House of Commons

Thursday 12th February 2015 Commons Chamber

Thursday 12 February 2015

The House met at half-past Nine o’clock

Prayers

Thursday 12th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Business before Questions

Transport for London Bill [Lords]

Motion made, That the Bill, as amended, be now considered.

[Hon. Members]

Object.

Bill to be considered on Thursday 26 February.

Oral Answers to Questions

Thursday 12th February 2015 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Mr Andrew Robathan (South Leicestershire) (Con)]

1. What assistance his Department provides to small farm companies in supply chains.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)]

The House legislated to strengthen protection for small farmers and small businesses supplying supermarkets by establishing the Groceries Code Adjudicator. I recently secured Government agreement to enable the GCA to impose fines of up to 1% of turnover on supermarkets found guilty of mistreating suppliers. I was also pleased that the GCA last week launched a formal investigation into alleged breaches by Tesco of the groceries code, and I urge those with evidence to come forward.

[Mr Robathan]

I think the Secretary of State and I are at one on this, but he will know of the plight of the many small dairy farmers driven out of business by the abuse of market position by supermarkets and big buyers, and of its impact not just on the face of our countryside, but through the importation of milk that is probably produced to much lower farm welfare standards than our own. Will he therefore consider strengthening the powers of the GCA so that if market position is abused, farmers and others are not penalised by the strength of supermarkets?

[Vince Cable]

I am aware of the Select Committee report that suggested something very similar. Its main recommendation was that we introduce the power of fines, which we have now done, but there will be a review of the GCA within a year of the legislation, and no doubt in the next Parliament those powers can be taken.

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

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for referring to the Select Committee report. Unfortunately, one year might be too late for the many dairy farmers going out of business. Will he undertake an immediate and urgent review into extending the remit of the GCA to indirect supply chains, such as those in the dairy industry, as well as direct supply chains with supermarkets?

[Vince Cable]

The hon. Lady rightly touches on the key outstanding issue, and I certainly believe it would be appropriate to consider the indirect supply chains. I am happy to talk to my colleague the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs about that particular issue, but I think she will find that there is a legislative obstacle.

[Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

Will my right hon. Friend look at the successful local sourcing policies promoted by the East of England Co-operative Society, with the support of Forward East, which are enabling small food and drink manufacturers to get their products into local stores? He and others might wish to know that on Tuesday 24 February, in the Inter-Parliamentary Union room at lunchtime, they will be able to witness that for themselves.

[Vince Cable]

It is always the case that genuinely voluntary efforts to promote local sourcing produce substantial benefits and that legislation is necessarily a blunt instrument. The method my hon. Friend describes is better where it can be applied.

[Jim McGovern (Dundee West) (Lab)]

2. What discussions he has had with ministerial colleagues in the Department for Education and Department for Culture, Media and Sport and with the devolved Administrations on ensuring that their policies meet the skills needs of the technology and video games sectors.

[The Minister for Culture and the Digital Economy (Mr Edward Vaizey)]

As a joint Minister at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, I often have conversations with myself about this important issue, and on the odd occasion they get dull, I involve the Minister for Skills and Equalities and the Department for Education. I am pleased to tell the hon. Gentleman that we have introduced a new school computing curriculum, are establishing a new national college for digital skills and are co-funding with employers innovative degree apprenticeships.

[Jim McGovern]

I try not to speak to myself about this subject, but the Minister will be aware that I have raised on numerous occasions the importance of computer and video games to the Dundee, Scotland and UK economy. I am sure he agrees that there is a skills shortage—not enough graduates are going into the computer games industry. What is he doing with other Departments to address this situation?

[Mr Vaizey]

The hon. Gentleman is a doughty champion for the video games industry, which is hugely successful in his constituency and throughout the country, and the video games tax relief will also help the industry grow. However, he is quite right to point to the need to focus on skills. The games industry was instrumental in persuading the Government to have computer coding taught in schools, and, because we have a sense of urgency about this, we have introduced new degree apprenticeships so that people at university can work closely with employers on the latest technology.

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

3. What steps he is taking to increase the number of engineers.

[The Minister for Skills and Equalities (Nick Boles)]

We are investing in engineering skills at every level in higher education through apprenticeships and in further education, but perhaps the most important initiative is the university technical college initiative. We have opened 30 university technical colleges and a further 27 are in the pre-opening phase.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

As we know, we are going to have increasing demand for engineers nationally over the next few decades, and this will be no more acute than in Basildon and Thurrock. Will my hon. Friend therefore work with me to explore the possibility of establishing a university technical college in Basildon to meet our local needs and to encourage and enthuse young people to look at engineering as a valued career?

[Nick Boles]

I would be delighted to do that. I know my hon. Friend has been leading the process of trying to set up a UTC in his constituency. I urge him to make contact with the excellent Baker Dearing Educational Trust, which developed the concept of the UTC and will provide invaluable advice on how to make sure that my hon. Friend submits a successful bid.

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

The Minister will know that the largest manufacturing industry in the country is food and drink, and that it has one of the biggest export potentials. Will he recognise that engineering disciplines that are ancillary to that industry also have enormous potential, whether it be agricultural engineering, food processing, food storage requirements or food transport? Will he look at technical education from the point of view of where the export potential is, particularly in the developing world?

[Mr Speaker]

Minister Nicholas Edward Coleridge Boles.

[Nick Boles]

Mr Speaker, thank you! You have slightly thrown me off my course.

I welcome what my hon. Friend has said, and I hope that he welcomes the announcement made by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor when launching our long-term economic plan for the south-west, in which he encouraged a proposal to come forward for a university technical college specifically focused on agriculture and related industries. I hope that my hon. Friend will be involved in promoting that.

[Mr Speaker]

I apologise to the Minister, the full munificence of whose name I was simply seeking to capture for the edification of the House.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

This year, China will produce something like 2 million graduates in engineering and engineering-related subjects. Engineering firms in my constituency tell me how difficult it is to recruit engineers, particularly female ones, and that when they train them up, they often lose them to larger firms. What can the Minister do to make sure we have a better join-up between business requirements and education so that engineers stay in this country and produce for our economy?

[Nick Boles]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the desperate need for more engineers, but we have been making good progress. Since 2010, the number of people starting an engineering-related apprenticeship has gone up by 52%, and since 2013 the number of people starting an engineering degree has risen by 6.5 %. If we can get a better supply coming through the pipe, companies will be less inclined to poach from each other and will actually invest in developing the talent themselves through an apprenticeship.

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

4. What steps he plans to take to safeguard the universal service obligation for the delivery of mail.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Jo Swinson)]

The universal service obligation is not an optional extra—it is a fundamental duty enshrined in law and only Parliament could change that. In addition, it is the responsibility of the postal regulator, Ofcom, to ensure services are available throughout the UK at an affordable and uniform price, six days a week.

[Michael Connarty]

I thank the Minister for that reply, but is it not time that we looked at how Ofcom carries out its remit, possibly through a judicial review of that remit? Ofcom has been dragged reluctantly to review the actions of the cherry-pickers such as Whistl, which wants to pick mail up in the 8% of the UK’s geographical area that covers 42% of the mail thereby undermining the ability of Royal Mail to deliver, yet Ofcom attacked the standard of wages and conditions of the Royal Mail workers rather than deal with the problem of cherry-picking of the universal service obligation, which could be irrecoverably damaged.

[Jo Swinson]

There is agreement on both sides about the importance of the universal service obligation, and I do not think there is any evidence that the regulator is failing to fulfil its duty. It looked in detail at the case the Royal Mail put forward last summer and concluded that the market is operating as it should at the moment. It is committed to a further review later this year, and is also looking at the issue of access pricing. These issues are continually under consideration because the USO is so important.

[Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)]

I am disappointed that you did not tell the House the middle names of this Minister, Mr Speaker, but perhaps we can look forward to that later.

It is nearly 18 months since the botched privatisation of Royal Mail. There are reports almost weekly of its being under pressure from the impact of Amazon’s increased use of its own delivery network, and from rivals which are cherry-picking the most profitable services. As the Minister has just said, Ofcom recently concluded that other firms did not have to match Royal Mail’s costly standards in the delivery of the universal service obligation. Given that Labour warned time and again that privatisation would ultimately threaten the USO, and given that the National Federation of SubPostmasters called it a “reckless gamble”, will the Minister look again at the USO, and give a cast-iron guarantee that it will be secure under this Government?

[Jo Swinson]

This Government have already given that cast-iron guarantee by legislating for it in the Postal Services Act 2011. Parliament has set it very firmly in stone. Unless the hon. Gentleman thinks that any future Labour Government would be minded to change the position, I hope that Members on both sides of the House can feel confident that the universal service obligation is secure.

As I said earlier, Ofcom, the regulator, has significant powers to obtain information from other operators in the market. It monitors operators’ plans regularly, and looks at the information every month. Operators must also inform the regulator of their future plans. That will remain under review, and a formal review will take place later this year. I think that what I have said should reassure the House that the universal service obligation is here to stay.

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

Will the Minister help me by explaining why postal collections that used to take place at 4 pm now take place at 9 am?

[Jo Swinson]

That is obviously a slightly different issue from the USO, but I can tell the hon. Gentleman that Royal Mail has reviewed the time of collections from post boxes in which fewer than 50 items of mail were being deposited each day, as part of an overall review of its service. In a positive move which I think Members should welcome, it has maintained all those collection points rather than decommissioning some of them, although collections will be less frequent. It has also ensured that there will be an alternative posting point within half a mile of post boxes from which there are fewer collections or an earlier final collection, from which mail will be collected later.

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

5. If he will take steps to increase apprenticeship places and support small businesses through greater use of Government procurement.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)]

Under the industrial strategy, we encourage a long-term approach to procurement, including apprenticeships and other forms of training.

[Grahame M. Morris]

May I point out, with respect, that the Labour Government used spending on public procurement to boost apprenticeship opportunities, especially in the case of big projects such as Crossrail and the London Olympics? Given that the European Union procurement rules do not prevent that, will the Secretary of State explain why Ministers are not supporting Labour’s plans to use public procurement to create new apprenticeship opportunities?

[Vince Cable]

I remind the hon. Gentleman that under the last Government the numbers of apprenticeship starts was half the number that we have seen in the current Parliament, and that these are also significantly longer and higher-level apprenticeships. As for procurement, if companies can build in apprenticeships—which we encourage them to do—that is of course desirable, but it is a very crude mechanism which adds to the barriers facing small business and the cost to the Government. The experience of trying to build conditionality into section 106 agreements suggests that many companies regard the process as token, and do not invest in sustainable apprenticeships.

[Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)]

I recently visited Mathias & Sons, a work clothing manufacturer in my constituency. It is hoping to secure the contract to provide clothing for workers at the Hinkley Point C development. What can the Government do to ensure that important small businesses like that obtain contracts for such huge developments?

[Vince Cable]

I believe that congratulations are due to the hon. Lady, who has become engaged—perhaps this morning, but certainly recently.

As for procurement and Hinkley Point, the leading contractors have committed themselves to a substantial UK content, and we hope that that extends to apprenticeships. We are endeavouring to frame the pre-qualification questionnaires in such as way that apprenticeship training is encouraged in UK procurement.

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

Big projects such as Crossrail and HS2 are UK-wide. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that businesses throughout the UK, including small businesses, have an opportunity to benefit from the procurement and Government spending that is associated with that type of work?

[Vince Cable]

I gather that senior politicians, including me, have been queuing to go down into Crossrail to admire its progress. One of Crossrail’s key achievements is to substantially advance apprenticeships and, above all, UK content; there is a wide distribution throughout the UK. If we can replicate the experience of Crossrail with other big infrastructure projects, that would be an admirable step forward.

Student Loans

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

6. What assessment he has made of the sustainability of the student loan system.

[The Minister for Universities, Science and Cities (Greg Clark)]

More students entered university this year than ever before in our history, with the biggest rise coming from the poorest areas. Universities will see their teaching resources grow from around £8 billion in 2011 to around £10 billion next year. Graduates are earning 40% more than non-graduates. The taxpayer gets £300,000 extra in tax receipts alone over the average graduate’s career. All this is why the OECD said last month:

“England has got it right on paying for higher education. Among all available approaches, the UK offers still the most…sustainable approach to university finance.”

[Paul Blomfield]

In a recent parliamentary debate, the Minister’s predecessor, the right hon. Member for Havant (Mr Willetts), who I am delighted to see in his place, said that the system needed some tweaking. The public need to know what tweaking the Government have in mind. If the Conservatives are in power after the election—[Interruption.] I know it is unlikely but if that is the case will the Minister guarantee that there will be no increase in the fee cap, no decrease in the loan repayment threshold and no change in the interest rate on loans?

[Greg Clark]

Our universities need to benefit from the confidence and stability that our reforms have introduced. I am perfectly happy with all the arrangements that we have. The uncertainty comes from the Labour party’s proposals, about which the university vice-chancellors are deeply concerned. They said that they would mean

“cuts to universities that would damage the economy, affect the quality of students’ education, and set back work on widening access to higher education”.

At a time when confidence is needed, the Labour party is proposing chaos.

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

Actually, the UCAS figures published recently show that there are 7,000 fewer British applicants to our universities than there were in 2011. Figures from the Library show that we are wasting and writing off £1 in every £2 that we invest in the higher education system, and our students will not pay back their debts until they are in their 50s. We are educating fewer of our young people and we are wasting more of our money.

The Chancellor forecast that there would be 60,000 extra students this year, yet the UCAS data show that there are only 12,000 extra applicants for this September. Does the Minister want to explain to the House why, if his system is so good, he has just missed his growth target by an incredible 80%?

[Greg Clark]

That is total nonsense. We have more students than ever before in this country. We have been able to take the cap off the number of students able to go to university, a historic decision that implements the recommendation of the Robins report of over 50 years ago. In terms of putting people off going to university, the big concern of the vice-chancellors is that the Labour party’s proposals would specifically damage the prospects of poorer students and risk the quality of education for all. It is time that the right hon. Gentleman, who has failed to come up with a policy for all this time, said, weeks before the election, what Labour’s policy on higher education is.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

7. If he will review the use by banks of the enterprise finance guarantee scheme.

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

The enterprise finance guarantee is an important part of our support for viable businesses looking to get access to finance where they do not have sufficient collateral or a track record. We regularly review its performance and have found that by increasing access to finance it helps jobs and growth.

[Mr Hanson]

For over a year, I have written and tabled parliamentary questions asking for a review of the scheme. On 14 January, the Secretary of State met RBS. On 15 January, RBS announced a review of its scheme. Given that it controls about 40% of the enterprise finance guarantee scheme, that it is calling for a review and is looking at the matter internally, is it not about time that the Minister did that himself?

[Matthew Hancock]

We constantly review the scheme to ensure that we get the best possible deal. The majority of the enterprise finance guarantee goes through other banks, which, as far as we know, are performing impeccably. On the RBS aspect, we have met RBS to discuss that. It is reviewing the matter, and we will make sure that it works in the future. The big picture is that the scheme is working well and helping small firms to access finance.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

Following a year of my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) raising this issue, RBS has admitted that there has been mis-selling of the EFG scheme.

Rebuilding confidence in our banking sector will be one of the key tasks facing the next Labour Government. From interest rate swaps to tax evasion and now mis-selling of EFG loans, the Government have been slow to act and slow to investigate whether there are problems. Does the Minister now accept that only through investigating and repairing mis-selling in Britain’s high street banks will confidence in the sector return?

[Matthew Hancock]

The hon. Gentleman has a bit of a cheek, because the investigation required, and the sorting out of confidence in banks, was an enormous issue that we had to take on in 2010. We have regulated and passed legislation throughout this Parliament to ensure that there is more confidence in the banking industry. Of course, there is more to do, but considering how far we have come over the last five years, the hon. Gentleman ought to be saying we have done a good job and be helping us to do that.

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

9. What steps he is taking to promote investment in innovation in the manufacturing sector.

[The Minister for Universities, Science and Cities (Greg Clark)]

The regional growth fund provides support to key industries in England, creating and safeguarding jobs. I am pleased to announce today that regional growth fund support over the next two years will be expanded by nearly £300 million, including more than 60 new schemes. Some 90% of the funding announced today will go to projects and programmes in the manufacturing sector, helping companies to expand, develop new products and new markets and create long-term skilled jobs.

[Mr Speaker]

Mr Barry Sheerman.

[Mr Sheerman]

You do not want to mention, Mr Speaker, that my second name is John, and when I was a young councillor with my first seat in Wales I went around with my full name of Barry John.

May I say to the Minister, “Not bad, but not good enough”? Why can we not have up front, “Manufacturing, manufacturing, manufacturing”? We need a commitment to that across the parties in this House. We have just launched a cross-party manufacturing commission. Will the Minister support it, will he do something about it, and will he come tonight to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers’ manufacturing conference and hear me speak?

[Greg Clark]

Tempting though that invitation is, I am not sure I will be hearing the hon. Gentleman speak, although I enjoy his contributions in this House. Manufacturing has been enjoying a stunning revival during the last few years, and it is supported by the investments made through the local growth fund and the regional growth fund. Some £1.1 billion of funding has been put into manufacturing. Is there further to go? Of course, but this Government’s strategy is clear: by reviving the sectors in which we have strengths that are famous around the world, we can build the prosperity that will provide the security for our country for many years to come.

[Mr David Willetts (Havant) (Con)]

Will the Minister confirm that when we talk about “tech” we mean not just the software, but the hardware as well, and that there are enormous prospects for British manufacturing, especially supported through the RGF, to be world leaders in the high-tech industries of the future?

[Greg Clark]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. He and I had the privilege to be at the Royal Society last night, where awards were presented for some of the key figures who are translating some of our most brilliant ideas into practice, especially in advanced manufacturing. Across all the sectors there is confidence that the prospects for this country are better than ever. That is a tribute in large part to the work that my right hon. Friend did in office.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

The steel unions, supported by steel employers, launched a “Stand Up for Steel” campaign after the debate in this Chamber on the future of the steel industry. With there still being uncertainty about the future of Tata long products, what are the Government doing to stand up for steel, a crucial part of our manufacturing industry that is famous for its innovation and crucial to the future success of this country?

[Greg Clark]

Anyone who was born on Teesside cannot fail to be aware of the importance of the steel industry. It is an important part of our industrial base, and this Government have made significant strides in supporting it. For example, we have reduced the energy costs that would otherwise have been incurred. The hon. Gentleman will know that my right hon. and hon. Friends have regular discussions with representatives of the steel industry and will continue to support it.

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath) rightly said that the food and drink manufacturing sector was the largest manufacturing sector in this country. It employs 400,000 people and invests £1 billion in innovation. There is also huge opportunity for further growth through innovation, but the Food and Drink Federation’s calls for a food and drink manufacturing council, with collaboration between the industry and the Government to foster innovation, have fallen on deaf ears. The phrase “food and drink manufacturing” is not even mentioned in the Government’s agri-tech strategy. Why have the Government chosen to ignore this innovative and high-potential manufacturing sector, and how will the Minister make amends?

[Greg Clark]

We have not ignored it. In fact, I had the privilege of attending the Agri-Tech Leadership Council, which involved many of our key players across the food and drink industry and my colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman) and the Minister in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Lord de Mauley. We met representatives of the industry precisely to plan and implement the strategy that the sector wants to put forward.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

10. What recent assessment he has made of the availability of finance for small firms and the level of lending by banks to small businesses.

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

Gross lending by the banks to small and medium- sized businesses has increased by 25% over the last year, and recent net lending figures have been positive. This week, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced Help to Grow, to boost scale-up finance, building on the success of our start-up loans.

[Valerie Vaz]

Fine words, but how does the Minister reconcile that with the Bank of England’s money and credit statistics, which say that lending to small businesses has fallen in the last quarter by £1 billion? Too many schemes and not enough action.

[Matthew Hancock]

On the contrary, the gross lending is up sharply—around a quarter over the past year—and there are also greater repayments as businesses that are becoming stronger are able to pay down some of their debts. That means that the net figure has been increasing in recent months. We need to look through the individual figures and see the bigger picture of the expansion. However, there is of course much more to do to recover from the banking crash that occurred in 2008.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

What progress are the Government making to bring justice and recompense to the thousands of small businesses that were mis-sold—and perhaps still are being mis-sold—interest rate swap agreements?

[Matthew Hancock]

I know about this issue very well, not only in a ministerial capacity but because Mr Ian Parker is one of the main advocates for a solution to this, and he is a constituent of mine. It is important to get to the bottom of this issue, but it is complicated. There is work going on across the Financial Conduct Authority and the Treasury, as well as the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, to ensure that we get to the bottom of it and that people get appropriate recompense.

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

11. What recent assessment he has made of the contribution of the UK’s EU membership to businesses and the UK economy.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)]

The European single market gives British firms access to 500 million consumers and, as our largest trading partner, is responsible for almost half of this country’s exports. A wide range of economic studies demonstrate the benefits to the UK economy from EU membership.

[Heidi Alexander]

It is my strongly held view that a UK exit from the European Union would be bad for British jobs, bad for British exports and bad for the British people. When did the Secretary of State last speak to the Prime Minister about the so-called negotiations with other European leaders about EU reform? Does he know what the deal-breaker is for the Prime Minister that would lead to the Prime Minister campaigning against our continued membership of the European Union?

[Vince Cable]

The Prime Minister and I discuss this frequently, and we agree that there needs to be significant reforms and improvements in the European single market, particularly moving on to a digital single market. The hon. Lady is quite right to say that our exit would be massively disruptive, and a lot of actual and potential foreign investors in this country are making it absolutely clear that they are alarmed by that possibility, should there be a change of Government.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

Can the Secretary of State tell us: how much this country has handed over in membership fees alone to the European Union since it became a member of the Common Market; what our cumulative trade deficit has been since we joined the Common Market; what our trade deficit was last year with the European Union; in how many years we have had a trade surplus with the EU since we joined the Common Market; what proportion of the world economy the EU made up when we joined the Common Market; and what proportion of the world economy the EU is today?

[Mr Speaker]

That sounds like a request for an essay. It needs to be an extremely pithy one.

[Vince Cable]

I will do my best to answer the second, third and fourth of the hon. Gentleman’s six questions, which related to the trade deficit. Clearly, if we look at the trade deficit in terms of services as well as goods, and if we look at capital flows, including inward investment, the position is a very positive one. I do have to record—I am sure he is aware of this—the extreme alarm now being expressed in business circles about the possibility of a Conservative Government, creating a great deal of uncertainty in this area. There is uncertainty about a prolonged hiatus as the conditions which he is seeking have to be negotiated and uncertainty as to the different forms of exit, be it the Norwegian, Swiss or Turkish model. He will have to reflect with his colleagues on the damage now being done by that uncertainty.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I note that the Secretary of State did not answer any of the questions asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), because he is embarrassed by the answers he would have to give the House. It is my strongly held view that Britain would be better off out of the European Union, because we would be able to control our immigration and save the £10 billion a year membership fee. Given that we do have a massive and growing trade deficit with Europe—those countries sell us more than we sell them—is it not a complete myth that trade with Europe would stop were we to leave the EU?

[Vince Cable]

Of course it entirely depends what the alternative arrangements are, and I have never been terribly clear what those people who want to leave are actually seeking. If we had a Norwegian solution, we would still have the immigration movements. If we had a Swiss agreement, there would be a substantial degree of integration. I think that what many Members who want to leave the EU are asking for is an arrangement such as that prevailing with Turkey, under which there is minimal commitment to a single market but very few of the benefits of membership.

[Mr Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)]

12. What recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Transport on the location of the UK’s first space port.

[The Minister for Universities, Science and Cities (Greg Clark)]

I met Transport and Defence Ministers yesterday to discuss progress on delivering the UK’s first space port. They are both part of the cross-governmental team taking forward the national space flight agenda. The Government have undertaken a public consultation on the eight potential locations, including Machrihanish in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, and the criteria that will be used to select the location of a UK space port. Our response to that consultation will be published shortly.

[Mr Reid]

I thank the Minister for that answer. A space port would be a great boost to the British economy. Machrihanish, with its 3 km runway and all the facilities of a Royal Air Force base, and being far from densely populated areas, is obviously the clear choice for the space port. I urge the Government to go on to the next phase of the decision-making process quickly and choose Machrihanish as soon as possible.

[Greg Clark]

I assure my hon. Friend that we will be taking the first part of his advice and proceeding quickly, but it would be wrong to pre-empt the outcome of that consultation and to nominate Machrihanish from the Dispatch Box today.

[Mr Speaker]

I call Jesse Norman. He is not here—[Interruption.] Indeed—the exhortation from the hon. Member for Broadland (Mr Simpson) was, “Take his name, sergeant major.”

[Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)]

14. What the Government’s policy is on the creation of the digital single market; and if he will make a statement.

[The Minister for Culture and the Digital Economy (Mr Edward Vaizey)]

In homage to the elaborate nomenclature of the Minister for Skills and Equalities, which you have revealed this morning, Mr Speaker, let me quote our greatest romantic poet:

“Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm.”

I can tell you, Mr Speaker, that our non-paper on the digital single market, which contains an enthusiastic vision for a digital single market, has gone down an absolute storm in Europe, partly because it is online, with interactive graphics.

[Mr Whittingdale]

I welcome the progress we are making on creating a digital single market—and indeed the interactive graphics. Is the Minister aware that the business models of some of our most successful industries, particularly those in the audiovisual sector and sports rights, depend on territorial licensing? Will he confirm that the Government’s policy is to continue to support their right to do that?

[Mr Vaizey]

Let me say that

“common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.”

That is Coleridge as well, but nobody understood. My hon. Friend has displayed immense common sense in pointing out that it is important that we stand up for the intellectual property rights of our very successful creative industries. It has to be said as well that we should be mindful of what the consumer now wants, which is to access content in a fair and reasonable way wherever they are based. So we need to work with industry and the consumer to achieve a happy result.

[Jim McGovern (Dundee West) (Lab)]

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

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)]

My Department plays a key role in supporting the rebalancing of the economy through business to deliver growth while increasing skills and learning.

[Jim McGovern]

The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers recently reported that, due to the fall in oil prices, the terms and conditions of people employed in the oil industry have been reduced. Is the Minister aware of that and what steps is he taking to address that exploitation?

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

The fall in the oil price has had a direct impact on those employed in the industry both in Aberdeen and across the whole country, and there is no doubt that it will continue to have an impact. Nevertheless, the safeguarding of jobs, in some cases with reductions of pay, is an important part of the response and we are working closely with the industry and other stakeholders to try to ensure that we get through these difficult times.

[Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)]

T2. Further to the reply that my hon. Friend the Minister for Culture and the Digital Economy gave a moment ago, can he confirm that the Government’s position remains as set out in the response to the consultation on the review of EU copyright law—that any changes should be based on hard evidence? Perhaps I might ask him a second time to be a little clearer—just so that we can be absolutely certain that everyone is aware—that the Government support the right of territorial licensing, as the Prime Minister’s special adviser set out to the creative industries yesterday.

[The Minister for Culture and the Digital Economy (Mr Edward Vaizey)]

Yes, that is the case. I should make it absolutely clear that the non-paper that we have submitted to the European Commission represents a vision for the digital single market. It is our firm belief that consumers should be able to access content in a fair and reasonable way wherever they are, but we do support the right of industries with internet protocol to sell territorial licensing.

[Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

Following their “Maoist and chaotic” abolition of regional development agencies—the Business Secretary’s words not mine—the Government’s flagship regional growth policy this Parliament has been the regional growth fund, which was mentioned earlier. This might be our last Business, Innovations and Skills questions this Parliament, so can the Secretary of State tell me what percentage of those RGF moneys, announced to great fanfare, have actually made it to, and been drawn down by, the businesses concerned?

[Vince Cable]

I am going off later today to talk about the regional growth fund and its latest successes. Most companies that have received RGF awards are highly appreciative of them. The awards have been highly successful in attracting private investment, which might not otherwise have occurred, and a substantial amount of employment. Of course a significant percentage does not go through immediately because of due diligence. Many of the awards are not completed because the projects proceed anyway or are withdrawn, and that is a consequence of the very careful and prudential way in which we manage money under the regional growth fund.

[Mr Umunna]

The fact is that hundreds of millions of pounds of RGF moneys are gathering dust and are nowhere to be seen by many of the businesses that they promised to help. The local enterprise partnerships that were put in place to do the job of the RDAs were left without appropriate budgets or powers, and the local enterprise zones, which we were told would create 54,000 jobs, have so far created less than a quarter of that sum. There has been a lot of grand talk from these Ministers on their plans to rebalance the economy, but as this Parliament comes to an end—never mind the chaos that the Secretary of State talked about—are not the words that best sum up delivery of schemes to boost regional growth, “utter incompetence”?

[Vince Cable]

If the shadow Secretary of State is so critical of the regional growth fund, is he proposing to abolish it? I suspect not. The reason why some money is not spent is that tests of due diligence have not been satisfied. I am sure that he will acknowledge the fact that, under the regional growth fund, public money is spent a lot more efficiently and effectively in drawing in private investment than ever happened under the regional development agencies, which were wasteful and ineffective.

[Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)]

T3. Many people say that LEPs have been a huge improvement on the regional development agencies, but some small businesses that I talk to in Bristol are concerned that their priorities are not always reflected in local growth funds. Will the Minister work with his colleagues to ensure that the priorities of small businesses are reflected in LEPs, and that LEPs are not unduly influenced by major business interests?

[The Minister for Universities, Science and Cities (Greg Clark)]

It is very important that businesses have a strong voice in the leadership of the local economy. That is what they are achieving through LEPs and it has been one reason why more than 2 million new private sector jobs have been created during this period. My hon. Friend has been an active campaigner for projects in her local area with some success, and I know that she will continue to influence the business and the local authority participants in her LEP.

[Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)]

T4. The Government have a target, signed off at the highest level, I believe, of achieving £1 trillion of exports by 2020, doubling the current figure in five years. When asked at the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee, a UK Trade & Investment representative described it as an “energising aspiration”. Is it an energising aspiration or is it a realistic, achievable target?

[Matthew Hancock]

The target of £1 trillion of exports by 2020 is the target, and a realistic one. It is an energising target, an aspiration, an ambition and a goal. We can get there as a country and we can reach it, but it will require a huge amount of effort. That is why trade deals such as the EU-US trade deal known as TTIP, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, are so important in reaching that aspiration, goal and achievement.

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

T5. The Minister responsible for life sciences will be familiar with Daiichi Sankyo, an innovative drug company based in Chesham and Amersham. It is launching a novel oral anticoagulant to help prevent strokes more effectively in people who suffer with atrial fibrillation. The uptake of such drugs has been repeatedly blocked by the NHS despite guidance from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence that calls for their use. What can the Minister do to clear that blockage so that the drugs can be used to benefit our patients?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (George Freeman)]

I am indeed familiar with the great work of Daiichi Sankyo, and that of my right hon. Friend in supporting its investment in her constituency. I recently had the pleasure of going up to open a new facility. She raises an important point, and the appointment of a Minister responsible for life sciences at the Departments for Business, Innovation and Skills and of Health, where I have responsibility for NICE and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, allows us to begin to ensure that our health system better supports our life sciences cluster. The review I recently launched of speedier access for innovative medicines will tackle the issue of uptake that my right hon. Friend has rightly raised.

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

T6. Ninety-three per cent. of those aged 25 or over who completed apprenticeships last year already worked for their employer. If this is not just a rebadging of existing training programmes as apprenticeships, what is it?

[The Minister for Skills and Equalities (Nick Boles)]

One of the most extraordinary steps the Opposition have taken is to tell us that if someone is employed by a business we do not care about the process of giving them new skills, and that it is inappropriate for the Government to invest in giving them those skills. It is entirely reasonable for businesses to employ someone for a time and then see that they have the aptitude and potential to complete an apprenticeship. Apprenticeships have to last at least 12 months and they involve a substantial investment by employers, so it is not for us to stand in the way if employers want to invest in upskilling the staff they already have.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

The economy in northern Lincolnshire has had much good news in recent weeks, but a bit of a damper was put on that this morning by the announcement from Lindsey oil refinery that there will be 180 redundancies. That follows 90 redundancies announced last week by Cristal Global. Will the Minister assure me that everything possible will be done by his Department and Government agencies to support the workers at this difficult time?

[Matthew Hancock]

Absolutely. I met Total yesterday and it told me of its planned announcement today. We are working with the company to ensure that if any redundancies occur, those made redundant are supported. They will often be people with skills that are in short supply across the nation, and I look forward to going to my hon. Friend’s constituency to discuss this with him and to working with him.

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

May I ask the Secretary of State and his merry men and women to pay attention to an important problem? Many of us across the House are in favour of apprenticeships and university technical colleges, but we would be conning the British public if we led them to suppose that apprenticeships and university technical colleges on their own will help us get rid of the dreadful skills shortage in this country. Will the Secretary of State look at this again? The real secret of solving this problem is in the further education sector, in universities having more applied courses, and in making graduates and the people coming out of colleges more fit and ready to work in industry.

[Vince Cable]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. This calls for across-the-board treatment. The suggestion that has come from some sources that it would be sensible to cut the fees for engineering and science courses to £6,000 would, of course, massively undermine that, because it would no longer be possible to cover the costs of those courses.

[Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

Will the Secretary of State confirm that he has asked Barclays to defer the closure of the St Agnes branch until the new protocol on last bank closures in communities where the post office is not a viable alternative has been agreed, which I understand will be next week?

[Vince Cable]

I have indeed discussed that directly with the chief executive of Barclays, in response to my hon. Friend’s very persistent campaigning and that of her Liberal Democrat opponent, who has been equally assiduous. We recognise the need in St Agnes for a bespoke solution, since the post office is not the ideal vehicle, and I think we are working towards a satisfactory outcome.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

As the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) pointed out, there is an announcement today about restructuring by Total of its facility at Lindsey oil refinery. In addition there is uncertainty about the future of Tata Steel Long Products in Scunthorpe. Will the Government ensure that the necessary support is given to manufacturing industry in north Lincolnshire, so that it has a strong and prosperous future?

[Matthew Hancock]

Absolutely we will. I understand that the changes announced today by Total are set to take place over a number of years, so there will be time to ensure that we get the systems in place to support people who are affected, whether they stay within Total or are looking for jobs elsewhere or are seeking early retirement. We will do all we can to help.

