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Oral Answers to Questions
(9 years, 9 months ago)
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Rosie Cooper (West Lancashire) (Lab)
1. What recent estimate Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has made of the amount of uncollected tax in the UK.
Mrs Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)
4. What recent estimate Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has made of the amount of uncollected tax in the UK.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
HMRC published its latest tax gap estimates on 16 October 2014. In 2012-13, the tax gap was estimated at £34 billion, 6.8% of total tax due.
Rosie Cooper
I thank the Minister for those figures. Will he confirm that HMRC’s own figures show that under this Government the amount of uncollected tax has risen by £3 billion?
Mrs Glindon
There has been speculation that the Chancellor’s Budget next week will deal with tax avoidance and evasion, but there has also been speculation that by 2016 the number of staff working in HMRC will drop from 50,000 to just over 40,000. How do the Government expect to deal with evasion and avoidance if they are unwilling to properly resource HMRC?
Mr Gauke
Over the course of this Parliament, HMRC has brought in more yield year after year. If the measure is just on the number of staff, the hon. Lady will be aware that, when HMRC was formed in 2005, it had something like 92,000 members of staff and that by the end of the previous Parliament it had below 70,000. It is not about the number of staff. We are seeing a huge improvement in HMRC’s performance.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
Will the Minister confirm that HMRC’s compliance yield target has actually been revised up this year to £26 billion, which is £9 billion more than when this Government came to office?
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
17. A young man in my constituency had his jobseeker’s allowance taken away because he missed an early morning appointment, despite having notified the jobcentre of the illness that prevented him from attending. He is just one of many vulnerable people affected by the sanctioning regime imposed by this Government. According to the House of Commons Library, the amount lost in tax evasion and tax avoidance exceeds the entire spend on JSA by £2 billion. Does the contrast between the persecution of the most vulnerable and the Government’s failure on tax avoidance not say everything about their priorities?
Mr Gauke
Over the course of this Parliament, the number of prosecutions for tax evasion has gone up fivefold. The reality is that the Government are taking more measures to deal with tax avoidance and tax evasion. We have done that consistently at every Budget. Ever since the 2010 spending review, there has been a greater focus on HMRC being able to bring in the yield. The numbers, as my hon. Friend the Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) pointed out, speak for themselves.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
Hundreds of millions of pounds are lost in revenue, criminal gangs are financed and untold damage is done to the environment in Northern Ireland as a result of fuel laundering. Why have the Government resisted putting effective trace measures into fuel, which would stamp this out? Is the Minister concerned that despite numerous raids nobody is ever caught for fuel laundering in Northern Ireland?
Mr Gauke
Our record across the piece shows that we take tax evasion and criminal activity in this area very seriously. This is a complex matter, but the hon. Gentleman will know that considerable efforts have been undertaken to address fuel laundering. This is a matter we take very seriously.
Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)
The Minister must acknowledge the significant damage that the recent HSBC tax avoidance and evasion scandal has done to the public’s confidence in the Government’s willingness to pursue tax avoiders and evaders, thereby reducing the amount of uncollected tax in the UK. In the Chancellor’s absence, will the Minister now answer the question that the Chancellor failed to answer six times on the “Today” programme? Did the Chancellor ever discuss tax evasion at HSBC with Lord Green—yes or no?
Mr Gauke
As I have pointed out, the Government’s efforts and success in dealing with tax avoidance and tax evasion are a huge step forward from what we inherited. On the appointment of Lord Green, the proper processes, as put in place by the previous Government, were undertaken. The Cabinet Secretary looked at Lord Green’s tax affairs, and just as the previous Government appointed him to their business advisory council, so he was appointed as a Minister—an appointment that was welcomed by the Labour party.
Shabana Mahmood
Still we have no answer to the simplest and clearest of questions. If we cannot get a straight answer from the Chancellor or his Ministers, we should at least hear from Lord Green—the man who was in charge of the bank and was then made a Conservative Minister—either in front of a parliamentary Committee or through a statement in the other place. Why are the Government parties so desperate to silence Lord Green? What are they so afraid he will reveal?
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
2. What proportion of recipients of tax credits are in employment.
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Andrea Leadsom)
In total, 4.5 million households are in receipt of tax credits, and 71% of them are in employment. The Government believe it is right to provide additional support to those in need through the benefits system, but we have been clear throughout that we want to ensure that people are better off in work than on benefits.
Jessica Morden
Will the Minister confirm that the Government’s real-terms cuts to tax credits will not only hit more people in work but hit far more women than men?
Andrea Leadsom
I am sure the hon. Lady shares my delight at the great news that the gender pay gap is lower than it has ever been, that there are more women in work than ever before and that 1.85 million people are in work who were not in work at the time of the last general election. That is cause for celebration. The Government have strived at every point to support women into work, whether through entrepreneurial allowances, support for women with child care or other measures.
John Howell (Henley) (Con)
19. Is my hon. Friend aware of the Institute for Fiscal Studies report on living standards showing that living standards are back to where they were before Labour’s great recession? Does this not help the very people she has mentioned?
Andrea Leadsom
Yes, my hon. Friend is exactly right. The IFS report also showed that 200,000 fewer people were in relative poverty in 2014-15 compared with 2009-10, including 100,000 children, and that since 2010 the number of children under 16 in workless households had fallen by about 390,000, taking it to the lowest level since records began. That is very good news.
Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)
25. The average wage in my constituency is £450, which is £71 per week less than the national average. How can the Minister defend real-terms cuts to tax credits for these hard-working people, particularly the women, in my constituency?
Andrea Leadsom
The hon. Gentleman will surely be delighted at the news from the IFS and other forecasters that real wages are now rising at a higher rate than inflation, and it is thanks to our long-term economic plan that inflation is so low. We have had council tax cuts and fuel duty freezes, and we have done everything we can by raising personal tax-free allowances to enable people to benefit from a recovering economy, but we can only do it by sticking to a long-term economic plan.
Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
Am I right in thinking that universal credit will replace working tax credits and child tax credits, making 3 million households better off by an average of £177 per month and improving work incentives by allowing people to keep more of their income as they move into work?
Andrea Leadsom
Yes, my right hon. Friend is exactly right. Universal credit is a major reform that will transform the welfare state in Britain for the better. It will replace the current complex system of means-tested working-age benefits, including tax credits, and make 3 million households better off by on average £177 a month.
Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)
3. What steps he is taking to invest in infrastructure.
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Danny Alexander)
This Government have revolutionised the approach to infrastructure through long-term planning via the national infrastructure plan, which we conceived and published, that sets out an infrastructure pipeline worth more than £460 billion of public and private investment. In the 2013 spending round, I committed over £100 billion to support infrastructure investment across the United Kingdom.
Jack Lopresti
I am delighted that the Government have made significant commitments to the south-west region, such as the fantastic £50 million-worth of investment for a new junction on the M49 in my constituency. Will the Minister confirm what further investments he is making for improvements to transport across the south-west region as a whole?
Danny Alexander
Investment in the transport infrastructure of the south-west has been a much higher priority for this Government than, I think, for any previous Government. We have committed £7.2 billion-worth of investment in the transport infrastructure of the south-west, including £2 billion in roads—for example, dualling the A303 and the new tunnel at Stonehenge, sorting out the A30 all the way to Camborne and the electrification of the Great Western main line with new inter-city express trains. I have recently asked the south-west peninsula rail task force to bring forward more proposals for investment in strategic rail schemes for the region.
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
Last month, a couple of hundred senior business figures gave a very warm welcome to the second stage of the review that Sir John Armitt has done on infrastructure for the Labour party, including plans for a new independent national infrastructure commission to identify the country’s long-term needs and monitor Governments’ plans to meet them. Business backs Labour plans; business organisations back Labour’s plans; will the right hon. Gentleman back them?
Danny Alexander
Of course, the Labour party’s belated conversion to long-term planning for infrastructure is welcome, although it was not the practice during its 13 years in office. I think that the national infrastructure plan and the architecture around it provides the right framework for delivering that long-term planning. I am not convinced that a new quango is the best way to solve the problem.
Mrs Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)
Last week, the HS2 Select Committee wrote to the Treasury asking for more flexibility on big infrastructure projects where farmers have difficulty finding suitable replacement land within the statutory time limits for capital gains tax relief, leaving the businesses not knowing whether or not a discretionary power could be granted. Can the Chief Secretary give some comfort to my constituents who are affected by this?
Danny Alexander
I do take seriously my right hon. Friend’s point. The Department for Transport is working on the plans to flesh out how these things will work in respect of HS2. I would add that HMRC can provide extra flexibility where there are particular impacts on particular farmers or other businesses. I would certainly want to maintain an open mind on the points that my right hon. Friend is raising.
Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)
I could not help but notice that when my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) was asking the Chief Secretary’s sidekick to answer a question about Lord Green, the Chief Secretary was constantly having a laugh at his expense. I am going to give him a chance: will he now answer the question about meeting Lord Green. Now is the opportunity to make a name for himself. Come on.
Mr Speaker
The hon. Gentleman has made his point, but unfortunately it does not relate to investment in infrastructure.
Mr Speaker
I am trying to use such powers of anticipation as I have, but let us hear the Chief Secretary respond.
Danny Alexander
I do not recall ever having had any conversations about investment in infrastructure with Lord Green. Matters relating to ministerial appointments are, of course, a matter for the Prime Minister. What matters is making sure that in this country we have a zero-tolerance approach to tax evasion and tax avoidance, and that where organisations are facilitating or encouraging tax evasion, we put in place the proper penalties.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Does the Chief Secretary agree that no British Government should fail to invest in the infrastructure, the personnel and the equipment of the armed forces at a rate less than the NATO-recommended minimum? Will he have a word with his leader and with mine to make sure that the necessary commitment is given before the general election?
Danny Alexander
We have met that commitment in the present Parliament, and we will do so in 2015-16 as well. Spending on defence will, of course. be a matter for the next spending round. However, I suggest that the hon. Gentleman should have regard not just to the total amount spent, but to the efficiency of the expenditure. We have made great progress during this Parliament in securing better value, in terms of defence equipment and output, for the limited money that we have to spend as a country.
Ms Margaret Ritchie (South Down) (SDLP)
The Treasury has had meetings with the European Commission to discuss the reinstatement of the aggregate credit levy scheme for Northern Ireland, which could serve as a further tool of investment in infrastructure. What further discussions have taken place?
Danny Alexander
I know that discussions have been ongoing, and that the issue has been the subject of a protracted dispute. I have no further updates, but I will ensure that my ministerial colleague who is responsible for the scheme writes to the hon. Lady.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
5. What recent representations he has received on fiscal steps to address funding pressures in the NHS.
Danny Alexander
The Government have protected the health budget in real terms throughout the current Parliament. Of course a strong national health service needs a strong economy, and the Government plan to deliver that strong economy, along with a fairer society. The NHS budget has already increased by £12.7 billion during this Parliament, and in the autumn statement we announced an additional £2 billion for front-line NHS services. That money is intended to meet demand pressures in the next financial year, and also to help to start the process of transformation that was outlined in the “Five Year Forward View”, which is probably the most important representation that I have received on NHS funding in the last year or so.
Andrew Gwynne
Hospitals have struggled to cope with the pressures during the winter. Labour has made a fully funded commitment to provide the extra doctors, nurses, home care workers and midwives who are needed through a “time to care” fund. Analysis of Conservative party spending plans shows that more than 260,000 elderly people risk losing their social care packages during the next Parliament. Is it not time for the Government to commit themselves to taxing hedge funds and tobacco companies in order to raise the extra resources that our NHS so desperately needs?
Danny Alexander
Let me gently say to the hon. Gentleman that he ought to be a wee bit cautious about believing too many of his Front Benchers’ spending plans. They say that they want to deal with the deficit but have set out no plans to do so, and they have made multiple spending commitments without any sense of how those commitments will accord with their fiscal strategy.
The hon. Gentleman is, of course, right to suggest that going too far and reducing the deficit reduction by more than is necessary in the next Parliament would have a damaging effect on public services. I would say that his party has got it wrong and the Conservative party has got it wrong, but the Liberal Democrats have got it right.
David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)
23. Despite the economic chaos that was inherited by the coalition Government, spending on the NHS in England has been protected and increased. Does that not compare very favourably with the position in Wales, where a Labour Government have slashed NHS spending by 8%? Should we not judge these people by their deeds rather than their words?
Danny Alexander
My hon. Friend has made a very fair point. Comparing the NHS performance of different Administrations is an important activity, in which I am sure he will engage very fruitfully over the next few weeks. Let me add that if we are to judge a Labour Government by their actions, we should look at the mess that the Labour party made of the economy when it was last in power. If we found ourselves with problems of that kind again, money for our NHS would be one of the resources that would suffer.
Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)
As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne), the pressures on the NHS are already putting care services in crisis. Why has the Chief Secretary colluded in Tory plans to shrink public investment and take an additional £70 billion from public services in the next Parliament, thus posing an even bigger risk to health and social care? He has dodged the question in the past; will he give us a straight answer now? Why did he sign off those Tory plans in the autumn statement?
Danny Alexander
The hon. Gentleman would do better to begin any question about the NHS with an acknowledgement of his own party’s failures I have made it clear that the figures published by the Office for Budget Responsibility represent a neutral assumption. I think the hon. Gentleman’s party would borrow too much and the Conservatives would cut too much, and that what we need is a balanced approach in the middle.
Chris Leslie
I do not know whether the Chief Secretary knows what he is doing. The letter from the OBR’s Robert Chote explicitly says—I have it in front of me—that the forecast for that £23 billion of surplus in 2019-20 was
“signed off by the ‘quad’”,
of which I think the Chief Secretary is a member. Is Robert Chote wrong, or did the Chief Secretary not realise what he was signing up to? Will he at least assure us that, if that was a mistake or he did not spot it in the past, he will be opposing a repeat of those Tory plans in next week’s Budget Red Book?
Danny Alexander
Matters relating to the Budget will be revealed by the Chancellor in his Budget statement next Wednesday and not before, as I am sure you would expect, Mr Speaker. I have listened to the hon. Gentleman today, as I listened to him on the “Today” programme yesterday, and there was not a single answer about how Labour would balance the books, and not a single answer about how Labour would invest in public services. I heard yesterday about Labour’s zero-based review, which seems to mean zero savings, zero ideas, zero economic credibility.
Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)
Health services in Chester and west Cheshire are facing increased pressures because of thousands of people fleeing from the Welsh NHS and seeking treatment in England. Will my right hon. Friend guarantee to provide more money for hospitals on the English side of the border, to protect them from the failure of the Labour party in Wales?
Danny Alexander
Clearly, there are issues in the NHS in Wales, but I would caution my hon. Friend about the tone of his question, because health workers in England and in Wales are working as hard as they can to provide the best treatment they can for people on either side of the border. Of course there are failures in terms of funding in Wales and issues that need to be dealt with, but everyone on this side of the House should unite in respect and admiration for our nurses and doctors and the work they do to keep us healthy in this country.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
6. If he will make a comparative assessment of the level of duty on wine paid in the UK and in other EU member states.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
Industry estimates show that there are 135 wineries in England and Wales, producing 4.5 million bottles of wine. The UK’s growing and award-winning wine industry benefited from the Government ending the wine duty escalator at Budget 2014.
Tim Loughton
There will be much responsible dancing in the streets if the Chancellor completes a hat-trick of beer duty cuts in his Budget and there will be much responsible celebration if he cuts the duty on spirits. But there will be much wailing and irrepressible disappointment if he does not reduce the duty on wine, which has gone up by 54% since 2008 alone and accounts for 67% of all the duty on all wine in the whole of the EU. Will he complete a fantastic treble-whammy by dropping the duty on wine, too, which it has been estimated would generate some £3 billion in extra revenue—and 20,000 jobs!
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
If this Government do indeed have a long-term economic plan, which most of my constituents do not believe, will the Financial Secretary stop worrying about the older generation of wine drinkers and start concentrating his mind on the young people of this country who are underprivileged and overtaxed and have more problems in getting a good job? It is about time that the 18 to 35-year-olds, rather than the older wine drinkers of this country, were taken into account by this Chancellor.
Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD)
While the Financial Secretary is looking carefully at the duty on English wine, will he redouble his efforts to support artisan and small-scale cider makers, who risk being put out of business as a consequence of a disastrous recent EU decision?
Mr Gauke
I appreciate the point made by my hon. Friend. The Government’s support for small cider makers across the piece has helped to create a diverse and vibrant market in this area, and we will continue to study the Commission’s arguments carefully because we want to support this industry.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
8. What plans he has to introduce penalties for financial advisers who promote aggressive tax avoidance and tax evasion schemes.
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Danny Alexander)
This Government have been relentless in cracking down on tax avoidance and evasion. We have introduced a tougher monitoring regime and penalties for high-risk promoters of tax avoidance schemes, and the unprecedented common reporting standard will mean that by 2018 more than 90 countries will be exchanging information on offshore accounts automatically, helping Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to find and pursue offshore evaders successfully.
Charlie Elphicke
I thank the Chief Secretary for that answer. Does he agree that more has been done on tax avoidance in the past five years than was done in the previous 13, so craven were the previous Government before big business and big tax avoidance? Will he welcome the Financial Secretary’s announcement yesterday of further action on tax avoidance-promoting schemes?
Danny Alexander
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right in both things that he says. The Financial Secretary’s announcement represented very important further progress, but if we look back over the past five years, we see that the relentlessness of our pursuit of measures to crack down on avoidance, be it the general anti-abuse rule in the tax system, the disclosure of tax avoidance schemes regime, the monitoring regime that we are putting in place or the measures to increase prosecutions for tax evasion, has made it clear that there is absolutely no tolerance for aggressive tax avoidance and tax evasion in this country.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
The Chief Secretary will know that 10% of UK wealth is held in offshore bank accounts, which is a much higher proportion than in the United States, so why is he not focusing on that tax avoidance and evasion, at a time when 65% of people on jobseeker’s allowance in Swansea have been sanctioned and are living on a pittance? It is a disgrace.
Danny Alexander
The hon. Gentleman clearly was not listening to my first answer, because we have put in place something unprecedented: working with our colleagues in other countries, the common reporting standard will mean that more than 90 countries will be automatically exchanging information on offshore accounts, so that HMRC has the information it needs to find and pursue offshore tax evaders successfully. We need to make further progress on how we deal with organisations that encourage, promote or facilitate tax evasion. I have said I want to see further work done on that, and I am sure we will be hearing more about it soon.
Ian Swales (Redcar) (LD)
In 2006-07, a hedge fund manager avoided millions in tax through a film scheme later judged unlawful. HSBC received £438,000 for acting as an intermediary, so does the Chief Secretary agree that there should have been a penalty on HSBC for its role in this scam?
Danny Alexander
I do not know the details of the specific instance to which my hon. Friend refers, but I do think that in cases where an organisation is facilitating or promoting tax evasion and a penalty is then paid and tax is paid, as it should have been in the first place, the organisation facilitating the tax evasion should be liable for exactly the same amount of money, to be paid to the Exchequer. In that way, there would be a strong financial as well as legal incentive for people not to get involved in this practice in the first place.
Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)
9. What recent representations he has received on caps on local authority borrowing for building homes.
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Danny Alexander)
I have received many representations on local authority borrowing caps, but I would refer the House to the recent excellent review of the local authority role in housing supply carried out by Natalie Elphicke and Councillor Keith House. They made many suggestions as to how the local authority role in house building could be improved, but one of their conclusions was that the problem was not a lack of money but the way in which resources are deployed and organised in the local government sector.
Sarah Newton
I very much welcome the answer to my question and the other comprehensive measures the Government have taken to enable people to buy their own homes, such as First Buy. Will the Chief Secretary explain a little more about some of those findings and what more we can do to ensure that hard-working people who need social housing can get it?
Danny Alexander
The hon. Lady raises an important question. In this Parliament we are building more affordable homes than has been the case at any point in the past 20 years, and in the next Parliament we will be building even more. However, I do not think any of us should be complacent; we need to raise substantially the level of house building in this country. That is why I welcome the recommendation of Keith House and Natalie Elphicke on a housing finance institute. It is also why I set out around the autumn statement last year moves towards Government taking a direct commissioning role to ensure that we meet a 300,000 homes a year target. That will be piloted at the Northstowe development, which I encourage the hon. Lady to find out more about.
Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)
I declare an indirect interest, which is on record. Local authorities are at the sharp end of this Government’s failure to deliver the housing that the country needs, particularly affordable rented housing. Labour Plymouth is proactively doing what the Minister has just said—bringing forward land and building 1,000 homes. It has a view on the cap and about meeting the need. Greater concerns, however, surround the announcement of the starter home scheme, which will lead to a massive loss of affordable home building— developers get out of any requirement to do it and the local authority has no say. Can the Chief Secretary please tell the House what the impact assessment of that policy was and the impact on affordable rented homes?
Danny Alexander
The idea behind the starter homes scheme is precisely to offer homes at a discount to young people who want to get on the housing ladder. I would have thought that was an objective that everyone in the House would welcome. If the hon. Lady wants to look at social rented housing, in this Parliament—and continuing in the next Parliament—we have the highest annual rate of social house building than under the previous Government or for the past 20 years. During Labour’s 13 years in office, the number of social homes fell by 421,000; we have increased it by over 300,000.
Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)
10. What recent discussions he has had with the Finance Secretary of the Scottish Government on devolution of taxes.
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Danny Alexander)
I have had frequent and largely constructive discussions with the Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth, including on the matter of devolution of taxes, as have my ministerial colleagues. The Scottish Minister recently met the Chancellor of the Exchequer. We have made huge progress in the area of tax devolution.
Michael Connarty
From reading the text of the Smith agreement, it seems to me that we have handed over income tax in particular to the Scottish Government, whereby allowances and bands can be varied. In fact, we have created the possibility of an independent tax system, apart from hanging on to the 20p tax as a kind of fulcrum around which it must work. Has the Treasury looked at the impact on the UK if there were an entirely independent tax system in the north of the United Kingdom?
Danny Alexander
Yes, we have. The hon. Gentleman is right. The Smith commission—rightly, I believe—devolves power over rates and bands in the income tax system. It does not devolve control of the tax base or the personal allowance. One of the bits of work that remains to be done is to ensure that we have a fiscal framework in place around that which means that the fact of devolution does not offer a financial advantage in and of itself either to Scotland or to the rest of the United Kingdom. I have had constructive discussions with John Swinney on that point and on many others. It is, of course, a matter for the Scottish Government to make sure that they have competent administrative machinery in place, which they will need next month when the process of the first wave of income tax devolution starts.
Mike Crockart (Edinburgh West) (LD)
Is my right hon. Friend, like me, waiting with bated breath for the latest Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland figures to be published? Does he expect that they will bolster or demolish the Scottish National party’s case for full fiscal autonomy?
Danny Alexander
Bated breath might be overstating it, but I expect the new GERS figures very soon. In recent days we have seen evidence of the damage that the Scottish National party’s ideas would do to the UK economy—higher debt for the whole of the UK at the end of this Parliament than at the beginning of it, and an extra £5 billion a year being spent on interest payments. Having been defeated on its proposals for independence, which would have undermined and damaged the Scottish economy, the SNP seems inclined to offer the same damage to the UK economy as a whole.
Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)
Under the Scotland Act 2012, from April 2016 Scotland will indeed have significant new tax-raising powers. HMRC’s own risk register shows that the risk that Scottish taxpayers will not be identified by April 2016 has risen from amber to red, so can the Chief Secretary tell the House why, despite these being the biggest changes to Scottish tax ever, only 11 full-time equivalent HMRC staff are working on them and, according to Audit Scotland, they rely on a single official in the Scottish Government?
Danny Alexander
I am confident that the resource being applied at the HMRC end of the spectrum is sufficient to ensure that we can deliver the devolution that is planned. That process is going on at present. Stamp duty devolution starts in April this year and income tax devolution the following April. Whether or not the Scottish Government are applying sufficient resource, effort or people to make sure that the tax system will be competently administered is a question for them to answer. I recently signed off the orders to devolve stamp duty, and they will now need to make sure that that is done properly.
Cathy Jamieson
I thank the Chief Secretary for that response, although it does not entirely fill me with reassurance. Is it not the case that this whole process risks descending into absolute chaos, and is it not time that both the UK and the Scottish Governments got a grip? How many HMRC and Treasury officials have been seconded to the Scottish Government to help clear up the mess? If people have not been seconded, will he now have urgent discussions to see whether that would help?
Danny Alexander
I am afraid that it is a feature of devolution, which the hon. Lady and I both support, that devolved Administrations have to take responsibility for matters that are in their purview. Frankly speaking, it is not for the Treasury to send officials to bail out Revenue Scotland. If it approaches us and says that it does not have enough people, it cannot do it and it is not ready, that is fine. But having discussed the matter with John Swinney and received assurances that he believes that it is in a good position to carry on taking on those functions and to do so properly, that is sufficient for me to sign the orders to hand over the powers.
Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)
11. What fiscal steps he has taken to support businesses.
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Andrea Leadsom)
The Government champion business. We have cut the main rate of corporation tax to 21%, the lowest in the G7, we have allocated more than £460 billion for infrastructure projects, and we have committed to unlock up to £10 billion of business finance through the British Business Bank by 2017-18.
Mary Macleod
Businesses in Chiswick, Brentford, Isleworth, Osterley and Hounslow have been hugely helped by the Government through lower business rates, reduced tax, better infrastructure and two new free schools, which were announced yesterday, to help build the skills for the future. Does my hon. Friend agree that only a Conservative Government with a long-term economic plan can help make Britain the most attractive place in the world to start and grow a business?
Andrea Leadsom
I completely agree with my hon. Friend. She is right that we want Britain to be the best place to start and grow a business. I am delighted for her that she has 9,600 new start-ups in her constituency, which she has fought for diligently throughout this Parliament, and that, as a result of this success, unemployment is down 38% in her constituency since 2010. I was particularly delighted to pay a visit with her to one of them, My Plumber Ltd, and to meet the wonderful Ollie, who was the apprentice there in charge.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
One fiscal measure that affects business a great deal is the rate of VAT, and every Conservative Government put up VAT. In 1979, they put it up from 8% to 15%; in 1991, up to 17.5%; in 1994, on fuel and power; and in 2010, VAT was raised again to 20%. So we know what they will do, but let us give them one more chance. Will the hon. Lady rule out putting up VAT if in power after May?
Andrea Leadsom
It is extraordinary. I wonder if the hon. Gentleman would like to admit that every Labour Government when they leave office leave unemployment higher than when they came in. That is the truth of the matter. The Government are sorting out the mess left by the Labour Government, which was the worst financial crisis in British peacetime.
Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)
18. Does my hon. Friend agree that, thanks to our long-term economic plan, the Government have supported businesses through cutting businesses taxes? Does she further agree that the real difference between the Government and the Labour party’s approach is that while we have been cutting taxes on businesses, it wants to put them up?
Andrea Leadsom
Yes, my hon. Friend is exactly right. There is the risk under Labour of a return to an anti-business system that has already been recognised by people who are themselves trying to run businesses in the UK that are contributing to our economy. She has been assiduous in her constituency in supporting business. She has more than 8,000 new start-ups, and I was delighted to visit Clare and to meet the Ealing Mums in Business, who are doing everything that they can to build successful businesses from small beginnings, to talk to them about access to finance.
Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)
One of the steps designed to assist businesses in Northern Ireland is the devolution of corporation tax. In light of the reneging of Sinn Fein on the introduction of welfare reform, what implications does the Minister see in the devolution of corporation tax in Northern Ireland?
Andrea Leadsom
As I think the hon. Gentleman will know, we will agree to devolution for Northern Ireland if it is sustainable, and if it is felt by all sides to be a sustainable proposition.
Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
12. What assessment he has made of recent trends in the level of youth employment.
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Andrea Leadsom)
This Government have taken decisive action to boost youth employment. We have been a Government who are very much on the side of young people, and the results are clear: youth employment is increasing, up by 110,000 over the past year, and the number of young people claiming jobseeker’s allowance is at its lowest level since the 1970s.
Mr Stuart
Youth unemployment in my constituency is down by 53% since 2010. In the city of Hull, it is down by 54%. Does my hon. Friend recognise the opportunity that has been created by the growth in apprenticeships under this Government? Does she agree with the Education Committee that it would be “a mistake” for level 2 apprenticeships to be abolished for young people, as the Labour party proposes? Does she agree, on this occasion, with the TUC, which says it would be “a grave injustice”, or with the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, which says that, on apprenticeships, Labour has “got it all wrong”?
Andrea Leadsom
My hon. Friend is right. Under this Government we have seen over 2 million new apprenticeships, and level 2 apprenticeships are absolutely vital in giving young people a chance. Young people have shared in the success of our long-term economic plan, with the UK now having the fourth highest youth employment rate in the EU and the second highest in the G7. Very importantly, young people’s wages are also on the rise, with the latest data showing that the earnings of 18 to 21-year-olds who work full time have increased by 6% over the past three years.
Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)
Yesterday I had an exchange with the Minister for Employment in which I made it abundantly clear that youth unemployment in my constituency continues to rise. She has said that the recent rise in youth unemployment is just “a tiny blip”. Does this Minister agree with that?
Andrea Leadsom
The hon. Gentleman should surely be delighted that since 2010 youth unemployment in his constituency is down by 47%, so I cannot agree with him, and that since 2010 unemployment is down by 34%. In the past 12 months, long-term unemployment is down by 38%. Surely he should be celebrating those numbers.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
13. What his policy is on the future of tax allowances related to marriage.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
The Government have introduced the marriage allowance for married couples and civil partners, which takes effect from 6 April 2015. The transferable amount has been fixed at 10% and will rise in proportion to the personal allowance.
Sir Edward Leigh
More than 4 million people could benefit from the marriage allowance, for which they have been able to register since 20 February. Does my hon. Friend agree that this is about much more than just pounds or pence—it is about valuing commitment and marriage as a bedrock of society?
Mr Gauke
As the Prime Minister made very clear in the 2010 general election, it is right that we recognise marriage in the tax system, and that is precisely what we have done. As my hon. Friend rightly points out, it is now possible for people to register to be able to benefit from the transferable tax allowance.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
Does the Minister consider it either fair or socially useful that money is being spent in this way when only one in four of the couples who benefit are raising children?
Sir Robert Smith (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (LD)
14. What steps he is taking to support jobs in the north-east of Scotland by maximising the economic recovery of North sea oil and gas. [R]
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Danny Alexander)
The Government have made significant progress on supporting the North sea oil and gas sector, including the announcements I made in December about an investment allowance and other changes, although I recognise that there are very serious ongoing problems at the moment.
Sir Robert Smith
I thank the Chief Secretary to the Treasury for recognising the problems in the North sea. Does he also recognise that the job losses that have been announced predate the fall in the oil price, and that it is crucial that in the Budget we see long-term structural change for the maturity of the province?
Danny Alexander
I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend. I have had a number of meetings with Oil & Gas UK and representatives of the oil industry. Having set out in December the fact that the tax regime for the North sea is going to be on a declining path, recognising precisely the issues that he mentions, we have set a clear direction of travel, and the Chancellor will set out our decisions in the Budget next Wednesday. Let me reassure my hon. Friend that this Government take incredibly seriously the need to make sure that we have a fiscal regime that supports maximum economic recovery of the resources of North sea oil and gas.
Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)
The Chief Secretary knows that the fundamental issue is the cost of doing business in the North sea basin. The up to 81% marginal tax rate on production is something that the Government could do something about. Given that this Chief Secretary boasted that putting up the supplementary charge was his decision, will he now apologise for that and make sure that the charge begins to be reduced in the Budget next week?
Danny Alexander
In fact, we made sure that the supplementary charge began to be reduced in the autumn statement in December, so the hon. Gentleman should catch up on his facts. The fact remains that the measures we are taking to support the industry—through the Wood review, the establishment of the Oil and Gas Authority, and decommissioning deeds and field allowances —have already created an environment that has seen very substantial investment in the North sea in the past few years. The point that my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Sir Robert Smith) made is right. Making sure that we have a climate for long-term investment is precisely what we are trying to do, and the hon. Gentleman will have to wait for the Budget for our decisions.
Dame Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)
What are the Government doing to encourage the offshore sector to co-operate and to have common standards as a better way of reducing costs in the supply chain than laying off the very people we will need when, I hope, things in the North sea begin to pick up again?
Danny Alexander
The hon. Lady makes an important point about co-operation in the industry. It is precisely such co-operation that has led the Wood review to recommend and the Government to create the Oil and Gas Authority. We find that particularly in respect of the sensible and low-cost use of infrastructure in the North sea, where greater co-operation between fields and so on will help to reduce costs. That is one of the early challenges that Andy Samuel is getting to grips with at the Oil and Gas Authority, and I think he has the support of the whole House in doing so.
Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Danny Alexander)
Mr Speaker, I should say that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is at ECOFIN, making sure that Britain’s voice is heard in the European Union, and the Exchequer Secretary is unwell. I am sure that the whole House wishes her a speedy recovery.
The core purpose of the Treasury is to ensure the stability and prosperity of the economy.
Ian Lavery
Will the Chief Secretary confirm that the Treasury has had discussions with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Department of Energy and Climate Change with regard to UK Coal’s application for state aid for the British coal industry? What stage are the discussions actually at?
Danny Alexander
It would be wrong for me to go into the ongoing discussions between BIS and other Departments and the industry. However, I can certainly say that I am aware of the issues that the industry is experiencing, and a discussion on that subject is going on with the Government.
Andrew Griffiths (Burton) (Con)
T2. Under the previous Labour Government, thousands of pubs closed and the brewing industry was taxed to the point of extinction. The Campaign for Real Ale now says that the Chancellor has saved 1,050 pubs, sold 75 million extra pints and has been the saviour of Britain’s brewing industry. Does the Chief Secretary agree that this Government have been positive for beer and pubs, and will he urge the Chancellor to keep on supporting our breweries?
Danny Alexander
This Government have undoubtedly been positive for beer and pubs. Many hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland), have campaigned on this issue. It is of course for the Chancellor to announce the Government’s decisions in this respect—I am sure that he has not pulled all those pints himself—but it is certainly the case that the beer and pub industry is stronger in this country, as part of a stronger economy, because of the decisions that this coalition Government have so far made.
Mrs Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)
T3. Do the Government expect operating oil companies in receipt of tax concessions to develop contract strategies to enable UK fabricating yards to participate in large contracts with the potential to support thousands of jobs across the whole country?
Danny Alexander
If the hon. Lady has specific issues in mind, I would gladly engage in further discussion with her, but the steps this Government have taken—including the establishment of enterprise zones in many areas where there are fabrication yards, and measures such as electricity market reform to get offshore wind and other such production going in the UK—all support the objective that she describes and which I share. If she has further ideas on how we can pursue that, I would gladly hear them.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
T4. The Chancellor recently highlighted the major part that my Cleethorpes constituency and the Humber estuary will play in the growing northern economy. However, much depends on continued investment in transport infrastructure. Will the Minister assure me and my constituents that that will continue as a high priority?
Danny Alexander
I certainly can. In the final Treasury questions of this Parliament it is worth reflecting on the fact that, despite the tough economic decisions we have had to make, this country is making the largest investment in our rail network since Victorian times and the largest investment in our road network since the 1970s, and we have a programme to roll out superfast broadband across the entire country. Those things will leave our economy with a stronger long-term growth potential, as well as having given us the best growth rates in the European Union at the moment.
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)
T5. Is it not the case that those earning more than £1 million a year have benefited from an average tax cut of up to £100,000 a year in this Parliament? Does that not illustrate that, as ever under the Tories, the mega-rich get richer and the poor get poorer—and that this time they have been aided and abetted by the Liberal Democrats?
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
It is this Government who have dealt with disguised remuneration by which loans were never repaid, benefiting the highest earners. It is this Government who have increased the rates of stamp duty land tax on high-end properties and ensured that they are properly enforced. It is under this Government that capital gains tax has gone up so that cleaners do not pay a higher rate of tax than hedge fund managers. It is this Government who have ensured that those with the broadest shoulders bear the greatest burden, as the Institute for Fiscal Studies confirmed last week.
Alistair Burt (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)
T6. Is my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary aware that in my rural constituency, businesses regard the words “long-term economic plan” with the same degree of comfort and familiarity as evensong in an Anglican church? Will she be good enough to give an assurance that, following the election, those words and the benefits that they bring will continue, not least through the expansion of broadband which is so important for rural business?
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Andrea Leadsom)
It sounds as though evensong in my right hon. Friend’s constituency is a fabulous occurrence, and hopefully not just on a Sunday. He is right to point out that this Government have sought to ensure that the benefits of the economic plan are felt right across the country and that the growth is balanced, with all three major sectors—services, construction and manufacturing —growing by 2.5% or more for the first time since records began in 1990.
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
We all want to see an end to big companies wriggling out of tax by offshoring profits, but what assessment has the Minister made of the impact on kitchen table digital industries, such as the sale of knitting patterns, of the way in which HMRC has implemented the new EU rules on VAT being collected in the country of sale, and what can he do about it?
Mr Gauke
Those are EU rules. It was the previous Government who signed up to the principle of changing the way in which the VAT system worked, and they were right to do so. This Government have taken two measures to try to mitigate the impact on some smaller businesses. None the less, without the support of other member states, we are still faced with a change in the rules.
Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)
T7. Under this Government, food and drink manufacturing is a great British success story. However, our dairy farmers are being badly affected by volatile global markets. Will the Financial Secretary look favourably on proposals to implement tax averaging reforms, such as those in Ireland, to help these essential producers who contribute so much to our rural economies?
Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)
For hard-pressed taxpayers, the real test of whether the Government are committed to cracking down on tax evasion and avoidance will be whether this month’s Finance Bill contains legal penalties for breach of the general anti-abuse rule. Will the Financial Secretary tell us whether those will feature in the Finance Bill—yes or no?
Danny Alexander
The hon. Gentleman will have to wait for the Finance Bill to be published and to hear the Budget statement next week. He should reflect on his party’s record in office on these matters. Frankly, when the coalition Government came to office, we inherited a tax system like a Swiss cheese: it was so full of holes that tax was leaking all over the place. We have plugged a lot of those holes and there is more work to be done, but I do not think that he should give us any lectures.
Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)
I am sure my right hon. Friend will welcome the report by the Electrification Task Force, which is chaired by the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones), and praise its work. The report said that in tier 1 the Harrogate-Leeds-York line should be prioritised, but does the Minister agree that we must also put in the 1.1 mile of track to connect Yorkshire’s Leeds Bradford airport?
Danny Alexander
I congratulate the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones) and my hon. Friend on the their work, and I met them recently to discuss it. There is a strong case for investment in the Harrogate-Leeds-York line and in the rail link to the airport that my hon. Friend describes. Ensuring that degree of connectivity for one of the fastest growing airports in the country, which has huge potential for growth, could also take off the roads the traffic caused by people travelling to other airports in the country. We shall be considering the matter carefully.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
The Minister will have noticed the substantial depreciation of the euro in recent times, which is bound to cause damage to the British economy. When will the Government take the exchange rate seriously and seek to secure an appropriate exchange rate for sterling?
Danny Alexander
We take seriously the need for this country to have a set of policies that ensure the long-term health and growth of the UK economy, and the appropriate mix of fiscal policy, monetary policy and long-term investment. That is why we have the fastest growth in the United Kingdom of any advanced economy, and why there are now more than 2 million more people in work in the private sector than there were in 2010. That is a record I am proud of, and the hon. Gentleman should congratulate the Government on it.
John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)
When considering the allocation of LIBOR fines, will Treasury Ministers consider carefully the submission of Alabaré Christian Care in my constituency? It is seeking to construct a new veterans village in Wilton that will be transformational for veterans across Wiltshire.
Andrea Leadsom
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. As he will know, the LIBOR fines imposed on banks for the appalling rigging of LIBOR are being used for mainly military charities, and a few other ideas have been put forward. I shall bear his remarks in mind and mention them to the Chancellor.
John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
Further to Question 8, what measures is the Chief Secretary taking to tackle the activities of payroll and umbrella companies that promote bogus self-employment which in turn fuels widespread tax evasion?
Danny Alexander
We have already announced measures to deal with intermediaries, both offshore and onshore. As the hon. Gentleman will know, a consultation on the issue is taking place at the moment, and it is important to ensure that companies cannot put in place artificial arrangements that are designed to reduce their tax bill and often have the consequence of removing important employment rights from workers. We continue to take that matter incredibly seriously.
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
Does the Chief Secretary agree that one key aspect of the long-term economic plan is investment in skills, and will he reassure the House that the Government will carry on doing that?
Danny Alexander
Yes I can. As this is national apprenticeship week it is worth reflecting on the fact that in this Parliament we have created more than 2 million more apprenticeships. That is a great achievement of this Government and has helped to ensure that young people have the skills they need to succeed in today’s economy. From my perspective that will continue to be a priority in the next Parliament.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
To follow up the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (John Cryer), it appeared from recent written answers that the Government are leaving open loopholes that see workers lose hundreds of pounds a month from rip-off umbrella companies. Why is that?
Danny Alexander
As I said, we are consulting on that matter and have already taken considerable action to deal with intermediaries. I am sure that more will be said about the issue in due course.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
Youth unemployment in my constituency has halved under this Government, and the Chief Secretary met some of the young people in new jobs at Anthony Best Dynamics in Bradford on Avon last year. Will he or the Chancellor accept an invitation to accompany me to one of the advanced manufacturing businesses in Chippenham which, with the support of the relevant Government programmes, can extend many more opportunities by creating jobs in 21st-century products in Chippenham?
Danny Alexander
I gladly accept the invitation, although time is limited. As my hon. Friend said, through visiting Anthony Best Dynamics I have seen precisely the benefits that apprenticeships can provide for young people wanting to get highly skilled jobs in the technology companies that are creating very high value added for the UK economy. The work that he has done in his constituency to promote businesses taking on apprentices is an example to the entire House.
Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)
Why was the Chief Secretary to the Treasury so discreet about the application for state aid for the three remaining deep mine pits in Britain? Is he aware that in February 2014 the Government took £700 million out of the mineworkers’ pension fund for themselves? That kind of money in state aid could save those three pits so that they could exhaust their reserves. Now come on—tell us what’s happening!
Danny Alexander
I am not going to change the answer I gave to the earlier question. I appreciate the sensitivity of these matters, and I would say that this Government have taken steps, wherever we can, to support that particular industry. I am not sure that it would be appropriate for me to comment further.
Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury will be aware that Hertfordshire is a prosperous and successful county. However, it had reached the point at which growth was being compromised because the A1M was not being widened between Stevenage and Welwyn. That work has now been announced but, for the future, are the Government satisfied that they are planning such infrastructure projects far enough ahead to enable us to maintain the kind of strong economic growth that we have at the moment as a result of the long-term economic plan?
Mr Gauke
I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend and fellow Hertfordshire Member of Parliament. He is absolutely right to highlight that issue. As my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury said earlier, we have in place a pipeline of road building and train improvements, the like of which we have not seen for many years. All of that will benefit Hertfordshire in particular and the United Kingdom as a whole.
Radiotherapy facility at Lister Hospital
Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)
This is one of three linked petitions. The other two are from the Stevenage and the Hitchin and Harpenden constituencies. My hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) has placed his petition in the bag today, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley) will present his shortly.
The petitions are from local residents. They highlight the very tiring journey that cancer patients currently have to make from north Hertfordshire to London for radiotherapy, and call for a centre at the Lister hospital in Stevenage. This petition has 4,211 signatures.
The petition states:
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to encourage NHS England to provide a radiotherapy facility at Lister Hospital in Stevenage in order to make the journey for radiotherapy treatment much easier for patients who live in Letchworth Garden City and the surrounding towns and villages.
Following is the full text of the petition:
[The Petition of residents of the constituency of North East Hertfordshire,
Declares that patients who are residents of Letchworth Garden City and the surrounding towns and villages have to travel to Mount Vernon Hospital in Hillingdon to receive radiotherapy treatment and that this journey is long and exacting and often has to be made on consecutive days.
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to encourage NHS England to provide a radiotherapy facility at Lister Hospital in Stevenage in order to make the journey for radiotherapy treatment much easier for patients who live in Letchworth Garden City and the surrounding towns and villages.
And the Petitioners remain, etc.]
[P001441]
Compulsory CPR and Public Access Defibrillator education
Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)
Following this afternoon’s Westminster Hall debate, during which the Labour Front Bencher committed to the introduction of mandatory life-saving skills in schools, but the Minister would not, I am presenting this petition on behalf of the residents of Bolton West. It is similar to a British Heart Foundation petition signed by 83,500 people.
The petition states:
The Petition of residents of Bolton West,
Declares that all young people should leave school knowing how to save a life and further that the Petitioners believe that every child across the UK should be taught CPR and Public Access Defibrillator (PAD) awareness at secondary school in order to become part of a Nation of Lifesavers.
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to put measures in place to ensure that every child is taught CPR and Public Access Defibrillator awareness at secondary school.
And the Petitioners remain, etc.
[P001447]
Compulsory CPR and Public Access Defibrillator education
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
Following on from the hon. Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling), I rise to present this petition on behalf of my constituents and the 83,500 people across the country who want every child to be taught life-saving skills. Our out-of-hospital survival rate for cardiac arrest is 10%. In parts of Norway, it is up to 25%. If we as a country could achieve that by having every child learning how to do basic CPR, it would save 5,000 lives a year. That is something that my party would like to achieve and I hope that it will become Government policy after the next election.
The petition states:
“The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to put measures in place to ensure that every child is taught CPR and Public Access Defibrillator awareness at secondary school.”
Following is the full text of the petition:
[The Petition of residents of Cambridge,
Declares that all young people should leave school knowing how to save a life and further that the Petitioners believe that every child across the UK should be taught CPR and Public Access Defibrillator (PAD) awareness at secondary school in order to become part of a Nation of Lifesavers.
