House of Commons

Wednesday 3rd September 2014 Commons Chamber

Wednesday 3 September 2014

The House met at half-past Eleven o’clock

Prayers

Wednesday 3rd September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Speaker’s Statement

Wednesday 3rd September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I must inform the House that, owing to a misunderstanding, the two Opposition day debates today were put on the Order Paper in the wrong sequence. I am content that the order in the debate should be reversed, as the Opposition intended. The House will therefore debate the motion relating to energy company licence revocations first and the motion relating to infant class sizes second.

Oral Answers to Questions

Wednesday 3rd September 2014 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

1. What recent assessment her Department has made of the needs of people affected by the humanitarian situation in northern Iraq; what steps her Department is taking to help people affected by that situation; and if she will make a statement.

[The Secretary of State for International Development (Justine Greening)]

Before I reply, may I welcome the Minister of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Mr Swayne), to his role? May I also pay tribute and give warm thanks to his predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Sir Alan Duncan), who did an outstanding job in that role and is well known across the House for his expertise on the middle east?

The Department for International Development is deeply concerned about the situation in northern Iraq; the UN’s latest estimate is that 1.8 million people are displaced across Iraq. My Department has played a leading role in the response. I visited both Baghdad and Erbil last week and announced a further £10 million of funding, bringing our total UK support now to £23 million.

[Paul Flynn]

I did not hear an answer, but I would have been grateful if I had. I am sure we look forward to seeing the new Minister, and I hope we appreciate his performances as much as we have appreciated his silence over the past years.

The NATO summit will start tomorrow in the splendid city of Newport, and it will be followed by a Newport declaration. Will the Secretary of State give us an assurance that although the Newport declaration will contain some military recommendations, there will be an emphasis on soft power? Military power leaves a legacy of antagonism; soft power—the one she is mainly responsible for—leaves a legacy of good will.

[Justine Greening]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. Clearly, in dealing with ISIL we need to look at all the measures necessary to make sure we can tackle the threat it poses. Alongside that work on stability in Iraq, not only does political progress need to be made in forming an inclusive Government, but, as he says, there needs to be humanitarian support for people who have been affected by this crisis on the ground. I met many of them last week, and many of them have awful tales of how they have had to leave their homes overnight, with almost none of their possessions. We are doing our best to support them, but that work has to line up with a military and a political strategy.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is keen to give humanitarian help to the Kurds in the north of Iraq but is finding great difficulty in getting aid through. In particular, it took a month and a half to get a field hospital to the north of Iraq, which is a ridiculously long time. What can the Secretary of State do to bring pressure to bear on the Iraqi Government to allow Jordanian overflight above the Kingdom of Iraq?

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend rightly points out that co-ordination between the Government of Iraq—I had the chance to meet the Prime Minister-designate when I was there last week—the Kurdistan Regional Government and the UN agencies is crucial. One sticking point has been on making sure we can transport supplies and equipment quickly; many flights need to stop in Baghdad, and that is part of the delay. We are seeking to make sure that those operations run smoothly.

[Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) (Lab)]

Quite rightly, there was a huge fuss in this Chamber a few months ago about the abduction of the Nigerian schoolchildren. I have continually asked about the plight of the Yazidi women, nearly 3,000 of whom have been gang-raped and sold into sexual slavery. I do not have a clear idea what we are doing to help those women or why we are not making it a strong issue that we should be doing something about.

[Justine Greening]

I could not agree more with the right hon. Lady’s raising of this issue. As she will know, we worked hand in hand with the Ministry of Defence to make sure that we could get humanitarian supplies to Yazidis who were trapped on Mount Sinjar. When I was in Iraq last week, I announced £10 million in extra support, part of which was specifically allocated to making sure that we can support women and girls, not only by protecting them from violence, but by providing the trauma counselling and support they need to help them after those experiences.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

I warmly welcome the Secretary of State’s visit to Iraq. What DFID, official and diplomatic presence do we have in the country to ensure that we are well informed about the developing situation there after her return?

[Justine Greening]

First, when this crisis commenced, we quickly embedded an official humanitarian adviser in the Kurdistan Regional Government. I had a chance to ask the Regional Government for an assessment of the work that they are doing. Secondly, we have also had somebody working on the ground with UN agencies, ensuring that the initial work setting up the operations was well organised. Thirdly, we will now look to provide further official support as the team and operation on the ground in northern Iraq get going. As my hon. Friend will be aware, most of our work happens through UN agencies and non-governmental organisations, but, as I have just outlined, we also provide technical assistance and support.

[Mr Jim Murphy (East Renfrewshire) (Lab)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Mr Swayne) on his promotion. He has a tough act to follow in the right hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Sir Alan Duncan), who brought real passion and commitment to the job.

The murder of Steven Sotloff and the reports of the taking of a British hostage remind us of the bravery and dedication of those who go to the region to save people’s lives or to report the news. Over recent months, there has been a move of 850,000 internally displaced civilians into Kurdistan. Will the Secretary of State say a little more about what has been done to support the Kurdistan Regional Government, and to make sure that public services do not collapse under the strain?

[Justine Greening]

The right hon. Gentleman is right to raise that point. When I visited Iraq last week, I was keen to ensure that I went to Erbil, and I had the chance to meet both the President of the Kurdistan Regional Government and the Deputy Prime Minister. I was impressed by the work and the team that is in place to respond to the crisis. I met not just those at a senior ministerial level, but the mayor of Erbil who, alongside having to continue to provide basic services to people in that city, is now coping with around 100,000 displaced people who have arrived there. The camps and facilities are now being set up to cope with them. The teams are well organised, and we have a humanitarian adviser working alongside them, and we will look to see what more we can do over the coming weeks and months to support the Kurdistan Regional Government.

[Mr Murphy]

The whole House will look forward to hearing those updates and how we are supporting the Kurdistan Regional Government. Assyrian Christians, Yazidis and Turkmen Shi’a have lived side by side in that region for centuries, and yet ISIL is now targeting non-Arab and non-Sunni Muslim populations and communities. Will the Secretary of State assure the House that in the distribution of life-saving aid that sort of discrimination is not unintentionally repeated and that all minorities have equal access to life-saving aid and support?

[Justine Greening]

I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that in co-ordinating our humanitarian assistance, we do it solely on the basis of need.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

2. What her Department’s role is in the relief effort for people affected by the situation in Gaza.

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

3. What her Department’s role is in the relief effort for people affected by the situation in Gaza.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

5. What her Department’s role is in the relief effort for people affected by the situation in Gaza.

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

6. What recent work has been undertaken through programmes of her Department in Gaza.

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Mr Desmond Swayne)]

The United Kingdom is one of the largest donors. We have spent some £17 million in emergency aid. We are providing food and essential supplies to families in desperate need. We are repairing the water infrastructure and providing counselling to those who have been traumatised.

[Helen Goodman]

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his promotion and thank him for his answer. As the House knows, children have borne the brunt of the recent conflict: 500 have died, 1,000 are permanently disabled and half a million cannot go to school. Yet the UN’s appeal is only half funded. What is the Department doing to get other members of the international community to play their part?

[Mr Swayne]

The hon. Lady is quite right. From our rapid reaction facility, we have specifically earmarked funds for the assistance of children. With respect to encouraging others to step up to the plate as we have done, there will undoubtedly be a donors’ conference soon, but that will be immeasurably assisted by a meaningful peace process.

[Ian Lavery]

The conflict in Gaza has displaced almost 1.8 million people—one quarter of the inhabitants of Gaza—and they are of all ages. Will the Minister say what his Department is doing to provide relief for the mainly disabled and elderly people in Gaza who have been displaced?

[Mr Swayne]

The hon. Gentleman is quite right. Some 58,000 people are currently sheltering in UN relief agency schools, and 100,000 people have no home to return to. Clearly, there must be a rebuilding effort, but that will require substantial movement on access into and out of Gaza, and that will require a peace process that can proceed.

[Alex Cunningham]

The answer to that question was helpful, because the people of Gaza have been denied the right to the essentials of daily life for many, many years because of the illegal blockade, and they now depend on the Israeli Government or the tunnels in order to get aid. Does the Minister agree that it is a necessity to end the blockade, and what will his Department and others do to achieve that?

[Mr Swayne]

The hon. Gentleman is right. The UN report suggested that even before this latest round of hostilities, Gaza would become uninhabitable by 2020—before it had started to be smashed to smithereens. Clearly, there must be movement on access if Gaza is to have a viable economic future. What are we doing about that? We are contributing to a peace process, and our primary aim in this Department is to bring relief to those who are in want.

[Graham Evans]

Will my right hon. Friend update the House on the work that his Department is doing with the Foreign Office to help address the underlying causes of the conflict in Gaza, and to work towards a two-state solution?

[Mr Swayne]

We believe that a two-state solution is the only realistic game in town, and to that end we are spending considerable sums of money in support of the Palestinian Authority, in order to get it into the habit of good governance, so that democratic institutions can flourish. We are also investing considerably in private sector development so that there will be economic growth, in order that a future state should be both stable and prosperous.

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

The Minister mentioned the UN relief agency schools. Is he as appalled as I am that those so-called safe havens were bombed and people within them killed, and what is his Department doing with others in the international community to ensure that those are safe havens?

[Mr Swayne]

As I said, some 58,000 people are now sheltering in these schools. It is absolutely right that breaches of international law on both sides be investigated, and we will be vigilant in that process.

[Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)]

12. I very much welcome the Minister’s comments about the provision of aid, but has any consideration been given to the fact that much of the damage may have been caused by weaponry, or parts of weapons, that were sold to Israel with UK Government approval?

[Mr Swayne]

As the Prime Minister made clear in his statement on Monday, there has been a thorough review of export licences and proper procedures have been put in place. In fact, 12 licences were identified where a component part could possibly have been used in an offensive capacity. Those licences will be suspended if there is a return to significant hostilities.

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

May I press the Minister a little more on the question of the blockade? If I understood him correctly, he said that a peace process needs to be got going in order to lift the blockade, but my understanding of the ceasefire is that an easing of the blockade, at least, comes first. That is a way of getting to the peace process. The aid needs to be going in now. What is the Government’s position? Is it pressing for the blockade to be lifted now?

[Mr Swayne]

My understanding of the ceasefire arrangements is that they, in effect, restore the status quo ante with respect to the Rafah crossing. But if we are to see a significant easing of the restrictions and economic development, there must be much greater access, and that means that Israel’s legitimate security concerns must be taken into account and allayed.

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

10. My right hon. Friend has rightly highlighted that even before the latest Israeli action the people of Gaza faced a pressing humanitarian crisis, caused, for example, by the salination of the aquifer, with all drinking water becoming undrinkable quite soon afterwards. Is there anything that his Department can do now of a practical nature, not dependent on the peace process, to improve the longer-term situation in Gaza?

[Mr Swayne]

We are taking action now: we have deployed funds from our rapid reaction facility precisely to deal with the water issue. But in the long term, the salination and desalination has to be taken into account, and that will require a very substantial investment in the infrastructure.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

I welcome the right hon. Gentleman to his new role and pay tribute to his predecessor. The 3,000 injured children in Gaza and the 100,000 Palestinians made homeless whom the Minister mentioned need uninterrupted help from humanitarian agencies such as the Red Cross. The situation is still urgent. What specific steps has he taken with the Foreign Office and others to encourage both Israeli and Palestinian actors to ensure safe, continuous access for those working to aid the recovery in Gaza?

[Mr Swayne]

We continually make representations to the Israelis with respect to making access easier. The hon. Lady is quite right: many of those children have life-changing injuries. The NGOs who have to negotiate access to Gaza currently incur costs of some £6 million a year to do so, and that is not acceptable.

[Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)]

13. Although I recognise that both the Israelis and the Egyptians have offered humanitarian aid during the crisis, I am keen to press the Minister on what his Department could do immediately to ensure supplies of medicine and medical aid to the people of Gaza.

[Mr Swayne]

We have supplied emergency aid to the International Committee of the Red Cross, to which we gave £3 million, and through our rapid reaction facility to other NGOs.

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

4. What recent assessment she has made of the humanitarian situation in South Sudan.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development (Lynne Featherstone)]

I returned from South Sudan early this morning and have seen that the humanitarian situation there remains precarious: 1.8 million people have been displaced by the conflict, 1.3 million of them within the country. Although aid has helped to ameliorate the food security situation in some areas, there is still a high risk of famine in early 2015.

[Sir Tony Baldry]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for updating the House on her recent visit to Juba. The House wants reassurance from her that the international community has got a grip on the deteriorating humanitarian situation in South Sudan and will, as far as possible, be able to abate what looks as though it could turn into a humanitarian disaster.

[Lynne Featherstone]

My right hon. Friend is right to be worried about the food security situation. There are 3.9 million people facing alarming levels of food insecurity, and the UN estimates that up to 50,000 children could die this year from malnutrition. Humanitarian access is impeded, but I can assure the House that the international community is together on this issue, and I press Ministers in South Sudan most strongly to allow humanitarian access. It will depress the House, however, to learn that there is a lack of will from the leaders of South Sudan to care about the people of the country rather than themselves.

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

The Minister said that 1.3 million people have been internally displaced in South Sudan. What steps is she taking to ensure that whatever assistance we can make available there is being specifically targeted at helping that very large number of at-risk people?

[Lynne Featherstone]

I flew up to Ganyiel myself to see the internally displaced people. They are being accommodated although there is an issue between the host community and the IDPs. We have given £12.5 million to those refugees who have gone to the region, and we work with international partners to ensure that food and assistance reach them.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

11. Twenty-three Members of Parliament in South Sudan have recently been removed. What can the Government do to help to support the parliamentary process in South Sudan?

[Lynne Featherstone]

I met Ministers, and it is quite clear that the Government of South Sudan is not functioning in a manner that we would recognise. They are closing down radio stations and inhibiting access to humanitarian agencies. As I said, the case is extremely depressing, but we urge them to observe the new 45-day deadline that they have to put in place a transitional Government because only peace can help the people of South Sudan.

[Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)]

7. What humanitarian relief efforts the UK is undertaking in connection with the Ebola epidemic.

[The Secretary of State for International Development (Justine Greening)]

The UK is playing a leading role and working with the international community to combat Ebola. In total, around £25 million of British funding is supporting the global effort to contain this disease. That includes £5 million of direct funding to help partners working on the ground such as Médecins sans Frontières and the Red Cross.

[Mark Menzies]

Many of us have been shocked by the devastation that Ebola has brought to west Africa. Will the Secretary of State update the House on how closely we are working with the United States and France?

[Justine Greening]

We are working very closely with other UN agencies, but also with the US and France. The UK is very much leading the efforts to respond to Ebola in Sierra Leone, with the US leading in Liberia and France in Guinea, but we continue to encourage other international partners to join those efforts.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for International Development (Justine Greening)]

After visiting Zambia in July to see its work in tackling child marriage, my Department led the successful Girl Summit and #YouthForChange event with the aim of helping to end female genital mutilation and child early and forced marriage in a generation. My Department has also been focused on the UK’s response to the humanitarian crisis in Iraq, Gaza and Syria, and the spread of the Ebola virus in west Africa.

[Richard Graham]

I have heard young constituents talk about the National Citizen Service programme and its transformational effect on their lives, and I believe that the International Citizen Service proposals will have an equally transformational impact on people who might otherwise never have such an opportunity. Will the Secretary of State tell us more about how this programme will evolve, and how we can spread the word about its opportunities to people?

[Justine Greening]

More than 5,600 UK volunteers aged between 18 and 25 have now taken part in the International Citizen Service. It is a fantastic scheme giving young people wonderful opportunities, and we plan to expand it and grow those places.

[Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

T2. In the Central African Republic, the humanitarian situation remains dire. What steps is the Secretary of State taking to help there, including the situation for refugees to Chad, Cameroon and Democratic Republic of the Congo?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development (Lynne Featherstone)]

The UK has provided £23 million in humanitarian assistance to the Central African Republic crisis since mid-2013, as well as £2.5 million in development funding through central programmes. We are the second largest bilateral donor and some of that money goes to the region for refugees.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

T4. What humanitarian assistance has DFID afforded to the Iraqi town of Amerli, which until recently was surrounded by ISIL militants, resulting in thousands of Shi’a Turkmen being threatened with starvation and death?

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend will be aware that the UK supported international efforts to deliver aid to thousands of people trapped by ISIL in the Iraqi town of Amerli during the weekend. DFID provided supplies of 8.5 tonnes of water and 3 tonnes of food, which were dropped from the air by the RAF C-130 aircraft. I would like to take this opportunity to thank our RAF personnel for doing such an outstanding job in providing those life-saving supplies.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

T5. World Vision has told me that half a million children did not begin a new school year last month because of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. How does the Department intend to support efforts to ensure that we do not see another lost generation and that these children get to school?

[Justine Greening]

The hon. Gentleman is right to raise that issue. One of the challenges has been that many of the people displaced within Gaza went to schools that were empty because of the school holidays. I recently spoke to the head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency about how we can ensure we create the homes and the refuges for people to leave the schools so that the children can get back to school. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right; we need to make sure that they do not lose their education.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

T6. What are the British Government’s plans for development goals as part of the UN General Assembly later this month?

[Justine Greening]

We will be pushing our vision for a compelling new set of development goals in relation to post-2015, and in our August presidency of the UN Security Council, we have been focusing on conflict prevention.

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

T8. Will the Secretary of State confirm that Ministers of both parties will be voting in favour of the Bill enshrining our 0.7% commitment to development in law?

[Justine Greening]

The most important thing is that for the first time ever, this country and this Government have met their pledge to hit 0.7%, which is an achievement that we should be proud of, and we support the Bill.

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

T7. Many people are still stuck in camps on the Burma-Thai border, unable to return home and in a precarious situation, without enough food or supplies. Will the Minister meet Kidz in Kampz in my constituency, which does a wonderful job helping people to understand the problems on the ground?

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Mr Desmond Swayne)]

I will undoubtedly do so.

The Prime Minister was asked—

[Mr Speaker]

I call Eric Joyce. Not here.

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

Q2. If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 3 September.

[The Prime Minister (Mr David Cameron)]

I am sure that the whole House and the whole country will join me in condemning the sickening and brutal murder of another American hostage, and share our shock and anger that it again appears to have been carried out by a British citizen. All our thoughts are with the British hostage and his family: their ordeal is unimaginable. But let me be very clear: this country will never give in to terrorism. Our opposition to ISIL will continue at home and abroad. It is important that we are clear about the nature of the threat we face. It makes no distinction between cultures, countries and religions; there is no way to appease it. The only way to defeat it is to stand firm and to send a very straightforward message: a country like ours will not be cowed by these barbaric killers. If they think that we will weaken in the face of their threats, they are wrong—it will have the opposite effect. We will be more forthright in the defence of the values that we hold dear—liberty under the rule of law, freedom and democracy—and I am sure a united message to that effect will go forward from this House today.

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

[Mr Cunningham]

I endorse what the Prime Minister has just said about the American hostage.

Some years ago, the Prime Minister said he wanted to stop the Conservatives “banging on about Europe”. What has happened?

[The Prime Minister]

A lot of things have changed in Europe, not least the eurozone crisis, which had eased but is beginning to reappear, creating an enormous tension within the European Union—those countries within the eurozone that need further integration, and those countries outside the eurozone that want a more flexible relationship with Europe. It is absolutely right that we debate and discuss these matters in this House, but above all it is right that we include the British people, and under my plans they will have the decisive say before the end of 2017.

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

Q3. Will the Prime Minister join me in congratulating all the businesses in Basildon and Thurrock that over the last year have reduced unemployment by 36% in my constituency? Does he agree that this is evidence that our long-term economic plan is working?

[The Prime Minister]

I am delighted to join my hon. Friend in that way. Unemployment is coming down right across the country. In the east of England, the number of people in work is up by 400,000 since the election; private sector employment is up; the number of businesses is up; and investment is up. The news today about the GDP figure revisions shows that since 2010 this country has grown faster than France, faster than Germany, and faster than any major economy apart from Canada and the United States of America. There should not be any complacency, because the job is not yet done, but our long-term economic plan is working and it is the way to secure a better future for our country.

[Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)]

I join the Prime Minister in expressing the universal sense of revulsion at the barbaric murder of Stephen Sotloff, and deep concern about the British hostage being held, for whose family this will be a terrible time, and people across the country will be thinking of them. This is a pattern of murderous behaviour by ISIL towards the innocent: Christians; Yazidis; Muslims—anyone who does not agree with their vile ideology. And I agree with the Prime Minister: events like this must strengthen, not weaken, our resolve to defeat them and he can be assured of our full support in standing firm against them.

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the Leader of the Opposition for what he has said and the way in which he has said it. I think this House should send a united message. What has happened to the two hostages so far and what may happen again in the future is utterly abhorrent and barbaric. These people need to understand that we will not waver in our aim of defeating terrorism. That is not something that divides this House politically; it is something that everyone, and I suspect the entirety of our country, agrees with.

[Edward Miliband]

ISIL’s pattern of killing will shock people not just in Britain but across the world. Does the Prime Minister further agree with me that we and countries in the region have a vital humanitarian and security interest in overcoming ISIL? Can I ask him what progress is being made to mobilise other countries, including Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and regional bodies, especially the Arab League, against ISIL?

[The Prime Minister]

If I may say so, the way the Leader of the Opposition is approaching this is entirely right. We should see this crisis as one where we are there to help the people on the ground and the countries in the region that want to solve this crisis. We should not see it as somehow a western-led intervention. We have the Kurds that are defending communities, including minority communities, from the horrors of ISIL. We have the Government in Baghdad, which badly needs to get itself together so it can represent all of the country. Then we, with allies and neighbours, can do more to make sure that this appalling organisation, ISIL, feels the full pressure of international, regional and local condemnation. That is what should be done. As he says, we should be using all the assets that we have, focusing first on humanitarian aid and saving people from persecution, hunger and starvation; using our diplomatic and political pressures to make sure there is a Government in Baghdad who can represent all the country; and marshalling, working with others, so that the maximum amount of pressure is put on. If we continue in that way, always asking ourselves, “How can others in the neighbourhood do their work, how can we help them, and how do we best defend our national interest and keep our people safe at home?”, that is the right approach.

[Edward Miliband]

I agree with the Prime Minister, and building that partnership is vital in the weeks and months ahead. Work through the United Nations is obviously a key part of building the legitimacy and effectiveness of the alliance against ISIL. In addition to the UN Security Council resolution passed in the last few weeks, can he tell us what plans he has to use the UK’s chair of the Security Council to build the international consensus that he talked about?

[The Prime Minister]

So far, as the right hon. Gentleman says, we have used the United Nations to put pressure on ISIL by making it clear that people should not be providing resources or sanctuary to these people; indeed, they should be cut off. That has been the approach so far. But we do have an opportunity, through the UN, to marshal international support and backing for the view that this ISIL so-called Islamic caliphate is unacceptable and needs to be squeezed out of existence. That is what we should do, and we should aim to get the maximum support through the UN for the measures, right across the board, that are being taken.

[Edward Miliband]

Turning to the threat we face in Britain, people will have been shocked and disgusted that there were British voices on the video and that British citizens are part of ISIL. On Monday, the Prime Minister announced that he would reintroduce relocation powers for suspected terrorists. He has our full support for this change. Can he confirm that this will go ahead, and can he give an indication of the timetable for bringing these powers forward?

[The Prime Minister]

I can confirm that it will go ahead, and it is going to require legislation. The key is, I think, to put the desires and advice of David Anderson, who is the independent reviewer of terrorism, into action. What he has spoken about is some combination of exclusion and relocation, and it is that that needs to be introduced into the terrorism prevention and investigatory measures. I think we should try to do this on a cross-party basis to send the clearest possible message, and urgency is the order of the day.

[Edward Miliband]

The best way to deal with terrorists is of course criminal prosecution or, where that is not possible, strict restrictions on their activities and movements. On Monday, the Prime Minister also proposed the possibility of blocking British citizens from returning to the UK. Given that there has been some doubt cast on this, can he say a bit more about whether he believes that it is legally permissible, and, again, whether there are plans to take this forward?

[The Prime Minister]

The short answer is that I do believe it is legally permissible, but it is going to take some work, for this reason. We already have the power when people are trying to return to the United Kingdom. If it is a foreign national, we can exclude them, even if they have lived in this country for any number of years. If it is a dual national, we can strip them of their British citizenship and exclude them from the country. If it is a naturalised Briton, we can, under our new laws passed recently through this House, strip them of their British nationality. But I do believe there is a gap where you have someone born and raised as a British citizen, rather like the individual from High Wycombe we discussed on Monday saying he wanted to return in order to do harm to our country. Of course, the best thing to do is to gather evidence, prosecute, convict and imprison, but there may be occasions when we need to exclude, and so therefore we should fill that gap in our armoury, and I believe it is legal and possible to do it.

[Edward Miliband]

Of course, we will look at the practicality and legality of any proposals the Prime Minister comes forward with.

Finally, may I ask the Prime Minister to revisit the case for strengthening the Prevent programme in terms both of resources and of community engagement? After all, that is essential to stop people being indoctrinated into this poisonous ideology. We need swift action to build alliances across the world against ISIL and strong and considered action here at home. It is what the world needs; it is what the British people expect; and in pursuing this course the Prime Minister will have our full support.

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his support. On the Prevent programme, what we have done is try to divide up the different elements of it. One part is about community cohesion, which is best led by the Department for Communities and Local Government, and the other part is best run by the Home Office through the Prevent programme. That is what we have done.

What we need to be absolutely clear about, however, is that it is not enough to target those who preach violent extremism. We need to go after those who promote the extremist narrative and life view that gives the terrorists and the men of violence support for what they do. It is not unlike the cold war, where we pursued not just those who wanted to do us such harm; we also had to challenge all those who gave them succour. That is what we need to do in this struggle, which, as I have said, I think will last for decades, and we need to show resilience and, as the right hon. Gentleman has said, unity in pursuing it.

[Mr Andrew Lansley (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

In this Parliament, our coalition Government have increased health spending in England by more than £17 billion a year. As a direct consequence of that, the block grant to Scotland, which supports NHS funding in Scotland, has increased by £1.7 billion a year. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that gives the lie to Alex Salmond’s propaganda about the NHS?

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Because of the decisions we took—long-term decisions after a careful assessment—to increase spending on the health service, that has given extra money for Scotland to spend on the NHS. That gives the lie to one of Alex Salmond’s claims. His second claim that, somehow, a Westminster Government could privatise parts of the NHS in Scotland is complete and utter nonsense. The only person who could privatise parts of the NHS in Scotland is Alex Salmond. You can tell someone has lost the argument when they start having ludicrous ideas about what they would do themselves.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Q4. There have been worrying reports over the past week about a rise in malnutrition, the return of rickets and children going back to school hungry after the school holidays. I know the Government are rolling out free school meals, but that alone will not solve food poverty. When I have asked the Prime Minister about this before, I have really felt that he is not taking it seriously. Will he acknowledge that it is a real problem? It is actually a national scandal and it is his job to do something about it.

[The Prime Minister]

First, it is welcome that all infants will have free school meals as they go to school this week. That will be welcome to many families up and down the country. The evidence is that 99% of schools are providing those free school meals, but I have to say that the best way we can help people is to get more people into work—and we are—and make sure that our economy continues to grow and that it delivers for hard-working people.

I know the Labour party wants to get this narrative about inequality up and running, but let me give some statistics to show why it is not true. There are 300,000 fewer children in poverty than when Labour was in office. Inequality in our country has gone down, not up. One of the most serious causes of poverty—long-term youth unemployment—is now lower than when this Government came to office. That is how we are changing people’s lives and their life chances.

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

Does the Prime Minister agree that our friends in the middle east who share a basic commitment to pluralism, democracy and peaceful change—from the Syrian National Coalition to Mahmoud Abbas in Palestine and the elected Governments of Kurdistan, Libya and, we hope, Iraq—must by now be finding British support inconsistent, fragmented and unstrategic, and is it not time for a more consistent strategy?

[The Prime Minister]

I am afraid that I do not agree at all with the hon. Gentleman. This Government have massively increased our engagement with Gulf and middle eastern states. Everybody knows that our view is one in favour of democracy, human rights and the building blocks of democracy. We are not naive interventionists who believe you can drop democracy out of the back of an aeroplane—it needs to be built. They know that is our view. We engage with all of those states in order to maximise not just our influence, but the chance of regional stability in that vital area.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

Q6. Does the Prime Minister share public concern that terrible abuse can happen to children—most recently, the 1,400 sexually abused girls in Rotherham—yet directors of social services and other senior officers pay no penalty and often move on to even higher paid jobs? Surely, if the contracts of the people at the top mean they cannot be sacked in such circumstances, the contracts need looking at.

[The Prime Minister]

I agree entirely with what the hon. Lady has said. First, what we have seen in Rotherham is deeply shocking, and as I have said, I think it demonstrates a failure in the local government system there, in the children’s services department and in policing. All those issues need to be addressed, which is why I have asked the Home Secretary to chair a group of Ministers to look at how we learn the lessons even before we get our child abuse inquiry fully under way.

The hon. Lady is absolutely right that local authorities, when they employ these people, should look carefully at their contracts and make sure that if people do not do the job properly they can be removed. It is absolutely vital: you cannot police all of this from Whitehall; local government has responsibility for the people it employs and should hold them to account.

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

Q7. May I concur with the Prime Minister’s earlier comments on this appalling, barbaric behaviour, and say that we all stand right behind him?If net migration into the UK continues at its present level, we can fill a city the size of Leeds every three years. This is not only unsustainable, but potentially destabilising to the country. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the sooner we adopt a visa-only system for all foreign nationals, including those from the EU—thus allowing a sovereign Parliament to decide who settles here—the better?

[The Prime Minister]

First, I thank my hon. Friend for what he says about the stand we must all take against terror and terrorism, and against ISIL.

On immigration, we have done a huge amount to restrict migration from outside the European Union—the figures are down by almost 30% since this Government came to office; we have closed down 700 bogus colleges; we have introduced an economic limit—but I agree with my hon. Friend that we need to do more. Of course, freedom of movement is an important principle, but it is not an unqualified right, and it should not be the freedom of movement to claim benefits. We should also make sure that when new member states join the European Union we do not necessarily have transitional controls that simply last for a number of years, but transitional controls that ensure they will not have full access to our markets until their economies are of a radically different size and shape.

[Angus Robertson (Moray) (SNP)]

The most recent UK ambassador to NATO, Dame Mariot Leslie, has today said that an independent Scotland would be welcome in NATO, and that she is voting yes in the referendum, just like so many other undecided voters who want a better Scotland. Earlier this year, the Prime Minister gave a commitment on Scottish Television to take part in a programme with undecided voters before the referendum. Will he be doing that or running away, just as he ran away from a debate with the First Minister?

[The Prime Minister]

On the television programme on Scottish Television, I offered them a date and, indeed, a format, but they seemed to run away themselves, which is a great pity.

On NATO, I prefer to listen to Lord Robertson, the former Secretary-General of NATO, who is absolutely clear that Scotland will be better off inside the United Kingdom and that the United Kingdom will be better off with Scotland. The problem with the hon. Gentleman is that when it comes to all of the big questions—what currency would a separate Scotland use, what would be its position in NATO, what would be its position in the European Union?—they have not been able to provide a single, credible answer.

[Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

Q8. Does the Prime Minister agree that although it is acceptable to hold opposing opinions, it is not acceptable to promote boycotts of goods produced in Israel or kosher goods as this conflates the policies of the Israeli Government with Judaism and in turn leads to a rise in anti-Semitism? What reassurance can the Prime Minister give my constituents that this Government will address both boycotts and anti-Semitism in the United Kingdom?

[The Prime Minister]

We have been very clear that we do not support boycotts and we do not support measures that are intended to delegitimise the state of Israel, which has a right to exist and which we argue has a right to peace within its proper borders. My hon. Friend makes an important point, which is that we should be absolutely clear that you can criticise Israel and the Israeli Government for their actions without being anti-Semitic, but in recent weeks we have seen a rise in anti-Semitic attacks in our country, and as I said on Monday, that is completely unacceptable.

[Dr Alasdair McDonnell (Belfast South) (SDLP)]

Q9. I refer the Prime Minister to events in Rotherham. Does he agree that a common thread between the awful picture from Rotherham, which was referred to earlier, and the dreadful plight this week of Ashya King is that the relevant authorities are all too often driven by considerations other than the best interests of the child? To reflect that sad lesson for all of us, will he agree to amend the Modern Slavery Bill to provide for independent child guardians who are charged with reflecting the best interests of the child to all the relevant authorities and services?

[The Prime Minister]

I am very proud that the Government are introducing the Modern Slavery Bill. It is a Bill that I strongly support and I will look carefully at the specific suggestion that the hon. Gentleman makes. Let me make a brief comment on his other points. To be fair to the authorities involved in the case of Ashya King, they all want to do the best thing for the child—that is what they are thinking of—but decisions have been taken that were not correct and that did not chime with common sense. Fortunately, that has been put right. All of us in public life and public offices have to examine what the legal requirements are, but we also have to make judgments, and those judgments can sometimes be all important.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

If even the respected Hampshire police can use the European arrest warrant to create an injustice, can my right hon. Friend have any confidence that other member states with less well developed legal systems will not use the arrest warrant for worse purposes?

[The Prime Minister]

I respect my hon. Friend’s arguments, but the police have to make judgments and, as I have just said, they do not always get those judgments right. Those of us in this House have to think about a potential situation in which a terrorist has attacked our country and is on the run through Europe to other countries, and about how quickly we want to be able to get that person back in front of our courts to face British justice. That is not an imaginary set of circumstances; it is exactly what happened in 2005 after the dreadful London bombings, so we need to think about it. I am all for making sure that powers flow from Brussels to London, and they have done in the case of justice and home affairs, where we have repatriated more than 100 measures. However, I also want to be a Prime Minister who can look the British people in the eye and say, “We will keep you safe from serious crime and terrorism, and we will get people back in front of British courts as soon as possible.”

[Lindsay Roy (Glenrothes) (Lab)]

Q10. We now know that, in the event of separation—

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

Ha, ha!

[Lindsay Roy]

That was a good laugh. We know that in the event of separation, we would no longer have a formal currency union with the rest of the UK. In response, the First Minister has said that an independent Scotland would default on its share of the national debt. Prime Minister, what would be the consequences of such a reckless approach for the people of Scotland?

[The Prime Minister]

I think one of the most chilling things that has been said in the referendum campaign is that a separate Scotland would consider defaulting on its debts. We all know what happens if you do not pay your debts—no one will lend you any money unless you pay a punitive interest rate. We all know what that means for home owners—much, much higher mortgage rates. For businesses, it means crippling interest rates. Those are the consequences of what the separatists are proposing. We need to get that message out loud and clear in the coming days.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

For all the reasons that have been given, if we were to lose the Union, it would be not only a disaster for Scotland, but a national humiliation of catastrophic proportions. I say gently to the three party leaders that perhaps we have been a bit complacent up to now. I urge them, over the next two weeks, to drop everything else and stand shoulder to shoulder to fight for the Union that we love and believe in. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Mr MacNeil, you are a thoroughly decent chap, but you are a very over-excitable individual. You should calm down. You aspire to be a statesman; try behaving like one.

[The Prime Minister]

I agree with my hon. Friend about the importance of the referendum. The leaders of the parties in this House have all put aside their differences and said that, in spite of the political differences we have, we all agree about one thing: not only is Scotland better off inside the United Kingdom, but the United Kingdom is better off with Scotland inside it. As well as being leader of the Conservative party and Prime Minister, I am the Member of Parliament for an English seat and I say on behalf of everyone in England and, I believe, in Wales and Northern Ireland, “We want Scotland to stay.”

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Q11. We are all aware of the Prime Minister’s interest in the middle east and particularly Iraq, and of what has happened since the last Prime Minister’s questions, particularly in the past 24 hours. In Mosul and the plains of Nineveh in Iraq, Christians have been displaced, threatened with beheading, and told “Convert or die.” Is it time to consider further supportive action for Christians, and additional sanctions against ISIL?

[The Prime Minister]

We should do everything we can to protect persecuted minorities—including not only Christians but also the Yazidi communities—and that is where we have been using our resources. Up to now, we have mostly been giving humanitarian aid, which we have been delivering through our military assets and RAF planes, and working with others to ensure people are protected. We should also, as part of that strategy, work with the Kurds and others so that ISIL can be beaten back and Christians and others are not persecuted.

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

Increasing numbers of British families are leaving the UK, like the Ashya King family, because they believe they will get a fairer trial in family courts abroad than in the UK. Does the Prime Minister agree that Parliament should look at the reasons for that?

[The Prime Minister]

We regularly debate family law in this House, and the Government have made some amendments to family law, after long debates within Government and in this House. If the hon. Gentleman is arguing that there should be further such debates, there are Backbench Business days and other parliamentary opportunities to raise such issues.

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

Q12. Given the birthday present given to the Prime Minister by the former Member for Clacton, how many more birthday surprises is he expecting from his Tory Back Benchers?

