Westminster Hall

Wednesday 10th September 2014 Westminster Hall

Wednesday 10 September 2014

[Annette Brooke in the Chair]

Western Balkans

Wednesday 10th September 2014 Westminster Hall

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the sitting be now adjourned.—(Damian Hinds.)

09:30

[Sir John Randall (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Con)]

It is a delight, Mrs Brooke, to see you in the Chair today. Coming back to Committee Room 10 reminds me of a few years ago, when I raised this same subject in a Westminster Hall debate. At that time, we were also in this room. The then Minister for Europe was one Geoff Hoon. Some of the themes have moved on since then, but I will return to others. It is also a delight to see the Minister. I know that this subject is not his area of expertise—the Minister for Europe is busy elsewhere—but as we are former colleagues at the Whips Office, he will remember my discussions on various subjects, which included the region we are talking about.

Almost exactly 40 years ago, I started at London university studying Serbo-Croat language and literature, and so started my knowledge of and relationship with the region. Today reminds me a little of my student days, because, due to a whole load of work that has come in my constituency in the past couple of days, I have not prepared my essay properly. As so often in the past, I will try to wing it by bluffing my way through. After 40 years, I think I have a reasonable amount of knowledge, but I have no set speech. I would have loved to have given the Minister an advance copy, but no such copy exists. Anyway—here we go.

The current fashion is for people to have a bucket list of things they want to do. For me, it is a list of things I want to get off my chest before I stand down from Parliament at the next general election. The western Balkans is an area that I feel strongly about, because it is of great interest and great importance to the European situation. As we know, it was, sadly, one of the biggest problems in Europe during the latter half of the 20th century.

History in the Balkan area is very important. Here we are, 100 years after the start of the first world war—and we know that the trigger for that was the assassination in Sarajevo of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand by Gavrilo Princip. Interestingly, even now that history has an impact; a lot of people are almost trying to rewrite history or analyse it. The Serbs feel that there is almost an attempt to rewrite it as a Serbian movement when, in fact, Gavrilo Princip was a member of the Young Bosnia, or Mlada Bosna, movement. Members of his team—it was not a very experienced team—included a Bosnian Muslim and others, so it was not just a Serbian thing.

We have to be careful when we remember such events. In fact, there are echoes today, because all through what was then the Austro-Hungarian empire were groups of young people—mostly men and often students—who were dissatisfied and frustrated with the system. They resorted to violence, and we can see where else that is happening in the world.

Next year marks an important year in Serbian history. I will not confine my comments to Serbia; I am just starting off with it. In 1915, the Serbian nation retreated. It did quite well initially against the forces of the Austro-Hungarian empire, but it was beaten back. Bulgaria joined the war and there was a pincer movement, so the Serbs had to retreat. They did not want to be occupied, so the Serbian army, the Serbian Parliament, the Serbian King and the church—they even dug up some of their saints—moved in the middle of winter across the Albanian mountains and went on eventually, with massive sacrifice and massive numbers of deaths, to Corfu. There the British and French reclothed them and so forth and helped get them back to the Salonika front, where they fought their way up.

That was an important moment in Serbian history. It is interesting, in the context of the Balkans, that the Albanians allowed the Serbian army to come through and said that it must be unhindered. Although we sometimes hear of the rivalries today—I say “rivalries”, but they obviously go past that in some respects—these things are not always as deep-seated as people think.

I have a particular interest in this issue and, as Members will know, I am a natural retailer, so I should mention that I am helping with a play. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office is also helping with it. The play, which will tour in the UK and Serbia, is about a British nurse called Flora Sandes, who went out as a nurse and ended up serving in the Serbian army. She was the only British woman who served on the front line as a woman, although there might have been some who disguised themselves.

The play will be about Flora, but also about a Serbian woman called Milunka Savic, and there will be a comparison between the two. Milunka is fascinating, because she was one of the top throwers of grenades. I do not know whether she would be called a grenadier or a bomber. The reason for her skill was that she was a shepherd. She was so used to throwing stones to frighten away wolves and things, she could pinpoint grenades with remarkable accuracy. She was one of the top marksmen with grenades.

The play is coming up, and one reason why I mention it is that it is important to realise the historical link between our nation and the Serbs in that period. We were great allies, and that has continued, except for the latter half of the 20th century and the particular period when we had the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. Despite that recent history, the Serbian national view is that they want to renew that alliance with Britain, and that is something we can do in encouraging their EU aspirations.

Another point on the Salonika front is that I recently went to an exhibition at the School of Oriental and African Studies, which was just next to my old college, the School of Slavonic and East European Studies. There was an exhibition on Sikhs in the Indian army in the first world war and the large number of Muslims who fought for the British—it was the British Indian army—on the Salonika front. Many of them lost their lives. We should highlight that the divides between nations and religions and everything else are not clear-cut. Sometimes, things are polarised in today’s world.

Obviously, the history of close co-operation carried on into the second world war. History must always be in our minds in the Balkan region. I am delighted to see two hon. Members from Northern Ireland here. That region is another example of where we should never forget history, but that does not mean we have to be a slave to it. Northern Ireland is a good example of how we can move on. Some of these regions with divides in their communities can learn from the example of Northern Ireland, and that is why I am particularly delighted to see the two hon. Members.

The history is deeply rooted and for the Serbs it goes back a long way—to the mediaeval period. We all know about Kosovo and all that. There is a sense of being a victim, which was further accentuated in the last part of the 20th century. We must also be aware of some of the terrible things that occurred in Europe in the latter half of the 20th century. Srebrenica, for example, is probably the most obvious and highlighted of the appalling things that happened. I do not think that I will have time during the remainder of my parliamentary career to visit the area, but I hope to be able to, because one has to understand exactly what went on.

Other things went on, however, and one side was certainly not responsible for them all. There are no definite goodies and baddies in such situations; there are lots of both. I recently discovered that the Special Investigative Task Force under lead prosecutor John Clint Williamson has been examining the claims of atrocities—I should perhaps say “alleged atrocities”, but I think we have got past that and that he said that there were atrocities—committed in Kosovo by alleged members of the Kosovo Liberation Army. That has gone a long way to helping people in the region realise that it is not only the victors who say that everything was done against them and that investigations will happen for all concerned.

The problem for so much of central and south-eastern Europe—we are seeing it even further east in Ukraine—lies with realising that the countries are not homogeneous. The peoples who live in those countries are from a wide range of ethnic groupings. One village might speak Serbian while the next might speak Slovak. That is what makes the whole thing so complicated and is a common theme when minorities and their rights are being sorted out.

I want to move briefly on to the use of depleted uranium during bombing and the related health consequences, which are always somewhere at the back of Serb minds, and not only theirs. I do not think the issue has been properly investigated. In 1999, there was a report by someone called Bakary Kante from the UN Environment Programme, but I am not sure whether it has been properly published. We must get such things out into the open.

I am no expert on the south-west of England, but I believe that the recent severe flooding did not greatly affect the East Devon constituency of the Minister—I imagine that it was not very good, but it probably was not appalling. However, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina in particular have experienced extreme flooding. We only heard a little about it, but I was delighted that Britain, as part of a European-wide aid programme, did an awful lot to help. We are possibly victims of not blowing our trumpet and of not letting the Serbs and Bosnians understand how much we sympathise and how much practical help we gave.

There have been many instances throughout the country of individuals and organisations—not national Governments and not even necessarily non-governmental organisations—helping mutually and I found an interesting case the other day. If the Minister for Europe had been here, he would have been particularly interested, because it revolves around his old school. I have discovered that Northwood prep, among other projects around the world including Africa and India through something called the Francis Terry Foundation, has been helping to build kindergartens and play areas in a couple of villages—I think they are villages, but one must be careful—in the Nish area called Toponica and Matejevac. The facilities are allowing people who may otherwise have had to move to the cities, which is a problem in such areas, to have their kids looked after at home. The school has also been visited by the Crown Prince of Serbia and, I think, will be making a trip to a concert in Serbia. That is just one example. An advantage of the internet is that we can link schools and organisations much more easily when compared with the old town-twinning process, which was clunky and involved people going over there and all the related expenses. It is a great way to learn about other peoples.

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

The right hon. Gentleman said that he was bluffing his way through his speech, so I commend him, based on the past 15 minutes, on perfecting the art. Does he agree that many UK faith organisations also get involved with offers of help and assistance to the Balkans, particularly through the internet? Given the extent of the deprivation, particularly among young children in some areas, considerable help is being offered, and that should be promoted.

[Sir John Randall]

I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman. In fact, some years ago—as I became lost into the Whips Office, some of the dates have passed me by and have been put to one side, like all the memories I have of who did what to whom and when—I remember being closely involved with a faith organisation that was working in several areas of the Balkans. It still does tremendous work, because there is still incredible deprivation among some Roma populations and in some rural areas.

Since being released from the Whips Office, human trafficking and modern slavery have been of great interest to me. In that context, I visited Albania, which was the only country in the region that I had not visited. When I was a student, I would not have been allowed to go to Albania, because I had a beard and in the days of Enver Hoxha that might have made one appear to be an orthodox priest or something, although I am not sure that I resembled such a priest in any other way. However, I was encouraged, because I suppose that I listened over the years to a lot of the propaganda about what was going on in Albania. It is a poor country, but it is making efforts. However, modern slavery and human trafficking must really be considered across the whole region. I say to all those countries that aspire to join the EU, which may be some way off, that that is something on which they can really show leadership by trying to sort it out. Albania is doing what it can, but they all have a long way to go.

Kosovo is obviously probably the thorniest problem in the area, and some countries within the EU still have not recognised an independent Kosovo. The Serbs and the Kosovans have some form of agreement. It will never be far away from becoming a problem, but Baroness Ashton brought people together in a positive move, which should be encouraged. I do not expect an answer today, as this is not the Minister’s area of responsibility, but he could perhaps look into a question for me. When I last visited Kosovo a few years ago, people were still living in containers in some of the enclaves after being displaced from their homes. I am not sure whether that is the current situation, but I was appalled at the time that people in Europe should still be living like that after many years. Perhaps he could look into the matter. Also, some sacred monuments were still having to be guarded by NATO troops, because, even though they are centuries old, they were seen as indicating that Serbian culture had been on that territory, so I would welcome a note at some stage from his colleagues at the Foreign Office on the current situation.

Macedonia, as I am sure people realise, suffers not only from similar problems, but from a problem that I find incredible in today’s world: an EU country is resisting things because it does not think that Macedonia should use the name “Macedonia”. Now that I have raised that in Parliament, I will get e-mails and hate letters from Greek nationalists, as I did the last time that I mentioned it. I remember that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister visited Macedonia when he was an Opposition shadow Minister. When he came back, he wrote an article in The Guardian—one of his favoured organs, I am sure—asking how people in Greece would like to referred to as living in the “former Ottoman province of Greece”.

That such objections go on these days is incredible, but I am aware of the sensitivities. Greece thinks that Macedonia, by having that name, has its sights on territory further down in Thrace and so forth. If we cannot sort out an agreement on a name in the EU, however, our chance of sorting out some of the finer points is a little worrying. Macedonia still has huge problems, not only between the Macedonians and the Macedonian Albanians, but with a large number of other peoples there.

Montenegro I used to know well. Members may know it still, because it has a beautiful coastline, although it is not all coastline; a lot of it is harsh karst scenery and a tough place to live. Montenegro got its independence, but has a huge problem with law and order. It also has a huge problem with smuggling and has a large amount of Russian investment, although perhaps the Russians are moving that to the Crimea at the moment, who knows, because Montenegro has EU aspirations and will be trying to untie slightly the close links that most of the Slavic countries in the area have with Russia. We need to help, because what is going on in Montenegro is a bit of a blot on the whole process.

Serbia I have spoken about, but I will return to it briefly, because I feel that it is moving forward. A lot is still to be done and the British and the EU can encourage the Serbs. We in the UK have a role to play, because of the traditional alliance that we had with them. The more that we can say that is where we are coming from, the better. I am not always simply being charitable; there is a huge opportunity for British trade in the area. Unfortunately, some of the practices in some of those countries do not encourage British trade. In fact, those who are in the diaspora tend to be the pioneers in the area. I commend an organisation, which I know quite well: the Serbian City Club. Young professionals in the UK of Serbian origin are doing an awful lot to encourage people.

[David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. As he says, there is an opportunity in the area for business and investment. My understanding is that the Germans have invested fairly heavily in the agri-foods sector. What more can we do to encourage British businesses to invest there, and what conditions do we need to make it feasible for them to do so?

[Sir John Randall]

That is a good question. We have to think of ways to give confidence to UK businesses. There have been examples of rather strange practices, such as someone who has signed up an agreement, only to find that the mayor of the local town has changed and that that is no longer the case—company law is not well recognised. Northern Ireland could have huge agricultural possibilities in the Balkans. One of the things that I was looking at with someone, which is still possible, was the organic market and for us to import organic. Given the nature of the situation in those countries over the years, they did not get around to putting all the fertilisers and other things down, so there is huge potential. There are other needs—for example, Serbia would have to get goods through Montenegro on to the coast overland—and such matters would need to be sorted out, because a lot of food, especially fresh food, has to be got out quickly.

Bosnia and Herzegovina is not an area I know well now, although I used to know it well. That is one of the tragedies for me. When I was a student going around Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Herzegovina seemed to me to be the place where everyone got along together. There was rivalry between Serbia and Croatia, and I could feel the tension in Kosovo between the native Kosovan Albanians and the Serbs living there, but in Bosnia, in spite of the presence of all the different mixes, everyone seemed to get along. The complete and utter tragedy of what happened indicates that we are never far away from disaster—we should never take things for granted. From what I understand, Bosnia still has a long way to go. As someone astutely observed to me, Dayton was a good peace agreement and ceasefire, but it is not a settlement for the country. That is a huge problem, but one we have to deal with.

I have certainly taken up enough time. I can see the relief coming in from Ulster in the Chamber, as always—

[David Simpson]

Coalition!

[Sir John Randall]

We will talk about that later. [Laughter.] I am demonstrating the strength of the Union.

As I might not have the opportunity to raise the subject of the western Balkans again, certainly given the length of time I have left in my parliamentary career, may I say that I was delighted to see that Arminka Helic, a former special adviser to the now Leader of the House, has been elevated to the Lords? She originates from Bosnia and knows much about the area. I am sure that the House of Lords will hear a lot of informed views over the coming years.

I thank Mr Speaker for giving me the opportunity of the debate. Even when I am no longer in Parliament, I will raise the subject of the Balkans, because like so many things—similar to the modern slavery issue, but going back a long way for me, 40 years—once it gets under your skin, however frustrating the Balkans is, it is one of the most fascinating areas of Europe. We should be delighted to have an opportunity to do what we can for it.

09:57

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Brooke, and to make a contribution to the debate.

Last week, when my hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson) was in this Chamber, we were the second largest party; today, we are equal first—numerically, there is a coalition today between the Conservative party and the Democratic Unionist party. The Labour party is here in third place, but there we are, and that will probably change as well—

[Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

He who is last shall be first.

[Jim Shannon]

Absolutely. As the good book says, and we adhere to it.

I thank the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Sir John Randall) for securing this important debate. Again, I am glad to have the opportunity to make a contribution.

For many of us the Balkans is an area that we know because of the war that took place there, or because we have had holidays there—in parts, it has become a tourist destination. At the end of the day, we have an interest in it, because we want to see it succeed, its people return to prosperity and an end to the conflict and wars. The right hon. Gentleman, in his introduction, referred to the position there. In Northern Ireland, we have come through a fairly horrific war as well; the terrorist campaign left more than 3,000 dead. As a country, we have moved forward, because we felt that that was the way to do it. There had to be a partnership Government, based on all parties. Perhaps there is a lesson there for the Balkans—indeed there is—to which the right hon. Gentleman referred.

The aim of the Berlin conference was to send a message of support for the Balkan countries’ European ambitions and to bolster the promises that the European Union made to those countries in more self-confident days. Those promises now seem uncertain, particularly as tensions and security concerns within the region remain. There is a clear need to help the economies in those countries to create jobs—creating jobs will create prosperity and, we hope, stability. My hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson) made a salient intervention on the agri-food industry. The Balkans are ripe for modernisation and new agricultural ideas. Jobs will come off the back of that, as well as self-sufficiency. We should aim to make that happen.

Even in the midst of its own internal crisis and the worsening global crises from Ukraine to Iraq, Europe can ill afford to neglect the one region in which the EU has assumed full leadership as a foreign and security policy actor. Negative developments in the Balkans could reverse gains in the region, such as those made in Serbia and Kosovo, increase instability in other countries on the EU’s immediate borders and further weaken Europe’s credibility and cohesion. As the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip said, the Balkans are a vital region; the area is as important now as it was historically and the concerns are just as great today.

It should be acknowledged that the nations of the western Balkans face significant economic difficulties that are not of their own making. Their relative distance from the EU’s largest and wealthiest markets and their proximity to Greece mean that they have felt the impact of Europe’s economic crisis more than most, which is no doubt part of the reason for their enthusiasm about joining a group of economically friendly states. All member states have been hit hard by the recession, but have had one another to depend on, trade with and, in some cases, even borrow from; there has been real deprivation in many parts of the Balkans, and putting food on the table has been a problem for many people. Some people have been unable to do so: the Library information pack says that in some areas of the Balkans, up to 90% of the population are unable to get food on a regular basis. That is the reality for many people there.

At the same time, there is some confidence, because many people in the Balkans felt that 2014 was a year in which things were going to get better; in a way, they have, although not really to the extent that people had hoped. We still hope that that will happen. The first aim should be to reduce the political risk factors involved in doing business in the region. The Balkan wars are a fading memory for most of us, but there has been little in the way of real reconciliation. The different ethnic communities of Bosnia and Herzegovina continue to live separate lives. Serbia has normalised relations with Kosovo, but does not really recognise it. Even Greece’s unresolved objection to describing the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia as Macedonia damages the politics of the region. The fight over words and the historical issues are important. While those dividing lines and hostilities remain, investment will look like a risk, rather than a sure thing. Those who want to invest need to be reassured by the people in the area that things are moving forward.

Countries in the region are already members of various regional European groupings such as the Organisation of the Black Sea Economic Co-operation, the Central European Initiative and the Central European Free Trade Agreement. More importantly, their shared will to become members of international organisations, such as the EU, NATO or the Council of Europe, denotes common political interests and similar attitudes towards the international environment.

While all that is happening, we have the Russian bear, in the shape of Putin, looking towards eastern states and the Balkans, where Russia once had influence. It is with some concern that we look from afar at Putin’s expansionist policies and wonder where they will end.

The western Balkan countries have made significant progress in improving regional security and moving towards EU integration, especially in the bilateral relations between Serbia and Kosovo, internally in Bosnia and Herzegovina and with regard to the EU integration of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. The biggest contribution to regional security co-operation has been the signing of the framework agreement between Serbia and Kosovo, which launched the basis for peaceful and regular communication between the two. That agreement should work as a benchmark for other regions in the Balkans. It may only be small at the moment, but there is a foundation in place, which I believe could serve as a marker for the future.

Despite all the positive developments in regional security co-operation, there are still security challenges that require attention from all, and dealing with those challenges needs to be the second aim for the region. We need to see advancements in the fight against organised crime, for example: there are groups in the area that are clearly real organised crime groups; it is not just what we see in the films. My colleague in the other place, Lord Morrow, has brought forward a Bill on human trafficking for Northern Ireland, which I believe would set a precedent for the whole United Kingdom. My hon. Friends agree, and we have suggested to the UK Government that they should look at that Bill as a precedent for other measures for the United Kingdom. We all recognise, as Lord Morrow does, that human trafficking is an issue we face. It is an issue in the Balkans and is part of the organised crime there.

Dealing with political extremism and radical structures is also crucial for the Balkans to achieve long-term security and stability. There has been a significant decline in ordinary crime in the western Balkans, but organised crime and corruption—mainly drug trafficking, money laundering and human trafficking—are still present and have a great impact, facilitated by poor law enforcement.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) mentioned the work of faith groups. The Minister and I have talked about that on many occasions—I am pleased to see him in his place today, because I know his response will be helpful—and he knows about the good work the faith groups in the area do. I am aware of it from not just a spiritual but a practical point of view: those church groups help people to realise their ambitions and potential, and do fantastic work.