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to put measures in place to ensure that every child is taught CPR and Public Access Defibrillator awareness at secondary school.
And the Petitioners remain, etc.]
[P001448]
Closure of Dudley Police Station to the public
Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)
I rise to present a petition opposing the closure of Dudley police station to the public. West Midlands police announced last year that Dudley police station is one of 27 across the region that are set to have their front offices closed to the public to protect police numbers in the face of funding cuts. That will leave Dudley as the largest town in the country without a police station that is open to the public.
That is completely unacceptable, which is why I launched the petition. The fact that 2,200 residents, including our former superintendent, Mr Roger Bagley, signed the petition shows that local people agree. Our campaign has kept the station open so far, but we are stepping up our efforts to ensure that it stays open for good. There is huge opposition to the plans in Dudley, which is why the petitioners
“request that the House of Commons urges the Government to make resources available to keep Dudley Police Station open to the public.”
Following is the full text of the petition:
[The Petition of residents of the Dudley North constituency,
Declares that the Petitioners are opposed to the proposal to close Dudley Police Station to the public.
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to make resources available to keep Dudley Police Station open to the public.
And the Petitioners remain, etc.]
[P001449]
Troubled Families Programme
The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Eric Pickles)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I wish to make a statement about this Government’s troubled families programme. In 2011, the Prime Minister set a bold ambition for this Government that by the end of this Parliament we would turn around the lives of 120,000 of the country’s most troubled families. Turning their lives around meant: drastically reducing the antisocial behaviour and crime for which they were responsible; ensuring that truanting children were back attending school; and getting parents into jobs. Today, with great pride, I can announce to the House that 90% of the families we promised to help have achieved those outcomes. More than 105,000 families have had their lives turned around, and the programme still has three months left to run.
I want to extend my gratitude to the army of front-line workers who have worked tirelessly with those families to bring stability back to their lives. I also want to offer my congratulations to the families who have grasped the opportunity that this programme has offered to them to end a dysfunctional and negative way of life and offer their children a better future. I also want to put on record the fact that the programme exemplifies how central Government, local government and their partner public services can successfully work together with a sense of common endeavour and shared objectives. All 152 upper-tier local councils across England, irrespective of political control, have worked closely with my Department, and it is only by working together that we have delivered this challenging programme at great pace.
In 2011, I was deeply honoured when the Prime Minister asked me to lead this programme, but I was also acutely aware that its bold ambitions had eluded the efforts of previous Governments. Looking back, we can see how the success of the programme has come from its simplicity, and from the clear aims and straightforward methods that have captured the hearts and minds of public servants at all levels.
I am sure that many Members of the House will know the frustration that comes from seeing how our services and systems have failed to deal with the root causes of problems and only treated, or reacted to, the symptoms. How many of us know families in our constituencies who have been failed by services but have at the same time placed a huge and disproportionate burden on those services through successive generations? Young men follow in their fathers’ footsteps into trouble; young women fall victim to abusive relationships; and families push through the revolving doors of hard-pressed services with recurring problems of addiction, violence and mental and physical ill-health.
I believed that there was a better way for those hard-pressed services to operate and through the troubled families programme we have found it. Families in the programme have signed up to a plan that gets to the root cause of their problems and makes a real difference to their lives. It involves tough love and practical help from people who take a no-nonsense, persistent approach, who will not go away and will not give up, and who will not be put off by missed appointments or unanswered doors.
A typical family in the programme has nine different problems to contend with. A child’s bad behaviour and truancy leads to exclusion from school and a life of petty crime. The school tries to help, but its efforts are undone by a mum who simply cannot get out of bed in the morning to ensure that her son goes to school. She suffers from stress and anxiety and drinks heavily. Why? She is in arrears on her bills and is regularly beaten up by the boy’s dad. The result is that the child’s poor prospects become entrenched and the cycle of the family’s problems continues.
The key worker’s job is to break the cycle and they will prioritise what needs to change first. In this case, they will get the police and others to stop the violence and help the mum to budget better and start on a path to employment. For a while, the key worker will arrive at 7 am to ensure that she is up, making some breakfast for her son and packing him off to school. As her mental health improves and improvements grow, the key worker can step back, mentor and gradually let go.
The figures we are publishing today prove beyond doubt that the approach is working for families. It also helps the communities where they live and of course delivers substantial savings for the taxpayer. The key worker has replaced the expensive swarm of services buzzing around the family that deal with individual symptoms rather than addressing the root causes.
Today, my Department is releasing new information from local authorities that clearly demonstrates the savings generated by the programme. This year, Manchester estimates that for every £1 invested in family intervention, local public services receive an estimated £2.20 in savings. For Redcar and Cleveland, the figure was £1.94. For every four families helped under the programme, the equivalent of a police officer’s starting salary could be saved. In the London borough of Wandsworth during the first year of the programme, the total savings from reducing demand on the criminal justice system were nearly £1.2 million. The 70% reduction in domestic violence in the families being helped saved the borough £70,000. Salford has identified benefits to health services of £1,700 on average per family. Those savings follow a nearly 60% reduction in alcohol abuse and a 50% reduction in drug misuse in the 12 months following family intervention. If those savings were representative of all the 105,000 families who have been turned around by the programme so far, a total of £1.2 billion would be generated in gross fiscal benefits.
Those gains for the public purse are reason enough for celebration, but what makes me most proud of the programme is its impact on people’s lives, especially in getting family members into work. That is no easy task when we consider that they were previously a million miles from being able to hold down any kind of job. Figures released today show that more than 10,000 adults from troubled families have moved into sustained work. I want to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, who placed 150 of his jobcentre advisers in local troubled families teams. They have worked wonders in some really challenging cases.
This approach works for taxpayers and the families involved in the programme, and this Government will build on that success. I am delighted that we have secured cross-Government support for an additional £200 million of funding for an expansion, to work with 400,000 more families from 2015 to 2020. That work has already started ahead of time in two thirds of areas.
I would like to end by referring to a letter from a head teacher in Leicestershire to her troubled families team. She confesses to being a
“notoriously grumpy Head Teacher on welfare issues”,
but says that the troubled families team is “something quite different” that she “can’t praise enough.” Why is that? It is because
“for once, everybody seems to know what is going on”.
She concludes by saying:
“I have never come across anything quite like this before.”
Neither have I. That is why I am genuinely honoured to have led this remarkable, life-changing programme for the Government, and why I am delighted that it is being expanded to help more troubled families across the country. I commend this statement to the House.
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
May I begin by thanking the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement, and for his personal commitment to providing support to local authorities up and down the country that are working with the most excluded families through the troubled families programme?
It is not often that we in this House pay tribute to public servants, and we do not do it as much as we should, so I would like to thank Louise Casey for the leadership she has shown and all the staff working in all the projects for their extraordinary dedication, patience and commitment. Their skill in, above all, building trust with the families they work with is absolutely fundamental if together they are to succeed.
We on the Opposition Benches support this important work. As the Secretary of State has generously acknowledged, the previous Labour Government started the family intervention project, and a future Labour Government would want to see this work continue and go from strength to strength.
As the Secretary of State will know, a number of local authorities and Labour pushed for the original criteria to be broadened to enable local authorities to provide support to those families most in need and to ensure that there was proper long-term follow-up to see whether families could maintain the progress that had been made. I welcome the fact that the Government listened to those representations and made the necessary changes.
It is clear that we need to provide hands-on support to families with multiple complex needs, in order to help them to break cycles of disadvantage. It is also clear that we need to move away from trying to contain problems, at great expense, towards trying to prevent them in the first place. What assessment has the Secretary of State made of the concentration in the most deprived communities of families taking part in the troubled families programme? I ask that because we know that, under this Government, households living in areas that rank in the 10 most deprived communities have seen their local authority spending power reduced by 16 times as much as those in the 10 least deprived communities.
Demands on children’s services are increasing and the figures show that local authorities are doing their best to protect them. However, the National Audit Office has found that, between 2010-11 and 2014-15, budgeted spending on children’s social care actually fell by 4.3% on average in authorities with the highest cuts in Government funding, compared with real-terms increases of 14.8% in authorities with the lowest cuts. How is that going to help?
Last August, it was announced that the troubled families programme would be expanded to work with 400,000 more families from 2015 to 2020, with funding of £200 million for 2015-16, but the Secretary of State has just said that he has secured cross-Government support and an additional £200 million for its expansion from 2015 to 2020. Will he confirm whether that £200 million is for 2015-16 or for the whole period from 2015 to 2020?
The Secretary of State referred to the 10,000 adults who have moved into sustained work, which is a great achievement, but it still leaves more than 100,000 families where that has not happened. Would it not help those families if we were to guarantee a job, as Labour is proposing, to every adult who has been out of work for more than two years and every young person who has been out of work for more than a year?
The Secretary of State rightly talked about the problems that a number of these families have in paying bills. How many troubled families are being hit by the profoundly unfair bedroom tax? Surely, to help them, that tax should be scrapped, as we have committed to do? Why are the Government so intent on penalising people on the lowest incomes, and how many of those families currently rely on food banks to help feed their children?
Over this Parliament, the Secretary of State has spoken regularly about the number of families who have been turned around. However, within the original programme, a family could be so classified if they reduced the level of crime committed by just a third. Will he confirm whether such families are counted in the total he gave today?
In 2011, the Prime Minister said that troubled families were costing the state an estimated £9 billion a year. However, in his statement today, the Secretary of State said that if these savings were representative of all 105,000 families so far, it would generate a total of £1.2 billion in gross fiscal benefits. Can he square those two figures and confirm whether these savings are in fact being achieved? As he will be only too aware, demonstrating savings will be really important for securing future funding for the programme from other parts of Whitehall.
We know that intensive support really can help families transform their lives. Raising children can be challenging and we can all do with help and advice at times. We support the programme precisely because the local authorities that are implementing it on the ground are convinced that it makes a difference. However, the Government also have a responsibility to help all families, whether in difficulty or not, in other ways. Insecurity, zero-hours contracts, a lack of affordable housing and high rents are real concerns for them. If we are really to help all Britain’s families, we need a Government who will do something about those things as well.
Mr Pickles
I am most grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his comments. In particular, I would like to endorse his views on Louise Casey. It has been a privilege over the past five years to get to know a number of senior civil servants, but none have I enjoyed working with more than Louise, who is definitely one of a kind. She has been an absolute joy to work with. I also recognise that none of this could have been achieved without all-party support.
The right hon. Gentleman made a number of points on how we can demonstrate success and square the £1.2 billion with the £9 billion. He knows as well as anybody that this is notoriously difficult territory, because Governments of all types are absolutely terrible at measuring outcomes. We have made a start—he might have had an opportunity to look at the research—by looking at seven exemplar authorities and extrapolating the findings to produce some financial analysis. To answer his questions, I think that it is only fair to have that audited independently. As he will know, we are due to have a very comprehensive audit of the programme. I am confident that the exemplar authorities indicate what has been achieved. I think that I have been conservative—no pun intended—in estimating what can be achieved.
The right hon. Gentleman made a number of points about spending power. The point needs to be made that the Government are spending the most in the most deprived areas; we are spending an awful lot less on prosperous areas. I remind him, with great humility, that under the system in place before this Government came in, we were throwing money at the problem and achieving precisely nothing. By addressing some of the social ills, dealing with the problems, shoulder to shoulder with Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat councils, we have been able to achieve these benefits. It so happens that it is cheaper, but it is actually better and more caring, because we are not throwing people away, condemning them to a life on benefits.
Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)
Having been Minister for Criminal Justice at the birth of this programme, and having seen it operating on the front line in my constituency since, may I join my right hon. Friend in congratulating Louise Casey? I congratulate him on the leadership he has given, along with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, in bringing this home. I slightly regret the tone taken by the shadow Secretary of State, which I think disguises a recognition that the programme has really worked by bringing all the agencies together, which is something he and I saw back in 2000 when we served together on a Select Committee. I ask my right hon. Friend to ensure that we learn the lessons that will emerge from the first four years of the programme and see that it carries on in the excellent way it has started.
Mr Pickles
I am most grateful to my hon. Friend. It is of course important that we learn the lessons of the programme. I think that it has been quite clear that by keeping things as simple as possible, by looking very carefully at the different criteria and by having a completely straightforward approach—some Members have suggested that we might be fiddling the figures by reducing crime, although reducing crime seems to me to be pretty important—we have kept the programme transparent, so people can actually see it. I believe that we have treated everyone in this process with respect, particularly the troubled families.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
The Communities and Local Government Committee has been very supportive of the whole approach on troubled families. However, when the Secretary of State announced his expansion of the programme in 2013, the Committee pointed out that the increase in Government funding was not in proportion to the increase in the number of families to be helped. Does he believe that local authorities can be as successful in future, given the reduction in the amount that central Government spend per family? Given that savings to one public body can be a cost to another as part of the programme, will not real success in the end be the roll-out of whole-place community budgets, so that a proper account can be taken with a total approach to public expenditure in an area? How does he see that being rolled out alongside the troubled families programme?
Mr Pickles
The hon. Gentleman makes a very interesting point. It is usual for a Government to aim for the low-hanging fruit when starting such a programme, doing the easy things first before going on to those that are more difficult. We did exactly the reverse by starting with the most difficult families. The troubled families involved in the extended programme have nothing like the complex needs of those in the first tranche, so I think that it will be easier, cheaper and better when we start dealing with them. With regard to money coming in, he might be interested to know that in Sheffield there were 1,680 troubled families over that period, 100% of whom have been turned around, with expenditure of £6.6 million. In Leeds, there were 2,190 troubled families, 100% of whom have been turned around, with expenditure of £7.79 million.
Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
I, too, congratulate the Secretary of State, Louise Casey and all those associated with the programme, not least the participants. How does he envisage the lifestyle changes being sustained as we move on to this very welcome and massive expansion of the programme?
Mr Pickles
We need to be absolutely clear that we are almost certainly not turning out model citizens. We are, however, giving children from troubled families the opportunity to have a better chance of success. That is something we are keen to monitor, check and make sure happens. In that way, we have an opportunity to break the cycle.
Ann Coffey (Stockport) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. The programme in Stockport is very impressive in bringing together local agencies to help families. He will be aware that there is an under-reporting of child abuse, child sexual exploitation and other forms of abuse in many of these families. Does he agree that one of the outcomes, in measuring the success of the programme, is the prevention of child abuse and child sexual exploitation in these families?
Mr Pickles
The hon. Lady is the author of a very good report on the subject of child sexual exploitation, and she and I discussed this matter at a seminar last week at Downing street. She makes a very reasonable point. I think the reason the programme has had a fair amount of success is that it does not deal with this problem through social services or the benefits agency alone. There have to be different disciplines in the room. The same applies to tackling child sexual exploitation. Social work is very well set up and very good at dealing with child sexual exploitation within a family; when the problem involves organised crime, it becomes more difficult to deal with. I think the point she made at the seminar is this: who would have thought that we would need to regulate taxis and the night-time economy to deal with child sexual exploitation? A broader approach will bring much better co-ordination and the greatest chance of success. I agree with her.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
I, too, congratulate the Secretary of State on his vision, persistence and leadership in seeing through this very important programme that helps to change lives and transform people’s prospects. Will he tell the House how many children have benefited from this programme and will now be able to fulfil their true and fullest potential?
Mr Pickles
Time will tell how many children will benefit in the end. Getting children back into school and attending three successive terms makes a big difference. In my hon. Friend’s area, the total number of families we would describe as troubled is 2,560. Some 80% have been turned around. So far, just short of £10 million has been expended in that process.
Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)
I congratulate the Secretary of State, Louise Casey and the families who have turned their lives around. On behalf of my constituents, many of whom now have a more peaceful existence, may I also, through him, thank the front-line workers who have brought about these changes? In “Feeding Britain”, the cross-party inquiry into hunger in this country, the Secretary of State may recall that, although we drew attention to those families who simply did not have enough money to feed their children, there were other scallywags who could not be bothered to feed their children. Is it possible for him to confirm that schools, which prevent those children from being hungry, could in the next stage have the right to refer families directly to the troubled families unit?
Mr Pickles
It works, I think, remarkably well now. The right hon. Gentleman will recall that in the main part of my statement I referred to a head teacher from Leicestershire. It makes a big difference if we involve everyone. Sadly, I have not visited Birkenhead in this process—I know that 80% of the 910 troubled families there have been turned around, with £3.3 million expended—but I was fairly close by, to look at the team in Chester. It is the most remarkable thing to see a whole bunch of people from different disciplines sitting down together, including representatives of firefighters, who play an important part in picking up intelligence and information.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
The families supported by this programme are often affected by multiple problems, which are then responded to by multiple agencies. Is the success of the scheme not due to the ability of Louise Casey and her team to cut across the previous silo mentality and join up the support that has enabled lives to be changed?
Mr Pickles
I agree entirely with my hon. Friend, who should know that there are 805 troubled families in his local authority. Some 99% of them have been turned around, with an expenditure of just slightly more than £2 million. Louise Casey is a remarkable woman, but this could not have been achieved by her presence and determination alone, formidable though they are. We are bringing people along and they are getting the opportunity to do something about the process. I have seen an enormous sense of leadership in different authorities right across the country, because they can now do something about the problem.
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
I welcome the announcement of the future funding for this programme, but the Secretary of State failed to answer my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) and say whether the £200 million is for 2015-16 or the full five years of the next Parliament. On current funding, the Secretary of State has been withholding from Rotherham council about £750,000 in troubled families and transformation award funding. Given the special circumstances and the challenges we face, will he now release that funding to Rotherham?
Mr Pickles
As far as the right hon. Gentleman’s constituency is concerned, there are two local authorities. Barnsley, with 645 troubled families, has achieved a 95% turnaround, which has cost slightly more than £2 million. Rotherham, with 730 troubled families, has achieved a 89% turnaround, which, again, has cost slightly more than £2 million. He makes a really interesting point: even in that sea of dysfunction, the work with troubled families has been very successful. I am delighted to tell the right hon. Gentleman that I have released the money. The money will go to Rotherham today.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
I sincerely thank my right hon. Friend for his leadership of this project, which has helped to turn around the lives of 1,165 families in West Sussex. Will he join me in sincerely thanking the workers in my constituency who have made such a positive difference to individuals and to our community as a whole?
Mr Pickles
I think the House is divided into those who know exactly the number of troubled families in their areas and those who do not. I confirm that my hon. Friend’s arithmetic is absolutely correct. I also confirm that the improvement is entirely due to the enormous hard work of the people in his area determined to make a difference.
Meg Munn (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab/Co-op)
This is an important and successful approach. It is the kind of approach that I took when I first started my social work career more than 30 years ago and that, in those days, many social work staff took. One of the reasons why silos developed was the pressure on budgets. Given that many local authorities have tried to protect children’s services but they continue to be under threat, how will the Secretary of State ensure that services, which are preventive and help troubled families through this programme and children’s services, continue and are given priority, so that we do not go backwards, whether with children’s services or troubled families?
Mr Pickles
The hon. Lady’s analysis is good. I think there has been too much silo building taking place inside local government. It has been almost like, to mix a metaphor, laagering the wagons. That has been a mistake. It is not possible to deal with something as complex as troubled families by relying solely on social work or a children’s department. It involves many other agencies. We get change in government when we deal with issues. We tend not to work terribly well when we become obsessed with governance.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State deserves praise for taking this originally Labour policy and pursuing it energetically to this stage, and on any other day I would welcome it and celebrate it with him unreservedly, but this is the day when Her Majesty’s inspectorate, Ofsted, revealed that two thirds of children’s services departments are in a dire situation. Children in this country are exposed to great danger, and departments up and down the country are at risk because of the cuts to local government finance. Will he put that in context and please come back to the House to tell us what he is going to do about it?
Mr Pickles
When the hon. Gentleman decides to give praise, I sincerely hope that I am here to see it, but I think that it is some distance in the future.
Given that the shadow Chancellor has made it absolutely clear that there is no additional money for local government, the hon. Gentleman’s comments ring rather hollow. Had he read the report carefully, he would have seen that it specifically states that our approach to troubled families offers them a future and the best way of doing things, and he should be aware that, in Kirklees, he has 1,115 troubled families and that 88% of them have been turned around, with an expenditure of just short of £4.5 million.
Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)
The savings the Secretary of State has mentioned are welcome, but surely the scheme’s value should be measured by its impact on individual lives and its success in lifting families out of hopelessness, bringing them into sustainable work and giving them hope for the future. I welcome that, but what consultation or discussions about the scheme has he had with the devolved Administrations?
Mr Pickles
We have kept the devolved Administrations completely informed of what we are doing, and I would urge them to take this up. It is clear that the project works, and I think that we could see benefits across the piece. I absolutely endorse what the hon. Gentleman says about the proof being life change—the money is great and the savings are wonderful, but it is the changed lives that we are after.
Trade Union Reform (Civil Service)
(9 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement on trade unions in the civil service.
Trade unions can play an important role in the modern workplace. Some important reforms implemented under the coalition Government, such as changes to the civil service compensation scheme and public sector pensions, were the subject of extended and constructive discussions with a range of public sector trade unions, and I am grateful to union leaders for the forward-looking and thoughtful way in which they have engaged with the need for reform. However, further reforms were needed to how the unions operated within the civil service, and I want to update the House on progress.
Facility time describes the arrangement whereby union officials and representatives have paid time off for trade union duties and activities. Properly controlled and monitored, this can assist with the rapid resolution of local disputes and grievances, but five years ago in the civil service, it was neither controlled nor monitored. We found that thousands of civil servants were paid, sometimes including travel costs and expenses, to attend union conferences. We found that more than 200 civil servants were being paid to work full time on union business. Several had been promoted, one of them twice, without ever doing the job for which they were employed.
The total cost to taxpayers of trade union facility time taken by these officials and the thousands of other part-time representatives was a staggering £36 million a year. Unacceptable at any time, this was particularly intolerable at a time when the coalition Government were making difficult decisions to get the country’s finances back on track. Facility time in the civil service is now rigorously monitored and reported. Now, unless specifically authorised by a Minister, all trade union representatives must spend at least half their time doing the civil service job for which they were employed. Gone is the automatic paid time off to attend seaside union conferences.
Today I can tell the House that the cost of trade union facility time has dropped by nearly 75%, from £36 million in 2011 to just over £10 million now, saving taxpayers £26 million a year. The cost has fallen from 0.26% of pay bill to just 0.07% for the latest rolling year to date—well below the benchmark we set of 0.1%. I can also reveal that the number of full-time trade union officials on the public’s payroll has fallen from 200 in 2011 to just eight today. With the civil service now over one fifth smaller—like for like—than it was in 2010, I expect the overall number of representatives to continue to fall over the coming years.
Check-off is the practice where the employer collects trade union subscriptions from payroll on behalf of the union, and decisions on whether this should continue are delegated to individual Departments. The civil service management code requires Departments to recover the cost of check-off from the unions, which only two Departments were doing, so the head of the civil service has written to permanent secretaries of Departments where check-off remains to remind them of this obligation. So far, eight Departments have served notice to the trade unions that they intend to remove check-off: Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, the Ministry of Defence, the Home Office, the Department for Communities and Local Government, the Department for International Development, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Others have started the consultation process to allow this to happen. I believe that this change will enable unions to build a much more direct relationship with their members, without the need for the relationship to be intermediated by the employer.
Taken together, these reforms have made a considerable contribution to modernising Departments’ relationships with their trade unions—reforms that were long overdue—and I commend the statement to the House.
Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the Minister for advance sight of the statement—it is good to see that at least this member of the Cabinet is not ducking difficult questions in Parliament today.
It is election time, so we have a Tory Minister coming to the House as part of a pre-election union-bashing exercise. There is absolutely nothing new in this statement, so one wonders what his motives are. The Government have a clear strategy towards public servants up and down the country: “The Government do not value the work you do and are hellbent on disfranchising you and weakening your rights at work.” Government Members, especially those in marginal seats, should be worried about the impact this is having on public sector voters in their constituencies.
One has to ask whether this so-called statement is just a smokescreen for a Prime Minister running scared of a debate about the future of our country and a Chancellor whose economic plans threaten £70 billion of cuts that would take us back to a time before there was even an NHS. This Minister is a reasonable man, and I support what the Government are doing on many aspects of civil service reform, but I will not support the steps he has taken under the name of trade union reform, which have resulted in souring relations, low staff morale and unnecessary industrial action, and have scuppered some of his otherwise valiant attempts to change how government is run.
Facility time is an important resource not just for union members and employees but for the employer and, in this case, the taxpayer. Labour is clear that facility time is not political time; where well deployed and not abused, it reduces many human resources costs to a company, such as by reducing the number of disputes going to an employment tribunal, recruitment costs and the number of days off sick and workplace injuries. That is why some of the biggest companies, such as Rolls-Royce and Jaguar Land Rover, support facility time—because it is part of an effective HR strategy and a productive workforce.
Of course, we support genuine attempts to eradicate abuse, but the Government’s rhetoric tells a different story—one that is more about their political ideology than good accounting. Check-off is another example. Many major private employers use it: in construction, there is Balfour Beatty; in pharmaceuticals, there is AstraZeneca; in manufacturing, there is BAE Systems, GKN and Rolls-Royce. All of these private sector companies recognise its benefits, but unsurprisingly this Conservative-led Government have done everything they can to end check-off. Given that the cost of check-off is relatively low and that most unions are happy to pay the cost of administering it themselves, it is clear that this is another stage in the long campaign to weaken trade unions and disfranchise their members. Would it not have been better to give the trade unions and their tens of thousands of members across government proper and ample time to move members on to a direct debit system, which I am sure we all agree is more sustainable in the long-term? That is what we will do, and I want to put it on record that when we win in May, we will ensure that this is made possible across all Departments.
The Minister has come to this House today with his Lynton Crosby route 1 election strategy: bash the unions and duck the leaders’ debates. Hard-pressed public sector workers will see this for what it is, and they know that they deserve better than this.
Mr Maude
It is lovely to see the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) taking time off from her pressing duties of holding the Labour party’s election campaign together. It is good to have her here. I thank her for her gracious support for most of what we do. It is important to stress that much of what we have done on civil service reform has commanded widespread support across the political spectrum. I am grateful to her and her predecessors for the constructive way in which they have done that—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) makes a comment that is rather less graceful than his colleague.
Mr Maude
It is very hard to tell.
Let me deal head on with the hon. Lady’s points. She says that this is an attack on public servants, but it is absolutely the contrary. She talks as if this is an attack on union facility time. It is not. I said in my statement—she might have listened to it; she had it in advance—that I supported the use of facility time. Facility time for trade union duties is protected by law. Trade union duties—the resolution of disputes and grievances—are important, and the presence of trade union officials and representatives within the workplace can be helpful in achieving that. What we are concerned with is the abuse and the use of paid time off in facility time for large numbers of civil servants to attend their union conferences with their expenses paid by the public. That is not acceptable. That is what we have called time on.
I know that the hon. Lady and her colleagues do not like it, and we know what the reason is. The reason is perfectly simple: it is that the Labour party is paid for and puppet-mastered by the trade unions. She should come clean and say that the Labour party election campaign that she is trying to hold together and conduct is paid for by exactly the trade union leaders who have no doubt written the script that she has read out to the House today.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
The practices that the Minister described as seeing on his arrival at the Cabinet Office in 2010 will have come as a complete shock to my constituents. May I tell him that my constituents will very much support the steps he has taken to ensure fair use of union time by officials?
Mr Maude
My hon. Friend is completely right. To be honest, it was a complete shock to us to see how much this system had been abused, and how little effort was made by our predecessors to count and control the costs of what was happening. Opposition Members say that this is an attack on public servants, but the truth is that public servants would much rather have this money spent on public services, which is their vocation, than on supporting trade union officials at the taxpayers’ expense.
John McDonnell
We are going to have to develop some criteria for providing statements to this House, because this is a complete waste of the House’s time. The Minister needs to get up to speed: the Public and Commercial Services Union has never been affiliated to the Labour party and has never funded it, so he can drop these accusations. This is all about union busting, so I want to know what investigation took place into the union-busting strategy within HMRC, where leaked reports said that trade unionists were to be victimised and the union to be broken within that department. What did the right hon. Gentleman do about that?
Mr Maude
First, I never said that about the PCS. I know it is not affiliated. The PCS dislikes the Labour party nearly as much as it dislikes us. Secondly, when it comes to attacks on public servants, the hon. Gentleman’s attack on hard-working public servants in HMRC—the management of HMRC, those senior hard-working officials who have decided in conducting their vocation of public service that check-off should be discontinued—is disgraceful.
Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that unions can perform an important role in the workplace, but that the creation of a so-called super union would damage the perception of the independence of civil servants and that many would wish not to join such a union?
Mr Maude
I saw a report this morning suggesting that there was a plan, not yet divulged to the public, for the PCS to be swallowed up by Unite. Civil service political impartiality is an essential part of the way in which our system of government works. For the largest civil service union to be controlled by the same puppet-master and paymaster that controls Labour would be a matter—[Interruption]—of very considerable concern—
Mr Speaker
Order. When I say the Minister is finished, let it be clear. It is no good him sitting there shrugging. When I say he is finished, he is finished. It is important not to waste the time of the House. It is beneath the level of a Minister.
Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)
Government Departments offer a range of check-off services to their employees, including deductions for membership fees, for private sporting clubs, for private clubs more generally and even for private medical schemes. What is it that makes the payments of trade union dues exceptional? Why would any employer want to withdraw this from its own employees?
Mr Maude
As the right hon. Gentleman, who is knowledgeable on this subject, knows, many employers have taken exactly this step. Many unions have sought to withdraw from check-off arrangements themselves, because they take the view that a modern union in a modern workplace should have a direct relationship with their members, not intermediated by the employer. Check-off dates from an era when many people did not have bank accounts and direct debit did not exist. It exists now, and many unions take the view, and indeed the PCS has said, that the easiest way to collect their dues is through direct debit.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
Will the Minister join me in congratulating the TaxPayers Alliance on its important work which shows that £100 million of public money is wasted on facility time? Does he share my concern that a PCS-Unite merger would undermine our democracy and mean that the Labour party would be even more bought by the unions than it is today?
Mr Maude
I make the point again that the perception of political impartiality in the civil service is fundamental to our system of government. That should not be imperilled in any way. My hon. Friend is completely right to draw attention to the much wider scale of facility time and the cost borne by the taxpayer—money that would be better spent in the delivery of front-line public services on which vulnerable people depend. That is something that all public authorities should be looking at.
Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)
Is the Minister aware that all he needed to say today was quite simple: Tory Ministers are continuing their spite and vendetta against trade unions? This is nothing different from what has occurred previously.
Mr Maude
That was not really a question, Mr Speaker, but by way of response, most public servants and most members of the public and the people who use public services would prefer the money to be spent on the delivery of public services, not on the delivery of trade union salaries.
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
This statement is called “Trade Union Reform (Civil Service)”, so will the Minister correct himself and the record and confirm that none of the civil service unions is affiliated to the Labour party or pays towards it? Rolls-Royce, Tesco, Virgin Media, Odeon Cinemas, Jaguar Land Rover —some of our biggest and best British companies—work with trade unions, recognise trade unions, and offer check- off to trade union members and facility time to their representatives. Why are the Government not dealing with their staff and unions in the same decent, modern way?
Mr Maude
I support the use of trade union time, but it must be controlled and monitored, and it must not be abused. I also support the presence of trade unions in the workplace, and I personally have worked very closely with them. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury and I spent 12 months in productive discussions with the TUC and public sector trade unions when we were considering public sector pension reform, and we made a number of changes to reflect the concerns of the unions that were prepared to engage with us. I need no lectures about the importance of engagement with the unions, but the arrangements should be controlled and modernised, and the right way for that to be done is the way that I have described.
Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)
I have seriously tried to understand the rationale for what the Minister has announced. It appears that the management were not controlling the check-off arrangements properly, because the unions would have paid the costs willingly, but those costs were not paid. It also appears that the management could have monitored the difference between facility time for activities and facility time for duties, but did not do so. That suggests a failure in senior management. As for attendance at conferences, it seems that trade unions will still be paid if they hold their annual conferences in Newcastle, Glasgow, Birmingham or Liverpool, because the Minister mentioned only seaside conferences. The truth is that this is nothing more than another attempt to find the bogeyman whom the Conservatives have tried to find for the last five years. They want another Arthur Scargill so that they can try to rattle a can in the next few weeks. That is what this is all about.
Mr Maude
Given that Opposition Members apparently do not think the statement should have been made, they are finding plenty to say about it. Indeed, we are having a good and productive debate. It is important for the issues to be debated, because they do matter.
As I said, I take my relationship with trade unions very seriously. I continue to chair the public services forum which was set up under the last Government. We engage with each other very fully, and I am happy to say that I have warm relationships with a number of trade union leaders.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
I am probably the only Member of Parliament who is a former branch secretary of the First Division Association, and I think that the Minister’s attempt to divide junior from senior officials is wholly misconceived. It reminds me of the time when Mrs Thatcher kicked the trade unions out of GCHQ.
Why has the Minister chosen this moment to crack down on check-off? Has he done so because the Office for Budget Responsibility has forecast a 1 million reduction in the number of public servants, and he wants to weaken the unions before that happens?
Mr Maude
The hon. Lady’s mind is more elaborate than mine. We have looked at this in a perfectly sensible, straightforward way. We want trade unions in the civil service—and in this context I am talking only about the civil service—to engage in a sensible, modern fashion, and we want public money to be deployed in the delivery of public services rather than the delivery of trade union officials’ salaries.
Mr Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP)
The Minister said that Departments were entitled to recover the costs of check-off from the unions, and rattled off a list of Departments that were ending check-off. Have any of those Departments made any attempt to negotiate with the unions on the costs of check-off, or does the Minister simply want to get rid of check-off altogether?
Mr Maude
For many years, the civil service management code has obliged Departments to recover the costs of check-off from the unions, but only two have been doing so, namely the Ministry of Defence and HMRC. Check-off remains in place in a number of Departments, and the head of the civil service has very properly written to their permanent secretaries telling them that they should rectify the position.
Point of Order
Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am a new Member of Parliament, but I understand that it is a convention in the House for a Minister, or any other MP, who is to visit a constituency to inform the Member who represents that constituency. Over the last six weeks I have had the pleasure of receiving numerous visits from Conservative Ministers who, no doubt, have wished to see how a Liberal Democrat-controlled council and the Liberal Democrat MP are managing to make such a good fist of it in Eastbourne, and they have always been kind enough to let me know, even when there has been only an hour to go before their arrival. However, I was disappointed to discover that the Secretary of State for the Home Department had visited my constituency yesterday, and I had not been notified.
This morning I spoke to Beryl Healy, who is a former mayor of Eastbourne and a well known and established constituent of mine. She told me that she thought that this was simply bad manners, but I believe that the Home Secretary is a very courteous parliamentarian, and I admire her courtesy even when I disagree with her. In that respect, I feel that she has let me down. Can you advise me on how I can address the Home Secretary on this matter, Mr Speaker?
Mr Speaker
The hon. Gentleman has made his own point in his own way, and he has used the device of a point of order to register his discontent. Let me say this to him. The convention—and it is not a rule or a law—is well established, although I am sorry to say that it is frequently honoured as much in the breach as in the observance, a phenomenon that tends to be exacerbated in the run-up to an election.
I would prefer Members to resolve these matters satisfactorily without their having continually to be aired on the Floor of the House. I am sympathetic to the hon. Gentleman, but I think that he must now rely on his own devices to ward off repeat performances that he judges to be discourteous.
Mesothelioma (Amendment)
Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Mesothelioma Act 2014.
Let me begin by paying tribute to my predecessors Paul Goggins and Lord Morris of Manchester. Paul had been fighting hard for mesothelioma victims shortly before his sad death last year. Alf, who introduced me to public life, had been doing likewise, seeing that work as an extension of his groundbreaking Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970. Today, I walk in the footsteps of giants.
Mesothelioma is an invasive form of lung cancer, caused primarily by earlier exposure to asbestos. There is currently no cure. Patients often experience complex and debilitating symptoms, and most die within 12 months of diagnosis. The United Kingdom has the highest rate of the disease in the world. Mortality rates are increasing, and have more than quadrupled over the last 30 years. It is estimated that more than 2,500 people will die of the disease in the UK this year, and that during the next 30 years about 60,000 will die unless new treatments are found.
Relatively little is spent on mesothelioma research in the UK in comparison with what is spent on other cancers involving comparable mortality. In 2012, the National Cancer Research Institute reported that just £1.2 million had been invested in research by its partners. That is significantly less than the £9.9 million and the £5.3 million that were spent on, respectively, skin cancer—or melanoma—and myeloma, two conditions that kill a similar number of people each year.
Research funding could have helped Derrick and Adele. Derrick was diagnosed with mesothelioma in December last year and sadly died just over a month later, on 17 January this year. He was exposed to asbestos as a young joiner in the early 1950s, when he was working on council houses and building pre-fabs. Like many joiners and construction workers, he was exposed when working with insulation board and corrugated roofing—both were used widely in the construction industry between the 1950s and the 1980s—all of which was riddled with asbestos.
Although the dangers of asbestos were well known to those who produced the materials, Derrick was not advised of those dangers; nor was he given protective equipment to shield him from the asbestos fibres. He had had no known exposure to asbestos after 1956, but his exposure to it as a young man was enough to lead to the diagnosis of terminal cancer nearly 60 years later.
Adele is a 46-year-old old single mother who was diagnosed with mesothelioma just before Christmas 2014. As a young hairdresser, she had been exposed to asbestos fibres that were contained in the old-style hood hairdryers. Hairdressing is not typically thought of a job that would cause such a risk. Unfortunately, asbestos has been a feature in many different workplaces, and it can take only very low level, or fleeting, exposure to cause mesothelioma. The added tragedy for Adele is that her father was also diagnosed with the disease less than six months before her own diagnosis, caused by exposure at his own workplace, a double burden for this close-knit family to endure.
The results from the funded research projects have, however, been impressive. New researchers from other areas of therapy have started taking an interest in mesothelioma, bringing with them new expertise and insights. MesobanK, Europe’s first mesothelioma tissue bank, has been created to collect and store biological tissue from patients for use in research, and work is being funded to identify the genetic architecture of the disease.
There have been ongoing conversations with the insurance industry regarding research funding for many years now. In January 2015, it was announced that two insurance companies—Aviva and Zurich—had agreed to donate a combined £1 million over two years to the British Lung Foundation’s mesothelioma research programme. However, although the funding from Aviva and Zurich is welcome, £500,000 a year alone does not come close to addressing the multimillion-pound funding deficit currently endured by mesothelioma research when compared with cancers of comparable mortality. Many more insurance industry donations of this kind will be required to justify the preference, expressed by several MPs during the Mesothelioma Act 2014 debates, for such funding to be secured through voluntary agreements, rather than to have a statutory underpinning. It is estimated that there are 150 insurance firms active in the employers’ liability insurance market, and a small statutory contribution from each could transform mesothelioma research. That is what this Bill hopes to achieve today.
The recent funding I have already mentioned is only secured for two years. This does not address the need to put funding on a sustainable footing. We need this for the benefits of research breakthroughs to be built on, and not lost. Dr Peter Campbell, who is conducting research identifying which genes are the most important targets for mutations, has stated:
“Only by understanding its basic biology will we be able to develop a new generation of drugs targeted at the specific abnormalities of mesothelioma cells. This requires sustained investment at all levels of mesothelioma research, from basic genetics and cell biology through drug development to clinical trials.”
Dr Robert Rintoul, who works at MesobanK, sees the importance of research not only for the UK, which is dramatically affected by this disease, but the rest of the world. He says that
“asbestos is still being used in an unsafe and unregulated way. Although the number of cases of mesothelioma in the UK will fall over the next 30 years, there will continue to be an epidemic of the disease globally and the lessons that we learn today about the biology of the disease will be used by doctors the world over in years to come.”
Unless a change is introduced in the way mesothelioma research is funded, we risk stagnation and endanger potential life-changing, even life-saving, breakthroughs. Currently, research relies on ad hoc contributions from insurers, charitable donations and modest funding from the Government. This unreliable approach to funding jeopardises ongoing research, impacting not only the British research industry but mesothelioma mortality in the UK. That is why statutory funding is needed; it must be secured for the research.
Let us commit on this day, at this time and in this place to Derrick and Adele, and to those who did not make it and those to come, to make the change required. I beg to move.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Mike Kane, Andy McDonald, Mr Andy Slaughter, Tracey Crouch, Ian Paisley, Sammy Wilson, Jim Sheridan, Jim Shannon, Dr Wollaston, John Woodcock, Mr lain McKenzie and Steve Rotherham present the Bill.
Mike Kane accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 27 March 2015, and to be printed (Bill 185).
Deregulation Bill (Programme) (No.3)
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83A(7)),
That the following provisions shall apply to the Deregulation Bill for the purpose of supplementing the Order of 3 February 2014 in the last Session of Parliament (Deregulation Bill (Programme)), as varied by the Order of 14 May 2014 in that Session (Deregulation Bill (Programme)(No. 2)):—
Consideration of Lords Amendments
(1) Proceedings on consideration of Lords Amendments shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion three hours after their commencement at today’s sitting.
(2) The Lords Amendments shall be considered in the following order: Nos 38, 1 to 37 and 39 to 123.
Subsequent stages
(3) Any further Message from the Lords may be considered forthwith without any Question being put.
(4) The proceedings on any further Message from the Lords shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour after their commencement.—(Damian Hinds.)
Question agreed to.
Deregulation Bill
(9 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
16:31 - The House divided: - Ayes: 161 / Noes: 277 - Question accordingly negatived.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)
I must draw the House’s attention to the fact that financial privilege is involved in Lords amendment 33. If the House agrees to the amendment, I shall ensure that the appropriate entry is made in the Journal.
Clause 60
TV licensing: alternatives to criminal sanctions
The Deputy Leader of the House of Commons (Tom Brake)
I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 38.
Madam Deputy Speaker
With this we may take Government amendments (a) and (b) in lieu.
Tom Brake
I want briefly to outline why the Government have introduced amendments in lieu of Lords amendment 38.
A television licence is required to watch all live or nearly live broadcast television content on any device in the UK. People should not seek to evade this and there needs to be an effective enforcement regime for the failure to have a TV licence.
Clause 76 imposes a duty on the Secretary of State to ensure that a review of the TV licensing enforcement regime is carried out. This review will identify whether the current enforcement regime is appropriate and proportionate, and will ensure that there is a strong, evidence-based case for any changes to the TV licence enforcement regime. This matters a great deal to many people.
The Government are very clear that the review of the licensing enforcement regime is a high priority. The decision was taken to commence this review in advance of Royal Assent, while retaining the clause that commits the Government to carry out the review to ensure that this important piece of work is completed. The review is being led, independently, by David Perry QC. The findings of the review, which will complete by the end of June 2015, will be laid in both Houses of Parliament and be presented to the BBC Trust.
The proposed further amendment requires the Secretary of State within three months of the review reporting to set out whether the Government intend to decriminalise or not, and commits the Government to indicate clearly the timetable they plan to follow upon the completion of the Perry review. Our overriding aim is to ensure that the system is appropriate, proportionate and fair, and represents the best value.
This amendment places a firm commitment on the Government of the day to promptly and properly consider the report and set out their response and the timetable of steps to be taken, within three months of the report’s completion. Clause 77 confers a new power on the Secretary of State, via secondary legislation, to change the sanctions that apply to the failure to have a TV licence. We have always maintained that the report’s findings, and potential next steps, should be considered in the context of charter review. This position has not changed.
The BBC’s current charter expires on 31 December 2016. The Government will not begin charter review until after the election and there is no set process for how the review of the charter should be conducted, or when. It will be for the Government of the day to take forward any further actions as they see fit.
We must not make presumptions about the recommendations that Mr Perry will make, nor about how the Government will decide to take them forward, particularly as the public consultation element of this work is ongoing. Clearly, any changes will require serious consideration in the broader context of the charter review process, and it will be for the next Government to ensure that the right enforcement regime for licence fee payers, the courts and indeed the BBC itself is in place.
Our amendment ensures that the next Government will be ready and able to implement whatever recommendations David Perry, QC wishes to make, when the Secretary of State’s regulation-making power commences in April 2017. There was significant cross-party support for the TV licensing clauses during our earlier consideration of this Bill in this House. The firm commitments set out by the Government at that time must be honoured, particularly given that strong, cross-party support. Our amendments ensure that David Perry’s review will be promptly considered by the Government of the day, and that any potential changes are introduced to a clear timetable, leading up to 1 April 2017. For all the reasons I have outlined, I ask hon. Members to disagree with the Lords amendment and support our amendments in lieu.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Anybody would think, from the way the Minister just presented his case, that this has been a smooth path and everything the Government intended from the very beginning. But there was only an amendment relating to the licence fee at all because of a Government Back-Bencher, the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen)—who may be able to catch your eye a little later, Madam Deputy Speaker—and we have a change only because in the Lords the Government’s position was overturned by three votes. I am, of course, proud that we now have a far more sensible set of propositions before us. I admit that the Liberal Democrat heart that is still beating within the Minister is probably on our side in this argument, but he might at least have shown that that heart still beats, rather than just deliver what his paymasters in the Conservative party have told him to deliver.
The truth is that Labour Members support the BBC licence fee for the foreseeable future, not out of ideological passion but simply because it has worked and because the vast majority of people in this country support it. Everybody comes up with other ideas; every Select Committee that has ever examined this issue has set out this, that and the other idea for us to consider, but at the end has said that the least worst option is the licence fee. Broadly speaking, that is what the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport decided in its report a couple of weeks ago.
Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Chris Bryant
Of course. I cannot think of anyone to whom I would want to give way more.
Mark Field
The lack of any other options on the Government Benches may have something to do with that. I hope that the hon. Gentleman does not mistake the broad support on the Government Benches for a different and less stringent sanctions regime for support for the TV licence. I very much support the idea of a TV licence, but we need somehow to rein back what has been allowed to happen with TV licence sanctions. That is what drives most of the support for this amendment.