[Mr Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)]

I welcome the introduction of big fines for supermarkets that breach the groceries supply code of practice, but I urge the Government to bring forward the review. We need to extend the code to indirect suppliers such as dairy farmers, who are suffering greatly at the moment. They cannot wait another year. May we have the review much sooner, please?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Jo Swinson)]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath) has also been raising this issue assiduously. It is one that Members across the House are, understandably, very concerned about. The Groceries Code Adjudicator is already proving to be a great success in her work with supermarket companies, by encouraging them to change their behaviour. We have ensured that she has, and will have, the power to fine as well as to launch investigations—the first, of course, was launched recently. The question whether the remit should be extended needs to be looked at, and I commit the Government to doing that.

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

Government procurement can be used to drive innovation and to support our small business sector. How can small businesses in my constituency find out what opportunities exist to help them?

[Matthew Hancock]

We now put all procurement online. Also, from this month, a new rule is coming into place: not only must all procurement from Government be paid within 30 days, but the whole supply chain must be paid within 30 days. It is a big step forward to help small businesses engage in Government procurement.

[Mr David Willetts (Havant) (Con)]

Will the Minister confirm that one of the best ways of getting funding into innovative life sciences companies is for them to get contracts from the NHS earlier? He just referred to his very important early access review. What are the ambitions for that, and the timetable?

[George Freeman]

My right hon. Friend and predecessor makes an important point. Since we launched the life science strategy at the start of this Parliament, as set out and led by my right hon. Friend, this country has attracted over £3.5 billion of inward investment into the sector and created more than 11,000 jobs, so something is going very right. He makes a key point: the next step is to ensure that our NHS is driving quicker access. We shall shortly be announcing the chair of the review, and we have already started to gather evidence. My right hon. Friend will have noticed on his recent trip to America the support and the interest that it is gaining overseas for driving our sector forward.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

When the Secretary of State’s Department was called the Department of Trade and Industry, he called for it to be abolished, saying:

“The DTI should be wound up because it doesn’t perform a function. It has no real role anymore”.

Interestingly, his solution was not to reform the Department and rename it BIS; his solution was to split the duties of the Department between existing Government Departments —he cited the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Education and Skills. Which of his duties does he think should be handled by other Government Departments, or what has changed his mind? Was it a ministerial salary, perhaps?

[Vince Cable]

I am delighted to have yet another contribution from the leader of my parliamentary fan club. He has failed to observe that since I made my comments on the DTI a decade ago, we have acquired responsibility for universities, skills, science and much else.

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

A business in my constituency received a communication from Royal Mail the week before Christmas, saying that with effect from four business weeks later, the business reply and freepost service that it had used for 10 years was to be discontinued and it would have to re-register. The business was told that if the old address was used, there would be a 20p penalty per item and the item may not be delivered. It will cost the business £10 per customer and £10,000 in lost stationery. Is that reasonable? Should not the Royal Mail respond to my letter? Will the Minister intervene?

[Jo Swinson]

Royal Mail should certainly respond to the letter that my hon. Friend sent it, and I will happily take that up on his behalf. The issue that he raises goes wider. The change had been notified earlier to some customers but that may not have happened properly in this circumstance, and I shall be happy to look into it.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

There were a wonderful 850 apprenticeship starts in Kettering last year, led ably by Tresham college in my constituency. Is the Skills Minister satisfied that LEPs are working as well as they might with local further education establishments in pushing the apprenticeship agenda?

[Nick Boles]

My hon. Friend is right to suggest that LEPs should take this seriously. Some are doing better than others on this, but our message is clear: they have a key responsibility, working with local businesses and colleges such as the one my hon. Friend referred to, to ensure that as many businesses as possible take up the opportunity of an apprenticeship. because that is the way to build the skills that his constituency and others need for the future.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

The Minister gave a progress report on the Government’s dealing with late payment, but, according to a recent small business seminar in my constituency, it remains a bugbear. One international telecommunications company was cited which not only charges a fee to be a supplier, but has 180-day payment terms. What more can we do to name and shame and make transparent these obscene practices, which clobber small businesses?

[Matthew Hancock]

The single best thing we can do about that is to pass before the end of this Parliament the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill, which is still going through the other place. That brings in transparency measures which mean that we will not name and shame just on an ad hoc basis, but have league tables of late payment performance, celebrating the best and admonishing the worst.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

I congratulate the Government on the support that they have given to satellite communications and space research companies based at Goonhilly earth station in my constituency, and also on their excellent science and research consultation, which has an excellent section on space research. May I urge Ministers to ensure that Goonhilly is placed at the centre of the development of space research infrastructure in future?

[Vince Cable]

I met my hon. Friend and a delegation yesterday to discuss that. I congratulate him on the stamina he has shown in pursuing the Goonhilly project, which is now part of the regional growth fund. He has raised wider issues about how the space policy can be developed to bring in the private sector, and I shall discuss with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Universities, Science and Cities how we can progress that.

[Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

Unemployment in my constituency has fallen by 54% since the last general election. In respect of business, innovation and skills, will my right hon. Friend get his officials to look at the success story that is the Colchester business enterprise agency, a not-for-profit voluntary organisation which has about 50 starter workshop units helping new and innovative fledgling businesses?

[Matthew Hancock]

Yes, absolutely. The fall in unemployment across the land, in Colchester and beyond, is a vital sign that the long-term economic plan is working. I very much look forward to visiting Colchester soon and look forward to taking up the hon. Gentleman’s proposal.

Stance of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on Hamas

Thursday 12th February 2015 Commons Chamber

Sir David Amess (Southend West) (Con)

- Hansard - - Excerpts

I am honoured to present a petition that has been signed by a number of Jewish people who live in my constituency. It was handed to me by a constituent, Mr Lewis Herlitz, on behalf of Fair Reporting. My constituency has a wonderful Jewish community, who are very concerned about the anti-Semitic sentiments that they believe are being fuelled by events in the middle east, and about the lack of clarity in the language being used by the Foreign Office regarding those events.

The petition states:

The Petition of residents in the Southend West constituency,

Declares that the Petitioners believe that the Foreign Office view Hamas as a plausible negotiating partner for creating a peace agreement with Israel; further that the Petitioners believe that such a view is incorrect as Hamas’s own political charter clearly states that it seeks nothing less than the destruction of Israel; further that the Petitioners believe that the Foreign Office is unwilling to clearly declare that it deplores the use of civilians and civilian buildings by Hamas as part of Hamas’s warfare strategy; Hamas’s consequential abuse of civilian properties as places from which to launch attacks on Israel, and its abuse of civilians as human shields resulting in a disproportionate loss of life; further that the Petitioners believe that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, and is the only place in the Middle East where Christianity and other faiths can co-exist peacefully and thrive; further that a lack of clarity in support of Israel contributes to anti-Jewish sentiment; further that the Petitioners recognise the need for, and the rights of, the civilians of Gaza and other Arabs who live within and around Israel for a peaceable existence; and further that the Petitioners believe that the lack of demonstrable public clarity by the Foreign Office to support Israel and to deplore Hamas is deeply concerning.

The Petitioners therefore urges the House of Commons to request that the Foreign Office explains its actions and views on Israel, and clarifies its view of and position on Hamas.

And the Petitioners remain, etc.

[P001436]

Closure of Barclays Bank in St Agnes

Thursday 12th February 2015 Commons Chamber

Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)

- Hansard - - Excerpts

I rise to present a petition on behalf of residents of St Agnes relating to the closure of the Barclays bank branch there. It is the last bank in that thriving community. A local petition on this issue has received 2,827 signatures.

The petition states:

The Petition of residents of St Agnes,

Declares that the Petitioners oppose the plans to close the St Agnes branch of Barclays Bank; further that the Petitioners feel that the branch is a vital element of their community; and further that a local Petition on this matter has been signed by 2,827 individuals.

The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to encourage Barclays to reverse their decision to close the branch in St Agnes or to postpone the closure to enable the Petitioners to work with the bank to make it more viable for it to be kept open.

And the Petitioners remain, etc.

[P001435]

Business of the House

Thursday 12th February 2015 Commons Chamber

10:29

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

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

[The First Secretary of State and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr William Hague)]

The business, not for next week but for the week commencing 23 February—[Interruption]—yes, the next parliamentary week—will be as follows:

Monday 23 February—Remaining stages of the Serious Crime Bill [Lords]. I expect my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to make a statement following the European Council.

Tuesday 24 February—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Pension Schemes Bill, followed by consideration of an allocation of time motion, followed by all stages of the House of Commons Commission Bill, followed by motions relating to Procedure Committee reports on business in Westminster Hall, Queen’s and Prince Of Wales’s consent and e-petitions, followed by a general debate on mental health and unemployment. The subject for this debate was recommended by the Backbench Business Committee.

Wednesday 25 February—Opposition day (18th allotted day). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion, subject to be announced.

Thursday 26 February—Statement on the publication of the fourth report from the Culture, Media And Sport Committee on the future of the BBC, followed by debate on a motion relating to Equitable Life, followed by a general debate on epilepsy. The Select Committee statement and subjects for debate were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 27 February—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 2 March will include:

Monday 2 March—Estimates day (2nd allotted day). There will be a debate on Devolution in England: The Case for Local Government, followed by a debate on the next Defence and Security Review Part Two: NATO. Further details will be given in the Official Report.

[The details are as follows: Devolution in England: The Case for Local Government, 1st Report from the Communities and Local Government Committee, HC 503, and the Government response; Towards the next Defence and Security Review Part Two: NATO, 3rd Report from the Defence Committee, HC 358, and the Government response, HC 755.]

Tuesday 3 March—Estimates day (3rd allotted day). There will be a debate on support for housing costs in the reformed welfare system, followed by a debate on children’s and adolescents’ mental health and child and adolescent mental health services. Further details will be given in the Official Report. At 7 pm the House will be asked to agree all outstanding estimates.

[The details are as follows: Support for housing costs in the reformed welfare system, 4th Report from the Work and Pensions Committee, HC 720 of Session 2013-14; Children’s and adolescents’ mental health and CAMHS, 3rd Report from the Health Committee, HC 342, and the Government response.]

Wednesday 4 March—Proceedings on the Supply and Appropriation (Anticipations And Adjustments) Bill, followed by remaining stages of the Corporation Tax (Northern Ireland) Bill, followed by an Opposition day (unallotted half-day). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion, subject to be announced.

Thursday 5 March— Business to be nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 6 March—Private Members’ Bills.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for the remainder of February and for 2 March will be:

Monday 23 February—General debate on an e-petition relating to ending non-stun slaughter to promote animal welfare.

Thursday 26 February—General debate on low-carbon electricity generation.

Monday 2 March—General debate on an e-petition relating to Harvey’s law.

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing the post-recess business.

On Tuesday, the Standards Committee published a review of the standards system in the Commons, led by the lay members. We need radical action to restore trust in our political system, so I thank the Committee for the report, which contains some sensible recommendations. Will the Leader of the House set out how he intends to take the report forward, and will he tell me if he will act on my suggestion and remove the Government majority on the Committee to address concerns about the Government protecting their own?

Yesterday’s report from Sir Robert Francis revealed that nearly a quarter of NHS staff have experienced bullying or harassment—a problem that is all too prevalent in other workplaces across the country too. Given that the Government were quick to welcome the Francis report but have made it their mission to make people pay to access employment rights and protection from bullying and arbitrary treatment everywhere else, may we have a debate on the protection that Britain’s workers deserve against bullying at work? May we especially have a debate about the 60% fall in employment tribunal cases since the Government introduced steep payments for access to justice in the workplace?

Yesterday we learned that a string of Tory donors banked with the Swiss arm of HSBC, which has been caught red-handed facilitating tax abuse. Since the Prime Minister became leader of his party, those donors have given him £5 million and HSBC’s chairman, Lord Green, was appointed a Minister in the Government after the scandal was public knowledge, with no questions asked about his oversight of this rogue bank. Does that not say everything about this Government?

On the Government’s own estimate, uncollected taxes rose by a massive £34 billion last year. Their sweetheart Swiss tax deal is full of holes and has brought in less than a third of what they promised, and they have cut taxes for millionaires and hedge funds, which have given them £47 million since the Prime Minister became leader.

With the election looming, our shameless Prime Minister travelled to the British Chambers of Commerce to steal a TUC slogan and suddenly declare that “Britain needs a pay rise”. Yet this is the first Government since 1874 who have left people worse off at the end of the Parliament than they were at the beginning. While he was there, he even decided to channel Lord Kinnock, but I would have used a different speech: “I’ll tell you what happens with impossible Tory pre-election promises. They’re pickled into a rigid soundbite, a code, and you end up in the grotesque chaos of a Tory Government—a Tory Government!—hiring chauffeur-driven limos to scuttle round Davos handing out huge tax breaks to its own donors.”

The Prime Minister has reportedly told the Cabinet that he is fed up of this zombie Government and that he wants Ministers to get back to work. Most appear to have responded by suddenly dumping hundreds of statutory instruments on the Order Paper, but the invisible man—the Tory Chief Whip—has responded in his own unique style. On a day when he failed to show up in Parliament—the day before Parliament adjourned five hours early—he gave a speech on the “myth” of the zombie Parliament. His key evidence was an increase in urgent questions under this Government. But, Mr Speaker, you grant urgent questions and you grant them when the Government are avoiding scrutiny.

I read this morning that the Chief Whip has literally been back-seat driving, but not at the Department for Education: he has been taking vanity trips in his Jaguar to travel the 400 yards between Parliament and No. 10. He drove teachers round the bend, he has put this place on the road to nowhere, and his Government hold the record for the most U-turns. He certainly will not be allowed anywhere near our magenta battle bus.

On Monday night, the Conservative black and white ball raised millions of pounds and gave a whole new meaning to the term “by-election”. According to the Daily Mail, the Prime Minister partied with the kings and queens of sleaze, including a porn baron, the owner of a strip club and the boss of Ann Summers. Perhaps they should have changed their theme to black, white and a little blue. This year, in a doomed bid to limit the PR disaster, they banned ostentatious displays of tuxedos and champagne, but they did still auction a 500-bird pheasant and partridge shoot for tens of thousands of pounds; a bronze statue of Margaret Thatcher for £210,000; and, hilariously, a holiday in Cobblers Cove.

I have been inspecting the auction lots and if I had more money than sense I could have bought shoe shopping with the Home Secretary or a personalised cartoon from the Leader of the House’s private collection, where he is depicted as a “bionic babe”. Perhaps he could tell us what that went for. I could also have paid to take on the welfare Secretary in an endurance race across hills, woods, streams, hedges and hay bales. Surely I would be certain of winning that one, because, judging by his welfare reforms, that man has no hope of finishing anything.

I gather that the Liberal Democrats are organising their own fundraiser, too: instead of an auction, they are going to sell off their principles to the highest bidder.

[Mr Hague]

I am always grateful to the hon. Lady for her questions. She asked about the Standards Committee report. The decision on it is primarily one for the House itself, but the Government strongly support the need for the highest standards in public life. We welcome the report, which follows the inquiry chaired by one of the independent, lay members of the Standards Committee. There are now two reports from the Standards Committee that we need to consider and debate. We will seek an opportunity in due course to provide time to debate this report, and we will then set out the Government’s view on how the Committee’s conclusions can be taken forward.

The hon. Lady raised a variety of other matters, including that the Chief Whip has the use of a car. She has seen that, as we all have, in the newspapers this morning. I think one newspaper report referred to the Chief Whip as a former Minister or ex-Minister, which shows a certain limited understanding on the part of the journalists about the role of the Chief Whip in the British Government. He is most certainly a Minister, and he remains entitled to the use of a car.

The hon. Lady said that the House rose five hours early the other night, but there was a time when Oppositions used to debate the benefits uprating order, the pneumoconiosis compensation regulations, the mesothelioma payments regulations or the guaranteed minimum pensions increase order. They were all before the House on Monday, and the Opposition chose barely to debate them. That is why the House rose five hours early.

The hon. Lady asked about the cartoon of me as the “bionic babe”. I do not know how much it went for, but since it is 38 years old, I had a lot more hair in the cartoon than I can display in the House today, so it is certainly a collectors’ item.

The hon. Lady said that the Conservative party received £5 million from certain donors, but she neglected to mention that since the Leader of the Opposition was elected, the Labour party has received £35 million from trade unions. Of the Labour candidates selected since then, 60% have union links and half of them are from Unite. There is only one party in this country in which policies are purchased, and that is the Labour party. There is no doubt about that.

On tax avoidance, under the rules left by Labour, thousands of the richest home buyers did not pay stamp duty—they now do; foreigners did not pay any capital gains tax—they now do; and private equity managers paid lower tax rates than their cleaners—we have got rid of that. The previous Government left behind a terrible mess of tax loopholes that this Government have now closed.

With the addition of the £100 billion in extra revenue as a result of action on tax avoidance and evasion, not only are the Government finances stronger, but it has been another good week for the British economy, which Labour Members do not like to raise and about which they do not like to ask for debates. There was strong manufacturing growth in January, there is an increased growth forecast from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, and my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has just announced £5 billion of road and rail investment for the midlands. The hon. Lady criticised the Prime Minister for going to the British Chambers of Commerce conference, but it is no wonder that the Leader of the Opposition hid in his office while the conference took place just a few hundred yards away. They would have to hide him from 60 million people to have a real hope of winning the general election in May.

The hon. Lady knows the confidence I have in her. I call for her to have more control over her colleagues. She would not have offended the country’s nuns on television a week ago. If she had been in charge of the biggest campaign on women’s issues ever launched by the Labour party, she would not have led it from a 17-seater minibus. In the week of “Fifty Shades of Grey”, it is 50 shades of pink embarrassment for Labour Members.

[Mr Keith Simpson (Broadland) (Con)]

With other colleagues, my right hon. Friend rightly criticised the delay before the setting up of the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war. Is he not perturbed that there is now a similar delay by our own Government in considering the lessons from the war in Afghanistan? I initiated a short debate yesterday, in which the Minister for the Armed Forces lamentably failed to answer any of the questions. We will have a strategic defence and security review this autumn. I urge my right hon. Friend to get a grip of the Government so that the Ministry of Defence and other Departments can begin a study on this important subject now.

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend initiated an important debate. He is experienced in military matters, and I assure him that in all the Government’s deliberations, including weekly deliberations in the National Security Council, we are learning the lessons of what has happened in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. It is possible to see the benefits of learning those lessons in the way we have worked in Somalia in recent years, for example, with a different model of intervention. However, it will be vital over the coming months to continue to learn lessons, and I will convey the importance of what my hon. Friend has said to my ministerial colleagues.

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

Does the Leader of the House recall a fabulous part of England called Yorkshire? It lies between, and is worried about, the increasing power and wealth of London and the south, and the growing power and independence of Scotland, since Yorkshire has very little of any of that. Does he welcome the manifesto for Yorkshire by the all-party group on Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire, “Devolution for Prosperity”, and is it about time we had a debate on Yorkshire and its ability to speak with one voice and have accountable government?

[Mr Hague]

I have just announced an estimates day debate on devolution in England and the case for local government, and I am sure the hon. Gentleman will be able to make his case in that debate. As a proud Yorkshireman, it has always been my view that we do not aspire to govern Yorkshire—we aspire to govern the world, and it is important that we retain that global role in Yorkshire’s involvement in world politics.

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

Will my right hon. Friend find time for a debate on the criteria for the creation of cities? Given that he once made a memorable visit to Southend, does he agree that it is absolutely ridiculous that the place is not already a city, especially since it is generally regarded as the finest seaside resort in the country, if not the world?

[Mr Hague]

I did indeed make a memorable visit to Southend—it was so memorable that I actually remember it and will never forget it. I am a big fan of Southend, and it will never have a greater champion than my hon. Friend. As he knows, city status is a civic honour occasionally granted by the monarch to mark certain royal anniversaries. I recall that Southend submitted an enthusiastic and strong application at the diamond jubilee. That was not successful, but Southend did succeed in securing a significant city deal that will provide it with further investment. There are no plans at the moment for a new competition on city status, but I am sure Southend will have another opportunity to bid for it in the future.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

Thanks to the Backbench Business Committee there will be the first full-scale debate on Yemen on 24 February. The Leader of the House will recall his pivotal role in ensuring that Yemen remains on the path to democracy, including a memorable visit to Sana’a to meet the President. He will also know that the American and French embassies, and yesterday the British embassy, have been evacuated. May we have a quarterly statement on the situation in Yemen and the Gulf, as we do on Afghanistan, because that country plays an important role in our national security?

[Mr Hague]

The right hon. Gentleman is assiduous in pursuing matters relating to Yemen, and as he says, as Foreign Secretary I was heavily involved in events there and visited that country. We have temporarily suspended embassy operations in Sana’a, and withdrawn diplomatic staff until the security situation becomes clearer—as the House will appreciate, that is a consequence of recent events. It is good that the Backbench Business Committee has chosen that topic, and important that my Foreign Office colleagues keep the House up to date on Yemen and developments throughout the Gulf. I will tell them of the right hon. Gentleman’s point, and remind them of the need to have regular updates in the House.

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

We had a rather unedifying debate in this House on tax evasion, but there has also been enormous public concern about the issue. May we have a debate on the role of audit? Large accountancy firms are being paid enormous amounts of money for external audit, yet they do not seem to notice what is happening in the banks and they do not seem to notice the tax arrangements of their corporate customers. I wonder whether they are actually fulfilling their statutory duties in terms of regularity. Should the House not ask the accountancy companies exactly what they are doing for that money?

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend makes his point very powerfully. A good case can be made for a debate. After today, we have only 22 sitting days before Dissolution, so I am not in a position freely to distribute debates on various topics, but he is able to pursue this matter at various question times and through the Backbench Business Committee.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

May we have an urgent debate on Burma? I understand there is no time for constitutional reform before the Burmese elections, but in a written answer I was told that the British Government are giving money to the Burmese army, some members of which were responsible for raping and killing two teachers in Kachin state. Will the Leader of the House look into this matter?

[Mr Hague]

These are very important issues. Under the auspices of the preventing sexual violence initiative, which I continue to work on, we have worked hard to bring Burma into the initiative by getting the Burmese Government to sign up to its principles. That is partly so that the world will be able to expect a better performance and behaviour from the Burmese army. It is always difficult to make decisions about whether to give training to an army where crimes have been committed or alleged, but part of the argument for that training is to ensure that such crimes are not committed in future. That is why such decisions have been made in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. FCO questions are on 3 March. The hon. Lady may be able to pursue this matter further then.

[Mr Speaker]

There can never be too many debates on Burma in this House.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

The number of injuries and fatalities in the agriculture and farming sector is still too high: there were 27 deaths last year, including in Shropshire. May we have a debate on how the National Farmers Union, the Health and Safety Executive and the industry as a whole, including the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, can work better together to ensure a reduction in fatalities and injuries?

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend raises a very important issue. The Health and Safety Executive is working with the industry to try to reduce the number of accidents across agriculture. It delivers an annual programme of safety and health awareness days targeted at small and medium-sized farms, and it works at the European level on improvements to the design and maintenance of agricultural machinery. This is an important issue and there are still too many deaths and injuries in agriculture. A debate would allow us to consider what else could be done. There is a good case for such a debate.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House consider a debate on the funding of political parties, or perhaps he will explain why he believes that 10,000 individuals giving £10 each to a political party is an affront to democracy, but a single donor giving £100,000 to a political party—the right hon. Gentleman’s party—to shoot 500 pheasants is an exercise of civic responsibility?

[Mr Hague]

We have had many debates on party political funding over the years. They have often generated a great deal more heat than light from all sides. We are all able to make our points in such debates and I remind the hon. Gentleman that 69% of all Labour’s donations under its current leader have come from trade unions. In any debate, that is a point we on this side of the House will certainly want to make.

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

May I join my right hon. Friend in aspiring for Yorkshire to govern the world? Does he accept that we are slightly handicapped by not necessarily having a good mobile signal in the hills, and that in some cases, in his area and mine, just under 20% will still not have broadband? Given the short window for applying for basic farm payments, will he join me in applying for a debate in this Parliament on superfast broadband for north Yorkshire?

[Mr Hague]

North Yorkshire has led the way on superfast broadband in rural areas, which is a great credit to local councillors and others who have worked on that. However, as my hon. Friend rightly says, there are areas where it remains difficult to provide and where mobile phone coverage is not good. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport is doing fantastic work on addressing the lack of mobile coverage in parts of this country. It is DCMS Question Time on the first Thursday back after next week’s recess, on 26 February, so she might wish to pursue the matter then.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

The Leader of the House will have seen the tragic news this week that another 300 migrants have died in the Mediterranean trying to get from Libya to Lampedusa, while only 105 were saved by the intervention of Mare Nostrum on behalf of the Italian navy. At one level, it is easy—and correct—to blame the people traffickers for forcing on to boats people who later die. However, thousands have died in the Mediterranean fleeing war, poverty and oppression from all over the middle east and north Africa. Will the Prime Minister raise this issue at the European Council? Mare Nostrum was trying to save people, but the EU has responded by withdrawing it and instead putting in place a frontier force whose purpose is to keep people out, rather than save lives. Can we, first, raise the question of the source of this migration—the poverty, desperation and oppression—and, secondly, reinstate the principle of saving people at sea, rather than waiting for them to drown and wringing our hands? Vincent Cochetel, from the UNHCR, said Europe had done “too little, too late”. Can we now put that right and act?

[Mr Hague]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important issue. The whole House will be conscious of these heartbreaking reports and the extensive loss of life not only on this occasion but on many other occasions in the Mediterranean. The Prime Minister is going today to the European Council and, as I said in the business statement, he will make a statement a week on Monday, on the House’s first day back, so the hon. Gentleman might wish to pursue the matter directly with the Prime Minister. This immense problem is the reason we have done so much work on trying to stabilise north Africa. We have not yet been successful in many parts of north Africa, but that is why this is such a focus of our policy. The EU has decided on its approach to migrant boats at sea. However, this is a very legitimate issue, and he can continue to raise it on the Floor of the House.

[Alistair Burt (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend find time for a short debate on the UK biopharmaceutical industry, particularly its dependence on the border inspection post at London Heathrow? My constituent Jenny Murray, of Antibody Production Services in Wilden, has raised with me the impact of the proposed imminent closure of the private facility at the airport. I would be grateful for the opportunity to raise the wider issues facing very large pharmaceutical companies as well as the smaller niche companies that, in my constituency, demonstrate a diverse and rural economy under this Government.

[Mr Hague]

Given the impending end of the Parliament, there might not be time for such a debate, but my right hon. Friend raises an important point. The Government appreciate the importance that the biopharmaceutical industry attaches to the maintenance of inspection facilities for animal products at Heathrow airport. I understand that discussions are taking place between various interested parties, and the Government will follow developments closely and provide any advice needed to assist the possible development of other animal product inspection centres at the airport. I will also ensure that my colleagues at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs are aware of his remarks.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

Yesterday at Prime Minister’s questions, in answer to a question about the learning tax on sixth-form colleges, the Prime Minister appeared to say he would take the matter away and have a look at it. May we have a statement on fair funding for 16 to 18-year-olds, whatever institution they are in?

[Mr Hague]

I cannot add so quickly to what the Prime Minister said at Prime Minister’s questions, but the hon. Gentleman continues to raise the issue assiduously, and I will certainly remind my colleagues in the Department for Education that he has raised it again.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

The Government are to be congratulated on initiating the independent feasibility study into the resettlement of those in the British Indian Ocean Territory. As my right hon. Friend will know, the report was published earlier this week. May we have a debate on the resettlement of the Chagos islanders on the Floor of the House at the earliest possible moment and in Government time?

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend always speaks up for the concerns of the Chagos islanders. This is an important report, a feasibility study that I initiated when I was Foreign Secretary, and, as he says, it has now been published. I know that the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Mr Swire), plans to meet my hon. Friend and other members of the Chagos all-party parliamentary group on 23 February to listen to their views ahead of any Government decision. I cannot offer a debate at the moment, but that meeting might lead to a decision on how to take things forward in Parliament.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

First, to correct a point from a few minutes ago, it is of course Cleethorpes that is the country’s premier seaside resort. I do not know whether the Leader of the House noticed my ten-minute rule Bill, proposed on 13 January, which suggested that greater fairness be brought into the planning process by allowing objectors to be able in certain circumstances to appeal to the planning inspectorate. Could my right hon. Friend find time for a debate on this matter, so that we can hear the Government’s position?

[Mr Hague]

Having been nice about Southend, I am able to speak up for Cleethorpes as well. I visited and enjoyed the beach at Cleethorpes as a child, so I can absolutely recommend this resort as well. Other hon. Members will agree with what my hon. Friend says about the ability to appeal to the planning inspectorate, but that is a matter that would, of course, have to be pursued with the Department for Communities and Local Government. As with so many other subjects, I cannot promise a debate before the Dissolution at the end of the next month, but my hon. Friend will be able to pursue his desire for a debate through all the normal channels of Adjournment and Backbench Business Committee debates during the remaining weeks of the Parliament.

[Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

May we have a debate on the fragmentation of the NHS at local trusts, where the silo mentality is impacting negatively on patients, as shown in the appalling and disgraceful case of what is happening in the Haven in my constituency? The Haven is a success story being destroyed by NHS mandarins, so may we have a debate on the reality of local NHS silo decision making rather than the adoption of a “one NHS” approach?

[Mr Hague]

This is, of course, an important subject, but we have had many debates on the NHS and statements by the Health Secretary in recent weeks. I have no doubt there will be more, and that my hon. Friend will be able to pursue these issues. We are very much trying to get away from any silo decision making. The NHS will transfer £3.2 billion to social care services over this Parliament, and my hon. Friend will know that, importantly, we are introducing from April a £5.3 billion pooled budget for health and social care—something that the Opposition have not wanted to introduce. We are bringing in this better care fund, and I hope it will lead to major improvements to meet my hon. Friend’s concerns.

[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)]

The need for better transport in my Kingswood constituency is a serious concern that needs to be addressed if we are to prevent local roads into Bristol, already inadequate through getting jammed up, from getting worse. We also need a M4 link to the Avon ring road, on which I continue to campaign, and a better bus network because many of my constituents are struggling to get across from Kingswood to Southmead. Can time be found for a debate on transport in the Bristol region, so that all local MPs can discuss the need to improve our local areas’ road, rail and bus networks?

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend will be aware that under this Government we are seeing major investment in the road and rail network. A programme of investment for the coming five years adds up to about £56 billion, which is benefiting all parts of the country. My hon. Friend will be able to pursue with Ministers at the Department for Transport the specific needs of the Bristol area, for which he always speaks up so well. It is open to him to pursue such debates through all the normal means.

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

The police treatment centre in my constituency is a fantastic charity that works with ill and injured police officers to help them to return to work It recently received about £500,000 from LIBOR fines, which it is using to create a new outdoor exercise area and generally refurbish its facilities. Would it be possible for a statement to be made giving details of where all those fines have been used, so that we can see which good causes are benefiting throughout the country?

[Mr Hague]

That is not a bad idea. The latest allocation from the LIBOR fund, of £35 million, adds to the money we have already given to military good causes benefiting armed forces personnel and their families, and veterans, and to many other good causes. The police treatment centre in my hon. Friend’s constituency is another good example. This week I announced the creation, with a £1 million donation from the LIBOR fund, of our first academic centre on women, peace and security at the London School of Economics—something a bit more substantial than a pink bus going around the country—and we will continue to use LIBOR money to benefit such excellent causes.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

May we have a statement from the Secretary of State for International Development on aid to India? On 9 November 2012, The Guardian was one of many newspapers to report that

“The government will stop all financial aid to India by 2015”.

It now seems that the Government are stopping aid to the Indian Government, but are continuing to supply other aid to India. Given that India has its own space programme and is spending $35 billion a year on defence alone, surely we should be telling the country that it is responsible for looking after its own people, rather than saying “Keep on spending all this money on building up your military arsenal while we look after the people for whom you should be responsible.” I believe that most of my constituents thought it was right to end aid to India, and will be horrified to discover that that is no longer the case.

[Mr Hague]

There has been a big change under this Government. On coming to office, we found that some British aid was going to Russia and China, for instance, but DFID has stopped those programmes. What the Secretary of State for International Development announced in 2012 was that all financial aid grants from the United Kingdom to India would cease in 2015, after which DFID would provide support only in the form of private sector expertise and technical assistance, and that is exactly what is happening. The financial aid grants to India will end this year, and any new projects will be supported by development capital investment and technical assistance. No doubt DFID will be able to expand on exactly what that involves for the benefit of my hon. Friend.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

What a delicious choice! Mr Peter Bone.

[Mr Bone]

As you know, Mr Speaker, Question Time is one of the most important times in the week for Oppositions, because it enables them to scrutinise Ministers of the Crown. However, some very bizarre things are now happening. All the questions in the second half of business questions today have come from Government Members, but over the last few weeks something has been happening to the most important Question Time of the week, Prime Minister’s Question Time. After the Leader of the Opposition has given his views and been beaten up by the Prime Minister, swathes of Labour Members disappear. Yesterday a third of the seats were empty, while poor Conservative Members were having to stand. Just to prove that the Chief Whip is a Minister, will he make a statement giving dispensation to Conservative Members so that they can fill the empty seats to make it look as though there is an Opposition?

[Mr Hague]

That is a characteristically creative idea from my hon. Friend, although I think that the spectacle of Conservative Members crossing to the other side of the House might have its disadvantages. He is right to draw attention to the vast expanse of space that exists on the Opposition Benches today—as it has during many debates—and develops quite rapidly during Prime Minister’s Question Time. It makes one wonder whether there is some zombie meeting place where they have all gone to have lunch, and whether they have to get there before the end of Prime Minister’s Question Time.

[Mr Hollobone]

I bring good news from Kettering, where Mr Graham Parr and his wife Karen are celebrating the fifth year of successful trading of their business, Bright Sparks. Over the last five years, they have increased their turnover threefold and increased their customer base 10 times. They are now looking to appoint their first apprentice. Can we have a statement from a Department for Business, Innovation and Skills Minister about the importance of small, family-run businesses such as Bright Sparks not only in generating the wealth that this country enjoys and can then spend to improve public services, but as an engine of growth to provide more jobs for our young people?

[Mr Hague]

As ever, my hon. Friend brings good news from Kettering. That is not only good for Kettering but representative of what is happening in many parts of this country. Since 2010, there have been 760,000 additional businesses in the UK and the great majority are small, entrepreneurial businesses. Since 2010, 2.1 million apprenticeships have started in the UK, and many of those apprentices are working with small businesses. That is why it is so important to continue to have policies that promote business and employment, rather than the deep hostility to business that we see on the Labour Benches.

