is why the issues are being raised with us as constituency MPs.

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

I think I agree with my hon. Friend, but does she agree with me that the problem is that there are at least three variables? There are those—including teachers—who, by virtue of their employment, would never have the opportunities that others are seeking. There are those—she gave some good examples—whose own employment makes it difficult for them to find space. And of no less importance is the requirement for schools to provide the entire curriculum to all the children, and co-ordinating that would be a problem. The idea of more discretion is good, but it needs to be underpinned by some basic principles about how all the different groups can be catered for.

[Mr Andrew Turner (in the Chair)]

Order. Before you continue, can I ask that you face my direction in future?

[Mr Howarth]

Sorry.

[Natascha Engel]

I absolutely agree. Our problem at the moment is that we have one national policy that is supposed to apply to everybody, and it is not working in the case of teachers, police officers, and the armed forces. There are lots of individual professions that will have problems. However, the head teachers that I have met know the parents and their children. We do not want a situation in which it becomes too easy to take children out of school—there would be abuses of that—but in the case of families with the lowest incomes and the greatest pressures on family life, where a lot of the families are breaking up, that is far worse for a child than simply missing a couple of days of its education because it has gone on holiday. We need to look at that a lot more carefully. I agree with the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole that we need to look at the guidelines more carefully. We must not impose so harshly on schools and use such a threatening tone with parents. For people on a low income, the inability to ever go on holiday would be a great shame.

16:59

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. As an MP who represents a constituency that relies on the tourism industry, I presume you will find this an interesting and topical debate. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming) for securing this debate, which has managed to attract more than 200,000 signatures on petitions. I posted about this on Facebook and had 47 separate comments and suggestions from residents, with more than 3,000 views in just 72 hours. A lot of important things that we do in Parliament do not attract quite as much interest. That shows the strength of feeling in parents throughout the country on a real, live issue.

In my mind, this matter is split into three sections. First, it is about the holiday industry, which is why the Minister was selected to respond to the debate. Some have expressed concern about such a significant increase in costs. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley gave good examples of people going on holidays during school holidays and during term time. However, some parents said that they felt that was a bit of a red herring: it probably reflects supply and demand, because if a firm cannot sell the more expensive holidays, it would be forced to drop those prices. For example, Center Parcs relies on something like a 97% occupancy rate to be a viable business. Prices will reflect—

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

As a representative for Bournemouth East, my default position is to support the tourism industry. Like many colleagues, I have received letters on this subject from people who are concerned about the price of holidays. Does my hon. Friend agree with the point made by my hon. Friend for Birmingham, Yardley about co-ordination across the country? Is it really necessary for Dorset to have the same holiday timings as Yorkshire or Kent? Could we not stagger these a little bit, so that supply and demand is spread over a longer period?

[Justin Tomlinson]

Like Bournemouth, which is a fantastic place to go on holiday, my hon. Friend’s intervention was fantastic. I am coming to that point in a bit. I have had many enjoyable holidays in Bournemouth.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) for giving way and to the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) for his comment. We support greater flexibility for different authorities, but can we ensure that Derbyshire gets the warmest months?

[Justin Tomlinson]

Derbyshire is also a fantastic place to go on holiday. Let us champion every constituency. I think that we are on safe ground, with cross-party support, when championing the UK tourism industry.

We need to be 100% sure that there are not some unscrupulous operators, but predominantly we need to focus on the two other areas of discretion and flexibility. On discretion, there is already confusion among a lot of parents. A lot of parents have contacted me to say, “We have triggered fines. We feel that our decision to take our children out of school was justified, but the school came back and said, ‘Under the new rules, there is absolutely no discretion; you will be fined’.” As a Government representative, I have almost felt obliged to apologise on behalf of the Government.

At one school that has made the new rules clear, the chair of governors said, “No. Actually, there is discretion. We, through the pastoral team, will look at those parents whose children have excellent attendance records and are achieving well in school and we will look at why they might be taken out of school, for a funeral, say, compared to a holiday without educational benefits, and it would be weighed up.” Clearly, there is confusion and that needs to be resolved.

There is the assumption that there is pressure from Ofsted because it looks at attendance records when rating a school. If a school decides to say that, because of cost and work pressures, it will allow a good level of discretion, its attendance records do not look good. That also needs to be considered, because that would be a disincentive for a school to apply common-sense discretion.

I think that all hon. Members would agree that, perhaps, discretion should apply where children are doing well and where parents work during school holidays. My hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt), who is a champion for the armed forces, highlights one career, but I am sure that there many others, in all our constituencies, where parents can take their children on holiday only during school time. We have all noticed the cost of peak holidays.

There are some challenges. I have been contacted by teachers who say that they do not like being in the firing line and having discretion, because if they feel that the child should not be given time off they are the ones who are blamed. Sometimes there are reasons why that should not be so. I have also been told that, in the past, when there was discretion about 10 days or 10 sessions, some parents felt that it was an automatic right to have that every year, even if the child was struggling. There was never a case of a parent saying, “You’re absolutely right. I’ll now withdraw that request.” It would create heated discussion. If we are to consider discretions, clear guidelines, which were suggested earlier, are an absolute must.

We must also consider teachers, because although discretion can help pupils and parents, the teachers would not have discretion to take time off during terms. That is not necessarily a complete, one-size-fits-all solution.

I am a big fan of flexibility in this regard. One big suggestion is flexible term times. About a year ago I was contacted by a resident, Nicki Mitchell, on this issue. I suggested flexible term times and was asked, “What happens if you have a child in a primary school and another at a secondary school, and they have different term times? That will make it even harder.” A number of residents have contacted me and said that such flexibility exists in Europe and that it is done by county or region. We might decide that the south-east goes a couple of weeks earlier and the south-west goes a couple of weeks later. However, in Europe it is done in rotation, so it is not always the south-west or south-east first. Not only would that help parents and children, but it would probably help the tourism industry, because almost regardless of what it charges it can fill up at peak time, but the rest of year it faces a real challenge. Spreading that across the year would be helpful.

If we cannot manage flexible term times, another suggestion is extending the school year by two weeks and allowing everybody automatically two weeks’ worth of discretion throughout the year. That would probably be incredibly unpopular with teachers, who would then face an extra two weeks, but I thought that I would mention it.

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

I am following closely what the hon. Gentleman is saying. Once a child has been away on holiday for two weeks, would there not be a lot of catching up to do when they came back? Children would be trying to catch up at different times.

[Justin Tomlinson]

That applies to general discretion. There is a plus and a negative with any suggestion, which is why my personal choice would be rotational, flexible term times, because that would help children, parents and teachers, and the tourism industry. To me that is a win-win, across the board. Long gone are the days when we all needed to be available for harvest time.

It is a pleasure to participate in this debate, which has caught the public’s imagination. It is a serious issue. I do not think that we will necessarily get all the solutions today. I think that the key to this—my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley mentioned it—is that the Education Committee should now pick up the baton after this debate, taking on board the speeches and comments that we have made, and we will happily forward all suggestions and comments from constituents who have contacted us. This can be looked at. The Government could, by looking at this proactively, innovatively and constructively, make a real difference to people’s lives.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Andrew Turner (in the Chair)]

Order. I call Damian Green. I am sorry: I meant Damian Hinds.

17:07

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

I am grateful for the elevation implicit in your introduction, Mr Turner. It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair. As it was said earlier, you represent the Isle of Wight, which is one of the important tourist destinations in this country.

This debate has already covered a number of important subjects, including the importance of family life and family time, the value of an education, which people do without by missing part of education, the joy and the benefits of discovery through travel, and the health of the travel industry. I hope that you will forgive me, Mr Turner, if I restrict my remarks mostly to the topic of the e-petition, which is on whether to stop holiday companies charging extra in the school holidays.

In the current tough times, of course we are focused in this Parliament on affordability of everything for families and being able to spend time together away from home is one aspect of that. In the words of the petition:

“Family time is so much more essential in the current working world, but so many people cannot afford holidays in school holidays”

and a

“break at home is not the same as getting away from it all where…focus is on family”.

Who could disagree with that?

I understand why people would say, “If holiday companies can make money charging price x in the winter, surely they must be able to make profit by charging the same price in the summer. By charging a higher price, they must be making huge profits on the backs of other people.” That is not correct. If the same is charged in summer as in winter for a popular sun-based tourist destination, those companies would be out of business and nobody would be going on those holidays. It is also worth saying that what counts as a peak period in the travel business is partly but not entirely determined by when school holidays are. Weather also plays a big part, and so does the timing of public holidays such as Easter, Christmas and, in this country, bank holidays.

A little Google research this morning revealed that for holidays on which presumably no children are involved, and therefore school holidays are not involved, there is also a big difference in price. The price for a Thomas Cook couple’s retreat in Negril, Jamaica goes up by 31% between June and August. As you will recall from when we were there together recently, Mr Turner, the price for an “Ibiza Rocks” clubbing holiday also rises by 31% between June and August. The differences in those prices are clearly not driven by the timing of school holidays.

I have a confession: I come here today as a sinner. Before coming to Parliament I spent about a decade in the travel trade. I am afraid that I was mostly involved in pricing and what the travel trade calls “revenue management.” I do not want to go into the technical detail, but revenue management is basically the discipline of deciding what prices to offer, to whom, when and under what conditions.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Jenny Willott)]

It’s your fault.

[Damian Hinds]

Yes, it is my fault. I worked mostly in the hotel business, but the same principle applies to airlines and most of the travel business’s wide range of products—basically anything with high fixed-cost assets, a perishable product and fixed or semi-fixed capacity. Hotels are also suppliers to holiday companies. Package operators buy in capacity from airlines, hotels, bus companies and so on. It is also worth bearing in mind that there is an international market, especially in foreign travel. Packagers are to some extent price takers. No one in this country decides the market rate of a hotel room in Spain in the high season. Even if we believed that British companies set the prices for holidays, no one would suggest that Spanish hoteliers are within the control of Her Majesty’s Government. Resort-based travel is international in nature. People have already mentioned the timing of German and French holidays, which are already factored into the price. If people from different countries are going to a resort, the demand is an amalgam of all the incoming traffic.

I come here as a sinner, but I have not come here to confess. I do not anticipate a popularity boost from my appearance in Westminster Hall this afternoon, but the simple fact is that to a large extent we are talking about the laws of economics. There is no single year-round market clearing price in holiday resorts.

[Annette Brooke]

I want to draw on the hon. Gentleman’s expertise. I accept that there is supply and demand and that, if we attempt to interfere too much, there will be touting and so on, but does his analysis include the reasons for the steep rises on particular days, which seem to coincide with school holidays?

[Damian Hinds]

The hon. Lady is correct that the rises coincide with school holidays. To some extent, the existence of those holidays creates those spikes, but the holidays themselves coincide with the high season. As I outlined earlier, the prices for holidays marketed to couples, older people, singles, groups and clubbers typically go up in late July and August because that is the most popular time of the year, particularly to visit European, sun-based resort destinations.