[The Prime Minister]

I am sure I will be getting all sorts of pleasant surprises on my birthday. Please do not spoil it by letting me know what they are.

[Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)]

Q13. Scotland is important to many businesses in Fylde, and many are rightly concerned that Alex Salmond and the Yes campaign have failed to provide a plan B for the currency should Scotland become independent. Does the Prime Minister agree that the voters of Scotland need to know what plan B is before they vote, and if they cannot get a clear answer, they should say “No thanks” to separation on 18 September?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Those of us who believe in the United Kingdom can answer all of those questions. We can answer on what the United Kingdom will look like in the future, but those arguing for separation have not answered those questions. Their most recent effort to say that somehow Scotland would go on using sterling but not be part of a monetary union got a rebuff yesterday from the European Commissioner, who said that on that basis they would not be able to be members of the European Union. Yet again, another piece of the puzzle completely falls away.

[Mr Peter Hain (Neath) (Lab)]

Is not the truth that ISIL will not be beaten without air strikes in Syria as well, and that means engaging with the Assad regime and Iran—however unpalatable—as well as with the Saudis? Perhaps that is also a route to resolving the bitter and dangerous Shi’a-Sunni conflicts in the region, because ultimately ISIS poses a bigger threat to nations in the region than it does to us.

[The Prime Minister]

I will make two points to the right hon. Gentleman, whose views on this matter I respect. First, I would argue that Assad’s brutality has been one of the things that has helped generate the appalling regime that ISIS represents. Secondly, what we want to see—we are consistent across the piece on this—is democratic Governments that are pluralistic and represent all their people. We want to see that in Iraq, which is why we support Prime Minister al-Abadi in his attempts to build an inclusive Government, and we should support attempts in Syria to have a democratic transition to a regime that can represent everyone in Syria.

[Chris Kelly (Dudley South) (Con)]

Q14. Jihadi crimes committed in the name of the Islamic State are completely incompatible with the British way of life, so I welcome the plans announced by my right hon. Friend to seize British passports from dual nationals, and to remove rights of residency in the UK from foreign nationals known to have been fighting with ISIL in Iraq and Syria, in order to keep such people from committing terrorist atrocities in the UK. What progress have the Government made concerning jihadis with only British citizenship, whom my constituents believe have forfeited their right to return to the UK, even though they may be rendered stateless if deprived of citizenship?

[The Prime Minister]

First, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his great work representing the people of Dudley South for the past four years and all the work he has done. He is absolutely right that people in Dudley South—indeed, people across our country—take the basic view that if someone leaves this country, travels to the heart of Iraq, declares they are in favour of some so-called Islamic state, and that is the country they want to be part of, they should effectively forfeit their right to come back and live in Britain. That is what people feel, and they feel it deeply, which is why it is right to consider how we can have legal powers not just to strip dual nationals of their British citizenship or to exclude foreign nationals, but to prevent British citizens who make those statements from coming back to our country.

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

My constituent Kristian Nicholson is trapped in northern Iraq unable to travel home. In the light of the threat from ISIL, will the Prime Minister look at his case and see what more can be done to expedite his return home as soon as possible, including by issuing new travel documents, if necessary?

[The Prime Minister]

I am very happy to look at the hon. Lady’s case, and I am sure the Foreign Secretary was listening. Let me take this opportunity to commend the work that Foreign Office officials do, often unthanked, supporting those who get stuck in different countries and families whose loved ones have been taken hostage. Obviously we are focused on Iraq today, but since I have been Prime Minister, hostages have been taken in countries such as Nigeria and Somalia. We often do not hear about that work because it is better to keep people’s names and identities from the public, but it is important that people know that when this happens, meetings of Cobra are held—I take a personal interest in each and every one of these cases—to work out what we can do to help their families, to help bring people home and to resolve these dreadful, complex situations.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

We have seen chaos in Iraq and Syria, appalling events that have just passed in Gaza, Libya in some disturbance, and the appalling, illegal annexation of Crimea by President Putin, yet this House has had no proper opportunity to discuss these matters. Is it not time that the Prime Minister allowed us a full and substantive, preferably two-day debate, and certainly before the House rises for the party conference recess, to discuss these matters?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We live in a very troubled and difficult world, with huge changes taking place, some of which he mentioned. In consultation with the Leader of the House, there will be a full day’s debate as soon as next Wednesday, I think, which will give hon. Members the chance to speak about these issues, and I am sure there will be subsequent opportunities perhaps to consider some of the individual questions he raises.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

The horrific, vile and disgusting abuse suffered by children in my constituency should never have been allowed to happen. The victims still have not got the support they deserve and the criminals are still on the street. Child sexual exploitation is not only a Rotherham issue, but a national issue, so when will the Prime Minister appoint the chair to his inquiry into child abuse so that no child will be let down by statutory agencies again?

[The Prime Minister]

First, may I commend the hon. Lady? She is absolutely right to speak as she does. This has affected not just Rotherham; of course, there were the dreadful cases in Oxford, near to my constituency, of a very similar nature, with similar failings in the systems. As I have announced, the Home Secretary will be leading a committee of Ministers to draw together the Government’s response, and the announcement of the person to lead the broader child abuse inquiry will be made in the coming days. These are all vital issues. We have to ask ourselves a series of questions about how these individual services failed. Yes, of course there is the issue about whether these problems were ignored because of concerns about racism and political correctness. But there is also a big concern that sometimes the police and other agencies ignored these people because they felt they were beyond the pale, which offends all our senses of human decency. None of these children and young people should be ignored or left behind by our society.

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

May I take my right hon. Friend back to the issue of hostages? He will be aware that often when these cases arise, there is a suggestion that ransoms should be paid. Should those who advance that case take account of the fact that the money achieved by ransom is not distributed, for example, among the impoverished citizens of Gaza, but used to purchase weapons, to finance the training and maintenance of those willing to use them and otherwise to advance the malevolent objectives of terrorism?

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. and learned Friend is absolutely, 100% right. There is no doubt in my mind that the many tens of millions of dollars that ISIL has raised from ransom payments is going into promoting terrorism, including terrorism affecting our own country. At the G8, I launched an initiative to try to get other countries to sign up to a very clear doctrine that in the case of terrorist kidnap, no ransom should be paid. Britain continues with this policy; America continues with this policy; but we need to redouble the efforts to make sure that other countries are good to their word.

Points of Order

Wednesday 3rd September 2014 Commons Chamber

12:35

[Mr Simon Burns (Chelmsford) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. In the light of your statement on Monday, I would be very grateful if you could clarify something, and that is the status of the letter that you sent to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. Given that there is a pause and we cannot anticipate the outcome of that pause, what are you going to do, Mr Speaker, about that letter? Will you be withdrawing it until after the pause has been completed and decisions have flowed from that, or will it just float around in No. 10 until some relevant point?

[Mr Speaker]

I am extremely grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order. The answer is very straightforward. It is not for me to withdraw a recommendation that was agreed by a panel, but as I made abundantly clear on Monday afternoon, in the presence of the right hon. Gentleman, I am seeking a modest pause in the recruitment process. I am not pressing that recommendation, and that point has been—or will be—conveyed to the Prime Minister with crystal clarity; and I am sure that that clarity is something, in a spirit of good will, public interest and the pursuit of consensus, that the right hon. Member for Chelmsford will warmly welcome.

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Why were the recruitment consultants Saxton Bampfylde prevented from telling the advisory panel, which you referred to, that the candidate Carol Mills was under two investigations by the Senate? And is it not the case that Saxton Bampfylde did not—I repeat: did not—originally recommend that Carol Mills be considered?

[Mr Speaker]

Unfortunately, but fairly predictably, the hon. Gentleman is wrong. He is wrong on both counts. I set out the position very clearly on Monday afternoon. It was my responsibility and privilege to respond, with courtesy and in detail, to points of order on that occasion. Sadly, it was a disadvantage to the House that the hon. Gentleman was not present at that time—

[Michael Fabricant]

I was.

[Mr Speaker]

Not during points of order in my recollection, but if he was, he chose not to rise to his feet. He has done so now; I have given him an answer. It is very clear; I think that the House will want to proceed with its business.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Last week in his column in The Guardian, Andrew Sparrow stated that a source close to you, Mr Speaker, said that most Members of this House do not understand the role of the Clerk and that many MPs believe that the Clerk is just a man in a wig who sits at the Table in the Chamber—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I ask the hon. Gentleman to resume his seat. It is not normal practice to expect the Speaker to comment on any and every media report. I did not see the report, I am not responsible for the report, and I do invite the hon. Gentleman and Members of the House as a whole to rise to the level of events. I think perhaps we can leave it there.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. In my experience, if a democratic assembly is to function properly, it is absolutely vital to uphold the authority of the Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for what he has said. I simply put it to the House that there have been many questions, perfectly properly, on this matter, both on Monday and today, and those questions have been properly answered. There will be further opportunities—very properly so—for the House to debate this matter as and when it so wishes. Let us proceed in an orderly way.

Bill Presented

Civil Partnership Act 2004 (Amendment) Bill

Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)

Tim Loughton, supported by Mr Graham Brady, Mr Frank Field, Charles Hendry, Caroline Lucas, Charlotte Leslie, Greg Mulholland, Mr Rob Wilson, Craig Whittaker and Mark Durkan, presented a Bill to amend the Civil Partnership Act 2004 to provide that opposite sex couples may enter into a civil partnership; and for connected purposes.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 12 September, and to be printed (Bill 86).

Wild Animals in Circuses

Wednesday 3rd September 2014 Commons Chamber

Motion for leave to bring in a Bill (Standing Order No. 23)

12:39

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

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to prohibit the use of wild animals in circuses; and for connected purposes.

I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this issue once more. I am told that the matter was first raised by the hon. Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale) when he was chair of the all-party group on animal welfare in 1997. It was addressed by the last Labour Government when they passed the Animal Welfare Act 2006, which laid provisions to return to the issue, as we did in 2009 when we stated we were minded to introduce a ban but ran out of parliamentary time. As detailed by the former DEFRA Minister, the hon. Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), in a debate last year, in this Parliament, the issue had commanded 120 parliamentary questions, over 16,000 items of correspondence, five early-day motions and a Backbench Business Committee debate, ably led by the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard). That was based on last year’s summary of interests and statistics, and there has been continued interest this year.

I wish to place on record my thanks to Animal Defenders International, which has campaigned strongly on the issue in various countries, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Born Free Foundation and the British Veterinary Association, among others, for their encouragement to pursue the matter, which is unfinished business for many of us.

This is not a party political issue, as my list of sponsors and the early-day motion list of supporters show. Neither is it only a Back-Bench issue. I am grateful to the DEFRA Minister, Lord de Mauley, for meeting me yesterday to discuss it. He indicated that the Government would consider support for the Bill once seen. That should not be a surprise: as he will see when he reads it, it is his Bill, or DEFRA’s Bill. As the hon. Member for Newbury stated last year, he wanted to draft a Bill to survive “any challenge”. He wanted, he said,

“a coalition of the whole House”.—[Official Report, 18 January 2014; Vol. 556, c. 1214.]

I think that DEFRA officials, with Ministers, have succeeded in that regard, but to prove the point, we need to get the Bill into Committee.

Over the years, the measure has been blocked for various reasons: because of a lack of time, because it was considered to be too much about red tape, because it was subject to a legal challenge in Europe or because it was believed to be either unworkable or unnecessary. The Government thought that a licensing system might address the concerns raised in this place and in the country, but the solution is incomplete.

In answer to my parliamentary question of 4 November 2013, DEFRA reported that there were still 28 wild animals, including four tigers and two lions, performing for human entertainment in the UK. The animal welfare issues have been well documented, but for some they are not strong enough to warrant a ban. Most of us would say they are, but let us look at the ethics of performing animals and compare their conditions and treatment with what we expect for animals in our great zoos and wildlife parks. The contrast between their living conditions, the space they have and the environment they occupy could not be clearer.

Our zoos and parks engage not only in scientific research, but in preservation and conservation. It is well documented how much effort is applied by zoos and parks to recreate the natural habitat of the animals they keep so that they can display their normal and natural behaviour as much as possible. We should compare that experience with that of big cats, reindeer, zebra and other animals that have limited space, have to travel in lorries between sites and are afforded an existence that is in complete contrast to any natural or artificially recreated habitat.

Earlier this year, a written ministerial statement of the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath) introduced a draft Bill for pre-legislative scrutiny. The foreword by the new Minister in charge, Lord de Mauley, says:

“For many years wild animals were an integral part of the circus experience: the only chance that most people would have to glimpse exotic beasts from distant lands. Today, by contrast, we are fortunate to enjoy world-class zoos, a wide-reaching education system and internationally renowned wildlife documentaries, which together give children and adults an appreciation and knowledge of wild animals and the environments they come from…This legislation will end the use of wild animals and travelling circuses in this country. It will also help ensure that our international reputation as a leading protector of animals continues into a new global era.”

The explanatory notes could not be more explicit about the arguments in favour of a ban. They state:

“The use of wild animals in travelling circuses reflects a traditional but outdated view of wild animals...Captive wild animals have much the same genetic makeup as counterparts in the wild and retain their wild nature and natural instinctive behaviours. Their wild nature and innate value should be recognised and respected. Using wild animals solely for circus performance is unbefitting to their wildness and potentially harmful.

There is little or no educational, conservational, research or economic benefit derived from wild animals in travelling circuses that might justify their use and the loss of their ability to behave naturally as a wild animal.”

The notes also state:

“the Government does not believe it is appropriate to continue to use wild animals in travelling circuses because:

It is not necessary to use wild animals in travelling circuses to experience the circus; wild animals are just that and are not naturally suited to travelling circuses and may suffer as a result of being unable to fulfil their instinctive natural behaviour; we should feel duty-bound to recognise that wild animals have intrinsic value, and respect their inherent wildness and its implications for their treatment; and the practice adds nothing to the understanding and conservation of wild animals and the natural environment.”

I believe that the case has been made for a ban. I find it disappointing that, as Minister of State at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, I was unable to complete that work, but, given that the coalition has done so much more on the issue—even publishing an excellent draft Bill—it is disappointing that time has not been found for it in the Government’s programme for this last year of the current Parliament. I am sure that the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), who is present and for whom I have a high regard, would be happy to lead the Bill into Committee himself.

The solution is for Parliament to have an opportunity to do what the last Labour Government and the coalition have so far failed to do, but we must get the Bill into Committee. Some Members may still be unconvinced, but I hope that a proper examination of the short clauses in the Bill and the explanatory notes will change that. I know that time is short and that important private Members’ Bills are on the Order Paper to be dealt with in the next three weeks, but I should like my Bill to move quickly into Committee, so I shall propose that it should receive a Second Reading this Friday. I know that it is unlikely to secure the House’s approval on 5 September. I should therefore appreciate it if Members who have other important priorities—the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), for instance, has a private Member’s Bill, which is due on 17 October—would allow the Bill to be passed on a subsequent Friday. That would still allow more than enough time for the measure to be scrutinised properly, and to pass into law by next April if the House so chooses.

This issue has been around for at least 20 years. A minority, including circus owners, may not accept the welfare issues, but they are there, and most people do accept them. The world has moved on, and it is time to bring circuses into the 21st century, because wild animals have no place in them. We need to use this Bill to achieve that objective, and to ban further use of wild animals in travelling circuses.

Question put and agreed to.

Ordered,

That Jim Fitzpatrick, Jim Dowd, Sir Roger Gale, Mr Philip Hollobone, Dr Julian Huppert, Caroline Lucas, Naomi Long, Paul Flynn, Kerry McCarthy, Hugh Bayley, Mr Russell Brown and Thomas Docherty present the Bill.

Jim Fitzpatrick accordingly presented the Bill.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 5 September and to be printed (Bill 87).

Opposition Day

Wednesday 3rd September 2014 Commons Chamber

[5th allotted day]

Energy Company Licence Revocation

Wednesday 3rd September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I remind the House that, owing to a misunderstanding, the two Opposition day debates were put on the Order Paper in the wrong sequence.

The motions will be taken in the order that the Opposition intended: the House will debate the motion relating to energy company licence revocation first, and the motion relating to infant class sizes second. We shall begin, therefore, with the Opposition day motion relating to energy company licence revocation.

12:49

[Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House believes that consumers have a right to be treated fairly and be confident that energy companies will meet their obligations and provide good services; further believes that where companies breach these obligations, decisive action should be taken to put things right and prevent further breaches; notes that since 2001 Ofgem has imposed at least 31 fines totalling at least £90 million; further notes that despite these financial penalties energy companies face another 11 investigations with four additional cases at informal review stage; further notes that the regulator already has the power to revoke energy companies’ licences in certain limited circumstances, but not where energy companies comply with a penalty notice and then commit further breaches of their licence; and therefore calls on the Government to provide the energy regulator for Great Britain with a new statutory power to revoke energy companies’ licences where there are repeated instances of the most serious and deliberate breaches of their licence conditions which harm the interests of consumers.

The Minister for Business and Enterprise is not in his seat, but I do want to welcome him and the Under-Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd), who is present, to their new posts and wish them well for what I hope and expect will be their remaining eight months in office.

This summer, while those who occupy the Government Benches succumbed to infighting and some introspection, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and my hon. Friends in the shadow Cabinet set out the choice facing the British people at the general election in 2015. We set out a picture of a Britain where public service is valued, but reform is ongoing; where fiscal discipline is matched by fairness; where aspiration is embraced, while no one is left behind; where individuals can thrive and excel, but community solidarity is not forsaken; and where new businesses and new jobs are encouraged, in markets that have fair rules, obligations and rewards. It is to that theme, and to the announcement I made in my speech on the energy market in August, that I wish to return today.

The facts speak for themselves. Under this Government, energy bills have risen by over £300—twice as fast as inflation, four times faster than wages and faster than in almost any other country in the developed world. It is faster, too, than under the previous Government; in fact, the rate of increase since the last election has been three times faster compared with the period between 1997 and 2010. Now I know the Secretary of State likes to cherry pick the dates when he compares our record with his, but even when we only look at the final five years of the last Government, in real terms energy bills have still risen by a greater amount in each year under this Government. The reason why bills have risen—and will continue to rise, unless something is done about it—is that the energy market is broken.

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Will not the right hon. Lady admit that one of the main reasons why our bills are higher than those in many other parts of the world and have risen more is the policies introduced by the last Labour Government to over-green our energy and leave us short with dear energy?

[Caroline Flint]

No, I do not accept that. We can clearly see that where wholesale costs have fallen the public as the bill payers have not seen a reduction in their bills—this has nothing to do with other aspects asked of these companies in terms of helping to tackle fuel poverty or helping to support the renewable sector—but when wholesale costs have gone up, the energy companies, and in particular the big six, are quick to remind everyone that is because their costs have risen. We expect the reverse to happen when wholesale costs go down.

As I said, the reason bills have risen is that the energy market is broken. We have already set out a number of proposals that we will put in place if we are elected in eight months’ time: an energy price freeze until 2017, saving the average household £120; all those over the age of 75 put on the lowest tariff; a ring fence between the generation and retail arms of vertically integrated energy companies; a pool for all electricity to be traded in, and greater transparency for trades in the gas market; and a tough new regulator with new powers to police the market and protect consumers, including new powers to protect off-grid households and small businesses, and to force energy companies to cut their prices when wholesale costs fall if they do not do it first. All of these proposals have been put before the House, but Conservative and Liberal Democrat Members have voted against each and every one of them.

[The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Mr Edward Davey)]

If Labour were to be elected at the next election, would it make the changes the right hon. Lady mentions ahead of the reporting of the investigation by the independent Competition and Markets Authority?

[Caroline Flint]

Of course some of the issues the CMA is looking at are the very issues we have been raising for the last two to three years, so I have welcomed the CMA review. As I have said in public already, it is working out quite well, because the CMA review is, in terms of when the clock started ticking, scheduled to finish around December 2015; it has 18 months in which to do its inquiry. If we get elected next year, our plan is to publish a White Paper, having taken through emergency legislation on the price freeze, and we can see a very good way that our White Paper and proposals can dovetail with the discussions happening with the CMA. In fact I am very open to the fact that the CMA may come up with further proposals that need to be addressed. So I do not fear the CMA; I welcome it. But what I do believe very strongly is that whatever reviews are being undertaken by the CMA, that should not paralyse politicians and those in government from doing the right thing.

[Mr Davey]

If the CMA suggests the right hon. Lady’s proposals are not the right ones and it proposes other ones, will she ignore the CMA and just do what she thinks best?

[Caroline Flint]

I really think the Secretary of State is clutching at straws here. We believe very strongly—this is why we set out a Green Paper for energy market reform—that we have identified and tapped into some answers as to how to reform this market. I have to caution the Secretary of State. He may be surprised, if he asks his advisers, and perhaps speaks to some of the energy companies, how in a number of areas they welcome some of our reforms. So he needs to be a little more cautious about putting down Labour’s proposals. A number of them command respect across this House—even though it might not be said publicly—and, actually, in the energy sector as well.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

Would the right hon. Lady not concede, however, that part of the problem with competition in the energy market was the creation of the big six energy suppliers, which of course took place under the last Labour Government?

[Caroline Flint]

The hon. Gentleman should also be aware that it was John Major as Prime Minister who took through the changes that enabled those who generate and those who supply to merge their businesses. The result was we saw a number of companies—14, I think—decide they wanted to generate and supply and the big six arose out of that. However, whatever has happened under Labour or previously under the Conservatives in terms of privatising this market, I hope we can all agree that the ambitions for how that market would work after it was privatised have not been realised in the way some of the architects of privatisation perhaps thought they would. As I have said, we cannot let the past paralyse us from changing what needs to change. That is why we have put forward a number of very practical recommendations, which, sadly, have been voted down by the coalition Government time and again.

As to today’s motion, we propose one measure on which I personally find it hard to believe we cannot agree: a new power for the regulator to revoke energy companies’ licences where there are repeated instances of the most serious and deliberate breaches of their licence conditions which harm the interests of consumers. As the motion notes, consumers rightly expect to be treated fairly and to be confident that energy companies will meet their obligations and provide good services. Where companies breach those obligations, decisive action should be taken to put things right and prevent further breaches. So where the regulator has taken action, we have supported it, and where the Government have introduced sensible new measures, such as criminal sanctions for market manipulation and consumer redress orders, we have supported them. Indeed, in the case of consumer redress orders, we urged the Government to go further, because at the moment if any malpractice that happened before 2013 comes to light, the regulator will have no legal power to impose a consumer redress order.

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that in addition—I repeat, in addition—to strengthening the powers of the regulator, we need some simple consumer protection law so we can make reference to it and do not have to have 18-month inquiries? People are getting ripped off every single winter and these often long inquiries do not help those people.

[Caroline Flint]

I absolutely agree. One of the problems with the lengths of these inquiries, and a reason why we need greater clarity—and, I would suggest, greater deterrent factors within the conditions under which these companies operate—is that time gets lost. By the time all the lawyers have got together and everything else—and by the time, perhaps, that the company is found guilty of the offence—we lose momentum in making the change that needs to happen.

The timing of the inquiries is important, but a culture change is also needed. We need to address whether the inquiries are hampered by the energy companies responding too quickly by setting their lawyers on to the matter and deterring effective action and preventing justice from being seen to be done.

It is in a spirit of constructiveness that we present our proposals today. We believe that they are eminently sensible, and we hope that the Government will offer the same constructive approach as we have offered on numerous occasions in the past. The best way of protecting consumers is not to provide a redress framework—much needed though that is—but to prevent companies from ripping people off in the first place. At the moment, too many energy companies operate at the margins of what the rules allow, because they know that they will often not be caught. Even if they are caught, the penalties do not present enough of a deterrent. Too often, energy companies seem to view the regulator’s fines as a cost of doing business, and not as a warning that they should get their act together.

Information provided to me in answer to a written parliamentary question shows that, since 2001, Ofgem has issued at least 31 fines totalling at least £90 million. On top of that are the informal cases that the regulator has dealt with, in which, even though no formal fine or notice was issued, action was taken and in some cases financial measures ensued. If we were to add on those cases, the total would be in excess of £100 million. For companies with annual global turnovers running into tens of billions, that is still some way from the maximum fine that the regulator could have imposed. Nevertheless, it is clearly not an insignificant amount.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that, no matter how large the fines might be, they are likely simply to be passed on to consumers through their bills and that they therefore do not act as a deterrent to the energy companies at all? In fact, fining companies penalises the customer, so we need to find an alternative to the fining regime.

[Caroline Flint]

I could not have put that better myself. There is no evidence that the shareholders or managers of the companies take a hit in terms of the benefits they receive; the cost of the fines is often absorbed back into the pot that the bill payers have to pay.

We have heard about the 31 investigations and about the fines that have been imposed. The Secretary of State might claim that this is a sign of success and evidence of a tough new regulatory environment, but that would be true only if there were evidence that companies had changed their ways and that the fines had deterred them from breaking the rules again. The evidence shows that they have not learned their lessons despite all the previous fines and penalties. Information that I have obtained under the Freedom of Information Act reveals that those firms are now facing another 15 probes into poor customer service, incorrect billing and other bad practice. No company has a God-given right to be in the market, to charge its customers and to make a profit just because it has always done so—least of all, those that inherited millions of customers from before the industry was privatised and opened to competition.

Today’s motion proposes a new power for the regulator to revoke energy companies’ licences when there have been repeated instances of the most serious and deliberate breaches of their licence conditions that harm the interests of consumers. Of course, any decision to revoke a licence would have to be subject to due process and to be consistent with the regulator’s overriding objective of protecting consumers and promoting a competitive, transparent and fair energy market.

This proposal would build on best practice from regulators overseas. In some parts of the United States, energy regulators already have the power to revoke an energy supplier’s licence. The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, for example, has the power to revoke a supplier’s licence if it breaks consumer protection law or transfers customers without their consent. That sends out the clearest possible message to energy companies that if they carry on mistreating their customers, their licence will be on the line. That strikes me as a pretty common-sense measure.

I hope that the Secretary of State will be able to support our motion today. I say that because when I announced this proposal in August, it was telling that the Government did not put anyone up to discuss it on television or on the radio, and that no Minister commented on the proposal. All we had were anonymous quotes from a Conservative spokesman and a Liberal Democrat source, and between them they could not muster a single good reason not to support the measure. All they seemed to suggest was that Ofgem already had this power, which is simply not true. I have discussed the issue of non-financial penalties with Ofgem and written to it about our proposal, and it has made it absolutely clear that this would be a new power. Indeed, the statement that it issued on the day of my announcement began

“Ofgem is always interested to work with government on any new powers or refinements to existing powers which would help to further protect consumers.”

As today’s motion notes, the regulator has limited powers to revoke licences in certain specific cases, but they are largely of an administrative nature—for example, if a company goes into administration, if it gets a licence but does not supply any gas or electricity in the following year, or if it does not pay a fine.

[Mr Davey]

The right hon. Lady is making an interesting speech, and I will respond in detail to her proposal. Does she think that any energy company in the British market has done anything that would warrant its licence being revoked?

[Caroline Flint]

I will come to that in the next part of my speech, and I am sure that I shall be able to answer that question. That would be a matter for the regulator, given its present powers to revoke a licence. At present, it can revoke a licence only in certain conditions, and I do not believe that those conditions are sufficient to meet today’s challenge of making the market more consumer-focused and more competitive.

Crucially, at the moment companies can break the rules and get punished for it—in the form of either a fine or an order to change their behaviour in some way—and as long as they comply by paying the fine or following the order, the slate is effectively wiped clean. At no point can the regulator say, “Enough is enough; you’ve broken the rules too many times and now your licence will be revoked.”

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

Is this not precisely where the Secretary of State is missing the point? My right hon. Friend will know that since 2001, 31 fines totalling around £90 million have been imposed, and that another 11 investigations are in the pipeline. Is this not precisely the reason that we need to give additional powers to the regulator—to stop this bad practice?

[Caroline Flint]

Absolutely. As I have said, the regulator cannot at any point say, “Enough is enough.” That is the key difference between what we are proposing and the status quo. Our proposal would deal with the problem that we have seen in the past, wherein companies are allowed to get away with repeatedly breaking the rules in slightly different ways, or breaking different rules, without fear of losing their licences.

Clearly, the intention behind this policy is to encourage companies to treat their customers better, and the best outcome would be if the power never needed to be used. But if the regulator did decide to use it, the provision would need to have a clear legal basis, almost certainly set down in legislation, in order for it to be exercised with confidence. Otherwise, the threat of legal challenge would probably prevent it from ever being used. That is why it is important that this new power should be clearly put into law, just as the existing power to fine a company up to 10% of its global turnover has a clear basis in law. This would undoubtedly represent a significant addition to the regulator’s powers, and there are important questions about how it would work and about its implications, which I want to address before I finish.

I want to make it clear from the outset that the regulator would remain operationally independent and free from any interference from Ministers. Any decision about whether to revoke a supplier’s licence would be made by the independent regulator alone, but, like all economic regulators in the UK, its functions and powers are defined in statute. What we are debating today, therefore, is not whether any particular company deserves to lose its licence, but whether the regulator should have the power to make that decision, if it thought it necessary. We think that it should have that power.

The process itself would also be very similar to the existing enforcement process, except that, at the end, the regulator would have the power to revoke a supplier’s licence. In practice, an investigation of an allegation of a breach of the rules would begin and the normal process would follow, with a period of information gathering, investigation and notification of the supplier concerned. If the regulator believed at the end of the process that there had been a breach of the rules that had been serious and deliberate and had harmed consumers, and if there had been repeated instances of such behaviour in the past, under our proposals it would have the power to revoke a supplier’s licence in the same way as it has the power to impose a financial penalty or make a consumer redress order. Within the existing enforcement framework there would be clear guidelines for energy companies and a system for appeals.

In the event that a supplier lost its licence, it would mean in practice that it was no longer able to operate as an energy supply company. Let me make it clear that at the moment, companies wishing to supply and generate energy or supply and distribute energy require separate licences for each activity. We have already proposed that vertically integrated energy companies would have legally to separate their generation business from their supply business, and that as a result any decision to revoke the licence would apply only to the licence in question and not to other licences the parent company had. There would be a notice period between the decision to revoke a licence and its coming into force that, by law, must be no less than 30 days. During that period, the company would have to arrange for a trade sale for another supplier to take on its customers.

Energy companies already market and compete to win new customers. Acquiring new customers in such a way would represent a valuable commercial opportunity and avoid the normal acquisition costs. Small suppliers might wish to expand, and if a significant number of customers were available, new entrants might enter the market. In the event that a trade sale is not arranged, the regulator has the power to appoint a supplier of last resort and the rules are in place to ensure that any consumers who are moved to another supplier are protected. Either way, the supply of energy would continue as normal.

This is what I mean by a tough new regulator overseeing a market that works for consumers, not just the companies in it.

[Mr Davey]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for giving way. She is explaining her policy and asking the House to say that this is needed because of things going wrong in the market and because energy companies keep treating their customers badly. I have some sympathy with that observation and shall make some comments about it. However, as she is asking for a new power, surely she has to give an example of where the power would have been used in the past. She is saying that the power is needed because companies are getting away with things at the moment and that the power would have been used in certain circumstances, but can she give us an example?

[Caroline Flint]

It is already on the statute book that the regulator has the power to fine up to 10% of the global turnover of any company. I might need to go back and check, but I believe that nobody had to prove that that had been used anywhere else before the power was put on the statute book. The Secretary of State is following a ridiculous line of argument. In recent years, a number of instances have led to investigations and fines and have shown repeated evidence of ways in which customers have been let down. We are saying that that is not good enough and that there has to be the ultimate sanction of companies losing their licence. That is the proposition. The detail needs to be discussed before it is put into law. I have been up front and honest about that, but I find it hard to believe that the Secretary of State has seriously set his face against the proposition.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

Is my right hon. Friend as perplexed as I am about why the Government seem to have a problem with the ultimate sanction that we can impose against any company, which is to take away its licence? There is no point in asking what examples we can give, as the Opposition are saying that the power should be there so that if the regulator finds that the breaches are sufficient, the ultimate sanction is available to it. I am surprised, and I am sure that my hon. Friends are, too, that the Government are resisting.

[Caroline Flint]

I absolutely agree. I can hear the Secretary of State saying over and over that it is already available—[Interruption.] Obviously, he has his brief and has not been listening to my speech. As I have outlined clearly and as has been confirmed by Ofgem, the regulator can revoke a licence when a company is going into administration or is insolvent or when it fails to supply gas or electricity, but what is missing at the moment is the ability when there are repeated offences that act against the interests of consumers to take the ultimate sanction and revoke the licence.

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

I want to try to assist the Secretary of State. My right hon. Friend has rightly said that this will very much be an option of last resort—an ultimate sanction—that we hope will never be used, but the fact that the sanction is available should influence the behaviour of the companies and their investor backers. When an investor community sees that the credit rating of a company that has to gear itself appropriately in the market is jeopardised by a series of serious breaches, we can bet our bottom dollar that they will be banging on the doors of the corporate boardroom saying, “Get your act in order.” It is not a case of when the sanction will be used, as we hope that it will not be. Does my right hon. Friend agree that what is important is the deterrent effect, the cooling effect on reckless decisions in the boardroom, and the good behaviour that that will drive through the investor community into those companies?

[Caroline Flint]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. The question we should be asking the energy companies is, “Why would you be afraid of this?” The question we have to ask the Secretary of State is, “What is his problem?” [Hon. Members: “What is he afraid of?”] What is he afraid of? It is quite ridiculous.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

I thank the shadow Secretary of State for giving way and applaud the concern for the investor community shown by the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies). Apparently, in the past 10 years the venal behaviour of energy companies has not been sufficient for this power to have been exercised. For the purposes of clarity, will the right hon. Lady give an example of what behaviour she believes should cause a licence to be revoked? I am sure that the investor community, which we are so concerned about, will be interested, and I and others would be interested in examples of the sort of thing that would cause this power to be used.

[Caroline Flint]

Of course, Ofgem already has codes of conduct in which it outlines ways in which it would investigate a company. For example, let us consider some of the investigations over the past few years. We have had investigations of mis-selling, billing systems, predatory pricing and disadvantaging certain customers, such as those who have prepayment meters, and situations where people had been inhibited from changing supplier. Ofgem already has set thresholds and codes of practice that enable it to launch a formal investigation and set out clearly what areas it is considering, but the problem is that if a company is found guilty of any of the examples I have just given, that can basically result in a fine or some sort of consumer redress order. What Ofgem cannot do is revoke the licence. When there are repeated examples of companies failing to take action, when they might have been fined, and when they have put their hands up and said that they would do the right thing only for it to happen again, Ofgem cannot say, “I am sorry, the slate will not be wiped clean. You must account for your activities and that includes when you have repeatedly undermined your customers.”

As I said earlier, and I repeat this sincerely to the hon. Member for Warrington South (David Mowat), it seems to me that the problem is that when we look at the fines—£90 million over the past few years is no small amount of money to most people, but it is a pittance by comparison with the overall amount of money these companies make—it sometimes comes across as though paying the fines is just the cost of doing business. That is not good enough.

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

Surely the real deterrent for any company operating in the energy market is the loss of customers. We should be encouraging Ofgem to up the fines and increase the publicity, because the loss of customers will have an effect on investors.

[Caroline Flint]

I think there has been quite a lot of publicity about the fines, but what the hon. Gentleman says is interesting. The rules currently allow Ofgem to fine up to 10% of the company’s global turnover, which is a lot of money. I am not against Ofgem looking at whether it should be increasing the amount it fines, but I do think the ultimate sanction is about revoking a licence, because in such circumstances customers would have to be found a new supplier for their energy. Currently, that is exactly what Ofgem can do if a company goes into administration or if it fails to deliver gas and electricity to people’s homes. Is it not bizarre, however, that it cannot do this where there have been repeated offences against consumers through harmful customer practices that not only undermine trust in the energy market but, more important, make customers pay a heavy price?

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

I commend my right hon. Friend for her leadership on this issue, because that is what this is about: leadership in shaping the future, not looking back to the past, as such an approach is failing our business and domestic energy customers. I commend her for the way in which she has set out this case so clearly, and I am looking forward to the answer from the Secretary of State.

[Caroline Flint]

I thank my hon. Friend for his support on so many occasions when we have tried to put forward common-sense, constructive solutions to some of the problems that all in this House know exist in this energy market. Some will wrongly try to characterise our proposal as somehow anti-business—it is not. For one thing, businesses, especially small firms, have often been as much on the receiving end of the energy industry’s sharp practices as households. For another thing, if energy companies do not want to be at risk of losing their licences, all they have to do is treat their customers fairly and properly. More importantly, there is no such thing as a market without rules. It is difficult to think of a more vigorously free-market capitalist economy than the United States, but regulators there understand that a free market works only when there are proper rules to ensure competition and fair play. As Matthew D’Ancona said recently in his article in The Sunday Telegraph, capitalism must be

“tempered by the recognition that markets exist within a structure of laws and a social order.”

That is what I want for households and businesses in Britain.