Backbench Business

Thursday 12th February 2015 Commons Chamber

Pubs and Planning Legislation

Thursday 12th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Relevant document: Sixth Report from the Communities and Local Government Committee, Community Rights, HC 262.]

11:11

[Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes New Economics Foundation research showing that local economies benefit twice as much from a pound spent in a pub rather than a supermarket; expresses concern that valued and viable pubs are being lost due to permitted development rights which allow pubs to be demolished or turned into supermarkets and other uses without planning permission, denying local people any say; notes that supermarket chains are deliberately targeting pubs and further notes CAMRA research that two pubs a week are converted into supermarkets; supports CAMRA’S Pub Matters campaign calling for an end to permitted development rights on pubs; notes that any change of use to a nightclub, laundrette or theatre requires planning permission, making it odd to refuse pubs the same status; notes plans to remove permitted development rights from pubs listed as Assets of Community Value (ACVs), and calls on the Government to announce how and when this will happen; notes, however, that pubs achieving ACV status is not as simple as Ministers have suggested, with the requirement for local communities to provide boundaries and plans and that every pub must be listed separately making it unrealistic for communities to protect all valued pubs; further notes that each ACV application costs local authorities over a thousand pounds, and listing all valued UK pubs as ACVs would cost millions of pounds and create significant bureaucracy; and therefore calls on the Government to make a simpler change and put pubs into the sui generis category so that communities can comment on a proposal to convert or demolish a pub.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting the time for this important debate, which probably affects every constituency. I pay special tribute to the hon. Members for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland) and for Easington (Grahame M. Morris). This is a cross-party motion on something that is incredibly common sense and popular throughout the country.

The Government have done a lot on pubs, but there is still a problem that needs solving, and every Member could give examples to show the Government the importance of the measure we are proposing. Every week, 31 pubs are closing and two are converted into supermarkets, with absolutely no chance for the community to have its say.

We had a vote on the issue two weeks ago when we attempted to amend the Infrastructure Bill. Sadly, we were defeated, but that does not change the fact that many of us remain completely convinced that we need to move pubs into a planning use class of their own—the sui generis planning class, for those of us who love our Latin—to protect them properly. That would not mean making an exception to any rule; it would not be an unusual thing to do. It would simply apply to pubs the kind of protections that exist for slightly counter-intuitive things in many ways, such as laundrettes, night clubs, petrol stations and scrap yards. It seems an extraordinary omission that pubs are not included in that planning category and that the Government put such energy into preventing them from being so.

The solution that I and other hon. Members have proposed has several advantages. It is simple, it would involve an easy change to the law and it would not require any more bureaucracy. That is in contrast to other measures that we have considered such as article 4s and assets of community value, which are bureaucratic, are difficult for the public to access and to find out about, and cost significantly more money.

The measure we are proposing is consistent. We protect other types of building in this way, which many would argue do not have the community significance of pubs, or at least do not have any more significance than pubs. Therefore, we would not be singling out pubs for special treatment; we would simply be applying to pubs the type of treatment we already permit for other valued community facilities.

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

The hon. Lady is making a strong argument. Does she agree that this is in accordance with the Government’s own localism principles? It is hardly revolutionary, and in terms of saving money the alternative proposed by the Government of listing pubs as assets of community value incurs a considerable cost while this is a simpler, more cost-effective way to ensure protection.

[Charlotte Leslie]

I completely agree. This is the kind of localism the Government have been pushing very strongly in other areas, empowering local authorities and empowering the planning system. Although I can see where they are coming from with the concept of the asset of community value, it is much more expensive and much more bureaucratic. I am also concerned that it is inequitable for the communities whose pubs it seeks to protect in that it will be easier for those communities that are more engaged in the political process and find it easier to be so—such as those where English is the first, rather than the second, language—to find out how to make the pub an asset of community value. Others may not find it so easy. I am therefore concerned that that mechanism may result in an inequitable protection of community assets that are equally loved and valued across different areas.

It is surprising that the Government do not seem to be taking the same view of localism on this one occasion as they are in other areas. Because I believe in the Government’s localism agenda, I urge them to rethink this and roll out their concept of localism that they have been pushing so effectively over the last four years to this item in planning.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on her engagement in this subject and on the work she has done on pubs along with the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland), and I was very proud to vote for the market rate alternative. My only concern about what she is proposing is that if a pub is struggling and could be readily used for another purpose, the banks will allow it some leeway to give it more time to turn its fortunes around because they will be able to get their money back, whereas if an alternative use was less certain, they may pull the plug immediately. Can she reassure me that her proposal would not lead to pubs that are struggling having the plug pulled on them earlier than would otherwise be the case?

[Charlotte Leslie]

As ever, my hon. Friend makes a good point. I do not think that would be the case, and it is certainly not the case in respect of other facilities to which this applies. Another Government objection to this idea is that it would result in boarded-up pubs. That is certainly not the case. One of the major merits of this proposal is, simply, that it is fair. It gives communities the ability to have their say, but if a pub is genuinely unviable it would be allowed to fail and would have planning permission granted, because local authorities have every incentive not to see boarded-up properties. We do not see the high streets littered with boarded-up laundrettes.

I think we could all name pubs in our constituencies that are unviable and which the community does not need, and which perhaps historically have been run so badly for many years that it is hard to pick them up and change their reputation, and which are turned to other uses that are welcomed in the community. The Foresters pub in my constituency was turned into a supermarket. That is not something I would generally celebrate, but it has not been the end of the world. It has been a change that many people have welcomed, and our proposal would not in any way stop this kind of change taking place. It would simply allow people their say in the planning procedure before it takes place.

There are many local examples, and I am sure hon. Members could list ones in their own constituencies, where we have lost valued pubs of community value. The Bourne End in Brentry in my constituency was demolished very quickly and many in the community wanted the chance to have their say. There was nowhere near enough time to list it as an asset of community value. The developers simply came in and it was gone.

[Grahame M. Morris]

On the Government’s suggestion that local authorities should list pubs that are genuinely valued as an asset of community value, is the hon. Lady aware of the number of pubs that would be protected in that way out of the 48,000 in total? I am sure that she is, because she will have read the briefings from the Campaign for Real Ale and the Fair Deal For Your Local campaign.

[Charlotte Leslie]

The hon. Gentleman prompts me in a timely way. As I understand it—he will correct me if I am wrong—the number of pubs that currently have asset of community value status is around 600. That speaks for itself in regard to the efficacy, accessibility and ease of the Government’s measure. I will come back to that point.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

I shall not be able to take part in the debate later, owing to an unavoidable meeting. I speak as a life member of CAMRA, and as a wine drinker. Ought we not to remember that the term “public house” suggests that the public have an interest in such places? Does my hon. Friend agree that more pressure needs to be put on the Government in order to help them to realise that it would be popular all round if the public had an opportunity to express their views on a proposed change of use? It would not be an unnecessary hindrance to the normal changes of market or other patterns of behaviour.

[Charlotte Leslie]

As ever, my hon. Friend makes his point pithily; it would have taken me much longer to make that point. We are talking about public houses.

I reiterate my bewilderment and confusion that the Government are not embracing what seems to be a common-sense measure. Our proposal does not involve any exceptions to any rules; it would simply roll out an existing state of affairs to an asset of community value—with small letters, not capital letters—that it is intuitive to protect. I am simply bewildered that the Government have expended so much political capital in defending what appears to be a complex solution in relation to something that we all want to see happen.

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

It is a pleasure to be working with my hon. Friend again, and I am delighted that we have secured this debate. I shall not go into the huge amount of bureaucracy and enormous costs involved in the Government’s very partial solution, but does she share my concern that a lot of right hon. and hon. Members seem not to understand that many of the pubs that are being lost, by being turned into supermarkets and so on without the need for planning permission, are in many cases not only viable but trading profitably at the time? This is predatory purchasing; it is not a change of market. Those pubs are not failing.

[Charlotte Leslie]

Absolutely; this is not about a change of market. What is so frustrating is that we could all list examples of profitable, viable, popular pubs that have been taken over through predatory purchasing. Our proposal would play a significant part in stopping the aggressive consumption of pubs that the public value and want to keep. They are at the heart of our high streets and are massively important for employment. They also promote healthier drinking habits, compared with going to the supermarket, buying enormous packs of cut-price booze and consuming them at home or on a park bench.

[Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

The hon. Lady has just made the excellent point that the Government are trying to get people to stop binge drinking, and that responsible landlords do not allow binge drinking in their local community pubs. However, the loss of those community pubs to supermarkets is providing an outlet for yet more binge drinking to be achieved.

[Charlotte Leslie]

The hon. Gentleman describes the contrast between the two options perfectly. Pubs prevent the kind of binge drinking that is now causing a public health crisis, and a mental health crisis, in many of our communities. They also create inter-generational dialogue, and many pubs now have to be eating establishments to be successful, which promotes eating alongside drinking.

I reiterate that I am confused by the Government’s solution, and I feel sorry for the Minister for having to defend that policy. It has already been decided, but I just do not see the advantage in the Government sticking so stubbornly to a decision that seems to make no practical sense whatever and, in the run-up to the election, no political sense either. I am simply bemused. That is why I have been glad to be able to work cross- party with other Members on proposing such a valuable change. I am further bemused because the Government have done a lot for pubs and it is not as though we are not a pub-friendly Government. I am very proud of what we have achieved on pubs, which is why it is such a shame that in the final hours of this Parliament, when we are about to call time, the Government are not finishing with a flourish and doing something that will really make a difference to our communities.

The Government have ended the beer duty escalator and made cuts in beer duty, which is all very welcome to pubs, landlords and customers across the country; we have made jobs tax cuts for small businesses—pubs employ a lot of young people, with, I believe, half the people employed in pubs being between the ages of 16 and 25; we have managed to get through, helped in particular by the drive and determination of the hon. Member for Leeds North West, reform to the pubco regulations, so that the predatory nature of the largest pubcos can be mitigated; and we have put in community rights to buy and challenge. All that is very welcome and we are obviously a pub-friendly Government, which is why I simply do not understand why such resistance is being put up to this measure.

The Government have offered us a concession of an improvement on the asset of community value arrangement, whereby if pubs are assets of community value, planning permission will be required for a change of use. I sincerely hope, however, that the Government revisit our suggestion after the election—sadly there is not going to be time to do it now. I reiterate the problems that hon. Members have explored on assets of community value. In the debate on the Infrastructure Bill, the Government said, “Oh well, you only need 21 people to put their names on a piece of paper and that’s it, bingo, you’ve got an asset of community value.” That was misleading because the reality is a lot more complicated, a lot more bureaucratic and far less accessible than the impression that was given by Ministers to Members, who then voted accordingly, thinking that if they get 21 names from the community down on a piece of A4, everything is dandy and “everything is awesome”—to quote “The LEGO Movie”. The process is not like that at all; it is time-consuming. I urge every Member to run a campaign, perhaps with their local newspaper—we also hope we will get national support for this—to get their pubs listed as assets of community value, because I do not see how that is going to happen without a very concerted effort.

[Alistair Burt (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

rose—

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

rose—

[Charlotte Leslie]

I am overwhelmed. I shall give way to my right hon. Friend first.

[Alistair Burt]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate and apologise for not being here at its start—it came slightly earlier than I thought it would. On the basis that the Government are unlikely to make a concession today, would it be useful to ask the Minister whether he accepts that if colleagues do exactly as my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie) suggests—I have said in my constituency that I will support any community group wishing to follow this course of action—and after 12 months we have not made a significant difference to the number of pubs given this protection, the Government will look at this issue again? Might we seek a concession from the Minister today to review this in 12 months’ time if what the Government propose is not really working?

[Charlotte Leslie]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his excellent suggestion, and I put it directly to the Minister. The current state of affairs is not good, but if we could get the commitment to a review in 12 months’ time, no matter how Parliament and the Government stand then, that would be at least some cold comfort to those of us who feel that common sense has been denied in this instance.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

I am glad that my right hon. Friend spoke first, because his point was perhaps even more substantial than mine, which is quite substantial. Perhaps by speaking to my hon. Friend, through you, Mr Speaker, the Minister might hear that we would like to get from him at the end of the debate an answer as to whether the deregulation unit has actually looked at what the cost is for each successful application to make a pub an asset of community value, what the effort required is and why so much effort is required from the local authority as well. The costs ought to put on those who are trying to get the change of use of the pub. The Minister has a good reason to say that he, his party and the whole coalition Government stand up for making life easier and putting the burdens where they should be, which is on the person who wants to change things, not on those who want to keep them as they are—I speak as a good Conservative.

[Charlotte Leslie]

I thank my hon. Friend very much, and he reminds me that I made an error and should have gone through Mr Speaker earlier. I profusely apologise for that. It seems strange for a Government of the people to have a default position whereby the people do not get a say; the default position should be that people do get a say, and I shall reiterate my bewilderment until I am blue in the face. We need particular answers from the Government following our discussions on the Infrastructure Bill. Most importantly, with regard to the Government’s recent movement, which is not nearly enough but is welcome none the less, we need to know when it will be brought forward, because we have very little time left. It has to be introduced before the election. Indeed, there was a commitment in the debate to do just that, so I hope the Minister will tell us exactly when it will happen. If he does not, this House will have been very much let down, and I know that he is not the kind of person who would want to do that.

What will the Government do to make the asset of community value process much easier for councils and communities to take up so that it can have real effect? As Members, we are often on the ground in our communities and we know that there has to be a game-changing revolution to the way in which the process is communicated and delivered. It needs to be as accessible as possible because it is a democratic way of protecting our pubs.

How will the Department for Communities and Local Government help publicise the change, so that more communities take it up? Members have indicated that they will do their utmost to publicise the scheme, but if the Government believe that the policy should be accessible to communities they have to make it so. More detail on how we do that would be welcome.

I very much hope—as the Minister can probably tell—that the Government will look again at this solution. It makes common sense and is so much in line with everything the Government have done, both as a localist Government who believe in empowering the people, and a Government who are friendly to pubs. I would appreciate some reassurance from the Government on what they will do to address this situation, which is not ideal by any means. I would be grateful for a small move in the right direction. I hope the Minister’s ears have been opened further to our suggestions, which are after all common sense.

11:31

[Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)]

It is a real pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie). We certainly welcomed her application for this debate at the Backbench Business Committee. I am really glad that the environment is calmer today than it was two weeks ago when we last debated this matter. I am sorry that her amendment was defeated so narrowly, but it did demonstrate the strength of feeling across the House. As she says, pubs are not just buildings where alcohol is sold, but community hubs where people meet, relax and socialise. Pubs have done a lot to ensure that they reach out to their communities. They are now a place for, among other things, knitting circles and salsa dancing. It is unbelievable what happens in pubs today.

As the hon. Lady says, about 30 pubs a weeks are closing. It is often the case that they are closing because they are not used or because the demographic has changed. Everybody supports the idea that they should not be boarded up but used for something else. Her suggestion, and what the Opposition have been calling for, is perfectly sensible. We should give local communities a say in what happens to their pub, in the way that they would if it were a nightclub, a theatre, or, as the Library briefing says, a scrapyard. Local communities would get a say in the change of use from a scrapyard to a supermarket, so why not a pub?

The hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) raised an important point. Many pubs are heavily used. This is about not whether a pub is used, but whether the brewery, the pubco, or the property developing company that owns these pubs as assets can make more money out of them by selling them to supermarkets or by using them as pubs. That is the key issue that I want to get across today.

I am involved in a campaign in New Whittington, in North East Derbyshire, where the Wellington pub is, at this very moment, under threat of being turned into a supermarket. I just wanted to talk a little about what happens when a pub applies to be an asset of community value. It is not straightforward as the Government would have us believe. We helped to get asset of community value status for another pub, The Angel at Spinkhill, and it was incredibly stressful. Spinkhill is tiny and New Whittington is not much bigger. People love going to their pub, but unlike many of the property developing companies and pubcos they do not have the time, money or power to navigate a complex system to get that status, which only protects the pub from being sold for six months, giving the local community a chance to buy it and to run it as a co-op or as a community facility. That is not necessarily what they want to do. They want to have a pub, but running it themselves is quite a big ask and, especially in deprived communities in which those pubs are the only asset, that can be a serious issue.

[Greg Mulholland]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way and I thank her for her support and for that of the Backbench Business Committee. She raises an important point about a weakness in the ACV system for pubs. A lot of the time, smaller breweries and smaller pub companies cannot buy pubs. This is not all about community ownership: these companies are trying to buy pubs, they want to buy them and to make a success of them, but they are not because of the ridiculous permitted development rights.

[Natascha Engel]

Absolutely, and those are the unforeseen consequences of such legislation. We are just asking for a level playing field within the planning laws.

I want to come back to a point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) about the amount of money this system costs a local authority at a time when district councils, which are tiny with small budgets, have had their budgets slashed and cut to the bone. The amount of red tape involved in seeing the process of applying and receiving asset of community value status through is onerous. As I have said, our pub has petitioned the local authority and with luck, at the beginning of March, it will suspend the whole process. That is very stressful for members of the local community and this is a very difficult time for them. That is the problem: they are running against the clock. They have jobs and lots of other things in their busy lives, and they do not necessarily have the time to commit to such things in the way that pubcos, property developers and others do when they try to buy these pubs and turn them into supermarkets.

I want to say a big thank you to Viky Muddiman, who is running the “Save our Welly” campaign, to BBC Radio Sheffield, which has covered the issue at great length, and to The Chesterfield Post as well. I wish all those pubs that are applying for asset of community value status the best of luck in doing so, but it would be much better if we could get a quick change in the planning laws to equalise the system, ensure that all pubs are playing on a level playing field and give locals a say in what happens to their pubs.

11:38

[Rebecca Harris (Castle Point) (Con)]

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie) on introducing this important debate and the Backbench Business Committee on granting it. I have seen quite a lot of the workings of the pubco trade in my role on the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee during work on our various reports. It has become quite clear that many large pub companies are really property-owning companies. The fact that their properties tend to be pubs is rather a sideline from their point of view. The companies are heavily leveraged and in debt and are looking at their assets to see what is the best way of working the building assets, rather than running them as pub chains, as we would like them to.

I am pleased that the industry will be regulated and that the Government have taken up the recommendations of my Committee and are introducing an independent adjudicator to ensure that rules are followed to prevent the exploitation of the remaining landlords in the pub trade, who have been suffering. This is another issue and might, in a sense, be an unintended consequence of cracking down on the exploitation of tenants. Companies are now looking around and saying that it would be much easier to sell the property off or rent it out to a supermarket and to make more money that way.

Two particular closures in my constituency of Castle Point have caused enormous controversy and upset. The King Canute pub on Canvey served its last customer in May 2014. The pub, one of Canvey’s most historic buildings, was originally called the Red Cow, but during the devastating flooding of 1953, in which many Canvey residents sadly lost their lives, it was at the doors of the pub that the water stopped—hence its renaming. It also served as a base for the armed forces, from which they helped residents during the floods.

I spoke to the landlady about a week before the news broke about the closure, and asked, “How’s business?” She was doing an awful lot of good stuff. I had attended several events that she had held for local charities in the pub and lent my backing to them. When I spoke to her, she was very positive and upbeat; so the closure came as an enormous surprise, not only to her and her staff but to customers and local residents.

The pub is in an historic building, highly valued by the community. It is intrinsic to the history of Canvey Island, unusual and quirky. We have been told that it is likely to become a Co-op but, despite assurances, there is no guarantee that we will even keep the building, which is beloved of residents and is a treasured community asset. So it is heritage, as well as community benefit and service to several charities, that the pub offered. The law gives no protection against demolition, other than the good will of the owners. I am lobbying to get the building listed as a heritage asset, even though it is not in itself very historic or special. However, it is an old building for Canvey and it is very well loved and particular to the island.

The same fate occurred to the Silver Jubilee pub on Canvey. As its name suggests, it opened in 1977 to commemorate the Queen’s silver jubilee. It was a very well liked local pub. The hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) mentioned knitting circles, and groups including a local knitting group, met regularly at the Silver Jubilee and they are now deprived of a place to go. When the area in which the pub stands was laid out and developed, the pub was considered necessary; it was integral to the plans for the area and there is no other pub nearby for local residents.

The closure came as a great surprise because there was no evidence that the pub was not successful. It seems that it simply was not turning sufficient profit for the big firms, who have been able to convert it to a mini Morrisons. Not only have they converted it to a supermarket and put flats above it, but they have now applied for permission to build houses on the adjoining car park.

A wise man—Ray Howard, the long-serving and very smart local councillor, who has served Canvey Island continuously since I was six months old—pointed out that if a single application had been submitted to turn the pub into a supermarket with flats above and to build houses on the car park, the change would have been a large enough to trigger some section 106 development money for the community. However, because the owners did not need to get permission for change of use for the actual building, they have managed to get through a loophole. That funding could have been used to put in a slip road for what many residents find a very difficult junction and that would help them get out into heavy traffic. We are trying to obtain that slip road none the less, but without that funding.

I reiterate what hon. Members have said. Pubs are community assets. They serve the public in a variety of ways. They have plenty of community uses and some have strong historic value locally. They are currently left with incredibly little protection. I believe they should be recognised as community assets as a default position—not one that requires a long, elaborate process, which residents are often not aware of and do not realise that they could have followed until it is too late. I urge the Minister to look at the matter again, so that such a long process is not required to establish pubs’ value in the future.

Obviously, if a pub is not profitable, that is a different issue. In the cases that I have described, however, the pubs seemed perfectly profitable—although they possibly would have been more profitable if they had not been tied in to a pubco—but they had immense value in the current property market. That is the cause of the problem. It really is time that the Government looked at this, because their other efforts to help the public house trade, by removing beer duty and so on, will mean nothing if pubs are simply turned into supermarkets.

11:45

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

It is an honour to follow the hon. Members who have spoken. I thank and pay tribute to fellow officers of the all-party save the pub group—the hon. Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie), who opened the debate so succinctly and precisely, and the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland), who has been such a dogged and long-standing campaigner for Save the Pub. I add my thanks to the Backbench Business Committee, which does such a sterling job in identifying subjects for debate that are dear to the hearts of Members and constituents.

We often say that there should be more cross-party consensus, particularly on policies relating to the NHS and social care, but a long journey starts with a single step, and perhaps on this topic, which has attracted support across all parties, we may be able to reach consensus. I am sorry that the Minister has slipped out for a moment, as hon. Members have made some excellent suggestions for a way forward.

My contention is that a way forward was offered by an amendment to the Infrastructure Bill that was tabled by me and the hon. Members for Leeds North West and for Bristol North West, which attracted the support of 38 Members of Parliament. The proposal was hardly revolutionary: to promote diversity, it offered some choice. It did not offer any permanent protection; it was simply an attempt to introduce community consultation to try to prevent viable pubs being closed and steamrollered into an alternative use, usually as a supermarket.

I echo the disappointment of the hon. Member for Bristol North West at the response of the Government, who have sought to block every effort to support tenants and safeguard our pubs. At all stages the Government seek to water down and amend legislation to favour powerful self-interests in the pub industry—those of the large pub companies—rather than working in the best interests of communities, customers and tenants. It is a shame that this debate is necessary at all. New clause 16 to the Infrastructure Bill would have made quite a simple change to the planning laws, empowering communities to protect their local pubs from being demolished or converted into supermarkets without consultation.

Earlier hon. Members were trying to differentiate pubs that are clearly no longer viable as pubs and those that have support and are clearly viable, and that perhaps offer a range of services, such as restaurants. As today’s motion notes, the existing planning laws in relation to permitted development are causing valued and viable community pubs to be targeted by supermarkets. Hon. Members have given examples in Canvey Island, Bristol and North East Derbyshire, where that is precisely what has happened. In east Durham, in Easington, which has 18 villages and two large towns, there have been so many pub closures that there may be one pub left in a village. In some villages—Hawthorn, Dalton-le-Dale, Hesledon—there may be one or perhaps even two pubs, but there is considerable pressure, particularly on the tenants of pubs that are owned by the large pubcos. As we have heard, research from the Campaign for Real Ale suggests that a considerable number of pubs—I have a figure of 29, but the hon. Member for Bristol North West said that it is 31, and I am sure she is correct—are closing every week, and quite a number of those are being converted into supermarkets.

I greatly appreciated the widespread support that was shown for new clause 16, which offered such protections for community pubs. It was defeated only following a late intervention from the Government when the Minister made a token concession to remove pubs listed as an asset of community value from permitted development rights. While new clause 16 would have protected all pubs, the Government’s amendments potentially protect only 600 of the 48,000 pubs in the UK. This comes from a Government—on both sides of the coalition—who believe in and promote localism. Requiring ACV status to protect one’s local simply adds unnecessary bureaucracy and costs when a much simpler alternative is to empower local people. I am at a loss to understand why the Government believe that nightclubs, launderettes and casinos should have more protection than community pubs.

By opposing planning protections for pubs, the Government have failed to protect pubs and community interests. Not only that, but we continue to see efforts to water down an important decision of this House to empower pub tenants against pub-owning companies. That is an important factor in the many conversions. Last year, the House expressed its clear will to offer tenants a market-only rent option as part of a statutory code of practice between themselves and a large pub-owning company. I recognise that we have a planning Minister here and the purview of ministerial responsibility is perhaps not entirely his, but it is germane to the debate that we consider the implications. Importantly, such a safeguard would help to protect the tied publican who may be struggling financially. Some 46% of tied tenants earn less than £15,000 a year despite their hard work and, in most cases, long hours. Nearly nine out of 10—the exact figure is 88%—identified the beer tie as one of their most significant financial problems.

The market rent-only option agreed by the House helps to level the playing field and redress the balance of power between the tenant and the pub-owning company. That may relieve the pressure that is leading to so many pub closures—31 per week, as I said. It is important to note that the market rent-only option would not end the beer tie—as some critics have claimed, saying that it would be a retrograde step—but would ensure that pub-owning companies had to show real value to their tenants in order to retain the tie.

Despite the House’s support and the benefits to tenants, Tory peers—including some with clear vested interests, if I may say so—have been trying to exempt pub companies from the market rent-only option if they significantly invest in a tenant’s pub. “Significant investment” is an incredibly wide concept. While I am not surprised that a peer with a pecuniary interest would try to undermine the statutory code, I am more concerned about the Government’s efforts to reword and water down the protections of the market rent-only option without consulting MPs, or Fair Deal For Your Local campaigners, prior to inserting replacement clauses into the statutory pubs code legislation.

Subsequently there has been some consultation with the various interest groups, all of which the members of the all-party save the pub group have met, including Fair Deal For Your Local, the Campaign for Real Ale and trade unions representing pub landlords, such as my own union, Unite, and the GMB. Importantly, however, despite promising to do so, the Government did not consult in advance and the discussions seem to have taken place after decisions have been made.

Simon Clarke from the Fair Deal For Your Local campaign is an outstanding advocate in defence of our pubs. He has warned that one revised clause means that existing tenants will not have the option of a parallel rent assessment, resulting in a tied tenant being unable to determine whether they would be worse off than if they were free of tie. That was an absolutely key principle of the Bill and Ministers gave us an assurance from the Dispatch Box that that would be the case.

A Government Minister said in the other place that Ministers

“are always discussing these issues and changes with tenants”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 2 December 2014; Vol. 757, c. 1243.]

However, despite such assurances, Mr Simon Clarke describes the Government’s amendments as

“an attempt to bulldoze through amendments without the dialogue and consultation promised.”

The Government should explain their position.

I have a number of questions to put to the Minister. Why are the Government failing to support local communities to protect their pubs? What are their objections to allowing local people a say in the planning process when a change of use is proposed for a pub? Will the Minister guarantee that he and the Government will work with MPs and campaigners to ensure that the explicit will of the House of Commons in supporting a market rent-only option in a statutory code is not undermined or watered down in the other place, because that would simply compound the problem?

It is time for the Government to do more than pay lip service to supporting communities, consumers and tenants, and to safeguard pubs and begin to offer some practical support. As my Health Committee colleague the hon. Member for Bristol North West has said, before we call time on this Parliament—that is a really good expression—we should ensure that we can, in unanimity, provide some modest protection to pubs that are in the interests of all our communities.

11:57

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

First, I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing us the time for this debate. I also thank my hon. Friend the excellent Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie), the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris), who is a friend with a small f and the vice-chair of the save the pub group, and all other members of the group from both Houses who share our passionate belief that the British pub is not only important to our society, economy, heritage, history and tourism appeal, but, in the context of this debate, a hugely important part of community life as a place where communities can come together.

I also wish to say a big thank you to all 244 MPs who effectively voted for what we are discussing today to go into the law of the land after the debate on new clause 16 to the Infrastructure Bill, and particularly the 29 rebels who had the courage to vote against their own Whip to show their real support for pubs. I thank the Opposition Front Benchers for supporting that campaign, and I want to give particular mention to the hon. Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris), who had the courage not only to vote against his party, but, in doing so, to resign as a Parliamentary Private Secretary. He really has shown his support for pubs and I hope he has been congratulated on doing so by his local CAMRA branch and others.

I wish to echo the comments by the hon. Member for Easington about thanking the campaigners. In this case, we say a huge thank you to the Campaign for Real Ale, which is leading the wonderful Pubs Matter campaign, and to all the others. He mentioned the Fair Deal For Your Local campaign, the Fair Pint campaign and the wonderful work of Simon Clarke and his team, but there are also Licensees Supporting Licensees, MALT—the new Mutual Association of Licensed Tenants—and the Protect Pubs campaign. There are many campaigners around the country, and there are also individual pub campaigns, some of which have already been mentioned. I thank all such community campaigns and congratulate them on trying to save their pubs, whether or not they are successful.

I am glad that we have the chance for a proper debate today. We did not get the chance for any sort of a debate when the very important, but simple and common-sense, change was proposed a few weeks ago. My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West had four or five minutes to introduce the important new clause and I had two or three minutes to speak, so we did not get the chance to put our case. It worries me that the MPs who were persuaded not to support that simple change did so on the basis of a one-sided argument, because the other side of the argument was not heard and some of the information presented did not reflect the reality of what is going on or of what the Government suggest is sensible.

I thank the Minister for his engagement. We do not agree on a solution, but he is certainly listening and conversing, and I appreciate the time he has given to that. I gently remind him that this very simple change is current Liberal Democrat party policy and is already in our pre-manifesto. I have not yet checked the manifesto, but I hope that it is included, as we were told it would be. It is for CAMRA and other organisations to challenge all the parties to put pro-pub policies in their manifestos.

Today, we are talking about something very simple. In a way, it is not about pubs, but about whether communities should have the right simply to have a say when a significant change of use is threatened for a building that is of value from a business or community point of view. We are talking about absurd planning loopholes. The idea that there is any relationship between a pub and a supermarket express store or solicitors’ office is ridiculous. The fact that free-standing pubs with no protection in the planning system can be demolished overnight before people even get the chance to have a say—it happens—is a scandal.

I believe that there is a better solution, which I will come on to, but the save the pub group welcomes the fact that the Government have announced a modest step forward in providing a right of consultation. Let us be clear that it is not protection for pubs; it is simply a right to comment—that is all—just as people can comment on any planning application. The proposal is only for pubs listed as having added community value. As has been said, only 600 pubs have been so listed in the four years since the scheme was introduced. That is not particularly impressive: it is 1.25% of all the pubs in the country.

The scheme does not even apply in Wales. One of my particular concerns is that that was not mentioned in the explanation from the Department for Communities and Local Government about why the new change is fine. It is not fine: it will do absolutely nothing at all in Wales. Welsh colleagues, particularly those who are Government Members, must be aware of that.

In the Government’s thinking, there is a mantra that we must have permitted development rights because they will allow the sensible changes that people want and that will help business. Apparently, such changes are not allowed for nightclubs, launderettes or theatres, but they are fine for pubs. The Government are effectively saying that nightclubs, launderettes and theatres—and casinos, which have more protection in the planning system —are more important than pubs. They conceded the point on betting shops, which rather undermines their argument. They accepted that if they did nothing and continued to turn a blind eye to betting shop conversions, as they had up to that point, we would see betting shops all along high streets, particularly in London. Therefore they can change, and where they recognise there is a problem, they will change. I share the frustration of my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West, and other colleagues, that the Government are simply not listening to something that would bring the system into line with those other, simple uses.

[Grahame M. Morris]

The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent case about the Government’s modest offer of a compromise. The cost of listing all pubs as assets of community value would fall on local authorities. Are any figures available for that, because those I have seen from the all-party save the pub group suggest that it would cost about £1,000 per listing? We could be talking about many millions of pounds, and I would be interested to hear the hon. Gentleman’s comments on that.

[Greg Mulholland]

I will come on to cover that point.

The problem is the conversion of pubs into supermarkets, and particularly their buying power. CAMRA figures show that two pubs every week are being converted into supermarkets—that is more than 100 a year—and in the past four years, Tesco alone has converted 37 pubs.

I have written to supermarkets as chair of the all-party save the pub group, and the replies I received were simply not honest. Supermarkets claim—I wonder whether this is where the Minister got a mistaken idea about what is really going on—that they are bringing derelict buildings back to life, which is a wonderful thing, and that the pubs were failed businesses. That is absolute rubbish; it is dishonest and they know it. The reality—I urge the Minister to look at this issue—is that secret deals are done behind the backs of communities between large indebted pub companies and supermarket chains. Supermarket chains are deliberately targeting and indulging in the predatory purchasing of larger pub buildings, precisely because they know they can impose stores on a local community without it being able to do anything.

We have the absurdity that a new Tesco, Sainsbury’s or Co-op—it is very engaged in this process—can impose a store on a community that is stunned to find that it has no right to object, yet the supermarket chain then has to submit planning permission for new signage. That sort of thing brings the planning process into disrepute, and from that point of view such a system cannot be defended. Ministers, the Department and some MPs are misunderstanding what is going on.

There is perhaps a little light at the end of the tunnel. We have all seen the figures and the fact that Tesco has got itself into a terrible mess—as out-of-control big business sometimes does. One Tesco store that was announced will now be closing—so much for bringing things to the local economy. Tesco will be closing the Tesco Express in South Tottenham, which used to be the Golden Stool and before then The Mitre. Having taken that pub away without the community having a say, Tesco is walking away and leaving a derelict building—so much for this being a wonderful thing for business and communities. Not only are supermarkets buying premises, they are leasing pubs from pub companies—an even sneakier and easier thing to do.