This debate is no place to start deconstructing the profit and loss accounts of holiday companies, but contribution to profit is a key concept. I will talk about hotels, but the same logic applies to airlines and other travel products. The direct marginal cost of someone staying in a hotel room is rather low. Globally, the figure is somewhere between $15 and $20. That is the cost of laundering towels and sheets, issuing soap and providing heat, light and power, and so on. On one level, a hotel will make a profit if it charges anything over $20. The problem is that there are other, fixed costs. For an airline or hotel, the biggest fixed cost is the building or aircraft—loan repayments do not go up and down. Taken together, the cost per night goes up from $20 to, say, $100, which is a big difference. In the off-season, a hotel room might be sold for $80, $70, $60 or $50 a night. In other words, a hotel might deliberately make a loss. Why would a hotel do that? It does it because as long as it charges more than $20 a night, which is the direct marginal cost, it is contributing to profit. If a hotel tried to charge the $100 profitable rate, it would not sell the room.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

I fully appreciate my hon. Friend’s argument that the rich seasons help airlines and the tourist industry to function during the off-seasons. What does he think would happen if some flexibility were introduced so that schools in different areas took their school holidays at different times? Would he anticipate prices remaining low during those times, or would he anticipate the travel industry increasing prices to reflect such an expansion of the season?

[Damian Hinds]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. The short answer is that such a measure would be welcomed by the travel business because it would extend the season, which would be good for capacity utilisation. There would be an effect, but the effect would not be nearly as big as many people anticipate. The season might be extended by a week or two, but those would still be shoulder periods. They would not be peak periods, so there would be a difference, but the difference would not be huge.

[Mr Ellwood]

My hon. Friend makes an important point on the responsibility of the tourism industry as a whole to ensure that it sets its prices accordingly, but I recall that during the Olympics there was a concern that many hoteliers in London increased their prices too much, which put people off. Does he have any thoughts on whether that should be rationalised for one-off events such as the Olympics? I recall wanting to stay in Manchester during the party conference, but as soon as hoteliers found out that the party conference might be held in the city, the prices suddenly shot up.

[Damian Hinds]

My hon. Friend is correct in identifying price gouging as a problem. From a regulatory perspective, most countries have laws against price gouging, but brand owners and companies have an interest in not doing such things. Even worse than the Olympics, price gouging can occur when there has been a natural disaster. People absolutely have to stay in a hotel, so they are ripped off. That is a bad thing, which is why rack rates exist. Rack rates appear on the back of a hotel door, and it is the maximum amount that may be charged in law. Most European countries, the United States and most advanced economies have that system in hotels, but price gouging remains a problem.

In summary, leisure travel companies have to make more money in peak periods to cover the marginal cost losses incurred during the off-season. The definition of a peak period is when most people want to travel, which is partly, but not wholly, determined by the timing of school holidays. I am interested to hear from the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins), but it is inconceivable that a British Government of any political persuasion would impose price controls on the British-based travel business. If such price controls were imposed, firms would go out of business—plenty of holiday companies go out of business anyway because margins can be thin across the year—and capacity in foreign resorts would not be made available to British tourists. Instead, capacity would be sold to people from other countries, which would have the disastrous consequence of more German towels on loungers, and we can all unite around wanting to avoid that.

What are the alternatives? I have spoken for too long, but I want briefly to address the debate on taking children out of school outside school holidays. I recognise the argument that times are tough and that people are struggling to go on holiday so want to take their kids out of school. One thing that has not yet come up in the debate is that education in this country is free, but that does not mean that education has no cost. The average cost of educating a child is some £4,500 a year, which covers 190 school days or 38 weeks. By my basic maths that works out at about £120-worth of value per child per week. If someone takes both their children out of school for a fortnight to go on holiday, £480-worth of value is forgone in the education of those children. That value cannot be transferred to the education of another child; it is value forgone for ever. The salary of the teacher and all the other things that go into running the school remain and the children miss out.

Children fall behind if they miss part of their education. In the context of a school term, even a week or two weeks is a reasonably big chunk of time. Multiplied over a lifetime, a child taking a fortnight out from school every year from year R to year 13 would be off for 28 weeks, which is three quarters of an academic year. To put that in physical terms, it is the equivalent of saying to that child, “You will do your GCSEs at the beginning of year 11 rather than at the end.”

What are the options? One thing that nobody has mentioned is counter-cyclical travel. If people go to places in the summer that have most of their demand in winter or in business periods, they can get quite a good deal. We have those places—in particular, business-focused destinations—in this country. Travelodge, for example, has hotels in many places and families can find lots of fabulous things to visit within 40 minutes of any of them.

[Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)]

The Fylde coast, for example.

[Damian Hinds]

Yes, indeed. The big thing we are talking about is varying holidays, which is intrinsically attractive, but we will never be able to move them that far, because August is August—the warmest time of year in Europe—and Christmas is Christmas. There might be a little flexibility on whether the Easter holiday takes places at Easter, but a teacher will not want the first half of term to represent 40% and the second half to be 60%, because that has a number of implications for education. Varying could be done to some extent, but my recommendation is not to do it over big areas. Some of the other advantages of staggered holidays, such as changes to road capacity usage and train capacity usage, would be lost if everyone in a massive area had the same holiday. Varying could be done at a sub-regional level.

I am not sure that holidays need a big national plan, because schools increasingly have the freedom and ability to vary them under the Government’s reforms. There is nothing to stop schools getting together—there is, for example, the education improvement partnership in my area—and saying, “We are going to do it slightly differently to give parents in our area a bit more room.” That will not, however, solve the whole problem or make holidays in August cost the same as holidays in April. There is a limited amount of movement and, at the end of the day, we just cannot change when the sun shines.

17:22

[Mr George Mudie (Leeds East) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming) on securing this debate, but I also congratulate my generous hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), because she chairs the Committee that gave him this debate, which is on a serious problem.

I enjoyed the speech from the hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), which was sensible and humorous, as well as logical and grounded, and that is the approach we should take. There is a problem, but two years ago we would not have debated it, because other problems were forcing their way to this place. What on earth has happened? The person in this room who I feel most sorry for is the poor Minister from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. It has been seen as a BIS problem, but it is not; we have been forced here by a problem caused by the great Department for Education. If anyone should be explaining why we are going over all these problems, it is a Minister for Education.

I disagree with the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley on the Select Committee point. This matter does not need or deserve a Select Committee inquiry. The Secretary of State for Education should just repeal the regulations that he slipped through when nobody was looking. They have genuinely caused so much pain across the country. I can see that some people are unhappy, so I accept the petition, but I do not accept the remedy. I hope the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley will forgive me for saying this, but it brings back memories of when Shirley Williams—she is Lady Williams now—was the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection. Are we actually suggesting that we could have a cap?

The Guardian took a snapshot of the seasonal price differences. This is free advertising for these institutions, but four nights in lodge accommodation at Center Parcs Woburn Forest, Bedfordshire, has a 51% increase between summer term time and the summer holiday. Disneyland Paris has a 7% increase. It is not about foreign flights and foreign people; it is about business and supply and demand. If we try to regulate prices, we will land ourselves in trouble. A King once said, “Bugger Bognor!” I do not know if I will get into trouble for saying that, but if the King can say it, I think I can say it. Four nights at the Butlin’s resort in Bognor Regis have a 99% increase in cost between the week before schools go off and the week after.

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

rose—

[Mr Mudie]

I hope my hon. Friend is not going to defend Bognor Regis.

[Andy Sawford]

I agree that the regulations that the Government created to place fines on parents have exacerbated the problem, but does my hon. Friend share my concern that the Government have effectively strengthened the monopoly in the holiday period by making it increasingly difficult for parents to have any kind of flexibility? Often, we are not talking about parents taking their child out of school for two weeks year in, year out, but children missing a couple of days or even an afternoon to get a slightly cheaper flight. That flexibility has been lost.

[Mr Mudie]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. A tremendous amount is being lost, but it is because of the Department for Education, not BIS.

[Penny Mordaunt]

rose—

[Mr Mudie]

I will catch the hon. Lady’s eye in a moment, if I may. My wife is a head teacher and has been a teacher since I married her. Every family holiday that we have taken has been at the most expensive time. We were both salaried, so we could afford it, but I understand what happens to families on the breadline or families struggling with their mortgage or short-term unemployment. If they have children and want to take a holiday—the figures show that it does not matter whether it is abroad or in this country—they will face inflated prices in the summer holiday.

We are talking about doing things for schools and how we would work out whether to give kids a week off and whether we would need regulations, but I do not know what regulations we would need to regulate prices. The Labour Government tried that in the 1960s and failed miserably. There are offshoots to the issue, because with railways, we have the choice of travelling at peak times or off-peak. The difference in prices is clear. If someone is booking a hotel in London, a Tuesday will have a different price from a weekend. That is business and supply and demand.

[Penny Mordaunt]

rose—

[Dr Lewis]

rose—

[Mr Mudie]

I said that I would give way to the hon. Lady.

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank both hon. Gentlemen for letting me intervene. We are all here because we know that the public are aggrieved by this issue and we want to do something to alleviate that. On the drive to attack the Department for Education, I can point to schools that have no problem exercising discretion under the regulations for members of the armed forces and all sorts of other exceptional cases. The real problem is those who do not have an exceptional case, but might have relatives living in a particular country. They might not have the choice that others have over their holiday destination. That is an issue for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. In particular, it should look at the costs of flights and whether the mark-up is reasonable.

[Mr Mudie]

I would not challenge the last part, but I still think that we would leave the regulators with a difficult job unless there was a specific factor—the Olympics were mentioned. We would have some difficulty. As has been suggested, we must take the issue in the round.

It is easy to criticise the people running the business, but they have to make a profit to stay afloat. If they are running below capacity in the other 46 weeks of the year, they have to even things out when they hit capacity, just to stay in business. Therefore I see some genuine difficulty in doing that.

I would like to come on to the Department for Education, because that is where I think the problem lies. I thank and congratulate the people who started the e-petition. Interestingly, the individual who is famous for starting the e-petition was not complaining about foreign holidays, but Center Parcs, in this country.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. I want to flag with him another sort of case that has been raised by a parent in my constituency who has an autistic child. They struggle to go on holiday abroad when it is busy and when there are lots of other kids, so they are in a specific position. I am not sure whether that would be deemed to be exceptional, but that example makes the case that there needs to be more flexibility in the education system, as he has said.

Does my hon. Friend agree that, if we are to be proper in our analysis, while we must think of the cost that is lost from the amount being paid for a child’s education, we must also think of the opportunity cost of that child’s time with their parents?

[Mr Mudie]

I will answer my hon. Friend when I come on to the DFE. I was thanking the people who have signed the petition, because they have performed a great feat in putting the matter in the public consciousness and the political arena. However, we would be making a grave mistake if we chased after the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. From the answer it gave to the e-petition, I am sure that the Department would not bother if we chased after it, because its answer is quite dusty, but I have some sympathy for it, as the people who should be answering are in the DFE.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

I am slightly conflicted over the whole issue. The hon. Gentleman made the point about people needing to save money. A constituent of mine, Joy Drake, took her children on a once-in-a-lifetime holiday and saved £1,000 on the air fares. Does he not agree that, if the issue is left to individual head teachers and schools, they will be put in an invidious position in deciding which families get to save on the air fares and which families do not? Therefore, should we not look at something that enables the general discretion to be applied—other than, of course, bereavements and similar things—as to when the holiday is taken by everyone, rather than just flexibility on an individual case by an individual head teacher?

[Mrs Annette Brooke in the Chair]

[Mr Mudie]

That is an important point.

One of the things that has come from this e-petition is a request from the travel and tourism industries to get together with the Government and local authorities to see if they can work something out to alleviate the problem. The option of regional staggering has been mentioned on more than a couple of occasions. That is one thing that the industry has suggested it wishes to talk about. It has asked for talks, and I look to BIS for an acceptance of that invitation and to get the industry around the table as soon as possible to start talks. I say that not because a quick solution would be forthcoming, but because it will take such a time to get a solution that the sooner they start, the better.

