House of Commons

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Commons Chamber

Wednesday 9 July 2014

The House met at half-past Eleven o’clock

Prayers

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

1. What assessment he has made of the effects on the economy in Wales of fiscal measures taken by the Chancellor of the Exchequer since May 2010.

[The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr David Jones)]

We have announced significant measures to boost growth and support hard-working families. We have cut corporation tax, abolished national insurance contributions for the under-21s and by next April 155,000 people in Wales will have been taken out of income tax altogether.

[Mr Hollobone]

Given that the Chancellor’s decision to cut Britain’s corporation tax rate to the lowest in the G7 is one of the major reasons for Britain’s economic recovery, will my right hon. Friend reject the advice from the shadow Secretary of State that

“reducing headline corporation tax rates does not work”?

[Mr Jones]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. Government analyses have shown that high corporate taxes have a negative impact on investment, jobs and growth, and that is why we are reducing the rate to 20% from next April, the joint lowest rate in the G20. The hon. Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith) would appear to be at odds with the shadow Chancellor, who has committed himself to low rates of corporate taxation.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State confirm that just 14,000 people have benefited from the tax cut to taxpayers on the highest rate, at an average of £40,000 each, at a time when 75,000 people in Wales are on zero-hours contracts? Does he think that is fair?

[Mr Jones]

By increasing the income tax threshold, we are taking increasing numbers out of income tax altogether. As I said in my substantive answer, by next April 155,000 people in Wales will be out of income tax. I would have hoped that the right hon. Gentleman welcomed that.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

Actions speak louder than words. The real answer to the question was provided by the Secretary of State at the weekend, when he was the only member of the Cabinet who volunteered, as many Opposition Members have done, at a local food bank. Was that because he now agrees with us that food banks have become a vital bulwark against the impact of his Government’s fiscal policies in Wales?

[Mr Jones]

I am proud to have assisted those at the Ruthin food bank over the weekend—I spent four hours with them; they are doing essential work—but, frankly, rather than turning this issue into a political football, I would have thought that the hon. Lady would be far better off supporting the work of the Trussell Trust.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

2. What recent discussions he has had with his ministerial colleagues and others on devolving fiscal responsibility to the Welsh Government.

[The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr David Jones)]

I have regular discussions with ministerial colleagues on the Wales Bill, which devolves a significant package of tax and borrowing powers to the National Assembly and Welsh Ministers. The Bill completed its passage through this House on 24 June, and it will have its Second Reading in the Lords next Wednesday.

[Bob Blackman]

Being in the position to set tax rates and collect taxes will clearly bring a new-found fiscal responsibility, but does my right hon. Friend agree that the people of Wales should take that as an encouragement to vote in a Government in Wales who will look after their best interests?

[Mr Jones]

I certainly agree with that, and I also believe that it is essential, once the competence is in place, for the Welsh Government to call an early referendum on tax-varying powers to maximise the benefit we are creating through the measures in the Bill.

[Mr Peter Hain (Neath) (Lab)]

Is it not the case that people in Wales would be buying a pig in a poke if income tax were devolved without a proper floor being put underneath the Barnett formula? The failure to address that issue has resulted in Wales being short-changed, so if income tax were devolved without the Barnett formula being addressed, it would be a bad outcome for Wales.

[Mr Jones]

I fear that the right hon. Gentleman has overlooked the arrangements that we put in place with the Welsh Government in October 2012, which ensure that if there is any danger of convergence, then the issue will be resolved. I believe that we should all be ambitious for Wales, and we should indeed be looking for a lower rate of income tax in Wales to give Wales the competitive advantage that it needs.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

Is it the policy of the coalition parties fully to devolve income tax powers to Scotland, and if so, why does the Wales Bill still include a tax-sharing arrangement in relation to income tax powers, with the lockstep measure for safe measure? Why are the Tories treating Wales like a second-class nation?

[Mr Jones]

We have made it clear that the Scottish powers would kick in only after the next general election and they will, of course, have to be the subject of a manifesto commitment. However, Wales is not Scotland. We believe that the arrangements that we are putting in place are right for Wales. I would have hoped that the hon. Gentleman would support them.

[Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

On devolution, in the last hour there has been an extremely important ruling by the Supreme Court. It found in favour of the Labour Welsh Government in their attempt to preserve an Agricultural Wages Board for Wales and to protect low-paid farm workers in Wales. Will the Secretary of State take this opportunity to apologise for wasting court time and money on seeking unlawfully to get rid of an Agricultural Wages Board for Wales, and will he commend the Welsh Government on their actions?

[Mr Jones]

The hon. Gentleman is entirely right that the Supreme Court delivered a judgment this morning. We are still considering the consequences of that. Where a procedure exists and there is an issue of doubt, it is entirely right that we should go to the Supreme Court to have the position clarified, and the position has been clarified.

[Owen Smith]

The Secretary of State is trying to present this as a score draw. To be clear, he has lost 2-0. This is the second time he has referred Welsh legislation to the Supreme Court and the second time he has lost. This time he was trying to stop the Welsh Government trying to protect agricultural wages in Wales. I ask him again: will he apologise for wasting time? Will he agree with me that his interference and this ruling show that we definitely need Labour’s proposal of a reserved powers model for the Assembly in Wales?

[Mr Jones]

I do not apologise for taking into account the devolution settlement and seeking clarity where it is necessary. To repeat, we are considering the ramifications of the judgment and will come back to the House in due course.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

3. If he will estimate the average change in disposable income for families in Wales since May 2010.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Stephen Crabb)]

Wales has had the largest increase in disposable household income of any region or nation of the United Kingdom since 2010. Many households continue to face financial pressures. That is why we continue to introduce practical measures to help people with the cost of living at this time.

[Alison McGovern]

I am not sure that the Minister shared many detailed statistics with the House in that answer. Perhaps he will say a little more. The economies of Merseyside and north Wales are inextricably linked, so what is bad for north Wales is bad for Merseyside. That is why I would like to know just how much damage the Government have done to the incomes of people in north Wales.

[Stephen Crabb]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question and welcome her participation at Wales Office questions. As I said, the truth is that disposable household income is increasing faster in Wales than in any other region or nation in the United Kingdom. Wages and incomes are not where we want them to be—they need to be higher—but that is because this country is still recovering from the economic trauma visited on it by the Labour party. I am sorry that she has used her question to paint Wales in such a negative light.

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

Would the Minister care to comment on the recent dramatic fall in the disposable household income of the former Welsh Minister for Natural Resources and Food? Does he agree that, in that instance, the fall in household income was absolutely justified, given the disgraceful dirty tricks the former Minister was employing against other Members of the Welsh Assembly?

[Mr Speaker]

The Minister has no responsibility for that matter. The hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies) has put his thoughts on the record with his usual assertiveness.

[Jonathan Evans (Cardiff North) (Con)]

Has my hon. Friend seen the evidence from the Office for National Statistics that, since the election in 2010, the gap between disposable incomes in Wales and in the rest of the UK has narrowed every year? That gap widened in each of the three years before the last election during the tenure of the Labour party.

[Stephen Crabb]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. There was a huge destruction of wealth in this nation during the last three years of the Labour Government and we are still recovering from that. He is right to draw the House’s attention to the fact that the disposable income gap is narrowing. That is because we have a long-term economic plan that is working, and that is working for Wales.

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

Some 46% of the people who work in my constituency and some 33% of the workers who live in my constituency work in the public sector. The figure for the constituency of the Secretary of State is 45%. Today, it was announced that public sector workers have lost £2,500 a year since the last election. What is the Minister doing about that?

[Stephen Crabb]

I say to the hon. Gentleman that his party’s Front Benchers are as committed as we are to the need for pay restraint across the public sector. That is one of the main ways in which we will fix the appalling record deficit that he and his party left the nation. Some 47,000 new private sector jobs have been created in Wales in the past 12 months, and he should stand up today and salute that.

[Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)]

4. What recent discussions he has had with ministerial colleagues and Ministers of the Welsh Government on health care provision in Wales and the English borders.

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

10. What recent discussions he has had with ministerial colleagues and Ministers of the Welsh Government on health care provision in Wales and the English borders.

[The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr David Jones)]

The Wales Office continues to engage regularly with the Department of Health and the Welsh Government to discuss health care provision in Wales and along the border. Our focus is on ensuring that everyone, regardless of where they live, has access to high-quality health services that meet their needs.

[Mel Stride]

Given that the NHS in Wales has had its budget cut by 8%, that waiting times are longer than in England and that it has missed its accident and emergency targets since 2009, does my right hon. Friend agree that the NHS is far from safe in the Opposition’s hands?

[Mr Jones]

That is manifestly clear. While spending on the NHS has increased by £12.7 billion in England, it has been subjected to a cut of 8% by the Welsh Government. As my hon. Friend says, the consequence is that the health service in Wales is not safe in Labour’s hands.

[Stephen Mosley]

A constituent of mine living in Chester but registered with a GP in Wales would have to wait up to 52 weeks for a hip operation. If that same constituent were registered with a GP in England, they would have to wait 18 weeks. Does my right hon. Friend think that is fair?

[Mr Jones]

I do not, and of course people living on either side of the border are entitled to comparable standards of care. I am concerned that long waiting times in Wales are affecting not only Welsh patients but, as my hon. Friend said, those in England.

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

You really would not think the Secretary of State was the son of a north Walian chemist from listening to his answers.

Regardless of which side of the border people live on, obesity is a ticking time bomb in this country. Why do the UK Government not have cross-border talks with the Welsh Government to do something on the issue, rather than constantly talking Wales down? When will they deal with the serious issues?

[Mr Jones]

I am glad to say that when my father was practising, we did not have the type of devolved health care that we are experiencing in Wales at the moment.

The hon. Lady is entirely right—it is necessary that discussions should take place, and they are taking place. I urge her to urge her friends in the Assembly to engage positively with the United Kingdom Government.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Secretary of State acknowledge that there is a clear relationship between levels of poverty and demand for health care? With 75,000 people in Wales now on zero-hours contracts and a higher number of people in poverty being in work than out of work, is it not time that he got a fair share for Wales by getting the £300 million by which we are under-supported by the Barnett formula and the capital investment needed to deliver the proper health service that we all need and demand in Wales?

[Mr Jones]

If the Labour party recognises the links between poverty and poor health, it is surprising that the Welsh Labour Government have cut health spending by 8%.

[Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)]

At the moment, patients from Radnorshire and east Breconshire have to travel to Cheltenham for radiotherapy, which is a long and stressful journey at a time when they are particularly unwell. A radiotherapy facility called the Macmillan Renton unit will soon open at Hereford hospital, and it will be an excellent facility for Herefordshire and Powys. Does the Secretary of State agree that that is an example of cross-border health care at its best?

[Mr Jones]

It is indeed, and it also illustrates the extent to which border communities such as those that my hon. Friend represents rely on health care provided in England—all the more reason for proper protocols to be put in place to ensure that that health care is adequate.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

5. What the time scale is for the construction of a new nuclear power station at Wylfa.

[The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr David Jones)]

Subject to final investment decisions, construction is expected to begin in late 2019. However, initial ground works have already begun and indications are that Wylfa Newydd remains on course to begin operating in the mid-2020s.

[David Mowat]

The Secretary of State may be aware that Wylfa will generate 10 times as much carbon-free electricity as is currently generated by every offshore and onshore wind farm in Wales. Does he agree that it is vital that we make progress on that project?

[Mr Jones]

I agree entirely, and that is why the generic design assessment for Wylfa Newydd is proceeding apace. We need an energy mix, and we need to ensure that fewer carbon emissions are produced. A mixture of nuclear and wind power will achieve that.

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

As someone who has supported new nuclear build in Wales since my arrival in the House in 2001, and this project since its inception in 2008-09, will the Secretary of State join me in stating that the priority now must be to get the skill base and supply chain right, so that we have the jobs and high-quality skills that we deserve in north-west Wales? That means the UK Government working with the Welsh Government, local governments and stakeholders. Will the right hon. Gentleman agree to meet me to form a framework for that to happen?

[Mr Jones]

I am happy to commend the efforts the hon. Gentleman has made, and I entirely agree that the new build at Wylfa offers exciting prospects for the supply chain and for education. I am particularly impressed with the work that Coleg Menai is putting in, and I am more than happy to meet the hon. Gentleman at some future date.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

There is universal opposition across north Wales to building more pylons to carry the electricity, whether from Wylfa Newydd or wind production—that extends to the point made by the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) and others. Will the Secretary of State guarantee that proper and full consideration will be given to under-sea methods of transmission of electricity from any new sources?

[Mr Jones]

Of course, the difficulty with nuclear generation is that it requires the infrastructure to get it to the markets. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that some concern has been expressed about this issue, and where possible underground cabling has distinct advantages. No final decisions have been made, and National Grid is carrying out further environmental and technical assessments.

[Guto Bebb (Aberconwy) (Con)]

6. What assessment he has made of the progress of the broadband roll-out programme and the effects of that programme on the tourism industry in Wales.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Stephen Crabb)]

The Superfast Cymru programme, which is jointly funded by the UK and Welsh Governments, is on track to deliver superfast speeds to 96% of premises by spring 2016, and more than 135,000 premises in Wales have already been connected. The Wales Office continues to be in close contact with BT, Ofcom and Broadband Delivery UK as the roll-out continues.

[Guto Bebb]

I thank the Minister for his response. Some £120 million of public money has been put into the roll-out of broadband in Wales, yet my constituency of Aberconwy has had no roll-out as yet. That is having a huge effect on businesses, not least in the tourism sector. Does the Minister agree that we need more accountability in the way that the spending of public money happens in the Welsh Government?

[Stephen Crabb]

As I said, we are in close discussions with the Welsh Government, Ofcom, and Broadband Delivery UK about how public money is being spent on the roll-out in Wales. We are aware of concerns that my hon. Friend and colleagues have raised in recent months, and we communicate those to the Welsh Government and take them very seriously.

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

Further to that question, the roll-out in Wales is excruciatingly slow, and that is when connections are available. Is the Minister aware of the latest Ofcom data that show that 10 out of 22 local authority areas are category 5—the worst for broadband? What is he doing to work constructively with the Welsh Government to sort that out?

[Stephen Crabb]

The right hon. Gentleman is right, and we face a significant infrastructure challenge in Wales for our digital connectivity. That is why we are putting in money from the UK Government, partnered with Welsh Government money, for the roll-out of the Superfast Cymru programme. If he has more specific concerns about the roll-out in his constituency, I would be grateful if he raised them with me so that I can take them up with the Welsh Government directly.

[Mr Llwyd]

The Minister is a mind-reader. Last week, Dr Carole Jones of Aberangell rang me because she was completely unhappy about the situation. When she spoke to BT, she was informed that there is no likelihood of high-speed internet reaching Aberangell in my constituency—her area—because it will be too costly. What is the point of pumping in public money from this Government and the Welsh Government if they cannot commit to providing proper broadband services throughout Wales?

[Stephen Crabb]

The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that the main superfast programme deals with 96% of residences in Wales. We are putting in additional money to look at how we connect the last few per cent. of properties that are difficult to reach, and a Welsh pilot project will be taken forward as part of that £10 million scheme. There is light at the end of the tunnel, but we cannot underestimate some of the geographical and topographical challenges that Wales faces in rolling out superfast broadband.

[Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

7. What steps the Government is taking to improve infrastructure connectivity between north Wales and England.

[The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr David Jones)]

As part of our long-term economic plan, we are currently investing in infrastructure at unprecedented levels. Last week, we announced £10 million of investment to upgrade the Halton curve, renewing north Wales’s direct link with Liverpool and improving connectivity across the north-west of England.

[Ian Lucas]

On Friday, I will visit Rossett to see the investment of £44 million by the Welsh Government in the dualling of the Wrexham-Chester line, which was made a single line by the Tories in the 1980s. I welcome the investment announced by the Chancellor last week, but will the Secretary of State tell us when that will happen and when the Halton curve work will be done?

[Mr Jones]

It is clearly intended to proceed as quickly as possible. Connectivity between Wrexham and Merseyside is extremely important. I welcome, of course, the belated investment by the Welsh Government, but there is more to be done, and I think the hon. Gentleman and I are agreed on the need to look at electrification further north.

[Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)]

The funding of the northern hub in full and the many other transport announcements are incredibly welcome, and show an investment in the north’s transport infrastructure that was barely evident under the previous Government. Having taken four hours to get from Wrexham to Leeds, however, I would like the Secretary of State to make sure that north Wales will enjoy the benefits of that record investment.

[Mr Jones]

The Halton curve is, of course, important in that it connects north Wales with the city of Liverpool, which is the most important economic centre in the region. My hon. Friend is also right that we need to make sure that connectivity is improved across the whole of the north of England.

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

8. What recent assessment he has made of trends in levels of employment in Wales.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Stephen Crabb)]

Our long-term economic plan is working—and it is working in Wales. We are rebalancing the economy to give the private sector confidence to invest and create jobs. In the last year alone, we have seen more than 47,000 new private sector jobs created in Wales.

[Andrew Selous]

Will the Minister update us on what has happened to youth unemployment in Wales under this Government, given that it rose by 75% under the last Government?

[Stephen Crabb]

My hon. Friend is exactly right; he knows a lot about this issue. There was an appalling increase of more than 75% in youth unemployment on the watch of the last Labour Government. I am pleased to say that in the past four years, we have seen youth unemployment fall by 31% in Wales. We are bringing down unemployment among young people.

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

13. Will the Minister not just accept the success of Jobs Growth Wales—a scheme that actually works? Why will he not implement a similar scheme in England rather than carry on with the failed policies he is currently putting forward?

[Stephen Crabb]

Jobs Growth Wales makes a contribution, and I am not going to knock anything that helps young people in our constituencies to get on the employment ladder. I am concerned, however, that the Welsh Government are still refusing to allow people on the Work programme to access the additional help of Jobs Growth Wales. We need to see the Welsh Government make more progress on tackling that.

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

14. Agriculture is a significant employment sector in Wales, and many people, including the Farmers Union of Wales, wanted the Agricultural Wages Board to be protected. Will the Minister say why he has twice challenged it in the High Court and in the Supreme Court, and how much that has cost the public and the taxpayer?

[Stephen Crabb]

The hon. Gentleman knows full well that the devolution settlement is a complicated one, and that it was entirely right for the UK Government to seek clarity from the Supreme Court on this issue. We welcome the fact that the Supreme Court has given its ruling and provided the clarification we needed.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

9. What discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Justice on the potential privatisation of Ministry of Justice shared services and the effect on that body’s offices in Newport.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Stephen Crabb)]

The Wales Office remains in close contact with the Ministry of Justice on the future of its shared service centres. Central to our discussions is how we secure the future for the work force at Newport.

[Paul Flynn]

The Government reward the failure of the privatiser Steria, which lost £56 million of public money, in order to punish the success of the workers who have saved £120 million of public money. Will the Minister tell us who will decide whether those jobs will be offshored? Will it be the Ministry of Justice or the Cabinet Office?

[Stephen Crabb]

My right hon. Friend the Justice Secretary has made it absolutely clear that he does not support the offshoring of those jobs at Newport. Let me say to the hon. Gentleman, however, that we will take no lessons from him or his party about the interaction of Government with the private sector. We are introducing far more discipline and rigour into our contracts with the private sector providers.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

11. What recent assessment he has made of the contribution of the aerospace industry to the economy in Wales.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Stephen Crabb)]

The aerospace sector is vital to the economy of Wales, providing more than 23,000 jobs in 130 companies. The aerospace sector strategy sets out how we will work with industry to maximise the opportunities for growth.

[Mr Jones]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the NATO summit which will take place in Newport in September provides an ideal opportunity for Wales and the United Kingdom to showcase before a global audience our aerospace and defence industries, which are a vital part of our economy?

[Stephen Crabb]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. One of the Prime Minister’s key purposes in deciding to bring the NATO summit to Wales was to showcase all that is good about our nation of Wales. It is absolutely true that the defence and aerospace sectors are some of the jewels in the crown of the Welsh economy, and the NATO summit provides an excellent opportunity for us to showcase them.

The Prime Minister was asked—

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

Q1. If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 9 July.

[The Prime Minister (Mr David Cameron)]

I am sure that the whole House will want to join me in paying tribute to all who have been involved in the start of the Tour de France in Britain, from the event organisers to all the great cyclists I think that the event has showcased the best of Yorkshire and the whole of what Britain has to offer. I was delighted to see such incredible support throughout the race.

This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall have further such meetings later today.

[Mr Campbell]

I join the Prime Minister in welcoming the news that he has just relayed.

The Equality Commission for Northern Ireland is threatening legal action against a family-owned bakery because it would not print a political message on a cake. The requested message was completely at variance with the company’s Christian values. Does the Prime Minister agree that so-called equality is now being viewed by many as an oppressive threat to religious freedom, and that such freedoms should be protected by the introduction of a conscience clause?

[The Prime Minister]

I was not aware of the specific case that the hon. Gentleman has raised, and I will of course go away and have a look at it. However, I think that a commitment to equality—whether we are talking about racial equality, equality between those of different sexes, equality in terms of people who have disabilities, or, indeed, tolerance of and equality for people with different sexualities—is a very important part of being British.

[Mrs Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)]

Will the Prime Minister welcome—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I want the question to be heard. I want all questions to be heard.

[Mrs Spelman]

Will the Prime Minister welcome the President, MPs and choir of the German Parliament, who have come to sing in a joint concert with our parliamentary choir in Westminster Hall tonight to commemorate the centenary of the first world war and the tercentenary of the Hanoverian monarchy?

[The Prime Minister]

I am very happy to join my right hon. Friend in welcoming the German choir. I suspect that, after last night’s result, they will be in rather good voice.

On a serious note, let me say that we properly commemorate the outbreak of the first world war, the key battles of the first world war and, of course, Armistice day as we approach these vital 100th anniversaries. I am absolutely determined that, in Britain, we will mark them in appropriate ways. There will be a service in Glasgow, followed by a number of different events. I think it very important that we learn the lessons of that conflict, and commemorate those who fell.

[Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)]

I join the Prime Minister in paying tribute to the way in which the organisers, the cyclists and the millions of fans made the Tour de France such a brilliant success for Britain. I was proud to be watching it on the streets, as I know he was. I was in Leeds with the hundreds of thousands of people who were lining the streets.

All of us have been horrified by the instances of child abuse that have been uncovered, and the further allegations that have been made. All the victims of child abuse are not just owed justice, but owed an apology for the fact that it took so long for their cries to be heard. Does the Prime Minister agree that all inquiries, including those conducted by the police and those that he has set up, must go wherever the evidence leads them—in whatever institution in the country, including our own—to get at what happened?

[The Prime Minister]

I absolutely agree with the right hon. Gentleman. Child abuse is a despicable crime, and the victims live with the horror for the rest of their lives. It is absolutely essential that—in the two inquiries announced by the Home Secretary, and, indeed, in the vital police inquiries that are being carried out—no stone is left unturned.

The horror of the Jimmy Savile and Rolf Harris cases just shows what people were able to get away with. It was almost that on occasion they were committing crimes in plain sight, and it took far too long to get to the bottom of what happened and for justice to be done, and that is absolutely what this Government are committed to achieving.

[Edward Miliband]

On the issue of the 114 missing files at the Home Office, can the Prime Minister clarify when Ministers were first informed about this and what action they took? Does he agree that the review by Peter Wanless cannot be simply a review into the original review, but must seek to discover what happened to the files, who knew what about the files, and whether information was covered up, and that the Wanless review must also have full investigative powers?

[The Prime Minister]

It was a parliamentary question last October that revealed the points about the 2013 inquiry, but what I would say to the right hon. Gentleman is that it is absolutely vital that Peter Wanless, who has an excellent record in this regard and will carry out the review in absolutely the right way, has all the powers he needs. Let us be absolutely clear: if he wants more powers, and if that inquiry wants greater powers and ability, they can absolutely ask for it. As the right hon. Gentleman says, the inquiry must go exactly where the evidence leads. We are determined to get to the bottom of what happened.

[Edward Miliband]

I agree that the most important thing is to clarify what actually happened to the files and why they went missing. I welcome the overarching inquiry that has also been set up by the Home Secretary. Can the Prime Minister say more about the terms of reference of that inquiry? Will he consider the very sensible recommendations made today by Peter Wanless around making the covering up of abuse a criminal offence and ensuring that there is an obligation on institutions to report abuse where it occurs?

[The Prime Minister]

Taking the right hon. Gentleman’s second point first: should we change the law so that there is a requirement to report and make it a criminal offence not to report? The Government are currently looking at that, and both reviews will be able to examine that point and advise us accordingly. I think it may well be time to take that sort of first step forward.

On the issue of the terms of reference of the wider lessons learned review, we are discussing those at the moment; we are very happy to take suggestions from other parties in this House. A number of inquiries are being carried out into specific hospitals, including the Savile inquiries; there is the inquiry taking place within the BBC; and there other inquiries, including into Welsh children’s homes. The main aim and what is vital, as I have said before, is that the Government learn all the lessons of this review. Where the Elizabeth Butler-Sloss review can really help is by having a panel of experts who can advise us about all the things that need to change in all these institutions—for instance the Church; for instance the BBC; for instance the NHS; but also, if necessary, in this place and in Government, too.

[Edward Miliband]

I welcome what the Prime Minister said and clearly cultural change in this is absolutely crucial in all institutions.

I want to turn to another matter: the health service. Last week the Prime Minister said that waiting times in accident and emergency had gone down, but within 24 hours the House of Commons Library had called him out. Average A and E waiting times have gone up. Will he now correct the record?

[The Prime Minister]

What I said last week at Prime Minister’s questions is absolutely right, and if the right hon. Gentleman goes on the website of the organisation I quoted from he will see that. Also, if you remember, Mr Speaker, at the end of Prime Minister’s questions there were some points of order and I said very specifically that

“the numbers waiting longer than 18, 26 and 52 weeks to start treatment are lower than they were at any time under the last Government.”—[Official Report, 2 July 2014; Vol. 583, c. 893.]

That was directly contradicted by the shadow Health Secretary, and I just want to give the figures to the House now so people can see that I got my facts right.

So, in April 2010 there were 217,000 people waiting over 18 weeks; it is now 186,000—lower. In March 2010 there were 92,000 people waiting 26 weeks for treatment; it is now 59,000—lower. And in terms of waiting 52 weeks —52 weeks!—for treatment, in April 2010 there were 21,000 people waiting that long; the figure now is 510—lower.

[Edward Miliband]

It is very obvious that the Prime Minister does not want to talk about what he said on accident and emergency, where the House of Commons called him out. [Interruption.] Let us go to the common-sense definition of what a waiting time—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. As always, it does not matter how long it takes; the question will be heard, so the braying and the yelling and the calculated heckling might as well cease, as we are just going to keep going for as long as is necessary.

[Edward Miliband]

Let us go to the common-sense definition of a waiting time in A and E. It is not how long someone waits to be assessed; it is the time between arriving at the A and E and leaving it. The number of people waiting more than four hours is at its highest level in a decade. Why does the Prime Minister not just admit the truth, which everybody in the country knows? People are waiting longer in A and E.

[The Prime Minister]

The figures I gave last week are absolutely correct, and they are published by the Health & Social Care Information Centre: the average waiting time was 77 minutes when the shadow Health Secretary was Health Secretary and it is now 30 minutes. The fact is that we can trade statistics across the Floor of the House, but I am absolutely clear that the health service is getting better. There is a reason why it is getting better: we took two big strategic decisions. We said let us put more money into the NHS—the Opposition said that was irresponsible; and we said cut the bureaucracy in the NHS, which they wanted to keep. That is why there are 7,000 more doctors and 4,000 more nurses, and why the Leader of the Opposition has made a massive mistake by keeping a failing Health Secretary as the shadow health spokesman.

[Edward Miliband]

I would far rather have the shadow Health Secretary than the Government’s Health Secretary any day of the week. I will tell the Prime Minister what has happened in the health service. We had a top-down reorganisation that nobody wanted and nobody voted for, and it has diverted billions of pounds away from patient care. The contrast we see is between the complacent claims of the Prime Minister and people’s everyday experience. People are spending longer in A and E, and hospital A and Es have missed their four-hour target for the last 50 weeks in a row. While he tries to pretend things are getting better, patients, NHS staff and the public can see it getting worse right before their eyes.

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman still has to defend the man who presided over the Mid Staffs disgrace, where standards of patient care were so bad that patients were drinking out of dirty vases because of standards in Labour’s NHS. The point is this: the reason we have been able to cut bureaucracy and the reason we have been able to put more money into the NHS is that we have taken difficult decisions, including having a 1% pay cap in the NHS. Of course, Labour said it would support that, but this week it has decided that it will back strikes instead. I have here the Labour briefing on strikes, which says, “Do we support strikes? No. Will we condemn strikes? No.” There we have it: that is his leadership summed up in one go. Have the Opposition got a plan for the NHS? No. Have they got a plan for our economy? No. Is he remotely up to the job? No.

[Sir Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

Is the Prime Minister aware that British Airways is to cease the link between Aberdeen and London City in favour of increased services to the already well served airports of Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dublin? Will he support the campaign to maintain the link, which is vital to the vibrant business economy of the north of Scotland?

[The Prime Minister]

I am very happy to look into that issue with the right hon. Gentleman. It is an absolutely vital service, particularly given how strongly the economy in north-east Scotland is performing, with North sea oil and gas.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

Q2. Tomorrow, I will be in Carmarthen with striking teachers, nurses and firefighters—the backbone of local communities. Are the Prime Minister’s reported plans to ban public sector workers from withdrawing their labour not just a cynical attempt to silence opposition to his policies?

[The Prime Minister]

I am very clear that I do not think these strikes are right, I condemn them and I think that people should turn up for work. It is a pity we do not have so much clarity on that issue from the Labour party or, indeed, from the hon. Gentleman’s party. Let me give one example. The National Union of Teachers is proposing a strike based on a ballot it had almost two years ago, on a very small turnout of its members. Really, is it right to continue with this situation when the education of so many children is going to be so badly disrupted?

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

Speaking from the Opposition Back Benches on 9 December 2002, the Prime Minister said:

“I find the European arrest warrant highly objectionable”—[Official Report, 9 December 2002; Vol. 396, c. 107.]

and my right hon. Friend voted accordingly. I still think the European arrest warrant is highly objectionable. Does the Prime Minister?

[The Prime Minister]

We have made a series of changes to the European arrest warrant so that we do not have the problem of people being arrested, for instance, for things that are not a crime in this country. But the question we all have to ask ourselves is, having achieved this vast opt-out from Justice and Home Affairs, which is the biggest return of power from Brussels to Britain, what are those few things that we go back into in order to fight crime and terrorism? On this I think the judgment of the Home Secretary and the Justice Secretary has been absolutely right.

[Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) (Lab)]

Q3. The head of the civil service says that the business case for universal credit has not been signed off. The Department for Work and Pensions says it has. Who is telling the truth?

[The Prime Minister]

The budget for universal credit has been signed off in each and every year by the Treasury and I believe it will continue to do so. The good news on universal credit is that next year we will have one in eight jobcentres rolling out universal credit. I thought we would find that the Opposition were in favour of a system that makes work pay, but we can see today that they have gone back into the hole of being against every single welfare change and everything that is getting this country moving.

[Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

The Safer Internet Centre estimates that up to 30 websites host UK online revenge pornography images, another form of sexual abuse. Does the Prime Minister agree that posting such material must be recognised for what it is—a criminal sexual offence against its victims?

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend is right. This is an appalling offence and a dreadful thing for someone to do, and it clearly has criminal intent. I am very glad that she is championing this cause, and I hope that having looked in detail at the amendments she is suggesting, we can take up this cause. Part of what she achieved in government—the very good work that she did in office—is making sure that we do far more to deal with porn and internet porn.

[Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)]

Q4. If the business case for the right hon. Gentleman’s universal credit proposals is robust, why is the head of the home civil service saying that he has not signed it off?

[The Prime Minister]

What has happened is that universal credit has been signed off in each and every year by the Treasury. I make no apology for the fact that we are rolling it out slowly. We have learned the lesson of the previous Government, in which the right hon. Gentleman played a prominent part, where tax credits were introduced in one go and were a complete shambles.

[Mr Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Con)]

Q5. North West Air Ambulance has three helicopters and has flown thousands of missions since 1999, one of which saved the life of a friend of mine after an horrific car crash on the M6. The service costs £4.2 million a year to run. There are 27 such air services throughout the whole of the United Kingdom, and one of them may soon become a royal air ambulance service. Will my right hon. Friend pay tribute to those who man the helicopters, saving lives throughout the country, and heap praise on the thousands of people who raise funds every week on wet street corners throughout the United Kingdom to ensure that the helicopters carry on flying and saving lives?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is right. Our air ambulances provide an invaluable service and we should all pay tribute to the men and women who staff and support them, who often have to undertake very difficult landings and take-offs in order to rescue and get people to hospitals. It is right that up and down the country people are giving charitably in order to fund these vital services.

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

I am sure the Prime Minister will agree that dealing with terrorism and violence, and a commitment to exclusively peaceful and democratic means were fundamental in moving Northern Ireland forward and in taking us from where we were to where we are today. Does he agree that in the Northern Ireland of 2014 republican threats of violence for political gain must not only be deplored, but everyone in government, in governmental bodies in Northern Ireland and in the community must stand up against such threats and commit themselves to fundamental freedoms, upholding democracy and the rule of law?

[The Prime Minister]

All threats of violence in Northern Ireland are unacceptable and should be condemned on all sides. I am very clear about that. What I hope we can achieve in the coming weeks—it will take compromise and brave decisions on all sides—is to get the Haass talks process ongoing again, with commitments from the right hon. Gentleman’s party, as well as from the Ulster Unionist party and from Sinn Fein and the SDLP, to sit down and discuss these things so that we can make some progress. My fear is that if we do not make progress on these issues, we leave space open for extremists on all sides of the debate to start pushing their ideas, which would be deeply unhelpful for the future of Northern Ireland.

[Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)]

Q6. The long-term economic plan is working in my High Peak constituency. Unemployment is down a third in the past year. Summer approaches, and, as tourism supports so many jobs in the local economy, I am walking the boundary of my constituency to promote the area. I invite my right hon. Friend to consider joining me in August for part of the walk. As well as promoting High Peak, I will be raising money for High Peak Women’s Aid, which is a fantastic charity based in Glossop that operates across the whole of the High Peak.

[The Prime Minister]

I wish my hon. Friend well. He makes an enticing invitation. I am a big fan of the Peak district and what it has to offer and its very beautiful countryside. It is notable that in his constituency, the claimant count has fallen by 42% since the election, and the youth claimant count has come down by 39% in the past year. What we are seeing is an economic revival, and we need to stick to our plans to get the deficit down, help people with tax cuts, make it easier for firms to employ people, produce the schools and skills that we need and reform our welfare and immigration system. That is the plan that we will stick to, and it is the plan that is delivering for High Peak.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

On GP appointments, a 62-year-old man in Eccles, who is a carer for his wife who has Alzheimer’s, sought an urgent GP appointment for her. He was told that it would be five weeks to see her GP, two weeks to see any GP, or he could take her to Salford Royal A and E. If that is the way that the NHS treats a carer of a person with dementia, does the Prime Minister not agree that it is time to support Labour’s plan to give such patients a right to a GP appointment within 48 hours?

[The Prime Minister]

There are 1,000 more GPs today than there were when I became Prime Minister. What we are doing is reintroducing the named GP for frail elderly people, which Labour got rid of. That is one reason, combined with the disastrous GP contract that Labour introduced, why there is so much pressure on our accident and emergency system. We need to learn from the mistakes that Labour made rather than repeat them.

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

Q7. Is the Prime Minister aware that 16 to 18-year-olds in Northumberland who may live 50 miles from a further education college or 20 miles from a high school are facing charges ranging from £600 a year to several thousand pounds a year to get an education, because the Labour-controlled council has reversed the support given by the previous Liberal Democrat administration? Will he deplore that decision and see what central Government can do to promote fair access to education?

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point. As he knows, responsibility for transport for education and training rests with local authorities. Clearly, this local authority, now controlled by Labour, has made this decision. Of course we have introduced the £180 million bursary fund to support the most disadvantaged young people and perhaps that is something that his council and these families could make the most of. I certainly join him in agreeing that this is another example of the fact that Labour costs us more.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

Q8. It is estimated that each day 179 British girls are at risk of being subjected to female genital mutilation, joining a total of 170,000 in the United Kingdom who have been cut. Next week, the Prime Minister hosts a summit on this issue. Does he agree that FGM is not cultural; it is criminal. It is not tribal; it is torture. Will he please read the report of the Select Committee, which is published next Thursday, and implement it in full so that we can eradicate this horrendous abuse from our country?

[The Prime Minister]

I commend the right hon. Gentleman on the work that the Home Affairs Committee has done on that issue. He is absolutely right that this is a brutal and appalling practice that should have no place in the world, and certainly no place here in Britain and it is appalling that people living in our country are being subjected to it. I will study the report closely. The whole aim of the conference, which I am keen on us holding, is to ensure that the two practices of early forced marriage and female genital mutilation are wiped out from our planet.

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

Q9. Does my right hon. Friend accept that it would be totally unacceptable to have a statutory limitation on overseas aid without having a similar statutory provision covering defence expenditure to guarantee our NATO commitments?

[The Prime Minister]

We are in the happy position in this country of meeting the 2% spending on defence that NATO members are meant to undertake. When we hold the NATO conference in Wales in September we should be encouraging other countries to do the same and, indeed, to meet some of the new targets for spending on new equipment that can be used in NATO operations, which we certainly meet in this country. As well as doing that, we can also be proud of the fact that we are meeting the promise that we made of spending 0.7% on overseas aid, which is saving lives all over the world. I would not divorce that from our defence spending, because the money that we spend in places such as Somalia, Mali, Nigeria or, indeed, Pakistan is about reducing the pressures of asylum, immigration and terrorism, making our world safer. That is what our defence budget should be about, and I would argue that it is what our aid budget is about, as well.