Chris Bryant
I did not give way to the hon. Gentleman faute de mieux. He is right in what he says, and some Opposition Members are as passionate in their support for the licence fee as he is, as I am or as Tony Hall is but want a change to the rules on how the licence fee is administered and the penalties for those who do not pay. My noble Friend Baroness Corston put forward a cogent and moving argument, to which one would have to be hard-hearted not to listen, on the criminalisation aspects of the current situation. Our point, which won substantially in the House of Lords, was that we have a system that broadly works, and if we want to change it, it would be better to change it in the round, rather than simply changing the licence fee. Let me explain why.
The licence fee is not just about funding the BBC’s programming, although it is true that it provides £3.7 billion of investment in the arts, broadcasting and British culture through the BBC, which it is difficult to see how any other model would deliver to the same degree. In addition, it provides for a degree of competition for quality, as well as for audiences, with the other broadcasters. Thus, ITV wants to make high-quality drama and does so; many of the dramas people often associate with the BBC are actually made by ITV. Likewise, Channel 4 has a special role to play because of the original remit it was given to be edgy, alternative and sometimes naughty. It can perform that public service broadcasting role within the whole ecosystem only if the BBC licence fee also exists and if Channel 4 remains in public hands. I am sure that the Minister would agree with me on that one about Channel 4, even if some Conservative Members might not.
The Opposition believe that it is important that there is the licence fee, and that it is a massive investment in production and drama, not just the kind of long-form dramas that exist in American commercial broadcasting and are often very lucrative, but the short-form dramas, such as “The Casual Vacancy”, which has been on the BBC over the past few weeks. It was only three episodes long and it would be very difficult to make in any environment other than one where there is some form of subsidy. In news, current affairs, comedy and so many different areas, the BBC would not be able to perform the same function without the licence fee.
Labour Members have been critical of the difficult time the BBC has had. Of course it always has to strive to make its resources stretch further, but since 2010 it has had not only a tough financial settlement but top-slicing, with a significant amount of money—some hundreds of millions of pounds—going off to fund the roll-out of broadband around the country. In addition, S4C is, in the main, being paid for not by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport but out of the licence fee, and the World Service is being paid for not by the Foreign Office, but out of the licence fee.
Andrew Bridgen
If the BBC has had such a tough financial settlement and it can no longer go on with a freeze on the licence fee, can the hon. Gentleman explain why the number of managers—not staff, but managers—who work for the BBC and are paid more than the Prime Minister has increased by 10% in the past 12 months?
Chris Bryant
Those are precisely the kinds of points the BBC has to address. It has to make sure that more and more of its money is spent on programming rather than on administration. That is why I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on one element of his campaign. He has argued forcefully that the collection system for the licence fee costs some £100 million a year and he has asked whether there is a better way of doing that. That is a perfectly legitimate question to ask.
Of course there are those—I see the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) has just entered the Chamber at precisely the right moment—who would dismantle the licence fee. He is the only member of the Select Committee who voted to get rid of the licence fee completely. Some people would want to change it, and that is a perfectly legitimate argument to have. My concern about how the Government behaved on this issue is that the version they sent through to the House of Lords meant that the Government could have instituted the decriminalisation of non-payment of the licence fee without consideration of that issue within the whole package of other issues relating to the BBC and charter renewal. In effect, that would have left the door open to dismantling the licence fee without even intending to do so. I am certain that, as right hon. and hon. Members said in the House of Lords, if the Government were to proceed too swiftly, we would simply see a significant fall in licence fee take-up almost immediately. We could be talking about something in the region of £200 million or £250 million, which is more than the cost of all children’s broadcasting.
We need to think carefully about the timing of how we proceed, which is why Labour supported in the House of Lords the amendment that the Government are objecting to today, but not really objecting to. They are doing an adroit about-turn, for which we are deeply grateful. I wish to praise my colleagues in the House of Lords, particularly Lord Stevenson of Balmacara and Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town, who made sure that the amendment was carried, with a lot of cross-Bench support and a significant amount of Liberal Democrat support.
Chris Bryant
I was on my very last sentence. Normally, hon. Members are clamouring for me to stop, but I see that the hon. and learned Member is clamouring for me to continue.
Sir Oliver Heald
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that in principle it is wrong for somebody to be sent to prison for not paying the licence fee?
Chris Bryant
I believe in the licence fee. I would like to see decriminalisation. If we can achieve decriminalisation of non-payment of the licence fee in a way that does not dismantle the rest of the licence fee, yes, I would agree with the hon. and learned Gentleman. However, in order to do that, one cannot simply send forward to Her Majesty legislation which suggests that the Government can introduce that decriminalisation in a few weeks’ time. We have to carry the amendment as tabled, substantially agreeing with the House of Lords, while pretending to disagree. I am grateful that the hon. and learned Gentleman passionately agrees with me. He still has a beating socialist heart and will support the licence fee, as we shall.
Andrew Bridgen
I start by expressing my deep disappointment that the amendment has been added to the Bill by the House of Lords, by a narrow majority of only three noble Members, in order to maintain the status quo and perpetuate criminalisation of non-payment of the TV licence for at least another two years—an eleventh-hour attempt to frustrate the clear will of this House and of the country.
It should be noted that five of the votes in favour in the other place came from the ex-BBC chairman, Lord Grade, in whose name the amendment stood; the ex-BBC “Play School” presenter, Baroness Benjamin; an ex-BBC governor, Baroness Deech; the ex-BBC “EastEnders” actor, Lord Cashman; and BBC producer Viscount Colville. They all spoke in the debate and voted in favour of the amendment.
Chris Bryant
In referring to all those Members, the hon. Gentleman might also point out their slightly wider career paths. For example, Lord Grade was head of ITV and spent most of his career in broadcasting in the commercial sector, so it is fascinating that the commercial sector and the public sector agree.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)
Order. I do not think it is fascinating; we are not here to debate Members of the other place. We are here to debate the Lords amendments so, Mr Bridgen, I require you to desist from reminding us what happened in the other place, because we can read it, and to direct your comments to the amendments before us.
Andrew Bridgen
Thank you for that guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker. I much appreciate it. However, I point out to the House that those five noble Members represent more than the majority by which the amendment was carried in the other place.
Having read the Hansard record of the various speeches on the amendment in the upper House, as I am sure all hon. Members have, I found myself with a strong sense of déjà vu. There they were, all the same lines from the multimillion-pound BBC spin machine that we heard when I first proposed the amendment—horror stories about huge changes to the BBC if decriminalisation came in; losses of £200 million of revenue; the emotive closure of all local radio stations and TV stations; and so on. We have heard it all before. I remind hon. Members that there was support for my amendment from across the entire political spectrum in this House. It was signed by 149 right hon. and hon. Members and had the support of many in the Government who were unable to sign.
I draw the attention of the House to the comments of Baroness Corston, who was mentioned by the shadow Minister. She recognised the impact of delays to the implementation of the decriminalisation of non-payment of the TV licence. The longer that takes, the more people will go to prison and the more people will be criminalised. Every year of delay means that another 160,000 of our fellow citizens will be dragged up on criminal charges for non-payment of a £145.50 licence—in effect, a poll tax.
Baroness Corston said:
“I once met a woman who had been imprisoned for three months for failing to pay the £145.50 television licence fee and a £200 fine. If she could not afford the licence fee, surely she was not going to be able to afford a £200 fine as well. During those three months in prison she lost her tenancy and was unable to look after her children, who were taken into care. When she came out of prison, she was told that she could not have local authority accommodation for a family because she did not have her children with her, and when she went to social services she was told that she could not have her children back because she did not have family accommodation.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 5 February 2014; Vol. 759, c. 800.]
That is truly shocking.
As I have previously stated in the House, around 50 people a year go to prison as a result of the legislation, a disproportionate number of whom are women—50%, whereas women make up only 4% of the prison population. However, speaker after speaker in the upper House, while noting the comments of Baroness Corston, decided that the spurious claims about a shortfall in BBC funding took precedence.
It is unfortunate that TV licensing enforcement in Scotland was not brought up in the debate in the other place. I would like to correct that and remind the House that the Criminal Proceedings etc. (Reform) (Scotland) Act 2007 introduced a regime whereby an emphasis was placed on alternatives to prosecution, such as fiscal fines. The result was a fall in prosecutions from nearly 2,000 in 2006-07 to just 34 in 2012-13—a 98% reduction. If the BBC PR machine is to be believed, one would think that that would result in a significant fall in compliance with the licence fee. However, as Fergus Reid, the spokesperson for TV Licensing in Scotland, said in 2013:
“the average evasion rate remains at a low of just over five per cent, meaning almost 95 per cent of homes are correctly licensed.”
Sir Oliver Heald
Does my hon. Friend consider it disproportionate to imprison somebody for non-payment of a relatively small debt? Does he agree that this needs to be corrected, much as some of us love the licence fee?
Andrew Bridgen
Not only do the majority of Members of this House think that the measure is disproportionate; I honestly believe that the majority of people in the country think that it is disproportionate. When I first proposed my amendment and canvassed support for it across the House, it was clear that a large number of Members did not initially think that it was a criminal offence not to pay the TV licence fee. It is within our power to correct this. In England and Wales, more people are imprisoned each year for the non-payment of fines associated with TV licensing than are prosecuted for evasion in Scotland, with little, if any, difference in the evasion rate.
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
To be absolutely clear, people are not going to prison for refusing to pay the TV licence fee. The reality is that people are sent to prison for refusing to pay the penalty for not paying the fee in the first place. The former Solicitor-General has intervened a couple of times to suggest the opposite to that.
Andrew Bridgen
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. People go to prison not for not paying the licence fee, but for not paying the fines. However, if someone has hit hard times and has no money and cannot afford a £145.50 licence fee, they are unlikely, as in the example cited by Baroness Corston, to be able to pay a £200 fine, which could result in a mother going to prison and her children being taken into care, with the consequent results for her family on release.
The avoidance rate for payment of the TV licence fee in Scotland is hardly different from that in England, despite the fact that we criminalise 160,000 to 180,000 of our citizens a year and imprison between 30 and 50, whereas Scotland prosecutes only some 30 people a year. Given the sparsity of population in Scotland and human behaviour being what it is, one might consider that there would be a greater chance of evading prosecution in a remote part of Scotland than anywhere in England. I would suggest that there was possibly a higher evasion rate in Scotland prior to the decriminalisation anyway.
Unfortunately, the BBC public relations machine seems to have won the day in the upper House, so I now come to amendment (a) in lieu, tabled in the name of the Minister for Government Policy and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr Letwin). As he says, there is no doubting the significant cross-party support for the clauses relating to TV licensing during the earlier stages of the Bill, and the firm commitments set out by the Government must be honoured. I therefore support the amendment to ensure that the review by David Perry QC, due in June 2015, to which I had the pleasure of giving evidence only last week, is promptly considered by the Government of the day, and that the changes that I very much hope come about are introduced with a clear timetable.
Whatever future funding mechanism for the BBC is decided at the next charter review, I hope that criminalising more than 160,000 of our fellow citizens each year, an estimated 75% of whom are women, will no longer be part of it. I therefore urge the House to join me in opposing the Lords amendment and supporting the Government’s amendments in lieu.
Tom Brake
I will make a few short comments in relation to the points that have been made in the debate. It is impossible to win with the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). If we do not make any changes to the Bill, we are being dictatorial and steamrolling things through. If we do make changes in response to the debate, we are being spineless. As a Minister, I am always in favour of listening, and if there are ways of improving a Bill, that is what I like to do—and that is what we are doing today.
Andrew Bridgen
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) is the ideal Opposition spokesman? I hope he stays in opposition for a long time.
Tom Brake
I certainly agree with my hon. Friend on that, and I am confident that the hon. Gentleman will stay on the Opposition Benches for a long time. However, I thank the hon. Gentleman for expressing his support in a roundabout way, and in a lengthier contribution than mine on this measure.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) for providing us with the opportunity to debate TV licensing and enforcement today, a debate he initiated many months ago. I hear the unhappiness that he has expressed, but I also heard him comment positively on the fact that there is a clear commitment from any future Government, providing the Bill is passed, to come forward within three months of the publication of the Perry review with an action plan setting out the steps that they will take if they are in favour of decriminalisation.
Lords amendment 38 disagreed to.
Government amendments (a) and (b) made in lieu of Lords amendment 38.
Clause 1
Health and safety at work: general duty of self-employed persons
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Lords amendments 2 to 17.
Lords amendment 18, and amendments (a) to (g) thereto.
Lords amendment 19, and amendments (b), (e), (c) and (d) thereto.
Lords amendment 20.
Lords amendment 21, and amendment (a) thereto.
Lords amendments 22 to 25.
Lords amendment 26, and amendments (a) and (b) thereto.
Lords amendment 27, and amendments (a) to (k) thereto.
Lords amendments 28 to 37 and 39 to 123.
Tom Brake
It seems a long time since I was sitting opposite the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) debating the Deregulation Bill, but we are back here today. The Government support Lords amendments 1 to 37 and 39 to 123. I will also be speaking to amendments tabled by hon. Members to Lords amendments 19, 21, 26 and 27, which the Government will not be supporting for reasons that I will set out shortly.
Lords amendments 1 and 2 relate to health and safety and the self-employed. Lords amendment 1 addresses concerns raised during the public consultation on draft regulations conducted by the Health and Safety Executive during July and August 2014. Concerns were expressed that the regulations as drafted could lead to some self-employed persons who do pose a risk to the health and safety of others falling exempt from the law. Amendment 1 sets out the ways in which undertakings may be described in regulations made under section 3(2) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 to retain duties on self-employed persons. Subsection (2A)(a) provided for regulations to include descriptions of activities carried out by an undertaking where the duty on the self-employed would remain in place, essentially providing for a list of high-risk activities. Importantly, subsection (2A)(b) ensures that the regulations can also include a general description covering any undertaking the conduct of which may expose others to risks to their health and safety. The amendment means that the provision in the Bill aligns more with Professor Ragnar Löfstedt’s recommendation. The HSE will produce guidance targeted at self-employed persons and others to assist with their understanding of the amendment.
Lords amendment 2 takes into account a recommendation of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee to change the parliamentary procedure for these regulations from negative to affirmative. This will allow Parliament fully to scrutinise the regulations.
Lords amendment 3 removes a measure that would have had the effect of allowing private hire vehicles to be used for leisure purposes when they were not being used for private hire purposes. After listening to concerns about this proposal during the Bill’s passage, the Government have decided that the best course of action is for this measure to be considered as part of the package of measures recommended by the Law Commission to reform taxi and private hire vehicle licensing.
Lords amendments 5 to 17 seek to provide clarification and certainty in relation to the tenancy deposit protection legislation in response to recent court cases. The amendments address two issues. First, they make it clear that, where appropriate, a letting agent’s contact details, instead of the landlord’s, may be provided to a tenant. That was always the intention of the original framework, and thus the measure has been made to apply retrospectively. However, to ensure fairness, provision is also being made to prevent the reopening of out-of-court settlements or court cases that had been finally determined on this basis.
The second issue, which was raised by the recent Court of Appeal judgment in Charalambous v. Ng 2014, concerns tenancy deposits. The Court ruled that the tenancy deposit legislation should apply to landlords who received a tenancy deposit before the coming into force of the tenancy deposit legislation in 2007, and that they would therefore need to protect deposits if they wished to rely on the “no fault” ground for eviction, known as section 21. This was never the Government’s intention. Our amendments therefore make it absolutely clear that, although landlords affected by the judgment will need to protect deposits if they wish to rely on section 21, they will not be at risk of financial penalty should they fail to do so.
Lords amendments 18 to 26 protect tenants in the private rented sector from being evicted where they have raised a legitimate complaint about the condition of their home, and make the eviction process more straightforward in appropriate cases. They also ensure that tenants are aware of their rights and responsibilities and those of the landlord. The hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) has tabled amendments to these amendments, and I will come to those shortly. The effect of the Government’s amendments is that landlords in the private rented sector will not be able to evict a tenant merely because the tenant has asked them to carry out a repair, provided that the local authority has confirmed that such a repair is necessary to prevent a potential risk to the tenant’s health and safety. They ensure that tenants are always given at least two months’ notice before they have to move out of their home and make the eviction process more straightforward for landlords in situations where the tenant should be evicted.
The amendments enable the Secretary of State to make regulations specifying the information to be contained in any eviction notice served under section 21 of the Housing Act 1988, and provide that an eviction notice cannot be served where a landlord has failed to comply with their existing legal obligations relating to the condition of the property, the health and safety of their tenants, or the energy performance of the property. They also require landlords to provide information to their tenants about their rights and responsibilities.
As many Members will know, these amendments started as a private Member’s Bill in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather), whom I thank for all her work in bringing this to the attention of the House. I also thank the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills; the Minister for Employment; and the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams). Shelter and Citizens Advice have also been heavily involved in this process.
Retaliatory eviction is wrong, and its continued practice is unacceptable. No tenant should face eviction because they have made a legitimate complaint to the landlord about the condition of their home, and no decent landlord would engage in the practice. However, a small number of rogue and unscrupulous landlords think it is perfectly acceptable to evict a tenant for requesting a repair. These important amendments introduce protection for tenants against rogue and unscrupulous landlords, but they also contain provisions that will benefit landlords and make it more straightforward to evict tenants in legitimate circumstances.
On the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Shipley, I understand the intention behind some of them. However, I assure him that Lords amendments 18 to 26 ensure that all landlords are still entitled to their rights under section 8 of the Housing Act 1988, which enables them to evict a tenant who does not pay rent, goes to prison, or uses the house for illegal purposes. Our fundamental aim is to prevent a very small minority of rogue landlords from evicting tenants in retaliation for raising a legitimate complaint. Part of his proposals would undermine this effort.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
Will the Minister answer two questions? First, is the opposition to my amendments unanimous across the coalition, or is it just the Liberal Democrats who oppose them? Secondly, what estimate have the Government made of the number of revenge evictions that take place each year, because there is great discrepancy in the numbers?
Tom Brake
On the number of revenge evictions, I will have to get back to the hon. Gentleman; I may get inspiration in the next few minutes. On whether there was coalition agreement on this issue, when the Department for Communities and Local Government looked at the impact of his amendments, it was clear that, in some cases, they would allow a landlord to make a retaliatory eviction on the day after the landlord had completed a repair. That would go completely against the intent of the provisions in terms of protecting tenants. It would permit a landlord to evict a tenant as soon as repairs had been completed using a section 21 eviction notice. That is not in the spirit of preventing retaliatory evictions, but merely delays them until after repairs are completed.
On the number of revenge evictions, as the hon. Gentleman will probably know, the figure is estimated to be some 80,000 per year. The source of that figure was a YouGov survey of 4,500 renters.
Philip Davies
Why are the Government basing their figures on an opinion poll commissioned by a campaigning charity on this issue and ignoring their own figures from the English housing survey, which estimates that the number is about 6,000 a year?
Tom Brake
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that helpful intervention. He thinks that the figure is lower, at 6,000 evictions. I said 80,000, and then generously halved it for him to 40,000. If it is indeed 6,000, then that is 6,000 retaliatory evictions too many. His amendments would facilitate the process of retaliatory evictions, which the Government are, instead, seeking to avoid.
The amendments would extend the time within which a landlord must respond to a request for a repair from 14 days to 20 working days. This Government believe that renting out a property is a business and that tenants should be able to expect a much swifter response to a complaint than 20 working days—in other words, a month—particularly where the problem is serious. To clarify, this time frame is only for responding to the concern raised, not fixing the problem. There is a further amendment to the effect that any complaint must be within the scope of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. However, that legislation is not the framework under which local authorities operate for the purposes of inspecting a property and deciding whether there is a health and safety risk to the tenant. Inspections are carried out under the Housing Act 2004 and involve checking for the presence of 29 potential hazards in the home.
Amendment 5 would remove protection against retaliatory eviction where a landlord intends to sell the property within six months. However, the proposed legislation already provides that it does not apply where, at the time when the section 21 eviction was served, the property was generally on the market for sale.
The next amendment would provide that protection against retaliatory eviction does not apply where a landlord wants to move into or redevelop the dwelling, or the dwelling is subject to a compulsory purchase order, or the landlord needs vacant possession to comply with a legal duty to carry out works in the building. Compulsory purchase orders are rarely used, but even where they are, the acquiring authority would become the landlord and could terminate the lease under separate powers.
The final amendment would introduce a five-year time limit on the life of the legislation or require that a review shall be commissioned within three years of the legislation coming into force. As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, it is standard practice to evaluate legislation after a certain period, and we will of course do this. However, we do not necessarily believe that the issue of retaliatory evictions will be resolved in five years, so we do not want to limit the powers as they stand.
Where a landlord wants to move back into a property that they are renting out, the legislation will not prevent them from doing so, provided that they follow the normal process and deal with any repairs before a local authority becomes involved. The legislation contains safeguards to ensure that a tenant cannot benefit from making spurious or unfounded complaints. A complaint in itself will not be enough to trigger protection against retaliatory eviction. In all cases, the local authority will have to confirm that a repair needs to be carried out and that failure to do so would probably involve a serious health and safety risk to the tenant. In addition, the legislation makes it clear that a tenant cannot claim protection against retaliatory eviction where they have failed to treat the property in a tenant-like manner—in other words, to take care of it, rather than to damage it wilfully and negligently—including by carrying out small jobs around the property.
Mark Field
I hope to catch your eye later, Madame Deputy Speaker, but it is pretty clear that there is no uncertainty whatsoever. The regulations have been in place for 42 years for good reason, so to sweep them away as is now proposed would be rather unwise. I hope that the Minister will provide a little meat on the bones of exactly why the Government now wish to do so, particularly given the strength of feeling among London MPs on both sides of the House and in the Lords.
Tom Brake
I will provide more explanation in a few minutes. I hope that it will satisfy my hon. Friend, but I suspect that it may not. We will have to wait and see. One point is that this is an issue only in London. I am not aware of a huge number of problems associated with it outside London. Perhaps there are such problems, but they certainly have not been drawn to my attention. The proposals will simply bring the approach in London into line with that in the rest of the country.
Mr Nick Raynsford (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)
I did not quite follow the Minister’s argument. He accepted the fact that London is different and that there is strong feeling about it in London, but he proceeded to say that the Government therefore want to make London like the rest of the country. I am afraid that that is a non sequitur. If there is a problem in London, the Government must address it by accepting it and listening to the views of the local authorities and others in London who have clear experience of it and are saying that what the Government propose is wrong.
Tom Brake
I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman was paraphrasing me. What I should have said is that I am hearing the concerns about London expressed in this debate, but there are no restrictions of such a nature and I am not aware of its causing a significant issue outside London. I will come on to explain why the Government support the proposals and why we believe that the safeguards, which I am sure he wants, are sufficient to deal with any concerns of London MPs.
At present, Londoners would be in breach of section 25 of the Greater London Council (General Powers) Act 1974 were they to use their residential premises as temporary sleeping accommodation without planning permission, because the Act stipulates that letting a residential property for less than 90 consecutive nights is a material change of use and thus requires planning permission. Not obtaining such permission means risking a fine of £20,000.
The Government published a policy paper on the short-term use of residential property on 9 February. It takes into account the representations we received following the publication last year of the discussion document on property conditions in the private rented sector, as well as our discussions with London local authorities, the industry and Members of both Houses.
Following that, the Government tabled a number of amendments in the other place to update the existing legislation and ensure that we provide appropriate freedom for London residents, broadly in line with that enjoyed by residents across the rest of the country. Alongside the new freedoms, we have sought to provide important safeguards to prevent the abuse of the reforms and, crucially, to prevent any opportunity for commercial letting on an ongoing or permanent basis, about which I am sure Labour Members are concerned.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
I, too, hope to catch your eye in this debate, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Minister is a London MP, so he knows the pressures on the residential housing stock in London. Have not London local authorities, across the parties, made representations to stress that fact? For example, Westminster alone loses about 500 residential units every year to short-term lettings, because it is impossible to distinguish, in the way the Minister claims to do, between the holiday let and the extension of what is effectively the hospitality industry.
Tom Brake
The Government are clear that the proposals are not about facilitating a process that will allow more commercial letting on an ongoing or permanent basis; they are about restricting lets by individuals to a maximum of 90 days. I do not know whether the hon. Lady has ever used Airbnb or something of that nature in other parts of the country, where people let out their properties on a short-term basis at the time of particular events, such as the Liberal Democrat conference in Glasgow. There is no suggestion that people are letting out properties permanently. The Government do not want that to happen, which is why the restriction of 90 days has been put in place. I will come on to the other safeguards in a moment.
Ms Buck
I will not intervene again, but may I ask about that particular point? The Minister is saying that there is not a problem, but Westminster alone has had to take 7,362 cases against quasi-commercial short-term lettings in the past 15 years even under the existing regulations. The key point is that such enforcement will be far harder when the Government relax the rules, as they intend to do.
Tom Brake
The hon. Lady will hear what I have to say about enforcement notices, and she may want to pick that up among the points she will make should she catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker.
The internet has created new opportunities for residents who want to enter into what has become known as the sharing economy, a catch-all term encompassing all asset owners who wish to share their asset with others in exchange for a fee. As a result, it is now easier than ever for residents to rent out their property to supplement their incomes and offer consumers new experiences. A cursory look at some of the websites facilitating such lettings reveals that thousands of London properties and rooms are available for short-term use, all of which potentially violate the current section 25.
Lords amendments 27 to 30 add additional safeguards in relation to the short-term use of London properties without planning permission in three ways. First, they stipulate that a property can be used as temporary sleeping accommodation only for a maximum of 90 nights per calendar year. That will ensure that the reforms provide residents with greater flexibility, but it will not create opportunities for the short-term letting of properties on a permanent basis. Secondly, they provide that the person providing the temporary sleeping accommodation must be liable for council tax. That requirement means that a property is used as a residence, because a property used as a hotel or hostel would be liable for business rates. Combined with the 90-night per calendar year limit, we believe that this provides an appropriate safeguard against short-term letting on an ongoing or permanent basis. Thirdly, they allow either the Secretary of State or the relevant planning authority with the Secretary of State’s consent to direct, where there is a strong amenity case for doing so, that the relaxation of section 25 does not apply to certain properties in certain areas. I hope that addresses the hon. Lady’s concerns.
Mark Field
Let us try to dig a little into precisely how big that concession is. Would the Minister allow local authorities, particularly those in central London, to exempt themselves from the exemptions in the entirety of their area—in other words, to tie themselves again to the 1973 Act—or is he suggesting that the concession would apply only to very limited stress areas?
Tom Brake
I am sure that my hon. Friend was listening carefully. I said that the Secretary of State would have to give consent. The Government are not proposing that local authorities should be allowed to decide unilaterally which areas are in and which are out. We want to facilitate something that is already clearly happening on a large scale in London—as far as I am aware, it happens elsewhere in the country without significant problems—to give individuals the flexibility to allow their properties to be rented on a short-term basis if there is an event, such as Wimbledon, during which they want to absent themselves.
Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
The Minister mentions Wimbledon and I have no doubt that he is also thinking about things such as holiday lets. How many prosecutions have there been in respect of Wimbledon and holiday lets? The proposal is just about commercial lets. Is it not impossible to regulate such things in the way the Government intend? It is over-regulation to say that councils must apply for a waiver. Why does he not let localism take charge and allow local authorities decide for themselves?
Tom Brake
Clearly there is a localism aspect to the proposal. If, as some Opposition Members are saying, there is a significant issue in Westminster and places like it, I am sure that Westminster city council will present a well-argued case to the Secretary of State to say why it believes that there should be an exemption in a particular location. I am sure that the Secretary of State would consider such an approach carefully.
The Government believe that the Lords amendments provide appropriate flexibility for Londoners alongside sufficient safeguards. The 90-night limit, coupled with the requirement for hosts to be liable for council tax, means that we will not create new opportunities for residential properties to be used as temporary sleeping accommodation on a permanent basis without planning permission. The relaxation of section 25 will allow properties to be used more efficiently when residents are away, and it should not remove properties from the housing stock that is available to Londoners and their families. In the Government’s opinion, the safeguards, coupled with the ability to exempt areas with the consent of the Secretary of State, are sufficient to protect Londoners against any potential abuse of the relaxation of section 25.
The Opposition amendments to Lords amendment 27 principally seek to create the additional condition that residential premises can be used as temporary sleeping accommodation without planning permission, provided that the premises are the principal residence in London of the owner. They would require the provider of temporary sleeping accommodation to notify the local planning authority in advance of every occasion on which they intended to use their property in this way on a short-term basis. I wonder whether any assessment has been made of the impact of that proposal on the existing London market, with regard to people who are already in breach of the law, and of the burden on local authorities in handing all the advance requests. The Opposition amendments would also remove the requirement for the local planning authority to seek the consent of the Secretary of State to direct that the new flexibility does not apply to particular residential premises or premises in particular areas.
The Government believe that the Opposition amendments seek to remedy issues that have already been addressed by the amendments the Government made in the other place. They would place additional burdens on London residents that are not experienced by residents in other parts of the country, and they run counter to the spirit of the legislation as a deregulatory Bill.
We know that short-term letting is already taking place in London, but the current legislation has led to confusion and uncertainty for potential hosts. The Government amendments will provide clarity and give London residents the confidence that they can use their property as temporary sleeping accommodation within the law, without the disproportionate bureaucracy of applying for planning permission. For those reasons, I ask the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central not to press the Opposition amendments.
I will finish fairly soon, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I am afraid that the amendments touch on a wide range of issues. Lords amendments 31 and 32 change the parliamentary approval procedure for the establishment of urban development areas and urban development corporations. They contain a sunset provision with an expiry date of 31 March 2016. On expiry, the process to establish any further urban development areas and corporations will revert to the existing affirmative procedure. These amendments are intended to help us quickly to establish the urban development corporation for Ebbsfleet —a subject that was debated in the House recently.
Lords amendment 33 inserts new section 220A in the Housing Act 1996, which will give the Secretary of State the power to provide financial assistance when advice is provided in connection with the law concerning park homes. Financial assistance may be provided when an organisation provides information, training or advice, or a dispute resolution service concerning residential licences in England. Where appropriate, the money may be recovered from the recipient. There are similar powers to provide funding to organisations that provide legal advice on residential tenancies. The amendment simply provides the Secretary of State with a similar funding power in respect of residential licences.
Lords amendments 34 and 82 will enable and empower NHS ambulance services to respond to medical emergencies quickly and effectively. There are statutory provisions that exempt vehicles from various rules contained in road traffic legislation when they are being used by the emergency services for fire, police and ambulance purposes. However, modern practices and technology have outgrown the current law, which mainly uses the term “ambulance”. NHS ambulance services now use fast response units including cars and motorbikes to provide quick responses to the most critically ill patients, where time is of the essence. They also use larger vehicles to transport equipment to major incidents to ensure that clinicians are properly equipped. Such responses provide a vital part of NHS emergency health care.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)
Thank you, Minister. That was quite a few “Finallys.”
Andy Sawford (Corby) (Lab/Co-op)
The Opposition welcome many of the Lords amendments. It has been an 18-month process to bring the Bill to this stage, and it has been much improved by the scrutiny brought to bear not only by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) and other hon. Members who had the pleasure of serving on the Bill Committee opposite the Minister, but in the other place where a great deal of cross-party and constructive work was done. This will not be a case study in how to make laws—much of it is ill considered and there has been a lack of consultation about many of the proposals—but it may in future become a case study for how Members of the House can work together despite the Government, and particularly with the support of Members in the other place, to make better law.
We welcome Lords amendments 1 and 2. The changes will certainly improve clause 1 although we still believe that it is unnecessary, ineffective and confusing. We have opposed the clause in all its guises from the very beginning. It is clear that this is an ideologically driven attack on health and safety and will have a negligible impact on the self-employed—those whom the Government say they will help. We think that the clause could create confusion where there has been clarity in the law for more than 40 years, and at no stage was any real evidence brought forward to support any of the proposed benefits of the changes.
We have heard how some small businesses and self-employed people may benefit, but that will clearly be at the cost of creating confusion for millions of self-employed people in a variety of sectors and in some dangerous occupations. That contributes to a narrative that health and safety is inherently a bad thing, rather than something that makes our economy more competitive and a safer place to work. I shall be part of work around the country led by the GMB and other trade unions—it is international workers memorial day in a few weeks’ time, and we will recognise the huge progress we have made in this country to keep people safe at work. I regret that the Government are now seeking to undermine that progress.
I will not repeat the lengthy arguments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central in Committee, or those made by Lord McKenzie of Luton in the other place, but I will say that this clause—and indeed the Bill as a whole—has benefited from scrutiny, even though we believe it is largely unnecessary. Concessions were won in the House of Lords and improvements made to the Bill generally without any support from the Liberal Democrats in either House. They argue that they are a moderating influence that improves the actions of the Government, but the Bill shows that they have failed in that respect.
Amendment 10 is a welcome U-turn from the Government on the proposal to let anyone behind the wheels of a minicab. For the past year Labour has opposed the Government’s proposals to reform minicab law because we believe that they will put passengers at risk. Taxi and private hire vehicle regulation is complex, and we recognise the arguments that it is outdated. Nevertheless, these reforms are not the right ones.
The regulation and licensing of types of vehicles and their drivers is undertaken by local authorities across England and Wales, except in London. In 2011 the Department for Transport requested that the Law Commission undertake a comprehensive review of taxi and minicab law, aiming to modernise and simplify it. The Government delayed the publication of the Law Commission’s report, and instead proposed three amendments to the Bill on minicab regulation in March 2013, seeking to meet the so-called red tape challenge to scrap legislation. The informal consultation that the Government claimed to have carried out was not public but apparently sent privately by a civil servant to a limited number of select bodies who were given just 10 days to respond on such an important issue. That inadequate consultation process was strongly criticised by those involved and—more importantly—all those who were not involved, including local authorities and safety campaigners. No impact assessment for the reforms has ever been produced.
In May 2013 after the local elections the Government allowed the Law Commission to publish its proposals for reform, which included a new national framework of safety and standards enforced at local level. Many organisations, including the National Private Hire Association, Unite, the National Association of Licensing and Enforcement Officers, the National Taxi Association, the Institute of Licensing Officers and the Local Government Association stated that the Government’s proposals would undermine the Law Commission’s reforms, result in further complications in the law rather than less red tape, and put passengers at risk.
The most controversial proposal was to enable people who do not hold a private hire vehicle licence to drive one when it is “off duty”. Safety campaigners, including the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, Rape Crisis and Women’s Aid, police and crime commissioners of all parties, and councillors, joined Labour to warn that the measure threatened to increase the number of unlicensed drivers pretending to be legitimate, as enforcement against the illegal use of licensed vehicles will be almost impossible. The provision also threatens to put vulnerable people such as women and young girls at increased risk from rogue taxi and minicab drivers.
The Government eventually produced a form of impact assessment—although clearly it was not compelling to hon. Friends in either House—on 1 October 2014. It was signed by Baroness Kramer and confirmed that letting anyone drive a minicab
“could lead to an increase in illegal use of licensed vehicles.”
In respect of private hire vehicles and taxis the Bill has been a complete mess. We are pleased that the Government U-turned on the proposal and that today they have finally dropped it.
Like safety campaigners, the National Union of Students and others, we are still concerned about clauses 10 and 11. Clause 10 will end mandatory annual licensing checks, enabling minicab operators to subcontract bookings to firms in other areas, which I think is worrying. Some 80% of women polled by the LGA said that they would be concerned if they booked a journey with one firm and another company turned up. I completely understand that.
Andy Sawford
The taxi and private hire vehicle marketplace is increasingly competitive, and users of those vehicles are well used to looking—usually on a smartphone or some other device—for another company to use. Firms often recommend other firms and companies, which provides some assurance to someone who has booked a taxi—[Interruption.] The Minister should listen because it is a shame that having dropped some of the proposals he is not listening to the concerns of safety campaigners. Eight out of 10 women surveyed said that they would not feel safe getting into a taxi from a company that they had not booked or contacted. I completely understand that and am surprised that the Minister cannot.
Andy Sawford
The Opposition think it is important that local authorities take seriously their responsibility to license private hire vehicles, and we are not seeking to undermine the existing framework that provides assurance to people who are booking taxis and private hire companies, as clauses 10 and 11 will.
Safety concerns have been raised considerably since the inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham, which concluded that one of the common threads running through child sexual exploitation across England has been the prominent role of taxi drivers in being linked to children who were abused. The author of the report, Alexis Jay OBE, has warned against any further deregulation in that area. Given that the Government accepted the recommendations of that inquiry, we are surprised that the Minister has not listened to the concerns that are out there.
The Home Secretary has promised a joined-up safeguarding approach in response to Rotherham, and we have now heard about cases elsewhere in the country, including the disturbing report that came out last week about Oxfordshire. How do these proposals, particularly those in clauses 10 and 11, relate to that promise to join up safeguarding? I want to quote an old friend of mine and a very respected figure in local government, Councillor Ann Lucas, the chair of the Local Government Association’s Safer and Stronger Communities Board. She has campaigned to keep women and girls safe from violence, and she has stated:
“Keeping children safe is our top priority and a responsibility councils take extremely seriously. It is imperative that the Government withdraws these plans so councils can continue to fully check everyone getting behind the wheel of a taxi or private hire vehicle to ensure vulnerable children are kept as safe as possible.”
We are pleased to see the back of this provision today, but we are disappointed that the Government have not fully listened to the concerns that have been raised.
Mark Field
Sensible, pragmatic regulations exempting the Greater London area from a short-lets free-for-all are, as we know, under acute threat. I appreciate that the Minister has to put his ministerial duties at the forefront today, but he will know that his mentor, the noble Lord Tope, was one of the leading lights in the House of Lords in trying to get a more sensible and pragmatic approach to the issue. I hope that even at this 11th hour we can have some comfort on an issue about which a number of London MPs on both sides of the House feel strongly.
It is recognised that our capital city is a place of particular hyper-mobility and hyper-diversity, where housing shortage is a perennial long-term problem. That lies at the heart of the regulations, which have now been in place for more than four decades. Unquestionably, the world has changed since 1973, but the big new idea behind the so-called sharing economy is being vigorously promoted through ferocious lobbying by commercial interests whose business model requires the sweeping away of these long-standing public interest safeguards.
The creation of a new trade body, the so-called Sharing Economy UK, is essentially a front for that commercial campaign. Frankly, it is akin to setting up a trade body of payday lenders to dictate financial services policy. I am sorry that the wool is being pulled over the Minister’s eyes as these self-professed independent voices dictate a commercially advantageous landscape. Meanwhile, scant regard is being paid to the interests of residents, particularly in central London. If this was really all about allowing home owners to undertake short-term holiday housing swaps, as the Government suggest, it is highly unlikely that a local authority would even be aware of such a brief arrangement and no enforcement action should be taken against the owner in such instances, as it would clearly be disproportionate.
Enforcement action in the City of Westminster is, at least, reserved for those situations in which the council becomes aware that properties are being let on a short-term basis all year round. The number of such properties is significant, as the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) pointed out, and the impact of this activity is hugely detrimental in our locality, leading to a diminution of housing stock, reduced security, increased antisocial behaviour, a breakdown in community cohesion and giving a green light to what can, at its worst, be fraudulent activity. Without the current safeguards, many social housing properties, for instance, are likely to be sub-let given how lucrative the short-stay market can become in central London.
I have spoken in the House about all these concerns before as the Bill has gently wended its way towards the statute book, so I shall not go into the specific detail again. However, I want to raise two further issues. First, flats in blocks in which short-term letting is taking place might find that the insurance policy of the entire building becomes invalid. Secondly, and most worryingly in many ways given the geopolitical problems we face, which are particularly acute here in London, national security concerns have been raised by the Metropolitan police about the absence of checks on those who can live in central London for up to 90 days a year through short-term lets. That is three months in which people can come and reside in London completely under the security radar. The provisions contain no prior notification process, so local authorities would be literally clueless about who was letting their property on a short-term basis and for how long.
Of course, a question was asked on this subject in another place to which we did not get a proper answer, so I will ask it again of the Minister. We have been told by the Metropolitan police that they rely heavily on article 5 of the Immigration (Hotel Records) Order 1972, both in proactive intelligence-led activity and in retrospective investigations, but that that power would be superseded by unchecked short-term letting. What assurances or safeguards have the Government sought from the police and Home Office that the legislation will not inadvertently create a grey area that can be exploited?
I fear that this will all end in tears, and I regret that. Even at this late stage I ask the Government carefully to assess the impact the changes to short lets will have and to consider some more robust safeguards. At the very least, I want to see owners having to notify the local authority of a short let and its length. Councils believe that they can set up an online notification system pretty easily, but that without such a system controlling short-term lets would be utterly impossible. I would also ask that the premises concerned must be the principal London residence of the owner offering the let. More importantly still, councils should also be able to request that the Government provide local exemptions to the provisions when there is a strong amenity case for doing so. I know that proposals were made in the other place and I regret that more thought has not been given to that practical safeguard. I hope that the Minister will give some thought to it, even at this late stage.
I should also like a provision that states that the total period of short lets in any one calendar year for a specific property should be no more than 30 days, as that should be sufficient for a bona fide residential property owner seeking the flexibility that many of us would like in this so-called sharing economy.
Ms Buck
I, too, rise to speak strongly in support of amendments (a) to (k) to Lords amendment 27, tabled by my hon. Friends on the Front Bench, and to reinforce the message we have just heard from the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field). I concur with every word.
I shall be relatively brief, because we have rehearsed these arguments on Report. I was also able to have a debate in Westminster Hall on exactly the same subject, and of course there were debates in the other place. However, let me reinforce a few points. The central point is that the spirit behind the amendments represents cross-party consensus in inner London. Obviously, we are now seeing cross-party consensus from the representatives of the London borough of Westminster, but the local authorities that have responded to the Government’s consultation include Haringey, Enfield, Camden, Westminster, Newham, Redbridge, Lambeth and the City of London, which all opposed the proposal. I know that hon. Members and peers with support from other local authorities have also spoken in favour of strong safeguards.
Those local authorities, their representatives and Members of Parliament from all parties feel a clear sense of the loss of protection for residential communities that this deregulation will involve. It is critical that a good Government should respond to the needs of localism and understand that central London in particular, like rural communities and the seaside towns, has distinctive needs and requirements that must be protected. We are arguing today that there are pockets in communities in central London in particular—and no doubt in other areas, such as the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford)—where the pressure from the commercial letting sector is becoming so intense that it is seriously impairing the quality of life of a number of residents.
As the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster has said, we are concerned about the loss of residential stock. Westminster city council has produced very strong evidence to support its argument. It has dealt with more than 7,000 enforcement cases so far and it is very important to stress that those are not enforcements against people letting out a room in their home for Wimbledon fortnight. If those were the types of enforcements taking place, the Minister would be able to point to evidence of an innocent homeowner being enforced and fined for a casual holiday letting, but the Minister is not able to do that because I do not think for a second that that is what local authorities are doing.
What we are seeing is the sustained movement of the commercial letting sector into residential communities. Westminster city council estimates that about 500 units of accommodation a year are lost to the housing supply. In fact, it has so far lost the equivalent of about seven years’ worth of its target housing supply at a time of acute housing shortage. It has also produced evidence that demonstrates that the kinds of rents that are being charged for properties ranging from rooms to whole houses are so much more than the going rate for a shorthold private tenancy, let alone that for a social letting, that it would not be sensible financially for a homeowner not to get into the sector. If we look at the websites advertising those short-term lets, we will see that variance for ourselves. Westminster city council last did a sustained piece of work on this issue a few years ago—I suspect that the outcome would be far starker today—and it found an average difference of 273% between short-term let rents and longer-term rentals.
The irony of Westminster city council making representations on the impact of market rents and the loss of affordable housing units is not entirely lost on me. None the less, I am happy to get together with it on the critical issue of the loss of residential housing stock, which must be addressed. The Minister has previously spoken in the same debates as me and professed concern about affordable housing and the housing supply in London. I do not understand why the Government are turning their face against the cross-party consensus that the hospitality industry is, in effect, leaching into the residential housing stock in London.
The hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster and I have also previously raised the issue of the impact on residents. I will not rehearse all the arguments, but last summer I conducted a survey of people’s perceptions of the impact of short lets on Maida Vale, Bayswater, Queensway, north Marylebone and parts of St John’s Wood, which are the front-line areas. There were a litany of concerns and complaints about the lack of security in residential blocks with a high level of short-term lets, the impossibility of knowing who is coming and going, and serious problems of management.
Short-term visitors tend, not necessarily through any fault of their own, to treat their accommodation like hotels, but hotels spend a lot of money on looking after their properties whereas that is not necessarily the case with short lets. There are reports of damage to security systems, much greater wear and tear on communal areas and a higher level of anti-social behaviour. That is not necessarily because the people are themselves anti-social, but they come to London to enjoy themselves and to party and have a good time, so there is more rubbish and noise nuisance.
That is having a negative impact on those neighbours who in some cases find themselves stranded in residential blocks that are now almost entirely turned over to short let; it is also a cost to the public purse. Local authorities have to spend a considerable amount of time and effort enforcing against antisocial behaviour and higher levels of rubbish and noise nuisance. One of the Westminster wards has had to spend its budget on additional enforcement officers at a time when the local authority has cut more than £500,000 from its children’s services budget—that happened only last week—and plans to, in effect, halve its youth service. I know what I would rather spend public money on. I do not want it spent on chasing the hospitality industry for nuisance in a residential block; I would rather spend it on protecting our children and youth services. The impact on residential communities is a real problem.