Of all the arguments I have heard in this place, the Government’s argument on this issue is one of the weakest and it is absolutely full of holes. It includes stating that somehow laundrettes, theatres and even nightclubs are apparently more important to DCLG than pubs. That is because the situation has been presented as somehow being about the derelict pubs we see around—at least one hon. Member has mistakenly taken that view to be a fact. The Minister told us about derelict pubs in Bristol, but those pubs are derelict even with the permitted development rights—that issue has absolutely nothing to do with it. Many pubs have now shut, but that goes back to the unfair business model of the large pub companies that Members across the House have mentioned. I pay tribute to the work of the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee that was instrumental in exposing that and leading finally to change.

I share the concerns of the hon. Member for Easington about the moves to water down what we voted through on 18 November, and we all need to be aware of that.

The derelict buildings are nothing to do with it. We are talking about viable, wanted and profitable pubs. I would love to know what every right hon. and hon. Member who voted against new clause 16 will say when a constituent walks into their surgery and says, “We are losing our local pub. We have just found out that Enterprise Inns or Punch Taverns have sold it to Tesco, Co-op, Lidl or Sainsbury’s. Will you help us to oppose that?” They will sit there and say, “There’s nothing you can do, because they have the absolute right to do it. You can list it, but by then it will be too late.” As has already been mentioned, the ACV process is used reactively. It is used only when people see there is a threat to a pub. In some cases, that is far, far too late.

The hon. Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk) submitted an interesting freedom of information request. Of all the assets of all types—not just pubs—only 11 have been bought by communities. CAMRA knows of about 10 pubs now in community ownership that are listed as ACVs, but it cannot say whether the ACV initiative led to the pubs being saved, or whether that came later. The reality is that probably fewer than 10 pubs, of the 600, have actually been saved. It is fair to say that some of them have not yet been threatened, but only 10 have been saved.

I have already mentioned the problem with not giving commercial companies, the small breweries and small pub companies—who, incidentally, are thriving as the big pub companies fail—an adequate chance in this process. The Golden Harp in Maidenhead had ACV status, but then became a Tesco. The council turned down an article 4 direction, which is the other way in which DCLG suggests this can be dealt with. About 42 pubs in London that have ACV status are currently closed. Many are simply being land-banked, because developers know that if they sit on them for long enough, they will probably get whatever planning permission they want or need, or they will go ahead anyway.

We have to debunk the myth that going through the planning system to give people the right to a say somehow means that a pub is not only protected—it is not—but cannot become another use. That is simply untrue and it is wrong for Ministers to suggest otherwise. The truth is that viable and profitable pubs are being lost even when planning permission is needed. Indeed, in the constituency of the Minister of State, Department for Transport, the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes), Ye Olde Dun Cow in Cowbit had ACV status. There was a community campaign to bring it back to life, but permission was given to demolish it.

The Summercross in my own constituency—one of my local pubs in Otley—was, after a hard fought campaign, turned into a care home, despite the fact that we gave the council figures to show that the pub was trading profitably when it was deliberately closed by a developer. The owner of Hooper’s in Camberwell obtained planning permission to convert it to a house even though it had ACV status. The Tumbledown Dick in Farnborough, an ACV pub, was partially demolished and is now in use as a McDonald’s against the wishes of the local community. The George IV in Brixton, the Emperor in Ipswich, the Chesham Arms in Hackney—this is not a happy picture, even when people do have to go through the planning process, so the Minister may seriously think that even if they make this limited change, or even if we get the new clause changed, it will save lots of pubs and stop conversions, but that is simply not the case.

There is a dangerous loophole that I urge the Minister to address. If an ACV pub is sold as a going concern, that bypasses the six-month moratorium, even if it is a deliberate sale as a temporary going concern where the intention is clearly to end its use as a pub. That undermines the position hugely.

We need a clear announcement. I hope and suspect we will get from the Minister today an idea of when, in the eight weeks left of this Parliament, we will hear that announcement. This is our last chance. I share the voice echoed by the hon. Member for Bristol North West. I urge the Government, even now, to think again, and this is where we come on to costs. I asked the chief executive of Leeds city council to give me its costs of every ACV status. The reply was that on average an assessment and approval of a nomination up to the stage of being first added or otherwise to the list of assets of community value costs around £1,070 in officers’ time. It also pointed out that the DCLG guidance states that on average a nomination should take 8.3 hours, but officers from Leeds city council estimate it takes twice as long. That, of course, does not include the time it may take to consider a formal review of a decision, any resource required if a review should go to a tribunal stage, or any time to deal with administering the process when an owner informs of the intention to dispose of an asset. That is without even the possibility of legal challenge, which is quite likely.

[Natascha Engel]

May I add to that very long list? The hon. Gentleman talks about officers’ time. What is the cost of the time of members of the local community who are putting in time, effort and a lot of resource?

[Greg Mulholland]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right and I will come on to that point once I have presented the view of the local authority. I do not doubt that the Government believe in localism—I believe in localism myself—but localism does not mean passing the buck when the clear responsibility for the use class orders is with national Government and DCLG.

Several surveys have been conducted, including by the Save the Pub group and CAMRA. The Local Government Information Unit has figures showing that 45 out of 49 local authorities said they did consider pubs as valued community assets worthy of protection, and 33 of them said that existing planning regulations do not give sufficient protection to public houses from change of use and demolition. In every single survey, a large majority say that they would welcome the changes we suggest today.

On to the reality for communities, as the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) said, these are ordinary working people. My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West used the word “misleading”. I worry that, because we did not have the chance to have this debate at the time, there was a sense, certainly on the Government Benches, that all one needs to do to register a pub is to get 21 people. Colleagues would say, “I’m not going to support you, because apparently we have a concession.” Let me read the reality of the situation as set out in the DCLG guidelines, “Community right to bid: non-statutory advice note for local authorities: part 5, chapter 3 of the Localism Act 2011”:

“5.1 A nomination must include the following information for the local authority to consider:

I. A description of the nominated land including its proposed boundaries. These boundaries do not have to be the same as ownership boundaries, for instance as shown on the Land Registry plan if the land is registered; nor is it necessary for all parts of the nominated site to be in the same ownership.”

That means communities are expected to go and get plans. They either have to pay the Land Registry—okay, that is not particularly expensive—or they have to produce plans themselves. The guidelines continue:

“II. Any information the nominator has about the freeholders, leaseholders and current occupants of the site.”

How many people living near to a pub would actually know that?

“III. The reasons for nominating the asset, explaining why the nominator believes the asset meets the definition in the Act.

IV. The nominator’s eligibility to make the nomination.”

That is not 21 people saying that they think a pub is important. The Minister and the Department have given the impression that this is a wonderful way to get all valued pubs listed, but there are thousands and thousands and thousands of valued pubs. The majority of the pubs we still have left of the 48,000 are valued, yet multiple applications cannot be made.

I have exciting news for the House. The first multiple application, as a test case, will be made next week in my town of Otley, in my constituency, by the wonderful community organisation, Otley Pub Club. Otley has 20 pubs. As an Otley resident and occasional user of those pubs, I can assure the House that all 20 pubs are highly valued by Otley Pub Club and the local community. They are going to seek to list all 20 of them, which has never been done before. We will see what happens.

I want to make the case for why the Government’s proposal is the wrong change and ours is the right one. If the applications are regarded as average and simple, listing all 20 valued pubs in Otley will cost £21,400 of taxpayers’ money and take 332 hours of officers’ time. [Interruption.] I hear the Minister chuntering from a sedentary position, but listing costs local authorities money, and several councils have said it amounts to about £1,000. It is more for an article 4 direction—more like £2,000, £3,000 or £4,000 per pub. To list all the valued pubs in the country, therefore, would cost millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money, and that is not acceptable simply because it is local authority money, rather than central Government’s money. It is irresponsible, given that there is a much simpler solution and that local authorities are extremely hard-pressed with greatly reduced budgets in these difficult times. It simply is not an appropriate way to proceed.

Furthermore, of course, councils can and do turn down ACV schemes. Even if those 21 people go through the time-consuming steps—it took Otley Pub Club six months to produce its 20 forms—of ascertaining the boundaries, working up the plan, finding out who the leaseholders, freeholders and occupants are and giving their reasons for making the application, the local authority can still say no. CAMRA knows of approximately 40 applications that have been turned down. That does not sound like localism to me.

If, as he seems to be, the Minister is absolutely adamant in his view —on that, I share the frustration of the hon. Member for Bristol North West—I and CAMRA have some suggestions, and if he could consider them as part of introducing this proposal, that would be better. Two simple things need to happen if it is to have anything like the impact he suggests: first, we need to make it much easier, less onerous and quicker to get ACV status for pubs and to make it much less likely that a council will refuse; and, secondly, if the Minister is serious about pursuing this measure, we must strengthen ACV status not just by ending permitted development rights but, for example, in the case of the pubs I have mentioned, by making it much harder for developers to go against the will of the community and get planning permission where needed. Such is the power of those large companies that pubs are still being converted and bulldozed, even when the planning process has been followed.

To make this measure meaningful, the Minister should make it possible to submit multiple applications. If people say, “These are the valued pubs in our village”, why should we separate them? If there are three pubs in the village, they might all be valued. If there are 15 pubs in a town, 10 of them might be valued. If so, let the community list all 10. It is obvious and simple and would save local authorities money. In addition, it should not be the responsibility of local communities to establish boundaries. As the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire said, if local communities have to go through that process, they will not always bother.

CAMRA also asks that the Minister close the loophole whereby selling an asset as an ongoing concern bypasses the moratorium—a glaring gap in the Bill—and make the moratorium last longer than six months; it is not enough. If this is seriously about saving pubs, we must extend the moratorium. Furthermore, if he insists on going down this route, we need a new status with more powers; alongside the ACV status, we need a community pub of value status, and then DCLG could put in extra protections specifically for pubs. In Scotland, the legal system is in some ways more progressive, certainly in respect of the planning system. We should also establish a genuine community right to buy, rather than our very weak right to try—the right to put in a bid that in the end can simply be ignored.

I hope I have shown that the simple change of allowing local communities the basic right to comment—not just to object, but to support—on a significant change of use to a pub would be cheap and easy. The Government’s suggestion is a welcome but modest step forward. Even if, as we hope, more pubs are listed, many wanted, viable pubs will still close. That is a fact. It baffles me why this Government, who are committed to localism and have said they want to be the most pro-pub Government ever, have proposed a solution that is not pro-pub but is more bureaucratic, much less effective, partial, will take much longer and will cost millions more in taxpayers’ money than what we could achieve with one simple vote and change, through secondary legislation, to the use class orders.

In the last eight weeks of the Parliament, I urge my hon. Friend the Minister and his colleagues to do the sensible and obvious thing and put pubs in the sui generis category, alongside theatres, casinos, laundrettes and nightclubs. It is the simple and obvious thing to do. If the Government want to leave a legacy as a pro-pub Government, that is the announcement we need to hear in the next few weeks.

12:25

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

I shall be comparatively brief.

I wish to be a little more generous to the Minister than some speakers. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie) on having secured this debate and the Backbench Business Committee on having supported it. Having been both pubs Minister and planning Minister, I am conscious that planning policy is always a balance, and striking a balance does not always make us popular—sometimes, we are about as popular as the landlord calling time on a crowded Saturday night—but it has to be done. I am therefore much more supportive of the Minister’s position.

That does not mean that, in the light of experience, planning policy cannot be improved, and I think that the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland) has made some sensible suggestions that we ought to listen to, as too has my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West. I was also impressed by the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris). In particular, I join in her tribute to Councillor Ray Howard, whom I have worked with over many years. He is rightly nicknamed Mr Canvey, and after almost 40 years of elected service, he now epitomises everything that good local government is about. I am happy to get that on the record.

I believe in pubs. I have been active in a campaign to save a pub in my constituency, and we succeeded within the current regime. There are hurdles, but they are not impossible. Equally, however, those of us who believe in pubs have to be realistic and accept that not every pub is viable or will be an ACV, so we have to take a nuanced approach. I approach this matter slightly differently from my hon. Friends. I am concerned that more pubs are not listed, but I think we should be looking at why we cannot encourage greater uptake of the ACV regime. As one of the Ministers who introduced the regime, I confess I had hoped that communities and local authorities would be more proactive in listing not just pubs but many other types of facility. That is something not just for the Government, but for communities themselves, to look at. In the case of my pub, The Porcupine in Mottingham, ACV status was achieved very quickly.

[Natascha Engel]

Surely the reason local communities are not better at listing these assets is that it is so difficult to do, not that they are too lazy.

[Robert Neill]

I do not think that local communities are necessarily lazy. That would be a patronising thing to say about any community. In Mottingham, the community moved swiftly and efficiently, the local authority co-operated and the pub was listed as an ACV very quickly. I do not accept all the criticisms made of the Government’s position.

[Charlotte Leslie]

My hon. Friend is an exceptionally efficient and effective Member. Does he think that the speed of success might have had something to do with his being pubs Minister at that point?

[Robert Neill]

I regret to say that I had departed office by then, although I am delighted to say that the then pubs Minister, the Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis), came down to the constituency and looked at the site—without in any way prejudging the outcome. It was simply that our local councillors, the community and I were quickly on the case. There were some issues—I shall come on to them—where I agree with my hon. Friend and my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West, but at the end of the day it was possible to do it under the current regime. Does that mean that we cannot improve the regime? No, we can always improve it. Much planning policy develops incrementally in the light of experience.

[Grahame M. Morris]

rose—

[Robert Neill]

Let me make a bit of progress before giving way again.

First, we should look at ways of being more proactive about developing the assets of community value regime across the piece. Secondly, we need to do more to encourage the adoption of neighbourhood plans, which enable a greater degree of granularity than in ordinary planning documents. If they are linked to a robust local plan—more and more authorities are introducing those—that, too, provides an opportunity to have plans locally that are attuned to the need to protect pubs in particular areas. That would be a good way forward too.

In the case of Mottingham’s public house The Porcupine—a much-loved asset—I had a lot of sympathy with what was said. Enterprise Inns quite cynically ran that pub down, and it is right to say that many of the pub companies have a bad track record of running down pubs essentially to improve their balance-sheet position. Enterprise Inns has long been doing that; it has a deliberate disposal policy. I totally agree with the hon. Member for Leeds North West that that is what we need to address. The debate is about the nuance of how best to do that. In that case, the public house was sold without notice to the community. That is an aspect of the way in which the regime works that we could look at again in the light of experience.

Happily, the Mottingham residents association and our local councillors were in touch with me quickly and we were able to make an application to the local authority, which swiftly had the matter placed on the agenda for the planning committee. A decision was taken and the pub was listed. The local authority, after a hearing, rejected the application. The supermarket Lidl that had bought The Porcupine site appealed. Representatives of the local community and I gave evidence at the public inquiry. I am delighted to say that the inspector rejected Lidl’s appeal, and the time for Lidl to challenge in the High Court has now expired. It was a win for the local community.

We were able to engage the services of the excellent Richard Harwood QC, one of our leading planning lawyers, who put up an exceptional case—[Interruption.] Actually, he was instructed by the local authority. Tribute should be paid to him. He understands the issues and did a great job. I have one or two of his suggestions for further improvements, which I shall put to the Minister in a moment. The point is that this can be done under the current regime, but can we make it easier? I would always like to make it easier for communities to help their pubs in the future.

In the debate on the Infrastructure Bill, the Minister announced certain changes to the assets of community value regime, which I welcome. I would like further clarification of the statement that the secondary legislation would be brought forward at the earliest opportunity. One advantage of doing these things through secondary legislation or planning policy guidance is that we can be more fleet of foot than if primary legislation is used. Can the Minister tell us when this legislation will be introduced? Can he confirm that this will apply to public houses and other assets of community value that have already been listed? That seemed to be the sense of what was being said in his statement, but one or two lawyers have said that it would be good to have absolute clarity on that point. I hope that that will not be difficult to achieve.

We could look at encouraging local authorities to do as the Mayor of London has done. When I read the inspector’s report on The Porcupine case, it was clear that he gave considerable weight to the fact that this was an asset of community value. In fact, the Government’s reforms bit, and were effective in this case. The inspector also gave considerable weight to the policies in the London plan that were introduced by the current Mayor of London to strengthen the protection of public houses in London.

Those policies resulted from a report by Steve O’Connell, the Conservative London Assembly Member for Croydon and Sutton, called “Keeping Local: How to save London’s pubs as community resources”. I recommend it to any Member, as there is no reason why other planning authorities cannot adopt that same useful approach. A number of specific policy lines have been put into the London plan. Members interested in this should look at policy 4.48A, the whole of policy 4.8 and policy 3.1B, all of which deal with the ability of boroughs—indeed, an obligation is placed on them—to bring forward policies to retain, manage and enhance public houses, where there is sufficient evidence of need and of community asset value and viability in pub use. Authorities are also tasked with the need to develop policies to protect valued community assets, and the London plan specifically refers to pubs in that context. Policy 3.1B also specifically refers to the need to protect pubs.

The Mayor’s “Town Centres Supplementary Planning Guidance”, which is given effect by the London plan, also strengthens the position of pubs, including specifically taking into account the continuing viability of use of the public house, the history of vacancy, the prospect of achieving reuse at market value and whether or not it has been effectively marketed. Some of the pubcos go through a sham exercise in marketing, which was exposed in the inquiry into The Porcupine. Frankly, the pubco had simply gone through the motions, and we were able to call an expert who demonstrated that this was not a genuine marketing exercise. These are things that we could sensibly seek to tighten up, and we could do so without direct interference by the Government, but they might like to think about strengthening the guidance to reflect what is already good practice in London in that regard.

There are a couple of other things we could do that would not be too onerous and would still maintain the balance that we always need in planning policy, involving flexibility when needs and circumstances change and vary from area to area. More could perhaps be done to increase the weight given to the harm caused by the loss of non-designated heritage assets. If the asset—often a pub, but it could be a church or something like it—is a listed building, it obviously gets much more significant protection. It might be worth looking at the operation of paragraph 135 of the national planning policy framework to see what could be done to increase the weight given to the harm that would come from losing assets that are of community value, but do not have the status of being listed buildings because of their architectural merit. Something might not be of great architectural merit, but it could still be of great value to the community. We should look at ways of providing help on that.

[Rebecca Harris]

What my hon. Friend says is precisely relevant to the case of The King Canute, which I raised earlier.

[Robert Neill]

Yes, that is something that it would be good to prevent. I am aware that the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) wanted to intervene earlier. I did not mean to be discourteous to him. Would he like the opportunity to intervene before I finish? If I have covered the point, well and good.

[Grahame M. Morris]

With all due respect to the hon. Gentleman, he mentions the services of a top barrister, but would it not be much simpler and less bureaucratic—I have heard him arguing for the need to cut costs many times—simply to accept the proposal in the motion? It proposes a simple change to

“put pubs into the sui generis category”,

which would achieve the same ends, be administratively simpler and cost local authorities nothing.

[Robert Neill]

The proposal is initially very attractive, but having looked at the operation of use class orders during the two and a half years when I was a Minister, I warn the hon. Gentleman that we need to be little careful about some of the intended consequences of changes to use classes. I would not rule it out entirely for the future, but we should approach it carefully, incrementally and on an evidence basis. I hope, too, that the decision in The Porcupine case—something of a test case—will make it easier for us to succeed in subsequent legal challenges. We all want the same thing—there is no dispute between us about the objective—so it is the means by which we achieve it that we are debating.

Another suggestion is that we accept extending the need for planning permission to the demolition of commercial buildings, which would be quite straightforward. That was a risk in the Porcupine case, and the hon. Member for Leeds North West raised the issue of what happens if a pub is knocked down, when the building is gone and the chance for restoration to a pub is pretty much lost. My suggestion would be possible following the SAVE Britain’s Heritage judgment in 2011—on my watch—about the Mitchell’s brewery site in Lancaster. The need to give notice before exercising permitted development rights to demolish has been helpful as a result of that judgment because it has enabled article 4 directions to be made. That worked in Lewisham in the case of The Baring Hall public house just over the boundary from me—in the constituency, I believe, of the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander), whom I am delighted to see in her place on the Opposition Front Bench today. That did work, but we might be able to build on it and make it simpler to achieve.

Finally, let me salute the work that CAMRA has done over the years. CAMRA was a great help to us during The Porcupine case, and it might be able to help us again. Now that we have a site that is vacant—not demolished, I am delighted to say—we need someone to offer to take it off Lidl’s hands and make it commercially viable. CAMRA might be able to take on a brokerage role, working with other bodies, because it contains some very bright and commercially astute people. It could perhaps bring together those who have the money with which to acquire a site—and might be interested in acquiring it—and the local community and local authority.

This has been a very useful debate. If I have adopted a slightly different tone from some other Members, that is not because I am not as passionate about pubs as anyone else—as many will know—but because I want to find a suitably nuanced way in which to achieve our shared objective. I look forward to hearing from the Minister.

12:40

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

I pay tribute to the hon. Members for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie) and for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland), and to my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris), for securing the debate, and I pay tribute to the Backbench Business Committee for supporting their application. However, although I am pleased that they secured the debate, I wish that it had not been necessary. All who have spoken today have given excellent expositions of why the planning system should be changed better to protect community pubs, and the hon. Member for Leeds North West provided a very good elucidation of use class changes. I hope to emulate that approach.

Just two weeks ago, I was in the Chamber helping to make the case for the inclusion of new clause 16 in the Infrastructure Bill. Despite cross-party backing, the new clause, alas, failed to overcome the Government’s opposition to it. The background will be familiar to many colleagues who have taken an interest in pubs and in the ways in which the Government’s policies have made life more difficult for them.

As a shadow planning Minister, I was at the forefront of the fight against the changes in permitted development rights which the Government started to force through two years ago. Those changes mean that pubs can, without planning permission, be converted to shops in the A1 use class, including retail warehouses, hairdressers, undertakers, travel and ticket agencies, and post offices. They can be converted to establishments in the A2 use class, including banks, building societies, estate agencies, employment agencies and, of course, betting shops and payday lenders, and to A3-use establishments such as restaurants, cafés and hot food takeaways. They can also be demolished altogether, again without the need for planning permission.

I pointed out in December 2012, during the debate on the Bill that became the Growth and Infrastructure Act 2013—and I have done so on other occasions—that the Government’s changes in the law governing permitted development were profoundly anti-localist, and should be opposed. However, I feel that stronger words are needed to describe their continued refusal to back down on the pubs issue in the face of overwhelming opposition from Members in all parts of the House, not to mention local communities up and down the country.

The relaxation of permitted development rights and use class changes have led to a number of unintended consequences. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) is no longer present, because I wanted to draw attention to some of the unintended consequences of his changes, such as the lack of any effective planning for our high streets—where there are currently clusters of payday loan companies—and the inability of local communities to do anything about it or prevent an increase in the number of pub closures. I have described the consequences as unintended because I assume that they are, but it is, of course, possible that the Government really do not care about the increasing number of pub closures or the removal of rights from local communities. How else could we explain their stubborn refusal to back new clause 16? As the hon. Member for Leeds North West put it on that occasion,

“If hon. Members support pubs and support local democracy, they should vote for new clause 16, and if they do not, they should vote against.”—[Official Report, 26 January 2015; Vol. 591, c. 648.]

Unfortunately, too many Members voted against the new clause, and did not examine what the Government were supporting closely enough.

While they have announced some limited measures aimed at tackling the problems that pubs are facing, the Government have failed to take adequate notice of cross-party calls to restore planning protections to community pubs, and the steps that they have announced appear to be wholly inadequate. The Minister has heard that said clearly by Members on both sides of the House today. In the wake of the Government’s successful attempt to scupper new clause 16, the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Keighley (Kris Hopkins), announced proposals to extend planning protection to pubs that were designated assets of community value, but, as is noted in today’s motion, details of how and when the Government intend to implement that have not been forthcoming—although, obviously, we look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say today—and the decision throws up more questions than it answers.

The jury is still very much out when it comes to the right to bid that was introduced by the Localism Act 2011. According to the Department for Communities and Local Government, more than 1,800 assets have been listed since the introduction of the right in September 2012. That figure sounds promising, but, as has been shown by research carried out by my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk), the picture is a great deal murkier than it suggests. Freedom of Information requests to local authorities revealed to him that, of the 122 groups that had triggered a moratorium, 60 were unsuccessful in their bids, while 27 bids were outstanding and only 11 had so far resulted in community buy-outs. That, as was explained earlier, relates to all categories.

According to an excellent report entitled “Community Rights”, which was issued by the Communities and Local Government Committee last week,

“The Community Right to Bid process has achieved some success because the first phase, listing local land or property as an Asset of Community Value…is relatively straightforward. It brings people together and gives them the opportunity to have a say in what happens to valued pubs, shops or community centres if they are put up for sale. But if as it appears, almost 50% of attempts to buy ACVs are unsuccessful, there must be scope for enhancing people’s chances of success with the second and most important—bidding—phase of the Right.”

While the Government’s decision to extend protections to pubs that are designated assets of community value has been welcomed by CAMRA—among others—as a

“step in the right direction”,

the Government have made no attempt to explain how communities will be supported in their efforts to obtain that designation for local pubs. Perhaps the Minister can enlighten us today. After all, the difficulties involved in the process, particularly the buying stage, have been described to him clearly.

Ministers are naive if they think that this measure—I would call it a half- measure—is adequate to the task in hand, because it will not extend to pubs the protections that they need. CAMRA has pointed out that some pubs have been designated as assets of community value, only to be converted to other uses. The Select Committee report reminds us that

“Listing a building such as a pub as an ACV does not prevent its change of use under permitted development rights…to a shop, estate agent or restaurant—or indeed its demolition.”

The George IV pub in Brixton is just one example. Its designation as an ACV failed to stop its conversion to a supermarket. Will the Minister tell us what measures, if any, the Government intend to take to address that issue?

Groups such as CAMRA had the foresight that the Government evidently lacked in anticipating a potential loophole in the proposal that could still allow developers to proceed with change of use conversions even when a pub has been ACV-listed. Currently, a pub is removed from the ACV register when it is sold. CAMRA has called on the Government to ensure that the order is strengthened to ensure that the listing of a pub as an ACV would permanently suspend permitted development rights for the premises, avoiding the need for community groups to re-nominate an asset every five years. Will the Minister commit to adopting that common-sense proposal?

Ministers have also said that communities may wish to use article 4 directions to suspend permitted development rights in an area. We know that article 4 directions have been used by a number of authorities. However, it is a very difficult process. Although it is within local authorities’ remit to pursue that option, they must notify the Secretary of State, who reserves powers to modify or cancel most article 4 directions, and for any reason. Given the Secretary of State’s tendency to micro-manage planning departments, we have no faith that he would not interfere in that way.

In 2010, the then planning Minister, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst, who is now back in his place, went so far as to recommend that local authorities pursue the use of article 4 directions to combat the clustering of betting shops in certain areas and to help to ensure diversity on their high streets. However, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) pointed out at the time, article 4 directions are very costly for local authorities to pursue. Perhaps they are prohibitively expensive. Article 4 directions are a pretty blunt instrument when it comes to protecting community pubs. In addition to the national planning policy framework requirement that they may only be pursued when there is “clear justification” to do so, there is also potential for heavy-handed oversight from Whitehall. Indeed, Government guidance has made it clear that councils face a hefty financial burden if developers affected by the directions seek financial compensation. The guidance states that

“Local planning authorities may be liable to pay compensation to those whose permitted development rights have been withdrawn”.

Given the rate at which developers up and down the country are stampeding to convert pubs to countless alternative uses—we know that upwards of 30 pubs are now closing each week—there seems to be a gaping loophole in the protections afforded to them. We argue that article 4 directions are not the appropriate protection, even though successive planning Ministers have put that forward.

We criticise the Government’s approach. An issue has been created for communities that wish to protect community pubs. The Government made changes to permitted development rights and then put forward another mechanism so that communities did not have to apply the changes to permitted development rights that the Government put through in the first place. That seems a bit perverse at best. Therefore, Members on the Labour and indeed the Government Benches are suggesting a much simpler approach to protecting community pubs. It is extraordinary that so little is being done to protect our pubs, especially when they face such competition from supermarkets.

Pubs face a double-whammy from supermarkets. Not only can pubs be converted into supermarkets without planning permission, but often local supermarkets sell cheap alcohol and make it readily available, whereas, because of the way our licensing laws operate, pubs can promote more responsible drinking and ensure that a restaurant and food are available. The Government have to deal with that issue. Why not tackle the supermarket issue and the availability through supermarkets of cheap alcohol, rather than attacking pubs in this way?

The Government should today show support for this excellent motion. They should forget about cumbersome applications for assets of community value to protect pubs. They should wake up to the fact that article 4 directions are not an appropriate mechanism to protect pubs. They should recognise the additional burdens that assets of community value designations and all aspects of the relaxation of permitted development are placing on councils, without the resources to deal with the extra work, and with many also suffering from the Government’s unfair local government cuts. The Government should do the sensible thing and return the determination of permitted development and use class changes to local authorities and the communities they represent, so that they have the means to protect pubs should they wish to do so.

12:56

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

As is customary, I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting the time for the debate and congratulate the sponsors of the motion. Much more significant congratulations are due to my hon. Friend and neighbour the Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie), because last night she announced her engagement. These days, we find out these things via Twitter; that is how I discovered the news last night. I am delighted publicly to congratulate her and John, who happens to be a friend, on their engagement. I wish them many happy years together. Hopefully, my hon. Friend and I will agree on a few other things as I proceed, too.

Recently, we discussed these same issues during debate on the Infrastructure Bill. I am glad that we have had more time to do so today. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland) was deeply frustrated that there was not sufficient opportunity to rehearse the issues fully at that point. The Bill introduced a huge raft of changes. It was not possible perhaps for everyone to make the length of contribution on the amendment that they would have wished at that time, but we have had that opportunity today.

We are of course fully aware of the strength of feeling in the House about the importance of community pubs. We have made clear our commitment to protecting those pubs that most benefit the community. We recognise that public houses are important assets that play an important role in local communities, making important contributions to the economy and providing local hubs that strengthen community relationships and encourage wider social interaction.

I will shortly come to the changes to the planning system that I announced on the day of the Infrastructure Bill Report stage and specifically to pubs that are listed as assets of community value. However, I want to start, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West did, by reminding the House of the other measures that we have taken in government to support local pubs.

I think that the coalition Government can claim to be the most pub-friendly Government for quite some time. For example, we cut beer duty in the last two Budgets and scrapped the beer and alcohol duty escalators put in place by the Labour party. We have introduced a £250,000 fund for business partners to help to deliver more community-owned pubs and pubs providing community-focused services, which has contributed to a more than doubling of the number of co-operatively owned pubs over the past two years and seen many rural pubs offering a wide range of new community-focused services and facilities. I would like in particular to thank the Plunkett Foundation and Pub is the Hub for working as partners with my Department on those issues.

We have also reduced the bureaucracy that had been hindering landlords from running their pubs, for example through the removal of the licensing rules for small-scale live music venues. We have increased the business rates discount for pubs with rateable values below £50,000 from £1,000 to £1,500 for this year, a move that is estimated to benefit three in every four pubs in the country, and the protections we are giving publicans tied to large pub companies under the new statutory code of practice, to be enforced by an independent adjudicator, will address the imbalance in bargaining power between large pub-owning companies and the thousands of tenants that run tied pubs.

There are already protections for pubs in the planning system. Local plans right across a local authority and neighbourhood plans, which are becoming increasingly popular, should reflect and be consistent with the strong support for pubs in the national planning policy framework —that, I believe, is in paragraph 70 of the document—particularly if that is adopted in the local plan. For instance, last year I visited the Phene pub in Kensington and Chelsea where there has been huge pressure for pubs to be converted into houses, which have incredibly high domestic values. The Phene had been saved from that fate because of the strong planning policies that the council had put in place. Local planning authorities are encouraged to plan positively to support the sustainability of their communities. That includes plans to deliver the social, recreational and cultural facilities and services that the community needs, and to promote strong rural economies through the retention and development of local services and community facilities in villages, such as pubs.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) rightly said that national permitted development rights play an important role in the planning system, providing flexibility, reducing bureaucracy and enabling the best use to be made of existing premises. Current permitted development rights allow for the change of use or demolition of pubs without the need for a planning application. That has been the case for quite some time. Some Members may remember that during the progress of the Infrastructure Bill I gave the example of the Ashley Court hotel in my constituency, where the owner wanted to sell it to a property developer and, despite the fact that it was a popular local pub with one of the most magnificent views in the whole of the city, he went ahead and demolished it. That was in 2007, I think. There was nothing I, as the local Member of Parliament, or the two local councillors for Ashley ward at that time could do about it. We all opposed what we felt was going to be the ultimate outcome, but he went ahead with the demolition. There was no provision in the planning law that we could use to stop it. That has been the case for some time. That is what will change as a result of the proposals in the Infrastructure Bill that I outlined.

[Grahame M. Morris]

I am grateful for the Minister’s clarification, but I am sceptical about the potential of the orders to stop demolitions. Earlier in the debate, a colleague of his on the Government Benches—the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), I think—suggested that the costs of ACV should be placed on the developers, rather than falling on the local authority. Does the Minister see any merit in that?

[Stephen Williams]

I will very shortly come on to the points raised about the process of listing ACVs and any costs that may arise.

It is right that non-viable and underused pubs and other commercial buildings should be able to change use quickly to respond to changing local demands. There are lots of reasons why pubs may close. As I said in the debate on the Infrastructure Bill, there could be demographic reasons, and the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) made exactly the same point today. There could also be reasons of local employment—there may be a factory closure, or the location of a football stadium may move, which happens fairly often. There are lots of reasons why pubs may no longer have their former customer base and patronage. We are saying it would be inappropriate, and, in fact, disproportionate, for the planning system to have blanket protection for every single pub in the country, when there may be perfectly good reasons why a permitted development right is appropriate.

[Greg Mulholland]

Can we be clear? This is not about giving more protection; it is simply about allowing people the right to have a say over a change of use. Will my hon. Friend accept that the reality of what is going on is that profitable pubs are being closed deliberately as secret deals are done between large pub companies and large supermarket chains? It is nothing to do with pubs that are not viable or not wanted. Can he accept that point, and what is he going to do about it?

[Stephen Williams]

I accept what my hon. Friend says about supermarkets, and I assure him I am going to come to that point. The change that he wants and the motion suggests is not modest, however. It is quite a big change to the planning system to give blanket protection to one particular retail use of a piece of land.