[Mrs Linda Riordan (Halifax) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the Prime Minister agree that with conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, patients can be out of work for years if they do not get the right treatment? The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence should therefore look at the wider benefits rather than just the initial cost of that treatment.

[The Prime Minister]

I agree with the hon. Lady. My understanding is that NICE does carry out that work, but I will look very closely at the particular condition that she raises and perhaps write to her about NICE’s approach to it.

[Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

Q10. Businesses across Lincolnshire report growing confidence and lengthy order books, highly skilled workers benefiting from the tax cuts that the Government have introduced and hard-working apprentices enjoying the sorts of opportunities that they could not have had just a few years ago. Does the Prime Minister share my assessment that the shadow Chancellor’s plans for borrowing yet more money while heaping tax on British businesses and making it more expensive for employers to hire young people are no more and no less than a long-term economic scam?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right. We have to stick to the plan, which involves training young people. We are on track to hit 2 million apprentices trained under this Government, but the very worst thing to do would be to start spending, borrowing and taxing more, which are exactly the proposals made by the Opposition.

[Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)]

Q11. Will the Prime Minister explain to the House why it is that the only people who feel that there are no problems in the national health service are members of the Conservative party?

[The Prime Minister]

Every single health system right across the developed world is facing huge challenges and pressures. The pressures of an ageing population, the pressures of new drugs and treatments coming on stream and the pressures of children surviving with conditions that will need to be treated throughout their lives. The question is how we respond to those pressures. Our response has been to fund the health service and protect it from cuts, and to reform the health service, getting rid of £5 billion of bureaucracy so that there are more doctors and more nurses. The figures speak for themselves, because we can see more people being treated. One million more people are being treated every year in accident and emergency, and 40 million more people are getting GP appointments, but that is only because we have taken the difficult decisions that, frankly, Labour has not taken in Wales. That is why in Wales we see longer waiting lists and real problems with the NHS.

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

Should taxpayer money be used to gather information on MPs that is then retained by a Chief Whip or shredded?

[The Prime Minister]

If my hon. Friend is referring to the situation that took place in the Welsh Assembly, which I was reading about overnight, it seems to be a very worrying development. If he is referring to something else, he might have to be a bit less delphic about it and write to me, and I will get back to him.

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

Q12. Will the Prime Minister look into the case of a young mum in my constituency who has a significant spinal injury that has left her unable to walk? Her GP has referred her for an urgent appointment with a neurosurgeon, so could the Prime Minister explain to her, and the whole country, why “urgent” on his watch means a four-week wait lying in pain?

[The Prime Minister]

I will absolutely look at the case that the hon. Gentleman raises. I am always happy to look at individual cases, but the figures I quoted earlier were to demonstrate that the numbers of people waiting 18 weeks, 26 weeks or, indeed, 52 weeks, are not just lower now than when the Government came to office but are lower now than at any time under the last Labour Government. I am very happy to look at the individual case he mentions.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

Is the Prime Minister aware that since 2012, when he promised to increase patient access to innovative radiotherapy, particularly for cancer patients, the number of cancers treated by radiotherapy in some hospitals has actually decreased by 70% and state-of-the-art machines are lying idle because NHS England will not allow doctors to use them? Will he meet me and other cancer cure campaigners, such as Lawrence Dallaglio, to discuss this scandal before more patients are refused treatment?

[The Prime Minister]

I read the report that Lawrence Dallaglio referred to over the weekend and am very happy to meet the hon. Lady, and indeed him, to discuss this. We have introduced the cancer drugs fund, which is not only for drugs, but for innovative treatment. I know that there have also been changes in the way radiotherapy is carried out and in the way the new technology is being used, which might be part of the explanation for the figures she gives, but I am very happy to discuss them in more detail.

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

Q13. Jobs Growth Wales has been hugely successful in tackling youth unemployment, outperforming similar schemes across the United Kingdom. Will the Prime Minister therefore join me in congratulating Welsh businesses and enterprises, the Welsh Government, and indeed the young people of Wales, who have made it a success? In doing so, he can end his agenda of attacking Wales at every opportunity. Who knows? He might even get a welcome in the hillside.

[The Prime Minister]

I want to do everything I can to support economic recovery in Wales. That is why, for instance, I think that in September, when the NATO conference comes to Wales—entirely an initiative launched by me—there will be a very strong welcome in the valleys. That will be the first time a serving American President has ever been to Wales, so I am looking forward to it. We are doing everything we can to help businesses in Wales to employ more people and grow the economy.

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

Q14. If he will meet the chair of the Greater Birmingham and Solihull local enterprise partnership to discuss economic development in Birmingham and Lichfield district; and if he will make a statement.

[The Prime Minister]

I met the chair of the LEP board on Monday when I hosted a meeting in Birmingham to mark the agreement of the growth deal that will see over £350 million invested in Greater Birmingham and Solihull. The projects in the deal will help to create up to 19,000 jobs, allow up to 6,000 homes to be built and generate up to £110 million from local partners and private investment.

[Michael Fabricant]

With unemployment at just 1.5% in Lichfield and Burntwood, and down by over 28,000 across the whole LEP region, does that not demonstrate that the LEP model, bolstered by the growth funds awarded on Monday, is working? How does my right hon. Friend plan to build on that success and encourage the most ambitious LEPs, including Greater Birmingham and Solihull, to promote the local economy still further?

[The Prime Minister]

As I said at the meeting with the LEP, I think that the growth deal is a very big step forward for Birmingham and the west midlands. It will result in more jobs, more investment and more houses. It will see new railway stations and transport links built. I think that we need to be more ambitious about the money we can find in central Government to support these schemes, but I also hope that local councils, including Birmingham city council, will look at every piece of unused brownfield land and every extra bit of development they can put on the table so that these growth deals get ever more ambitious.

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

As bribes go, is offering that huge region less than £10 per head just 37 days before the general election not too little, too late?

[The Prime Minister]

I think that we can probably tell the difference between a ray of sunshine and the hon. Gentleman on this issue, as on so many others. This is an excellent deal for Birmingham and the west midlands. If he does not think so, he might want to explain why Sir Albert Bore, the Labour leader of Birmingham city council, said:

“This is good news for Birmingham. A number of major projects will now be accelerated. Transport routes across the city will be much improved… And other money will go into site development that will provide much needed jobs in the city.”

I think that the hon. Gentleman needs to spend a little more time with Sir Albert Bore.

[Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)]

Q15. Tomorrow Britain faces damage and disruption from strikes, none of which has been backed by a majority of union members. Since the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) became the leader of the Labour party, it has taken £13 million from Unite alone, so he will not stand up to the union barons. Will the Prime Minister make it clear that we are on the side of the public, who by 3:1 back a voting threshold for strikes to stop this licensed sabotage?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. Frankly, I think the time has come to look at setting thresholds in strike ballots. I mentioned the NUT strike earlier. A ballot is taking place—[Interruption.] Look, I know Labour Members are paid for by the unions, but they might want to listen to this, because it is going to disrupt our children’s education. The strike ballot took place in 2012. It is based on a 27% turnout. How can it possibly be right for our children’s education to be disrupted by trade unions acting in this way? It is time to legislate, and that will be in the Conservative manifesto.

Development Proposals in Barton (Salford)

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Commons Chamber

Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)

- Hansard - - Excerpts

I am pleased to present this petition on behalf of residents of Irlam, Cardishead and Barton wards in my constituency who are concerned about proposals to build on an area of Barton that is in the green belt.

The petition states:

The Petition of residents of Irlam, Cardishead and Barton,

Declares that the Petitioners strongly oppose the proposals of Peel Holdings to build up to 1,400 houses as well as warehouses in the green belt area at Barton (Irlam ward), which is bound by the M62 (North), A57 (South), Manchester City Airport (East) and Irlam (West); and further that the Petitioners believe that Boysnope Golf Course (an excellent leisure facility for the local community) should not be shut down.

The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons does all in its power to prevent this development proposal from taking place.

And the Petitioners remain, etc.

[P001351]

Dual carriageway for the A303

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Commons Chamber

John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)

- Hansard - - Excerpts

I rise to present a petition on behalf of more than 2,000 petitioners calling for urgent upgrades to be made to the A303 at Stonehenge. Members of the Stonehenge traffic action group in my constituency started the petition in response to the long-standing and infamous problems on the A303, which have worsened following the recent closure of the A344.

The petition states:

The Petition of residents of the UK,

Declares that the Petitioners believe that urgent action is needed to make the A303 road west of Stonehenge a dual carriageway following dramatically increased traffic levels caused by the closure of the A344; further that the Petitioners believe a bypass road should be created to relieve the village of Winterbourne Stoke and other blighted communities; further that increased traffic has been diverted on to local roads to the detriment of those resident in the surrounding villages; and further that the Petitioners believe that the Government’s feasibility study into improving the A303 must take the impact of disruption on their lives caused by increased traffic into consideration.

The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to improve the A303 west of Stonehenge by constructing a dual carriageway at the earliest possible opportunity.

And the Petitioners remain, etc.

[P001367]

Universal Credit

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Commons Chamber

12:36

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Employment Minister if she will make a statement on whether the Department for Work and Pensions’ business case for the implementation of universal credit has been approved by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

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

In answering, let me lay out a couple of quick facts about where we are and then deal with the hon. Gentleman’s direct question.

Universal credit is a major reform that will transform the welfare state in Britain for the better, making 3 million people better off and bringing £35 billion of economic benefits to society. Rightly for a programme of this scale, the Government’s priority has been, and continues to be, its safe and secure delivery. This is demonstrated through our approach to date, which started with the successful launch of the pathfinder in April 2013 and has continued with the controlled expansion of universal credit.

On 5 December last year, I announced that universal credit would be rolled out to the north-west and expanded to couples from the summer of 2014, and would then expand to families later that year. That is exactly what is happening. A fortnight ago, we began our north-west expansion. Universal credit is now in 24 jobcentres and will reach 90 across the country by the end of the year. A week ago, we started taking claims from couples. This careful roll-out is allowing us, as we said we would, to learn as we go along, continuously improving the process—unlike so many of the programmes the previous Government instigated which crashed and burned.

In answer to the question, my Department has always worked, and will continue to work, closely with the Treasury on these roll-out plans. As we have made clear in a number of recent debates and answers to parliamentary questions, the Treasury has approved funding for the universal credit programme in 2013-14 and 2014-15, in line with the plan that I announced in December last year. These approvals are given by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury—such matters are delegated to him by the Chancellor—and are subject to rigorous controls, in line with the recommendations made last year by the National Audit Office.

It has always been the plan, as I set out last year, to secure agreement for universal credit in carefully controlled stages: first for singles, where we have agreed funding with the Treasury and are already rolling out in line with that agreement; then for couples, where we have agreed funding with the Treasury and are already rolling out in line with that agreement; and then for families, where we have recently secured agreement from the Treasury and will begin roll-out later this year. All this was confirmed by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury in an answer to a parliamentary question yesterday. That set of agreements confirms the approval of the strategic outline business case plans for this Parliament.

The final stage in this process, for which the logical point is now, has always been to approve and sign off the full business case covering the full, long lifetime of this programme, beyond this Parliament. We are in discussions over that, and it will eventually bring £35 billion of economic benefits to society. My right hon. Friend and I will, I am certain, approve that very soon.

[Chris Bryant]

That was a spectacular instance, as Sir Bob Kerslake might put it, of “beating about the bush”. It is a very simple question, to which the answer can only be yes or no: has the Department for Work and Pensions business case for the implementation of universal credit been approved by the Chancellor of the Exchequer? It is depressing that this Tory Minister and the Tory Prime Minister cannot tell the difference between an annual budget and a business case. It is pretty straightforward.

On 30 June, the employment Minister—who is disgracefully not answering for herself today—answered that question by saying:

“The Chief Secretary to the Treasury has approved the UC Strategic Outline Business Case plans for the remainder of this Parliament (2014-15) as per the ministerial announcement”.—[Official Report, 30 June 2014; Vol. 583, c. 434W.]

She was referring to the ministerial statement of 5 December, which explicitly runs up to 2017. On Monday, however, she had the carpet pulled from under her feet, as Sir Bob Kerslake answered exactly the same question with gratifying honesty, saying that

“it has not been signed off.”

It got worse yesterday when the Financial Secretary, answering the same question, said that all the Treasury has done is approve funding for the programme for another eight months, while a DWP spokesperson said that the Treasury has

“approved all funding to date”,

as if that was some grand vindication.

The same simple question has now been answered in eight contradictory ways. Not everybody can be telling the truth. There has been so much beating about the bush that it feels as if this House has been misled by a Government engaged in a deliberate act of deception. [Interruption.] The truth is that the Department is relying month by month on handouts from the national food bank. How ironic!

On 5 December 2013, the Secretary of State told the House that universal credit would bring

“a £38 billion economic benefit to society”.—[Official Report, 5 December 2013; Vol. 571, c. 65WS.]

I notice that he has just amended that figure to £35 billion. That figure is part of the business case. Has it been signed off by the Treasury, or is he just making things up?

The Secretary of State has told this House on 28 occasions that universal credit has always been on time and on budget; yet Sir Jeremy Heywood said on Monday that the Treasury and the Major Projects Authority had to tell the Secretary of State that his own project was “way off track”. When was he told that? Why did the Secretary of State not tell this House?

I will be honest: we would love to help the Secretary of State implement universal credit, but confession comes before redemption, and as long as he remains in denial he remains beyond help. I ask him once again to be straight with the House: has the business case—the business case, not the budget—for universal credit, which he says will come to fruition in 2017, been signed off—yes or no? [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Just before the Secretary of State replies, I listened very carefully to what the hon. Gentleman said. He made no personal attack on any one individual. [Interruption.] Order. I will deal with this—the hon. Gentleman will have to accept my ruling, whether he likes it or not. The hon. Gentleman made no personal attack on any individual Minister, but my judgment, having heard him out, was that he went beyond the line in making an accusation of deliberate deception against a group of Ministers. [Interruption.] Order. I know what I am doing and I certainly do not require any help from the Education Secretary—that would be completely unimaginable. I ask Members to have regard to the way in which they express themselves. The point has been made, the situation is clear and the Secretary of State can now reply.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) made the most pompous, ludicrous statement I have ever heard. I know what he did: he wrote it down before he heard the answer. I have made it quite clear and I stand by what I said: the strategic outline business case plans for this Parliament have been approved. The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey) made that clear the other day, and that is the statement that we stand by.

The next phase, as I said in my statement—the hon. Gentleman might like to listen to them in future—is approved. On the strategic outline business case for the overall lifetime of the programme, that is being discussed right now and we expect approval of that plan shortly. I have said categorically that all the expenditures and the work in this Parliament are approved. The reality is that it is approved. The point he needs to get round his head is that, on the figures he gave earlier—the billions—the National Audit Office, the Public Accounts Committee and the Work and Pensions Committee agree that we need careful controls in place. It is therefore natural that we have sought that approval at each stage. My right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary has approved all of those elements.

I know what this is all about. The truth is that this is about Labour’s failure to come to terms with welfare reform. We had a debate a week ago in which Labour crashed and burned, and we have an urgent question today. Labour Members want to avoid the reality that the Government’s welfare reforms are working and getting more people back to work. We have capped benefits so that no household can receive more than people who are in work. There are more people in work than ever before. Under Labour, youth unemployment increased by nearly a half; under this Government, the youth claimant count has fallen for the past 30 months. The rate of workless households is at its lowest since records began.

I say to the hon. Gentleman and the Labour party that this is the best instance of a man in an ill-fitting anorak dancing on the head of a pin. It is quite pathetic. He needs to think again about welfare reform.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the very worst example of how to change any tax and benefits system was the introduction of tax credits by the previous Government, when more than £6 billion of overpayments were made within just the first three years?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Absolutely. The Labour Government—the Labour party needs to own up to this—used to sign off business cases from day one, only to see the programme crash and burn. Tax credits left 400,000 people without money, and their reforms to the health service benefits system were an absolute disaster. We will take no lessons from Labour on how to manage a programme.

[Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)]

As Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, I support the intent of the policy, but I have repeatedly sought assurances on the status of universal credit. On Monday, I asked Sir Jeremy Heywood, Sir Nick Macpherson and Sir Bob Kerslake four times whether the business case had been signed off by the Treasury. There were a number of unscripted pauses, but Sir Jeremy told us:

“I cannot speak for the Treasury.”

Sir Nick Macpherson told us:

“It is signed up, up to a point”,

before Bob Kerslake finally admitted:

“I think we should not beat about the bush. It has not been signed off.”

I plead with the Secretary of State that he should be open and honest with hon. Members rather than hide behind smoke and mirrors to create a false impression that universal credit is on time, in budget and delivering in full its intended objectives.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I respect the right hon. Lady enormously for the job she does, but I say to her clearly that it was on the recommendations of her Committee and the NAO that we instigated—by the way, I think this is the way ahead for all future programmes—a programme in which, at every stage and in every separate part of development, we would have approvals from the Treasury and with the Cabinet Office, which is what is going on at the moment. My point is that the answer that Mr Kerslake, the head of the civil service, gave was correct in the sense, as I have said today, that the overall strategic business case for the full lifetime of the programme is in discussion right now for that completion. However, all the elements that are relevant—the strategic business plan for this Parliament, which includes all the roll-out, all the investments, of which the right hon. Lady will be aware, and the roll-out through to the north-west—have been approved. There will be no further need for approvals this Parliament, so the reality is quite clear: universal credit is on track and is rolling against the plan we set out last year. All those approvals are agreed, and we hope that the final element, which would logically come at the end of the process, will be agreed shortly with the Chief Secretary.

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

The Secretary of State has me convinced about the benefits of universal credit, but will he consider publishing the business case so that the House and the public outside can see the full benefits?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I am quite happy to deal with that. I have also said to the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee that we are happy to talk through that. We have an invitation from the Committee to come in and discuss it.

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

In April, the Work and Pensions Committee published a report on the progress of universal credit implementation, which said:

“DWP told us that it intended to clarify the impact of the changes to the implementation timetable on the overall costs and savings of the programme in the revised Business Case for Universal Credit, which it has now presented to the Treasury. We recommend that DWP makes its revised Business Case available to this Committee.”

Just two weeks ago, we got the Government response, which said that, no, they would not give us sight of the business case, but that some officials might talk us through it. For my Committee to be able to do our scrutiny role properly, that is not good enough. I join my colleague on the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) in making this plea: why will the Secretary of State not make the revised business case available to the Select Committee?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I have said to the hon. Lady that we are happy to sit down to discuss this matter with her. I remind her that no other Government have ever published business cases, but I am happy to consider what she asks.

[Mr Mark Hoban (Fareham) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that Opposition Members today have focused on process because they do not want to confront the reality that the welfare reforms that we have implemented successfully have helped to tackle unemployment—they have got more people into work—and that universal credit is essential in making it clear to people that work pays?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The reality is that our welfare reforms are working, and our pensions reforms are working. The truth is that the Opposition have absolutely nothing to say about any of this. Instead, they want to delve and delve into the detail, but that will not tell them anything. Universal credit—started by this Government—will be a great success: it will get more people into work, and it will secure more households with greater earnings.

[Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)]

The head of the home civil service clearly has reservations about the full business case for the roll- out of universal credit. Which of those reservations has he expressed to the right hon. Gentleman?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The head of the home civil service has expressed no reservations, and I do not believe that he has any reservations about these plans. As agreed, the plans will be signed off with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, and when they are signed off, I hope that the hon. Member for Rhondda will write me a letter to say, “Thank you very much, indeed.”

[John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that the Opposition would do a better job if, rather than asking picky bureaucratic questions, they focused on whether universal credit will improve pay for low-paid people and ensure that work pays?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The problem for the hon. Member for Rhondda is that his Government left behind a shambles in welfare—people unemployed, long-term unemployment rising, and youth unemployment rising dramatically—and there has never been an apology about that, or about crashing the economy.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State’s problem is that on numerous occasions over the past three or four years he has given the House and the Select Committee on Work and Pensions different versions of events. He told us that the project was on track and on budget, and he stated to the Select Committee in February that the business case would be approved by April. What is actually going on with universal credit? In what sense is what people are claiming any different from jobseeker’s allowance? Does he know what happens to people whose circumstances change, and is this really universal credit at all?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I do know, actually. As we go along, we are developing universal credit correctly and stably, so that it rolls out properly. To repeat, we are rolling it out for singles in the whole of the north-west; couples development is now rolling out; and family developments are to come. Towards the end of this year, we will have rolled out universal credit to the north-west. I must say that that is the right way to do it: to make sure that what we produce is safe and delivers what we say it will, unlike tax credits and other problems that we got from the previous Government. I would like to know what the hon. Lady really thinks about the failure of her Government to deliver any programme correctly or safely.

[Stephen Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is a central contradiction in the figures from the Opposition? When the PAC last looked at this issue, the Labour Chair said:

“We believe strongly that meeting any specific timetable…is less important than delivering the programme successfully.”

Is it not right that we learn the lessons of the programmes that went wrong under the last Government, and that we get the programme right, rather than rush it?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

That is exactly correct. That is why, when the right hon. Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge) stood up, I explained to her that we are now doing what the Committee asked for. We are rolling out universal credit carefully: at every check, we make sure with the Treasury and the Cabinet Office that what we are producing works, and the next phase is then approved. We have approved all the roll-out plans for this Parliament, as was said by the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West. The strategic plan for this Parliament is exactly what the Chair of the PAC asked for, so we are giving her what she wants.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

Does the business plan include delivering universal credit in Wales through the medium of Welsh, and if so, is that on track and on budget?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The plan does include that. As the hon. Gentleman may or may not know, we are working on that to make sure it is deliverable, but the key is that we absolutely plan to do that.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

May I urge the Secretary of State to reject the representations of Labour Members? When it comes to universal credit, all they have done throughout is seek to promote welfare over work at every turn. What will be the savings to the Exchequer and the benefits to the UK when it has been fully rolled out?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The NAO has come out with the figure of £35 billion, which I cited earlier, but the point is that I believe that universal credit is worth more than that. As well as the planning and implementation process, the work we are currently doing will also evaluate the net benefit to the Exchequer and taxpayers, which I believe will be even higher.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State goes on about his record on benefits, but I remind him about the disaster of his PIP—the personal independent payment. Have Treasury Ministers or officials at any time expressed concerns about the financial viability of the business case to him, his Ministers or his civil servants?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

No.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the forecast savings to the taxpayer are about £100 million in this financial year, and will be about £200 million in the coming tax year?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I can confirm that.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

The confusion around the business case will give succour to those in Northern Ireland who have blocked welfare reform and cost the Northern Ireland economy millions of pounds. Will the Secretary of State give us some indication of whether discussions on the business case to date have shown any reasons why there might not be a further roll-out of universal credit as he has planned, so that we can argue back against those in Northern Ireland who say that we should wait to see the full picture in England and Wales before doing anything in Northern Ireland?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

There have not been any such discussions, and I hope that he will take that argument back to his counterparts in Northern Ireland and try again to persuade them that the full welfare reform package will benefit Northern Ireland dramatically, as will the universal credit part of that reform.

[Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)]

It is worth remembering that the tax credit disaster meant that £6 billion was overpaid in the first three years of its operation. Does my right hon. Friend agree that when implementing so crucial a change, it is right and proper to take time and to implement it stage by stage?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

What my hon. Friend says is exactly the point I have been making, but which Opposition Members just do not understand. There were too many disasters under their watch; we do not intend to repeat them. We are doing the implementation exactly as the PAC and the NAO recommended.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

Once again, I am absolutely staggered at the Secretary of State’s hubris; there are more cover-ups, and everybody else is to blame apart from the Secretary of State. This has been an absolutely unmitigated disaster. UC is dead in the water, and he should go.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

That is pretty much what the hon. Lady says whenever she stands up on any question to do with welfare. The reality is that she is opposed to absolutely everything that we have done. If it was left to her and some of her colleagues on the Select Committee, they would repeal everything we have done, and welfare would be in the sort of chaos that Labour Members left us when they left Government.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

The Secretary of State may have seen Labour’s recent four-point plan for universal credit. Points 3 and 4 amount to significant uncosted scope increases, with no benefits applied to them. Given that, does he agree that it might be better for Labour to stay off the whole subject of business cases?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I agree with my hon. Friend. The truth is that the Opposition do not want to talk about any of their welfare proposals because all of them would cost more money and deliver less. If we were to apply a business case to the Opposition, they would not exist any more.

[Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State look at the interesting report by Sheffield Hallam university on the state of the coalfields? It shows that although the welfare reforms might be working in some parts of the country, they are certainly not working in Wales. In the south Wales area that I represent, the share of pensioners living in poverty is about double that in the south-east of England. Welfare reform is anticipated to have a more substantial impact on the average financial loss per adult of working age in south Wales than across Britain as a whole. It is important to look at the variations within the UK, and I would be grateful if he gave them some attention.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The right hon. Lady knows that I respect her hugely. I am very happy to look at the points that she raises. In Wales, we inherited a peculiarly difficult problem. There were very high levels of unemployment and a very high number of people on incapacity benefit. I believe that our reforms are working. We have seen unemployment fall dramatically and employment levels rise in Wales. Is there more that we can do? Absolutely. My door is open and I would be very happy to discuss anything that she thinks we could do.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) suggesting that he would like to help the Secretary of State implement universal credit is a bit like his friend, President Putin, offering to help the Ukrainians with their elections—and, I should think, almost as welcome. Does my right hon. Friend agree that when the business case has been signed off, we can get back to what really matters, which is discussing how we can allow my constituents who are offered jobs to work as many hours as they like without having to worry about whether they will lose more in benefits than they will gain in salary?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. That is what universal credit will deliver, and that is why delivering universal credit safely and securely is the key to the plan. The approvals have been signed off. All the work that is being done in this Parliament is approved by the Treasury, and the long-term strategic business case should be approved very shortly as well.

[Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)]

Free school meals are an incredibly important part of the benefits system. A number of teachers have said that some children come back after the summer break noticeably thinner. The Secretary of State promised an announcement on which universal credit recipients would be entitled to free school meals by summer 2011. What is the reason for the long delay, and when will that announcement be made?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The Department for Education is making a decision about the best way to deliver free school meals. People who are eligible for free school meals will be eligible for them under the new arrangements. This is an opportunity to ensure that all those who really need free school meals actually get them. There are often problems in the existing system, so this is an opportunity to reform the system to improve the take-up and the accuracy.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

We have seen Parliament at its best over the past two days. There were a couple of points of order yesterday and there is an urgent question today. I say gently to the shadow Minister, who is one of the best shadow Ministers, that he went over the top. The Secretary of State has come to the House and answered the question. It is a shame that the shadow Minister did not listen to the answer before commenting. Does the Secretary of State not think that he has one of the best teams in Parliament, and that his Ministers are of the highest integrity? If one of them had made a mistake, they would have come to the Dispatch Box and apologised.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West, and others have not made mistakes. We have been crystal clear about this matter. I stand by the words that have been used and the statements that have been made, as I said earlier. The hon. Member for Rhondda normally does not listen, but just says what he was going to say, regardless of the answer. I suspect that a conversation with him is a very one-way process.

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

I have been absolutely staggered to hear the Secretary of State defending a system that, as I have heard repeatedly at the Public Accounts Committee, has had very poor planning from day one and at subsequent stages. We are glad that there is a plan to get it back on track, but let us get back to the real question. The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the right hon. Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey), came to this House and said that the business case had been signed off. Either she is not on top of her brief or she was misleading this House, neither of which inspires confidence.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I will give two answers. First, the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West, stated what is factually correct: that the strategic business plans for this Parliament have all been approved. That is an absolute fact. Secondly, it was I who was not happy with the way the development was taking place nearly two years ago, and who instigated the first process through my red team report. That is correct and I stand by that. Working with the Cabinet Office, we changed the plan. The plan is now being delivered exactly as the Public Accounts Committee, on which the hon. Lady sits, wanted us to deliver it, with all the necessary checks and balances. I would have thought, therefore, that she would congratulate us.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

Companies in the north-east provide some of the computer and IT support for universal credit, providing welcome jobs there. I have met the staff at those institutions, and they are committed to the project, which is getting people back into work and training, and they are supportive of the slow, careful and measured way in which we are rolling out universal credit, which, after all, is something that the whole House supports.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Again, we hear reason from the Government Benches. My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is necessary to roll out the programme carefully so that it works, and so that we do not end up, as we did with tax credits, with 400,000 people not getting any money and going off to food banks and getting food parcels. That is the shambles that the Labour party created. We will not repeat it.

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State said a moment ago from the Dispatch Box that we should be congratulating him. I remind him that only a few months ago his Cabinet colleague, the Paymaster General, was giving television interviews saying that the implementation of universal credit had been “lamentable” and that a lot of money had been “wasted”. We have also learned of friction between the Cabinet Office and the Department for Work and Pensions over the withdrawal of the Government Digital Service. Leaked documents at the time said that the DWP might not be

“able to obtain the skills required to replace GDS within the current market at affordable cost”.

Will the Secretary of State tell us how much additional taxpayers’ money has been spent on IT support systems since the GDS was withdrawn?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

There is no additional money. All the money has been budgeted for. The hon. Gentleman said that we would not be able to hire people; we have hired a dramatic number of digital experts. They are working in the Department right now to develop the digital option. He is more than welcome to come and see them and talk to them if he likes. The door is open; we have nothing to hide. If he does accept that invitation, perhaps he will also persuade his hon. Friends to visit the IT. They do not want to visit it because they are pretending that it does not work.

[Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)]

When my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones) and I went to the Harrogate jobcentre recently, universal credit recipients were passionate about the confidence that the new scheme is giving them to get a job, and recruiters were persuasive about how it is making it easier to place people in jobs. Will the Secretary of State ignore the hue and cry from the Labour party and focus on the benefits that universal credit is bringing to the lives of real people?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I always make it my priority to ignore the nonsense that comes from the other side. The Opposition live in la-la land when it comes to the welfare reforms. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that this is about real people who are trying to get back to work. We are delivering for them right now, and we will deliver even more when universal credit arrives safely and securely.

[Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

On Monday, I received an e-mail from the Secretary of State’s office telling me that he would be visiting Wrexham on Monday afternoon. Every week, I meet constituents in Wrexham who are suffering from his incompetence. The only person who is running away from conversations about benefits is the Secretary of State. Will he meet me to hear what is happening in Wrexham in respect of personal independence payments, universal credit and all the other benefits that are falling apart?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I accept that the hon. Gentleman needed to plan that statement. I did visit Wrexham the other day and the jobcentre there. It has a phenomenally dedicated group of people who are doing brilliantly. As a result, unemployment levels in his area are falling. They are falling as a direct result of the welfare reforms that we have brought in. I only wish that he had said the same thing to the last Government. My door is always open. If he wants to come and talk to me about any problem, I will be very happy to see him.

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

May I thank my right hon. Friend for the open and frank way in which he has responded to questions about the business plan? Does he agree that the Opposition’s role in questioning business plans is important, and would he like to encourage them to be a bit more zealous in questioning the business plan for High Speed 2?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

My hon. Friend always tries to tempt me, but I will resist that temptation and say that he needs to raise that matter with other Ministers who will no doubt come to the Dispatch Box.

[Mr Speaker]

Plenty of people raise it with me, including people who live in Swanbourne.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State needs to understand that when we ask questions in the House, we expect frank, honest and accurate answers from the Government, but that is not what we have had. He suggests that Sir Bob Kerslake did not know what he was talking about when he gave his answers to the Public Accounts Committee. Will Sir Bob Kerslake correct the record, or are we being misled again?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I have been absolutely clear—I do not think I could have been clearer—that the strategic business plans for this Parliament have all been approved. [Interruption.] Would the hon. Gentleman like to let me finish? What Sir Bob Kerslake was referring to was the overarching full roll-out, including the years beyond this Parliament. I have already said that I and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury are about to finalise that, as approved.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

The Secretary of State has to accept that there have been valid concerns behind all the questions that have been asked about the feasible delivery of universal credit. There is also real confusion about the differing answers that have been given. Those concerns extend to Northern Ireland, where people are concerned about the implications for hard-pressed families and for local and regional economies. Given the question mark against the overall business case, is it right for the Assembly to be brow-beaten by the Treasury, through threats of cuts to other budgets, into passing the karaoke Bill that would legislate for universal credit?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I believe that the welfare reforms that the Assembly is being asked to pass, which include universal credit, are right. They are already delivering for the rest of the UK, and I believe that there will be net value to Northern Ireland when it rolls them out. I hope that it gets on and does it, and universal credit will be part of that.

Bill Presented

Local Government (Independence) Bill

Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)

Chris Ruane, on behalf of Mr Graham Allen, presented a Bill to define the independence of local government; to regulate the relationship between local and central government in England by means of a statutory Code; to require public authorities to act in compliance with the Code; to provide that the Code may only be amended by means of an Order under the super-affirmative procedure, approved unanimously by each House of Parliament or by a majority in each House equal to or greater than two-thirds of the number of seats in each House; to exclude any Bill to amend this Act from the provisions of the Parliament Act 1911; to make provision regarding the powers and finances of local government in England; and for connected purposes.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 5 September, and to be printed (Bill 72).

Opposition Day

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[4th Allotted Day]

Housing Supply

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Commons Chamber

13:13

[Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes that the Government has failed to tackle the acute housing shortage which is central to the cost of living crisis and over the last four years has presided over the lowest level of new homes being built in peacetime since the 1920s and the lowest number of homes for social rent being built in at least 20 years; further notes the recent reports that housing starts are forecast to fall this year with a large fall in affordable housing starts; and calls on the Government to tackle the housing shortage and commit to increasing house building to at least 200,000 homes a year by 2020, including by boosting housing supply by creating a Help to Build scheme for small and medium-sized builders alongside a reformed Help to Buy, by reforming the development industry and introducing measures to tackle land banking, by bringing forward plans to deliver a new generation of new towns and garden cities and by giving local authorities a new right to grow to deliver the homes their communities need.

We have called this debate because we are in the midst of the biggest housing crisis in a generation. We are not building even half the homes that we need to keep up with demand, and regrettably the current Government are presiding over the lowest level of house building in peacetime since the 1920s. The shortage just keeps on growing. According to figures that I obtained from the Library recently, the backlog of demand since the Government came to power is 500,000 homes, which is equivalent to Birmingham, England’s second biggest city. Individuals, couples and families are being priced out of home ownership, which has fallen to its lowest level since 1987. Average house prices are now eight times average incomes, and in some high-demand areas the ratio is even higher.

[Mr John Leech (Manchester, Withington) (LD)]

I recognise that there is a crisis in housing. I am therefore shocked by the lack of ambition in the motion. Not only does it commit to only 200,000 extra homes each year, but it gives no commitment whatever to a target for social homes. We should not be surprised, given that for 13 years the Labour Government presided over year-on-year decline in social housing and an overall decline of 200,000 social homes.

[Emma Reynolds]

I will not take any lectures from the hon. Gentleman, because in 2012-13 his Government built only 107,000 homes. We are talking about doubling that number. [Interruption.] Actually, the number of social homes has not gone up—I will come to that.

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

I was somewhat surprised by the intervention that the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr Leech) made. Can my hon. Friend confirm that under the Labour Government, not only were there 2 million new homes, 1 million more mortgage holders and half a million more affordable homes, including 256,000 in the last five years of the Government, but 1.6 million social homes were brought up to standard through the decent homes standard, transforming the lives of millions of tenants?

[Emma Reynolds]

The decent homes programme was one of the Labour Government’s proudest achievements. It transformed the homes and lives of millions of people in council houses. I say to the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr Leech) that in our last year in office, we started 39,000 social homes. In the past year, the current Government started 3,900. I will come later to the affordable homes cliff edge over which they are presiding.

Millions of people across the country face the insecurity of private renting, not knowing whether they will be evicted from one year to the next or even one month to the next. Young people and families are watching as their dream of home ownership, which their parents and grandparents were able to achieve, slips out of reach.

The housing shortage is central to the biggest challenge facing Britain today—the cost of living crisis. We know that on average, working people are more than £1,600 a year worse off under this out-of-touch Government, but the problem is about more than just the pound in people’s pocket. It is about the insecurity that people feel, often in their workplaces and sometimes in their homes, and about the prospects of the next generation, with many parents feeling that their children will be worse off than they are.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

I am glad that my hon. Friend mentions the impact on families in the private rented sector. As the Education Secretary has slipped into the Chamber, I wish to make the point that another real problem is the effect on children now of the uncertainty that she describes. It has long-term consequences, because children need stability and they need to be able to stay in the same school. If their parents have to keep moving, that stability is undermined and so are their long-term prospects.

[Emma Reynolds]

In fact, academics have conducted interesting research showing that one driver of a child becoming a NEET—being not in education, employment or training—in later life is being shunted around from area to area. That constant churn and change in their schooling means that they do not attain what they need to educationally.

One thing that the Government are good at is making announcements, although I must say that the current Housing Minister is not quite as keen on rhetoric as one of his predecessors, the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps). Ministers come to the House armed with an array of statistics designed to dazzle and to distract from the Government’s real record. I am sure that that is what the Minister will try to do this afternoon. He is fond of telling the House that the Government have delivered 445,000 new homes since 2010, but if we do the maths we see that that is just over 111,000 a year on average—hardly a record to be proud of. In the Queen’s Speech a few weeks ago, the Government promised to increase housing supply and home ownership, but in truth home ownership is falling under this Government.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

Since we are talking about statistics, will the hon. Lady welcome the approximately 2,000 new homes that are being built as a result of the previous Conservative administration of Crawley borough council, and will she condemn the same local authority’s current Labour administration for prevaricating on the local plan?

[Emma Reynolds]

When I was last in Crawley I saw the white elephant of the free school there, which was refurbished and then was open for just two years. Apparently, millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money was spent on it, and for what good?