That is all happening: as I have said, there have been more than 7,000 enforcements. Local authorities are having to chase a moving target as it is. The Government’s relaxation of the rules will make that significantly worse. At the moment, the local authority simply has to prove, should it choose to do so, that the property is being let on a short-term let basis without permission. In future, it will have to demonstrate that the property has been let for more than 90 days without permission, which will be a far harder thing for it to do. We have already seen—Camden, I think, is the council that has monitored this most closely—an explosion of lettings on the main websites since the Government announced their intention to deregulate. That is no accident and we can expect it to happen elsewhere.
We need to make it possible for local authorities to act to enforce. Personally, I would like the length of time for which someone can let out their home to be reduced significantly to 30 days, which would be reasonable in London. I certainly support the argument that the property should be the principal residence of the person who is letting it. Above all, I strongly feel that local authorities should have a right to be notified when such lettings take place. It is only through notification that a local authority will be able to enforce action.
Fundamentally, this comes down to the right of a local authority to determine what is in the best interests of its own community. We do not need to worry about whether London local authorities are concerned with boosting the tourism industry or economic growth: they are very much concerned with them, but they know very well that a balance has to be struck between those agendas and the protection of the people who live in London and their amenity and access to housing. Westminster city council—which, I repeat, is not known for failing to advocate a deregulatory agenda—is at the forefront of making that case, with which I totally agree.
Even at this last hurdle, if the Government support the measures proposed by my colleagues on the Labour Front Bench to allow local authorities to have the right to determine what is in the interests of their own communities, that would be very strongly welcomed by all parties in local government and in this Chamber, and the many thousands of people who live in the residential neighbourhoods most affected in London would breathe an enormous sigh of relief.
Philip Davies
I begin by drawing the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. As I have previously made clear in these debates, I am a tenant in two properties: my home in Shipley and where I stay when I am working in Parliament. I am also the landlord of one other property that I rent out. I therefore like to think that I have a good perspective on these matters and I want to see a situation in which we reward good landlords and good tenants. That is the basis for my amendments to Lords amendment 18.
In the interests of time, Madam Deputy Speaker, and in order to be helpful, I intend to speak only to my amendments, because other Members have already ably put forward their cases on the others. From what I have heard, the shadow Minister might want to press one of his amendments to a Division, so I will not seek to divide the House on mine, in order to protect time for Members across the House and facilitate debate. I am being as helpful as you know I always am on these occasions, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)
Order. Before you proceed, Mr Davies, let me say that that is extremely helpful and that I am very grateful. Given that the debate must end at 4.46 pm, it gives us a better idea of how to proceed. Thank you.
Philip Davies
I am grateful, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is a shame that the debate clashes with the first day of the Cheltenham festival, but that is a hardship we shall have to bear. Anyone who has their doubles and trebles might like to know that Ruby Walsh and Willy Mullins have won three of the first four races today.
Mr Slaughter
Given the excellent speeches we have already heard on this subject from my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Andy Sawford), the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) and my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck), I can be relatively brief on amendments (a) to (k) to Lords amendment 27.
The question that arises here is cui bono—for whose benefit are these changes being made? Who do the Government think benefit from allowing, in effect, unrestrained short letting in London? There is no mechanism for ensuring that these are not permanent short lets that go beyond 90 days, which, in itself, is too long. It is certainly not residents who benefit, nor is it residents wishing to do so-called Wimbledon or short holiday lets; it is large commercial organisations, some of which have been set up specifically to exploit this potential loophole—companies such as Airbnb and big commercial landlords.
Mr Raynsford
I, too, intend to speak about the provisions on short-term lettings. I very much endorse the views that were ably expressed by my hon. Friends and by the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field). There is cross-party agreement and I fail to understand why the Government are proceeding with a measure which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) rightly identified, does not address a problem because there is no problem. It will simply create a series of difficulties and aggravate problems that are obvious to many of us who have looked at the subject and which are increasing exponentially because of the changing character of the lettings market in London.
Before I proceed, I draw attention to my interests as declared in the register.
I shall not repeat the arguments that have been well rehearsed already. This is not just a problem for central London. In my constituency, Greenwich and Woolwich, there is a lot of evidence of problems of exactly this nature. We have some major tourist attractions, such as the O2, which attract people for individual events, and the availability of very short lettings—one or two nights—is an obvious attractive additional factor for people thinking of coming to such an event. There are significant numbers of short-term lettings which have the effect, as my hon. Friends have highlighted, first, of eroding permanent lettings because properties are converted from permanent lettings to short-term lettings, and secondly, in certain circumstances, attracting antisocial behaviour and behaviour which is very damaging to existing residents of the blocks being used, where properties are being converted for such short-term lettings.
There was a murder recently in a property in Erebus drive in West Thamesmead, not in the central area of Greenwich, which is perhaps more attractive to tourism, but an area to the eastern edge of my constituency. The matter is under investigation so I shall be cautious in what I say, but the evidence that I have seen is that it involved a very short letting—for only two nights, I think—and a party which attracted people from a wide area, including the west midlands. In the course of an altercation that evidently developed at the party, one individual lost their life.
Such a situation is hugely damaging to the community’s confidence in its homes if it finds that properties can be subject to such short-term letting with very little check on who has taken out the letting. These are short-term agreements and they are not subject to the kinds of checks that reputable landlords would carry out before deciding whether to let premises to an individual. That in itself is bad enough, but where individual lettings take place for a short period and properties are advertised, people come from far afield, resulting in huge antisocial behaviour with noise late at night, causing nuisance to residents. These are the consequences of what the Government seek to do. They are already a problem, but at least local authorities have powers at the moment to act. If the Government proceed with their proposals, those powers will be seriously restricted. It will not be possible to take action unless it can be established that the property has been used for this purpose for more than 90 nights. That in itself will be a difficult task to establish, as the City of Westminster made clear in its evidence to us.
This is a measure that has the seeds of all sorts of problems and difficulties, and I fail to understand why the Government are proceeding with it against the overwhelming views of the informed public in London. This is not a partisan case. Political parties across the board have agreed that proper regulatory arrangements need to be in place to allow the control of such lettings and to prevent the kinds of abuses that I have highlighted. There is also widespread support from residents groups in many areas of London, including my own. Against all that evidence and with an extraordinary lack of evidence to support what the Government are doing, I hope that common sense will prevail and that they will agree to pull back and accept the amendments, at least to allow greater control and safeguards, and to avoid some of the consequences that we fear will happen as a result of this ill-conceived measure.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
I do not want to repeat what others have said but rather to address a specific local issue for me concerning the area around Heathrow airport. I have had representations from all the major hotels along the Bath road around Heathrow and from the local community, and I have seen representations from London Councils. I will describe the area as it now is, because I am worried that this will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back in terms of retaining any form of community around the Heathrow villages. With the threat of the third runway, Sipson is already three-quarters bought by Heathrow Airport Ltd and rented out on licences of, I believe, no more than two years, which is destabilising for the community anyway. There is a massive expansion of buy-to-lets. All of us can identify buy-to-lets in our constituencies by their unkempt gardens, the lack of repair, and the occasional mattress dumped outside. With this legislation there will be further destabilisation of the community and further short-term lettings.
Who asked for this change in legislation? What was the enormous demand? Who was banging at the doors of the ministerial office to change the system, which may not be working brilliantly but which at least gives local authorities in their local areas some local tools that they can use against the adverse effects of short-term letting that we have had described today? I cannot see the benefits to any but a small commercial niche that seeks to profit at the expense of the wider community. I am fearful of the impact on legitimate traders as it is. I am worried about the impact on the hotels along the Bath road, which are a source of employment to my local community. But in addition to that, the average hotel in my area employs between 200 and 250 staff. Many of those staff live within the local community in private rented properties. I am worried that this will affect the private rented market in my area and have a knock-on effect on staff who are not the highest paid and sometimes fairly low paid.
Tom Brake
With the leave of the House, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will try to respond to most, if not all of the points raised in this informed and passionate debate about some of the matters in the Bill.
In response to the hon. Member for Corby (Andy Sawford), the Government do not believe that health and safety measures are bad. Clearly, when they are appropriate, the Government support them. We are pleased, and welcome the fact, that the Health and Safety Executive has recently, very vocally, pointed out to some organisations how badly they are interpreting health and safety rules in using them as an excuse not to allow things to happen.
The hon. Gentleman spent some time on the issue of private hire and subcontracting. If he feels that it is safer for a person who approaches a private hire operator who says, “Sorry, I can’t help you”, because they cannot subcontract it, then to go off and look online for an alternative provider, he is entitled to that view. I think that safety is actually enhanced by a contractor in an area having a relationship with another subcontractor who can work in another area. The hon. Gentleman called for precisely that—a relationship between the different providers—and that is probably a better guarantee of safety than someone simply looking online for people to do a job in the area. All such firms must be licensed, which also provides a safeguard for those seeking to travel in that way.
The hon. Gentleman referred to his party’s policy of introducing rent caps or rent controls. [Interruption.] He did, I believe. We can look at Hansard, but I think he used the term “rent caps”. The evidence is very clear that such caps lead to a reduction in the number of private rented properties, which I am sure is not what he is seeking.
Like other hon. Members, the hon. Gentleman thought that local authorities should be able to decide whether certain areas should be exempted. In the Government’s view, that would introduce inconsistencies in that different rules would apply in different parts of London; our proposals will provide consistency and be easier for people to understand.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) talked about how insurance for whole blocks may become invalid. If he has such examples, I would certainly like to see them. Our view is that the reforms only affect the requirement for planning permission; they do not have any impact on insurance polices and tenancy agreements. If he can supply me with any examples, I will be happy to look at them.
My hon. Friend referred to Home Office concerns about the change from people staying in hotels to their staying in short-term lets, making it harder for the security services to monitor their activities, but that is clearly happening already. It will not happen as a result of our changes; it is already happening on quite a large scale in London, as other hon. Members have said. If the security services have identified such an issue, they will have called on the Home Office to take action. I am sure that the Home Office would respond positively to any such requests, but I am not aware of any.
Like other hon. Members, my hon. Friend asked whether local authorities could choose to exempt particular areas in relation to private lettings. As I have said, that is not our view. We want to provide local authorities with the ability to approach the Secretary of State if the amenity of a particular locality is affected, and we expect them to do so.
John McDonnell
Will the Minister elaborate on that point? Once the legislation has gone through, will local authorities be able to submit a bid to designate an area, or do they have to wait for problems to arise before making a submission?
Tom Brake
The honest answer is that we do not yet have such details, but they will be set out in regulations. I assume that a local authority would have to provide examples, such as a consistent pattern of noise nuisance or antisocial behaviour in an area, in a letter or submission for the Secretary of State to consider. The exemption will apply to a locality; Westminster could not apply for an exemption for the whole of the area covered by the council.
The hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) spoke about the proposal to make people report it to the local authority every time they let property on a short-term basis. I want to understand better the purpose behind that and how it would work in practice. What enforcement would there be if people did not report it? An individual who was going to rent out their property for a week would be very unlikely to do so. How would she ensure that it was done? What action would be taken against people who did not comply, given that short-term lets are already happening on a large scale in London and people are not taking notice of the existing law?
Ms Buck
The Minister has just conceded that he does not know how the system will work and that we will have to wait for the regulations. We will look at the exact operation at that time. Westminster city council has looked at this matter closely and is confident that it could have a simple online reporting system that would allow people to notify the local authority that they intended to have a short-term let, and that that could be matched up with the data on properties that were being advertised. That would enable the local authority to target enforcement against the properties that we are all saying we are concerned about—not the one-off short holiday lets, but the extensive commercial lettings that are permeating our residential neighbourhoods.
Tom Brake
I thank the hon. Lady for expanding on how the proposal would work. However efficient Westminster city council is, there will be huge difficulties in identifying the people who are advertising short-term lets on websites and making a link with the local authority register where those who are doing it properly have registered.
The hon. Lady asked whether the Government’s proposals will remove the ability of local authorities to take enforcement action against illegal short-term letting. Clearly, if there is a breach, people will be at risk of planning enforcement action by their local authority. Although we want the legislation to remain light touch, we want to send the strong signal that in order to let property on a short-term basis legally, people must remain within the 90-night limit, otherwise local authorities will take enforcement action against them.
Tom Brake
I assume that local authorities will be provided with the information—the hon. Lady and other Members have said in this debate that this is already happening on a large scale—and take the appropriate action. She referred to an explosion in the number of adverts for such letting. We are not aware that that has happened since the reforms were introduced. I understand her concerns, but the safeguards are in place to address them.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) for saying that he will not press his amendments to a vote. Like him, I recognise that there are good and bad landlords. There are also good and bad tenants. No doubt the good landlord and the bad tenant and the bad landlord and the good tenant sometimes go to his surgery, as they come to mine, although not usually at the same time, to report each other to their Member of Parliament.
My hon. Friend referred to the 80,000 figure that I quoted for retaliatory evictions as “fantasy” figures. He prefers his figure of 6,000. I understand that the English housing survey does not give figures on retaliatory eviction, but just talks about the fact that 9% of tenancies are ended by the landlord. As I understand it, that does not provide the clarity that he wants on the numbers.
My hon. Friend said that the Government’s proposal is not deregulatory. Of course, we have made it easier for landlords to evict through the use of standard pro forma notices and by no longer requiring that the notice given in relation to a periodic assured shorthold tenancy ends on the last day of a period of the tenancy. Therefore, there are deregulatory measures, although I accept that there are also measures that do not fall into that category.
Many of my hon. Friend’s amendments are covered in other legislation and so are not necessary. There will be a review of the legislation. That is automatic with legislation that is passed though this House.
The hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) asked about short-term lettings and how many prosecutions there have been, but that is a matter for local authorities and we do not have that information to hand. He asserts that what the Government propose would be of no benefit to private owners. I would ask him—unfortunately time does not allow—to expand on how he knows that it would not benefit private owners, given that many people use—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. The right hon. Gentleman has the leave of the House to speak for a second time in this short debate. Having spoken for 35 minutes at the beginning of the debate, the leave of the House was for a short conclusion to the debate. So far he has taken 12 minutes, which is not a short contribution. I appreciate that he is answering many complicated questions, but I am afraid that in order to behave properly to the House, which has given him leave to speak for a second time, he ought to conclude briefly.
Tom Brake
Thank you for the clarity, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will conclude and I apologise that I was not able to give simple answers to the complicated questions from Opposition Members. I urge the House to accept Lords amendments 1 to 37 and 39 to 123, and to reject the amendments to the Lords amendments.
Lords amendment 1 agreed to.
Lords amendments 2 to 26 agreed to.
Amendment (g) proposed to Lords amendment 27.—(Andy Sawford.)
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Counter-Terrorism (Statutory Instruments)
(9 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister for Security and Immigration (James Brokenshire)
I beg to move,
That the draft Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 (Authority to Carry Scheme) Regulations 2015, which were laid before this House on 2 March, be approved.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
With this we shall consider the following motions:
That the draft Passenger, Crew and Service Information (Civil Penalties) Regulations 2015, which were laid before this House on 2 March, be approved.
That the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 (Code of Practice for Officers exercising functions under Schedule 1) Regulations 2015 (S.I., 2015, No 217), dated 12 February 2015, a copy of which was laid before this House on 12 February, be approved.
That the draft Terrorism Act 2000 (Code of Practice for Examining Officers and Review Officers) Order 2015, which was laid before this House on 27 February, be approved.
That the draft Aviation Security Act 1982 (Civil Penalties) Regulations 2015, which were laid before this House on 2 March, be approved.
James Brokenshire
The statutory instruments appear on the Order Paper under the names of the Home Secretary and the Transport Secretary. This secondary legislation has been introduced to implement measures in the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015. The measures were debated by the House recently and the primary legislation was enacted on 12 February. During Parliament’s consideration of the legislation, there was widespread recognition of the threat from terrorism and broad support for the measures. The instruments bring to life some of those important provisions. In passing that legislation in February, the House accepted the need for those powers.
The Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 (Authority to Carry Scheme) Regulations 2015 bring into force the authority to carry scheme. The regulations are provided for in section 23 of the 2015 Act, and the purpose of the scheme is to prevent or disrupt travel to and from the UK by individuals who pose a terrorism-related or other threat to the UK. It also mitigates the threat of terrorist attacks against aircraft and, should the threat change, ships and trains expected to arrive in or leave the UK.
Authority to carry is now an important element of our counter-terrorism strategy. The new 2015 scheme allows us to respond to the changing threat and prevent individuals who might pose a terrorism-related or other threat from boarding flights from, as well as to, the UK. In order to remain responsive to changes in the threat, it is necessary to include international rail and maritime. The expanded scope of the scheme places outbound no-fly arrangements on a statutory footing and extends the operation of the authority to carry scheme to a broader range of individuals who pose a terrorism-related or other threat to the UK, including British nationals.
The protection of children assessed to be at risk of travelling abroad for the purposes of involvement in terrorism-related activity is clearly paramount. The new scheme will enable us to prevent the travel of minors considered at risk of going abroad to join terrorist groups. That might follow a referral from their family or it might be based on intelligence. The intention is not to criminalise children, but to enable the police to intervene before travel and use protective custody powers until they are able to return the child to their family.
In addition to the categories of individuals included in the 2012 scheme, authority to carry to the UK may be refused in respect of: individuals who are assessed by the Secretary of State to pose a direct threat to the security of an aircraft, ship or train, or to persons or property on board; individuals who are the subject of a temporary exclusion order made under chapter 2 of the new Act; individuals excluded from the UK or subject to a deportation order; and all individuals who are subject to international travel bans, as well as individuals who are using an invalid travel document or one that is being used fraudulently for the purpose of travelling to the UK.
The new scheme will, for the first time, require carriers to seek authority to carry individuals from the UK. The penalty for breaching any requirement under the scheme will be set out in further regulations, which we expect to debate next week.
The second measure is the Passenger, Crew and Service Information (Civil Penalties) Regulations 2015. They establish civil sanctions that may be imposed upon carriers that fail to comply with a requirement to provide information under the Immigration Act 1971 or the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006. They will complement existing criminal offences. The regulations allow the Secretary of State to impose a civil penalty not exceeding £10,000 for each breach, but a carrier may not be required to pay a penalty if it has a reasonable excuse or has otherwise been penalised for the same breach.
I will now turn to the regulations that bring into operation the code of practice in relation to the exercise of powers under schedule 1 to the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015. These powers are exercisable at the border area of Northern Ireland and at ports throughout the UK. They allow for the seizure and temporary retention of travel documents when there is reasonable suspicion that the person intends to travel to engage in terrorism-related activity outside the UK. Officers exercising the power are required to follow the code.
That statutory instrument was made and laid before Parliament under the made affirmative procedure on the day of Royal Assent and came into force the next day—13 February—bringing the code of practice into operation on the same day. The made affirmative procedure made that power available to law enforcement agencies as soon as possible, properly safeguarded by the detailed code of practice. I can confirm to the House this afternoon that the power has already been used. Obviously, I cannot give details of the particular circumstances, but I believe that this demonstrates that we were right to bring forward this piece of legislation and to bring it into force at the earliest opportunity.
The Terrorism Act 2000 (Code of Practice for Examining Officers and Review Officers) Order 2015 gives effect to a revised code of practice for examining and review officers who exercise powers under schedule 7 to the Terrorism Act 2000, as amended by the 2015 Act. As a result of amendments made to schedule 7 by the 2015 Act, changes have been made to the schedule 7 code of practice. The code before us today contains new guidance that reflects provisions in the Act concerning the location of goods examinations. The guidance includes express provision for where goods examinations may take place. It also provides the Secretary of State with a power to designate a location as a place where goods examinations may be carried out, if the Secretary of State reasonably believes that to be necessary.
Finally, the draft Aviation Security Act 1982 (Civil Penalties) Regulations create a civil penalty scheme for addressing non-compliance with certain security directions or information requests made by the Secretary of State under the Aviation Security Act 1982 in relation to inbound flights. The Secretary of State would have the power to impose a penalty of a maximum of £50,000. Specifically, penalties could be issued where, in respect of an inbound flight to the UK, a carrier has failed to comply either with a request for information or a direction requiring that certain security measures are applied, for example security screening. The threat to aviation from terrorism remains serious. The regulations will help to ensure that the Government can enforce their power to specify certain security measures for flights operating to the UK where necessary.
These instruments are needed to implement measures in, or consequential to, the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015. They will help the Government and law enforcement agencies to keep the country safe from terrorism. I commend these instruments to the House. They will assist in our response to the continuing threat from terrorism. I beg to move that they be approved.
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
I am grateful to the Minister for his explanation of the statutory instruments before the House.
The Minister and the House will know that in August 2014 the joint terrorism analysis centre raised the UK threat level from substantial to severe, and that there are real concerns about the level of threat to the UK. The Minister will also know about the increased level of threat as a result of developments in Syria and Iraq in particular, where terrorist groups are planning attacks on the west. It is clear, from the discussions currently taking place on the alleged murderer Mohammed Emwazi, and the three schoolgirls who travelled from London to Syria, that there are still great concerns about movement and involvement in terrorist activity. The attacks in early January on Charlie Hebdo in Paris and the incidents in Sydney bring home to us the fact that such incidents could occur in the United Kingdom.
The Opposition support fully all five statutory instruments. In a time of heightened terrorist threat to our country, it is right that the Government take action to protect our country. The measures are proportionate and reasonable. We support the draft Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 (Authority to Carry Scheme) Regulations 2015. As the Minister said, the scheme specifies the classes of carriers to which it applies, and the passengers and crew in respect of whom authority must be requested. It is proportionate and reasonable.
We also support the draft Passenger, Crew and Service Information (Civil Penalties) Regulations 2015. Again, we believe it is reasonable. My only comment relates to paragraph 3.1 of the explanatory memorandum, which states that the instrument was laid before Parliament less than 21 days before the proposed date that it is due to come into force. I accept and understand the urgency with which the Minister has brought the regulations forward, but I just want to put down a marker and say that it is good practice to ensure that we have confidence in statutory instruments by providing the appropriate time for discussion.
James Brokenshire
I entirely accept the right hon. Gentleman’s important point about scrutiny. It is certainly not the normal approach of the Government to breach the 21-day rule. However, I hope he appreciates the need to act with pace in this case, given the national security issues at stake.
Mr Hanson
I fully accept that and make no criticism of the broad sense of it. It is important for any future Government, whether it is the hon. Gentleman or I holding this ministerial post, to give due regard to process; otherwise, it will give rise to suspicion. I welcome and support the proposal. I also support provisions relating to passport retention and travel with passports. The Opposition have no problems with those issues.
My final comments relate to the draft Terrorism Act 2000 (Code of Practice for Examining Officers and Review Officers) Order 2015. The order is helpful, as it clarifies information, gives proper powers and puts forward a proper code of practice. It provides an opportunity to clarify, in paragraph 7(1) of the Act, the type of power and when it is exercised. I am pleased that it is subject to review by David Anderson QC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, but given the sensitive nature of these issues, will the Minister assure me that David Anderson will be able to publish statistics on the use of the power and information on the designation areas? It is important that these statistics be presented to the House, if not the detail behind them, as the Minister has undertaken today.
James Brokenshire
As he has shown in his reports on, for example, the terrorism prevention and investigation measures, David Anderson clearly provides details about when the powers have been used, and I expect him to take a similar approach to the review of these powers.
Mr Hanson
I am grateful to the Minister. We have a consensus on these issues. There is support across the House for the measures, and I hope that the House will support them.
Question put and agreed to.
Immigration
Resolved,
That the draft Passenger, Crew and Service Information (Civil Penalties) Regulations 2015, which were laid before this House on 2 March, be approved.—(James Brokenshire.)
Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism
Resolved,
That the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 (Code of Practice for Officers exercising functions under Schedule 1) Regulations 2015 (S.I., 2015, No 217), dated 12 February 2015, a copy of which was laid before this House on 12 February, be approved.—(James Brokenshire.)
Resolved,
That the draft Terrorism Act 2000 (Code of Practice for Examining Officers and Review Officers) Order 2015, which was laid before this House on 27 February, be approved.—(James Brokenshire.)
Civil Aviation
Resolved,
That the draft Aviation Security Act 1982 (Civil Penalties) Regulations 2015, which were laid before this House on 2 March, be approved.—(James Brokenshire.)
European Commission: National Parliaments
(9 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Tobias Ellwood)
I beg to move,
That this House takes note of European Union Documents No. 12425/14, the 2013 Annual Report from the Commission on relations between the Commission and national parliaments, and No. 12424/14, the 2013 Annual Report from the Commission on subsidiarity and proportionality; recognises the importance of the principle of subsidiarity and the value of stronger interaction between national parliaments and the EU Institutions; deplores the failure of the outgoing Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship to respond to national parliaments’ concerns about the proposal to establish a European Public Prosecutors Office; looks forward to the European Commission responding to the call of national parliaments and the European Council to strengthen national parliaments’ role in improving EU legislation; and welcomes the Government’s commitment to increasing the power of national parliaments in EU decision-making by strengthening and, where possible, enhancing current provisions.
The motion stands in the name of my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe, who sadly cannot be with us because he is currently giving evidence before a Committee in the House of Lords. If he is unable to join us later, I will ensure that he is updated on the points raised.
Today’s debate relates to two European Commission annual reports for 2013—one on the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality and the other on the EU’s relations with national Parliaments. The question of subsidiarity and proportionality goes to the heart of the debate that national Governments and Parliaments around Europe are having on reform of the EU. They are fundamental principles that govern whether the EU should act, and if so, how.
Evidence provided to the Government’s recently concluded balance of competences review found that the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality had not been sufficiently rigorously applied and that that had contributed to undermining the EU’s legitimacy. Where these principles are not rigorously applied, it can also cost British business billions. Let me provide one example from the balance of competences review. The CBI assessed in its evidence that the prescriptive requirements of the agency workers directive undermined subsidiarity and cost UK employers £1.9 billion a year, largely in compliance costs and red tape. These concerns need to be addressed, and it is incumbent on all EU institutions to make sure that the treaty-based principles are applied across all aspects of EU business and throughout the legislative process.
In that respect, I welcome the early signs from the new Commission that it is going to take subsidiarity and proportionality more seriously. First, Vice-President Timmermans, who was here last week, has a strong and explicit mandate to promote a new partnership with national Parliaments. During his visit, Mr Timmermans said that national Parliaments should be at the heart of the debate on democratic legitimacy, as a bridge between the EU and its citizens, so there should be no repeat of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office yellow card debacle, which neglected the legitimate concerns of national Parliaments. Mr Timmermans has the overarching power to veto any proposals that do not meet the requirements of subsidiarity and proportionality. That means a mandate to say no to other Commissioners, to say no to the European Parliament and to say no to outside lobbyists. I take heart from the fact that we have in this powerful new role somebody who has previously gone on the record to say that the guiding principle should be:
“Europe where necessary, but national where possible”.
The EU must follow this principle to begin to address the public disaffection in so many member states, in part derived from a sense that the EU has intervened in matters better dealt with by member states themselves.
As my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe said in this House only yesterday, the Government are encouraged that the new Commission work programme has jobs and growth at its core, but the real test will be whether the Commission delivers on the early, promising signs and puts subsidiarity, proportionality and better regulation at the very heart of its work.
The reports for debate today focus on the mechanisms available to national Parliaments to update the subsidiarity principle through the so-called yellow card mechanism and to influence Commission proposals through political dialogue. In 2013, national Parliaments submitted 88 reasoned opinions to the Commission, covering 36 different proposals. That represented an increase from 2012, when 70 reasoned opinions were issued, but the overall number remains low, and the Government are concerned about the reasons for that. We do not believe that it is because there are few subsidiarity concerns.
Year after year, most reasoned opinions have come from the same few parliamentary chambers, with the Swedish Riksdag being the consistent front-runner. Some parliamentary chambers have issued very few, or indeed none at all. Here, the record is that in 2013 the House of Commons issued five reasoned opinions and the House of Lords three. I agree with those who argue that the existing mechanisms laid down in the Lisbon treaty do not work well enough or go far enough, but I note that the disparity in the number of reasoned opinions submitted by different national Parliaments is striking, and I hope that all national Parliaments, both individually and through COSAC, reflect on whether there is more that they can do to make full use of their existing powers.
There are, as I have said, flaws in the system. The tight time limit of eight weeks from transmission of a proposal to issuing a reasoned opinion is difficult, and it does not allow sufficient time for national Parliaments to share information with each other, which we all know is crucial to delivering a yellow card. The scope and threshold of reasoned opinions required to trigger a yellow card are also factors. Parliaments should have explicit powers to issue reasoned opinions on more than just subsidiarity. The mechanism should be explicitly extended to proportionality, for example. Normally, a yellow card is triggered when reasoned opinions represent at least a third of national Parliaments, which means 19 votes. This threshold is clearly too high.
How, then, do we change the process? The Commission's response to the yellow card on the EPPO—the second ever—was unacceptable. It decided quickly, without additional evidence and despite Parliaments’ concerns, to proceed with the original proposal. Along with a number of Ministers from other countries, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe—who I am pleased to see in the Chamber—protested strongly to the Commission at the subsequent meeting of the General Affairs Council. As the Government have argued before, we believe that the EPPO controversy makes a case for the introduction of a red card, which would allow national Parliaments to come together to block an unwanted proposal permanently.
I welcome the initiatives that have been launched by national Parliaments across the EU which are pressing for a stronger role. Twenty-nine parliamentary committees from 22 member states have written to the President of the Commission calling for the establishment of a working group to consider a strengthening of their role, and Parliaments have produced many good ideas that the Government support. They include enhanced political dialogue with the Commission, the introduction of a green card allowing Parliaments to work together to recommend to the Commission either new legislation or the amendment or repeal of existing legislation, and a Dutch initiative for a late card, which would allow Parliaments to look at a proposal again at the end of the legislative process.
We will continue to press for those reforms, and, working with Parliament, will hold the new Commission to its promises.
Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)
Last night we debated the similar issue of the Commission’s work programme for this year. The programme expresses commitments to better regulation and to focusing on the big things that the European Union needs to do, and that leads us to the issues of subsidiarity and proportionality. Over the years, there has been much talk in the European Union of subsidiarity—a concept whose origins lie in Catholic social teaching—but few would claim that the EU has abided by the notion that it should act only when it has to, and should otherwise leave things to the Governments of member states.
The Minister gave the example of the agency workers directive. In fact, the CBI reached an agreement with the TUC on that directive, and I think that the record should show their participation in order to present the complete picture.
As the Minister said, we are debating two reports, the one on subsidiarity and the one on relations with national Parliaments. They concern the interaction between the EU and national Parliaments, and, specifically, the use of reasoned opinions on EU proposals when, for instance, Parliaments come together to invoke the yellow card procedure—that is, to ask the Commission to think again about one of its proposals. According to the reports, 621 written opinions, including reasoned opinions, were submitted by national Parliaments in 2013, down slightly from 663 the year before. The most common subjects were the proposal to establish the European Public Prosecutor's Office, regulations covering the manufacture and sale of tobacco products, maritime spatial planning, access to ports, and matters relating to Europol. Opinions from 20 Parliaments were received on the EPPO proposals, of which 13 were reasoned opinions, triggering the yellow card procedure.
The European Scrutiny Committee has understandably voiced its frustration that the triggering of that procedure did not result in the Commission’s either withdrawing the proposal or changing it radically. That has, of course, prompted further debate about a range of different procedures going by the names of differently coloured cards—not just yellow but orange, red and even green cards, which will allow Parliaments to initiate proposals if they so wish. If a system is established whereby national Parliaments are given a voice and can come together to lodge reasoned opinions or objections, it is important that those objections are taken seriously and not simply ignored.
Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
Let us say that a really important issue to the British people causes them to vote in a new Government who promise to do what they want on it, and then that Government are advised it is against European law. What right should this House have to say, “This is the will of the British people”?
Mr McFadden
The procedures we are talking about here are in line with European law. I think what the right hon. Gentleman is driving at is the question of vetoes, and we do not have vetoes. It is important for clarity, as well as the political debate between us, to be clear that these yellow card procedures are not national Parliament vetoes of the kind he may be referring to, and there is a difference between the two.
The objections to the establishment of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office focused on the Commission’s own interpretation of subsidiarity, the comparison between the new proposals and the arrangements already in place and the question of whether this proposal would add value in combating fraud. The House of Lords has issued a report on this matter, and it gave the following verdict:
“We fear that under the Commission’s proposed model an EPPO enjoying exclusive competence for PIF crimes”—
financial fraud in the European Union—
“would be in danger of being overwhelmed by its workload, and its structure would not be sufficiently robust to enable it to monitor its investigations and prosecutions in the Member States. We see a similar problem with the Presidency’s alternative proposal. The evidence we received on the proposed introduction of a collegiate structure into the EPPO overwhelmingly suggests that this would complicate the prosecution of these crimes even further.”
Its reservations about the proposal were clear, and we shared many of them, although for the sake of clarity and completeness I should say that that does not mean that we on the Opposition Benches object to all European involvement in matters of criminal justice. Without rehearsing debates in the House on the European arrest warrant—that may be to the relief of all—we believe that that measure does have a useful role to play in combating crime both here and elsewhere in the EU.
Following all these exchanges and the rejection of the yellow card procedure by the Commission, there have been proposals from a number of Parliaments, including the Dutch and Danish Parliaments as well as our own, for reforms to the yellow card procedure. We welcome the Commission’s willingness, indicated by Mr Juncker, to establish a working group on the role of national Parliaments in the EU, but it is important that that is a serious process and that it takes the suggestions for different reforms seriously. We would also endorse the sentiment in the Government’s response to the reports about the value of Commissioners appearing before national Parliaments to explain and answer questions on the Commission’s actions and policies. We would like to see more of that in the future.
The important point is that, however many opinions are submitted or whatever the architecture of the yellow card procedure, it will be seen to be of little value if it is simply ignored. To refer to the question of the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood), we do not seek to turn the legal basis of the EU on its head or make demands which are incompatible with membership, but we do believe that dialogue between the Commission and national Parliaments must take seriously not only the sum of correspondence over the course of a year but its content.
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is not about European laws, but about the fact that this House should be expressing the sovereign will of the British people, rather than our having a pale imitation of a referee’s code of conduct on the field of play? This process is farcical. This talk about red, yellow and green cards is an insult to the democracy of this country. This House should be making the decisions, as expressed in the democracy of this country.
Mr McFadden
I shall give my hon. Friend a similar reply to that which I gave the right hon. Member for Wokingham: in 40-plus years of membership it has been clear that sovereignty is pooled and is not complete and absolute for this House. That is the nature of our membership. Without going into too much detail, I would repeat that improvements should be made to this procedure but I do not seek to make demands that are incompatible with continued membership, although that is the agenda of some in this House.
There are shortcomings in the reports; they revolve more around the volume of correspondence than the content. If dialogue is to be real, the exchanges have to be taken more seriously and they have to be about content as well as volume. That is what we have to look to in the future.
Mr Robert Walter (North Dorset) (Con)
This may be my last contribution in the House, after 18 years here. I have always believed that we are, to coin a phrase, in Europe but not run by Europe. I have always believed that one can be a good European but a pragmatic European who believes that this debate goes beyond red, yellow and green cards, and so on, as the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) said. I discovered in 12 years serving on delegations to the Council of Europe and the Western European Union that many of the opinions expressed in this House are expressed by our colleagues right across Europe in other national Parliaments.
I spent the years running up to the dissolution of the WEU arguing with the European Parliament, the Commission and the Council about what the right form of parliamentary scrutiny over European common security and defence policy is. Europe does not, whatever Mr Juncker might have said in the past 24 hours, have an army or a defence budget. It has a foreign policy courtesy of its 28 member Governments, not one of its own. There was a rightful role for national Parliaments to play there, but, sadly, we have lost that kind of effective parliamentary scrutiny over even that collective action. Today, we are asked to take note of two documents. That is all we can do.
We should remind ourselves how we got to this situation. The Laeken declaration brought about the current treaties—the so-called Lisbon treaty—and it was a document signed by the leaders of all the European Union member states in 2001, explaining what they considered to be good about the EU and what problems it faced. It recognised at that time the disillusion and wish for reform that was widespread across Europe. Those were the terms, in that declaration, that were given to Giscard d’Estaing’s Convention on the Future of Europe and it set out how he should work to respond. Unfortunately, he did not comply with the instructions he was given and he produced a European constitution. That was discussed, modified and eventually signed in October 2004 as what we now know as the Lisbon treaty.
Let me just read out what the Laeken declaration said about the democratic challenge facing Europe:
“Within the Union, the European institutions must be brought closer to its citizens. Citizens undoubtedly support the Union’s broad aims, but they do not always see a connection between those goals and the Union’s everyday action. They want the European institutions to be less unwieldy and rigid and, above all, more efficient and open. Many also feel that the Union should involve itself more with their particular concerns, instead of intervening, in every detail, in matters by their nature better left to Member States’ and regions’ elected representatives. This is even perceived by some as a threat to their identity. More importantly, however, they feel that deals are all too often cut out of their sight and they want better democratic scrutiny.”
That was in 2001, and we are here today debating those very questions about the division of competences between the Union and the member states.
As we take note of these documents, we should look at how we can improve relations between the Commission and national Parliaments and how we can make subsidiarity and proportionality mean what they say. These will be matters for the next Parliament; but as a first step, we can improve our own relations. Scrutiny of legislation, which is done marvellously by our European Scrutiny Committee, is all very well, but it is generally too late. The laws have already been made. They are already set in stone. We can huff and puff and have debates and discussions in this Chamber or in the various European committees, but what we really need to do is to be involved in the formation of policy at a very early stage.
We need to engage with our colleagues in the European Parliament. They are elected by the same British electorate as we are. To start with, we need to give them back their passes for this building, so that they can come and meet us. It is clearly ridiculous that their passes allow them to move around the House of Lords but that they are not allowed to move around the House of Commons. They have to stop where the red carpet ends.
When we have the next Conservative Government after the election, we need to make sure that we engage with the leaders across Europe in seeking to redress the balance of power between Brussels and the member states. We will call for engagement not just with the Commission and with the European Parliament—with the Brussels elite—but in the national capitals of Europe. Members of this House may need to brush up on their French, German or Italian and engage in dialogue with our colleagues across Europe. They may be surprised that the frustrations expressed here about the lack of subsidiarity, the lack of proportionality, the lack of any real dialogue with national Parliaments are shared across Europe.
I know that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe will lead that charge, and I believe that that will end in a decisive referendum that will result in our future inside the European Union, but inside a reformed European Union with a balance of competences between the Brussels elite and the member states that all the people of Britain and of Europe will respect.
Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
This debate is central to what we do here in Parliament and to the promises that various parties will make to their electors as we leave this place shortly and go into a general election.
It used to be a fundamental principle of the House of Commons that no House of Commons properly elected could bind a successor House of Commons. That was a fundamental part of the British people’s liberties, because they have to trust a House of Commons for up to five years to legislate and govern on their behalf, and they can do so safe in the knowledge that if we—those in government—do not please, they can dismiss us at the following general election and elect a new group of people who can change all that they did not like about the laws and conduct of government of the Government whom they have just removed. But our membership of the European Economic Community, now the Union, has increasingly damaged, undermined and overwhelmed that essential precept, which was the guarantee of our liberties as the British people, because now there are huge areas of work that are under European law and European control. Those parties that go out from this House into the general election and, for example, offer a better deal on energy may well come back and discover that what they have offered is quite impossible under the strict and far-reaching rules on energy that now come from the European Union.
Yesterday, we did not have time to debate in the House the energy package, but within the proposals we were being asked to approve in the Commission’s work programme was a strategic framework for energy policy that, in turn, will spawn an enormous amount of detailed regulation and legislation, making energy a European competence almost completely. Therefore, more or less anything that the main political parties say about what they wish to do on energy policy during the next five years will be possible only if it just happens that what they wish to do is entirely in agreement with and legal under this massive amount of law and regulation that is partly in place already and will come forward in ever-increasing volumes under the strategic framework and further legal policy, and that is but one area.
A couple of other big areas that will be much debated in the election are welfare and border and migration policy. Again, anything that parties say in our general election has to go through the European test. Will changes in benefits that parties wish to see be legal or possible under the European Union? May we not find that we are completely bound by predecessor Parliaments because they have signed up to legal requirements under European law that make it impossible for the House any longer to control our own welfare policy?
Yesterday, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe encouraged me with his optimism because he said that welfare remained a national UK matter, but there is plenty of evidence that it already is not in many respects. All sorts of policies have been looked at that I am told would fall foul of European law and regulation. It is quite obvious, again, looking at the European Union’s work programme, that it will intensify its activity in this area and make it even more difficult for a national Parliament to express the wish that it wants in its laws on welfare. The same is true of border controls, where we are signed up to the free movement of peoples and that is now being ever more generously interpreted as giving the EU carte blanche and substantial control over border and migration policy throughout the EU.
We find ourselves in the position of debating today yellow cards and red cards to try to assert the will of national Parliaments, but it comes nowhere near the task that we need to undertake as we seek to reshape our relationship with the EU. Even having a red card, where national Parliaments collectively can block a new proposal, does nothing to tackle the problem that we have this vast panoply of law already agreed, sometimes many years ago, which may prevent a national Parliament from reflecting the will of its people. If we have to get all or most of the other member states’ national Parliaments to agree, that could still be extremely difficult, and an individual member state, which had an overwhelmingly strong national view on the subject, might be thwarted because it just did not happen to be something that worried the other member states.
We need to pause over this. I remember the excellent words of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister in his Bloomberg speech. The Bloomberg speech wisely said that the fount of political authority in any European member state, but certainly in the United Kingdom, rests with the national electorate through the national Parliament, and that, I think, is still right. We see that in the recent conflicts and rows in a country such as Greece, which is under even more European control than we are by being part of the euro. The Prime Minister reasoned that this country needs to negotiate a new relationship with the EU that recognises that on really important things—I would have thought that welfare, borders and energy were really important things—if necessary, the national Parliament can assert and interpret the will of the British people. There should be some mechanism by which we can then do as we wish, reflecting the will of the people.
We see at the moment the tragedy of Greece, where these conflicts are much further advanced because the European Union is much more intrusive on a euro member than on the United Kingdom. We have witnessed some very interesting things. Those on both Front Benches need to listen to and study this very carefully, because their futures, as well as the future of our country, are very much at stake. The first remarkable thing is that in the most recent Greek general election the two former traditional main parties—the equivalents of Labour and Conservative—polled 33% between them. Those parties, until recently, alternated in government. They had got into that parlous state because whatever they wanted to do in the interests of Greece was blocked, modified or amended because, in practice, decisions were made by the euro group, the European Central Bank and the troika they came to hate. So the Greek people said, “It doesn’t make any difference which of you two we have. The socialists can’t be socialists and the capitalists can’t be capitalists. You all end up with the same euro policy that is driving the Greek economy into the mire.” The poor Greeks have lost almost a quarter of their national output since 2007. That this can happen in an advanced western country is mind blowing. Half their young people are out of work as a result of these policies.
The two main parties had nothing to offer because they either had to go along with the euro scheme in all its details or promise to disagree, but only in the full knowledge that they would not be allowed to do so and do anything different. Then the Greek people elected into government a challenger party, with no experience of government, saying that it intended to break the rules of the euro: it did not want the troika arriving and telling them how to govern their country and did not intend to accept the bank details and loan packages that had been drawn up by the previous regimes. We now see this gripping and gruelling conflict where the euro area and the EU are telling Greece, “Well, we’ve got news for you: these are the rules. We don’t mind that your electorate have just rejected it all. We don’t care that you’ve elected into government a party that completely disagrees with us. You have no power in this. You the Greek people, you the Greek Parliament and you the Greek Government have to accept these rules, because those are the club rules.”
We heard a mild version of that attitude from the shadow spokesman, the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden), when I asked him whether, on a mighty issue that matters a great deal to the British people, there should be a right for us in this House to reflect their view and legislate accordingly. He said no, there should be no such right, and we have to follow all the rules of the European scheme.
Throughout past years, when those rules related just to trading arrangements or industrial regulation, they could be irritating or vexatious, but they were not going to become game changers that mobilised the whole British people against the whole scheme of the European Union. However, when the European Union rules start to influence things that matter a great deal to people—their welfare system, their benefits system, their borders or their migration—that might start to create a much bigger reaction. When European rules and requirements have a devastating impact on an economy and employment prospects—fortunately not in this country, because we have kept out of that bit—that completely transforms the politics of that country, and we see the politics of impotence, the politics of protest and the politics of frustration.
I do not want our country to go down that route. That is why I say that we need to negotiate now, before we get to that stage, an arrangement—not just a yellow card or a red card in conjunction with other member states—for us, the United Kingdom, to say that we are still a vibrant democracy. We need to be able to say that if something matters a great deal to the British people and if it has been approved in a general election, this House can take action even if it means disagreeing with the rules of the European Union. By all means, we can try to negotiate an arrangement case by case, but where we cannot do that, we need an override—an opportunity to say, “This thing matters too much to our democracy.” If we do not have that very simple change, we no longer have in this country a successful and vibrant democracy that can guarantee stability and guarantee to deliver what the British people want.
Graham Stringer
I agree with the basic thrust of the right hon. Gentleman’s argument, but is not most of what he is suggesting impossible? Most of the rules governing the European Union are bound up in treaties that require 28 countries to decide to change them, and that is simply not going to happen. Much as I agree with his aspirations, I am afraid that they will not come about, will they?
Mr Redwood
The hon. Gentleman may be right, so I hope that the British people have a referendum in which they may decide that they cannot live under such a regime without change. I would certainly vote to leave if flexibility cannot be built into the system along the lines that I have mentioned. He is a distinguished politician both locally and nationally, and surely he recognises that when we need fundamental change, we have to make the case for it and be optimistic.
I am not completely pessimistic because I do not believe that only Britain needs such a change. If this were just Britain being difficult—the island nation, on the edge of the European Union, whose traditions are old-fashioned and whose idea that Parliament really matters is now old hat because we have moved into a new world—I do not think we would win, but this is live, desperate politics for very large parts of the euro area.