In conclusion, to reduce the risk of escalating outbursts of violence, the international community’s engagement and presence in the region continue to be necessary. Accountability, currently the weakest element in security sector governance in the western Balkan countries, needs further support.

I have already asked your permission to leave early, Mrs Brooke, as I have a meeting with the Thalidomide Trust. I have spoken to the Minister and the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip as well. If I leave at about 10.25 am, I hope you know that I will have done so for no other reason than that I have to be somewhere else.

10:07

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

I am sorry I did not put in a note to ask to speak, Mrs Brooke: I was inspired to speak partly by the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Sir John Randall) and partly because I have just returned from Bosnia and Herzegovina. That trip was my third visit since 2009. My right hon. Friend said he did not have much experience of Bosnia and Herzegovina; perhaps those three trips have given me a little experience. Also, in the past I was a history teacher—and not a bad one—so I can claim some knowledge from that.

I want to give hon. Members a flavour of those visits. I first went out in 2009, before the election, as part of a project called Project Maja, set up by Baroness Warsi to get politicians to go out to places and do some work there. We raised some money over here, working with another charity, the Fund for Refugees in Slovenia, which is led by a remarkable lady who I think is well known to the Minister—Lady Nott, the wife of Sir John Nott, the former Secretary of State for Defence. She set up that charity, which is still going, and she still works tirelessly to help mainly refugees from the conflict in Bosnia in the 1990s. She had incredible support from Baroness Thatcher on the quiet, and the charity has raised millions over the years to rebuild homes and villages that had been destroyed.

We raised money to help Lady Nott’s efforts to rebuild two more houses up in the villages above Srebrenica. I am sure hon. Members can imagine what it was like going to Srebrenica in 2009. I went again this year, and the divisions are still palpable. Hon. Members from Northern Ireland may know more about that than I do: the only division I really know and understand is the one between Lancashire and Yorkshire—and long may it remain. We felt the tension on the streets when we were living in Srebrenica. We went up into the hills to finish rebuilding these buildings using the money we had raised with the help of Lady Nott. I never managed to congratulate her formally on being awarded the OBE in 2013, which was some recognition for the tireless work she has undertaken in that region.

We were stood in this village with a lady—we had managed to raise some money to help repair her house—in this incredibly beautiful country, almost like Switzerland up in the hills. We asked her why she had come back. This lady had lost three sons, a husband and two of her brothers-in-law. They were all killed. She was a Bosniak—a Bosnian Muslim—and had had to flee. Her house had been burned down. She came back with her daughter-in-law and her little grandchild. That was all that was left of her family.

This lady said—through a translator, of course, and a lot more was perhaps lost in the translation—“They will not win” and that they had come back for the sake of the family who were killed. We could see Serbia—we could almost touch it across the valley—yet they had come back with the immense support of the charity set up by Lady Nott.

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

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way and congratulate the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Sir John Randall) on introducing the debate. I know something of the feeling that has just been expressed: that we will not allow them to win. That has carried many people in Northern Ireland through very difficult days with the IRA. However, the scars of war last a very long time. With war come deprivation, poverty, grief and division. How does the hon. Gentleman feel the international community has helped the area he is speaking about to heal those scars of war?

[Eric Ollerenshaw]

The people in that particular incident are aware of the international community and of the Dayton agreement, which I will say something about. However, it is even more important for them to see British politicians, such as ourselves. I was out there with my hon. Friends the Members for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) and for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), who is now a Minister in the Foreign Office. He laid out a football pitch in this village—and, of course, given his military training, was ordering the rest of us around, but that is another story.

We felt that it was at least something tangible for those people to see politicians from what they regard as the other end of the world trying to help them, aside from the high-ranking meetings that had gone on, the treaties and all the rest of it. I do not know whether that is the case in Northern Ireland. The human dimension and human contact are one of the greatest touchstones. We were from mixed religions, of course.

The lady we met told us that people had grown up in these villages as a mix of Orthodox Serbs, Catholic Croats and Bosniak Muslims. They had grown up and played together. They had gone to church or to mosque on high days and holidays. This terrible thing then happened that divided them. Srebrenica is actually in Republika Srpska, which is part of Bosnia. I have been to Bosnia three times and I still find it really difficult to work out how that country is managed politically.

One of the points I want to make is that the Dayton agreement ended the bloodshed, but it is as though Bosnia and Herzegovina is frozen in time and cannot move forward. The international community has huge issues to consider in Syria, which we are about to debate in the Chamber, and in the east, but we cannot forget, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip said in his introduction, that we are talking now about where the spark that started the first world war happened. We still have unreconciled issues. Although there is no fighting going on, we should not forget that there is a need to move Bosnia and Herzegovina on. As my right hon. Friend mentioned, Serbia may join the European Community, as Croatia has. That would be a great thing. However, to leave Bosnia and Herzegovina out when they regard themselves as the victims seems to me to be a dangerous miscalculation.

[Sir John Randall]

My hon. Friend is making a very powerful speech. I will have to talk to him more about Bosnia after the debate. Although in some respects I am not the greatest fan of the EU for ourselves, these countries’ aspiration to get into the EU at some stage—although it is some way off—will drive them together. They could ultimately be a Balkan bloc in the EU, which could be a uniting factor.

[Eric Ollerenshaw]

My right hon. Friend is exactly right. He mentioned the floods. We saw the evidence of the floods. That is another thing we should not forget: there are still thousands of people in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and in Serbia, without a roof over their heads. The fact that the floods have gone away and are not on the television, as it were, does not mean that the aid should stop and that we should forget about them. My right hon. Friend is exactly right. The point goes back to what I said to the hon. Member for South Antrim (Dr McCrea): the human contact will be a great help to push past the history.

My right hon. Friend spoke about the history. I want to give an anecdote from my first trip in 2009. As an ex-history teacher, I spent the whole trip trying to explain about the Habsburg empire. I will not go into the history curriculum, but a really good thing about this Government is that we are getting back to a proper history curriculum, so people might know what the Habsburg empire was. That is a side issue.

We visited Sarajevo and went to the spot where the archduke and his wife were assassinated. We then went to the biggest mosque in the city to meet the Grand Mufti, the head of the Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina. One sometimes wishes we had a Grand Mufti in Britain; that might help in certain senses. He was recognised as the leading figure among Muslims. The mosque was in the Ottoman style, and we sat on very low benches. The Grand Mufti came in; he clearly was the Grand Mufti from everything he was wearing: he looked like something from an Ottoman court, a great man. He first words, in English—remember this was 2009—were, “This mosque is the Emperor’s mosque. It was restored by the Emperor Franz Joseph. The last time Bosnia and Herzegovina was run properly was by the Habsburgs.” We could see the shades of the history that my right hon. Friend talked about pouring down on us.

I went back in 2011, again as part of Project Maja, to help redo a special needs school. That was alongside my hon. Friends the Members for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) and Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart). We were working alongside Bosnian politicians, trying to help out in a special needs school, because that school made no distinction about religion. That was a real opportunity to demonstrate something.

Finally, I went out this year with my hon. Friends the Members for Redditch (Karen Lumley), for High Peak (Andrew Bingham), for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe) and for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), and also with a Member of the House of Lords, the Earl of Courtown. I remember a remarkable situation. We were discussing with Bosnian politicians how there had been no movement from Dayton and that they were stuck in a tripartite situation. The chairman of the Bosnian party explained how one of the issues they had was trying to move on from what was essentially a feudal system. The Earl of Courtown said that his situation was, of course, feudal as well. The chairman replied that his was also because he was an hereditary Bey from the days of the Ottoman empire. Nothing much changes.

I have been to Srebrenica three times to see the memorial and have taken new Members to it. One of my proudest moments in this Parliament was in July two years ago, when the British Government became the first Government in Europe to have a solemn memorial at Lancaster House in recognition of the Srebrenica massacre. That memorial was held for the second time last year.

On my recent visit, we had a long meeting with the International Commission on Missing Persons, which, if any good can come out of such terrible things, is perhaps a good, because of the training it has provided in Bosnia in finding and tracing families and remains through DNA. It should not be forgotten that the graves of many people who were massacred were dug up, and the bones scattered, in a deliberate attempt to prevent families from being traced. The commission has much support, including that of Britain—and long may that continue. Its techniques are now being used across the world.

I want in particular to express my respect for Adam Boys, who has been in the region for 20 years as a commission director; I think he has said that this will be his last year before returning. He has done incredible work. It is funny to discover what a small world it is: when I first met him three years ago he told me that as a boy he spent all his summer holidays in Fleetwood, which is clearly a preparation for becoming a director of the International Commission on Missing Persons in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Our group went to a room where there were more than 1,000 separate bags of remains—bones—whose DNA was still being tracked. I must admit that I had not thought about this before, but it was explained to us how originally an attempt was made to trace people using their clothing; however, clothing can be misinterpreted, and it rots, in time. Using DNA requires the DNA of living family members, but we can imagine that if someone has survived a massacre, and then some official wants their DNA, they will be extremely suspicious. It has taken years to convince families that it may be a way of tracing people.

We went to Srebrenica and laid flowers—that small but important thing that humans do as a form of recognition. We talked to an old lady there, from Mothers of Srebrenica. She said that at least this year she had something of her 14-year-old son, who had been lost. She had two bones that had been found, which were traceable as his, and she said that at least she had been able to have a burial. Bosnia and Herzegovina have left the television screens, and the events may even be taught as part of modern history—they will be seen as something that happened. However, the situation has not, in fact, moved on a great deal. It is perhaps not a priority for the international community, and that is worrying and dangerous for the long term.

The principal reason for our visit this year was, following what the previous Foreign Secretary did to raise sexual violence in war up the agenda, to assist Medica Zenica—in the town of Zenica. The charity was created after the war to help women scarred by sexual violence in the war, as well as children who resulted from that sexual violence. We had raised some money for an extension to the charity, and being humble Members of Parliament we were put to work painting walls. That was some help, but the real help was perhaps in raising the money and highlighting the charity.

We spent two days doing that work. The children of the sexual violence that happened are now in their 20s. What is a mother to say to their son or daughter about what happened and where they came from—in a society where religious background is critical? I pay tribute to the continued work of Medica Zenica.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip spoke about travelling in Albania. During our visit we were told that one of the next big things to deal with was the trafficking across Bosnia and Herzegovina. There were children there; we could not be told where they had come from for reasons of legal protection, but clearly the trade was moving through.

[Sir John Randall]

I did not want to imply that it was only Albania that had those problems. It is the whole area. Some places are destinations, some are transit areas, and some are where the victims come from, but the whole region is involved.

[Eric Ollerenshaw]

I understand that. There are boundaries that to some are not boundaries—a Croat in Bosnia can enter Croatia and a Serb in Bosnia Herzegovina can enter Serbia, and so on. The issue that I want to raise is that the Bosniak population, essentially a Muslim population, has nowhere else. They are European Muslims. In one sense, given the way that the world is and the way communities are behaving, they are the Muslim group—European Muslims who have been Muslim for hundreds of years—that should be a force in Europe, showing that there is a form of moderate Islam, which works.

I have given a personal account of three visits to part of the Balkans. I have only once been to the Serbian side, to Belgrade. I suppose that other hon. Members who have made more such trips than I have will have felt as I did before flying home, and wondered how such things could happen in such an incredibly beautiful country. That is the thought that leads us on.

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip for raising the issue. Perhaps, although the western Balkans are absent from television screens, this debate will highlight the huge issues that remain for our Government and other European Governments to deal with, so that they do not forget.

10:26

[Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

A Tory MP’s retirement is not always a moment for sadness on the Labour Benches, but I feel that the House will be a little poorer for the departure of the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Sir John Randall), partly because of his good sense of humour, but also—in today’s context—because of his knowledge of and interest in the western Balkans. I congratulate him, in the usual way, on securing the debate and on the way he introduced the subject, despite constituency pressures.

I had the privilege of visiting Sarajevo, Banja Luka and Kosovo as an International Development Minister in the previous Government—in 2004, I believe. I welcome the opportunity to return to some of the issues that I looked at then and to join other Members in assessing the progress, or lack of it, since that time.

The right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip referred in passing to depleted uranium, and I shall be interested to hear the Minister’s response. His comments reminded me of one element of my visit 10 years ago, which was to consider the funding that the Department for International Development was giving to the work of de-mining charities. I suspect that there is still a huge amount of unexploded ordnance in the Balkans as a result of the recent conflicts. It would be helpful to hear from the Minister, although perhaps not now, about the matter that the right hon. Gentleman raised and the more general one of how Britain and the EU might continue to help deal with unexploded ordnance.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) made an interesting speech and dwelt at one point on the impact of organised crime and human trafficking in the western Balkans, touching on the potential impact on our shores. It would be helpful to hear more from the Minister about how UK Government resources are helping to tackle the continued threat to our borders from organised crime in the western Balkans.

As one history teacher to another, I enjoyed the speech of the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw). He gave a powerful account of the terrible trauma of the mother who had only just received a small part of the remains of her 14-year-old son. We remember not only those who lost their lives in the conflict, but those families still living who do not know what happened to some of their missing relatives, or have had no remains returned to them and therefore have no closure. That is extremely important.

The 1990s, as hon. Members recognise, saw the violent break-up of former Yugoslavia. As we have touched on, the scars from those conflicts still run very deep in much of the western Balkans. The right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip and the hon. Member Lancaster and Fleetwood alluded to the massacre in Srebrenica, which stands out as probably one of the worst moments of a truly dreadful period in the region’s history.

The period since then has seen a gradual return to basic political stability, but the recent financial crisis and the economic traumas that that ushered in have had a big impact on the lives of many people in the region. Political and economic stability and, crucially, better governance matter very much in the western Balkans and further conflict would inevitably have an impact here in the UK. The central point made by the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip that the House must continue to pay attention to events in that part of Europe’s back garden was extremely well made.

The hon. Member for Strangford alluded to the considerable economic challenges. Unemployment, especially youth unemployment, remains extremely high throughout the western Balkans, while levels of economic growth are low at best, and organised crime and corruption still have too strong a hold.

Croatia joined the European Union recently and membership remains a powerful attraction for other countries in the region, helping to incentivise reform. Important as Britain’s direct relationship is with each individual country and their political leaders in the western Balkans, it is perhaps their relationship with the European Union that matters most in geopolitical terms, although, as the hon. Member for Strangford said, Russia remains a powerful near neighbour.

If the Minister does nothing else in response to my comments, I hope he will dwell on how he sees the relationship between the European Union and the western Balkans developing. For example, how will crucial finance institutions, such as the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development or the European Investment Bank develop their role in the region? What are the priorities for European neighbourhood budget funding for the region? How does the Minister see the political relationship between the countries of the western Balkans and the EU developing? Despite the current challenges they all face, are all the western Balkan countries potential candidates for accession to the EU in due course?

I turn to individual countries. Kosovo is particularly poor economically compared with others in the region, with more than half the population living in poverty. The tensions between the ethnic Serb minority and the Albanian majority are still very evident. The EU brokered an important deal in 2013 in an effort to normalise relations between the two communities, with ethnic Serbs in northern Kosovo having their own police and appeal court, but they are now voting for the same local government bodies as Albanians. It would be helpful to hear the Minister’s assessment of how those new arrangements are working on the ground.

I understand that Kosovo possesses considerable mineral resources, but agriculture is still its main economic activity. It would be good to hear whether the Minister is aware of any efforts, perhaps encouraged by the EU or specific financial institutions, such as the World Bank, to encourage development of those resources.

Serbia began accession talks with the EU in January. Given its recent history, Serbia’s progress has been remarkable and its political leaders deserve praise for that progress. It became a stand-alone, sovereign republic only in the summer of 2006 after Montenegro voted for independence from the post-Milosevic union of Serbia and Montenegro. The evolution of its relationship with Kosovo has been particularly challenging for the Serbian people and even now, despite the EU-brokered deal with Kosovo, Serbia insists that it does not recognise its former province’s independence.

There has been the challenge of rounding up the former senior political and military figures from Serbia’s most brutal past to face justice in The Hague, a crucial and important part of Serbia’s recent journey. How does the Minister view the EU’s talks with Serbia, and when might accession take place? One thing that Ministers, Back Benchers and the Opposition can do is to visit political leaders in the western Balkans and encourage reform. It would be good to hear whether Ministers have visited Serbia recently to continue to encourage progress towards EU accession.

Albania is one of the poorest countries in Europe. Unemployment remains high at 13%, and poor quality infrastructure and corruption continue to deter significant foreign investment. Transparency International says that Albania remains the most corrupt country in Europe. Clearly, sorting out that corruption and tackling organised crime remain two of the principal elements for Albania’s future progress. I understand that those two issues had originally motivated in part the Government’s opposition to Albania’s candidature for EU membership. It would be helpful to hear from the Minister specifically what changed the Government’s mind in June.

If media reports are to be believed, the Prime Minister has made it clear that any future accessions will have to be subject to new transitional controls. It would be helpful to hear from the Minister a little more about the Government’s thinking about the nature of those new transitional controls that might be imposed on Albania as part of any accession agreement.

Bosnia and Herzegovina faces a particularly challenging future, as the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood and the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip acknowledged, with ongoing political instability and huge economic challenges, coupled with the remaining deep ethnic divides. There is 40% unemployment at the moment, and almost 60% unemployment among the young. Corruption is a huge issue and includes accusations of a series of privatisation scams that are holding back economic development

The right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip referred to the Dayton peace agreement, which was signed in Ohio in 1995. It forced the two sides in the Bosnian war to form a single country, but with two sets of state institutions, laws and Parliaments, as well as a federal Government. Efforts to reform that system of government—it took almost 16 months to produce a federal Government after the last election—have not been successful, and resentment at the state of politics in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the economy has produced considerable anger with demonstrations in February, talk of a Bosnian spring and the leadership of the ethnic Serbs in the Republika Srpska arguing for independence from Bosnia. How does the Minister see the future for Bosnia and what further efforts does he expect from, for example, the EU—perhaps the new High Representative—to help to broker a more sustainable political settlement in Bosnia and Herzegovina?

Macedonia has emerged, as the right hon. Gentleman suggested, from a particularly difficult year in 2001, with agreement recently that it should become a candidate for EU membership. Again, corruption remains a challenge and political tensions remain too, following elections in April. An assessment of Macedonia’s political situation and how quickly progress towards EU accession might happen would be welcome from the Minister.

In summary, the western Balkans remain a politically fragile and very economically challenged part of Europe’s neighbourhood, and it is incumbent on the UK to play a role in continuing to encourage an easing of those political tensions and economic progress. I look forward to hearing from the Minister how he sees the UK’s role in doing exactly that.

10:40

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr Hugo Swire)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Sir John Randall) on securing the debate. As he said, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe would have been delighted to respond, but he is currently travelling on ministerial duties. It is therefore my pleasure to respond on behalf of the Government.

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip for his long-term interest in and contribution to our relations with the western Balkans. I thank the all-party parliamentary groups for their important role in building links with the region. He said that he had not prepared a speech; clearly, he did not need to. Perhaps if more Members spoke from knowledge and from the heart, as he did this morning, rather than just reading out prepared scripts, this place would be all the better for it. He is steeped in the Serbo-Croat language and literature and knows what he is talking about, which can, in this place, be both dangerous and place him in an almost unique position.

The UK’s relationship with the western Balkans is long and deep, as we have heard from both sides of the House. We reflected on that relationship this summer, as we commemorated the centenary of the outbreak of the first world war. The fact that, in effect, the first shots of the war rang out in Sarajevo, as we all know, reminds us why the stability and security of that region are so important to our country and the world.

My right hon. Friend has given valuable support to the commemoration activity. He alluded to the role played by Flora Sandes, Britain’s pioneering combatant in the war, and I much enjoyed the reasons he gave for the throwing of grenades, from the previous training as a shepherd. I am particularly pleased that my Department will be involved in touring the play, which I believe is coming over to the UK.