We learnt last week that the Minister’s own officials have recently forecast that house building will fall, not rise, this year, but the Minister himself seems to be in two minds about whether forecasts exist. In a written answer, he told my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) that no such forecasts exist, before going on to publish his own forecast in that answer—albeit a partial one—claiming that he expected private house building to rise, with no mention of affordable homes. I am curious as to whether his Department publishes forecasts or not. Does the Minister believe they exist? The “Newsnight” leaked document seemed to suggest that they do.

In the same written answer, the Minister acknowledged that the Government are worried about presiding over a “hiatus” in affordable home building, which is probably a neat and euphemistic way of describing the Government’s record. Perhaps he could have been more direct—levels of affordable housing are set to fall off a cliff, and it is an open secret that housing associations are reluctant to bid for the Government’s affordable homes programme. No wonder Ministers are worried.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

When the Work and Pensions Committee visited Bedfordshire in connection with its work on housing benefit, housing associations told us that in order to get grants to build so-called affordable housing—which will be at 80% of market rent—they were required to place some of their existing stock into that category as it became available for rent. This housing is not truly affordable, so what effect will that have on the housing benefit budget in due course?

[Emma Reynolds]

My hon. Friend makes a significant point that I was about to come to. I am sure the Minister will talk about the number of affordable homes that the Government are delivering, but 40% of those were commissioned by the previous Labour Government. Furthermore, “affordable” in the Government’s terms is 80% of market rent. That is clearly not affordable for many families up and down the country—indeed, the National Audit Office has estimated that housing benefit will end up costing the taxpayer £1.4 billion because of the short-sightedness of this Government.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

In Northumberland, significant housing is being built on the former hospital sites at Stannington and Prudhoe, both of which lay idle for the entirety of the previous Government’s time in office. At Prudhoe, 80% of new purchases are made under the Help to Buy scheme and with help from this Government. Does the hon. Lady accept that that regional success is an example of the Government turning things around at local level?

[Emma Reynolds]

I do not accept that because the figures speak for themselves. We are not building even half the number of homes that we need to keep up with demand. That is an appalling record, and not one the Government should be proud of.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

We have one of the oldest district plans in the country partly because there was huge resistance to Labour’s over-heavy housing targets. Is the hon. Lady suggesting that we will be going back to much higher levels? What impact will that have on the district plans that have emerged in areas that have finalised them?

[Emma Reynolds]

No, I am not suggesting that we go back to regional spatial strategies. We will not do what this Government did and throw all the pieces in the air and see where they land. We will largely keep the national planning policy framework in place. Where local plans come forward and are voted on, they can be successful. There are problems in areas where local plans have not been passed, and there is also a problem with not using common methodology in some of the local plans.

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

I welcome this debate and the motion is a step in the right direction. The hon. Lady must acknowledge, however, that the previous Labour Administration’s understandable focus on decent homes meant that they took their eye off the ball for council housing. The last year of the Labour Administration saw just 370 council homes built. Will she explain why the official Opposition do not call explicitly in the motion for a complete lifting of the borrowing cap?

[Emma Reynolds]

We are not calling for a lifting of the borrowing cap, but we think that councils and housing associations have a key role in delivering a step change in the number of houses for social rent—that is real, affordable rent, not the affordable rent that we have seen from the Government.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Emma Reynolds]

I will make some progress because a number of right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House wish to speak.

For all their hot air, Ministers cannot escape the truth that, on their watch, the number of homes built for social rent is at its lowest level for at least 20 years—hardly surprising since the first thing the Government did when they came to office was cut the affordable homes budget by an eye-watering 60%. The Government will no doubt try to say that all their success is due to the Help to Buy scheme, and the Opposition are clear that we support help for first-time buyers. Crucially, however, Help to Buy must be matched by help to build if prices are not to rise further out of the reach of families who want to get on the housing ladder.

The Government have announced and re-announced schemes, but failed to deliver. We had the NewBuy scheme, the Build to Rent fund, Get Britain Building— all failed to deliver their targets and all are part of a piecemeal approach by this Government. With such a record of delivery, it is no surprise that the Governor of the Bank of England said recently that housing is the “biggest risk” to our economy.

Unlike this Government, Labour understands the scale of the challenge we face and that real leadership is needed at central and local levels. That is why we have made a bold and ambitious commitment to increase house building to 200,000 homes a year by 2020. Our housing commission, chaired by Sir Michael Lyons and supported by a panel of experts from across the industry, will deliver a road map to help us to achieve that step change in house building. Unlike this Government, we understand that the market is simply not delivering. It is clear that there are deep structural problems in the land market and the house building industry. That is why Labour will take action to reform the development industry, tackle land banking, boost the role of small house builders, give communities the right to grow and deliver a new generation of new towns and garden cities.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I am pleased that my hon. Friend mentioned land banking. She must be aware that, particularly in London, a considerable number of houses, newly built flats and other places are being deliberately kept empty on the expectation of a rapid rise in value, so that they can be sold on without the encumbrance of someone living in them. Does she agree that it is a disgrace at a time of housing shortage to deliberately keep places vacant? If she becomes Housing Minister will she intervene to end that disgraceful practice?

[Emma Reynolds]

Land banking is a real problem. It is not just developers who are sitting on land, but middlemen, promoters and agents. The Conservative Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, recognised land banking as “pernicious”, and the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), also recognised that before he was given his job as Planning Minister.

[Mr Leech]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Emma Reynolds]

I have already given way to the hon. Gentleman.

It is clear that land banking is an issue. We have set out specific proposals to deal with it. First, we will give more power and flexibility to local authorities to escalate fees where land banking is taking place on land with planning permission, and as a last resort we will ensure that local authorities have proper compulsory purchase order powers so that they can sell the land to developers that want to built the homes we so desperately need.

One key challenge in the house building industry is that it is now dominated by a small number of large players. In the 1980s, two thirds of homes in this country were built by small builders, but by 2012 that figure had fallen to below a third. As the number of small builders has declined and the big firms have grown even bigger by acquiring more firms and land, it has become easier for those big firms to buy up land. As Kate Barker found in her report 10 years ago, it is not always in the interests of big builders to build out sites as quickly as the nation needs. We must get more firms and players into the industry to build homes and provide competition. The high cost of housing is driven by the high cost of land. Often, the cost of land means that only big house builders are able to manage the risks. Let me be clear: big house builders play a crucial role in building the homes our country needs, but we need a much more diverse and competitive industry to deliver a step change in house building.

[George Hollingbery (Meon Valley) (Con)]

Let me ask the hon. Lady about leadership in this business. Some 30% of local plans were approved when this Government took office and that figure is now approaching 70%. Does that mean that we can expect much more house building to occur? Furthermore, let me press her on the structure of the building industry. The fact that we have larger and fewer house building companies is hardly a surprise when the Labour party so mismanaged the economy that—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that interventions should be short. Speeches must come after the Minister has spoken, and I do not want the hon. Gentleman to use up all his ammunition at this stage.

[Emma Reynolds]

I thought the hon. Member for Meon Valley (George Hollingbery) was starting to deliver his speech. I say gently to him that the last global financial crash was not caused by the Labour Government’s spending on schools and hospitals, and for him to tell us otherwise is completely fatuous.

Labour has set out plans to boost the role of small house builders, self-builders and custom-builders, who tell us that access to finance and access to land are the key barriers to getting homes built. We have proposed a help to build scheme, which will help them to access finance through the banks—crucially, to get them building—and on access to land we have said that we will ensure that local authorities allocate land in their five-year land supplies, while giving them guaranteed access to public land.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

The hon. Lady knows that I have a private Member’s Bill on the subject of affordable housing. In an area such as mine—not a nimby area—the housing stock has more than doubled in the last 40 years, yet the housing problems of local people have got significantly worse. She will be aware that the situation is complicated and requires a more sophisticated answer than simply producing thousands more homes. Does she not accept that we need to look at, for example, controlling the number of second homes, which have increased greatly in areas such as mine? Do we not need to deal with issues such as that as well as simply build more houses?

[Emma Reynolds]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point and I know that this is a particular issue in his constituency. I think that this whole debate around second homes is difficult. How do we prove which is someone’s first or second home? Many right hon. and hon. Members here, for example, split their time pretty much equally between London and their constituency. I am not entirely sure that the measures suggested by the hon. Gentleman would be fair or effective. I recognise that the problem is not just a matter of building more homes; it is also about whom we are building those new homes for. That is why it is crucial that the homes we build are truly affordable, which I believe is part of the hon. Gentleman’s private Member’s Bill. I agree with him on the key point that it is not just about the numbers; it is about quality, affordability and place making. It is right not to focus only on the numbers, but in my view the numbers are important.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Over the last four years, the problem has been the failure to build affordable homes and social homes. The truth is that what are defined as “affordable homes” are unaffordable to most people on or below average incomes. Sadly, although I have great respect for the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George), the Liberal Democrats have propped up a Government who have destroyed affordable housing in this country.

[Emma Reynolds]

I am delighted to say that in my hon. Friend’s constituency of Hammersmith and Fulham, we now have a Labour council that is committed to affordable homes and ensuring that developers deliver their fair share of truly affordable homes, particularly in areas of high demand, such as my hon. Friend’s, where average house prices are, frankly, eye-watering. It is different from the situation in my own constituency.

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

I am listening with interest to the hon. Lady’s proposals, but will she outline what additional resources she would attach to them?

[Emma Reynolds]

I am not in the business of making spending commitments in this Opposition-day debate. All I would say is that we recognise that local authorities have a key role to play in delivering the homes we need, and that it was thanks to the reform of the housing revenue account, brought forward by the last Labour Government, that we have seen councils building many more homes than they used to. In fact, Labour councils are outbuilding Tory councils when it comes to affordable homes.

There are also issues to be resolved between local authority areas. Where local authorities are land-locked, as in Oxford, but their communities need to expand due to high demand, the Government’s duty to co-operate is, unfortunately, simply not working. It seems to be a duty to talk and talk, to stall—and then to do nothing. Labour, in consultation with the affected local authority areas, will give communities that need it the right to grow, and we will ensure that local authorities and housing associations have the tools they need to get on with the job of building more homes.

We are determined to ensure not just that existing communities are able to expand; we understand the need to build new communities, too. The Government have said they support new settlements—they have been saying that for four years, but it has taken them four years to do anything concrete about it. Of course we welcome the proposal in the Queen’s Speech for an urban development corporation to support the building of Ebbsfleet garden city, but it is worrying that it seems to have escaped the Chancellor’s attention that he promised 15,000 homes at Ebbsfleet, when his Government had already committed to 20,000 homes on the same site just two years earlier. It would appear that there is not going to be much “garden” or “city” in the proposals for this garden city. A core principle of such garden cities is a commitment to social and affordable homes, yet the Minister with responsibility for planning, in a written answer to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods), said that there will be no such commitment. I am thus left wondering what is garden and what is city about these proposals.

In contrast to this Government’s four years of inaction on new towns and garden cities, we are determined to get going from day one. That is why the shadow Chancellor has already made a commitment that our plans will be supported by a Treasury guarantee. It also crucial that we secure greater institutional investment in housing, including, crucially, in the private rented sector. We are committed to doing so to increase supply, quality and choice in private renting. We must also act to secure a better deal for those 9 million people—couples and families, and including 2 million children—who are renting from a private landlord. Unlike the Government, we are prepared to act to give them much needed stability and peace of mind by legislating to make longer-term tenancies with predictable rents the norm, and banning letting agent fees charged to tenants.

It is regrettable that this Government not only lack determination and leadership, but have taken a piecemeal approach to housing that is clearly not delivering. The numbers speak for themselves. We understand the urgency, commitment and leadership needed to deliver a step change in house building. The next Labour Government will rise to that challenge from day one, delivering 200,000 homes a year by 2020 and providing a home for this generation and the next. I commend the motion to the House.

13:36

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Kris Hopkins)]

It is a pleasure to stand here and have the opportunity to talk about a vital part of our economy—this country’s housing industry. The industry is growing in strength and confidence. More homes have been built since 2007—a 31% increase in new homes in the last year alone. Planning consents have reached 216,000 in the last year.

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

On a point of clarification, will the Minister explain the basis of the figures he has just provided to show that more homes have been built since 2007? What is the source of that information?

[Kris Hopkins]

What we do is add up all the numbers of houses that have been built; and more have been built since 2007. As I said, planning consents have now reached 216,000, and the top 10 building companies are at their maximum capacity and are planning to grow a further 15% in the next year.

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

Let me ask the question in a different way. The Minister’s predecessor said that the Government’s target was to build more homes than were being built before the recession—not in 2010, but before the recession. Will the Minister explain in which year of this Parliament the Government have achieved that target?

[Kris Hopkins]

The hon. Gentleman raises a good point. We have gone through a massive crisis since 2007—I shall say more about it in a few minutes—and responsibility lay solely at the feet of the Government of whom the hon. Gentleman was part. We have been picking up the pieces ever since, and we aspire to deliver the houses that the country needs.

The Government’s affordable housing scheme is on track to deliver 170,000 houses as promised, and the houses committed by the previous Government are already delivered, demonstrating that we have delivered some 200,000 houses to date. We are so keen to accelerate the number of affordable houses that we are bringing forward our 2015-18 affordable housing programme and we want to deliver those much-needed affordable houses right across the country as soon as possible.

[Caroline Lucas]

If the Minister is really so keen to build genuinely affordable housing, why will the Government not lift the borrowing cap on local authorities? Why are they so obsessed with worrying about public sector debt levels, given that borrowing for council housing is known to be a really safe investment? Other countries do not include it in public sector borrowing, and we should not do so either.

[Kris Hopkins]

It is clear that the hon. Lady’s party does not care about the economy of this country. It is quite happy to add to the deficit that was created by the last Administration. This Government have taken opportunities to raise the housing revenue account cap by some £300 million, and we look forward to seeing those houses being built.

More council houses have been built in the last four years, under this Government, than were built in the previous 13 years. As a result of the right to buy, some 19,000 hard-working individuals and their families have secured their own homes. That rejuvenated scheme has delivered some 10,000 more homes than was predicted, and we have promised to provide a replacement for every house that is sold. So far, some 3,000 new council houses have been built with right-to-buy receipts.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

Will the Minister explain why housing associations are being required not only to let newly built homes at 80% of market rent, but to turn over part of our existing stock as it becomes vacant and let it at that level of rent in order to obtain a building grant at all?

[Kris Hopkins]

What is of key importance is for local authorities and housing associations to understand their stock, and to redesign, restructure and, where necessary, rebuild it to reflect local demand. [Interruption.] That is the answer.

So far, receipts from right-to-buy sales have ensured that some £420 million is available for the building of houses. We want councils to build them more quickly, and we are pushing them to do so, but I think that the Government should be extremely proud of the fact that 3,000 new homes have already been delivered as a result of the extra growth that generated those 10,000 sales.

In the Budget, the Chancellor announced that £300 million in HRA funding would be provided so that more council houses could be built. The prospectus has gone out, and we have received some responses. We will keep pushing councils to deliver those houses. Whatever the tenure, whether we are talking about private, affordable or social housing, this Government want to support the housing industry that is delivering it.

One of the tragedies that came out of the 2008 housing crash and the resulting recession, the deepest since the 1920s, was the loss of jobs. Some 250,000 people—a quarter of a million—lost their livelihoods: their wage packets disappeared. Many thousands of small and medium-sized building and construction firms were lost as a consequence of the dying days of the last Labour Administration, and the loss of that capacity—a direct result of the crash—is still being felt today. That is why the Government want to attract more young apprentices to the sector to secure the future of the housing and construction industry. Thousands of the 1.8 million apprentices whom the Government have supported so far—some 14,000 of them in the building and construction industry alone—are now the plumbers, chippies and brickies who are required to build the houses.

We have put together a builders fund worth a quarter of a billion pounds to support those small and medium-sized businesses, and we are ensuring that they can gain access to it so that they can build on smaller sites. A bidding process is about to end, and we look forward to making announcements in the future. We need to increase capacity, and to do that we need skills—the skills that were lost.

[Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)]

I wonder whether my hon. Friend recalls a visit that he made on 24 January to Claughton Manor Brickworks in my constituency. It was forced to close in 2009 because there was no demand for bricks, and 35 jobs were lost. It reopened in 2013, and is now at full capacity, employing 38 people and producing bricks for tens of thousands of new houses.

[Kris Hopkins]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Not only were skills lost, not only were small and medium-sized businesses lost, but the companies that made the products that built the houses were lost as well. I remember visiting that site and talking to the foreman, who had been in a hut protecting the site for the best part of four years. I saw him on television the other day. The company is thriving. I said earlier that the industry was becoming stronger, and it is. At every level, whether we are talking about attracting young people to the sector or about encouraging investors to invest in the manufacturing of materials for house building, the industry is growing, and we should celebrate that boost to our economy.

We are extending the life of the Help to Buy scheme, thus giving some stability to the industry. One of the main points that have been made to me by its representatives is that they do not want a cycle of boom and bust; what they want is some consistency. They want to see products that will give a long life to house building, and if those products are there, they will invest. Some 1,200 businesses have signed up to the Help to Buy equity scheme, and more than 90% of them are small and medium-sized businesses.

[Jack Dromey]

Dawn frequently breaks to reveal the Prime Minister descending on a building site in wellington boots and a high-visibility jacket. We have heard 70 separate announcements of schemes including New Buy, First Buy, Build to Rent and Help to Buy. Will the Housing Minister explain why his own Department has forecast a 4% fall in new build housing starts next year?

[Kris Hopkins]

The reason the Prime Minister appears on building sites is that he supports the housing industry, the reason I visit them is that I support the housing industry, and the reason the hon. Gentleman and his predecessors could not visit them is that they had crashed the housing industry and nothing was being built. As for leaked documents, I am not going to comment, but what I will say is that every element of our Department seeks—whether through planning, supporting skills or supporting small businesses—to ensure that we have sufficient starts to take advantage of the housing offer that is out there and to enable the housing industry to grow.

[Mr Andrew Love (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister still has not explained why we have the lowest number of housing starts on record, and why the number is likely to be lower this year than last year. As well as spreading all the news of the developments that are heartening, why does he not address the real problems that affect house building at present?

[Kris Hopkins]

The reason house building is still a challenge is that the Government of which the hon. Gentleman was a member broke the economy, borrowed too much, crashed the banking system, and wiped out a quarter of a million jobs. That is why it is taking so long to put house building back on track, but it is becoming stronger.

As a direct consequence of our extending Help to Buy to 2020, we will deliver some 120,000 new homes. Help to Buy will continue to be a success. Some 30,000 homes have already been delivered, 87% of them to first-time buyers, and 91% are outside London. The average house price is about £151,000, well below the average price of a house in this country at the moment.

[Mr Betts]

Does the figure that the Minister has just given apply to the number of homes that will be in the Help to Buy scheme, or the number of extra homes that will be built as a result of it? The two figures are very different.

[Kris Hopkins]

The total Help to Buy figure, covering both guarantee and equity, is some 36,000. I was talking about the number of new homes built, which is 30,000. Those 30,000 houses have been built because businesses have taken up the Help to Buy scheme. Again, this intervention—this building of new homes—is specifically to help hard-working individuals get on the housing ladder. This intervention is there to help people who could not secure a mortgage or get a deposit together, but it is not only helping the hard-working individual; it is also supporting businesses. For every house that is built, a new job is created. The 30,000 that have come directly from Help to Buy contribute to the 1.7 million private sector jobs this Government have delivered.

As much as the small and medium-sized businesses are really important, and as much as the top 10 builders out there are extremely important in terms of capacity, we also need to expand our large-site developments. So far, our large-sites programme has provided some 80,000 new homes, but unlike the last Government with their failed eco-towns, which failed to deliver a single home, we will listen to local councils, we will support local plans, and we will encourage locally led interventions to deliver housing at scale. The garden city proposals were published in April and we look forward to continued discussions with localities about driving out those houses.

[Mr Nick Raynsford (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

Where does the Minister expect those new garden cities to be built?

[Kris Hopkins]

Having put a prospectus out there, I am not going to declare that to you. The key thing is that where individuals come forward—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. We do not use the term “you” in that way. The Minister is not referring to me. I am sure that rule is for the benefit of the House.

[Kris Hopkins]

I apologise, Mr Deputy Speaker. The key is that where local authorities come forward, we will enter into discussion with them and hope to deliver that.

[Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

Does the Minister share my alarm about the words of Sir Michael Lyons on Labour’s review? The Minister has just discussed some of the hard-won commitments the Government have made to local plans and local accountability. Does he share my fear that Labour would return us to the bad old days of strict, authoritarian, top-down control?

[Kris Hopkins]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The last Government went around the country telling local people what they had to do. This Government have laid out our desire to encourage local plans to come forward—to trust local authorities, to understand their local needs, and to have that dialogue with their public and come back with those approved plans. I will be shocked if Labour is again suggesting that it will dictate from Whitehall what communities will have to deliver.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I am interested in the Minister’s view that powers should be returned to local government. In that respect, will he review the permitted development rights that have been imposed on local government, whereby an office block can be converted into housing with no social content whatsoever and no requirement for planning permission? Does he not think it would be better if local government were able to determine what happened to those buildings and the number of social homes that were included in any developments?

[Kris Hopkins]

I disagree with the point the hon. Gentleman makes. The key point is that there are lots of people who are desperate to secure their own home and, whatever the vehicle is, we need to support them in that process.

[Mr Slaughter]

Does the Minister have any interest in homes that are affordable on low and average incomes? In London, the targets the Mayor sets are £80,000 in income for larger properties and £66,000 for one and two-bedroom flats. Does the Minister think those are reasonable figures for affordable homes?

[Kris Hopkins]

I am not going to take any lectures about affordable or social housing. The last Government failed to deliver sufficient social housing at a time of economic boom. They did not build the housing required. They did not address the issue of social need. In the most difficult times, however, this Government have stepped up and are delivering those houses. We need to deliver more, but we are setting about delivering that.

[Emma Reynolds]

Will the Minister give way?

[Kris Hopkins]

No, I am going to continue.

The key aim is to expand capacity, and one of the ways we are doing that is by encouraging—right across the country—the private rented sector. Thousands of individuals rent their homes, and the vast majority of them rent their homes from good landlords, but there are a few who are damaging the market and failing their tenants, and that is why this Government have set about introducing powers to pursue those individuals and have put moneys out there for councils to make sure we can pursue and prosecute those individuals who fail their tenants.

[Bill Esterson]

I draw attention to my entry in the register of interests.

The Minister rightly mentions private renting, as not everybody wants to buy; some want to rent, and some do not have any choice. Does he recognise the impact on children of having to move constantly because of the nature of the private rental market, and does he accept that Labour has very sound proposals on longer-term tenancies to deal with exactly that sort of problem?

[Kris Hopkins]

The key point is that Labour was in power for 13 years and did not address this, whereas we have gone out there and put together a model tenancy that we plan to announce in the near future, and that will address that very issue about extending tenancies, through a negotiation between the landlord and the individual, to give some certainty, particularly for families.

We want to make sure that the private rented sector grows. We want it to be bigger, better and more professional, so that it attracts investors to take a long-term financial view, rather than having the short-term return model currently associated with this sector, which is why we went out there with a £1 billion Build to Rent scheme—a loan scheme. The first round has allocated some £124 million, which will deliver some 16,000 houses, and we are now in contact with further individuals and organisations and will make those announcements in the near future. The bulk of that £1 billion was in round two and we are in detailed negotiations about 16 projects. It is a very important part of the offer to grow and build on the private sector, to challenge poor behaviour, and to make sure we have high-quality private rented houses available.

In conclusion, we are not complacent about the position we are in. We picked up a smashed and broken industry. A strong industry is now emerging, but it has taken time to address and fix the problems left by the last Government—the banking industry issue, the lost jobs and skills, the factories that went to the wall. We are rebuilding the companies that failed and giving them the confidence to come forward and invest. So far, some 440,000 new homes have been delivered, but that is not enough, and we are determined to deliver more. I have to say to the House, however, that regardless of what I have said here today, this will be down to the graft of those individuals on the building and construction sites out there, it will be down to the risk takers who are investing in house building again, and it will be down to the young apprentices who are making a commitment to learning and developing their new career skills. The role of this Government is to support those champions of that industry. Every part of this Government is committed to delivering new homes—the homes that are needed—and I ask the House to reject this motion.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Before I call the next speaker, instead of imposing a time limit, may I suggest that Members speak for about eight minutes so we can get everybody in?

13:58

[Mr Nick Raynsford (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

First, may I draw the House’s attention to my interests as declared in the register?

I have to say to the Minister that his figures are very wide of the mark indeed. The simple harsh truth is that the present Government have the worst record on housing of any Government since the end of the second world war. Fewer new homes have been built in their period in office than in any comparable period of peacetime since the 1920s. On average, over their four years in office the coalition Government have managed to build just 112,000 homes a year. By contrast, the previous Labour Government built 1.8 million homes over their 13 years in office, averaging 145,000 homes a year—not enough perhaps, but very substantially more than we are seeing from the present Government, and I am surprised that the Minister does not have the honesty and integrity to admit that. Even in the depths of recession—[Interruption.] I will withdraw that.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Before you do, I will just say that we are going to be courteous to each other. This is going to be a very interesting debate, and I know you do not mean that and I see you are going to withdraw it.

[Mr Raynsford]

I ask your leave to withdraw that last statement, Mr Deputy Speaker. I was really just saying that the Minister ought to look at the figures published by his own Department and not exaggerate, or gild the lily, by trying to give us an impression that things are much better than they are. This Government’s record is, in fact, a very poor one: in 2011, they managed just 113,000 new homes; in 2012, they built just 115,000 new homes; and in 2013, they got no further than 110,000. Those are the simple figures and they come from his own Department. All they demonstrate is that the previous Labour Government in their last year in office—in 2009, right in the depths of recession—built more homes in one year than this Government have built in any one year since. We built 125,000 homes in 2009 and the level has decreased to an average of just 112,000 a year over the past four years during which this Government have been in office.

[Mr Leech]

rose—

[Mr Raynsford]

I will happily give way to the hon. Gentleman. I hope he will explain why his party has supported this Government, who have had such a lamentable record.

[Mr Leech]

That is not the point I was going to make. I was going to ask whether the right hon. Gentleman would accept that 200,000 homes per year is not an ambitious enough target. The fact that the motion contains no target for social housing—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. I have explained that interventions must be short. The hon. Gentleman has been here a long time and he has to help us to get other speakers in. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman got the gist of the question.

[Mr Raynsford]

I did indeed. I say to the hon. Gentleman that given that output is currently averaging just 112,000 homes a year, a target of 200,000 represents a very substantial increase. We can have an academic debate about whether that is enough, but the harsh reality, which his party should not have ignored, is the total failure of this Government to deliver anything near the level required. The output number has to be doubled, and I hope he will support a Labour Government when they are in power—if he is still around—and are delivering to that target.

The Minister, like his predecessor bar one, the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps), loves to project future increases in numbers, so we hear about 170,000 affordable homes, for example. The right hon. Gentleman used to quote that figure, and we heard it from the Minister today. Let me just give the actual figures on affordable homes started by this Government: in 2010—the third and fourth quarters—they started 10,990; in 2011, they started 25,000; in 2012, they started 20,000; in 2013, they started 24,000; and in 2014—

[Alison Seabeck]

rose—

[Mr Raynsford]

And in the first quarter of 2014, the Government have started 5,900. Their own records show that, in the 15 quarters for which they have been in power, they have started 86,810 affordable homes. So let us hear no more boasting about unrealistic targets for how the Government are going to start all these homes, given that they have lamentably failed to deliver them.

[Alison Seabeck]

rose—

[Mr Raynsford]

Of course I give way.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Just to help, I think the right hon. Gentleman might be on silent meals if he does not give way quicker.

[Alison Seabeck]

I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way. Does he share my concern that the Minister is not here to answer the questions he has just posed on those figures? The Minister did not explain that he was going to leave early.

[Mr Raynsford]

I am very grateful for that intervention, and I suspect I shall be in deep trouble tonight for my failure to give way earlier. My hon. Friend makes a very valid point about the absence of the Minister. I hope he is away for only a short time, because I am sure he will benefit from hearing some of the comments I am going to make in the latter part of my speech.

[Mrs Main]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Raynsford]

I give way to the hon. Lady.

[Mrs Main]

I am not married to the right hon. Gentleman, so I thank him even more for giving way. Would he like to explain his party’s figure as to what is considered “affordable, as this varies in different parts of the country?

[Mr Raynsford]

I agree very much with that and I will cover it in the latter part of my speech. My thesis is that we need to have a range of differing types of housing, and only by delivering that will we ensure that we meet the ambitious target of 200,000 homes in the next Parliament.

The price of this Government’s failure to build the number of homes necessary is very much reflected in the second crisis of theirs on housing, which is on affordability. The shortage of sufficient homes has been driving prices up in both the owner-occupied sector and the rented sector. Curiously, the Government have been compounding the problem by driving up rent levels themselves in the social rented sector, because in place of social housing at target rents, which was very much the objective of the previous Government, we are now seeing the Orwellian concept of “affordable rent tenancies” where rent is set as a percentage of the market rents. A level of 80% of market rents in London is simply not affordable. How can anyone suggest that 80% of a market rent of perhaps £400 a week is an affordable rent for a family on low income? That is simply not credible. We need a programme that delivers truly affordable homes, and not just for social rent; in addition to social rented housing, we need low-cost home ownership options, and intermediate rented options for people who can afford to pay more than the social rent and are looking for suitable housing in that category.

A mix of tenures is required—a point I stressed when I was pleased to welcome Sir Michael Lyons to Greenwich earlier this year. He came as part of his inquiry, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) alluded in her excellent introductory speech. I stressed to Sir Michael that we need a range of different tenures in order to expand output. It is well known that house builders—

[Mrs Main]

rose—

[Mr Raynsford]

I give way to the hon. Lady.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. May I just be of help? The right hon. Gentleman has had eight minutes now and I am going to bring the hon. Lady in next. If she wishes to use interventions, she will not mind dropping down the list.

[Mrs Main]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. This is a very pertinent point. I would like to tease out something about the intermediate option that the right hon. Gentleman is talking about. Would he like to have means-testing of current social housing tenants? As we know, some of them earn lots of money.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. I am going to have to help. The hon. Lady was going to speak next. She will not mind going down the list a little bit, because it is unfair to keep intervening. The right hon. Gentleman has already taken nine minutes. I want to get everybody in and these interventions are not going to help when someone knows they are going to speak next.

[Mr Raynsford]

I am grateful for that, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I will now wind up because I have gone beyond my allotted time. I hope that the hon. Lady will forgive me for not answering that very detailed question. Perhaps she will be able to expand on the issue when she makes her speech.

I believe the Government need to look seriously at how they are spending money, because they are spending a lot of money on housing. The housing benefit bill has risen dramatically, despite the Government’s pledge to cut it, because they have been increasingly dependent on high-rent solutions and people have had to be given housing benefit to help them meet those higher rents. The Government have therefore been compounding the problem while talking about reducing housing benefit. At the same time, they have been spending money on the new homes bonus, a scheme for which nobody has yet produced any evidence to demonstrate that it is having any significant impact, despite more than £7 billion being committed to it. Their Help to Buy 2 scheme is highly profligate, with a £600,000 maximum limit and no tie to new homes, and, again, there is a question as to whether it is a good use of money. So I believe the Government are culpable—

[George Hollingbery]

rose—

[Mr Raynsford]

I cannot take any more interventions.

The Government are culpable for failing to provide the homes, for compounding the problems on affordability and for spending money on schemes that are unproven, untested and not delivering value for money.

14:08

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

Suitably admonished, I shall keep my remarks brief to allow other colleagues to get in, Mr Deputy Speaker.

I wished to pick up on the comments made by the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford) about what is “affordable”, because in an area such as St Albans house values and land values are so high that it is genuinely difficult for any local authority and any house builder to deliver social housing and affordable housing. That is why I wanted to ask him whether he supported considering some form of means-testing for those currently occupying social housing. I just wanted to throw that into the mix.

My council in St Albans has the second oldest district plan in the country. I brought my council leader, Councillor Julian Daly, to meet the Secretary of State because I wanted my right hon. Friend to have a sense of the pressures on a place such as St Albans. There is high demand to live in our beautiful area. It is very commutable to London. It suffers similar housing pressures to London and has similar prices. The average house price in St Albans is £401,811. That is a massive sum for any young family to afford. The average mortgage repayment in St Albans is £738 or 16.1% of average income.

Another part of the mix, which has not been mentioned today, and about which I put in a plea to the Chancellor, is stamp duty. That has not been considered by the Opposition. In high-price areas such as mine, we have the Help to Buy scheme through which the Government are helping young families and young people to get on the housing ladder. Those people are saving hard for deposits, yet they have to give over a large whack in tax. Stamp duty has not been considered by the House since 2003 and I make no bones about the fact that I am trying to lead a charge on the matter.

Stamp duty means that some people are unable to trade down and free up homes for other couples because their house values have risen so much that they would pay a large amount of tax. It also makes it difficult for expanding families to move up. It is a barrier to fluidity in the housing market and to young people moving. It seems rather odd that we as a Parliament want to get young people on the housing ladder, yet we are happy to take large sums of money off them in areas such as mine. The cost of an entry-level property in St Albans is probably more than the national average house price, so for the many people trying to get such a property in our area, stamp duty is a big deal.

The reason for our having the most out-of-date district plan is not that we have a slovenly and lazy council—far from it. Our planning department is the busiest in the country. A huge number of people want to build in our area, and we have loads of challenges from developers. My council regularly spends large amounts of money fighting off predatory developers. The Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), smiles at me—I will be making my rail freight point—but it has cost my council millions of pounds to fight off inappropriate development applications.

The reason we have such an out-of-date district plan is that my council, along with other councils in Hertfordshire, was desperately trying to resist the high housing targets that were imposed top-down by Labour. If the Opposition go back to imposing top-down targets, there will be sclerosis in planning departments again. I welcome the fact that the Government have taken by the horns the point that local areas should decide. Local areas know their housing need best.

[Mr Betts]

rose—

[Mr Love]

rose—

[Mrs Main]

I am not giving way because I listened to Mr Deputy Speaker’s guidance and I am keeping my remarks brief.

The previous policy guidance, which set a housing density of more than 50 houses to the hectare, resulted in places such as St Albans being swamped with one-bedroom flat units, and large five-bedroom houses to pay for them. This skews the market. What we want in areas such as St Albans is to be able to decide whether we need two-bedroom flats or three-bedroom small family houses to suit the needs of the local population.

The Government have gone a long way to implementing localism. It is not perfect, or I would not keep referring—my hon. Friend the Minister is listening to me—to my rail freight point, but I would like to think that we have started listening to what residents want locally. Housing numbers should not be dictated centrally. St Albans was furious with the previous Government’s decision to lump us in with the north London arc, making us vulnerable to inappropriate development, which we have resisted. We are ringed by green belt but we do not have a nimby attitude in St Albans. We wish to deliver affordable local housing for young families, but we also realise that we are part of people’s investment portfolios.

The Opposition should be clearer about what they mean by “affordable” in areas such as mine. If they do not like the 80% calculation, how would they deliver affordable housing in an area where the average house price is more than £400,000? Nobody in St Albans is going to give their land away and a local authority has a duty of care to its residents, so it will not give away its assets and it has very little as a land bank of its own and very few buildings. Labour’s plans sound great, but how would it deliver affordable housing? That is very hard to deliver and the Government are going a long way to try to do so.

14:15

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

We need to build 250,000 new homes every year, probably for the next 20 or 30 years, if we are to address the housing crisis properly. That is the scale of the challenge that faces us collectively. In order to do that over that period, we probably need buy-in to such an approach from all political parties. That is a further challenge. I admitted in the Queen’s Speech debate that the Government whom I supported for 13 years did not build enough homes. The problem is that the present Government are building even fewer.

On average, year by year, fewer homes are being built under this Government than were built under the previous Government. That is a fact, however the Minister tries to dress up the figures. If we are to get that long-term buy-in to building sufficient homes, it has to be through all-party agreement, because the construction industry cannot be turned on and off like a tap. Another challenge is to train and keep construction workers to deliver the homes we need. As the Select Committee report in 2012 said, there is no single silver bullet—we need a range of different measures to provide a range of different homes.

We need the volume house builders to build more, of course. That is a challenge for them as well as for the Government. But we also need other forms of building, including building houses for social rent. We cannot simply build houses at 80% of market rent to help everyone in this country. There are people who not only cannot afford to buy, but cannot afford market rents, so we need a social house building programme as part of the total number.

Let me be clear to Front Benchers on both sides of the House. I support the campaigns of the Local Government Association and of the National Federation of ALMOs to lift the borrowing cap on local authorities. That could build us at least 60,000 new homes, but that does not go far enough. In this Parliament we have had a 60% cut in the funding for social housing. Some, if not all, of it will have to be restored if we are to build sufficient social homes in the future. Whether we are talking about local authority homes—council homes—or housing association homes, we will not get them built without more public money being put in. That is a fact of life. It is uncomfortable at a time of stringency and constraint, but that is a reality and we all have to address it.

Another uncomfortable issue is the right to buy. The Government’s policy envisages a one-for-one replacement. In many parts of the country, such as my constituency, there is no point selling a family home and offering to replace it with a one-bedroom flat. The demand is for family homes. Like-for-like replacement is what is needed, and even that is not sufficient in some areas. If there is an acute shortage of social housing in particular localities, or there is not the land to replace homes that are sold, we may have to give local authorities the powers to restrict the right to buy.

Again, that is uncomfortable. It is not what anyone wants to hear, but it is about true localism and recognising that there are particular circumstances and particular housing markets where the problems are so difficult that that is what we may have to do. That, again, is something that the Select Committee report addressed and the Government dismissed. It is a factor if we are to deal with the acute crisis faced by many people who cannot afford to buy and cannot afford to rent in the private sector.