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

I compliment my right hon. Friend on an excellent speech. I disagree slightly with my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin), in that this is about the past. When the landed aristocracy of the Conservatives in the 1860s were controlling the bushels of wheat, it took a Mancunian MP, Richard Cobden, to form the Anti-Corn Law League, which eventually brought in free trade and a free market so that working Mancunians and working people across this country could afford bread to eat. I also remind Government Members that that eventually led to Peel falling.

[Caroline Flint]

I thank my hon. Friend for his contribution, and I have two points to make. First, I have found it incredibly helpful, in undertaking this brief for the Leader of the Opposition, to take a little time away from the day-to-day things and have a look back at some of the decisions made over many decades, both before and since privatisation. That is why I believe our proposals in so many areas meet the test of what we need today, learning from both what worked and what did not work in the past. That is good politics as far as I am concerned.

The second point relates to what is so exciting about the future of the energy market. There was a time when many local authorities were more involved in the delivery of energy, and the exciting thing is that as well as having new entrants from other parts of the business community, there is the opportunity to open up much more the roles for local authorities and other community organisations to supply and generate energy in the future. To get that right, we have to sort out the corporate problems that we are facing today. That is the choice today’s motion puts before the House.

We have debated energy prices and the energy market many times in this Parliament. There have been times when we have agreed across these Dispatch Boxes and others when we have disagreed, but I hope the Secretary of State will put aside the areas where we do not agree and do us the courtesy of engaging constructively with this specific proposal. If he does so, I believe he will see that it is worthy of support and would be to the benefit of consumers in this country. I commend the motion to the House.

13:24

[The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Mr Edward Davey)]

I thank the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) for calling a debate on an important subject: how best can we protect energy consumers from unfair treatment by their suppliers? Although there are examples of good customer service—energy companies that are treating their customers properly—it is hardly controversial to say that there are far too many cases where energy firms have let their customers down badly—the mis-selling, the poor complaints handling, and the poor billing. This is not new; it has been going on for many years and can just take different forms. Right hon. and hon. Members who have served in this House for a few Parliaments will recall all the scandals of doorstep mis-selling. I recall an elderly constituent coming to my local surgery in 2003 having been appallingly treated and conned by a representative of one of today’s big six. So this is a serious matter and, despite efforts by the previous Government, this Government’s focus on this issue and the work of Ofgem, it is clear that there are still energy firms that are treating their customers unacceptably.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

The right hon. Gentleman gave the examples of mis-selling and the mistreatment of customers. Are they not the type of repeat offending by energy companies that should mean that their licences could be revoked?

[Mr Davey]

I will explain to the House that under current rules licences can be revoked, and I will deal with these issues. I am admitting that this a good debate to have, because there is a problem—nobody is suggesting otherwise. But, as always, the question is: what is the best way to deal with that problem? What is going to work? What is the best way to crack down on this to punish firms that get it wrong? In essence, we can use three tools: competition; regulation; and technology. The right hon. Member for Don Valley has focused on regulation, and I want to address her proposal in detail, for tough regulation certainly has a vital role to play in holding companies to account. However, I regret that her motion and her speech totally failed to mention competition and technology—those were not even mentioned once. That is a serious mistake, which the Opposition keep making. For many of the smaller suppliers now competing—

[Caroline Flint]

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that in different ways the Opposition have put forward motions for debate in this House where we have engaged with competition? In my speech I mentioned a number of our proposals to create a pool to separate the energy generation and supply side. Today, we have tabled a motion that tries to identify a particular problem. We have done that because we think it is the right thing to do, and we find it hard to believe that we could not get the full support of the House on this one issue.

[Mr Davey]

I am going to deal with the right hon. Lady’s proposal, as I have said. However, she failed to deal with one of the comments made by a Government Member about the importance of competition. Competition does drive good customer service, as I hope she will recognise. I wish she had done so in her intervention on me, but she did not.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State has given himself the power to change the contract for difference allocation framework, which is part of his regulation on competition, and the budget notice as close as 10 days before an allocation round begins. Can he assure the House that the European Commission regards 10 days as a sufficient period to determine whether the round is state-aid compliant? If he cannot, what assurance can he give that delays will not result from this? Crucially, what impact might this likelihood of change and delay have on investor confidence to create the very competition he is talking about?

[Mr Davey]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on getting that question into this debate. I say gently to him that on CfD and state aid we have clearance, so presumably the Commission has examined that matter. I have not specifically asked it that question, but it has given us state-aid clearance. The way we have proceeded with the allocation proposals for CfD is to ensure that we get just that investor confidence, and the fact that we are seeing such interest and such investment is tantamount to showing that we have it right.

Failing to focus on competition is a serious mistake by the Opposition, because many smaller suppliers competing against Labour’s big six are doing so not just on price but on the basis of better customer service. If we talk to the independents about their business model, we hear some of them say that higher quality customer service is their main competitive edge. The growth of competition since 2010 suggests that they are right and that competition has a key role to play here. From less than 1% of the market, the small suppliers now have more than 7% and it is still growing. Customers now have more choice than ever, with 25 suppliers competing for their custom.

Small suppliers provide electricity to 2 million customers, and they have gained more than 1 million customers in the past 12 months. Clearly, customers are voting with their feet when they are not happy with the service they are getting. Yes, we need to make the competition rule work more effectively, which is why we support the independent Competition and Markets Authority in the most profound investigation of British energy markets ever seen.

It was telling to hear that the right hon. Lady does not intend to wait to hear the result of the Competition and Markets Authority investigation. She will prejudge the authority’s report. That is quite a revelation, which is worthy of more debate. We are not simply waiting for that report from the Competition and Markets Authority. We have already done so much to encourage new suppliers and to make switching easier, simpler and quicker. We believe that we must continue to sharpen the competition tool for consumers, so that when they are poorly treated, they can vote with their feet.

I am acutely aware that competition has not always worked for the most vulnerable in society, such as elderly people who might not be internet savvy. During my time as Secretary of State, I have placed a focus on new business models and new ways of helping such people—from collective switching to developing, with the voluntary sector, citizens advice bureau, Age Concern and so on, new forms of advice with the big energy saving network. Ofgem is also increasingly focused on how we can ensure that energy markets better serve the fuel poor and the less well off.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

The implication of what the Secretary of State is saying is that he accepts that competition is imperfect at the present time. If we have a situation in which competition improves and there is better service all round, is he saying that when an energy company behaves in an appalling fashion they should be able, in all circumstances, to continue to supply energy to consumers and that there should not be the ultimate sanction of saying, “Your behaviour is so appalling that you no longer have the right to deliver gas and/or electricity in this country”?

[Mr Davey]

No, I am not saying that. If the hon. Gentleman waits for a second, I will put a lot of emphasis on tough regulation, but there needs to be a balance. There needs to be competition as well, because it can often work more quickly and more effectively, and it really hits the firms that are losing customers. Some of the big six have lost tens of thousands—in some cases, hundreds of thousands—of customers because we have enabled competition. I accept that things are not perfect yet, which is why we are working so hard.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

The right hon. Gentleman is making a good point in that competition can drive improvement in a number of areas. But badly regulated competition leading to market failure is an issue not just with the big six but with potential new entrants, which could be doing well at the moment but they could fail or overstretch themselves. May I suggest to him that there is a straightforward analogy that any football or rugby supporter will understand? As rules are imposed on that game, players know that if they do something stupid, they will end up in the sin bin for 10 minutes on a rugby pitch. If they do it again, they will be off the field. If they do a spear tackle, they will be red-carded and could be banned for months. If they assault somebody on the field, they could end up in jail. We are not saying that these things should not be used. Companies will want to avoid them being used. The fact that they are there drives good behaviour.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman intended to be brief.

[Mr Davey]

When a Welsh MP gives a rugby analogy, one should be careful. However, I will address that point, because I have a lot of sympathy with what the hon. Gentleman is saying. I am grateful that he at least recognises that competition has a role to play. Technology also has a key role to play. The smart meter roll-out, for example, will be crucial in tackling some of the issues that consumers complain most about, especially inaccurate bills. Smart metering will help us to address even more problems faced by prepayment meter customers and it will enable 24-hour switching. So technology and competition are important in addressing these matters, and we need to have them on the table.

Despite those differences, there is no disagreement between parties over the importance of the regulation tool. Strong regulation has a vital role to play in protecting consumers. The previous Labour Government recognised that, and set up Ofgem. Indeed the Leader of the Opposition, when he was doing my job, reformed Ofgem to give it more powers to protect the consumer. He chose not to give it the power that the right hon. Lady wants, but we will leave that aside for the moment. This Government recognise the role regulation has to play for customers, which is why we have strengthened it. We have ensured that when an energy firm is fined and punished, the money does not just go to the Treasury. Customers who have been wronged are now properly compensated; we have put money in their pockets. We are even introducing criminal sanctions into the regulatory armoury. In the future, if an individual is found guilty of manipulating the energy market, they could go to prison.

[Caroline Flint]

Will the Secretary of State admit that even when fines are imposed, the money does not always go back to the victims? In some cases, it has gone to other groups of customers. Will he now correct himself and say that it does not always go to the victims of the problem under investigation?

[Mr Davey]

Before the implementation of the powers in the Energy Act 2013, some redress schemes were on a voluntary basis and the money did not always go to the individual customers who were wronged. The real intention of the new powers is that money will go to the customers. There will be proper consumer redress. That did not happen before. Under us, it is now happening. I repeat what I was saying before the right hon. Lady intervened. This Government are passing rules that stipulate that people who manipulate energy markets could go to prison. No one can accuse this Government of being unwilling to use the regulatory tool in the toughest way possible on behalf of consumers.

The right hon. Lady’s motion is focused not on regulation in general, where there is agreement, but on one new regulation. No, that is not quite true. I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. Her motion states quite clearly that it is focused on reforming an existing regulation—changing an existing power. Currently, Ofgem can remove a company’s licence. In other words, the regulator can now shut down a company. The regulator already has the power effectively to say to a company—its employees, customers, suppliers and shareholders—“What you have done is so bad that you can no longer trade.” It is a tough power, and rightly so. It is what we might call the “nuclear” option, because the consequences are severe for the customer as well as for the company.

Let us imagine that the nuclear option is taken by the regulator. It does not matter whether we use the current carefully designed system, which I will describe later, or the more arbitrary system being proposed by the right hon. Lady. The time spent preparing to use this nuclear option will be critical. Under the current situation, because of the ratcheting up, contingency arrangements could be put in place. If things are done more quickly and directly, as the right hon. Lady wants, there could be chaos. It would be bad for the staff, as there would be a significant loss of jobs. It would be bad for consumers, as they would have to be switched to another company or companies very quickly. That is not easy, not even in 30 days, without real difficulties and challenges. If it were a large firm that was being closed down, it is likely that only other large firms would be able to absorb that number of customers quickly. The result is that Labour's big six would become Labour's big five—genius!

[Caroline Flint]

Does the Secretary of State agree that the grounds on which Ofgem may revoke a licence do not contain any mention of consumers, or even the word “consumer”, or tackle the issue of repeated offences of harmful, abusive behaviour in customer practice?

[Mr Davey]

I am going to describe the current system. On the law, the right hon. Lady might want to look at the point where it says—this is where Ofgem may revoke a licence—

“if the licensee fails…to comply with a final order”.

I am going to explain that process.

[Caroline Flint]

Does the Secretary of State remember that I said that of course Ofgem can revoke a licence if there is a failure to pay a fine? The problem is that, once the fine is paid, there is nothing in the revocation terms to enable Ofgem to find against the company if there are repeated offences. That is the clarity that we need in law—not to wipe the slate clean.

[Mr Davey]

The right hon. Lady should allow me to explain the current system, because I think she will find that a failure to comply with a final order can result, in extreme circumstances, in revocation. It is the process leading up to the issuing of the final order that she does not seem to understand, so let me deal with it.

Under the right hon. Lady’s proposals, the nuclear option has considerable—potentially large—negative consequences for competition. Just think how the customers would feel. Would the confusion and hassle of a forced move make them feel any better? Other companies would need to take on those customers, and that means changing tariffs, with consumers possibly paying more. All those issues would need to be worked through at a chaotic moment. It is quite right that the current rules limit the circumstances in which the nuclear option can be used, and the process that Ofgem would effectively have to go through before it can be invoked. Indeed, Parliament, under the previous Government, set the bar for the nuclear option quite high. The list of circumstances in which the power can be used includes a variety of things, from the failure of a company to comply with a final order from the regulator, to a company’s making false statements when applying for a licence, to a firm’s not paying a financial penalty.

The right hon. Lady is proposing to lower the bar for the nuclear option. Labour now wants to amend the existing power, so that the regulator can close down a company for—I quote from the motion—

“repeated instances of the most serious and deliberate breaches of their licence conditions”.

How does that differ from the existing situation? Well, at the moment Ofgem cannot explicitly close down a firm for persistent behaviour; that is true. It cannot go quickly or directly to the nuclear option, as the right hon. Lady wants. Ofgem would instead have to ratchet up its sanctions: first, higher fines, and regulatory orders requiring specific improvements in performance by specific dates—ever-tougher, and increasingly damaging for the firm.

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

Is it not financially attractive to these energy companies to rip the customers off, as they have been, and take the rap on the fingers from Ofgem, pay the fines that Ofgem imposes on them, wipe the slate clean and start all over again?

[Mr Davey]

That may have been the case in the past, but increasingly it is not because the companies are losing customers, the fines are getting heavier and Ofgem is getting tougher. I wish it had been tougher in the past. Just look at the fines that have been levied and can be levied. We have seen fines of £3 million, £4 million, £10 million, £15 million. Indeed, under the coalition we have seen Ofgem fine more companies than ever before, and by higher amounts. In the nine years after Ofgem was established, it took enforcement action in just 10 cases. Since 2010, in four years, we have seen 27 cases, with fines totalling nearly £51 million. Moreover, because the current Government wanted to ensure that it was not just the Treasury that benefited from enforcement action against energy firms that misbehaved, there is now money for consumer redress as well—since 2010, nearly £60 million has already been paid out directly to consumers, the people who have suffered. Nothing like that happened under Labour. So under us, as the fines on a persistently poorly performing firm went up and up, so could consumer redress; so could the consumer compensation.

What is the maximum that could be levied? Well, if a firm continually failed to comply, the fines and redress could be increased up to 10% of a firm’s turnover, as the right hon. Lady said. For a huge energy company such as British Gas, that could equate to a whopping £1 billion —not a figure that any company, however large, can take lightly. That is what the law currently allows for, and these fines are being used, under this Government, far more than they were under the softies opposite.

[Caroline Flint]

Does the Secretary of State agree that if Ofgem investigates a company and the company pays the fine, and later the company breaches again the rules relating to fairness to customers in the way that I have outlined, what Ofgem cannot do is revoke the licence? It has to do another investigation, which may result in a fine, but what it cannot do is take into account past history on these issues and revoke the licence where there is persistent abusive behaviour to the customers. Does he support the recommendation that we are making or not?

[Mr Davey]

When Ofgem has another breach put to it, it has to look at that breach; it has to look at what has happened in that breach. It does not, as I am about to say, only have the fine/penalty option; it may issue improvement orders, as we are seeing. Let me come to the process, because I think the right hon. Lady’s policy will not stand up, and she will see that we have lots of powers to help consumers.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

rose—

[Mr Davey]

I am going to make some progress.

In fact, the current law allows the regulator to do more than just fine a company. Let us take an example. Ofgem can issue provisional orders that require a range of things, including banning a company from taking on new customers and setting specific behaviour that it must meet so that it is no longer in breach of licence conditions, including the standards of conduct. A final order can be issued when Ofgem believes that the same licence contravention is likely to continue, and in doing so Ofgem can look at the pattern of behaviour of previous breaches. Breaching a final order could then trigger a licence revocation, even if that remains an extreme circumstance. The powers that the right hon. Lady is talking about already exist in the form that I have described, where orders happen and improvement orders are required and they are not complied with.

This looks like a regime that is working today and it was not working under Labour. If the Opposition are proposing to lower the bar for a nuclear option, it is incumbent on them to explain exactly when that would be used, because consumers and businesses need to know exactly where the line is drawn. Perhaps the right hon. Lady wants to clarify her position now; she failed to do so, despite being intervened on by myself and my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (David Mowat).

Let me give the right hon. Lady an example. Would she have expected Ofgem to have closed npower down by now? More complaints have been made about npower than any other energy company. It is under investigation. Does she think her new power should have been used to revoke npower’s licence? A simple yes or no would suffice, if she is willing to give us an example. She is not, and the House will have noted that.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

rose—

[Mr Davey]

I will not give way. The right hon. Lady is seeking to allow Ofgem to close down a firm more rapidly than it can now. She wants to lower the bar for the nuclear option.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The right hon. Gentleman is not giving way.

[Mr Davey]

The right hon. Lady really must tell the House, would she have pressed the nuclear button yet? Is there one example of energy company bad behaviour that she thinks would have merited her policy?

Ofgem could close an energy company down, but it would have to give that firm the chance to improve. If a company ignored improvement orders, Ofgem could then issue a final order, and if that was ignored, it could then close the company down under current law. But the right hon. Lady seems to want the regulator to be able to intervene before an improvement process has been gone through—before a final order.

[Caroline Flint]

indicated dissent.

[Mr Davey]

Well, if the right hon. Lady does not want that—if she is still expecting a process of orders and final orders—the House should be clear: she is proposing absolutely nothing new of substance. This whole debate is a fabrication. But if she does want Ofgem to be able to close a company down earlier—if she does not want Ofgem to go through an improvement process with a firm that has behaved badly, as now—she really has to tell us how her proposal will work, and how it will be different in substance to the current system, and she has failed to do so.

I do not question the right hon. Lady’s motives or commitment in initiating this debate; I agree that there is a problem, and we both want the same thing. We want a consumer-focused market in which bills are kept as low as possible and the energy companies provide a high-quality service. The question before us is, what is the right way to achieve that? The Government favour a balanced approach of competition, technology and regulation, giving people the choice to move to new suppliers with better service and better deals. Under this Government, the new independent suppliers that we have encouraged regularly top the best-buy tables and the tables for best customer service. People are voting with their feet thanks to our increasing competition and punishing bad service. The new independents are growing rapidly, with more than 2 million customers, and the big six are losing market share every day.

We can improve services for customers with technology, bringing the digital revolution to the energy market so that information is more accurate and easier to understand. Smart meters could do for energy what the smartphone has done for mobile communications. Regulation is vital, and we are making sure that we have an active and engaged regulator with the right balance of powers to effect change. There is a basket of powers that we have strengthened, such as criminal sanctions where appropriate, powers to fine companies and compensate customers directly, and the ability to work with companies with poor customer service and help them to improve. As a very last resort, with the bar set high, we have the power to revoke a licence where there has been a serious breach of conduct. That is the picture under this Government.

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

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Yasmin Qureshi]

rose—

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

rose—

[Mr Davey]

I am happy to give way to my hon. Friend, and then to the other hon. Members. I have just described the picture under our Government.

[David T. C. Davies]

I appreciate that, and the right hon. Gentleman is making some very good points, but I have to pick him up on one thing. If smart meters are such a good idea, can he explain why the Government are having to sell them to the public using Bob Geldof and two cartoon characters? If smart meters are as good as smartphones, why are the public not willing to go out and buy them?

[Mr Davey]

Obviously, I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his helpful comments. Smart meters have been well tested, and there is a lot of enthusiasm for them. One million have been rolled out, and consumers have embraced them. I was asked to quote Sir Bob Geldof at the launch of Smart Energy GB, but I do not think I will. I promised to give way to other hon. Members.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

The right hon. Gentleman has been very courteous in giving way. I suggest to him that he does not close his mind entirely to our proposal because what he has described in some detail is, in effect, a series of yellow cards, following which there is no red card—there is nothing more serious. It is like saying to a player each time, “You have committed a misdemeanour, and now we will wipe the record clean.” The result of that would be appalling behaviour, and that is what we are seeing in some parts of the energy sector. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to keep an open mind because we want an escalation that is clear to energy companies, to consumers and to the investor community.

[Mr Davey]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his measured comments. The process in the law that I have described does end in a red card, and I hope that when he and the right hon. Member for Don Valley look at it in more detail, they will see that it can result in a red card. I said that I would give way to the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi).

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way.

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

Eventually.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I thank my hon. Friend for that. There seems to be a difference of opinion. We say that the grounds on which a licence can be revoked are very limited and technical. If I understand the Secretary of State correctly, he is saying that there are much wider grounds for revocation. Perhaps the way to resolve the dispute would be to take advice from expert legal counsel as to whether, legally speaking, our position or that of the Government is correct, because that way—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I appreciate that the hon. Lady waited a long time to make an intervention, but it is not a speech.

[Mr Davey]

I reassure the hon. Lady that we have legal advisers in the Department, as does Ofgem.

Looked at together, the Labour party’s proposals—not just the one before the House today—are clearly designed to upset the current balance between competition and regulation. Labour seems to want to rely on more heavy-handed regulation and even price controls to try to micro-manage energy costs and customer service standards from the desk of the Energy Secretary in Whitehall. We know what the consequences of that approach are because we have seen them before: distorted markets, reduced competition, poorer service and lower investment.

Let me gently remind the right hon. Member for Don Valley of her party’s record in government and, indeed, in opposition. The Labour Government set up Ofgem and decided what powers it would have, and when they realised they had got it wrong they reformed Ofgem. In opposition Labour decided it would scrap Ofgem. Now it seems to have U-turned and is looking at Ofgem’s powers instead. First, Labour proposed making Ofgem force companies to track wholesale prices in their retail prices, something which would destroy forward markets and force energy companies to purchase energy in the short-term markets. That is bad news for their customers, as I demonstrated the last time we debated energy policy. It is a recipe for chaos and yo-yo bills, with prices as volatile as the wholesale markets themselves, and on average higher than now.

Now the right hon. Lady proposes to lower the bar on the most extreme sanction the regulator has—revoking a licence, putting companies out of business, reducing competition and causing chaos for their customers. One has to think very carefully before changing the existing power to revoke a licence.

[Caroline Flint]

A final order could include a company being told to change the telephone script that it uses in its sales work, and it could comply with that order. Does the Secretary of State accept, however, that if the same company slightly breaks the rules again or undermines its service to its customers in a different way, the present guidance to Ofgem does not enable it to show that company the red card and deal with repetitive abusive behaviour that is slightly different from investigations that have led to sanctions in the past? Does he accept that that is a loophole in the current system?

[Mr Davey]

No, I do not because if a situation gets to the point of a final order, the regulator will look at other behaviours, but it will judge that particular breach. The right hon. Lady gives one example, but we could give many more. For example, we have heard from npower and Ofgem today that npower has made the improvements that were required of it. Presumably, if it had not done so, there would have been another improvement order and, potentially, a final order. Of course, it does not automatically follow that after a final order we go to revocation of a licence, but it is a process that could result in revocation after the matter has been properly investigated. I am glad that I have had a chance to explain that to her.

So far today the right hon. Lady has not been able to come up with one circumstance in which her proposal would be used. She has not given us one example of a case in which Ofgem has fined a company and she thinks that, under her power, Ofgem should have closed it down. She has simply failed to make the case for reforming the existing power. She has failed to make the case for lowering the bar. I have shown that this power exists but it is a nuclear option, and rightly so because the consequences of its use are so severe.

I say to the House that we have the right balance. We are making progress and have achieved more competition, tougher regulation, more choice and higher fines. People are able to punish firms themselves, without having to wait for the Government to do something. But when the regulator does punish a firm, under this Government, there is real financial redress. I thank the right hon. Lady for giving me this chance to show that not only do we take this issue seriously, but we have acted. I say to her and the House that the nuclear option of revoking a licence should remain, but it should remain one of last resort because that is in the consumer interest.

13:59

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

The first thing that would be of interest to the House in this debate this afternoon would be to find out what the Secretary of State really thinks about this matter. I was at an interesting meeting yesterday when I was privileged to hear the Secretary of State speak. First, he effectively apologised for being a Minister in the coalition—[Interruption.] I was there; I was listening to it. To put the record entirely straight, what he said was not exactly couched in terms of an apology, rather, “Here are the limitations under which I work as Secretary of State when we are addressing the issues that are coming forward from questions.” Then the Secretary of State said, “Well, of course, I want to cut loose from this; I want to tell you what I would really do were I really a Liberal Democrat.” The Secretary of State then had some interesting things to say, a number of which I agreed with, and I would be interested to hear more about the Liberal Democrat policy on these matters.

Even in the context of what was said at that meeting yesterday, I cannot really believe that one half of the Secretary of State’s hat is entirely comfortable with the other side of his hat as he speaks this afternoon. He probably really agrees with what is being put forward this afternoon, and the circumstantial evidence for that is to be found in the meandering circumlocutions that we heard from him today as to why the present system of regulation is pretty dead good and really can do the things that the Opposition are suggesting that it ought to do in any event, even though the Secretary of State accepts that in fact there is not a power in reality to revoke the licence of a supply company or electricity distribution company, on the basis, effectively, of cumulative offences.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

In fairness to the Secretary of State, does my hon. Friend suspect that one of the limitations to which he refers might be the bizarre rule on regulation that is now imposed across Whitehall? It was one in, one out, but now I understand it is one in, two out. So even if there is good, proportionate, sensible regulation, it is damn hard to get it on the statute book.

[Dr Whitehead]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. Given where the regulations stand now, it is quite possible that the introduction of the regulation that my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) suggests, would lead to several other regulations being removed, so therefore would meet the golden rule of one in, two out. It is something that I can recommend right now to those on the Government Front Bench as a way of earning additional deregulation brownie points.

I mentioned the Secretary of State’s circumlocutions and made considerable play of the fact that, because the regulator can undertake a final order, that is the nuclear option. The Secretary of State will be aware—he has received legal advice to this effect, although I do wonder whether the legal advisers did this during their lunch hour to assist him—that clause 25(1) of the Electricity Act 1989, from which the final order derives, before Ofgem was introduced but the powers were incorporated into its powers, states that

“where the Director is satisfied that a licence holder is contravening, or is likely to contravene, any relevant condition or requirement, he shall by a final order make such provision as is requisite for the purpose of securing compliance with that condition or requirement.”

According to that piece of legislation, one is required to find out what any relevant condition or requirement is. In order to do that, it is necessary to refer to schedule 2 with the imposing title “Revocation”. We may want to look there to find out how nuclear that final order is. The final order not only has to relate to the relevant conditions or requirements, it has to stick to the relevant conditions or requirements. That is what it says in the legislation.

As the Secretary of State has said, there are a number of circumstances under which the licence can be revoked. Where someone has not paid their fine and it remains unpaid, a final order can be issued. If a final order is issued and the licensee fails to comply with that final order, which is something of a tautology, that licence can be revoked. But in order not to comply with the final order the licensee has not to comply with something within the revocation schedule in the first instance. If the licensee refuses to pay the financial penalty, that triggers a final order. Various orders were made under the Competition Act 1998 relating to unfair competition. If the licensee does not supply any electricity within a year or has stopped supplying electricity to a property, a final order can be levied against it. If the licensee is unable to pay its debts according to the Insolvency Act 1986 or has an administration order, or a receiver has been appointed, the licensee may have a final order levied against it. Obviously, if it is insolvent and has ceased trading, it is hardly likely to comply with the final order so its licence would be revoked.

The revocation schedule, upon which the Secretary of State’s magnificent argument about the final order rests, simply states, as has already been rehearsed, that various things could lead to revocation if they are not put right. That seems to be the central point that is being addressed this afternoon. These are all things that might be levied against a company and could be put right, and if they are not put right a nuclear option of revocation can be undertaken. But if those things are put right, case by case by case, section by section by section, that final order cannot be used. So the entire basis of the Secretary of State’s argument, that that really exists to enable Ofgem to revoke a licence for the sort of cumulative issues that we have been discussing this afternoon, simply falls down. We must accept that there simply is no such power in reality, by implication, in legislation or by regulation.

That makes the case fairly simple. Yes, it is true that with regard to competition, the problem of losing a number of customers may cause an energy company to think again about certain of its actions. The possibility of losing all of one’s customers might make one think rather more seriously about the problems being faced and how to deal with them, in addition to the fact that some customers may be lost through competition.

There we have it, in terms of the difference between the present position and a significant change in what Ofgem would be required to do under the proposals set out this afternoon. They require Ofgem to take account of cumulative bad behaviour—of a company getting away with it, not putting right things required under legislation, and living to fight another day and do it again.

[David Mowat]

I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman and I think he is right about this being an additional power. The question that therefore arises is: what problem are we trying to solve with the additional power? In the 20 or 30 years since privatisation, when companies have apparently been running amok, in which instances would he have liked the power to be deployed? In particular, would it be appropriate for npower no longer to have a licence?

[Dr Whitehead]

The existence of a power in legislation, and of a regulation attached to it, provides a framework that companies subject to it must address. It is academic for the hon. Gentleman to ask whether a company would have had its licence removed when it was not subject to the conditions and when the framework did not exist—it is just a debating point and not a real challenge at all.

[David Mowat]

There is a logical error in what the hon. Gentleman says. In the absence of the power, when all the energy companies have apparently been running amok, surely we would have expected them to exhibit the egregious behaviour that would cause the power to be used. Can he give me an example of that?

[Dr Whitehead]

The hon. Gentleman will understand that saying “enough is enough” when there is not enough in the first place is a logical impossibility. The power provided under the proposal would enable Ofgem to say “enough is enough”. I cannot look into a crystal ball to say what enough might consist of, but a power to deal with repeated abuses of licence arrangements and repeated failures to learn from transgressions that had been put right but had not led to a sanction being levied would in the long term have more effect on energy companies’ operations.

[David Mowat]

Let us be clear: these are repeated abuses—which, as the hon. Gentleman rightly says, the power takes into account—of a type that we have not seen in the past 30 years. Otherwise, he would be able to give examples of when the power should have been deployed.

[Dr Whitehead]

The hon. Gentleman misses my central point—that it is difficult to say there has been cumulative abuse of a licence when the licence contains no means of judging that. Without such means, it is difficult to make those judgments. Members across the Chamber will agree that if a company that flagrantly and repeatedly abused its licence conditions faced the ultimate sanction of having its licence removed, it would think long and hard before sailing too close to that circumstance.

I questioned whether the Secretary of State’s heart is in the debate. I do not know whether his brief for the debate was one of specificity or one of principle. Did it say, “In the circumstances where it appears we might have the power, you can walk around the issue by talking about a final notice”, or, “Under no circumstances should the regulatory system for utilities or associated bodies enable the removal of licences, so defend the fact that the licence cannot be removed under existing regulations”?

I wish to draw attention to another note on compliance and ultimate sanctions, which states that

“licence holders must also, at all times, satisfy the four authorisation criteria. . . insurance, financial fitness, good repute and professional competence. If we have serious doubts about whether you comply with any of these criteria, we may make further enquiries.”

It concludes:

“If you do not comply with your licensing obligations we will consider enforcement action. This may ultimately result in the suspension or revocation of your authorisation.”

That guidance is issued not by Ofgem but by the Office of the Rail Regulator, so there is a regulatory arrangement—presumably agreed and authorised by the Government—that enables the ultimate sanction of a licence being revoked. Did the Secretary of State defend the lack of such an ultimate sanction on the grounds that it is a bad thing? If so, such a sanction already exists. However badly the railways are regulated, at least regulations are in place that allow for that ultimate sanction.

[Graham Stringer]

My hon. Friend is, as ever, making a profound speech, enabling the House to benefit from his considerable knowledge. Does he believe that the people of Warrington South, Southampton, Test and Manchester would dance in the streets at the prospect of Centrica, British Gas or npower being threatened with the removal of their licences because of their appalling behaviour over the past 20 years or so?

[Dr Whitehead]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Were I to knock on doors in Southampton, Test and refer people to the rail regulator’s compliance arrangements and relate them to Ofgem and ultimate sanctions I might get a fairly dusty response. If I were to say to them, “Energy companies appear to have been ripping you off over many years in many different ways and the huge fines levied on them don’t appear to have made any great difference, whereas now it is being proposed that they may simply be told to leave by the back door with their possessions and not supply you with energy any more”, then they would indeed be dancing in the streets. I can only say in my defence that I am not a dancing in the streets kind of politician, but others might wish to do that on my behalf.

We are aware that regulatory arrangements exist for other industries and that they should therefore exist for this industry. That is the nub of the issue, and I hope that Members will support that simple, central point on the regulation of electricity and gas in the future.

14:19

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

I begin with an apology to the House because, as I mentioned to Madam Deputy Speaker earlier, I am meeting a representative of the National Association of Probation Officers trade union in a few minutes. I am sure that Labour Members would not wish that meeting not to take place. It will shorten my speech considerably, but I hope that Members will forgive me because it was arranged before I knew about the change in timings.

Let me make another apology for being one of the Members of Parliament who voted for the Climate Change Act 2008, which underpins some of the issues alluded to by Members in all parts of the House. As the Secretary of State said in his closing remarks, what we want now is cheap energy prices for people. Of course, we have to take the energy companies to task over bad behaviour. There has apparently been some confusion as to whether Ofgem does or does not ultimately have the power to remove their licences. He says that it can. He challenged, unsuccessfully, the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) to say under what circumstances she thought that it should have further powers. She did not wish to reply, so I am inclined to agree with him on this occasion. It does have the power, in the most extreme circumstances, to remove licences, and it is absolutely right that it should. It is not a power, though, that should be used lightly.

The real concern is that energy prices are too high. The reason is that all of us—or most of us—voted for the Climate Change Act, which has forced the Government to bring in all sorts of green taxes and subsidies that have pushed prices up. The Government now have a policy of rolling back some of the green taxes which Labour Members enthusiastically supported and which have pushed up prices. There is no getting away from that. Labour Members will not be able to do anything about the wholesale price of fossil fuels or of any other energy source, but they could do something about taxes. Any sustainable cut in prices to the consumer and to businesses will have to be underpinned by cutting back on green taxes.

I welcome the fact that the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow climate change Minister are trumpeting these issues. That is absolutely fantastic. It plays straight into the hands of people such as me—climate change sceptics—that Labour Members are making a huge issue out of energy prices. They are no longer worried about trying to outbid the Government on who has the greenest policies but trying to show who is going to deliver the cheapest energy prices. I say, “Great”, because I know that whoever is in government at the next election will be able to do that only by cutting back on green taxes.

[Graham Stringer]

I did not vote for the Climate Change Act, knowingly. Whatever one’s position on green levies, it is a bit rich for the hon. Gentleman to support a Government who have fixed energy prices for the next decades when nobody can predict the price of energy. That guarantees that people will pay higher prices or greater subsidies because of the strike price. The latest predictions of Aurora, a well-known consulting company, suggest that prices are likely to be half what the Government say, and that will mean larger subsidies. Does he still support the Government on those policies?

[David T. C. Davies]

No, I do not. I have a great deal of respect for what the hon. Gentleman says. I do not support the Government at all on this particular policy. I think it was a huge mistake—

[Chris Ruane]

Minister, take note!

[David T. C. Davies]

Yes, please do take note. People should not think I am saying anything now that I have not said before. Indeed, I more or less said it a few months ago at a meeting with the Global Warming Policy Foundation at which the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) was present. I am absolutely not going to hide my views on this.

Most Members are completely wrong on energy policy because they have all bought into the idea that we are going to suffer runaway global warming, and the reality is that that is not happening. We are being told to look at the evidence. The evidence is clear: there has been no increase in temperature since 1997. We are told that in the 1800s we started putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which is of course true, that carbon dioxide is a global warming gas, which is true, and that therefore CO₂ has been responsible for the very small increase in temperature that has taken place since then. However, if one looks at the evidence, one can see that there has not been a straightforward rise in temperatures; they fell between 1940 and 1970. That proves that something else was affecting them. As we started to industrialise, we were coming out of a particularly cool period that climatologists call the little ice age, so there had to be some increase in warming anyway.

Since 1997, as I said, there has not been any increase in temperature. That proves beyond all doubt that something other than carbon dioxide is affecting the climate, and nobody can say what that is. Nobody has been able to tell me what it is, and I have had meetings with people at the Met Office and all sorts of other people. It is therefore foolish of us to levy on our industries all sorts of taxes and subsidies that are affecting manufacturing and pushing up prices for home owners, and then to try to put all the blame on to the big six energy companies, as we are doing now, using them as a kind of whipping boy for the sins of those of us who have bought into the big green theories.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is equally foolish to say, “It doesn’t matter then. We’re not quite sure why the climate is changing, so we’ll carry on pumping out CO₂ and pollutants into the atmosphere without any concern about what we’re doing to the world, because maybe, just maybe, it’s not having an effect”? Maybe it is having an effect? Is it not equally foolish to do nothing?

[David T. C. Davies]

Maybe it is and maybe it is not. Maybe, as the Prime Minister has suggested, we should be looking at dealing with antibiotics and the rise in diseases that are resistant to them. Maybe we should be doing something about a comet strike, which may or may not happen. Maybe we should be worried about a complete economic collapse—which, incidentally, is made far more likely by the policies of spending money that we do not have that are propagated by Labour Members. That is far more likely to keep me awake at night. Of course, we should also be very concerned about terrorism.