[Mr Andrew Turner in the Chair]

Let me return to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern). In this place, roles are reversed at a bewildering speed. If I was standing here giving the education policy of a future Labour Government, I would be told, “You don’t trust the professionals. Leave it to the doctors and teachers”. When the solution—this is coming from a Labour MP—is about trusting head teachers, suddenly that is not enough.

I have discussed this matter—more than anything else this past week—with my wife, who is a head teacher, and all I get is common sense. None of us would be prepared to stand here and say this, particularly as two weeks ago, my wife had Ofsted in at 24 hours’ notice, but head teachers have great discretion, great judgment— on the whole—and great empathy. They have great relations with parents and know them. They can look at the attendance records and do all the things that have been suggested as a matter of common sense and as part of being a good head running a good school. I would be content to leave it at that.

I would like hon. Members to say if they had a problem with kids’ attendance when families could take an in-term holiday. Where were the letters about that? Where were the public complaints? They were not there—it was not a problem. What did the Secretary of State for Education do? I do not want to make the issue political; I have been gently asking him, for once in his life, just to act with a bit of humility and take the measure off the table, and I do not want to make it easy for him not to do it by being political. That is all he needs to do, because the situation was okay.

Due to the fuss that has gone on and the hurt that has happened, why should the Government not just take the measure off the table? The Secretary of State has caused it, so he has in his hands a remedy. If he wants change, he should get together with all the parties. Even the travel trade is saying that it has to lay people off because the measure is affecting its business.

What have the Government done? They have put through the measure without any real consultation. The first bad thing the Secretary of State did was to push through the measure to operate from last September, but people had already made their arrangements for holidays. They had taken the advice of the travel trade and got in quick, seeking the cheapest bookings. Suddenly, it was illegal to do so. There was no consultation. The measure was peremptorily introduced, smuggled through the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.

The second bad thing is that the Secretary of State will fine the parents £60 if they do it, and it could be £120 if they are late in paying.

[Mr Andrew Turner (in the Chair)]

indicated assent.

[Mr Mudie]

I see you nodding, Mr Turner. It could get worse than that, because both parents could be fined, so the total fine could be £240.

For some of the parents of children in my wife’s school £60 or £120 is more than they have to keep their family fed, clothed and housed. If you think that that is bad, Mr Turner, the Secretary of State has made the action a criminal offence. Not only will parents get fined for taking the chance to bond with their kids on a beach somewhere, they can get a criminal record because of it. It is not just a case of what happens with picking chewing gum up off the floor, and neighbourhood wardens giving people a £60 fine: there is a criminal record. There is no easy solution. We need the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to get talks going, but the measure should also be withdrawn.

What is there to worry about in this? Ofsted inspectors can go into schools—the professionals, no matter how good they are, are frightened stiff of Ofsted—and see all the records. They can go through every one and look at whether the parents of a child with an exemplary attendance record will be fined because, to go away together, they must take the time during term. Ofsted has attendance and performance figures. All the necessary machinery is available to enable a responsible head to take the decisions in the full knowledge of what happens in the school and, most importantly, to be answerable to Ofsted for which youngsters have been given permission. I hope that BIS will get talks going, and that the Secretary of State for Education will withdraw the statutory instrument.

17:41

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

I thank my constituency next-door neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming), and the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), for today’s debate, which is important for parents throughout the UK.

There is no dispute in any corner of the House about the importance of education. It is a long time since I was at school, but I do not recall my parents ever taking me out of school, and I never took my children out of school. We were fortunate enough to scrape together enough money to take them on holiday. It was generally just for a week, but we had that benefit. Taking children out of school should be avoided, but there are circumstances in which it is warranted, and many hon. Members have mentioned those that might arise.

The sinner—my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds)—talked about holiday companies’ pricing. Companies set the prices that the market will stand. We may disapprove of their charges, and there are great disparities between the amounts by which companies hike up their prices in school holidays, but we cannot order them to restrict their charges. Those are matters to do with competition rules. However, restricting the number of children who can go on holiday outside normal times leads to a rise in demand in the school holidays, and that is an excuse for companies to hike the prices even further, which is regrettable.

Perhaps my hon. Friend the Minister will clarify something. In September 2013, the ruling was that head teachers could grant leave only in exceptional circumstances. Various hon. Members have spoken about what would constitute exceptional circumstances, and whether the definition has been laid down. Will my hon. Friend explain what is meant by the term? The statutory instrument was based on a review carried out by Mr Charlie Taylor. Will my hon. Friend confirm that parents and businesses were not consulted in advance?

I will not repeat all the instances that have been given of suitable circumstances for holidays during term, but seasonal workers are one relevant group. Not many people must be available for the harvest but nevertheless there are all kinds of seasonal workers in the economy. We heard about the armed forces, children with disabilities, and businesses. That is a matter for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, because businesses employ parents. If a business employs many parents, can they all be away on holiday at the same time? That is a problem in my own constituency office.

[Andy Sawford]

The hon. Lady makes an important point about consultation, and I should be interested to hear whether there was any. Can she add to her list the situation in which parents have family overseas? Constituents have explained to me that it is important to see their family who are abroad, and that it is difficult when there is no flexibility about it, particularly when they are on the other side of the world.

[Lorely Burt]

I should be delighted to do that. There is a large element of the Asian diaspora based in my constituency and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley.

Maintained school and academy heads could previously authorise 10 days’ leave, but there is no jurisdiction over the private school sector. Academies normally work for 190 days a year, and private sector schools work, on average, 165 days. There is a measure of irony about that. The children with the wealthiest parents get most choice about when they can go on holiday.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey]

I hope to mention the issue of the 10 days in my speech, but the hon. Lady will recognise that the regulation makes allowance for “special” as opposed to “exceptional” circumstances, as set out in the previous regulations. What does she consider “special” circumstances?

[Lorely Burt]

What is “special” and what is “exceptional” is a semantic point. I remind the House of what the hon. Member for Leeds East (Mr Mudie) said about allowing head teachers to use their common sense about the family circumstances of each child in their care. They should have more autonomy. It seems slightly ironic to me that, while the coalition Government try to repatriate to schools powers over the curriculum, management and control, we are in the present case removing discretion from them. That does not seem right.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady accept that there is discretion for head teachers to define what counts as special? Several of my constituents who contacted me about the debate said that they wanted to take their children out in circumstances that would be educational for them—to see other cultures and go to places that could help to inform their education. Does she accept that special circumstances might include those cases, and that it should be at the discretion of head teachers to make that interpretation under the regulations?

[Lorely Burt]

I do, indeed, and I do not think that anyone is better qualified than the head teacher to make those decisions. It is clear from hon. Members’ comments that some head teachers are cowed by the definition of exceptional circumstances. Guidance from the Minister on that would help them.

On the statistical evidence, the measures in question are a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Before the rules changed, authorised family holidays accounted for 7.5% of all absences in primary schools, which works out at 0.4% of all sessions missed. This has been mentioned before, but the figure goes down to 2.5% when a child goes to secondary school, because parents recognise the additional importance of their children’s education as they progress—that translates into 0.1% of all sessions missed. Are those therefore the families whom we should be penalising?

Absence for family holidays is lower among those who are the parents of persistently absent pupils. That is another thought—the family holiday parents are not the same as the irresponsible parents who allow their children not to attend school. We need to have some sense of proportion.

In conclusion, will my hon. Friend the Minister provide some kind of definition of “exceptional”? Can more precise, balanced and sensible advice be given to guide head teachers in their decision making? Finally, I find myself in agreement with the hon. Member for Leeds East that heads know their pupils and how to exercise common sense, so can we ensure that the guidance given to head teachers reflects the sensible responsibility that we give them in so many other areas of running school life?

17:51

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

It is a great pleasure to contribute to this debate. I had not planned to do so at 4.30 pm, but have been motivated by some of the speeches. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming), who was right to take up the debate, which is important, as recognised by so many parents signing the e-petition. It deserves time in Parliament.

With respect to my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt), in the closing paragraph of her speech she said that she wanted head teachers to have discretion, but she also wanted guidance from the Department on what constitutes “exceptional”. That is part of the issue, although a little bit of history might explain some of the situation.

The hon. Member for Corby (Andy Sawford) is still in his place, and he might be aware that section 23 of the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 introduced the power for education authorities to issue penalty charge notices in cases of unauthorised absence. To avoid confusion, I was mistaken in what I said earlier about 10 days, because the power is automatically triggered when there are 10 sessions—in effect, five days—of unauthorised absence. That is what triggers the penalty charge notice. That was the case before the more recent statutory instrument was introduced last year.

That takes us back to the idea of what is “special” and what is “exceptional”. The 2006 regulations refer to 10 days of leave—up to 10 days—to be granted by the head teachers in their consideration of what constitutes “special circumstances”. The 2013 regulations removed all the references to when people could be away, saying that the head teacher is the person who can grant leave of absence in “exceptional circumstances”. As was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull, the difference between “special” and “exceptional” is largely one of semantics. I am not sure that it is right for the Department for Education to define one word or the other, but as has been said consistently, it is appropriate for the head teacher to define whether people may take their child out of school.

[Andy Sawford]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. Notwithstanding the principle, part of the problem with making the change through a statutory instrument is that there was not the debate that there would have been otherwise—for example, if there was primary legislation with a proper consultation, or even informal debate in the Chamber—on the meaning of the terms. That would have been critical for head teachers and Members in understanding the statutory instrument and its effect.

[Dr Coffey]

I do not profess to be an expert on parliamentary procedure or on why certain bits of legislation are introduced under the negative or the affirmative resolution procedures. That tends to be defined in the original Act—in this case, I do not know who was responsible for the very original Act and whether it was 1944 or 2006. The original Act is when the process for the introduction of future secondary legislation is decided, but the hon. Gentleman is aware, as my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley pointed out, that any Member of the House or of the other place may trigger a stay on any regulation on negative resolution by signing an early-day motion. That is a mechanism available to us all. I recognise that MPs therefore have to be even more on the ball about checking what statutory instruments are up for affirmative or negative resolution. That information, however, is made available to every Member of the House in the vote bundle.

On “exceptional” or “special”, I do not have children, so I do not pretend that I have to face the issue. I have, however, had six parents contacting me, four of whom cited cost. In one of those situations, incidentally, teachers had given activities for the children to do while away from school. Another case involved getting time for the children with the other parent. The sixth person who contacted me did so about parental choice: it is for parents to decide when their children go on holidays, not schools, because teachers could make up the time, with the children given special projects. I am not sure that that is necessarily acceptable behaviour. I fully understand the issue about cost, but I have no idea why “special” versus “exceptional” makes a difference for the head teacher in assessing such a decision.

In my time, I have been involved in children’s education as a school governor in two different schools. I will not say which school, because it would be unfair on the head teacher, but in one we discussed the issue in lengthy detail. Parents had almost come to see it as a right to request the time off, and the head teacher would be given a hard time by the parents unless up to 10 days of leave were given. We felt that that was wrong, because it put pressure on the head teacher, as well as on the classroom teacher, who had to cope with the child missing 10 days of schooling.

There is no doubt of the strong link between a school’s attendance records and attainment at the school. That cannot, of course, be proved for every single child, but it is fair to say that, in the schools in my constituency where attendance rates are significantly below the average, I see a significant difference in the attainment of the children. We need to stand up for that consistently: it is not necessarily simply about the individual child—although that child’s education is important—but about all the children in the classes. We need to remember that.