There are two other issues that I shall address. If we are to build sufficient homes, we all want to see a brownfield-first policy. The Select Committee is conducting an inquiry into the national planning policy framework and we look forward to the Minister coming before us. We may be slightly less harsh on him than some of his own colleagues were this morning in the Westminster Hall debate, which I chaired. If we have a brownfield-first policy, we will have to deal with the question why the proportion of houses built on brownfield sites appears to be declining. It is difficult to know because the figures are available only up to 2011. There is a gap in the figures, which is not helpful.

Perhaps there has been decline because of the problem of paragraph 47 of the NPPF and developers claiming that brownfield sites are not viable. Perhaps it is because we have lost the grants that the regional development agencies used to put in to deal with contamination and other problems on brownfield sites that made them easier to develop. Perhaps it is a bit of both. We face that challenge if we are to get brownfield development going. We must also be honest with people. Even if we build on all the available brownfield sites, we will still have to build on some greenfield sites in this country. We must be honest about that and face up to it.

Then we come on to the further challenge: how do we sign up local communities? The principle of the NPPF is to support sustainable development, which is consistent with the local plan, so putting in place local plans is absolutely vital. There may be some authorities that are dragging their feet, but there are some that are genuinely struggling to get local plans in place. That is what we are finding in our inquiry, and we will produce our findings on that in due course. There are a number of other issues that the Minister will look at in due course; perhaps he will do it when he appears before the Committee.

Let us return to the viability of brownfield sites. Is that an issue that needs to be addressed? It is stopping some local plans being put in place, as authorities are being forced to go back and relook at greenfield sites. What about the duty to co-operate? Those authorities are trying to co-operate, but cannot get a local plan in place because their neighbours will not co-operate with them. How do we deal with that challenge?

Finally, one issue that has come up time and again is the assessment of housing need. Many authorities are unclear about how they should do their sums. The planning inspector could come in at the last minute and say that they have got them wrong and that they should go back and start counting again. Although I am not generally in favour of heavy-handed centralism, should there not be a bit more guidance at the beginning of the process so that local authorities are clear about the numbers they are trying to address, and their local plans are not held up at the last stages?

I hope that those are helpful points that will help to move this matter forward. We must all face up to the fact that over the past 30 years we have had a collective failure to build sufficient homes in this country. If we are to address that collective failure, we need some collective agreement across the House about how we will proceed to build those homes over the next 20 or 30 years.

14:21

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to follow the considered speech of the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts). I experienced a bit of déjà vu at the start of this debate, as we had the predictable trading of blizzards of carefully selected statistics and political froth, which does nothing to shed any light on this matter. As is often the case, there is, at this point, a coming together, with people trying to find constructive solutions, rather than simply trading selective statistics. People who accidentally stumble on this debate while seeking entertaining daytime television, and who happen to watch this kind of thing, will be left bemused or cold by the trading of figures that we saw at the start.

The obsession with chasing housing build targets and with trying to apportion blame is one reason why there has been, over decades, a complete failure to provide enough decent family homes that are affordable for people in this country. There seems to be an obsession with one rather two-dimensional issue, which is the building of thousands of houses. I have won the MPs’ equivalent of the national lottery by coming first in the private Members’ Bill ballot. On 5 September, providing there are not too many other Members filibustering me out of this opportunity, I will put the case for the further tools that are necessary to advance the interests of affordable housing for families in this country.

This is a bespoke Bill—not one that is off the peg—on which I will seek cross-party support; it is still being drafted. I hope to gain support for it over time. At the moment, it is a veritable Queen’s Speech of a Bill that will probably have to be narrowed down. The issue on which I will primarily focus is the still insufficiently developed intermediate market for housing, particularly in the south, where there is a big mismatch between earnings and house prices. Constructing a new lower rung on the housing ladder of shared equity, shared ownership and mutual housing is necessary to address some of the problems in areas such as mine.

Having listened to the shadow Minister, I want to speak about some of the things that are undermining our attempts to fulfil the desperate need for affordable homes in areas such as mine. They include the proliferation of second or holiday homes. I have tried to advance the case for the introduction of a new use classes order in the planning system, which would cover those who want to convert a property from permanent to non-permanent occupancy. The order would last only for the lifetime of that occupancy, because otherwise there would be a perverse incentive for us all to go for that when we wanted to sell our properties. However, there does not appear to be political support for that at present. I urge both Labour and Conservative Members to look at the impact that that issue is having on areas such as mine, where four times as many properties are sold to second-home buyers than to first-home buyers.

As I mentioned in my intervention on the shadow Minister, we are not nimbys in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. The housing stock has more than doubled in the past 40 years, yet the housing problems of locals have got significantly worse. It is not simply building homes that is the issue; we have significantly more second homes and holiday homes in our area and significantly higher housing need. This obsession with building hundreds of thousands of homes is not the answer. We need to be a little more sophisticated in our approach. It is not the case that if we dump a load of homes on the countryside the market will, by magic, ensure equilibrium, and local people will have their housing needs met. I can assure Members that that policy will fundamentally fail in my constituency.

There is also the impact of the spare room subsidy. I do not think I will have time to advance that issue, but there is a principle involved here: if someone is poor, they should not be less entitled to a stable family home than if they were better off. I am not sure that I will be able to advance that principle in my Bill, but I feel very strongly that it is something that has been lost in our obsession.

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

It sounds to me—I hope I have not misinterpreted the hon. Gentleman—as though there is an argument for building council houses again. What does he think about that? We have debated social housing time and again, but it would never meet the requirements of the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. Perhaps he should think about council house building.

[Andrew George]

Absolutely. I am not quite so obsessed with the issue of whether the property is owned by a council or by a registered social landlord. We have some fantastic housing associations in this country, and we have had some pretty rotten local authorities. What we need is social rented accommodation of a decent standard that meets the local need for affordable housing.

[Mr Cunningham]

rose—

[Andrew George]

Time prevents me from taking another intervention from the hon. Gentleman. One of the unintended consequences of the spare room subsidy is that we will end up with smaller new build properties, and less flexibility for housing associations in meeting the needs of local communities. When I was involved in this sector, before I was elected to this House, I always recommended future-proofing new build estates. For example, if I identified an even demand for two and three-bedroom properties, I erred on the side of three and four-bedroom properties, because of the need to future-proof the estate. At the time of building, the marginal cost of adding another bedroom to a development is almost insignificant; it is tiny. That is why the spare room subsidy is driving policy in entirely the wrong direction, and that needs to be addressed.

Speculative landholdings need to be controlled, particularly in rural areas such as mine, where we are looking for exception sites. How can we do that when people are clinging on to land for dear life? One of the planning system’s big problems is that it is fuelled by greed, rather than need. If we are to meet local housing need, we need a system that forces landowners to use or lose their land. I would like the Government to address those needs.

In view of the time, I clearly need to bring my remarks to a close. I look forward to addressing these issues in private meetings in advance of our debate on 5 September, but people who have shared-equity or shared-ownership accommodation often find themselves stuck because they are unable to buy. The Government need to consider extending the Help to Buy scheme to shared ownership, to enhance that sector and allow for a new lower rung on the housing ladder, particularly in those parts of the country in which there is a bigger mismatch between earnings and house prices.

14:31

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George). I echo what he said about the bedroom tax, not only because of its effect on those it directly affects, but because of the attitude that it shows to the 8 million people in this country who live in social housing, which is that they are effectively second-class citizens so far as the Government are concerned. I am sorry that so many of his colleagues voted for the bedroom tax, although he did not, which is entirely to his credit.

The hon. Gentleman’s constituency is very different from mine, and I hope he will not mind if I move the subject on to London, where housing problems are writ large and are intensifying. We see that in every indication, from the gap between housing demand and supply—the gap in London is some 30% of the gap in England as a whole—to rough sleeping, which has gone up 75% in London over the past three years; that is more than twice the increase in the rest of the country. It is tempting to say that the problems are too difficult to solve, and that house building should therefore take place in areas where land values are cheaper. I am well aware of that, because the median rent for a three-bedroom property in my constituency is £550 a week, which is more than the average London wage. The average purchase price for any property is approaching £750,000, which is completely unaffordable even for those on several times the average income.

We have to address those problems, including in central London, because Government policy—and certain local policies, too—has intensified them. Local housing allowance for three-bedroom properties has been capped at £340. That is supposed to cover the bottom third of rents, but the valuation office’s up-to-date figures tell us that the lower quartile of rents in Hammersmith for a three-bedroom property is £459. The net effect of the change, and indeed of all the other changes the Government have made to benefits policy, is that it is almost impossible to find any property in the private sector that would be covered by housing benefit. We have therefore had an exodus—a process of social cleansing—that has forced people who, in many cases, have lived in London for generations out of the city, and away from where their homes, schools, jobs and families are.

That was intensified by a deliberate policy. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) for mentioning what happened at the local election in Hammersmith, which was a breath of fresh air to almost everyone who lives in the area. There was a deliberate demolition of council properties. Whole blocks of 200 or 300 good-quality council properties were held empty for six or seven years before being demolished to be handed to the private sector. Council properties were sold off as they became empty. Over the past four or five years, 500 homes have been sold that could have been used by families on the waiting list, had the waiting list not also been abolished.

I cannot understand the mentality of the Government or local councils, who want to exacerbate an already serious housing problem. I am therefore delighted that a Labour council came in, and the first thing it did on the day after the election was to cancel the demolitions and the sales. The first thing the council did at the first cabinet meeting was to say, “From now onwards we will again prioritise social rented housing, which for eight years has been excluded from the types of housing that could be constructed.”

I want to be a bit more optimistic, and talk about how we can achieve decent affordable housing in high-value areas. Our local plan envisages 50,000 new properties being built over a 20-year period. That is perhaps slightly over-ambitious, if anything, and somewhat unwise, in the sense that it means demolishing hospitals to build housing on their sites. I think that is somewhat short-sighted.

There are three opportunity areas in Hammersmith and Fulham. One is on the site that will be used for High Speed 2; it is envisaged that 24,000 new homes will be built there. The second is in White City, on the site vacated by the BBC, where it is envisaged that 6,000 properties will be built. The third is in the Earls Court and West Kensington area, where it is envisaged that 8,000 properties will be built. The problem is that under existing policies, not a single one of those almost 40,000 properties will be a social rented home. Clearly that will change with the planning policy, but many planning consents have already been given.

I draw attention to two facts. First, across London, and probably outside London, too, developers are relying on viability assessments, which are confidential documents that are not disclosed to the public, or even to councillors on most occasions. Developers typically say that they can afford to build 5% or 10% affordable housing at 80% market sale or 80% market rent. Every time that has been challenged and taken to the Information Commissioner, the documents have eventually been revealed. In the case of Earls Court, for example, we had to go to not only the Information Commissioner but the first-tier tribunal. It was only at that point that the local authorities gave in. Guess what? The viability assessments did not support the idea that there should be little or no affordable housing in those developments.

Secondly, much of these developments are on public land in the widest sense. If they are not on council-owned land or Government-owned land, they are on land owned by the BBC, Network Rail or Transport for London. If we cannot build decent affordable housing on publicly owned land, we are saying to developers, “In those cases, you can also get away with building 95% market housing.” In inner London, that means that properties are for sale abroad, off-plan. Most properties currently being built in my constituency are advertised on websites in the far east, Russia and elsewhere. One-bedroom and two-bedroom properties begin at £1 million-plus. Those properties are not affordable to anyone, by any means, which is why there is effectively a coalition between those who need social rented homes and those who could afford quite a lot on the private market. All my constituents say to me, “When will the Government act to ensure that houses are built that are affordable for the people who live and pay taxes in this country?”

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

If I am following the hon. Gentleman’s logic correctly, he is arguing for scrapping the ability of developers to vary section 106 agreements on the basis of a project’s financial viability. Is that the Labour party’s policy? Does he not understand that that may well reduce the overall supply of affordable housing?

[Mr Slaughter]

I am asking for the viability assessments to become transparent, open documents, so that everyone can see where the truth lies. I am also asking for Conservative local authorities to stop colluding with developers to drive out affordable housing for their own political, economic and ideological motives. That is what is happening across London, and I am sure outside London, too. I support exactly what Michael Lyons said yesterday at the LGA conference, which is that if local authorities are going to act in that way, there has to be an impetus to build more social housing, and that has to be in addition to any revival in the private housing market.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East that we do not want to change things back to exactly how they were, but the four principles that the Government have relied on need to be reversed. They have cut capital investment in housing, reduced security of tenure and almost eliminated affordability, certainly in London, and now they are refusing to determine on the basis of need how housing should be allocated. That is more than a generational step back. Frankly, those are not housing policies that any Government should support. I hope that when my hon. Friend is Housing Minister, she will reverse them.

14:40

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

It is appropriate that I should follow another London Member, the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter). At the risk of being criticised—we often rightly are—for being London-centric, London does face specific challenges, so I would like to spend a few minutes talking about that subject, which is close to my constituents’ hearts.

It is worth setting out some context. Since 2001, London’s population, and therefore the demand for housing, has increased by 1 million. That is equivalent to creating a new borough every two and a half years, such is the speed of growth. That means we have to respond to the challenging housing needs with innovation and imagination. To borrow the words of the former Housing Minister, the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford), who I think struck the right tone when talking about the failure over 30 years, we also need to find some common ground, particularly if we are to deal with some of the challenges in London.

As the Mayor has rightly identified, if we are to catch up and keep pace with demand in London alone, we will need to provide about 49,000 accommodation units every year for the next 10 years. To put that in context, that has not been achieved since 1930, an age when building on the green belt was not an issue and we did not face the challenge of having to develop brownfield sites, which I believe offer a big opportunity in London. It is probably accurate to say that we have been building, on average, about 20,000 units a year over the past 30 years.

We now have a situation, as Members on both sides of the House have rightly pointed out, in which rents and the cost of purchase in London are so disproportionate to the rest of the country that supply is clearly the key. Let us face it: we cannot simply wave a magic wand, whether at local government level, mayoral level or here, but we have to pull whatever levers we have at our disposal to try to help drive the supply solution. I have looked with interest at some of the proposed measures for doing that, and at one in particular, which I will speak about shortly—the housing zones, which were recently announced in my constituency.

So tricky is the problem we face that we are looking at more imaginative ways to provide more housing. The Mayor’s land and development programme is effectively bringing forward surplus public land owned by the Greater London authority to regenerate areas and help provide housing. About 60 live sites are already under way, which will hopefully deliver at least 40,000 homes over the period of their development. There are 20 housing zones—I will outline this later for the benefit of the House—which are ambitious plans to create 50,000 much needed homes. It is crucial, as I think we all agree, to target those on low and middle incomes who are seeking to buy affordable homes as well as those seeking to rent.

A considerable number of empty homes in London need to be brought back into use. Between 2008 and 2012, around 5,000 empty homes were brought back into use, and I am sure that we can do more. We have more funding to bring another 1,100 empty homes back into use. In fact, there are now about 25,000 fewer empty homes in London than there were in 2008. Supplying new homes is crucial, but so is work on decent homes—restoring the stock we have to make them liveable—and restoring empty homes. In my borough we have benefited from £44 million, which we are halfway through spending between now and 2015, just on decent homes alone.

[Mr Slaughter]

I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman will address the point that the Minister would not deal with. The Mayor’s definition of affordable is an income of up to £80,000 for larger properties and up to £66,000 for smaller properties. I realise that that is a maximum, but the hon. Gentleman will have seen the story in the London Evening Standard this week about housing associations such as Notting Hill, which frankly is a disgrace. Pitching the target at those levels, they are demanding for their affordable housing a minimum income of £66,000 in order to qualify.

[Nick de Bois]

The hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I did not quite catch the whole point, but I think that my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) made the point about the steep variation in what is an affordable home. Some regard it as just 80% of market value, which is a lovely description and quite enticing, but we know that that still faces a lot of challenge. However, I welcome many of the Government programmes, such as Help to Buy, that will help to overcome the challenges, particularly on deposits, which are crucial. I happily declare an interest in that regard, having had to help finance one of my daughters when she bought a home. I was lucky enough to be able to do that, but many people are not. The Help to Buy scheme was not around at the time, but I have two more daughters to go, so who knows—I am in trouble now.

I will briefly mention the housing zones. I am grateful that the Mayor and the Chancellor—local government working with national Government—have come together to launch a housing zone scheme across London. They will create 20 zones where home building will be accelerated by working in partnership with boroughs, landowners, investors and builders—all the key stakeholders brought together. They are based on a “something for something” deal, not just a handout. That will enable the GLA to act in concert with the key boroughs and stakeholders so that we can focus resources on sites that will be expensive to redevelop, such as brownfield and former industrial sites. With such policy interventions, we can either drive and fast-track developments that are planned at the moment but facing the hurdles we have all talked about, or stimulate new plans and new sites.

In order to ensure that we see progress on housing zones as quickly as possible, the Government will grant the Mayor the powers he needs—so-called mayoral development orders—to remove planning obstacles. That will accelerate the much needed construction in the zones. The site in my constituency has not, I hasten to add, been formally approved yet. The London borough of Enfield, in concert with Network Rail, has already secured development of a third track up to Angel Road. The development will hopefully be called Meridian Water and be on the very important line between Liverpool Street and Cambridge. That crucial ingredient helped to stimulate developers to show their interest and invest in a site that was once industrial and had gasworks on it, which is very expensive to redevelop. The bid that will be going in for Meridian Water will be effectively to seek assistance in site remediation, some land acquisition and decentralising energy infrastructure.

I will draw my comments to a close, Mr Deputy Speaker, as I can see that that is something you clearly wish me to do. The point is that that fast-tracking will enable us to deliver 5,000 homes at a relatively fast speed, if the scheme is approved, which I am optimistic it will be. That will be critical in achieving the overall challenge that London faces. If it is repeated in 20 other zones, that will make a significant difference. I commend those steps to the House.

14:49

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

I very much welcome this debate. The last two speakers have talked about their own constituencies in London. Clearly, my constituency is not in London, but it is experiencing similar house prices and many of the stories that we have heard this afternoon have resonance in Brighton, Pavilion. The failure of successive Governments over the past 30 to 40 years to build anything like enough homes is a scandal that has been ignored by those in power, who have been busy enjoying the short-term economic benefits of inflated house prices. Those prices have skyrocketed in the past year in a market that is both irresponsible and unfair.

I also welcome the motion tabled by the official Opposition. It represents a step in the right direction, but I am concerned that it is quite vague and I hope that they will fill in some of the gaps during the debate. That is why I have amended the motion, and I will say a few words about that in a moment. I want to focus on the issue of council homes, which have not been built in significant numbers for decades. Instead, hundreds of thousands of them have been sold off cheap. On the failure to build, a recent House of Commons Library note shows the long-term steep decline in house building in England over the past 35 years.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Perhaps I can help the hon. Lady. She might have tabled an amendment but it was not selected, and the motion has not been amended. We are dealing with the motion before us and no other.

[Caroline Lucas]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I can assure you that I was not speaking to the amendment—perish the thought. I was speaking to the items in the motion—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. The hon. Lady said that she had amended the motion, and the problem is that people might therefore think that there is an amendment to the motion. That is all I am bothered about. There will be just one vote.

[Caroline Lucas]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I sought to amend the motion—devastatingly unsuccessfully —and I will not mention the matter further. I do, however, want to mention the substantive issues in the Opposition motion, as well as certain things that are not in it but have nothing to do with my amendment—or rather, my proposed amendment that does not exist. It was a figment of my imagination.

On the failure to build, a recent House of Commons Library note shows the long-term steep decline in house building in England over the past 35 years. Nearly 307,000 homes were built across all tenures in England in 1969-1970, but the number fell to just 107,000 in 2012-13. There was a minor increase in housing association building over that period, although it amounted to fewer than 15,000 more dwellings being built last year than in 1969-70. What is most striking is that the steepest decline was in the building of council homes, which fell from 135,000 to 1,360 over that same period.

To their credit, the last Labour Administration did attempt to address the chronic backlog of repairs and maintenance left after 18 years of deliberate Tory neglect. It is just a shame that this was done at the expense of building the council homes that were needed. For example, only 60 council homes—a tiny number—were built nationally in 2001-2002. By 2008-9, the figure had gone up, with 490 council homes completed in that year, but that was still fewer than one per constituency. The number of housing association homes was higher, with 14,000 in 2001 and 26,500 in 2008, but the numbers were still woefully low. The current Government are clearly worse; they have cut funds for social housing by 60%. The need for strong solutions to get the council and social housing we need built is an absolute priority in our discussions this afternoon.

I see the reality of the housing crisis every day in my constituency. The chronic long-term lack of housing supply is evident everywhere in Brighton, Pavilion and I am regularly contacted by people in despair and in real housing need. Our local paper, the Brighton Argus published a housing special last Saturday entitled “Can you afford to live in the city?” This was a rhetorical question, because for most people in housing need, the answer is a very clear no: the average price in the city has been driven up to more than £367,000. We have seen a 13% increase in house prices in the last quarter alone. Therefore, it is no surprise that we have 18,000 people on the council’s housing waiting list.

The city’s housing market is fast becoming known as a “mini-London”, with average house prices in Brighton nearly twice the national average. Young Brightonians who do not have rich family backers have no hope of getting on the housing ladder. The combination of stratospheric rent and price rises and policies such as the pernicious bedroom tax—which appear to be designed to push people in need of housing benefit, particularly those with disabilities, out of desirable areas—has created a situation in which people on low incomes and those on average wages are being pushed to the margins.

The motion does not say very much about how the Opposition would achieve the aims that they are putting forward. Those aims are laudable, but where are the means? I would like the unfair restrictions on local authorities to be lifted. Housing associations are allowed to borrow against their assets to build but councils are not, despite being able to do so more cheaply. That makes no sense. We must fully lift the borrowing cap to get council homes built again. Councils suffer unnecessary restrictions. They are bound by prudential borrowing rules anyway, so the cap is arguably unnecessary; it is just stifling the building of local authority homes.

Using the Department for Communities and Local Government self-financing model, a joint report published in 2012 by the National Federation of ALMOs, the Local Government Association, the Chartered Institute of Housing, the Association of Retained Council Housing and many others showed that if the borrowing cap were fully lifted and councils were able to make prudential use of their borrowing potential, they could borrow up to £20 billion over five years. That extra borrowing could enable between 170,000 and 230,000 extra homes to be built.

The main justification for the imposition of borrowing caps on local housing authorities is that the additional debt incurred by councils would add to the overall Government debt, but that need not be the case. The UK is unique in Europe for classifying a wide range of bodies as coming within the definition of “public sector” that is used to measure public debt. No other EU country treats social housing investment in the way that happens in England. There is a strong case for local authority borrowing for housing not to be counted towards the public sector debt. Local authority borrowing for housing would be largely self-financing in any case, and it is transparent and low risk.

I would be the first to admit, however, that lifting the borrowing cap will not be enough on its own to replenish our social housing stock following the giveaway of council houses under right to buy and the failure to build. A significant increase in grant funding is needed if we are to begin to reverse the chronic failure to build the housing that we need. That money would also create the benefit of a multiplier effect, generating jobs, apprenticeships, an increase in tax revenues and reduced welfare spending. Shelter has said that £1.22 billion extra, on top of the current £1 billion of Government grant spend, could be sufficient to get us building enough homes if it was combined with a package of reform. That would certainly be a good start. Serious consideration should be given to channelling some of the huge windfall increase in stamp duty revenues predicted by the Office for Budget Responsibility into building new council homes. That would be one way of using some of the tax proceeds from our distorted market to increase social housing supply.

Mr Deputy Speaker, you are looking a little fidgety, if I may say so. That indicates to me that you would like me to wind up shortly, and I will do so. However, I just want to mention one other matter, which has not been raised this afternoon. The increase in housing supply that we need must involve housing that people can afford to run, as well as buy or rent. This is an opportunity to tackle the scandal of fuel poverty and the rising cost of living. We must use house building to reverse this Government’s weakening of energy saving, water efficiency and other standards. This Government have acted to prevent local authorities from going further than minimum national standards for energy efficiency, despite those standards looking weaker by the day.

Given the scandal of fuel poverty and the hardship being caused by high energy bills, as well as the urgent need for radical cuts to carbon emissions, new homes must be built to a genuine zero carbon homes standard. The Government’s exemptions for small developments mean that around a third of all homes could be exempted altogether. If the Government were sticking to the original zero carbon homes standard, the situation would not be so bad. Under the original standard, annual energy bills for residents in new homes would be under £300, but the Government are again capitulating to big business, watering down the standards and creating loopholes, so energy bills will be around £800.

In summary, we need sufficient homes, which means lifting the borrowing cap and ensuring that imaginative sources of revenue such as stamp duty funding are properly ring-fenced. It also means ensuring that our homes are fit to live in.

14:58

[Mr Simon Burns (Chelmsford) (Con)]

Listening to some of the speeches by Labour Members made me feel that they were in deep denial about what happened at the back end of the previous decade, which had a significant, if not catastrophic, impact on the construction industry and the house-building programme. I gently remind the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) that it was the previous Labour Government who brought the economy to its knees, causing problems which had such a devastating impact on the construction industry that there was no possibility of providing the houses that were needed. Frankly, it is living in cloud cuckoo land to suggest that there has been no improvement since then. Since April 2010, 445,000 new homes have been delivered. That, to me, is quite an achievement. We have seen a reduction in the number of empty properties, and rightly so. Just over 200,000 planning permissions were granted last year. Those are signs of the beginning of improvements in a market that had been brought to its knees.

Having said that, I agree with everyone who has spoken that it is crucial that we meet the housing needs and requirements of a growing population. My own local authority, Chelmsford, has been extremely good. Between 2001 and 2020, we are being required to provide 16,000 extra homes to meet local demand. The council has been imaginative and innovative in identifying brownfield sites, to start with, throughout the borough and providing new planning permissions for housing on them. Owing to the scale of the housing provision required, it is moving on to greenfield sites in the north-east of Chelmsford, where we are hoping to get a new station as a result of a new almost-ward of just over 3,000 properties, of which 35% will be affordable housing to meet the needs of local people who will benefit from it.

I would like to raise an issue with my hon. Friend the Minister about affordable housing. The main provider of social housing in Chelmsford is Chelmer Housing Partnership. That housing was originally the housing stock of Chelmsford borough council, as it was then. Chelmer Housing Partnership has had an imaginative way of developing its properties since it took them over about 20 years ago. For example, all the houses have had central heating put in, which means that no one comes to my surgeries any more complaining about massive condensation. It has improved the fabric of the buildings, and, through its imaginative policies, is investing in building more housing stock for its tenants.

The other housing associations vary as to the quality of the service that they provide to their tenants, and that worries me. Chelmer Housing Partnerships operates a policy of housing for local people. The problem in Chelmsford—I am sure it is not unique—is that significant numbers of young people are leaving school or university and living at home because they cannot afford, at that stage in their lives, to buy a property. Meanwhile, there is not enough social housing available, because most of the housing associations have a policy whereby half the allocations are for local people and the other half are up to the housing association. A lot of people from outside the borough, often from London, are being rehoused in social housing in Chelmsford. If we had a surfeit of properties, that would be perfectly reasonable, but we have long waiting lists for housing. Realistically, a 21-year-old in Chelmsford who is single, has no children and lives with their parents would be on a housing waiting list for a minimum of 10 years before they might get anywhere near consideration for an offer. I believe that is wrong.

Local housing should, first, be for local people, and if there is then spare capacity, people from elsewhere may certainly be encouraged to go to live there. Chelmsford is a very attractive place. It has two of the finest grammar schools in the nation. It has good communications with London. About 8,000 of my constituents commute by train down to London to work. It is an area with good shopping, and so on. That means that there is constant demand for housing in the borough. We therefore need to look at this issue again, to make sure that local residents who were born there and whose families have lived there all their lives are able to get housing, along with other family members who may wish to come back to Chelmsford to help to look after elderly or ailing family members and parents.

I make a plea to my hon. Friend the Minister: is there any way of fine-tuning the allocation of social housing to make sure that local people are given greater priority, rather than having to compete with people who have no connection with the area and, in effect, queue-jump? That causes tensions within the community, because people ask why they have to wait so long to get housing when people who have never been there before and have no connections can get an allocation through a housing association and come to live in a very attractive and vibrant city.

15:05

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I am pleased that we are having yet another debate on housing, and I hope there will be many more between now and the next election.

There is clearly a housing crisis facing very many people in this country. Basically, the problem is that 200,000 new households are being created every year through population growth or people choosing to live alone. New house building comes nowhere near to meeting those demands. Thus the shortage is dealt with by rising property prices, rising private sector rents and greater demand on social housing—or, at the other end of the scale, increasing homelessness, rough sleeping, overcrowding, underachievement in schools, and desperate poverty among many people who deserve somewhere decent to live.

I hope that we can look at this debate on the basis of the needs of the entire population. I am particularly concerned about those who are really up against it in inner-city communities such as the one I represent. I am very proud to represent an inner-London constituency. It is a place of growing division, I am sorry to say, because of the housing situation. House prices are rising very fast. The number of owner-occupiers is now well below 30% and falling fast. The number of council properties is increasing only as far as the council is able to find land to build and develop council housing, which is the most secure and affordable form of housing available to people. The remaining provision comprises the private rented sector, which has limited regulation and tends to be very expensive.

The strategy adopted by this Government, through the Department for Work and Pensions, on limiting the local housing allowance but not controlling rents means that large numbers of private tenants, who are often in work—as well as some who are not in work but have right of access to the local housing allowance—cannot afford to remain in those properties and are therefore decanted out of the area. That is happening not just in central London but in the central and more expensive parts of every town and city in the country. Frankly, there is a process of social cleansing going on. That is the effect of the overall housing shortage and the very great increases in costs associated with it.

I have raised with the Minister a specific concern about the development of new properties in former industrial or office buildings under what are known as permitted development rights. The Government decided that they would lift the planning restriction applied to permitted development rights on former office buildings. That means that a local authority has no control over what happens to a former office building, which can then be converted into housing. In some cases, it might be entirely appropriate to convert an office block into housing if there is no longer any requirement for an office block or likelihood of anybody wanting to use it as such. The problem is that if the local authority has no say in the matter, it has no opportunity to try to protect local employment, as it might sometimes wish to protect. Moreover, the local authority has no power whatever to insist that a proportion of the dwellings created are available for social rent. I do not like using the phrase “affordable rent,” because most of the “affordable” rents in London are not at all affordable to anyone on an average income or below.

Yesterday, the all-party group on the private rented sector had a very interesting meeting about access to housing for under-35s. We took evidence from Crisis, the National Union of Students and a company called Essential Living, which is backed by $200 million of equity funding from American pension funds and is very keen on developing the larger-scale private rented sector in London. It says that at some point in the future it wants to develop some kind of affordable rented model, but it is very unclear what that model is. It has bought into an office block in my constituency called Archway tower and turned it into, I think, 120 flats marketed at people earning more than £80,000 a year. It does not require local authority permission to do that; it is only building control and any external work to the building that need to be passed by the local planning authority. Requests have been made of the company to contribute to the social needs of the area by providing a proportion of those properties for social rent. Its responses have been polite and well informed, but the answer has always been the same: it says no, it will not do it.

When I say to the Minister, therefore, that there is a need to intervene in the development of the private rented sector, I do so not only because I want to see the continuation of the diverse mosaic of London’s communities, but, quite simply, for the sake of the survival of the economy of this very big city, which, indeed, will affect that of other very big cities. I pray in aid the London chamber of commerce statistics on the numbers of people who are finding it difficult to afford to buy or rent anywhere to live in London. There is a growing problem of labour shortage, and the same applies to other parts of the country.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

I am rather puzzled by the hon. Gentleman’s comments about his constituency. Given the paucity of greenfield and urban exception sites available to build new estates in boroughs such as Islington, I would have thought that he would welcome permitted development rights, to enable the cumulative release of more housing of all types and perhaps even affordable housing for his constituents and people across London.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Uncharacteristically, the hon. Gentleman does not seem to have been listening very carefully. I did not say that I was opposed to the conversion of vacant office blocks or industrial premises into housing. My point is that if there are jobs to be protected—this could apply anywhere in the country—the local authority should at least have a say, so that a rational decision could be made. Secondly, any development has to have a sense of social responsibility, so at least a proportion of those properties should be available for affordable social rent rather than market rent, which is completely unaffordable for the majority of people in my constituency.

When the Minister replies to the debate, I hope he will reflect on the ways in which permitted development rights are actually militating against the housing needs of those people who are most desperately in need of somewhere safe, secure and affordable to live.

15:13

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

It is a pleasure, as ever, to follow the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), who made some interesting points about the particular demand for housing in London. It has already been said in this debate—but it needs to be reiterated—that London is the key to the national housing supply. There is a chronic shortage and it is having a ripple effect, not only in the south-east, but more widely.

I suppose the situation is an echo of developments after the war and during the post-war era, when the so-called London overspill moved out from the slums of many parts of the metropolis into the bright new housing provided, among other places, in Swindon. I have the pleasure of representing estates that were very much part of that London overspill planning. Indeed, many of those Londoners still live in the houses they occupied in the 1950s and ’60s. The 1950s were a time of mass house building in this country, presided over by a Conservative Government and a Conservative housing Minister, Harold Macmillan. As the result of a pledge at a Conservative party conference, 300,000 houses were built every year in the early 1950s.

[Emma Reynolds]

The hon. Gentleman’s history is very interesting, but will he confirm that it was under the Wilson Labour Government that house building actually reached its peak?

[Mr Buckland]

The hon. Lady is talking about 1968—the year of my birth. I agree that house building reached its peak at that time, but I also remind her that in the immediate post-war era, between 1945 and 1951, about 700,000 houses were built, which is only just over 100,000 a year, and that Aneurin Bevan’s record on housing does not match that of Harold Macmillan.

It is important to make such points, historic though they may be, because neither of the main parties in this House can claim a moral authority when it comes to house building. It ill behoves the hon. Lady and her party to make intemperate criticism of this Government when the previous Labour Government’s public house-building record speaks for itself as poor. The year 2008-09 saw the lowest level of house building since, I think, 1923, which is hardly a record of which the Labour party can be proud. If Labour’s record was so poor then, why on earth should we believe its pledges now about house building from 2015? Please forgive me, but, to be frank, I am sceptical of those claims, though I am sure they are well-intentioned.

Swindon is a town that continues to grow—it now has in excess of 200,000 people—and we have delivered house growth for much of the past 30 to 40 years: first, in the form of the London overspill estates, such as Park North and Park South, and then through developments in the ’70s and, indeed, the ’80s in west Swindon, which comprise the constituency that I have the honour of representing today.

We are no strangers to, or shy of, house building, and we continue to do it. The Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), who has responsibility for planning, is familiar with the Wichelstowe development in my constituency. It is one of the biggest developments in the country and it continues to be rolled out. I am very grateful to my hon. Friend and the Government for contributing £800,000—nearly £1 million—to allow a joint venture to be set up, which will enable the local authority, Swindon borough council, together with a private partner, to start developing homes specifically geared towards retired people who wish to downsize and live in homes that, while they do not meet the criteria of sheltered housing, are designed with the needs of older people in mind.

I am talking about homes with fewer bedrooms but larger living accommodation and that are adaptable for the disabilities that sometimes come with old age. That detailed work has been commissioned by the local authority. It has identified a growing ageing population in Swindon who will need that type of housing, and I look forward to the joint venture being set up in the early part of next year and to houses being delivered in Middle Wichel. A new Waitrose supermarket has been opened on the site, which is welcome. We already have shops and infrastructure, which I hope will match the housing to be built there. I am delighted that this week’s announcement of local growth funding has earmarked more than £20 million for the development of infrastructure to facilitate the development of Wichelstowe, which will include the enhancement of junctions 15 and 16 of the M4. That is vital if Swindon is going to be able to sustain the housing expansion expected of it.

In recent years, planning and development have not had the best of reputations. Accusations have been made that developers have land-banked. Until a few years ago, I think there was a case to be made, but the evidence is shifting. My recent experience of the granting of local planning applications is that developers are, in fact, keen to get on site and start developing. I am no longer as convinced as I was about the accusations of land-banking. I have read the detail of the Opposition motion and think that they are a little behind the curve when it comes to the real evidence. They are quite right to be concerned about land-banking—I do not approve of it at all—but I think the evidence is moving against them as the economy picks up and construction development continues.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

My hon. Friend makes a good point about land banking. Is there not a huge difference between using the fiscal system to encourage developers not to bank land, and the Opposition proposal to appropriate land in an arbitrary way?

[Mr Buckland]

That leads on to my point. I have concerns about proposals that address non-existent problems. The Opposition proposal could make the situation worse—poorly prepared and considered developments could go ahead, but that is not what we want, and certainly not in Swindon.

Development problems concern not only those of us with an interest in housing, but everybody who wants quality of life. I deal regularly with what I call speculative planning applications, which fall outside the line of development as agreed by local plans and do not capture the consent of local people. Although I was delighted that the old top-down regional spatial strategy was abolished—the number of houses being imposed on my area was excessive—we are in a transitional period between the abolition of the old regime and the adoption of a new local plan. There has been an over-reliance on the five-year land supply argument. That causes a problem for growing towns such as Swindon—it is very difficult to argue that we have such a supply.

My hon. Friend the Minister is well aware of those problems, but the message on development and new homes must go out loud and clear. In Swindon alone, 238 new homes have been purchased through Help to Buy, and under the affordable homes scheme, just under 1,000 homes have been delivered. Real progress is being made. The Government are sowing the seeds of a renaissance in housing development. The proposals in the Opposition motion are ill-conceived and do not address the issues properly, and they would cause more problems than they seek to solve.

15:22

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

I start by making my usual declaration of an indirect interest, which relates to the entry in the register of my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford).