Let me depart slightly from my remarks, as I have been provoked. There are probably lots of high street retail uses that different Members around the House might lament the loss of, as shopping areas have changed during our lifetime. I like going to pubs—I have even been to the pub with my hon. Friend several times and hopefully he will buy me a drink again very soon because we have not fallen out too much over this issue—but I am a bibliophile and really enjoy going to bookshops, and I lament the fact that many towns have lost all their bookshops. Even a seat with well-educated constituents such as mine, Bristol West, where there are lots of book- readers has experienced this; the number of bookshops open and trading in Bristol since I went there as a student in 1985 has shrunk markedly in recent years. Is the reason for that because there is not enough protection? The Opposition Whip, the hon. Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones), was chair of the Labour club and I was chairman of the SDP-Liberal club at Bristol university at the time, and she will remember that there were lots of bookshops. There are not so many now.

Has that change happened because there is no protection in the planning system for bookshops—or for bakeries, or for other uses people value in the high street and wish were still there? No, it has not. It has happened because customer tastes and purchasing patterns change. We cannot have a planning permission that stands in the way of people changing how they buy things and exercising their commercial choices.

[Natascha Engel]

That is not the point we are making. All of us have said pubs that are no longer viable are very different from pubs that are perfectly viable. The Wellington in New Whittington is a heavily used pub, but the company that owns the building can make more money by selling it to a supermarket than by keeping it as a pub. It is still making money, however; it is making plenty of profit.

[Stephen Williams]

It is, perhaps, difficult to pick on individual examples without getting into trouble, but one of the bookshops in my constituency closed because a well-known TV personality restaurant-owner paid more for the renewal of the lease than it could afford even though it was trading profitably as a bookshop. Now there is a much-shrunken version of it further down the road. We cannot have a planning system to protect every single piece of economic use of land in towns and cities in that way. We have to reflect the fact that commercial patterns change. That is what our constituents are doing; they are changing the way they buy books, and the way they drink and eat.

[Rebecca Harris]

In a previous life, when I last had a proper job, I was a director of a publishing company so I know a little bit about bookshops and the book trade. Bookshops have closed for many reasons, in particular the growth of the internet and Amazon, but that is not the same as the conversion of a bespoke building in a neighbourhood, designed for the one purpose of being a pub, despite its being perfectly profitable and there being no evidence that people are buying their alcohol online from Amazon these days. We are talking about a completely different scenario. We are talking about profitable businesses in bespoke premises being taken over for another use.

[Stephen Williams]

I do not disagree with my hon. Friend. I am simply saying that the planning system has a column of use classes and different examples of commercial uses, and that it cannot always give protection to every kind of commercial use in that column of use classes. Other factors also come into play.

[Grahame M. Morris]

Will the Minister explain to me in simple terms why protected development rights should apply to launderettes—and all those other categories—and not to public houses?

[Stephen Williams]

I am being invited to depart from my prepared remarks again, but that is the nature of debate. I do not know the whole history of the planning system. It has obviously evolved over a long period since the original Town and Country Planning Act 1947, which was passed by the Attlee Government. There may well be anomalies within the system; I am not aware of its full history. The motion gives examples including theatres and launderettes. I do not know how many theatres there are in Easington compared with the number of pubs, but I can tell the hon. Gentleman that in my constituency of Bristol West there are hundreds of pubs and only two theatres: the Bristol Old Vic, the oldest and longest-running professional theatre in the country, and the Bristol Hippodrome. I am thinking off the top of my head here, but this is probably a matter of proportionality. Theatres are important to the community, and there are likely to be only a few in any given town or city, which might be why they are given that protection.

The same could apply to launderettes, although on the face of it, that might seem odd. There are far fewer launderettes in my constituency than there are pubs, and every time someone tries to close one, the local residents use the planning protections to fight the closure. Launderettes are obviously important, particularly for people who live in flats or houses of multiple occupancy. They are also important in city centres and university towns, where not everyone has the facility to wash their clothes at home. I think that that is why there is a distinction for launderettes, and I would not put the hundreds of pubs in any given location into that same category.

Local planning authorities can currently protect pubs by making an article 4 direction, which has the effect of removing national permitted development rights, and they can use that power where it is necessary to protect the amenity or well-being of an area. Once a direction takes force, a planning application must be made before any development can take place. Article 4 directions can be targeted at individual pubs or applied over a specified geographical area, as appropriate. The shadow Minister had some questions about article 4 usage, but she is no longer in the Chamber. She will be able to read my answers in Hansard, however.

The Secretary of State no longer has the power automatically to block article 4 applications, but he does have the power to ensure that they are not being applied completely disproportionately—right across a local authority area, for example. They are meant to be targeted. More than 130 local planning authorities currently have article 4 directions in place, 26 of which apply specifically to pubs. They include pubs in the London boroughs of Wandsworth, Camden, and Kensington and Chelsea, as well as in Bristol and Cambridge. So the powers are being used, but not as extensively as CAMRA would like. That is one reason that we considered bringing forward the change that was announced on the day of the Infrastructure Bill’s Report stage.

The listing of assets of community value under the Localism Act gives local people a greater stake in the future of assets listed and triggers a moratorium on any sale, enabling local people to develop a bid to buy the asset and ensure its continued contribution to their community. We welcome the fact that a third of the 1,800 assets across the country that have been listed so far—around 600—have been pubs. This has been by far the most popular use of the right, which has been in place for the past couple of years—not four years, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West said. Those pubs include the Greenbank pub in Easton, in my constituency. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West has recently been involved in getting Lamplighters pub in her constituency reopened, and I should like to extend an invite to her. She and I should go to The Lamplighters to celebrate her engagement —maybe this weekend. I will buy the drinks for me and her, and for John, and we will find the necessary 21 people who want to list the pub as an asset of community value so that we can get it protected. Let us see if our diaries work.

[Charlotte Leslie]

You’re on!

[Stephen Williams]

I fully understand the widespread concern that pubs that are valued by communities could still be lost because of the regulatory environment of the planning system. That is why, on 26 January, we announced our intention to disapply the permitted development rights for the change of use or demolition of any pub that is listed as an asset of community value. I hope that that addresses the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris) about the King Canute on Canvey Island.

Pubs are not just useful to local communities as gathering places; they can also be significant landmarks along the high street. That is certainly true of the Ashley Court hotel in my constituency, which I mentioned earlier. It did not quite come up to scratch in terms of architectural merit, which is often the problem in big cities that have lots of listed buildings, but it was nevertheless an important landmark and now it has gone. However, demolition will now come within the scope of the changes that we are making.

The measure will be effective for a five-year period from the date of disapplication of the permitted development rights. That will affect the loophole to which my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West referred. Under the present listing rules, if a sale takes place, the clock starts again on the listing. We have already foreseen that loophole, and I am grateful to CAMRA for discussing it with me. We are therefore proposing that the protection should be in place for five years from the date of the disapplication. That will mean that, for those pubs, a planning application must be made to a local planning authority before a change of use or demolition of the pub can take place. That will give the decision back to the council representing the local community—giving people a say, as has been suggested several times—and provide an opportunity for local people to express their views and offer any counter proposals.

I want to deal with some of the other points raised in the debate. The process for listing assets of community value has been described as bureaucratic and costly. The hon. Member for North East Derbyshire said that communities might not have the ability to deal with such a process. I understand that these rights are quite new and that there is still some knowledge to be gained about how they should be applied. That is why other Ministers and I, along with representatives of the partner groups we are working with in the Localism Alliance, are going round the country explaining how these community rights work. We know that there is still some awareness to be raised, however. The process for listing assets of community value is actually very straightforward. The requirement is simply to find 21 people who support the listing of a building or piece of land as an asset of community value and to submit an application to the council. There is absolutely no cost to that group of 21 or more people; the cost to them is zero.

My right hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt)—who has had to leave the debate early to attend another engagement—asked whether we will review the changes after 12 months. They are linked to the Localism Act rights that we have introduced, and we have already committed to conducting a formal review of how that Act is being applied, later in 2015. We have already been gathering evidence informally, including from CAMRA, on how the rights are being used, and that review will certainly happen.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West asked how to publicise the rights, and that is particularly important now that the listing of an asset of community value will have even more teeth than before. I suggest that, as constituency MPs, we will all want to publicise all sorts of things over the next few months, so we now have a real opportunity to go out into our communities and raise awareness of these issues. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West mentioned his occasional use of the pubs in Otley. I follow him on Twitter and from what I read I think he is much more than an occasional user. We should go out into our communities and publicise these changes. CAMRA, which has been working with the Department as a valued partner for quite some time now—since the Localism Act rights came into place—has published its own “how to” guide on listing assets of community value. I am sure CAMRA will update it to take into account the new teeth this new right will have.

I have dealt with the cost of listing, but my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West and the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) also mentioned the cost to authorities of listing assets. I was surprised to hear my hon. Friend say that Leeds city council says it takes 16 hours of officer time to deal with each application—I believe that is what he said, but he will correct me if I am wrong. No doubt my officials back in Marsham street will have picked up on that and will check whether it is the case. The procedure is quite straightforward in the legislation. We are aware, and some of the evidence we have been gathering from partners shows, that some local authorities are gold-plating what they need to do under the regulations. I do not suggest that Leeds city council is necessarily doing that, but we are aware that it is happening in some places. The procedure, as laid down in the Localism Act, is straightforward for listing an asset of community value. It is very simple for the promoters of that listing and it ought to be similarly simple for the local authority to consider whether the proposal meets the tests, as set out in the legislation.

My hon. Friend and others referred to the practices of pub property companies and others who deliberately promote the closure of local pubs in their area. I was made aware this morning of a report in the Evesham Journal about NewRiver Retail writing to 11 of its owned pubs in the Dudley area, which it seems to want to convert into Co-ops, and suggesting that the pub managers, for an incentive—I put it no strongly than that—should not seek to obstruct what it is doing. Planning law cannot stop all those sorts of commercial practices, but if any of the pubs in Dudley or elsewhere are important to the local community, people should get out there right now and list them, in order to give protection.

We believe the measure we have proposed strikes the right balance between protecting valued community pubs and avoiding the blanket regulation that could lead to more empty buildings around the country. We intend to introduce the required changes to secondary legislation at the earliest opportunity, and we will lay the regulations before the end of this Parliament. The Government have in place common commencement rules for changing business regulations on 6 April and, I believe, 6 October each year. We intend that these regulations will come into place on 6 April 2015—that deals with a key question Members asked—and we will lay the statutory instrument necessary for that in good time to make sure it happens.

I invite all hon. Members to join me in urging local communities to come together to support their local pub, use the community rights we have given them and nominate their local pub as an asset of community value. As I said, 600 pubs have been nominated so far. That is a good start, and if we all get behind this, working with CAMRA and local amenity groups, that number can expand significantly in a short time. If people think their local pub plays a key social and economic role in their community, they should act decisively and act now. They should not be reactive. I think someone spoke earlier about these changes and people being reactive. People should be proactive. I have been saying that, as other Ministers have, for the past 18 months or so. People should not wait for a threat. The right is there now, so please use it. If people think any community asset is important, they should list it now—they should not wait for a threat to come along.

The change we are making has been described as “modest”, but giving planning protection to pubs that are listed as an ACV is a significant change. The Government can fairly say that, without doubt, the future of local pubs will now lie in the hands of local people.

13:24

[Charlotte Leslie]

I thank everyone who has taken part in this debate. I will return to the Minister’s comments, but first I wish to thank him for his congratulations on my engagement. I will be delighted to take up his offer of a pint in The Lamplighters. As he knows, he can get there from his constituency via the Severn Beach line, which may one day be a Henbury loop—who knows?

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

What has that got to do with the debate?

[Charlotte Leslie]

It was a terrible abuse of local knowledge, and I apologise to my hon. Friend for taking up his time in that way.

We heard some fantastic speeches today. The hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) summarised excellently the value of pubs beyond the immediately obvious, talking about their community value and all the other activities that take place in them, which include knitting, crèches, children’s tots groups and coffee mornings; some £120 million is also raised for charities each year.

My hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris) powerfully illustrated the real-world consequences of the current situation, providing exactly the gritty detail that I hope will keep this issue in the Government’s mind through 2015 and beyond. The hon. Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) also touched on the enormous amount of work that I know he has done on the statutory code for pubcos, which has until recently been a pretty grim backdrop to the pub situation. I am pleased that the Government have moved on that, largely thanks to his efforts and those of the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland).

The hon. Member for Leeds North West was, as ever, a powerful blast of reality. He illustrated excellently the practical realities of an ACV bid. For some communities it may be easy but for others it is not nearly so easy, depending on discrepancies between local authorities and between the nature of the communities affected by the potential loss of their pub. He also gave news of his Otley Pub Club collective bid. We wish him luck with that and we will be interested to see how he gets on.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), who gave his apologies for not being able to be in his place now, gave a balanced assessment, using the benefit of his experience and expertise as a superb and first pubs Minister. He made some sensible suggestions and I very much hope we can progress them. The hon. Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods), who is also not able to be in her place now and has courteously given her apologies, made a statement that many of us perhaps agree with, especially given the time. She wished that this debate had not been necessary, and a lot of us would say “Hear, hear” to that.

Let me return to the Minister’s response. As I say, I look forward to discussing this further over a pint in The Lamplighters and perhaps any other pub he wishes to name. Importantly, he reminded us of the significant positive impact the Government have had on pubs, which is possibly easy to forget; in trying to get the best, we should not make an enemy of the good. There is concern that perhaps he had missed the point of the debate, which was not about commercial viability and protecting those things that are not commercially viable, but simply about allowing communities to have their say when there is a change, be it commercially viable or otherwise. His measures to close loopholes on ACV are welcome, as is the pledge that the way ACV is working out—that is separately from aspirations about how it might work out—will be reviewed as part of a formal review of the Localism Act. I am very pleased that we have received assurances that that element will be considered. It is also welcome that we now have a date, 6 April, for the moves that the Government have made to enhance the status of ACV. Most of us in this House would agree that on planning protection of pubs it is, “Time, gentleman and ladies, please. Time.”

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House notes New Economics Foundation research showing that local economies benefit twice as much from a pound spent in a pub rather than a supermarket; expresses concern that valued and viable pubs are being lost due to permitted development rights which allow pubs to be demolished or turned into supermarkets and other uses without planning permission, denying local people any say; notes that supermarket chains are deliberately targeting pubs and further notes CAMRA research that two pubs a week are converted into supermarkets; supports CAMRA’S Pub Matters campaign calling for an end to permitted development rights on pubs; notes that any change of use to a nightclub, laundrette or theatre requires planning permission, making it odd to refuse pubs the same status; notes plans to remove permitted development rights from pubs listed as Assets of Community Value (ACVs), and calls on the Government to announce how and when this will happen; notes, however, that pubs achieving ACV status is not as simple as Ministers have suggested, with the requirement for local communities to provide boundaries and plans and that every pub must be listed separately making it unrealistic for communities to protect all valued pubs; further notes that each ACV application costs local authorities over a thousand pounds, and listing all valued UK pubs as ACVs would cost millions of pounds and create significant bureaucracy; and therefore calls on the Government to make a simpler change and put pubs into the sui generis category so that communities can comment on a proposal to convert or demolish a pub.

Royal Assent

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that Her Majesty has signified her Royal Assent to the following Acts and Measures:

Stamp Duty Land Tax Act 2015

Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015

Social Action, Responsibility and Heroism Act 2015

Insurance Act 2015

National Insurance Contributions Act 2015

Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015

Infrastructure Act 2015

Care of Churches and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction (Amendment) Measure 2015

Ecclesiastical Property Measure 2015

Church of England (Pensions) (Amendment) Measure 2015.

Destruction of Historic Sites (Syria and Iraq)

Thursday 12th February 2015 Commons Chamber

13:29

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered destruction and looting of historic sites in Syria and Iraq.

I thank the Speaker for granting this debate, the Backbench Business Committee for making the debate its own and allowing it to be heard on the Floor of the House, and the Minister and the shadow Minister for taking time out of their schedules to be with us. I also thank those who have far greater knowledge of this subject than I do for their wise counsel, especially Neil MacGregor of the British Museum and his exceptional specialists.

The current conflict in Syria, which has now enveloped large parts of Iraq, has ended its fourth year. We have seen at least 250,000 people killed, 6.5 million people displaced, 2 million refugees in neighbouring countries, and abuses, killings and ethnic and religious cleansing on an almost unimaginable scale by ISIL, the Assad regime and many others, and there is no sign of abatement. In a time of such terrible human suffering, the question must be asked: why should we turn our attention, even momentarily, to the destruction and looting of heritage—of mosques, libraries, souks, castles and churches?

The first reason is that the scale of the destruction and loss is so great—the greatest anywhere in the world since the end of the second world war—that it deserves to be better understood as just one element of the tragic conflict in the middle east. These are ancient civilisations of great beauty, accomplishment and intellectual achievement. It is an extraordinarily rich history bound up with our own history and that of other cultures and civilisations throughout the world. Some of the sites in question, such as in Aleppo, Mosul and Nineveh, are relatively well known. ISIL alone now controls more than 4,000 places of historic and archaeological interest as well as libraries, great and small, such as the Mosul library, in which it recently destroyed all the books that it took issue with including the entire children’s section.

No one group has done more to put the world’s cultural heritage in the gun sights than ISIL, and ISIL is not concealing its destruction; it is doing so brazenly with bulldozers and bombs, and it is available for all of us to see in arresting before-and-after images produced by the university of Pennsylvania and the United States Government. Those images are then broadcast by ISIL on social media. How shocking and shameful it would be if the west did absolutely nothing in the face of this destruction.

There is also a human dimension. I am talking about the unbelievably brave men and women on the ground—the curators, the site guards, the librarians, monks and academics—who are trying to protect what they hold dear by producing inventories or by bearing witness and producing the facts for the rest of the world. Many are unable or unwilling to leave, and hope—I do not think that it is an exaggeration to say this—still to be alive when it is all over to pick up the pieces.

Let me tell one story that was told to me by the British Museum. In October, a site warden at Nineveh was executed by ISIL, and every adult male who came to mourn him disappeared, and are presumed murdered. They were remarkable individuals. Most of their stories cannot and should not be told for fear of endangering them. In part, this debate pays tribute to them and salutes what they are doing.

There is a second reason for focusing our attention on the destruction. These tragic events are occurring for one of two reasons, both of which should concern us. First, it could be a deliberate attempt to subjugate communities by destroying the buildings and the heritage that they hold dear and to rob future generations of any connection to the past, or the ties that bind them together, that might allow reconciliation or even facilitate functioning economies based on tourism and visitors. That is madness applied to monuments. Secondly, systematic looting might be viewed as a significant revenue stream for ISIL, the Assad regime and others. I am talking about sculptures being turned into tanks. There is a fault line in ISIL, as there was in the Taliban in Afghanistan, between those two competing but equally concerning motivations.

Many will recall watching the TV news and seeing the Taliban dynamiting and destroying 1,700-year-old Buddhas at Bamyan in 2001, but what is considerably less well known—the story that has not been told—is that elements of the Taliban were on the telephone to wealthy individuals only 20 minutes before pressing the button and detonating the explosives trying to negotiate a $10 million ransom in return for saving and exporting those works of art. Those who sought iconoclasm and propaganda won on that occasion, but it is not always the case.

ISIL and the Assad regime are employing contractors to seek out antiquities, working at times with couriers and agents for dealers. ISIL is deploying militants to ensure its control of sites and to supervise digging in a disturbing fashion that reminds us of blood diamonds in Africa in the ’80s and ’90s. It is also licensing looting with a formal tithe or tax of 20% on those who do the work themselves.

For some local communities in Syria and Iraq, the harvesting of low-value pieces is a continuation of centuries of tradition—harvesting antiquities instead of crops. We should recognise that they are doing so because they are starving and they have no other source of income. But looting should concern us because it provides an insight into an extremely dark and dangerous underworld that affects this country. We need to understand it and to penetrate it as a way of tackling the financing of terrorism and serious organised crime. That looting, especially at the higher end, almost certainly continues the systematic looting in Iraq that was undertaken by Saddam Hussein and his regime as a significant source of revenue. As ISIL today facilitates the lines of communication that were established by Saddam, we can see that everything in history repeats itself, but with different players. Those lines of communication and passages to neighbouring countries are interwoven with the drugs trade, the arms trade and human trafficking. They are as dark and dangerous as criminality gets.

There is some mystery over where the looted works are heading. At the bottom end, one can see them freely sold on the market stalls at the Turkish-Syrian border, and some have appeared on eBay. At the top end, many of the artefacts may well be in storage until “the dust has settled”. I am pleased to report that there is little or no evidence of their emergence on the legitimate market of UK auction houses and respectable dealers, but works are believed to be appearing in other countries, most notably Germany and the city of Munich, which has a history of being a conduit for antiquities and stolen works of art.

There is a pervasive and disturbing culture of private sale in the Gulf states. Many of the ruling families of those states profess to be great lovers of art and are investing vast sums in the legitimate art market and in building some of the world’s most remarkable new museums, often in partnership with western institutions such as our own. It is extraordinary then that those states should tolerate a culture that allows the illicit trade in antiquities to thrive and to be entirely accepted. None of those Gulf states, save Sharjah, has any antiquities law or proper law enforcement. The ruling families of those states, many of whom are personally committed to the arts and view it as part of their own nation’s rise to prominence, should examine their conscience and change that culture.

The third and final reason for our taking a greater interest in this matter, and it is the most important reason as far as this debate goes, is that while this cultural barbarism appears utterly hopeless—as hopeless as the rest of these conflicts—there are practical steps that we, as one nation, could take to make a real difference and that would do our reputation in the region and the world no harm.

First, we could raise the priority of this matter in our diplomatic efforts—at the UN where a resolution is being sought; in bilateral relationships with neighbouring countries such as Turkey; through our embassy in Beirut, a key conduit for this market; and in our relations with the Gulf states. There are those in Government and the British royal family who hold some sway with those ruling families in the Gulf states. In the longer term, we should bring into law The Hague convention on works of art from conflict areas, which would be a powerful symbol of intent. It is hard for us to continue to justify not signing it, especially as the United Kingdom—proudly for me, as someone who used to work in the art business—is the leading hub in the world for that growing and extremely successful business.

Secondly, in the spirit of the monuments men of the second world war, we could make a modest but far-sighted contribution by establishing a commission to gather information to establish the truth from the fog of the war and to introduce actions in concert with our partners around the world. That could be encouraged under the auspices of the unequalled expertise of the British Museum and, as the US has under the leadership of Secretary of State John Kerry, we could make some modest funds available to help those brave individuals on the ground, funding training and mentoring such as that conducted by the British Museum and University college London both in person and, as it is the 21st century, over the internet via Skype. We could help them to inventory their collections, which is key. We need to work with groups such as the one that contacted me—the brave monks in Irbil who are scrabbling to digitise their manuscripts to preserve Iraq’s Christian heritage while time allows.

Culture is frequently neglected by the international development community in development plans and in funding choices, despite its obvious contribution to civil society, reconciliation and rebuilding economies post-conflict. I suspect that that is because most of us who live in and enjoy the west and our rich cultures take that for granted, like the air that we breathe. That is not the case in many parts of the world and certainly not in Syria and Iraq today.

Lastly, in case the deeply disturbing networks of organised criminals and terrorists seek to bring this material to our shores in the future, we should get our own house in order by ensuring that our counter-terrorist financing specialists include this work in their many priorities. It might indeed prove easier to trace these works, which are often large, difficult to transport and known to experts.

[Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)]

I am listening with fascination and horror to my hon. Friend’s account of what is happening. Does he agree that the importance of this cannot be overestimated? The first written work, the epic of Gilgamesh, is still being uncovered and studied, but the horror is that there are things we will never know about that great work because they have already been destroyed.

[Robert Jenrick]

I concur. These works, once lost, will never be recovered and many have not been properly inventoried. There are not the records that there should be. The inventory of the Kabul museum is only still being finalised with the help of the university of Chicago years after the start of the conflict. These efforts take time and resources, and they require the support of the western community.

On counter-terrorism, I suspect that it will prove easier to trace some of these incredibly dark and dangerous networks through antiquities than through drugs or arms. They are all bound inextricably together. That work must be done, understandably, without fanfare, but it is incredibly important and I would love to have reassurance that our expertise is being deployed in this area.

We should resource our current but woefully inadequate law enforcement in this area. The only dedicated law enforcement in this country is the Metropolitan police’s art and antiques squad, which comprises three officers. They are wonderfully dedicated individuals, but they are so hopelessly under-resourced that they are reportedly unable even to attend the relevant Interpol conferences to discuss and co-ordinate these activities. That is policing from an era of lovable antiques rogues in the spirit of Lovejoy and is totally not fit for purpose in dealing with serious organised crime, terrorist financing and the greatest destruction of works of art that we have known for half a century. That is unacceptable and warrants a review.

We could encourage co-operation, the key to fighting the trade in illicit antiquities, and promote good market behaviour such as the voluntary decision of some of the auction houses to set the year 2000 as one before which sellers must prove the provenance or the collected history of works of art, effectively shrinking the market for illicit works. That good practice is occurring and there is good news within this country, but it deserves the support of Government and deserves some co-operation. The Government could aid those efforts by appointing a co-ordinator to lead on the issue, bringing together the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Home Office and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and could bring the museums, the art trade and law enforcement together to ensure that this country is a shining example of responsible cultural stewardship, whether in our great public collections or in the art business.

In conclusion, we are witnessing cultural barbarism at its worst and its consequences run deeper than arts and culture. Madness is being applied to monuments and sculptures are being turned into tanks. I believe we should act to help Iraqis and Syrians protect and preserve their heritage against terror, acknowledging our shared culture and common responsibility. By acting, however modestly, in some of the ways that I have suggested—modest efforts will have the most practical effect—we will do a good that will last long after our own time and, in the world of politics, leave a legacy for future generations.

13:46

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

At 2 o’clock I must chair the Public Accounts Commission, so I will not be able to stay for the debate. I apologise to the House and I will try to come back.

I very much wanted to take part in the debate to talk about my personal experience, having visited both Syria and Iraq. I also felt that it was right to support my parliamentary neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick). I support everything he said in his most impressive speech and I will not repeat all the excellent advice that he has given to our Government.

This issue might seem a long way away, but it is of the most dramatic importance. It is not just a cultural catastrophe, as my hon. Friend has outlined, but a humanitarian catastrophe of the first importance. One cannot divorce the preservation of artefacts from the preservation of local community. Only on Monday, Archbishop Warda of Irbil was at a meeting in the House of Lords, which I attended. He also gave a sermon in Westminster cathedral yesterday. He spoke most movingly about the trauma suffered by his community, which is of appalling proportions. The problems we have in our own country, the issues we were debating and getting very heated about in Prime Minister’s Question Time yesterday and the budget I will be discussing later in the Public Accounts Commission all pale into insignificance when one listens to a man such as Archbishop Warda talk about his local community.

Twenty-five thousand Christian families have fled the Nineveh plain and 125,000 people—men, women and children—are without their homes. That is not happening in 1915 or 1940; it happened in August of last year. I have been to these places and I shall describe them a little in a moment, because I feel passionately that having started all this we have a responsibility to finish it.

Let me first follow on from what my hon. Friend the Member for Newark was saying about Syria. I have been to Syria, but I must admit it was not a recent visit. I have also received an invitation to speak at Damascus university on the plight of Christians, but I think that perhaps discretion is the better part of valour in not going to speak in Damascus at present. However, I have been to Damascus in the past and I visited the house in Straight street where St Paul was converted in the home of Ananias. Apparently that house is in good order and has not been destroyed. Whether that is because it is in a part of Damascus that is controlled by Assad forces, I do not know.

As my hon. Friend said, the destruction in Syria has been truly appalling. According to the United Nations, 300 cultural sites in Syria have been affected by the civil war. The United Nations Institute for Training and Research has accumulated a great deal of knowledge on what has been going on. Focusing on 18 areas of particular importance, UNITAR found 24 sites destroyed, 104 severely damaged, 85 moderately damaged and 77 possibly damaged. Those are sites of world heritage status. Such status is not granted casually; they are vital sites.

In one world heritage site in Syria, the old city of Aleppo, UNESCO believes that 121 historical buildings have been damaged or destroyed—equal to 30% to 40% of the area covered by the world heritage designation. The minaret of the 11th-century Umayyad mosque has been toppled, while the citadel of Aleppo is being occupied by military forces and has suffered at least three violent explosions.

The oldest surviving Byzantine church, that of St Simeon Stylites, built on the site of the famed hermit’s pillar, is at risk given its location 19 miles north-west of Aleppo. There is also damage to Krak des Chevaliers, which was created by the Hospitaller order in the 12th century. I should declare an interest because I am a Knight of that order. We are still around after all these centuries, trying to do good work in hospitals around the world, particularly in the middle east, and the work is extremely challenging. Illegal excavations are occurring in the Valley of the Tombs and the Camp of Diocletian—some of them undertaken using heavy machinery, bound to do a great deal of damage. The damage in Syria has been absolutely appalling.

I now turn to Iraq. When Saddam Hussein was in power, I visited the Christian communities there. I also visited Babylon, which, of course, is one of the great wonders of the world. Alexander the Great chose it to be the capital of his world empire. Following the mistaken invasion of Iraq, the coalition, unbelievably, created a military base right on top of the archaeological site, 150 hectares in size.

Babylon is a strange place. There is a lot of pastiche renovation undertaken by Saddam, but the damage to Babylon has been appalling since the invasion and it is getting worse, so I think that we do have a certain responsibility. Looters have attacked cities such as Nimrod and Nineveh, whose names resound with biblical and literary echoes that have rolled down the centuries, and they are now at the centre of destruction.

Let me quote from the prophet Nahum, whose tomb I visited in the village of al-Quosh. Of all the villages that I visited in the Nineveh plain in 2008, only two of those Christian villages—and I visited several—have not been occupied by ISIS forces. They are the villages of al-Qosh and Sharafiya. In the village of al-Qosh one can still find the tomb of the prophet Nahum, and what he wrote all those years ago still resounds today:

“Take ye the spoil of the silver, take the spoil of the gold: for there is no end of the riches of all the precious furniture. She is destroyed, and rent, and torn: the heart melteth, and the knees fail, and all the loins lose their strength: and the faces of them…are as the blackness of a kettle.”

That was Nahum talking thousands of years ago, and his tomb is right there, in one of the only two Christian villages that have not been pillaged and had their population expelled and churches trashed.

Unbelievably, in 2008 I was saying much the same thing. I organised a debate in Westminster Hall on the plight of the Christians and the Christian sites in the Nineveh plains. I also quoted Nahum, who said:

“Your people are scattered on the mountains with none to gather them.”

I said in that debate—it is there in Hansard—

“When I went to the Nineveh plains, what struck me was that there was a sense of security in those ancient, entirely Christian villages. I met many displaced people who had come up from Basra and Baghdad to settle in the Nineveh plains, and I heard some absolutely heart-rending stories.”—[Official Report, 16 December 2008; Vol. 485, c. 26WH.]

I went on to describe them.

It is extraordinary that, having started all this mess, having invaded Iraq—Saddam, for all his faults, was protecting some of these sites—

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

Nicking stuff from them.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Yes, but they were not actually being looted and the population was not actually being dispersed. Although things were bad under Saddam—I am no apologist for Saddam—I can tell my hon. Friend that they are infinitely worse there.

Back in 2008 I was given various reassurances by the then Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Bill Rammell, who told me:

“It is difficult to separate this issue from the broader picture in Iraq which, as a result of improving security and progress towards reconciliation, is a far brighter one than we have seen for several years—certainly brighter than it was a year ago.”—[Official Report, 16 December 2008; Vol. 485, c. 41WH.]

We have a responsibility. My hon. Friend the Member for Newark has given some practical ideas of what we can do, but I have visited those churches and I have listened, in those churches in the Nineveh plains, to services being held in Aramaic, the ancient tongue of our Lord, and I know that it is impossible to separate the expulsion of a people from the issue of the protection of those sites. ISIS, as a result of coalition bombing, has retreated from quite a few villages on the Nineveh plains. The Christian population could possibly be enticed to go back there—because the best way to protect the villages and the archaeological sites is to get the original population back—but they are too terrified to return because they do not trust the Iraqi army.

When ISIS enter a Christian village, they tell the Christians that they have three choices—“You leave, or you convert to Islam, or you die”—so most leave. If ISIS discover that someone is a Shi’a, they give them no choice; they kill them. I am afraid, however, that the Christian population in the Nineveh plains do not have confidence that the Iraqi army, dominated by Shi’as—because many Sunnis have joined or collaborate with ISIS—can protect them. It is therefore down to us.

I am not suggesting that we send some regiment from Aldershot to those burning hot plains where they will make themselves a target, but surely there must be a way forward. Having, in a sense, destabilised Iraq and put the Christian population at risk, can we just walk away and say, “We have fulfilled our side of the bargain by just putting in six planes”? I think we have to do far more than that. We have to arm the local Christian population; that is what they are asking for. I asked that question specifically of Archbishop Warda on Monday. He said, “That is what we want you to do—send in the international peacemakers, protect our people, let our people go back to our villages, and then we can protect their sites.” The same thing, surely—although it would be an infinitely more difficult and complicated picture—applies to Syria.

I will end on that point. My hon. Friend the Member for Newark has done a great service to the House in directing our attention to the appalling problems and humanitarian and cultural disaster going on in that part of the world. I hope that people in our country feel that, given our history, we have some sense of responsibility.

13:58

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

It is a real pleasure to be able to speak in a debate such as this, which seems to be on a rather obscure and specialist subject. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) so ably put it, there are far greater ramifications of what is going on in the cultural pillaging of Syria and Iraq beyond the appreciation of culture and the great treasures that are gradually disappearing.

I declare an interest not only as the vice chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on archaeology and chairman of the British Museum all-party group, but as someone who has studied Mesopotamology at Cambridge. It is not often that one gets the opportunity to revisit one’s studies in this place. I have also visited Syria twice. On my last visit there, five years ago, we went to Aleppo, a city which I think we would find hard to identify now. I found the museum there and went in search of some of the excavations by the great Mesopotamologist Sir Max Mallowan, who went to school at Lancing college in my constituency and was, of course, married to Agatha Christie. When I eventually found some of the finds from Tell Brak—one of his great excavations—rather alarmingly, I was asked by the guard who was on duty which of them I would like to buy.