I had not planned to speak and I do not wish to extend the debate unduly, but the regulations introduced last year still leave the head teacher with appropriate discretion. In cases of children with military parents, or those whose parents wish them to attend a funeral, the situation remains the same. There is no automatic right for parents to remove a child in such a case, unless they wish to go down the unauthorised absence route, but by changing the focus and putting in regulation that circumstances must be exceptional, the right expectations are set for parents. It is not therefore a right to take a child out of school for up to 10 days of holiday, as referred to in regulation. What is allowed is exactly what is said: if there is no other opportunity for a particular situation to happen, head teachers may use their discretion. Frankly, if MPs hear of cases in which that is not being applied, we should take them up on behalf of the parent.

[John Hemming]

Does my hon. Friend agree, as she probably does, that a funeral would be a valid use of exceptional circumstances? Perhaps we should be concerned about Ofsted possibly putting pressure on head teachers to reduce the numbers to such a low level that they cannot even take into account exceptional circumstances.

[Dr William McCrea in the Chair]

[Dr Coffey]

I am not aware that Ofsted is applying that particular pressure. I agree on one aspect, however. I would be surprised and disappointed were a head teacher to refuse a request in the case of a funeral. As a slight aside, however, I was disappointed when a Whip initially refused me permission to be away to attend a funeral—when I made my representation directly, he changed his mind.

We need consistently to support our teachers, who want to give children the best education possible. We should remove unnecessary pressures on head teachers. I welcome any talks there might be on seasonal pricing, but I encourage us to stand firm and ensure that we put education first.

18:00

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr McCrea. You have only just joined us; I assure you that you have missed an excellent debate. I will attempt to do some sort of justice to it, in my own modest way, but you might chose to read Members’ words for yourself later.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming) on bringing the issue for debate and on the way in which he presented it. The strength of opinion that has been articulated in the debate, the size of the petition and the testimony we have heard from hon. Members clearly show how important the matter is and how right he was.

A couple of hon. Members have reflected on the fact that the Minister is from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and I am responding as a shadow BIS Minister. The initial petition looked very much at the business aspect of the matter, but the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley was right to say that the whole aspect of the debate has changed since the initial petition first went on to the e-petition system. That was reflected in the debate, which did not dwell much on the business aspect but focused much more on educational policy. That perhaps leaves me at a slight disadvantage.

The issue is of great concern for my constituents, many of whom have taken the opportunity to raise it with me at my weekly surgeries, by e-mail and at the school gate. I did a summer survey in which I raised questions about the changes, which demonstrated powerfully to me how strongly people feel about the matter. We all know how desperately difficult it is to get that balance between the fact that we want our children to be in school at all the right times and the huge increase in the cost of holidays during the school breaks. It was therefore no surprise to me that 150,000 people across the country took action by signing the online petition and demanding that MPs discuss the issue. That is why we have had so many valuable contributions from Members on both sides of the House. I will touch on those in a moment.

A situation has been created in which many families who have not previously faced the dilemma of how to afford an annual summer holiday now find themselves financially squeezed and wondering how to do so. All of us know how important holidays together can be for a family. We are an incredibly time-poor nation, and, often, many people are stretched. We struggle to have time with our families given the huge number of pressures on us, so family holidays are incredibly important. It is tremendously difficult for people when they feel that their opportunity to go on those holidays has been removed. We all recognise how important the issue is.

The hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley was right to say that this is another demonstration of how powerful e-petitions can be. It has shown how issues that we do not immediately see as significant can have their significance powerfully demonstrated to us by our constituents. The response of people to the e-petition demonstrated the importance of this issue.

The hon. Gentleman also raised the issue of staggering holidays, something to which many hon. Members referred. That is an important part of the whole equation. Colleagues in the Department for Education have been looking at that issue and exploring how greater flexibility can be given to schools. The point was made powerfully that we do not want a parent such as myself, with one child in secondary school and one in primary school, to find that their children’s schools have holidays at different times. Perhaps we can try to stretch out the holiday season on a more systematic basis, recognising that although we are not blessed with sunshine all year round in this country, as some areas are, we could none the less stagger holidays to take a bit of pressure off.

The hon. Gentleman also referred to the fact that this issue has been debated in this place since the mid-1960s. It is interesting to question why people feel so strongly about it now. The broader pinch that people are feeling at the moment and how the holiday market has changed in recent years, as well as the recent changes to Government education policy, are perhaps some reasons why what has been to an extent a hoary old chestnut for 40-odd years is now being raised powerfully.

The hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt) suggested that discretion does exist—a point repeated a moment ago—and the hon. Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt) raised the important question of what constitutes exceptional circumstances. We heard examples of circumstances that have not been considered exceptional. My hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) spoke about a child with autism whose parents might have specific reasons for not wanting to be on holiday when resorts are most crowded, and asked whether such a case would be considered exceptional.

My hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) highlighted the case of someone whose child had a brain tumour; that was not considered by the head teacher to be an exceptional circumstance. The hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) highlighted the case of someone who was exceptionally busy during school holidays because of the kind of business they ran, but their circumstances were not considered exceptional.

It is clear that there has been a change of policy. The Government have communicated that quite deliberately, and it is their right to do so. However, exercising that right has had an impact because of how the policy has been implemented. One aspect of today’s debate that I have found interesting was that no contributions have been made by any hon. Members from Scotland—unless we count Corby as representative of that nation. That is not entirely surprising, because Scottish schools have holidays at a different time of year and Scottish people probably benefit quite nicely from the fact that they all go on holiday in July, when prices are cheaper than they are for us in England. That is an interesting observation.

I will now reflect on some of the other contributions to what I think has been an excellent debate. My hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire said something that was repeated by many colleagues: across the House we all agree about the importance of children being in school, and recognise the disadvantage there is to children when they are out of school, for whatever reason, for any sustained period. None of us is saying that we think it is good for children to miss huge amounts of their schooling. We are all always conscious of our responsibility in this place to ensure that our children have the best opportunity to be successful at school. However, we also have to recognise that there is a cost of living crisis, with families feeling the pinch, and that we need to do what we can to support them in those circumstances. My hon. Friend powerfully highlighted the reality faced by time-poor, financially stretched families at this time, and the difficult circumstances that they face.

The hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) spoke about the strength of feeling and support on this matter, and he was right to do so. He also raised the issue of whether there will be a greater amount of discretion for a child who is going to a funeral than for someone who wants a holiday without educational benefits; how the policy is being applied shows that there is a difference between such cases. He also touched on one of the devilishly difficult parts of the judgment call on the matter when he called for clear guidelines but more discretion. That is what we all want to an extent, but we should recognise the central contradiction in that.

The hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) spoke up for the tourism industry, as we would expect. He spoke about the escalation in cost for popular events, referring to the London Olympics and the fact that in attempting to maximise their opportunities some people potentially priced themselves out of business and ended up falling victim to what they thought would be good times, as they had been too ambitious about what they could charge. I do not know whether he has turned his attention to the frankly extortionate cost to hon. Members of bed and breakfast accommodation in Manchester at the time of the Labour party conference. I have recently tried to make a booking and discovered that Manchester in September is far more expensive that one would expect.

[Mr Ellwood]

rose—

[Toby Perkins]

There may shortly be a plug for having party conferences in Bournemouth.

[Mr Ellwood]

The hon. Gentleman has made my point for me: Bournemouth is better suited for party conferences.

[Toby Perkins]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on repeating my suggestion.

It is usual during winding-up speeches to talk about what has been mentioned during the debate, but I will talk about what the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley did not talk about: the tourism industry. An important point that some colleagues mentioned is that holiday accommodation is available for 52 weeks a year, or slightly less, and there is pressure to push the customer base into a shorter and shorter period. The petition refers to profiteering holiday companies exploiting people, but that is not the reality. If a crude cap were introduced, they might retain the current price in August but they would be unable to reduce the price in April. The important question is whether people would be better off or whether those who can go away at different times would not get cheaper holidays.

The hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) confessed his sins—it is always good for a Member of Parliament to do that. If he did not quite ask for forgiveness, he at least offered mitigating circumstances. The debate involves the many people who cannot go away during school holidays, as well as the many who can go away only during school holidays—for example, teachers and anyone who works in the education sector and so on. If we increase the pressure, we will push up the cost of their holidays too. The debate started 18 months ago, or 40-odd years ago, depending on how people look at it, but certainly prior to the proposed changes, which, if anything, will push prices up further. What was a problem 18 months ago will be an even bigger problem in a year or two.

My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East (Mr Mudie) asked why we are talking about the matter now and why it has become so important. I will touch on that, but in his broader view of the debate he said that he supported the petition but not necessarily the proposed remedy. That reflected what many other hon. Members said.

The hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) focused on the semantics of “special” and “exceptional” and seemed to question whether there has been a change in policy. The previous Government introduced fines for people who took their children out of school without authorisation. The Secretary of State was clear that he wanted his direction following the statutory instrument to be seen as a change of policy. Head teachers saw it as that, and many in my constituency wrote to parents saying that the policy had changed and that there would be no discretion other than in narrow and exceptional circumstances. That was clearly the intention of the Secretary of State’s policy.

The debate has been consensual and sensible. It has shown that we all believe strongly and passionately that it is vital for our children to be in school for the maximum amount of time, that standards should be resilient and that parents should recognise their responsibility. We recognise that the present situation is desperate because prices have risen faster than wages in 41 of the last 42 months, and families are feeling the pinch. We are discussing another aspect of that cost-of-living crisis. I intended to give some examples of how prices have increased, but many hon. Members have alluded to that so I need not do so. However, the extent of price differences during the high and low seasons is huge and the success of the e-petition calling for swift action is not surprising.

The Association of British Travel Agents has made it clear that price fluctuations are the commercial reality of running a business in a seasonal market, and we understand that. The hon. Member for East Hampshire asked whether the Labour party is proposing a crude cap and rightly gave some reasons why that would be difficult. We do not have a price control policy at a macro level, but that does not mean that there is never a reason to look into whether there is a properly functioning competitive market. I will touch on that.

Many parents believe that they are exploited by the holiday industry, which uses the tight limits on when they can travel to overcharge them, and the huge cost differentials reflect that. However, there have been no thorough studies of the issue in recent years, so it is hard to get to the bottom of the problem and the extent of exploitation. The lack of such a study seems at odds with the Government’s intention of addressing consumer protection concerns. I should be grateful if the Minister commented on whether the apparent contradiction of one group of consumers apparently paying over the odds to subsidise another group is questionable under our consumer protection laws.

Consumer law has strong protections to ensure that the public are charged a reasonable price for a service. That presumably includes arranging a holiday, and does not exempt the law of supply and demand. That is an interesting question for the Government. The purpose of the Consumer Rights Bill is to make those rules clearer, but there is a glaring omission because it does not give consumers or consumer groups any power to access the information they need to check whether that is the case. Does the Minister accept that the only way to resolve that confusion more broadly is to have a proper analysis of holiday prices, and do the Government plan to conduct such research? Was there any research prior to the change of policy?

The situation demonstrates the consequences when there is no organisation to stand up for the rights of consumers as a group. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley suggested that an Offonholiday regulator might not be the answer, but it might be worth considering a broader consumer rights body to act as a useful brake on exploitative practices. Most people accept that the rules of supply and demand will ensure that prices are higher at peak times, but many believe that the extreme divergence in prices is unfair.