I agree with the hon. Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) on the need for a mix of new housing, including housing for people who are retiring. However, I disagree with his assessment of the housing crisis and the figures. In 2009, in the depths of the recession, which was caused in America and ultimately affected countries globally, Labour built—completed—124,980 homes, which is more than we have seen in any single year under the current Government. We need to have that on the record.

We face a housing crisis, with too few homes being built. In parts of the country, mortgage levels are racing ahead. Rents are rising, and the availability of homes for those in the highest housing need does not meet demand. Homelessness and rent arrears are rising because of Government polices such as the bedroom tax. The housing benefit bill is not falling, but rising. All the Government’s policy changes, which were clearly based on sums written on the back of a fag packet, are failing. Their decision to come into office and throw all the cards in the air—it did not matter whether the Labour Government’s policies were starting to work, even with the problems faced in the recession—was injudicious, unwise and ideologically driven.

The Government and the Minister seem to be burying their collective heads in the sand. It would be nice if the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Keighley (Kris Hopkins), were on the Front Bench to listen to hon. Members’ contributions, and particularly those from Government Back Benchers. Some of their contributions have been thoughtful—the hon. Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois) made a sensible and interesting contribution about the problems in London.

House builders have been given quite a lot of freedom by planning changes. I am disappointed, because when I was shadow Housing Minister, house builders frequently told me that, when conditions were right, they could step up to the plate, and build quickly and in numbers, but that is not happening. There are a range of complex reasons, some within the control of house builders, and some that are not, which the Government ought to address to expand the number of new homes being built.

The evidence appears to show that we are likely to have a fall in housing starts. The Home Builders Federation briefing to hon. Members says that that could be

“as a result of affordable housing starts reducing in the transitional period as the current affordable housing programme comes to an end and before the new commences”.

I would have expected the Government to have had a decent transition to ensure that that reduction does not happen, but the Minister was not clear. He threw in a number and said, “We are going to bring forward money from the 2015 to 2018 programme in order to deal with it and everything will be okay,” but he was completely unclear about how much and where. All such questions were left hanging in the air.

We have a problem about where value sits in a housing development. That is a big issue. The Government should be putting their hands up and saying, “We are not doing enough.” They should stop pretending that everything is rosy, when in fact it is shocking. We have the lowest level of house building in peacetime. Young people are finding it difficult to find a place to rent, let alone buy. In the south-west there is a shortfall of some 36,000—that is the difference in the past three years between housing completions and demand. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) said from the Opposition Front Bench, help to build is an interesting concept and would take us in the right direction.

The Government’s complacency and, at times, arrogance, needs to be challenged. The figures that were bandied about by the former Housing Minister, the Minister without Portfolio, the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps) were fanciful. He made the allegations and assertions repeatedly in the House, and I have advised his office that I will talk about him today. He repeatedly made the claim that the Government would build more homes in five years than the Labour Government had built in 13 years, and fell foul of the UK Statistics Authority and the Information Commissioner. An article in The Independent on 7 June 2013 highlighted internal e-mails from officials that confirmed that the figures the former Housing Minister had used were not correct, and that Labour had built 500,000 affordable homes while in office, which was almost double the figure being pumped out at the time by the Tory machine. Is it any wonder that the voting public wonder what on earth to believe?

Government Members repeatedly quote figures on the number of social homes that are based on a subtraction of right-to-buy sales, which serves an interesting purpose from their point of view, but is incredibly misleading. That is from a Conservative party that wholeheartedly supported the sell-off of social housing. Both Labour and the Conservatives have failed to build using the proceeds of those sales. A number of Opposition Members have put their hands up to that. One of those parties—the Conservative party—did so wilfully, and one believed that the priority was getting the assets, or the housing stock, back up to a decent standard, because the previous Conservative Government had let it rot, which is not wise with valuable assets against which we might want to borrow for further investment. That was incredibly poor housing management from an ideologically blinkered Tory Government.

The Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Keighley mentioned right-to-buy sales of about 10,000 and the delivery of 3,000 new homes, but that falls well short of the one-for-one provision promised by the previous Minister, the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield, or even like-for-like provision.

In Plymouth, despite the best efforts of the Labour council, there is still a shortage of homes to buy and to rent. The city council has been extremely imaginative in looking at self-build and eco options, as well as at making good use of brownfield sites. We also have one of the largest regeneration schemes in the country, begun under the previous Labour Government, which is transforming the area. However, Shelter has highlighted problems in our region. Some 80% of UK properties are too expensive for new buyers. That figure rises to 94% in the south-west, and to 99% in Exeter. The managing director of a large company linked to property sales in Plymouth, James Clarke from Lang and Co., has said that it is not selling to first-time buyers, but to second or even third-time buyers, as first-time buyers are not coming forward.

We have heard about the bank of mum and dad, but it simply is not available to most young people in low-income areas such as mine. We should also consider some of the other pressures. People are living longer in their homes; those homes are not being passed on through inheritance; and the money and equity in those homes are being used up for care purposes. That money is not therefore coming back into the housing market.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East very clearly set out Labour’s priorities and how we will deliver the house building that we need. Effectively, a number of ducks have to be got in a row before we can get such numbers, including land parcelling and construction skills. This Government are simply not getting their ducks in any sort of a line; frankly, they are shooting them one by one as each of their housing policies fails. We need a change of direction, and a change of Government.

15:30

[Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) on securing a debate on this exceptionally important subject.

It is less than a year since we in this country were talking about a sclerotic housing market, in which people were not confident and housing was not being built. Now, almost every time the Governor of the Bank of England opens his mouth, we are talking about a housing bubble. We have gone from one to the other inside 12 months, with no intervening period of sanity, despite the ever-present, predictable and long-run need to have a roof over one’s head. One might have thought that that indicated a systemic flaw in our housing market.

Hon. Members on both sides of the House have referred to the Government’s failure to build houses. I want to point out the very simple fact that Governments do not build houses. They can get in the way and make building houses easier or more difficult, but they do not build them. House builders build houses, in response to demand from tenants who wish to rent, and from buyers who wish to buy. At least, that is how it is supposed to work. We do not have a national shoe service, yet everyone in the Chamber is wearing shoes. The supply of shoes rises to meet demand, and the same is true of chairs. We do not feel the need to have a national chair service, yet we all have chairs to sit on when we need them.

That suggests that we need to deploy another factor, something that is not yet fully available: the energy of the people who want houses or somewhere to live. Rod Hackney, the Prince of Wales’s architectural adviser, said:

“It is a dangerous thing to underestimate human potential and the energy which can be generated when people are given the opportunity to help themselves.”

That is why I formed the all-party group on self-build, custom-build and independent house building. It is why I was so delighted that when Kevin McCloud addressed the group only a few weeks ago, both the Minister with responsibility for planning—my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles)—and the shadow Housing Minister were able to attend.

For that reason, I was also delighted to take some all-party group members, the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), and people from several local authorities and housing associations, including the excellent Saffron Housing in my constituency, to look at Baugruppen, or building groups, in Berlin, where more than 5,000 dwellings have been created from the bottom up by more than 300 groups. I am sorry that the Minister with responsibility for planning and the shadow Housing Minister were not able to come, but the Department for Communities and Local Government sent some officials, and I know that the Minister will hear more about the visit. It was interesting to see both affordable rentals provided by Genossenschaften—so-called housing co-operatives—and, in some cases, housing for purchase. Most of what we saw was affordable housing, which shows that with imagination, drive and energy from the bottom up, more can be achieved.

I have not drawn first prize in the lottery of life, as the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) has, but I drew prize No. 4, so on 24 October I will introduce—I hope, with the support of all parties—the Self-build and Custom Housebuilding Bill. I keep calling it an Act, but the Public Bill Office reminds me that I have to get it through the House of Commons first.

[Mr Simon Burns]

And the Lords.

[Mr Bacon]

And the House of Lords. I will briefly mention the three things that I hope the Bill will do. First, it would impose a requirement or duty on local authorities to keep a register of people or community groups, whether they want to rent or purchase, who are interested in bringing forward or acquiring land for what in Berlin are called self-organised projects. Secondly, when bringing forward housing initiatives in local plans, local authorities would have to take account of and make provision for the needs of people on the register. Thirdly, they would have to do something in the affordable space, so that people with affordable obligations can meet them, or at least part of them, as a result of people’s contributions from the bottom up.

15:34

[Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)]

I am the tail-end Charlie again; that is the position that I like to have in these debates.

What an interesting debate we have had this afternoon. Yet again, the Opposition think that the glass is half empty. They need to look at the whole of the country. They need to look at beautiful South Derbyshire. In 2012-13, not only did we build twice as many houses as the average constituency across the country, but a third of those were affordable houses. South Derbyshire district council, which has been Conservative-led for the past seven years, has been building new council houses. How is it able to do that? By managing the housing revenue account very successfully. All those things are possible when an area has a council that cares about its people, understands value for money and does not waste money. Of course, that Conservative council has not put the rates up for four years, either.

Another reason why this glass-half-empty Opposition debate is astonishing is that they are talking only about new builds, and not about bringing properties back into use. The most imaginative scheme has come from a charity that looks after ex-service people. It has bought two rows of houses in the north-east for £1 a street. The houses are being brought back into use by the people who will live in them. That is not costing the public purse anything. Everybody had written off those houses because they are up in the north-east and stuff does not happen up there. That is not good enough. It is time that the Opposition decided to play a better and bigger part in solving this problem.

There are lots of empty homes in our country. Councils that are using their initiative are not just putting the council tax on empty homes up from 50% to 80%; they are charging 100%, then 110% if the home is still empty the next year, and 120% if it is still empty the year after that. That can go up to 140%, because we want homes to be brought back into use. That is not about restricting people or taxing them out. The council wants the homes to be brought back into use, so it says to the people who own them, “Do you want tenants? Our council housing people will organise tenants for you.” That is done at private rent prices and can involve short-term lets, three-year lets or whatever they want. Innovative councils are bringing empty homes back into use.

I will finish on that point, because I think that Madam Deputy Speaker wants to move things along. I find it so depressing that, as usual, all we get is a mithering, miserable debate from the Opposition. Where are the Opposition Members? Yet again, there has been speaker after speaker from the Government Benches, because we are proud of what we are doing on new housing and on bringing properties back into use. We are proud that we have really good-quality builds, such as the one that the Minister with responsibility for planning, my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), kindly came to see in Melbourne in South Derbyshire. We are proud of what we are doing. I say to the Opposition: for goodness’ sake get a grip. Start cheering on what is good about this nation, and stop knocking it.

15:38

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

We are in the midst of the biggest housing crisis in a generation. I am sorry that the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Heather Wheeler) finds it miserable that I am pointing that out, but many people in my constituency and across the country are suffering. Under this Government, house building is at its lowest level in peacetime since the 1920s. Since May 2010, the backlog in demand has reached 500,000.

Today, we have heard the latest stats, and clever words from Government Members that are, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) said, designed to dazzle, and to distract from the Government’s poor record. There was certainly an attempt to distract at the start of this debate, but there was not much dazzling. The number of announcements the Government have made about housing is about the same as the number of homes they have built. The impact that the housing shortage is having on the financial security and the hopes and dreams of millions of people across the country is rightly a concern for this House.

In a typically excellent speech, my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford) showed how the Government have totally failed on housing. For his sake, the whole House was relieved when he gave way to my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck). She was keen to intervene because she is proud of his record. Millions of people live in decent homes because of his focus on improving the housing stock, and we should pay tribute to him for that. The Government of which he was a member built 2 million new homes, including, as he said, half a million affordable homes.

The hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View, spoke powerfully about the contrast between the approaches of the current and previous Government. The current Government’s first decision on housing after taking office was to cut the affordable housing budget by 60%. The number of homes built for social rent fell to 7,759 last year—the lowest number since records began, and a fall of 75% from 2009-10, the last year of the Labour Government. The number of affordable homes built fell last year to the lowest in at least five years; that represented a fall of 32% from 2009-10. Overall, home ownership fell to its lowest level in 25 years—it is lower than in any year under the last Labour Government. The latest English housing survey showed that the proportion of homes lived in by owner-occupiers had dropped to 65.2% from 71% in 2003. It is at its lowest level since 1987.

Many Members have raised the issue of affordability. The hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) said that house prices in her area are not affordable. I agree that we need to deliver more affordable homes, and different types of homes. I reassure her that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East said, we do not intend to impose housing targets of the type that she fears, but of course we want people in all areas of the country to think about the relationship between house prices and the availability of houses. That is as important in the hon. Lady’s community as it is in mine.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) called for all-party agreement on increasing house building and on the need to build social homes. He has done much work to build that cross-party agreement through his chairmanship of the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government. The hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) spoke of his private Member’s Bill on social housing. I know that the shadow Minister will talk constructively with him about that Bill. He talked a great deal of sense about the bedroom tax, which he opposed, and he highlighted its consequences. Of course, his party is accountable for that policy, and we have used Opposition days to give it many opportunities to overturn it, but it does not take the opportunities that we present.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) spoke about the deliberate demolition of council properties in his area, and why voters at this year’s local elections rejected that social cleansing so comprehensively. I pay tribute to him for highlighting the issue so consistently in the House. My hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) talked about the same issue—what he sees as social cleansing—but he also mentioned his concerns about the need for reform of the private rented sector.

It is clear that the Government are failing. House building is at its lowest levels in peacetime since the 1920s, and the number of completions has been lower in each year of this Government than in every year of the last Labour Government. The Government cannot continue to claim otherwise. The number of homes built for social rent is at its lowest for 20 years, home ownership is down, and millions are facing insecurity in the private rented sector as house prices rise faster than wages. The Governor of the Bank of England says that housing is the biggest risk to our economy, and the Opposition recognise that risk. That is why we are putting policies in place to tackle the housing shortage that is so central to the cost of living crisis.

I came back this morning from Bournemouth, where I attended part of the Local Government Association conference. I spoke to a lot of Labour councillors; many of them were familiar faces, but there were many new faces, following our success in this year’s local elections. Many of them told me proudly about the homes that they are building for their communities. Councils such as Southwark, York, Exeter, Leeds, Nottingham, Ipswich and Stevenage are all using the new financing agreed under the Labour Government to push ahead with building more council houses. Overall, five times as many social homes are being built in Labour authority areas as in Conservative ones. Of course, I welcome Conservative councils that are building—the hon. Member for South Derbyshire spoke about how her council is building homes and bringing others back into use. Of course we want to work with councils of all political types to bring forward new homes across the country, but it is clear that Labour councils are already showing the commitment that the next Labour Government will show.

In contrast to the current Government’s failure, we will tackle the housing shortage. We recognise that there are deep structural problems in the land market and the house building sector. As the number of small builders has declined and the big firms have grown even bigger, it has become easier for the dominant firms to buy up land. The truth is that to get the number of houses built that we need, there has to be a change in how the housing market works, but Ministers have simply failed to acknowledge that.

We must get more firms into house building to build homes and provide greater competition, because as we know, the high cost of housing is driven by the high cost of land and the shortage of housing supply. That is why Labour set out plans to boost the role of small and medium-sized house builders and get them building again. We have proposed a “help to build” scheme, which would help small and medium-sized builders to access finance through the banks. Those builders tell us that access to finance is a key barrier to getting homes built, and we will help them overcome it.

Access to land is another key barrier. That is why we have set out plans to ensure that a higher proportion of small sites are allocated in local authority five-year land supplies, and we will give them guaranteed access to public land. The system is not releasing enough land for housing development, and by the time land is given planning permission it is often prohibitively expensive. That creates an incentive to bank land, rather than build on it.

According to documents written by the Minister’s Department and obtained by “Newsnight”, there are 9,000 sites with planning permission to build 350,000 new homes that have not yet been started. Under the current system, however, there is little that local authorities can do about land banking. That is why we would create greater transparency by ensuring that developers register the land they own. We will also give councils and communities the power to charge developers escalating fees for sitting on land with planning permission, to incentivise them to either build or release the land to someone who will. As a last resort, we would give local authorities the power to compulsorily purchase land, so that they could assemble the land and we could make progress.

The purpose of those measures is to address the imbalance of power between local communities and developers. There are also issues to be resolved between authorities. Where local authorities are landlocked but their communities need to expand, the Government’s duty to co-operate is nothing more than a duty to talk and talk. In my area—in Corby and East Northamptonshire—the two neighbouring district authorities have worked well together. There is a huge amount of house building—indeed, both Ministers on the Front Bench have been to see it—and Corby is set to double in size by 2020 because of that co-operation between neighbouring authorities. We need to have that all around the country, and that is why we will give communities the right to grow.

After four years of promises but inaction by this Government, we welcome the proposal for an urban development corporation to support the building of Ebbsfleet garden city. We are disappointed, however, that the Minister says there will not be a requirement for affordable housing. Garden cities can offer a considerable amount of social and affordable housing; that is part of the principles behind them. Labour is determined to bring forward plans to deliver a new generation of new towns and garden cities as part of fulfilling our commitment to build 200,000 new homes a year by 2020. The right to grow; use it or lose it on land banking; reform to the housing revenue account; backing small and medium-size builders; tackling empty homes; reforming the private rented sector; scrapping the cruel bedroom tax—those are serious measures to bring about the step change that we need to ensure that everyone gets a fair chance of having a good home. I urge hon. Members to support the motion.

15:47

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Nick Boles)]

This has been an illuminating and at times arresting debate. We have witnessed a near domestic in the household of the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford) and the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck). The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) has tantalised us with talk of an amendment that seemingly never was, and the contribution by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns) had, I fear, the absolute opposite of his desired effect because it made us all want to move to his constituency and put ourselves on the list of the excellent Chelmer housing authority.

My hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George) spoke movingly about the particular issues facing areas that are attractive to people who want second homes. He sits next to my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), who will have similar issues in the beautiful end of the country that he represents. I hope that both my hon. Friends will be able to explore the potential for community land trusts to provide a form of housing for sale that can be secured in permanence for people on typical average local incomes.

I believe that the best contribution in this debate came from the Chair of the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government. He enjoined us all to recognise that we as a country, one Government after another, have been building too few homes for 30 years. He urged us to put aside debates about statistics—endlessly tedious debates, I might add—and instead to focus on a long-term cross-party strategy to correct our common failure. It will be hard—not least because the hon. Member for Corby (Andy Sawford) fired quite a few political bullets over the Dispatch Box in his winding-up speech—but I am going to try to follow the injunction of the distinguished Select Committee Chair. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman makes the point that this is the first time I have tried to do that. I feel that is a little harsh. But I promise not to do it again.

To build houses, we need a few basic things. As everyone has pointed out, the first thing we need more than anything is land. I am delighted that this Government have done the hard work of reforming planning policy to create the national planning policy framework, and I am even more delighted that the Labour party has agreed not to scrap it and to continue to work within that framework.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois) is about to leave his seat, let me say that I am very pleased that the Mayor of London and my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer have announced housing zones, working on ideas drawn up by the excellent organisation, Shelter, to bring forward brownfield sites in areas of desperate housing need. I look forward to a successful housing zone in my hon. Friend’s Enfield constituency.

I am delighted that the Chancellor is spearheading the right to build—a proposal included in the Budget—which is intended to provide small blocks of land for thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands or even millions of people who would rather not rely on a big house builder, but want to get on, hire a local builder and an architect and build themselves a house—and they often find that they can get it built a good deal cheaper, too. Again, I am glad that the Opposition have indicated their support for this initiative.

Proposals to bring forward land, then, are the first key step. I believe that this Government have done a lot, although it is taking a long time to come through—longer than any of us would have wanted to deliver the houses we need. It is right and proper that we have that as part of our long-term strategy.

The second thing we need is lots and lots of different institutions building homes. Sadly, as a result of the crash—I shall not get into the debate about where it came from; there was a crash and it was one of the worst this country has ever faced—where 5,000 firms were building between one and 10 houses a year in 2007, a few years later, there were fewer than 3,000 such firms. We have thus seen a collapse in the small and medium-sized builder market.

Every Member has talked about the falling off of council house building. I do not believe that any of us should be ideological about this issue. I want as many institutions that have the money and want to build houses to be able to do so. That is why I welcome the relaxation of the HRA borrowing cap announced by the Chancellor, for which bids are now being sought.

We need institutions to be able to get working capital in order to buy the land and to carry the land on their balance sheet while they are working through the planning process. That is why the Government have introduced a builder’s finance fund, and I am glad that the Opposition also have proposals to provide finance for small and medium-sized builders. In that long-term strategy, as well as a common approach on bringing forward land, there can be a common approach on ensuring that as many institutions as possible and as many individuals as possible are able to get on and build houses.

In addition, we need people who want to buy houses to be able to get mortgages. I am afraid that that is another thing that was entirely devastated by the crash. It was devastated perhaps for good reasons, with the banks, having over-extended themselves by lending people too much money off slightly flaky asset values and having gotten themselves into terrible problems, having to retrench and pull back their balance sheets to rebuild their equity reserves. As a result, for love nor money, people could not get a 95% mortgage—unless their daddy was very rich, in which case the mortgage probably was not needed in the first place. That explains why this Government have brought forward Help to Buy.

I know that the Opposition like to snipe about Help to Buy, but there is no question about it. Every house builder in the country will say that they are building again because they have people to sell to who are able to get mortgages. That is why I trust that once the heat of the election has subsided, the Opposition will acknowledge that Help to Buy is a key part of the long-term strategy for house building.

Notwithstanding my attempts to be bipartisan and ecumenical, I shall be urging my hon. Friends to oppose the motion. My reason for doing so is simply this: in the Opposition motion, there are some glib proposals, which I hope might work, but I fear that Opposition Members have not thought them through and that they might do more harm than good.

There is the proposal, simply named, for a “right to grow”. We heard a complaint about the duty to co-operate—the complaint that it involved endless conversations—but, when challenged on whether the “right to grow” meant a right just to impose, the Opposition said “No, of course there will be consultations.” What are consultations? Consultations are exactly the conversations that are happening as a result of the duty to co-operate. The boroughs surrounding Oxford have got together with the city of Oxford to produce a joint housing market study, so that they can understand jointly what their needs are and decide jointly how they will meet them. That is the duty to co-operate in action. Either we continue that approach, or we become more heavy-handed and we impose. I think it important to be honest: the right to grow certainly sounds more like an imposition, and I fear that those who apply it will find that they are building resentment, not houses.

I am troubled, too, by the glib approach to garden cities. The Government have been very clear about the fact that they are dying for local authorities to come forward with proposals for large new settlements which we could help to fund with a mixture of guarantees and other support, and which would deliver substantial amounts of new housing. We have made that plain for many, many years, but I have to say that we have not been overwhelmed with proposals as yet. The one place from which we did receive a proposal is the one place where we are providing that support: Ebbsfleet, where both local authorities want a garden city and absolutely see the need for it, and where we have responded by arranging for an urban development corporation to provide it.

The Opposition policy on garden cities means one of two things. Either it means that local authorities are invited to come forward with proposals for new garden settlements, in which case it is precisely the same as the Government’s current policy, or it means a proposal for Sir Michael Lyons—or some other distinguished gentleman or lady—to get out his red marker pen, look at a map of England, and start drawing his own maps of where those garden cities will go. It must be one or the other. Either it is a voluntary process in which local authorities—

[Emma Reynolds]

It is in between.

[Nick Boles]

Oh, it is in between! Everything is “in between” when the detail becomes awkward, but the detail is the responsibility of Government. We cannot smoosh around the words and hide among the vagaries when we are in government, which is why that policy, too, is a dangerous one.

There is also the proposal to confiscate land from builders who do not build. There is nothing more frustrating for any of us than to see a site that has had planning permission for a while not being built out, but it is important that we ask ourselves what the fundamental reasons are for that. Usually, it is because the site will not make money if it is built out and sold on now. We must also ask ourselves this: what will be the result of our saying to builders “We are going to force you to build out, or else we will take the land away from you”? I fear—and not as a result of any ideological prejudices—that there will be fewer applications for planning permission and fewer houses for which development is proposed, and that we will have made the problem worse.

The Chairman of the Select Committee is right. On either side of the House, we have not yet succeeded in solving this problem. We must work together to establish a long-term strategy in order to do so, but I do not believe that the proposals in the Opposition motion will achieve that, and I therefore urge the House to reject it.

Question put.

15:59

Division 34

Ayes: 235

---

Labour: 223
Democratic Unionist Party: 6
Plaid Cymru: 3
Social Democratic & Labour Party: 2
Independent: 1
Alliance: 1
Green Party: 1

Noes: 291

---

Conservative: 247
Liberal Democrat: 43

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

I now have to announce the result of a Division deferred from a previous day. On the question relating to the draft Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (Amendment of Schedule 1: injunctions to prevent gang-related violence) Order 2014, the Ayes were 274 and the Noes were 203, so the Ayes have it.

[The Division list is published at the end of today’s debates.]

Technical and Vocational Education

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Commons Chamber

16:15

[Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes that the previous Government rescued the idea of apprenticeships and quadrupled apprenticeship starts; furthermore believes that a transformation in vocational education has eluded Governments for decades; therefore believes that the UK needs a new settlement for those young people who do not wish to pursue the traditional route into university and the world of work; and further believes that in order to achieve a high status vocational education system that delivers a high-skill, high-value economy the UK needs a new Technical Baccalaureate qualification as a gold standard vocational pathway achieved at 18, a new National Baccalaureate framework of skills and qualifications throughout the 14 to 19 phase, the study of mathematics and English for all to age 18, for all large public contracts to have apprenticeship places, new employer-led apprenticeships at level 3 and new technical degrees.

This motion is further testimony to the Labour party’s belief that education offers the surest means to deliver social justice, economic competitiveness and a route out of the fearful isolationist impulse adopted by the UK Independence party and increasingly by the Conservative party. Labour wants a skilled Britain, not a little England. In just under a month’s time, we shall mark the 70th anniversary of the Education Act 1944. The Minister for Skills and Enterprise likes to compare himself with the young Winston, but that Education Act was the product of a slightly more heroic coalition—a genuinely cross-party one-nation moment to broaden the focus of education and extend its emancipatory power to all classes. This, along with the national health service that the Conservatives tried to block, was to be the centre point of the post-war new Jerusalem. As Winston Churchill said, it would be a society in which,

“the advantages and privileges which hitherto have been enjoyed only by the few, shall be far more widely shared by the men and youth of the nation as a whole.”

Yet the sad truth, at least as far as education is concerned, is that we are still waiting for this new Jerusalem. In post-war Germany, Ernest Bevin implemented a new era of technical and vocational excellence, but in Britain, Rab Butler’s plans were stymied at birth and the technical school’s roots of the tripartite system never truly materialised.

Our ambition in office is to right that wrong and to do what this Government, with their narrow focus on free schools and curriculum tinkering, have signally failed to achieve. We do so because our economic future depends on it. Our shortage of technicians, engineers and skilled apprentices is hindering growth and a more balanced economy.

[Sir Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)]

I am slightly disappointed by the partisan note in the hon. Gentleman’s remarks. The truth is that apprenticeships were ignored by generations of politicians. The previous Government, to their great credit, started the process of rehabilitation. The present Government have continued the work. We should celebrate that consensus and that spirit of shared endeavour and not score party points.

[Tristram Hunt]

I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for his work with the engineering sector. The fact of the matter is that we are not delivering the results. The Royal Academy of Engineering forecasts that the UK needs an extra 50,000 STEM technicians and 90,000 STEM professionals every year just to replace people retiring from the work force. Similarly, new nuclear capacity could boost the UK economy by an estimated £5 billion and create more than 30,000 jobs, but the sector needs thousands of new recruits a year.

If we want to build a high-skill, high-wage economy, we need to build a recovery that delivers for working people. We need an education system that marries the vocational with the academic, and values what people can do alongside what they know. The modern workplace demands non-routine analytic and interactive skills. Businesses want employees who are innovative, flexible, creative team players. Sadly, that has not been the focus of Her Majesty’s Government. At exactly the point when we need a long-term economic plan, there is absolutely nothing in sight.

[Mr Brooks Newmark (Braintree) (Con)]

rose—

[Tristram Hunt]

Talking of which.

[Mr Newmark]

Will the hon. Gentleman explain why the number of people not in education, employment or training went up by a third under a Labour Government?

[Tristram Hunt]

We have a proud record of tackling unemployment and youth unemployment. We championed the delivery of young people into work with a future jobs fund which this Government scrapped when they came into office. As this week’s CBI—

[The Minister for Skills and Enterprise (Matthew Hancock)]

rose—

[Tristram Hunt]

I would have thought the Minister would want to listen to what the CBI has to say. This week’s CBI survey found that 58% of businesses are not confident that they will have enough highly skilled staff available for their future needs, which is up from 46% last year. [Interruption.] I know the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) is keen on maths, so let me tell her that that is a rise of 12% in a single year under this Government. The Government’s focus has been on tinkering with the curriculum, undermining teaching and introducing a mishandled free schools policy.

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that simply converting short-term vocational training programmes under the apprenticeship brand only damages that brand? What employers want are highly skilled, highly motivated individuals to ensure that we have a world-class work force.

[Tristram Hunt]

My hon. Friend speaks of what he knows, and he is absolutely right about the devaluing of apprenticeships under this Government, which I shall come to.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

I know my hon. Friend agrees that the lack of skills is one of the biggest impediments to our development as a country. Skills are essential to the prosperity of this nation. Does he agree that it is a great shame, and says everything about this Government, that the Secretary of State for Education is not in the Chamber for this essential debate?

[Tristram Hunt]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention, and normally I would be 100% behind him and seek to knock it out of the park, but on this occasion the Education Secretary has organised an international conference of educators here in the UK, which is not a bad place for the UK to be. However, my instincts are with my hon. Friend.

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

I urge my hon. Friend to continue making party political points, because they are rather good. Will he add that too many Government Members have no history of further education or technical colleagues, as I do? I did my A-levels at Kingston technical college.

[Tristram Hunt]

My hon. Friend is exactly right.

Talking of political divisions, the Government’s focus, as we have seen, has been not on the vocational demands of our education system but on tinkering with the curriculum and a free schools policy. At the Skills Minister’s favourite school, the Swedish private equity free school IES Breckland, which he has supported so much, Ofsted discovered “inadequate” teaching, poor behaviour and declining student literacy levels. The Swedish for-profit model that the Government were so keen to import has been exposed and discredited in the Skills Minister’s own backyard—responsible for one of the biggest falls in educational standards anywhere in the world.

[Matthew Hancock]

I am grateful that the hon. Gentleman broke away from his overly partisan tone when mentioning the Secretary of State, who apologises for not being able to be here. My right hon. Friend made it clear that if the Labour party had made this the first and most important debate this afternoon, he would have been here at the Labour party’s request. He would have liked to have been here, but the Labour party chose to make this the second debate, and therefore he cannot, and so I shall be responding for the Government.

[Tristram Hunt]

The record will note that the Skills Minister did not want to defend IES Breckland and the free schools policy.

We are beginning to see a widening attainment gap, but it is on vocational education where the Government’s negligence hits hardest. The Government are failing young people who want a gold-standard technical education, and they are not securing our skills base.

Let us be clear about the Government’s record. The number of apprenticeship starts by under-25s has fallen by 11,324 since 2010. The number of STEM apprenticeships for 16 to 24-year-olds has fallen by more than 7,000 since 2010. Too many apprentices in England are existing employees, not new job entrants, and too many are over 25. Let us add to that the Government’s scandalous destruction of careers advice.

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

The hon. Gentleman’s motion refers to the United Kingdom, but he will know that in Scotland vocational education and skills development is devolved and the cross-party Wood commission is looking at that very issue. Does he intend to overrule what has been proposed in the Scottish Parliament in favour of his proposals, or did he just get a bit confused when drafting the motion?

[Tristram Hunt]

We will devolve our skills budgets to a regional, local level in England, because we believe that those decisions are best made locally.

[Karen Lumley (Redditch) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is being very talkative, but what practical steps has he taken? How many skills and apprenticeship fairs, such as the one I held in Redditch on Friday, have he and his Front-Bench team held in their constituencies?

[Tristram Hunt]

I pay tribute to the hon. Lady for the work she has done to promote skills in Redditch. I have seen some great schools there that are combining vocational and academic work, such as the RSA academy, and I know how important that is.

Sadly, this Government have undermined careers advice. Thanks to their reforms, prisoners now have more access to careers advice than school pupils. In 2013 the Education Committee raised its concerns about

“the consistency, quality, independence and impartiality of careers guidance now being offered to young people.”

Similarly, Ofsted has found that only one in six schools offer individual careers guidance from a qualified external adviser. For the Labour party, this is a matter of both social justice and economic efficiency. For those young people without the networks and internships, decent careers guidance is essential. Similarly, the complexity of navigating a vocational technical course, mixing an apprenticeship with further education provision, demands decent advice and information. All the colleges I have visited, from Dudley to Chichester, Manchester to Tamworth and Lambeth to Stoke-on-Trent, complain that they are not being properly promoted to potential students.

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman welcome the creation of university technical colleges across the country, including the one that is due to be built in my constituency? At the same time, apprenticeship places have more than doubled since the general election and youth unemployment has fallen by more than a third. Does he welcome those three things?

[Tristram Hunt]

The hon. Gentleman has clearly been reading the Adonis review, as we look forward to more university technical colleges opening under the forthcoming Labour Government, but we must keep a watch on the quality of provision in UTCs and ensure that they are rolled out appropriately.

The coalition Government’s third mistake was an overly restrictive approach to syllabus reform. I agreed with much of what the Wolf report said about cutting the number of semi-vocational qualifications with over-inflated GCSE equivalents. I also think that it is absolutely right that pupils from working-class backgrounds in Stoke-on-Trent and elsewhere have full access to academic courses, but the current balance within the Progress 8 attainment measures can often seem out of kilter if we want young people to pursue engineering, design and technology, and art.

Similarly, the destruction of practical learning in the curriculum is very worrying. From geography to physics, the move to a more knowledge-focused curriculum, although important in some respects, has seen a withering away of skills, whether field trips, speaking skills or project work. This Government are undermining a powerful component of English education.

[Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab)]

I recently had the pleasure of taking my hon. Friend to visit the BRIT school in Croydon, which is sadly the only state school of its kind anywhere in the country. It has a very strong relationship with the music and performance industry. Does he agree with the young people we met there that the Government’s downgrading of vocational qualifications downgrades their hard work and their futures?

[Tristram Hunt]

I absolutely agree; dance, drama, art, design and creativity are among the most successful components of modern English in our culture and economic competitiveness. We need an education system that will promote and inspire that. Sadly, however, Ofsted, to which I would have thought the Ministers would have paid some heed, has stated:

“too many school leavers are not well-enough equipped scientifically with practical, investigative and analytical skills.”

That cannot be in the long-term interests of this country.

[Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

I am slightly worried about the hon. Gentleman and others on the Opposition Benches who seem to have been overtaken by mass amnesia. Does he not remember that the Labour Government presided over an entire generation of 16 to 24-year-olds who are now likely to have fewer skills than their grandparents? We are the only country in the western world where that is the case. Will he apologise for that?

[Tristram Hunt]

The hon. Lady should worry no more, because in 10 months’ time we will have a Labour Government delivering a sustainable education and skills policy.

Our motion talks of

“a new settlement for those young people who do not wish to pursue the traditional route into university”.

Let me lay out the Labour party’s ambition for Government to deliver equal status for vocational qualifications from school to university and beyond, to provide clear routes for highly skilled technical or professional careers and to have a dynamic, modern education system that will ensure that Britain can compete as an innovative, productive economy. We shall start with technical baccalaureates for 16 to 19-year-olds, in order to provide a clear, high-status vocational route through education. That is a Labour policy. The tech bacc will include quality level 3 vocational qualifications and a work placement to provide a line of sight through education into employment.

Our next policy is to ensure, unlike this Government, that all young people continue to study English or maths to the age of 18. These are the most essential of all 21st-century skills, and getting them right is fundamental to future career prospects. That does not mean asking young people to redo their GCSEs over and over again. Rather, it means ensuring that applied, functional and useful English and maths will help them to succeed with their careers. We will have slimline English and maths courses designed to complement a student’s core programme of study.

Furthermore, we think that English and maths should be part of an ambitious national baccalaureate framework for all learners. Alongside core academic or vocational learning in English and maths, we want young people to undertake a collaborative project and a personal development programme, which would nurture the character, the resilience and the employability skills of all our young people. Much of the tech bacc route will be delivered through further education colleges.

[Mr Sheerman]

My hon. Friend will recall that the Skills Commission inquiry into pathways at 14, chaired by Mike Tomlinson and Ian Ferguson, strongly recommended GCSE papers in practical English and practical maths. Does he think that that would be a good way forward?

[Tristram Hunt]

We want an education system in which those young people who wish to pursue technical and vocational pathways have a grounding in English and maths that will allow them to succeed in their own fields, and in which there is a much greater interrelationship between the academic and vocational pathways. That kind of qualification would provide exactly that.

This Government have hammered further education provision. They can find £45 million for a Harris free school in Westminster, but they have done that by slashing funding for further education learners and sixth-form colleges. That is a scandalous set of priorities. We will work with FE providers to improve teaching and to ensure that colleges focus on local labour markets. Our highest performing FE colleges will become institutes of technical education with a core mission to deliver Labour’s tech bacc and the on-the-job components of apprenticeships.

I have laid out the Government’s mendacious record of spin and subterfuge on apprenticeships. We will deal with the devaluing of apprenticeships by introducing a universal gold standard level 3 qualification lasting two years. We will ensure that every firm that wants a major Government contract offers apprenticeships. We will also ensure that employers are involved in the development of apprenticeships by giving them support over standards and funding.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

On apprenticeship figures, would the hon. Gentleman be interested to know that, according to the House of Commons, apprenticeship starts are up by 62.8% in Hexham? Indeed, apprenticeships are up significantly in every single one of the 29 seats in the north-east of England,.