Preservation of antiquities in Syria and Iraq has always left rather a lot to be desired, but there is a sense of déjà vu about this issue. After the first Gulf war there was extensive looting of the regional museums in Iraq in particular—that cradle of civilisation, Mesopotamia, to which my hon. Friends have alluded. It is estimated that the museums in Basra, Kufa and Kut, the great Nebuchadnezzar museum in Babylon and the museums in Kirkuk and Duhuk lost between them something like 4,000 priceless objects.

After the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and after the great museum of Baghdad was miraculously almost untouched by the bombing, in April 2003 it fell foul of the looters. That was one of the great museums of the world; it had one of the greatest collections of cultural treasures in the world—treasures from Ur, Babylon, Nineveh, Nimrod and Ashur, examples of the earliest writing, fantastic cylinder seals and cuneiform clay tablets. Some 15,000 objects from the Sumerian, Akkadian and other periods were pillaged, including 5,000 cylinder seals, and gold and silver objects. Among them was, famously, the great vase of Warka, from the ancient Sumerian city of Uruk, one of the great treasures of the world. It was found in the temple complex of the Sumerian goddess Inanna by German archaeologists back in the 1930s. It is one of the earliest known surviving works of narrative relief sculpture with human figures, going back to the fourth millennium BC. That vase was wrenched from its base in the cabinet in the Baghdad museum. Then it went missing.

There followed an incredible story which is probably much more interesting than what happened in that rather poor film, “The Monuments Men”, about a fascinating part of history. A small delegation of mostly reservists from America were put in charge of trying to retrieve some of those treasures from the Baghdad museum. An amnesty was issued and, remarkably, out of those 15,000 objects, some 4,000 gradually trickled back to the museum. That included, remarkably, the great vase of Warka. Its return was described in The Times back in 2003. Three unidentified men in their early twenties turned up outside the Baghdad museum driving a rather clapped-out red Toyota. The Times went on:

“As they struggled to lift a large object wrapped in a blanket out of the boot, the American guards on the gate”—

at the Baghdad museum—

“raised their weapons. For a moment, a priceless 5,000-year-old vase thought to have been lost in looting after the fall of Baghdad seemed about to meet its end. But one of the men peeled back the blanket to reveal carved alabaster pieces that were clearly something extraordinary. Three feet high and weighing 600 lb intact, this was the Sacred Vase of Warka, regarded by experts as one of the most precious of all the treasures taken”

during that looting.

The vase of Warka was returned. There was great concern because it was in about 20 pieces, so it was thought to have been damaged. In fact, when the Germans dug it up in the 1930s, it was in about 20 pieces, so with a lot of conservation work and a good deal of glue the great vase of Warka was put back together. Alas, I do not know where the great vase of Warka is at present; whether it has been taken to a site of safety, I do not know. Others may have more information on that.

We had a fascinating talk from one of the reservist colonels who led that group of American soldiers retrieving those objects, who came to Parliament some years ago. Indeed, a book has been published about the looting of the Baghdad museum. He told us the story of the red Toyota and he showed us some amazing pictures. The looters tried to get into the Bank of Baghdad, where many of the treasures had been taken for safety, the gold treasures in particular.

I have to say to my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), who has now left the Chamber, that quite a lot of things that were thought to have gone missing were in the private collection of Saddam Hussein and other members of the Government of Iraq, so Saddam did his bit for early looting.

Among the pictures is a photograph taken from the vaults of the bank in Baghdad where, apparently, some rather hapless looters used a rocket-propelled grenade launcher to try to get through a solid steel German safe door. All the picture shows is a small dent in the safe door and a pair of boots from a hapless individual who tried to gain access. Fortunately, the looters did not succeed and many of the treasures in that bank vault were later returned to the Baghdad museum.

So there is a history of looting in that country. In addition to the 4,000 objects which were returned during that amnesty, over subsequent months and years further objects were recovered from Jordan, Syria, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Italy and the United States. It is estimated that around half of those looted objects were returned. Where they are now, I do not know. Where the others went to, we do not know.

This debate is timely. We are about to see the release of a film about the amazing life of Gertrude Bell based on the book by Georgina Howell, “Daughter of the Desert”. Gertrude Bell was an extraordinary individual who, in her time, was the oriental secretary to the high commissioner for Iraq. She played a part in the Cairo conference in 1921, alongside Winston Churchill, T.E. Lawrence and others. She was part of those who created the constitution of Iraq and she was also responsible for the founding of the museum of Baghdad in 1926, the major hall of which is devoted to her memory.

What happened in the 1920s sowed the seeds of what we are reaping now—what has happened in recent decades in Iraq and the greater middle east, and the history that produced Saddam Hussein. So the debate is timely. The situation in Iraq and in Syria, as we have heard, is difficult to assess, because for obvious reasons we cannot get access. I, too, have been speaking with the British Museum, which has been liaising with the UK Border Force and other agencies in case any of those objects come into our geographical territory. I have also been speaking to Sam Hardy, to whom I think my hon. Friend the Member for Newark has spoken as well. He is an archaeologist who has spent a long time specialising in the illicit trade in antiquities.

We have limited information, but from the aerial photos it is very clear that so many of these important sites have been badly damaged and looted. There have been extremely disturbing reports, to which my hon. Friend alluded, of the cold-blooded execution of those who bravely guarded these great museums, in particular the museum in Nineveh, where the site guards lost their lives trying to protect those priceless objects.

The destruction of Syria’s archaeological sites has become catastrophic. There are unauthorised excavations going on, and the plunder of and trafficking in stolen cultural artefacts which is an escalating problem. Many of the objects have already been lost to science and society, and the context in which many of them are being dug up in unsupervised conditions will be lost for ever. The trading in looted Syrian cultural artefacts has apparently become the third largest trade in illegal goods worldwide. It is big business. Back in the 1960s it was a buyer’s market as there were few national collectors interested in Islamic art or other antiquities in Syria, but that has changed dramatically since the Gulf countries—Qatar and Abu Dhabi in particular—have become interested in the artefacts. There is also great interest in China and from Germany.

Aleppo, Syria’s largest city and a crossroads of trade and culture for countless centuries, has been especially hard hit. Its vast, labyrinthine souk—the largest covered souk in the world—was tragically gutted by a fire in 2012. The Citadel, a castle that dates back to 3,000 BC, has been damaged. The minaret of the Umayyad mosque was toppled by fighting in 2013. Hundreds of other sites have been looted. Shops selling Syrian antiquities dot the Turkish side of the border, just 40 miles north of Aleppo.

Another wonderful site is Palmyra. I remember my visit to Palmyra—one of the most beautiful and dramatic archaeological sites in the world. I got up to see the sun rise from the temple of Bel. I had the entire complex of that huge Roman city to myself. I fear the security there left a lot to be desired in those days, let alone now, open as it is. It is an ancient settlement founded in around 2,000 BC, made famous by the great Queen Zenobia—a caravan city during Hellenistic and Roman times, on the edge of the Roman empire. Serious damage has been happening there. Syrian authorities confiscated three busts from Palmyra dating from 200 AD that had apparently been hacked off a tomb.

The majority of looted artefacts from Syria are now being held in antiquity investment storage pits and other stash sites for future sale at higher prices once the buyer’s market glut of cultural heritage artefacts has dissipated. In effect, these objects are being warehoused for people to make a fast buck in future. They will re-emerge, but in the meantime we have little intelligence as to where they are or whether they are being looked after properly. I am afraid that while countries such as China have a ravenous appetite for these archaeological artefacts, this market will exist. We need to appreciate the scale of destruction that is going on, with priceless objects plundered and hidden, and sites destroyed, losing vital historical information and its context for ever.

Some hon. Members—not in your case, I am sure, Madam Deputy Speaker—do not appreciate culture and the importance of the amazing sites and priceless antiquities that several of us have mentioned. However, there are also major implications for how we deal with terrorism, how we rebuild that troubled part of the world in future, and how we approach international aid. As my hon. Friend the Member for Newark said, people who buy looted artefacts from Syria or Iraq are feeding insurgencies, fuelling the purchase of arms, and financing foreign extremists and mercenaries, as well as all sorts of other criminality.

It is estimated that looting is IS’s second largest revenue source after oil sales. My hon. Friend alluded to 4,000—although I think the figure is nearer to 4,500—archaeological sites, including UNESCO world heritage sites, which are now under the control of IS. Iraqi intelligence claims that IS alone has collected as much as $36 million from the sale of artefacts. It is the equivalent of what the Taliban were doing through the cultivation and sale of heroin in Afghanistan to feed markets in the west. We took that very seriously, and it was a priority for the invading and occupying forces in that country. Yet the devastation and profit involved in the plundering of these sites and the sale of antiquities does not seem to register remotely as clearly on the radar of the world.

We are facing a quadruple threat. First, jihadists are looting these sites, claiming some sort of religious reason for doing so—my hon. Friend the Member for Newark alluded to the destruction of the Great Buddhas of Bamiyan—but they in fact, entirely hypocritically, profiting on international black markets from their destruction. Secondly, it is alleged that President Assad is knowingly selling antiquities to pay his henchmen. There are videos showing Assad’s soldiers at Palmyra, some time ago, ripping out grave relief sculptures and smiling for the cameras as they are loaded on to trucks. Thirdly, the Free Syrian Army, in its various different guises, is looting antiquities as a vital source of funding. Fourthly, an increasingly active part of the population is involved in looting. Ordinary people are looting Syria’s cultural heritage because they have no jobs, income or tangible economic prospects, and are increasingly turning to age-old plundering techniques, in some cases looting to order. As a result of the activities of those four different parties, the fantastic culture of Syria and Iraq is being systematically plundered, yet that is hardly featuring on the radar in the west. We are also having to face the consequences of the financing of terrorist organisations through the plunder of antiquities.

Looking forward to a day in future when peace, in some form, comes to the region, the looting also threatens to deprive Syria, in particular, of one of its best opportunities for a post-conflict economic recovery based on tourism, which until the conflict started contributed some 12% of national income. There is the fantastic site at Palmyra that I mentioned; Dura-Europos, a fantastic Hellenistic caravan city; Ebla, a bronze age site; the Hama water wheels; the third millennium city of Mari; and the cities of Raqqa and Ugarit.

What should we be doing? My hon. Friend mentioned some practical solutions that we need to address with a greater sense of urgency. Collecting looted antiquities is a white-collar crime. The 1970 UNESCO convention, from an international law perspective, is a rather weak measure that exacts, at the most, a slap on the wrist for violators. The 1995 UNIDROIT—International Institute for the Unification of Private Law—convention is stronger and could potentially enforce more robust international law. Yet, for that very reason, far fewer countries have ratified it, fearing that it might target their citizens’ auction houses and museums. Another problem is that the law frequently differs between the source country from which the artefacts are looted and the country to which they are smuggled and then sold. That is a defence lawyer’s dream come true.

After the maelstrom of violence in the region, a 2003 United Nations resolution called on all 197 UN members to stop the trade in Iraqi antiquities without verified provenance. That now also applies to Syria. The European Union has recently banned the import of antiquities from Syria, but, inexplicably, this prohibition has not been followed by the International Council of Museums. Interpol has drawn up red lists of material known to be stolen from Syria. UNESCO has held workshops on how to combat the illicit trafficking of cultural heritage property from Syria and elsewhere. One sign of progress, I hope, is a new law in Germany that could point the way forward in requiring a certified export licence for an antiquity in order to secure an import licence. That is encouraging, but it still does not tackle the situation in the Gulf states and in China, in particular, where such safeguards are not in place.

As my hon. Friend said, we need, on a practical level, a proper survey of exactly what is going on before we can come up with solutions. There is a pressing need for more training of more specialists who can work in customs offices and at airports and sea ports to intercept some of these things and investigate whether there is any information about their having hit the market. He also mentioned the draft resolution before the UN Security Council requiring all member states to prevent the sale of antiquities from Syria, similar to the measure passed 10 years ago on antiquities from Iraq.

My hon. Friend alluded to blood diamonds. Everybody knows what blood diamonds are. There was a very successful film about blood diamonds. They have ended up on everybody’s blacklist, and we understand why. We should apply the same criteria to antiquities of such importance from these countries. It should be easier to do that because they are more easily identifiable and we know their provenance, as opposed to one diamond looking very much like another. That is the approach that we should be taking. There should be no excuse for being any part of a trade in these illicit antiquities that have been taken from their rightful homes in Syria and in Iraq.

By participating in such trade, and by countries not doing everything they possibly can to clamp down on it, we are creating a rod for our own back, because it allows for the financing of terrorist activities, which have affected our everyday lives, not to mention those of the brave servicemen and women who go to fight the cause in the middle east and try to contain the turbulent situation in those two troubled countries. We ignore the pillaging of their cultural background at our peril. To those who think that those dusty sculptures from centuries ago are of no relevance, I say that they are absolutely key to how we deal with that part of the world and, most importantly, hopefully to how we restore peace to a particularly troubled part of the globe.

14:20

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

I congratulate the hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) on persuading the Backbench Business Committee to hold this debate, on the quality of his speech and on his success in persuading the hon. Members for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) and for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) to come along and make excellent and provocative—in the best sense of the word—speeches.

The hon. Member for Newark rightly referred to the danger the current conflict in Syria and Iraq poses to the peoples of both countries and to its implications not only internationally and domestically, but for some of the world’s great cultural sites in both countries. As he said, any debate about the damage to Syria and Iraq’s great cultural sites cannot ignore the security realities in those two countries, whose peoples are experiencing huge turmoil. The hon. Member for Gainsborough underlined the fact that thousands of lives have been lost and millions have been forced to flee their homes as sectarian, religious and political fault lines have opened. Ensuring an effective response to the rise of ISIL remains fundamental and we as a country must continue to play our part in ensuring that Iraq has the political, security and diplomatic support required, including strong support for the Kurdistan Regional Government and the peshmerga.

In Syria, ISIL-governed territory is being used to draw in, train and radicalise jihadists, including from Britain. Although the Assad regime cannot have a long-term future, the international community must continue to maintain efforts to achieve a transitional agreement of the type envisaged in the Geneva II process. I recognise the scale of the barriers to such an agreement, but the threat posed by ISIL must continue to be a motive for our international efforts.

As the three hon. Members who have already spoken underlined, both Iraq and Syria are exceptionally rich in terms of their cultural heritage. Indeed, parts of what is now Iraq and Syrian territory have long been regarded as the cradle of human civilisation. There are an enormous number of ancient sites in both countries, including Syria’s great Umayyad mosque, the 13th-century citadel that is part of the world heritage site in Aleppo, the site of Palmyra, which the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham mentioned, the Krak des Chevaliers and the Salah Ed-Din, the ancient city of Bosra and the many monuments in Damascus. It is clear that Syria has much to lose in terms of its cultural heritage from the ongoing conflict. As the three previous speakers have outlined, Iraq, too, has much to lose, including the ancient cities of Ashur and Samarra, and many other great sites of cultural heritage, which are under attack from the conflict within its borders.

There may be some outside this House who ask, “Does what’s happening to those cultural sites in Iraq and Syria really matter? If it does, is it really that important for the UK?” I share the view of the three previous speakers that it does matter and that, at its most basic level, heritage gives us a sense of place, gives a people a sense of their shared identity, and helps to bind nations together. Even though we in the UK may never visit some or all of the sites mentioned in this debate, our shared humanity means that parts of our common heritage are being attacked.

As the excellent Lakhdar Brahimi, the former UN-Arab League joint special representative for Syria, said recently:

“Destroying the inheritance of the past robs future generations of a powerful legacy, deepens hatred and despair and undermines all attempts to foster reconciliation.”

Indeed, the director general of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, has talked of attacks on cultural heritage being, on occasion, part of a strategy of deliberate cultural cleansing, with implicitly a recognition that it is designed to erode collective identity, encourage hatred and therefore make it easier for people to access less tolerant, less inclusive, more hostile and destructive ideologies.

It is therefore not a surprise that ISIL has been involved in much of the worst recent attacks on cultural heritage, blowing up, for example, the shrine to the prophet Jonah in Mosul. There are also reports of ISIL bulldozing ancient statues along with Sufi and Shi’a shrines in Raqqa province.

As the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham was at pains to point out, however, it is not just ISIL that is at fault. The Syrian air force bombed the Krak des Chevaliers, and looters have taken advantage of the lack of Government to destroy eastern Syria’s ancient Roman city of Dura-Europos. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s assessment of what is being done locally, in this incredibly dangerous and difficult conflict, to safeguard a series of key cultural sites in Syria and Iraq that are under sustained attack.

UNESCO, the UN’s cultural and heritage body, has documented the multiple threats to Iraq and Syria’s most important cultural sites, including deliberate attacks, destruction as collateral damage in fighting, the greed of unscrupulous traders and collectors, and the organised vandalism by terrorist and other organisations wanting to erase the past achievements of their cultures. It would be good to hear from the Minister how the Government are supporting UNESCO in its work.

UNESCO leads on a series of international conventions that set international standards to deal with the specific risks faced by heritage during conflict, including most recently the statutes of the International Criminal Court, which have defined the intentional destruction of historical buildings as a war crime. As the hon. Member for Newark said, Britain has not yet signed up to the Hague convention on the protection of cultural property in the event of armed conflict. Labour began the process of signing up to it, but I understand that the current ministerial team at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has not yet followed up that work. Is the Minister able to give a new commitment or is he only able to give—I say this gently—some weasel words?

UNESCO has sought to raise international concern about the destruction of cultural heritage in conflict zones and to encourage better local readiness to prevent and minimise devastation of cultural sites in the event of conflict. It would be good to hear from the Minister the Foreign Office’s assessment of UNESCO’s effectiveness in raising the issue’s profile internationally and in helping local communities prepare for and mitigate the impact of conflict on cultural sites. Following on from a point made by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham, how much funding, if any, does the Foreign and Commonwealth Office or the Department for International Development allocate to help?

Illegal trafficking of cultural property is a major threat to crucial heritage sites during conflict. In theory, UNESCO, Interpol, the World Customs Organisation, the International Council of Museums and many others are already lined up to work together to alert the art market about the dangers of traded goods and to attempt to limit such illegal trade. It would be helpful to hear from the Minister the Foreign Office’s assessment of the scale of such trade, and what, if anything, is Britain’s contribution to attempting to limit it. Are Foreign Office Ministers, as the hon. Member for Newark encouraged, raising the issue of illicit trade with our middle east allies?

Last July, UNESCO held an emergency meeting that brought together cultural heritage experts from Iraq and the wider international community to develop an action plan to mitigate the cultural damage from the recent upsurge in conflict. A further international meeting was organised in late September by the French and Italian delegations to UNESCO to develop such ideas. What was Britain’s contribution to those meetings?

The brutality of ISIL demands a continuing, determined international effort to confront and limit its capabilities in Iraq and Syria, while, as the hon. Member for Newark rightly set out, the scale of their damage and that of others to crucial cultural sites demands that Britain should be part of the international effort to help in minimising the damage and should stand ready to support efforts to rehabilitate the sites where possible. I look forward to hearing the Minister say how Britain is fulfilling that role and how it will do so in future.

14:30

[The Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) on securing this debate. Its quality has been hugely increased by both the long-standing interest and the long experience that he and my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) bring to policies on archaeology and the trade in cultural antiquities.

The Government are deeply concerned by the destruction of cultural and religious sites in both Syria and Iraq, and particularly by the looting of historic artefacts and the illicit trade in them. In Syria, damage has been caused to all six UNESCO world heritage sites. As hon. Members have said, they include the old city of Aleppo, which houses souks going as far back as the 12th century, and Krak des Chevaliers, which has stood since the 11th century. We believe that all sides in the conflict have a responsibility to protect these sites of cultural importance. We are dealing not only with action by ISIL but, as has been said, with military tactics used by the Assad regime in Syria that have caused considerable damage, particularly to Aleppo, including air strikes, artillery and barrel bombs.

As was the case with the Taliban in Afghanistan and the terrorists linked to al-Qaeda in Mali, we are dealing with an extremist group in Iraq that is seeking to impose iconoclasm on any evidence of religious practice that does not conform to its extremely narrow and perverted interpretation of Islam. In Iraq, the Green Church, one of the oldest orthodox Christian churches in the middle east, and the Mosque of the Prophet Younis have both been deliberately obliterated by ISIL explosives. As my hon. Friends the Members for Newark, for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) and for East Worthing and Shoreham have explained, the wanton destruction is not only a cultural crime, representing the loss of irreplaceable artefacts and manuscripts of times past, but something with profound consequences. It has an impact on diversity in the middle east, not just historically, but today and in looking forward to a middle east where, we hope, it will remain possible for people of different faiths or different origins to live together in peace.

The destruction is undermining the rich cultural heritage, history and sense of belonging of all communities in Iraq and Syria. My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough was right to remind the House, as he did in 2008—I spoke in that debate as the then Opposition spokesman—and on a number of occasions since, about the traumatic situation faced by Christians in their daily lives in the middle east. In both Iraq and Syria, the destruction of heritage is placing an even greater strain on social bonds, which were already stretched to breaking point. Looking forward to the day when there is stability again in both Syria and Iraq, one consequence of the destruction of cultural monuments is that the opportunities for cultural tourism will be much diminished, which will harm the efforts of both countries to rebuild their economies and give their people opportunities.

Hon. Members asked what the Government are doing to raise such concerns with countries in the region. I can tell the House that the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), who has responsibility for dealing with the middle east, has already raised those concerns during meetings in Egypt and the Gulf, and he is doing so during his visit to Baghdad today.

The Government are concerned that the smuggling of historic artefacts is being used by terrorist organisations, including ISIL, to raise revenue. ISIL is the most abhorrent, brutal terrorist organisation that the world has seen—certainly in modern times—and we have all been horrified by the abuses it has committed against the people of Syria, Iraq and the wider region. It is worth reminding ourselves, however, that although we rightly speak and think about the threat to ancient Christian communities, Yazidis and others, the majority of ISIL’s victims are Muslims. ISIL has as little respect for the lives and safety of Muslims as it does for the lives and safety of others.

ISIL’s licensing of the wholesale looting of archaeological sites by criminal gangs is a further example of its cynicism. Our assessment is that ISIL is generating the majority of its revenue from oil smuggling and extortion, rather than from the illicit trade in antiquities. However, it is clearly our responsibility to ensure that we use all possible measures to deny ISIL access to funds and to constrain it from executing its brutal campaign.

The Government have been active on the international stage to discourage and disrupt smuggling, including of antiquities. UN Security Council resolution 2170, which was adopted during the United Kingdom’s presidency of the Security Council last August, prohibits all trade that assists ISIL. A further Security Council resolution due to be adopted today will oblige states to take steps to prevent the trade in Iraqi and Syrian cultural property illegally removed from those countries. The second resolution demonstrates for the first time the international community’s resolve to suppress the financing of ISIL through the illegal trade in cultural artefacts. As a co-sponsor of the resolution, we have played a key role in ensuring that this source of terrorist funding was addressed by the Security Council. We continue to work with our partners in Europe and beyond to ensure the rapid and full implementation of both Security Council resolutions, and to impose sanctions on individuals involved in ISIL’s financing networks.

We are engaging with our European partners to amend the EU Syria sanctions regime to put beyond doubt the principle that, under its terms, the trade in artefacts from Syria is illegal. We co-sponsored a resolution at the UN Human Rights Council last September, which highlighted and condemned the destruction of monuments, shrines, churches, mosques and other places of worship in Iraq, and encouraged the Government of Iraq to protect those sites.

Before I come on to the specific points made during the debate, I want to issue a word of caution. As my hon. Friend the Member for Newark acknowledged, we must be realistic about what the United Kingdom can do on the ground to protect historic and religious sites in Syria and Iraq. We do not have a diplomatic presence in Syria, and we have no dialogue with the Assad regime. We are, however, aware of the ongoing destruction in that country—notably by that regime itself—and such attacks, while wreaking appalling cultural damage, also have a terrible human cost.

We remain committed to degrading and defeating ISIL so that it no longer poses a threat to the UK, the people of Syria and Iraq, or to that region’s cultural heritage, but we must recognise that this will be a long-term campaign. The Government continue to push for an inclusive political transition in Syria that will see the end of the Assad regime, and we continue to support the Iraqi Government’s efforts to push back ISIL, recover Iraqi territory, and meet the needs and provide for the safety of all Iraq’s communities.

We are assisting refugees and displaced people throughout the region with the provision of more than £800 million of humanitarian relief. When it comes to spending priorities, I think we are right to give priority to that humanitarian catastrophe and the millions of refugees—people who have been displaced within Iraq and Syria and those who fled to neighbouring states—over other forms of relief. We will therefore continue to prioritise our efforts to end the conflict in Syria and Iraq so that peace and stability can be restored, and cultural and religious sites protected.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham asked about the 1970 UNESCO convention on the means of prohibiting and preventing the illicit trade in cultural goods. That is generally accepted as the key point of reference for an ethical approach by museums to their acquisitions, leading to greater checking of the origin and provenance of items. The UK is party to that convention, and we supported the 1970 threshold as far back as 2000. As my hon. Friend knows, the Museums Association code of ethics published in 2002 includes that 1970 threshold, and we are open to trying to persuade other countries that have not yet signed up to that convention to do so.

My hon. Friend asked about the implementation by the United Kingdom of European Union and United Nations sanctions on cultural property. Sanctions orders are in place for both Syria and Iraq. The Syria regulation covers

“Syrian cultural property goods and other goods of archaeological, historical, cultural, rare scientific or religious importance,”

and prohibits their export, import, transfer or the provision of brokering services related to their export, import or transfer

“where there are reasonable grounds to suspect that the goods have been removed from Syria without the consent of their legitimate owner or have been removed in breach of Syrian law or international law”.

The order applies to objects that have been removed from Syria on or after 9 May 2011. Exporting or importing such goods contrary to prohibitions under that order automatically became an offence and attracted penalties under the Customs and Excise Management Act 1979—indeed, the order increased penalties for those offences. We believe that the Syria order provides an effective means by which to enforce EU and UN resolutions.

Comparable arrangements are in place for Iraq where we have the implementation of United Nations rather than European Union sanctions. The 2003 Iraq order prohibits the import or export of any item of illegally removed Iraqi cultural property, and requires anyone who holds or controls any such item to transfer it to a constable—there is a legal duty not only to refrain from participating in that trade, but if someone has such property, they must hand it over to the police without delay. The order defines illegally removed Iraqi cultural property as

“any other items of archaeological, historical, cultural, rare scientific or religious importance”

that have been illegally removed from any location in Iraq since 6 August 1990.

In terms of practical implementation, my colleagues in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport have highlighted those orders with key stakeholders, including the art market, the police and museums. The Arts Council’s export licensing unit, which handles export licence applications for objects of cultural interest, has provided exporters with notices on the prohibitions applicable to cultural objects from Iraq and Syria. That guidance highlights the prohibitions and explains that when export licences are sought, the export licensing unit must be able to rule out the possibility that those items fall within the prohibited categories.

The Dealing in Cultural Objects (Offences) Act 2003 makes it a criminal offence to deal dishonestly in tainted cultural property from anywhere in the world, and someone found guilty is liable on conviction in the Crown court to a prison sentence of up to seven years and/or an unlimited fine. If convicted in a magistrates court the maximum sentences are six months’ imprisonment and/or a fine of up to £5,000. DCMS has issued guidelines for collectors, auctioneers, dealers and museums, and the Arts Council now runs a dedicated cultural property advice website aimed precisely at those who are collecting, buying and selling art and antiquities in the United Kingdom.

Let me respond to a number of specific points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Newark. I mentioned what the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs is continuing to do in the middle east, but my hon. Friend also mentioned Germany, and hinted at other European countries as places where some of this illegal traffic is taking place. From my experience of dealing with the German Government, I think that they would wish to crack down, and be seen to crack down heavily, on such illicit trade. I am happy to ask our ambassadors and our consul general in Munich—my hon. Friend particularly mentioned that city —to speak with the relevant authorities there. It would be helpful if he could provide me with any detailed evidence that we could draw to the attention of the legitimate prosecuting and police authorities in those countries.

My hon. Friend also asked about turning the Hague convention into law. The Government’s position is that we remain committed to ratifying it by amendment to statute, although it has not yet been possible to secure the parliamentary time needed to pass the relevant legislation. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas) slightly marred what was otherwise a constructive speech by trying to sound a little partisan. I have to remind him that the adoption of the second protocol, as far back as 1999, removed the objections that previous British Governments had had to adopting the original convention. It took the then Labour Government five years before they announced the intention to ratify in May 2004, and they then had another six years in office when they were unable to find the parliamentary time to do so. I am glad that there is cross-party support for putting this into statute and I think it best if we approach the issue in that fashion.

[Mr Thomas]

Will the Minister confirm whether there are any remaining blockages to the Hague convention on the protection of cultural property being implemented? Has the necessary parliamentary device been drafted, or do a series of consultations still have to happen? Are there any other blockages preventing it from happening?

[Mr Lidington]

It is just a matter of finding parliamentary time against other priorities for Government legislation.

My hon. Friend the Member for Newark asked what work we would be doing with Iraqi museums to try to safeguard cultural properties. Again, this is a subject that the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East will be raising in Baghdad during his visit. Our embassy has for some years worked to strengthen the links between the archaeological communities in the UK and Iraq. Between 2013 and 2014, the embassy funded a project run by the university of Manchester and the Iraq state board of antiquities and heritage, which involved initiation of a joint archaeological research and excavation project at a settlement near Ur in southern Iraq. It involved Iraqi scholars and practitioners in exploring the cultural heritage of their own country, giving them access to British expertise through a programme of joint research and publications. We continue to do what we can to promote best practice in Iraq and to help that country to safeguard its own cultural heritage.

My hon. Friend the Member for Newark asked me if the Government could take a number of further steps. He talked about a commission to gather information on making what he described as “modest funds” available, and various actions to enhance the priority that the police and other counter-terrorist agencies give to dealing with the trade in antiquities. I am not at all unsympathetic to what he is saying, but I provide a word or two of caution. Given that the United Kingdom does not have access to the ISIL-controlled areas of either Iraq or Syria and that we currently have no diplomatic mission in Syria at all, I question whether the British Government are best placed to carry out the assessment that he has in mind. We are not seen by the Assad regime, in particular, as a neutral party. UNESCO or another international agency might be better equipped to tackle this matter.

Similarly, when it comes to requests for funds, whether it is the Government or the police, money spent on one item, however deserving, means money subtracted from another good cause, so there is a question of priorities. We would have to think through how such action would actually help the people on the ground—the curators, the brave defenders of cultural heritage that my hon. Friend described. Given the problems in gaining physical access or sending money and other resources out to Iraq and Syria, I would want to be certain that we were delivering a good outcome and not just indulging in gesture politics.

It might be helpful to my hon. Friend, interested colleagues and people from the museum and art world, if I arranged a meeting with me, the Minister for Culture and the Digital Economy, my hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey) and representatives of the relevant Government Departments and agencies. We could sit down and thrash out some of these ideas together and discuss whether there are ways in which we can have the constructive effect that he and everyone who has spoken in the debate would wish.

I am grateful again to my hon. Friend for bringing this subject before the House this afternoon and for speaking with such passion and knowledge. I hope we can build on what the Government have already been doing and help in whatever way we practically can to safeguard what is the cultural heritage not just of Iraq and Syria, but of the human race throughout the world.

14:54

[Robert Jenrick]

I thank the House for today’s debate. As we have heard, we all agree that an appalling human tragedy is occurring in Syria and Iraq, and nothing we have said today can divert our attention from that. However, there are important questions that deserve to be answered, because the destruction of these sites, the looting and the streams of revenue coming out of it are financing that same loss of human life. It is all bound up into one appalling tragedy.

I thank Members who have spoken, including my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), who gave his personal experiences, as well as the appalling experiences of the Christian community in Syria and Iraq. We all agree with his comments. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), sitting at whose feet was like receiving a history lesson from a professor. He is the Gertrude Bell of the House of Commons, and I thank him for his incredible expertise on this issue.

I am grateful to the shadow Minister for giving up his time and showing the commitment of the Labour party. I know that the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), to whom I have spoken about this several times, also feels strongly. We will need to revisit the issue of The Hague convention, which should be in the cultural manifestos of both main political parties—I suspect it will be in Labour’s, but I would love to see it in ours as well. I also thank the Minister for his generous response, and I would certainly like to take up his kind offer to meet, as too, I am sure, would other Members.

I have had the history lesson, and now I have some homework to do. There is more we can do to support the brave people on the ground trying to preserve this cultural heritage and to take some of the modest steps I have described to tackle the financing of ISIS, in order to defend both cultural property and human life in the region and to promote reconciliation in the future.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered destruction and looting of historic sites in Syria and Iraq.

Mental Health and Well-being of Londoners

Thursday 12th February 2015 Commons Chamber

14:57

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

I beg to move,

That this House has considered mental health and wellbeing of Londoners.

First, I would like to thank the Backbench Business Committee for giving me the opportunity to raise the important question of the mental health and well-being of Londoners. Mental health touches all classes and cultures in London. In consequence, it is important not just that it be viewed within the paradigm of health care but that we understand that all elements of London’s socio-economic development are deeply rooted in the well-being of our city’s residents. Unless we start seriously to tackle what I believe to be a rapidly unravelling crisis of service provision for mental illness, we will begin to see dire ramifications surfacing in all aspects of society, including education, family stability and public order.

As the House will be aware, I have thrown my hat into the ring to be Labour’s candidate for London Mayor. If anything, this has sharpened my interest in these matters. Fundamentally, however, my interest in this subject derives from the fact that my mother was a nurse, and in the latter half of her career, she was a dedicated mental health nurse. I saw the mental health system through her eyes—the problems, the challenges—but above all I saw that she loved her job and that she genuinely loved the people she nursed. Through her, I have always had an instinctive idea that people with mental health issues are human beings, too, and deserving of our love and care.

For three years, I was privileged to be shadow public health Minister, and I was able to meet and learn from many dedicated workers in both the public and voluntary sectors in the mental health field. The sad truth is that mental health provision has long been chronically underfunded, and now, during a time of unprecedented demand, the concern is that spending might be falling dramatically in real terms.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

On the point that funding might be falling, we in London also face the problem that the cost of living is growing. Many people working in public services such as mental health nurses and workers in mental health care are often low-paid in comparison to others. People who come to see me are having difficulty finding places in London and some services are finding it difficult to recruit staff, which has a knock-on impact on the standard of services. I wonder whether my hon. Friend would comment on that.