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

On the first point, I remind the hon. Gentleman that this Government have doubled the national debt. On the second point, in relation to industry, although the level of energy prices is a major issue, it is actually Government policy that has put energy-intensive industries in a bit of hole. The carbon floor pricing scheme that this Government unilaterally introduced has a compensation programme that does not come in until 2016. An even bigger issue is the explosion in non-EU imports into the UK market in the past year.

[David T. C. Davies]

The hon. Gentleman is certainly right about the strike price, but may I remind him that his party has supported all sorts of environmental measures? It is no good attacking me for something that I do not actually agree with. I am quite up-front about this. I think that most of us have made a big mistake in bringing in taxes that have affected home owners and businesses, particularly large-scale manufacturing companies—cement manufacturers, steel manufacturers, and others.

[Tom Blenkinsop]

rose—

[David T. C. Davies]

Broadly speaking, I am agreeing with the hon. Gentleman, so I do not know why he is trying to pick a fight with me over this. The point is that we should not be doing these things because we do not have a problem. There has been no increase in temperatures since 1997, so our whole discussion is based on a false premise.

[Tom Blenkinsop]

The point of having a carbon price across the EU market is to ensure that countries do not isolate themselves or make themselves less competitive in the EU. We had the EU emissions trading scheme and then added our own tax, which other EU nations did not do. That happened under this Government and was one of the first measures that the Chancellor set out.

[David T. C. Davies]

I am not going to defend that. I think there is—shall we say?—a change in mindset going on at the moment. It is obviously happening in the hon. Gentleman’s party as well, and that is why we are having this debate. Front Benchers on both sides of the House seem to agree that we should be making energy as cheap as possible. Everyone is absolutely right about that. However, we are not going to do that by attacking the big six energy companies. The only way we will be able to bring about a sustained decrease in energy prices is by reducing the taxes and other regulations that the hon. Gentleman mentioned.

[Graham Stringer]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the most significant point about green taxes, whether my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop) is right or wrong, is that they are not working? This country and the European Union are now responsible for more carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere than they were before. Emissions have gone down, but because of imports we are importing embodied carbon dioxide. These policies therefore have a perverse effect, whether or not one agrees with the global warming theories.

[David T. C. Davies]

That is absolutely right. I do not wish to stray too far from the debate, but it is interesting what has happened in Germany, where people decided to get rid of nuclear power stations in order to follow a more environmental policy and ended up burning large quantities of lignite, which has increased their carbon dioxide emissions. That proves that these green policies do not even end up having the consequences that those calling for them want.

It is also very interesting that the people who are shouting loudest for such policies are the quickest to distance themselves from the consequences. With all due respect to Members on both Front Benches, who are pandering to Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, the reality is that Friends of the Earth are very quick to attack the Government—they will attack the Opposition as well—for anything that increases energy prices to consumers: they ran a campaign against increased energy prices. The Secretary of State is trying to placate these people, but they are never, ever going to support him, whatever he does, so there is no point in even trying, in my opinion.

The Secretary of State mentioned smart meters earlier, but the energy companies have said they may not work. The Government are spending a vast amount of money trying to persuade every home owner in the country to accept smart meters. I am always very suspicious when Governments start trying to persuade me to do anything, particularly if it involves Bob Geldof, a quango and two cartoon characters. The Government have said that smart meters will cost £11 billion. I assume that those costs are relatively easy to predict, because they involve the cost of the meters. Incidentally, I am sure that somebody has done very well out of that. I saw in, I think, The Times yesterday that one of the smart meter companies had posted huge profits. I would be interested to know who bought shares in such companies before the EU introduced the regulation that brought all of this about, but I digress slightly.

The Government have said it will cost £11 billion to introduce smart meters by 2020—I assume that that estimate is reasonably accurate—and that the benefits will be about £17 billion. I have managed to get hold of the National Audit Office report, and lo, it is not quite as straightforward as it seems, because the benefits will not be seen until 2030, so we are putting in £11 billion for a possible £17 billion at least a decade later.

When one looks at how the benefits break down, one sees that 48% of the benefits are due to cheaper costs for the energy companies, which I suppose is fairly accurate: there will be fewer visits—and fewer jobs probably, but there we are—and a cut in bureaucracy. That accounts for about half the cost, but that is still only about £8 billion-worth of benefits. The rest all seem nebulous: 33% of the benefit will be due to people using less energy because it will cost more. In fact, therefore, it is being counted as a benefit that people will use less gas and electricity partly because the price of the smart meter will have been added to their bills. A further 8% of the benefits will be due to the fact that somebody somewhere along the line will pay lower carbon taxes on energy that will not have been used. If that is a benefit, the solution is very simple, isn’t it? Don’t bother with Bob, Leccy, Gaz and the quango—just cut the taxes in the first place and leave it all out.

I find this very difficult to accept. It is not simply due to the European Union coming up with a grand plan. I am worried that one of the so-called advantages of smart meters is that they will allow the big six energy companies to turn off people’s gas and electric remotely. Of course, there may be a good reason for doing so if they have not paid their bills, but it may also be convenient for the companies to do it if they decide that they do not have enough electricity at a particular moment to feed the grid and therefore cut off people they think are using too much gas or electricity.

[Caroline Flint]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very interesting speech. If an energy company is found guilty of persistent and repeated offences against the consumer interest—for example, mis-selling, predatory pricing or giving the wrong advice—and has had fines and possibly a final order but still carries on in a slightly different way, does he think that the ultimate sanction should be for it to lose its licence as a supplier?

[David T. C. Davies]

According to the Secretary of State, that is the ultimate sanction.

[Dr Whitehead]

No, it isn’t.

[David T. C. Davies]

That is what the Secretary of State said. Who am I to question him on that particular issue?

[Caroline Flint]

The hon. Gentleman’s response is helpful, because it shows that he does believe there should be an ultimate sanction. If we can prove that it is not available, does he agree that there should be a change to the revocation regime under which Ofgem works, to make sure that it is made available?

[David T. C. Davies]

The right hon. Lady was asked twice by the Secretary of State whether she agreed that that ultimate sanction exists but cannot be used lightly, but she did not respond. I am left wondering why she is suddenly picking on me. I am not the Energy and Climate Change Secretary. I wish I were—we would have some very different polices if that came about, I can tell you. I see that the Whip sitting in front of me is writing loads of notes as I speak. I hope he will feed back the suggestion that I am open to offers as far as the climate change role is concerned. In the meantime, I suggest that the right hon. Lady deals directly with the Secretary of State.

To return briefly to smart meters, according to the NAO report the net benefits may not be as high as £17 billion anyway; they may be only £12 billion, which means that over a period of 10 to 15 years we will save ourselves £1 billion, most of which—or a lot of it—will come from the fact that people will not be able to afford their energy bills, partly because we will have installed smart meters everywhere.

I did not get a mobile phone until about 1997. I got one because other people had one and I thought, “That’s a good idea: I want one.” If smart meters are a good idea, my neighbours will get one, I will have a look at it and if everyone down the pub says it is a good idea I will get one. What I am suspicious about is the fact that vast amounts of money are being spent on telling me and every member of the public that we all have to have one by 2020.

It is not rising temperatures that are causing people angst at the moment; it is rising energy bills. There seems to be widespread recognition of that. I am only a Back Bencher and I am sure I will stay one for many years to come, if the Whips have their way. I have to say that we all, including me, got it wrong on climate change. I have looked at the evidence and the evidence is not there to support the policies we have all put in place. Although others might not be able to come out and say, “We got it wrong: the temperatures aren’t rising,” the fact that we are now talking about energy bills and increases in costs rather than increases in temperature suggests that we are heading slowly in the right direction with this particular argument, so I would welcome many more debates such as this one.

14:36

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

I rise to speak in this very important debate because people are telling me time and again just how worried they are about this coming winter. We were very lucky last year because it was a mild winter, but obviously that does not happen every year and people are really worried that, yet again, prices will go up this autumn by 8% or 9%.

Over the past four years, there have been horrific price rises in this country. Of the world’s major industrial countries, our electricity price rises of 23.5% are second only to Ireland’s. We are also in the top few for gas, with horrific rises of nearly 34%. That is coming out of the budgets of people who are not earning more, because wages have scarcely risen. This is a very serious issue for many households, and anything we can do to stop the energy companies ripping people off has to be welcome.

I would like to see a cross-party consensus whereby when a good idea is suggested by one side of the House, the other side can adopt it. There is no shame in doing so. Good ideas can push forward and strengthen legislation so that these companies, which have been getting away with things for far too long, can be brought to book.

The problem is that competition is not working effectively, because it is so very difficult to switch. I come from an area—south Wales—where it is particularly difficult to do so. The options are very limited and a significantly smaller number of people are switching. There are huge difficulties, not only in terms of accessing information, particularly for the large numbers of people, especially older customers who do not have access to the internet, but in terms of which tariffs are actually available and their confusing nature.

It says something when Which? magazine tells us that 75% of consumers are actually on the most expensive tariff. What does that say about how the energy companies are working? It tells us that they are working very well for their shareholders and for making profits, but it is the consumer who is missing out. That 75% of consumers are paying the highest tariffs does not seem in any way to be a fair deal for consumers.

We must tackle these absolutely greedy energy companies. Let us be honest about it. What happens when they are fined? They have apparently been fined on 31 occasions, with fines amounting to some £90 million, but who has paid that £90 million? It just comes back to the consumer. We do not notice that energy companies’ profits are going down; in fact, their excessive profits are announced in the press year on year.

Consumers are feeling extremely hard done by, particularly when they are trying very hard to cut down their energy consumption. It seems that the energy companies want to take the same amount of money off them year after year, even if they cut back their consumption, and that particularly affects low energy users.

Energy companies try all sorts of ways of imposing costs on people. For example, there is a move to a higher standing charge. That is the charge we have to pay, regardless of whether we use any energy, simply for our home to be supplied. Astonishingly, SSE does not give any discount for taking both gas and electricity from it, whereas some companies do.

My reading of the increase in the standing charge is that the energy companies fear our getting into government and imposing an energy price freeze. The increase is a way of trying to get out of having to lower prices, because the standing charge will remain. We need to be aware that whenever we try to regulate companies, they look for every loophole—every possible way of mis-selling, using misrepresentation, hiking prices and inventing charges—to try to circumvent the rules.

We need a really tough regulator with a really tough ultimate sanction. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) said, if we have only yellow cards and no red cards, with energy companies going back to a clean slate every time they behave badly, there is absolutely no motivation for them to stop doing so. All they will do is to try everything they can to bend the rules every time, because that is in the interests of their making profits. Doing so will not affect their shareholders, because any fines they are given are simply put back into hiked prices. It is therefore essential to have a way to strike off such companies, as would happen in any other profession that a company was continually bringing into disrepute.

Far too many things have happened, such as the whole issue of incorrect billing. Companies have taken lots of money from people through direct debits without advising them that because their consumption has gone down, they could pay less. We have seen energy companies raking it in and banking huge amounts of cash, but only when a very savvy consumer challenges them about their direct debit do they do anything about it. We have seen all sorts of inappropriate ways of billing—making it very difficult for people to read bills and to understand exactly what is being charged for—and of mis-selling. Disadvantaged groups, such as those on prepayment meters, have very often not been able to benefit.

It is quite extraordinary that we were told that £50 would be taken off the bill of every consumer, with costs falling on general taxation rather than a green levy on the energy companies, only for us to find out that the energy companies have absolutely got away with it. Four of them have not even attempted to pass the £50 to their fixed tariff consumers—in fact, they refused to do so—and the Government have never chased that up. Wonderful statements were made by the former Minister, the right hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker), and the Prime Minister about this not being acceptable, but nothing has actually been done about it.

Many people have not had the £50 back, but all of them who are taxpayers have contributed to general taxation, from which the shortfall is supposed to be made up. The energy companies are therefore laughing all the way to the bank. Unless we have the ultimate sanction of the power to revoke a licence—saying, “You can no longer have that customer base or business”—I suspect that energy companies will continue, as they have done over the past few years, to make the consumer pay in this, that or the other way.

The energy companies often tell us that they need to charge lots of money because they are investing in new ways of generating electricity. However, we have not seen them rushing to build power stations, so that is all a bit of a smokescreen. Another important reform we are proposing is the separation of supply businesses and generating businesses, which will make such matters much more transparent. It will make it much more difficult for companies supplying the consumer to pretend that they are somehow raking in vast profits in order to invest when such investments are not taking place.

That is why we want to give the regulator real teeth—the extra power to revoke licences. Then if companies break the rules, they will not just be able to pay the fines and carry on, but may be struck off and not allowed to supply consumers.

We need much greater transparency in the whole market so that people are much clearer about where their money is going. We are proposing that if we win the general election next year, we will freeze energy prices until January 2017 for both ordinary households and businesses. It will save households perhaps £120, and save businesses an average of perhaps £5,000. During the energy freeze, it will be very important to reform the energy market. We want to break up the energy companies to increase transparency and to separate supply businesses from generation businesses, with a company having separate licences for each task.

We will build a structure that allows the regulator to revoke licences for specific tasks. The obvious case, which is referred to in our motion, is the power to revoke an energy company’s licence to supply consumers if it repeatedly breaches the courtesies and standards we expect them to offer those consumers. We also require a much simpler tariff structure. That is another way of saying, “This is what we anticipate or expect consumers to be able to enjoy”, and if supply companies do not comply with a simple tariff structure, the regulator will have the power to revoke their licence.

It is extremely important to implement the series of measures that will protect the consumer. We have said it is important for the regulator to force companies to lower prices when wholesale costs fall. Time and again, people see something on television about wholesale costs falling, and they are very angry that their bill does not fall. They feel very strongly about it.

The Prime Minister said he would make sure that companies reduced prices when costs fell, but he has never done so. He said that in opposition, but once in government he never made it happen. It is pretty clear to us that we therefore need greater powers than those that exist. One way in which we can strengthen the regulator is by allowing it to revoke licences. If a company decided not to pass on any falls in wholesale prices that we were lucky enough to have, the regulator could then revoke its licence.

The other important area that we want a strong new regulator to deal with concerns off-grid issues, which are prevalent in rural areas, particularly where new estates have been built and a supplier has a monopoly over a group of houses. It is difficult to break out of such contracts. It is important that the regulator has the power not just to tackle off-grid issues, but to revoke the licences of off-grid suppliers.

We want to be absolutely certain that the regulator has every single tool in the toolbox that it needs to deal with the abuses that energy companies impose on consumers. Of course, that has to be managed properly. As my right hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State said, there has to be a proper procedure. There would be an appeals procedure, a notice period and protection for consumers to make certain that everybody was transferred to an adequate supplier before a company ceased to supply their energy. Those things really do matter. There are models, to which other hon. Members have referred, such as those in the United States where such powers work.

This is an additional power that we think is very important. It is clear that without it, energy companies have got away with hiking prices, mis-selling, misrepresentation and ripping off the consumer. We want to see an end to that. We want the regulator to have a proper footing that enables it to say, in no uncertain terms, “I have the ultimate power. I can simply stop you trading. You are warned that any further breaches that damage the consumer in any way will not be acceptable.” That, we hope, would have the effect of bringing the companies to heel and getting a much better deal for consumers.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Before we proceed, I should point out that, although there is plenty of time for this debate and a relatively small number of colleagues have indicated that they wish to speak, the speeches so far from the Front and Back Benchers have been so extraordinarily long that I have to ask Back Benchers to please keep their speeches to around 10 or 11 minutes. If they show that courtesy to other Members, everyone who wishes to speak will have a chance to do so.

14:53

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Ten minutes should be fine.

The hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) told me in an earlier intervention that the constituents of Warrington South are interested in energy companies being struck off. What they are interested in is lower energy prices and better customer service. They are not interested in posturing, which has made up much of what has been said today.

When I first read the motion this morning, I thought, “I wonder whether we will oppose this,” because, on the face of it, it is reasonable. I read it quite carefully. Even when I came into the debate, it was not clear to me what we were opposing. However, what the Opposition have failed to do in the motion is to articulate what the problem is that they are trying to solve that cannot be solved in other ways. Apparently, in the past 30 years—in which time, the power did not exist—there have been no instances of behaviour that would have required it to be used. It is fair to say that I am looking at the past and that we should legislate for the future. However, the shadow Secretary of State was twice asked to give examples of the sort of behaviour that would cause the power to be used, over and above the behaviour for which fines of 10% are allowed. Many of the arguments that I have heard today seem to be arguments for increasing the fines. If customer service is poor and behaviour is inadequate, that should happen. However, to take a company out of the market and to reduce choice and competition is the nuclear option, and we should be very clear about why we are using it. The least the industry could have expected the Opposition to do was to give an example of the sort of behaviour that would require this power. We have not heard that.

The analogy of yellow and red cards is an interesting one, but it is not right. Broadly, we understand what a yellow card offence or a red card offence is. There is a progression. If anything, the analogy gives power to the Secretary of State’s point that there is already such progression in the regulation of offences.

The example of Pennsylvania has been given and a couple of Members have talked about the United States. I would be interested to hear, in his response to the debate, whether the shadow Minister can say whether the Pennsylvanians have invoked these powers. I genuinely do not know the answer to that, but my guess is that they have not. The Opposition should understand that the market in Pennsylvania consists of one or two suppliers. In such a market, where the problem of losing customers does not exist to the same extent, it is appropriate for such powers to exist. It is certainly more appropriate than it would be in our market.

The Secretary of State is right to say that when energy companies perform badly, as they have done in many instances—I will not defend that and neither will any other Government Member—they must be held to account. They should be fined more and, if necessary, should pay fines of up to 10%. However, posturing and coming up with things that sound attractive on the doorstep but that do not work is not the way to deal with the problem.

I will talk a little about the need to reduce energy prices. We do need to keep a cap on energy prices. However, the one thing that we never discuss is the fact that over the next decade, we will have to replace about 20% of our generating capacity. That seems to be of little concern to the Opposition because they never raise it in these Opposition debates. We have many, many Opposition debates on energy. It is Wednesday afternoon and I feel quite comfortable being here discussing energy. However, we never discuss our generating capacity, even though £110 billion of expenditure is needed.

By 2017, our capacity margin will be lower than 2%. Nothing is being built at scale at the moment, other than some nuclear stations that will not fill that gap. Demand-side measures have been brought in by the Government, but they will not be enough. Certain nuclear stations were closed over the summer because of safety concerns. Had that happened in the middle of a hard winter, it would have had a profound effect. I would be interested to hear anybody’s comments on that.

[Graham Stringer]

The hon. Gentleman is making interesting points, as always. Does he agree that the Government should look for a derogation from the EU’s large energy plant directive, which will close down some of our fossil fuel plants unnecessarily and exacerbate the situation that he is describing so accurately?

[David Mowat]

I am sympathetic to that view. Countries are acting increasingly unilaterally in the area of climate policy. The fact that the Germans, the Dutch and other countries are building unabated coal power stations at scale raises that question. My honest answer is that we should look at how things develop. Later, I will discuss a vote that took place on 4 December, in which the Opposition went through the Lobby—I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman did—in support of a Lords amendment that would have accelerated the closure of our power stations by bringing in the emissions performance standard for existing stations, rather than just for old stations. That was an extraordinary thing to have happened. The Opposition’s position on coal has, in many respects, been extraordinary.

I want to respond to the remarks of the hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) on energy costs. There is a difference between gas and electricity prices. This morning, table 10.2.1 on the website of the Department of Energy and Climate Change, showed that our gas prices for 2013 were lower than median prices in the EU. That is not the case for electricity, and I am pleased that the Secretary of State has asked the Competition Commission about that. However, if we are to debate these matters incessantly on Wednesday afternoons, I think it is worth having a debate based on the facts. I will say this again—hon. Members can intervene on me if they believe it not to be the case—this country has among the lowest gas prices in the EU. If that is the case and if a cartel is in operation, as I have said before, it implies that it is a pretty bad cartel. Nevertheless, let us investigate the industry and have a look.

As I have said about my constituents in Warrington South, what matters are lower prices. The Government have addressed that, just as the Opposition have made suggestions. We want to simplify tariffs and encourage new entrants. We have acted on green levies, and I think the point made earlier about it all being switched to general taxation was wrong. We want better and faster switching.

It is true that the market has been sticky—I am not defending that and it needs to work better. We must make it easier to switch, and some of the things introduced in the Energy Act 2013 regarding compensation to consumers are to be welcomed. In my view, the Opposition policy has three prongs. One is the price freeze, which has been mentioned. The second is what I would generally describe as name calling—describing energy companies as cartels and referring to price fixing and secret deals. All those things are illegal, and if evidence for them exists, it should be brought before the courts. These are public companies, and directors should go to prison if such things are happening. I repeat that if they are happening in the gas market, it is a pretty ineffective cartel, but let us have a look.

The third strand of the Opposition’s policy is that they vote for higher prices whenever there is a vote in this place on how we can influence energy prices. Let me give some examples of that. In 2011, the then Minister was trying to reduce the subsidy for solar panels—solar PV tariffs—from six times grid parity to something like three or four times grid parity. Solar electricity would no longer be six times as expensive as everything else, but four times as expensive. We had a vitriolic response from the Opposition who said that that would see the end of the solar industry and that such subsidies were absolutely necessary. Labour Members trooped through the Lobby to vote against that policy, which was an attempt to minimise the amount of subsidy being given and to reduce energy prices. Well, so be it. That is what happened.

Similarly, we had a debate on the 2030 carbon target. Earlier, the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop) intervened on the carbon price floor. I will not defend that; my view is that it is wrong, but it is also wrong for us to impose unilateral carbon targets. These are not EU laws; the EU is not doing this. Again, however, when the issue was debated on the Floor of the House, Labour Members trooped through the Lobby to oppose it. I can only imagine that there are two Labour parties, and I really believe this to be the case. There is the Labour party up in Hampstead—let us call it the north London set of the Labour party—which thinks all this stuff is great, and the other part of the Labour party that represents constituencies where there is energy-intensive industry, and where 700,000 people have jobs that depend on energy prices. If I were one of those people in the Labour party, I would be a little more sanguine.

[Tom Blenkinsop]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[David Mowat]

Certainly. I was hoping somebody would intervene.

[Tom Blenkinsop]

Let us return to the hon. Gentleman’s point on solar panels. By removing the subsidies from solar panels, the Government decimated the solar panel construction industry that supplied panels to UK homes. We now have massive imports of Chinese products, which mirrors what is happening in the rebar steel industry where there has been an explosion of more than 20% in the number of steel products coming from China. That did not exist two years ago.

[David Mowat]

That is not the intervention I had expected or hoped for. The hon. Gentleman mentioned solar PV, but that policy is not directed at Chinese manufacturing, or anybody else. We do not subsidise British versus Chinese manufacturing, or whatever.

[Tom Blenkinsop]

I am chair of the all-party group for the steel and metal related industry, which met yesterday. We met an industry leader who works at Celsa Steel in south Wales. He commented that what the industry wants is consistency in prices that is long-term and set out, irrespective of whether prices are lower or higher. What we have are fluctuations and the market lacks confidence because it does not know what Government policy is.

[David Mowat]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, and ask him to reflect on the fact that I am also chair of an all-party group—the all-party group for the UK aluminium industry. Industry wants lower prices and not higher prices regardless of whether those prices are static or not. Perhaps if he were to reflect on that, he would see that I am right.

The third instance of Labour Members voting, whenever they get the chance, for higher energy prices occurred on 4 December 2013, and this is perhaps the most interesting example. We heard earlier about the closure of coal stations in this country because of the large combustion plant directive. On that day Labour Members went through the Lobbies to support a Lords amendment on the emissions performance standard that would have required all existing stations to stop burning coal within a short period. That would have accelerated the rapid closure of our coal stations, and apparently for green reasons. That was an extraordinary thing to do, and the cost to generation would have been extremely high. As I said, I do not know which part of the Labour party did that, but it is an odd thing to have done.

Before I conclude, I ask Opposition Members to reflect on the three policies they are suggesting: the price freeze, the name calling about persistent cartels, and the fixing of prices and all that goes with that. More importantly, whenever we get a vote in this place, they should think about the impact of that vote on their constituents, and stop supporting unilateral action. I do not agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies) because we need to take our climate change obligations seriously and follow the EU on that. However, we do not need to continue acting unilaterally in the way that we are doing.

[Tom Blenkinsop]

That is one point on which I agree with the hon. Gentleman. The carbon price floor scheme was unilaterally introduced and no conversation was held with industry. That was introduced by this Government. Labour policy, along with our EU colleagues and within a market, was to maintain a framework whereby we would not make ourselves less competitive than our closest EU competitors.

[David Mowat]

If you will indulge me, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will answer the hon. Gentleman’s point. I have a lot of sympathy with that, but all I would say about that policy, which has now been capped, is that at least it resulted in revenue for the Treasury, which I know is generally regarded as a bad thing by Opposition Members. That is part of what we had to do to pay off the debts we inherited. The other green levies that were voted for and that I mentioned are straight subsidies and they do not result in that and are unnecessary in terms of our carbon commitments. Finally, our carbon per capita and carbon per unit of GDP is lower than the EU average, and a third lower than that of Germany.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I remind the House of what I said a few moments ago. Let us aim for 10 minutes please.

15:08

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

I do not intend to detain the House for long because I am not an expert on energy regulation. However, I want to support the motion because of my constituents’ great concern about the way they have been treated by energy companies and the rise in energy prices.

This goes back in time, because I was one of those who agreed to change their supplier after a doorstop seller convinced me not only that I would be better off getting both my gas and electricity from one supplier, but that the new supplier—unlike my supplier at the time—would not raise its prices. I therefore swapped, and guess what? A few weeks later my new supplier put up its prices as well.

I accept that when shoddy practice has been exposed, changes have been made, either by legislation or by fining the companies concerned. Clearly the current powers to fine companies are not working. If they were, companies would not be repeating their offences, and we would not have to continue to fine them time and again for exhibiting the same behaviour.

I was confused by the Secretary of State’s speech. He said the regulator had the powers we were asking for, but then said what we were asking for was wrong. Both cannot be true. I can only assume, therefore, either that he is protecting energy companies and their abusive behaviour, rather than getting a grip, or that he has been misled about what is in place and what we are asking for. It seems the Government think it okay for energy companies to break the rules again and again and for the supplier to pay the fine and wipe the slate clean. Why will he not agree that a company that persistently breaks the rules should know that its licence is on the line? The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission has the power to revoke a supplier’s licence when it breaks consumer protection law. In April, its chairman, Robert Powelson, warned that as many as seven suppliers could lose their licence as a result of unscrupulous or fraudulent business practices. Why will the Government not agree that that is exactly the sort of tough regulatory approach that my constituents and every other consumer in Britain would benefit from?

As others have said, over the past 13 years, the regulator has imposed at least 31 fines worth at least £90 million, and more than a dozen investigations are still on the stocks. If fines alone are not enough of a deterrent to make energy companies treat their customers fairly, we need to take further action. Why should energy companies be able to behave in the same way time and again and only face the same fines? If the Secretary of State is correct that such a company could have its licence revoked, why does he oppose our motion explicitly stating that a company treating its consumers poorly could have its revoked? I do not understand his opposition. If he says the power exists, why does he oppose an explicit reference to it? I can only conclude that a company continuing to abuse its customers would not have its licence revoked under the current system.

The Government hide behind the power of the consumer to swap supplier. First, not all consumers can swap. If they are in debt, they cannot switch unless they pay off their debt, but if they could pay off their debt, they would not be in debt, so that seems to be nonsense. Perhaps more importantly, if we do not have robust policies to stop such behaviour, how can a consumer ensure they will not face exactly the same problems with their new supplier? Already, some people cannot afford to heat their homes. A constituent visited me a few weeks ago in my surgery to talk about her situation. She was recovering from cancer and had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, but she was terrified of turning on her heating because of the exorbitant energy cost. This woman, who was recovering from a serious operation and had a serious, long-term condition, was sitting in a cold, damp house out of fear of getting into debt.

Since the last election, energy bills have risen twice as fast as inflation, four times faster than wages and faster than in almost any other developed country in the world, which is why we need the price freeze and market reform that Conservative Members reject. Funnily enough, the energy companies do not like the notion of a price freeze either—of course, they want to continue driving up their profits and exploiting energy consumers. It is time the House did something about it, and that is our commitment. I look forward to a Labour Government next May saying, “We will freeze energy prices. You cannot continue to abuse consumers like this.”

I and my colleagues in the Labour party are not against energy companies, but we are on the side of consumers. Fines are not stopping the abuses by companies and simply get passed on to the consumer anyway. Surely, it makes sense to provide the regulator with a power to revoke the licence of energy companies responsible for deliberate and repeated breaches of licence conditions that harm the interests of consumers. Good companies have nothing to fear; bad ones will have to change their practices or face the ultimate sanction. I believe the motion should be supported by both sides of the House.

15:14

[Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)]

I rise to speak because South Derbyshire is one of the fastest growing districts in the whole of the east midlands, and probably in the midlands and the whole country. One thing driving that growth in our economy is the massive manufacturing in our patch, and that is reflected in our need for more energy provision. We have given planning permission for two new power stations, and lots of conversations are being had with the people who are going to build them—some of the companies have been mentioned already, but others are new.

Why put at risk that growth and new build, those jobs, that fantastically efficiently produced new energy, that amazing amount of new income and regeneration, this amazing opportunity for new jobs and greater investment and confidence in an area with a superb history of coal production—not to mention the industries that went with it, such as clay, potteries and so on? Now we have car and other manufacturing industries, food and engineering industries—Rolls-Royce, JCB, Futaba; I could name so many, but I do not need to. Why risk all that by dangling this carrot of super new regulation? Why put at risk this incredible opportunity for new investment in South Derbyshire? “Nothing happened in 13 years. We didn’t get it right then. You’ve had four years and you haven’t got it right either”—that is the sort of tit-for-tat gesture politics that business people do not understand and which makes them so angry.

[Julie Hilling]

I do not understand the hon. Lady’s argument. Is she saying that new companies will not come into the market for fear of losing their licence if they abuse their consumers? Presumably, no company wants to enter the market believing it will abuse its consumers.

[Heather Wheeler]

I wish the hon. Lady was speaking from the Opposition Front Bench. The difficulty is we have not been told in what circumstances the Opposition Front Bench team would impose this regulation. They have not given us any examples—[Hon. Members: “Yes, we have!”] No, no, we have not had a direct example. They have been asked two or three times. Will the shadow Secretary of State give us some examples?

[Caroline Flint]

indicated dissent.

[Heather Wheeler]

Apparently not. There we have it again. For the fourth time—

[Caroline Flint]

rose—

[Heather Wheeler]

Of course I will give way.

[Caroline Flint]

It is not the job of politicians to pick companies in any area of regulation. It is up to the regulators. As the hon. Lady will be aware, the regulator currently has a power to impose a fine that is 10% of a company’s global turnover. It is not for politicians to decide which companies the regulator should fine or investigate. We are saying that the regulator should have a sanction to remove a licence to supply where there is evidence of repeated behaviour contrary to customers’ interests. They already have a code and a threshold setting out what constitutes abuse.

[Heather Wheeler]

The right hon. Lady still has not got to the nub of today’s debate. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (David Mowat): regretfully, this is gesture politics at its worst. I have had the pleasure of sitting in the Chamber since just before 2 o’clock—and that is absolutely fine; it is what we are paid to do—but I have heard the most vacuous debate I think I have heard in my four years here.

[Caroline Flint]

indicated dissent.

[Heather Wheeler]

I thoroughly enjoy the right hon. Lady’s company outside the Chamber, but this was the most vacuous debate I have heard in the four years I have had the pleasure of being a Member. What I want to hear from Members is new ideas. Who knows what might be in manifestos next May, but businesses need to know that if they are to make major investments—whether it is American, German, French or Chinese companies building these power stations in South Derbyshire—they are not going to get hoicked out over some peccadillo. It might be the Charity Commission going off on one and having to be reined in—giving power to quangos is a frightening thing. I think she is genuinely missing the point about what our constituents want in life. They want good jobs, steady incomes and good, solid power stations coming online, so that they know what they are doing. They do not want threats hanging over them that mean that investments will not be made. I am afraid the right hon. Lady has made a mistake with today’s debate.

15:19

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

Following the excellent speech by our shadow Secretary of State, this debate wandered into the metaphysical question of whether a power of revocation exists or not, and, if it does exist, in what way it is demonstrated. The point that those of us on the Labour Benches have made very clearly—and which will resonate outside this place—is that such a power needs to exist and that a system of escalation needs to be put in place so that certain companies, whether in the energy industry or any other sector of the economy, can be held to account for their actions and behave within the regulations. It is the old philosophical debate between those of us on the Labour Benches and those on the other side of the House. We want regulation; they consistently argue against it—in particular, prior to the 2007-08 financial crash, when they were asking for less regulation in financial services. [Interruption.] I thought I would just throw that one in to provoke debate.

If we are talking about vacuous or tokenistic politics, as the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Heather Wheeler) was, I would like to read out a few things that the Prime Minister has recently said on this question. For example, at Prime Minister’s questions in October 2012, he announced that he would be legislating to require energy companies to put all their customers on the lowest tariff, saying:

“We have encouraged people to switch, which is one of the best ways to get energy bills down. I can announce, which I am sure the hon. Gentleman will welcome, that we will be legislating so that energy companies have to give the lowest tariff to their customers”.—[Official Report, 17 October 2012; Vol. 551, c. 316.]

The Prime Minister has since repeated that promise 12 times. However, the Government’s own Energy Act 2013 gives the Secretary of State the power to require a supplier to change a customer’s tariff only when a customer is on a closed tariff. As a result, only people who are on dead tariffs—which are the most expensive and more expensive than the standard evergreen tariffs—will be moved to a cheaper tariff. Based on figures provided by the big energy companies, that is estimated to affect less than 10% of people. If we are talking about meaningless gestures or tokenism, I would highlight that as a prime example, but there is more.

[Julie Hilling]

Before my hon. Friend moves on, will he acknowledge that if everybody had to be on the lowest tariff, there would only ever be one tariff, which would always be the lowest, even though it could be much higher than the current low tariffs?

[Tom Blenkinsop]

Yes. I totally agree with my hon. Friend.

In December 2013, the Government announced changes to green levies on energy bills. The Prime Minister repeatedly claimed that that would save all consumers £50 on their energy bills. He told the House:

“It is on this side of the House that we have delivered the £50 off bills by rolling back the cost of the green levies.”—[Official Report, 12 February 2014; Vol. 575, c. 846.]

On another occasion he said:

“we have also cut energy bills by £50 by rolling back the cost of some of the green measures”.—[Official Report, 22 January 2014; Vol. 574, c. 300.]

However, much to the Prime Minister’s consternation, four of the big six energy companies—npower, Scottish Power, E.ON and EDF—refused to pass on the full £50 reduction to customers on fixed-price deals. In January 2014, the Government said that if the energy companies failed to pass on the savings of the changes to the green levies, that would not be acceptable. Indeed, the right hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) told the BBC’s “You and Yours” programme that he was unaware that some suppliers were not passing on the reduction and that this “would not be acceptable”.

Despite that, the Government have taken no action to force energy companies to pass on those savings to customers on fixed-price deals, with an estimated 3.8 million households missing out on the Prime Minister’s promised £50 saving as a result. Furthermore, the Government’s own figures show that the energy companies should be cutting their prices even further, after the big six saved more money than first thought from the reductions in green levies. In their response to the consultation on the future of the energy company obligation, the Government admitted that the changes to the scheme were likely to mean that the energy companies would make more money. In fact, their document, “The Future of the Energy Company Obligation: Government response to the 5 March 2014 consultation”, says:

“ECO companies are likely now to be in a position to make greater savings than they had originally projected in December.”

However, rather than setting out concrete plans for how they would recoup those savings, the Government merely invited the energy companies to let them know.

Let us look at another area. Under this Government, fuel poverty is most definitely getting worse. The latest annual poverty statistics report shows that the number of households in fuel poverty is projected to increase to 2.33 million in 2014, while the average fuel poverty gap—the difference between people’s bills and what they can afford—has grown to £480 in 2014.

There are a number of areas, which I have highlighted, that show where the Government could now be taking action far more stridently. The argument being made by Labour Members is about having a power of revocation as a final threat or market check. As I have always said—and as I am sure many of my Labour colleagues believe too—the market makes a fantastic servant, but a terrible master. At the moment, the market, in whatever dimension and by whatever name—I would probably hazard the description “oligopolistic”, rather than “free market”—is behaving in an oligopolistic manner and needs to be held to account far more appropriately.

I remind hon. Members that Labour is making that argument, while those on the Government Benches are arguing for the status quo. Indeed, I would be interested to know whether any Government Members would be prepared to engage in a similar debate—not just in this House, but on the doorsteps in their constituencies—because I imagine that if their average constituent was told about the content of the argument they have been making, they would look at them far more sceptically at the next general election.