[Tristram Hunt]

The fact is that the number of starts for under-25s has gone down by 11,400. Ministers can rebadge their apprenticeships and reconfigure the figures as much as they like, but people in the country know that on apprenticeships, this lot are not to be believed. [Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman may be making points that are not amenable to those on the Government Benches, but he must be heard, no matter what he wants to say.

[Tristram Hunt]

I think, Madam Deputy Speaker, that a national baccalaureate might enable the Minister to learn about character, self-control and resilience in these kinds of situations. If he wants to pursue life-long learning, that is an ambition Labour Members absolutely pursue.

[Matthew Hancock]

rose—

[Tristram Hunt]

I am trying to conclude.

The culmination of our vision for young people on a technical or vocational pathway is our new plan, announced by the Leader of the Opposition yesterday, for technical degrees. These courses will be designed by some of our best universities and our leading employers, teaching people the skills they need to prosper in the new economy. Currently, just 2% of apprenticeships are available at degree level. For the first time, those who have excelled in vocational education and training—those who have gained a first-rate tech bacc and completed a level 3 apprenticeship—will be able to take their aspirations further. For the first time, young people will have the chance to earn while they learn at university, with a degree that provides a clear route to a high-skilled technical or professional career.

At the next general election, we have a choice between a Labour party determined to equip an outward-facing Britain with the skills and education it needs to succeed and, on the other hand, coalition parties tinkering with the curriculum here and there, increasing the number of unqualified teachers, and promoting for-profit schooling. It is a choice between more young engineers and more IES Breckland free schools; between a modern curriculum focused on thinking and doing, building character and creativity and harnessing the aspirations of all young people, and the narrow exam-factory model of recent years; and between a low-wage, low-skill, business-as-usual race to the bottom and a high-skill, high-innovation economy that works for all. Only one party is offering this country an economy and an education system fit for the punishing demands of the 21st century. I commend the motion to the House.

16:34

[The Minister for Skills and Enterprise (Matthew Hancock)]

We heard a regrettable tone from Labour in opening this debate. Before going into the details of the radical reforms of vocational education that we are undertaking to promote apprenticeships and to strengthen vocational qualifications, it is worth going through a couple of points of detail.

The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) stated that the number of apprenticeships for those under 25 has fallen by 11,000 since 2010. He refused to take my intervention, probably because he knew I was going to point out that figures show that since 2010 the number of apprenticeships for those under 25 has risen by 49,000. He mentioned careers advice but forgot to mention the new National Careers Service, which has 3,700 careers advisers who have in the past year delivered 1 million pieces of careers advice. He did not even know that education is a devolved area of policy and talked about education across the UK. On the withering away of skills in science, according to Ofsted that is precisely the legacy we were left by the Labour party. On degree-level apprenticeships—I take this one as a personal compliment—he was critical of their representing only 2% of apprenticeships. I introduced degree-level apprenticeships this time last year, and under Labour there were no degree-level apprenticeships. Perhaps now we know why the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) left the Chamber halfway through the opening speech—it was to go and cross off another name from his list of leadership challengers.

[Mr Rob Wilson (Reading East) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way, because the shadow Education Secretary would not do so when I tried very hard to get in earlier on. I listened very carefully to the shadow Education Secretary and heard a lot of top-down stuff, but very little about business. Why would he be so afraid of talking about business? Is it because his party is the anti-business party?

[Matthew Hancock]

It is certainly true that Labour is the anti-business party, but it is much more worrying that the Labour party seems to oppose our reforms to bring the world of education and the world of work closer together. We are undertaking the most radical reform of vocational education in Britain for a generation. We have swept aside thousands of qualifications that employers did not value and replaced them with clear tech awards, tech levels and the tech bacc, which the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central mentioned and which starts in September. We have boosted apprenticeship numbers—there are record numbers under this Government—and introduced higher-quality apprenticeships that reflect the modern economy, and strengthened the requirements for English and maths.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

I have raised this point before, but I think it would be useful to do so again. The Minister is currently consulting on changing the apprenticeship rules, and 400 businesses, including small and medium-sized enterprises in the north-west, have responded by raising very serious concerns about the future for apprenticeships under his proposals. Why will he not address their legitimate concerns and ensure we can have those apprenticeships in the future?

[Matthew Hancock]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right that we have to ensure that the reformed apprenticeships are super simple, especially for small businesses, but representatives of 500,000 businesses wrote in support of the principle of the reforms and that is why we are going ahead with them.

The reforms are starting to pay off. Standards are starting to rise. Youth unemployment, which rose 40% in the first decade of this century under the Labour Government, is falling—it is down 10% over the past year—and is lower than it was at the election.

[Mr Newmark]

I would almost like two bites of the cherry by asking a question about youth unemployment as well, but I will not do so. The shadow Education Secretary said that our performance on vocational courses was lamentable, but is my hon. Friend aware that the proportion of 16 to 19-year-olds studying at least one of the post-16 level 3 vocational courses available—[Interruption.] I am actually delivering the facts, which might be helpful. Is my hon. Friend aware that that proportion rose from 100,000 under Labour to 185,000 under this Government?

[Matthew Hancock]

I will have to add that to my list of erroneous facts from the Labour party that need sorting out.

[Mr John Denham (Southampton, Itchen) (Lab)]

Does not a more measured view of the history tell us the following: in 1997, fewer than 20,000 people completed apprenticeships, but by the time the previous Labour Government had finished, 285,000 people were starting apprenticeships each year? That number has continued to grow, but there are legitimate concerns about an increasing number of late starts and a smaller proportion of youthful starts, and those are the issues we need to address.

[Matthew Hancock]

That intervention was rather better than the whole speech given by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central. It is absolutely true that modern apprenticeships were started by the great Lord Hunt of Wirral in 1994 and they grew. Under this Government, they have doubled in number and the latest figures show an increase in the proportion of apprentices who are under 25, which I welcome. More apprenticeships are good news, but we have to make sure that they are also of a high quality.

[Steve Rotheram]

Will the Minister give way?

[Matthew Hancock]

I will take this intervention, because I think I know what the hon. Gentleman is going to say.

[Steve Rotheram]

I hope not. When I was first elected in 2010, I took on an apprentice who has turned out to be an absolutely fantastic employee. How many of the Minister’s colleagues on the Tory Front Bench have put their money where their mouths are and taken on apprentices?

[Matthew Hancock]

Plenty have done so, including me. I went out to recruit one apprentice and came away with two because the applicants were so good. They are both absolutely brilliant. There are many more in the Department—there are now 58 apprentices in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. I recommend an apprentice to everyone.

[Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)]

It might help my hon. Friend to know that, as an employer, I took on an apprentice under the Labour Government. The course he was required to do and the apprenticeship bore no relationship to, and were a disaster for, each other. Quality as well as quantity has improved in recent years, which is a point Labour Members always forget.

[Matthew Hancock]

That is certainly true. I want to address an important point sensibly made by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram). He asked whether too many apprenticeships are short courses and whether they are not high enough quality. It is true that the Government inherited a system in which apprenticeships could be less than six months. That was wrong, so we have said that every apprenticeship must be for a minimum of a year. We have increased quality while increasing the number of apprentices.

It is good news for the nation that the Opposition have accepted their failure in office—the wording of their motion shows that they forgot half the population— and now back our reforms. Some say that imitation is flattery, and I suppose they are right. On Sunday, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central called for a new elite grade of master teachers. That sounds like a good idea, and we have them. They are called specialist leaders in education—top teachers who get dedicated training and share their expertise with other schools. There are 3,800 of them in England. By next year, we will have 5,000.

On improving reforms and driving up standards, the hon. Gentleman mentioned technical degrees, which the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) described yesterday. They sound like a good idea, and we have them. More than 200 colleges already teach technical degrees. It is called higher education in further education. I suggest he goes around the country and has a look.

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

May I return the Minister to the subject of apprenticeships? Apprenticeships need to be of a decent length, but they also need to be high quality. There have been steps forward on both, but the other vital element of a successful apprenticeship is that it should be income transformative—it should lead to a significant increase in the market value of the person doing it. Has he looked at any mechanisms that could be put in place to ensure that, however worthy in concept apprenticeships are, they are held to account for delivering true market transformation of income expectation for the people who take them, young or old?

[Matthew Hancock]

Absolutely. The evidence shows that apprentices on the existing scheme increase their lifetime earnings, but we are not content to rest, so we are redesigning apprenticeship standards. Four hundred employers from different sectors of the economy are engaged to ensure not only that the training is rigorous, which is important, but that it responds to the needs of employers and gets people into higher-paid jobs. We want to ensure that the money that we, on behalf of taxpayers, put into subsidising apprenticeships, is well spent and that we get value for it. Ensuring that the money helps people to get higher-paid jobs is a vital part of that reform. I welcome any suggestions on how to entrench that link between what is taught to apprentices and the needs of employers. That can lead to higher pay for young people, which is what the policy is all about.

[Mr Newmark]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important to have joined-up thinking in government? The Chancellor’s proposal, working with the Million Jobs campaign, to abolish national insurance for young people who get jobs, saves employers about £500 a year, and gives them the extra impetus they need to hire a young person.

[Matthew Hancock]

As my hon. Friend may well know, I am an enormous fan of the work of the Million Jobs campaign. The idea that we should not require national insurance from those who employ young people under the age of 21 is such a good one that the Chancellor put it in the Budget.

[Bill Esterson]

I am happy to withdraw my earlier remarks about the Secretary of State’s absence.

On quality and ensuring that apprenticeships do the job needed for the economy and for the individuals involved, does the Minister accept that we need the same approach as in Germany, where vocational and academic qualifications are of the same quality and have the same status? Does he agree that we need to offer apprenticeships in businesses of all sizes? That happens in Germany, but is it really happening in this country? I do not think it is.

[Matthew Hancock]

It was gracious of the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his remarks about the Secretary of State.

In the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, the number of apprenticeships has gone up by 118% since the election, so I know that he is a supporter of apprenticeships. Of course we must ensure that we drive up their quality. More than half of apprenticeships are in small and medium-sized enterprises, so they can be got in smaller businesses. An important part of the reform is to ensure that they work for small businesses as well as large ones, and that is happening at the moment.

The crucial point is that apprenticeships are based not only on the needs of employers, but on the basics, especially the key vocational skills of maths and English. We are strengthening maths and English at primary and secondary school, but it is shocking that, despite recent improvements, 40% of pupils do not get GCSEs at A* to C in English and maths by the age of 16. It is a national scandal that nine out of 10 of those who do not reach that basic standard by 16 do not achieve it by 19 either.

Under Labour, Britain was the only major country where young people were less numerate and literate than their grandparents, and we became one of the few major countries that did not insist on continued studies of maths and literacy for those who did not get such qualifications the first time around. We are ending that scandal. From September, all students will for the first time have to continue studying maths and English if they do not get a good GCSE, which will improve the life chances of millions.

[Mr Steve Reed]

I am sure that the Minister understands that it is important for many young people who do not gain the qualifications they need at school to be able to go back to college to get them later on. Will he therefore take this opportunity to apologise for trying to impose on Croydon college the largest cuts in the country for 18-year-olds in further education, despite the continuing high levels of unemployment in many parts of the borough?

[Matthew Hancock]

The hon. Gentleman mentions unemployment in Croydon. In his constituency, it has fallen by 29% over the past year, and the number of apprenticeships has increased by 170% since the election, so he should be saying thank you very much. As for the difficulties of managing a tight budget, whose fault is that? It is the fault of the Labour party, which left us with the biggest deficit in modern peacetime history.

[Mr Sheerman]

I apologise for having made a political point earlier. People outside the House are worried about the fact that we get into an argy-bargy between the two parties. [Interruption.] Come on. Surely there must be commonality of purpose in doing something for the young people in this country who do not go down the higher education route. Will the Minister please now give his attention to the further education sector? As hon. Members from either side of the House who care about this know, we must galvanise the FE sector to deliver what we want.

[Matthew Hancock]

Absolutely, and I am happy to work with the hon. Gentleman and the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr Denham), who spoke so powerfully earlier. It is a great pity that the Front-Bench spokesman’s speech was one of unremitting negativity and, crucially, that it was based on an utter misunderstanding of what is happening in vocational education. The reforms we are pushing through are about driving up standards, having higher expectations and ensuring that more young people have the chance to achieve their potential. Instead of saying that 50% should go to university and not caring—indeed, forgetting—about the rest of them, we are making sure that all young people get the chance to succeed.

[Guy Opperman]

Like the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram), I have hired and trained an apprentice, who I have retained for the past four years. She is outstanding and has been a great success.

To take the Minister back to what he said a moment ago about education funding on a difficult budget, is it not fantastic that the fairer funding formula has been readdressed so that—in these difficult times—Northumberland, for example, will from next April have an extra £10 million for schools that have been so underfunded for so long?

[Matthew Hancock]

Of course it is. Furthermore, in the 16 to 18 sector, instead of providing funding on the basis of how many qualifications young people take, we are providing it on a per pupil basis, with extra support for those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. That has strengthened the funding for those who take fewer qualifications, and it provides an incentive for FE colleges and schools to do what is right for the young person.

The second part of our reform is about strengthening qualifications and having clearer pathways through tech awards, tech levels and the tech bacc. People must know that, instead of the mushy muddle that went before, we have strong and clear vocational pathways that are endorsed by employers.

The third and final strand is apprenticeships. In the previous Parliament, there were just over 1 million apprenticeship starts. We are on track to deliver 2 million apprenticeships over this Parliament. We have doubled the number of apprenticeships and driven up quality. There are stronger English and maths requirements. Apprenticeships now have a minimum duration of a year. Employers have been given the pen to design apprenticeship standards. We are reforming funding so that the training that apprentices receive follows the needs of employers.

As apprenticeships become more stretching, we are, for the first time, introducing traineeships for young people who need extra help with work experience, maths and English so that they have the skills and behaviour that they need to hold down an apprenticeship or a sustainable job. We are reforming the advice that young people receive so that they can be inspired by work experience, and we are ensuring that there are more mentors. We are reforming league tables so that schools are rewarded not only for exam results, but for where their pupils end up to take account of whether they get to university, get into an apprenticeship or end up not in education, employment or training. That change never happened in 13 years under the Labour party.

It is rapidly becoming the norm across the country that when young people leave school or college, they go into an apprenticeship or go to university. Our job is not to set arbitrary targets, but to ensure that there are high-quality options in both those areas. We must bring together the worlds of work and education, and break down the apartheid between academic and vocational education to give all young people the skills, knowledge and behaviour that they need to succeed. This task is vital. Yes, it is part of our long-term economic plan, but it is more than that—it is a battle for social mobility and a moral mission for social justice. The Government know that social justice is about earned reward and that jobs are created by endeavour, not handouts. There can be no higher justice than economic opportunity for all. That is our policy and these are our tools. We are ending the previous Government’s decade of neglect for vocational education so that every young person can reach their potential.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. To continue the Minister and shadow Minister’s theme of equal opportunity, rather than imposing a formal time limit on Back-Bench speeches, I thought that I might experiment with a voluntary limit and see whether Members can behave courteously. In order that everyone who wishes to speak has an equal opportunity so to do, it would be helpful if Members limited their remarks to seven minutes. If that does not work, I will impose a time limit.

16:54

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

I am very pleased that the shadow Secretary of State called for this debate, because we have to make education and skills this country’s No. 1 priority. The biggest question that we face, as a country, is how we can bring new, better-paid and more secure jobs to places such as Dudley, which have lost their traditional industries. The only way our country will pay its way in this century, let alone prosper, is by equipping the British people with the skills that they need to compete. There is no more urgent priority or task.

Children who are at school today will spend their adult lives working with technologies that have not yet been invented, and that we cannot even imagine. On average, those who leave school today will have more than a dozen jobs over their lifetime. The key thing that they have to learn is how to adapt and acquire new skills. However, the CBI’s education and skills survey in 2013 found that nearly a third of employers were dissatisfied with school leavers’ basic literacy and numeracy. Too few students have good English and maths GCSEs by the time they reach 18.

Germany has three times as many apprentices as the UK. The number of young apprentices—those who are under the age of 19—is falling, as is the number of apprentices in information technology and construction. It is good that the Minister has introduced degree-level apprenticeships, but they account for less than 2% of apprenticeships.

Britain is also falling behind our competitors in basic numeracy and literacy. In basic skills, we now lag behind not only countries such as Finland, South Korea and Germany but even Estonia, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. England is the only country in the developed world where the generation approaching retirement is more literate and numerate than the one entering the work force.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

And when did that happen?

[Ian Austin]

If I may say so, that is a narrow party political point. I believe that the last Government took many great steps in education and skills, and if the hon. Gentleman bothers to listen, he might discover that I am saying some things that he and his party’s Front Benchers actually agree with. He ought to sit down, listen carefully and then perhaps contribute later to a serious debate about what I am saying should be the No. 1 priority for every political party.

We should agree as a country—all parties, Government, schools, universities, the teaching profession and businesses—clear long-term targets to transform education and ensure that we have the skills that we need to compete. We should set an ambition for Britain to produce the best-educated and most highly skilled young people in the world. Someone is going to do that, so why can it not be us? We have to drive up standards in our schools and get behind head teachers and teachers who are working to improve standards. If we recruit good teachers, motivate them, set high aspirations and tough targets, focus on standards and discipline and make the kids believe in themselves, the sky is the limit.

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

Does my hon. Friend agree that companies such as Jaguar Land Rover need highly skilled and highly qualified technicians? Fairly recently, they were having difficulty recruiting them. If we cannot get people with high skills and technological qualifications, how will we expand our manufacturing base in the west midlands, for example? Does he agree that that is critical to the area?

[Ian Austin]

I completely agree. That is a critical issue, particularly in the black country, where we are getting the new engine plant. It is fantastic that Jaguar Land Rover is sponsoring a university technical college, and skills are crucial not just for JLR but for all the people in its supply chain.

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman and I both represent parts of Dudley. Does he agree that we need better matching of skills and employers? The black country local growth deal, signed this week, will bring significant investment to both Halesowen college and Dudley college in his constituency; it will go a long way towards addressing the issue that the hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) mentioned.

[Ian Austin]

I welcome every penny that will be spent on improving the facilities at Dudley college. It is fantastic that we will get a new construction centre to go alongside the new manufacturing centre that is being built, the new sixth-form college, and the new college buildings that the shadow Secretary of State visited a couple of weeks ago, which were funded entirely locally, rather than by central Government.

Research by the Sutton Trust shows that bringing the lowest-performing 10% of teachers in the UK up to the average would make our country the third best-performing country in reading, and the fifth best in maths—subjects in which we currently fail to make the top 20.

We need to recruit and train a new generation of head teachers. Ellowes Hall, a comprehensive school in my constituency, has gone from fewer than four in 10 students getting five good GCSEs a few years ago, to more than eight in 10 doing so today. They are kids from the same families, and largely with the same teachers, but what has changed is that there is a brilliant new head teacher, Andy Griffiths. We need to find new ways of identifying, recruiting and training head teachers and improving the quality of teaching. We should expand Teach First massively, and I commend the shadow Secretary of State’s proposal to introduce a new master teacher status, inspired by education reforms in Singapore. We should find new ways of enabling popular, well run and financially sound schools that are consistently over-subscribed to access the funding they need to expand, so that parents can send their children to the schools they want to, not ones that they would prefer them not to have to go to.

We should expand Lord Baker’s brilliant work on university technical colleges. Unfortunately, our bid for a UTC in Dudley was not successful, but undeterred, Lowell Williams, the brilliant principal of Dudley college, is working with local employers and Aston university to open Dudley Advance, a new technology and manufacturing centre that will soon be open to help students of all ages get new skills and jobs. We should aim for all apprenticeships to provide level 3 qualifications and to last for two years, and insist that every firm that wants major Government contracts provides apprenticeships. We need higher education, and a university campus in every town. It is a scandal that Dudley is England’s biggest town with no university campus.

People say to me, “Look Ian, what’s the point of going to university when there aren’t the jobs afterwards?”, but they are completely wrong. More than 94% of students who graduated from the university of Wolverhampton in 2013 are in work or undertaking further study. Three out of four were working in graduate-level professional and managerial jobs earning graduate-level salaries, with 60% earning between £15,000 and £30,000, and more than a fifth earning between £30,000 and £60,000. Scores of its students have gone on to set up their own business. Under Vice-Chancellor Geoff Layer’s leadership, Wolverhampton is achieving its ambition to be the university of opportunity, contributing to the local economy and economic regeneration, providing the skills and knowledge our economy needs, helping local businesses grow and succeed, setting up new businesses, and creating jobs and wealth in the black country.

Despite accounting for just 7% of school pupils, those from independent schools represent seven out of 10 High Court judges, more than half our leading journalists and doctors, and more than a third of MPs. Just five public schools send more pupils to Oxford and Cambridge than 2,000 state schools. I therefore reiterate my call for Ministers and those on our Front Bench to take up the Sutton Trust’s open access proposals.

In conclusion, let us agree as a country to make education the No. 1 priority, and to have the best-educated young people in the world. Let us support teachers and heads in improving schools. We need more technical colleges, more apprentices, and more people studying for technical qualifications. Let us open up the best schools in the country to the brightest students, whatever their background. Better schools, better skills, better jobs—that should be our rallying cry for the 21st century.

17:07

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

What an excellent list of characteristics that was, and it is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin). I welcome today’s theme, because too often we focus on the part of our education system in which there are the fewest problems—the more academic routes. We should spend more of our time on the vocational routes that the majority of the population go through, which, as hon. Members have said, are harder to navigate. Those routes need to be made more navigable, and need to be linked closely to the needs of employers and the long-term earnings potential of the people who take them, whether they are young or not.

The Education Committee will soon launch its dedicated inquiry into apprenticeships and traineeships for 16 to 19-year-olds, so this debate is of particular interest to me and the rest of the Committee. Too often, vocational courses have been the Cinderella element in our education system, and denied the limelight given to academic qualifications that are sometimes perceived as more glamorous and socially transformative. This is a timely opportunity for the House to discuss how to change that.

Under the previous Government, getting as many young people as possible into university sometimes appeared to be an end in itself, regardless of whether that was necessarily a good deal for those young people, employers or wider society. I do not think that Ministers then thought of it that crudely, but that was the message that went out. It is important that we get the message right, so that the next generation has the right signals to make choices that will make the biggest difference to them.

It is regrettably true that overall, youth unemployment rose by 40% under the previous Government, and it did not go down in the boom years. That challenge was not new to the Labour Government, but there was a long-standing problem. Other countries such as Austria, Germany—famously—and the Netherlands had the same social problems and challenges, but managed to have fewer people ending up in unemployment, but even in the boom years we had high numbers of people in unemployment.

When I sat on the Children, Schools and Families Committee in the last Parliament, I used to challenge Ministers and ask them what counted as educational success. Was it the PISA—programme for international student assessment—tables, for example? One crude proxy would have to be ensuring that the educational system did not leave anyone completely behind, trapped in poverty for life and without a job. That is exactly what we had. It is so important for whoever is in government after next May that we get this right.

It is a priority to work out how to improve the offer made to the hundreds of thousands of young people who take vocational courses and enter the workplace every year. As I say, if anything, they face greater complexity than those who take academic courses. The Government inherited a remarkable 3,175 equivalent qualifications on offer in schools for 14 to 16-year-olds alone. As Alison Wolf reported, some of them were not worth the paper they were written on, so it was right to change that.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

Does the Chairman of the Select Committee recognise, however, as Alison Wolf did, that the most widely used qualifications, such as BTEC first and BTEC national, were valuable and necessary to the overall panoply?

[Mr Stuart]

I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman, whose expertise and interest in this issue is of long standing and dates from long before he came to this House. He is, of course, right in what he says, but in too many cases, institutions were putting young people on courses that they may or may not have known were of limited value, but that were in fact of little or no long-term value, because it suited the interest of the institution, rather than the interest of the young people. That is why it was right to look carefully at that problem.

When Professor Wolf published her review, she warned:

“The staple offer for between a quarter and a third of the post-16 cohort is a diet of low-level vocational qualifications, most of which have little to no labour market value…Among 16 to 19 year olds, the Review estimates that at least 350,000 get little or no benefit from the post-16 education system.”

That was a pretty terrible inheritance, with more than a third of a million people being educated at great public expense, with no benefit to themselves or the country as a whole. Both literally and metaphorically, Britain cannot afford to continue to fail young people in that way, and it is to the Minister’s credit that a considerable amount of work has been done, including the commissioning of the Wolf report.

Almost 100 university technical colleges and studio schools have been established. I hope there will be a Humber UTC in the not-too-distant future, and I know that the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) is working hard, championing it. I hope there will be involvement from companies such as Able UK, Total, Centrica Storage, Tata Steel and Clugston.

The Government have published a new 16-to-19 accountability framework, the headline measures of which focus on pupil progress, attainment, retention and destinations. Elsewhere, as others have commented, the apprenticeships programme has had rocket boosters put under it. It has been lengthened, and there have been improvements to quality.

Returning to the question about the number of apprenticeships raised by the shadow Secretary of State, if there are fewer 16-to-18 apprenticeships, more of them are a year long or longer; a year is now the minimum length. Overall, I do not know—I hope our inquiry will find out—whether the package for 16 to 18-year-olds is better than it was, in respect of quality and long-term impact. Whatever happens, we need to keep wrestling with the question—that is why my Select Committee will look further into it—of how to get more people in the young age group on to high-quality apprenticeships, particularly in view of concerns raised about the way in which some employers were training people who were already in their employ. Morrisons was criticised for some pretty short-term apprenticeships in supermarket skills that were unlikely to have been income-transformative—a point I raised earlier.

I am mindful of the time, so I shall try to conclude. I hope that we will keep focusing on vocational qualifications. It is the route that most people in this country follow. It is therefore the route that this House should focus on. Notwithstanding the excellent personal experience of the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), the truth is that Members of all parties have little personal experience of the further education sector and associated sectors. That is all the more reason why we need to focus on them, read about them, conduct inquiries into them and make them better. Our problem as a nation has not been the way in which we have educated the academic elite; it has been the fact that we have failed to make decent provision for a decent education, whether academic or vocational, that gives people an entitlement to the riches of our civilisation and access to the jobs market. Whoever is in power after next May, I hope this House will remain focused and determined to serve the part of the population that has most often been let down historically.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Members are tending to get As in rhetoric and Ds in arithmetic. Six minutes from now is 5.21 pm.

17:15

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

The debate is timely: timely because it is about opportunity and life chances, and timely because the discussion about opportunity and life chances in this country has become tied up with the discussion about immigration and our place in the world. It has been argued that opportunity will somehow be enhanced and pressure on public services will be eased by our keeping out workers who were born overseas, whatever steps that would require in terms of Britain’s place in the world.

The debate takes place against the backdrop of the publication of two important reports that shed light on that argument. The first—published a couple of weeks ago by the Education Committee, chaired by the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart)—is entitled “Underachievement in Education by White Working Class Children”. The second, published yesterday, is the Migration Advisory Committee’s report on the labour market impact of EU migration. I want to say a word about both reports.

According to the Education Committee’s report, the proportion of white children receiving free school meals who attain the benchmark standard of five good GCSEs including English and maths is only half the proportion of white children as a whole. Among other ethnic groups, the gap is much smaller. Among children from an Indian background it is just 15%, and among children from a Chinese background there is almost no attainment gap at all. Indeed, Chinese children receiving free school meals are, at this stage, the highest-achieving of any group at school—except for Chinese children who are not receiving free school meals, and even then the gap is tiny. So the attainment gap between children from low-income families and better-off children does not affect all children equally. Although there is an attainment gap, the fatalistic argument that deprivation can be used as an excuse to explain away educational failure does not hold up, because deprivation has such contrasting effects among different groups.

While the Education Committee’s report may give us cause for despair, it also gives us reason for hope. There is hope because the report draws attention to things that make a difference. It found that how highly a school is rated by Ofsted makes a “dramatic” difference to the performance of pupils. Just 25% of children receiving free school meals at a school that is rated “inadequate” will get five good GCSEs, but in schools that are rated “outstanding”, the figure is 50%. The more “good” and “outstanding” schools an area has, the more opportunity it will be providing for the children who need that opportunity most. The issue is urgent for cities such as Wolverhampton, which last year was judged by Ofsted to have a lower proportion of children attending schools rated “good” or “outstanding” than any other area in England. I believe that changing that situation should be the absolute top priority for the city that I represent.

In fact, despite that harsh verdict, there is hope and there is excellence in Wolverhampton. Holy Trinity Roman Catholic primary school in Bilston, which has twice as many pupils on the pupil premium as the national average, recently received an Ofsted report which states:

“This is an outstanding school. School leaders and governors are relentlessly focussed on securing the very best for their pupils. From the moment they start in the nursery, children achieve exceptionally well...by the time pupils leave in year 6 they are extremely well prepared for their next stage, educationally and personally...pupils eligible for the pupil premium make phenomenal progress and outperform all pupils in the school and all pupils nationally”.

Holy Trinity is a success because from the brilliant head, Carroll McNally, down, failure is not accepted. The school has the highest ambitions and wants the best for its children, and if Holy Trinity can do it, other schools can, too.

Let me turn to the Migration Advisory Committee report. Not only did that report show that migrants add £22 billion to the public purse, are less likely to be in social housing than UK-born citizens, and pay in more than they take out in benefits, but it stressed that the difficulty faced by some UK workers was lack of skills and qualifications. People are shut out of the labour market because employers do not feel they are equipped to take part in it and do the jobs that are there. That is the heart of this: not blaming others, but increasing the life chances of children born here.

The debate on these issues is a debate between the politics of grievance and the politics of hope. Constant attacks on Britain’s openness to ideas, people and talent from around the world do not add a single job to this country. They do not add a single qualification. They do not help a single young person. They provide someone to blame, but they do not provide anything else. We should be the champions of hope: give young people a chance, not an enemy; give them an opportunity, not a target for blame; and let us have passion for achievement in all parts of the education system, from the top to the very bottom.

17:21

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to contribute to this important debate and to follow the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden), who made a very thoughtful speech. Indeed Members on the Opposition Back Benches have made very thoughtful contributions, but I have to say that stands in stark contrast to the partisan tone struck by the shadow Education Secretary, on a subject where strident partisan points should not be made, because if we strip away all the bluster, most of us are on the same page.

The shadow Education Secretary did make one correct point, however: there is a looming need to have more people going into STEM—science, technology, engineering and maths—careers. The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) made the important point that for too long—for generations—we have undervalued apprenticeships and further education. I congratulate the last Government on having started to right that, and this Government have built on it.

Let me highlight one example of why I think there is a growing skills gap. In civil and electrical engineering, a large section of the current work force will retire in the not too distant future, and with the vast investment in infrastructure that is coming in the railways, road building and utilities, we are going to face a significant gap if we do not inspire and encourage more people into those careers.

The Government have done much to boost apprenticeships and vocational education. I will not go through all the points my hon. Friend the Minister made, but I want to highlight the £1,500 grant to employers to take on apprenticeships. That is doing a lot to encourage more employers to take on apprentices where they may have been reluctant to do so in the past. Specifically on the transport side, the new proposed High Speed 2 skills academy is absolutely the right thing to do to boost the number of people going into that sector. I am just disappointed that the excellent bid from Milton Keynes to be the host of the new skills academy has not made the shortlist, but I wish the remaining towns and cities in the process all the very best.

I wish to make three points, which I hope are constructive. First, we can talk about specific qualifications and the specific nature of the careers advice given to young people, but beyond that I think there is a need for a cultural shift. For too long we have allowed ourselves to get into the situation where, for too many young people, going straight from school to a campus-based university course is the automatic next step. I do not want in any way to diminish the importance of that step for the people it is right for, but it is not the right answer for everyone at that time. We need to get into schools much earlier than we are doing to explain to young people that when they finish their school career they have a range of options, be it university, an apprenticeship or some other form of vocational learning. Above all, we are talking about a cultural shift, and we need to put all these options on an equal footing.

My second point relates specifically to apprenticeships. I have talked to a large number of employers in my constituency who take on apprentices, and one of their concerns is about the level of mentoring available to young people. As employers, they can provide the workplace learning, and the colleges they are associated with can provide the educational side of things, but young people often need a mentor to help them through their training. Small and medium-sized enterprises, in particular, do not always have the ability to release their staff to help the apprentices. If a large cohort of engineers are about to retire, could we not set up a voluntary mentoring scheme whereby their skills and experience could be very profitably used to help coach and guide these young people? There are some of these schemes in the country, but it is a piecemeal situation at the moment, so I urge my Front-Bench colleagues to examine ways in which such a scheme could be developed. I am discussing with the excellent principal of Milton Keynes college a way in which we might do that locally in Milton Keynes, but this could be a national thing, too.

I am conscious that I am in the last minute of my time, so I shall briefly mention my third point, which is about the need for flexibility in moving from technical qualifications into higher education. That happens at different points in people’s careers. I am on a bit of a sales pitch here, because we already have an excellent mechanism to deliver that—the Open university, in my constituency. I urge everyone to look at the engineering degrees it has on offer. I will draw my remarks to a conclusion, but I hope we can move forward with a consensual and constructive tone in this debate. Let us not have some of the nonsense, partisan points which were made earlier.

17:27

[Mr John Denham (Southampton, Itchen) (Lab)]

In a lecture to the RSA in January, I set out the case for employer co-sponsored degrees, so I am delighted by my right hon. Friend the leader of the Labour party’s announcement of his backing for new high-level technical degrees that, as he said, would be delivered in partnership with industry, co-funded and co-designed by employers. In the furore around the £9,000 tuition fees, not so much attention was given to an early decision of the coalition to close down Labour’s work force development programme. After just three years, it had created 20,000 co-sponsored degree programmes a year, with an average employer contribution of nearly £4,000. The scheme was different from other higher education funding, because instead of having central allocations, employers and universities had to bid for funds. That element of competition created the incentive to design courses that employers really wanted to help pay for, and employer contributions could be varied according to ability to pay and the course on offer. We need something like that, and more of it, today.

At the moment, we have a persistent degree-level skills shortage in parts of the economy, but we also have record numbers of students going to university. However, a third of graduates are not working in graduate jobs five years after they graduate. They are up to their neck in debt, but higher education has not delivered what they expected. The problem is not that we have too many graduates; it is the mismatch between supply and demand, which arises because employers have too little influence over the process. As the CBI said last July, we need more partnership-based provision, with greater business involvement in colleges and universities, as well as to boost apprenticeships. But the market in “learn while you earn” models, such as higher apprenticeships and more flexible degree programmes, is underdeveloped.

[Mr Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Denham]

I will give way to my right hon. Friend, but I do not have long.

[Mr Byrne]

My right hon. Friend is being characteristically modest in understating the influence he had on the announcement that was made yesterday. Is he as concerned as I am that the number of people who had the chance to study for foundation degrees, HNCs and HNDs in a full-time role has fallen by 40% since 2010?

[Mr Denham]

I shall come to that point.

There are other reasons why we need the change. The welcome expansion of higher education has had a less welcome aspect, in my view. Universities have increasingly concentrated on the most expensive model of higher education—the full-time honours degree studied away from home. More than ever before, higher education is a one-shop deal for 18 and 19-year olds. Our graduates are the youngest in the OECD. There are two consequences. With an uneven schools system, such as that described by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden), there is no chance of young people competing equally at 18, so social mobility suffers. At the same time, there are fewer and fewer routes for the later developer, the student from the weak school and the young person whose family did not value education, and mature and part-time numbers are shrinking.

Technical degrees have been spoken of as an additional route for the 50% of young people who do not go to university. I will be frank and suggest that they would be a better route also for a minority of those currently entering higher education. In the proposals that I set out earlier this year, I showed how those could be delivered without student debt and with better value for money for the taxpayer. If we recognised that employed students do not need maintenance, and if we made the cash available not as debt cancellation, but as subsidy to the employer, we could create the finance for a good co-sponsored degree. I look forward to my own party’s development of the idea.

Businesses will contribute, as they have done in the past. If they can educate an employee whom they have chosen, on a course that they have helped design, which is delivered full-time, part-time, on site or by distance learning, according to their business needs, at times that suit their business, the cost of contributing to the education of the graduate will be much less than the typical recruitment costs of employing a new graduate, let alone the typical retention costs when the business or the graduate finds out that they have made the wrong choice.

I hope my party retains at least the flexibility and the competitive elements of the work force development programme. Not only did they help to ensure that both employers and universities worked in effective partnership, but they will avoid the need to create cumbersome structures to design and validate new degrees. The Wolf report was in part a comment on my time as a Minister. What Professor Wolf said, rightly, was that the genuine attempt to create employer-led bodies to design qualifications, which was shared by all sides, had not worked in delivering the qualifications that we needed. The innovative effort should go into ensuring that SMEs, not just the major employers, have sufficient voice and weight to negotiate with universities.

In the autumn statement, the Chancellor announced huge new funding to take the cap off university places. As things stand, that will all go to three-year degrees studied away from home by young people. Putting that money, or some of it, into the type of technical degrees now being discussed might be a much better use of the money.

17:32

[Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

The right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) said that today’s debate was timely. I could not agree with him more. Yesterday I visited the brand new CEMAST centre in the brand new enterprise zone in my constituency. CEMAST stands for the Centre of Excellence in Engineering, Manufacturing and Advanced Skills Training, and there could be no more powerful emblem of this Government’s commitment to the high-end skills training and vocational training that we desperately need in this country. Nine hundred students will start at that college in September. It is the most fantastic educational environment that I have seen in a long time.

Many hon. Members have spoken about the Wolf report. It is worth dwelling on some of the facts that we all know very well: one in five young people leave school with qualifications so poor that they cannot progress any further through the system; half of all young people fail to achieve good passes in English and maths; and too many students at 16 find themselves standing on a cliff-edge with no options for progress, many of them flitting for years between low-grade occupations and low-grade educational offerings that are unlikely ever to help them find a job that they really want.