The hon. Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas), who speaks for the Opposition, mentioned Srebrenica, as did others. How could we debate the western Balkans without mentioning it? I hope that my right hon. Friend, when he has more time, will travel to Srebrenica. My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw), again, in a very inspiring and knowledgeable speech, alluded to the expertise and knowledge that he had gained from travelling there on a number of occasions. He also mentioned the Fund for Refugees in Slovenia—of which I still, I should declare, remain a trustee—and the work of the founder of the fund, Lady Nott, who he said I know well. Actually, I know Lady Nott so well that she woke me up this morning—before the salacious gossip mongers and writers get too excited about that, I should also confess that she is, in fact, my mother-in-law. She has done a remarkable job and continues to do so.

I also pay tribute to the fact that we now recognise the charity Remembering Srebrenica and we are doing more, on an annual basis, to remember the horrors that went on. The Fund for Refugees still does incredibly good work without any Government resource in rebuilding the shattered communities around Srebrenica. It is all privately funded. I have never quite understood why we do not fund it, but I am not allowed to go down that road really. I urge the shadow Minister and, indeed, my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, when they go to Srebrenica, to see some of the work that the fund has done in trying to plant orchards and rebuild communities, very often without men, because the men are simply not there. It has done a remarkable job and I am most grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood for raising it, as I know he has been a stalwart supporter of it.

My hon. Friend mentioned the issue of moderate Muslims in that part of the world, which is a key point. I think that there is evidence of some radicalisation now taking place, and that needs to be looked at and stamped out very quickly indeed.

The need for stability in the western Balkans remains a crucial priority today. The UK has, for two decades, been a providing a significant contribution to that, along with our NATO and EU allies. We demonstrated our commitment with our swift response to the devastating floods in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina earlier this year. The UK provided the team leader for the EU-wide civil protection response, other experts for the broader EU effort and emergency equipment, including radios and vehicles. In addition, at the recent international donors’ conference, the UK pledged an initial £2 million bilaterally for reconstruction work—the sort of work that the hon. Member for Harrow West will be familiar with from his time as a Minister of State in the Department for International Development.

It is, however, sadly too soon to say that the western Balkans have achieved the irreversible stability and prosperity that the people of the region deserve. Many challenges remain—we have heard about them this morning—from corruption, weak governance and shaky institutions to a lack of the rule of law in some places. Security is not yet entrenched, and, as is obvious from the nationalist rhetoric and Republika Srpska’s secessionist aspirations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, that remains the case there. Those are their challenges but our concerns. The security and stability of the Balkans and the rest of Europe are interdependent. Neither containment nor neglect are the answer. That is why we are proactive in helping the Governments in the region to try to tackle those issues through political and economic reform.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the EU. The EU and NATO accession processes are the best means to drive that reform and are the only source, frankly, of long-term stability in the region. Although we have seen significant progress in the past few years, not least in Croatia’s accession to the EU in 2013, the integration of the region into Euro-Atlantic structures remains unfinished. There is work to be done. The UK is committed to supporting the further enlargement of the EU with all the western Balkans, on the basis of firm but fair conditionality.

The hon. Gentleman talked about future legislation to do with population changes, which is a very topical subject here in the United Kingdom at the moment. The conditionality that I referred to must also help ensure that future enlargements will not lead to mass migrations. It is clear that transitional controls on free movement for future enlargements cannot be done, as was done in the past. We want to start a debate in the EU about what new arrangements might look like, but they must be robust and command public confidence.

[Mr Thomas]

Will the Minister set out what he or the Government see those new transitional arrangements looking like? I appreciate that he wants a debate, but to have a debate, one needs to have an initial idea. What is the Government’s idea?

[Mr Swire]

My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said that he will not agree to any new member state joining the EU until new transitional controls are in place, and that would represent something new and important. We have worked hard with our European partners to ensure that the previous weaknesses of the enlargement processes are addressed with rigorous and early action on rule of law failures. We will sustain and intensify our work to ensure that the principle of freedom of movement is not abused. I hope that, in that work and with that change, we will get the support of Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition.

[Mr Thomas]

We would be very interested in supporting the Government, but we would like to know what they are proposing. The Minister has given—I say this gently, as this has been a very good debate up to now—a rather general response. It would be helpful to have a little more specific detail on what the Government are proposing to talk about with our European colleagues.

[Mr Swire]

Of course, the details will be unrolled as we begin our negotiations, but if we can bank it, as a starting point, that the Opposition will agree in principle that new transitional controls must be in place for any new member state to join the EU, that will be something we can take to Europe.

[Sir John Randall]

Something that we can discuss and that I often hear about is that businesses and important people coming over still have problems getting visas. Although I would be absolutely onside with the arrangements that we hope to have when new countries come into the EU, the existing ones on visas should be smartened up a bit; otherwise it does not say much to those important people we are trying to get to come over. The reason may be cultural; it may be sporting; it is certainly business; and there is a problem.

[Mr Swire]

Indeed. This issue is raised with us across the Department from all parts of the world; it is not unique to the western Balkans. I think that, on the whole, our visa processes are improving.

Against the background that I have set out, I welcome the start of EU accession negotiations with Serbia earlier this year. Much has been achieved during the past 15 years, but there is much left to do. The UK supports Serbia’s reforms and, in particular, its media reform. Progress has been made in Serbia-Kosovo relations, but there remain major challenges, not least in the economic sphere and in relations with its neighbours.

I pay tribute to the courageous steps taken by both Serbia and Kosovo to improve their relationship. The agreement between the two countries in April 2013 was an historic moment for reconciliation. Both sides must now ensure, though, that the agreement is not just written on paper but turned into practice, so that it can lead to the full normalisation of relations through the EU-facilitated dialogue.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, who sponsored this debate, asked in relation to Kosovo what had been done to address the situation of displaced Serbs, including those still living in containers. We very much agree that that is an important issue, both from a humanitarian point of view and for long-term reconciliation. This Government remain the biggest bilateral donor supporting the Kosovo Serbs. I will write to my right hon. Friend about the specific issue that he raised about whether sacred monuments in Kosovo are still being guarded. That, of course, is a subject close to my heart. We will find out what the latest on that is and write to him.

Before I move on properly to Kosovo, I want to return briefly to Serbia. We must encourage Serbia to continue to play an increasingly positive role in the region, and I urge Belgrade to do more, particularly when it serves as chair of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe next year. That is a real opportunity for it. We strongly urge Serbia to align more closely with EU member states on key foreign policy issues, especially the one that is now very pregnant: relations with Russia and the whole situation in Ukraine.

I shall revert now to Kosovo. The shadow Minister asked about Kosovo and the EU. We hope that Kosovo will also start on its own EU path shortly, with the signature of a stabilisation and association agreement. That will allow the EU to intensify discussions on reforms, so helping to build a Kosovo with a prosperous future for all its communities and minorities. In the meantime, we will encourage Kosovo to make progress on the normalisation of its relationship with Serbia.

In this tour d’horizon of the region, I now move effortlessly across to Montenegro. I welcome the recent efforts in Montenegro—for example, in aligning itself with EU positions on Ukraine, despite significant pressure from Russia. Montenegro, like Serbia, has responded positively to the incentives of the EU enlargement plan, and we are encouraged by the progress being made as part of the EU accession process. However, let us be in no doubt. There remain many challenges—in particular, progressing Montenegro’s work against organised crime and corruption—but we commend the strong progress that it is making towards joining NATO. Last week’s successful NATO summit in Wales confirmed our intention to initiate focused and intensified talks.

I come now to Albania. I have always been rather fascinated by Albania since I came across a history of Albania written by—I do not know whether he was a kinsman of mine—J. Swire, a big red book, which I have yet to read. In fact, I am meant to be lending it to the former high commissioner to Australia, who has now gone to Rome and who looks after Albania. I promised that I would lend him the book. J. Swire went out to Albania, I think, as a tutor—to a young King Zog, I should imagine. Albania has always held a fascination for me, and I am pleased to say that Albania, too, is making progress now. The new Government are serious about strengthening the rule of law, with a major plan to tackle organised crime, corruption and judicial reform. In the first half of 2014, there were major police operations against drugs and a 70% increase in arrests for human trafficking.

I think that I am right in saying that my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip has just been to Albania—

[Sir John Randall]

indicated assent.

[Mr Swire]

That was with our friend and former colleague, Anthony Steen, who has done so much to help the Government on human trafficking. Some of the Northern Irish MPs spoke earlier about what is going on in Northern Ireland now, and I was pleased, when I was a Northern Ireland Minister, to take Anthony Steen over to Northern Ireland, where an all-party group on trafficking was set up at Stormont. I pay tribute to the work that he continues to do.

[Sir John Randall]

May I give a little plug for the fact that we are still trying to get human trafficking groups set up around Europe and are always on the lookout for some funding from the Foreign Office?

[Mr Swire]

A point well made.

The issues to which I referred have an impact on the UK, and we are a leading supporter of Albania’s efforts to combat them. For example, we have signed memorandums of understanding with Albania on information sharing, and in July of this year our embassy in Tirana funded a border police processing and debriefing facility. That doubled capacity at Tirana airport for returns of failed asylum seekers and other irregular migrants, and it sends a clear message that the UK is serious about cutting back on illegal migration from Albania.

Although there is much progress in the western Balkans, we must ensure that the whole region is moving forward, and worryingly that cannot be said at the moment of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The country faces constitutional paralysis and ethnic division through a lack of reforms and economic stagnation. Bosnia’s politicians owe it to their people to provide jobs and prosperity. Instead, they keep them hostage to nationalist rhetoric, which is a cover for their failure to meet ordinary citizens’ aspirations. In addition, the daily challenges to Bosnia’s sovereignty by the openly secessionist leadership in the entity of Republika Srpska are on the increase. We are clear: the redrawing of borders in the western Balkans is finished, so we urge political leaders there to respond fully to the EU’s offer of support and to heed legitimate calls from the Bosnian population. The upcoming elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina will be an important opportunity for those voices to be heard.

The United Kingdom stands ready, with our EU partners, to support the process. Our contribution to Bosnia’s stability already provides foundations for the country to build on. We play a significant role in the EUFOR peacekeeping mission in Bosnia, increasing UK troop numbers this year in response to violent protests in February.

We also urge further reforms on Macedonia. We continue to be strong supporters of Macedonia’s EU and NATO future, but the country must take urgent, decisive action to address growing shortcomings in its democratic institutions and processes, judicial independence and media freedom. We continue to encourage both sides to work on the issue of the name.

In summary, some western Balkan countries are successfully rising to the many challenges that they face, but others are lagging behind and must do more to ensure that the whole region can move forward together. We want a strong and flourishing region on the EU’s doorstep, not one that fuels crime, corruption or trafficking or is a source of instability and insecurity. Our national interest, historical links with the region and long relationship are there to be built on, and we are determined to do that.

I am genuinely sorry to be losing my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip as a colleague at the next general election. As he said, we served together in the Whips Office. Parliament will lose a valuable Member, but perhaps Parliament’s loss will be Randall of Uxbridge’s gain. I thank him again. I commend the interest and work on both sides of the House, but particularly that done by my right hon. Friend in helping to strengthen those links.

Discretionary Social Fund (Redcar and Cleveland)

Wednesday 10th September 2014 Westminster Hall

10:59

[Ian Swales (Redcar) (LD)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Brooke. I rise to speak about a local issue: the discretionary social fund of Redcar and Cleveland borough council. I represent a corner of Yorkshire that has had mixed fortunes over the past few years. We have had a steep decline in employment in traditional industries over the past couple of decades, which has led to some real economic challenges. The restart of the steelworks in 2012 has helped to reverse the fortunes of the region, and with Government support there has been further improvement since then, with unemployment falling by 22% in the past year in my constituency.

My constituency remains 33rd out of 650 for unemployment, however, so there are some real challenges. It contains real pockets of deprivation: South Bank and Grangetown wards are among the most deprived in the whole country, and 80% of pupils at Grangetown primary school receive free school meals. I am particularly concerned to ensure that any help the Government can give on the social side is well targeted and reaches the people who need it.

Under the previous Government, the Department for Work and Pensions administered the discretionary social fund. That continued until the end of March 2013, and on 1 April 2013 responsibility for the social fund passed to local councils. Until that date, I cannot remember having any case work to do with the social fund. Clearly, people have needs, but the DWP seemed to be able to deal with cases on a basis that the people involved found acceptable. It is worth remembering that under the previous Government, the DWP did not have the power to refer people to food banks and other agencies. I am pleased that this Government have changed that, because if people need help, they should get the referrals that they need.

Councils assumed responsibility for the discretionary social fund. Redcar and Cleveland borough council’s cabinet papers contained a short description of the purpose of the fund:

“To provide financial assistance in times of crisis and assistance to customers returning to the community from a previous care arrangement.”

The money was given to the council for such purposes, although it was not ring-fenced; I will return to that point later. The DWP retained responsibility for situations of crisis that had to do with benefit transitions and delays. Will the Minister confirm that that is his reading of the situation? Is he comfortable that the new interface is working effectively? When the DWP had responsibility for the discretionary social fund, there was no interface, but one of the issues now is whether a crisis situation is the responsibility of the local council or the DWP.

The budget for the discretionary social fund was transferred to councils, and for 2013-14 there was programme funding of £631,000 and an allowance for administration costs of £133,000. In 2014-15, the amount of programme funding was the same, but the administration allowance was only £122,000. How were those amounts assessed? Clearly, some work was done in the DWP to assess need in the area. I would be interested to know, if the Minister has comparable figures, what the spend was in 2012-13, which led to the DWP’s assessment.

Redcar and Cleveland borough council, having received responsibility for the discretionary social fund, reacted in a constructive fashion and put together a comprehensive policy document. I have to say, however, that that document went way beyond the definitions that I have mentioned of what the money was for, and it contained a huge number of potential exclusions. Although I understand the need for controls and the avoidance of unnecessary claims on the fund, the policy document seemed to be more about setting out circumstances in which the money could not be given out rather than those in which it could.

The council has established an online application system, which raises concerns about exclusion, either because of digital access or literacy. We must remember that we are dealing with those who are in crisis and need. They may not have access to online equipment, or they may not be able to use it. I would be interested in the Minister’s comments on the application process, because I know that the DWP is moving in that direction. The council also established a policy that they would not make cash payments, to avoid the risk of discretionary social fund payments being spent on drugs, alcohol, tobacco or other things that would be unnecessary in a crisis situation.

What actually happened? In 2013-14, the council received 2,100 applications for the fund and it made awards in 195 cases, so less than 10% of applications were awarded. In fairness, the large number of unsuccessful applications—more than 1,900—includes those who were referred onward to the DWP because of the interface question that I have mentioned, so not all were complete rejections. Against the original allowance of £764,000, the spend in 2013-14 was £256,000, so more than £500,000 of the money given to the council was not actually spent. I do not have a breakdown of the £256,000, but assuming that the council spent more or less what was budgeted on administration, and I have no reason to think that that was not the case, the actual assistance given must have been some £120,000 out of the £631,000 that was allowed. That would mean that less than 20% of the money was given out. I also know that the total amount spent included money for section 17 children’s claims, which used to be met from a different budget in the council. The council also put some small amounts from the fund towards dealing with council tax for flooded properties. The amount that went to people in real hardship was a relatively small part of the total allocation.

As I have said, if I worked through the council’s policy document, I could find many ways of saying no to people’s claims. That has resulted in an increased case load for me as the local MP, and we have many examples of people being turned down. For example, someone was turned down because they had an annual mobile phone contract. Quite how they were supposed to turn that into cash to help with their crisis was not explained. That did not seem the right thing to do to someone who was experiencing a short-term problem.

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

The hon. Gentleman has mentioned the funds that have not been spent yet, which I believe are at about the £465,000 mark. The council has said that it is carrying those funds forward to use for future allocations. Does the hon. Gentleman believe that that is a wise course of action, in light of the fact that on 2 January this year, the Government cancelled discretionary social fund payments to councils for future years? Does he agree that the council could use that balance to help future DSF claimants, given that the Government will not make any further allocations?

[Ian Swales]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that comment. I share his concern, which I will mention later. I hope the Minister will respond on the future of the DSF.

There was a £508,000 underspend, which has been added to the £754,000 allocation for the current year, 2014-15, which makes £1.26 million in total. As the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop) mentioned, the council has set out a plan to spend that money over four years, rather than in just the one year that we would have had left under the original allocation, which addresses his point. The council clearly assumes that no further DSF money will be available beyond that period. More than £500,000 was required to be spent on crisis in our area, so will the Minister confirm that, through the various reforms, his Department plans to make that nil from the year 2015-16? If that is the case, I understand why the council might feel the need to spread the money more widely. More than £800,000 of the Department’s allocation for the two years 2013-14 and 2014-15 will actually be spent in three future years beyond the general election, which obviously has implications for spending versus politics.

The council has developed a comprehensive spending plan for the £1.26 million. Over a four-year period the council intends to make grant awards of £190,000 and loans of £300,000, of which it expects £75,000 to be repaid over the period. The citizens advice bureau will get £75,000, including £20,000 to improve financial capability. A carers charity will get £20,000 to help carers and the disabled apply for the funds. £75,000 will go to the local credit union to help make it sustainable. I mentioned the section 17 children’s awards, which will total £200,000. Some £475,000 will be spent on administration, which when added to the administration that happened in the first year, 2013-14, means that some £600,000 will be spent on administration—council processes and staff—as opposed to the £255,000 that was allocated for 2013-14 and 2014-15. The upshot is that over the next four years, of the £1.26 million, only £190,000, or about 15%, is available for straightforward grants to people in crisis. The plan is to spend the rest of the money in the ways that I have outlined. Does the Minister believe that his Department expected such a picture to emerge when it gave those funds?

The original purpose of the discretionary social fund was

“to provide financial assistance in times of crisis and assistance to customers returning to the community from a previous care arrangement.”

That was the council’s original remit for the money, and things have clearly moved on since then. The council’s plans are a bold attempt to address the issues of deprivation and the problems in our area, but my sense is that far less direct help is reaching those who are most in need, and my casework bears that out. I would appreciate it if the Minister responded on the balance of the spending.

This debate is about the discretionary social fund, but I cannot allow it to be completed without referring to the discretionary housing payment fund, which is associated with the discretionary social fund and is in place to address issues arising from the welfare reform process. In mid-February 2014, it was discovered that only just over half of the DHP money had been paid out for the year ending in March 2014. I understand that, unlike the discretionary social fund, the discretionary housing payment fund would have had to have been repaid if it had not been used within the financial year. Again, I was concerned by the number of rejections about which I was hearing. I wrote to the Minister’s colleague, Lord Freud, a number of times, especially on the issue of disabled adults.

The Minister for Pensions may be aware that it was Redcar and Cleveland borough council that lost a court case involving a disabled adult to whom it had not been prepared to pay a discretionary housing payment. The judgment clearly stated:

“In considering whether there is under-occupation of the appellant’s property, the local authority has not taken into consideration her disabilities and her reasonable requirements, as a result of these, to sleep in a bedroom of her own”.

It is certainly true, as Lord Freud kept writing back to me, that discretionary housing payments were meant to cover such circumstances, and the judgment made that very clear. The council, however, expected people in that situation to apply every three months for the renewal of their discretionary housing payment, and many other councils expect only an annual application, particularly from people who suffer from disability. The Minister for Pensions knows that I have consistently fought on that issue, and I was obviously pleased to support the Affordable Homes Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George) last Friday. The anomaly for disabled adults will hopefully be addressed, assuming the Bill is enacted, and such court cases and difficulties for people will no longer be required.

The discretionary housing budget was spent by the council, and one way in which it was spent was that a number of local residents were delighted to receive an unexpected £1,000 cheque through their letterboxes. Some of them had moved up to six months previously because they had been under-occupying. I understand the council’s reluctance to provide the money at the time because it did not know whether the budget would extend and be sufficient for the last month of the year, but it managed to defray the money very quickly when the year end was approaching. Redcar and Cleveland borough council was of course one of the councils that applied for extra money, so not all the money arrived at the start of the year. However, I met a few delighted residents who had suddenly received £1,000 that they were not expecting.

The administration of the two funds raises questions about the competence and attitude of some of the staff involved in the process. Given the stories that I have heard, I believe that, overall, my constituents have suffered more than they need to suffer. I will refrain from saying that this was politically motivated, but there is no doubt that the Labour party has been able to campaign on welfare reform more effectively as a result of some of the issues.