15:19

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

Three-hundred and forty-five days. That is not the current average time it takes a new Tory MP to decide that they want to stand down from Parliament; it is how long since the Leader of the Opposition first announced Labour’s radical plans to reform the energy market and freeze energy prices while we do it. Yet 345 days on, this Conservative-led Government still cannot offer a credible response to our plans.

The Government started by telling us that switching was the answer. They have flirted with the idea of taking stronger action. They told us they were against the calls to refer the energy market to the Competition and Markets Authority, before they eventually changed their minds. All the while, the British public have felt the relentless squeeze of higher energy prices, with no apparent end in sight, so here we are again.

It is true that this is one of many debates we have had on the subject of energy prices on the Floor of the House. I for one make no apology for that. Any of us who visits a pub, café or working men’s club or goes to a football match or anywhere else will find that the public out there are more than happy to talk about energy prices too. Quite frankly, when people find out we are MPs, it is actually quite hard to avoid a conversation about energy prices. People will tell us that they are sick and tired of their bills always seeming to go up when wholesale prices rise, but never down again when they fall. They will tell us some awful stories about poor customer service, and they tell us that, when wrongdoing is discovered and bad practice identified, the punishment never seems to deter the offending companies from doing it again. That is what we are here to discuss today.

Alongside our other reforms—the ring-fencing of the generation and retail arms of energy companies, the open pool for electricity trading and the new regulator with real powers to take action—we also believe there must be powers to ensure that regulatory fines are not simply seen as the cost of doing business. Instead, intervention from the regulator should ensure problems are put right and should act as a real deterrent. The figures revealed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) are damning. Despite at least 31 fines being issued by Ofgem since 2001, totalling at least £90 million, energy firms are facing a further 15 probes into mis-selling, poor customer service and other bad practice. By giving real powers to the regulator, and borrowing from the best practice we can see in other jurisdictions, we can prevent such poor behaviour being repeated. Making clear that we will not tolerate persistent bad practice, by giving the regulator the ultimate power to revoke licences, will be a substantial step towards providing customers with the protection they desperately need and the energy market they deserve.

We have heard some fantastic contributions in today’s debate. Let me start by responding to some of the Secretary of State’s claims. He started out by saying it was all about competition. The Opposition of course recognise the importance of the role of competition, but let me respectfully tell him that his job cannot be simply to make it easier to switch; it should be to ensure that there is someone worth switching to. People do not feel that that is happening at the moment.

The Secretary of State mentioned smart meters, the smart meter roll-out and the role of technology. We have offered bipartisan support for that programme, as we can see the benefits, too. He mentioned the need to improve and compete on customer service. Of course we agree with that, and I hope that he will recognise the benefits of our proposed performance score card for energy companies, so that people can easily see how those companies are performing.

Apart from that, it seemed from the Secretary of State’s speech that the Government were trying to fabricate some excuses to oppose our policy. At the moment, we agree that the regulator can impose a fine or a final order to change specific behaviour—it could be to change the telephone script or billing method. However, providing the energy company pays the fine off and complies with the order, the regulator has no power to revoke its licence. The obvious problem is that, if companies break different rules, or the same rules in a different way, providing they comply with any penalty given, the regulator can never revoke their licence. By contrast, under our proposals, even if a company complied with a fine or a final order, if it carried on breaching the terms of its licence, that licence would be on the line—a significant and welcome difference from what applies at the moment.

A number of Members tried to intervene to raise specific questions about the scope and application of that new power. Of course revoking a licence would apply only in cases of serious malpractice and the utilisation of the power would, of course, be for the regulator to decide. However, it would clearly be a back-stop power, much like the current ability to levy fines at 10% of global revenues. This is about providing a deterrent, which clearly and unfortunately does not exist at present.

Today, we have heard many of the Government’s classic lines in response to Opposition-led energy debates. The Secretary of State and the hon. Member for Crawley (Henry Smith) claimed that the big six were created under Labour, but Government Members should look at the facts a little more closely. It is true that, before the big six, there were once 14 electricity supply companies, but those 14 were regional monopolies—there was no market and no competition taking place. It was, of course, John Major’s Government who first allowed vertical integration to occur. Significantly, consumers could not even switch electricity supplier until after the Labour Government were elected in 1997.

My hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) asked us to consider who the Secretary of State really is. I have never considered him to be an international man of mystery until now, but that thought will linger. My hon. Friend was forensic in taking apart the Secretary of State’s case.

I am not quite sure where to begin when it comes to the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies). Let me respectfully say to him on the issues of climate change—without going too far away from the motion—that the 10 warmest years on record are clearly those of recent times. People who express climate scepticism—I am sure the hon. Gentleman would not mind me saying this—are likely to be those who are relatively sceptical about the powers of big government. The hon. Gentleman probably does not believe that making direct state interventions is the way to solve the world’s problems. He mentioned the smart meter roll-out in that context. If we look at the countries involved in the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—countries as diverse as Switzerland, China, Australia, Japan, the USA, India, Germany, Russia and Norway—is it possible or conceivable that the scientists from all those countries have got together and decided to hoax us in this grand fashion? I cannot believe that anyone with the hon. Gentleman’s scepticism would accept that position so readily.

On smart meters, any big Government programme risks some problems, but if the hon. Gentleman were to look at the number of complaints to energy companies that result from inaccurate billing, which smart meters will resolve, at the voluntary consumption that the evidence shows comes about when people are more visually aware of their energy use, or at the improvements in social justice, particularly for people who use prepayment as a method, he will find considerable benefits to us all in ensuring that smart meter roll-out goes nationwide in the proposed fashion.

My hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) talked about company behaviour, its consistent tendency not to get better and the need for a strong regulator to clamp down on companies’ actions. I absolutely agree with her.

The hon. Member for Warrington South (David Mowat) raised a number of issues, to some of which I shall return. He specifically mentioned the large combustion plant directive, which, as he knows, regulates emissions of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, diesel as well as carbon emissions. The directive was intended to ensure that pollution abatement equipment was fitted; otherwise, the running hours of the large stations would be limited. I know that the hon. Gentleman has one in his constituency, which I imagine is where his interest lies. He will surely recognise that there was a major loophole in the Lords amendments in that certain refurbishments were not covered. It seems to me entirely reasonable to try to provide a consistent level playing field, which is what we tried to do in the debate on the Lords amendments.

I thought my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) had one of the best lines of the debate when she asked how the Secretary of State could simultaneously say that the proposed power is wrong while admitting that it already exists. I am sure that the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Heather Wheeler) could have enjoyed the debate. There was considerable merit in the debate and she could have enjoyed it. She specifically mentioned investment risk and the consequences for South Derbyshire. I do not follow her line of argument that stronger regulation of the supply side of businesses will affect investment in the generation side. Surely she would recognise that investment risk as it is normally understood relates to factors that are outside a business’s control. How energy companies perform and treat their customers is surely completely within their control, and they would be at risk of losing their licences only if they repeatedly and deliberately broke the rules in ways that caused serious harm to their customers. If they do not do that, I cannot see that they have anything to fear.

My hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop) wonderfully highlighted some of the inconsistencies behind Government policy on quite a few issues. The right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) and, indeed, the hon. Members for Monmouth and for Warrington South repeated what has become the siren call from the Tory right—perhaps soon to become the UKIP left—arguing that the pressure on energy prices is somehow related to the conversion to renewable energy. I am afraid that those claims do not add up. The Government’s figures on policies such as the renewable obligation cannot possibly explain the rise in energy bills that we have seen in recent years. Through such policies, we get safety in energy and obtain much greater energy security. What is more, renewable energy sources have nothing of the price volatility we see in international gas markets. As Dale Vince, the chief executive of Ecotricity, recently remarked,

“the cost of wind energy simply does not go up.”

The so-called green taxes that so many Government Members seem so keen to mention are in the main energy efficiency measures that reduce consumption across the system, which clearly benefit us all in respect of the burden put on generation and safeguard, if they work, some of our most vulnerable people. I think that should be a feature of our energy system.

We have had another good debate on the energy market today, but once again only Opposition Members seem to be offering any solutions. We believe that the Government must take stronger action to restore trust and help mend our broken energy market. That would help to tip the balance back in favour of the consumer, which is exactly where it should be. Energy suppliers, with the tacit support of the Government, are the ones in the driving seat at the moment. They are the ones doing well out of the status quo, while their customers are not. Judging by their number and the ones likely to come, it is clear that financial penalties are simply not currently enough of a deterrent to bad practice. We have to start putting that right. Inaction and bluster are not enough.

This is a serious and considered proposal—one that already exists in other parts of the world—and it is not enough for the Government to reject it just because Labour is proposing it. Every time there is regulatory action and every time a fine is levied or Ofgem makes an intervention, we all get asked to respond on the media programmes, and we all get asked why this keeps happening. If the Government vote against this proposal to create a real deterrent today, we will point out on those programmes, on every occasion where that happens again, that this Government failed to provide the measures properly to hold those companies to account.

[David Mowat]

The hon. Gentleman has mentioned me twice, and I have been reflecting on whether I actually said what he said that I said. At no point did I say that the green levies constituted a big part of energy bills. I merely said that whenever the House had an opportunity to vote on whether to increase energy prices, the Opposition wanted to go further—for example, in the case of the accelerated removal of solar subsidies, or on the occasion of that terrible vote on 4 December on a Lords amendment proposing the accelerated closure of coal-fired power stations.

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will respond to a specific point that I made in my speech. We have lower than median gas prices in the European Union. If the market is so “broken”, how has that happened?

[Jonathan Reynolds]

There is not a tension between the pursuit of affordability and the pursuit of decarbonised energy supplies—or, at least, there is not a problem that we cannot resolve. Yes, renewable energy is more expensive than, for instance, coal, on which the hon. Gentleman may be particularly keen, but surely that makes the transparency of our energy market more rather than less important. The need for us to ensure that there is a downward pressure on energy prices becomes more of an imperative when we are making that transition.

I am sorry that I did not respond to the hon. Gentleman’s point about solar tariffs. No one opposes the digression in tariffs and subsidy structures, but surely he recognises—

[Gregory Barker (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

rose—

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman in a moment.

Surely the hon. Gentleman recognises that the way in which Governments do that is important—and this Government have been notorious for chopping and changing policy on so many occasions. A business that is trying to invest and to provide jobs in this sector simply cannot continue unless the Government make the position clear.

[David Mowat]

rose—

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I am afraid that I must now give way to the right hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker), who is, I believe, the longest-serving energy Minister for a decade. I certainly cannot allow the debate to end without allowing him to intervene from the Back Benches.

[Gregory Barker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He says that no one would oppose the digression in solar tariffs. May I point out that the entire Opposition Front Bench opposed it, and that their opposition would have forced up energy bills? He may not have been on the Front Bench at that time—it was some time ago—but I am sure that he would have been among the serried ranks of Labour Members who voted to keep bills higher.

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I was there on that day, and I am sorry that the former Minister cannot remember that moment. Let me simply say to him, again, that the way in which the Government have gone about policy changes of that kind has caused terrible damage to important low-carbon parts of our economy. Let us look at what has happened quite recently. Let us look at the green deal for home improvement. There have been quick changes in policy which businesses cannot survive and with which they cannot contend. The same thing happened in the case of the energy companies obligation.

[Gregory Barker]

rose—

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I will give the right hon. Gentleman one more go, although he has not been present during the debate.

[Gregory Barker]

May I make one last point? The hon. Gentleman says that the digression that we imposed caused terrible damage. May I point out that since we reformed that feed-in tariff, more than 3 GW of solar have been added? Ours has been among the fastest-growing solar markets in Europe, and it is a legacy of which I am incredibly proud.

[Jonathan Reynolds]

The right hon. Gentleman and I have had this discussion before, and he knows that I am always keen to give credit to the Government for the increase in solar. By that, I mean the Chinese Government. They have done fantastic things to bring prices down, and we in this country have been able to benefit from that.

I will end my speech soon, Madam Deputy Speaker. Let me end by saying that if the Government vote against our proposal to create a real deterrent, we will point out— every time further action is taken—that they did not use the opportunity to give the regulator real power to hold companies to account. Labour candidates for constituencies up and down the country will make clear that they support the measures that we propose. We will also tell people not just how long we have been discussing these issues, but how long it will be until the next general election, because then, and only then, will we have a chance to change the energy market, secure a good deal for customers, and make a switch that will truly count—the switch to a Labour Government, a Government who, for once, will be serious about taking on the issues.

15:44

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Amber Rudd)]

As usual, we have had a wide-ranging debate on energy issues. In the short time available to me, I shall deal with as many as possible of the points that have been raised.

First, let me refer to the motion itself, starting with the facts. Ofgem has issued fines or obtained redress in 39 cases; £55 million-worth of fines have been imposed, and nearly £60 million-worth of redress has been obtained. That amounts to a total of £115 million. Under the last Administration, in the eight years following the establishment of Ofgem in 2001, the regulator took enforcement action in just 10 cases. Since 2010, Ofgem has taken action in 29 cases, levying fines amounting to £50.9 million and forcing suppliers to provide nearly £60 million in redress for consumers who have been harmed. Only today, it announced that EDF would pay £3 million to benefit consumers following complaints of mishandling.

The right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) and her colleagues may suggest that that is evidence of increasingly poorly behaved energy companies. I believe it demonstrates that we now have a regulator which, in the last few years, has been increasingly prepared to take action when action is required. It is noticeable that nearly 80% of the total amount of money being paid by suppliers directly to consumers who have been harmed by their actions has arisen from cases settled since 2013. It is no coincidence that it was in the Energy Act 2013 that we gave Ofgem powers to require energy suppliers to make such payments. For the first time, payments are being made directly to consumers. That contrasts with Labour’s failed voluntary approach, which did not support consumers in the same way.

Ofgem now has the ability to prevent suppliers from taking on more customers until they have cleaned up their act, an approach that it used most recently to force npower to improve its billing performance. Following the action that we have taken, we have a tough independent regulator which is willing to act to protect consumers against badly behaved energy companies.

The Opposition ask, “Why not give Ofgem powers to revoke licences when companies repeatedly breach the terms of those licences?” It would be right to give such additional revocation powers only if we would be prepared to back their use by the regulator in the circumstances set out in the motion. Nothing that has been said today has convinced me that the right hon. Lady and her team fully understand the consequences of a licence revocation. Someone would need to take responsibility for the suppliers’ consumers. That could be one of Labour’s big six, taking them on as a whole, but whichever we chose, we would be handing it a huge increase in its customer base without its having to compete.

[Caroline Flint]

Is the Minister aware that the regulator can currently revoke a licence if, for example, a fine is not paid, if a final order is not complied with, or if a company goes into administration? There are already procedures allowing a trade sale to take place and other suppliers to be found. Why can revocations not be applied when there is repeated evidence of harmful and abusive behaviour towards customers?

[Amber Rudd]

That is an interesting point and one that, in a sense, we have explored earlier, in relation to the terms on which a revocation would take place. However, what worries me about the right hon. Lady’s proposal—which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has called the “nuclear option”—is that it is sudden and dramatic, and would have a very bad effect on consumers. What worries me is that she is being cavalier with consumers. She will be handing one of the big six an increase in its customer base without its having to compete, and with very little notice. That is the problem. If she has answers to some of those questions, it is disappointing that she has not set them out.

[Caroline Flint]

rose—

[Amber Rudd]

I am going to proceed with my speech. [Interruption.] Unlike the right hon. Lady, I have only 10 minutes in which to conclude my speech, and I am going to continue.

An alternative would be to split the portfolio between suppliers, but deciding who would get which segment of the portfolio would be a time-consuming process and, again, would raise significant competition issues. And what about the impact on individual consumers? Leaving them on their same tariff is not likely to be workable under the limited tariff rule—and we should remember that we now have just four, not the 400 we had under Labour. Putting them on a deemed contract, however, could lead to an increase in their bills; and allowing businesses to keep their same contracts may not be compatible with their new suppliers’ business model. Our concern, therefore, is that the overall result of a licence revocation—the so-called nuclear option—is, at least in the short term, likely to be reduced competition and higher bills for consumers. That is why Ofgem only has the powers to take such a step in the most serious cases. What we do not want is Labour’s knee-jerk simplistic solutions. This Government are instead focused on taking real actions that will make a difference.

[Dr Whitehead]

Will the hon. Lady reflect on the fact that earlier this afternoon the Secretary of State said this could be done, that there was a nuclear option and that it could be undertaken? The hon. Lady is now saying that if what the Secretary of State said could be done was done, it would have terrible harmful effects and therefore should not be done. Does she not see some contradiction in that position?

[Amber Rudd]

I am happy to clarify that for the hon. Gentleman. The current set-up is that there is an option for the licence to be revoked, but it happens over a much longer period and is likely to take longer. The concern I have over this proposal is that it is a nuclear option that would be so dramatic that it would impact deleteriously on consumers. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Don Valley asks how I know that, but she has not made the case to the contrary; that is the concern I have.

We have strengthened the powers of the regulator. I have already mentioned the Energy Act 2013 powers that enable Ofgem to require suppliers to compensate directly consumers harmed by their actions. We shall also be giving Ofgem the power to send to jail people found guilty of energy market abuse or manipulation, in the same way as those who manipulate the financial markets face criminal sanctions, but the effective markets we need to deliver for consumers are not just achieved through enhancing the powers of the regulator. The Government believe that vigorous competition in the energy markets is the best way to sustain downward pressure on prices and deliver a better deal for consumers. I say that this is the Government’s view and I want to reassure the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) that we cannot get a cigarette paper between me and my colleague the Secretary of State. We are agreed on the need to oppose this motion. We know what we are doing, and I am sorry to hear that the hon. Gentleman felt the Secretary of State was putting an argument he did not believe in, but I want to reassure the hon. Gentleman that we are agreed on this.

The hon. Gentleman endeavoured to clarify the circumstances in which the nuclear option could be required by referring to the legal document, but he decided to take issue with the Secretary of State’s interpretation—an interpretation he will not be surprised to hear that I support. As with his colleagues, however, we did not hear an example of when this nuclear option would be required, and I feel this was the weakest part of what we heard from the Opposition in general.

My hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies) made some important and interesting comments about energy prices. I would like to reassure him about smart meters. I say to him, “Have no fear” because our smart meter programme is part of helping consumers reduce their usage and be in control of their spending and, ultimately, of bringing lower prices.

[David T. C. Davies]

If that is the case, why are the Government having to sell this? They do not have to sell other services to consumers, so if smart meters are a good idea, why not let the consumer decide whether they want them?

[Amber Rudd]

It is always partly carrot and stick, is it not? We have to make clear to consumers what the opportunity is; otherwise, they are going to be reluctant to change. However, I am sure that we can, and I hope to win over my hon. Friend’s support in due course.

The hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) spoke about her concerns for consumers, and she has done so on many occasions. I am just concerned that she feels so strongly about this one motion and feels that the proposal would be a silver bullet to sort out the problems for consumers. I cannot share her view.

It was a pleasure to hear from my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (David Mowat), who is very experienced in the market in general. He made the point that the Opposition’s proposal, although worthy of consideration, completely fails to convince because it has no example and therefore no factual base. In his focus on lower prices for consumers, he pointed out we have the lowest gas costs in Europe. He demolished Labour’s energy policy with particular focus on how it lets consumers down.

The hon. Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) again focused her rationale on the Labour proposal as though it were some sort of silver bullet to rectify the entire market. We are taking action to rectify that market and we are making progress. She insists that this power is needed while failing—as did her fellow Labour Members—to give an example of which company would be liable to this nuclear option and why.

I was delighted to hear from my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Heather Wheeler) who made a powerful speech, as always, about the importance of investment in energy in her constituency, and expressed her concern that this Opposition proposal is gesture politics and would undermine crucial investment that we are securing from international investors.

The hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop) chose to comment on the difference between our parties regarding regulation. I cannot let that pass. He had the temerity to refer to the regulation of the banks in 2007. The banks were regulated by the Bank of England for decades until Labour’s tripartite arrangement, which was an unmitigated disaster. If the House needs evidence of the results of Labour’s regulation, it need look no further than the banking crisis. The hon. Gentleman was also wrong on fuel poverty, which is falling, and wrong on the support that we are rightly giving to consumers.

[Gregory Barker]

First, may I congratulate my hon. Friend on a fantastic debut at the Dispatch Box? She is going to make a great Minister. She is also absolutely right to draw the House’s attention to Labour’s knee-jerk reaching for regulation. We on this side of the House are committed to helping the consumer by creating dynamic competition and crowding in disruptive new entrants, whereas Labour will always reach for the red tape and regulation that are anathema to the real interests of the consumer.

[Amber Rudd]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his remarks. I am delighted to be following on from the good work that he has done.

It is good news that our work to break down barriers to entry in the retail energy market in order to create greater competition has resulted in an unprecedented number of suppliers operating in that market. Since May 2010, 12 new companies have entered the market, challenging the status quo, competing hard with the large established players and offering choice to consumers. During this period, more than 2 million electricity customers have switched to independent suppliers. The big six bequeathed by Labour are being replaced by the new challenger companies. We are driving competition in the market, and delivering more choice and a better deal for consumers. In 2010, there were just seven independent suppliers, all of which had fewer than 50,000 customers. Now, there are four independent suppliers with more than 250,000 customer accounts each, compared with zero in 2010. In that year, the share of the market held by the independents was around 1%, but it now approaching more than 7%.

We know that competition is not working as effectively as it should be, which is why we commissioned the first ever assessment of competition in energy markets from the competition authorities. It is also why we support the subsequent decision of Ofgem, based on a thorough, evidence-based assessment, to refer the energy markets to the Competition and Markets Authority. Tackling concerns about competition through a formal reference process undertaken by the expert authority will provide consumers, companies and investors with confidence that the process will be evidence-based, fair, transparent and free from political interference.

This Government are taking real action to make a real difference to hard-working households and businesses. We will continue our work to identify and address barriers to entry and growth, and to provide the right environment for the investment needed for the future. We will continue to build on the reforms that are already giving people a better deal on their energy bills. These include taking about £50 off average household bills, and introducing faster, easier switching and simpler tariffs and bills. We will allow the expert competition authorities to undertake their forensic examination of the energy markets. We must insist that reform of the market is driven by facts. We will not resort to the knee-jerk responses that we so often see from an Opposition seeking a headline. This motion epitomises such a response, but it would fail consumers, fail the market and fail in what it sets out to do. The Opposition have failed to make any sort of case in support of the motion, and I urge the House to resist it.

Question put.

The House proceeded to a Division.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

I ask the Serjeant at Arms to investigate the delay in the No Lobby.

15:59

Division 43

Ayes: 214

---

Labour: 200
Democratic Unionist Party: 7
Social Democratic & Labour Party: 3
Plaid Cymru: 2
Independent: 1
Alliance: 1
Green Party: 1
Scottish National Party: 1

Noes: 298

---

Conservative: 260
Liberal Democrat: 37
Independent: 1

Infant Class Sizes

Wednesday 3rd September 2014 Commons Chamber

16:16

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

I beg to move,

That this House notes that the number of infants taught in classes of over 30 has risen by 200 per cent since 2010, to over 93,000 children; also notes that the Government relaxed the rules on infant class sizes; further notes that the Conservative Party manifesto in 2010 pledged to create small schools with smaller class sizes; believes that the Government’s decision to prioritise capital spending in areas without shortages of places through the free school programme has led to chronic pressures on primary school places and has created classes of more than 70 pupils; and believes that capital spending for school places should be prioritised to areas with the greatest pressures on places.

I should like to open the debate with a quote from a great work of fiction—not “North and South”, which I will come to later, but the Conservative party’s 2010 election manifesto:

“A Conservative government will give many more children access to the kind of education that is currently only available to the well-off…smaller schools with smaller class sizes with teachers who know the children’s names”—

a point underlined by the Prime Minister himself, who said that

“the more we can get class sizes down the better”.

That, we were told, was a task absolutely crucial to raising school standards. As the once, twice, three times a Tory schools spokesman, the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), the boiled cabbage himself, said back in 2009:

“The other thing”—

on standards—

“is getting class sizes down. Particularly at primary school level. It is really dramatic how big our classes still are compared with other countries”.

More than that, he said that smaller schools were important too

“so that no child can wander around corridors of a school anonymously”.

I know that this Government do not take their manifesto commitments particularly seriously—trebling tuition fees, cutting Sure Start, cutting the education maintenance allowance, top-down reorganisation of the NHS. However, make no mistake: the abject failure of the Conservative party when it comes to infant class sizes is right up there with the most brazen of its broken promises.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

rose—

[Tristram Hunt]

I am delighted to give way.

[Mr Jackson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman. I am not sure the Lord Snooty act is working that well. Would he like to take the opportunity to apologise for the 200,000 primary school places that the Government of the party he represented took out of the capacity in the middle of the largest baby boom since the second world war? It inflicted grave difficulties on local education authorities, including my own in Peterborough.

[Tristram Hunt]

For the record, between 1997 and 2007 the Labour party built more than 1,100 new schools, the vast majority being primary schools, and there are now nearly 200 fewer primary schools than in 2010. The record speaks for itself, and the people of Peterborough will hold the hon. Gentleman to account for his votes.

The figures are truly shocking. The number of primary schools with more than 800 pupils has rocketed by 381%, so we can forget about the smaller schools with no anonymous pupils and we can forget about knowing every child’s name. More and more so-called titan primary schools are struggling to educate their pupils, with assemblies in shift patterns, multiple lunch hours and expanding class sizes. Head teachers and teachers are doing their best in the most difficult circumstances. The number of infants taught in classes bigger than 30 has soared to 93,655, a staggering 200% rise since 2010.

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that all academic work on education shows that the first few years in education are vital to a child’s future performance? What would he say to parents in Warrington, where 840 more children are now in over-sized classes, an increase of over 1,300% under this Government?

[Tristram Hunt]

My hon. Friend is exactly right about the academic evidence, and I will come to that shortly. To those of her constituents facing ballooning infant class sizes, I say that we know the reason. It is a misallocation of funding away from basic need funding towards a range of priorities that do not support keeping class sizes low.

Some 14,000 kids are cramped into cattle classes of more than 40, nearly 6,000 are stuffed into classes that are plus 50 and, although it is barely believable, last year this country educated 446 children in classrooms containing more than 70 pupils. Is it any wonder that a Netmums survey published last week showed that nearly one in five parents think that schools are squeezing too many children into classes?

Unlike the parties in the Government, the Labour party believes in smaller class sizes because of the academic evidence referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones). In small classes, research shows, there is more individual interaction between teachers and pupils, more teacher support for learning per pupil, more attentiveness to the teacher and therefore less disruptive behaviour from pupils, and teachers spend more time teaching rather than managing pupils.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend and his team on securing this debate. It is incredibly important that parents across the country know that their child’s experience is not an isolated one and how serious the situation has become. When I read the list of schools with extra-large classes, I was surprised to find my own daughter’s school on it. This is happening in schools across the country, and parents are not aware of how terrible the situation has become.

[Tristram Hunt]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. It is the case in Chesterfield, in Warrington, in Peterborough and right across England. Constituents will want to know what decisions were made and what spending priorities were determined to allow the situation to get out of control.

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

Does my hon. Friend agree that the criterion for building a new school should be need? If there is a need for a school in an area, that is where a school should be built. It should not be built where there is no need.

[Tristram Hunt]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. As I shall explain, it is the misallocation of funding—building more places where there are surplus places—that is producing this crisis in English schools.

The class size and pupil-adult ratio project undertaken by the Institute of Education has shown a strong relationship between small classes and greater achievement. The researchers identified a clear effect in literacy and numeracy attainment, even after adjusting for other, possibly confounding factors. Pupils entering schools with low literacy levels progressed the most in small classes.

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

rose—

[Tristram Hunt]

I am delighted to give way to the hon. Lady, who is ready to explain to her constituents why class sizes are ballooning in her constituency while money is being misallocated to the free school programme.

[Angie Bray]

I think that people in my constituency and right across the country are only too aware that immigration was allowed to run out of control by the previous Government. It puts enormous strain on infrastructure of all sorts across the country, and clearly schools are not immune. One reason class sizes are going up is the chaotic immigration policy exercised by the previous Government.

[Tristram Hunt]

We all look forward to the Government achieving their target on migration—something, I think, that will be very far away.

Why have the Government allowed class sizes to increase and to damage the education of children in English schools? Because they have spent the money that should be used to keep class sizes down on their discredited free schools programme—the programme that has brought us the Al-Madinah free school, the scandal of the Kings science academy and terrible results at IES Breckland.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

Hundreds of parents in my constituency went through picket lines organised by radical teachers against the free school in Bedford. They wanted to give their children a better education. Were they wrong to aspire to a better education for their children? Is Labour policy against what they want?

[Tristram Hunt]

Parents in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency rightly want the best for their children. I cannot help thinking that they will not necessarily achieve that given that the number of children in primary class sizes of more than 30 has increased by 134% in his constituency. I cannot imagine that that will increase the attainment and the results that his constituents are looking for.

On 10 May, The Observer reported that the previous Secretary of State had raided £400 million from the basic need fund used to keep class sizes down to pay for the free schools programme. The paper reported that

“Gove had secretly taken the money from the Basic Need fund…in the face of stiff opposition from the Lib Dem schools minister David Laws.”—

clearly not that stiff an opposition.

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

I am sure that the Liberal Democrats in Stockport will be proud of the record that the number of children in large class sizes has increased by 202%. What does my hon. Friend say to my constituents in Tameside, where more than 1,600 young people are now being taught in large class sizes, an increase of 2,567% since 2010, which is an utter disgrace?

[Tristram Hunt]

My hon. Friend is exactly right; it is a disgrace. I say to his constituents and to parents in his constituency, as I do across the country, that they should vote Labour to make sure that spending is prioritised in areas where it is needed.

We know from the National Audit Office that two thirds of all the places created by the free school programme have been created outside of areas classified as having high or severe primary school need. We also know from the Public Accounts Committee that a quarter of free schools opened by September 2012 had 20% fewer pupils than planned. Most recently of all, the Institute of Education has found that free schools do not even fulfil their supposed purpose of spreading opportunity to the poorest pupils, particularly when it comes to primary schools.

[Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)]

We are talking about NAO reports and I sit on the Public Accounts Committee and hope to contribute to this debate some of the points that we have raised. Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that the NAO found that the number of primary places fell by almost 207,000—5%—between 2003-04 and 2009-10? I believe that was a time when there was a Labour Government.

[Tristram Hunt]

I could repeat the facts about the Labour party’s building programme in office. Between 1997 and 2007, Labour built more than 1,100 new schools, the vast majority being primary schools. I am very happy to stand by our record in office of raising standards and providing places.

[Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, pointing out the consequences on the ground of this misallocation on funds. On that point, does my hon. Friend agree that my constituents in Blackpool, where the number of infants in large classes has risen by 300% since 2010, are now suffering a double whammy, not just from that but from the extra pressure of transients that seaside and coastal towns have? That can be seen in all of these figures—Portsmouth up 250%, Medway 415%, Plymouth 600%. Are not this Tory Government and their coalition allies failing seaside and coastal towns in this respect?

[Tristram Hunt]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. The challenge facing seaside towns is often particularly acute in the case of educational disadvantage, so it is absolutely right that we focus on smaller class sizes. It is absolutely right that young people coming into class with lower literacy levels have a good working environment in which to succeed, particularly in the early years.

Labour will tell every parent who is angry that their infant is being educated in classes of well over 30 that the fault lies with the Government’s ideological determination to pour money into the free schools programme. By September last year, the Government had spent £241 million on free schools in areas with no shortage of school places. The Hawthorne’s free school in Bootle was built in an area with no shortage of school places and now faces falling rolls, yet despite being judged inadequate it has received nearly £850,000 in extra “start-up” cash from the Government. Money is spent on adding extra places in areas with a surplus of places, while it is withdrawn from areas of need.

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

The hon. Gentleman’s spin just will not wash with the electorate in Leicestershire. The last Government allowed net immigration to rise to an eye-watering 3.5 million while reducing the number of school places available and, during their time in office, Leicestershire’s schools received the lowest funding per pupil in the whole country.

[Tristram Hunt]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. More work is needed to raise standards in Leicestershire, and one element that worries me is the growing attainment gap under this Government between children who are on free school meals and those who are not. If we strip out London from the data showing the achievement of children on free school meals, we see that this Government’s record is absolutely lamentable.

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

Is my hon. Friend aware of the evidence given to the Education Committee showing that the Government are throwing money at free schools where there is no basic need, such as the one in Bedford that is less than half full, yet the number of primary school places needed is growing and class sizes are also growing enormously?

[Tristram Hunt]

My hon. Friend speaks with great wisdom. I did not know that the Bedford school was only half full—

[Pat Glass]

Less than half full.

[Tristram Hunt]

Less than half full, while there are over-sized primary classes. The constituents of Bedford will hold their MP to account for voting for policies that increase class sizes in those schools while misallocating funds. Politics is about choices and priorities, and the Government have chosen the wrong priority.

[Mr Sheerman]

Before my hon. Friend moves on, will he put a question to Conservative Members: what is the evidence that larger classes benefit students? I have not seen any such research, but I have consistently deplored the fact that the all-party agreement that smaller classes were better for a child has been broken by this Government.

[Tristram Hunt]

My hon. Friend is exactly right: it is so disappointing to see this Government break the political consensus that Labour worked so hard to achieve in 1997.

Labour is committed to ending the free schools programme and refocusing spending on areas where it is needed most. Our message to parents is absolutely clear: Labour would make a choice, and schools enduring crippling infant class sizes would be our priority. We want to see great teachers, committed parents and innovative educationists opening new schools under our parent-led academy programme, pioneered by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), but those schools will have to be targeted on areas with a need for new places.

We had all hoped for a change of direction from the new Education Secretary, so I read with great interest her interview in The Sunday Telegraph, in which she explained how

“we have seen the first same-sex marriages take place, which is great.”



Indeed it is, but why did she seek to prevent it from happening by voting against the policy? If she really thought it was great, she would have supported the policy.

In the interview, the Education Secretary also revealed that her favourite work was Elizabeth Gaskell’s marvellous “North and South”—a tale of how a conciliatory, practical, confident woman steps in to save the reputation of an aggressive, right-wing, Gradgrind-like ideologue. Mr Thornton was a man

“who would enjoy battling with every adverse thing he could meet with—enemies, winds, or circumstances”,

and he quickly finds himself in an epic struggle with the trade unions. I can see the Education Secretary’s attraction to it. But alas, our modern Margaret Hale is on autopilot, determined to repeat the mistakes that got Mr Thornton his unenviable reputation. Nowhere in that interview was a commitment to ending the chaos of the free school programme, introducing new policies to improve the professional development of teachers, rebuilding the atomised school system, stopping the downgrading of apprenticeships, closing the attainment gap, or offering affordable child care.

Now, this afternoon, news has broken of the Education Secretary’s plan to introduce compulsory setting in all schools. Will she confirm that she will rule out compulsory streaming? What does she make of the Education Endowment Foundation’s research into the impact of streaming on children from deprived backgrounds? What evidence has she used to inform her plans—which specific academic findings? What assessment has she had on the impact of her plans—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. I am sure that that point is very interesting, Mr Hunt, and that we would all like to know the answer, but it is not the subject of the debate. As far as I am aware, the proposal is not on infant classes. While I am on my feet, let me say that infant classes probably behave better than most Government Members at the moment. Perhaps we can stop the cat-calling—Mr Heaton-Harris, please do not look so disappointed—and concentrate on the debate on the motion before us.

[Tristram Hunt]

Unlike so many Government Members, I always obey the rulings of the Chair and would seek no dishonour to it at any point, so I will immediately move on, Madam Deputy Speaker.

The Government’s failure on infant class sizes contains many different components—administrative incompetence, financial mismanagement, ideological pigheadedness, and a refusal to re-examine the evidence—yet it also speaks to two markedly different visions for the future of this country’s education.

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

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Tristram Hunt]

Labour Members want to see a world-class and highly qualified teacher in every classroom, studio and workshop. The evidence says that that is the most effective way to boost our children’s attainment. We want to right the wrongs of the Butler Act and offer young people excellence and opportunity in vocational education. That is what our economy needs most in terms of skills and competitiveness. We want to provide young people with a rich and rewarding educational experience that, alongside the academic and vocational basics, also nurtures their character, resilience and well-being. That is what our children need to thrive and survive in a world that is being transformed by digital technology.

In contrast, the future that our new autopilot Education Secretary offers is much the same as the recent past. She makes absolutely no pretence at being here to do anything other than implement her predecessor’s vision. That means growing class sizes, more failing free schools, more unqualified teachers, a rising attainment gap, no local oversight or accountability, fewer opportunities for the forgotten 50%, and no strategy for delivering excellence and opportunity in vocational education. It means ignoring basic need and continuing an ideologically motivated allocation of capital funding.