The issue is live politics for what remains of the governing parties of the euro area because the path trodden by the two leading parties in Greece, whose jobs have been taken by Syriza, could be trodden by the two leading Spanish parties given the rise of Podemos and by the Italian parties given the rise of the Five Star movement and all the other pressure movements in Italy. Those countries are not immune to an insurgency challenge like the one in Greece. That sort of thing can start to concentrate the minds of other member states of the European Union and their Governments. One thing I have learned about Governments over the years is that they quite like staying in power. When they feel that there will be a very strong electoral challenge to them, they may begin by condemning it—saying it is irrational, unpleasant and all those kinds of thing—but if they think it is going to win, they have to do a deal with it, understand why people feel as they do and make some movement.
My strong advice to the whole European Union is that it needs to do a deal with the people who disagree with it, because the scheme is not working for all those people in the euro area. It needs to change policy, and it should do so before politics changes it. I do not want our country, which matters most to me, to get anywhere near such a point. I am pleased to have been part of the forces in this country that kept us out of the euro, which meant that we missed the worst—this country has a reasonable economic recovery that is completely unrelated to the continent, with its long recession and deep troubles in the southern territories—but as I see my country sucked into common policies on energy, borders, foreign affairs and welfare, I think that we might be sucked in too far and have exactly the same problems on those issues that the euro area is already experiencing on the central matter of economics.
I urge Ministers to take this seriously and to re-read the words of the Bloomberg speech. I urge the Opposition to join us, because they aspire to govern this country. One day they may come up with really popular policies and be elected on that basis, and what a tragedy it would be if they discovered that they could not enact those policies because they were illegal under European law. That could happen just as much to the Labour party as to the Conservative party.
These are not some private arguments among Conservatives in some secret club of Eurosceptics held in the privacy of the House of Commons; these are mighty arguments about the future of our continent and our country and about the nature of democracy itself. Accountability still rests with a national Parliament, not with the European institutions. If there is to be trust between politicians and the people, the national Parliament must be able to deliver when the people speak. We are in danger of that no longer being true, which is why a yellow card and a red card are not sufficient. It is also why we need to answer the question: how do the British people vote for what they want and how do an elected Government in Britain deliver it if it disagrees with European rules?
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
May I apologise, Mr Speaker, for arriving after the beginning of the debate? I was detained elsewhere. I want to say a few words, but will not speak for too long.
When I was a student, I read the works of Walter Bagehot, the 19th-century writer on constitutional matters who distinguished between what he called the decorative and the effective parts of the constitution. Much of what happens around the European Union is decorative. The real power resides not with the elected bodies, but elsewhere. Many people among the political elites of the various members of the European Union go to great lengths to ensure that the European Parliament and their own Parliaments have a comfortable majority of Euro-enthusiasts who will just go along with what the political class wants.
However, Euroscepticism is a major force. It is not effectively represented in many Parliaments, but it is among the populace. I remind hon. Members of the referendums that the French and Dutch held on the proposed constitution. The Socialist party in France went to the extreme of having a ballot of its members and encouraging them to vote yes for the constitution, which they duly did. It was assumed that the conservative parties would vote in favour of the constitution anyway. In the referendum, the great majority of working people voted no. It was the working class and those on the left—and, no doubt, some people on the right—who voted no because they did not think that the constitution was in their interests. Euroscepticism was therefore found to be quite a strong force when a referendum was held, but it is not necessarily a strong force in the elected Parliaments. The same thing happened in Holland.
From time to time, I attend meetings of COSAC with other members of the European Scrutiny Committee. COSAC is an organisation for representatives of the national Parliaments and it includes some Members of the European Parliament. However, Members of the European Parliament are rather irritated that they have to listen to Members of the elected national Parliaments, because they see us as interlopers in their preserve or realm. They think, “We are elected European Members and we do not want these other Parliaments having their say.” Nevertheless, we go to the meetings. Even there, the overwhelming majority of Members are docile supporters of the European Union and all its works.
It is interesting that the British voices from the House of Commons are often very distinctive in being outspoken and critical, and just raising issues. We were in Italy not so long ago and I said, “Well, what about the 13.2% unemployment rate in Italy? What about those who are arguing for the restoration of the lira?” Those voices are not represented at COSAC, but they are represented in the street outside. When politicians stop listening to the voices in the street outside, they are in danger in the longer term.
Mr Jim Murphy (East Renfrewshire) (Lab)
I was just reflecting on how much I miss the time my hon. Friend and I spent together on the European Scrutiny Committee. Without wishing to entice the opprobrium of Government Members, I was also reflecting on my time as Minister for Europe, when I worked on the Lisbon treaty. In his conversations with colleagues in COSAC, has my hon. Friend discussed the fact that a quarter of the written opinions of national Parliaments relate to 15 legislative proposals? Does he accept the logic that objections from the UK Parliament have greater validity when the legislation applies to the UK, as opposed to when the UK already has an opt-out? When it comes to the written objections from the UK and the conversations that he has in COSAC, does he distinguish between issues that apply to the UK and those that do not?
Kelvin Hopkins
I have not had conversations about those specific issues. However, there is everything to be said for making strong objections to anything that we disagree with and for trying to overturn proposals for legislation if we do not find them acceptable. We would probably find quite a lot of support among the electorates of many member states, even though we do not find it among their politicians. Even in countries that have voted against joining the euro, one will find that the political class privately wants to join it.
One country that has voted time and again—twice now—to stay outside the European Union is Norway, yet for a long time the political class tried to pressure its own people to vote to join it. I am a member of the all-party parliamentary British-Norwegian group and at a recent meeting the Norwegian ambassador said that support for joining the EU had dropped to 11%, which is pretty decisive. Nevertheless, it is vital in any meaningful democracy that elected parliamentarians listen to the voices of their constituents—to the people outside.
One reason I disagree so strongly with systems of proportional representation is that they break that link with electors. In a national list system, the only people who matter are those who put candidates on that list—the party leaders—and not the people outside who vote for them. We have personal relations and contacts with our voters in single-Member seats, and as I mentioned in a debate yesterday, last weekend I spent six hours knocking on doors in my constituency and listening to what people had to say. That link is important in a democracy.
I mentioned Bagehot, but more recently essayists from our own Chamber have contributed to a new book, “What They Never Told You about Parliament and How It Should be Put Right”. Some of our colleagues from this House and another place have made a lot of suggestions for increasing the democratic power of this House in holding the Executive to account, which is absolutely right. I would also like more democracy within parties to hold their leadership to account, but that is perhaps a dangerously radical view that would not be shared by some of my colleagues on the Front Bench. I have always believed in democracy being something that comes from beneath, rather than from the top.
When I was studying politics at university we covered political constitutions, including the Soviet constitution that was written in the mid-1930s, no doubt by friends of Stalin. Clearly, a great democratic panoply of organisations and structures meant absolutely nothing because all power resided in Stalin’s office. It is where power resides that really matters. If power is with the people, that is what democracy should be about; if power is with the elite and people have to do what the elite tell them, that is not democracy. All sorts of structures may look like democracy, but if there is no power in the hands of ordinary people, voters and their directly elected representatives, that is not true democracy. I am not talking about anarcho-syndicalism or anything of that kind; I am talking about representative democracy of the kind we have now.
I believe that in the European Union power really resides in secret councils and the backrooms of the Commission. I heard a story from a Member of the European Parliament who some years ago stumbled by mistake into an office in the Commission building, and found themselves with a group of officials who were deciding who was going to hold a certain post. They wanted a commissioner on social affairs. That sounds very socialist and left-wing, so they wanted somebody weak. They thought, “Ah yes, we’ve got this rather feeble commissioner from one of the smaller east European countries. They won’t cause any trouble so let’s put them forward”, and that is what happened. That is not democracy either. I think we ought to elect our commissioners directly from Parliament. That would be a good idea because we would have a say in who our commissioner is, rather than them being appointed. These issues are fundamental.
Today I had a meeting with an academic researcher from Germany—a very charming, intelligent person. She said, “You’re a critic of the European Union. What would you like it to be like?” I said, “I am passionately European in the sense that I love Europe as a continent of wonderful peoples, countries, cultures—everything about me shrieks ‘Europe!’. I love the music, art, wine, peoples, languages—everything about Europe I love, but not the European Union, which is a political construct imposed on Europe; it is not Europe.”
When people talk about Europe but mean the European Union, they are trying to con us into thinking that Europe can only have the European Union, but there are alternatives. My alternative, which I put to the academic researcher, was that we should have a loose association of democratic member states with elected Parliaments that meet and agree on issues for mutual benefit, but that there should be nobody above those Parliaments telling them what to do. We could no doubt have joint ventures on military aircraft, for example; we have done that from time to time. Concorde involved a joint agreement between France and Britain. We could have bilateral and multilateral international agreements on all sorts of things. We could even agree to standardise the way in which we do things, but these should all involve mutual agreements between the various member states, rather than having something imposed from a very undemocratic bureaucracy above the member states of Europe.
It would be a splendid idea to have a loose association of member states coming together to agree things that are of mutual benefit, and I would love to see that happen. In a few months’ time, I shall be taking a holiday in Italy. I normally go to France, but this year it will be Italy, and I shall enjoy Europe in all its glory. However, I shall continue to be critical of the European Union, which is not Europe.
Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins), who speaks such sense on these matters. It was also interesting to hear about his holiday plans for the summer, and I hope that he will tell us more about them in future debates.
I turn immediately to the wording of the motion. Her Majesty’s Government like to say all the right things and do all the wrong ones. Let us look at the end of the motion, which proposes that the House
“welcomes the Government’s commitment to increasing the power of national parliaments in EU decision-making by strengthening and, where possible, enhancing current provisions.”
It sounds splendid that we in the national Parliaments should have an increased role and that there should be proper scrutiny within this House. But let us look further into the Order Paper, where we find the European business and the debates set down to take place on the Floor of the House. We had one yesterday. How generous of Her Majesty’s Government to allow us, after months of delay, to debate an issue that had been suggested for debate by the European Scrutiny Committee!
Turning to the future European business, however, we see that no time or date has been set for the first debate in the list, on the free movement of EU citizens, despite its having being asked for more than a year ago. Debate No. 2 would be on strategic guidelines for EU justice and home affairs to 2020. Debate No. 3— [Interruption.] Bless you! Debate No. 3 would be on the rule of law in EU member states. Debate No. 4 should be on ports, a highly controversial matter awaiting the discussion that was suspended in the Committee because the Government had not got their act together. No. 5 is the topic that we are discussing now. No. 6 should cover the EU budget 2014, which is not a minor matter. Indeed, it is rather important. When we discuss our own Budget, we have four days of debate on it, yet we are not even given 90 minutes for the EU budget. No. 7 on the list is the EU charter of fundamental rights. So there are six further debates that we have not been given, yet today we are debating the Government’s wonderful commitment to increasing parliamentary scrutiny of European matters.
There is a saying that fine words butter no parsnips. We get a lot of fine words from Her Majesty’s Government but the parsnips remain distinctly unbuttered, and as I represent a dairying constituency, I think it is about time we had some butter and got the debates that the European Scrutiny Committee has been asking for. There is a considerable lack of wisdom in this approach—this contumely towards the House. These debates take place in an atmosphere of considerable cross-party consensus. Those on the Opposition Front Bench rarely cause any trouble in European debates, and the motions that are tabled are normally so anodyne that it is hard to oppose them. The Government broadly say that they are in favour of motherhood, apple pie and democracy while giving away as many of our freedoms as they can, as quickly as possible. Furthermore, these debates do not end up being front-page news.
Where the Government get into trouble, however, is through their lack of willingness to go along with what the European Scrutiny Committee has asked for. At that point, they run into procedural difficulties. We saw that in spades over the European arrest warrant, and we thought that the Government might have learnt the error of their ways and realised that trying to obstruct the procedures of the House of Commons is an error. They might have found from yesterday’s experience, when an amendment was tabled on a subject that the Government did not want us to discuss, that the House would get its way in the end. It did so because, fortunately, we have a robust Speaker who ensures that the House gets what it wants in the end. That is much to be welcomed. However, there should not be this constant battle between the European Scrutiny Committee and the Government to get that which the Standing Orders of the House of Commons require. The Government come out with ridiculous promises and fine words but simply fail to deliver on their promises.
Mr Redwood
Could it be that the Government believe their own propaganda? We are faced with having two Governments for the price of three in this country, a European Government and a United Kingdom Government, but the Government fondly believe that they are the sole Government and have not recognised that there is a much bigger Government over there doing a lot of their work for them. They do not want us to look at that.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
My right hon. Friend makes the interesting suggestion that the Government are naive and foolish, and that is one way of looking at it. My view is that they are deliberate in their attempt to subvert the will of the House of Commons and its efforts to debate things. My right hon. Friend is a generous and kindly figure, for which he is renowned across the land, whereas I am afraid that I am perhaps rather more hard-nosed on this occasion and think that there is a desire to run away from debate. I do not know where that desire comes from. It is fundamentally unhealthy and undemocratic and the Government must understand that many of us will complain if this continues to happen.
Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (UKIP)
Does the hon. Gentleman recall the Prime Minister stating expressly at the Dispatch Box that he would deliver a vote on the European arrest warrant before the Rochester and Strood by-election? What happened to that promise?
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless), who knows only too well about that by-election. It is extraordinary that other people within government try to subvert the will of the Prime Minister. Our constitution works well as the Prime Minister, as the head of the Government, shows leadership. However, there are then people, minions—I do not know who they are, as they will not emerge or admit the role they play in undermining parliamentary scrutiny—who deliberately undermine what the Prime Minister has promised. That is the most extraordinary state of affairs, Mr Speaker, as the Prime Minister needs your help to deliver on his promises. Your impartial help is needed to get the Prime Minister out of a hole dug for him by his own officials. This is a quite extraordinary and regrettable state of affairs.
Mr Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman is making liberal reference to the Chair, to which I have no objection, but in so far as he is foraging in the undergrowth to try to find a solution to Parliament’s difficulties as we approach Prorogation and then Dissolution, he might find that the shortage of allocated time is such that his only recourse is to seek a debate under Standing Order No. 24. He should not be put in that position, but he can always have a go, with no promises and no advance undertakings. We should not be reduced to this state of affairs, but needs must.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I am grateful, Mr Speaker. I was worried when you said that I was making liberal reference to the Chair; I hope that I was making Conservative reference to the Chair. Other than that, I am much obliged for your helpful reminder of the Standing Orders of the House.
I do not want to go on for too long, as my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker) has an important debate that will follow this one. In that context, I note that when I sit down before the full time for the debate is complete the Government will once again say that the debate did not run for its full time and that the desire for such debates is therefore not as great as we might think, so they do not need to give them in future.
Kelvin Hopkins
I know that the hon. Gentleman is being respectful to the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), but the obvious solution would be for him to spin out his speech to the end of the time. I would certainly enjoy listening to it.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I would hardly have begun my speech if I were going to go through all the intricacies it might be necessary to cover, but I do not want to upset my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester, who has a serious matter to discuss that concerns my constituency.
The Government must bear in mind the fact that the debate is truncated thanks to the good nature of members of the European Scrutiny Committee and the Whips scurrying around asking whether we would be kindly. It has not been truncated because there is not a great deal to discuss. When the answer comes back that we are not interested as we do not take the full time, that will be an untruth. I am glad to see that the Minister for Europe is looking in my direction and notes that, because he never says anything other than the truth. I have great confidence in his intellect, if not always in the answers that come from it.
Proportionality and subsidiarity are of considerable importance. I am slightly suspicious of subsidiarity because, as the shadow Minister the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) has said, it comes from the teaching of the Catholic Church. The holy mother Church, to which I belong, is a great, illustrious and historic institution, but if it is known for one thing other than its piety, it is its centralisation of power. It therefore strikes me that, if subsidiarity has been thought up by the holy mother Church, it is more likely to be to do with reinforcing the authority of the Holy See and of the papacy in particular than with spreading it far and wide. I happen to think that, in the case of the Church, that is a thoroughly good thing.
Mr Redwood
Is it not the other way round? We want this House to be able to do the big things. We do not want to be left with the crumbs from the table—we want the main meal.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend and I was coming on to that.
The heart of the matter is the question of where we think democracy lies in the European Union. Does it lie in the Commission? The answer, in fairly short order, is no. Every country has a commissioner and, as the hon. Member for Luton North has said, commissioners from very small countries sometimes get very important briefs. It was the Maltese Commissioner who finally decided whether neonicotinoids could be legal across the whole of the European Union. Malta has a population of about 250,000—which is tiny in proportion to ours, let alone that of the whole of the EU—and it was someone representing them who made a decision for all of us without any democratic accountability because the Council could not come to a decision.
There is no election for European Commissioners—they are appointed by their home Governments. The President of the Commission represents Luxembourg, which is hardly the great bulwark of population and importance for which one might hope. It is not exactly the Texas, or even the Illinois, of the European Union. Relatively minor figures from their own domestic functions are put forward as commissioners, with no support from, or knowledge of, the people living in the other member states. Before he became a commissioner, very few people in the United Kingdom could have named the former Prime Minister of Luxembourg. There is no democratic accountability in the Commission.
Perhaps there is democratic accountability in the European Parliament, but, if there is, it is of a most extraordinary kind. The d’Hondt system for electing people is most unsatisfactory and means that most people have no clue who their MEP is. It is very difficult to seek redress of grievance through the European Parliament in the way our constituents can seek redress of grievance through this House. Indeed, one of my concerns about the whole European project is that it denies our constituents that proper redress of grievance that they can get through the House of Commons.
Crucially, the European Parliament cannot have democratic accountability because it does not represent a single people. When the issue of unemployment in Greece, Spain and Portugal came up in yesterday’s debate, it was absolutely instructive that there was a complete lack of concern for unemployment in the other member states of the European Union. There is not a feeling that somebody unemployed in Greece is as important as somebody unemployed in Newcastle. Until we have that fellow feeling—the feeling that they are one people with us—there cannot be a proper democracy. The jargon, clearly, is that without a demos there cannot be democracy and there is not a single European people. Therefore, even if the European Parliament had Members who anyone knew about, and even if it was elected on a system that anyone thought was a reasonable system to elect people on, it would still not have proper democratic representation because it does not represent a single people.
That brings us to the Commission, which I think is the closest we get to democracy in the European Union. The Ministers represent their Governments and those Governments have to command majorities in their respective Houses of Parliament. That brings us back to exactly where we want to be: the democratic rights of Parliament and what Parliament should be able to do within the overall system and context of the European Union. Ultimately, democratic accountability within Europe—that thin thread of accountability that exists—is through the Commission to Parliaments.
Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)
I hate to interrupt my hon. Friend in mid-flow, but I believe that he is talking about the European Council, not the European Commission.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I am so sorry. I do indeed mean the Council. The Council has that thin thread to the Parliaments, which provides that democratic accountability.
We then look at what those Parliaments can do. They can have a limited amount of scrutiny but, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Mr Walter) said, that mainly comes after things have been decided; the European Scrutiny Committee gets to look at things that have already reached a far stage in the approval process within the whole European system. It is very hard to stop anything at that point, so we then move on to yellow cards.
Graham Stringer
The hon. Gentleman, as ever, is making an interesting and illuminating speech. Is not one of the travesties and caricatures of democracy in the European Union the fact that the only body that can propose new legislation is the European Commission, not even the Council?
Jacob Rees-Mogg
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. That is part of the control of the Commission and part of the anti-democratic set-up of the European Union, and I do not think that is accidental; were it genuinely democratic, it would never have evolved to its current state.
We get these sops, with this business of the yellow cards, of which only two have been accepted by the Commission, and one of those was immediately dismissed—it said that the one for the public prosecutor was not a matter of subsidiarity anyway and so it would push ahead regardless. We have a threshold that is very hard to reach, and as a result of which nothing need happen, and a two-month period that makes it incredibly difficult for national Parliaments to get their responses in within the limited time available. The red card would be little better.
What we actually need is for our constituents—the people of the United Kingdom—to take back control of their own Government. That might be possible through renegotiation if the Government are robust, but the problem is that at the moment the Government show no sign of being robust or willing to push back to the European Union. They come out with platitudes that support the continuing accretion of power to the EU. They come forward with the fine words I have mentioned but never push on the difficult decisions. Yesterday the Minister for Europe told us that Switzerland wants to pull out of one of the treaties and that it has to take it all or leave it all, but that is an outrageous position to take if we are in favour of renegotiating for ourselves.
I urge the Government to be robust, to support democracy and to make sure that, for once, what they say and what they do match.
The Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington)
I am grateful to all Members who have taken part in this brief but interesting debate. Like my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), I am conscious that there is other important business to follow, so I will keep my remarks very brief indeed.
I take note of the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset about remaining outstanding debates, but I point out that there have so far been 51 debates on European Union matters on the Floor of the House during the course of this Parliament, whereas previously the custom was to have perhaps two such debates a year.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) referred to the tensions that exist between national democracy and the reality of how decisions are made at European Union level. Of course, European Union law is operative and has direct effect in this country only because Parliament has decided, through the European Communities Act 1972, that that should be the case. It is clearly open to this or a future Parliament to alter those arrangements should it choose to do so. However, although that is constitutionally possible, it would bring about an immediate crisis in this country’s relationship with the European Union.
I think that it is important for us to remember that although there are some things that we find objectionable and frustrating about European Union decisions, sometimes the things that we find most valuable and beneficial to our interests are those that other EU countries resent the most. It is for that reason that I think the idea that one could simply have a unilateral right of veto for any of the 28 member states simply does not work if the European Union is to exist in a meaningful form.
I agreed with my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham and my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset when they talked about the lack of a European demos. After all, that is the very reason why, as my right hon. Friend pointed out, the eurozone countries are finding it so hard to reconcile an economic imperative towards greater integration with the political reality that national electorates want to hold economic policy decisions nationally accountable through their own national democracies.
What the Prime Minister said in his Bloomberg speech, which I read and re-read constantly, is that this is a challenge not just for the United Kingdom—as it is—but for every member of the European Union. It is the Prime Minister’s commitment and intention to negotiate a settlement between the United Kingdom and the rest of the EU that is good for us and good for our partners, and which achieves a balance between membership of the European Union and a need for a measure of collective decision making there, with the need for national accountability and for the British people to feel that they are comfortable about their place in that European organisation. That is something to which the Prime Minister committed himself in January 2013. I know he is completely determined to deliver that.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House takes note of European Union Documents No. 12425/14, the 2013 Annual Report from the Commission on relations between the Commission and national parliaments, and No. 12424/14, the 2013 Annual Report from the Commission on subsidiarity and proportionality; recognises the importance of the principle of subsidiarity and the value of stronger interaction between national parliaments and the EU Institutions; deplores the failure of the outgoing Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship to respond to national parliaments’ concerns about the proposal to establish a European Public Prosecutors Office; looks forward to the European Commission responding to the call of national parliaments and the European Council to strengthen national parliaments’ role in improving EU legislation; and welcomes the Government’s commitment to increasing the power of national parliaments in EU decision-making by strengthening and, where possible, enhancing current provisions.
Backbench Business
School Funding Formula
(9 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House believes that, given the continued fiscal pressure on the schools budget in the next Parliament, the speedy implementation of a fair and transparent school funding formula is more urgent than ever.
It is a pleasure to open this debate and to speak on an issue that I have raised during each year of my time in Parliament, and one that still needs addressing and never more urgently than in the run-up to a crucial general election. I hope today’s debate can inform the manifestos of all the main parties and lay down a challenge for the next Government to deliver on.
Today’s motion has cross-party support: more than 64 Back Benchers from across the House have signed it. I am very grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for recognising that it is an urgent and important enough matter to merit debate in the main Chamber. I am also very grateful to the two vice-chairs of the F40 campaign, who are both in their places: the hon. Members for North Devon (Sir Nick Harvey) and for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin). We are here to correct a long-standing injustice, and it is a credit to Parliament that there is such a strong turnout.
We have seen some progress on this issue, but the key decisions on the shape of a new national funding formula have been delayed until after the 2015 spending review. To say that that was disappointing in a place such as Worcestershire, which has lingered at the bottom of the funding table for far too long, would be an understatement. One local head teacher, in a letter to our local paper, recently described it as “immoral” that the issue of fair funding has been unaddressed for so long.
Local MPs have repeatedly made the case for a new formula that is based more on activity and the characteristics of schools and their catchments, and less on accidents of geography. We have attended debate after debate on this issue, and not just in the current Parliament. Colleagues with experience of previous Parliaments have often regaled me with their efforts to press this issue and point out the glaring disparities that affect their schools and constituents.
Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I have been here since 2001 and this has been a thorny problem since then. I was in the same intake as the Minister, who is in his place. I hope that when he gets the chance to speak he will address the situation in Somerset, where we face the same problem as Worcester.
Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend for leading this debate. In Devon, we have now seen £193 in extra funding per pupil. That is great news, but there is still a big gap to fill, especially with so many small rural schools and a sparse population. We do a very good job with very poor funding. I look to the next Parliament to do better.
Mr Speaker
Order. May I point out to colleagues that in addition to the hon. Member for Worcester and the Front Benchers, who need briefly to speak, there are on my list nine colleagues who wish to speak? The hon. Gentleman is perfectly entitled to make a full contribution, but I know he will find that helpful to weigh in the balance.
Mr Walker
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), who has always been a great champion for rural areas.
F40, the cross-party campaign formed more than 20 years ago to represent the lowest-funded areas, used to rail against a gap of hundreds of pounds in funding between rural areas and their urban areas, and in Worcestershire, local MPs spoke out against a gap that doubled during the 13 years of the previous Labour Government. Until the current year, it had never once narrowed. When the gap started, there was no justice in the fact that similar schools serving similar catchments with similar levels of deprivation on different sides of a random border could receive wildly different funding. As the gap has widened, so the challenge for schools to raise the attainment of all their pupils has become greater and the challenge to hold on to their best teachers bigger. Although the pupil premium has helped some schools in F40 areas, it has also added to the disparities by piling targeted funding for deprivation on top of the untargeted funding that went before.
Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that there is particular difficultly in fast-growth areas, such as Devon, where there are large distances to take children back and forth to school?
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
I want to draw the House’s attention to Ofsted’s excellent report on the long tail of underachievement, which identifies rural and coastal areas among those parts of the country facing difficulties, as is precisely reflected in the F40 group. Is that not one of the reasons we have to tackle this problem?
Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
Yet again, my hon. Friend is leading off the debate—in 10 years in the House, I have raised this matter only eight times, so I stand behind him in that respect. Does he agree that the Government did the right thing last year by closing the gap a little but that we need all parties to commit to a new funding formula in the next Parliament, as the Conservative party has done, to ensure that we have a fair and just settlement, not just in rhetoric but in reality?
Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)
The other point that surely needs addressing is the pupil premium. Although we all support it as a principle and in its effects, is it not a blunt instrument, because it skews an already unfair system? Does that not need reviewing?
Mr Walker
What needs reviewing is the underlying system of school funding to create something fairer and more transparent. I believe that the pupil premium can play a role in such a system, but my hon. Friend makes a good point.
I welcome the fact that last year saw the first real step forward. The schools Minister, with help from the Chancellor, was the first person to provide funding to address the funding gap. His announcement of what started as £350 million and then grew to £390 million of extra funding to help the lowest-funded areas was a genuine step forward and the first concrete sign that real change was on its way. At the time, Members spoke of a down payment and welcomed the benefits for those who stood to gain. We queried elements of the allocation and pushed for F40 areas to receive more of it, and between the initial allocation and the second, the F40 areas did indeed receive more—so the parliamentary pressure made a difference.
This first small step will mean £6.7 million for Worcestershire schools this year—an additional £97 per pupil—which will make a real difference from April onwards, and it will mean that this year, for the first time in decades, the gap between schools on our side of the border with Birmingham and those on the other side will grow smaller rather than wider. However, cost pressures on our schools will make these victories seem minor. We will all have heard from teachers and head teachers in underfunded areas who say that costs are running ahead of their funding. I have written to Secretaries of State and Ministers countless times with local examples.
There is not time in this debate to enter into the complexities of the funding system itself—a system so devilishly complex that my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) compared it to the Schleswig-Holstein question—but fortunately, F40 has a dedicated team of governors, teachers, heads, councillors and council officers who have worked up their own proposed changes to the funding formula. Their analytical work has been robust, and their proposals would achieve a formula based on the nature of the school and its catchment, funding a small lump sum for secondary schools and a slightly larger one for primary schools to help smaller schools; providing a proportion of funding for deprivation; and providing smaller proportions for low prior attainment, English as an additional language and sparsity—there is more work to do on sparsity.
Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
On the question of sparsity, the rural schools of South Dorset are trying to form multi-academy trusts, and what is so extraordinary is that the funding is different for each pupil, depending on which local authority they come from. This is another anomaly that we must sort out.
Mr Walker
I am afraid not, I am sorry.
The F40 finance group recently met Department for Education officials and discussed these proposals. The initial feedback was very positive. It was clear that under F40 proposals there would be more gainers and fewer losers than under the current formula.
The only challenge now appears to be the political will to deliver. We are beginning to hear from all the parties what they will be offering in their manifestos. We hear that the Conservative party would protect the cash settlement for schools in per-pupil terms. The coalition is already targeting money per pupil numbers. The Labour party seeks to protect the overall schools budget and the Liberal Democrats to protect the whole of the two-to-18 education budget. The problem with any protection for budgets as a whole is that it might produce a reduction in per-pupil funding, as pupil numbers are set to grow rapidly. It has been argued that Labour’s promise of an inflationary increase in this era of low inflation could deliver lower per-pupil funding than the Conservative proposal of flat cash per pupil.
Whatever the outcome of the election, it is clear that there will be ongoing fiscal pressure on all our schools. It is perhaps understandable in that situation that Ministers are keen to avoid turbulence, but avoiding turbulence has been the main reason for not going further and faster on school funding reform in the lifetime of this Parliament. It can no longer stand. We need to make it clear that to translate any freeze in per-pupil spending overall into a freeze in the unfair formula that currently allocates it would be totally unacceptable.
We can see all too directly the pressures on schools in all of our constituencies. We know that those pressures have built up not just in a few short years of tighter budgets, but over decades of comparative underfunding. It is simply not possible in these circumstances to justify the £900 per-pupil gap between Worcestershire schools and those in neighbouring Birmingham; the £700 gap that used to exist between Leicestershire and Leicester; or the £550 gap between Devon and Bristol—still less the mind-bogglingly vast gap between the best funded and worst funded authorities. In rich London boroughs such as Kensington and Chelsea, the per-pupil funding is £5,866 and it is £6,221 in Islington, while in poorer northern towns such as Barnsley it is more than £1,700 less.
I say to Ministers and shadow Ministers that F40 has made detailed proposals for change and I hope that they can accept them. They should deliver us a fair formula and help us to close the gap between schools that have missed out for far too long and those in the best funded areas. Overall, the allocation we have put forward would be more even, fairer and would target deprivation more effectively. The pressure on the education budget makes the timetable for delivering this new formula more urgent than ever. F40 members recognise that minimum funding guarantees may be needed to smooth out the introduction of a new formula, but we are not prepared to wait for ever while they are applied. We therefore call for the move to be conducted in a maximum of three years.
We have come a long way. The argument for fairer funding has been accepted on all sides. We must now be clear that its non-delivery—whether it be for political or administrative reasons—would be totally unacceptable. To entrench the progress made, I urge the Minister to ensure that the £390 million already secured for the lowest funded areas should be baselined in the education budget for 2016-17 so that the move to a new formula will start with that downpayment taken into account. I challenge all parties to address that challenge and to deliver the fair and transparent formula that our constituents deserve.
Mr Speaker
Order. I propose that the Front-Bench spokesmen should be called at or as close as possible to 6.50, which would allow five minutes to each. That leaves 22 minutes and there are nine people on my list. I will leave hon. Members to do the arithmetic themselves. It is not binding, but I invite Members to help each other.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr Walker) on his leadership of this debate and on his leadership on this issue during this Parliament. He sets an example to us all.
It is clear what the motion is asking the next Parliament for:
“the speedy implementation of a fair and transparent…funding formula”
on an acceptable time scale. Of course, what is fair and transparent to one person is not necessarily so to another—and therein lies the challenge for the Front-Bench team when it is time to deliver. The hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), the Chairman of the Education Committee, is right when he says that this needs to be fair and just. We can all sign up to that, but, as the hon. Member for Worcester says, it should not be an accident of geography that determines how much funding a school, a pupil or a student gets. It should be done fairly and transparently.
Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, as we now have an extra chunk of money from the last Budget, it should be put on the baseline, as was suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker)? At least that would give future Governments a fairer point from which to start.
Nic Dakin
Any progress should certainly be built on by a future Government. North Lincolnshire, the area that I represent, is historically underfunded. We stand to benefit and to be a potential winner, but the change must be smoothed for those who are less advantaged, and I think that the F40 principles will help in that regard. Core entitlement at pupil level is the main building block that will give schools access to similar resources for basic classroom costs, wherever those schools may be, but pupil needs beyond the core entitlement will also be recognised. Factors such as deprivation, special educational needs and the existence of small schools in small communities should be taken into account. That is the second building block. As for the third, the existing dedicated schools grant structure should continue to be part of the framework. I think that those three principles will be helpful to any future Government.
When we talk about school budgets, we should recognise that funding for those over 16 has been particularly badly affected in recent years.
Richard Graham
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. It is hardest for schools with sixth forms, and those that do not have a very large percentage of disadvantaged pupils who receive the pupil premium. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is essential to get the core funding right for the F40 group, so that those schools can balance their books in the next few years?
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
As my hon. Friend knows, debates about the school funding formula have been continuing for many years. I remember them taking place about 25 years ago. What is more important is that a quarter of the further education budget is to be cut at Coventry City college.
Nic Dakin
My hon. Friend has made a good point, which illustrates the complexity of the issue and the challenges that it poses. For example, sixth-form colleges currently receive no VAT relief, whereas other institutions do. One political party is going into the next election promising to create 500 new institutions. We have to ask ourselves whether that is good value for money when there is pressure on the basic budgets for young people who are in our existing institutions. It is a simple observation, and with that simple observation I shall end my speech.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. Will Members now try to stick to a two-minute limit?
Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow both the excellent speakers whom we have heard so far. We all agree on the need for a fair and transparent system. As has been said, much of that is in the eye of the beholder. However, the Ministers in the last Government whom I lobbied knew perfectly well that the system was not fair, although they did not have the political courage to face down their own people and say, “We are going to have to redistribute your funds to areas that we do not typically represent, because that is obviously fair.” This is not just about perception. I have never heard anyone attempt to explain why the present system is fair, because they cannot do so. The system is not fair. It is time for someone to recognise the need to do the right thing regardless of party-political interest, which may be something of a challenge.
I am delighted that the Conservative party is committed to a new national funding formula, and I am also pleased that the F40 group is presenting detailed proposals. Its members have worked out who will be losers and who will be winners, to narrow the gaps. Whichever party is in government, whichever system is used to fund schools and regardless of whether 16 to 19-year-olds are protected, money will be tight, so we must have the courage to do the right thing, and then find a way of explaining it to people and carrying them with us.
The hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) was right to say that we must do what all fair-minded people would recognise as the right thing. I say that on behalf of the people in the East Riding of Yorkshire, the area I represent. It is rural, coastal and absolutely has the problems the chief inspector of Ofsted has identified, yet from this coming year, although it will have slightly more money thanks to the £390 million, it will be the lowest-funded area in the country. If the Minister gets a chance to do so in his time-limited five-minute speech, perhaps he will say something about the technicality by which, because of our high needs block funding, we got a disproportionately small amount of that £390 million, to add to our existing inequities.
Mrs Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)
I just want to make one point building on the description of my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker) of the disparities between local authorities. My local authority, Solihull, has £1,300 less per capita than neighbouring Birmingham, but we school 7,000 pupils over our borders from Birmingham and Coventry, and unlike the principle in health where the money follows the patient, the money does not follow the pupils over the border. I fully support F40’s pursuit of a fair funding formula, but I specifically impress upon the Minister that this irregularity between health and education needs to be sorted out in the short term before the schools that are trying to educate pupils from over their borders with less money find it impossible to do so.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
May I very briefly, in the two minutes available to me, pay tribute to my teachers and governing bodies in the schools in Gloucestershire, that often with very little money and at the bottom of the F40 league, achieve outstanding Ofsted results? Gloucestershire gets a dedicated schools grant of £4,200, compared with nearly £6,700 for Camden. That cannot be equitable.
We have to end this system. We should have a national funding formula with special needs and all the other factors—rurality, deprivation—taken into account, arguing up from the minimum. Unless we start somewhere and start soon with a floors and ceiling system, we are never going to get an equitable system. To enshrine the current system under a capped budget is simply unfair, and I ask the Minister to recognise that unfairness. It is quite wrong that there is a postal code lottery, so that where someone lives determines how much funding their child has. Please can he end this unfairness?
Sir Nick Harvey (North Devon) (LD)
This problem has grown up over several decades. It is not something which has sprung up under this coalition, nor even under the last Labour Government. It has come on over a period of decades—since the second world war, really—and I am delighted that this Government, and the two parties represented in this Government, have committed themselves to a new funding formula to be implemented in the next Parliament, and I hope we will hear from the Labour Front-Bench team that they are committed to that as well.
As this has not happened in this Parliament, we are reliant, as a short-term measure to get ourselves through the interim, on the down-payment colleagues have talked about of some £390 million for the coming year. That is most welcome. My local authority of Devon is the sixth-worst funded in the country, and it will receive about £200 per pupil as a result of this uplift. I mention in passing that F40 put to the Department for Education some alternative proposals on how this money might have been dispensed, which would have given pupils in Devon £400 per head, but the money is nevertheless welcome.
It is essential that this money is now baked into the formula for the years between now and a new formula coming in, first, to ensure that the baseline is in a healthier place, but secondly, so that the schools that will now receive this money can have the confidence that it will be there not just one year at a time but for the next few years, so they can with confidence go out and employ additional staff with the resources available.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend, and we are both co-signatories of this timely motion, but does he share my frustration that this gap widened at a time when schools were receiving the more generous settlements and that it is hard to conceive how a set of Ministers will be able to rapidly close this gap in the context of flat cash per pupil funding settlements in the future?
Sir Nick Harvey
There will be a continued period of tough public finance and that undoubtedly makes it even more difficult to perform these sorts of adjustment, but it is vital that these changes take place. To have the confidence to do that we need to get them right and ensure that sparsity actually means something and does not have a completely perverse set of effects, as it does at the moment, and that the money will be there to phase this in until it can be completely done.
Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
I shall be very brief. First, may I, too, pay tribute to all the local teachers in my constituency, who do a fantastic job in a lovely rural area? My local education authority has three points that it is especially concerned about and it agrees with all the points raised by F40. First, on sparsity, our area contains little schools struggling to survive in rural parts of the country, and if those schools went, our children would simply not get the education that they deserve or need. Let us not forget that children are the next generation; they are the future of this country and we must value them equally. Secondly, fairer funding should be achieved by the end of the next Parliament, at the latest. Lastly, opportunities should be equal for all children. The children in South Dorset, wherever they come from, should be valued the same as every other child in the country, and the money that goes towards them should represent that fact.
Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)
As I walk out of Heddon-on-the-Wall St Andrew’s Church of England first school and go down the hill into Newcastle, I lose £1,000 per pupil over the course of 300 yards. That is utterly illogical, and the disparity cannot be continued. I endorse all the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker) and others. On the pupil premium, I make the point that although we all of course support it, it is genuinely skewing an unfair system and giving us a system that is manifestly not acceptable. I pay tribute to all the schools, governors and teachers in my region of Tynedale and Ponteland, who produce outstanding education, despite the great disparity. They helped me to lobby Ministers, not least the Minister for Schools, who came to Hexham and met many of them approximately 18 months ago.
The additional £390 million allocation of minimum funding levels resulted in £12 million-plus going to Northumberland, which is genuinely a lifesaver for our schools. We need a firm commitment from all parties in this House that that level of minimum funding increase will form part of the baseline funding for 2015-16, so that at the very least all schools can then plan for the future.
Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)
I completely agree with my hon. Friend. There is a massive disparity in my area, which is sandwiched between Leicester, Coventry and Birmingham which get hundreds of pounds extra in funding a year per pupil. Does he agree that that needs to change—it is vital that that happens—because my local schools are trying to get staff in a market where those other schools have far higher levels of funding?
Guy Opperman
I endorse what my hon. Friend says. He should try coming to the most rural and sparsely populated constituency in England, Hexham, in Northumberland, where he would understand the complex difficulties we face; the situation he describes is exacerbated in spades there.
Although the 7% budget increase that the schools will enjoy on 31 March or 1 April is clearly very helpful, we need to plan and go forward. We have yet to hear from the Labour party, which was in government for 13 years and did nothing about this, but the argument appears to be won, because when we look at the co-signatories of F40, we find that they come from across the House. While strongly urging that we get an increase and that the sparsity factor is addressed, I entirely endorse the motion.
Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)
I shall be brief. Every child deserves a fair level of funding. The fact that so many Devon MPs are here today demonstrates how strongly we feel about being the sixth lowest funded authority. We get £4,602 per pupil, which compares with a national average of £5,082—there is a funding gap of £41 million. We face specific problems and I wish to mention two. First, the existing formula contains no recognition of high-growth areas, of which Devon is one. As a result, Devon has to set aside £1.5 million to deal with growth every year for the next seven years. Secondly, the transport costs are completely ignored. We have 16,051 children being bused to school every day—that is 33% of the transport budget. I thoroughly recommend the F40 proposals. They need to be introduced as a matter of urgency. If they were, Devon’s children would be better off by £205.64 per pupil by 2015-16. Roll on the change!
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
I will, of course, be brief. School funding has been an issue in my constituency and my county for about 30 years. We have been grossly underfunded and nobody did anything about it. We are currently the worst funded in the entire country—£600 per pupil per year below the English average. That hits the schools. Teachers do a great job and pupils work hard, but it puts a huge strain on them and we are seeing a widening gap as a result of that lack of support, which is why it is such great news that after a huge amount of effort from many people throughout Cambridgeshire, on an issue that I have prioritised, my right hon. Friend the Minister was able to give us £23.2 million a year extra, a 7.9% increase.
That is a large sum and very welcome, but it fills only about half the gap which leaves a typical primary £250,000 a year below the English average. It still leaves us with problems for a number of schools subject to minimum funding guarantees, which will not see all the benefits—typically, smaller urban schools. That problem will continue as long as we do not have a proper national fair funding formula. I am, however, grateful that we have got some more money, finally, for school capital because we are growing fast as well as being grossly underfunded. That will make a huge difference. I massively welcome the pupil premium, which is making a difference to lives in my constituency and in the county. I welcome free school meals, which are making a difference to pupils in the county, but until we have a national fair funding formula, we will not get a fair settlement.
Simon Wright (Norwich South) (LD)
Does my hon. Friend agree that there is no reason why the introduction of a new funding formula should jeopardise other elements of spending in the two-to-19 education budget?
Dr Huppert
Indeed. We need the national fair funding formula, free school meals and the pupil premium. That package is the right one.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
The hon. Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), whom I congratulate on raising this matter, referred to the observation of the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) that this subject resembles the Schleswig-Holstein question. As I recall, Palmerston said that of the three people who knew the answer to that, one was dead, one had gone mad and the other one had forgotten the answer. Perhaps that is why it has been so difficult for the Government to do what they pledged to do at the beginning of this Parliament: to introduce—[Interruption.] I am struggling to make myself heard because the Parliamentary Private Secretary is saying that it is ridiculous to suggest that it was difficult for the Government to introduce what they pledged to introduce at the beginning of this Parliament—that is, a national funding formula. It has been extremely difficult.
That is why the Schools Minister last year, rather than do what was promised in the coalition agreement and introduce that new national funding formula in the course of this Parliament, decided, understandably, to throw some money at it. I am not criticising him for finding it difficult to tackle this Schleswig-Holstein-style question with which he has been wrestling for some of the past five years.
Kevin Brennan
I will give way first to the hon. Member for Gloucester, as I mentioned him.
Richard Graham
That is very kind of the shadow Minister. The reason why I used the Schleswig-Holstein analogy was that if one looks at the funding for Gloucestershire at £4,195 per head and compares the schools that we have, which are multicultural, urban, inner-city schools, with those of Birmingham, which get £5,210—over £1,000 more per pupil—it brooketh no understanding. Does the shadow Minister agree?
Kevin Brennan
I know the hon. Gentleman is not the one who is dead, I know he is not the one who is mad, and I do not think he has forgotten the answer because he has tried to provide us with it, but as I said last year when we debated the subject in Westminster Hall, I accept that there are undoubtedly wide disparities in funding among different areas. Some of those disparities—[Interruption.] Again, I am being barracked by the PPS. If he wants to intervene, I will be happy to give way. If not, I give way to the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath).
Mr Heath
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I was one of the founder members of the F40 group back in 1996 as chair of education in Somerset, and signed up to it with a lot of Labour colleagues who then ran county councils, who were equally incensed about this issue. I do not understand—this relates to the point made earlier—why this anomaly was not dealt with when school budgets were rapidly rising. Of course that is more difficult in a period of austerity.
Kevin Brennan
As confirmed in a House of Commons Library note, the hon. Gentleman is correct to say that education funding has fallen by the greatest amount in real terms under this Government, and that secondary funding has borne the greatest burden of that, with it facing a 7.6% cut in real terms during the course of this Parliament. However, people have forgotten that the last Government started this process with a pledge to have a national funding formula, which the coalition Government promised would be delivered during the course of this Parliament, but they have been unable to fulfil that promise because it is not easy.