I am obviously not raising this issue today to get a response from the Minister on every detail, so I will summarise. I have already asked a number of questions. Is he satisfied that the interface is clear on the Department’s responsibility for benefit transitions and delays, and on the council’s responsibility for the discretionary social fund? How was the discretionary social fund money given to the council for 2013-14 and 2014-15 assessed, and how did it compare with previous years, particularly 2012-13? Is it true that the Department expects the amount to be nil for 2015-16 and beyond? Is he happy that, over the next four years, only 15% of the discretionary social fund is budgeted for direct grants to individuals and that more than twice as much money is earmarked for council administration?

The Department has embarked on many challenging reforms, and any Government would have made quite a lot of those reforms. The Government have provided help, and the Department’s reputation depends on that help being used effectively. Clearly we support localism, but is he happy that the money is not ring-fenced? Should the Department say more about the criteria for the awards? Are local councils the right recipients of the funds? These are challenging times for many of my constituents, and the Government are carrying on the work of the previous Government in balancing taxpayers’ money and welfare and trying to mitigate the consequent effects. I look forward to the Minister’s response on how that has been happening in my local area.

11:19

[The Minister for Pensions (Steve Webb)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Brooke. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Ian Swales) on securing the debate and on representing his constituents’ concerns in such a measured, thoughtful and well-informed way.

In the brief time available to me, I hope to answer my hon. Friend’s questions and make some observations about how Redcar and Cleveland council’s performance compares with that of other local authorities. Some of the things he observed are, to a greater or lesser extent, common across local authorities, but some suggest that there are particular issues in Redcar that I should address.

My hon. Friend asked about the allocations for 2013-14 and beyond. Nationally, we are roughly spending the money that we would have spent on community care grants and certain crisis loans, plus an amount for administration, had we continued the schemes. The transition to local provision was not a cut, but broadly a transfer of the money we would have spent.

My hon. Friend asked how the specific allocations were made. They were based on historical spend and demand. In other words, we looked at where community care grants were paid and where crisis loans were bid for. It is never quite as simple as that, but that is the basis for the allocations. He asked for the figure for 2012-13. In his area, the Department for Work and Pensions spent £717,000 on the things that the council is now responsible for.

I will briefly recap what happened. My hon. Friend spoke about localism, and we took the view that, although it is right that DWP does certain things nationally, it is important that the national Government do not overlap, duplicate and interact unhelpfully with what local authorities do. We looked at what DWP was doing, and it became apparent that community care grants and, to some extent, crisis loans overlapped with things that local authorities were already doing for vulnerable people, people coming out of care and people in crisis. The point of the reforms was to give local authorities the money that we would have spent and enable them to co-ordinate it, so people have to deal with only one authority, not two, and get better results.

It is fair to say that all local authorities in 2013-14 took a while to get going on local welfare provision, which was not surprising given that it was new money and that new processes had to be set up. We estimate that in the first year, 2013-14, about 60% of the funding that was available across the country was spent. We think the corresponding figure for Redcar and Cleveland is 40%—that is programme funding, not administration.

Although we accept that there is a general issue about setting up new systems because it is costly and takes time, Redcar and Cleveland council seems to have struggled more than many others in getting the money out to its citizens. As my hon. Friend said, the unspent money was carried forward, so it will get into the system at some point. Nevertheless, in 2013-14 many people in need did not get the money when they needed it, and the fact that the council will spend the money in 2017-18 or 2018-19 does not address those people’s needs, which is regrettable.

My hon. Friend asked about ring-fencing, which is a constant dilemma. Philosophically, he and I are both localists, so we think that, in general, local authorities are best placed to determine local need. There is a risk if we tell councils in every specific case that they absolutely have to spend so much money on a certain thing because we think it is important. There is a tension between those things, and judgments must constantly be made. The philosophy behind the localisation was to merge the funding with other council funding in an integrated way to make funding for one person part of the big pot, so we felt particularly uncomfortable about creating a hard ring fence, although we thought hard about it. In the end, we said to local authorities, “This is your money.” The two things my hon. Friend referred to—crisis loans for people in immediate crisis and community care grants for people who are coming back into the community—are where we would have spent the money, and they mirror where the money was previously spent.

We asked local authorities to report back to us. As there was an underspend in 2013-14, I wrote to local authorities in January and July 2014 to tell them that in 2014-15 we would like to know what was happening on a quarterly basis. The majority of local authorities replied to that letter, but Redcar and Cleveland did not, which puts us in a difficult position. In the letter on 2014-15 spending, I said:

“Whilst we do not intend to withhold money, if evidence comes to light that the money is not being spent we will have to revisit that decision during the course of the year… Providing a return is a crucial part of monitoring this spend”.

I urge my hon. Friend’s local authority to let us know what it has been spending the money on in 2014-15. As custodians of more than £170 million a year of public money, we have a duty to seek assurance, in the context of localism, that the money is being well spent, so we need to hear back from the local authorities.

My hon. Friend also raised an important issue about the proportion of people being turned down, which is concerning. Not everybody used to get social fund loans or community care grants, but, roughly, more than two thirds of people who applied for crisis loans and more than a third of people who applied for community care grants were successful. Although my hon. Friend said that the one in 10 figure might not be what it seems, one must ask whether we have the balance right if the vast majority of people who have gone through the expense and difficulty of claiming are turned down. Obviously, it is for local authorities to decide how to carve up the pot, but if so many people are being turned down, the local authority probably should look again at whether is has the balance right.

[Tom Blenkinsop]

Will the Minister give way?

[Steve Webb]

As I have got only a few minutes, I am sure the hon. Gentleman will forgive me for not giving way.

My hon. Friend asked what happens in a crisis and whose responsibility it is. In general, if it has been agreed that somebody is entitled to a DWP benefit, but they have not yet got the money, they can get an advance payment of benefit. That is a matter for the DWP. If a person has applied to us and there has been a bureaucratic problem at our end, that is a matter for us, but financial crises per se are a matter for the local authority; that is the split. If a person has an issue with DWP, we expect them to go to DWP, but people have financial crises for a whole raft of reasons.

My hon. Friend asked about the position in 2015-16. DWP receives funding from the Treasury, which it allocates in full to local authorities for local welfare provision for 2013-14 and 2014-15. The intention was always that, post 2015-16, it would be one of the things that fell within local authority responsibilities funded by the Department for Communities and Local Government. As non-ring-fenced activity, there is no separate sum in the total local government settlement for that item, but the local government settlement for 2015-16 was set in the knowledge that this matter is a responsibility of local government. It is fair to say that local government gets significant sums for people in need. For example, it receives £200 million for a troubled families initiative, and £3.8 billion for adult health and social care funding. Therefore, large sums of money go to local government for people in need, and it will have that responsibility from 2015-16. The issue that my hon. Friend raised is currently the subject of a judicial review. I hope the matter will be resolved before too long, but, as it is currently before the courts, I am constrained about saying any more about it.

Finally, my hon. Friend asked whether I think that the council got it right and whether that is how we expected money to be paid out. I hesitate to second-guess local authorities because the point of localism is to let them decide how best to use the money in the interests of their citizens. I share my hon. Friend’s concern about the amount of money in kind available—as he said, we are not talking about cash—and about the fact that in the past people would have been able to get significant help in a crisis. Money is going to other things that are worthy in their own right—nobody objects to funding a credit union or a carers group—but there is a risk, and local authorities that have had spending power transferred to them must look after people in crisis. Improved infrastructure and general financial capability are great, but people in crisis and those who come out of institutions need provision. Every local authority, including my hon. Friend’s, must meet those urgent, immediate needs, not only their wider strategic goals. I hope that response helps my hon. Friend.

11:30

Sitting suspended.

Outdoor Sport and Recreation

Wednesday 10th September 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Anne Main in the Chair]

14:30

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

It is good to be under your stewardship this afternoon, Mrs Main, for this debate. It is wonderful to see so many people turning out for it. There has been a great deal of interest in the topic of Government policy on sport, outdoor activities and recreation. It is really good to see that so many Members want to speak, so I will keep my remarks fairly short, although given the nature of what I will say, they will be slightly rambling. [Hon. Members: “Oh!”] Sorry—that is my only joke of the afternoon.

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

He is Welsh.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

Indeed.

I am an absolute evangelist for the great outdoors, which may come as a bit of a surprise because earlier in my career I was a sports facility and arts facility manager. My job then was to encourage people to come indoors, into sports centres, to get the gym mats out, do the aerobics sessions, get into the gym itself and so on; I was bringing people indoors. However, the greatest free gym that we have is when we step outside of our homes; we do not even need to get in a car. It is what we do when we step out into London or elsewhere, leaving our homes and turning left or right, before going up into the hills, as I am fortunate enough to be able to do when I walk out into the uplands of south Wales.

The great outdoors is a tremendous asset and I guess that my argument today is that we parliamentarians, the Government and the organisations that are involved with the great outdoors—of which there are many—all need to do our utmost to encourage people to get out there, because of the wide range of benefits of going outdoors. There are definitely health benefits, not only physical health benefits but benefits for people’s mental well-being. Encouraging people to go outdoors can also help to drive activities such as GP exercise on prescription, or GP referrals as they are sometimes called. Such methods are not appropriate for every individual who sits in front of a GP, but increasingly the evidence shows that a very good prescription for many people, whether they have mental health issues or physical health issues, is to do what they can within their abilities to go out and walk or cycle, and enjoy the great outdoors beyond them.

I really am an evangelist for this: in fact, I am a walking testament to it. As I said, early in my career I was in sports facility management, but later I was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis, which for many people is a severe condition that will progressively get worse, eventually confining them to very restricted mobility, and so on. Yet the fact is that I simply walk out from my house on a Sunday afternoon, stretch my legs, go with the children and the rest of my family in my immediate neighbourhood; I cycle to work, even though it is only five minutes back and forth; and occasionally I go and do what I love, which is to get away from this place and get into the wide open spaces. That is the gospel I want to sing to a lot of people, and in a moment I will give some examples of where these recreational activities are happening and talk about areas where we can perhaps do more.

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

I congratulate the hon. Member on securing an important debate. I, too, am a very enthusiastic walker and I noticed the way he was going when he talked about a “rambling” speech and being a “walking testament”; I could see the direction he is taking.

About a year ago, I secured a debate on childhood obesity. This approach—getting people outdoors—is the biggest way to combat childhood obesity in our times. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we, as a society, and the Government need to address that issue for the sake of this and future generations?

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I entirely agree, and perhaps the most cost-effective way that we can do that is through a coherent strategy, involving the Welsh Government, the UK Government, the Northern Ireland Assembly and so on, that makes use of this great asset that we have literally outside our doors.

Such a strategy could certainly have a major effect on combating childhood obesity. Studies that have come out only this year, building on studies going back to the 1960s, show that if someone gets out of their car and walks or cycles to work, it has a major impact on their mortality, their length of life and their likelihood of developing serious medical conditions later in life. It is as clear as day now; there is no scientific argument about it. So let us make sure that we have such a strategy, which percolates from the national level right down to the local level, and into the voluntary sector as well; we should use the groups that are already in place to get people up and going.

[Mr Sheerman]

I agree with everything that my hon. Friend has said so far. I made a jibe about his being Welsh, but he knows that I started out as a Welsh politician in his very own village of Gowerton, and he knows that my father also suffered from ankylosing spondylitis.

Will my hon. Friend concentrate a little bit of his speech on the importance of getting children into the countryside? He knows that I am the chairman of the John Clare Trust, which has a campaign, Every Child’s Right to the Countryside. In this country, 35% to 40% of kids do not see the countryside at all, and if they do see it, they only see it on a school trip. So please let us do something to get schoolchildren into the countryside.

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Interventions should be quite short. They are becoming mini-speeches.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

Thank you, Mrs Main.

My hon. Friend is right, and the John Clare Trust and so many other organisations do such good work. When I was an Environment Minister, one of the most inspiring projects that I saw in the national parks was the Mosaic programme, which dealt not only with children but with people from different ethnic backgrounds—people who typically did not go out, and felt that there was some sort of psycho-perceptual barrier that stopped them going out into the countryside—and encouraged them to go out. Then what we saw was the intra-generational effect of children taking their parents and grandparents into the great outdoors.

I am focusing on strolling, but I have enjoyed some of the most adrenaline-filled times in my life outdoors, including hanging by my fingertips from cliffs in north-west Wales, which was scary and exhilarating at the same time. I have broken bones on mountain bike paths; I do not do that anymore, as I am getting on now and have a more sedate approach. I have thrown myself off the cliffs in west Wales and swung from them, while coasteering, which is a tremendous activity. And I have swum in the sea off west Wales, through waters full of jellyfish, bottlenose dolphins and so on, which was absolutely phenomenal.

Such activity is an education as well as being good for people’s health, and it is good for the economy. Locally, we have some amazing initiatives along that line. We have a striders group—the Ogmore Valley Striders. What does it do? It works with existing groups on the ground that bring together older people—third-age people—and it says to them, “Come out. Let’s do some mild walking along the cycle paths that we have. Then maybe one day, we’ll go a bit higher,” and so on. I now see people from those groups sitting in the café halfway up that cycle path, and there will be 20 of them together. They are also spending money in that café, while they have a sit-down and a chat, before they go out and get the health benefits of walking as well.

We also have the Love 2 Walk festival. Labour-run Bridgend county borough council supports it every year, and it is growing every year, with a long list of places for people to go and walk to, ranging from easy walks to very challenging and rigorous walks in the south Wales valleys. Recently, we have had an Elvis walk in Porthcawl, which broke the record for the number of Elvises walking along the all-Wales coastal path—who can say more than that?

[Mr Sheerman]

There is nothing to say about that.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

However, there is not only walking. I pay tribute to the work that the hon. Member for Macclesfield (David Rutley) does in this area with several all-party groups, including an event that he pulled together in June last year where a range of organisations came together, which deal with canoeing, mountaineering, open access, open spaces, national parks, walking in London and other cities—all of that activity. Out of that event came a very good piece of work called “Reconomics”, which pulled together in a comprehensive way all the data—a mountain of data—that show just how beneficial outdoor recreation is; not just walking, but all the types of outdoor recreation. It showed that outdoor recreation is the UK’s favourite pastime, with all these diverse activities from potholing to caving, to simply strolling outside or going on a bike with the family.

Interestingly, women are just as likely as men to take part in outdoor recreation. As a former sports facility manager, I can tell hon. Members that, in terms of women’s participation in sports centres, we still have to break down some of the barriers to people doing indoors activities. We work hard on that. Outdoors, there is no differentiation; people do outdoor activities regardless of gender, and that is great.

More female than male staff are employed in outdoor activities. How many sectors can say that? Some 55% of employees in outdoor recreation and sport are women, not men. That is a great thing to celebrate. I know from my background that the industry employees a higher proportion of young people aged 16 to 24, giving them great opportunities.

Let us go for the hard cash and the hard sell. We see time and again, as reports come out, just how much this does for local economies and the national economy. The “Reconomics” report said that walking tourism alone was estimated to generate up to £2.76 billion for the English economy; that is quite staggering.

Let me turn for a moment to Wales and go back home to the Wales coast path—the first, the landmark and ground-breaking all-Wales coastal path. In its first 12 months, up to September 2013, the path generated 2.82 million visits and added £32 million to Wales’s economy. Some 94% of those visitors were walking for leisure, with around 40% of them visiting the path as part of a longer holiday. The impact of the path on the local economy helped 5,400 tourism-related businesses and led to an extra 120, and more, jobs created within 2 km of the route. I can see this for myself in my own area. Going down to the Glamorgan heritage coast, a tremendous piece of coastline—around Southerndown and so on—people will see the new businesses springing up. I particularly recommend the Barn at West Farm, just outside Southerndown, which is a fantastic place to stop when on a walk, have a nice coffee and listen to the guitar music being played—and on you go then.

The coast path has led to exposure for Wales on the BBC and ITV, in The New York Times and USA Today, and on Fox News, because it is an all-country, all-nation coastal path. People can hit the coast in Wales and turn left or right without stopping; it is phenomenal. The Wales coast path was included as one of the nominees in VirtualTourist’s campaign to find the “8th Wonder of the World”, alongside spots such as Yellowstone national park in the United States of America. National Geographic magazine named the Pembrokeshire coast section of the path in its top 10 places in the world to visit. In Lonely Planet’s 2012 “Best in Travel” guide, the Wales coast path was voted the greatest region on earth.

It is brilliant that recently, within the past few days, we have heard that the England coastal path will now be delivered by 2020. We were previously lacking a timetable for that. As the Minister who took the Marine and Coastal Access Bill through Committee, I can say that we were a little bit worried that the path was going to get kicked into the long grass, but it has now been said that there will be an all-England coastal path by 2020. People will be able to walk from the top north-east of England, all the way round England, through Wales, all around the coastal path, and right up the other side, then they can carry on up into Scotland, as part of a Great Britain walk.

[Mr Sheerman]

I am being carried away with nostalgia as my hon. Friend talks about coastal paths in Wales and elsewhere, but we in Yorkshire—in Huddersfield—have wonderful countryside, although we are bit far from the coastline. In terms of his Clare Balding tours, will he think about coming to Huddersfield and Yorkshire for wonderful walks with us, too?

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

Definitely. I would love to visit and walk there with my hon. Friend and, as time allows, visit the whole of these paths. Of course, I am only talking about coastal paths; we now have a long distance trails network in the UK, which is tremendous. Two years ago, I walked with my whole family, carrying rucksacks, along the Hadrian’s Wall path in seven days. It was brilliant. What an experience. We need to encourage more of this.

The hon. Member for Macclesfield held a brilliant reception at which a six-point strategy was launched, and it is not just to do with walking. Organisations including the Wild Network, the Sport and Recreational Alliance, the Youth Hostel Association—I am a member of that association, so my apologies because I should have declared that at the outset; I am also vice-president of Ramblers Cymru and president of the Glamorgan Area Ramblers—Living Streets, Putting People First, the British Mountaineering Council, Britain on Foot, Ramblers GB, the Open Spaces Society, the Campaign for National Parks and the English Outdoor Council were pulled together.

Those organisations are asking the Minister for six things that I will mention in headlines, because I am sure that other hon. Members will speak to them in detail. They would like cross-government support for a long-term strategy on outdoor recreation and improvement of access to coast and countryside, because of the challenges for local authorities in maintaining simple rights of access that allow people to get up on to the high hills or to long-distance paths. We need to find a way to keep those routes open for cyclists and people on horseback and on bikes, and so on.

Those organisations want to increase opportunities for young people to get outside—mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman)—because young people will drag their whole families and the generations with them. They want to maximise the economic contribution of outdoor recreation. Some people pooh-poohed the idea that the England coastal path would provide economic benefits, but the evidence from Wales is that it certainly will; businesses will shoot up along that path and make the most of it.

Those organisations want to strengthen planning guidance and protect the outdoors. We know about the pressures and that we have to ensure that this is a living countryside, but we also need to make sure that what people go to the countryside to enjoy is still there as well; getting that balance right is critical.

The sixth ask is for better public transport in rural areas, for a number of reasons, and not only for cross-modular approaches to transport so that people can get to where they want to go. For example, people might want to do the Taff trail on their bike, so on a Sunday they go on a bus that will drop them in Brecon and then they can cycle all the way back to Cardiff. However, it is not just about that. Study after study is now showing that better public transport in rural areas—in Wales, England and everywhere else—encourages people to walk more. They take the bus and then walk and stroll, and the pounds fall off and they feel better in themselves, and so on.

That is all I am going to say, because so many hon. Members want to contribute. I welcome the chance to have this debate. This is far from being an attack on the Government; this is positive and encouraging. Let us do our utmost to make the most of our country’s great outdoors. We are a beautiful island nation and sometimes we forget it too easily. Let us get out there and use it a heck of a lot more.

14:47

[David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main. Having lived in St Albans, I know that there are some wonderful walks around the city and elsewhere in Hertfordshire.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies)—my hon. Friend—on securing this debate and making a terrific speech, with real enthusiasm and a clear sense of purpose and direction. It was clearly grounded in his experience in the world of work before coming to the House and as a Minister. I congratulate him on what he said and agree with just about all of it, except for his comment that Pembrokeshire and that part of the world is the best, when, clearly, other hon. Members would feel that Yorkshire or Cheshire, or other parts of the country, were better. But there we go.