[Damian Hinds]

Is the hon. Gentleman saying that there is something in the operation of some elements of the travel industry market over and above that which can be coped with by the current competition arrangements?

[Toby Perkins]

That is a valid question. A broader study would provide better information to establish whether that is the case. In July 2012, the Office of Fair Trading concluded a two-year investigation and found that two travel giants had struck deals with a hotel group to restrict smaller agents’ ability to offer discounted hotel rooms. Expedia admitted afterwards that it had

“engaged in cartel conduct in breach of the law”.

In 2013, a discount hotel site alleged that it was forced out of the market after attempting to undercut rivals by offering cheaper prices. There have been allegations of cartel-like activities, and those involved should be investigated and pursued rigorously. Only when we have open, competitive markets can consumers have faith in the prices that they are paying. That is important and entirely legitimate. At the same time, although we recognise that market forces exist, we do not say, “There is never anything to look at”, in the context of whether those markets are being fairly operated. We stand absolutely resolutely on the side of consumers and would be willing to investigate whether action is necessary to ensure that they get a fair deal in the travel market.

The abolition of the Office of Fair Trading, which would have looked at this issue, has highlighted the fact that a gap now exists. There is not another appropriate body that can do what the OFT did. The Competition and Markets Authority is focused on competition and not on outcomes for consumers, and therefore does not complete the same work. Does the Minister share my concerns about the lack of an appropriate body? Does she think that that makes it more likely that consumers will get a raw deal in future?

Other things can be done to support the tourism industry. We recognise that the issue is not only about tourism overseas, but very much about tourism here in the UK. We know that the VAT increase to 20% placed our tourist industry at a competitive disadvantage compared with many of our European competitors, and that the huge increase in business rates over the past three years has had a big impact on many small businesses in the hospitality and tourism industry.

[Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

I apologise to my hon. Friend for missing the beginning of his speech, but I had a previous engagement. On the point he just made, does he agree that just as small travel businesses are disproportionately affected by some of those issues, particularly in terms of VAT, small businesses in the hotel and guest house industry can be as well? That is another facet of a complicated debate. I have had representations in my constituency from hoteliers and guest house owners who are concerned about the issue.

[Toby Perkins]

My hon. Friend makes the important point, exactly as one might expect of a Member of Parliament for Blackpool, that the tourism industry is not immune to what is happening in the wider economy. It struggles when people do not have money in their pockets. The industry recognises that people are facing a cost-of-living crisis, but it is also facing a cost-of-doing-business crisis and paying ever higher business rates and ever higher energy prices. That impacts on the prices that people have to charge to make a profit. My hon. Friend makes an important point, which fits in precisely with the one I was making.

To reinforce my hon. Friend’s point, I should say that many small hoteliers want to offer cheaper deals but are held back, not only because of the costs of doing business, but because their cash flows are impeded by large travel websites they supply to. My hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) has highlighted the totally outrageous way in which large organisations, effectively through being perpetrators of paying late, force small businesses to bankroll them. The issue of late payments is incredibly important and has a real impact on the tourism industry and the cost we end up paying as consumers.

The previous Labour Government created an interest rate penalty for large firms that delayed payment to their small suppliers. The next Labour Government will further tackle the issue of late payments, which will be very important to small businesses in the tourism industry here in the UK, and will hopefully also be part of easing that cost-of-doing-business crisis.

In conclusion, I strongly welcome this thoughtful, useful debate. We must ensure that markets are fair. We also have a responsibility in this place to respond when our constituents tell us that the Government’s policies are causing problems. In this debate, each of us has reflected on the difficult decisions that we face, between wanting to make sure that all children are in school for the maximum amount of time and recognising that people are feeling the pinch, that there is a cost-of-living crisis and that we need do all we can to help people, not exacerbate the problem.

18:24

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Jenny Willott)]

As everyone has today, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming) on leading the debate in the wake of a very significant number of signatures on the e-petition.

It is interesting that this was an issue in Parliament long before I was born—I do not know whether that is a good or a bad thing, but it has clearly been an issue for many decades. I have listened with great interest to the points that have been made. There have been a variety of speeches, coming, in a number of cases, from slightly different perspectives. I agree with the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) that it has been a very good debate, which on the whole, has been fairly consensual; there is a reasonable amount of agreement across the Chamber. As a constituency MP, constituents have been getting in touch with me about the subject, and I have a personal interest, as my children are heading rapidly towards school age. Along with a lot of other people, this issue is close to my heart as well.

I would like to put my comments into context at the start and make it clear that the Government do not regulate the price at which goods or services are offered for sale. We have heard from a number of Members that most people would agree that that is the way it should be. We feel that it is a commercial matter for the businesses concerned and that the Government should not intervene. It is not for the Government to dictate to any particular market how it should charge for its services, or to intervene unless there is evidence of market distortion or market failure. That is when Ministers and the Government would get involved.

As we have heard today, and as I hope hon. Members would agree, the UK holiday sector is one of the most competitive markets in the UK, if not Europe. That has made the sector not only one of the most responsive to consumer demands and preferences, but one of the most innovative. It has driven change very much over the years. It is not so long ago—only a few decades—that only the wealthy could contemplate having a holiday abroad, and even holidaying in the UK, which was more popular and much more affordable, was certainly not the norm for many people. That was the situation not that long ago. With the development of cheaper package holidays and so on, far more people have found that they can afford a foreign holiday, but the sector has developed rapidly over the past few decades and expanded in many respects.

An almost endless variety of offers are available for people, which meets the demand from consumers for more choice, flexibility, value and so on. The dynamism and innovation that is shown in this diverse sector is evidence of keen and persistent competition in the market, so the Government feel that there is no market failure and therefore no reason for the Government to intervene to impose price limits. I got the feeling today from colleagues across the House that most would agree on that point.

As the hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) said in his confession, prices charged across the year reflect demand, availability and the need to attract consumers in a competitive market. It is common to all competitive markets—it is especially acute in fluctuating markets, such as the travel sector—that prices rise and fall according to demand and supply. That is the way in which markets work in general. When demand is high and supply is limited, prices invariably increase to the point at which demand moderates. It is the level of demand that dictates the prices in a competitive market, so if demand increases, so do prices.

Demand appears to remain high in the travel and holiday market, despite the economic difficulties that many people are facing—it has been a very difficult time for many across the economy over recent years. The industry reports that the holiday market is buoyant and consumers are prepared to pay the prices being asked for the services on offer. If people were not prepared to pay the prices being asked, demand would drop and prices would come down, so it is being driven by the fact that people are prepared to pay the prices that holiday companies are demanding.

[John Hemming]

Given that the issue is about supply and demand, the regulations that the Government introduced affected the demand by focusing it more on one place. Is my hon. Friend as surprised as me that the Department said in the explanatory note to that statutory instrument that an

“impact assessment has not been provided for this instrument as no impact on businesses or civil society organisations is foreseen”?

[Jenny Willott]

I shall come back to the point about the schools regulations if my hon. Friend will bear with me. If he is not satisfied with my comments, he can come back to me.

There is another important element to consider in respect of the prices in this sector, and it was mentioned by the hon. Member for East Hampshire. During peak periods, the UK industry is in fierce competition with those of other countries, whose consumers want to go on holiday to the same destinations. That competition for limited facilities means that costs rise—it is not all being driven by consumers in the UK—and those costs are reflected in the price put to the consumer. As this is a Europe-wide market, consumers are similarly affected in other countries across Europe. As a result, Governments across Europe have decided that protection is needed for consumers in the package holiday sector over and above that provided by general consumer protection law.

I hope that what I say now answers a point made by the hon. Member for Chesterfield. One of the key protections in the package travel directive is the requirement that those arranging and selling package holidays and package tours have in place protection for consumers against their insolvency. That additional protection is an area in which we in the UK were leaders. The air travel organisers’ license—ATOL—system was brought in before the European regime as a result of the huge growth in the UK of the package holiday market in the 1970s and 1980s.

The extra protection is considered necessary because those operating in the package travel market are deemed to be more at risk of insolvency than businesses in other sectors. That is because the business model in the holiday industry is based on predicting demand and committing to those predictions in advance. I mention that because it is further evidence of the extent and level of competition in that market—the industry is forced by those pressures to price as competitively as it can. There is considered to be a higher risk of insolvency in that sector because the margins are thin and because the market is so competitive.

[Toby Perkins]

The Minister describes the pressures on the market, and we have heard that there was no impact assessment because it was considered that there would be no impact on the industry. Given that the change was introduced after people had booked their holidays and after the holiday companies had set their prices, does she think that it was right to say that there would be no impact whatever on the industry from the change?

[Jenny Willott]

I cannot comment on the impact assessment done by the Department for Education, but I will come back to the point about the regulations. I think it is wrong to say that the 2013 change was a significant change in the law, but I will come back to that in a minute.

Hon. Members will have gathered from what I have said that I am not convinced that businesses in the holiday market are treating consumers unfairly in the way in which they price their products. It is pressures in the market that cause the fluctuation in prices that some have concluded is unfair. However, the hon. Member for Chesterfield raised allegations of cartel-like behaviour. If hon. Members come across allegations of that nature, they should be referred to the Competition and Markets Authority for investigation. That is what it is there for, or at least it will be from 1 April. Cases like that involving Expedia, which the hon. Member for Chesterfield mentioned, were dealt with by the Office of Fair Trading, but will in the future be dealt with by the Competition and Markets Authority. However, the CMA will also have a role in keeping markets under review for breaches of competition law and consumer detriment, so it has a broader remit. It will also have a role in dealing with consumer enforcement issues when an issue has nationwide implications. This would be an area where that could be considered.

The hon. Member for Leeds East (Mr Mudie) asked about discussions between travel agents, the holiday industry and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. BIS is in regular contact with the holiday industry on a very wide range of issues—that is the relationship—and my officials will of course raise the points that have been raised in today’s debate when they next meet representatives of the industry, so we will ensure that hon. Members’ views are fed back.

Having said that, I am very sympathetic to those who struggle to afford a holiday in peak season. I appreciate that the difference in price between off season and high season can be very significant. If people have children, it becomes increasingly expensive and difficult to take holidays, and I appreciate that the problem places an extra burden on families. I also completely agree that family holidays are enormously important. They give children opportunities to relax and unwind and create lasting memories, as well as building family relationships and broadening the experiences of children. I have very fond memories of taking holidays as a child with my grandparents and parents and I am sure that everyone in the room would say the same. It is important that children are able to have those experiences and benefit from them.

Clearly, in all of this, the dates of the school holidays are critical. It has been suggested that pressures on the industry might be alleviated by extending the periods during which families can take a holiday, thereby spreading the demand over a longer period. We have heard that idea mentioned today, and it is put forward not only by those who want cheaper family holidays; it is also supported by many in the industry. We have also heard it said a lot today that the rules on school attendance are too strict. Almost every hon. Member who spoke discussed that. People have suggested that schools should be able to approve families going on holiday during term time. Others believe that it would help if schools had different term dates. I shall come back to that point, but, on the issue of absence, despite the clear value that a family holiday can have for children and also for parents, the Government’s view is that a good education is more valuable for pupils in the long run and that getting a good education depends on regular school attendance throughout the school year.

We have heard a lot about the change in regulations in 2013. The hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) gave a very useful summary of the legal framework. I found it quite illuminating and am sure that a number of other colleagues did as well. What the Government did in 2013 was remove the misconception held by some parents that pupils were entitled to 10 days’ absence for holidays per year. There was actually no entitlement in the previous regulations—that was not what they said. We have clarified that school heads should accept a request for a leave of absence only in exceptional circumstances.