[Ms Abbott]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend. As he says, there are cost of living issues. Then there are spiralling housing costs. Health care in London has some of the biggest turnover and some of the highest vacancy levels of any health care provision in the country. The pressures of the cost of living crisis and the housing crisis are making it increasingly difficult to provide permanent staff to meet the health care needs in general and the mental health needs of Londoners.

I shall focus in my speech on the cost to London of the mental health crisis and the importance of parity of esteem between mental and physical health, about which Members on both sides of the House have spoken. It is important to stress it, because we are nowhere near parity of esteem when it comes to the questions of finance and resources. I also want to talk about the mental health and well-being of London’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, and about the growing crisis of mental illness among our children, adolescents and young adults. I shall also deal with something not often spoken about—mental health issues in our black and minority ethnic communities in London.

It is important, because mental health is sometimes a marginalised issue, to talk about the huge cost of the mental health challenges to London. Recent figures indicate that almost a million adults of working age in London—15.8% of the adult population—are affected by common mental disorders such as anxiety and depression. I was in the House about 18 months ago when Members of all parties bravely talked about their own experience of depression and how they felt a stigma and found it very difficult to get treatment.

It is estimated that 7% of London’s population have an eating disorder, that one in 20 adults has a personality disorder; that 1% of Londoners are registered with their GP as having a psychotic disorder such as schizophrenia, bipolar and other psychoses; and that nearly half of Londoners are anxious. London has the UK’s highest proportion of people with high levels of anxiety. In addition, almost a third of Londoners report low levels of happiness, which must clearly be exacerbated by the cost of living issues we have mentioned. The number of Londoners reporting low levels of happiness is well over 2.5 million. We London MPs see many of them in our surgeries week after week.

In basic economic terms, almost £7.5 billion is spent each year addressing mental health issues in London, while according to the Greater London Authority, the wider health, social and economic impact of mental illness costs the capital an estimated £26 billion. In social care costs alone, London boroughs spend around £550 million a year treating mental disorder, and another £960 million each year on benefits to support people with mental ill health. There are some concerns about the changes in welfare and the—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I fully appreciate that the hon. Lady is a parliamentarian of great experience, and I am not making this point for the sake of it, but she is not addressing the Chair. She is speaking to somebody over there on the Government Benches, but while somebody over there might be able to hear what she is saying, the Chair cannot. I am sure she is speaking of matters of great interest. It would be appreciated by the rest of the Chamber if she addressed the whole Chamber.

[Ms Abbott]

I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker. As ever, you are punctilious about matters of order.

London boroughs spend about £550 million a year on just the social care costs of treating mental disorders. Another £960 million is spent each year on benefits to support people with mental ill health. Across the population, the net effect of those wider impacts substantially affects London’s economy, infrastructure and population. Mental health is not simply an issue for health and social care; it is an issue for everyone. Mental health conditions debilitate London businesses each year by limiting employee productivity and reducing the potential work force. Every year £920 million is lost owing to sickness absences, and a further £1.9 billion is lost in reduced productivity. Moreover, the costs extend more widely: the staggering sum of £10.4 billion is lost each year to London business and industry as a result of mental health issues.

The London criminal justice system spends approximately £220 million a year on services related to mental ill health, and other losses such as property damage, loss of stolen goods and the lost output of victims cost London a further £870 million. Those costs are already too high, but treatment costs are expected to grow over the next two decades. Mental health issues also prevent physical health conditions from being addressed properly. However, mental ill health remains one of the least understood of all health problems. The problem is exacerbated by the existence of an obstinate and persistent stigma that prevents people from talking about mental health or paying attention to the debate about it, and therefore prevents us as a society from addressing it properly.

I want to say a little about the issue of parity of esteem between mental and physical health. The continuing lack of parity of esteem, in terms of both funding and attitudes, underlies some of the mental health problems not just in London, but throughout the country. As the daughter of a mental health nurse, I am very clear about the fact that there is no parity of esteem between mental and physical health. My mother came here as a pupil nurse in the 1960s, and was part of the generation of West Indian women who helped to build our NHS. She took time off work to bring up a family, but she returned to nursing in the 1980s, and her subsequent career in mental health exemplified the issues involved in the lack of parity of esteem.

The first thing that I want to say about parity of esteem is that those who might be described as the high fliers in health do not necessarily go into mental health. That has always tended to be the case. I shall never forget something that happened in 1987, when I was a brand-new MP. The then chief nurse at City and Hackney told me that I must visit the hospitals in the area. She said that I should meet her at 10 pm, and she would take me to the three major hospitals in hospital: Bart’s, Homerton, and Hackney mental hospital. I met her, and we went around Bart’s. She did not think it in any way remarkable that in Bart’s, even at the dead of night, we did not see a single black nurse. Then we went to Homerton, where there were quite a few black nurses doing the night shift. The chief nurse said to me innocently, “You know, they”—meaning nurses of colour, I assume—“seem to prefer the night shift; our day shift is quite different.”

Then I went to Hackney mental hospital. Although this happened in 1987, I have never forgotten it. The mental hospital was, literally, an old workhouse. It was as grim as anyone could possibly imagine—and, of course, all the nurses there, day and night, were BME. I am afraid that that pointed to a lack of parity of esteem, in the context of the way in which nurses were allocated and the direction in which their careers were leading. I am not in any way detracting from the specialists in mental health, but in respect of nurses there has long been a stratification when it comes to who should work in mental as opposed to physical health.

My mother was a devoted mental health nurse who dealt with geriatric patients with dementia. When my brother and I were older and she went back to nursing, she worked in a hospital outside Huddersfield called Storthes Hall. Thankfully, it has now been closed. It was another former Victorian workhouse, and it looked exactly like a Victorian workhouse. One had only to visit that hospital, see the conditions there and then visit the new Huddersfield royal infirmary in the centre of Huddersfield to see physically demonstrated the complete inequality in services offered to people with physical illness as opposed to people with mental illness.

For a number of years, there has been more focus on mental health in all parties, which is to be welcomed, and more focus on the importance of parity of esteem. However, the financial issues are a challenge. For many years, mental health has been chronically underfunded and it has the reputation of being a Cinderella service. At national level, mental health accounts for 28% of the pressure in the NHS, yet on average clinical commissioning groups spent just 10% of their budget on mental health in 2013. Separate investigations by Community Care and the BBC showed that mental health trusts had their budgets cut by 2.3% in real terms between 2011-12 and 2013-14. The effects of some of those cuts have been felt throughout the system. There have been difficulties in accessing talking therapies. Service provision is creaking at the seams. Over 2,000 mental health beds have been closed since 2011, leading to several trusts with sky-high bed occupancy rates.

There is no question—perhaps Ministers will query this—but that austerity and issues with welfare, access to housing and unemployment have put some of London’s most deprived communities under pressure. Welfare cuts, the lack of stable tenancies and improperly enforced employment regulations must have an effect on the incidence of mental health-related illness. Therefore, on the one hand we have cuts to funding and on the other a rise in the conditions that affect people’s well-being and ultimately their mental health. That is a double-edged sword that spells disaster for the well-being of Londoners.

The specific mental health needs of LGBT Londoners are not discussed often. For a long time, London has been a city where young people come to find themselves. It is an inclusive environment where LGBT people are welcome. London boasts a dynamic gay scene and has successfully hosted World Pride. LGBT Londoners are now able to get married, to raise families and are equal before the law. We must safeguard those achievements by ensuring that they have access to appropriate health care and mental health provision.

It is time to change the stereotype that LGBT people are busy partying and having a good time. Unfortunately, it is not a wholly accurate depiction of the community. There are various estimates about the incidence of mental health problems in LGBT groups, but research I have seen says that sexual minorities are two or three times more likely to report having a long-standing psychological or emotional problem than their heterosexual counterparts; and that two out of five LGBT people will experience a mental health problem at some point in their lives, which is quite a high proportion. In 2014, Stonewall said:

“Compared to the general population, lesbian, gay and bisexual people have higher rates of mental ill health as well as alcohol and drug consumption. Lesbians are also more likely to have never had a cervical smear test, while gay and bisexual men are more likely to experience domestic violence.”

Particularly among young LGBT people, we see rising levels of self-harm. Homophobic behaviour is going unchallenged in the workplace and on London’s public transport system, and hate crimes against LGBT people remain stubbornly high. There are also issues about access to mental health services for LGBT groups.

The situation is even worse for black and minority Londoners who identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual, among whom rates of suicide and self-harm are higher than among than the population generally. Some 5% of black and minority ethnic lesbian and bisexual women have attempted to take their own life in the last year, compared with just 0.4% of men over the same period, and one in 12 have harmed themselves in the last year compared with one in 33 in the general population. What are the Government doing to improve the training of NHS staff on the specific health needs of LGBT people and black and minority ethnic LGBT people, because at present they are both challenged with higher levels of mental health issues but have difficulties accessing services?

There are particular challenges in London associated with the recent reorganisation of the NHS, moving responsibility for public health to local authorities. In principle that move makes it much easier to address the social determinants of ill health, including mental health, but the concern is that because of pressures on local authorities funding for mental health will drop and the ability to provide London-wide services for groups, such as the LGBT community, will weaken.

The House will know that my party is not proposing to put the NHS through a further reorganisation when we return to office in a few months’ time. However, it would make sense for existing structures in London to monitor outcomes for LGBT people throughout the capital, and given the complexity and size of London we cannot simply take a one-size-fits-all approach to LGBT issues.

Young people today are living in a time of unprecedented pressures, with smartphones, the internet, a world of 24-hour communication, new avenues for bullying, new fears and new concerns. The issues are plain to see in the growing demand for services for young people across London, with London hospital admissions for self-harm rising from 1,715 in 2011-12 to 2,046 in the last year. At least one in 10 children in the UK is thought to have a clinically significant mental health problem, which amounts to 111,000 young people in London. The impact of childhood psychiatric disorders costs London’s education system approximately £200 million a year, and in 2013 the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition found that 28% of joint health and wellbeing strategies in London did not prioritise children and young people’s mental health.

What are the Government doing to ensure that joint strategic needs assessments look at, and include information about, the size, impact and cost of local children’s mental health needs, to ensure that sufficient services are being commissioned? Will the Minister ensure that data about BME young people and children will be comprehensively included in the new national prevalence survey of child and adolescent mental health being commissioned by the Department of Health? Concerns have been raised in this House previously about the funding of services for children and adolescents, but it is clear in London in particular that there is an unravelling crisis in relation to young people and mental health.

As I said at the outset, London’s youth, and youth nationally, live in an era of unprecedented pressure. Data obtained from a freedom of information request of top-tier local authorities in England by the mental health charity Young Minds revealed that in 2010-13 local authorities in London cut their children and adolescent mental health service budgets by 5%, at a time of increasing pressure on young people. The latest data show that Southwark cut its budget by 50%, as did Lambeth and Hounslow. Tower Hamlets cut its budget by 30%, and Haringey cut its budget by 10%. Those are some of the most deprived boroughs in London, and if they are really cutting their expenditure on young people’s mental health care to that extent, it is very serious.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and congratulate her on securing the debate. She must be aware that the cuts in mental health budgets are, basically, arbitrary because no one knows what the long-term demand will be. No one knows what levels of demand are not being met within communities because people are afraid to come forward even to discuss their need for some kind of help. This is a huge problem and it needs to be given much greater attention by the Department of Health.

[Ms Abbott]

My hon. Friend is right to say that the cuts are arbitrary, and they certainly do not account for unmet need. In my time as a Member of Parliament—my hon. Friend must have had similar experiences—I have met many mothers and other people who are unable to access the mental health care that they need, particularly talking therapies. Cutting provision at a time when we do not even know the size of unmet need is very dangerous.

I want to turn now to mental health care provision for the black and minority ethnic community. I have looked at this issue over many years, and I believe that the manner in which the mental health system fails people of colour is a tragedy that has been consigned to the shadows for too long. As well as talking about parity of esteem between mental health and physical health, we need to talk about a parity of care between all sections of the community, and at this point that is not happening. I hope to set out briefly some of the findings of the research that has been carried out over the decades on black people and mental health, but my central point is that black and minority ethnic people are not getting parity of care and service. This is a long-standing issue that goes back decades, and I call on the Government to do what they can. I shall also call on the incoming Labour Government to pay attention to this issue in a way that has not happened in the past. Governments genuinely need to understand and address these needs.

Black and minority ethnic mental health is a particular issue for London because half Britain’s black and ethnic minority community is inside the M25. Sometimes it is hard to get the data we need, but we know, for instance, that in Lambeth—less than a mile from this Chamber—more than half the people admitted to acute psychiatric wards, and more than 65% of the people in secure wards, are from the Caribbean and African communities. I know from regularly visiting Hackney’s psychiatric wards, and the Hackney forensic unit, that the proportion in Hackney is as at least as high, if not higher, than that. We have accurate statistics for Lambeth, but we only have to walk into psychiatric wards across London to see that the majority of beds in the big mental health institutions such as the Maudsley are occupied by people of colour.

I remember, as a new MP in 1988, raising the disproportionate number of black people on wards with the head of psychiatric services in City and Hackney. I asked, “Why are so many people on your wards black and minority ethnic? It’s way out of proportion even with the population of City and Hackney.” City and Hackney produced three very senior psychiatric doctors to talk to me about this. They turned to each other, paused, muttered, and one suggested that it might have something to do with “ganja psychosis”. Another then ventured the opinion that perhaps more mad people were migrating from the Caribbean. I had to say to him, “It’s hard enough to get into this country if you’re sane; it is to the highest degree unlikely that the authorities are allowing all these mad people to come into the country.” But the striking thing about that conversation was that it was not some casual conversation on a ward; the head of psychiatric services had marshalled the three most senior psychiatric doctors in City and Hackney, and the only explanation they could offer for their wards being full of black people was “ganja psychosis”. I was struck by how low the level of knowledge was and how low the level of interest was.

I also know from my years as a Member of Parliament how many black families are struggling with the consequences of the mental health system’s failure to offer the right support at the right time, and the help and services to which they are entitled. One of the saddest things I see in my work as a Member of Parliament is black mothers, single heads of household, struggling with black males in their household who clearly have chronic mental health problems. I have had women come to see me who have been assaulted by their own son. When they are told that they should go to a GP and that perhaps their son needs to be sectioned, they say,” No, no, no.” That is because there is a terrible fear in the black community of the mental health system. Some women would rather risk assault by their own son and live in fear than consign their son to the mental health system, because their understanding is that once that system gets their child, the child is pumped full of drugs and never comes out again or, if they do, they are not the same. So it is time this Government and any incoming Government give more attention to issues relating to black people and mental health.

Those issues have not altered in decades: there are disproportionate numbers of black people, particularly men, in the system; we are more likely to be labelled “schizophrenic”; we present later to the system, which makes matters worse; we are more likely to come to the mental health system through the criminal justice system, particularly by being picked up by the police on the street and finding ourselves sectioned; and we are less likely to be offered talking therapy. I remember going in the ’90s to a mental health therapy centre in west London that specialised in talking therapy and did excellent work. I noticed that there were no black and minority ethnic people there and when I asked about this I was told, “Oh, we find that black and minority ethnic people don’t benefit from talking therapy.” That is an extraordinary attitude. We need to do more to make talking therapy available across communities, including BME communities. Black people are also statistically more likely to be offered electroconvulsive therapy—in other words, they are more likely to be plugged into the mains. There is also a terrible history of deaths in mental health custody, which are often to do with the type of restraint used and a fear of a violent black male. There is a whole string of such cases, of which Sean Rigg’s is one of the most recent.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I appreciate that the hon. Lady is developing some very important points, but I should draw to her attention the fact that the allotted time for an introductory speech in a Backbench Business Committee debate is 20 minutes. I have allowed her well over half an hour, as I appreciate that not many people are making demands on the time in the House this afternoon and that she is addressing important issues. Even given all that, I trust that in the very near future she is likely to come to a conclusion.

[Ms Abbott]

I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, as you are so precise about order. I would not want to think that the length of my speech will prevent anyone else who wishes to speak from entering into the debate.

In conclusion, let me say that the issues I am raising about mental health in London—the cost of mental health to Londoners, and the effect of the under-provision of mental health services in London, not only to the individuals and families who suffer, but to London as a whole—are vital ones. I am glad I was able to bring them to the House and I am sorry if you feel I have gone on at too great a length, Madam Deputy Speaker. The issues associated with what is happening to black people and mental health include the lack of provision, the over-representation in the system and the fear that black families have of the mental health system. So this is a huge issue, and it is one that is not debated enough in this House. I am sorry that you felt I spent too long on the issue of black people in London and mental health. What is happening to our young people and children is a new crisis, which is definitely not being debated in this House, and I am glad to be able to draw it to the attention of the House.

Absolutely in conclusion, may I say that these are vital issues for Londoners. In the end, addressing health care is about addressing all the social determinants—the welfare system, housing, employment or education. I am glad to have had the opportunity to draw the House’s attention to how serious the crisis is, particularly in relation to our young people. I wait with interest to hear what the Minister has to say.

15:30

[Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

I am pleased to speak on this subject, and congratulate the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) on securing the debate.

The hon. Lady went through a lot of statistics, which I do not intend to repeat, but I will touch on some of the areas that she did not cover. Briefly, I wish to look at what is already occurring in the capital city, the cost of mental health and the action that I would like the Minister to take.

It is unfortunate that the hon. Lady did not acknowledge the work that the Mayor of London is already doing on this issue. Indeed, he has assisted in several projects, including the Pan-London Dementia Action Alliance and the Local Authority Mental Health Challenge, and he has worked with a range of partners to influence people, including many Members in this House. He has also worked with NHS London and the boroughs to support young people. Importantly, he has used his own office, the Greater London authority, to look at the way that it treats staff with mental health issues.

Some time ago, I wondered whether I would employ someone with a mental health condition, and I concluded that I would. What pleased me about my own self-searching was that when I considered people with other handicaps, I realised that I would not be able to employ somebody with a physical handicap simply because of the layout of this building; they would not be able to get around the Palace estate. It did challenge me to think about myself and how I approached mental health within the workplace.

Let me raise a few points from the Mayor of London’s report, “London mental health: the invisible costs of mental ill health”, which the hon. Lady did not mention, although she did pick up on quite a few of its figures, including the £26 billion a year we spend on the economic and social costs of mental health issues in London. She also mentioned that one in 10 young children has a significant clinical mental health problem.

I am aware that the London boroughs—my borough of Barnet comes second in terms of spending—spend about £550 million in this area. When I was a councillor in the London borough of Barnet, as indeed the Minister was, we were keen to ensure that we not only cared for our looked-after children, but played our part as a health provider in spending on mental health disorders.

I am also aware—as I am sure other Members are—from looking around my surgery or meeting my constituents that a significant number of people in the capital suffer from depression. Indeed the Mayor’s report shows that just over 41% of people suffer from some kind of anxiety compared with 38% in other areas. What is concerning is that those figures are higher in inner London than in the outer-London boroughs. It would be interesting to find out why that is, because we could then direct resources as necessary. Indeed, we could look at local authority funding. We could lobby the Minister and the Department to ensure that out constituents were not losing out on necessary treatment because of the spending in local authorities.

I wish to make two other points. One relates to the criminal justice system. Back in the summer, I spent some time with a Barnet police team and Inspector Moseley. The biggest gripe they had related to their ability to address and to help people with mental health issues. One area where I diverge from the hon. Lady is this idea that because someone has a mental health illness they will be picked up by the police. The police will pick up people if they look like they are going to harm themselves or others, and then they will invoke section 136.

[Ms Abbott]

I probably did not make myself clear. I was saying that people of colour—black and minority ethnic people—are far more likely to enter the mental health system as a result of being picked up by the police. That is all I was saying. I was not making a general point, but a specific point about that being one of the main ways we enter the mental health system.

[Dr Offord]

I am grateful for that clarification and I thank the hon. Lady for it.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I am interested in what the hon. Gentleman was saying about his experience with the police in his borough of Barnet. I have similar discussions with the police in my borough and although many of them are well aware of the vulnerability of people with mental health issues, it seems that there is a lack of consistency in the Metropolitan police training and a lack of continual awareness-raising for police officers, before they attend the scene, on the need to look for a mental health condition when they find somebody behaving in an odd or strange manner on the street.

[Dr Offord]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point, which is certainly something that I would be willing to take up with the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. That was not my experience, but as it has been the hon. Gentleman’s, I think it is a useful footnote for me to take back to show that the approach is not the same all over London. I am grateful for that.

I realise that the Minister is a public health Minister and not a Minister in the Home Office, but I am keen that police officers should not be delayed for up to eight hours of their shift by taking people to hospital to seek an assessment under section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983 only to find that a doctor is not available and no assessment can be made. I have spoken to several custody sergeants who have made the point that I will make again: a police cell is not a substitute for a place of safety in the form of a hospital. I am keen to take that up with the Home Office myself.

The Mayor’s report said that of every £8 spent on long-term health care, perhaps £1 is spent on people with mental health issues. I spent two hours this morning at the Whittington’s wonderful ambulatory care centre opened by the Government, and I congratulate them on that. It is easy to see people who clearly have long-term medical health problems, and one suspects that their mental health might be in the same fragile state as their physical health. If we include the £1 in every £8 spent on long-term health care, that adds another £2.6 billion to the £26 billion that we are spending on health care in London cited by hon. Lady. We certainly need to address that.

I am aware that in west London there has been an initiative as part of the London growth deal to help people to get into employment. Indeed, the local enterprise partnership has secured money from the Government’s transformation challenge award, and I congratulate the Government on that. I want to see more work going ahead.

It is not only people with long-term health conditions who are likely to suffer from mental health issues, but the long-term unemployed as well. I understand that approximately 46% of the people claiming employment and support allowance for more than two years have mental health issues. I speak not as someone judging those people but as someone who has experienced mental health issues in my family and have seen the consequences of that. Indeed, the Daily Mirror was kind enough to publish an article on me and the consequences of mental health issues in my family. Although most of it was wrong, I will put that to one side. I will not use the Chamber as a confessional, but the media have an obligation and a responsibility to report issues to do with mental health in a more positive and indeed less derogatory fashion than they have.

Finally, I pay tribute to colleagues who have worked hard on this issue. My hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris) was instrumental not only in securing a debate in this House to which I was able to contribute but in promoting mental health issues through some of us writing an article for a pamphlet he published. I am grateful to him for that. I also congratulate my Whip, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell), who introduced a Bill to allow people with mental health disorders to stand in this place.

Although I am proud of this Parliament’s record, I would like Government action on the employment of people with mental health issues, and more Government action to provide people with a place of safety that is not a police cell. I would like the health service to ensure that its mental health professionals are always available, so that police officers do not spend their time waiting in accident and emergency departments for a professional to see a person who has been sectioned under section 136 of the Mental Health Act. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

15:40

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) on obtaining the debate. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) and I am delighted that he had such a profitable morning at the Whittington hospital in my constituency. The ambulatory care centre is indeed excellent. It was a product of a community and all-party campaign to defend the A and E department some years ago. We won that campaign, and as a result we have a thriving A and E department and a new and very efficient ambulatory care centre. I attended its opening with colleagues. It is a great place and I am glad that the hon. Gentleman was well treated there. I hope he will write and tell the hospital so.

The point that the hon. Gentleman raised on policing, on which I intervened, is serious. I make no general criticism of the police force as a whole, but I do think that when the police are called to an incident in a shopping centre, or in the street or elsewhere, they need to be well aware that some of the people there may be suffering from a mental crisis, may be mental health patients, and need to be treated with some degree of care and understanding. Many police officers are very understanding and very careful about that; I am not trying to make any general criticism. I just think we need to send a gentle message to the Metropolitan police that within training, there should be as much awareness as possible of the mental health conditions that exist within the community.

We have moved on a long way in debates on mental health in this House during the time that I have been here. When I was first elected, a person with a mental health condition was not allowed to stand for Parliament. The Speaker had the power to section Members of Parliament under the Mental Health Act—may still do, for all I know. Mental illness was generally the butt of humour—of universal jokes—so that people going through a crisis, perhaps depression, felt unable to talk about it and felt it would blight their career prospects in any walk of life if they did talk about it. Consequently, only if they had the money did they seek private help and private counselling; if they did not have the money, they suffered, and might lose their job and end up with a blighted career.

All of us can go through depression; all of us can go through those experiences. Every single one of us in this Chamber knows people who have gone through it, and has visited people who have been in institutions and have fully recovered and gone back to work and continued their normal life. I dream of the day when this country becomes as accepting of these problems as some Scandinavian countries are, where one Prime Minister was given six months off in order to recover from depression, rather than being hounded out of office as would have happened on so many other occasions.

The issues that I shall raise are much the same as those raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington in opening the debate—on the disproportionate extent to which the people one finds in mental health institutions come from the black and minority ethnic communities, and the socio-economic imbalance on mental health issues. People who lead stressful lives, without housing security, without job security, without financial security, frightened about the consequences of what their children are up to or whether their children can get a job and so on, are sometimes affected by levels of stress that the rest of us would not even want to think about.

The access point to mental health services is usually the GP. That is the great thing about the national health service, although sometimes it is the problem of the national health service. A GP surgery at its best is brilliant, recognises the holistic needs of the patient and does its best to accommodate those holistic needs. The GP system at its worst is a single-handed GP who may have been there a very long time, become rather set in their ways, is not very interested in people coming to them with stress or other psychiatric-related problems, and does not refer them for any kind of therapy or counselling.

I am concerned about the length of time people wait for counselling or support. A report commissioned by the British Psychoanalytic Council and the UK Council for Psychotherapy, based on over 2,000 psychotherapists working across the NHS, the third sector and in private practice shows that in the NHS and the third sector

“57% of practitioners said client waiting times have increased over the last year, 52% report fewer psychotherapy services being commissioned in the last year, 77% report an increase in the number of complex cases they are expected to deal with.”

The report continues:

“The strain on publicly funded therapy services means that the private psychotherapy sector is increasingly ‘picking up the pieces’ with individuals who have been failed by the NHS. The vast majority of private therapists (94%) report they regularly see clients who feel let down by the NHS”.

I am absolutely not attacking the national health service. That is the last thing I want to do. I want the national health service to be there and available for all. I do not want it to so ration its services that those with fairly desperate needs are forced to suffer, seek voluntary help if they can get it or, if they can afford it, get private support.

There are excellent local organisations in my area, including iCope—Camden and Islington Psychological Therapies Service, and the Women’s Therapy Centre, which do a great deal to improve the local service and put a lot of pressure on the local health authority. An excellent report was produced by Louise Hamill and Monika Schwartz, who both work in my area and have done a great deal of work on the subject. I urge the Minister to have a look at that report and at the very serious proposals that they put forward.

The network for mental health did a survey which identified the 10 most important issues relating to mental health treatment. I will not list them all, but the most important seems to me to be access to timely and appropriate treatment. If someone going through a mental health crisis or depression cannot get seen by somebody, they become more and more agitated and stressful. If we have target times for cancer treatment, we ought to have target times for being seen and getting the necessary support at times of mental stress. Likewise, reducing stigma and discrimination is important, as is looking at the effects of benefit and welfare system reforms.

I have had far too many anecdotal reports from constituents and others who go for a Department for Work and Pensions availability for work test. If they have a physical disability, it is usually fairly obvious and it can be quantified and, we hope, taken into account in how the interview and test are conducted. If somebody has a mental health condition, it is not so obvious and cannot be so easily quantified. There are far too many cases where the stress levels are unbelievable for people who have been forced into these tests. Their condition has not been taken into account, they have been declared fit for work, and they then go into a crisis of stress because they feel they simply cannot cope. It is place where we could all be, and we should have some respect for people in that situation and do our best as a society to help them get through it.

That leads me on to education and publicity and how these issues are dealt with. The media have got somewhat better. It is now not routine for TV and radio comedians always to make jokes about people being stressed out, mad, depressed and so on. Things have moved on a bit and I pay tribute to colleagues in all parts of the House who have stood up in the Chamber during the annual mental health debate and said exactly that about ending discrimination.

[Ms Abbott]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the worst examples of the way in which the media treat mental illness was The Sun which, when the well known boxer, Frank Bruno, had mental health issues, had a front page headline, “Bonkers Bruno”, for which it eventually had to apologise?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The Sun has had to apologise for many things, not least that. We need a process whereby we change the mood music still further on the treatment of people with mental health problems.

There is a local project in my constituency called IBUG—Islington borough user group—where people attend meetings to talk about the kinds of stress they go through and the support they get. It is very interesting to talk to those people, who are incredibly well informed and intelligent.

I say to the Minister that I understand all the demands and financial pressures that are placed on mental health trusts across London. I am pleased that the trust in my area, Camden and Islington Mental Health and Social Care Trust, is much smaller than most. That is partly, I suspect, because my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) and I stressed strongly that we wanted to keep the service fairly small rather than go into a huge segment of London, as trusts in other areas have.

We have a number of very good walk-in places that those with a mental health problem can go to. Lunch is provided, or they can cook their own. Art therapy and various other forms of support are available. That is all good. However, if we turn those places into something over-formal where appointments and references are required, and people can go there only if they have been sent, that takes away the feeling of an oasis. I have met people who have recovered well from whatever they have been through, and are working, but sometimes they feel the need to unburden themselves with others who have been in the same situation. It is important to have that kind of walk-in facility. I hope that the Minister will take account of that in the planning of these issues in London.

A couple of days ago, INQUEST launched a report called, “Deaths in Mental Health Detention: An investigation framework fit for purpose?” I have a copy here. INQUEST is a national organisation that is based in my area. It deals with the issue of deaths in custody. It has been around for a long time, is very effective, and does very good work. The report states:

“The number of deaths in mental health detention is high in comparison with other forms of custody. The most recent IAP figures show that out of 7,630 custody deaths recorded between 2000-2013, 4,573 deaths were of detained patients—making up 60% of the total numbers of all deaths in custody.”

It then draws attention to the need for a genuinely independent investigation into these deaths. We have the Independent Police Complaints Commission, although it could perhaps be stronger, and the prison and probation ombudsman to deal with those two areas where deaths in custody take place, but, the report says,

“no such equivalent investigative mechanism exists to scrutinise deaths in mental health settings.”

We should look at that.

In 2003—quite a long time ago—INQUEST submitted evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights inquiry into deaths in custody in which it noted:

“Of particular concern is the failure of government or any of its arms length bodies to even collate and publish annual statistical information about deaths of detained patients…we believe”

that as a result

“some contentious deaths could escape any public scrutiny”.

I urge the Minister to look at the report, which is very serious, well prepared and well researched.

The report also expressed concern about the use of restraint methods in mental health institutions and the wholly

“disproportionate number of people from BAME”—

black and minority ethnic—

“communities and/or those with mental health problems”

who

“have died following the use of force, raising questions about discriminatory treatment and…attitudes”.

Very serious questions have been raised.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington has done the House a service by securing this debate. We need greater and more effective assessment of the needs of mental health services across London, because there is still a stigma in some areas. Some communities and families are more able to come forward than others. We need to create an atmosphere in which people understand that we can all experience stress and that we all need help at some time in our lives, and the NHS must and should be there to provide that help when it is needed.

15:55

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

First, I would like to apologise to the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), because I was not able to be here for her speech. I heard some of it upstairs, but I had been detained in my constituency and did not think the debate would start quite so early. My powers of being able to work out such things when I was a Whip are obviously diminishing fast with my impending retirement.

This is a very important subject and, unfortunately, it is not often tackled. As Members of Parliament we see a large number of people who suffer from some form of mental health issue, and I have to say that it is one of the things that I find most difficult to deal with. In the past 12 months, one of my constituents, Miss Deborah King, who is very active in making people aware of the problems, has drawn my attention to a mental health first aid course, but I regret that I have not had time to go on it. The course tells people not how to treat others, but how to recognise and deal with the issue. I have said that I have not had enough time, but I should have made time. It is rather like saying that I do not have time to exercise. Time should be made for such things and I urge those who will be Members after the general election to see whether such mental health first aid courses will be available. Mind organises them in our area, but there may be others, too.

I would also like to suggest some form of training for first-time MPs—perhaps the House authorities could lay something on—because this is one of the issues of most concern. As hon. Members have said, we now know that mental illness is much more common than we would have liked to have thought 20 to 30 years ago. We know the statistics of how many people will be touched by some form of mental illness—it could be a person’s close family member, for example, or that person themselves—but we do not know the reasons for it. We can think of obvious reasons, some of which have been mentioned. One example I have come across—and not just during my time as a Member of Parliament—involves people who come here from another country. Their spouse may not be too conversant with the language and find themselves incredibly isolated. They do not have the stress of unemployment, but a culture change can cause a lot of problems and that may explain why quite a lot of the people I see in this context were born abroad.

I am also worried that some families, for reasons that are human and understandable, do not want to believe there is a problem. We have to educate ourselves that mental illness should be treated in exactly the same way as physical illness. I might find it easier if my spouse or one of my children came to me with a physical complaint. I could cope with that and understand how we might be able to get treatment, but mental health is still incredibly stigmatised.

That leads on to what my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) and the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) said about jobs. Over the decades, Members of Parliament have had serious mental health issues, but they have been hushed up because it would not have been particularly good for their electoral chances; there also used to be a ruling on such matters. It is the same with other jobs. If someone came to us and said that they had a history of mental illness, we as employers would have to make a difficult decision. I was delighted to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon say that he would take someone on; I hope that I would. It should not be a difficult decision, but something innate in us might give us concerns.

[Ms Abbott]

I am listening with great interest to the right hon. Gentleman’s very thoughtful speech. His earlier point about how people who come from abroad can feel isolated may account for the very disproportionate mental health figures for the black and minority ethnic community.

[Sir John Randall]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for making that very valid point. Anecdotally, I can bear that out from constituents I have seen, although not by any means exclusively.

Another issue I have come across is when someone desperately needs help—they need to see someone to try to sort things out and to get treatment—but, possibly because they are quite far down the line, they do not accept that they have a problem. I can think of several cases where a husband or a wife was so nervous that they looked at me and said with their eyes, “Can you please do something?” but when I said that they should perhaps go to see their GP because it was a very stressful time for them, the immediate reaction of the ill person was to say, “There’s nothing wrong with me—I’m not going.” I do not know how to get round that: we do not want to force people, but it is very difficult to help them if they will not accept that something is wrong.