[Mr Rob Wilson]

rose—

[Tristram Hunt]

The bottom line is this: the Prime Minister has broken his party’s manifesto promise of smaller class sizes. He has chosen free schools over basic need, and ideology over reducing infant class sizes. Fortunately, though, in eight months’ time the country also has a political choice. Let me assure Government Members, as my colleagues will be doing over the coming months, that we will be telling parents exactly where the Government parties stand on infant class sizes. We will be telling them that five more years of this agenda will mean 450,000 infants taught in class sizes of more than 30 by 2020. We will be telling them that only one party is committed to refocusing spending on areas where it is needed most, that only one party is determined to deliver an education system that works for all pupils and that does not prioritise spending on one school type over another, and that only one party believes in a one nation education system. That party sits on the Labour Benches and I commend the motion to the House.

16:40

[The Secretary of State for Education (Nicky Morgan)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. Let me begin by paying tribute to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), because it shows a huge amount of courage for a Labour politician to call a debate on this of all issues. Perhaps I should address the historian in him by comparing him to Lord Cardigan at the battle of Balaclava: brave but leaderless, charging ahead on a kamikaze mission when everything around him was lost. We all remember the record of the previous Government—the hon. Gentleman’s party—and that makes it very brave indeed to raise this issue now.

As we have heard from Government Members, we remember how Labour cut 200,000 primary school places at the very time that this country was facing a dramatic baby boom. We remember how it cut the funding for basic need places by £150 million at the very time it was needed most, and how they penalised those councils with the foresight to refuse to meet their demands. And we remember how Labour made this all so much worse by allowing immigration to spiral out of control, adding further pressure to the system and leading to so many of the concerns we are talking about today.

[Toby Perkins]

The right hon. Lady is comparing the situation now with that under the previous Government. She will be aware that in Leicestershire, the county she represents, there were 2,376 children in infant classes in January 2014, compared with just 1,000 before. The figure has gone up by 121%. Does not that show that, under this Government, things have got significantly worse since 2010?

[Nicky Morgan]

I thank the hon. Gentleman very much indeed for his intervention, but in terms of basic need funding, which is what we are debating today, Leicestershire’s has gone up from £13 million to £51 million, while between 2007 and 2011 Chesterfield got £9.3 million, but now it will be getting £30 million up to 2017.

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)]

May I ask the right hon. Lady about an issue specific to Leicester with which she will be familiar, namely the Falcons primary school, which is a Sikh free school that was due to open this week? She will know that the Department effectively pulled the plug on it last Friday and 69 pupils were supposed to start there today. Can she give us an explanation as to why it got to this late stage before the Department pulled the plug, and will she undertake to send officials from the Department to meet Leicester city council and the wider community to discuss an urgent way forward?

[Nicky Morgan]

I hope you will bear with me for a moment, Madam Deputy Speaker, while I answer this very important question. The hon. Gentleman will know that I spoke to the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) about this matter on Monday evening. It is a serious situation and not something that the Department would do lightly, but it became very clear that there were serious governance issues in relation to the proposed school. I think that hon. Members on both sides of the House know—this is at the heart of schools—that we have to make sure that the right school and schooling are available for the pupils in question. We have been working very closely with local authorities to make sure that all the pupils have places. The hon. Gentleman will also know that departmental officials offered to attend the community meeting on Sunday, but that was not welcomed, and that I have set up urgent meetings between the Under-Secretary of State for Education, Lord Nash and the community. We have offered to discuss matters and I very much hope, as do other Ministers, that there will be a Sikh-ethos school in Leicester. Applications are open until October for another wave of free schools and I very much hope that there will be an application along those lines.

[Mr Rob Wilson]

I welcome the sensible and measured way in which my right hon. Friend is responding in this debate, in contrast to the shouty and rather juvenile way in which the shadow Secretary of State spoke. He refused to take an intervention from me. I would have asked him to correct the record. In response to interventions, he said that basic need funding has gone down under this Government. In fact, it has gone up. Perhaps he would like to intervene on the Secretary of State to put that right.

[Nicky Morgan]

I do not see the shadow Secretary of State leaping to his feet to correct the record, so for the benefit of the House, let me set out some of the other mistakes he made in moving the motion.

As I have said, we would now be facing a crisis in school places given everything that did not happen under the last Government, but fortunately—as with the economy, immigration and welfare—this Government had a plan to clear up the previous Government’s mess. We had a plan to reverse Labour’s cuts in school places by investing £5 billion, which is more than double the amount spent by the hon. Gentleman’s Government during their last years in office, to create 260,000 new places by the summer of 2013.

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

I am conjuring up a picture in which everything is doubled, but capital investment in schools is halved, because that is actually the reality. Will the right hon. Lady reflect on this paradox? We have a situation in which, as we have learned, tens of thousands of youngsters in infants school are now in classes of over 30 at a time when the Government are spending £1 billion to subsidise free school meals for the most wealthy parents of those same infants. Is it not a paradox that they can get a free school and a free meal, but they cannot get a place in an infants school with a class size of fewer than 30?

[Nicky Morgan]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but he will not be surprised that I disagree with its sentiments. I realise that he, as one of my predecessors, has expertise in this area. Let me remind him, however, that in his local authority the funding for basic need has risen from £22 million to £71 million over the past few years. In fact, this Government are spending £18 billion on school buildings during this Parliament, which is more than Labour spent in its first two terms combined. We are absolutely investing in the school estate.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Nicky Morgan]

I will make some progress.

We had a long-term economic plan to get the economy back in shape. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central yawns, but if, after the note left by the former Chief Secretary to the Treasury saying that there was no money left, he does not think that getting our economy back on track was important, he has missed the entire point of this Parliament.

We wanted to invest an additional £7 billion to fund a further 500,000 school places by 2021, and we had a plan to help teachers and parents open an unprecedented number of new schools. More than 300 new free and technical schools have been opened across the country since this Government came to office, and a total of 400 new schools have been opened or approved that would simply not exist if the hon. Gentleman was standing at the Dispatch Box instead of me.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

May I tell the Secretary of State about a free school that has opened? The Hawthorne’s free school in Sefton, which was opened in an area that had surplus secondary places in 2011, has had a knock-on effect on two neighbouring secondary schools, which have seen their rolls decline, and is now less than half full. At the same time, primary schools across Sefton have had 500 more pupils in classes over 30 in size, which is an increase of 321%. How can that possibly be the best use of such money?

[Nicky Morgan]

Let me tell the hon. Gentleman that investment in Sefton has gone from £2.6 million to £3.6 million in the course of this Parliament. The fact is that seven out of 10 free schools have opened in areas of basic need. I wonder whether he has listened, because free schools are opened in response to parental demand. The parents and the local community wanted a free school to be opened.

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

If everything is going so well, will the Secretary of State explain why almost one in five parents thinks that schools are squeezing too many pupils into classes and have deep concerns about class sizes? They will find her response in this debate incredibly complacent.

[Nicky Morgan]

The hon. Lady and I had a great sparring relationship when I was in my previous role and she often tried to use the word “complacent”. She will know that I am never complacent about the concerns raised by MPs across the House. This debate is about airing the issues, but parents might not be quite so concerned if the shadow Secretary of State were honest and open with the figures that he is bringing to the House today.

[Richard Fuller]

The Secretary of State has faced a number of confusing interventions from Opposition Members, one of which repeated something that was said in The Guardian today, which was that she was about to announce a policy of compulsory setting. Will she take this opportunity to say whether she is going to do that?

[Nicky Morgan]

Let me confirm for the benefit of the House that there is absolutely no truth in those rumours. There are some people outside this House who have a rather unhealthy interest in speculating about what I am or am not about to announce. They would be better served if they spent less time on Twitter and talking to journalists, and more time reflecting on the importance of the policies and reforms that have already been implemented by this Government.

[Mr Sheerman]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Nicky Morgan]

No, I am going to make a bit of progress.

The figure of 400 new schools that I have given includes 251 free schools, with 79 opening this month alone and about 70 more in the pipeline. Those are schools that pupils, parents and teachers want, but that would not exist if it were down to the shadow Secretary of State. The figure includes 30 university technical colleges, which are working with employers to give young people the skills that they need to succeed in key industries such as engineering and science, and 37 studio schools, which prepare young people for work by offering a rigorous academic education alongside employer-backed technical and vocational qualifications.

None of that has been easy. It took this Government, working in partnership with teachers and parents up and down the country, to get it done. However, as a result, young people who are going back to school this week have more chance of going to a good or outstanding school than at any time since Ofsted was established.

I give way to the former Chairman of the Select Committee.

[Mr Sheerman]

Education is a partnership. When the Secretary of State was appointed, I had high hopes of her. I hope that she will not disappoint me. I know that her party is under pressure from UKIP, but three times in this debate on education, immigration has been prayed in aid when discussing the problem with our schools—once by a Government Back Bencher and twice by her. I have not heard that in an education debate before. Is it a UKIP-inspired point? It is. Two times she has mentioned immigration. Will she please not do it?

[Nicky Morgan]

I had high hopes of a better intervention from the hon. Gentleman. If he does not think that that issue has affected public services in this country, he absolutely encapsulates why the Labour party will remain on the Opposition Benches after May 2015.

I have set out the record of this Government. Let me compare it to that of the Labour party.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

I congratulate the Secretary of State on her performance so far at the Dispatch Box. Surely when the National Audit Office says that two thirds of the places created by free schools are not in areas of need, it raises serious questions about the Government’s spending priorities.

[Nicky Morgan]

I respect the hon. Gentleman very much and enjoyed working with him when we were Whips on opposite sides of the House, but I do not recognise those figures. Seven out of 10 free schools that are currently open are in areas of basic need and eight out of 10 free schools that are planned to open will be in areas of basic need. Free schools are a response to the need for places and to the demands of parents and teachers for more good schools in a local area.

[Mr Marsden]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Nicky Morgan]

No, I am going to make some progress.

I have set out the record of this Government. Let me compare it to that of the Labour party. It took four years for Labour to open the first 27 academies, seven years to open the first 133 academies, and five years to open just 15 city technology colleges. I am a generous person, so I can see that not everything Labour did was wrong. There were some good initiatives. Some Labour Members understood and even helped to inspire the academy and free school programme that this Government have made such a success. Let me make it clear that, unlike the shadow Secretary of State, who has spent the past 11 months distancing himself from the policies of those brave reformers in the Labour party who came before him, I will make no apologies for the work of my predecessor, who was one of the most successful, passionate and committed education reformers of the 21st century.

We could have a genuine debate about some of those things. Indeed, I am sure we would all be fascinated to know the latest views of the shadow Secretary of State, given how often they change. He has flip-flopped from free schools being a

“vanity project for yummy mummies”

which he said on 18 May 2010, to 13 October last year when he apologised for that description and said:

“I regret those comments because I think any parents, be they yummy mummies or faddy daddies, involved in the education of their children is great”

He also said that he would put “rocket boosters” under parents who wanted to set up schools, but two days later he U-turned again, describing free schools as a “dangerous ideological experiment”. Which one is it? His position is completely inexplicable.

[Mr Rob Wilson]

Is it my right hon. Friend’s understanding that the Labour party will close free schools; indeed it will try to close them on the basis of a bogus review of free school buildings? I wrote to the shadow Secretary of State and his deputy nearly a year ago, and neither have replied to me about the bogus review of school buildings. Through my right hon. Friend’s good offices, perhaps she will get the truth out of the Labour party.

[Nicky Morgan]

I thank my hon. Friend for his point and I shall certainly try to get the truth from the Labour party. Would the shadow Secretary of State like to intervene to tell the House what he thinks about free schools today, and whether he will provide clarity? Parents and children attending schools need clarification and to know whether he would keep them open were he—heaven forbid—in government.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

I do not want to detract from my right hon. Friend’s litany of disastrous Labour failures in the 13 years to 2010, but I will add my penny’s worth to it. The Education Committee recently found that under the Labour Government the performance of white working class children in receipt of free school meals plummeted and was among the worst in the western world. That is a badge of shame for the Labour party.

[Nicky Morgan]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and I know he is passionate about this issue. The fact of the matter is that by 2010, one in three primary school age children were leaving school unable to read and write properly. Anyone who is a parent, godparent or who has a relationship with young children and visits schools will know that if someone cannot read and write they cannot play a full part in modern Britain. It is deeply unfair on any education system to leave its children poorly educated.

Let me turn to class sizes as they are mentioned in the Order Paper today. The motion claims that

“the number of infants taught in classes of over 30 has risen by 200 per cent”,

but as we shall see, the shadow Secretary of State based his entire case on one snapshot of the school year, which he has used—whether knowingly or not—in an opportunistic way. I know hon. Members will find that hard to believe, but let me set the hon. Gentleman right. The truth is that despite everything we inherited, the proportion of infant pupils in classes of more than 30 has gone up by just three percentage points, while the number of pupils requiring a place has risen by 11%.

[Bill Esterson]

rose—

[Nicky Morgan]

I will make some progress. In fact, the proportion of primary school pupils in very large classes has fallen under this Government. How has that been possible? How have we managed to keep class sizes down despite the huge rise in the number of pupils requiring a place? It is because we have added almost 4,500 infant classes since 2010, which means that there are more infant classes today than at any time in the past decade. The motion notes that

“the Government relaxed the rules on infant class sizes”.

That is true. We have made it easier for parents with twins and multiple births, the children of members of our armed forces, and looked after children, to get a place in their chosen school.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

Give us a break.

[Nicky Morgan]

The hon. Gentleman says, “Give us a break.” If he does not think that helping vulnerable children in that way is important—

[Kevin Brennan]

It’s a smokescreen—

[Nicky Morgan]

Well, we hear it all now. What is best for these children is a stable start to their school life. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will take the opportunity to tell us which of those categories of people he would like to take a school place away from first. When he does so, perhaps he could explain it to some of the 83% of parents and others who supported this change when we asked them their view.

The motion mentions the Conservative party’s manifesto pledge to

“create smaller schools with smaller class sizes”

and we are delivering on that. Despite everything, the average number of pupils in an infant class is 27.4, which, as the shadow Secretary of State will know, is considerably less than the specified limit. But here is the difference: we chose to trust head teachers and local authorities to make good, sensible decisions that are best for them, their pupils and their schools. If he wants me to apologise for doing that, he will be waiting a long time.

Then, the shadow Secretary of State makes his boldest claim, the one he has been making a lot lately, on television, in the media, wherever he can—the claim that pupils are regularly being taught in classes of 70 or more. Like many right hon. and hon. Members, I have just returned from a short break, and I took with me a little light reading. Here it is—available in all good, and not so good, bookshops. Before I looked at it, I checked out some reviews—this one, for example:

“It’s profound stuff from Hunt, whose book Ten Cities That Made An Empire has a number of inaccuracies, including calling Viscount Powerscourt ‘Powerhouse’, and getting the wrong date for the Corn Laws.”

As a result, I have learned to be wary of the hon. Gentleman’s claims, and apparently rightly so, because the claim that children are routinely being taught in classes of 70 or more is simply wrong. The evidence actually shows that these pupils are taking part in activities such as swimming or arts and crafts while being supervised by adults. It is hardly unexpected to find this in a normal primary school on a Thursday during the year when the census is taken. It is not, however, how they would normally be taught in a classroom. He apparently has as good a grasp of school census figures as he does of 19th century history.

[Andrew Bridgen]

Does the Secretary of State agree that there could well be more than 30 pupils, for example, in assembly, on a school trip or during physical education or sports events?

[Nicky Morgan]

My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head.

Every time the shadow Secretary of State makes the claim, he ought to think about the impression he is creating on teachers and head teachers, who roll their eyes in frustration. Mr Andrew Smith, executive head of White Hall academy in Essex, says that his claims are not only wrong, but potentially damaging to his school, and he wants the record put straight. So let us put this to bed once and for all: the hon. Gentleman has misread the facts. There is absolutely no foundation to his claim, and it is nothing but scaremongering of the worst kind. He is not just wrong about children regularly being taught in classes of more than 70, but wrong about them being taught in classes of more than 60, 50 and 40, and it is doing him no favours with teachers and head teachers up and down the land. I give him the opportunity to withdraw his claim, strike it from the motion and commit to never using it again.

[Bill Esterson]

rose—

[Nicky Morgan]

Will the hon. Gentleman withdraw the claim on his hon. Friend’s behalf?

[Bill Esterson]

The Secretary of State talks about facts. Will she confirm the fact—stated in evidence to the Education Committee—that £400 million of basic need money has gone into the Government’s free school programme, and that that money, as I demonstrated earlier, has been spent in areas with surplus places, not areas of need?

[Nicky Morgan]

I will touch on that point in a moment, but I dispute that evidence. I note, however, that the hon. Gentleman did not dispute what I was saying about classes of 70 and more. It was just a snapshot. He thinks it perfectly acceptable to upset teachers like this. We can have a legitimate debate about school places, we can disagree about how we got into this situation and what we are doing to sort it out, but there is no place for scaremongering on such an emotive and important issue.

We have learned today that the shadow Secretary of State is opposed to free schools, although I am not sure because it is hard to keep up. It is Wednesday. It could be anti-free school day on the Opposition Front Bench, but he had better ensure that the 21 Labour MPs and his three shadow Cabinet colleagues who have publicly backed free schools in their constituencies get the memo.

[Richard Fuller]

Is it not depressing that the Opposition motion is premised on division? It divides teachers in free schools from teachers in other schools, parents from parents and children from children. Would my right hon. Friend not like to see a more positive education policy that can inspire the next generation, not set one against the other?

[Nicky Morgan]

In order to have a positive vision for education, one needs a plan for education, and that is what the Government have in our drive for high academic standards, high-quality teachers and the best schools possible. All that is absent in Labour’s education plan.

The shadow Secretary of State is fond of claiming that free schools divert money from areas of basic need, but it will come as no surprise to right hon. and hon. Members to learn that he is wrong again. Seven in 10 mainstream free schools have been opened in areas of basic need. That figure is higher still for the free schools opening this month, and higher again for those approved in the most recent application round. Free schools are also helping to provide good school places in some of the most challenging parts of the country. Half of free schools have been established in the 30% most deprived communities and they have to abide by the same admissions code as all state-funded schools. In total, open and planned free schools will provide 175,000 new places, with the vast majority in areas facing a shortage or areas of deprivation. This is an amazing story of success, but it is not just our story. None of it would have happened without the hard work and dedication of the parent and teacher groups that made it possible.

However, free schools are just part of the story—a vital part and one that is helping to raise standards in all schools, through the new ideas and approaches they bring and the support they provide to other schools and institutions, but only one part of our plan for education, which is delivering real results. What is the shadow Secretary of State’s plan? What would he do? What would a Labour Government offer to young people in education today? It is no good looking to him, because his view changes all the time. As we have heard, he was for free schools before he was against them, and against AS-levels before he was for them. Once he makes up his mind, he is full of indecision.

Let us look not at what the Labour party says, but instead at what it does. An all-out pursuit of mediocrity; subjects dumbed down; exam grades inflated; many young people leaving school barely able to read and write properly, with the most disadvantaged young people suffering most; and, as we know, slashing the number of school places by 200,000 at the same time as the number of people demanding a school place was rising—that is the Labour party’s record. That is what Labour Members offer, because they have not learned their lesson. They never do, which is why today the shadow Secretary of State has set his face against everything that has been achieved in the past few years.

The shadow Secretary of State has set himself against the changes that have given more young people the opportunity to go to a good or outstanding school than ever before, against the reforms that have given every child the chance to get a good grounding in the core academic subjects, and against the changes we have made to get children off the exam treadmill and to ensure they spend more time in education and less time in exams. Above all, he has set himself against the progress that has been made, not by me or my predecessor, but by thousands of the hard-working and dedicated teachers who have quietly got on with the job and put the Government’s plan for education into action.

We know what the shadow Secretary of State is against; we just do not know what he is for. However, we do know that, like Lord Cardigan before him, he has been sent out on this hopeless mission by a weak and confused leader who, devoid of any plan of his own, can do nothing more than send his troops forward to inevitable defeat. Let me make it clear again. We would indeed be facing a crisis of class sizes in this country today—we would indeed be seeing children struggling in classes that are too big to work—if it were not for this Government’s plan to clear up the mess the last Labour Government left behind.

The shadow Secretary of State spoke for 24 minutes, but he did not mutter the one word that parents and children need to hear from the Labour party on this subject perhaps more than any other: sorry. He is fortunate that, as so often, we have picked up the pieces, so that young people do not have to suffer for his Government’s mistakes. Let us resolve today never to allow the future of our children to be placed in Labour’s hands ever again. I urge the House to reject the motion.

17:07

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to take part in this important debate.

The ability of parents to send their children to a good local school and have them taught in suitably sized classes is something that the vast majority of British people would deem a pretty basic feature of life in the UK in the 21st century, but sadly in my constituency of Lewisham East it is becoming more and more difficult for families. During the last six years, competition for primary school places in Lewisham has been growing significantly, a phenomenon replicated across the whole of London. A rapidly rising birth rate, fewer people moving out, because of a broadly stagnant housing market, and high inward migration from the other parts of the British isles, as well as internationally, have all contributed to the need for more school places in the capital.

The present Government’s failure to adequately fund extra classrooms in areas with the greatest need means that many parents in Lewisham and London more widely are left wondering why public money is being spent on opening new schools in leafy areas of low demand when their own children are being squeezed into more and more crowded schools. In the last 13 years, the birth rate in Lewisham has increased by 32%. In real terms, that means that approximately 1,000 more babies were born in Lewisham last year than in the year 2001. Since 2008, Lewisham council has created nearly 3,000 more primary school places. The vast majority have been in temporary bulge classes—extra forms of entry, which then move up through the school as the children progress to their next academic year. Only 500 or so of the extra places have been in schools that have been permanently expanded. This is partly to do with funding, partly to do with very constrained school sites, and partly to do with the need to act quickly to meet the demand for extra spaces in the next academic year.

Classrooms have been put up on playgrounds, and music and art rooms have all but disappeared from schools in Lewisham, having been converted into much needed full-time teaching space. Some children inevitably find themselves being taught in classes with more pupils. The pressure on primary schools also means that an increasing number of children are being taught in schools a long way from home. Time and again, whether it be at my advice surgery or when I am out speaking to people on the doorstep, I meet parents who are really angry about their inability to get their son or daughter into a local school.

These are not “pushy parents” who are unrealistically limiting themselves to an over-subscribed outstanding school—although who could blame them if they were; more often than not, these are parents who would be happy to send their children to any one of five or six good local schools. The schools, however, are simply full up, so the children are allocated a place far from home, often involving multiple bus journeys in rush-hour traffic—no small feat in London, with small children in tow. The strain this places on family life can be considerable. I have repeatedly had women telling me that they may have to give up work in order to drop their children off at school. Sometimes siblings can be at different schools, miles apart. Many of my constituents do not have cars, so it can be almost a physical impossibility to get one child to one school and another child to another school on time.

I do not have children, but if I did I could not imagine that navigating long distances to get them to school at the ages of four or five is the sort of start to their education that I would want for them. I understand it when parents say that they want their children to be taught in small schools with small classes and close to home. I understand that, as a parent, one would want to feel confident that every teacher was able to know every child as an individual, to be able to monitor their progress and understand what they are good at or not so good at.

I know that parents do not want to have their children disappearing into a sea of faces at the back of a classroom, but this is the direction in which the current Government seem to be heading. That is not right—not right for the parents, not right for the children and not right for the school and the teachers who are trying to provide education in school buildings that are bursting at the seams. It is made worse by the fact that central Government funding for school places is not going to the areas that need it most.

How this Government can justify opening new schools in areas of low demand when they do not adequately fund the areas with the most pressure on school places is beyond me. Let us take London as an example. We know that the capital has a 42% share of the national demand for extra school places, yet receives a 36% share of basic needs funding. How do Ministers account for that? The money provided by central Government to my local authority of Lewisham to meet the rising demand for school places has quite simply been inadequate for the task.

I am grateful to the Minister for Schools for twice meeting me and the mayor of Lewisham over the last year to discuss the issue. He knows—and I hope to bring this to the attention of other Education Ministers—that the local authority of Lewisham has identified a £19.5 million shortfall if it is to meet all the demand for extra primary places up to 2016. I am aware that in the last round of funding allocations, the Government provided a 2% uplift to London local authorities. It was a helpful start, but even with this, the funding does not fully reflect the additional costs of expanding schools in the capital: there is fierce competition for land, site acquisition costs are higher, and even the costs of construction are higher in London. The Government need to look at the methodology they use for allocating funding. Assumptions in the funding formula about the percentage of permanent spaces created by local authorities recently have worked against local authorities such as Lewisham, where very few permanent expansions have taken place.

The Government also need to start thinking about the looming crisis affecting secondary places. My local authority has opened a brand-new secondary school in the last few years, but anticipates that it will need another by September 2017. Secondary schools do not come cheap, and they do not come quickly. Indeed, London councils have estimated that the capital needs a further £1 billion if it is to meet all need come 2016.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)]

I am listening carefully to the hon. Lady’s speech. She has made some important points, but I should point out that the Government have delivered what they have been able to deliver. Between 2007 and 2011, under the last Government, allocation for basic need stood at about £25 million. Under the present Government, it has risen to £78 million, and a further £18 million has already been allocated to Lewisham for 2015-17. I shall be happy to discuss the issue further with the hon. Lady, because I know that she is sincere and passionate about it, but I hope that, in return, she will acknowledge that a total allocation of £96 million between 2011 and 2017 is a very significant sum in the current economic circumstances.

[Heidi Alexander]

I acknowledge that money has been spent; I am just not sure that it is keeping up with the scale of demand for extra places. I believe that there are fundamental questions to be answered about how the Government allocate resources, and how they plan to ensure that future generations can gain access to the education that they deserve.

[Kevin Brennan]

Has my hon. Friend noticed that Ministers never quote the true figures for spending on schools during the period in question? During that period, the last Government recognised that more places would be needed. They provided extra core capital funding of £400 million a year from 2007-08 to 2010-11, and an annual safety valve which included, in the latter years, the allocation of an extra £266 million. Ministers never quote those figures, because this is a smokescreen.

[Heidi Alexander]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. All that I know is that there is a significant problem in my constituency and other parts of London, which the Government urgently and desperately need to address.

We know that the economy in London outperforms that in the rest of the country, and we know that more and more people want to live here. In the next decade, the population is expected to increase by the size of Liverpool and Leeds combined. Just as we need to build homes to accommodate that growth, we need schools to educate our young people. In Lewisham, we are lucky to have outstanding primary schools. Yes, more work needs to be done at secondary level, but our head teachers do inspiring and incredible work. Naheeda Maharasingham at Rathfern primary school, Michael Roach at John Ball primary school and Dame Vicki Patterson at the Brindishe schools federation are some of the most impressive individuals I have met when it comes to the delivery of our public services. I believe that the Government should be helping those impressive individuals to do their job by ensuring that there is adequate funding for school expansions.

The education system does not need money to be siphoned off to areas where there is questionable demand for extra school capacity, and it does not need the uncertainty of children being offered places at free schools that do not even have sites from which to operate. The education system just needs the Government to recognise their responsibilities, and to ensure that scarce public funds go where they are needed most. Parents in Lewisham think that that is a reasonable expectation to have of a Government, and so do I.

17:18

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander), who had the great benefit of being educated in my wonderful constituency. I think that that shone through the whole of her speech.

I asked to speak in today’s debate. I am normally ruthlessly positive in my speeches—I always try to focus on “looking on the bright side of life”—but when I saw the motion, I was staggered. Indeed, I have been disgusted by the absolute cheek of some of the points that have been made. I speak from experience not only of membership of the Public Accounts Committee—to which I shall refer later—but of 10 years at the coal face as a ward councillor in a new build area, fighting the crazy views of Labour councillors who hated parental choice and did everything they could to force parents to send their children to schools that they did not support.

Let me return to my time as borough councillor. The incompetent, useless Labour council in Swindon, which was so bad the Labour Government had to step in and put it into special measures, managed to rack up a staggering £68 million backlog of repairs in schools. We had schools such as the Moredon primary school where not only were the roofs leaking, but the windows did not fit properly, and kids had to come to school in coats and bring their own buckets—as featured on the TV. It was an absolute disaster and it was a relief that the last Labour Government at least took it away from that hopeless Labour council. Thankfully, we seized control of the council and we immediately started tackling that £68 million backlog for schools.

I represented a new development—an area that, when I first got elected in 2000, had 1,800 houses, but which by the time I was elevated to become the MP 10 years later had 10,000 houses, and every single time we needed a brand-new school Labour councillors blocked it. They blocked it for the same reason that Labour MPs today are putting forward in their interventions and speeches—namely, that there are surplus places in other schools. These were schools that were not good; they were not exceptional, they were not acceptable to parents, and they were a long way away, but Labour councillors, determined to remove parental choice—[Interruption.] The shadow Secretary of State can chunter away on the Front Bench, but this is about parental choice. I have met many angry parents, and having had the biggest swing in the last general election in the south-west, I can assure him that a lot of that was driven by very angry people who were denied the basic right of parental choice in terms of schools.

Continuously, the Labour Government and council sought to build schools after houses were in place, not as part of the infrastructure plan for new developments, because, they kept saying, there were spare places in other schools. That is absolute nonsense.

[Heidi Alexander]

The hon. Gentleman is talking about parental choice. Does he accept that the constituents I described in my speech have zero parental choice? They may choose five or six schools to send their children to, but then be offered none of them. Does he not acknowledge this is a real issue in certain parts of the country?

[Justin Tomlinson]

I thank the hon. Lady for that important intervention, and I can say, absolutely, that is where my anger is coming from. The hon. Lady is experiencing what I went through for 10 years in Swindon. Luckily, in my constituency now 90% of parents get their preferred choice; we are in the top quartile in that respect, and we have done very well as we have expanded, as we saw in the Public Accounts Committee. The underlying point here is that the last Labour Government robbed this country of 200,000 places in the middle of a baby boom. It is an absolute disgrace, and the hon. Lady’s residents are now paying the price. I will come back to this and address in detail what is being done about it because parents are absolutely furious.

We have always had finite resources, but we also had the ludicrous Building Schools for the Future costs. We said to local authorities, “You can go ahead and build schools, but I want every single bid to be unique. I want you to redesign the wheel every single time.” Each and every single bid was costing £5 million in order to reinvent the wheel—money that should have been going to front-line services. The bids took a long time to deliver, they were slow, they were complex and many of them failed, and that, again, caused huge delays in delivering new schools.

The last Labour Government, determined to make sure the current generation did not pay for infrastructure facilities, were obsessed with promoting private finance initiatives, as we covered extensively in the PAC. It was the only show in town. Anyone who wanted to build new schools had to have very expensive PFI schemes. The two flaws with that are that future generations will continue to pay for them—again, robbing money from front-line schools budgets—and that they are incredibly inflexible. As we have started to release additional money to expand the number of school places, we are finding that it is an absolute nightmare to renegotiate the schools with PFIs. Also, because they were privately built, they were often landlocked and space was very limited, even if a deal could have been thrashed out, at great expense to local rate payers.

I was staggered that developers were given the green light to press ahead with developments without providing these places, so time and again people were paying high premiums for new houses—they could see in the plans that a school should be built, but those schools would get further and further behind, creating yet more chaos.

Things are changing, but it takes time—when we have had such a shock to the system, with 200,000 places ripped out of the system, it takes time. I pay tribute to the Conservative council in Swindon, which I was proud to be part of for 10 years. We have expanded Orchid vale, St Francis, Abbey Meads and Haydonleigh primary schools and Even Swindon school; we have incorporated Penhill primary school in Swindon academy and completely rebuilt Seven Fields primary school; and the new Tadpole Farm school opened today for its first wave of new children. That is because our councillors have completely understood and supported parental choice. This Government have helped by doubling the amount of funding available for new school places, and my local authority has ensured that it has been at the front of the queue to get it. This goes hand in hand with other education funding, especially the fantastic decision to deliver fairer funding, from which my local authority has benefited greatly.

The free schools programme has been covered extensively by the Public Accounts Committee, which has been very selectively quoted by the shadow Minister, who clearly does not understand how the free school principle works. It is driven by parental demand. It is not about a top-down approach; it is about local communities having the ability to apply to have a school. The hon. Member for Lewisham East rightly highlighted the next challenges to secondary schools, and we are looking at that in the same way in my constituency. We are using the free school model, which involves parental demand and the need to get 900 signatures from local parents.

It is convenient for Labour MPs to ignore the fact that those involved have to prove that there are no surplus places in either good or exceptional schools within a natural catchment area. We are not building schools in areas where there are already good places. If there are surplus places in failing schools, parents have the right to an alternative. It is fine for those who can afford to choose a private school, but the vast majority of parents cannot do so, and neither they nor their children should be robbed of the opportunity to have the very best education. Let me remind the House that they get only one opportunity.

We have also started to be a lot tougher with developers, and as new infrastructure proposals are brought forward, schools are being built at the beginning of the process. An example is the Tadpole development in Swindon. Before the first house has been moved into, the Tadpole Farm primary school has already opened. It has been completed ahead of the development, rather than afterwards, when demand might have exceeded supply.

Given the failure of Building Schools for the Future, in which each and every school had to spend £5 million reinventing the wheel, we are rightly encouraging the use of modular school buildings. Schools can be the same right across the country; we can use set designs. We have reduced the cost of building a new primary school from £7 million to £3.5 million. The shadow Minister seems to find that amusing, but halving the cost of building a school means that we can build twice as many. That is elementary mathematics.

I am incredibly proud that we have achieved a figure of 90% for preferred choices, and I should like to offer MPs a piece of practical advice that they can take back to their constituencies. Whenever parents do not get their child into the school of their choice, they are incredibly angry. I know of no other issue that has such an effect; it is even more emotive than the threat of a library closure. We started to take schools admissions staff out to parents in the community in the weeks leading up to the parents having to fill in their three choices. For example, a parent might come in and say, “I live on Queen Elizabeth drive, and I would like my child to go to St Francis primary school.” The admissions staff would then be able to tell the parent that, given previous years’ data, that application would be unlikely to succeed. They would tell them still to apply, but also advise them on where the best available schools with surplus places were likely to be, so that they could put them down as their second and third choices. In that way, they would at least be defaulted to a school that they would deem acceptable. By going that extra mile before the applications went in, we were able to work with parents to ensure that alternatives were in place.

I am normally incredibly positive in my speeches. I try not to get involved in party politics, but given that the Opposition have tried to gloss over the fact that the last Labour Government stole 200,000 places in the midst of a baby boom and have the cheek to complain about the results of their actions, I felt that I had to contribute to the debate today, and I have done that.

17:28

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

Much of the debate has focused on numbers, and will continue to do so. Those include the number of classes with more than 30 or 35 pupils. Shockingly, in my constituency, there are even classes with more than 40. I want to start by looking behind the numbers and discussing why large classes matter to pupils, parents and schools. It has not been clear to me, listening to the contributions from Government Members, whether they consider the increase in class sizes to be a problem. We have heard a lot of denials and the blaming of immigrants, and we have heard a variety of reasons why it is not the Government’s fault, but we have not heard whether this result was the design of Tory party policy or whether it is something they regret. It would be helpful to hear from the Minister whether there is a strategy for class sizes or whether the problem that we are bringing to the attention of the Government is recognised by them.

The evidence on the importance of reducing class sizes has been available since 1982, when a study by an American laboratory for educational research concluded that reductions in class size

“promise learning benefits of a magnitude commonly believed not within the power of educators to achieve.”

Thirty years later and much closer to home, studies have shown that class sizes of more than 30 are particularly damaging for children of low ability or for those with special needs. Small class sizes are central to Labour’s vision of what a world-class and inclusive early-years environment should include. The Government seem to be determined to take education back to some mythical golden age when children learned everything they needed to by rote.

[Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman explain what has changed in Labour policy on class sizes since 2008? The then Schools Minister in another place told the teaching union, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, that it was perfectly acceptable to teach maths to pupils in class sizes of 70.

[Toby Perkins]

That is interesting, as not long ago we heard the Secretary of State talking about class sizes of 70 happening now. I do not recognise that as something that the Labour party wants to see, and my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) has secured this debate because he wants to make it absolutely clear that the Labour party’s commitment back in 1997 to rescue our schools from the catastrophic and mediaeval state they were in after 18 years of Tory government burns in his heart. He wants a reduction in class sizes and to get away from the huge increases we have seen under this Government.

On the subject of the vision for education held by the previous Education Secretary before his dismissal—I am sure that my two colleagues on the Front Bench are not the only people sitting on a Front Bench at the moment who were pleased to see him disappear—this Government’s approach has led, in my experience, to a demoralised teaching work force, a betrayal of the Government’s rhetoric when they came to office of a commitment to the early years, and a fragmented landscape that has seen enfeebled local authority provision, schools driven unwillingly into becoming academies and the appalling realisation that although money has flowed towards free schools, often in areas that had sufficient demand, there has been a 200% increase in the number of infant pupils taught in classes sized over 30.