I am delighted that the Opposition education spokesman, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) acknowledged that under the previous Government qualifications that meant nothing to potential employers were widespread. There were more than 3,000 so-called equivalent to GCSE qualifications on offer to 14 to 16-year-olds. They could get a BTEC level 2 extended certificate in fish husbandry, worth two GCSEs; a level 2 certificate in nail technology services, which I would find quite valuable, worth two GCSEs; or a level 2 diploma in horse care—I am allergic so I probably would not be too keen—worth four GCSEs. Those courses were not valued by employers and were not preparing young people for life; they were simply bundling them over the five A to C GCSE line. Those young people were given false credentials and, criminally and crucially, false hope.

Perhaps the most damning indictment was the finding that young people were deliberately steered away from qualifications that might stretch and reward them and towards qualifications that could be passed easily. Sadly, the result was that, while the rest of the world was making progress, we were falling behind. Between 2000 and 2009, the OECD average for those not in education, employment or training fell, while in the UK, it went up. England is now the only country in the developed world where pensioners are likely to have better skills than those aged 16 to 24, which is obviously incredibly sad.

I do not want to be partisan on this matter—we have already had too much partisan comment—but when Labour talks about a high-skill, high-wage economy, we should remember that on its watch, one in five young people were left with no skills, no wage and no future. Thankfully, however, Labour has now seen the light. It wants more people doing apprenticeships, so it must welcome the fact that under this Government we have had a record number of apprenticeships. It wants a new technical baccalaureate, so it must be excited by the prospect of the technical baccalaureate that comes into place in two months’ time. It also wants more people taking the vocational equivalent to a degree, so it will be thrilled at the number of under-25s taking higher apprenticeships.

On the Government Benches, the skills gap in this country is not the source of a press release; it is a call to action. By investing in 2 million apprenticeships and replacing low-value vocational qualifications with new tech levels that are backed by employers, this Government are taking decisive action. What we now need is even more employer involvement in education. According to a recent CBI survey, 85% of businesses now have links with some type of school or college. That is fantastic news, but that number needs to be even higher, because businesses know better than anyone else what businesses want. As a bare minimum, they are looking for employees who are numerate, literate and employable.

We must always remember that our schools are preparing children for the world of work, and a failure to provide them with the necessary skills to flourish in this world is to hold them back from achieving their true potential. That means a hard-headed focus in schools on what employers really value.

In the motion, the Opposition note that a

“transformation in vocational education has eluded Governments for decades”.

That might be the closest we ever get to an apology from the Labour party for its woeful failure to prepare our young people for the modern economy. This Government are transforming vocational education, but there is more to do. If we stick to the plan, we can ensure that our young people have the skills they need to face the future and to succeed.

17:37

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to contribute to this debate. There have been some good contributions already this afternoon. The Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) is consistent in reminding us, as he was when I was a member of the Committee, that we spend a lot of our time focusing on those students who succeed at whatever they do. It is right and proper to focus on students who sometimes find it more difficult to succeed. I hasten to add that those are not necessarily students in vocational and technical education, but we often neglect that area as well. His laser-like approach to keeping up that consistency is very important.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden), in a powerful contribution, reminded us of the need to dispose of the politics of grievance and grab the politics of hope.

In the 1990s, I was running the then Conservative Government’s technical and vocational education initiative in the north Lincolnshire area. I mention that because it is a reminder that this country has been grappling with technical and vocational education for a long time. In fact, that was one of the best initiatives that came out of the Thatcher Government, as it used carrots to incentivise change. It put forward many of the things that we now take for granted in our education service.

Whenever we look at education in the UK, we always ask which areas of the world have performed better in relation to technical and vocational education. In fact I put that very question to the Business Secretary this week. The answer was the one I expected: Germany. In some ways, the German football team, as we saw last night, is a metaphor for how Germany gets things right. Over time, Germany ruthlessly puts things together in a cross-party way that engages across generations and across parties, whereas too often we flip-flop around instead of building on the positives.

I do not accept that things were disastrous in 2010, because they were not. We had had the biggest investment in education for a generation, building on other investments, such as the one under the previous Conservative Government. Politicians, educationalists, students, parents and others took education to a different place, where it was performing far better than before. That does not mean that everything was right and rosy, but the secondary curriculum at the end of that period was delivering better outcomes for young people than ever before by using a mix of vocational and technical qualifications, such as BTECs, alongside the necessary and appropriate increased rigour on maths and English. We saw schools, on a two-year lag, beginning to improve on their number of five A* to C grades with maths and English, by changing the culture of aspiration, which makes a profound difference to performance.

The Government have built on certain things effectively, and I welcome their commitment to furthering the delivery of apprenticeships. I welcome the introduction of destination monitoring and the increased rigour and focus on maths, English and science, but frankly the move to prioritising things such as the EBacc will have negative consequences because, as the Chair of the Education Committee said, it is not the area to which we need to be paying attention. We need to be focusing our attention on what we are discussing today.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Elizabeth Truss)]

The hon. Gentleman has just praised Germany, but in Germany all students study EBacc subjects to 16.

[Nic Dakin]

I taught in Sweden, which has a similar baccalaureate system up to 16, but it has far greater breadth than the narrowness of the EBacc. The problem is that the EBacc could have been a good vehicle for taking things forward if it had been a proper curriculum developed with careful thought, instead of focusing on certain things that will have consequences. School timetablers only have so much curriculum time, and if we narrow that down by producing more geography and history students, it will have consequences for other things.

[Elizabeth Truss]

That is precisely what the Progress 8 measure is all about. It is about ensuring that students are studying EBacc subjects, as well as important technical, arts and creative subjects. That is precisely what they do in Germany, of which the hon. Gentleman is a big champion.

[Nic Dakin]

I have another quick point. We need to have greater “earn while you learn.” In countries such as Netherlands, Switzerland and Denmark, 52%, 48% and 49% of young people respectively earn while they learn, whereas in our country the proportion is down at 22%. Why do we not set a target of being in the top three of that table? There is a lot of evidence that work experience, which the Government have taken out of the key stage 4 curriculum, is beneficial for job readiness and furtherance into jobs. I will leave it there, because I am aware that other Members want to contribute.

17:46

[Simon Wright (Norwich South) (LD)]

Everyone deserves the opportunity to get on in life and reach their full potential. A strong system of vocational education equips young people with the skills they need to succeed and is a crucial aspect of building a stronger economy and a fairer society. The renewed focus on apprenticeships over recent years is warmly welcomed by almost everyone. They provide real opportunities for young people to get a job in a vocation of their choice, providing the skills they need for a fulfilling career.

Employers value apprenticeships enormously, as they provide the skills needed for growth and increased workplace productivity. With the greatest expansion of apprenticeships since the 1950s during this Parliament, I am pleased that the Government are continuing to aim high by setting a target of 2 million by 2015. Importantly, employers have a growing voice, which means that the apprenticeships on offer are increasingly of world-class quality, providing young people with the skills that employers are looking for and providing the country with the work force we need to build our economic future.

Of course, not all young learners are apprentices. Many young people take part in vocational education exclusively through college provision. There has been extensive debate about the need to promote excellent teaching in our schools, and we also need to ensure that learners in vocational education are supported by great teachers. Achieving that is challenging, because vocational teachers must not only have strong pedagogical skills, but be fully up to date with practices in their vocational area.

Last year’s report by the commission on adult vocational teaching and learning highlighted the value of industry experts getting involved in vocational teaching and curriculum development. Since then, the Education and Training Foundation has commissioned the development of a Teach Too initiative, which will bring industry experts and those involved in vocational teaching and training closer together. It will help to gain a better understanding of current practice and build on it to lead towards a national framework for Teach Too. I encourage Ministers to see what can be learned from the initiative as it progresses. I also encourage Ministers to consider what more can be done to encourage industry secondments to FE colleges, which offer a low-risk means for colleges and employers to engage industry professionals in teaching and learning. The Education and Training Foundation might be well placed to conduct work in that area too.

One area of Government policy that has seen industry and education partnerships blossom is the university technical college programme. I am delighted that this September Norfolk UTC will be opening in my constituency. It will specialise in the skills needed for the energy and high-value manufacturing sectors, both of which are important drivers of growth in the East Anglian economy. Employers are involved in shaping the curriculum so that courses meet the needs of local industries and provide routes for young people to go on to employment, training or university. Places at Norfolk UTC are in high demand, and I hope that in due course the UTC programme can be further expanded at a sustainable pace.

I would like to point to a further challenge: how we can best ensure that young people are fully aware of their options from school. It is meaningless to create education and career paths if young people do not know about them and do not have the support they need to access them. Ofsted has highlighted that too many young people are left to wade through the frequently confusing array of options available to them with no real idea of what skills they need or the path most suitable for them.

[Mr Stuart]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we need many more employers to go into schools and help embed careers in the curriculum, perhaps by helping with science practicals in sixth form? There are all sorts of ways that employers can embed careers in the curriculum by getting involved in teaching.

[Simon Wright]

I agree 100%. At the moment, too few schools value vocational qualifications or the needs of the 60% who do not go to university, and we do not start learning about careers in school at a young enough age. At the same time, there is a perception gap among industry, education providers and learners about employment markets.

I welcome the strengthened statutory careers guidance for schools announced earlier this year and the proposal for a UCAS-style system to provide a single route for 16-year-olds. We need to consider how we can further strengthen the role of Ofsted and how school destination measures will fully support vocational and technical education routes being treated with equal esteem as academic education.

Finally, I want to emphasise the contribution of city deals and local growth deals, supported by local enterprise partnerships and local employers, who know better than Whitehall what skills their area needs. In Norfolk and Suffolk, a LEP-wide skills programme will maximise employer involvement and investment and increase apprenticeships and graduate internships, as specified in the region’s city deal, which was confirmed last year. This week the New Anglia local growth deal confirmed that colleges in the region, including Easton college, which is just outside my constituency, will benefit from additional investment, enabling the building of a new construction training centre and new agri-tech laboratory areas to accommodate employers’ needs.

A transformation in vocational education is under way, and we need to be undeterred in our determination to continue the progress that has been made. The quality and status of vocational qualifications has improved; the number and standard of apprenticeships has increased considerably; and employers, professional bodies and providers are working to ensure that training reflects our future skill needs. Most importantly, the foundations for a stronger economy are being laid while giving every young person the opportunity to gain the skills they need to get on in life.

17:50

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

People like you and I, Mr Speaker, who are interested in history will remember that about 50 years ago Harold Wilson made his great “white heat of technology” speech. I recommend that Members read it, because it leaps off the page. He was talking, as Leader of the Opposition, about how Britain must transform itself in order to be a place where all of us could share in a good life. I came into politics to secure the good life for the people of this country and, in particular, my constituents. Re-reading that speech—I had not looked at it for many years—I found it remarkable how he was looking at the changed social and economic structure. He said that there would not be any room for unskilled and semi-skilled people in our country, that a production line in Detroit could make a car with no human intervention at all—automation was coming.

Harold Wilson said what a pity it was that only a tiny number of people, who were usually from posh backgrounds and going to elite institutions, were going into higher education. He said that 10% of people, instead of 5%, should be going to university, and that we should have universities in every major town and city. Of course, before long we had the expansion of the polytechnics. Interestingly, his message started a bipartisan view of upskilling our country; there was little demur about it. There is a bit of old-fashioned stuff in the speech: the Soviets had just put a man into space and shocked everyone, and his allusion to Soviet science does not ring true today. However, he was right to say, “This is our country and its social and economic structure is changing fast.”

During my time in this House, the social and economic structure of the country has moved very fast—we can all see that. Now, fewer than 10% of people make anything, while 30% are in public services—health, education and local authorities—and 60% are in the private sector, with 1% in agriculture. That means that most people are working in the private sector. If they are looking after people—at the bottom end or the top end, young people or old people—they will be on the minimum wage or minimum wage plus. That also applies to people in retail and distribution. There are some very good jobs in the private sector. Cross-hatching that, most of the jobs are in small and medium-sized companies, not the big companies.

When I left school, I went to work in the chemical industry and worked for ICI—a big company. I had an intensive year at Kingston technical college to get my three A-levels because I was a naughty boy and dropped out of school at 16. After getting a scholarship to the London School of Economics, I had the wonderful experience of being able to get into a growth area. As a young person seeking employment, people took the time to give me advice about what I should direct myself to. They not only estimated my capabilities but said what one could earn in different professions. Too often, we do not tell young people what their future is.

We need more bold recommendations on a bipartisan level. Why cannot we go back to sharing policies? None of us have got it right on vocational and technical education. The former Labour Government put in a lot of effort, leadership and resources. We did not get everything right, but we had some success. The current Government have not had all successes, although it is absolutely true that they have made some improvements. However, there are some radical proposals that no party has listened to, although Labour is moving towards them. We should not have unemployment under the age of 25. We should be like the Dutch. Why should any young person up to the age of 25 not be in education or training, or in a job with training, getting valuable work experience? I agree with my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition that we should not allow young people to live on a little bit of housing benefit in the shadow land—that is no way to grow up. We all need to grasp that there should be no unemployment or idleness under the age of 25.

Anyone without maths and science as part of their background is never going to make it. I applaud the maths hub launched by the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss). We absolutely need that.

In the last few moments of my speech, I want to make another radical proposal: I want a citizenship service. People who go to university are too young and some young people remain idle for too long, so we need a citizenship service for everyone, including those at university.

The only way any of us will get what we want is by reinvigorating the further education sector. There are more than 350 FE institutions and we all have one not too far from our constituencies. We can have university technical colleges and all sorts of new-fangled things, but FE colleges will deliver the numbers we need. They have to be given that push and the resources. A lot of young people who have failed in other education pathways go to FE colleges and they need the best help available. The quality of FE maths teaching is deplorable, so let’s do something about FE.

Finally, let us not forget the parents. No one has mentioned the parents yet. A child’s parents can back them, put them up and wipe away their tears if they are being bullied at school. We learned last night that a supportive mum and dad can compensate for horrible bullying. There is something wrong when a reasonable percentage of people in this country do not get that family support.

17:56

[Mr Rob Wilson (Reading East) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the passionate contribution of the former Chairman of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman).

To be honest, I was a tad surprised that Labour called for this debate, given that its record on the subject is quite mixed. I am, however, of a charitable disposition and I wish to be charitable now because I agree with certain things in the motion. It admits, for example, that the previous Government failed to transform vocational education in this country. We can also agree that credit should be given across the board to Lord Hunt for his work back in the 1990s and to Ministers in the previous Labour Government who increased the number of apprenticeships. I think we also agree that there is a need to study maths and English for longer and to place greater emphasis on the technicals.

There are, therefore, things that we can agree on, but I cannot agree that this Government have failed in the same way as the previous one in their attempts to reform apprenticeships and vocational and technical education. Their changes have transformed tens of thousands of young people’s lives. I guess that the problem for the Labour party is that it is in a negative spiral—it sees only the negative in everything at the moment and seems to want to talk down the country and young people. I find that very disappointing.

I am very proud of what this Government have achieved. They have transformed our educational system and the opportunities within it, driving up aspiration both in my Reading constituency and nationally. We have done that by recognising that vocational and academic education are two sides of the same coin—that vocational and technical education is every bit as valuable and necessary to the prospects of this country as academic education.

Let me tell the House about the transformation taking place in my constituency in Reading. It would be fair to say that, before 2010, this was an area with limited educational options for young people. In 2010, it was represented by an underperforming community school and an unsatisfactory college run by Thames Valley university.

My desire, supported by the Government when we finally had the levers of power, was to create what the Education Act 1944 originally envisaged for the UK but never implemented, namely a tripartite structure of education: academic, technical and vocational—all with parity of esteem and all offering something different to fit the aspirations of young people.

The first stage in engineering such a major change is to get investment, and this Government, in difficult times, have put their money where their mouth is. Bringing together business, the university, the college and others, we managed to persuade Lord Baker and the Government to back Reading university technical college, specialising in computer science and engineering. Reading UTC is rooted in the needs of local employers, which the Leader of the Opposition failed to mention in his speech yesterday. We deliberately set out to match the needs of local employers, to build them their work force of the future. That is why big companies such as Cisco, Microsoft and Network Rail got behind the bid and supported the UTC, but long-standing smaller local companies such as Peter Brett Associates are also deeply involved and committed.

The UTC’s only focus is on providing high-quality education, but it does it in a different way that is much more hands-on and technical. It does not try to pretend, as Labour has for years, that that can be achieved without the fundamental building blocks of learning. Therefore, it runs what it terms as basic academic courses for those who may have struggled with English, maths and computer science at another school.

The UTC concentrates on building strong relationships with business, because it understands that, without business confidence in the qualifications it offers, it will not succeed, and young people will not thrive. Businesses see that the UTC offers young people something unique—something that will allow them to stand out in the jobs marketplace. Parents see their young people gaining confidence as they gain in-depth knowledge of their specialism.

Having seen the impact that the UTC has made in the eastern part of my constituency, I am proud to support Lord Baker’s aspiration that many more UTCs should be invested in throughout the country. The local community school, which had drifted for years, suddenly sat up and took notice when it saw a world class UTC on its doorstep. That led to a new management team and new investment from the local education authority. Bulmershe school in my constituency is now on an upward and impressive trajectory.

Reading college, which runs a range of important vocational courses, has raised its game, and was recently awarded a good rating by Ofsted, with some elements of outstanding. It also recently announced funding for a solutions lab, which will bring together businesses, FE colleges and students to shape curriculums so that they are aligned with the needs of technical-based businesses in my constituency and the Thames valley. Its assistant principal described Labour’s old system as like

“being handcuffed to a set of qualifications to drive funding”,

whereas he welcomed the new system because it allows the college to provide a study programme that is crafted by the needs of learners, and not with funding in mind.

The final piece of the jigsaw in east Reading was an outstanding Wokingham-based school, Maiden Erlegh, which agreed to imprint its DNA on a free school from September 2015. It is nothing short of a revolution in my constituency in the provision of high-quality education for young people, whether vocational, academic or technical.

Labour failed in office to understand that equality between academic and vocational routes cannot be enforced by Government diktat. Setting up yet another body or qualification does not work by itself. The important thing is that qualifications are respected by business and the wider public. People can and will vote with their feet, as they did under Labour, if they think a qualification is not valued.

18:03

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

I warmly welcome the motion proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), in particular the acknowledgment in it that

“a transformation in vocational education has eluded governments for decades”,

meaning Governments of both the main parties. My hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) spoke powerfully and mentioned Germany. I have used this quote in a previous debate but it is worth repeating. Tim Oates, who is one of the foremost experts in the country on the subject said that, in the 1940s, we devised an excellent system of technical education and exported it to Germany, where it has thrived ever since.

Youth unemployment is one of the biggest challenges we have faced in this country for many years. In Germany, youth unemployment is below 8%. In this country, it has fallen in recent months, which is welcome, but it is still above 18%. Overcoming that is crucial to achieving the politics of hope, about which my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) spoke so powerfully. This is not a new problem, but a long-term and intractable one. In 1984, the youth unemployment rate was 20%. It fell modestly in the first 10 years of the previous Labour Government and in 2007 was 14%, but that is still far too high.

We know that half of young people in Germany undertake apprenticeships, whereas the number undertaking technical and vocational courses and apprenticeships in this country is far lower at about 32%. We need a change on the supply side, as the motion sets out, with more and better vocational qualifications that are fit for purpose, but we also need a change on the demand side, with a cultural change in our attitudes to vocational education in this country.

The Edge Foundation does brilliant work in this area. Earlier this year, it did a survey of 2,000 18 to 35-year-olds, some of whom had followed an academic route and some a vocational route. About two thirds of those on the academic route felt that they had been supported by their school, whereas only one third of those on the vocational route gave that response. My hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) talked about parents. About half of those following the vocational route felt that their parents had encouraged them, whereas three quarters of those who followed the academic route felt the same.

We therefore need to achieve a cultural change involving independent advice and guidance in schools. The shadow Secretary of State spoke about that, and we must get it right. Some schools do get it right, and we should praise them. In the Budget debate, I spoke about Cardinal Heenan school in my constituency, which has done some fantastic work. I visited another Liverpool school last week, Calderstones school, which does a lot of work to ensure that from when students arrive at the age of 11, they are thinking about their options for the future, so that when they are 16 they make the best choice for them, including those who follow a technical and vocational path.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that not only careers guidance but work experience is vital as a way of trying out different types of work and different professions?

[Stephen Twigg]

That is absolutely vital, and I welcome the fact that it is integral to what is set out in the motion.

It is crucial that advice is personalised to the individual student. I want to warn against us getting into a position where we have to choose between the forgotten 50% and widening participation in higher education; we need to do both. I am proud of the fact that the previous Labour Government expanded higher education, but we did not do enough on vocational education.

I am working with schools in Liverpool to encourage more of the most academic young people to consider applying to top universities, including Oxford and Cambridge. I want to put on the record a tribute to Calderstones school, which I have already mentioned, because that comprehensive school in the heart of Liverpool gets a lot of its young people to go to Oxford or Cambridge. I want to mention Elle Shea, the head girl of St John Bosco school in my constituency, who has an offer of a place at Cambridge university. There are still not enough young people from low-income families getting into our top universities, but we should not have to choose between saying that and saying that we are passionate about the forgotten 50% and want to improve technical and vocational education; we need to do both.

The motion draws on the excellent work done for the Labour party during the past two years by Chris Husbands, from the Institute of Education in London, on how we can best strengthen the status of vocational and technical education. I particularly welcome the proposal for a national baccalaureate that seeks to put alongside fit-for-purpose qualifications, whether academic or vocational, concepts such as extended projects, personal development and an emphasis on character, resilience and employability. Those things matter, and it is very welcome to have such an emphasis in the motion.

I want to echo what my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr Denham) said about the new forms that higher education will take. I particularly welcome the proposal made by the Leader of the Opposition yesterday for new technical degrees.

Let me finish by making a point about how we can take this matter forward. In my opinion, the Husbands review for the Labour party worked because it engaged with all those who have an interest in the area. They have all been mentioned in this debate—the further and higher education sectors, businesses and other employers, and young people themselves and parents—and it is important for their voices to be heard. Getting the national framework right is absolutely critical to the success of this work, but as several hon. Members on both sides of the House have said, in the end it cannot simply be imposed from on high; it is in our communities that it will make a real difference.

In Liverpool, I certainly pay tribute to the extraordinary work, yes, in our schools and further education colleges, but also what is done in partnership between businesses or other employers and the mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson, and Liverpool city council in particular in delivering more high-quality apprenticeships. We can say things in the House and the Government can set a framework, as they should, but if we are to transform life chances, in the end the differences must be made on the ground in our communities.

18:09

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

This is the first time that I have taken part in an education debate, so I was pretty shocked by the tone and content of the speech by the shadow Secretary of State. He implied that vocational qualifications required an overhaul. I would argue that the quality of vocational education in this country has risen under this Government, and that the policies that are in place will only continue to improve.

Vocational education plays a vital role in equipping young people with the skills that they need to thrive later in life. The introduction of university technical colleges, which were conceived by a Conservative Secretary of State for Education and Science, Lord Baker, will undoubtedly mean that practically minded students have the opportunity to train for careers in well resourced and appropriate environments, without the vital skills that are taught in comprehensive schools being neglected. What is most encouraging about the education that UTCs offer is that they teach students the practical and administrative skills that they will need to survive in their vocation.

I look forward to the opening of the manufacturing college in Derby in September 2015. Given that world-class engineering firms such as Toyota, Rolls-Royce and Bombardier are based in the city, it is clear that the college is well located to offer a comprehensive and hands-on technical education. By academic year 2015-16, 300,000 students will be able to receive a top-quality vocational education in a UTC. I am proud that the Government are so committed to ensuring that the colleges are a success.

Another education facility in my constituency that I am very proud of is Broomfield Hall, which is part of Derby college. It offers a range of land-based, public service and sports courses. They are incredibly popular; there are 500 full-time students enrolled on land studies courses, with a further 800 people studying them part time. The college now offers foundation degrees in animal care; that is a great way for students who do not wish to take A-levels to get into university to study for a career in zoo-keeping or veterinary nursing. The college feels empowered to offer a greater range of courses in a larger variety of subjects. It is obvious from that example that, contrary to the Opposition’s belief that vocational education in this country needs to be overhauled, colleges feel motivated by the policies of this Government to diversify and improve the quality of the qualifications that they offer.

Like Broomfield Hall, the university of Derby has extended the range of courses it offers to include BTECs and foundation degrees in subjects such as business, management and civil engineering. As at Broomfield Hall, the vocational qualifications are extremely popular, with 930 people currently studying for them. I am pleased to say that as a result of the focus on running courses that are attractive to employers, the employment rate among Derby graduates within six months of course completion is 4.6% above the national average of 92%. That again illustrates that higher education institutions in this country are following the Government’s lead and providing high-quality and well-regarded vocational courses.

A vocational college that I hope will come to Derby is the proposed High Speed 2 skills academy. The Government see the landmark HS2 project as a means of offering high-quality vocational education. If the college was located in Derby, its students would benefit from a diverse range of employment and training options because of the excellent engineering firms that are located in the city. Given its proximity to the proposed HS2 route, they could expect to receive on-the-job training. It is clear from the focused vocational education that the skills academy will offer that its students will be fully equipped to head straight into a career in the railway industry. I am pleased that the Government have harnessed that opportunity.

The Government have been keen to encourage the uptake of apprenticeships. They have taken steps to increase the quality of the schemes that are offered, which has done a good deal to increase the value that employers give apprenticeships. In addition, the Government have tried to make apprenticeships more attractive as further education options for school leavers by introducing the apprentice minimum wage, which has given more employers the support they need to take on apprentices. That focus on vocational education has led to an unprecedented uptake of apprenticeships, with 1.8 million starts since 2010.

Given all the hard work that the Government have put into that initiative, it seems absurd for the Opposition to criticise a number of apprenticeship policies that have proved successful. In my constituency alone, there are a number of examples that show that the Government’s policy on vocational education is working. The motion denigrates the fantastic work that individual colleges do to offer their students the skills they need to thrive in a working environment. Institutions such as Broomfield Hall and the university of Derby now feel able to offer foundation degrees. The Opposition claim that the quality of vocational education is not up to standard, but that is obviously not representative. The increased uptake of apprenticeships is further evidence that what the Government are doing is positive. I am concerned that any effort to divert us from the work that has already been done will only harm the great progress made.

18:16

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham). I find myself wishing that you had put us on the clock, Mr Speaker, because I care so much about this matter that I feel I may rattle on. My hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) promises me that he will cough vigorously at about the six-minute mark. I commend the Opposition Front Benchers on securing the debate. We do not spend enough time thinking about what happens to young people who do not choose to follow an academic route post-16.

I associate myself with the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), because in Darlington students do exceptionally well up to GCSE—as well as those just about anywhere else in the country. Yet given those GCSE results, far fewer than we would expect go on to do A-levels and attend university. Very few attend what we have loosely come to term the “top universities”. I will not stop encouraging people from my constituency to go to those universities until we achieve parity with other parts of the country.

In my constituency, there is a sixth-form college and an FE college. I attended one of them, and I visit the other often. When I look at the curriculum on offer and the number of students taking each course, I find that we train more hairdressers per head of population in Darlington than just about anywhere else in Britain. I am not against hairdressers at all—I am a big fan, and in fact I wish I could use them more often. However, it strikes me that there is no incentive in the system for colleges to offer more STEM subjects—science, technology, engineering and maths—and train more technicians. If we want them to do that, they will have to stop doing something else. Some of our colleges have invested heavily in training people in subjects such as hairdressing, beauty therapy, travel and tourism, but they are not leading people into the types of jobs that they hoped for.

I find that it is easy to persuade 15-year-old girls to study hair and beauty, particularly when they are not getting any information, advice and guidance at school that is worth having. Instead, we need to find a way of incentivising FE colleges to restrict the number of students that they recruit to some courses, and expand the number that they recruit on to others that are much more in demand from local employers. We have not cracked that yet. One way of doing so that we might want to consider is payment by results—I hesitate to use the term, because my expertise is more in the field of justice, in which payment by results has been a mixed bag. In education, however, there may be a way that would help colleges to divest themselves from some forms of activity and to invest in others, and until we crack that we will not change the investment behaviour of some of our colleges, which is what we need to do.

Pathways into further education are confused. We know there is no information, advice and guidance worth having—the CBI has stated that advice and careers guidance are on “life support”—but there is no standardised application process or single source of information, and it is difficult for a young person to choose in any sensible way between different providers and courses. So many different funding options, routes and types of qualification are available that it is confusing. Young people are not making decisions in their long-term best interests; they are sometimes enticed to make decisions that may be in the best interests of their local college.

I would like some thought to be given to having a single pathway into FE, just as we do for university. There is a well organised, well established application process for university, but nothing like that for FE. Once we have such a process, we will get some kind of support, and understanding and appreciation of what is on offer, from parents. Parents are key to this issue, and the real test of how successful apprenticeships or vocational qualifications are will be the confidence that parents have in them.

One or two colleagues have mentioned that they went to an FE college. That is great; where we went does matter. Where we send our children, however, will really demonstrate the success or otherwise of these measures. Do we have the confidence to advise our children not to do A-levels or go to university, but to take a risk on some of these other qualifications? I hope we do, and that they are good enough and of a high enough standard for us to have the confidence to advise our young people to make that choice.

Some Government Members have been very pleased with themselves and their Government, but I encourage them not to count their chickens before they are hatched, because the proof of whether these measures work will be seen a long way into the future. This is about parents, confidence, people from working-class backgrounds doing A-levels, and those from middle-class backgrounds studying for vocational qualifications.

18:22

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

I congratulate the hon. Member for Darlington (Jenny Chapman) on a good speech and on her recent engagement. I hope she enjoys her party; I gather that she will celebrate after this debate.

I am pleased to be returning to the topic that I raised in my maiden speech—vocational training—because like the hon. Lady I feel passionate about it. Vocational training, properly delivered alongside academic training, will undoubtedly drive economic growth. That growth has already started, but vocational training will help it to build and gain the momentum that we need for the longer term. Between 2012 and 2020, it is estimated that we will need 830,000 science, engineering and technology professionals, and 450,000 science, engineering and technology technicians. That is a huge challenge, and I think that the Government have performed outstandingly in ensuring that we meet it.

I welcome the steps taken. The new high-quality tech awards that will run alongside GCSEs, the new tech levels that run alongside A-levels, and the new tech-baccalaureate are very much to be welcomed; I am only sad that we do not have time today to consider exactly how they will work. A significant amount of employer involvement in those courses is absolutely what we need; I think that will be agreed on by Members across the House.

Interestingly, the move to get business and education closer and closer together has almost gone viral, and I am pleased that my council came to me today to talk about how it and the education authority can work to develop projects that will bring together business experience with what is happening in the schools that they are responsible for. That I applaud. For me, however, the crown has to be the 100 studio schools and UTCs that have been opened, and it is no surprise that UTCs have formed a large part of this debate. They are a fantastic concept, introduced by this Government. They integrate technical, practical and academic skills. By 2016, 30,000 students will be undertaking courses in them. They specifically address some of our key skills shortfalls in engineering, manufacturing, health sciences, product design, digital technologies and the built environment. Youngsters will be able to get access to the latest research and to real-life employer projects.

I am particularly proud that Lord Baker and the education team have approved my UTC—the South Devon university technical college, which will be based in Newton Abbot and is due to open in 2015. It will provide 15 state-of-the-art engineering and science workshops and laboratories, along with a great deal of input from local sponsors. It is to their credit that Centrax, Galliford Try, South West Water, the Environment Agency and WaterAid are all playing their part in designing the curriculum, and in providing and, in some cases, funding some of the tools and equipment that are crucial to make these courses live. As has been said, to be real, we must have hands-on experience, not just work in the classroom. I am pleased, too, that Exeter university and South Devon college—two outstanding educational institutions—are involved. This course will lead to apprenticeships, degrees and all sorts of job opportunities.

The apprenticeship revolution, which this Government have put a rocket behind, is something that I very much welcome. I shall not dwell on the subject, because we have already heard a lot about the successful doubling of apprenticeship starts since 2010. I am pleased that Newton Abbot has had 3,450 starts since 2010, which is a 60.7% increase on where we were at the last election.

The next steps will be even more important, and it is to their credit that the Government have listened to some of the more forward-thinking additional proposals. First, there is Lord Young’s report, “Enterprise for all”, which sets out the steps he believes we should take to get even further integration between business and education to ensure that our youngsters really have the capability to think about going into business. Then there is the Minister for Skills and Enterprise, who has given his support to “An Education System fit for an Entrepreneur”, a report by the all-party parliamentary group on micro-businesses, which I chair. That is the way forward. All these steps taken by the Government are far-sighted. I look forward to seeing how they will introduce all these measures. All power to the Government’s elbow. They have a great record, and I would encourage them to continue to deliver in the same vein.

18:27

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

ATMs and self-checkouts have already taken over jobs that we assumed would always be there. It is difficult fully to take in the potential structural change that will come from driverless vehicles and 3D printers, let alone from cleaning robots and Amazon drones delivering what is left and cannot be transmitted through the ether. More and more markets become more contestable, and more and more things can be offshored. We will never again make T-shirts cheaper than China can.

As we look to the future, we need to focus not only on high-value sectors, but on areas where we have competitive advantage. Those are things for a debate on another day, but we need to note that those two forces—technological change and globalisation—are accentuating the hollowing out of the labour market that we are already seeing, with more jobs at the bottom of the scale, more at the “knowledge economy” top and fewer in the middle. That has serious implications for social mobility and progression.

We know that the way in which those forces impact on people will depend on whether the particular job is enhanced by technology and the computer or competes with them, and there are major social justice questions attached to that. There will, of course, always be jobs that have little or nothing to do with technology—in care, retail, hospitality and so forth. For all employment sectors, however, we need a significant improvement in skill levels in the economy.

What skills will be required? We are going to see a merging of the academic and the vocational, the intellectual and the practical, and a further emphasis on some skills that we are not used to considering in either group. The Wolf report was right to talk about the primacy of English and maths—the skills for which employers look before all others. We need more attention, as the shadow Secretary of State mentioned, on character and resilience skills and on workplace skills. They are not the same thing but they overlap. Character and resilience skills are about what is in you—self-belief and the ability to set realistic goals, for example. Workplace skills are primarily about how people interact with others—customer empathy, including the ability to smile and make eye contact, teamwork, organising tasks, leading and motivating others. At the intersection of the two are perseverance and the ability to bounce back, which is, of course, so important throughout life.

Our success as an economy will depend on how we adapt to those new realities, and on how quickly we adapt. One benchmark is probably South Korea, whose story of change is dramatic. The youngest people in its work force have materially better basic skills than those approaching retirement. It is a shame that this country must currently contend with the opposite position.

I fear that a great error in the first decade of this century was the overriding obsession with the “five-plus C-plus” target for GCSEs. I say that not just because this is an Opposition-day debate and this is what happens in the House of Commons, but because we owe it to young people not merely to file recent history, but to learn from it. The system found increasingly clever ways of helping schools and helping itself—the system as a whole—to find their way up the league. Half-courses, double awards, modularisation, early sits and retakes all helped, but the daddy of them all was “equivalents”, which helped to perpetuate the diet of low-value qualifications. The 350,000 young people of whom Alison Wolf spoke were let down by courses with little or no labour market value, and that in turn contributed significantly to the terrible rise in the number of young people who were not in education, employment or training.

The other big target was the 50% target for the number of people who should go to university. The Opposition now talk about the “forgotten 50%”, but we only talk about that 50% because of the first 50% target which they introduced. Actually, I am not sure that 50% is a bad target. I think it is the rest of the sentence that we need to look at. The target should be not just about the proportion of young people who go to university, but about the proportion who finish university courses that will be of use to them later in life. An increasing number of those courses—degree courses—will be vocational, and many careers that used to involve a vocational route straight after school have themselves become “graduatised”. The number of people embarking on undergraduate degrees more or less matches the number of occupations that now require people to have degrees and did not do so previously.

I rather welcome what the Opposition have been saying about tech degrees. I think that that is a direction of travel that we see on both sides of the House. However, it is the Government who are grasping the nettle and doing what it takes. The importance that my right hon. and hon. Friends attach to vocational education and training is exemplified by the fact that the Wolf report was commissioned at the very start of the Government’s tenure, before the completion of some of the other reforms that we have had plenty of opportunities to debate in the House. I think it right to move away from that “one target that trumps all others”, the “five-plus C-plus”, and towards measures that reward and value the progress made by all young people, whatever their abilities. I also think that we should take into account not just the results those young people achieve at the end of their time at school or college, but where they go after that, and where they end up.

This Government are determined that all qualifications will have rigour, because with rigour come respect and value. I welcome tech levels that involve local employers, and I welcome the tech bac, including the core maths qualification and the extended project. I also welcome the massive increase in the number of apprenticeships—it is up 86% in my constituency—the higher apprenticeships fund and the huge growth in UTCs. This goes further than that, however. It is about employers being in control of apprenticeship training budgets, it is about more young people studying maths after the age of 16, and it is about getting 3D printers into schools and enabling more young people to study coding and app design.

You are indicating that I should stop at this point, Mr Speaker, so I shall do so. Let me end by saying that, as we heard from the shadow Secretary of State, this is a matter of social justice and economic efficiency.

18:34

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), who is very knowledgeable about educational matters, and to speak in this important debate. I enjoyed the rhythm of the shadow Education Secretary’s speech, liberally laced as it was with quotations from Sir Winston Churchill, but the speed with which he rattled through his speech did on occasion remind me of Churchill’s observation about Ramsay MacDonald: he had the great ability of compressing the largest amount of words into the smallest amount of thought. Notwithstanding that, however, there is some startling honesty in Labour’s motion because it says that it believes that

“transformation in vocational education has eluded governments for decades”,

so clearly Labour takes its share of the blame for any failure to deliver the sort of vocational education and qualifications that we want to see in our country.