Another group with which I have become connected, because I am interested in this area, involves victims of human trafficking and modern slavery. People who have been, as it were, freed we now call survivors. They have been taken away from the world in which they were working —forced labour or sexual exploitation—and outwardly they seem fine, but they do not appear to have any help. We have only to think of what they have been through to realise that they almost certainly have severe mental health issues, but there do not seem to be readily accessible services for them. In many cases, they are not EU citizens or have entered the country illegally, so they are concerned that if they present themselves to the immigration authorities, the first thing that will happen is that they are deported. That only makes the situation worse.

The hon. Member for Islington North made the very valid point that when we talk about health—a general election is coming, and there is lots of discussion and dispute about the health service, with figures and statistics bandied around—mental health statistics are hardly ever mentioned. As he said, we should have targets on how quickly people see successful outcomes, as far as they can, and on where resources are going, but we do not have them. As Members of Parliament, we are aware from our meetings about the various illnesses that people have, and we know that a lot of people feel like Cinderella because their illness is perhaps not as well known as cancer or something else. Mental health services, however, probably deserve the title of Cinderella services, because people do not recognise them.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hendon spoke about a confessional, but I will say only that during my time in this House—particularly serving in the HR department in the Whips Office—I have seen people who suffer from extreme depression and stress caused by all sorts of things. The House authorities, to their credit, have improved mental health services and people can be referred to them, although often they do not want to be. We must be much more sympathetic. If such things happen here with the people we have in this place, goodness knows what it is like for people in the less affluent areas of our constituencies.

London has a problem because of the nature of big cities—I am sure that is the case. The title of this debate mentions the well-being of Londoners, and that is something we should consider. My personal therapy involves open spaces and bird watching, although I recognise that is not for everybody. Open space, a bit of exercise, walking around—that is good therapy, and we should ensure that those facilities are open to all.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington on securing this debate. I am sorry for my late arrival and also that—last thing on a Thursday and just before a recess—this debate has not attracted large numbers of people. That has allowed me to speak, for which I am grateful, and I wait to hear the Minister’s response.

16:06

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

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) and the other sponsors of this debate for ensuring that the House can discuss such an important issue. I also thank hon. Members on both sides of the House for their contributions, which are testament to how much mental health is a vital challenge, not just in London but across the country.

In recent years we have seen a growing appreciation that mental health is just as important as physical health in ensuring the well-being of the population. Almost three years ago my colleagues in the House of Lords tabled amendments to the Health and Social Care Bill on parity of esteem between mental and physical health. As this debate has shown, however, there are challenges in how that measure is put into practice.

Since then, mental health has risen up the agenda as more evidence emerges not only of the scale of mental health illness, which affects one in six of us at any one time, but of the huge costs involved. In London, meeting the mental health needs of the large and diverse population poses a challenge, and it is welcome that tackling the cost of mental illness has been identified as a priority by the London Health Board. Of course the challenges are significant. In London almost £7.5 billion is spent each year addressing mental illness, while the wider health, social and economic impacts of mental illness cost the capital an estimated £26 billion.

As we heard from my hon. Friend, the pressures that mental health services face across the country are being acutely felt in London. Last week the Care Quality Commission published a report that found that last year the mental health in-patient system was again running over capacity. By the last quarter of 2013-14, the number of available mental health NHS beds had decreased by almost 8% since the first quarter of 2010-11. That is putting mental health professionals under extreme pressure, and more vulnerable people have to travel hundreds of miles to get the treatment they need, or they are getting no treatment at all.

I have had the privilege of visiting many fantastic services across the country and in London, such as the Channi Kumar perinatal unit at Bethlem Royal hospital, the Camden psychotherapy unit, and most recently the mental health service users group, the Lancaster Centre in Enfield. In response to the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Sir John Randall), I should say that I have also visited Dagenham council, which is training 1,000 front-line workers in mental health first aid. That is an example we can all learn from.

I have seen at first hand the pressures our mental health professionals are experiencing. They are working extremely hard in very challenging circumstances. I would be very interested to hear the Minister’s immediate plans to ease the pressure on in-patient mental health services in London. I think the key question we should be asking is why so many people in London need in-patient mental health care in the first place. Could it have anything to do with the fact that mental health spending has been cut in real terms for the first time in a decade? There are thousands fewer mental health nurses and hundreds fewer mental health doctors now working in the NHS. Is it because of the fragmentation of commissioning across our health service since the introduction of the Health and Social Care Act 2012?

My hon. Friend rightly talked about the pressures on child and adolescent mental health services in London. The right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip said that we do not talk about this issue, but I challenge that. In recent weeks, we have seen front pages of newspapers covering this specific issue. I echo the concerns raised by my hon. Friend that the CAMHS budget has been cut in real terms by £50 million a year since 2010. We have seen other false economies, such as: cuts to early intervention and psychosis services; a reduction in the number of social workers; and the decimation of the early intervention grant, which we know is putting so much pressure on in-patient services.

Just today, I received a letter from the Danshell Group, an organisation that provides 20% of CAMHS provision across the country, including in London. It wrote to me because it is very concerned about the state of CAMHS, particularly in London. The contract they have been offered by NHS London for the next financial year will see a 40% reduction in the number of CAMHS beds it can offer, down from 26 to 16. NHS London has said this is because of its “financial envelope”. This reduction will have a very real impact on many young people. The provider is already forced to reject more than 30 patients every month. Its concern, which I share, is that these young people will end up in A and E, have to go to medium secure facilities if no low secure facilities are available, or be sent home because there is nothing or nowhere that can help them. This is simply unacceptable and cannot carry on.

In addition to the 50 extra beds NHS England has commissioned across the country for CAMHS, I am keen to know what steps the Minister is taking to address the bed shortage in London and across the country. The letter I received said that NHS London is going to reduce the number of beds even further. This is a very particular and significant concern. At least one in 10 children is thought to have a clinically significant mental health illness, which equates to 111,000 young people in London. The impacts of childhood psychiatric disorders cost London’s education system approximately £200 million a year. For people to be presenting at hospital, particularly to specialist mental health services, means their mental illness has usually become much more serious. Waiting until that point to address problems is not only worse but more expensive too, as it requires more specialist health care from other services.

We need more focus on prevention and promoting good mental health. The principle of prevention has long been the driving force behind public health policy for physical health, but there is no comparable body for public policy interventions for mental health. Will the Minister share with the House what actions she and her Department are taking to ensure we are doing everything we can to prevent mental illness in the first place?

My hon. Friend referred to the distinct challenges London faces, particularly in relation to mental health. I note that she uses “well-being” in the title of today’s debate. This is not all about mental illness. London has the UK’s highest proportion of the population with high levels of anxiety. Nearly half of Londoners are anxious, and almost a third report low levels of happiness. Life satisfaction and feelings of worth in London are lower than the national average.

Mental health is shaped by the environment in which we live our lives and for most people that is not in the NHS, but in our homes, communities, schools, colleges and workplaces. These institutions can help or harm mental health, sometimes quite profoundly, and this is particularly true for Londoners, who experience stark and unacceptable differences in well-being and length of life. If we can begin to address these basic and too-often-ignored problems in the capital, we can begin to unburden ourselves of both the moral and economic costs of mental ill health.

I want to deal with the issues raised by hon. Members. On poverty, insecurity and disadvantage, there is a social gradient for many types of mental health, such as depression, with those in lower income groups more likely to experience them than those in higher income groups. The incidence of mental illness varies sharply between boroughs in London, with some mental illnesses twice as common in deprived parts of London as in the least deprived. We have heard today how Government policy can be a major factor, and the National Housing Federation estimates that one in seven households affected by the bedroom tax is now at risk of eviction. Given the cross-cutting nature of these challenges, I am keen to hear what steps the Minister is taking to ensure that all Departments take mental health into account when developing policy. We are concerned that the Cabinet Sub-Committee on Public Health, which brought together all those cross-cutting Departments, no longer exists.

We are keenly aware that we are in the midst of a housing crisis, but this is particularly acute in London. In all but two of London’s 33 boroughs, at least one in 20 people are on council waiting lists, and across London as a whole more than one in 10 are on waiting lists. Behind these shocking statistics, however, are thousands of families living in overcrowded, temporary and often poor-quality private rented accommodation. The impact on family life, and the life opportunities particularly of children, is huge. My hon. Friend also referred to the spiralling costs of housing. The average rent in London is well over £1,000, which has a significant impact on many families. Poor housing, overcrowding, insecurity and lack of access to community facilities can have a harmful impact on mental health as well. Will the Minister tell us what actions she is taking nationally to ensure that health and housing needs are considered together by both service commissioners and providers?

My hon. Friend rightly raised the particular experience of the black, Asian and minority ethnic communities in London. People from BAME communities in the UK are more likely to be diagnosed with a mental illness. For example, they have a threefold increased risk of psychosis, and for black African and black Caribbean groups, this rises to a sevenfold increase. It is completely unacceptable that people from BAME groups living with mental illness are more likely to experience poor outcomes from treatment. There is so much work to be done to tackle these inequalities, particularly in a city as culturally diverse as London. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that mental health services are culturally relevant to service users?

The previous Government’s action plan on BAME mental health, “Delivering Race Equality in Mental Health Care”, ended in 2010 and has not been renewed or replaced. We believe we need a renewed focus and leadership on tackling race inequality in our mental health services. Does the Minister have a plan for a new national strategy to tackle race inequality in our mental health services and to ensure improved outcomes for BAME communities? My hon. Friend also rightly raised the particular challenges of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community in accessing mental health services, and I hope the Minister will address that too.

My hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) raised the serious issue of the recent INQUEST report into the deaths of people in treatment or in-patient care. Anyone who saw the “Newsnight” report this week will have been very concerned, and again I would be interested to hear from the Minister about that.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Would my hon. Friend support an investigation, on the basis of the INQUEST report, with a view to changing the regime of inspection, inquiry and appeal where there are tragic deaths in custody? She must be aware, as must the rest of the House, that many people in mental health institutions are completely alone, never get any visitors or support and are at the mercy of what we, the state, are prepared to provide and do for them.

[Luciana Berger]

I thank my hon. Friend for his important intervention, and for raising the point earlier. It is right to look at this issue. It is very clear from the report that INQUEST has outlined and provided that many serious challenges have not been addressed. Part of the challenge is that people find themselves isolated because they are placed in care and treatment, which can be hundreds of miles away from their homes, families and support structures. This means they are less likely to have visitors. Seeing the footage of one family’s experience—of their child’s in-patient care and the quality of her surroundings—was frightening. I hope that the Minister will address this specific report and share with us what the Government intend to do to look at the issue a lot more closely.

We have heard today that mental health is one of the most unaddressed health challenges of our age. Mental health services across our country are increasingly facing significant challenges, and as we have heard today these pressures are being acutely felt in London. Meeting the mental health needs of London’s population is critical to ensuring the future health and economic sustainability of the capital. In order fully to tackle these pressures, we must end the false economies and the stripping back of preventive and early intervention services that we have seen under this Government, and achieve a new focus on prevention and early intervention. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

16:21

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Jane Ellison)]

We have, unsurprisingly, had a very thoughtful debate, and this has been a welcome opportunity to discuss such an important topic. I hope that the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) will forgive me if I focus my response on Back-Bench contributions, given that this is a Backbench Business Committee debate. She regularly debates these issues with the Minister of State who leads on care issues.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) on securing this debate on an issue that is important to her and her constituents, and to me as a London MP and my constituents. It is good to see a broad cross-section of London colleagues in the Chamber.

The fact has been well established that at least one in four people will experience a mental health problem at some point in their life. As others have said, that means an estimated 2 million Londoners, and we know that London has the highest rates of mental ill health in the country. Some Members spoke about the reasons for that—those things that we know are responsible—and others suggested alternative reasons. I would slightly guard against the over-use of the word “crisis” and exaggerating to make a political point. To prepare for this debate, as the House would expect, I met some of the leading mental health clinicians in London and put some searching questions to them. I did not gain a sense of crisis, although we all gain the sense that this area has not been given sufficient attention in the past and needs to be given far more attention in the future. We all agree on that, and I hope to outline some of the areas that the Government are paying attention to and working on.

The Government’s commitment to prioritising mental health is encapsulated in the principle of “parity of esteem”, which others have mentioned. This means equal priority for mental, as for physical, health. This commitment was set out in our mental health strategy, “No health without mental health”, in February 2011, and was made explicit in the Health and Social Care Act 2012. Planned NHS spending on mental health is expected to grow by over £300 million in 2014-15, and in our five-year plan for mental health, “Achieving Better Access to Mental Health Services by 2020”, we identified £40 million of additional spending for this year, and freed up a further £80 million for 2015-16. This will for the first time ever enable the setting of access and waiting time standards in mental health services, to which the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) alluded.

Looking at the constituency of the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, I am sure she would welcome the fact that the City and Hackney clinical commissioning group has increased spending on mental health services by almost 4% this year, and is investing almost £2 million in a range of new service alliances intended to reduce service variation, reduce inequalities, and improve access and recovery outcomes.

I was glad to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) refer to the Mayor’s London Health Commission and the work done by the Mayor’s office. The hon. Lady also referred to the work of the Greater London authority. The commission, led by the Mayor, has identified the mental health and well-being of Londoners as a key priority for the Mayor’s office. Indeed, the Mayor has said:

“Mental ill health is an issue that affects millions of Londoners, yet we are too often frightened to discuss it, worried about what people might think, or unaware of who to turn to.”

That very much captures what was said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Sir John Randall).

In a report on London mental health which was published in January last year, the Mayor made clear that mental health is an issue for everyone who lives and works in the capital. The report attempted to quantify, as far as possible, the impact of mental ill health on Londoners in order to gauge the scale of the problem. I shall not repeat the statistics, but they show that there is a considerable impact not only on individuals and their families, but on the economy of our city and everything that flows from it, and on the costs of care. However, despite those substantial costs, diagnosis and treatment rates for mental disorders have remained poorer than those for most physical health conditions. NHS England has worked with partner organisations to establish a strategic clinical network for London chaired by Matthew Patrick. The network’s members include MIND, Rethink and the National Survivor User Network.

Let me now deal with the important issue of race equality in mental health care, to which the hon. Lady devoted much of her speech. The issue is obviously of great concern to her, but it is of concern to all of us, because we all acknowledge London’s incredible diversity, although the degree of diversity in our constituencies varies. Our commitment to tackling inequalities in access to mental health services is set out in our mental health action plan “Closing the Gap”, which was also published in January last year. That plan recognises that people from black and minority ethnic communities are less likely to access psychological therapies. We are working with the sector to find out exactly why that is, and what can be done to change it. NHS England is also working with BME community leaders to encourage more people to use psychological therapies, and to establish the reason for those barriers. In 2012-13, as part of the Time to Change programme, the Department of Health funded a mental health anti-stigma and anti-discrimination project. It ring-fenced 25% of a fund amounting to up to £4 million for work with African and Caribbean communities, which involved building partnerships with trusted BME organisations in BME communities. I think that, to some extent, addresses the point made by the hon. Member for Islington North, who is no longer in the Chamber.

NHS England has worked with Black Mental Health UK, and has established a leadership programme for GP mental health leads for London. A BME taskforce is undertaking a root-and-branch review of mental health services in London, to ensure that they are equitable and free of ethnic bias. I am not sure whether the hon. Lady is in touch with the taskforce, but I am sure that she would want to be. I shall ensure that she is given details of who is leading it, and I should be happy to put other Members in touch with it if they want to know more.

I must put on record that the hon. Member for Islington North is now present. He may not be in the place where he was before, but he is here.

The mental health trust in east London is strengthening families, with a focus on support for BME groups, by helping the families of patients with serious mental health issues, using an approach that treats the condition as being similar to any other long-term chronic illness and providing positive support and advice. That, I think, addresses a question raised by a number of Members: why, in many instances, are such different approaches taken to physical and mental illness?

Members rightly expressed concerns about child and adolescent mental health services. It is estimated that 50% of mental illness in adult life begins before the age of 15 and that 75% of mental illness in adults starts before the age of 18, so—as others have pointed out—early intervention is key. Over the next five years, we will invest £30 million a year in improving services for young people with mental health problems, with a particular emphasis on eating disorders, which were also mentioned. We are investing £54 million between 2011 and 2015-16 in the children and young people’s IAPT—improving access to psychological therapies—programme to transform child and adolescent mental health services. I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon mentioned that. Let me also draw attention to his distinguished record in respect of looked-after children; I was very aware of his work when we were both on Barnet council.

Public Health England also plays a role in addressing the mental health needs of Londoners and is engaging with schools, teachers and pupils to promote and build resilience among young people through the London grid for learning. As a partnership, City and Hackney, about which I was briefed in anticipation of the debate, has one of the highest spends in London and England on CAMHS—close to £5 million.

I want to pick up a point that the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington mentioned with regard to BME children being recorded in prevalence data. I want to give her some assurance on that. The commissioning of a new prevalence survey on children and young people and mental health is a priority for the Department. Our chief medical officer has identified the need for prevalence data on the mental health of BME children and young people. Therefore, we anticipate that the new survey will look at the prevalence of issues in those groups and we hope to announce the procurement process in the near future.

More than £400 million is being invested over the spending review period to make a choice of psychological therapies available in all parts of England for those who need them. We all acknowledge that we are not there yet, but it is important that as part of the “Five Year Forward View”, NHS England has committed that, by April 2016, 75% of people referred to the IAPT programme will be treated within six weeks of referral and 95% will be treated within 18 weeks of referral; and that more than 50% of people experiencing a first episode of psychosis will be treated with a National Institute for Health and Care Excellence-approved care package within two weeks of referral. Those are important and ambitious targets to secure improvement in this area.

Data on mental health bed occupancy has not been routinely collected across the NHS London region, but NHS London has initiated a process to do that to allow year-on-year comparisons to be made. The first year of the initiative was 2014. The results of that suggested that across the different types of mental health in-patient facilities occupancy rates ranged from 78% to 100% during the period the audit was undertaken, which was September to November 2014.

London’s CCGs are committed to delivering the IAPT access and recovery targets for 2014-15. Additionally, the hon. Lady’s CCG, City and Hackney, is using a range of alliances—I was interested to hear about this—across CAMHS, psychological therapies, dementia, primary care and crisis services to improve the integration of service partners, with a clear focus on involving voluntary sector and social enterprise groups. I am sure that that is mirrored in other parts of London.

The hon. Lady raised the challenges facing LGBT people. The National Institute for Mental Health in England carried out a review that showed that LGB people are at greater risk of suicidal behaviour and self-harm, as others have said, and that the risk of suicide is four times more likely in gay and bisexual men, while the risk of depression and anxiety is one and half times higher in LGB people. I was interested to hear what she said—it mirrors my experience—highlighting the concerns of young gay people from BME communities. I have experienced that too as a constituency MP. Interestingly, some of those people said that the worst prejudice they experienced was from within their community. In that regard, London’s diversity also poses us a challenge sometimes. We as constituency MPs, and in other roles we have in our communities, must try as much as possible to stand up to and challenge that when we acknowledge London’s diversity.

West London mental health trust has a specialised gender dysphoria service, the largest in the country, which is accessed following GP referral to general mental health services with a question as to whether the patient has gender dysphoria. The total annual value of that service is £9.9 million. The London Lesbian and Gay Switchboard provides national information and a listening service over the phone and by e-mail and instant messaging. The helpline operates from 10 am to 11 pm, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year. It is based in London but takes calls from the whole of the UK. I thank all local LGBT support groups. They do such a great job. I look forward to spending this evening with the Wandsworth LGBT forum at one of its film nights. We will watch a new film that addresses issues of particular concern. That organisation provides a great service in my community. I am sure other people have the same experience.

As we have heard, mental health crisis care is crucial. The first national crisis care concordat was published in February last year to improve service responses to people in mental health crisis, and in particular to keep people in mental distress, who have committed no crime, out of police cells. NHS England has signed up to the mental health crisis concordat and is in active partnership in London with the police, the ambulance service, the mental health trusts, CCGs, local government and the voluntary sector, as we would expect. Huge progress has been made in London in reducing the number of people taken to police cells for assessment after they have been detained under section 136 of the Mental Health Act. I am pleased to tell the House that this number has reduced from several hundred a year to less than 20. That is a very welcome process.

Interesting contributions were made by Members on both sides of the House about the conversations we have had with our local police agencies. I, too, had an interesting experience when I went out with two very impressive young officers as part of my rapid response unit locally. They showed great understanding of the challenges they met. It was nice that that was acknowledged in all parts of the House, while also recognising the very considerable concern that the hon. Member for Islington North raised about deaths in custody.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I am sorry that I was out for a couple of minutes during the Minister’s concluding remarks. The point about deaths in custody is essentially about the powers of investigation—the powers of inquiry. In my experience, too often it is left to the randomness of whether there is a family and community support network or not. If there is not one, absolutely nothing happens; if there is one, something might happen. I am sure the Minister is aware of this, and I would be grateful if she would have a good look at the INQUEST report on this subject. Perhaps her Department might like to study it and come up with some proposals in relation to its very sensible suggestions.

[Jane Ellison]

I will of course bring that report to the attention of the right Minister in our Department, and the hon. Gentleman is correct to highlight it.

I want to give a note of assurance on street triage, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon. The DOH has funded nine street triage pilots, with police and mental health professionals working together to support people in crisis. In the areas where the pilots are operating, the number of people being detained under section 136 has dropped by an average of 20%. There are some encouraging results.

On the points made only by the hon. Member for Islington North, we are obviously concerned about the reports of high levels of physical restraint. Restraint should only ever be used as a last resort, and we think that the transfer of police custody health to the NHS and commissioning to a standard specification, together with liaison and diversion services being available in every police station, will help to improve that situation and the care and advice available to people in police custody.

I am proud of the Government’s record on mental health, but we have always acknowledged that there is more to be done, and I would not want to suggest any complacency on the part of Government on this vital issue. I will certainly draw to the attention of my DOH colleague the Minister of State who has responsibility for care, all the issues raised by Members on both sides of the House in this very thoughtful debate. I end by thanking all the people in our constituencies—whether within the NHS, the voluntary sector or all the community groups that Members have acknowledged—who provide care to those experiencing mental ill health. We are grateful to them all for what they do to keep Londoners well.

16:38

[Ms Abbott]

I listened with care to the Minister’s speech and she can be sure I will be returning to many of these issues in the coming months. I was particularly glad to be able to put issues relating to London’s LGBT and black and minority ethnic communities on the record, because they are rarely discussed.

I beg, in the gentlest way possible, to differ with the Minister on the issue of whether there is a crisis in respect of mental health and young people. The correspondence that my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) explained to the House about the cut in beds is very worrying. This is an important issue all over the country, but particularly in London. In a city that is so fast-moving and with individuals subject to so many pressures, it behoves the House to pay constant attention.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered mental health and wellbeing of Londoners.

Petitions

Thursday 12th February 2015 Commons Chamber

Scotch Whisky Industry

Thursday 12th February 2015 Commons Chamber

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Damian Hinds.)

16:41

[Mr Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)]

I should like to start by thanking Mr Speaker very much for granting this important debate.

With 14 distilleries, the whisky industry is an important employer in my constituency. It provides jobs in remote communities where alternative work would be hard to find. With eight distilleries, whisky is clearly important to the economy of Islay. On Jura, with its small population, the island’s distillery is a vital part of the local economy. There are also distilleries in Campbeltown, Oban and Tobermory which contribute significantly to the economies of those communities. In addition, many of my constituents are employed in the whisky industry or its supply chain in neighbouring West Dunbartonshire and elsewhere in Scotland.

My reason for seeking today’s debate is to draw the House’s attention to the important contribution that Scotch whisky makes to the United Kingdom economy. Whisky distilling began as a cottage industry in Scotland, but its success has meant that it has grown enormously and now contributes significantly to employment and the economy throughout the whole UK. Scotch whisky is the UK’s largest food and drink sector, accounting for a quarter of the UK’s food and drink exports. Scotch whisky adds £3.3 billion directly to UK GDP and, once indirect jobs are taken into account, its total impact is to add almost £5 billion to the UK economy. Every £1 of value added in the industry produces an additional 52p of value in the wider economy.

I should like to give the House an idea of the scale of the Scotch whisky industry in terms of the value added to the UK economy. The industry is bigger than the UK’s iron and steel, textiles, shipbuilding or computer industries, about half the size of our pharmaceutical or aerospace industries and about a third the size of the entire UK car industry. That should give Members an idea of the scale of employment in the industry.

The Scotch whisky industry spends £1.6 billion annually on supplies from within Britain, ranging from cereals and glass to machinery. That economic impact is felt throughout the UK, with 90% of the industry’s operating expenditure being spent with UK suppliers. I am thinking, for example, of packaging from Wales, yeast from Staffordshire, glass from Yorkshire and logistics from Essex. As a result, Scotch whisky supports more than 40,000 jobs directly and indirectly across the UK, many of which are highly skilled. As proof of that, Scotch whisky workers are the third best paid in Scotland, only behind workers in energy and life sciences. Many of those jobs are in rural communities where alternative employment would be hard to find—about 7,400 jobs are in Scotland’s rural communities.

In terms of production, Scotch whisky workers comprise the second most productive sector in Scotland, behind only energy. Scotch whisky exports are worth more than £4 billion annually. Scotch whisky is the second strongest contributor to the UK national trade performance. The 2013 trade deficit would have been 16% higher without the Scotch whisky contribution. As well as those raw statistics, Scotch whisky makes other contributions which cannot be quantified. As an iconic Scottish industry, it helps to put Scotland on the world map and plays a major role in attracting foreign tourists to Scotland. I have reeled off all those statistics to show just what a high-value, high-quality product Scotch whisky is and the very important contribution the industry makes to the whole UK economy.

I also want to put on the record the industry’s thanks to the Government for the great back-up it receives from them on efforts to break down trade barriers throughout the world. Those Government efforts have helped whisky exports enormously and are a very good reason for Scotland to remain in the UK. Having the resources of the UK Government behind the industry results in breaking down trade barriers far more effectively than would be the case were the back-up from a much smaller Scottish Government.

Having praised the Government for the help they give to the industry’s export drive, I have to draw attention to what has become a significant barrier to the industry’s success in the UK market: the level of taxation. A bottle of whisky is taxed at almost 80%. Most people are shocked when they become aware of that statistic and agree that it is far too high. It is important to bear in mind that the UK is the third largest market for Scotch whisky, yet the domestic trade has been in decline in recent years. The taxation is a particular obstacle for the new and small-scale distillers, who rely on a thriving domestic market to grow, and they say that the current duty regime is damaging their prospects. It is important to bear in mind that the cash flow in the whisky industry is very unusual; whisky has to mature in a cask for many years before it can be bottled, so investors in a distillery have to wait for many years to get their money back and must have confidence in the future before they will invest. The many years of the alcohol duty escalator have been very damaging to the Scotch whisky industry. Excise duty on Scottish whisky is now 44% higher than in 2008, and, as a result, the domestic trade declined in recent years.

For reasons lost in the mists of time, whisky is taxed unfairly compared with beers and wines—the tax per unit of alcohol on whisky is far higher. I fail to see the logic in that. Surely a tax in proportion to the amount of alcohol in the drink would be much fairer. The Scotch whisky industry deserves a level playing field. It is important to note that the unfair taxation does not just have an impact on the Scotch whisky industry in the domestic market; the Scotch Whisky Association tells me that when it tries to convince other countries to reduce unfair tax barriers, those countries often highlight the UK’s taxation regime. They say that the UK taxes whisky at a much higher rate than other drinks and use that as a justification for doing the same thing in their own country.

I was delighted when in last year’s Budget the Chancellor announced the abolition of the alcohol duty escalator and froze the duty on whisky—that was a help to the industry, which was seen in a small boost to the volumes of single malt sold at the end of last year. That suggests that the duty freeze resulted in growth in the industry. I hope that the Chancellor will recognise that duty on whisky is too high and will cut it in the Budget. A 2% cut would help to boost the industry and allow it to create more jobs.

As I have set out in this debate, Scotch whisky is a British success story. This industry and its supply chain provide highly skilled jobs throughout the UK and make a significant contribution to reducing our trade deficit. Continuing to tax this industry at 80% will not bring in extra revenue to the Treasury. In fact, it will probably see revenue decline. Such a high level of taxation risks killing the goose that is laying the golden eggs, and will result in lower revenue to the Treasury in the future.

I hope that this afternoon’s debate has shone a light on the unfair treatment of an iconic Scottish and British product and its vital contribution to our economy. I hope that I have convinced the Exchequer Secretary that a 2% cut in the duty on whisky would boost the British economy. I do not expect an announcement this afternoon—that would be a bit much to hope for—but I do hope that, after the debate, she will rush round to No. 11 and convince the Chancellor of the need for a cut in taxation for this British success story. A cut in taxes would boost the industry and help the wider British economy.

Madam Deputy Speaker, the Exchequer Secretary and everyone else present, I say slàinte mhath—good health.

16:50

[Jim Sheridan (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid) on securing this extremely important debate. Like him, I have many constituents who work in the whisky industry and who benefit from it. I emphasise that the whisky industry is not just a Scottish industry; it is very much a UK industry, and UK workers enjoy quality jobs, permanent jobs and quality pay as a result of the whisky industry.

I also genuinely congratulate the Minister on her work. She has been extremely generous with her time, as she has met the representatives from the Scotch whisky industry. There is all-party support for a tax cut for the industry.

I will not repeat all the statistics around the Scotch whisky industry; I am sure that the Minister is well aware of them. I am not doing a disservice to the people who work in the industry, but we have rehearsed all the arguments with the Minister, and she knows what they are. The only brief comment I wish to make is to reflect what the whisky industry is saying. David Frost, chief executive of the Scotch Whisky Association, met the Minister recently. He said :

“We had a warm and constructive discussion with the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury…The Minister clearly understands Scotch Whisky’s economic importance and we welcome her interest in the industry. In the UK, Scotch Whisky is under sustained pressure from taxation. 80% of the price of an average bottle of Scotch Whisky is taxation and we hope the government will take on board our concerns about the negative impact of this onerous tax burden.”

He went on to say:

“In last year’s Budget, the Chancellor highlighted Scotch Whisky as a ‘huge British success story’. We hope this year too he will show his support for this world-class manufacturing industry, which adds £5 billion to the UK economy and £4 billion net to the UK trade performance every year. We hope the Government will back us by cutting duty by 2% for Scotch Whisky this year. This would be fair to consumers, send a powerful signal to export markets, support public finances, and most of all promote investment and jobs.”

We hope that the Government can see clearly where they are going with this and I look forward to the day of the Budget when the Chancellor will have a dram at the Dispatch Box as a way of promoting good Scotch whisky.

16:53

[The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Priti Patel)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid) on securing this debate, and I thank him for the constructive points he has raised today. Anyone who has enjoyed a dram will recognise the historic whisky producing names in his constituency. Islay and Jura in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency has some of the finest malt whiskies in the world, and that is something that we should all commend, celebrate and be proud of. The world-famous whiskies and distillery experiences on offer are also key contributors to the tens of thousands of visitors who come over every year. I absolutely understand the significance of tourism in his constituency thanks to the whisky industry, which translates into jobs.

There is no doubt, as we have heard from both the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute and the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Jim Sheridan), about the wider economic benefits of Scotch whisky to the Scottish and British economy. They are significant and have also been highlighted in the report by the Scotch Whisky Association. It is only fair and right that I should pay tribute to everybody who has spent time engaging with me, including all hon. Members in the Chamber this afternoon and the all-party group. In particular, I thank them for highlighting that Scotch whisky is the biggest food and drink sector in the United Kingdom, representing nearly a quarter of our food and drink exports.

The industry supports, both directly and indirectly, more than 40,000 jobs, 92% of which are in Scotland. The significance of the industry is phenomenal, with a contribution of in excess of £3 billion directly to UK GDP, and an overall impact of £5 billion.

Distilleries and visitor centres add an additional £30 million to the Scottish tourism industry every year. Of course, this is also about the tremendous image that the industry presents of both Scotland and the United Kingdom across the world. The hon. Member for Argyll and Bute talked about the export markets, and in particular the work of UK Trade & Investment, the work we do across Government to ensure that Scotch whisky is a major economic asset to Scotland and the UK, and why it is important that we keep it in its unique position.

For example, we have introduced the spirits verification scheme to protect the integrity and high reputation of Scotch whisky brands in the export market, which is where 90% of Scotch whisky ends up. It is about having high standards and setting standards on production and labelling for producers to sign up to. That particularly helps with non-compliance in the industry, ensuring that those who buy Scotch get the real deal. That is of course a step change and we have worked in conjunction with the SWA. The hon. Gentlemen will be very familiar with that work. Of course, UKTI has an important role to play in supporting Scotch whisky across our worldwide network of embassies and in bringing it to new and emerging markets, from Lebanon to India to Taiwan, all of which have seen exports increase by more than a quarter in the past year alone.

The hon. Member for Argyll and Bute was right to talk about the lobbying on the abolition of the hated duty escalator in the Budget last year. I campaigned for that myself, so I am familiar with the campaign. Of course, it demonstrates that we should not punish a successful, world-famous industry with excessive taxation. The all-party group on Scotch whisky and spirits has been very good in its representations and I thank it for that. It is fair to say that although I am naturally not in a position to discuss anything to do with the Budget at this stage, I have heard clearly from all Members this afternoon the arguments that have been made about the level of taxation on whisky, particularly when compared with other alcoholic drinks. Those points have come out in my meetings with stakeholders and the industry, too.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

I speak not as a producer but as a drinker of whisky, as are many of my constituents. The archivists at HMRC and the Treasury might be able to dig out the meetings some of us had with the then Chancellor, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), back about 19 years ago, when he was convinced that it was better not to increase and to drop the whisky duty. That led to an increase in revenue, so was fair to drinkers, to producers and to the Revenue, which seems to be a sensible thing to do, and we look forward with confidence to the Budget.

[Priti Patel]

I thank my hon. Friend for his recommendations and advice to go back and look in the archives. I shall certainly do that.

I need no persuading of the considerable impact that the industry brings to Scotland and the United Kingdom. Obviously, all decisions on taxation are under constant review, and we are particularly receptive to helping industries flourish in some of our most remote regions. As I have said, decisions on the duty will be made by the Chancellor at the Budget, and I do not wish to pre-empt anything in relation to the Budget. We want to ensure that Scotch whisky continues to be enjoyed around the world for many years to come, and we want Scotch whisky to continue to be a great flagship brand.

Question put and agreed to.

17:00

House adjourned.