Any MP who has taken the time to visit their local schools cannot fail to be moved by the pressure put on our schools by this out-of-touch Government, but the seeds of that educational approach should have been revealed to anyone who took the time to read the Conservative party manifesto, which was referred to a few minutes ago by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central. It stated:

“A Conservative government will give many more children access to the kind of education that is currently only available to the well-off: safe classrooms, talented…teachers, access to the best curriculum…and smaller schools with smaller class sizes with teachers who know the children’s names.”

I do not know about other MPs, but as someone who has been a councillor, a school governor and a parent in Chesterfield over the 13 years of Labour government I find that description, as though that was what schools were like back in 2010, downright offensive. It seems to be a view of our education system based on the views of someone whose only experience of schools was what they had read in the Daily Mail. But that was how the Tory party represented what education looked like back in 2010. Sadly, it is consistent with how out of touch the Government have been on education and a raft of other issues throughout their time in government.

It is not the fault of Ministers in this Government that the education team was entirely privately educated and that does not prevent them individually from being perfectly good Ministers, but when the basis of their education policy is founded on such a narrow and misguided view of what schoolchildren in my constituency experience, I cannot help but think that a wider perspective across the team would help their approach to be slightly more grounded in reality.

Let me return specifically to class sizes. The old “hug a hoodie” David Cameron used to get it. Back in 2008, when he was still a modern Conservative, he told the Yorkshire Post that

“the more we can get class sizes down the better”.

In the 2010 manifesto, he promised

“small schools with smaller class sizes”

That incarnation of David Cameron—oh, how long ago it seems—understood that every extra pupil adds to a teacher’s work load, with extra marking and planning, and means less time to be spent on pupils. If we want primary education to be about more than just presenting something to pupils, class size is important. Smaller classes mean more attention per pupil and more opportunity for children to develop their analytical thinking skills.

That is why the last Labour Government made class sizes such a priority and made such great strides on this issue. In 1997, as one of our five key pledges ahead of the election, Labour promised to cut class sizes to 30 or under for five, six and seven-year-olds by September 2002. Remarkably, the Labour Government actually achieved that a year early; by 2001 it was clear that it would be met. I cannot imagine that many of the promises made by the current Government will be achieved a year early—they will certainly not be achieving what they promised on the deficit. Unfortunately, those achievements have been thrown away by this Tory-led Government, particularly by two specific policy mistakes they have made.

Whereas Labour outlawed class sizes going beyond 30 for children aged four to seven, so that if a class did go above 30 in one year it had to be brought back down the following year, this Tory-led Government relaxed those rules so that class sizes can be above 30 for several years—we heard the Secretary of State proudly boasting about that today. Worse, the Government’s unfettered and ideological free school programme has diverted funding away from areas that need school places most. Instead, we have heard of the disgraceful situation where free schools have been set up in areas with an oversupply of infants schools and are sat there half empty.

Some people who were planning to set up a free school in Chesterfield came to see me at one of my surgeries. I said to these two parents, “So why do you want to set up a free school?” They said, “We don’t think we can get our kids into Brookfield. We want our kids to go there.” So this entire school was being set up because they could not get their children into one school, even though there were other schools they could get into. When I suggested that they could join the governing body of the school in their catchment area and see whether they could improve that, I was told, “Well, it is a bit of a risk.” So I said, “You are setting up a school that doesn’t exist, that has no teachers, that has no building, that has no other pupils and that has no facilities. That is not ‘not a risk’, is it?” [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller) is shouting “yes” and he has a free school in his constituency that is half empty. We heard the Education Secretary saying today that a new free school that was due to be set up has, in the middle of September, when most pupils—

[Richard Fuller]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Toby Perkins]

Let me just finish the point. The Education Secretary was talking about a school in Leicester that, at a time when most children all around the country are going back to school, has been told that it cannot open, and 69 children are left without a school. She says, “Well, we have to get these things right.” The Government should have looked at that when they were going through all these proposals and giving the money to set up the free school. That is the basis of this education policy.

[Richard Fuller]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, because the Labour party is trying, yet again, to divide people on the issue of free schools and is pointing to Bedford as an example. Local people and local teachers have worked very hard to make sure that the free school could be part of the family of schools and, contrary to what he is saying, the Bedford free school is one of the largest free schools that have been set up from scratch, with more than 400 pupils. Their parents have decided that that school is right for their children, and I am very proud that this Government have enabled them to make that choice.

[Toby Perkins]

The hon. Gentleman talks about a divisive education system, but I have never seen a more divided education system than the one that has been set up by this Government. We have seen an incredibly divided, fragmented system. We have seen schools that do not want to be academies forced into it because they cannot afford to be anything else but academies. The Opposition made it absolutely clear that we support parents getting involved in their schools, but the ideological approach of setting up free schools in a place that already has adequate supply and at the same time seeing infant class sizes at the disgraceful level that has been discussed in this debate is an utterly divisive way to approach education policy.

National Audit Office reports demonstrate that fully two thirds of all of new places created by the free schools programme have been created outside the areas with the most need. Extraordinarily, that has left some local authorities in a position where they want to build a new school to manage a primary places crisis, only to be told that the Department for Education will allow a new school to be built only if it is a free school and only to find out that nobody wants to build a free school in that area. That approach is utterly against the best interests of our children.

Free schools were supposed to fill gaps in the market, but they are in fact doing the opposite and are stacked up in places where there is already sufficient demand. We have seen the consequence of that approach in my constituency. Across Derbyshire, the number of infant school pupils who are in classes with more than 30 children has increased by 117% since this Government came to office. A freedom of information request to the Department for Education exposed the full scale of the class-size growth scandal. How pitiful the Prime Minister’s promise to cut class sizes now looks.

In Chesterfield, schools are grappling with class sizes that were absolutely unimaginable under a Labour Government. Hollingwood primary school has one class of 36; Hasland Hall infant school a class of 39; Abercrombie primary school a class of 44; and Walton Holymoorside, just over the border in North East Derbyshire—it is the school to which my own children went—a class of 36. For anyone who remembers the huge class sizes that we had under the last Tory Government—the one that actually won a general election—those figures will come as no surprise.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

The hon. Gentleman is a very nice bloke. I am sure he is an excellent MP for his area and a great parent, but does he think that his children’s education was bad because they were in slightly larger classes? If so, what did he do about it?

[Toby Perkins]

That is a very interesting way of putting it. The education provided by my children’s school was very good. The hon. Gentleman seems to be making the case that class sizes do not have a lot to do with the quality of education. If that is the case, then he will obviously be saying to the voters in Daventry, “Vote Conservative to get higher class sizes.” Evidence suggests that class sizes are an important factor. Anecdotal evidence from teachers points to the fact that they find it a lot more difficult to perform their role in huge classes. Obviously, he is making an alternative case, and he will have to take that to his electorate and see what they think about it.

As I was saying a moment ago, anyone who remembers the huge class sizes under the last Tory Government will not be surprised by these facts. The speech by the hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) complaining about the private finance initiative took my breath away. The reality is that in 1997, the Labour Government inherited a state education system that had been chronically underfunded. The quality of the school estate was disgraceful. Over 10 years, the Labour Government had to pay off the deficit that had been left behind by the previous Conservative Government. At the same time that we were radically trying to improve our health service and education system, we were also reducing the deficit that had been left. It is absolutely outrageous for the Tories then to say, “It’s a shame you didn’t pay for it all out of Government funds. You tried to bring in the private sector to support some of the building of the schools and you shouldn’t have done that.”

Tory Governments always end the same way—divisions over Europe leading to paralysis, waiting times in the NHS reaching critical levels, hollowed out local government unable to serve the needs of their local communities, and six-year-old children being educated in classes of 44. We can change the faces but they are all still Tories.

The choice for the British public at the next general election is clear. They can back the ConDems, get an ideological commitment to expensive free schools, a refusal to retain laws that keep class sizes down, weakened local authorities, demoralised teachers, a fragmented system that betrays our children and the threat of ever more children crammed into large class sizes. Alternatively, they can choose a Labour future where we transform standards with a qualified teacher in every classroom, a commitment to every child, new schools where they are needed most and real action on class sizes. Why wait until next May to give parents that choice? No one wanted this Government, not even most of those who are in it. Our children deserve better, so let us have a general election.

17:44

[Chloe Smith (Norwich North) (Con)]

Thank you for calling me, Mr Deputy Speaker. I, too, had expected that my colleague would be present to seek to catch your eye; I am sure he will be on his way back to the Chamber in a matter of seconds.

It is the right time of year to begin my comments by wishing well all those children who are starting their schooling this week or very soon, and starting, in some cases, in an entirely new school. For both parents and children it can be a daunting time of year. I also wish very well all those slightly older students who picked up results this summer, and I am sure, Mr Deputy Speaker, you would join me in that, as I am confident do those on the Government Front Bench.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Yes, I certainly would.

[Chloe Smith]

Quite right, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Parts of Norwich North have a rising birth rate, and therefore, as a local MP, I have already been active on this problem on my constituents’ behalf for some time, and have been working with schools, parents and the local authority to look into what needs to be done. I welcomed, therefore, the increase in funding for school places—£33 million for Norfolk school places in particular. Dare I say it, that is a better figure than for our neighbouring county, Suffolk, and for Cambridgeshire. But of course I welcome that increased funding for Norfolk because it is in keeping with what this Government have done to put right the inequalities in funding that Labour left behind.

Labour did not do well in Norfolk. It did not help schools there to beat the bulge. As we have heard many times today, Labour is the party that cut 200,000 primary school places in the middle of a baby boom. That had an impact on Norfolk. Labour is the party that failed to adjust the funding formula in a way that would be fair to rural counties and would have been fairer to my constituency. We, in government, have done those things and I congratulate those on the Front Bench on doing so.

As I said, I have worked with infant and junior schools in the north city area of my constituency over several years on the issue of planning sensibly for the local bulge in births. I welcome the fact that councils now have a three-year allocation of funding for the first time. I welcome the foresight that comes with that type of decision. It allows Norfolk county council, like any other education authority, to plan ahead and to ensure that every child has a school place. I urge my local authority to continue doing that planning. Only this week I contacted the local authority to highlight the fact that the latest information that I have received from Norfolk county council shows that 17 of the 25 infant, junior or primary schools listed in my constituency are forecast to exceed their current capacity.

We could turn that sentence several ways around. We could talk about “forecast to exceed their current capacity” or we could talk about the schools needing to provide more places for local children. The Government have put the funding in place for that to happen and I welcome that greatly. I think it stands in stark contrast to the attitude of those Labour Members who lost sight of what their own Government did, cutting 200,000 primary school places in the middle of a baby boom while letting immigration soar. It stands in great contrast to the actions of that party in failing to give Norfolk a fair funding formula. I also think, for what it is worth, that it stands in great contrast to what some Members, notably the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears), seem to think of Norfolk, and I suspect that my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Ben Gummer) agrees with me. We were dumbfounded to hear the right hon. Lady, who is not in her place—perhaps she is in another television studio, saying the same thing right now, actually—

[Tristram Hunt]

Who told you to say this?

[Chloe Smith]

The right hon. Lady has been out on the airwaves repeatedly this week, suggesting that Norfolk, in the form of Norwich, and Suffolk, in the form of Ipswich, ought to be some kind of dumping ground for the rest of the country. I do not think that is a respectful or constructive attitude to my constituency or that of my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich.

That is what Labour appears to think of Norwich and Norfolk. It also appears to think—

[Kevin Brennan]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Chloe Smith]

Of course; I would be delighted. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman could tell us what he thinks of Norfolk.

[Kevin Brennan]

I think Norfolk is delightful. Can the hon. Lady confirm, for the record, that she told my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) that she was going to mention her views in the course of the debate, to give her the opportunity, if she so wished, to come to the Chamber and to put her side of the case? That is the normal courtesy?

[Chloe Smith]

My hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich and I have discussed the matter with the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles. Perhaps Labour Front-Bench Members would like to accord colleagues the same courtesy in the endless visits they will now be making around the country, as they always do. I distinctly remember making a point of order in this place five years ago, when a member of the then Labour Government failed to accord me the due courtesy of telling me that they were going to visit my constituency.

[Kevin Brennan]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I intervened to give the hon. Lady an opportunity to clarify for the House whether she had informed my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles that she planned to refer to her comments. It was not clear from the hon. Lady’s remarks whether she had. Could you confirm that it is normal practice for hon. Members who wish to refer to other hon. Members in that way to observe the usual courtesies?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

It is up to the hon. Lady whether she wishes to answer, but it is normal courtesy to let an hon. Member know if you are going to mention them or their constituency.

[Chloe Smith]

I welcome your guidance, as always, Mr Deputy Speaker. In this case I shall be happy to go and address the matter directly with the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles. Her comments are, of course, already a matter of public record, having been repeated on various media outlets this week.

I come back to the current Labour party and its views on parents, parental choice and free schools. It does not accept that parents want better for their children. It does not accept that parents want the security of the best possible education they can find for their children. I do not think that it accepts that we ought to have higher ambition for many of our children. Data released in June show that Norwich, my city, has been the worst city in England for GCSE results. That is a shocking statement—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. The debate title is “Infant Class Sizes”. I have been very lenient and allowed some latitude, but that does not mean that we can concentrate on GCSE results. [Interruption.] Order. Mr Fuller, you should know better than to point while I am in the middle of giving good advice. Let us keep the debate to the subject of infant class sizes, and I will allow some latitude, but not too much.

[Chloe Smith]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I welcome your advice. The topics are linked because they relate to what a local authority can do for the children under its care, and I am coming to the subject of Norfolk county council. Labour Members laugh. They should be ashamed to the depths of their souls to be heard laughing at the children of Norfolk. The hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) should come to Norfolk. No doubt he would campaign against me if he did, but he would have to justify laughing at the point that I am trying to make, which is that over half of Norwich 16-year-olds recently left school without five GCSEs at grades A* to C including English and Maths. Perhaps he laughs at the future that awaits them; perhaps he laughs at the idea that those are not only figures but real people; perhaps he laughs at the idea that those people may now struggle to gain a job and that some of them may not be able to read, write, add or function very well. That is all extremely serious.

This is about the ambition that we have for our children. It is about how we manage the school system to allow for that ambition. All those children are being let down if we say that low ambition is acceptable.

[Toby Perkins]

rose—

[Chloe Smith]

Does the hon. Gentleman have ambition for Norfolk’s children?

[Toby Perkins]

I am very interested in the topic that the hon. Lady is talking about. She is obviously very concerned about the education of children in Norfolk. What would she say to the parents of the 283 extra children now being taught in classes of more than 30 in Norfolk under this Government? What would she say to them about their educational chances, because they are being failed by this Government, are they not?

[Chloe Smith]

I would say that they are looking for respect in this debate. They are looking for honesty and for figures to be used responsibly. They are looking for a Government who are putting right the messes of the previous Government. The hon. Gentleman stood up to make the preceding speech, for which I thank him—of course, I should have observed that courtesy at the beginning of my comments—and I thank him for reminding us what schools were like in the years following 1997. I sat in a classroom of more than 30 pupils when I was at school, in a Norfolk comprehensive, so I have personal experience, should the hon. Gentleman wish to hear it, of having been at school under Tony Blair. You are about to remind me, Mr Deputy Speaker, to return to the subject of infant class sizes.

[Ben Gummer (Ipswich) (Con)]

My hon. Friend was an infant.

[Chloe Smith]

At one time I was an infant. I shall now return to the point in hand.

We need to set out high ambition for our children from infant school through to the point where our young people emerge into the world. I want children to be told about the stars and to be taught how to get there. I want them to be well educated and equipped with a passport to the world of work after that. I want them to be an asset to their city and their family and to themselves. I want to see our local authority continuing to pull its act together, which it has done in recent years in Norfolk, and I want to see our local authority continuing to apply those high educational standards.

I will continue to work with that authority to ensure that the funding being made available by this Government benefits Norwich and Norfolk children in their infant school experience. I do that because I believe in peace of mind for parents. I believe they deserve the security of a decent and ambitious education for their children. We owe those children and their parents honesty and a responsible approach to their money and their choice. It is the same old Labour party; on the last count, it would spend the same money 12 times over. It is dishonest to do so. It is also disrespectful to knock the choice of hundreds of my constituents who attend free schools in Norwich. The Labour party does not understand parental choice and does not understand good quality. It does not understand the taxpayers or their money. It has no plan on this point.

To sum up, I am backing those parents in Norwich. They want that peace of mind for their children’s schooling. We have made that funding available to put right the Labour party’s wrongs in culling 200,000 school places at the height of the baby boom. This is intensely relevant to Norwich. I want to see this put right for the constituents whom I represent and I want to see those constituents served well, with a better tone of debate than we have seen at times this afternoon.

17:56

[Fabian Hamilton (Leeds North East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith). We are both graduates of the university of York, of which I am very proud, and I am sure she is too. I want to echo the hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), who spent 10 years on his local authority before being elected to this place; I did likewise.

I should declare an interest. First, I am the father of three children, all of whom attended local infant and junior schools in Pudsey, Leeds. Secondly, I was a city councillor in Leeds for 10 years and I was on the education committee, ending up as chair of that committee, before being elected here. Thirdly, I have seen at first hand, as I am sure have many hon. Members, the effect of smaller class sizes on the quality of a child’s education—both the children of my constituents and, of course, my own children, who attended what was then a separate infant school in Pudsey.

If the current trend in the growth of class sizes continues, it will be tragic for the educational prospects of our children, because within six years from now up to 450,000 young children could be in classes of over 30. Time and again we have heard evidence that has pointed to the educational benefits of small class sizes. Many right hon. and hon. Members have mentioned that. That is especially the case for children between the ages of four and seven. It is no coincidence that one of the strongest selling points for fee-paying private schools is small class sizes. Surely that is what we would all like for every child. I am sure that no hon. Member would disagree with that.

Like every hon. Member, since 2010 I have dealt with a growing number of parents who cannot get their child into the school of their choice. They face either an appeal, which if won leads to larger class sizes, or their child attending a school miles away, often in a very different community. Imagine the anxiety of so many parents whose child cannot attend the same school as an older sibling; other Members have mentioned that. It is even worse when three children in a family are forced to attend three separate schools, as has happened to some of my constituents. The hon. Member for North Swindon talked about choice, but what choice does that situation leave parents in my Leeds North East constituency? There is no choice.

[Toby Perkins]

My hon. Friend talks about choice. Is there not a difference between the experience of some of his constituents who have three children all going to different schools and that of the entire Government, who all seem to have been to the same school?

[Fabian Hamilton]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend.

We talk about choice, but we should recognise that surplus places are needed for that.

[Mr Gibb]

I went to a state school in Pudsey—Pudsey Bolton Royd school—for three weeks. Is the hon. Gentleman aware that between 2007 and 2011 the Labour Government gave £16 million to Leeds for basic need, whereas between 2011 and 2015—a similar period—this Government allocated £99 million? Can he explain why the figure between 2007 and 2011 was so small when there was already evidence of an increase in the birth rate?

[Fabian Hamilton]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Of course I cannot explain that in detail, because I was not party to the decisions made at the time. What I can explain is that at that time there were falling rolls and a number of surplus places in the city of Leeds, and many of us argued with our own Government that in order to have true parental choice there must be surplus places and that inevitably the birth rate would go up.

I remember well Fir Tree primary school in my constituency. The local authority was controlled by the Conservatives and Lib Dems—it was a foretaste of the coalition that we have in government today, but in Leeds city council—and it decided to close that school. I was one of the many people who said, “Don’t close it, because it’s likely that we will have a rising birth rate”, which is exactly what has happened, and that debate is very current in that part of my constituency today.

I do not think that the issue of overcrowding in some of our schools is particularly related to the insistence on smaller class sizes; rather, it is related to the dogmatic insistence on the establishment of free schools, as many right hon. and hon. Members have already mentioned.

I hope that I will not upset my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State by saying this, but personally I am not opposed to free schools in principle. However, I am totally opposed to the funding for those schools being top-sliced from the budgets for local authority schools. That is appalling. Local authorities should plan school places; that should not be removed from local authorities. I have never understood the antipathy of those on the Government Benches to the idea of allowing local authorities the democratic accountability that they bring when they plan school places. It seems appalling that we have almost a free-for-all in the allocation of places.

Mill Field primary school is in the very deprived Chapeltown, Chapel Allerton part of Leeds North East. Its head teacher, Stephen Watkins, one of the most experienced primary heads in west Yorkshire, tells me that the rule on class size limits at key stage 1 is now “widely ignored”, mainly because local authorities cannot open new schools in response to local demand. He says that the decisions of independent review panels will often be to admit pupils in spite of the class size ceiling being a maximum of 30 pupils. The result is not only larger class sizes but a lot of primary schools that are now so large that they have many hundreds of children on their rolls.

According to the Office for National Statistics, more babies were born in 2011-12 than at any time since 1972, which means demand for primary school places is set to soar and put even more pressure on the system in 2015 and 2016. But what is the Government’s response? It is the creation of more free schools—schools that have little or no public scrutiny of their operations, at the expense of areas of high need, as highlighted by many Members. It is all very well to say that 500,000 new primary school places have been created under this Government, but what use are they if all of them, or at least very many, are in the wrong places? As always with the coalition, choice is greater for those who already have it but denied to those in greatest need.

It is interesting to look back at some of the statements made by the Prime Minister when he was Leader of the Opposition. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) has already quoted this one, but I will quote it again to remind Members of what he said to the Yorkshire Post, of all newspapers, on 18 April 2008:

“A Conservative Government will give many more children access to the kind of education that is currently only available to the well-off: safe class rooms, talented and specialist teachers, access to the best curriculum and exams, and smaller schools with smaller class sizes with teachers who know the children’s names.”

He went on to say:

“The more we can get class sizes down, the better.”

So what went wrong? We now have more than five times as many primary schools with over 800 pupils in England than we had in 2010. According to the Office for National Statistics, three times more infants—93,665—are now taught in classes of over 30 pupils than in 2010. As a Leeds MP and former chair of the city’s education committee, it troubles me, as well as every parent in the city, that the number of infants in classes of over 30 pupils increased from 568 in January 2010 to 2,346 in January 2014—an increase of 313%. That is a poor testament to this Government’s oft-boasted commitment to our children’s education and a complete contradiction of the Prime Minister’s promise made in 2008, and many times since.

Sadly, it is not the Prime Minister or his Government who will suffer as a result of these broken promises but the thousands of young children whose educational opportunities will be reduced as a result of this failure—often those in the most deprived parts of our country who never had much opportunity to start with. The Secretary of State should hang her head in shame at the way in which these children have been let down by a Government who promised so much and have delivered so little.

[Kevin Brennan]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton) mentioned the Secretary of State. Apparently, while our debate is going on, the Secretary of State is participating in a live video webchat with The Times Educational Supplement rather than attending the debate that she opened and listening to the remarks that my hon. Friend has just made. Is that within the courtesies of the House?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Mr Brennan, you know very well that that is definitely not a point of order. You know as well as I do that as long as there is a Minister on the Front Bench, that suffices for the debate taking place. We all want to get the speeches in, and I want to hear you later as well—in which case, let us get under way.

18:08

[Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)]

I am quite pleased that the Secretary of State is doing her job in articulating our excellent policies on education to the public of the United Kingdom. I hope that the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) informed the Secretary of State of his comments, as my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith) informed the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) about raising her non-appearance previously.

I apologise, Mr Deputy Speaker, because I inadvertently did not catch your eye in the right order. I was not looking at you and did not bounce up at the appropriate time.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Do not worry about it—obviously your chat was more important than catching my eye.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I can’t answer that, can I?

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton). There have been a number of interesting contributions by Opposition Members, as well as a reasonable amount of confusion. I left midway through the speech by the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander). I was agreeing with a lot of what she said until she got to the bit where she decided that free schools were a poisonous idea in the British education system. After this debate, and given what the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), said, I would be fascinated to know what exactly the Opposition’s policy is on free schools.

My constituency is fairly well-off and has a very low unemployment rate—the long-term economic plan is working very nicely in Daventry, and I think most of my constituents want to make sure that it is a Conservative Government who keep that going after the general election —but it does have areas of rural deprivation and there are other needs. A group of parents got together because they want to form a free school for children of all ages with special educational needs. There is a need for such a school in my constituency and, indeed, the general area of my part of west Northamptonshire. I wonder whether the Opposition’s policy is to tell those parents and children who need special provision, “No; because you happen to live in what we perceive to be one of the better parts of the country, you can’t have that educational need.” That is a very dicey approach to policy.

It is a shame we have not taken a step back during this debate and considered educational needs across the country, because they are so varied in every location. I know that my constituency is remarkably different from many others.

I have the privilege of sitting on the Public Accounts Committee and I will make a few points with regard to that in a moment when I talk about class sizes. The Chairman of the Committee is a feisty Member of Parliament and represents Dagenham and Redbridge—[Interruption.] Sorry, she is Barking, isn’t she?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I don’t think she is.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

God, I hope Hansard does not pick that comment up.

The right hon. Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge) is an excellent Committee Chairman: she is feisty and interrogates her witnesses very well. Occasionally we go on away-days related to the subjects we are considering. We looked at school places in 2013 and visited the right hon. Lady’s constituency to see the pressures that migration and immigration have brought to our country. We visited the Gascoigne primary school on the Gascoigne estate. I can honestly say that I was both shocked at the size of this second biggest primary school in the whole country and amazed by the quality of teaching being delivered by the teachers. Even though numerous languages were spoken at the school—I believe there were 70 of them at that particular time, but I might be wrong—and that one class had had a turnover of nearly 80% during the previous school year, a fantastic education was still happening. Although class sizes are very important—I guess this is the point I was trying to make to the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins)—so is quality teaching, and I saw some excellent examples of it on that particular day.

The pressures faced by that particular school and catchment area in Barking are so different from those in my constituency that I do not think it is possible honestly to say that a one-size-fits-all education policy will work for the two areas. More flexibility and more different types of schools—the more choice we give people—means we can provide a better education for the kids who go to school in Barking and in Daventry. Having exactly the same system is not the best thing.

School places is a very political subject. Members of the Public Accounts Committee get to read the odd National Audit Office report, which are excellent and provide us with lots of statistics, one of which I mentioned when I intervened on the shadow Secretary of State. It is true that the previous Government cut 200,000 primary school places in the middle of a baby boom, at a time when immigration and migration were soaring. The stat was from the report “Capital funding for new school places”, dated March 2013. The exact statistic was that

“the number of primary places fell by almost 207,000 (5 per cent) between 2003/04 and 2009/10.”

We are chucking statistics around, as we can in this debate—it is really easy to do in education—but they sometimes do not tell the whole story.

With a growing population, there will always be pressure on school places. The hon. Member for Leeds North East mentioned the baby boom that we have just had. To deal with that will require intense planning and investment in our education system in a very short period, and it would test any Government to match school places with population in those circumstances. To be quite honest, if we look behind the scenes at where this Government have already delivered some school places, we can see that although they could do better—every Government could do better—it is not doing as badly as he made out.

I am pleased that this Government are giving councils £5 billion to spend on new school places during this Parliament, which is double the amount allocated by the previous Government over a similar period. Some 260,000 new school places have been created under this Government. The majority, although not all, of them are where there is a shortage of places now. The population is growing in Daventry, as it is in urban centres: not all such places will be created in the places of highest need, because there is an equal need across the whole country.

I am very lucky to have a university technical college in my constituency. It gives a different type of education to secondary pupils, and it is doing remarkably well. It is in addition to the provision that already exists, but it is needed. We can see from the increase in the birth rate now that we will need such secondary places in the years to come. That sensible investment in education infrastructure is much needed by my constituents, but I understand that other Members will want to ensure that equal provision is made for theirs.

I do like free schools, because they add something to the mix. When the Opposition have a sensible debate on free schools, I hope in future that they will not just cast their eye over them and think, “It’s a Conservative idea, therefore it’s a bad one.” If we look at where the idea was spawned and where communities have been helped in America and Sweden, we can see that the schools—they are not what we would call free schools but the set-up is similar—have delivered an amazing level of education to pupils in areas of the greatest need. Free schools could be a part, if just a part, of the solution to some of the issues raised by Opposition Members.

Seven out of 10 free school places in this country have been created in areas of most need.

[Tristram Hunt]

Another dodgy stat.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

It is not a dodgy stat, actually. As 78% of statistics are made up on the spot, some of them will be vaguely rogue, but that one is true.

The Government are spending £18 billion on school buildings during this Parliament, which is more than double the amount that Labour spent in its first two Parliaments. A lot of good stuff is going on in our education system.

I want to return briefly to the Public Accounts Committee’s report on “Capital funding for new school places” from back in March 2013. If we took a tiny part of the politics out of this issue and looked just at our headline findings, we would see, first, that there was a reasonable level of agreement between both sides of the House, and secondly, an understanding that we needed a bespoke solution for pretty much every part of the country, because educational needs are very different in every part of the country. One of our conclusions was:

“The Department was slow to respond to the rising demand for school places.”

That was a fair criticism. However, we understood the reasons. We took evidence from the permanent secretary. As the hon. Member for Leeds North East said, if one looks at how the birth rate accelerated in 2011-12, one can see that it is very difficult to predict. I was quite impressed by the structure and processes that the Department has in the background. It grabs the statistics from the Office for National Statistics and then looks at birth rates and migration trails to work out where the resources would be best placed in the education system. I did not even know that that happened before we took that evidence.

The Department has improved the way in which it targets money to areas of need, but there are still gaps in the understanding of the full costs of delivering new places. The Department was getting there two years ago. If one looks at the Treasury minutes and the outcomes of what we found, the Department has improved even further. There is therefore good news as well as bad.

It would be nice to hear Opposition Front Benchers say that they understand that there are different needs in different parts of the country and that a one-size-fits-all education policy with the same provision all over the place simply will not work to the benefit of all our children.

18:19

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris). It was interesting to hear him draw on his experiences on the Public Accounts Committee. That was a good contribution.

I disagreed with the hon. Gentleman fundamentally on one point. He said that education should not be the same throughout the country. Of course, he was right about that. However, education never has been the same everywhere in the country and it certainly did not become the same under the last Labour Government. We actively supported specialist schools and introduced academies. Far more choice was generated by the Labour Government than we are given credit for.

Although neither the hon. Gentleman nor the Opposition want education to be exactly the same, one thing that we do want to be the same is the opportunity for all children. That, plainly, is not the case at the moment. Equal opportunity is not afforded to all children regardless of their background. That is why this debate counts. It is not about a very small area of the garden. We are talking not just about infant school class sizes nudging up over 30, but about what that means for the future. We are talking not just about the children who are now experiencing education in very large classes, but about what that means as it continues. I remember being at school in the ’80s under a Tory Government—we are all talking about when we were educated—when class sizes were much larger than they are now. I do not wish to see that for children who are currently in infant schools. When they get to secondary school, will they still be taught in classes that are larger and larger? The detriment is exaggerated as a child gets older.

I am particularly concerned about this matter because I see the huge disparity between the outcomes for the 7% of children who are privately educated, with the opportunities that they can access—they do very well—and the outcomes for the 93% of young people who are educated in state schools. That issue has been well debated. The Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission has had a huge amount to say about the critical role of education in providing better opportunities to kids from all backgrounds.

According to the OECD, state primary schools have class sizes with four or more pupils larger than those in independent schools. The difference in secondary schools is significantly worse. Average class sizes in UK state secondary schools are more than double those in independent schools at 21.1 compared with 10.

[Justin Tomlinson]

The hon. Lady is giving a characteristically great speech. I agree with absolutely everything that she has said. Will she therefore explain the logic of the last Government cutting 200,000 places, thus denying people opportunity and choice?

[Jenny Chapman]

When I consider the issue I look at what is happening now, and numbers in my constituency have risen by 66%—66% more infant school pupils are being taught in classes of more than 30. That is happening now, and I am interested in what the Government will do to fix it.

I am a bit like some of my colleagues who said that they did not want to upset the shadow Secretary of State—of course I do not want to upset him. I do not think he would be upset by what I am about to say, but I do not produce a lot of antibodies at the mention of a free school. In Darlington we have a school that is a free school in name only. It was established by a local academy that wanted extra provision for pupils with special needs. We are a pragmatic bunch in Darlington and will go where the money is. These days, if we want capital money, we make ourselves a free school—“Thank you very much, we’ll have one of those.” We have that and it is going fine. There was not a peep out of me as a Labour MP or the Labour council. We will get on with it, and if it gets us the outcomes we need for young people in the town, that is what we will do.

We have another free school that is a little more unusual because it is a private school that decided it would like to become a free school. That got me scratching my head a little—I think that finances may have been a little tight, which may have focused its mind on that transition. However, as a good socialist, the opportunity to take away a fee-paying school and make education available to all was not something I was going to let pass by, and I have worked with those trying to set up the free school and wish it every success. It will be relatively small and will help to provide the additional places that we may need in Darlington, particularly for primary education.

I have listened to colleagues from different parts of the country and it is clearly not the experience everywhere that the additional resources—scarce though they are—are following the additional need. That is where our objection lies. This is not about governance. We are quite relaxed about different forms of governance in education, as we can prove by our record. It is about ensuring that we spend the money where it needs to be spent, so that we do not end up with class sizes creeping up slowly over time.

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

Everyone would agree that capital spend, limited as it always is, should focus on areas of greatest need, but does the hon. Lady recognise that the problem in Enfield was that the previous Government did not follow that through? They focused on Building Schools for the Future to fund secondary school buildings, and £1 million spent on consultants and not a brick laid to build more. Our primary schools were bursting at the seams, and desperately in need of what they have now achieved in terms of doubling spending and getting more primary school places. That is what the Government are now doing.

[Jenny Chapman]

I do not know the situation in Enfield, obviously, but I recognise the Building Schools for the Future that the hon. Gentleman describes. I tried to get BSF money for Darlington for three schools that badly needed it, and found the process absolutely tortuous. The process was perhaps too heavy and too rigorous, but it was there to ensure that resources went to the schools that needed them most. We had to demonstrate that the places we were creating and building capacity for would be needed, that we were not creating surplus places and there was demand for places in those schools, and that the right decision would not have been to go and expand another popular school somewhere else. I accept the hon. Gentleman’s criticism of BSF up to a point, but this Government have gone too far the other way. There needs to be some kind of procedure to ensure that money is spent where it is needed, and I have not heard any real answer to that throughout the debate.

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

Is the hon. Lady aware that in my constituency there were, I think, six secondary schools, and that from today there are seven? The reason their number has grown—the reason we needed a new school—was that one school was good and five were poor. The creation of a new school will give the other children the chance to do well.

[Jenny Chapman]

I am not familiar with the situation in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, and he did not actually tell me where his constituency was, so I am slightly disadvantaged, but I support the idea of looking at the choices parents make, and where there is pressure on a small but popular school, I favour its expansion to enable parental choice, if that can be done without harming the educational standards of the students already there. Opposition Members have supported that approach in their constituencies for years, so I do not see it as a point of debate.

My concern is about the standard of education afforded to children being taught in extremely large classes. I queried our briefing on this debate, which said there were classes of 70, and I could not believe it possible—it is not something I have ever witnessed—but I was assured that it was happening. If so, it is an urgent problem that must be addressed immediately. It would be galling if hon. Members, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander), saw money being spent in other boroughs, while her parents cannot get their children into classes of reasonable sizes.

It might seem like we are picking at a sore just to make a political point, but that is not it; this is about the future and what it signals not just for young people being educated now, but for all children as they progress through their school careers. We must nip this problem in the bud because if it continues it will only get worse, and children’s secondary education will be affected far more. Schools are probably managing quite well now, so this is more about the future than the argument over free schools or what the last Labour Government spent on school buildings. I am proud of what that Government achieved. In 1997, we had outdoor toilets in schools in Darlington, but we rebuilt, I think, every primary school in the town. Outcomes for young people and children there have soared ever since; the achievement gap between the highest and lowest achievers has narrowed, and the achievement of the top kids has got even better. That is a great record, and I am very proud of it, and it would be a shame if we let something like class sizes prevent that opportunity from being afforded to young people growing up now.

18:32

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

We have had an interesting and well-informed debate with contributions from hon. Members on both sides of the House, including my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander), who is no longer in her place, but who spoke passionately about the waste of resources when her constituency desperately needed school places.

We also heard from the hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), who said he worked at the coal face in Swindon for many years and claimed to be above party politics—before launching into his highly partisan comments. My hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) said that my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) and I were glad to see the previous Secretary of State go. May I correct him? We were disappointed that he left, because the polls were showing the impact he was having on voters—not just teachers, but parents. Had he carried on, we would have been heading for a landslide. Nevertheless, we now have the continuity Secretary of State.

We heard from the hon. Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith), who also is not in her place, and from my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton), who, like the hon. Member for North Swindon, served for 10 years as a local councillor, as did I—it is obviously a common apprenticeship for this House. We also heard from the hon. Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris), who said it was easy to bandy about statistics, and then immediately did so himself, copiously. We then heard, as usual, a common-sense contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Jenny Chapman), who said we were looking not for uniformity, but for equality of opportunity. She was exactly right, as she was about how resources should follow need—a point, in fact, that touches precisely on the nature of this debate.