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

And Kent.

[David Rutley]

Kent, I hear, too. However, we will see. Hon. Members will have their chance to make those points in due course.

I declare an interest up front, as the co-chair of the all-party group on mountaineering. I refer hon. Members to the register of all-party groups. I am also a vice-chair of the all-party group on mountain rescue and a secretary of the all-party group on national parks. Most importantly, I am the Member of Parliament for Macclesfield, one of the great constituencies of this country. It is a beautiful constituency where the Cheshire peak comes together with the Peak district. It is well worth a visit, and I encourage everybody to come along.

I thank the Sports Minister for attending. She is passionate about sport, having been a prolific sportsperson herself in the past, and appreciates the importance of outdoor activities. We were fortunate enough to meet Andrew Denton, the chairman of the Outdoor Industries Association, to talk about many of the things we are discussing today. I hope that, given that enthusiasm, at a future meeting the Minister will change her title from Minister for Sport to Minister for Sport and Outdoor Activities. That would only be appropriate.

Positive progress has been made in recent weeks and months. The creation of the England coast path is a major step forward and positive development and there is a clear timetable to make that happen. I am delighted that that is moving forward; it is a key element of the six key proposals that have been put together by the outdoor organisations, which the hon. Member for Ogmore has already discussed. Furthermore, it is good news for walkers across the country and for climbers.

I know that representatives from the British Mountaineering Council are here. It is important to recognise that the spreading room—the margin between the path and the sea itself—is vital for outdoor activities and, in particular, climbers. The important thing for the communities on that route is that footfall will increase, which will help boost the rural economy in those areas. The key ask today is for an overarching strategy for the outdoors—a sense of direction and a clear plan of action, co-ordinated by a body that can not only fine-tune the shaping of that, but go out and work with the Minister and Sport England to deliver it. There are many other things that we will talk about today, but that is the key ask.

I will put things into context, because the issues we are discussing are vital for our nation and critical for the rural economy in several ways. First, on participation, the Olympic legacy is absolutely critical to this country, and there is more we can do—perhaps in ways that the originators of the Olympic bid did not envisage. There are other ways of getting people to be physically active. We have to tackle physical inactivity; it is putting pressure on our health services and threatens the health of multiple generations. Secondly, as we have already said, there is the importance of tourism, particularly to these rural areas.

I am co-chairman of the all-party group on mountaineering, and we have been working hard with a wide range of MPs and, for that matter, peers in taking the agenda forward. As we look for how to bring about greater success, it is important to reflect on the success that cycling has seen in recent years. It has been an incredibly well articulated campaign that has engaged the public, not just with the elite sport itself, but with mass participation.

I saw that this Sunday at the Bollington BikeFest. Some 300 people turned up to do cycling events, which ranged in length from 20 miles to 75 miles. It was organised by Macclesfield Lions club. We have to build on the success of cycling, because organised sport, as far as I can see, is only one element of the equation, and we have to go beyond that. The focus should not just be on sports, but on a much wider range of outdoor activities. As the hon. Member for Ogmore said, it is often easier and cheaper to participate in outdoor activities, so we should promote them. Walking is a great example. In east Cheshire, our ramblers group has 700 members, and we can do even better in building that membership base.

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

First, I apologise to you, Mrs Main, for being late; I forgot that the debate was in this Committee Room. I start by congratulating the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies). I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (David Rutley) on his work on the APPG, of which I am proud to be an active member. Does he share my concern about how the participation figures are calculated by Sport England? That has a big effect on funding. We know that there are thousands and thousands of people out walking, yet that is not reflected in the figures or the funding.

[David Rutley]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have to capture robustly the activity levels that are already there and then build on that success. It is clear that more people are getting involved. The increases in outdoor activities are far greater than in other organised sports. Let us capture that and then get what funding we need—we do not need the same as many organised sports—to help move things forward.

I recognise the great work that my hon. Friend has done, notably in highlighting some of the well-being issues involved in outdoor activities, not least his work with veterans groups in the sponsored event that went up Cotopaxi earlier this year. Other Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), went too. That set a high standard. She did a fantastic job, and I hope we will hear more about that later.

There is growing evidence that more has to be done. A Government-sponsored paper, “Moving More, Living More”, sets out that the costs associated with inactivity in the UK are some £20 billion. It is clear that those involved in a lot of physical activity reduce their risk of dying early by 30%. It is astounding that 30% of the UK population are physically inactive, compared with 8% in the Scandinavian countries. Quite simply, something more needs to be done.

This is a clear spur and a clear call of action for Public Health England, our local health and wellbeing boards across the country and all public bodies. We have to wake up and take clear action to ensure that we move the agenda further forward. Let us not try to reinvent the wheel and come up with fancy options. It is straightforward—walking works and many of these outdoor pursuits work; we just have to get more people active outdoors.

We have already heard about the important report “Reconomics”, which is being taken forward by the Sport and Recreation Alliance. Figures have already been put forward, but one thing that amazed me was that the visitor spend associated with outdoor activities is £21 billion across the nation. That is a huge opportunity and more can follow, if we get it right. One tremendous quote from that incredible report states that the outdoors are

“a vast blue and green gym with no membership fee, and a sporting arena like no other.”

How true!

Locally in Macclesfield, as in Ogmore and other parts of the country, we are seeing such events as the Bollington walking festival move forward and countless fell races. I was able to survive the Wincle Trout race last year. We have the “Walkers are Welcome” scheme and other initiatives, and with all these things, people are seeing that we need to move further forward.

In the Peak district, they are taking forward fantastic activity in promoting cycling. Quite simply, the ambition is clear. We want a step change in participation in physical activity. We want to take 1 million-plus people out of physical inactivity so that lives can be saved. We want to see a real boost to the rural economy, too.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

There is absolutely a desire to create more trail, walkways and bridleways. In my area of north Lincolnshire, our local council is investing millions in the River Ancholme trail, the Isle of Axholme greenway and the Crowle to Gunness cycleway, among many other schemes.

One problem we have in trying to open up such trails is land ownership. There are supportive landowners who see the benefit to the economy and the population generally, but others, unfortunately—generally those who own the land in the middle of the trail—are not quite so supportive—

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Order. I think the speaker, who has a limited amount of time, has got the point you were making, Mr Percy. A lot of Members wish to speak.

[David Rutley]

I thank my hon. Friend; I know that he is keen and passionate about these issues. Access can be a challenge, but the way to deal with such things—we saw evidence of this with the Deregulation Bill—is through collaborative coalition building among landowners, ramblers and other outdoor organisations and local councils putting forward the case positively and providing the right levels of support.

Progress is being made, and it is not just the English coast path that is going forward. It is good to see No. 10, as well as the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Department of Health, getting behind the great outdoors campaign. Recently, my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Andrew Bingham) and I were able to welcome the Minister responsible for public health, my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison), to the Goyt valley, in the wonderful constituency of High Peak but close to the border with Macclesfield. We were able to walk and talk. We discussed the importance of getting people out from their community and into the countryside. As we arrived at the trig point at the summit of Shining Tor, we met a huge church group out for a walk. With their actions, they were making the point that we have been trying to make in words. It was a memorable summit meeting.

We are looking to build on the work done so far by building awareness through parliamentary away days in the hills and through working with such outdoor legends as Alan Hinkes and Sir Chris Bonington. We should ensure that we build on the great campaign we launched last year, “Britain on Foot”. Its aim is to help more people get off the sofa and get outdoors.

Given what happened with cycling, what was coming ahead with the general election and the need to get all parties involved in this debate, 10 leading outdoor organisations came together to create six key proposals for Government action on the outdoors, which have already been referenced. That coalition was, in itself, a landmark activity, and a wide range of interests are represented within it. The fact that those organisations have come together highlights the need for change and action, and I hope that that agenda is taken seriously. I am sure that Opposition Members are busy getting those proposals to their manifesto-creating groups. I am doing the same with other Members here in the Conservative party. However, seeing this agenda shaping up and getting so much support from so many different outdoor organisations is a landmark.

We can learn from other countries that are doing a good job, such as the United States and its work with its national parks. There is a Cabinet-ranking Secretary of the Interior whose job it is to ensure that the agenda is furthered. The Scandinavians have also clearly done a fantastic job in improving physical activity levels. Within the United Kingdom, Scotland and Northern Ireland already have clearly articulated outdoor strategies, so we are asking today that the Minister consider creating a strategy for the outdoors for the entire United Kingdom. We also hope that, following Thursday’s referendum, it will continue to include Scotland for many years to come.

Last year, we had an Adjournment debate, attended by many of the Members present today, that led to three small requests: to recognise outdoor activities; to meet outdoor organisations; and to support the “Britain on Foot” campaign. I am delighted that the then Sports Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Sir Hugh Robertson), took that agenda seriously and that all those things have been achieved.

Now, we are asking for just six things and have a much clearer agenda of what we want to accomplish. I hope that we will see the same impact and enthusiasm from this Minister and others to move the process forward. I will not go through all six points as time is limited with others wanting to speak, but they are clear and set out a long-term strategy and a clear economic contribution. The point about access, inclusion and getting young people involved is key, but this is cross-generational and young and old alike should be considered.

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

I have come to this debate because I am deeply worried about a specific matter. Although people should be outside enjoying the countryside and the fresh air, more than 600 people have been hurt or worse by cattle. Does my hon. Friend agree that until we get a proper understanding of how to handle access and farming of large, potentially dangerous animals, ramblers will continue to be hurt? We need to do something about that and cannot pretend, as ramblers have done to date, that it is not a problem.

[David Rutley]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. Public safety is paramount. We must educate about the benefits and the associate risks, but that is what makes opportunities in the outdoors so exciting. It is that mix of learning and new experiences while also being aware of the risks and working out how to deal with them. My hon. Friend makes an important point that I am sure will be noted by the outdoors organisations represented here.

In conclusion, the debate has been positive. On a day when many minds are concerned with the state of our Union and with conflicts in other parts of the world, it is tremendous to see so many people here to take this agenda further forward. I know that the Minister is a keen walker and has been to Cumbria, so I ask her to reflect on the amazing, stunning views from the tops of Blencathra and Skiddaw. They are worth the climb and the hard work, and the same is true for promoting the activities that we are discussing today. I hope that the Minister agrees that it is time to get more people moving outdoors.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Order. I will call the wind-ups at 20 minutes to 4, so each speaker has around six minutes if there are not too many interventions.

15:03

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

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mrs Main. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) on securing a debate on this important subject today.

In 2012, London successfully hosted the Olympic games and Glasgow successfully hosted the Commonwealth games this summer. I was in Glasgow for a week and have to say that the fans in places such as Hampden Park were not partisan. It was good to see crowds, containing many Scottish people, cheering on athletes from all the home countries, which says something about sport as a unifying force for the Union. Those events helped to showcase a great variety of outdoor sports. This summer, Yorkshire proudly hosted the Grand Départ of the Tour de France, and the success of that event provided a boost to the sport of cycling. We can take pride in recent successes, but we must also explore new ways to encourage people to participate in sport throughout the UK.

I am co-chair of the all-party group on women’s sport and fitness and want to talk about the issues and the barriers to the participation of girls and women in sport, to which my hon. Friend has already referred. Last week, along with other Members present, I went to an event in Parliament on women and girls in rugby. The event also celebrated the success of the England women’s team in winning the International Rugby Board world cup. It was wonderful to talk to some members of the team, who are still elated at their victory. Their win was even more remarkable given that the women held down various jobs, including plumbing, working for a vet, lifeguarding and teaching, at the same time as training for their national team. A squad of 20 of the women’s team have now been put on professional contracts in the run-up to the rugby sevens at the Rio Olympics. The women told us that the contracts will mean that they can train each day and have some rest and recovery time between training sessions and matches. At Rio, the teams they will be competing against have been training and playing full-time for a year or more. I wish the team well, because they are remarkable role models.

The situation of our elite women athletes still having to hold down jobs while trying to train to the highest level that they can achieve is not always well understood. The recent inquiry by the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport into women in sport highlighted that as one of the problems that have remained since the Olympics. At the elite level, women’s sport gains much less sponsorship and media coverage, and the pay and prize money is lower. A report published this year by the Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation found that women’s sport accounts for less than 0.5% of all commercial investment and only 7% of sports media coverage. When women are not paid for their achievements in sport, it is extremely difficult to encourage girls and young women to aspire to a career as an athlete.

The other issue, perhaps of more relevance to today’s debate, highlighted by the Select Committee inquiry was that women’s participation in grass-roots sport is still much lower than men’s. The most recent figures from the Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation show that only just over 30% of women in England aged 16-plus take part in sport or fitness once a week, compared with over 40% of men, which is a difference of 2 million. Worryingly, in my local authority area of Salford the gap is even greater with 39% of men participating in weekly sporting activity but only 24% of women. I find that really concerning. Members have already discussed the health benefits of activity, and I am impressed by the range of activities that hon. Members take part in, although I must say that mine is limited to running. It is concerning that 76% of women in Salford are not active at such a level.

Research by the Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation found that 12 million women wanted to play more sport, half of whom were inactive at the time of the survey. The participation gap persists because of practical, personal and social barriers for women and girls. The Government, together with the sport sector, local communities and the media, must do more work on removing the gap. We must ensure that any Government policy on outdoor sport and recreation helps to address the barriers that currently prevent girls and women from participating in sporting and other physical activities.

While the overall gender gap in participation is of great concern, the lack of growth in participation rates among young women aged 16 to 25 is also worrying. It is clear from many surveys and reports that young girls see sport as not for them. That perception often stems from negative experiences with PE and sport at school, which is a point that is supported by the Culture, Media and Sport Committee’s report. A survey carried out by the Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation found that 51% of girls were deterred from physical activity by their experiences of school sport and PE. Many girls described it negatively, citing a lack of choice, overly competitive environments, a lack of confidence in their ability and a concern about body image. Changing young girls’ perceptions of sport and being active is essential if we want them to take up sport at school and get the health benefits. As has already been discussed, we should be concerned that girls and young people more generally are not taking up sport and activity at a young age. Government should do more to ensure that pupils are given the opportunity to participate from a young age in a wide range of sports and activities—wider than they are currently—to try to suit all interests.

There is an issue with funding. In the United States there is gender balance in sports funding due to title IX legislation, which requires schools and other bodies receiving public funding to ensure that expenditure on sport benefits boys and girls equally. Since this legislation was passed, the number of girls participating in secondary school athletics in the US has gone from 7% to 41%. I argue that we should adopt similar legislation, because I feel that change here will be minor until there is more equality in funding.

We must consider how we can inspire women to participate in sport throughout their lives. If we look at the figures, it is interesting that many of the sports that are most popular with women are done informally, such as running and swimming, and are therefore outside the formal funding structures. Women take part in running events such as Race for Life and will train up to run 5 km or 10 km, but then, sadly, not enough people persist in taking part in the activity after the event is completed. I did the Salford 10 km last Sunday. There were 3,500 participants. Very impressively, 1,500 were women and 2,000 were men. That is a very good balance, as we tend to see more men than women jogging on the street.

Some good work has been done by sports organisations to encourage more women to participate. Since 2008, British Cycling has led a highly successful campaign to get more women cycling. It wants to inspire 1 million more women to ride, to race and to be part of British cycling by 2020. In the first five years of its campaign, it has achieved significant gains, because it has given guidance on routes, which is important when people are starting, and on safety. It has also created clubs to introduce young people to cycling. That type of guidance and support is vital. I commend British Cycling on its campaign. I look forward to seeing and hearing more progress on that in the future. Given the facts I have touched on, Government and other sports organisations must do more to ensure there is a similar push to help increase women’s participation in other sports and fitness activities.

These campaigns will not work unless we tackle issues such as the funding imbalance, which I touched on, and the lack of coverage of women’s sport. Hon. Members have talked about people getting involved in the outdoors, particularly women. If women are taking part in activities in informal ways, but not in sport, then we have to change the perception that sport is the preserve of men. I am afraid it is not surprising that girls and young women see things that way while elite male sports take up the vast majority of media coverage, sponsorship and funding. To ensure outdoor sports and all sports thrive, we must push for women’s sport to be more adequately represented in the media and to be better funded.

15:12

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

I start by drawing Members’ attention to my declaration in the register. I thank the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies): his enthusiasm for this topic, and for Wales and everything it has to offer, is contagious. It is great to debate this topic—in this Chamber at any rate—as it joins so many people together in a common cause.

Much as I am delighted to see the Minister in her place, this debate could have been answered by the Department of Health, the Department for Education, the Treasury or a number of other Departments. Each has a real interest in this, both economic and social. I hope the Minister will acknowledge that this subject is inter-departmental. Every Department should look at this as an opportunity to improve its performance, rather than as something it needs to acknowledge in a token fashion.

I will concentrate on the benefits of outdoor education and learning for children in particular. It worries me that only 10% of children ever get to play outside these days, whereas 40% of their parents used to. One in three of our kids have never climbed a tree; one in 10 have never ridden a bike; remarkably, 42%—including me—have never made a daisy chain. That may seem an irrelevant contribution, but it demonstrates that we are talking about not just fitness, but culture, heritage and opening the eyes of people who might not have a daily opportunity to have their eyes opened to the extraordinary enrichment to their lives that just a few short hours out in the open air and the countryside provide.

A few Members might read that great magazine Country Life. A wide-ranging survey it carried out—a few years ago now, it must be said—asked questions of a number of schoolchildren aged between about six and 12. In answer to the question, “Why is it important to close gates when you go into the countryside?”, a worryingly large number replied, “To keep the elephants in.” When asked a question about what the greatest advantage was about living in rural areas, the answer came back, “Because there aren’t so many coppers.” This should demonstrate to us that, despite all the progress that has been made, there is still an awful lot we need to do to normalise life outside our urban areas.

Other Members have touched on the health benefits of outdoor activity. I like statistics, but it is still a very worrying situation that 28% of children are obese or suffer from obesity at some stage in their early years. That is partly because of the relatively small number who do one hour of vigorous exercise a day. That is all that is needed: one hour of vigorous exercise a day.

A number of excellent organisations have been mentioned so far. I will touch on the work of the Field Studies Council, not necessarily because it is better than other organisations, but simply because I learned an important lesson when I visited its centre in Stackpole in my constituency. It demonstrated to me something that I had not registered before. One of the values of outdoor learning to a lot of the children and young adults who go to that institution is that it teaches them that they can be good at something. If they do not function or perform to their best ability in a traditional classroom situation, there is often something they can do out there on a beach, in a forest or whatever it might be that they can suddenly excel at. When they discover there is something they can excel at outside, it is remarkable how they discover they can excel at things inside as well.

One of the things the Field Studies Council at Stackpole told me was that part of the problem was the attitude of the teachers who go with these kids. The teachers arrive on a Sunday night with no mobile phone reception, wondering what they are doing down there, wishing they were back at home, arms folded, slightly inclined to think, “Good luck. I haven’t been able to do anything with these kids, so I don’t suppose you will either.” At the end of one week at one of these institutions, they are already booking their trip for next year because they have seen, in such a short space of time, an absolute transformation in the self-confidence and ability of children who, to some extent, they had written off as failures in the classroom. Suddenly, someone who was good at identifying stars, or who learned about seashells or something like that went back to school and their performance in English, maths or history improved as a consequence. That is why I said that a Minister from the Department for Education could just as easily be sat on the Front Bench for this debate, soaking up the benefits for that Department that this kind of activity offers.

We of course hear about obstacles that present themselves; I am afraid that some of them are genuine. There is always some health and safety excuse for not doing these things: we hear long lists of reasons why “we can’t”, or “we won’t”. That is not very helpful either. There has been some progress by the Government—probably not enough—to sweep away what are, in some cases, completely unreasonable and impractical health and safety considerations that get in the way of these projects.

That is as much as I want to say. There are a few activities out there in the countryside that other Members will touch on that have social, economic and ecological benefits that are free to the taxpayer. When it comes to the departmental response—whether it is this Department or others—I hope Ministers will look at outdoor activity and recreation not as a cost but as an investment in the future health and happiness of young people in particular.