For far too long, far too much stress and pressure have been put on the traditional route through A-levels and into university. Parents have for too long been left with the impression that, unless their children go to university, they have failed. Schools and teachers have been left with the impression that, if they do not get their students into university, they have failed, and the students themselves have been left with the impression that, unless they pass their A-levels and go to university and find a room in a hall of residence, they, too, have failed. That is a corrosive narrative that has undermined the importance of the vocational qualifications that R. A. Butler envisaged in 1944. As the shadow Education Secretary said, on 3 August we will celebrate the 70th anniversary of Royal Assent to the 1944 Education Act.

It is important, therefore, that we focus anew on vocational qualifications, and I am pleased and proud that the Government are focusing on expanding the number of apprenticeships—the figure is 1.8 million since 2010—that they have introduced the higher apprenticeships fund, which will create 10,000 places for state-of-the-art degree level apprenticeships, and are introducing the technical baccalaureate at the end of this year. I am pleased that Labour appears to be supporting that proposal, but I hope it has a less bumpy ride than the English baccalaureate had. I see the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) is in his place. In 2011 he said that the EBacc was a measure to be praised because it might reverse the decline in children studying languages, but by 2012 he was saying that education could not be improved by the EBacc reverting to a system that was considered out of date 30 years ago. I rather hope Labour will not flip-flop on the tech bacc as it appeared to flip-flop on the EBacc.

[Stephen Twigg]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Christopher Pincher]

I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman as we do not have much time, but what I will do is say that if I am wrong he should write to The Guardian, and make sure he has lots of spelling errors in the letter, which will ensure it is published.

I am very pleased by what the Government are doing with the tech bacc, because in my town we suffered terribly in the recession. A large number of young people found it difficult to find work and did not get the qualifications necessary to find work, so it is going to be important. When Labour left office in 2010, the main source of vocational qualifications in Tamworth was South Staffordshire college, which the shadow Education Secretary visited earlier this year. Now we have a sixth-form and Tamworth enterprise college, which together provide BTEC courses on everything from construction to IT. South Staffordshire college offers 33 courses and 24 apprenticeships, ranging from veterinary husbandry to bricklaying. That college has a 97% pass rate and a 91% satisfaction rate among students, so it is doing really very well. It is no wonder therefore that Jaguar Land Rover and JCB are recruiting in Tamworth and BMW has come to set up in Tamworth, bringing over 100 skilled and professional jobs. So I welcome what the Government are achieving.

My hon. Friends on the Front Bench should be pleased. They should be pleased that Labour appears to be supporting much of what they are trying to achieve. Labour appears to want to get aboard this vessel because it thinks it is rather a good one. Unfortunately for Labour, however, I fear that vessel has sailed, carrying my constituents to a better and brighter future, and all the shadow Education Secretary can do is wave from the quayside.

18:39

[Mr Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

This has been an excellent debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) made the first Back-Bench contribution to it and said that the debate was urgent and important. I could not agree more with my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Jenny Chapman), who said that we do not spend enough time in this House debating the subject of today’s motion. It has been an important debate because it has revealed that, on the future of vocational education and on the basic question of how our constituents are going to learn what they need to earn their way out of today’s cost of living crisis, there is no long-term plan. There is nothing long-term and nothing short-term; there does not appear to be much of a plan at all. The Chair of the Select Committee is not in his place, but we have heard some powerful calls today for a new cross-party consensus on the content of this debate, and I hope we can achieve that today. Therefore, I hope that the Minister for Skills and Enterprise, who is talking away from a sedentary position, will not divide the House today and that the motion will go through with full support, because that cross-party consensus, now and for the long term, is something this country desperately needs.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) started this debate with a candid admission that the problem we are talking about is decades old and decades deep. Indeed, Lord Percy reported to the Government shortly before the Education Act 1944. His Committee said that

“the position of Great Britain as a leading industrial nation is being endangered by a failure to secure the fullest possible application of science to industry… and…this failure is partly due to deficiencies in education.”

That was the position we found ourselves in again in the 1970s, as my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) pointed out, and we find ourselves there again today. So I am pleased that the Select Committee, chaired by the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), is going to look at this in detail. A new consensus is needed, and the business community is saying that to us loud and clear.

Labour left this Government strong foundations. I am sorry that the hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) felt that there were errors made between 2000 and 2010—no doubt there were—because some awfully strong foundations were left, too. I thought my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) put it well when he said we rescued the apprenticeship system from the state of complete collapse that we inherited in 1997, rebuilding schools and school standards, rebuilding further education colleges all over this country and rebuilding our university system. Labour Members are very proud of those achievements, and what we needed in this Parliament was a Government who were determined to build on those foundations and create a strong, new, wide path for vocational education from 14 through to 21 and above. I am sorry to say that instead we have the kind of chaos that means that at the age of 14 pupils can look forward to passing through systems regulated by Ofqual, Ofsted, the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, the Education Funding Agency, the Skills Funding Agency and the Higher Education Funding Council. It is a dog’s breakfast; it is a complicated situation that is not delivering the skills we need.

That is what business is saying to us clearly. When I left business school in America, I was clear that the UK was the only country where I wanted to build my business. Thousands of firms want to bring work back to this country, but let me tell hon. Members what KPMG said a few weeks ago. It said that the ability of manufacturers to bring jobs back to Britain is being crippled by the lack of available skills. Mike Wright, the head of Jaguar Land Rover, said the following not too long ago:

“We are not educating nearly enough skilled apprentices or graduates to replace those retiring from manufacturing roles.”

Lord Adonis has said that skills are now the “single biggest impediment” to economic growth. The Migration Advisory Committee, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) referred to, made an important contribution to this debate yesterday. The MAC has added more than 100 different roles to the shortage occupation list over the past three or four years. Firms have had to sponsor in 282,000 people from abroad because they could not get the skills they need here in this country. So my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North is absolutely right when he says that a better deal for vocational and technical education is crucial if we are to regenerate significant parts of our country. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East made a powerful speech and the point he drew our attention to is that we do not just owe it to the business community; we owe it to our constituents, too.

Training up to degree-level skills unlocks a life in which people can earn over £100,000 more over the course of their career than if they had only two A-levels. If we want to transform life chances for everyone in our constituencies, we need to build a better system. I hope our motion today is the basis of that new consensus. [Interruption.] The Minister for Skills and Enterprise is chuntering away. Let me tell him where I think he is getting a few things wrong.

A new, stronger system must start in schools. I am sure that, like me, he is slightly worried that there has been a 16% rise in unqualified teachers in my children’s classrooms. I am sure that he is concerned, like me, that when we say that people should be able to study English and maths up to the age of 18, that is not the policy of the Education Secretary. The Minister gave us a new piece of information this afternoon about 1 million bits of careers advice being distributed to our children. I was not quite sure what that meant, but I do know that the CBI has said that the careers service is “on life support”. That is not a system fit for the future.

Those lucky enough to graduate to a further education college confront colleges that have seen a £700 million fall in their funding. That has weighed heavily on those aged 18 studying in FE colleges. For those going on to study in further education beyond the age of 19, funding has fallen by 22%. The Minister for Skills and Enterprise made great play of apprenticeship numbers. He wanted to make the point that apprenticeship numbers have risen since 2010, and of course they have. But, like me, he will be worried that over the past year apprenticeship numbers for the under-25s have fallen by 11,400. He will be concerned about the fall in apprenticeship starts in his constituency, and so will the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss).

The Minister for Skills and Enterprise should take great care in the changes that he proposes and he should listen hard to small and medium-sized enterprises up and down the country that say that putting apprenticeship funding wholesale into their hands through the PAYE system could be a disaster that sees apprenticeship numbers fall off a cliff. He needs to listen carefully to that.

Earlier this week the Leader of the Opposition, my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), announced the final stage of our proposals. It was not the Minister for Skills and Enterprise who introduced the chance for apprentices to go on and study at the highest level of skill. That was a change that was made many years ago, and it is not acceptable that just 2% of apprentices go on to study degree-level skills. There has been a 40% fall in the number of people studying for HNCs, HNDs or foundation degrees. That is not the way to empower apprentices and enable them to go on and study to degree-level skills, and it must change.

We know that there is a big appetite among young people for a vocational path to the highest level of skill. That is why it is now harder to get an apprenticeship in this country than it is to get into university. It is now harder to get into BAE Systems’ apprenticeship programme than to get into Oxford. It is harder to get into Rolls-Royce than to get into Cambridge. These are brilliant programmes and if we are to create more chances like that, we must introduce the kind of proposals for a technical baccalaureate that have been discussed. We must give people the chance to study English and maths through to the age of 18. We must raise the quality of further education across the board by introducing institutes of technical education.

We must radically increase the number of apprenticeship opportunities, crucially using the power of public procurement to increase the number of opportunities. Finally, we must put more resources into the hands of employers so that, with universities and colleges, they are able to use that buying power to expand the opportunity to study technical degrees to the highest level of skill. This is a proposal that was pioneered by my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr Denham) when he was in office. It was a tragedy that the work force development programme was shut down. It was popular with employers, with students and with universities and colleges, too.

I finish on the point underlined by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East. We need to offer our young people a chance, not an excuse and not a target. The hon. Members for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) and for Beverley and Holderness were among those who called for a new cross-party consensus. If we on the Labour Benches sound partisan, it is because we are passionate about transforming the life chances of the people whom we represent. We have a simple belief that the world around us is changing in a way that it has never changed before. There is a new competitive threat to this country from rising economies in the east. If we want to live better than others, we will have to be better than others, and that means giving us a skills system that gets everybody, not just some, to the very highest level of their potential. Only in that way can we offer a future that is optimistic and ambitious. Only in that way can we be a country that is full of hope and not a country that is facing fear.

18:50

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Elizabeth Truss)]

There is nothing more vital to the future of our country than the education and skills of our young people. I find myself in violent agreement with the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) and the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden). They are absolutely right that it is the No. 1 priority for our future competitiveness, social mobility and outcomes as a nation.

As the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) and my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) pointed out, education and skills are becoming more and more important over time as our world is transformed by technology and globalisation. We will not be dividing the House on this motion, because we realise that the Opposition acknowledge their failings over previous years, and that they back our direction. Indeed, they back many of our policies, such as the technical baccalaureate and the availability of more degrees from apprenticeships, and also our reforms in English and maths.

We need to ensure that every qualification, whether it is academic or vocational, is demanding, rigorous and a route to employment. Many Members today commented on the vital importance of English and maths. As the Secretary of State said, those are the most important vocational subjects, which is why we care passionately about ensuring that all children achieve. We are setting up maths hubs, so that all children can master maths. There will be 32 hubs across the country, which will learn from those high performing countries in east Asia that so many hon. Members have talked about this afternoon. In those countries, all children, regardless of their background or whether they are boys or girls, perform very highly.

We are putting in new grammar, spelling and punctuation tests at age 11, and double-weighting English and maths in the performance tables to make sure that every child is literate and numerate by the time they leave school. Students who do not secure good passes in GCSE maths and English will continue to study those subjects until 18 so they can earn those vital passports into future careers.

In addition, we are introducing a new mid-level maths qualification, which students on both the academic and vocational route can study. The core maths qualification comes into being next year, but we have some early adopters—179 colleges and schools. All seven of our tech bac trail blazers will be trialling core maths from this September.

Until now, 40% of students who got a C at GCSE and who wanted to continue with maths did not have an option to do so. Those students will now be able to maintain their confidence and competence in maths. They will be able to apply maths in real-life situations and use statistics, which are so vital in so many jobs today. The core maths qualification is part of our technical baccalaureate, which is our way of ensuring that technical and vocational qualifications are world beating.

The Chairman of the Select Committee talked about Alison Wolf’s report. He used some of the quotes that I was going to use in my speech. Essentially, her report showed that too many young people were fobbed off with qualifications of little market value. What we are doing is ensuring that all the qualifications that students study are of high value.

My hon. Friend the Member for Reading East (Mr Wilson) talked about how we have transformed vocational education. We have introduced technical awards, which are genuinely equivalent to GCSEs, and tech levels, which are backed by employers and will help students get jobs in occupations such as engineering, computing, hospitality and accountancy. We are ensuring that the tech bac is taught across some of the 50 new university technical colleges, which many hon. Members have praised.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) pointed out, we are hugely expanding apprenticeships. There will be 2 million apprenticeship starts over the course of this Parliament, which is a record for our country.

[Mr Byrne]

The Minister gives way with characteristic generosity. I know she will be concerned by the fall in apprenticeship starts in her constituency—apprenticeship starts were down by 150 between 2011-12 and 2012-13. Is she as worried as I am that small and medium-sized enterprises, no doubt in her constituency, are concerned about some of her colleague’s proposed changes?

[Elizabeth Truss]

Apprenticeship starts are actually up in my constituency since 2010, and we are seeing record levels across this Parliament. One of the most important things, as many hon. Members have talked about, is the quality, as well as the quantity, of apprenticeships, and it is important that employers are engaged.

My hon. Friends the Members for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) and for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage) talked about the importance of ensuring that young people are doing the right courses and taking on the right apprenticeships in areas of huge demand, such as STEM. Our Your Life campaign, which has been launched by industry and will go forward to students and young people this autumn, is all about encouraging more young people, particularly girls, to consider future careers in technology, engineering and business. I met some fantastic young women at the Big Bang fair who have taken on apprenticeships at Jaguar Land Rover. They are passionate about what they are doing, and we want to see more of that, because too many young people are not necessarily taking the choices that will help them to get great jobs in the future. The hon. Member for Darlington (Jenny Chapman) pointed that out and made some very good points.

As early as 2004, before the great recession, youth unemployment was on the rise—it was up 40% in the first decade of this century. The reality is that the basic skills that many Opposition Members bemoan were not being taught properly in our schools, and the reality is that many young people were let down by not having basic literacy and numeracy skills. The sad truth is that those young people were let down by low expectations and devalued qualifications.

Our reforms are working. There are 135,000 more young people in work, education or training than this time 12 months ago. Long-term youth unemployment is down by 25,000 on last year, and the number of young people claiming out-of-work benefits has fallen every month for the past 23 months. It is time for Labour Members to acknowledge the changes, reforms and progress that we have made. All young people will now be able to work towards GCSEs in maths and English until they are 18, and all young people now have an opportunity to take the apprenticeship route or the university route. We are expanding the opportunity for students and apprentices to study degrees. We are working more closely with employers, and more and more employers are coming into schools to talk to young people about the fantastic opportunities that are available.

I am afraid that both the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Secretary of State for Education, in their announcement yesterday, failed to talk about the fantastic progress that has already been made by employers, colleges and schools in bringing together business and qualifications. We have fantastic things going on, and it is a shame that Labour Members seek to be miserablist, rather than positive. [Interruption.] Miserable is the word. Why do Labour Front Benchers not learn lessons from the excellent contributions of their Back-Bench Members, who have talked about optimism, hope and a new future, rather than complaining about the reforms that we are already undertaking?

Although the shadow Education Secretary talks about technical degrees, baccalaureates and employer-led apprenticeships, the Opposition do not seem to realise that we are already doing that and young people are benefiting. Under this Government our young people are getting the opportunities they deserve, and they are gaining the skills to get on in life.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House notes that the previous Government rescued the idea of apprenticeships and quadrupled apprenticeship starts; furthermore believes that a transformation in vocational education has eluded governments for decades; therefore believes that the UK needs a new settlement for those young people who do not wish to pursue the traditional route into university and the world of work; and further believes that in order to achieve a high status vocational education system that delivers a high-skill, high-value economy the UK needs a new Technical Baccalaureate qualification as a gold standard vocational pathway achieved at 18, a new National Baccalaureate framework of skills and qualifications throughout the 14 to 19 phase, the study of mathematics and English for all to age 18, for all large public contracts to have apprenticeship places, new employer-led apprenticeships at level 3 and new technical degrees.

Business without Debate

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Commons Chamber

Delegated Legislation

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Commons Chamber

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)),

Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

That the draft Terrorism Act 2000 (Code of Practice for Examining Officers and Review Officers) Order 2014, which was laid before this House on 12 June, be approved.—(Anne Milton.)

Question agreed to.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)),

Town and Country Planning

That the draft Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications, Deemed Applications, Requests and Site Visits) (England) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2014, which were laid before this House on 16 June, be approved.—(Anne Milton.)

Question agreed to.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6) and Order, 1 July),

Financial Assistance to Industry

That this House authorises the Secretary of State to undertake to pay, and to pay by way of financial assistance under section 8 of the Industrial Development Act 1982, sums exceeding £10 million and up to a total of £300 million in respect of compensation of EU Emissions Trading System and Carbon Price Floor in each case to Aylesford Newsprint Limited; Celsa Manufacturing (UK) Ltd; DS Smith Paper Ltd; GrowHow UK Group Ltd; INEOS Chemical Grangemouth Ltd; INEOS ChlorVinyls Limited; Kimberly Clark Limited; Outokumpu Stainless Ltd; Palm Paper Limited; SABIC UK Petrochemicals Ltd; Sahaviriya Steel Industries UK Limited; Tata Steel UK Limited; and UPM-Kymmene (UK) Ltd.—(Anne Milton.)

Question agreed to.

Petitions

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Commons Chamber

19:00

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

I am pleased to present this petition on behalf of residents of Irlam, Cardishead and Barton wards in my constituency who are concerned about proposals to build on an area of Barton that is in the green belt.

The petition states:

The Petition of residents of Irlam, Cardishead and Barton,

Declares that the Petitioners strongly oppose the proposals of Peel Holdings to build up to 1,400 houses as well as warehouses in the green belt area at Barton (Irlam ward), which is bound by the M62 (North), A57 (South), Manchester City Airport (East) and Irlam (West); and further that the Petitioners believe that Boysnope Golf Course (an excellent leisure facility for the local community) should not be shut down.

The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons does all in its power to prevent this development proposal from taking place.

And the Petitioners remain, etc.

[P001351]

19:02

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

I rise to present a petition on behalf of more than 2,000 petitioners calling for urgent upgrades to be made to the A303 at Stonehenge. Members of the Stonehenge traffic action group in my constituency started the petition in response to the long-standing and infamous problems on the A303, which have worsened following the recent closure of the A344.

The petition states:

The Petition of residents of the UK,

Declares that the Petitioners believe that urgent action is needed to make the A303 road west of Stonehenge a dual carriageway following dramatically increased traffic levels caused by the closure of the A344; further that the Petitioners believe a bypass road should be created to relieve the village of Winterbourne Stoke and other blighted communities; further that increased traffic has been diverted on to local roads to the detriment of those resident in the surrounding villages; and further that the Petitioners believe that the Government’s feasibility study into improving the A303 must take the impact of disruption on their lives caused by increased traffic into consideration.

The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to improve the A303 west of Stonehenge by constructing a dual carriageway at the earliest possible opportunity.

And the Petitioners remain, etc.

[P001367]

Navitus Bay Wind Farm

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Commons Chamber

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Anne Milton.)

19:02

[Conor Burns (Bournemouth West) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to rise to address the House in this Adjournment debate. It is four years and two weeks since I stood in exactly the same place and made my maiden speech, which was in an Adjournment debate on student visas. I was pleased on that occasion to make significant progress with the Government afterwards. I hope that the same will be the case today. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is responding and the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey), is in his place.

This is not a debate about the Government’s energy policy or about their renewables policy; those are debates for another day. This is about a particular proposal to build a wind farm off the Dorset coast. It is appropriate that we are debating it while councillors from across the country are enjoying the Local Government Association’s annual conference in Bournemouth and the stunning views from the wonderful conference facility. I recently conducted a survey on the proposed wind farm and have brought with me a small sample of the responses. They show overwhelming opposition from my constituents and others, and for good reasons.

I wish to discuss the potential impact of the Navitus Bay wind farm on England’s only natural world heritage site, the Jurassic coast, designated by the Government and UNESCO in 2001. That status, under article 4 of the world heritage convention of 1972, obliges the Government to protect, conserve, present and transmit to future generations the sites identified as being part of the cultural and natural heritage. A proposal for a wind farm of up to 194 turbines, each of up to 200 metres in height, is currently before the Planning Inspectorate for evaluation. It will be sited within full view of the Jurassic coast and its main visitor centre at Durlston castle. As part of the planning process for this proposal, DCMS submitted an environmental impact assessment to UNESCO. I wish to address the response of UNESCO and the International Union for Conservation of Nature to that environmental impact assessment.

In its comments on the environmental impact assessment, the IUCN raised a number of concerns about the potential impact of the proposed wind farm on the Jurassic coast world heritage site, particularly regarding the unique processes that shape the Jurassic coast and contribute to its outstanding universal value. If this outstanding universal value is compromised and the natural erosion processes on the coast are affected, the reason for the site’s designation as a world heritage site would be threatened. The IUCN notes, too, the potential for the proposal to affect the protection and management of the property. It states that

“in particular, the adequate protection of the wider setting of the property, recognized by the World Heritage Committee to justify at the time of inscription the lack of a defined buffer zone, will be compromised.”

As such, the IUCN said that

“any potential impacts from this project on the natural property are in contradiction to the overarching principle of the World Heritage Convention as stipulated in its Article 4”

as

“the completion of the Project would result in the property being presented and transmitted to future generations in a form that is significantly different from what was there at the time of inscription and until today.”

The first of a number of questions I would like to put to the Minister is this: what is his response to IUCN’s conclusions, and how will the Government meet their obligations under the convention to protect the setting of the site, as well as its listed outstanding universal values?

UNESCO does not make hollow threats. In 2011, there were plans to site a three-turbine wind farm development 10.5 miles from the shore near Mont St Michel in Brittany. As this threatened the setting of the world heritage site, the French Government acted to exclude wind farms from a buffer zone around the site. They were right to do so, as UNESCO is not afraid of removing a site’s designated status. The Elbe valley in Germany was removed from the list of world heritage sites in 2009 following the construction of a four-lane bridge in the valley which meant that

“the property failed to keep ‘its outstanding universal value as inscribed.’”

My colleagues would not expect me to say this, but my second question to the Minister is this: will he follow the French example and take action in England to protect the setting of our only natural world heritage site for future generations, thus avoiding the fate that befell the Germans?

I believe that if the Jurassic coast were to lose its designated status as a world heritage site, the tourism economy throughout Dorset would suffer drastically. Over 30 million trips were made to Dorset in the past year, some 5 million of which included the Jurassic coast, and evidence suggests that visitor numbers have increased since the Jurassic coast’s designation as a world heritage site. Given that Navitus Bay’s own research shows that 48% of people visiting the area cite the sea view as a reason for doing so, and that IUCN

“considers that the impact of the Project on the visitors’ experience and appreciation of the property in its wider natural setting is likely to be significant”,

it is by no means a leap of the imagination to say that the proposed wind farm will have a significant impact on tourism numbers.

[Mr Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)]

The fact that there are many Dorset MPs in the Chamber today shows that we fully support the compelling case that my hon. Friend is making. My constituents are very worried about this proposal and the impact that it will have on the local economy.

[Conor Burns]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend and I salute his dogged determination in opposing this plan and, indeed, that of my hon. Friends the Members for Christchurch (Mr Chope) and for South Dorset (Richard Drax), who are sitting behind me. My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) would be present, except that he is on manoeuvres on Salisbury plain as part of his Territorial Army activities.

My hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr Syms), who is my parliamentary neighbour, knows about the vital impact on Bournemouth and the conurbation. Tourism is Bournemouth’s second most important sector of the economy after financial services and it is worth about £475 million to the town annually. It directly supports 8,500 local jobs, with a further 2,000 jobs indirectly dependent on visitors. Across Dorset as a whole, tourism is worth in the region of £1.7 billion annually and supports in the region of 47,000 jobs.

Given that 20% of summer visitors surveyed by Navitus Bay—they were surveyed by the development company itself—said that they would be unlikely to visit Bournemouth during the five-year construction phase and 14% said that they would be unlikely ever to return, the development would have a major impact on our tourism economy and change the nature of our town and conurbation.

May I, therefore, ask the Minister another direct question? Given the importance of tourism to Bournemouth and Dorset’s economy and the Government’s commitment to our long-term economic plan—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!] I am not surprised that my colleagues expected me to say that—what steps will the Minister take to ensure that this damaging proposal does not go ahead?

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate and fighting, as we all are, this cause. Does he agree that what is surprising is that it is not as if there is nowhere else to locate this wind farm? The Crown Estate identified eight other sites totalling about 225,000 sq km that would be nowhere near the land and that certainly would not damage this fantastic site. Why on earth did the Crown Estate choose this most special site, which we are trying to protect?

[Conor Burns]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. The development company was given a vast area to put the wind farm and my hon. Friend will remember that in our initial meetings with its representatives, we told them that we would not oppose it if it was not visible from the shore, if its visual impact did not deter visitors and if it did not damage the world heritage site. All the company had to do was push it further out within the area given to it by the Crown Estate, but it did not do that.

I want to turn to some of the criticisms of the submission process, starting with the independence of the environmental impact assessment. I agree with the IUCN that it would have been more appropriate for DCMS to have commissioned an independent environmental impact assessment, rather than use one prepared by the proponents of the scheme—the Navitus Bay development company. In the words of IUCN,

“this raises questions on the credibility and objectivity of the assessment.”

I have heard some of the arguments made by Navitus Bay to discredit IUCN’s comments, including that they were merely interim and are not aligned with other impact assessments. Could that be because other impact assessments have been provided or commissioned by Navitus Bay itself? Is this a case of, “We’re right, because the documents we have written say so”?

Then there is the question of the appropriateness of the guidance used. The IUCN notes that the guidance used by Navitus Bay for its assessment was not the most appropriate possible. Rather than using the IUCN world heritage advice note on environmental assessment, Navitus Bay used the International Council on Monuments and Sites “Guidance on Heritage Impact Assessments for Cultural World Heritage Properties”, which is adapted to cultural heritage. According the IUCN, it did so despite being aware of the IUCN guidance, which is referred to in the environmental impact assessment.

IUCN claims that by adopting the other guidance rather than the IUCN advice note, Navitus Bay failed to adhere to all eight world heritage impact assessment principles. Notably, IUCN believes that Navitus Bay failed to adhere to the principle that

“reasonable alternatives to the proposal must be identified and assessed with the aim of recommending the most sustainable option to decision-makers, including”—

crucially—

“the possibility of the ‘no project’ option”.

Why did the DCMS not commission an independent environmental impact assessment?

Did the Minister or any of his current or previous colleagues in the Department approve the letter to UNESCO of 17 February—sent by Leila Al-Kazwini, the DCMS head of world heritage—that takes for granted the evidence provided by Navitus Bay regarding the impact of the proposal on the Jurassic coast while dismissing the concerns of, among others, the steering group for the world heritage site itself?

Sixthly, given those criticisms, does the Minister have confidence in the environmental impact assessment submitted by his Department but created by the Navitus Bay development company?

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on introducing this important debate. Does he share my concern that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport did not issue a formal response to the UNESCO letter of 2 May? That letter contains some powerful arguments. Surely they merited a response from my hon. Friend the Minister. Instead, according to a parliamentary answer I received from him on 23 June, that letter was passed to the planning authorities as part of a process. Is that not most unsatisfactory?

[Conor Burns]

My hon. Friend makes a very important and valid intervention. One reason why I attempted to secure the debate was so that the Minister has the opportunity to explain the Department’s thinking. He also has the opportunity to explain to the House that this is not simply a matter for the Department of Energy and Climate Change or the planning inspector in Bristol, but a matter for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which has a vital, and indeed legally binding, obligation to do all it can to protect that world heritage site, and, as it says, to pass it on intact to future generations. I look forward to his response in a moment.

I conclude as I began. This is not about the Government’s energy policy, renewable energy or subsidy. Hon. Members have different views on those. The debate is about a proposal that my constituents and those of my hon. Friends fundamentally believe is the wrong proposal in the wrong place. Its demerits vastly outweigh its merits. The Government can achieve all their energy ambitions and still say no to the application. My hon. Friend the Minister of State now has an opportunity to tell us what he is prepared to do to assist us. It does not just affect us in Dorset. As things develop, it could affect Hampshire Members—I notice that my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Mr Swayne) is sitting on the Front Bench. The New Forest would be torn up to allow energy to get into the grid.

This is very serious. I say without exaggeration that it is possibly the most significant issue in Bournemouth and the conurbation, and Dorset more widely, in a generation. I hope that the Minister, in his reply, can assure us and our constituents that he is with us and will do what he can to protect that fantastic bit of England.

19:17

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)]

I am grateful for the chance to respond to my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West (Conor Burns) and thank him for promoting me to Minister of State ahead of the reshuffle. I hope that the Whip in the Chamber will pass on that recommendation. My hon. Friend mentioned the Local Government Association conference in Bournemouth, so I shall use this opportunity to pay tribute to Sir Merrick Cockell, who is standing down as chairman of the LGA. He has been a fine servant to the LGA as well as to Kensington and Chelsea council.

Let me respond to the pertinent points my hon. Friend has made about the Jurassic coast, the world heritage site and the potential impact of the Navitus Bay development. It is important to note that several colleagues are in the Chamber—my hon. Friends the Members for South Dorset (Richard Drax), for Poole (Mr Syms), and for Christchurch (Mr Chope), and the Whip, my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Mr Swayne), who may well wish to involve himself in the debate in future, given what my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West said about the potential impact of the wind turbines on the New Forest West constituency.

As I have said, my hon. Friend has made a number of important points. Let me try to deal with them as effectively as I can. He asked six direct questions, and I shall try to answer them in the course of my speech. I will start with the letter from Kishore Rao from the International Union for Conservation of Nature, but let me first set out the framework of my remarks. It is important to state that a process has to be gone through in considering the planning application for Navitus bay. That approach is effectively quasi-judicial, which means that one’s personal opinion must necessarily come second to the opinion of experts and to the process itself.

Let me make it absolutely clear that the letter was from the IUCN, which is a UNESCO advisory body—IUCN advises on natural heritage sites, but it is not UNESCO—so the letter does not give UNESCO’s opinion on the world heritage status of the Jurassic coast. The proposed wind farm development has not to date been examined by the world heritage committee, so neither the world heritage committee nor UNESCO has an official view on the potential impact of the Navitus bay site on the world heritage site. Currently, the world heritage property is not considered by UNESCO to be under threat, and it is not in immediate danger of losing its world heritage status.

My Department, which my hon. Friend mentioned, is responsible for acting as the UK state party on all world heritage matters and for liaising with the UNESCO world heritage centre. The IUCN submitted its comments to UNESCO, and they were forwarded to the DCMS on 2 May. It is our responsibility not to respond to the IUCN, but to ensure that the Planning Inspectorate is made aware of its comments, and we passed on the IUCN’s comments to the Planning Inspectorate on 7 May.

The IUCN letter referred to the effect of the wind farm on the world heritage property and its setting, and such views will be taken into account by the Planning Inspectorate alongside those of English Heritage, which is a statutory consultee.

[Mr Chope]

Is it not correct that the letter that arrived on 2 May was deliberately sent in advance of the Government’s decision to refer this application to the Planning Inspectorate, and that the letter urged—and, indeed, pleaded with—the Government not to refer the application to the Planning Inspectorate because it had not passed the first hurdle?

[Mr Vaizey]

It is not the IUCN’s role to say whether a letter should be passed on to the Planning Inspectorate. My reading of the letter is not the same as my hon. Friend’s, but I will re-read it to double-check his point, and I will respond to him by letter if necessary. As I have said, our responsibility is to pass the letter on to the Planning Inspectorate so that the IUCN’s views are taken into account.

As well as the views of the IUCN, the Planning Inspectorate will take into account those of English Heritage, Natural England, and of course the world heritage site steering group, plus all other representations made to it as part of the planning process. Natural England has made representations about the effect of the proposals on the natural beauty of the coast, as has English Heritage about the effect of the wind farm’s setting on listed buildings and scheduled ancient monuments.

It is important to stress that the Jurassic coast is a world heritage site not on the basis of its natural setting, but on that of its unique geological interest. In addition to the world heritage site, there are two areas of outstanding natural beauty and two stretches of heritage coast. The need to protect the natural beauty of those areas and the effect of the wind farm on them will be considered as part of the planning process, as indeed will the cultural heritage. All such representations are publicly available on the Planning Inspectorate’s website.

I will touch briefly on the UK marine policy statement, which is the framework for preparing marine plans and taking decisions that affect the marine environment that is required by the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009. The marine policy statement identifies the social, economic and environmental factors that should be considered in the preparation of marine plans. Those include the seascape.

This proposal is classed as a major infrastructure proposal under the terms of the Planning Act 2008. Its determination is subject to the overarching energy national policy statement and the renewable energy infrastructure national policy statement. The Planning Inspectorate has to assess the wind farm proposal in relation to those provisions and under the national planning policy framework and other relevant planning policies.

It is important to stress that heritage protection policies and nature conservation policies are reflected in that guidance. It includes the recognition that heritage assets can be affected by offshore wind farm development, either directly through the physical siting of the development or indirectly through the impact on the marine environment. The guidance includes a presumption in favour of the conservation of designated heritage assets. The more significant the heritage asset, the greater the presumption in favour of conservation. The setting of heritage assets can contribute to their significance. National planning policy is clear that applications for renewable energy schemes should be approved only if the impact on the local environment is or can be made acceptable. The guidance states that local concerns should be listened to.

Perhaps it would be appropriate at this point to talk about the environmental impact assessment. My understanding is that it is normal practice for the developer to pay for the environmental impact assessment. However, it is still an independent environmental impact assessment. It is not the job of the DCMS or any other Department, as far as I am aware, to pay for the impact assessment or to commission another one if it has not been paid for adequately by the developer. There is no suggestion that the environmental impact assessment is not independent. However, my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West made his point effectively.

[Richard Drax]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Vaizey]

I thought that that point might provoke an intervention.

[Richard Drax]

I am incredulous about what the Minister has just said. If Navitus Bay has paid for the assessment, how on earth can it be independent?

[Mr Vaizey]

I am not the planning Minister, but as far as I am aware, it is normal practice for the developer to pay for the independent assessment. The assessment is still independent and is effectively done at arm’s length from the developer.

The Planning Inspectorate has received many representations and will convene a preliminary meeting, where the process for the consideration of the application will be set out and questions about it considered. The inspectorate will have six months to carry out its investigation of the application, which will be undertaken by way of hearings and the consideration of written representations. It will consider all the important and relevant matters that are brought to its attention. It will then report and make a recommendation to the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West put a number of points to me. First, he suggested that I follow the example of the French. He should be aware that that is something which I try to do on many occasions. I am one of the people in the Chamber who has some admiration for the French in general, although not necessarily for their Government or policies. The case of Mont St Michel was unique, as is every case in which a world heritage site is considered. It is impossible to read across from one case to the other just because they both involve a world heritage site and an offshore wind farm. That does not make the two cases identical. However, that example from my hon. Friend is a reminder of the power that UNESCO has and of the need to be vigilant about world heritage sites.

English Heritage has advised me on world heritage sites in the past. For example, I wrote to oppose the development of Elizabeth house, which is just across the river, because of its impact on the setting of this august building. Indeed, English Heritage took the Government to court and judicially reviewed the decision of the planning Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), which did not make him particularly happy. That example shows that English Heritage is prepared to make a stand when it has a genuine view that a world heritage site is under threat. Unfortunately, from the perspective of my hon. Friends who are here this evening, that is not currently English Heritage’s position in this case. Its current advice is that the offshore wind farm would not have an undue adverse effect.

I stress that I have heard the points that my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West has made, and if I was in his position, I think I would be making similar points. I am not across the specific details of the planning application such as whether the wind farm could be put in a different part of the zones that the Crown Estate has designated, but I certainly encourage him to enter negotiations with the Crown Estate and the developers to see whether it could be moved. Although the process is of course independent and quasi-judicial, and although there are objective considerations to be taken into account to do with the designation of the world heritage site, common sense and simple corporate responsibility surely dictate that the Navitus developers should sit down with my august friends who are here this evening and discuss alternatives.

[Richard Drax]

The site was chosen because it is the closest to land, and it is all about the money. The other sites are far further out and would cost the company many millions of pounds more. Whatever negotiations we enter, there is no way it will change its mind.

[Mr Vaizey]

I hear what my hon. Friend says. As I said, I am not close to the planning application itself and do not know the technical considerations that Navitus has made. Clearly money, and the return on capital that it hopes to achieve, will be a factor, but as I understand it the Crown Estate is the landlord. It should be encouraged to enter a dialogue with my hon. Friends, who represent their constituents’ and the nation’s interests so ably on the matter, and I hope it will do so.

[Mr Chope]

My hon. Friend will know that the Crown Estate gets money only for developments within the 12-mile limit. If the wind farm were pushed beyond the 12-mile limit, it would not get any money for it. That is why it is not in favour of doing that.

[Mr Vaizey]

The Crown Estate is free to grant planning permission for individual developments, and I am sure that it will take into account its wider responsibility and its relationship with local communities and stakeholders in deciding how it wishes its estate to be developed. I believe that it should sit down with my hon. Friends and local stakeholders and discuss the merits or otherwise of the proposal.

To return to my role and that of the DCMS, I hope that I have emphasised that we are not shy in coming forward when we think a world heritage site is under threat, even if it involves disagreeing with colleagues in other Departments, because we put the interests of world heritage sites first. As I understand it, the professional advice from English Heritage and English Nature is that although they have some concerns about the impact on some historic buildings, they do not state that the current proposal for the offshore—

19:33

House adjourned without Question put (Standing Order No. 9(7)).

Deferred Divisions

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Commons Chamber

Division 33

Ayes: 274

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Conservative: 228
Liberal Democrat: 38
Democratic Unionist Party: 7

Noes: 203

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Labour: 193
Social Democratic & Labour Party: 3
Plaid Cymru: 3
Liberal Democrat: 3
Conservative: 1
Independent: 1
Alliance: 1
Green Party: 1