Mr Jim Cunningham
It is a little rich for the Government parties to raise this issue when they have had five years to sort it out. One would think they were not in government. But there is a more important point here. [Interruption.]
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. In fairness, I have tried to make sure that every Member had a chance to speak. At least respect those who intervene and answer from the Front Bench.
Mr Cunningham
It is a little rich Government Members talking about young people when they are cutting further education budgets, as they have at City college in Coventry by 24%. What does my hon. Friend think about that?
Kevin Brennan
In fairness to the Government parties, they have acknowledged that there was record investment in education under the last Labour Government. It is a fact that we have suffered—check the House of Commons note—a real-terms cut during the course of this Parliament. Under the plans outlined, certainly by the Conservative party, there will be real problems with school funding in the next Parliament.
Kevin Brennan
I would be delighted to give way, but I cannot if I am to allow the Minister time to speak. [Interruption.] Hon. Members know I would be delighted to give way if we had more time, but I must wind up my remarks if I am to be fair to the Minister and give him an opportunity to respond.
We do need a fair funding formula, but let us acknowledge that it needs to be transparent, and let us all acknowledge, including the Minister, that there will be winners as well as losers in any such process. When the Government laid out their original plans for a national funding formula, they did not outline the details. They had to let the Institute for Fiscal Studies do it for them. It showed that their plans would have resulted in at least one in six schools losing 10% of their budgets, that one in 10 would gain at least 10% and that nearly 20% of primary schools and 30% of secondary schools would experience a cash-terms cut in funding. That is why it is not easy. That is why Ministers have not been able to deliver what they said they would in the coalition agreement. I do not criticise them for that because it is difficult. We need to find a way forward, on a cross-party basis, on a national funding formula. The type of party political sniping we have heard tonight will not help to achieve that.
The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)
We have had a short but on the whole excellent debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker) on his leadership of the campaign, on opening the debate, and on putting the case so powerfully and in a way that sought to unite Members across the House. I also pay tribute to the other hon. Members who spoke, who in most cases have been involved in the campaign for quite some time, including the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin), my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), the Chair of the Education Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman), and my hon. Friends the Members for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown), for North Devon (Sir Nick Harvey), for South Dorset (Richard Drax), for Hexham (Guy Opperman), for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris), for Norwich South (Simon Wright) and, of course, my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), who has done such a fantastic job in representing his constituents’ interests on this issue of revenue funding in the same way as he has done on capital funding. As he noted, as a consequence of those representations, parts of the country, such as Cambridgeshire, which were underfunded for many years under the last Government, have at last seen a massive move towards fair funding.
I do not want to make a partisan speech, particularly after the good example set by my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester, but I was a little disappointed by the shadow Minister’s response. He might at least have started with an apology for doing nothing in 13 years to correct the problems in the funding formula. I thought that we might have had a clear plan from the Labour party, given that he had so much to criticise about the coalition’s policy, on how he would introduce a national fair funding formula. What I heard was something of a policy free zone of a speech. Perhaps the lack of support behind him on the Labour Benches indicates the lack of enthusiasm among members of his party to sort out the injustices that have dogged our funding system for so long.
When this Government came to power in 2010, the funding system for schools that we inherited at the start of the Parliament was opaque, irrational and unnecessarily complex at both national and local levels. Similar pupils were funded at vastly different levels simply because they happened to be in different local authorities or in different types of school building. Previous Governments knew that the school funding system was unfair but failed to reform it.
Mr Redwood
Would the Minister suggest that there should be a limit on how big the gap can be between the best and the worst per pupil level of funding, as that would be a starting point for getting some justice?
Mr Laws
That is certainly a sensible principle, and it is exactly what we have tried to do through many of our reforms.
Throughout the Parliament we have introduced major reforms that have improved the fairness and simplicity of the system and laid the essential foundation stones to allow us, the two coalition parties, to introduce a full national funding formula in future. The major reforms we have made are changes to the local funding system, and changes to the way in which we fund disadvantage, with the introduction of the pupil premium and minimum funding levels. Time does not allow me to speak in detail about the first two changes, but I would like briefly to say something about the third—minimum funding levels.
We introduced minimum funding levels last year. I thank not only all the Members who lobbied for that change in the system but the excellent officials in our Department who worked hard, over a sustained period, on the new model. This Government have introduced the first reforms to the distribution of funding between local areas in over a decade. In 2015-16, every local area will attract a minimum level of funding for each of its pupils and schools. The £390 million increase in funding that we introduced as part of minimum funding levels represents a huge step towards removing the historical unfairness of the schools funding system. It ensures an immediate boost to the least fairly funded authorities and puts us in a much better position to implement a national funding formula in the next Parliament. All the logic of the reforms we have made indicates that they should be baselined into funding in the next Parliament. I can certainly make that commitment on behalf of my party; it is for others to make commitments on behalf of their parties.
Mr Laws
I will not, I am afraid, because of the lack of time.
In the next Parliament, multi-year spending plans will allow us to give certainty to local authorities and schools about how we transition to a national funding formula. Meanwhile, no local authority or school will lose out from the introduction of minimum funding levels from 2015-16, but about four in 10 areas will gain. We have already heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester, whose area gains some £100 per pupil—an increase of just over 2%—as a result of the changes for which he lobbied. My hon. Friend the Member for North Devon has been a great campaigner on this issue for many years and has helped to secure an uplift of about 5% in his part of the country. My hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge has helped to secure a huge increase of about 8% for funding in his part of England—an additional £311 per pupil that will make a massive difference to schools. This is only one step in the transition to fairer funding and a national funding formula, but it is the biggest step towards fairer schools funding in a decade.
The three major reforms over this Parliament do not, of course, complete the reform of school funding. We recognise that we still need to introduce a full formula to ensure that pupils with similar characteristics attract the same level of funding regardless of where they live. Nevertheless, I am proud that the changes we have made have delivered the big improvements that we have seen. They put us in a much better position than we were in at the beginning of this Parliament. We now have to do the important preparatory work that will be necessary to put in place a national fair funding formula in the next Parliament. We also need to review funding on deprivation to make sure that it is fair across the whole country, and that we can build on the enormous improvements made in this Parliament and the massive contribution that the pupil premium has made.
We are now in a position to finish the job of introducing, for the first time in decades, a fair funding system for schools in this country. Once we have long-term spending plans, we will be in a position to introduce, in a stable and sensible way, the full national funding system for schools for which Members have argued. Both governing parties in this House—both coalition parties—have put on the record very clearly their commitment to a national fair funding formula. Those of our constituents who care about this issue can best ensure the delivery of this policy through the choices they make—
Business without Debate
Petitions
Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)
This is one of three linked petitions. The other two are from the Stevenage and the Hitchin and Harpenden constituencies. My hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) has placed his petition in the bag today, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley) will present his shortly.
The petitions are from local residents. They highlight the very tiring journey that cancer patients currently have to make from north Hertfordshire to London for radiotherapy, and call for a centre at the Lister hospital in Stevenage. This petition has 4,211 signatures.
The petition states:
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to encourage NHS England to provide a radiotherapy facility at Lister Hospital in Stevenage in order to make the journey for radiotherapy treatment much easier for patients who live in Letchworth Garden City and the surrounding towns and villages.
Following is the full text of the petition:
[The Petition of residents of the constituency of North East Hertfordshire,
Declares that patients who are residents of Letchworth Garden City and the surrounding towns and villages have to travel to Mount Vernon Hospital in Hillingdon to receive radiotherapy treatment and that this journey is long and exacting and often has to be made on consecutive days.
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to encourage NHS England to provide a radiotherapy facility at Lister Hospital in Stevenage in order to make the journey for radiotherapy treatment much easier for patients who live in Letchworth Garden City and the surrounding towns and villages.
And the Petitioners remain, etc.]
[P001441]
Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)
Following this afternoon’s Westminster Hall debate, during which the Labour Front Bencher committed to the introduction of mandatory life-saving skills in schools, but the Minister would not, I am presenting this petition on behalf of the residents of Bolton West. It is similar to a British Heart Foundation petition signed by 83,500 people.
The petition states:
The Petition of residents of Bolton West,
Declares that all young people should leave school knowing how to save a life and further that the Petitioners believe that every child across the UK should be taught CPR and Public Access Defibrillator (PAD) awareness at secondary school in order to become part of a Nation of Lifesavers.
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to put measures in place to ensure that every child is taught CPR and Public Access Defibrillator awareness at secondary school.
And the Petitioners remain, etc.
[P001447]
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
Following on from the hon. Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling), I rise to present this petition on behalf of my constituents and the 83,500 people across the country who want every child to be taught life-saving skills. Our out-of-hospital survival rate for cardiac arrest is 10%. In parts of Norway, it is up to 25%. If we as a country could achieve that by having every child learning how to do basic CPR, it would save 5,000 lives a year. That is something that my party would like to achieve and I hope that it will become Government policy after the next election.
The petition states:
“The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to put measures in place to ensure that every child is taught CPR and Public Access Defibrillator awareness at secondary school.”
Following is the full text of the petition:
[The Petition of residents of Cambridge,
Declares that all young people should leave school knowing how to save a life and further that the Petitioners believe that every child across the UK should be taught CPR and Public Access Defibrillator (PAD) awareness at secondary school in order to become part of a Nation of Lifesavers.
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to put measures in place to ensure that every child is taught CPR and Public Access Defibrillator awareness at secondary school.
And the Petitioners remain, etc.]
[P001448]
Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)
I rise to present a petition opposing the closure of Dudley police station to the public. West Midlands police announced last year that Dudley police station is one of 27 across the region that are set to have their front offices closed to the public to protect police numbers in the face of funding cuts. That will leave Dudley as the largest town in the country without a police station that is open to the public.
That is completely unacceptable, which is why I launched the petition. The fact that 2,200 residents, including our former superintendent, Mr Roger Bagley, signed the petition shows that local people agree. Our campaign has kept the station open so far, but we are stepping up our efforts to ensure that it stays open for good. There is huge opposition to the plans in Dudley, which is why the petitioners
“request that the House of Commons urges the Government to make resources available to keep Dudley Police Station open to the public.”
Following is the full text of the petition:
[The Petition of residents of the Dudley North constituency,
Declares that the Petitioners are opposed to the proposal to close Dudley Police Station to the public.
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to make resources available to keep Dudley Police Station open to the public.
And the Petitioners remain, etc.]
[P001449]
Trading Relationships with Europe
Mr Gordon Brown (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Lab)
Across each generation during the long march of our country’s history, we the British people have always had to choose how we engage with the world. In particular, we have had to decide, century by century, how and on what terms we engage with our nearest neighbours in Europe. This generation is no exception.
I acknowledge the current strength of anti-European sentiment in the country and I believe passionately that there is no way forward for Europe other than through reform. I have always insisted on reform of the Commission and its bureaucracy, the Parliament and its accountability, and the flawed economic model of the euro, which I recommended that we should refuse to join, just as we should refuse to Europeanise everything—we should certainly not Europeanise our armed forces, as was recently suggested by my old friend President Juncker.
I asked for this debate not just because we must never allow sections of our country to indulge in the delusion that we can discount the 3 million jobs, 200,000 British companies, £200 billion of annual exports and £450 billion of inward investment that are linked to our trade with the continent, but because we must resist defining every part of our relationship with the continent in confrontational terms that pit Britain against Europe and that wrongly make the issue Britain versus Europe, asking, “Are you for Britain or are you against Britain?”, as if to be patriotic one must reject Europe in favour of Britain.
Up against the view, which I see is represented by some Conservative Members, that sees Britain as wholly separate, defiantly independent of others and standing to gain strength from a European exit, there is another strongly patriotic view, which I believe in passionately, that affirms that Britain is not the Britain we know unless we are outward-looking, unless we are engaged with the continent and unless British values—tolerance, liberty, fairness, social responsibility—play a leading role in shaping Europe and helping Europe to lead in the world.
Let me state three maxims that sum up what I believe is the patriotic view of Britain’s future. The first is the belief that:
“Our links to the rest of Europe, the continent of Europe, have been the dominant factor in our history.”
The second is a desire that we should
“let Europe be the family of nations…doing more together”,
a Europe that is more united, with a greater sense of purpose. The third is to have
“a Europe which plays its full part in the wider world, which looks outward not inward”.
I know that many Conservative Members may find some of those statements challenging or difficult, but they are exactly the statements that Lady Thatcher set out in her seminal Bruges speech in the late 1980s.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that many Conservative Members could agree with everything he has said so far, and also recognise that the opportunity in the renegotiation with Europe is to improve Europe for the whole of Europe, not just for Britain, so that this great continent goes forward progressively?
Mr Brown
My view is that the hon. Gentleman does not speak for many Conservative Members, some of whom are present, and he should accept that Britain is linked geographically, historically, economically and culturally, as set out in the Bruges speech, to the rest of the continent. We cannot meet and master the challenges of the future for a country like ours unless we accept that co-operation was always desirable and advisable. Now, in the ever-more interdependent and integrated world we live in, that is even more essential and imperative, not as a surrendering of the British national interest, but as the best way to realise it in the modern world.
Cross-border trade used to be one fifth of the world’s economic activity and it may soon rise to being one half of it—evidence that we can be an island geographically but we can never again be an island economically or geopolitically. Like all Europe, Britain is engaged in the same fiercely competitive struggle for global markets, not just with America but now with Asia, which will soon be what Europe once was—half of the global economy.
Just as the US, the biggest economy in the world, needs its economic union, the North American Free Trade Agreement, and the rising Asian nations need to be part of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, how much stronger is Britain, which, at her peak, captured nearly 20% of the world’s economic activity but now has only 2.5%? How much stronger will we be in future when competing and negotiating with China, India and the rest of the world to secure the best deals in trade, address pollution, deliver financial stability and set the rules for tax, patents, action on money laundering and corruption, and to protect our basic security, most recently against Russian aggression, as part of Europe?
If we look further ahead, how much stronger will we be in exploiting the economic and employment benefits of modern science, from the human genome to the semantic web to space—projects too big for one country alone—if we, the Britain of 60 million people, have alongside and around us the strength of our neighbours, a Europe of 500 million people? If anyone is in any doubt about the wisdom of co-operation with our nearest neighbours, they should think of how young people today see the world as interconnected and think nothing of linking up and communicating with friends across Europe and the world.
Whether it was our indispensible role in the defeat of Napoleon, the containment of Germany, the defeat of fascism, the resolution of the cold war, or more recently the response to the global recession, Britain is not truly Britain if we are anything other than engaged. Looking at our history, there was never for us, I believe, any long period of splendid isolation, tempting as retreat may sometimes appear. It is never the British way to be anything but in the vanguard in Europe at the continent’s decisive moments. In doing so, we help make Europe the biggest instrument for peace that the world has ever seen, as vital to ensuring stability now against Russian aggression in the east as it was against Nazism at the heart of Europe.
There is not one single shred of evidence that our engagement with Europe has made us any less British, any less true to ourselves, and any less patriotic. What sort of message will the British people send to the world if we, Britain, the most open, outward-looking, seafaring and trading country the world has ever seen, gives up on centuries of ever-growing co-operation with our nearest neighbours, casts aside the London-Paris-Berlin axis that we have painstakingly built up over decades, and surrenders our rightful influence over future events on the continent, even though it is directly on our doorstep?
What message do we send if, in a betrayal of our history and of our future, the Britain that did more than any single nation to spread liberty across Europe and stood resolutely for democracy, the Britain that helped take on fascism, communism, totalitarianism, anti-Semitism, and is now working with others to defeat extreme Islamic fundamentalism, simply walks away from and abandons our historic role of standing with Europe against ideologies that threaten to deny opportunity and spread prejudice, discrimination and intolerance around the world?
The real challenge is to convert a far too inward-looking, self-obsessed Europe not into some federal superstate—all the European nations that I have visited are proudly independent, with their own traditions—but into an outward-looking, globally oriented Europe with a reach and influence spanning every hemisphere. What message do we send if, by abandoning not only our history of engagement but our history of being at the forefront of Europe, we give up on the opportunities and obligations of a central leadership role in shaping the next stage of our continent’s destiny?
This is the fundamental truth about Britain in Europe. Given our history, the question for Britain can never just be whether we are in Europe; it has to be whether we lead in Europe. Our destiny can never be to be some kind of bit-part player on someone else’s stage or a bystander hectoring from the wings. We must at all times be setting the agenda, bringing people together and championing change. Indeed, Britain makes more sense to the British people, and will enjoy more popular support, if we are more than just part of Europe and we are at its heart, leading from the front and charting the way forward.
The way to reconcile what has too often seemed irreconcilable—in Hugo Young’s famous words, the British past we cannot forget and the British future we cannot avoid—is to see our leadership in Europe not as an abandonment of our patriotism but as the truest modern expression of it.
Mr Brown
I have given way once, and I have to get through this.
There is no doubt that millions of our fellow citizens now feel more insecure than ever because of the bewildering pace and destructiveness of what seems to them to be an out-of-control and uncontrollable global economy. They are looking for someone or something to shelter, insulate, protect and cushion them from these bewildering and often alien forces that are on occasion taking their livelihoods from them. They are looking for someone to hold responsible, and they are now being urged to turn what started off as an economic protest, rather than cultural prejudice, into a culture war whose main weapon is to blame foreigners, target immigrants and engender a siege mentality against the outsider.
In this culture war, arid statistics on exports and investment from well-meaning, London establishment-led, corporate-financed campaigns by the great and the good, who will be accused of being elites who do not understand Britain, will appear to many to be no match for the cultural charge from the right that Britain has ceased to be the Britain that they know and love. We cannot win in a culture war which asserts that Britain is no longer a country we recognise just with factsheets about the percentage rises and falls in business investment. Technical arguments are not enough to trump cultural grievances. When we are fighting back in a culture war that others have started, we must take on one strongly felt set of beliefs with another strongly felt set of beliefs.
If we are to win hearts as well as minds, our core message must be bigger than the business case and bigger even than the principled case for engagement in Europe. We must tell the British people not just about our patriotism and our historic role at the hinges of history but about how, through putting our enduring progressive British values to work, we will lead in, and shape the future of, this continent. The Britain that has consistently championed toleration, liberty and social responsibility before any other country in Europe—and that, as far back as the days of Adam Smith, invented the idea of civic society and mutual obligation, influencing Europe massively in the process—is ready once again to lead a progressive movement mobilising Europe towards the greatest challenge we face: to make the global economy and global change work for people by tackling their injustices, their inequities and their unfairnesses, and by giving globalisation what it most needs now—a human face.
Let no one tell us that the Britain that changed the world in every century in modern times is today some powerless, hapless victim unable to wield power in Europe for good. And let no sceptic tell us that we need to be an impotent bystander when we are, by our history, our values and our temperament, the country that is best equipped to lead Europe forward.
So let us deal confidently with the argument that the European single market somehow hobbles our trade with the rest of the world and undermines London. Let us show that London’s unique role, essentially one of bringing together financial services for the continent, could not now so easily be performed outside the European Union. Let us in championing European reform avoid another trap of representing pro-Europeans as the status quo and anti-Europeans as change. Let us be honest with the British people that those who say that if we exit we can retain the benefits and ditch the burdens have not thought through the alternatives, including the folly of the Switzerland or Norwegian alternatives to membership— even the Norwegians warn against the Norwegian option—which leave us subject to European rules but with no vote in shaping them. To rephrase the aphorism, we would be out of Europe but still run by Europe.
Let me end by saying that positioning ourselves half in, half out, as a Britain that is somehow semi-detached and disengaged, the Britain of the empty chair even when we are in the room, is already making us weaker than we have been before. We have been irrelevant on the Greek crisis, a fringe player on climate change and a mere spectator in the debate that could have shaped a European growth policy. We are marginal on Ukraine, with Ministers looking faintly ludicrous as, in one and the same breath, they say, “Russia must be confronted with a more united Europe,” and, “By the way, we are thinking of leaving Europe.”
In a few years’ time, as the German population falls, Britain can once again become Europe’s biggest and most powerful economy. It would be a terrible irony if, just at the moment we are in an even stronger position to lead in this more interdependent world, Britain were to opt out, leaving Europe divided, Russia empowered, the United States bypassing us for a French-German axis and Scotland threatening to leave a non-European UK. An England that glories in isolation is not the England that I know and love.
Instead we must stand up for a Britain leading Europe, not leaving Europe, and for a Britain that has always seen the English channel not as a moat but as a highway and the North sea not as a defence against engagement in the world but as the route to it. In doing so, we have shaped the destiny of Europe and the world and it is only those defeatists who claim to be championing a patriotic future but who have, in fact, given up on British leadership in Europe who will say that we cannot make leading rather than leaving Europe our mission again.
I stand for Britain in Europe because just as I came into this House believing in Britain, I leave it believing in a Britain that can lead in Europe. I will never stop believing in that vision of Britain’s future.
The Minister for Business and Enterprise (Matthew Hancock)
It falls to me to respond for the Government on this historic occasion of what might be the last speech in the House of the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown). Before I respond in detail to his case, it is only right that the House acknowledges that moment. Since the right hon. Gentleman entered the House in 1983, he has been a warrior for social justice, a master at the Dispatch Box, a Chancellor who dominated both the Treasury and this House, and a Prime Minister who never gave less than his all in the service of his nation.
The right hon. Gentleman has been a brilliant debater, besting Nigel Lawson in his prime and humbling a long series of opponents throughout his career. This House exists to ensure that the great issues of our time are debated, that progress is secured and reforms are made through the vigorous exchange of views and a vote to settle matters. That is why it seems so odd for him to make the case today against vigorous debate, open argument and a vote to settle matters.
The right hon. Gentleman was a champion of the referendum to give Scotland its Parliament, and he spoke movingly and from the heart during the referendum to keep Scotland in the United Kingdom, but he stands steadfast against giving the people of the United Kingdom a debate and a vote on our membership of the European Union. I agree vigorously with him that such votes are won with a fight for hearts and not just heads and bank accounts, but for his party to deny the British people a say in a debate of such central importance to this country is surely to make exactly that mistake. We need that debate and that vote, because no one can be happy with the status quo. We want the whole of Europe to work better, and we want to resolve once and for all our relationship with it.
We must see a more dynamic, entrepreneurial and innovative Europe, with more jobs, investment and growth. The right hon. Gentleman made that case and it is something of an irony that now, towards the end of his long and distinguished time in this House, he makes the impassioned plea to stay in Europe when he was first elected in 1983 on a party platform to leave it. In this age of global competition—what the right hon. Gentleman coined as the new global economy—we need reform of Europe in order to compete with an increasingly open, connected and competitive world.
These past five years have seen Britain transformed from a country lacking in confidence that suffered the greatest banking collapse in history and in which youth unemployment and our deficit were rising even before the great recession. That was the Britain we found five years ago and it has been the task of this Government to reverse that inheritance with all our energy and all our means and with difficult reforms, which we stuck to even while others told us to turn back.
Now we can see a record number in work—including 6,500 more in work in the right hon. Gentleman’s constituency, where unemployment is also down by a third—as well as 2 million more apprenticeships, 750,000 more businesses, rising living standards and the fastest growth in the G7. We on the Government Benches want to see the whole of Europe reformed for the better prospects and opportunities of people across that continent.
Richard Graham
My right hon. Friend is making a series of extremely valid points about our role in Europe today. Does he not think it symbolic that, just at the moment when this country will have created more jobs than all the rest of Europe put together, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath believes that, somehow, ours is the party that advocates leaving Europe and is no longer at the level of competing with Europe? Surely we are in a position to lead it forward into a much better era of growth.
Matthew Hancock
Our country has been and is being turned around, but it will prosper whatever the institutional arrangements of our relationship with Europe. We are a brilliant country with the most enterprising and innovative people in the world, and it ill behoves anyone, least of all the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, to compare Britain’s future to a brutal dictatorship such as North Korea. For him to compare Britain to North Korea shows a perverted sense of reality. Indeed, he loses heads and hearts when he makes such a comparison
There is nothing God-given about the prosperity of our nation or our continent, but with the right policies there is nothing to stop us becoming the most successful major nation upon earth. That cannot be done, however, without reform.
Those who argue against a referendum make the following case. They speak of the risk to investment, which the right hon. Gentleman has mentioned. However, since my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced our policy of a referendum before the end of 2017, investment to the UK has increased by 14%. We have attracted the most inward investment since records began in the 1980s and business investment has risen by 6.8%.
They speak of the dangers of uncertainty, but this referendum does not bring uncertainty. That uncertainty already exists, because we live in a democracy with an unhappy relationship between the British people and the European institutions. Many of us have never even had the chance to vote on the question. The uncertainty is there because in the past politicians repeatedly signed over yet more powers to the EU and repeatedly refused to ask the British people for their consent.
Just as we were left in 2010 on the verge of bankruptcy, so our credit with the British people on the issue of Europe had run out; and just as we on this side of the House are turning around our nation’s economy, so we plan by this renegotiation and referendum to restore trust in our relationship with Europe by putting the final decision to the British public, whom we are here to serve. The referendum does not create uncertainty; it will resolve it and give the British people the say that they have been for so long denied.
The right hon. Gentleman speaks of jobs, but there are record numbers of jobs, and unemployment has been coming down at a record pace. He speaks of British influence in Europe, but our influence is strengthened, not weakened, by taking a clear-eyed view of the British national interest. I ask this: where was the influence in Europe in the past when red lines were printed in such faint ink that they were stepped over again and again, when rebates were surrendered and powers handed over with so little in return?
Mr Michael McCann (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (Lab)
The Minister speaks of red lines. Is he in a position to outline tonight the Government’s red lines in the European renegotiation?
Matthew Hancock
I will tell the hon. Gentleman what we do with red lines. Shortly after his election in 2010, the current Prime Minister threatened to veto a proposal that would have damaged Britain, and our European partners were so used to those threats being made and then abandoned by previous Prime Ministers that they did not believe he was serious. But he was serious and he vetoed the proposal. Now when Britain speaks about the need for reform, we are listened to. That is leadership in Europe: no longer on the hook for eurozone bailouts; no longer increasing the regulatory burden but reducing it; and the European budget no longer rising but being cut. That is our policy.
Let me be clear about our policy in the next Parliament: it is not the narrow vision that sees Europe as the centre of the universe at a time when we export more to the rest of the world than to the EU for the first time in my lifetime, but a patriotic, outward-looking vision of reform and a referendum.
Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
My right hon. Friend will note that this country has turned its back on the policies left behind by the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), just as he has now turned his back on a Minister answering a debate that he himself brought to the House, which is no way to behave—and it was no way to leave the country when he left office.
Matthew Hancock
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. It makes clear, does it not, the choice for the British people for the first time in a generation. We on the Government side reject the pessimism that says we can have influence in Europe only by subordinating our goals. Instead, we have influence through the steadfast pursuit of our national interest. We must drive those reforms that are in Britain’s national interest, and in the interests of every member state; a long-term plan for Europe, with free enterprise at its heart, so that the whole continent can rise, compete and thrive in the 21st century. We will stand up for businesses on red tape, for exporters on free trade and for industry on the free movement of capital, and we will restore fairness to the free movement of people, for work rather than benefits. Before the end of 2017 we will put that reformed Europe to the British people in a referendum so that they may decide our future. That is the policy our country needs: reform, vigorous debate and then a vote to settle the matter, putting our trust in the decision of the British people.
As the right hon. Gentleman bows out from this House, and with the best wishes of the House to him and his family, it is that better future that we must surely follow the path to, so that Britain once again can be among the most prosperous nations upon earth.
Question put and agreed to.
Petitions
Radiotherapy facility at Lister Hospital
Changes to health service budgets
Westminster Hall
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
backbench business
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Digital Democracy
(9 years, 9 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mr Dai Havard (in the Chair)
Before we begin, I have a statement to make on behalf of Mr Speaker and the Chairman of Ways and Means. They have agreed, for the purposes of this debate only, that the public will be allowed to use electronic devices in the Public Gallery, provided that they do so silently and in a way that does not disrupt proceedings. That means that the same rules apply as apply to Members—so we will have no selfie sticks, or the rules of the Louvre museum will be applied. However, it is important that we do this properly. You are pathfinders this morning. You are trailblazers in this Parliament allowing the public to interrelate in the way that has been described: discreetly, with electronic devices.
I call Meg Hillier on behalf of the Speaker’s Digital Democracy Commission to open the debate.
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Havard. I am delighted to have secured this debate about the future of Parliament, because that is no less than what we were discussing for a year as a commission. As you have outlined, Mr Havard, this is a first for Parliament: the public in the Gallery are allowed to bring in mobile devices. We are encouraging them to tweet, text and share today’s proceedings with the wider public. The fact that that is a breakthrough shows how far behind Parliament is compared with the world outside.
Thomas Friedman said that in 2004
“Facebook didn’t exist, Twitter was still a sound, the cloud was still in the sky…LinkedIn was a prison”
and Skype was a spelling mistake. That does not describe the world that we all operate in today. If we look at the way in which Parliament works, we are some way behind that. The rate of technological change is rapid. We cannot control that, and when Mr Speaker set up the Digital Democracy Commission, he recognised that we need to embrace that. The commission has backed his view and agreed that we need to empower those who want to use digital resources to open up our democracy.
Mr Speaker set up the Digital Democracy Commission in January 2014. Made up of eight commissioners, including myself and the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) as the two Members of Parliament on the commission, the Speaker was concerned that the world outside Parliament was leaving Parliament behind. He is absolutely right. Only last week, I was surprised to receive a phone call from Radio 4, who were keen to talk to me about a revolutionary change in Parliament: a new camera angle in the Chamber. Although that may be very exciting for the 650 of us who debate there, and for a few others, it is hardly the revolution that is going on in the world outside.
Mr Speaker set up the commission, bringing together a group of experts from technology, representation and the digital world. We heard evidence over that year, our method being very much our message, using online forums as well as traditional in-person evidence sessions. The commissioners were seeking out those who would not normally get involved. Famously, Helen Milner, the chief executive of the Tinder Foundation and one of my fellow commissioners, had a meeting above a chip shop. The chip shop owner even paid her staff to turn up, feeling that they would not come unless they were paid. By the end of that session, Helen, in her true missionary fashion, had persuaded a young man that voting was probably a rather good idea. That goes to show that, when the Digital Democracy Commission labelled our report “Open Up”, it was about opening up not only Parliament, but democracy as a participatory exercise, rather than just using technology to carry on doing what we already do.
In January we published our report—online, of course. A few rare hard copies are available—I am sure that they will be collectors’ items in future—but again, our method was our message. We made five headline recommendations. First, by 2020, the House should ensure that everyone can understand what it does. Secondly, by 2020, the House of Commons should be fully interactive and digital. Thirdly, the newly elected House of Commons, after the upcoming general election, should immediately create a new forum for public participation in the debating function of the House of Commons. Fourthly, in 2020, secure online voting should be an option for all voters. Finally, by next year—2016—all published information and broadcast footage should be freely available in formats suitable for reuse, and Hansard should be available as open data by the end of this year.
Those were our headlines, and I shall touch on two briefly before going into some in more detail. We talked about online voting, which was the headline that many picked up on, because we were all clear that that was the direction of travel. However, we were not set up to investigate in detail the issues of security and the mechanisms for delivering that, although we hope that the Electoral Commission and others will take that on. The hon. Member for Harlow will talk more about that recommendation.
We also called for an experiment, post the next general election, for what has been dubbed a “cyber Chamber”: a third chamber in Parliament allowing the public to debate an issue ahead of MPs having that discussion. As all MPs will have found at different times, often our debates can be best informed by an individual expert in our constituencies who finds us, approaches us and talks to us about an issue. We hope that the cyber Chamber will develop that expert contribution—by “expert”, I do not mean experts with letters after their name. Sometimes members of the public can be more expert about an issue that they have experienced than Members of Parliament. Again, the hon. Gentleman will speak more about that recommendation.
To turn to the rest of the report, overall, we see this as a road map to improve the way in which MPs engage with the public and to allow the public to better engage with Parliament. Within Parliament, we hope that the new director of the parliamentary digital service, Rob Greig, who joined only yesterday, will use the road map as his job description, as he continues the task of modernising Parliament in a digital way. We also adopted the declaration on parliamentary openness. I will not read that out for the record, but it basically talks about making parliamentary information more transparent and providing easier access to the public, which is the very reason why the commission was established.
Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
My hon. Friend talks about the role of the incoming head of our parliamentary information services. That has to be looked at against the background of first, what happened in the past, and secondly, the difficulties relating to this building. Some 20 years ago, when we put the current network into the House, some of us were arguing that blown fibre would have been the answer. Doing the current cabling was a nightmare, because of the state of the building, the asbestos and so on. If we are to do this seriously, Parliament has to resource it, and the public have to understand that it has to be resourced.
Meg Hillier
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that there is a real mission here, but there is a mission and a will. One of the pleasures of being on the commission was engaging very much with the staff of the House of Commons, who share the desire of Members to modernise the way in which this place works. There are physical challenges in this building, and we need do no more than look at the images of those challenges in the Michael Cockerell documentary. That issue was not the core focus of the commission, but it is fair to say that fellow commissioners who were not used to the workings of Parliament were surprised at some of the physical challenges that we face in this building.
Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) on representing us all so ably on the commission. I also congratulate Mr Speaker on setting up the commission in the first place. It was not an easy thing to do. This is not necessarily the most radical and reforming place that one will ever come across, so we are grateful for that. Does my hon. Friend take great heart from the fact that many things covered in her report and in the Speaker’s commission mirror the work that we have been doing in the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform, particularly on the digital aspects and getting young people, especially, to vote online? She is not on her own, and one day, all this will come to pass.
Meg Hillier
I agree with my hon. Friend that we hope this will all come to pass, and I commend him and his Committee for trailblazing on this issue. Other areas of the House have been looking at the issue. However, it is important that we use the launch pad of the new Parliament, after the general election, to say that this should be business as usual for Parliament. We can no longer debate whether to do it, but should instead debate how to encourage it. It has been a challenge for some colleagues, who worry about the work load that digital engagement can create, but the commission felt very strongly about it. In fact, one commissioner proposed that all hon. Members had a digital manifesto. I would recommend that as an idea, but we did not put it in our recommendations for all 650 MPs. The feeling was that we could not control how that would work. However, it is important that we understand that, although we would knock on a door and hear people’s points of view, that is not the modern method for many young people. In fact, smartphone usage among the under-24s is now more than 80%. It is very important that we allow similar engagement through a digital method.
The resourcing issue is touched on in the report. There was a feeling in the commission that this needed to be resourced effectively. We were not drawn on figures and numbers, but for MPs to do their job properly and actively listen to people through digital means, we need to ensure that we have the resources to do that.
Andrew Miller
Some hon. Members complain about the use of electronic media as a modern version of the postcard campaign: people press a button and send a message to their MP without even bothering to read it. There is some legitimate criticism there, but does my hon. Friend agree that, handled properly, creating proper digital engagement with our constituents will put some of those approaches on the back-burner and replace them with real engagement?
Meg Hillier
My hon. Friend seems to be able to read my mind, because that is what we were seeking to get across as a commission. We had a number of very interesting discussions, in public and, as a commission, privately, about how we encourage real dialogue. One way to do that—this is an area that I particularly want to cover—is by opening up parliamentary information. Open data are a real resource that could be used to make Parliament much more accessible, so that people out there can follow their issues and lobby effectively their MPs and, over time, the Government on them.
Let me use the example of something that has over time been an issue in my constituency—dangerous dogs. That issue has upset and worried a number of my constituents, but currently, if a member of the public wanted to find out where it was being discussed in Parliament, what laws had been passed and which Members of Parliament were actively interested in the subject, it would take a lot of digging through clunky information to try to find that out. No wonder the lobbying companies become intermediaries between the people and this place. That is because it is a full-time job to find out something as simple as what Parliament is doing to tackle dangerous dogs.
However, if we had open data, which is what we are seeking—the House of Commons is certainly doing this and we are pretty sure that the Lords will follow swiftly—that would allow tech experts, such as the many in Shoreditch in my constituency, to develop, for example, an app that meant that someone could look up a topic that mattered to them and follow through exactly where and when that was being discussed. It would possibly flag things up—this would rely on Government being co-operative about publishing an agenda, which was beyond our reach—and allow influence at the right time. One of the most compelling pieces of evidence that we heard was from Clerks of this House, who said that at the point at which legislation is published, it is practically too late to make significant changes. Governments, in our system, determine legislation. We know from debates in this Chamber and from the excellent work of the Backbench Business Committee that debates that happen early on and in which hon. Members can show an interest from their constituencies can and do lead to changes in the law over time, but very often, members of the public write to us just before a vote and do not get the chance really to influence the way we do our business.
Opening up data is just one example. I am sure that we can all think of examples from our own constituencies of major geopolitical decisions on which we might want to have an influence. I say to hon. Members who are sceptical about digital engagement that we might find that we enhance the work that we do by being able to listen to people with strong views, passions, interest and expertise in advance of delivering our thoughts on issues. We would be better informed as Members of Parliament about subjects that matter to our constituents. However, unless they know what is going on in this place, that will not be possible, and it is opaque.
We wanted to see Hansard, for example, in a proper open-data format. Staff in my own office use TheyWorkForYou, which I commend as a website because its algorithms, through its screen scraping—a very old-fashioned approach—give easier access to data about my voting record than I have if I try to look it up in Hansard. We wanted to see that change and we are delighted that the House of Commons is already moving along those lines. We set stiff targets for this year and next year to ensure that things happen as quickly as possible.
Very shortly, we will be able to embed digital clips of what is happening in the House of Commons in tweets, on our websites and so on. That kind of openness is really important. This is the people’s Parliament. That is what Mr Speaker firmly believes, and that is why he set up the Digital Democracy Commission—to ensure that Parliament was reaching out to the people and opening up to the people. We as MPs therefore have a duty to ensure that we are listening to the people.
The Deputy Leader of the House of Commons (Tom Brake)
Perhaps the hon. Lady could expand a little on what the commission proposed on open data, because I think that a lot of the data that she has referred to are available, albeit not very easy to find. Has she identified how that would work, in terms of a member of the public being able to find out about dangerous dogs, and has she been able to make any assessment of what the cost would be of pulling all that information together in one place for the public to access it easily?
Meg Hillier
I had the pleasure of attending with the hon. Member for Harlow an international conference at which we saw some very technical presentations about exact formats. I know that the House of Commons is embracing that approach. I am not the best technical expert to explain which exact format might be used, but perhaps I should lay out the current approach for the record. Websites such as TheyWorkForYou will screen scrape. They will collect data almost in a manual way from a website and then collate it, with an algorithm picking up things. That will never be perfect. That website does a good job, but it would acknowledge its own imperfections. However, if data are produced in a fully open way, in an open format, then algorithms and other mechanisms can be put in place so that information can be collected in a more intelligent and useful way for a member of the public. In effect, the intermediary stops being the lobby group and becomes the technology, but that intermediary between what is going on in this place and what the public want is much faster, sharper and snappier. Equally, it should also work the other way.
One challenge that hon. Members raised with me and, no doubt, with the hon. Member for Harlow while we were on the commission was this: “Won’t there be too many different platforms for us to use?” We will all have to address that challenge. I, for example, will be crowdsourcing which other social media platform I should be using to engage with my constituents. I hope that, through that mechanism, I will gain an idea of which one is most useful to them, rather than me alighting on a system, a social media platform, that is good for me but is not actually used by many of my constituents. It might make my life easier in some ways if I did not get interaction, but that is not what I am here for. I am here to represent my constituents, as we all are. It is important that that technological approach is taken, and certainly the House of Commons is on that track. The new head of digital has just arrived to take it forward. That that post has been created is a sign of the vision for where the House of Commons needs and wants to go.
As well as the digital side, we touched on the very big issues around improving public understanding of politics and Parliament. I think I have touched on that in what I have said, but one issue is about reducing jargon and making parliamentary language more accessible. This is an extraordinary situation. There is a member of staff in this building, working for an hon. Member, who is doing a major piece of research about the availability of “Erskine May”. Those of us in this place will know about “Erskine May”, but I would hazard a guess that most of us in the Chamber today have not seen or touched a physical copy of “Erskine May”. That is because there are very arcane rules about who has access to it and who owns it. There is a real desire— Mr Speaker has been leading the charge on this—to get it made available online, so that anyone out there who needs to look up any of the terms that we use can do that. That may sound a small step, but it is amazing that the rules of this place are held in bound hard copy, accessible to only a handful of experts. That does not help to create an open Parliament, which is one of the reasons why we wanted that to change.
We wanted to ensure that we are reaching out to under-represented groups. We touched on how to ensure that we do not leave behind those who are digitally excluded, because it is not our intention to do so. Just as with Government services that are going online, we need to be mindful of those who are unable to use that process. We see digital as enhancing and improving what we do, rather than replacing human interaction. We want to expand that human interaction to digital methods.
We wanted to look at elections and voting. A key issue internally is how we vote in Parliament. We had some interesting discussions about whether Members of Parliament should vote remotely online. The two Members of Parliament on the commission felt strongly that there was a big benefit to being in the Lobbies and being able to tackle Ministers such as the Deputy Leader of the House of Commons directly, face to face. If we lost that lobbying opportunity, we would feel that we had lost a large part of what we come to this place to do on behalf of our constituents.
The commission concluded that the current voting system is slow, clunky and manual. The House of Lords has been experimenting with using iPads to record voting. One of the benefits of recording voting digitally is that the results of a vote can be available immediately to the public and the media, whereas currently there is a time lag, because of the paper sheets that we use. I should explain for the benefit of those who are not Members of the House that as we troop through the Lobbies, there are three Clerks sitting in each Lobby with large sheets of paper and black marker pens marking off our names one by one as we go through. In the modern world, it is extraordinary that we still vote in such a way. We all have smart parliamentary passes, and it would not be difficult to install technology that allowed us to swipe through. That would enable the result to be relayed to the public quickly, so we could be held immediately to account for the way in which we had voted. I think that that makes great sense and so did the commission, so that is one of our recommendations.
We set quite stringent time targets. As the Speaker acknowledged, it would be generous to say that the House of Commons is living in the early 20th century; we are way behind in many respects. We wanted to force a drive for change and make Parliament and the House of Commons much more open and accessible. The report provides the foundations, but ultimately the public will make it happen. It requires people to be engaged and interested. When we asked the public which of the recommendations they wanted to see implemented quickly, the results were fairly evenly spread. Interestingly, online voting just pipped the others to the post as the favoured option for slightly more than 20% of those who responded to our survey.
We need tech developers to take the open data that will be available and turn it into something that will enable us to carry out our roles more effectively and enable the public to engage with us. When I am knocking on doors in Hackney on a weekend, I can talk to somebody in their kitchen, and I want to have that sort of interaction with everybody. None of us can reach everyone on the doorstep.
I want those who are passionate about an issue to be able to engage more effectively. I am a member of the Public Accounts Committee, and we get a lot of letters. They often arrive very late in the day, just as we are about to start a hearing or sometimes after a hearing. It is a great sadness to me that we have not got the capacity to absorb that information at a more appropriate stage. With the right digital support, those who are passionate will be able to get involved more effectively.
Many people are keen to get involved. Evidence from a survey carried out by Cambridge university showed that 46% of people would like to get involved if they could, but less than 10% are currently engaged with Parliament. Of course, there is a large gap between those who say they will get involved and those who actually do, but even if half of them did so, there would be a massive increase in the number of people getting involved in what we do. That would ensure that Parliament is the preserve not only of those of us who are elected, but of those who want to influence what we do.
As Members of Parliament, we need to be bold and embrace the change. We need to use social media and the opening up of Parliament as an opportunity to listen better to our constituents, not simply to broadcast what we do. If we embrace the Digital Democracy Commission report, proselytise and tell new Members about it, we will make ourselves more accountable and more relevant, and we will improve the work that we do in the House of Commons. That work is, ultimately, representing the best interests of the public and listening to their views.
Mr Dai Havard (in the Chair)
Before I call Mr Halfon, I would just like to say that I have a copy of “Erskine May” here. I am not sure whether it is meant to be a weapons system that I can throw at you if you are disorderly. It looks as though it has never been opened, although I can see that it has been, because there are markers at the page dealing with the maintenance of order during a debate—I think that that is probably what it is intended for—and at a page about disorder and the methods of curtailing debate. Mr Speaker and the Chairman of Ways and Means seem to give me the novelty or unusual discussions to chair. I want to take the opportunity to say that Mr Speaker is in the Gallery, which demonstrates his commitment to pre-legislative scrutiny and to any methodologies that can help with that process, as well as his commitment to engagement.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Havard. I thank Mr Speaker not only for giving me the opportunity to speak in the debate, but for having the wisdom to set up the Digital Democracy Commission, which is a revolutionary initiative to widen interest in our political democracy. It has been a massive pleasure to serve alongside the other commissioners, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier)—I call her my hon. Friend on purpose—who has just made an important speech. I am grateful for the opportunity to serve alongside her.
I believe that our democracy will never be complete unless it makes an effort to reach out to those who do not participate in it, and in considering access to it, we cannot overlook the impact of the digital world. The workings of Parliament are analogous to the workings of the code cracked by Bletchley Park expert Alan Turing. Parliament is an incredibly well engineered machine, but it can be deciphered only by a genius who has the experience and knowledge required to navigate its many enigmas. While we are still using the Enigma computer of Parliament, the public have moved on to getting information via smartphones and open source computers. Another way of looking at that is to consider Parliament as an old IBM mainframe system in an age where system diversity is the rule, not the exception. Parliament is restricting itself, and we need to ensure that it uses all the available options.
The purpose of the report is simple: encourage the public to engage more with Parliament and ensure that Parliament engages more with the people it represents. I believe that three steps are needed to ensure that that happens. First, we need to make sure that there is a free market of information from Parliament. Not only must that be accessible and understandable, but it must provide a forum for exchange and ideas. Therefore, the first step must be, as the report stresses, to overcome barriers through the simplification and digitisation of parliamentary data so that they genuinely become open. Secondly, the creation of a cyber Chamber will enable all to participate in the daily life of the Chamber. Finally, online voting would ensure that the most important part of the interaction between Parliament and citizens was accessible.