15:19

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

September is the month of fruit, foraging and field sports. As someone who represents the most rural and sparsely populated constituency in the country, I welcome the debate initiated by the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) and I briefly put forward everything from Kielder forest, Northumberland national park, Hadrian’s wall, the coast-to-coast cycleway, the Pennine way, the various other cycleways, the Haltwhistle walking festival and the wild heather moorlands. I could eulogise for ever—and that is just a small part of my constituency. I could mention the 50 angling groups that fish the Tyne, the red squirrels that have sanctuaries throughout Northumberland and all the individuals who make such a difference. We have not mentioned the organisations that support the rural way of life, such as Country Life, The Field, or the Moorland Association, but they should be supported in the House.

I cannot stress enough the economic impact, eloquently set out by the hon. Member for Ogmore, that country life makes. In my constituency, we have the best cycling, fishing, shooting and hiking in the country, and three of those activities provide the rural economy with hundreds of jobs, while shooting brings thousands. It is impossible for people living in southern Northumberland or north Durham, or the Tynedale and Weardale valleys, to survive without the thousands of jobs that the relevant organisations bring.

I want briefly to focus on fishing. There are more than 50 angling clubs, and the Tyne is probably the most successful salmon fishing river in the country at present. It is a matter of concern that the Environment Agency has authorised north-east coastal net fishery licences. In the past year, 56,000 fish were taken off the coast of the Tyne, and that is having a massive effect on the angling industry and support for fishermen. I urge the Minister to take that point up with the appropriate Environment Minister. I am grateful to the Northern Farmers and Landowners Group for making me aware of the problems.

Shooting is a sport that brings in £2 billion to the British economy. Anyone in doubt about it should read the excellent research of Public and Corporate Economic Consultants, which put out a massive questionnaire in the past year that showed more than £2 billion a year going to the UK economy, with 74,000 full-time jobs. That should be supported.

I am a massive supporter of the work of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. For example, I very much support its campaign on lead shot. However, its chief executive was woefully wrong when he called for moorland regulation. I take issue with that and the rather surprising approach of Marks & Spencer, which decided not to stock grouse although it will happily stock farmed salmon, battery chickens and driven pheasants. That seems illogical and wrong. In reality, the people who look after our moorlands—the owners, keepers and people who work there—are the custodians of the countryside.

I welcome the new chief executive of Natural England and hope that his new broom will bring a change of approach. It is embarrassing that a Government quango such as Natural England has so little comprehension of the countryside and the way moorland is supported by its custodians.

The Sport and Recreation Alliance report that the hon. Member for Ogmore has referred to cites parts of Northumberland where one in five people are directly involved in outdoor sports. I disagree; the figure is more like one in every two or three. Without them, the rural economies of my area would wither and die. We all know that tourism is the sixth largest industry, and we welcome many people to south Northumberland to enjoy its pleasures. We need to make the case for what is an opportunity for the taxpayer, rather than a cost to the taxpayer, and we should support and encourage it.

15:23

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

It is a pleasure as always to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main. I congratulate the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) on securing this important debate. My interest in the outdoors and sport goes back to my childhood. I am part of the pre-console and pre-computer generation, who spent their entire time outside, playing in the fresh air. In fact, I had to be dragged back inside, most evenings, to do my homework or eat my tea.

I grew up in Hythe, near the Kent coast. On one side of the house, there was a canal that we constantly tried to cross using items from the garage. An area of hills called the Roughs was an adventure ground for us. It is also a military training site, so we spent most of our time picking up empty shells and wondering whether they were dangerous. We were close to the sea, and the entire estate where I lived was a huge playground. I learned to play football, cricket and American football. In fact, I was a happy, healthy tomboy.

The upside of being part of a pre-computer generation was that we were outside all the time. The downside was that many of the clubs and organisations that exist today to support youngsters did not exist when I was growing up. As many hon. Members know, I am the manager of a girls’ football team. I am proud to have been involved with Meridian girls football club for the past eight years. That kind of network of grass-roots support was not there when I was growing up, and we should be grateful for the important investment in sporting facilities that we now have. It is a fantastic legacy of the national lottery started under John Major’s Government and expanded under the Labour Government. It is important to protect such investment in sporting facilities.

The freedom of the outdoors lies not just in the fact that people can go out and explore their environment, but in the fact that it costs little to do so. I was interested in the comments of the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley). She will know that I agree with much of what she said, not least because I serve on the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, which produced the report on women in sport. However, women are as likely as men to take part in outdoor recreation. Getting out into the environment, exploring villages, paths and hills, is an activity accessible to everyone, and it should be encouraged.

I am proud to be a Kent girl, and now represent an area of Kent quite far from the coast but that has a wonderful river running through it. It borders the Minister’s constituency. We have an excellent pathway, which will be upgraded thanks to a recent South East local enterprise partnership decision. We will have a full cycle path from Aylesford to East Farleigh. That will be a brilliant opportunity for people to get out along the river and see the fantastic wildlife. We also have a project called Medway Valley of Visions, which has opened up the entire Kent area of outstanding natural beauty for people to walk or cycle in and experience the benefits of the outdoors.

We have an excellent ramblers association, with 115 members in my constituency, and they have invited me to go out on many occasions. Unfortunately, they go out on a Sunday when—guess what?—I am standing at the side of a football pitch with my young girls, so it is not always possible for me to accept. However, the North Downs way and Pilgrims way run through my constituency.

When I was in training for the expedition—one that has nearly killed me—that my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (David Rutley) mentioned, in which I participated with the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland), going up Cotopaxi, one of the world’s highest volcanoes, I got into training by just going out of my door and hill walking. Hill walking is very different from mountaineering, and I intend never to do the latter again, despite what I am sure will be the best efforts of my colleagues. I will stick to football, rather than mountaineering.

There are nevertheless many opportunities out there, and we must protect and invest in them. That is why I wanted to speak today. I was touched by the key proposals sent to us for Government action on the outdoors. I do not think that they are necessarily politically controversial. As someone who grew up outside, the idea of increasing young people’s opportunities to get outside seems to me a no-brainer. Being outdoors, as my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) said, enables people to concentrate in class and gives them educational opportunities.

The hon. Member for Ogmore set out the six principles well, and I want to talk about planning. In my constituency, we have a planning application to build 500 houses over the Capstone valley. The valley is an area of outstanding natural beauty; it is a green lull between the Medway towns and Maidstone. It would be a desperate shame if we started to build on that and interfere with our wonderful outdoor environment, which serves our ramblers and conservationists, people who are interested in the wildlife and those who simply want to go for a run around the perimeter. We need to look at planning guidance to ensure that we protect areas that actually bring in an income through the fact that people are getting out there—tourists and people spending in the local economy—because they are using what is in essence a free asset for society.

I am sure that the Minister is aware of such issues. It is important that she takes a co-ordinated approach across central and local government. If we do not do something to protect things, the £91 million that the NHS spends every 24 hours on lifestyle-related chronic conditions will merely increase. The health and economic benefits are obvious. Not everyone wants to do sport—I get that. I want to do sports; I am a sports fanatic, but outdoor recreation is something that is open to everyone and something that they should have access to now and in future generations.

15:31

[Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main. I congratulate the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) on securing the debate.

I am the Member of Parliament for High Peak, which, as I often say, is the most beautiful constituency in the country—that will be disputed, but I have not had an intervention yet—and the outdoors is what we do. I am a little older than my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), but I echo what she was saying. I grew up before computers and—

[Tracey Crouch]

TVs.

[Andrew Bingham]

Not quite before television. I might look that old, but I assure the Chamber that I am not. I was going to say that we were the “jumpers for goalposts” generation, when we were always outside, playing football in winter and cricket in the summer. I can tell my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) that I have indeed made a daisy chain as a small boy, but I will not embarrass the young lady I gave it to by naming her. We used to do so much outside, whether collecting frogspawn or climbing trees and things like that. Consequently, we were healthier for it. That is why the outdoors is so important.

High Peak is a beautiful area. In many respects, we can be the playground of the nation. I am lucky; I live in Chapel-en-le-Frith; I open my front door and I see hills and green fields. Custodians of such fields were mentioned earlier, and they are incredibly important. Fields and outdoor areas do not simply happen; we have to thank the custodians and the farmers for doing what they do. It is a huge playground that people can use and that is completely free. That is such a benefit.

Among the outdoors pursuits that take place in High Peak was the Tour de France, which touched my constituency recently, creating a huge increase in cycling, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (David Rutley). On the subject of my hon. Friend, he accompanied me down a pothole in my constituency recently. I proceeded to get stuck briefly, but having lost a bit of weight, I am sure that we could go down again and I will slither easily through that tight gap. Potholing and caving also bring huge numbers of people into High Peak. They come to High Peak; they spend their money; they benefit the economy; and more than that, they benefit themselves. Anyone who takes part in outdoor pursuits is the main beneficiary, because of the health that they bring.

Two weeks ago, I undertook to hike around the boundary of my constituency, which is approximately 65 miles, which I did over a few days. The highest point that we got to was about 1,700 feet above sea level; the highest point in my constituency is Kinder Scout at 2,088 feet, so we were not quite at that height. We crossed the Pennine way, which my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) walked last year or the year before. The scenery and the fresh air are so good for people, but they also bring them to my constituency. I go to areas such as Castleton and the Hope valley in the summer and everywhere there are people with maps around their necks, the big boots and what I call the speckly socks, all coming to the Peak district and High Peak to get exercise. That is the important thing.

We hear so much on the health agenda about obesity, particularly among young people. I understand the attractions of Facebook and various computer games, but we need to encourage people to get out and about. We live in a beautiful country, so let us use it and get the benefit. As I said, when doing so, we are also benefiting our local economies. We all talk about deprivation in the inner cities and so on, but I prefer to talk about rural deprivation. As a result of the remoteness, we have to suffer certain things, such as not getting the same number of buses and so on, but we have that fantastic facility on our doorsteps. We should use it to get people back to exercising. The hon. Member for Ogmore mentioned exercise through prescription by doctors and, when I served on the local authority, we used to advocate that where we could. The Government should look at the health benefits.

As has already been said, the debate could have been held under the heading of health, education or the Treasury, but we are having it under sport. There are so many benefits. I am conscious that we are running out of time, so I will not go on too long, but the benefits are immeasurable and the people who benefit the most are those who take part. As Members of Parliament representing seats that all have the benefits of outdoor pursuits, we can encourage people to take part in them.

As I said, my walk last week took me four or five days and touched most parts of my constituency. The interesting thing was the difference in the scenery and the terrain, whether the steep hills coming up over the Snake pass and down into Glossop or the valley of the Goyt. Everywhere we looked was a photograph in the making. As others have said, the air was clear and the weather was reasonably good, which was quite helpful, because we can get a little rain in High Peak. The benefits were immeasurable, and we should try to share them with as many people as possible. The Government should do what they can to encourage people to use what I described before as the playground that we live in. It is there; it is healthy; it is beneficial; and it is free. No one can be excluded from using it; we need only encourage them to do so.

15:36

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

I reiterate my congratulations to the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) on his excellent speech, which framed the debate. I want to add my thoughts. Part of what we need to do and what we are trying to achieve is to bring everything together. There are such wonderful initiatives going on and I, too, have wonderful areas in my beautiful constituency. The Leeds country way, the Meanwood valley trail and the Ebor way all run through my constituency. I have bouldering on the Chevin and walking in Golden Acre park or Woodhouse ridge in the south.

We must not forget about urban walking, and I tabled an early-day motion in support of Living Streets national walking month, including the walk to school week and the walk to work week—important initiatives. I also support the Britain on Foot initiative, which I am sure has had a huge impact since its launch, with all the organisations behind it.

I have had an interest in the outdoors for a long time, through my father and mother taking me out for walks. I joined the Long Distance Walkers Association when I was 15, although it took me all the way until 2009 before I finally did its 100-mile walk, which is quite a challenge to do in one go. That organisation, for example, has 1,400 trails and paths—78,000 miles—all downloadable as a database from its website. Other organisations are the same.

I am extremely grateful to the people who supported the Cotopaxi expedition, which has been mentioned, for the Royal British Legion’s Battle Back centre. That was a remarkable thing to be part of, with my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) and the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann). We learned an awful lot through our experience in the outdoors with servicemen and former servicemen who were injured and have become ill through their service to our country. We saw how they were rehabilitated through the Battle Back centre and its incredible work with adventurous training and outdoor activities.

I pay tribute in particular to the Carnegie Great Outdoors faculty of Leeds Metropolitan university, or Leeds Beckett university as it is becoming, in my constituency. Dave Bunting, who led the Army’s west ridge of Everest expedition, was a wonderful leader, but the three former and serving soldiers, Lyndon, Paul and Luke, really made the team. That is what it was about; that is the power of the outdoors.

In my constituency, the Otley sailing club does wonderful work with sailing for the disabled. I was delighted that Norman Stephens from the club got the Leeds sports awards volunteer of the year award this year for that amazing work. The constituency also has the Yeadon sailing club. That is an outdoor pursuit that I have not yet tried, although I am sure that I will. We also have cycling, with the incredible Tour de France and the local hero in Otley, Lizzie Armitstead, who has just won a gold medal at the Commonwealth games to add to her Olympic silver medal. She is an inspiration to local people, especially young women, and it is important to get more young women involved in sports. Triathlon is a wonderful sport. This is not all about walking: it is sometimes about running, swimming and cycling all together. Locally, we have the Brownlee brothers as inspiration. It is a matter of pulling all these great initiatives together. I hope that we hear from the Minister that we will have a national strategy. Let us all urge all parties to have something about the outdoors in their manifestos.

15:40

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main, for what I think is the first time. I congratulate all hon. Members who have taken part in the debate. We have heard from my hon. Friends the Members for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) and for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) and the hon. Members for Macclesfield (David Rutley), for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart), for Hexham (Guy Opperman), for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), for High Peak (Andrew Bingham) and for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland). They all raised similar issues, which I will try to deal with as I go through my notes.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore made a passionate opening speech, entreating all of us to get out there and enjoy the countryside. He has a great deal of experience in sports and physical activity: he has been employed in the industry and is an enthusiastic participant and organiser. It is a tribute to his work that we have had this debate and that so many people have taken part.

My hon. Friend talked about the benefits that people can easily derive from outdoor activities. The “Reconomics” report points out that outdoor activities are often free and easily accessible, and that many of the barriers to taking part in physical activity are removed when enjoying the outdoors. He is absolutely right to highlight the benefits of investing in outdoor activities, and the report demonstrates that there is a payback.

Although such investment creates jobs, benefits businesses and is an extremely good way of bringing economic activity into rural areas where it can otherwise be difficult to generate—many Governments have struggled with that—that payback is not just economic; as my hon. Friend said, there are also benefits to the individual, including health benefits. Outdoor activity helps people be healthier and feel better in themselves, and an increasing amount of evidence and research is demonstrating that investing in outdoor activity and encouraging people to become more active has a positive impact.

Many hon. Members spoke about the cost to the economy of inactivity. People refer to obesity, but that is not the only issue. It is possible for people who are overweight to be in better physical condition than someone who does not seem from their weight to be suffering from the consequences of inactivity. It is important to encourage people to be aware of that and to be more active.

The hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire said that we should encourage young people to get involved in one hour of physical activity a week, and I would like to achieve that goal, starting with my own children—believe me, I consider myself a complete failure in that regard. My wife and I have run the London marathon and recognise the importance of staying active, but we are not successful in getting our children to be active, so are not great examples.

I am aware that nagging people does not work and so we need to be aware of other ways in which we can encourage people to be active. Inactivity is an issue, so we need to make sure that we focus on that first, from the very earliest age. I passionately believe that we need to equip young children, from the earliest age, to have confidence in their bodies, their core physical strength and their physical literacy, so that they can access not just sport but the sort of recreational activities that hon. Members have spoken about today.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I have a suggestion for my hon. Friend: I found locking the children out of the house and pointing them in the direction of the hills worked. On a serious point, will he also speak up for the importance of spreading room on the coastal paths that we have talked about? That is important for people interested in mountaineering and so forth. We need not just tracks and trails—the narrow two-metre paths—but wide spreading room, albeit with due attention to the needs of landowners, so that people can do other activities.

[Clive Efford]

Absolutely—that is important. Many benefits come from investment in coastal pathways and the kinds of pathways that the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford talked about, which link up through her constituency. Many other hon. Members made similar points. The rural economy benefits from people being able to access the countryside more easily.

I have a couple more points, which I will move on to. My hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South is a doughty fighter for women’s participation in sport, and made some important points about the lack of commercial investment going into women’s sport. Rugby is pointing the way, with full-time contracts for the women’s rugby sevens squad building up to the Rio Olympics.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to underline that we have to keep pushing: the current participation rates are not acceptable. I go back to the point I made about instilling confidence and consciousness about activity in young children at an early age. That is demonstrated by the fact that, sadly, as women get older and make choices for themselves, it is often clear that sport has not been a good experience for them, and they lose interest in it. We have to challenge that.

Several hon. Members called for a cross-Government strategy, and I agree with them. I commend to everyone the Opposition consultation document, “More Sport For All”, which we published in July. Under the heading “Why sport matters”, we refer to the “Reconomics” figures and discuss the importance of rural tourism and walking, and the need to recognise those sectors as part of not just a sports strategy but an economic one. I welcome comments from hon. Members and the Minister on that document.

Our consultation document recognises that virtually all Government Departments have a role in promoting sport and physical recreational activity. The Department of Health has a role, for example; the Ministry of Justice could, in terms of trying to divert young people from antisocial behaviour and provide them with the opportunity to experience something they might not get many opportunities to experience otherwise.

[Greg Mulholland]

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is clearly another of those Departments. I was lucky to join the Upper Wharfedale Fell Rescue Association during its new Wharfedale three peaks challenge. The mountain and cave rescue services have not been mentioned yet today, but we must ensure that they are part of the thinking, because without them we would not have the freedom we do on the hills.

[Clive Efford]

Reference was made during the debate to safety in the countryside; that is an important issue and one we should all remember.

New technology was referred to, but in a negative way, as something that discourages people from getting involved in sport. We need to look at it as a challenge and a way to provide people with information, to enable easier access for them, whether that be to sports facilities or other services. That technology is an important tool that we need to develop.

I have one last point to make. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore for securing this debate. Some points have been made about sports facilities; they are not necessarily anything to do with countryside recreational activities, but I would also like to raise them. We need to ensure that the sports that are bigger money spinners put money back into facilities. I am thinking of football in particular—we need to make sure that the Premier League lives up to its promises about putting money back into grass-roots sport. If such investment goes into facilities in our communities, all sports may benefit, not just football.

There was a story in the papers today about Queens Park Rangers perhaps having to pay a £40 million fine because it broke its financial fair play rules. If that is the case and that money must go to charity, I urge the authorities to put it back not into grass roots facilities in football, but into grass roots facilities in our communities so that people can become active in sport.

In conclusion, I am grateful for this important debate to discuss all aspects of outdoor recreation and activity, and I urge the Minister to respond to the six points on the agenda of my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore.

15:50

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mrs Helen Grant)]

It is a great pleasure, Mrs Main, to serve under your chairmanship. I, too, thank the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) for securing this debate and for his contribution, and I thank other hon. Members for theirs. I have always been very lucky when it comes to the outdoors. As a child growing up on the edge of the Lake District, I was spoilt for choice with walking, kayaking, climbing and the views from Blencathra to which my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (David Rutley) referred. It is a stunning part of the country. I then went on to become an MP and found myself in the heart of the garden of England in the beautiful Kent countryside. I drew the long straws there.

As the Minister for Sport and Tourism, I want to ensure that everyone has the chances I had to participate in a diverse and interesting range of sports and activities. Many Departments and many hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart), work closely together to ensure that we are all playing our part in supporting this important sector.

There is little time available and a lot to say, but I will do my best to cover the points raised. Today, many hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Ogmore and my hon. Friends the Members for Macclesfield and for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland), called on the Government to create a strategy for outdoor recreation. I am happy to look at that and at how we can bring together in a strategy all the good work already being done throughout the Government in different Departments.