We have heard a number of examples of cases in which requests have been turned down by head teachers. Many of them are very distressing, but I clearly cannot comment on individual cases, not knowing the full details. Let me make it clear that the Government have not said that any absence is not possible. We have given head teachers the discretion to make that call. In addition, we have not specified what constitutes exceptional circumstances, as we believe that cases need to be considered individually. A number of hon. Members mentioned the need to trust head teachers, and that is exactly what the Government are trying to do—we want to ensure that head teachers have the power and discretion to look at the individual circumstances of an application and take them into account.

[John Hemming]

Obviously, it is difficult being a Minister in a different Department. Will the Minister ask the Ministers in the Department for Education to write to me and the other hon. Members who have spoken in the debate about what pressures Ofsted is putting on schools to reduce the number of absences? I ask because if Ofsted is driving down the numbers, that affects what is considered to be exceptional and what is not. Obviously, some of the cases that I would consider exceptional, such as funerals, are not being considered as such by the schools.

[Jenny Willott]

I am happy to ask colleagues to write to my hon. Friend, because clearly I haven’t got a clue about that. As a Minister in BIS, I do not know what discussions Ofsted and the Department for Education have had, but I am happy to pass the request on to colleagues in the Department for Education.

[Mr Mudie]

Could the Minister ask the relevant Education Minister to tell the people who have attended the debate whether a child who has an excellent attendance record can have a holiday with the rest of their family only outside term-time? Can the fact that they have a perfect attendance record and so on be accepted as exceptional? That is the dilemma that heads face: the problem is not exceptional events such as funerals, but the year in, year out problem of those who cannot afford a family holiday unless they take it outside term time. Will the Minister reassure heads that that can be regarded as exceptional?

[Jenny Willott]

When we contact colleagues in the Department for Education, I am sure that we can send them a copy of Hansard so that they can respond to the hon. Gentleman and others who have raised that point. When head teachers decide whether to grant absence, they must be able to take into account individual circumstances such as the examples raised today of parents in the military or the police, or cases in which a close relative has died. We cannot legislate for such instances; they must be left to the head teacher’s discretion.

Several hon. Members have asked for head teachers to be given clearer guidance on what constitutes exceptional circumstances, and the point has been made that it is difficult to balance the provision of clearer guidance with allowing head teachers discretion and trusting them to make the right call. I will refer that matter to colleagues in the Department for Education.

[John Hemming]

A number of participants in the debate think that head teachers are making the wrong decisions. If Ofsted is putting pressure on numbers, guidance would help us to analyse that in more depth. Prior to the changes, less than 10% of parents took advantage of the process in primary schools and less than 3% in secondary schools, so it did not affect many people. Those were clearly special circumstances, but for some reason they were deemed not to be acceptable. Guidance would give head teachers strength to argue with Ofsted.

[Jenny Willott]

My figures on the number of parents who took their children out of school are slightly different from my hon. Friend’s. My hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt) also said that most parents do not take their children out of school for holidays, and my figures show that in 2011-12, some 90% of secondary school pupils and 80% of primary school pupils did not miss school for a family holiday. Although the overwhelming majority of pupils are not missing school to go on holiday, therefore, a significant number of pupils are. The Department for Education was sufficiently concerned about the matter to want to tighten up the rules. I understand that in some areas, parents thought that they were entitled to 10 days’ absence a year for holidays, which was not the intention of the original regulations. The regulations introduced last year were designed to correct that misconception and clarify that schools should authorise absence only in exceptional circumstances.

[John Hemming]

The discrepancy between the Minister’s figures and mine may rest on the fact that mine deal with authorised absence, whereas hers include unauthorised absence as well. Unauthorised absence is increasing, which is another factor in this debate.

[Jenny Willott]

That may well be the case, but it does not undermine the argument that we must ensure that parents do not take their children out of school for holidays unless there are exceptional reasons for doing so. As the right hon. Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth) said, family holidays taken during term time disrupt the education not only of the individual student but of other pupils. The hon. Member for Leeds East, whose wife is a head teacher, said the same thing. Such absences create additional work for teachers who have to try to help pupils catch up on their return while looking after the other students in the class and ensuring that their progress is not disrupted. Removing a child from school has significant implications for other pupils in the class and for teachers. The Government do not want to change the rules on permitted absences, because the effects on a child’s education and a school’s ability to teach pupils effectively are significant.

Another suggestion has been to introduce more flexibility into school term dates. The holiday industry argues that making the peak period longer would spread consumer demand, and because holiday companies could make the same amount of money over a longer period of time, they would be able to reduce prices a little for families. The spreading of demand would also reduce competition for facilities and allow them to be used more efficiently. Although there would still be competition with organisers of holidays from other countries, it would be spread over a longer period of time.

[Mr Ellwood]

Is the Minister saying that she agrees with that proposal? I gave the example of Kent, Yorkshire and Dorset having slightly different school holidays. If she agrees with the idea, how would it best be co-ordinated?

[Jenny Willott]

The staggering of school holiday periods may well lengthen the period of peak demand and help to lower prices. I completely understand the suggestion that the Government should arrange for holiday periods to be spread, but currently local authorities, not the Government, set the term and holiday dates for community and voluntary-controlled schools. Academies, free schools and voluntary-aided schools—including some church schools—set their own dates. The Deregulation Bill, which is currently before the House, will extend the power to set term dates to all schools by 2015. The Government believe that term dates should be dealt with locally, through negotiation and co-operation across an area, to take into account the educational needs of students and the practicalities of varying the school year. I cannot remember which hon. Member raised the fact that someone with a child in a primary school and a child in a secondary school wants their holiday dates to line up.

[Justin Tomlinson]

I raised that point. I accept that schools can lead locally, but the reason why the system works so successfully in Germany is because the dates are set by regions, which ensures that children in primary school are not off at a different time from those in a nearby secondary school. Although I accept that the decision should be made locally, I think that the Government might guide regions to pick the dates.

[Jenny Willott]

It is clear that such a decision will have to be made across a local authority area, or more broadly. When the Deregulation Bill becomes law, we will look at how that can be done most effectively, and with the minimum disruption, to help schools and families.

[Mr Ellwood]

I am sorry to press the matter, but I think it is an important takeaway from the debate. As my hon. Friend has just said, some co-ordination will be required. I am sitting next to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke), and we know that it is quite a challenge to get Poole, Bournemouth and Christchurch to co-ordinate. It does happen, but it takes time. It will be tricky to get all local councils to co-ordinate. I encourage the Government, or at least the Department for Education, to consider the leadership role that may be necessary. Whether the decision is taken on a county or regional basis is something for a later date.

[Jenny Willott]

As I have said, free schools, academies and some church schools can set their own dates. There is already some co-operation, or at least awareness, between some local schools regarding what others in the area are doing. When the Deregulation Bill gives more schools the power to set term and holiday dates, we will encourage schools to collaborate more widely to take into account the needs of families and other schools in the area. I am confident we can ensure that the hon. Gentleman’s views are fed into the process and taken into account by the Department for Education.

[John Hemming]

On that point, schedule 14 to the Deregulation Bill will give schools the power to set term and holiday dates, but in constituencies such as mine, one family may have children in a primary school in the Birmingham local education authority and children in a secondary school in the Solihull local education authority. I would propose bringing in the Education Committee to look at the country as a whole and suggest sub-regions wherein local education authorities could co-ordinate. A parent would not want their children in a Birmingham primary school to have different holidays from their children in a Solihull secondary school.

[Jenny Willott]

I cannot really comment on what the Education Committee should or should not look at, but I am sure that its Chairman, the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), will have noted my hon. Friend’s comments. Perhaps my hon. Friend and anyone else present with views on that matter might wish to take it up with the Chairman directly and suggest that his Committee initiates such an inquiry.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey]

I just want to make the Minister aware that not everyone present wants Parliament, the Education Committee or Ministers to determine schools’ term dates. We really should leave such decisions to be made locally. Schools currently manage to cope quite well. Different parts of the country already have different holiday dates for different traditions—for example, places such as Leicestershire and Wigan. We should allow local authorities to work with schools to recognise what is best for their areas.

[Jenny Willott]

I must confess that as an MP representing a Welsh constituency, I benefited significantly last week when Parliament was in recess because it was half term in England. When I went home to Cardiff, all the places I took my small children were mercifully empty because half term in Wales is this week. There is already a difference between some areas, and it is possible to enable that on a broader basis in order to extend the peak period, which would hopefully bring down prices across the sector.

To conclude, the Government are not convinced that higher prices in school holiday periods are the result of market abuse by the holiday industry. Rather, they reflect market forces in a very competitive sector, and are made worse by the fact that there is international competition as well. I recognise the fact that family holidays can be incredibly valuable, but they should not be at the expense of a child’s education. School attendance throughout the school year remains critical—we know that pupils who stay at school for longer do much better in their final exams.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

I absolutely agree with the Minister, but although we know that school attendance is important, we also know that parents are not daft. A constituent of mine who is a governor at a primary school in Winchester said to me that the changes to the rules are an insult to his intelligence and discretion—he would never dream of taking a child out of school at a crucial time. I find it perplexing that a Conservative Government are meddling in this area full stop, but we should think especially about the early years—reception and year 1. Does the Minister have a view on whether there should be more discretion during a child’s early years in primary school? Do we really need to come down on head teachers and question their integrity in the way that we appear to be doing?

[Jenny Willott]

I completely disagree with the hon. Gentleman. The Government are actually ensuring that head teachers have the discretion to make a decision in exceptional circumstances. Clearly, the decision that a head teacher makes will involve looking at the child’s age, the circumstances under which the parent has applied and so on. The point of the regulations that the Government have put in place is that we are leaving it to the discretion of head teachers to take into account individual circumstances and make a judgment. That is exactly the reverse of Government meddling. However, the issue is not just the effect on a child’s education. As I and a number of other Members have already said, when a child is taken out of school in term time, that does not just affect that child’s education; it has a broader impact on the school, the teacher and other pupils in the class. We must take that into account as well, and I am sure that head teachers will consider that when making decisions.

Finally, I congratulate the House on this very lively debate. It has been a really good example of a debate in which a number of different views have been put forward but the tone has remained extremely pleasant. I have an awful lot of points to feed back to the Department for Education, and I am sure that Ministers have been listening carefully and will respond to Members’ concerns. Thank you very much, Dr McCrea, and I congratulate Members again on a really good debate.

18:54

[John Hemming]

I thank you, Dr McCrea, for your chairmanship, Mr Turner for his able work, and all the contributors to the debate. I do not think that there is any advantage in repeating what everyone has said, but there are some issues that must be sorted out, so let us get on with it.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the e-petition relating to holiday companies charging extra in school holidays.

18:55

Sitting adjourned.

Written Statements

Monday 24th February 2014 Written Statements

Monday 24 February 2014

Flood Response and Recovery

Monday 24th February 2014 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Eric Pickles)]

I wish to update the House on the Government’s ongoing work on flood response and recovery.

Since the east coast surge in early December, over 6,480 properties have been flooded across England, but over the same period more than 1.3 million properties have been protected by flood protection measures. According to local Gold commanders, 2,600 homes have been flooded since the start of January, and a further 7,000 have been cut off by flood water or have lost access to services. COBR has been meeting to monitor the continuing threat of groundwater flooding and progress in Somerset. As weather patterns return to those more usual for the time of year, coastal and river flood risk is diminishing.