We do not need to build everything from scratch. The digital age has seen a lot of companies—Amazon, eBay and many others—developing ways to engage with customers, and we can use existing expertise to develop parliamentary engagement. If representation is to mean anything, rather than simply implementing a new, fancy web design, we should ask people what they want and directly engage with their opinions. The report has started the crowdsourcing of democracy to make it truly inclusive. In an era that is dominated by the digital sphere, it seems almost absurd to have such limited means of accessing House of Commons literature in a digital format and in language that is accessible to everyone.
The barrier to people educating themselves about Parliament and its features is dual: on the one hand, information is hardly accessible in the format used by the new generations; on the other, the language used in parliamentary proceedings is so obscure that, just like the Bletchley Park codes, it takes an accustomed genius to understand it. That is why, as my hon. Friend stated, the first step towards democratising access to parliamentary literature must be a simplification of the language to make it more accessible, which means clarifying the jargon, but also developing tools, accessible digitally, to demystify all the processes so that everyone feels they can get genuinely involved in the parliamentary system.
That participation cannot constrain itself to the traditional roles allocated to citizens. The policy that I find most important, and which is outlined in our report, is the creation of a cyber Chamber that would allow the general public to weigh in on debates that concern them. Throughout this debate, we have discussed ways to increase participation in parliamentary affairs. We can do that only by allowing those for whom the laws are made to intervene in debates, in an informative style, to ensure that every voice is heard.
Our surveys show that people feel disconnected from political parties, but not from the issues that we discuss. People are very interested in what goes on in the world and at home, but not in Westminster politics, which means that we have to focus our efforts on the substance of Parliament, the debates and the laws it creates to allow citizens to feel that they are an integral part of British democracy in action. That should include not only the cyber Chamber, but a new way of directly questioning the Prime Minister and MPs. The focus on direct representation must extend to ways of holding those who lead our country to account, and the report therefore outlines a need for an additional structure for Prime Minister’s questions that would directly involve the public.
If we are to crowdsource our democracy, we must make certain that the public feel they have real involvement in the way Parliament works. The report suggests the creation of a cyber Chamber, or “Open House”, which would be
“regular digital public discussion forums to inform debates held in Westminster Hall.”
That is the right direction of travel, but I am a revolutionary in that matter—we need to go further.
In the long term, we need a separate Chamber of the public where individuals are able to vote on key issues of the day that are being debated, which would give a voice to public opinion. Although the House of Commons would always have the ultimate say, each citizen would be given a personal identification number and could vote online on major debates. The result would be an advisory opinion as to what the public feel about key issues as they happen. The third, virtual Chamber would always be advisory, but it would be a great way to ensure that MPs were made aware of their constituents’ concerns before we walked into a debate. That would be a real way to re-engage the public in our democracy.
Mr Allen
I am following the hon. Gentleman’s speech closely, and he knows that he will not find a greater advocate for the ideas that he and my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) are proposing, but I underline my hon. Friend’s point that many people do not have the access that more educated or wealthier people may have. We have to be very careful not to skew the political system just so that those who are social media-literate and have access to the various devices that can get them into the House of Commons can start to orient policy at the expense of people who are probably more in need of excellent policy from this place.
Robert Halfon
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point: roughly a third of people do not have access to the internet, but that also means that a huge number of people do. Many people have no access to Parliament and do not engage with their MP. The proposed system would not be perfect, but, as the internet and social media slowly spread, it would allow millions of people who otherwise would not engage with Parliament to do so. As the years go by, more and more people will have access to the internet.
The third essential part of the triangle is online voting. When considering the digitalisation of the political system, we must always bear in mind the ever-diversifying ways to use the internet. One of those is the ability to accomplish high-security tasks without having to move. Banks have set up transfer systems that require nothing but a click, so why would it not be possible for constituents to vote online if they wanted to do so?
The voting system is incredibly romantic. We have the old-fashioned pencil and the beautiful, black, dented, old-fashioned ballot box. We mark a cross on a piece of paper and stick it in the ballot box, which is anachronistic and stuck in the previous century. The public have moved on from such behaviour, which is why we have seen such a drop in voter participation and a huge increase in people who want to vote by post. Our surveys show that the majority of people would support an online voting platform, and 15.3% of the electorate chose to vote by post at the last general election, in 2010.
People want new options, and it is up to us to provide them with some. We must not fool ourselves: the decline in voter participation is strongly linked to the fact that new generations interact in different ways and therefore require different ways of appealing to them.
The digital divide is a fading reality, with more and more people being included in the digital age, and we cannot afford to keep Parliament out of it. We have heard the real concerns linked to such a policy, and the entirely valid fear of security breaches is probably the most important threat to the system we have imagined. I was amazed, after the first public meeting of the Digital Democracy Commission, to receive abusive e-mails from people saying that I was completely ignorant and out of touch with the security of online voting, but that is a farcical argument.
There are a huge number of abuses in the current system, but no one says, “Why don’t we look at the flaws in the system?” There are still many small “c” conservative advocates of that system, even though it has enormous problems. When we go to a polling station, we do not even have to show our identification, yet if any suggestion of online voting is made—we have security for online banking and shopping—everyone starts worrying about security.
As highlighted in the report, Estonia shows that online voting does not differ from the security requirements of other online proceedings. The system obviously needs to be protected, but we will not be able to proceed with digital democracy if we retain an attitude of stunned inaction towards progress. By looking away from online voting, Parliament would exclude itself from participative democracy and let the rest of the world move far ahead digitally and democratically. We have to engage the public in the way that they want to vote, and we have to move towards some system of online voting. I hope we can have some pilot schemes so that, by the 2020 election, we may see how online voting can work in certain parts of the country.
This year, we celebrate 800 years of Magna Carta, which is perhaps one of the most important documents in modern history—it might be rivalled only by the ten commandments. For the first time ever, a major country said that the king was not above the rule of law and did not have divine right. It took hundreds of years for the system to evolve into what we know as parliamentary democracy, but in that same way we need to mark this anniversary and to make digital democracy the new internet Bill of Rights between the people and Parliament. The report is a step in that direction.
Democracy does nothing if it does not evolve with the times. Freedom survives only when it is a living organism, not when it is stuck like a pickle in a jar in a laboratory. We must strive to enliven our democracy through the digital world. We would do well to remember that the Bletchley Park codebreakers who saved our country did so thanks to IBM. Democracy is nothing if it does not recognise others.
Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
I did not intend to speak in this debate, but I am particularly interested in the report. Back in 1992, when I was first elected to this place, I complained to the powers that be in the building about the inadequacies of my office. I said that I wanted another telephone line, and the person I spoke to said, “You can’t have another telephone line; you’re only entitled to two.” I said, “Well, I’m a bit old-fashioned. I need a third one.” “Why does that mean you need a third one?” I said, “I need one for voice, one for my old-fashioned fax machine and one for the computer.” The voice on the other end of the phone said, “Do computers use telephones?”
We have come rather a long way since then. That was one of the early mistakes of my career, because when I complained about it to the wonderful Don Dixon, now in the other place, he said, “Ah, son, you’re exactly the person we want. You’re on the Information Committee.” Never volunteer.
The hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) referred to Enigma at the beginning and end of his speech. I had the great pleasure a few weeks ago of sending a message using an Enigma machine, at an event with 200 or 300 young female students. It was an extraordinary opportunity and incredibly thrilling, and it was made even more so by the fact that one of the women from Bletchley Park participated in the event. Her speech was far more enjoyable than mine. The hon. Gentleman is right to reflect back on that technology, but we must remember that that was 1935 technology. Here we are in 2015, talking about bringing this place into the current century.
In opening the debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) discussed how modern systems can more effectively gather information about us and individual subjects and make them available in accessible form. That is achievable, and it is a goal that we ought to set ourselves, but there are significant obstacles, because we start from an environment that is not conducive. By the way, we should not simply digitise everything here. First, we need a root-and-branch examination of what needs digitising and how we should do it.
To give a current example, just recently the Government produced a smart system—to be fair, it could have been done 10 years ago, but this Government drove it through—whereby we no longer need a physical tax disc on our vehicles. They did so by recognising that modern number plate recognition can easily tie in with insurance records, so that we know that a vehicle is insured. That is a very good idea; it was just about digitising the process.
However, the Government have wasted some public money in making that change. Those of us who represent areas with significant rural hinterlands will know that there are rather a lot of tractors on the road. For a considerable number of years tractors have been zero-rated for tax, and now we have a system that still requires farmers to go through all the bureaucratic nonsense of applying for a non-existent tax disc, wasting a huge amount of time in the digital infrastructure of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency for absolutely zero purpose.
As that example illustrates, we need a root-and-branch examination of why we do things in such a way. The hon. Member for Harlow referred to the language of this place; goodness me, he is absolutely right. It infuriates me what arcane language we use. “Erskine May” is not exactly a comfortable bedtime read; you are smiling, Mr Havard, because you have just had a glance at it. It is a horrendous document that is impossible to read. We first need a root-and-branch examination of the business process so we do not fall into the same trap as the DVLA and waste resource.
Secondly, we must examine the rules that govern us, such as those on voting, and the philosophy behind them. My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch referred to that, as did the hon. Member for Harlow. It seems to me that philosophically, we should stick to the physical voting principle that we must be here in the building. The idea of saying, “Well, I’m not going to bother coming down from Ellesmere Port this week; I’m going to sit in my garden and vote digitally on my iPad” is not exactly engaging. The person must be physically present, but using intelligent systems to swipe through a vote would be a positive step. I am thinking of a system akin to the one used in the US Congress.
Meg Hillier
My hon. Friend is right; not only the US Congress but many countries use digital approaches to voting. One of our recommendations, though, involved the arcane but useful process of nodding through, by which people who are on the premises but unwell or physically unable to go through the Lobby for whatever reason can be verified and nodded through by a Whip. We recommended that the handful of people so affected at any time might vote remotely online, without having to be physically nodded through.
Andrew Miller
That is a good point, and we need to examine in parallel whether we would take the same view if, for example, a Select Committee were away from the Palace on official business. That needs exploring. I am not drawing any conclusions; I am saying simply that we need to examine those rules and get the principles right before we embark on phase 2, which will involve bringing the technology into the 21st century.
We should insist, following this debate, that part of the necessary reconstruction of this building involves installing the most advanced fibre networks. We need the tools to do the job properly. My Select Committee, the Science and Technology Committee, piloted the use of iPads in our work, and I must say that although there was a certain amount of resistance from some of my colleagues, it has massively changed for the better how we do things. It has improved the efficiency of our work, and we do not fell a forest by producing ridiculous amounts of paper every time we have a meeting. We need to drive forward with such technologies, but the infrastructure of the House must be considered.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch said, we must also explore the available technologies to ensure that we produce data in a form that is easy for us and members of the public to access. Frankly, I see no boundary between our needs and those of members of the public. There is very little currently on the intranet that should not be immediately available on the internet; the opening times of the coffee shop might be a different matter, but most of that material ought to be instantly available.
Finally, I come on to voting systems. I have been looking at them for some time, because there have been flaws in the existing system. I have seen with my own eyes the effects of people manipulating the current system. Way back in the 1970s, when I lived in Portsmouth, I saw mathematical evidence that in a row of houses that had all been bought up for compulsory purchase, every one of the tenants had cast their vote. If the result of that election had gone against my political views, I am sure that there would have been an election petition about that situation, because we knew that the landlord had manipulated that block of votes. So there are fiddles in the existing system that we need to clamp down on—the hon. Member for Harlow is absolutely right about that.
On the other hand, I had a constituent who complained to me on one occasion, “You know why we vote with pencil?” I said, “Actually, I don’t know why we vote with pencil.” He said, “Ah! It’s so they can rub out the results and produce the results they want.” I said, “Well, that’s a bit interesting, because they’ve produced a result that led to my being elected. So I am clearly part of the establishment now.” There are people who do not trust the existing system, although those are minority concerns.
However, when it comes to electronic systems, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The modern security systems that can be built in will never remove 100% the possibility of somebody standing over someone else at a computer and saying, “I’ll beat you if you don’t give me your password,” in the same way that they cannot solve potential abuse in banking systems. Nevertheless, as we have said, there are corrupt practices in the existing manual system, so we must work with security specialists to minimise those risks. In some banking systems, there is such personalised information that only the specified individual could enter the required data. We all have accounts with systems like that. Yes, they can be abused, but they also help to minimise abuse.
We are now at a stage where we ought to contemplate a number of possible moves. One is to properly pilot a modern system, and not the systems that were adopted a few years ago. A number of constituencies could be chosen as pilot areas to develop such a system, and we could examine anomalies in the voting system compared with other constituencies that we benchmark against.
Another possible move might simply be to use a model that is used in some countries whereby the voting system is not electronic but the counting process is automatic and done instantly. Today, the idea of all those town hall folk sitting around in the early hours of the morning manually going through our voting papers is an absurdity in the extreme. There is absolutely no reason why most of our counts could not be declared very shortly after the ballot boxes come in, even within the existing system. I have no idea what the cost of such an automatic counting system to local authorities would be, but I would guess that it would have an extraordinarily large number of noughts on the end of it. Nevertheless, even just taking a gentle step on the way towards digitising the system could be beneficial.
We ought to welcome the commission’s report and focus on the structure and rule changes that we need to adopt in this place, so that we do not end up digitising things just for the sake of it. Digitisation must have a purpose that focuses on our needs and those of the general public simultaneously. We ought to explore all the issues around voting systems.
In what is possibly one of my last speeches in this place before I step down as an MP in a few days’ time, I wish the commission’s successors in the next Parliament every success in getting some of these changes driven through, to turn this place into a Parliament that can engage more effectively with the people we seek to represent.
Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)
I will be very brief. I had not intended to make a speech today, but I was prompted to do so by the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), as is often the case, but in a very positive way. He talked about Magna Carta, which leads me immediately to mentally flip to a written constitution.
In a sense, we have seen the future and it works—the remarkable report produced by the Speaker’s commission. I never miss a chance to boast about the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee and I hope that we have shown, in a small way, how this could happen as a regular practice.
I have two examples in mind. We have done a report on voter engagement, why people are disengaging and what we can do about it. There are lots of reasons for that: the media; MPs’ behaviour; registration; and not being able to vote easily, for example. We were determined to consult as many people as possible. We thought that engagement of voters would be very important.
I think we received what was, at the time, a world record of responses: we received some 16,000 responses, in one form or another. We used every possible type of social media. Also, and this is an interesting facet of what the commission is talking about, we used other organisations. This does not have to be almost nationalised by Parliament, as it were. Bite the Ballot, the Hansard Society and the British Youth Council all got involved and did their own online survey of all their members. The results then came back to us and were fed into our final report. Our report was very influenced by the majorities that stacked up, particularly on online voting.
In addition, we have produced a door-stopper of a report on a written constitution, which gives all the possible options. We have consulted widely on that. I think that there were some 6,000 responses to that. We have now distilled that into a 10-pager—what one might call a “mini-Magna”—a UK written constitution that tells us what we have now, written down for the first time ever, with some possible options for change on the margins.
Individuals can use that resource online. There is now a further consultation, until the end of the year, until we have had an election and until the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta has passed, and in the run-up to what may well be a constitutional convention. We have that resource open online, so that people can say what their view is on the distillation of a written constitution.
Rather than people saying that traditionally constitutions were written by 30 white guys in a hall in Philadelphia, we would like to have many millions of founding fathers and mothers, who will make their contribution towards what a final constitution might look like. Of course, that will be available to those who wish to set up a constitutional convention.
I want to make two points quickly. I am not trying to spoil the party, but we absolutely need to take them into account if this is to be successful. First, there is the point I have already mentioned to the hon. Member for Harlow about the information haves and the information have-nots. We need a strategy to consider how we can involve the have-nots. I represent the 10th poorest constituency out of 650; it is rated the 10th poorest by many different measures. It may be that two thirds of my constituents have access to social media and the online world, but I suspect not. I also suspect they are not fluent in it. What we need to do is to take these recommendations further to ensure that, as the hon. Gentleman said, everyone has at least the prospect of being involved, if they are not involved now, so that they can be part of this family.
Meg Hillier
I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. He makes a valid point. We discussed digital exclusion a great deal in the commission. It brings to mind a constituent of mine who said, “Remember that my online access is one hour a day at the library.” He is online, but does not have a smartphone in his hand and has no broadband at home. There are layers of digital exclusion, even for those who are able to use the technology.
Mr Allen
Indeed. Dare I mention hon. Members who, like me, do not have the staff available at a particular time or who do not have relatives to help them? I have a young daughter to help me through difficulties when things seem to go wrong. I think many of us are excluded by our own incompetence, more than anything else.
Technology is often neutral. We need to use technology to give us a broader-based democracy and to involve more people. We should never, ever think it is a panacea. The problems with this place are about its relationship with the Executive and its inability to stand as an independent institution separate from the Executive. We must always consider how technology can help us as parliamentarians to build a stronger Parliament. That is what the Speaker’s commission has done. Once again, I congratulate my two colleagues on representing all of us in the House so effectively. More power to your elbow.
Mr Dai Havard (in the Chair)
The two Front Benchers will speak next. Could I ask you to share the time, please, so that Ms Hillier can have a couple of minutes at the end to summarise and talk about what might come through in future? Thank you.
Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Havard. I congratulate both my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) and the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), the other members of the Speaker’s commission and Mr Speaker himself on an important initiative that I welcome warmly. I will address some issues raised in the report and will, with your permission, Mr Havard, touch briefly on broader issues that are relevant to it.
As other hon. Members have said, it is worth reminding ourselves of the political context. When we were in this Chamber debating the report on voter engagement produced by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), we dealt with some of these issues, so I will mention context briefly.
We all know that voter turnout in elections has been in decline in recent years and that our political settlement is a lot more fragile than it was 30 or 40 years ago. There have always been turnout gaps in elections, including a social class and an age gap, and those gaps have widened significantly in recent years. Of course, we know that trust in politics and politicians, and in the traditional political parties, is at a very low ebb.
The hon. Member for Harlow made an important point: there is a disconnect with the political parties, but not a disconnect with the political issues. The report seeks to address some ways in which we can harness that interest in the issues, to make more of a connection with Parliament and how we do business in this place.
Of course, as other hon. Members have said, over the last 40 years the way that people interact with politics and current affairs has changed dramatically, with the rise of social media, a more diverse and mobile country and massive technological advancements. The success of online platforms, which hon. Members have mentioned, such as 38 Degrees and Change.org, has fundamentally altered the way that people raise issues with their Members of Parliament and, therefore, the nature of political debate and discourse. However, my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North is right to remind us of a continued digital divide. That is why I think—all hon. Members have said much the same thing during the debate—that the measures proposed in the report are necessary, but are not sufficient to address the challenge that we face in terms of political disengagement. I will return to that in a moment.
The hon. Member for Harlow spoke about the important issue of online voting. When people can shop, watch television, communicate, bank and organise other aspects of their lives online, it is only right that we explore fully the extent to which democracy itself can be undertaken differently using online methods. Of course, as all hon. Members said, we need to ensure that there is adequate security, so that the security of our democracy is not compromised, and that any initiative is cost-effective.
However, as the hon. Member for Harlow and as my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Andrew Miller) both said, in any method of voting there is a risk of abuse and fraud and there is always a debate about how we strike the balance between ease of access to voting and protecting the voting system from fraud and abuse. We debated that matter in respect of postal votes and traditional voting—turning up at the polling station—and, of course, we should have that debate in respect of online voting. However, such a debate should not be a veto to its consideration. I agree that we need pilot schemes to look at online voting and those need to be undertaken soon. Labour will commit to that. If we demonstrate that concerns about security and cost can be met, we will be in a position to consider wider implementation at an early stage.
These issues are not just about young people. Digital engagement crosses age divides. I have mentioned the big age gap now in terms of turnout in elections and wider public engagement. Addressing these issues, along with other measures—we have committed to votes at 16, for example—we can build much better youth engagement in our politics.
Technology can be used to register more people to vote. Although other hon. Members did not mention that, it is important. This is a big issue that we debated recently in an Opposition-day debate in the main Chamber, and we have debated it here in Westminster Hall. I welcome the Government’s initiative allowing online registration. An extraordinary number of people have registered to vote online. I met the electoral registration officer in Liverpool recently, who told me that now more than 80% of people registering to vote there are doing so online. That is exciting, but we need to consider other ways that we can use technology to allow people to register to vote, using Facebook, as the Government have, local authority websites and other local authority services, and looking at other options as well.
We can learn some interesting lessons from the Scottish referendum, where 97% of eligible voters were registered and turnout was well over 80%. That shows what can be achieved, but we must not forget the scale of the challenge that we face. The Electoral Commission estimates that 7.5 million eligible voters are missing from the register.
Some interesting recommendations were made relating to open data and to a cyber Chamber. My hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle), the shadow Leader of the House, announced recently a proposal to launch a new online democracy portal, which would seek to draw together all the things that people need to know before voting, including basic information about an MP, such as how they vote, and who the political parties are and what they stand for. That links well to the proposal for open data in this excellent report.
The commission’s first recommendation is that,
“By 2020, the House of Commons should ensure that everyone can understand what it does.”
That sounds basic, but it is important. It took my mind back to 1997, when we set up the Select Committee on the Modernisation of the House of Commons and undertook some basic reforms. In particular, it reminded me of when I did the job that the Minister now does, as deputy to Robin Cook, Leader of the House of Commons after the 2001 general election. Robin was determined to drag this place into the 21st century—and certainly, at that time, to drag it into the latter part of the 20th century, even though it was already 2001.
All the time we need to look at what measures we can undertake to better engage the public. My hon. Friend the shadow Leader of the House has talked about engaging people more as legislation is going through Parliament. She proposed a new public evidence stage for Bills, where citizens, as well as experts in the field, can submit their views on proposed new laws, freeing up more time in the Chamber for a whole-House scrutiny stage, so that Back-Bench Members have more of an opportunity to question Ministers about proposed legislation.
The Leader of the Opposition has committed to the introduction of a public question time, where citizens will be able to question the Prime Minister once a week or once a fortnight. That will allow the public unprecedented opportunity to scrutinise the Prime Minister and hold the Government to account. I have been taking forward that proposal and looking at different ways in which it could be implemented. The idea of a cyber Chamber, which the hon. Member for Harlow talked about, gives an interesting dimension to that, and we will certainly consider it as we put more meat on the bones of the proposal.
A long-time passion of mine is citizenship education in our schools and communities. I praise the brilliant work of the education service in Parliament. It has moved on massively in recent years. Whenever I have school parties down from my constituency in Liverpool, I am always very impressed by its work, but we need to do far more to ensure that young people and children are being equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to be active citizens in their childhood, their youth and when they grow up.
The Chair of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North, spoke about his recent report on voter engagement. He mentioned the constitutional convention, which has increasing cross-party support and support in civil society. It is an opportunity for us to engage with the public on some of these fundamental questions on the nature of democracy and to do so in ways that reach those members of the public who are traditionally not engaged in these sorts of discussions. If we can make that work, I do not see why we cannot explore the idea that the hon. Member for Harlow talked about, of having citizens panels that can meet regularly, not just on issues of political and constitutional reform, but on health, education, the economy and jobs of the future. Why can we not engage with citizens in a much more structured way and ensure that their voices are heard?
There is, as my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North said, no single or simple panacea for these fundamental and political challenges. They are not new, but they have grown in recent years. They are not exclusive to this country, but are shared by many other advanced democracies. The proposals in the report are necessary and welcome, but they are not sufficient if we are to address the massive democratic divide in our country. I finish where I started by praising my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch, the hon. Member for Harlow and the other members of the Digital Democracy Commission for an important piece of work. Whatever the outcome of the general election, I hope that the House will take forward the report’s excellent proposals.
The Deputy Leader of the House of Commons (Tom Brake)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Havard. I thank the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) and my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) for kicking off the debate. I also thank Mr Speaker for establishing the Speaker’s Digital Democracy Commission. The majority of its report’s recommendations are for Members of the House to consider and respond to, but everyone has a shared interest in many of the aims and objectives. Increasing public participation and public awareness of the role of Parliament and of MPs is a worthy aim. Of course, we are not starting at point zero. Much has been achieved in recent years as a result of the efforts of many, including the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee. I reassure the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) that he never misses an opportunity to boast about the success of his Committee.
Tom Brake
Indeed.
The report contains 34 specific recommendations. I do not have time to comment on all of them individually, so I will highlight key areas, particularly those in which the Government have a lead responsibility. I will also try to address the points that Members have made on which the Government have a view.
The Speaker’s commission makes some useful recommendations about engaging the public, some of which are aimed at improving understanding of Parliament and the work of MPs. One example is simplifying language, which is something I think we would all support. I was interested in the idea that by 2020, Parliament should be understood by everybody. As an interim milestone, perhaps by 2015 Parliament could be understood by all Members of Parliament, and then we could progress to public understanding by 2020. Some clarity on precisely what “Parliament should be understood by the public by 2020” means would be helpful, because it could mean an awful lot of things to different people.
Other recommendations include clarifying online publications and improving the website, including for those with disabilities or sensory impairments. Much has been achieved in those areas already, but I am sure there is further to go. Making it easier for people to track specific areas of interest is one example of how we could improve our interaction with those who want to engage. The hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch set out how technology could be used to pull together the issues that people are interested in so that they could see in one place the range of contributions being made by different Members in both Houses, by Select Committees and so on. Through that, they could get a real feel for what is happening.
I am glad that the commission looked specifically at engaging the young. If we are to engage better with the public and in particular with young people, it is vital that we exploit the full range of communications channels. Although the web and social media are key mechanisms for reaching young people—I welcome the approach taken during Parliament week to focus on engaging the young in innovative and dynamic ways—there is clear evidence that taking the opportunity to visit Parliament can have a powerful impact on perceptions of our work and role. The shadow Minister outlined that when he talked about the visits enjoyed by schools from Liverpool. A visit can bring a reality to the theory that students learn.
More than 45,000 seven to 18-year-olds from across the UK visit Parliament each year via our education programmes, but such visits are heavily over-subscribed. I therefore welcome the decision by the House of Commons Commission to press forward with the creation of a dedicated education centre. That will increase capacity, giving more than 100,000 young people a year the opportunity to visit Parliament and learn about their democracy. Members will, I am sure, be aware that construction at the north end of Victoria Tower gardens commenced in September 2014. We expect to welcome the first groups to the centre in summer 2015. Votes at 16 can also help engage young people at an earlier stage in the political process and hopefully engage them thereafter when they become adults. That has been Liberal Democrat policy for many years, albeit that it is clearly not Government policy.
The hon. Member for Nottingham North referred to digital exclusion, which is a significant point. I spoke at the Wallington Evening Townswomen’s Guild, and I asked its members, “How many of you would welcome the idea of a cyber-forum where you could all go online and express your views about what the Government are doing or intend to do, or put forward your own views?” Of the 50 or so people present, one hand went up. That woman is involved in a forum that is interested in greyhounds. While we can talk about the importance of online democracy and online engagement, there is still a digital divide. I agree that the divide will probably shrink as people become more used to technology, but I still think there might be a drop-off in the number of people involved. Those of us who started off being familiar with technology—some of us might have grown up more recently, with Facebook and Twitter—will find that our children are using other things that we are not so familiar with. Even people who grew up in a technological world may reach a point where the most modern devices, apps and software exclude them.
We take digital exclusion seriously. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is leading on the provision of superfast broadband to at least 95% of UK premises by 2017, and on providing universal access to standard broadband, through Broadband Delivery UK. The Government Digital Service in the Cabinet Office is conducting research to provide a better understanding of the support requirements of the digitally excluded and assisted digital users. As part of the commitment to reducing the number of people and organisations offline, the GDS undertakes ongoing user research to understand what prevents people from going online. It has brought together 40 organisations from the public, private and voluntary sectors to sign up to a UK digital inclusion charter. Work is therefore going on.
On the report’s recommendations regarding the legislative process, the Government are committed to ensuring that the legislation they put before Parliament is of a high standard, and to ensuring that Parliament has the necessary means by which to perform its scrutiny function. In April 2013, the Government launched the good law initiative, which was designed to promote law that is effective, clear and accessible. One of the best examples of that that I have seen, which I would encourage to happen more often, is the idea of a Keeling schedule, which takes a series of interlinked Acts and creates a document with all the relevant excerpts from the predecessor Acts in one place. That way, rather than trying to read across a number of different Acts, everything can be read in one document. I would like to see that idea used more effectively, because it provides clear and accessible law.
During this Parliament, various initiatives have been introduced that are designed to improve the legislative process, including the use of explanatory statements on amendments, improved explanatory notes and the piloting of public reading stages for Bills. The issue of public consultation during the Committee stage of a Bill was raised in the debate. That was used for the Health and Social Care Bill in 2011, so there are precedents for the Government providing such opportunities for the public to be engaged. The Government have also provided more time to allow proper scrutiny in Public Bill Committees and, where necessary, provided additional days on Report. There are several recommendations in the report on ideas to change the legislative process further, which will clearly be of interest to Members.
On electronic voting, the Speaker’s commission recommended that secure online voting should be an option for all voters by 2020. Making online voting available for UK elections could be attractive in the light of current advances in IT, but there remain concerns that e-voting is not sufficiently transparent or secure. My hon. Friend the Member for Harlow said that banking can nowadays be done by a simple click; the security measures that are in place are significantly more complex than that. There would need to be elaborate protection and security around online voting.
I conducted my own non-scientific online poll about online voting. Admittedly, it did not have a sample size comparable to those mentioned by the hon. Member for Nottingham North, but, interestingly, of the 11 people who responded out of the 232 people reached by the Facebook post—this was an online survey—seven, or 64%, said that they favoured online voting, and four said that they did not. Given that that was a sample of people who were online, and thereby excluded everyone who was not online, we must take on board the fact that a significant minority did not favour online voting. One person said,
“not in a million years, anything digital and online can be easily manipulated by cheats. Trust is the issue”.
Another asked:
“How will you make it secure, given the well documented issues that prevent that?”
Of course, there were people on the other side who were very much in favour. Some did not trust postal votes as an alternative, and Andy was
“inclined to trust the security of asymmetric cryptographic protocols”.
I trust Andy implicitly, so if he trusts them, I am sure that I should also trust them to provide the security needed for online voting. Clearly, we must address the issue of trust in the security of online voting. Public support for such measures is still far from universal, and traditional means of voting, such as polling stations and postal voting, remain popular with the electorate. Online voting would have to be an extra voting channel.
Speaking as a Liberal Democrat rather than as a Minister, I would be very happy for trials to take place in future, now that we have individual electoral registration in place. That was one of the building blocks that needed to be in place to enable trials to go ahead. I hope that that will be considered in future.
The debate has been interesting. All Members will have their own opinions on which ideas merit further effort to bring them into being. The report from the Speaker’s commission is a useful contribution to the ongoing debate. I have highlighted many of the successes of recent years, but I am sure that many Members will be keen to continue the pace of reform, particularly in taking the maximum advantage of the opportunities offered by advances in technology.
The Chamber is becoming more relevant to the lives of our constituents, whether through topical questions or Back-Bench debates on issues such as Hillsborough or contaminated blood, or through Mr Speaker’s greater use of urgent questions. It is important that our constituents see the relevance of what we debate to their everyday lives, and, importantly, that they feel able to engage in the political process. Technology is one way in which we can enable better participation in the parliamentary process and in politics more generally.
New technology has provided the means to move from our existing representative democracy to a participatory democracy, which could represent a fundamental constitutional change, affecting the role of MPs and their constituents, as well as the processes by which we govern. That bring its own challenges—for example, being clear about what is on offer, being genuinely open to ideas, and considering suitable accountability for participative mechanisms of engagement. It is in that context that we need to consider further the purpose and parameters of the reforms we have discussed today. I look forward to the debate being resumed in the next Parliament.
Meg Hillier
I thank all Members who have contributed to the debate, as well as others who were unable to attend but are nevertheless very interested in the work of the Speaker’s Digital Democracy Commission. I also thank many others who contributed to the commission’s deliberations. I thank the commissioners, who gave up their time freely to make the report what it is, and, of course, Mr Speaker, who had the initial vision and chose a mechanism that was not over-bureaucratic to ensure that we could start this century, rather than wait for another 20 years. Thanks to him, we have made more progress over the past year than we would have done had we waited for Members to come round to the idea of discussing digital democracy.
I want to pick up on a couple of points that were made by both Front Benchers. The first was about citizenship education, which put me in mind of a visit I made on behalf of the commission to an international event in Montenegro to look at issues of digital engagement. Montenegro is a very small country that was part of the former Yugoslavia. Because most of the adults there grew up under communism, they were keen to teach their children about democracy. In very good English that in many ways put us to shame, the children explained to the delegates a workshop that they underwent to explain democracy to them and help them to understand it. That underlines the fact that although the commission looked at digital, we were really focused on how to use it to make engagement better. Digital alone is not going to solve the problem, as many have said.
The Deputy Leader of the House spoke about broadband. It is worth drawing the House’s attention to the House of Lords report that was most recently mentioned in this Chamber about a week ago. The House of Lords concluded that broadband should be seen as an essential utility. If we are really to tackle the digital divide, that must be a mission for whoever is in government after the election. I hope that we have cross-party engagement on that.
The Deputy Leader of the House also spoke about engagement, and rightly highlighted some of the progress that has been made, such as opportunities for the public to influence the early discussions on Bills, open evidence sessions and so on. The commission was really clear about one important reason why open data is so important: unless someone knows that such opportunities exist, they cannot get engaged. There is a danger that, because of how the House works, we tend to go to the same few lobby groups and people who have an expressed interest in a subject. We all know that there are silent, quiet experts in our constituencies who, given the opportunity, could really contribute to the work of this place. I cannot do my job without those people, and I am sure that the same can be said for other Members, so it is important that we give them the chance to get involved at the right moment. That is where open data can make a difference.
It would be fair to say that we are on the cusp of a revolution. The report discusses digital engagement, but we know that it is not a panacea. Nevertheless, it is a tool for better accountability for this place and for us individually. We must not let this opportunity pass. Mr Speaker had the vision, and the commission has done its work. We have agreed to meet formally in a year’s time to see how we are doing, and the House of Commons staff are doing their bit, with the new digital leader, who started work only this week, leading the way. Members and the people of this country must now embrace and deliver digital democracy. The report will only live if the public engage. We must say to them, “We open up this place and its proceedings to you. Please contribute. Take on our recommendations and make them live.”
Mr Dai Havard (in the Chair)
Thank you very much. Thank you also to those in the Public Gallery. This is the last time that I will chair Westminster Hall, so it is appropriate that we have discussed the future. The Panel of Chairs has been helping with related matters, so I thank those present for helping us to establish a netiquette—I think that is the word—for the future, in which the public can be involved.
The next scheduled debate will not take place, because the hon. Member who secured it is unwell. We wish him well in his recovery.
First Aid Techniques: National Curriculum
(9 years, 9 months ago)
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Sir David Amess (in the Chair)
There is wide interest in the debate. From the Chair’s point of view, it would be helpful if colleagues quietly let the Clerk know who wishes to make a speech and who intends merely to intervene. Aside from the main speakers, it looks as though there will be about five minutes each for the rest.
Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)
It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I am grateful for the opportunity to have one last go in this Parliament to persuade the Government and my Front Benchers that there is a chance simply, easily, cheaply and immediately to save lives and to transform society.
Teaching emergency life support skills in schools and the community is
“a no brainer, it’s just common sense”.
Those words are not mine, but those of Dr Andy Lockey at the Resuscitation Council. There are 150,000 people a year who die in situations in which, if only someone had known what to do, their lives might have been saved. There are 30,000 people who have out-of-hospital cardiac arrests, but fewer than one in 10 survives. If only someone knew how to do cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or CPR, and if a defibrillator was available, survival rates could increase to 50%.
Emergency life support skills are a set of actions needed to keep somebody alive until professional help arrives. They include performing CPR, putting an unconscious person into the recovery position, dealing with choking and serious bleeding, and helping someone who might be having a heart attack. Such skills are particularly crucial at the time of a cardiac arrest, when every second counts. For every minute that passes in cardiac arrest, the chance of survival falls by 10%. If CPR is started immediately, the time that the person remains in a shockable, and hence reversible, condition will be prolonged. It also means that there will be more of the person’s brain function left—more of them left—if they are resuscitated. At the moment, it is down to luck.
Three years ago, Fabrice Muamba had a cardiac arrest when he was playing for Bolton Wanderers against Tottenham. Fabrice was lucky because he had his cardiac arrest where there were people who were trained in what to do. He was lucky because the club medics and the paramedics gave him immediate CPR on the pitch, so his brain was saved. He was lucky because medics did not give up on him and worked on him for 78 minutes until his heart restarted. Because he was with people who knew what to do, we still have the charming, intelligent Fabrice in this world with us.
My sister’s friend, Malcolm McCormick, was also lucky. Just a month after Fabrice’s cardiac arrest, Malcolm went to school to pick up his grandchildren and he keeled over, effectively dead, not breathing, heart not beating. Malcolm was lucky because one of the people waiting to collect children was a retained firefighter who started to give CPR. He was very lucky because once a month another firefighter volunteers in the school tuck shop, and it was his Friday to be working, so he came and took control of the situation.
Malcolm was also lucky because a defibrillator was available, and he was rushed to a specialist hospital. Three days later he left hospital with very sore ribs, but alive and with his brain intact. Four months later, he was a Games maker at the Paralympics.
Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)
A mother and daughter were at the launch of the campaign in Parliament square. The daughter had saved her mother’s life by recognising that she was not breathing, and she was able to do CPR until the ambulance came. Seeing mother at the launch, chirpy and with it, was a heart-warming thing.
Julie Hilling
The hon. and learned Gentleman clearly caught sight of my speech before he raised his point. I was about to go on to say that Mandy Hobbs was really lucky, too. Her 14-year-old daughter, Samantha, woke up to hear her father on the phone saying that he thought her mum was dead. Samantha had learnt CPR at her swimming life-saving club, and she says that she went on to autopilot and started chest compressions. When she got too tired to carry on, she taught her father what to do. Mandy survived and now Samantha has become the pin-up girl of the British Heart Foundation. Mandy, dad Nick and Samantha are regular visitors to Parliament, trying to persuade the Government to make first aid compulsory in schools.
Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this important debate and I take the point that she is making as a fundamental premise, but does she agree that there is a role for local community campaigns, such as Heart of Gold and the Stephen Carey fund in Northumberland, which are trying to institute and organise more public access defibrillators around the county of Northumberland so that rural dwellers have that access, which saves lives?
Julie Hilling
I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. For me, it starts in schools. If only we could have—I will go on to talk about this more—a generation of life savers coming out of school. We have millions of people in the community who will not have had the benefit of being trained in schools. I applaud his organisations and the organisations in my constituency and across the country that do amazing work to raise money for defibrillators and for training individuals in how to do CPR.
Survival should not be down to luck. There are far too many other examples of people who suffer cardiac arrest and are not saved because the people around them do not know what to do: children such as Ciaran Geddes, who died aged 7; 12-year-old Oliver King; 16-year-old Daniel Young; or 17-year-old Guy Evans. Their mums are campaigning for defibrillators and emergency life-saving skills to be taught in schools.
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
Before I became an MP in 2005, I taught in a school where every single pupil in year 8 did a 12-week first aid course as part of their personal and social education. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is the type of programme that should be implemented so that every single child coming out of school would have those skills?
Julie Hilling
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Absolutely, every school leaver a life saver is what we should be aiming for.
This Government—it may be my Government in two months’ time—have a chance to make a real difference. We want the national curriculum to reflect the essential knowledge and understanding that pupils should be expected to have to enable them to take their place as an educated member of society. Knowing how to save a life would be absolutely in keeping with that aspiration. Knowing how to save the life of a family member or a member of the public would enable children to have an impact on the health of society. Ensuring that life-saving skills were taught in schools would provide the chance to instil in all children how valuable life is and how important it is to be a good citizen.
Mark Hunter (Cheadle) (LD)
I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the debate. She is making a passionate case for something she clearly believes in deeply. Does she accept that this is part of a wider awareness that is needed among the community at large to raise the profile of first aid issues, not only in schools and in the workplace, but across the spectrum, because there are still not enough people who know what to do in an emergency of the kind that she has talked about? If I may, I will acknowledge the support she gave to my campaign for Millie’s Trust, which wants trained paediatric first aid nurses in nursery schools to be a statutory requirement.
Julie Hilling
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right and I congratulate him on Millie’s campaign, because it is absolutely crucial that people do not die when they could be saved. Currently, 7% of the population know how to save a life. Surely we could do much better.
We could join other countries such as France, Denmark and Norway, where emergency life support skills are already part of the curriculum, as they are in various states in Australia and in 36 states in America. In Seattle, children have to learn first aid skills before they can graduate from school, and it is also part of the driving licence requirement. More than half of the population in Seattle is now trained in emergency life support, so people are rarely more than 12 feet away from somebody who could save their life.
However, it is not enough to learn CPR. Michelle, a staff member at Rivington and Blackrod high school in my constituency, knew what to do when her dad had a cardiac arrest. She and others did CPR for a long time before the ambulance arrived far too late to make any difference. Had there been an automatic external defibrillator, they might have been able to shock his heart back into rhythm, but there was not. That is why I applaud the work of the Bolton implantable cardiac defibrillator support group, who work so hard to raise funds and have just donated their 67th defibrillator.
The chain of survival is just that—a chain of action that needs to be undertaken for a person to survive a cardiac arrest. It needs someone to call for help, someone to do CPR, a defibrillator and someone confident enough to use it, and an ambulance to take the person to hospital for treatment. That is why children need to learn how to do CPR and how to use a defibrillator.
The British Heart Foundation is giving Resusci Annies—the resuscitation dolls—to high schools and has produced a CD that teaches those skills in just half an hour, but we should be more ambitious. It is essential that we also teach children to deal with choking and bleeding and to put somebody in the recovery position. Nine out of ten 11 to 16-year-olds have been confronted with a medical emergency, often when no adults are around. Even when there are adults, it is often the child or young person who takes control and, for instance, delivers back blows to stop someone choking or deals with a serious bleed.
According to research by St John Ambulance and the British Red Cross, only 7% of the UK population have the skills and the confidence to carry out basic first aid in an emergency, but 91% of pupils want to learn first aid at school; 98% of parents want first aid on the curriculum; and 96% of teachers think it is important for students to learn first aid. Ninety-five per cent of teachers agree that first aid teaching develops the general confidence and optimism of young people, yet only 21% of our schools equip young people with first aid skills.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
I am enjoying the hon. Lady’s speech immensely; she is making a very powerful case. An argument against having CPR training in schools is that it would take up too much time, but surely what she is saying is that it would not require that much teaching time to get across to young people the skills that they need.
Julie Hilling
I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. I will go on to say more about that in a moment, but let me reiterate the point now: if someone goes for half an hour’s training a year over their time in secondary school, we are talking about two and half hours. If they stay on, it is three and a half hours. If they go for an hour’s training, we are talking about five, six or seven hours. In terms of a school day, it is quicker than going on a cross-country run. We are talking about schools being able to take this skill into the national curriculum and to train people in it.
St John Ambulance and the British Red Cross believe that CPR and public access defibrillator training are important, but that other skills, such as the ability to deal with choking, bleeding and burns, and the ability to place somebody in the recovery position, must also be taught in schools. They believe that that could be done for just one hour a year, some of which could be delivered during an assembly. They, too, have provided free resources online for schools to use.
We still have Heartstart schools, where that range of skills is taught for two hours a year. It would take a tiny amount of the time that children are in school utterly to transform our society and have a nation of life savers. First aid provision also helps to meet Ofsted’s requirement on school safety and on the promotion of pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.
We need to end the scenario in which, when somebody collapses or has a road traffic accident, we all stand around in a circle waiting for someone to act because we are too frightened to intervene. We need to end the fear of companies and organisations that are worried about the consequences of having a defibrillator. No one has ever been successfully sued for attempting to save someone’s life, and as one of my local firefighters said, “If someone’s heart has stopped, they are dead. You cannot make them any deader.”
Schools, companies, businesses and community groups should be far more worried about how they would feel if someone died when, if only they had invested in an AED and someone had known what to do, they could have saved them. Indeed, I believe that we should make AEDs compulsory, like fire extinguishers.
I cannot imagine anything worse than watching a loved one die and finding out that if only I had known what to do, they could have survived, so I have put my money where my mouth is. I have trained as a Heartstart tutor, so that I can teach people to do CPR and deal with choking and bleeding. My staff are Heartstart-trained and all the secondary schools in Bolton West have committed to or have become Heartstart schools.
I have worked closely with Sara Harris and the North West ambulance service to encourage the teaching of emergency life support skills and the roll-out of defibrillators. Sara works closely with the British Heart Foundation on its programmes. I have worked with Greater Manchester fire and rescue service, many of whose firefighters go into schools to teach life-saving skills. I have worked with Bolton Wanderers community trust, which is doing a great job in teaching life support skills and promoting defibrillators. I am working with Bolton implantable cardiac defibrillator support group, who are doing such an amazing job in raising money for defibrillators.
Recently, I have started to work with Lagan’s Foundation, which is a foundation that supports parents of children with heart disease and is also doing CPR training. I have campaigned with The Bolton News for every school leaver to be a life saver, and I have met with Ministers and shadow Ministers, and spoken on the subject many times in this place, including introducing a ten-minute rule Bill.