Many hon. Members acknowledged that good work is being done, but asked for more to be done and for the Government to keep their foot on the pedal in relation to recreation and outdoor activity. That is certainly happening. VisitEngland has made a substantial investment in campaigns such as the Coastal Escapes campaign, the English Countryside campaign, the Rural Escapes campaign and the Active Outdoors campaign. Sport England has recently put £3 million into the British Mountaineering Council and there is ongoing cross-departmental ministerial involvement in campaigns in the health context such as the “Moving More, Living More” campaign, which confirms genuine support, interest and commitment in dealing with inactivity and benefiting from the various pluses of health, fun, sport and the resulting economic benefits.

The hon. Member for Ogmore, my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield and many other hon. Members spoke about the six key manifesto points. I have looked at them and they are all very interesting. We are already providing a lot of support for the outdoor recreation sector, but we will give all the six points due and proper consideration. Clearly, the matter is also for numerous other Departments, including the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Department for Transport and the Department of Health.

My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland) referred to the Active People survey and various concerns involving the calculation of the participation figures. I will be happy to talk to Sport England and the Department of Health about how to measure some of the recreational activities in the Active People survey.

The hon. Member for Ogmore, the shadow Minister and others referred to the “Reconomics” report and I agree that it is very good and detailed. In a good way, it pulls together existing research. Sport England and VisitEngland will certainly build on the various reports.

The hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) and my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) raised the important issues of women in sport, participation by women and girls, lack of commercial sponsorship and investment in those important sectors.

[Barbara Keeley]

In the limited time, I did not mention that there are some informal initiatives that could do with better support. In Blackburn, the Couch to 5K initiative is getting many people running. The wonderful person who runs the Twitter account, @fattymustrun, is on a mission to get 1 million larger people running. Such initiatives should receive more support.

[Mrs Grant]

The hon. Lady has made some good points. The issue of women and girls in sport is an absolute priority for me. It has always been a priority, even before I came to this place, and it will remain one, mainly because of what it did for me when I was growing up. It provides not just health and fitness, but self-confidence, self-esteem and the important life lessons of leadership, teamwork, discipline and respect. We all know that and I am determined to get as many young people as possible, not just women and girls, doing sport.

There is good news because 600,000 more women are doing sport than when we bid for the Olympics in 2005. However, there is no room for complacency and I accept that there is still an irritating gender gap of about 1.9 million between the number of women and the number of men doing sport. I want that to diminish. There are some excellent projects at the moment, including Sportivate, Satellite Community, sports clubs and the school games in which more than 60% of schools are participating. Interestingly, at county sports festival level, more girls than boys are competing. The school sports premium provides the opportunity to ignite an interest in sport among our children at an early age.

In half an hour, I will meet the Woman in Sport Advisory Board. It is working hard on the lack of media coverage and commercial investment. The board includes people such as Judy Murray, Karren Brady, Helena Morrissey, Clare Connor and others who are working hard to deal with the lack of commercial involvement and media coverage, although I believe there have been improvements in what Sky and the BBC are doing. That is partly due to great leadership by Barbara Slater and people such as Clare Balding.

I know very well the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), having spent a considerable time there when I was little. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Andrew Bingham) on his major marathon walk during the recess when he raised a phenomenal amount of money for charity. Both my hon. Friends referred to the economic benefits of recreational activity. I agree that the great outdoors is hugely important for tourism and the country’s economic well-being. Interestingly, according to VisitEngland, overnight trips in Great Britain last year, including walking, hiking and rambling, resulted in a spend of £2.6 billion.

This has been an important debate and for me a very enjoyable one to respond to. Some excellent points have been made and I assure hon. Members that I take the issues seriously. Outdoor sport and recreation are key not only to our personal well-being but to the nation as a whole. I want to maintain the good progress that has been made by encouraging even more participation in outdoor sport and recreation with all the benefits that brings: a fitter, healthier and economically stronger nation.

Deaths in Police Custody

Wednesday 10th September 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

We now come to the debate in the name of Shabana Mahmood on the subject of deaths in police custody. I understand that during her debate, the hon. Lady intends to refer principally to the case of Kingsley Burrell. An inquest is due to take place into Mr Burrell’s death early next year. For that reason, I expect hon. Members who speak or intervene in this debate to take care not to make any remarks which could be construed as assigning blame for Mr Burrell’s death or as expressing opinions on other matters concerning his death which will be decided by that inquest. That is on the legal advice of the Clerks.

16:00

[Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main. I am grateful for that guidance, which I also received from the Clerks in the Table Office earlier today. I confirm that it is my intention to talk about my constituent’s case, but to do so in a way that takes account of the fact that there will be a coroner’s inquest early next year. I am grateful to have secured the debate and for the opportunity to highlight the very important issues of concern to my constituents and to one family in particular, whose case I have been working on for some months.

Deaths in police custody are an issue of growing concern, both in this House and across the country, and the matter has been raised several times in the House recently. In particular, there has been a recent focus on deaths in custody in which the deceased had a mental health illness that was not dealt with properly, either by officers or by NHS staff. I understand that the Home Affairs Committee is currently looking at that issue and took evidence on it last week. However, as I said, I will focus on the case of my constituent, Kingsley Burrell, which raises other issues in relation to deaths in custody that show shocking procedural failures, which add to the pain that is suffered by families of the deceased and contribute to an erosion of trust between the community and the police.

The facts of Mr Burrell’s death, as the Independent Police Complaints Commission found, are that on 27 March 2011, emergency services were called to a reported firearms incident in Ladywood in my constituency. They ascertained that the complainant was Kingsley Burrell and also found that a firearms incident had not occurred. Mr Burrell allegedly displayed symptoms of mental health illness and was therefore detained and sent to the Oleaster mental health unit. He was later transferred to the Mary Seacole mental health unit in Winson Green, again in my constituency. On 30 March, staff at that unit called police and reported an incident, after which Mr Burrell was restrained and taken to A and E, where he received treatment, but on 31 March, he was pronounced dead.

Those mysterious and tragic circumstances are difficult enough for Mr Burrell’s family to cope with, but the aftermath has placed significant stress on the family, and the way in which this case and others very similar to it have progressed since the deaths occurred is completely unacceptable. It adds to the suffering of these families and I believe has a wider impact on police and community relations.

Kingsley’s mum, Janet Brown, told me about some of her experiences in the aftermath of her son’s death. She told me that the IPCC investigation into the conduct of the officers took far too long. She also told me that it was a year before the IPCC asked Dorset police to look into the actions of the NHS staff involved in Kingsley’s care. Both police and NHS staff had had contact with Kingsley in the lead-up to his death, and although the IPCC began immediately investigating the officers, it was a further year before anybody looked into the conduct of the NHS staff.

There was also a delay in receiving Kingsley’s body for burial. The family had to wait 18 months before the IPCC instructed the pathologist to take samples from Kingsley’s body. Janet also told me that the IPCC did not want to include in its investigation Kingsley’s own accounts of what took place when he was placed in the Mary Seacole unit in Winson Green. He had been logging his experiences in a diary and the IPCC’s initial reaction was that that evidence would not be included in its investigation. The family had to meet them and insist that the commissioner, Rachel Cerfontyne, insert that information into her investigation report.

It took the IPCC a year and four months to complete its investigation into the conduct of the officers who had contact with Kingsley in the lead-up to his death. The Dorset police force, which did not come on to the scene until a year after Kingsley had died—as I have said—took a year and nine months before they reported into the actions of NHS staff who had had contact with him in the lead-up to his death. The file was passed to the Crown Prosecution Service in October 2013, and it was only a couple of months ago that the CPS made the decision not to prosecute any of the officers, NHS staff or other individuals who had had contact with Kingsley in the lead-up to his death. Only now do we have a preliminary inquest hearing coming up—next month—into Kingsley’s case, and the full inquest will begin in 2015, nearly four years after he died.

As far as I can tell, it does not get much more serious for the police than when somebody dies in their custody, on their watch, or very soon after coming into contact with them, but the very clear lack of a process when a death in custody occurs and the inordinate length of time that it take to investigate these matters implies—to me, my constituents, and in particular, the Burrell family—a casual and complacent attitude towards deeply serious issues of concern to the whole community, as well as to the deceased’s family. It is also deeply disrespectful. There seems to be no empathy in this whole process, or any recognition that these people are grieving, and there is no thought given to how one of us might feel if we were in the shoes of Kingsley’s family or those of other families who have suffered in a similar way.

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

I congratulate the hon. Lady on bringing the matter forward for debate. She talks about other families; Colin Holt, a constituent of mine who suffered from schizophrenia, died as a result of how he was restrained by the police. Officers in that case were prosecuted but acquitted at Maidstone Crown court, where the judge, Mr Justice Singh, said—

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Order. I ask the hon. Gentleman to return to his seat. He is making a speech, not an intervention—it should be an intervention and a question to the Member whose debate it is. We should have the courtesy of allowing the hon. Lady the time to speak.

[Shabana Mahmood]

I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman had the opportunity to put his constituent’s case on the record. Restraint methods are an issue in cases involving deaths in police custody. My focus is particularly on the way in which these investigations take place and the amount of time that it takes to conduct them.

If the process got results, answered the questions that families have and ensured that the lessons that need to be learned are, in fact, learned, I suppose one could tolerate the fact that sometimes the investigation takes a very long time. But that is demonstrably not the case in the vast majority of cases involving deaths in police custody. The process takes far, far too long and it often leaves families with more questions and much greater pain. That is not something that any of us should continue to accept.

The impact on the wider community is also very profound. Contentious deaths in police custody include an ever-increasing number of people with mental health illnesses, and a disproportionately large number of people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds—and, sometimes, people from BME backgrounds with mental health issues. If those cases are not seen to be taken seriously and investigations are not seen to be conducted with due seriousness and as quickly as possible, trust in the system erodes seriously, breeding justifiable anger and resentment, and it is incumbent on all of us to do whatever we can to address that.

Sometimes it does not seem that deaths in police custody are treated as cases in which potentially a crime has been committed. The starting point should always be that we simply do not know what has happened, so all possible scenarios are on the table, but many families report that that is not how it feels to them. In practice, it feels as though a judgment has already been made and an end result is already in mind, long before the investigation has begun.

Despite the more than 900 deaths in police custody and several verdicts of unlawful killing, there has yet to be a single successful prosecution—a point that the hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti) also raised—of any police officer involved in those deaths. Again, that does not create much confidence in the wider public that the system is robust enough to ensure that when things go seriously wrong, as they do in many of these cases, we will get proper answers and accountability. It is the lack of accountability that bothers so many of my constituents, and it is the potential for lack of accountability that is keeping Janet Brown and her family awake at night. They fear that their questions will never be answered and someone will never be held to account for the death of Kingsley Burrell.

There are other issues in relation to deaths in police custody. People would expect sensitive and thorough handling of the investigation in the immediate aftermath of a death—the so-called golden hours, which are critical to evidence gathering and setting the direction and quality of the investigation that is to follow. Again, many families report that that does not happen in practice.

The independent charity INQUEST also tells us of particular problems in relation to IPCC material and disclosure, including ahead of inquest hearings. For a bereaved family trying to engage in an IPCC investigation, the organisation’s reluctance to provide early and full disclosure or to explain clearly, in language that ordinary people can understand—not lawyer-speak—why they cannot provide that evidence at the early stages of investigations, and when they expect to do so, fosters mistrust and is alienating and deeply unhelpful. Families often feel that they are not kept up to date and involved in the progress of the investigations. Of those who felt that they were kept involved and informed, many reported dissatisfaction because the information given to them was inadequate, difficult to obtain or delayed.

It seems to me that we have an ad hoc and chaotic system for investigations into deaths in police custody. There is no agreed method or structure and no checklist of what needs to happen and when. We need a uniform approach that allows professional judgment to be exercised on a case-by-case basis, but always in the context of a coherent and consistent national protocol for the structure of the relationship between investigating officials and the bereaved, and clear guidelines about the time frames that need to apply. That is the only way we can give the families who suffer in this way some confidence that they will at least understand the system and the process that is supposed to apply, and that they can hold to account the individuals involved.

I have mentioned the IPCC, and I believe that it has lost the confidence of the public and is not fit for purpose. It should be abolished and replaced by a new police standards authority, whose job it would be to take action and raise standards when policing goes wrong. Such an authority should be tasked with creating the national set of guidelines or protocols that should apply to the investigation of deaths in police custody, so that we can ensure that everyone knows what is meant to happen and when.

At this point, however, we still have the IPCC. I know that the Government have started their own review and it would be helpful if the Minister, when he responds to my remarks, could set out exactly what is planned for that review. But whoever ultimately has responsibility for these investigations—whether the IPCC, as now, or another organisation—its key task in the aftermath of a contentious death following police contact must be to begin immediately an independent, effective, accountable, prompt, public and inclusive investigation, so that the rule of law is seen to be upheld and applied equally to all citizens, including those in police uniform.

Young constituents of mine made this point to me only today when I was doing an interview on a local community radio station. They said, “Sometimes it feels that if you wear a uniform, you are above the law. You are there to enforce the law and to keep us all safe, but you should not be above it.” They make a fair point. It sometimes feels as if officers are not held properly to account. That relates not only to the potential for successful prosecutions and convictions but to the sense that if misconduct occurs, it will be challenged.

So often in relation to these cases, we say, “Lessons must be learned,” and we imply that lessons will in fact be learned. However, in my experience the lessons are not learned, because the cases of deaths in police custody that keep occurring all seem to follow the same pattern, and the same mistakes are often repeated. The families involved all report the same things going wrong in the investigations.

The experience of the Burrell family and the amount of time that it took for the investigations to conclude is very similar to that of other families who have suffered in similar circumstances. That says to me that the phrase “lessons must be learned” means nothing. Lessons are not learned, and it is about time that we started to get that right. If people are not held accountable, if there are no prosecutions and if there are no grounds for misconduct charges, at the very least we must fix the processes that apply when someone dies in these circumstances, given that we know there is a problem with them. That is one way in which we can start to give people confidence in the system again.

A few weeks ago, Janet Brown said to me that she has not yet grieved for her son and she will not do so until all her questions about his death have been answered and until she feels at peace that she has done everything she can to get justice for him. I think that making good, decent people wait so long and placing them at the mercy of a very chaotic system is a scar on our collective conscience. I really hope that the Minister, when he responds, can give Janet, the Burrell family and me some confidence that the Government understand not only the policy implications of these cases, but the emotional impact that they have, and that he and the Government will do something about it.

16:17

[The Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims (Mike Penning)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main, even though it is obviously enormously sad that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) has had to bring—quite rightly, in her opinion, and probably in mine—this case to Westminster Hall this afternoon.

Let me say at the outset that any death, whether or not in custody, is regrettable, and a death in custody is enormously regrettable. It must be enormously traumatic for the Burrell family, and I fully appreciate the hon. Lady’s concerns. However, I cannot agree with many of her comments, because I think that she has almost predetermined what will be in the report from the IPCC, which has not yet even been released. I know that you, Mrs Main, said that we had to be careful in talking about the ongoing case, which is going to go before the coroner’s court for the inquest. The IPCC report is not out yet. That is the independent—I stress, independent—report.

There are some areas where I do agree, so let us do the bits that I do not agree with first and then we can move on. I do not recognise, as a constituency MP, the view of the IPCC and police as being above the law. I have patrolled with the police for more than 20 years, in many different capacities, and one of the things that I have found is this. There are, clearly, bad people within the police and bad people within our community. It is our job to make sure that we get them out of the police; they should not have got there in the first place in many cases. But the vast majority of the police—I want to put this on the record—99.9% of the police in this country, do a fantastic job for us, keeping us safe, not just in this place but in our homes and our businesses throughout the country.

This is an enormously difficult subject. The hon. Lady used quite emotive language in her speech, and I partially understand why, but not fully. May I touch, before I make progress with some other things, on the question of deaths in custody of people from the black and ethnic minority community? When I first thought about deaths in custody, my first thought was that that meant people who were being held by police in custody cells, but that is not always what happens. It is important to put on record that a death in custody occurs where the police have come into contact with somebody, even briefly, who has subsequently died. The IPCC will immediately become involved in such cases. The cases are sometimes enormously complex, much more so than I understand, although I am not as close to the case as the hon. Lady is. The way in which the news is communicated to families and loved ones is critical, and that is something that I am interested in looking at. I will come on to the IPCC review in a moment.

I will return to the hon. Lady’s comments about deaths in custody, particularly regarding people from the black and ethnic minority community. The IPCC did a 10-year study on deaths in custody between 1989 and 2008-09, and it found that 22 of those who died during that period were black. The view expressed in the report, which is a public document, is that that was in line, sadly, with the ethnic make-up of the detainee population. In 2010-11, there were, overall, 20 deaths in custody, one of which was sadly of an individual from the black community. In 2013-14, there were a total of 11 deaths in custody; clearly that is still too many, but the number of deaths has nearly halved since 2011. One of those deaths was, in the terminology used by the report—I do not like this terminology—of a mixed-race detainee. I am only using the language that has been given to me by lawyers, and I apologise for it. I am not very politically correct myself.

To recap, in 2010-11, there were 20 deaths in custody; in 2011-12, there were 15; in 2012-13, there were also 15; and in 2013-14, there were 11. I think that the report of this debate will show that the hon. Lady spoke about “growing” deaths in custody, although I may not be using her exact words. I know that black and ethnic minority groups feel that the situation is disproportionate, but the evidence that has been presented to me does not support that view.

[Shabana Mahmood]

I would like to clarify that I said that there was growing concern about deaths in police custody. I was talking not about the number of deaths that occur, but about the over-representation of people with mental health issues and about how trust in the police is being eroded in BME communities.

[Mike Penning]

I understand the point that the hon. Lady makes, and I will come on to talk about some work that I have been doing with a Minister in the Department of Health on mental illnesses. I repeat that the evidence shows that there were 20 deaths in custody in 2010-11—too many—one of which was of someone from the black community. Of the 15 people who died in 2011-12, one was a black individual and one was from a mixed-race family. In 2012-13, there were 15 deaths, one of which was of someone from a mixed-race family. In 2013-14, one of the 11 people who died was from a mixed-race family. The evidence speaks for itself. I understand how the situation is sometimes perceived, but it is our job as constituency MPs to ensure that our work is based on evidence rather than perception. It is the job of the police to do the same.

I am a new Minister in the Home Office, and I make the hon. Lady the same offer that my predecessor made: it would be good to meet outside the format of a debate to discuss the issues that she has raised. It is difficult for me to comment on the case, because the inquest will soon come before the coroner’s court and because the IPCC has not yet published its report.

There is no doubt that a review is needed into the IPCC’s work. That is not a criticism of the commission, but we need to look carefully at the nature of the work that comes before it. As a constituency MP, I regularly see cases where my constituents say, “I would like this case to go to the IPCC,” but I often look at the cases and think that they should have been resolved with the constabulary, rather than going to the IPCC. I am looking at guidance on that matter at the moment, and it will form part of the review of what the IPCC should look at. These cases are often complex, as is the case that the hon. Lady has raised. Before anything could happen, it was essential to ensure that any trial was not prejudiced, which is why the Crown Prosecution Service considered the matter before it progressed to an inquest. Of course, the IPCC now needs to report.

I do not believe that the previous Administration thought that the IPCC was flawed or broken and needed tearing up and throwing away, and I do not think that either. Is the IPCC perfect? No, it is not. Do we need to do some work with it? Yes, we do.

Without going into the details of the case that the hon. Lady has raised, there is one area that we need to work on, which has been the poor relation for many years. When I was a fireman in Essex, I used to go to road traffic collisions, which used to be called road traffic accidents. If someone was badly injured in an incident, we would extricate them as quickly as we could, the medics would do their job and the person would be taken to hospital for the treatment that they needed. The simple fact is that if someone has a mental illness, invariably the police will be called and the individual will end up in a cell rather than somewhere where they can get the medical help that they need. Is that the fault of the police? No, because their job is not to diagnose a mental illness but to make sure that the individual and the public are safe.

I was on patrol in Holborn only the other day when we received a call and went out. We thought that we would be dealing with a domestic incident, but the gentleman was having what his family described as an episode. The police did everything in their powers not to arrest him, but to take him to a hospital where he could get the correct treatment. I stress that the correct treatment is important. I have been working with the Department of Health to ensure that in such circumstances, people are not simply taken to an A and E department that does not have the required expertise, in which case they will be back out on the streets again five minutes later.