Locally, the transition to recovery is under way and most local areas have convened recovery meetings. The ministerial recovery group is co-ordinating Government support to local areas and infrastructure owners and operators to enable a return to normality as quickly as possible.

Government support for recovery

The Government are providing a range of funding packages to help the country recover from this severe weather, and over the last week, the full set of arrangements have been confirmed. Information can be found at: www. gov.uk/government/news/uk-floods-2014-government-response.

The package of support includes:

The £37 million severe weather recovery scheme to support communities and contribute to highway infrastructure repairs in affected areas;

The repair and renewal grant scheme for homes and business providing up to £5,000 to improve properties’ ability to withstand future flooding;

£4 million of central Government funding for council tax relief for flood-affected homes;

Central Government funding for 100% business rate relief for three months for flood-affected businesses;

The £10 million farming recovery fund to support farm businesses to restore flooded agricultural land and bring it back into production as quickly as possible.

The £10 million business support scheme providing hardship funding for small and medium businesses;

The £130 million DEFRA/Environment Agency scheme for repairs and rebuilding of flood defence assets; work has already commenced on those defences with the highest priorities;

The enhanced Bellwin scheme that I announced to the House on 13 February.

Private sector and voluntary sector support

We are also grateful to support offered by the private sector. Banks have offered financial support to businesses and personal customers, while other businesses have given practical help. There have also been numerous generous offers of support from community groups. Government have been working to make sure that these offers can reach the areas that need them. The National Farmers Union reported the fantastic response of the farming community after setting up a centre to redistribute fodder to farmers who have lost theirs due to flooding—it has been overwhelmed by offers of support.

Enhancing insurance cover

On 18 February, Ministers met with the insurance industry to hear how they intend to help people and businesses affected by the recent severe weather. They informed us that 2,000 loss adjusters stand ready to support those flooded and we will be holding regular meetings to review progress and to find solutions to any issues arising on the ground.

To ensure that we take a longer term view on this work the Prime Minister is now chairing the Cabinet Committee on Flooding to co-ordinate strategic long-term plans on flood recovery and flood resilience. More broadly, there will be further lessons to be learnt across government and its agencies. Gold commanders maintain a state of readiness to respond to future flooding should the risk increase again in coming weeks.

Ministers will continue to update the House on progress.

February Recess (Department's Work)

Monday 24th February 2014 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Eric Pickles)]

I would like to update hon. Members on the main items of business undertaken by my Department since the House rose for recess.

Our priority has been to continue to help those areas affected by the recent weather and flooding, and a separate statement has been made today to outline the range of action that the Government have been supporting and co-ordinating over recess.

Notwithstanding:

Increasing house building

On 20 February, official statistics confirmed that England is building again, with 122,590 new starts last year, up by 23% on the previous year, and the highest since 2007. Despite the poor weather conditions over the winter, work on new homes in the last quarter was also up by 23% compared to the same period in 2012.



Recent research by the National House Building Council reported housing registrations rose by 30% in England in 2013 and by 60% in London; registrations across the country are at their highest since 2007 and represent the highest annual total in London since their records began 26 years ago. Similarly, according to the Office for National Statistics, new orders in residential construction have risen to their highest level since 2007. House builders have directly linked the increase in house building with the increased confidence in the market from the Government’s Help to Buy schemes.

This is more to do to get Britain building. It is particularly notable that the National House Building Council figures show that house building is falling in Wales, thanks to the extra regulation on the housing market introduced by the Welsh Government and their lack of support for home buying.

The steady increase in house building in England is confirmation of the effectiveness of the coalition Government’s actions to fix the broken housing market that we inherited in 2010; cutting the deficit to keep interest rates low; prioritising resources to build new housing and helping buyers get on to and move up the housing ladder.

Selling surplus public sector property

On 20 February, my Department outlined the Government’s ongoing progress on disposals of surplus public sector land. We have now sold enough brownfield land to build 68,000 new homes. Some 430 sites have now been sold, and given that each new home supports up to two jobs, these land sales will sustain over 135,000 jobs as the homes are built.

The Government are on track to release enough land for 100,000 homes by 2015. We are making it easier for the public to see what land we own and challenge Government if it could be used better. We are encouraging councils to follow suit, to help them free up brownfield land for new homes and to deliver financial savings from better property asset management.

Helping people build their own home

Following the passage of the secondary legislation through Parliament, I can confirm that self-builders are now exempt from paying the community infrastructure levy. This will help up to 3,000 mothballed self-build homes get off the ground. This change is part of our determination to boost housing supply and help would-be self-builders realise their aspirations, to build their own home, an extension or family annex.

It is the latest in a range of measures to increase the number of people building their own home, including making it easier to get a self-build mortgage, freeing up more surplus public sector land for self-build projects, a £30 million custom-build homes fund, and planning guidance which makes it clear that councils should be supporting self-build in their area.

From April, householders will also benefit from a new council tax relief from family annexes, and we will be taking further steps to remove the unfair imposition of section 106 tariffs from self-builders, annexes and extensions.

Supporting a vibrant private rented sector

My Department has also set out plans to create a fairer and more flexible private rented sector, raising standards of property conditions and rooting out the small minority of rogue landlords. We have already provided £6.5 million to help councils tackle the likes of “beds in sheds”, but we are now exploring a range of measures which will tackle problems such as retaliatory eviction, illegal eviction and hazardous properties. These proposals are balanced with the need to ensure that the vast majority of good landlords and satisfied tenants are not overly burdened with red tape which would force up rents and reduce choice.

In a consultation, we are also reviewing the outdated laws which prevent London householders from renting out their property on short-term lets. Laws dating back to 1973 prevent people renting out their home for less than three months without seeking “change of use” planning permission (whereas, by contrast, long-term rentals do not need planning permission). This legal requirement is simply out of step with the rest of the country and arguably outdated in the light of the internet technologies fuelling both demand and supply for informal short-term letting.

Remembering the Holocaust

On 17 February, my Department announced details of a competition which will help ensure Britain has a permanent and fitting memorial to the holocaust. Six young people will be able to join a youth forum set up by the Prime Minister’s Holocaust Commission, with one winner, chosen by holocaust survivor Professor Elie Wiesel sitting on the commission itself. Young people aged under-21 can enter by writing an essay which answers the question:

“Why is it so important that we remember the Holocaust and how can we make sure future generations never forget”.

Copies of the press notices and associated documents have been placed in the Library of the House.

Flood Relief Operations (Call-out Order)

Monday 24th February 2014 Written Statements

[The Minister for the Armed Forces (Mr Mark Francois)]

A call-out order has been made under section 56(1) of the Reserve Forces Act 1996 to enable reservists to be called into permanent service to assist with flood relief operations in the United Kingdom. A number of high readiness reserves have already been mobilised in support of local authorities and Government agencies. This order will enable the call-out of additional reservists. Currently, we envisage calling out up to 500 reservists to fulfil a range of specialist and general roles. We plan to call out only willing and available reservists, who have the support of their employer. The order takes effect from 14 February 2014 and ceases to have effect on 13 February 2015.

Carbon Capture and Storage

Monday 24th February 2014 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Mr Edward Davey)]

I am pleased to inform Parliament that today, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and I are signing a contract with Shell to take their world leading gas carbon capture and storage (CCS) project into the next stage of development.

The Government have agreed a multi-million pound contract for engineering, design and financial work on the Peterhead CCS project in Aberdeenshire. The world’s first-planned gas CCS project, Peterhead involves installing carbon capture technology on to Scottish and Southern Energy’s (SSE’s) existing Peterhead gas power plant, and transporting the CO₂ 100 km offshore for safe, permanent storage 2 km under the North sea in the old Goldeneye gas field. If built, the project could save 1 million tonnes CO₂ each year and provide clean electricity to over 500,000 homes.

The project also opens a potential new future for the North sea—turning old oil and gas fields into CO₂ stores, offering the possibility of using CO₂ for enhanced oil recovery and giving new opportunities for the UK’s world leading offshore and subsea industries.

Today’s announcement follows the award in December of a front end engineering design (FEED) contract to the White Rose project in Yorkshire, and marks a key milestone in the Government’s CCS competition. We are investing around £100 million from our £1 billion budget to take the Peterhead and White Rose CCS projects to the next stage of development—which together could support over 2,000 jobs during construction and provide clean electricity for over 1 million homes. In late 2015, the projects will take final investment decisions, with the Government taking decisions shortly after.

By bringing forward CCS, we could save more than £30 billion a year by 2050. Without it, achieving an affordable, low-carbon energy mix with renewable and nuclear energy alone will be much more difficult and more expensive.

UK Continental Shelf (Wood Review)

Monday 24th February 2014 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Mr Edward Davey)]

Today Sir Ian Wood has published the final report from his review of how to maximise recovery of oil and gas in the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS). I am grateful to Sir Ian and his review team for the work they have done, and to all those who contributed. The report can be viewed at: www.woodreview.co.uk. I can inform the House of the Government’s initial response.

The UK oil and gas industry is of national importance; it makes a substantial contribution to the economy, supporting around 450,000 jobs, and had record capital expenditure in 2013 of around £14 billion. Oil and gas will continue to be a vital part of the energy mix as we transition to a low-carbon economy, with indigenous oil and gas production supplying the equivalent of about half of the UK’s primary energy demand. It is vital, therefore, that we continue to maximise economic recovery of our indigenous hydrocarbon reserves, thereby boosting growth, energy security, and jobs.

I commissioned the review in June 2013 because, while investment levels are rising and near-term prospects are strong, there are new challenges for exploration and production, and the environment is very different to when production peaked approximately15 years ago. Production and exploration levels have fallen, and production efficiency has declined. The review recognises the positive steps already taken by the Government to incentivise recovery, such as the allowances for brownfield and small fields. The report recommends that industry commit to working with Government to implement the UK oil and gas industrial strategy, and to develop new industry strategies in areas such as exploration and decommissioning cost reduction.

The Government accept Sir Ian’s key recommendation that Government should work with industry to adopt a cohesive tripartite approach between industry, HM Treasury and the UKCS stewardship body to a new shared strategy of maximising economic recovery for the UK (MER UK). Sir Ian Wood has identified some key recommendations for industry, including that industry commit to making the most of production facilities, does more to promote third party access to infrastructure, develops new infrastructure business models, improves collaboration, improves asset stewardship and reduces the legal and commercial burden of working in the UKCS.

The report also recommends that stewardship of the UKCS should be under a new arm’s-length body, funded by industry and better resourced. The review heard consistent praise for the staff working in the current stewardship unit within DECC, but the review concludes that it needs to be strengthened and focused around a new MER UK strategy if it is to support industry in successfully meeting the challenges in the UKCS.

Therefore, and subject to further detailed work to support the business case, we shall proceed with taking the stewardship of the UKCS into the next phase, with a new arm’s-length body, funded by industry, with new resources and any necessary statutory powers to meet that challenge. We will develop plans for a new arm’s-length body, and will introduce legislation in the Fourth Session to bring the new body into effect. The next step will be to appoint a chief executive officer, with the aim of having that person in post in the summer 2014, so that they can steer the work to design and build the new body, which could begin operating in shadow form in the autumn. Stakeholders are being invited to participate in an interim advisory panel on implementation, which Sir Ian Wood has agreed to chair. I will publish a formal response to the report—along with a more detailed road map for implementation—later in the spring.