I am sorry that, even after that preamble, the Secretary of State has not been able to return from her live web chat, after opening the debate, to be here for the wind-ups. I am sorry about that, Mr Speaker, and if I refer to her in her absence, it is not through choice.

It is always a bit of a lottery seeing who will turn up to education debates these days, because the Department for Education has become so dysfunctional after four years of being run by a right-wing ideologue and his crazed advisers that we have not one, but two Schools Ministers. One is the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), whom I am sincerely delighted to welcome back to his place on the Front Bench today. Despite our disagreements, we have always got on very well on a personal level, and I am glad that he was resuscitated by the Prime Minister, in the recent botched reshuffle, to placate the right wing of the Conservative parliamentary party. It is his job, we are told by the Prime Minister, to preserve the legacy of his former boss, who has now been forced into a vow of silence as the Chief Whip.

The other Schools Minister—the yellow variety—who seems to have become an invisible man these days in debates on schools in the Chamber, is obviously—

[Ben Gummer]

He is working hard.

[Kevin Brennan]

I am sure he is working hard—in his other job, in the Cabinet Office, dreaming up more fantasy Lib Dem manifesto pledges at the taxpayer’s expense. Indeed, it appears—just to be topical for a moment—that the coalition Government have now introduced compulsory setting, in that the two Schools Ministers are not allowed to be in the same room at the same time. That perhaps explains why the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr Laws) is not here with us this afternoon.

However, it would be useful if the Minister in this debate would clarify in his winding-up speech—[Interruption] —after he has finished reading the Parliamentary Private Secretary’s telephone—the whole shambolic issue around setting, which we have heard about today. We have not really had clarity today; we have just had chaos, in what is, after all, the first major policy announcement by the Secretary of State. It would be good if this House were told exactly what is going on, rather than our having to try to find out from Twitter. Despite the Secretary of State’s earlier remarks about not relying on Twitter for such information, we have to, unless we get it in the Chamber, which is where we should first hear of such things.

The first duty of any Education Minister is to ensure a sufficiency of good school places where they are needed. The figures that have been unearthed in recent weeks and which have been highlighted in today’s debate show that the Government have failed in that basic duty. We all remember the pledge, which has been mentioned in the debate, in the 2010 Conservative manifesto, when the Prime Minister promised

“small schools with smaller class sizes”

and said,

“the more we can get class sizes down, the better”.

That pledge has turned out to be as worthless as a Lib Dem pledge on tuition fees, because we have seen a 200% increase in the number of infants in larger class sizes over 30 since 2010, and the pressure on places is growing.

[Toby Perkins]

I am prompted to rise to my feet by my hon. Friend’s mention of the Liberal Democrats. I wonder whether he would like to reflect on the fact that we have had a debate on schools with not a single contribution from a Liberal Democrat Member. Is it not remarkable, when we think of what the Liberal Democrats once were, that we can get through an entire debate on education without a single Liberal Democrat thinking it worth actually turning up and speaking?

[Kevin Brennan]

I apologise for provoking my hon. Friend, but as I think I explained earlier, this is all part of the Secretary of State’s new policy on setting, in that the Lib Dems are set in a different group for this subject and are not allowed to participate in our discussions.

That pledge by the Prime Minister turned out to be worthless, so one would think, under the circumstances, that every sinew of ministerial effort at the Department for Education would be straining at the task of tackling this issue—that no distraction from the cause of meeting the challenge would be allowed and that scarce resources would be prioritised for the issue, with money spent on creating school places where there is a real need. But no, because according to the National Audit Office, two thirds of the places created in the Government’s pet free schools project have been created outside areas classed as having high or severe primary school need. The Government try to claim that the programme is tackling the shortage of places, but the very essence of the programme—a built-in design feature of the policy—is that the distribution of free schools is essentially random. The Department has received no applications to open primary free schools in half of all districts with high or severe forecast need for school places—not one. In fact, overall, only 38% of approved free schools are primary schools, while over 40% of them are secondary. Given that secondary schools are typically double the size of primary schools, despite the growth of “titan” ones under this Government, far more secondary school places are being created than primary school ones, which is where the greater need exists. As we have seen from the debate, there is an acute need. In other words, this Government’s insistence on ideology over pragmatism in opening new schools is producing the wrong kind of schools—secondary—in the wrong places. That is the very definition of policy failure.

Indeed, the National Audit Office found that 42 schools had opened in districts with no forecast need, with estimated capital costs of at least £241 million out of a projected total of £951 million for mainstream schools. That is not an accident. The Minister of State, Department for Education, the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton used to care passionately about class sizes. He told “Daily Politics” back in 2009 that it was important to get class sizes down,

“particularly at primary school level. This is really dramatic, how big our class sizes are compared with other countries.”

That is what he said in 2009, when there were 31,000 infant children in class sizes over 30; by January this year, that had risen to 93,000, which really is dramatic. Before the general election, the Minister told BBC London:

“A child can wander around corridors of a school anonymously because the teacher will not know the name and face of every child in the school. Smaller schools are much more intimate and it’s difficult for a child to be anonymous.”

Those are fine words, but the number of titan primary schools is soaring, with nearly five times the number of primary schools with over 800 pupils than in 2010. So much for intimate smaller schools as promised by the Minister.

What about this Minister’s views on trying to alleviate growing numbers by targeting the resources to areas where there is a shortage rather than a surplus of places? Here is what he said to “Attain Magazine” in spring 2010 about areas with surplus places:

“If it has surplus places beyond a certain figure, 10%, they will at the moment resist any new school coming in because they’ve got to fill these places first. But we’re saying that’s irrelevant”.

That was his attitude. “Irrelevant”—there we have it; it is not an accident. Instead of directing resources to where there is a shortage of places, more places are created where there is surplus of more than 10%. Why? Because right-wing ideology demands a market solution—creating an over-supply to drive out existing schools, rather than operate supportive and collaborative systems such as the highly successful London Challenge approach under Labour, which raised standards for all, and allow investment in new places to happen where those places are needed.

That is the ideology that lies at the root of the places crisis that we are seeing today, and the attempts to blame the last Labour Government are a smokescreen. The number of pupils in primary schools was falling between 2005 and 2010—it fell by 107,000—and the projections of increased numbers from the Office for National Statistics did not come until 2008-10. The last Government recognised that while overall numbers were falling at the time, in some areas, particularly in larger local authorities, more places would be needed. They provided core capital funding of £400 million a year from 2007-08 to 2010-11 to cover local growth in demand for places. Of course, the current Government never acknowledge that in their attempt to create a smokescreen about their role in the places crisis.

In addition, there was an annual “safety-valve” whereby local authorities, if they felt they needed it, could apply for additional funding to address exceptional growth. Until 2009, very few did, but in 2010-11, an extra £266 million was allocated to 36 authorities to provide primary places for September 2010 and 2011.

[Mr Gibb]

rose—

[Kevin Brennan]

I will let the Minister answer in his winding-up speech; I do not want to eat into his time.

That additional funding is never mentioned by Ministers seeking to deflect blame for their failure. In fact, in the last two years of the Labour Government, schools capital budgets were £4.08 billion and £4.44 billion; in the first two years of this Government, they were £3.62 billion and £3.1 billion—storing up huge issues for the future, with the main maintenance and repair budget also slashed. These cuts in capital make it all the more of a dereliction to direct funds away from areas in which places are needed. We will restore coherence to the system, and ensure that precious resources are spent where those places are needed. We will also end the ludicrous system whereby Ministers approve new schools and, in particular, new free schools, which is the Government’s current policy.

Members, including the Secretary of State, mentioned Falcons Sikh free school in Leicester. It was due to open at the weekend, but at the last second the Under-Secretary, Lord Nash, ditched it, leaving 70 pupils and their parents high and dry and uncertain about the future. How could circumstances arise in which, the weekend before a school was due to open, a Minister had to intervene to ensure that it did not do so? Where were the checks along the way? Why was the process allowed to reach that stage without the problem being picked up earlier? We need answers to those questions, because Falcons was exactly the sort of school that is supposed to be providing the places that we say are needed in our system.

What a shambolic and wasteful way to run a school system! We will restore local accountability through independent directors of school standards. We will stop the waste, and build for the future.

18:46

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)]

We have had a very good debate, but I must admit that I was surprised by the Opposition’s choice of subject, because they do not come to this issue with clean hands. There has been a steady increase in the birth rate in this country since 2002. Between 2002 and 2010, there was a 22% increase in the annual birth rate. There were 120,000 more births in 2011 than there were in 2002. It should have been clear to the last Labour Government that that would translate into a need for more primary school places, but huge amounts of taxpayers’ money was devoted to rebuilding existing secondary schools in the Building Schools for the Future programme, and the Government cut 200,000 primary school places instead of creating more.

For that reason, one of the first decisions that the present Government had to make was to double the amount of money allocated to basic need capital—the money provided to increase the number of school places. Over the whole Parliament, that amounts to some £5 billion, and another £2.35 billion has already been announced for 2015-17. That is in addition to the £820 million that the Government are spending to create more than 70,000 new places through the targeted basic need programme, and in addition to the 250 free schools which have been opened since 2010 and are delivering more good-quality places in areas that need them. The £5 billion contrasts with the £1.9 billion that was spent by the previous Government over the same period—and I can tell the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) that that does include the £400 million per year over four years, the £60 million safety valve, and the emergency top-up of £250 million or £260 million which was allocated when the last Government began to realise that there was a problem.

This Government are committed to keeping infant class sizes at or below 30 children, but we want to do so in a way that will not split up twins or hinder our objective of giving the best possible start to children in care. No one takes seriously the irresponsible scare stories from Opposition Front Benchers, which are reflected in their motion and based on a deliberate misreading of census data. The truth is that a single snapshot taken on a Thursday in January will always reflect the fact that some schools bring classes together for assembly, PE, or other lessons such as drama and music. As the hon. Member for Darlington (Jenny Chapman) should know, it is simply wrong to claim that that means there are infant classes of 70. In fact, the average number of pupils in an infant class is 27.4. In primary schools as a whole, the proportion of pupils in very large classes of 35 or more has fallen since 2010, and since 2010, nearly 4,500 infant classes have been added to our school sector.

I listened very carefully to the shadow Education Secretary’s speech. It beggars belief because he talked about titan schools, yet the last Government were the past masters of creating titan schools, as they amalgamated schools because of the surplus places rule that required local authorities to remove surplus places even while it was clear, as the hon. Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton) pointed out, that the birth rate was increasing and that in four or five years’ time those places would need to be recreated. What a waste, which is why this Government abolished the regulations that amount to the surplus places rule.

It was interesting to note, during the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), the shadow Education Secretary’s sedentary intervention that pupils should have to go to schools that are unpopular and underperforming before a new school can be built. It is the quality of schools that matter, just as much as the quantity.

The shadow Education Secretary complains about the free school programme, but the 250 free schools have added 175,000 new school places, 72% of open mainstream free schools are in areas of basic need of school places and 74% of free schools opening this September are in areas of basic need. He should also know that half of open free schools are in the most deprived 30% of communities in the country. Free schools are opening up opportunities in areas where parents are unhappy with the standard of education on offer, and he should be supporting these proposals, as his party colleague the hon. Member for Darlington is doing in a pragmatic way. The shadow Education Secretary should also know that in his own local authority of Stoke-on-Trent the funding for new places under the last Labour Government, between 2007 and 2011, was £2.5 million, whereas under this Government it is £12.5 million.

I listened very carefully to the speech of the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander), and I do understand the concerns she raised and the challenges some parents face in securing primary school places: the proportion of people nationally who achieve their first place is about 95.7%, but in Lewisham that figure is 75.5%, one of the lowest in the country, so I understand the concerns she is raising. That is why we have allocated capital of some £96 million to Lewisham to try to tackle that problem.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon raised important points about new developments and the need for new schools. He is right that the surplus places rule should not force parents to send their children to failing or underperforming schools which is why we abolished that rule, and he is also right to point out the importance of building schools more efficiently using standard designs. That has resulted in huge savings being made in constructing new schools compared with the wasteful Building Schools for the Future programme. We have cut the cost of construction of a new school by 40%, and he is right to point out that that will help in applications for school places. Some 92% of parents in Swindon got their first priority and 98% got one of their top three schools, so he is right to praise the local authority for what it has been doing.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller) on his work, on the support he has given to raising education standards in Bedford and on his support for Bedford free school. Parents support the education standards of that school, the strong pastoral care and the exemplary behaviour delivered by its head teacher Mark Lehane and his staff.

[Pat Glass]

The Bedford free school is less than half full and is costing the taxpayer a great deal of money per pupil. That is the evidence the Select Committee on Education has received.

[Mr Gibb]

There are teething and transition issues as new schools are established and as they establish their reputations. That school was established in the face of fierce opposition from members of the hon. Lady’s party, against the wishes of the parents who send their children to the school. They are very happy with that school and its reputation will grow in the years ahead.

The hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) raised again the myth of larger class sizes, and I again point out that the average infant class size is 27.4 and in primary schools as a whole the proportion of classes of over 35 has fallen since Labour left office. He seems also to have a very dogmatic view about the infant class size rule, so he would rather refuse to give priority to looked-after children or twins and send one twin off to another school, because otherwise the 30 class size rule would be breached. That is a harsh and uncaring approach and most parents would share our approach and not his.

My hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith) has been working hard in her constituency to help schools to tackle the increasing demand for primary places. I pay tribute to her for that important work and I am grateful for her welcome for the announcement of £2.35 billion for basic need over the next three years, giving local authorities the time and certainty to plan. Some £70 million of that money will go to Norfolk, bringing the total basic need capital in Norfolk to £83 million compared with just £22 million under the previous Labour Government.

The hon. Member for Leeds North East made a candid speech about the surplus places rule and about the fact it is short-termist to close schools when rolls are falling. If there is clear evidence that in a few years the rolls will rise again, it is better just to close a classroom, turn off the heating in that room and wait. He also talked about siblings not being able to attend the same school, but he should know that schools can give preference to siblings to avoid that problem.

My hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) spoke interestingly about the Public Accounts Committee away day to Barking and Dagenham. I seem to recall that during my days on the Public Accounts Committee we had more interesting away days than those which the right hon. Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge) has selected for her Committee. My hon. Friend pointed out that pressures in that local authority area are very different from those in his constituency of Daventry, but that is why the Government have provided £148 million of capital for that very small part of east London. That is a staggering sum of money to tackle the real problems with places in that constituency.

I welcome the speech made by the hon. Member for Darlington and her pragmatic support for the free school in her constituency, in contrast to the views of her Front-Bench team. She said that she queried the Labour Whips’ briefing for this debate when she saw the reference to class sizes of 70 and she was right to do so, because it is absolutely wrong. As I said, it is a misinterpretation of the census figures taken on one particular day when in some schools circumstances have led them to amalgamate classes for that one day only. That does not mean that there are routinely classes of 70 in our schools in this country.

Action has been taken by this Government to create more good school places and local authorities are delivering. We have already seen an increase of 260,000 school places between 2010 and 2013, including 212,000 primary places, with more than 300,000 primary places in the pipeline for delivery by September 2015. We are working closely with the local authorities across the country facing the greatest pressures to support them in ensuring that every child is offered a local school place.

That is this Government’s record, taking urgent action to correct the school place deficit left by the Labour party in government, putting in money at a time when across Whitehall savings have had to be made to tackle the crisis of the budget deficit left by the Labour party in government. This is a Government who are raising academic standards in our schools, improving the quality of the curriculum and trust in the exam system, improving the way children are taught to read, improving their arithmetic and mathematics and improving standards of behaviour in our schools. This is a Government who are ambitious to make every parent’s local school a good school and who are preparing young people for life in modern Britain. That is our education plan; a clear plan and a plan that is delivering. The Opposition have no plan, no leadership, no clear sense of direction in their education policy. They are floundering in an area of policy that could not be more important to the long-term future of our economy—

[Ms Rosie Winterton (Doncaster Central) (Lab)]

claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).

Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.

Question agreed to.

Main Question accordingly put.

18:59

Division 44

Ayes: 200

---

Labour: 196
Social Democratic & Labour Party: 1
Plaid Cymru: 1
Democratic Unionist Party: 1
Conservative: 1

Noes: 296

---

Conservative: 258
Liberal Democrat: 36
Independent: 1

Business without Debate

Wednesday 3rd September 2014 Commons Chamber

Delegated Legislation

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)),

Public Bodies

That the draft Public Bodies (Marine Management Organisation) (Fees) Order 2014, which was laid before this House on 13 May 2014, in the last Session of Parliament, be approved.—(Dr Thérèse Coffey.)

Question agreed to.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)),

Companies

That the draft Community Interest Company (Amendment) Regulations 2014, which were laid before this House on 26 June, be approved.—(Dr Thérèse Coffey.)

Question agreed to.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)),

Electricity

That the draft Renewables Obligation Closure Order 2014, which was laid before this House on 30 June, be approved.—(Dr Thérèse Coffey.)

Question agreed to.

independent parliamentary standards authority (motion)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 9(6)),

That the Motion in the name of Mr William Hague relating to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority shall be treated as if it related to an instrument subject to the provisions of Standing Order No. 118 (Delegated Legislation Committees) in respect of which notice has been given that the instrument be approved.—(Dr Thérèse Coffey.)

Question agreed to.

Transport Infrastructure (Northumberland)

Wednesday 3rd September 2014 Commons Chamber

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Dr Thérèse Coffey.)

19:14

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

My constituents and I are grateful to you, Mr Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to have a debate on the transport infrastructure in Northumberland. This coalition Government inherited a massive debt, a serious recession and a country that needed turning around. In Northumberland, it also inherited a transport infrastructure that has lacked investment for some time. We now have a long-term economic plan that is slowly bringing this country out of recession, and we are beginning to put in place a regional north-east infrastructure plan and a Northumberland infrastructure strategy that address the need to improve roads, bridges, buses and railways. We also have the proposed future northern rail franchise and the work of Rail North and the electrification task force to help progress developments in our rail services.

I am here to speak up for our efforts to get better transport infrastructure and help the economic recovery continue as the northern hub cities of Carlisle and Newcastle-Gateshead become ever more connected, prosperous and creative with the jobs and infrastructure that we need and as we improve connectivity to Scotland and Cumbria.

[Rory Stewart (Penrith and The Border) (Con)]

On the subject of connectivity to Scotland and Cumbria, does my hon. Friend agree that in addition to our focus on the A69, the A66 is crucial? The Scotch Corner connection to the under-used M6 has for years needed to be dualled; the plans are in place, and the Department for Transport should act on that immediately.

[Guy Opperman]

I endorse entirely what my hon. Friend says, but I will also make a very strong case for the A69.

[John Stevenson (Carlisle) (Con)]

rose—

[Guy Opperman]

On cue, my hon. Friend jumps to his feet.

[John Stevenson]

I lend my hon. Friend my support in making his suggestions and representations. Like the A66, the A69 is key for Carlisle, and my constituents would be delighted to see it dualled. In the short term, we would like to see improvements to it. I suggest that he, my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) and I make representations to the Department about improving and ultimately dualling the A69.

[Guy Opperman]

I entirely endorse that and certainly have begun the process of meeting the Highways Agency and the Department for Transport, following the meeting that I had with the Secretary of State about the A69 earlier in the summer.

[Rory Stewart]

Does my hon. Friend agree that if we look at dualling the A69, we should also look at creative ideas such as a bypass and bridge at Warwick Bridge, to ensure that the misery of its inhabitants is alleviated?

[Guy Opperman]

I seem to be straying quite a way from Northumberland, and I have not made it past page 1 of my speech, but my hon. Friend makes a fair point. Having driven through that village, I recognise that it needs a bypass.

The dependence on public transport in the rural north is strong, and the importance of proper transport links cannot be overstated, whether it is for the children who are struggling to get to school, the patients who need to travel to urban-based hospitals or the many thousands of tourists who visit Northumberland national park, Hadrian’s wall and our county’s many attractions.

On heritage, transport infrastructure is going full circle. Northumberland is the birthplace of the father of the railways, George Stephenson. He was born in June 1781 next to the Tyne in my constituency, and built the first public steam railway between Liverpool and Manchester in 1830. The industrial revolution and advances in transport emanated from the north east, yet our transport legacy is showing its age. I am pleased to say that one of the finest examples of Victorian engineering, Ovingham bridge, which was opened in 1883, is being fully refurbished thanks to £3 million of pinch point funding from the Department. In addition, Wark bridge is being rebuilt thanks to the campaign that I started with Councillor Edward Heslop and many of the enterprising locals from Wark back in 2009.

I come now to the specifics and the issue of roads. All of us welcome the widening of the A1 western bypass, especially between Lobley Hill and the A184 junction, which will tackle congestion and speed up journey times. It is a key consequence of the Government’s Newcastle city deal. I for one will continue to push the Chancellor, as part of the long-term economic plan, to commit final funds for the Dual the A1 campaign, led by, among others, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), the local communities and the north-east chamber of commerce. This last stretch of dualling north of Morpeth will transform the north Northumberland economy and improve connectivity to Scotland, and, let us be blunt, save lives.

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

Would it not be a good idea, just weeks before the referendum, to make it clear that we care about the link between the north-east and Scotland? An announcement on dualling the A1 would be very helpful.

[Guy Opperman]

We could not make the case more clearly that we care that the Scots stay as part of the Union and that we hope they say “No thanks” on 18 September.

The A69 is the chief arterial route that connects east and west across the rural north. It is dualled between Newcastle and Hexham, but thereafter it is a notorious stretch of single-track road, with occasional dual passing points. It has seen too many accidents, and its limitations are holding back the growth of the economy in west Northumberland and Cumbria.

As I said, I met the Secretary of State for Transport in the summer, I continue to make representations to the Department for Transport and the Highways Agency, and I very much hope that the three key Members of Parliament who are concerned with this road will be taking forward their commitment to trying to improve in many shapes and forms the A69 west of Hexham, leading on into Carlisle. We accept—I will help the Minister on this point—that the present spending round is committed up to 2016, but I want to make the case today that the upgrading of this crucial road should be in the frame for the investment programme post-2016, leading up to 2020.

Finally, I come to the A696 as it heads to Otterburn, which only last month saw another fatality. Clearly, that is not part of the DFT strategic road network, but I welcome the recent increase in the DFT integrated transport block funding, paid by the Department to Northumberland county council for transport capital improvement schemes. The allocations to Northumberland during the last four years have increased, and last year’s £1.9 million has now risen to £2.7 million. I will be liaising with my Ponteland and other Northumberland county councillors to pitch for improvements for this road from capital funding.

No speech on roads and infrastructure in Northumberland and the rural north could go ahead without a mention of the chronic potholes that we suffer. However, I must thank the DFT for the £5.6 million to alleviate some of our many potholes, and also payments for elsewhere in the north, such that the situation has massively improved, although there are some in various parts of my constituency that, amazingly, have not been addressed.

The Minister has particular responsibility for railways, so I turn my attention to the Tyne Valley line between Newcastle and Carlisle. This is an essential link. It leaves Newcastle, which again has just had an £8.6 million upgrade, paid for by the DFT, and carries significant freight and more than 1 million passengers a year through urban, commuter and rural areas. It connects thousands to their jobs, hospitals and schools, and provides connections for the long-distance services that emanate from Newcastle and Carlisle. I am in regular contact with members of the excellent Tyne Valley rail users group, and I thank them and all the constituents who have written to me and made representations on my blog or in any other way for their help both in keeping me informed and in preparing for this speech.

Looking to the future, the potential for the line is vast. This northerly cross-country route needs greater attention. There are significant issues surrounding the timetable of the line, ticket retailing and the line’s integration with other modes of transport. The present service features very out-of-date rolling stock. The Sprinter and the infamous 1985 British Leyland Pacer trains desperately need improvement. The Pacers in particular are uncomfortable, expensive in terms of lease and repair costs, are hot in the summer and cold in the winter, lack wi-fi and offer limited luggage space, and my constituents and our tourist visitors deserve better.

Yet despite these limitations, our story locally is a positive one, because these last few years have seen improvements. Frequency on the line has increased, passenger usage at stations west of Hexham has increased markedly, and the service to smaller stations has also improved. In that context, we have the Northern rail franchise. We are all conscious that that is coming, and I want the Minister to allay concerns about the franchise. I hope she agrees that it is essential that the new franchise on the Tyne Valley line offers a timetable that gets passengers to where they want to be, at the times they want to travel, with improved carriages that run on time, and changes that make the railway competitive and more attractive to locals and tourists alike, with integrated ticketing with other transport providers. In short, we want an improvement, not a contraction, of the capacity and the services.

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

I am really enjoying my hon. Friend’s speech and he has a well-deserved reputation as a local champion. I chair the Government’s electrification taskforce. Will he meet me outside this place to go through his proposals, so that I know much more about what is necessary for the line and can take his proposals forward within the taskforce?

[Guy Opperman]

One of the best advances of the Secretary of State has been the creation of the electrification taskforce, and I am glad that a northern MP—in this case, the Member for Harrogate—is leading the way, such that we can make representations. The longer term must see electrification of the Tyne Valley line, as it sits between the east coast line and the west coast line, both of which are electrified. Frankly, without that forward movement we will struggle in the longer term, so I will meet my hon. Friend, as will other Members interested in this area, and I genuinely welcome his intervention.

The increased capacity, customer service and satisfaction, which I understand are the key points of a franchise, are what we seek going forward, and I can only add that the longer the franchise is awarded for, the greater the prospects are for improvements.

Given the time left to me, I will briefly make the point about the Tyne Valley line that along with electrification we need to review the signalling processes and address the maximum speed on the line. I could talk at length about the stations and the Network Rail issues that apply to the line, but I will simply say that I have a forthcoming meeting with Network Rail, at which I will raise the crossing points that concern so many people, as well as everything from the upgrades needed at Prudhoe station and to Bardon Mill station that are being proposed.

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is essential that funding is found for the Ashington-Blyth-Tyne line, to allow people from south-east Northumberland access to the Metro, and to Newcastle, Sunderland and other areas, which will benefit the local economy, jobs and the rest of it?

[Guy Opperman]

It is crucial—and I will make the point in relation to Gilsland station—that this is part of the local enterprise partnership’s strategic economic plan, and that the plan is tied into the work done by the LEP, the county council and the rural growth network, and to the support that is then given, so that we have the integration and development of the transport links that we all look forward to. The electrification that we seek in Northumberland should certainly include the parts of the line that my hon. Friend mentions.

I am completely behind the Campaign to Open Gilsland Station. The work of Julie Gibbon, local councillors and so many local people too numerous to name needs to be applauded and supported.

[Rory Stewart]

I am very fortunate to share Gilsland station with my hon. Friend; in fact, Gilsland stands on the boundary between our two constituencies. Does he agree that, along with the bottom-line analysis that Network Rail must undertake, some recognition needs to be given to the extraordinary energy, imagination and community spirit of the people in Gilsland, who have come up with such an extraordinary proposal?

[Guy Opperman]

I totally agree. I have invited the Minister to come to Northumberland, and I hope she will confirm in her response that she will do so. We would take the Tyne Valley line and get off at Haltwhistle—sadly—to get in a car to drive to Gilsland station, so that she could see this wonderful project and what we propose: that where Hadrian’s wall and the Pennine way cross we will alleviate pressure on the road and bus network, and create significant local jobs and address significant rural poverty. A 1967 closure by Dr Beeching is surely capable of being reversed at relatively low cost, with the wider economic benefits palpably clear to everybody. A feasibility study by the Tyne Valley line rail users group concluded that the revenue from passengers using the station would cover operating costs and that there would be a benefit to the community of over £500,000. This area has suffered from poor transport connections for some considerable time.

Time does not permit me to make the case that over the past year, as my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) will know, we have made tremendous improvements to the bus services that were failing in the Gilsland, Greenhead and Low Row area, with a huge amount of work by all the persons involved. This is a highly rural area that needs the rebuild at Gilsland that we are proposing.

I accept that ultimately direct funding and support will need to come from the two county councils and the two LEPs, which need to push this project into their strategic economic plan for 2016-17. The LEPs need to look to their local growth funds, which are clearly a potential source of the funds we need. We will also be speaking to our individual rural growth networks to assess how they can help. I ask the Minister not only to come and visit but to give the Department’s support, expertise and guidance so that local people can see that this important and much needed campaign is supported and they can be helped through the laughably described GRIP— governance for railway investment projects—process that determines all major railway rebuild programmes.

I am conscious of the time, so many of the points that I would have made about buses and transport connectivity will have to wait for another day, Mr Speaker, when you grant me yet another debate on transport infrastructure in the north.

This really does matter. This is a genuinely rural and semi-rural area that requires the support of public transport, whether because of the difficulties with bus services, the problems that children are having getting to school, or the simple fact that there is a lack of infrastructure available. Moving forward, we are hoping to see an Oyster card system working in the urban areas so that the seven local authorities come together to create an integrated transport system.

I thank you for the time for this debate, Mr Speaker. We look forward to welcoming the Minister soon. We see ourselves at a pivotal point in terms of future planning, future funding, and so much more.

19:32

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Claire Perry)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman)—and he is a friend—on securing this vital debate. He is an assiduous campaigner on many issues in his constituency, specifically on this transport agenda. The debate allows me to stand here and talk about something I am very proud of—the Government’s commitment to spreading the benefits of the investment in rail and roads across the country. It also gives many other colleagues equally committed to transport schemes in their constituencies an opportunity to discuss the importance of those. My only disappointment is that we have no Member here whose first name is William, which removes my opportunity for a Puffing Billy joke, although it is of course lovely to welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (John Stevenson)—no relation to George Stephenson but a marker of the importance of that name.

I am proud to stand here as a representative of a Government who recognise the crucial role that transport infrastructure plays in facilitating growth right across the country. That is why we have been absolutely determined to reverse what could be described as an Administration’s period of neglect by securing significant levels of investment in the road and rail networks. As a marker, by the end of the current capital spending period we will be a Government who will have electrified 850 miles of railways. Sadly, only seven miles were electrified under the previous Administration, although of course other investments were made. At the end of this capital period we will be able to proudly say that spending on road and rail infrastructure outside London is higher than it was under the previous Government, despite the investments in Crossrail, Thameslink and other things that are so important for the London economy.

We are very committed to making sure that this investment is spread right across the country from north to south and in our major cities and market towns—and, crucially, in our rural seats such as those that my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham and I are proud to represent. I am delighted that his appetite has been whetted by some of the conversations that have taken place. I am looking forward to having many discussions with him and other hon. Members over the next few months. I confirm that I will, of course, visit my hon. Friend’s constituency to see some of those schemes for myself. It will form part of what will be a great rail journey—I hope it will take several days—in the new year.

Let me turn to the issue of rail services, which my hon. Friend raised eloquently. We are investing significantly in the national rail network—in terms of electrification, new rolling stock and signalling and upgrading station facilities—to meet ever-rising passenger demand. The number of passenger journeys now is double what it was at the point of privatisation. Up to 1.6 billion journeys are made every year and we have simply not invested enough to meet that demand and take the country forward.

In order to meet record and growing levels of demand in the north in particular, we are continuing to invest in the most significant rail modernisation programme for generations. The northern hub programme—on which £500,000 is being spent—and the electrification of routes in the north-west and across the north Pennines on the North TransPennine route will transform rail connectivity in the north of England by increasing capacity, reducing journey times and enabling the introduction of far better train services. I will refer specifically to the Pacers later.

Electrification of the trans-Pennine rail line between Manchester and Leeds will enable us for the first time to run an electrified service all the way from Liverpool to Newcastle via both Manchester and Leeds. That will really transform connectivity between crucial northern cities.

I will briefly mention HS2, of which colleagues will know I am a supporter and which is about not just speed and journey-time reductions, but freeing up capacity on the existing rail network. The north-east in particular will benefit, because HS2 will widen the opportunities for millions of people by providing faster links to London and inter-regional connectivity, which can provide real competition for businesses in London and the south-east. I am very proud of the specific investments in the north.

I will now turn from the general concerns about the north to the specific issues my hon. Friend raised relating to the existing service on the Tyne valley line. Hon. Members present will know that the Government, in conjunction with Rail North, are working on a new franchise to replace the existing northern franchise. We ran a very healthy consultation over the summer and it has just concluded. It received about 17,000 responses, including specific ones on the route. Genuine questions were asked about all sorts of issues, such as what the service and connectivity should look like and which trains will be needed on the routes. We are working through all of those responses as input to defining the invitation to tender that will be issued later this year.

We have announced the three companies that are pre-qualified to bid for the franchise and have asked the operators specifically to demonstrate how they will deal with issues such as capacity and future demand and improve customer service and passenger satisfaction across the network. We expect bidders to develop their own plans for rolling stock, but we will be very clear that we want bidders to submit options for replacing the Pacer trains, which, as my hon. Friend has pointed out, are a source of dissatisfaction for many rail users across the north. Everything is up for conversation in these franchises and we want to be extremely specific about that. We are also looking at options for extending the provision of wi-fi across the network. We take it for granted off the trains, but we think it should be extended to as many passengers as possible.

I pay tribute to the Rail North partnership, which is working well in taking the franchise negotiations forward. The more local participation in rail services across the north and other parts of the country, the better. A number of senior Rail North staff are now working with the Department for Transport franchise teams to help us evaluate the bids and root them firmly in what local passenger demand wants those services to be. That is crucial, because the franchises are key in transforming how rail contributes to communities and businesses right across the north, leveraging our investment in the train services.

Turning quickly to the issue of rail fares, which I know has come up several times in my hon. Friend’s constituency, we have, of course, seen an overall freeze on rail fares this year in real terms. The retail prices index plus 0% calculation is important, and this is the first time it has been done. Of course, Northern Rail in particular is introducing various reduced advance purchase fares on a number of routes, offering substantial discounts for passengers. The overall question of fares—what is the right balance of fares that provides value for money and allows us to invest in a crucial part of the network?— is explicitly part of the franchise negotiations and conversations.

I am sure that hon. Members will be pleased that the community rail designation for the Tyne Valley line is under review. I want to make them aware that the consultation ends on Friday, so if they have constituents or councillors who feel that their views should be heard, I encourage them to send in that information. Community rail can be very successful in breathing new life into local and rural railways—no more so than in the north of England. Among all that it enables us to do is to provide local freedom for fare structures, and to invest in local services and stations, as my hon. Friend realises.

I would love to take a train to Gilsland station and cycle the whole length of Hadrian’s wall, so if we could organise something like that—perhaps not in January—it would obviously be an even stronger draw for plans to reopen the station. As always, but specifically during the franchise period, we are looking for new ways to support community rail services and make them even more effective in providing what local communities want.

My hon. Friend mentioned electrification. I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones), as someone who leads assiduously for the Government on the proposal in looking at the north of England, has offered a meeting. As I have mentioned, we intend to electrify more than 850 miles of railway, including the key trans-Pennine route between Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and York. We are already seeing the benefits of the first electric service between Manchester and Scotland. We will continue to look at all options; indeed, the taskforce is free in its remit to consider all non-electrified routes in the north.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hexham spoke eloquently about various investments in his constituency, and they are clearly of interest to other hon. Members, including those north of the border, as was pointed out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith). The Government have already announced increased levels of funding to deliver improvements to the strategic road network, again targeted specifically at supporting economic growth, and our commitment to deliver the step change was set out by the Chancellor in his spending review. The Treasury Command Paper “Investing in Britain’s Future” stated that the Government will invest more than £28 billion in enhancements and maintenance of both national and local roads, including £10 billion for major national road projects.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hexham will be aware that the Highways Agency is conducting its route strategy process. Among other things, it is looking at the question of dualling the A69. He raised that, and he has discussed it with the Secretary of State for Transport. The case for the sensible and vigorous campaign for dualling has been made by many hon. Members. Although the first evidence review completed by the agency suggested that network performance is consistent for peak period speeds, it does not feature in the top 10% of roads for delay. However, the strategic analysis is still ongoing. As my hon. Friend rightly said, with capital allocations for the 2016 period coming up, now is the time to make representations. I assure all hon. Members that the Department’s doors are always open.

My hon. Friend raised the issue of safety on the A69, of which there has been a detailed review. Tragically, more lives have been lost on the route recently. The road has been described as having a good safety record, but we have to be vigilant if we are to maintain that record. I welcome his and his constituents’ help in maintaining such vigilance for this important route.

In relation to local roads, my hon. Friend will be pleased to know that we have already invested money on improving some local pinch points. One is in his constituency at Ovingham bridge, for which he has campaigned, and others nearby are in Rothbury. We must keep investing in these important local roads.

I want briefly to mention road safety on the A69. Although we are very proud of the Government’s overall road safety record, we again have to be vigilant. We must also recognise that rural roads have specific problems. I am pleased that I will launch a new Think! campaign focused on country roads later this year to address some of those issues.

I again thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate. I hope that what I have said demonstrates the Government’s very real commitment to expanding growth across the north of England. I look forward to visiting his constituency and I encourage him and his constituents to keep talking about transport infrastructure, as that is the way to deliver long-term economic growth for this great country.

Question put and agreed to.

19:44

House adjourned.