My view, and the view of the Health Minister with responsibility for the initiative, is that it is crucial that people with mental illnesses are treated as well as those with any other illnesses. People with mental health issues may also have learning difficulties and addictions to alcohol or drugs. The police still have a responsibility, however, not only to try to understand the circumstances of people who are brought before them, but to make sure that they can be taken to trained individuals with the right expertise. There are interesting projects going on at the moment. In Herefordshire, experts in the field such as nurses with mental health experience go out on patrol, particularly on Friday nights. It is important to have that sort of expertise alongside our patrolling police, and it provides a source of knowledge to ensure that the public feel safe.

I think that there is a real problem with the public, as well. The Olympics clearly showed us that public understanding of people with physical disabilities had really moved forward. The Paralympics was a great way of showing the world the wonderful things that people with long-term conditions and disabilities can do. However, all the evidence suggests that, although people with physical disabilities have seen such benefits, people with mental health issues and learning difficulties have not. We, as politicians, should do everything we can to tackle that.

I would love to have gone into a lot more detail, but with the ongoing investigations into the case, it would have been difficult for me to do so. I have every sympathy with the family. If I was the constituency MP, I would be sitting where the hon. Lady is sitting and asking exactly the sorts of questions that she has asked, but I always stand at the Dispatch Box—or, in this case, in this wonderful room. I just managed to get here in time, even though I went to the usual one first; it is a good job I always turn up early.

We are dealing with incredibly complicated issues, which will not be resolved in a half-hour debate. I look forward to meeting with the hon. Lady, and perhaps with the family, to see how we can move forward. Let us first see what we agree on, and then work on the other issues as we go forward.

Improving School Leadership

Wednesday 10th September 2014 Westminster Hall

16:30

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main. I am pleased to have secured this important debate on how we can improve leadership in our schools. The purpose of this debate is not to criticise any of the heads in my constituency, or anywhere else for that matter, but to explore how we can build and improve on what we already have.

Every single teacher at whatever level, from newly qualified teacher to senior, experienced head, needs our thanks, support and praise for all they do to educate our children and teach our country’s next generation of wealth creators. My remarks, therefore, are designed to be constructive rather than critical, and I hope they will be heard in the spirit of constructive joint working.

Education is a vocation, and I know of no teacher anywhere who entered the profession for any reason other than to impart knowledge and support and nurture our young people. Teachers, and I hope all those listening to this debate, recognise that education is the greatest gift we can give. We have all heard that before, and I know it sounds corny, but the problem is that it is true because, once the gift of education has been given, it cannot be taken away—it does not break and it will not fade.

Education is the foundation stone on which one’s future success is built. It is the base from which almost anything is possible and from which people can realise their full potential. All that is delivered by some truly dedicated and inspirational people who are found at every level of education in some truly excellent schools. Good education comes from good schools, which from my experience are led by good leaders.

In my constituency we are fortunate. We have some truly exceptional school leaders. Yes, it is true that education in Basildon and Thurrock has not always been as good as it could have been, but the leaders that we now have in place, and the support structures that surround them, will deliver, and are delivering, improving education for my constituents. There are too many good leaders to name them all, but I will pay tribute to a couple.

First, I highlight the extraordinary dedication of Dr Sophina Asong, head teacher of Gable Hall school in Corringham. The area is like many others in the country, but unlike many areas—where the average proportion of five A* to C grades, including maths and English, is just under 60%—Gable Hall was pleased this year to achieve 74% with five A* to C grades, including maths and English. I say “pleased” but the school was not satisfied; it knows it can do better, and Dr Asong and her incredible staff assure me that things will get better. I am sure we want to see such dedication and determination in all our schools.

Dr Asong—I hope she will not mind my saying this—is a force of nature that I would like to see bottled and delivered to all parts of our school system, but I also pay tribute to the new principal of Woodlands school in Basildon, Karen Kerridge. She took over the leadership at possibly the most difficult time that the school has ever faced. Less than a year after a disastrous Ofsted report, Karen has come in and worked tirelessly to turn the school around.

[Karen Lumley (Redditch) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate. It is important that we have outstanding leaders. Will he join me in congratulating Guy Shears, who turned around RSA academy Arrow Vale in Redditch? Could such outstanding head teachers be used as mentors for other head teachers?

[Stephen Metcalfe]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention and add my congratulations to Guy on all his work. Yes, head teachers with such skills should be used more widely in our education system so that we maximise the potential benefit to the wider teaching community. Karen Kerridge did that, too. She came in from another school to try to help Woodlands, and it is remarkable that in less than a year she has turned the school around so that, rather than being inadequate, it now only requires improvement. That may not sound fantastic, but it is one of the fastest turnarounds of a school, and I am confident that under her leadership it may not be long before we once again have a good school, which would be entirely down to the fortitude and dedication of Karen and all her staff.

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

My hon. Friend has referred to getting good advice from other schools on improving performance. Is he aware that some schools have teaching school status? I draw his attention to Shenley Brook End school in my constituency, which has been a teaching school since 2012. The school’s leadership and training centre has helped guide and coach more than 2,000 teachers from 25 schools. Such centres are a good way of imparting leadership skills.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

Teaching school status is an important part of improving the quality of teaching and the experience that teachers get before they go off into their own schools. That reform has been important, and it is an excellent innovation.

[Mr Andrew Smith (Oxford East) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. I agree with everything he has said so far, which is good. Able leaders, as he rightly says, are important—I congratulate those in my constituency—and they need the best possible teams. Does he agree that there is a strong case for the most challenged schools serving some of our most disadvantaged areas to be able to pay teachers more than schools in other areas so that they attract the best to do the toughest job?

[Stephen Metcalfe]

I completely agree with the right hon. Gentleman that it is about the team. Successful schools tend to have a good head teacher with a good team around them, which is often down to the head teacher’s inspirational leadership. I agree that, where a school faces particular challenges, it is not a bad idea for it to be able to be flexible in the pay and conditions that it offers staff.

Speed is paramount, which is why the achievements at Woodlands school are so important. Students mostly get only one chance of an education, and for every day, week or month that they are not receiving a good education, we are doing them an incredible disservice, potentially damaging their future prospects and hampering their chances of reaching their full potential. We should celebrate the fact that Karen Kerridge has set the school back on the right path in less than a year, and we should thank her.

I would like to celebrate all the schools that are doing well in my constituency, but I am conscious of time and I want to hear what the Minister has to say. I am fortunate to have some great leaders who are helping to ensure that education in my constituency is improving, but unfortunately that is not the case everywhere. Unfortunately, there are too many schools that may not have the right leader with all the right skills and talents to deliver the kind of education that our children need, and often that is not the leader’s fault.

More than ever before, we have to deliver a world-class education, and we need able leaders to do that. It is a tough, difficult job that is not suitable for everyone. The job is different from any other in our education system. As the system is currently designed, however, if someone wants career progression, the obvious path is to head towards taking up a management role and, ultimately, their own headship.

But, as I said, being an inspirational, dynamic and consistent head teacher is like no other role in our education system. Head teachers have to manage complex and large budgets, perhaps a large staff body, premises and a range of other challenges. They are running medium-sized businesses, and they have to be able to deal with that fairly, consistently and in an orderly and professional manner, and many, many do. Despite all the training available and all the mentoring that can be given, we occasionally find that the wrong person has found themselves in an unsuitable job.

I suspect it is a bit like being an MP. Whatever a person imagines the job to be, it is not until they are actually in the hot seat that they fully understand everything it involves and know whether they are personally suited to it. However, an MP can step down at an election and pursue a different path without it being the end of their working life, but head teachers who feel they are in the wrong role have nowhere to go, which can cause problems both for them and for the school.

There are three options when that happens, none of which is a satisfactory solution. First, if the governors recognise that the wrong person is in the job they can initiate capability proceedings, which is a painful, devastating and destabilising experience for all involved, including the staff and students. It may force out of the profession an otherwise excellent teacher, which is a loss both for them and for the wider education system. Nobody gets to be a head teacher without being a good teacher and an asset to the system, and it would be a shame to lose all their talents simply because they lack some of the talents required to do a specific job.

Secondly, there is the “do nothing” option: the school coasts along, slowly declining, because the issue is put on the “too difficult to tackle” pile. Supporters of the school increasingly have to defend the declining performance and prop up the senior management team until finally a devastating Ofsted report is published that presents incontrovertible evidence that the school is not performing as it should. Suddenly, the head teacher is vilified and forced to leave the school and probably the profession, possibly to retire. Again, the damage done can be incalculable for the school, which may have failed students for years; for the head teacher, who has left a profession they probably love; and for the community they served, which feels let down.

Finally, there is the “hope and pray” approach: the governors hope the individual will move on or retire while they try to support those around the head until things get better. Unfortunately, that rarely happens, so one of the other options is usually adopted.

The problem with all those approaches is that even if the ultimate outcome is good, it can take years to deliver. However, there is no time to waste when delivering education. We need a system that supports great teachers, and encourages and nurtures fantastic leaders, but is fleet of foot enough to act rapidly if somebody finds themselves in a role they are not suited for and does not result in their having to leave the profession.

I turn to the role of the governors and the governing body. Having been a governor, I know how dedicated, selfless and hard-working they are. The role is becoming ever more demanding and requires a high degree of professionalism to be carried out well. Governors are the unsung heroes of our education system, and I want to thank them personally for what they do and apologise if they feel my earlier remarks were critical of them. The problem is that, as schools’ independence increases, the role of the governing body grows in importance, and it falls to the governors to hold the head and the school to account more than ever before.

[Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. He is making an important and excellent point about the impact of not taking action. I want to strengthen his point by saying that if governing bodies do not make that decision early, it becomes a much bigger problem for them, the school and the wider community.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

I thank my hon. Friend for his excellent point. I was just coming to that issue. He is entirely right that speed is important, but that means that governors have to make some difficult decisions.

[Mr Andrew Smith]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that schools serving the most disadvantaged communities often find it hard to get the governors they need for the accountability process? One of the best things businesses can do to help our education system is to encourage more members of staff to become governors in such schools.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. He admirably covered a point that I included in my speech. MPs have a role to play in that process. We should write to the larger organisations in our constituencies to remind them that they and the wider community benefit when they allow their staff to lead schools and play a part in the local community. That excellent point cannot be repeated too often.

For governors who lead schools that have greater independence, it is becoming harder to be all friends together. They may duck away from making tough or unpleasant decisions if they are too close to the senior management team and the head. I am not criticising governors, but I want to ensure they are equipped with the tools they need to play their important role of ensuring the leadership of our schools is the best it can be.

The Government have done much to improve our education system, for which I am grateful. I therefore hope the Minister considers my remarks to be a useful addition to the debate that will help us ensure our schools have the best possible leaders. People who find themselves in the wrong role should have constructive options open to them that do not result in their leaving the profession. We must equip our governors with the right tools to help that change happen. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

16:46

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe) on securing the debate and on making his case so powerfully. I agree with his points about national education policy and the importance of good leadership and governance. I am delighted that he picked today to hold this debate because this morning the Government announced a series of further measures to strengthen school leadership. He had extraordinary foresight in securing this opportunity, which allows me to put on the record some of the announcements we made today.

I am pleased to hear about the progress made by a number of the schools in my hon. Friend’s constituency, and I join him in congratulating the schools whose success he celebrated. He mentioned Gable Hall school, which secured a good set of GCSE results this year. A signal of its success is the fact that it does not see that as an end destination, but as something to build on; it is fantastic that it still wants to aim higher. Woodlands school, which came from a different starting point, has moved out of the “inadequate” category into “requires improvement” in a short period of time. Like my hon. Friend, I wish it well in moving further up to “good” and beyond in the future. It can be a difficult and time-consuming process to take over and turn around schools in the bottom category, so it is good that that happened so quickly.

I was also pleased to hear from other hon. Friends about the progress of schools in their areas—both in Redditch and in some of the teaching schools in the country. I agree with the right hon. Member for Oxford East (Mr Smith) about the need to ensure that schools in some of our more disadvantaged communities have the resources and flexibility to pay more to attract outstanding leaders and teachers.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock struck the right balance when he praised the schools that are doing well. If we are to be listened to in Westminster when we talk to schools that are not doing so well and challenge them to do better, we must show that we have balance and are willing to praise success as well as pick up the schools that are not doing so well. My hon. Friend was right not to be complacent in that regard. He has many outstanding schools in his constituency, including Great Berry primary school, Lee Chapel primary school and the children’s support centre at Langdon Hills, which are all rated “outstanding” by Ofsted. However, 16, or 44%, of the schools in his constituency are in the “requires improvement” category, which used to be “satisfactory”.

My hon. Friend is right that Ofsted is sending out a clear signal, for the reasons that he gave. We no longer accept that satisfactory is good enough. Most young people get only one chance at education, so it has to be high-quality. Therefore, where schools could be doing better and require improvement, we should be challenging and supporting them to do so in exactly the way that he described, and that is also why we have introduced some changes today, which I will outline shortly.

I commend not only the schools in my hon. Friend’s constituency but the excellent work of schools and school leaders right across the country. Those leaders have been turning around schools with their commitment, dedication and unrelenting focus on pupil outcomes. Leading a school is a very challenging role to take on, but it is also absolutely critical. It is very rare to find an outstanding school that does not have outstanding leadership.

Great school leaders can transform schools, but they cannot do so alone. They need their staff to engage in the pursuit of educational excellence, and of course part of a school leader’s job is to motivate and inspire staff and to recruit high-quality staff. That is why great school leaders are at the heart of this Government’s education reform programme.

Our schools White Paper, “The Importance of Teaching”, put schools and school leaders in the driving seat of our reforms and gave them more powers and more support. It set out our vision for a self-improving school system whereby our best schools and leaders drive improvement from within, working together to spread best practice, knowledge and experience, to the benefit of all schools.

We have made good progress on that agenda and we should celebrate the incredible achievements of schools, teachers and pupils, not only in my hon. Friend’s constituency but across the country. Schools in England are now performing better than ever before. Ofsted figures show that 83% of schools in England have achieved good or outstanding ratings for leadership and management, with 80% of schools in England now judged to be good or outstanding overall.

The sophistication and diversity of school leadership across England has also grown and matured over many years, with new approaches emerging in multi-academy trusts and elsewhere. For example, sponsored academy chains are pioneering new kinds of leadership development. Schools everywhere can learn a good deal from the approach taken by chains of three or more sponsored academies, whereby they can grow their own leadership. In this type of school, middle and senior leaders enjoy more opportunities for both internal and external coaching and mentoring. These chains also tend to have a chief executive who is actively engaged with developing leaders, establishing a culture of ambition and success for staff.

At a national level, the Government have invested in professional qualifications for middle leadership, senior leadership and aspiring heads. Since some of these programmes were launched in March 2013, more than 5,200 participants have commenced the middle leader programme, and more than 5,400 participants have commenced the senior leader programme. In addition, more than 2,300 aspirant head teachers have commenced the headship programme since its relaunch in autumn 2012, with a further 640 commencing the programme this autumn. Feedback from participants shows that these programmes help to prepare our school leaders of the future and enable them to develop the skills, knowledge and confidence that they need to thrive in their schools.

I understand my hon. Friend’s concern about ensuring that we have head teachers in place who are fully equipped to carry out the role successfully and to support all pupils in their care. That is why excellent school governance, which he also spoke about, is paramount. It is essential that school governors have the right skills and knowledge to support and challenge the performance of head teachers, which is why we are also investing in more effective school governance. Our national leaders of governance programme identifies highly effective chairs of governors, who use their skills and experience to support chairs of governors in other schools and academies, to increase leadership capacity and improve school performance.

Of course, we need many thousands of governors right across the country, which is a huge recruitment challenge, not least, as the right hon. Member for Oxford East indicated, in more disadvantaged communities, where we have to ensure that the quality of governance is very high. He was quite right to say that we need to call on businesses, other professional groups and other groups with people who have high aspirations who are willing to become governors and chairs of governors in these areas.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock may have seen that we have also convened a review group made up of highly respected professionals to review head teacher standards, to ensure that those standards set out the behaviour, qualities and knowledge expected of modern head teachers.

The Government also recognise that some schools face particularly challenging circumstances. This is why we are funding the Teaching Leaders charity and the Future Leaders Trust, so that they can work closely with staff in schools serving disadvantaged communities. Teaching Leaders identifies and develops middle leaders, such as heads of department or year, to improve teaching in the most challenging schools and for the pupils who will benefit most from such improvement. Owing to the impact that the programme has demonstrated, we recently expanded its provision in secondary schools so that more children can benefit from it. From this month, a new Teaching Leaders programme for the primary sector starts, which will benefit some 160,000 children by developing the skills of their middle leaders.

By funding the Future Leaders Trust, we are also developing the skills of aspiring head teachers who want to work in some of the most challenging schools in the country. So far, 85 participants in the Future Leaders programme have gone on to become head teachers in these challenging schools, many of which are outside London and in areas where other school improvement initiatives in the past have been less prevalent.

We are going even further than that, which is why I am particularly delighted that we have this debate today. Only this morning, we launched the new Talented Leaders programme, which is designed to transform the life chances of pupils in the areas of greatest need across the country, where we do not have enough outstanding schools or enough outstanding head teachers.

This new programme will recruit 100 outstanding deputy heads and heads to lead schools in some of the most challenging communities, where there is a shortage of good leadership. We are starting recruitment today, and the first placements will start in September 2015 and September 2016. Those placements are designed to be voluntary—we will engage the parts of the country that most need them—and to be long-term initiatives, not short-term initiatives, to grow the leaders in the schools that we put them into.

I urge hon. Friends and hon. Members who think that their constituencies are in parts of the country that have a shortage of outstanding leadership to consider applying for their areas to be part of this programme, so that we can get some of these outstanding leaders to the parts of the country where they are most needed.

Another reason why we have this close focus on school leadership is the impact that such leadership has on driving better outcomes for our most vulnerable children and young people. Great school leaders achieve great outcomes for all their pupils, whatever their background. To do that, they close the gap in achievement between pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds and their peers. This issue is close to my heart and the heart of the Government, which is why we are very proud to have helped to introduce the pupil premium. It was introduced in 2011 and has now risen to £2.5 billion per year, providing a massive amount of resources in schools with disadvantage, to ensure that all those schools have the money they need to try to close that gap.

The recent Ofsted report on the use of the pupil premium highlighted increasingly good practice in the schools that are using this money very effectively, to close the gap between them and other schools. We are committed to giving schools freedom in how they use the pupil premium; but through the Ofsted process, we will hold them to account, to ensure that the gap is closed. Our best school leaders are now driving improvements, which can be seen not only in the expansion of academies and free schools but in the increase in the number of schools across the country that are supporting other schools.

Teaching schools were raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart). They are outstanding schools that have a strong track record of working with other schools to bring about improvement. They are the principal network through which support and development for middle and senior leadership is now being offered. Last week, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education announced the 600th teaching school in England, which is a fantastic milestone in a programme that is less than four years old.

As part of this morning’s announcement, which I referred to earlier, we recognised the achievements of both the national leaders of education programme and the national support schools programme. The fantastic success of those programmes comes down to the excellent school leaders who have come forward to take on roles in them, collaborating with and supporting staff in other schools that require improvement or that are in special measures, to try to help them to improve.

Today, I announced our intention to increase the number of NLEs from the present figure of 1,000 to 1,400 by March 2016, to ensure that more schools and more parts of the country can benefit from NLEs, because at the moment—sadly—there are too few of them in large parts of the country, and consequently schools and local authorities in those areas that need more support find it difficult to identify those individuals.

We also announced today a new school-to-school support fund, which will be worth £13 million over the next two years and which will help to fund those NLE deployments, so that the schools that have NLEs will receive money to help them to support other schools.

I note that Susan Jackson and her staff at the Lee Chapel primary school, which is in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock, work in their roles as an NLE national support school and teaching school, collaborating with other schools to drive pupil outcomes. I am very grateful to teaching schools across the country, including in my hon. Friend’s constituency, which are doing this excellent work.

In conclusion, I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate, which is not only very important for his constituents but very timely, given the actions that the Government are taking. I hope that in the future we can build on this strategy across the country, including in his constituency, so that even more schools can achieve good and outstanding ratings.

17:00

Sitting adjourned without Question put (Standing Order No. 10(13)).