Implementing the recommendations will require Government and industry to adopt a new, more collaborative, approach to stewardship of the UKCS. It is vital that we create the right environment for maximising economic recovery because the prize on offer is considerable. Sir Ian’s report estimates that full and rapid implementation will deliver at least 3 billion to 4 billion barrels of oil equivalent more than would otherwise be recovered over the next 20 years, bringing over £200 billion¹ of additional value to the UK economy.

¹At current prices and unadjusted for inflation.

UN Commission of Inquiry (Democratic People's Republic of Korea)

Monday 24th February 2014 Written Statements

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr Hugo Swire)]

On 17 February the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) published its final report. I would like to inform the House of the commission’s findings and to explain how the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is responding on behalf of the Government.

The Commission of Inquiry (COI) was established by a unanimous decision of the UN Human Rights Council in March 2013. Its mandate is to investigate independently the reports of systematic, widespread and grave violations of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. These include violations of the right to life, the right to food, freedom of expression and freedom of movement; violations associated with prison camps, torture and inhuman treatment, and arbitrary detention; and enforced disappearances, including in the form of abductions of nationals of other states. The commission was also tasked to conduct its investigation with a view to ensuring that those responsible for human rights violations will be held accountable for their crimes. The UK has actively supported the work of the commission. In October 2013, we arranged a visit by the Commissioners Justice Kirby and Sonja Biserko to the UK, where they took evidence from North Korean refugees and from NGOs. The Commissioners also met me as FCO Minister of State, as well as other parliamentarians.

The commission has systematically collected detailed and damning accounts of appalling human rights violations in a way that has never been done previously. Their findings are horrifying. They include: torture, rape, executions and disappearances; using deliberate starvation as a means of control and punishment in detention facilities; a virtually absolute ban on ordinary citizens travelling abroad; and severe punishments for practising Christianity. While the COI acknowledges it is neither a judicial body nor a prosecutor, it believes its findings constitute reasonable grounds to establish that crimes against humanity have been committed. The commissioners have found that the DPRK is a state where human rights violations and crimes against humanity are ingrained into the institutional framework, pursuant to policies established at the highest level of the state. These crimes against humanity are ongoing and occur as part of a systematic and widespread attack of the state against anyone who is considered to pose a threat to the political system and leadership of the DPRK. The report finds that the DPRK’s isolationist mindset, aversion to engagement with the international community, all-encompassing indoctrination policies, and brutal security institutions protected by impunity are without parallel in the contemporary world.

On behalf of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office I have issued a statement welcoming the spotlight the commission has shone on these shocking human rights violations, which have gone on for far too long. I have urged the DPRK authorities to respond in detail to the contents of the report and to address the violations that it documents. UK officials have ensured the DPRK is aware of this statement.

We are now studying the recommendations of the report in detail. Although the commission has now concluded its work, the UK believes that this should be a beginning and not an end. The international community must respond to the report’s findings. On March 17 the commission will formally present its report to the UN Human Rights Council. As in previous years, the UK will be supporting a Human Rights Council resolution on the situation in the DPRK. We will work closely with the EU and other like-minded partners to ensure the Council sends a strong message to the DPRK that there can be no impunity for human rights violators.

G6 (Cracow)

Monday 24th February 2014 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)]

The informal G6 group of Ministers of the Interior from the six largest European Union countries, including representatives of the United States of America, held its most recent meeting in Cracow on 5 and 6 February 2014.

The summit was chaired by the Polish Interior Minister Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz and I represented the United Kingdom. The other participating states were represented by Thomas De Maizière (Germany), Angelino Alfano (Italy) and Jorge Fernández Diaz (Spain). France were represented at official level. Eric Holder (the US Attorney-General) and Jeh Johnson (US Secretary of Homeland Security) attended the second day.

The first formal session was on the development of EU justice and home affairs policy. There was general agreement on the need to focus on implementation of the existing agenda, rather than to develop new polices, concentrating on practical co-operation rather than new legislation. I said that it was important that member states drove the agenda. I stressed that tackling organised immigration crime remained an issue and highlighted the increasing problem of human trafficking, drawing attention to my intentions to bolster the UK approach through modern slavery legislation. I also raised the need for a renewed emphasis on effective measures against abuse of free movement and expressed concern at the emerging links between terrorism and organised crime.

The second formal session concerned Asian organised crime. Ministers exchanged their experiences and I set out action in the UK through the recent organised crime strategy and National Crime Agency. I further emphasised UK work to improve our intelligence picture of organised crime and to build capacity in Asian countries in order to tackle criminal activity upstream.

The third and fifth formal sessions related to the surveillance of EU citizens and protection of privacy. Ministers exchanged views on the need to find an effective balance between privacy and effective prevention of terrorism and crime. I called for a calm and measured approach and reiterated the importance of intelligence in the fight against terrorism. I welcomed the proposed additional protections proposed for non-US citizens in President Obama’s recent speech. The US set out its plans to tighten controls on access to bulk data, and provide enhanced Executive branch oversight. There would also be greater protection given to safeguarding the rights of non-US citizens. The US emphasised the benefits to the EU of US intelligence and co-operation.

The fourth formal session concerned the current challenges posed by terrorism. Ministers focused on the changing trends in terrorist activity and agreed on the need to intensify co-operation between member states in combating terrorism. I highlighted the dangers posed by foreign fighters in the Syria conflict and stressed the need for international co-operation to tackle this issue. I further set out the need to focus on co-operation with Turkey as a priority, given that it represents the key entry point for many European nationals travelling to fight in Syria. Finally, I stressed the importance of effective sharing of intra-EU passenger name records data in tackling the challenges posed by terrorists.

At the formal dinner on 5 February, I reminded Ministers of the need to seek improvements in the exchange of criminal records for child sex offenders. I also updated Ministers on the draft Modern Slavery Bill. The Polish Minister raised the issue of the situation in Ukraine.

The next G6 meeting will take place in Spain in June.

Visa Regulations

Monday 24th February 2014 Written Statements

[The Minister for Security and Immigration (James Brokenshire)]

On 3 February 2014 my hon. Friend the then Minister of State for Immigration the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) announced proposals to change the fees for immigration and nationality applications made to the Home Office and for services provided by the Department.

The announcement included a table setting out the proposals in detail and the Immigration and Nationality Fees Regulations (2014) were laid in Parliament on the same day. There were errors in the fees regulations and in the table accompanying the announcement. First, the fees for applications for entry clearance as a tier 4 student and tier 5 youth mobility and temporary worker were erroneously omitted from the regulations, though they were included in the explanatory memorandum and the fees table accompanying the announcement. Secondly, the fee for the User Pays Visa Application Centre service overseas should be £59 rather than the £53 set out in the regulations and the table. This is an optional service that allows overseas applicants to access visa services at a convenient location provided by contractors. The £59 fee represents the unit cost of providing the service.

These errors have now been corrected. I have laid corrected regulations. A new version of the fees table, which also includes various presentational improvements and corrections to minor typographical errors has been placed in the House Library.

Guide to Coroner Services

Monday 24th February 2014 Written Statements

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Simon Hughes)]

The Government are today publishing the new “Guide to Coroner Services” and accompanying “Coroner investigations - a short guide”.

The guide explains to bereaved people, and others who come into contact with coroner services across England and Wales, what they can expect from a coroner’s investigation. It sets out the standards of service that they should receive and what they can do if they are not satisfied.

The guide is the final element in the Government’s package of coroner reforms under the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 which we implemented in July last year. It is the product of our spring 2013 consultation which sought views on implementing those reforms. The guide replaces and updates the guide to coroners and inquests and charter for coroner services’ which applied to the coroner system under the previous coroner legislation, the Coroners Act 1988 and the Coroners Rules 1984.

The accompanying “Coroner investigations - a short guide” is a quick reference leaflet version of the guide which we have produced following suggestions made in the consultation.

Unlike the previous publication which it replaces, the new guide is statutory guidance. It is issued under section 42 of the 2009 Act, which allows the Lord Chancellor to issue guidance on how the coroner system is expected to operate in relation to bereaved people, including the way in which they can participate in coroner investigations.

I believe that the guide—together with the short guide—will help to make standards of service more transparent for coroners and bereaved people. It will also assist the Chief Coroner in discharging his responsibility under the 2009 Act for overseeing the coroner service.

We are distributing hard copies of the guide and short guide to all coroners’ offices across England and Wales, as well as publishing it on gov.uk. There is also a Welsh translation.

Copies of the guide and short guide are being placed in the Libraries of both Houses, in the Vote Office and in the Printed Paper Office.

Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern Franchise

Monday 24th February 2014 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Patrick McLoughlin)]

On 18 February 2014 my Department announced the successful conclusion of negotiations for the direct award of a new, six-period franchise agreement to First Capital Connect that will see that company continue to provide services from the end of their current franchise on 31 March 2014¹ to the start of the new combined Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern franchise later this year.

Through this contract I have guaranteed services for passengers and ensured that the transition to the new franchise will be as smooth as possible, maximising the value for the taxpayer. This short contract is a key step in ensuring the delivery of the significant £6 billion Thameslink programme, which will transform the lives of rail passengers in the south-east through the delivery of new trains and more capacity, allowing 24 trains per hour through some of the most congested routes in the country.

¹The current franchise expires at 01:59 on 1 April 2014, at the end of the previous day’s services.

Income Support Lone Parent Statistics (Correction)

Monday 24th February 2014 Written Statements

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Esther McVey)]

I regret to inform the House that an error has been identified within the income support lone parent regime official statistic. This has caused an over-count in the number of income support lone parent sanctions reported within four releases of the statistic (February, May, August and November 2013). During this time, a number of parliamentary questions (PQs) were tabled requesting this data; a list of all such PQs and the Members who tabled them can be found below:

PQ UIN 144830 - Kerry McCarthy

PQ UIN 148374 - Fiona Mactaggart

PQ UIN 150516 - Dame Joan Ruddock

PQ UIN 159327 - Shaun Woodward

PQ UIN 161444 - Jessica Morden

PQ UIN 165640 - Frank Field

PQ UIN 174368 - Stephen Timms

PQ UIN 175527 - David Ward

PQ UIN 175730 - Mike Hancock

PQ UIN 177178 - Barbara Keeley

PQ UIN 180927 - John Healy

I apologise to the House for this inadvertent error. The erroneous data were corrected on 19 February 2014 and are available at the following URL:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/income-support-lone-parent-regime-figures-on-sanctions-and-work-focused-interviews--2.

The affected figures are provided in summary below:

Pensions

Monday 24th February 2014 Written Statements

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)]

I am pleased to announce the Government will be introducing new measures to require transparency for transaction charges in pension schemes. Later today we intend to table an amendment to the Pensions Bill 2013 to introduce this latest step in the Government’s wider plans to ensure consumers receive value for money from their pension savings.

Transparency of costs and charges is fundamental for good scheme governance and to enabling comparison between schemes. Our amendment, which is intended for debate at the Report stage of the Pensions Bill 2013 in the House of Lords this Wednesday, will place a duty on the Secretary of State to make regulations requiring greater transparency around the transaction costs incurred by work-based defined contribution schemes.

Requiring increased transparency is the latest step in the wider Government programme to see fair charges for people who are automatically enrolled into workplace pensions. Last year, we consulted on whether to cap charges in the default funds of schemes used for automatic enrolment, and the Government remain committed to seeing this policy through during the life of this Parliament. Accordingly, our response to the consultation on charges, and further proposals on quality and transparency in workplace pension schemes, will be published soon.