However, that is not enough, because every time there is a change of head teacher or the staff member responsible for emergency life support skills leaves, we have to start again. The only way to ensure that all children learn how to save a life is to put life-saving skills into the national curriculum. The only way to ensure that a defibrillator is available in our schools and other public buildings is to legislate for them to be a requirement. Since I started campaigning for that four years ago, I have heard some tragic and inspirational stories. I appeal to the Minister and to the shadow Minister to commit to introducing emergency life-saving skills to the national curriculum and, as a bare minimum, to ensuring that pupils know how to do CPR and how to use a defibrillator.
Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)
It is a pleasure both to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David, and to follow the hon. Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling). I am getting déjà vu; I think this is our fourth debate on this issue—it would be easy just to dust off our previous speeches. I have been supporting this campaign passionately, and I am delighted that next Wednesday, I will be turning up at the Minister’s office to have yet another push. It is a relentless campaign from us, and like “The Shawshank Redemption”, surely it would just be easier to agree with us.
As the hon. Lady said in her excellent speech, 30,000 people a year will have a serious cardiac arrest outside hospital, and disgracefully, only one in 12 can expect to survive. Ambulances take six to 12 minutes to arrive, and for every minute that passes in which immediate CPR is not given, the survival chance falls by 10%. If immediate CPR action is taken, the survival chance rises threefold. It is a great, crying shame that most people are simply not able to help or will walk by, not having the confidence to step in. In previous debates, we have heard horror stories of groups of people standing around and taking photographs, with nobody being willing to step forward. Therefore, it is perhaps no surprise that we have such a disgraceful survival rate of just one in 12.
We are all committed to trying to empower people with the skills and confidence to step in. As the hon. Lady so eloquently put it, frankly, anything is better than doing nothing. Someone cannot be deader than dead.
David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) on securing the debate and on her stirring words, and I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) on the speech that he is making. I have learned a lot not only from this debate and the campaigns that they have put forward, but from St John Ambulance and British Red Cross locally. They have taught me what more I need to do. Will he join me in congratulating them on their work across countless constituencies? Is there more that we can do to support their efforts in helping this important campaign?
Justin Tomlinson
I thank my hon. Friend for his excellent intervention. I think we would all join together in congratulating St John Ambulance on their brilliant work, not just in his constituency, but right across the country, and a number of organisations are desperate to step in and support the activities that we are pushing for in schools. This is a win-win for so many different people.
One reason why I am so passionate about this issue and have worked so closely with the hon. Member for Bolton West, a number of other MPs, and particularly, the British Heart Foundation—it has been fantastic in providing statistics and doing work that I will come back to—is that I found my father after a critical cardiac arrest. I was aged 12. I came into the shop where he had been collecting the money, and I kicked into autopilot. I probably was not particularly good, but it was better than nothing until passers-by came by. When we see the statistics, we are often blinded by the numbers, but I can personally vouch for just what happens when someone is in that situation.
Our aims are simple: we want people to recognise an emergency, to know that they should contact an ambulance immediately, and to administer CPR. Things have changed—it is not the kiss of life now. Simply by doing compressions in the right place, we can potentially keep people going for 15 minutes or even longer and give them a good chance of survival. We want people to use an automated defibrillator, and of course I support the campaigns to put them into as many public places as possible. My hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) has been tireless in raising that issue in debates and parliamentary questions.
We have pushed on this matter time and again. We had the e-petition with 100,000 signatures. We have had visits to Downing street. This is, I believe, our fourth debate. We have had parliamentary questions. We have had meetings and, as I said, there is another one in a week’s time. And we have responded; we have listened. The challenge is that people do not like to be prescriptive in the national curriculum. I understand that. I also understand that at one point there were 150 campaigns pushing for things to be in the national curriculum, and that when we asked for two hours in the curriculum, that was too much. We have gone away and turned that two hours into 30 minutes—the British Heart Foundation in particular has been fantastic on that point. A one-off 30-minute session can equip people with the skills to be life savers.
We are flexible. We are not proud. We do not mind whether the training takes place in biology or physical education lessons. It could take place during a school assembly. It could happen at the beginning or end of term. It could be given at any age. It could be part of citizenship education. We do not care, as long as there is a 30-minute window at some point during the school cycle. Even more impressively—this is for the Treasury—the British Heart Foundation has already purchased all the packs, so there would be no cost to the Exchequer, and each pack includes a DVD, so staff would not need extensive training. As long as they can put a DVD in, we will be well on the way.
The hon. Member for Bolton West reeled off statistics that showed how supportive of the idea teachers, children and parents are. Her statistics were even more favourable than mine, so I have put a big red line through mine in my notes. Importantly, we as politicians are not used to being popular, and this is an opportunity for us to garner huge support from teachers, children and parents.
We have to make this training compulsory. It needs to fit somewhere in a child’s education. We can create a generation of life savers. We have seen that, in countries such as Norway, survival rates reach as high as 50%. In this country, that would mean something like 5,000 more people surviving every year, because of a simple 30-minute gesture. We have a duty to create the next generation of life savers, and I hope that we seize that opportunity.
Teresa Pearce (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)
It is a privilege to speak under your chairmanship, Sir David. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) on securing this very important debate. She has spoken on this issue tirelessly during the past five years, and I am sure that she will continue to do so.
As my hon. Friend pointed out, there is currently no mandatory requirement of teaching about CPR—first aid—or public access defibrillators in the national curriculum in England. That is denying generations of young people the opportunity to develop life-saving skills that would benefit everyone. Today, however, I want to speak specifically about how the lack of CPR training and readily available defibrillators in schools and public places is preventing sufferers of sudden arrhythmic death syndrome, known as SADS, from having the best chance of survival. SADS is the term used to describe heart conditions that can suddenly affect seemingly healthy young people. It affects people between the ages of 12 and 35, and Government statistics show that it causes the deaths of about 12 young people a week. However, the true figure is believed to be higher, because the condition is often misdiagnosed. Each of those deaths is a personal tragedy. In my own constituency, in February 2013, Philip Lamin suffered a fatal cardiac arrest while playing football after school with his friends. He was 16. It was following that terrible event that I first met Juliet Lamin, Philip’s mother, who despite her terrible loss—Philip was her only child—has campaigned tirelessly to raise funds so that there are defibrillators in every local school. Although we cannot say for certain that the presence of a defibrillator would have saved Philip’s life, statistics suggest that it would have hugely increased his chances of survival. I want to take this opportunity to commend Ms Lamin, who is listening to the debate, and the young people she works with for keeping this issue at the front of people’s minds and raising awareness. Her relentless commitment and dedication are amazing. She is an inspiration.
A number of organisations, including the British Heart Foundation, the British Red Cross, St John Ambulance and SADS UK, have highlighted how defibrillation, along with CPR, forms a crucial part of the chain of survival following a SADS attack or out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. Last year I, like many of us, met the Oliver King Foundation, which is calling for the introduction of legislation to make it compulsory for defibrillators to be placed in all public buildings, including schools and sports centres, to help prevent the deaths of many young people from SADS. At that time, the Oliver King Foundation had done excellent work in placing more than 450 defibrillators in public places across the country. Reportedly, those defibrillators have already started saving lives.
It is important to have defibrillators available, but it is clear that their presence alone is not enough. Evidence suggests that a defibrillator is less likely to be effective if CPR has not been carried out before it arrives. However, the lack of training and uncertainty about what to do mean that, as we have heard, bystanders are reluctant to get involved even if there is a defibrillator at the scene. Many people say that even if it was for a loved one, they would be reluctant to get involved because they would not know what to do. Teaching people CPR and defibrillator awareness in secondary schools would alleviate that fear. Young people would leave school with knowledge that could save a friend, a loved one or a stranger.
The Government’s cardiovascular disease outcomes strategy, published in March 2013, recognised the need to improve out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survival rates and sought to increase the number of people trained in CPR and defibrillator use. In April 2014, the Department for Education published guidance for schools on supporting pupils with medical conditions. It encouraged schools to consider purchasing a defibrillator and stated that staff members trained in CPR
“may wish to promote these techniques more widely”.
It also recognised the importance of training to the confidence of bystanders. However, those were suggestions, not mandatory requirements.
Helping schools to purchase defibrillators is not enough when teachers and students are not confident enough to use them. At present, although some schools may choose to cover basic first aid as part of their wider curriculum, others are free to ignore it completely. There is a lack of consistency in the provision of that teaching, because if a member of staff who champions first aid leaves the school, there is no obligation to continue their good work. That means that first aid may be taught one year and not the next, which implies that it is not a serious subject. Surely the Government’s next logical step should be to make CPR and defibrillator awareness a mandatory part of the national curriculum, because every week people are dying when simple CPR training, combined with the ready availability of defibrillators, could help them to survive. Both need to be offered to ensure the maximum chance of survival.
Making CPR and defibrillator awareness part of the school curriculum is widely supported by organisations, and polling of parents and teachers has shown that they support it, too. It cannot be right that people such as Juliet Lamin and Philip’s young friends have to go from school to school and youth club to youth club to raise awareness when it is us, the legislators, here in this place who can change the law to make it happen. I urge the Minister to take on board all the comments that have been made today and to take affirmative action to ensure that CPR and defibrillator awareness are a mandatory part of the national curriculum for the benefit of us all.
Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) on securing the debate. It is a pleasure to be here today. We have followed this debate and issue for quite some time. Defibrillators have been popping up around village halls, swimming pools, leisure centres and gyms across the whole of the South Derbyshire constituency very much as a charitable, volunteer arrangement. Similarly, when the British Heart Foundation really kicked on with this campaign and made the offer of kit to schools, I, as a good constituency MP, wrote to all my local schools and colleges about having the equipment put in, and I am delighted to say that the William Allitt school, High Grange school, the Pingle school, Foremarke school and Granville sports college took up that offer. I have been into the Pingle school and been with the children as they were having one of their lessons, pumping up and down on the dummy. Obviously, people can imagine which face I was imagining as I was doing that—there are people we want to keep and people we perhaps do not want to keep—but it was a pleasure to be there with those children. Would the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr Brown) like to intervene?
Heather Wheeler
The hon. Gentleman was just wondering who I was thinking of. That is fine.
What I find fascinating is that there is no pushback—no pun intended—from the children. The children want to do this training.
Again, as an MP campaigning about issues that are important to people in South Derbyshire, I have written to my hon. Friend the Minister and we have spoken about this issue. Our local St John Ambulance is keen on it, the children are keen on it and the schools are proud of what they are doing. Village hall committees are helping to organise the defibrillators in their areas. There is support from county councillors, such as Linda Chilton in the Melbourne area, which helped to pay for one of the defibrillators. There is a huge groundswell of support. I genuinely believe that the time is right for Ministers to accept that it is a good idea, and to accept that there is an opportunity, perhaps after May, to put such skills on the curriculum. We are rolling out citizenship classes and making sure that older children understand the importance of politics and democracy. Only one thing is more important than politics and democracy, and that is living and breathing. I hope that the Minister takes on board all the comments from everybody in the Chamber, and I again congratulate the hon. Member for Bolton West on ensuring that the debate is alive and kicking today.
Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling), who secured the debate, and the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Heather Wheeler). The numbers that have been outlined during the debate speak for themselves. More than 30,000 cardiac arrests occur out of hospital each year, and less than one in 10 people survive. That statistic should worry us all as MPs with constituents, and as members of families and communities where such deaths regularly occur year in, year out. Those statistics mean that, if I were to have a cardiac arrest outside hospital now, my chances of being able to go home and see my family tonight would be minimal.
That does not have to be the case. In places around the world such as Seattle, parts of Holland and parts of Norway, survival rates can reach 25%, which means that a quarter of people who have out-of-hospital cardiac arrests make it home to see their loved ones. If we matched the survival rates achieved in parts of Norway, we would save 5,000 lives a year. That is 5,000 families still together; 5,000 mothers, fathers and children together would see the benefits of such changes.
I am proud to be the chair of the all-party group on heart disease, and I have worked with the British Heart Foundation and colleagues in Parliament to push the case that life-saving skills are essential for young people and society, and that they should not be optional. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the British Heart Foundation, which provides the secretariat to our all-party group: chief executive Simon Gillespie, policy director Mike Hobday, Maura Gillespie, Rachel Almeida, John Howard and Susannah Kerr. The BHF has done great work on genetics, on the impact of sugars, salts and fats on heart disease, on plain packaging, on exercise and on defibrillators. The CPR campaign is one of its most important campaigns because it is, quite literally, life saving.
I will provide two examples from right here in Parliament. Bob Sheldon, an ex-MP who is now Lord Sheldon, died outside Parliament about 15 years ago. Duncan Goodhew, the swimmer, was walking past and saw it happen, and he brought Bob back to life. Paul Keetch, a former Liberal Democrat MP, was flying from England to New York, and he died over Northern Ireland. He was lucky—I have to make sure I get this the right way around—to be flying on a Virgin Atlantic plane, which had a defibrillator. The defibrillator was used and he was saved. If he had been in a British Airways aeroplane, he would not have been brought back and would not have survived. I apologise if I have got that the wrong way around.
The incident involving young Samantha Hobbs has already been relayed. I met Samantha and her mother in Portcullis House when Samantha gave us a lesson about how she saved her mum. It was absolutely lovely to see mother and daughter still bonded with each other because of Samantha’s skills. The BHF campaign is a great way to get the message across to the public: it tells us to pump the heart to the rhythm of “Stayin’ Alive”:
“Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin’ alive”.
Chris Ruane
I will, as long as my hon. Friend does not ask me to sing a duet with her.
Julie Hilling
Those of us who are more musically challenged can do it to “Nellie the Elephant”.
Chris Ruane
For those who are not impressed by the examples I have given of people being saved—the mother and daughter, Bob Sheldon and Paul Keetch—in cold-hearted actuarial terms, the insurance industry reckons that every person who dies prematurely costs the country £1 million in lost taxes, lost education and lost life. If we prevent 5,000 people from dying prematurely from heart disease every year, the country will save £5 billion. Over the next 10 years, the saving would be £50 billion. It makes economic sense, but most of all, it makes health sense to introduce lessons about CPR.
Charities such as the British Heart Foundation are doing their part. To date, 930 secondary schools across the country, plus two community groups in my constituency, have signed up to help build a nation of life savers. As has been mentioned, the BHF is providing kits free of charge to schools and clubs. The charity is doing its bit, and it is time for the Government to meet it halfway and help to deliver CPR and public access defibrillator awareness across the four nations. The BHF’s innovative “Call Push Rescue” training scheme teaches CPR and PAD awareness in less than 30 minutes. It takes just 30 minutes to save a life.
Will CPR awareness sessions affect our children’s maths and English? Will they reduce our children’s skills? Will they adversely affect our children’s standard assessment tests, their GCSEs or their A-levels? Such training can be slotted into the curriculum in many different ways, as has been said. For example, it could be taught in biology lessons or—my favourite option—in PE lessons. The good thing about CPR is that it can be taught anywhere in the school curriculum, and it must be possible to find 30 minutes somewhere in that curriculum.
Mr Russell Brown
Since the meeting that my hon. Friend and I attended last week, I have made inquiries about what is being done in Scotland. The curriculum in Scotland contains carers modules, and I am led to believe, although I still need confirmation on this, that CPR could well form part of such modules. That should not simply happen in one place; it should be rolled out across the whole of the UK.
Chris Ruane
I totally concur with my hon. Friend, and I am glad that he has made investigations about the scene in Scotland. Nineteen MPs have attended this debate, and dozens of others have signed early-day motions, spoken in other debates and tabled parliamentary questions. Heart disease is the biggest killer in the country, and any political party that gets on top of the matter will be given political credit for it. It is a non-party political issue, however, and it is great to see hon. Members from across the House and across the United Kingdom here supporting the call for CPR and PAD. I hope that we will use our position in Parliament to influence our Front-Bench team, our Back-Bench team and our manifestos. I also hope that we will use our position as local leaders in our constituencies to influence schools and health authorities to ensure that the important issue of CPR and PAD is raised locally in our communities and nationally.
Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) on securing this incredibly important debate.
I start my speech with a confession. When I first encountered the idea of putting CPR and life-saving skills on the curriculum in the early days of this Parliament, I was sceptical about it. Unfortunately, I did as the Whips keep telling me not to do and looked a little further into the matter. I dug a little further and looked at some information, and two things convinced me: the statistics and the evidence from abroad. I was also influenced by the fact that I have the pleasure of occupying an office that is two doors away from that of my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), and it was unlikely that I would get away with holding a view contrary to his for long.
The statistics speak for themselves, and we have heard some of them this afternoon. There are some 30,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in the UK each year. Survival across the UK is poor and highly variable, with survival rates of between 2% and 12%. Where ventricular defibrillation takes place, survival rates are slightly higher, but fewer than one in five people survive. Half of cardiac arrests are witnessed by bystanders, but too few people have the knowledge of CPR to make the difference between life and death.
One of the most shocking statistics, and one that prompted my interest in this issue, is that 12 children under the age of 18, and many more adults, die in the UK each week from cardiac arrest. As somebody involved in youth sport, I felt passionate about making sure I got a better understanding of how this issue affects our youngsters. We automatically think they are healthy because they are young, but as we have seen from examples such as that of Fabrice Muamba, the fittest person can suffer a cardiac arrest.
For every minute that passes without defibrillation, a victim’s chances of survival decrease by between 10% and 12%. A simple calculation shows that a victim is likely to have the maximum chance of survival up to between eight and 10 minutes after the cardiac arrest occurs. With a current ambulance target response time of eight minutes, time is of the essence, so acting quickly and using the appropriate therapy are essential.
If the statistics do not speak for themselves, let us look at the international evidence. This country lags quite far behind on teaching youngsters and adults CPR and life-saving skills. In the US, 36 states have passed legislation to make sure youngsters learn emergency skills. If an emergency ambulance is called, and immediate bystander CPR is used, followed by early defibrillation, survival rates following cardiac arrest in those 36 states can exceed 50%. In Seattle, CPR has been taught in school PE lessons for more than 30 years, and survival rates have increased by 52%. It is also on the curriculum in France, Denmark and Norway, where survival rates have also increased.
In stark contrast, the UK has incredibly poor rates. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon made clear, however, the British Heart Foundation’s campaign to teach these skills has been well thought through, and it is now being rolled out in many guises, using DVDs and other equipment. We can no longer simply say there is too much pressure on the timetable.
After the hon. Member for Bolton West mentioned some statistics, my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon crossed his out, but they are the ones I want to use. Some 86% of teachers think emergency life support should be part of the curriculum, 78% of children want to be taught how to save someone’s life in an emergency and 70% of parents think children should be taught ELS at school. That would take as little as 0.2% of the school year, so by taking just two hours from their entire school life, children can learn to save a life.
The teaching does not have to be prescriptive, contrary to what I originally thought—hence my early scepticism. It can be really flexible; as the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane) said, we can teach essential life-saving skills in PE, biology or assembly. There are so many different ways we can teach them to children.
I want briefly to mention the campaign I have been running in my constituency. Inspired by a better knowledge of the statistics, and taking a lead from my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), I have been trying to ensure there is as much access as possible to defibrillators across my constituency. The campaign has been incredibly good in terms of not only ensuring that we have this life-saving equipment, but bringing people in communities together.
We now have five defibs in schools across my constituency. At one secondary school, the opening ceremony was done by the mum of a boy who goes to the school. He has a heart defect, and she came up to me afterwards and said, “Every day, I said goodbye to my son when he went to school, and I wasn’t sure whether he would come home that evening. I have no idea what is going to happen, but I feel a little safer now, knowing that this equipment is on site.”
We have defibs at Aylesford rugby club and Snodland football club and in two of the three remote villages in my constituency. The defib coming to Larkfield is being supported—finally—by Tesco. To start with, the company had misplaced concerns about liability, but we managed to reassure it that the defib will cause no liability issues. Other defibs are coming to other parts of the constituency.
The campaign has been assisted by Georgina, my assistant in the constituency. She ran a marathon to raise funds for defibs in her town—Snodland—and the village of Burham. I want to use this opportunity to thank all the fundraisers from the schools, the scouts and the guides, as well as councillors, Georgina and the businesses that have supported us. Last but not least, I want to mention the people at Cardiac Science, who have supported us every step of the way. They were kind enough to tell Georgina that if she passed the finish line—no matter what her time or how much she raised—they would give her another defib. She managed to raise enough money for two defibs, and Cardiac Science gave her the third for free. That has been absolutely fantastic.
The campaign has been incredibly popular across the area, but I have also learned some lessons from it, and those have come later in the campaign. I targeted schools—they are all secondary schools—with big sports communities. They open their facilities at the weekends, and they are also often open in the evenings for adult learning, so we naturally put the defibs there—the only problem is that there is no access to the defibrillators when they are closed. As we have progressed with the campaign, therefore, we have made sure that the latest defibs are in locked, secure boxes and that people can now ring the ambulance, get the code and get access to the community defib.
If I am re-elected in May, I will carry on trying to get as many defibs as possible across the constituency, because there are simply not enough. I also want to raise enough funds to move the defibs from the inside to the outside of schools so that they are available to the whole community.
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
It is wonderful to hear about the number of defibrillators around my hon. Friend’s constituency and about people’s access to them. My constituent Sean Doyle collapsed with a heart attack at Greenhead park on the edge of my constituency. He was fortunate that three doctors were running by that morning and saved his life. He has raised funds for a defibrillator, which is now in the park. Does my hon. Friend agree, however, that the nub of the debate is making sure that people know how to use defibrillators and have the confidence to make a quick decision to save someone’s life? I hope we will get a response from the Minister about people getting training in schools.
Tracey Crouch
People do not actually need training to use the modern defibs, which “talk” to people and tell them exactly what to do. They will not administer a shock if it is not required. They walk people through the entire process, which is why I feel comfortable about the number of defibs we are getting across my constituency.
To conclude, I would like to think that every child leaving primary school had the basic skills to put someone—whether an adult or a child—in the recovery position and to call for help. That is not asking too much of our teachers or of children’s time in primary school. I would also like to think that, by the time children left secondary school, they had the confidence to use a defib and to do CPR. That is down to basic training, but that training could save a life. That is all that we, as legislators, should focus on. These proposals are not opposed by educationalists or teachers, and parents and children want them. They would be a real asset to our wider community.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a pleasure to contribute to the debate, and I thank the hon. Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) for her passionate introduction and for setting the scene.
I doubt whether there is anyone present who has not heard me talking about the beauty, character and innovation to be found in Northern Ireland. We have much to offer the world, and it is a Northern Ireland innovation that has made it possible for us to be having today’s debate. The modern defibrillator was created by a man called Dr Frank Pantridge, who has aptly been called the father of emergency medication. Frank was an Ulster Scot, hailing from just outside my constituency at Hillsborough, within the county that I serve—yet more proof that the best always hails from Ulster. It is always a pleasure to come and say that.
I think most hon. Members will have caught sight of medical dramas on television where a patient goes into V-tach and the doctor shouts for the crash cart and jumps the heart into action. One small box has the ability to completely change a patient’s life and that of the people around them; that is how vital it is. Whenever someone suffers a cardiac arrest, early intervention and resuscitation are essential to improve the outcome, as other Members have said. That is why it is crucial that defibrillators should be available, and that people should be trained to use them. Training need not be terribly intensive, but it must help people who are unsure. There is a way of talking people through the process.
I want to provide a Northern Ireland perspective, because I think the Minister and other hon. Members will be pleased to hear about some of the things that we have done across the water. The hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane), who has just left the Chamber, mentioned that 19 Members from around the United Kingdom were in the Chamber. My local council, Ards borough council—soon to be North Down and Ards district council—has informed me that the life of a gentleman who was swimming at the pool was saved, after the call went out and someone came running with a defibrillator and used it appropriately. The outcome would have been very different had the machine not been available, but it was, and it saved his life. Indeed, that has happened on many occasions. Such events are not limited to TV medical dramas. They happen in real life, and defibrillators, used correctly, save lives.
In Northern Ireland, we have a campaign called Defibs4Kids, with the aim of putting defibrillators into schools. At the start, about 30 schools in Northern Ireland had defibrillators, but as of June last year the number had risen to 170, and it is still rising. There is a map online showing the schools that have defibrillators, and my colleague the Health Minister in Northern Ireland is overseeing that initiative. I know that the matter is devolved, but perhaps other Departments may need to be involved to enable the initiative to progress. The next phase of Defibs4Kids concerns the mapping of defibrillators in local and central Government Departments and agencies, to be followed by businesses and community defibrillators, including first responder schemes.
About a month ago in my constituency, a new first responders scheme was launched in the Ards peninsula and Kircubbin. It took nearly three years to get that scheme going, because it was a Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety issue, but it happened through working with the community. The hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch)—I hope I can call her a friend as well—visited my constituency to attend that event. She has seen what the scheme does, the people who were trained, and the enthusiasm and energy that made the project happen. That is good news.
I am informed that each year in Northern Ireland, approximately 1,400 cardiac arrests occur outside a hospital environment. Fewer than 10% of people who suffer an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survive to be discharged from hospital. Indeed, each year in the UK about 30,000 people have an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. For every minute that passes in cardiac arrest before defibrillation, outside a hospital setting, the chances of survival are reduced by 10%.
The Northern Ireland Chest Heart and Stroke Association has stated that it supports the provision of lifesaving equipment in the community, but it does not itself provide emergency aid training or equipment. However, it encourages sporting organisations to raise funds to buy equipment such as defibrillators, and can suggest suppliers of the equipment and associated training services. Just two weeks ago, Rosemount Rec football club in Greyabbey took delivery of a defibrillator, and members have been trained to use it. It is available for every football match—home and away, wherever they may be. It was good to see how the club did that. The NICHSA also encourages clubs to set aside money to give staff initial and recurring training in using the equipment. It is simple to use, and individuals who have not been trained can still use it, but it is sensible to provide training.
I have been contacted by many community groups in my area that had saved for a defibrillator and needed training. I have had inquiries about defibrillators from churches, and I have even liaised with Asda—I am not trying to promote it above any other supermarket, but there is an Asda at the shopping centre. It has a defibrillator in every one of its locations in Northern Ireland. That is all part of the work that has been done to make defibrillators available.
There was another event the week before last, along with that at Rosemount Rec football club, at Greyabbey Presbyterian church, which had raised money for a defibrillator. The congregation, along with the community association, want to make another first responders defibrillator available in Greyabbey, in the Ards peninsula. Those people are volunteers. Thankfully, defibrillators are becoming more available; the issue now is to see that people are trained in their use. Of course, the best place to start is in school, so we are pursuing that strategy.
It is clear that groups, clubs and organisations take the issue seriously. The question is whether the Department of Health takes it seriously enough. The Minister replying to the debate is in the Department for Education, but in Northern Ireland it is a Department of Health issue. When we hear of young footballers and rugby players dropping dead on the pitch, or active, healthy people having a heart attack at the swimming pool, it brings home what we need to do. Is it really fair to put the onus entirely on a group or organisation to have the equipment and training on hand, or could and should the Government help?
I believe that aid and training can and should be provided, and I await the Minister’s response, bearing in mind that the matter is devolved to Northern Ireland. I fully support what other hon. Members have said today, and the outline strategy is for defibrillators to be available in schools and other community places, and for help to be provided for those who want to be prepared if the unimaginable happens.
Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) on securing this important debate.
We have heard an awful lot of statistics and numbers this afternoon, and I do not intend to dwell on those. I will focus more on a personal case from my constituency—the story of young Sam Mangoro, who was a 16-year-old pupil at Mountbatten school in Romsey. Almost exactly a year ago he suffered a heart attack and collapsed. His heart stopped beating during a PE lesson. We heard the stat that fewer than one in 10 who have a heart attack outside hospital are likely to survive, but Sam was one of the lucky ones. His PE lesson was being led by a teacher who was there for an interview—she was not even on the full-time staff. He collapsed, and she had had training.
Enormous credit is due to Mountbatten school, because it was one of the few schools in my constituency that had a defibrillator, which it had purchased some months previously. I will not say that that happened by chance; the chair of the governors had had a conversation with her son-in-law, who was a doctor for the air ambulance. He had explained to her in great detail why it was so important to have defibrillators in public places where young people might play sport—because every minute counted. As a result of that conversation the school purchased its first defibrillator, and on 6 March 2014 Sam Mangoro’s life was saved because the school had staff trained in CPR and a defibrillator on the premises.
The excellent news is that the whole Mountbatten school community has now embraced the need for CPR training, and two more defibrillators have been purchased. As might be expected in a large rural constituency, the school is on quite a large site, and the view was taken that three defibrillators were needed to provide sufficient coverage and make one of them easily reachable anywhere on the campus should a child collapse. Mountbatten school has led the way in Romsey, and Sam’s story was a wake-up call for many other schools in the area. I do not say that it is commonplace, but it is not uncommon for schools in the constituency to have defibrillators. There is a great deal of awareness of the issue. I agree with the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) that first responders and similar groups are now more likely to have defibrillators. Defibrillators can be seen outside village pubs and community halls around my constituency. Mountbatten school has become one of the British Heart Foundation’s “nation of life savers” schools.
Alongside access to defibrillators, there has to be training. Modern defibrillators talk people through the process, and I have used a defibrillator that the Oliver King Foundation demonstrated to us in this place. I know how straightforward it is, but the issue of confidence still remains. It is easiest to imbue confidence into people when they are young. We have heard that school pupils wish to learn CPR and, unlike those of us who could be described as middle-aged, they have no hesitation or trepidation; they get stuck straight in. We therefore have an important opportunity.
I am a member of the Select Committee on Education, and on 17 February we published a report calling for personal, social, health and economic education to be a statutory part of the curriculum. Many hon. Members have pitched to the Minister this afternoon the idea that CPR should be taught as part of physical education, biology or, perhaps, citizenship, but I will of course make the pitch that CPR should be part of PSHE. I cannot think of a more obvious place in the curriculum for CPR. Of course, PSHE is not currently mandatory or statutory, and I have consistently called for it to be a statutory part of our curriculum, as I firmly believe it should be. If we take that step, CPR should be a mandatory element of PSHE.
Last year, I spent a mere half an hour with St John Ambulance in Romsey, and it reminded me of some basic CPR training that I received a very long time ago when I was a member of the Brownies. I am proud to have gained my Brownie first aid badge when I was about nine or 10, and CPR has not changed radically. Way back in the 1980s we were not doing CPR to the tune of “Stayin’ Alive,” but St John Ambulance is keen to emphasise that that is the rhythm that people have to deploy—it is really straightforward. St John Ambulance also showed me again how to use the automatic defibrillators. My hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) is correct that CPR can be taught very quickly—30 minutes is all it takes—and I urge the Minister, first, to consider the Education Committee’s plea that PSHE is made a statutory part of the curriculum and, secondly, that PSHE is the right place for CPR.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) on securing the debate. She has been assiduous in ensuring that the rest of us are held to account on the issue, about which she feels very strongly.
It is surprising that, after the debate in the Chamber on 22 November 2012, the issue remains unresolved and that we find ourselves back here discussing largely the same matters. On that occasion, the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), then children’s Minister, was positively effusive in her support for this idea, yet here we are in the dying days of the Parliament and we do not appear to be much further forward. As my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Teresa Pearce) has said, there is no requirement to teach life-saving skills in our schools. In some schools, children learn about automatic external defibrillators or CPR, but the Government, as far as I am aware, have no settled policy on the issue. The Minister might be able to help us on that point.
In December 2014, the Minister for Schools was almost as effusive as the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk, and perhaps even more so. He became the first Education Minister to back adding first aid to the curriculum when he said that it should be a compulsory part of personal, social, health and economic education, or PSHE, lessons. I understand that the Government’s cardiovascular disease outcomes strategy recognises the need to improve out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survival rates and promotes an increase in the number of people trained in CPR and in the number of public access defibrillators. What steps are the Government taking to increase the number of people with such training, as part of their strategy? Schools seem an obvious place to start if we want to increase the numbers, and teacher training courses are another place where it might make sense to try to increase training. I would be grateful if the Minister shed light on how the strategy is being implemented, because that might go some way to addressing some of the issues raised today.
When the Secretary of State for Education was last asked about the issue in a parliamentary question, the best she could offer was that the Department of Health was
“helping schools to procure defibrillators at a reduced price.”—[Official Report, 2 March 2015; Vol. 593, c. 672.]
The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said that there is often difficulty between Departments, and I take that point, but what we are doing in schools requires more than the Secretary of State to tell us that the Department of Health has a policy to help to get some cut-price defibrillators.
Jim Shannon
The first responders organisation on the Ards peninsula, where I live and which I represent, has managed to buy half a dozen defibrillators at a reduced price. The organisation has obviously negotiated that price and made defibrillators more financially available.
Steve McCabe
Most people would agree with anything that could be done to make the equipment available at reduced cost.
As I understand it, the Department for Education non-statutory guidance encourages schools to consider purchasing a defibrillator as part of their first aid stock, and the guidance also suggests that staff members who are already appointed as first aiders might wish to promote first aid techniques more widely in the school among teachers and pupils. That is the end of my pre-election knockabout, because I recognise that the bulk of the debate has been relatively consensual. I will not pursue the Minister any further.
Like others, I recognise that every year some 150,000 people die in situations in which first aid could have made a difference. According to the British Heart Foundation, more than 30,000 people suffer out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in the UK each year. Some hon. Members said that fewer than one in 12 survive, but my researcher told me that the figure is fewer than one in 10—we know that not enough people survive. As the hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) reminded us, this is not about statistics; it is about real-life experiences that people may or may not survive. It is important to bear that in mind, and we are clearly behind other countries in teaching CPR to young people.
According to the Red Cross, only about 20% of our secondary school students learn first aid skills in the classroom, and it is estimated that less than 13% of pupils access some sort of CPR training at school. If we ensured that school leavers were capable and confident in performing CPR, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West said, an estimated 5,000 lives could be saved each year.
Arguably, we are behind many of our European counterparts; countries such as France, Denmark and Norway all make life-saving skills such as CPR a mandatory part of their school curriculums. For many years, they have used strategies ranging from self-learning with DVDs and mannequins to structured teaching, which is exactly the model that Members have discussed today.
Further afield, a recent statement by the American Heart Association concluded that CPR training should be required for graduation from secondary school. I was told that 20 states have introduced such a requirement, but I note that two Members have said that the number is 36, so I bow to their superior research. I understand that most US schools use a CPR training kit that trains 10 to 20 students at a time and takes 30 minutes, which is not dissimilar from the approach recommended by the British Heart Foundation and mentioned in the debate by several hon. Members.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane) said, international evidence suggests a substantial decrease in deaths associated with cardiac problems in countries where CPR training is mandatory in schools. In Norway, for example, survival rates are 25% better than our own for individual cases of cardiac arrest. To compare the international story to our own, as I have said and others have repeated, only 20% of our students leave school having learned first aid, so we can see the scale of the problem facing us.
As was mentioned earlier, when asked in a recent survey, almost all secondary school students stated that they would want to help a friend or family member needing emergency first aid, but 94% said that they needed further training before they would feel capable of doing so. A further half of secondary school students admitted to feeling nervous and panicking in such situations. The issue is further exacerbated; a British Heart Foundation survey found that barely a third of respondents would know how to perform CPR on a friend or family member. That is worrying when we consider the number of people at risk.
As I understand it—other Members here may be better informed than me—it is likely that CPR training would be confined to the secondary sector, as young primary-aged children frequently lack the physical strength to carry out CPR on adults. In their case, training would probably involve general awareness, maybe about the appropriateness of dialling 999 or putting someone into the recovery position, as the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) said. It seems to me that it would not exactly be a daunting task to teach that to primary school children; the British Heart Foundation claims that its training takes about 30 minutes. The hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) reminded us that the Select Committee on Education recommended in its recent report “Life Lessons” that PHSE should be compulsory in schools.
I will conclude by summarising the Labour position. We are committed to ensuring that life-saving skills are taught in all our schools, and we are happy to talk to schools and teachers about the best way to ensure that that happens. As we heard earlier from the hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North, some people think that this should be part of PSHE while others suggest that it should be included in the physical education curriculum. There is some debate. The PSHE Association wants a programme of study that includes emergency life-saving skills.
Schools might also use organisations such as the Red Cross, St John Ambulance, the Royal Life Saving Society or others to provide relevant resources and training. As we have heard in the debate from a variety of Members, several local organisations and campaigns could be utilised to that end. The hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford described the arrangements in her area to supply equipment, which showed what a community effort it can be. The hon. Member for Strangford told an encouraging story about what progress can be made, but he also served to remind us that, at times, Departments can be good at getting in the way. If ever there were a case for joined-up government, it is on issues such as this.
What matters more than anything is that we stop discussing and start doing. Under Labour, life-saving skills, including CPR where age-appropriate, will be taught in all schools.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)
That is the third education policy announced by the Opposition during this Parliament; I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe). It is a pity that he does not have a few more to put to the electorate in two months’ time. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David; it is the parliamentary assessment board all over again. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) on securing the debate.
There is nothing more important than keeping children, and indeed the staff who teach them, safe in our schools. This Government have already done a great deal to ensure that defibrillators are more widely available in schools. In answer to the question asked by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak, we have encouraged all schools to consider purchasing automated external defibrillators, or AEDs, as part of their first aid equipment. We refer to that in the new statutory guidance on supporting pupils with medical conditions at school.
In November last year, we launched new arrangements to help schools to purchase high-quality AEDs at a significantly reduced price. To make that as easy as possible, we also produced a guide, “Automated external defibrillators (AEDs): A guide for maintained schools and academies”, covering the issues that schools might wish to consider when purchasing an AED, including location, maintenance and access to training. It was developed in collaboration with NHS ambulance services and other specialists, including Dr Andy Lockey of the Resuscitation Council, who was mentioned by the hon. Member for Bolton West. I am pleased to confirm that as of 6 March, 227 confirmed orders under the scheme had been placed, for a total of 291 AEDs.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Heather Wheeler) touched on the important role that AEDs can play in communities. Many schools view a community-access AED as a tangible contribution that they can make to their community. The AED guide suggests that schools might wish to consider community access where such a solution also meets the needs of staff members.
Access to an AED is only part of the story. Every second is important when someone suffers a cardiac arrest, and first aid skills are vital to ensuring that help is available when it is most needed, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) pointed out from his own experience when his father had a cardiac arrest. I see why he is so passionate about the issue; he is an indefatigable campaigner on it, as he is on other life skills in the curriculum.
Therefore, the guide is clear about the importance of defibrillation and of CPR in the chain of survival. Schools will already have first aiders trained in CPR, but there is no reason they cannot use the purchase of an AED as an impetus to promote knowledge of those skills more widely within the school community; indeed, the Department for Education’s guide suggests that schools do that, and we hope that many of them will choose to do so.
The hon. Member for Bolton West made a powerful case that we should go further, persuasively arguing for CPR and life-saving skills to be included in the national curriculum. Similarly powerful speeches were made by my hon. Friends the Members for North Swindon, for South Derbyshire, for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), and for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes). I listened carefully to the story of the PE teacher attending an interview at Mountbatten school and all I can say is that I hope to goodness that they were given the job of PE teacher at that school.
Mr Gibb
If not, I am sure that he or she has been snapped up elsewhere.
We heard powerful speeches from the hon. Members for Erith and Thamesmead (Teresa Pearce) and for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane); I am sure the latter will receive a letter from either Willie Walsh or Richard Branson, depending on which airline did not have a defibrillator. There was also a powerful speech from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon).
I recognise that the intention of the hon. Member for Bolton West is to ensure that more people have the knowledge and skills that could prove so valuable in assisting a child, teacher or someone visiting a school who suffers a cardiac arrest. However, whether teaching such knowledge and skills should be an addition to the national curriculum is another question.
The new national curriculum, which came into force in September 2014, represents a clear step forward for schools. It will ensure that all children have the opportunity to acquire the essential knowledge in key academic and non-academic subjects. However, I am afraid that it has now become somewhat routine for Education Ministers to come to such debates to make the case against the inclusion of a particular new requirement in the national curriculum. Proposals such as this are often supported by a persuasive argument, but their sheer number means that we need to start from a position of caution when addressing them.
The national curriculum creates a minimum expectation for the content of curriculums in maintained schools. Quite deliberately, it does not represent everything that a school should teach. Also, schools do not have a monopoly on the provision of education to children; parents and voluntary groups outside school also play an important role.
Many schools choose to include CPR and defibrillator awareness as part of their PSHE teaching. In the introduction to the new national curriculum, we have highlighted the expectation that PSHE should be taught, and improving the quality of PSHE teaching is a priority of this Government. However, we do not want to prescribe exactly which issues schools should have to cover in PSHE or other related parts of what we would call the school curriculum, as opposed to the national curriculum.
Prescribing a long list of specific content to be covered could be unproductive, leading to a tick-box approach that did not properly address the most important issues. Nor would it ensure that schools addressed those matters that were most relevant to their pupils. Indeed, we should trust schools to provide the right education for their pupils, within the overall framework of the national curriculum.
Julie Hilling
I had some optimism at the start of the Minister’s speech, but I have come back to a state of depression after listening to what he has had to say. He is talking about a list of issues that come to him, but how many of them could save 150,000 lives a year and how many would combine a range of issues including citizenship and boosting confidence? I ask him to consider the fact that this subject potentially has a special, indeed unique, position in our national curriculum.
Mr Gibb
I am not arguing against the inclusion of CPR in a school’s teaching curriculum; I am arguing about whether teaching these things should be statutory. There is more than one way to achieve an objective.
Also, if we look at the list of issues that people argue should be included for consideration in the national curriculum, we see that many of them would save a significant number of lives each year: relationships; drugs and alcohol; emotional and mental health, and well-being; emergency life support skills; homelessness; forced marriage; violence; transgender issues; tobacco; animal welfare; bullying; gambling; gender equality; cancer; symptoms of brain tumours in young people; fire and road safety; body image; the UN declaration on the rights of the child; environment; the dangers of carbon monoxide; cooking; media literacy; knife crime; parenting; chess; and foetal alcohol spectrum disorder.
Those are all specific cases where Governments, including the previous Government, have been lobbied over the years for things to be included in the national curriculum. It would be easy for any Minister—Conservative, Labour or Liberal Democrat—to say yes to those issues, only to find that there was little time in the national curriculum for the core academic subjects that we want children to learn. However, that does not mean that we do not think those other things should be taught in schools.
CPR is included in the non-statutory PSHE programme of study produced by the PSHE Association, which should please my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North. That suggested programme of study, which was produced by some of the leading experts in PSHE teaching, includes teaching young people how to recognise and follow health and safety procedures and ways to reduce risk and minimise harm in risky situations, and how to use emergency and basic first aid. Many schools also make use of organisations such as the Red Cross and St John Ambulance to provide information to young people about first aid and dealing with emergencies.
The British Heart Foundation has been mentioned by a number of hon. Members. It has offered to provide free CPR training kits to every secondary school in the country, allowing young people to gain first-hand experience of that important life-saving skill. The training kit covers how and when to perform CPR on an adult or child; how and when to put someone in the recovery position, which was referred to in the debate; and how and when to use a public access defibrillator. It contains an educational DVD demonstrating how to carry out CPR while trainees join in by using mannequins, so that no instructor is needed. The kit includes 35 mannequins, enabling every pupil in a class to learn CPR together.
We will work with the British Heart Foundation to promote that kit to schools. Indeed, the DFE is notifying all schools of the foundation’s “Call, Push, Rescue” kit in the next all-school termly e-mail, and we will continue to work with the foundation to promote its resources, as well as those provided by St John Ambulance and the British Red Cross, to all schools.
Many schools are already making good use of the resources and opportunities that are available to teach CPR, and to raise awareness of public access defibrillators. At Fulford school in York, for example, CPR training is managed by the deputy head teacher as part of his responsibility for pastoral care and character. One day each year is set aside to train all year 7 students; CPR training is part of their personal development lessons. At the last training session, around 30 teachers stayed behind to help and to learn the skills themselves. Feedback from the parent council has been favourable, as has been the response from students.
Other schools approach the training in a different way. For example, at Devonport high school for boys, CPR training sessions using the “Call, Push, Rescue” kit have been run in PSHE classes on Friday mornings. Since the school received the kit, year 10 students from three of the school’s six houses have undertaken the training.
I again thank the hon. Member for Bolton West and other hon. Members for their thoughtful and constructive contributions to the debate. I reassure them that I agree with them about the value and importance of first aid skills, and I also support access to defibrillators in schools. Although we do not believe that adding teaching on those issues to the national curriculum would advance the cause most effectively, we will always remain open to further discussions about the best way to promote those issues to schools and to ensure that schools have the resources they need to keep their staff and pupils safe.
Lake Lothing: Crossings
(9 years, 9 months ago)
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Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David, and to raise the issue of a third crossing over Lake Lothing in Lowestoft. This is a matter of great importance to those living and working in the Lowestoft area. There has been a need for such a crossing for many years.
Lake Lothing, around which the port of Lowestoft is based, splits the town into two parts. At present there are two crossings: the bascule bridge at the eastern end, close to the town centre and the outer harbour, and a crossing at Mutford lock to the west, at Oulton Broad. The two crossings are inadequate, and congestion frequently builds up, particularly when the bascule bridge opens to allow vessels into and out of the inner harbour. A poor road network has blighted the town for a long time. It is a disincentive to people to go into the town and is preventing businesses from moving there or expanding there.
The challenge of building the third crossing has been considered many times over the years. It is not a straightforward task, although I believe that in the past five years the building blocks have been put in place that will enable the bridge to be built at last. I propose to explain why that is the case and what now needs to be done to take the scheme forward. The bridge will bring benefits not only to north Suffolk but to East Anglia and the United Kingdom, by developing the regional economy.
I am particularly pleased that the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill), will be responding to this debate. Last summer, he started his fact-finding drive along the A47 from the centre of Lowestoft. He arrived early on the train. I drove him around Lake Lothing and he saw for himself both the problem of the bridge and the great potential that can be unlocked by building the third crossing.
I want to provide some historical context. There have been two crossings of Lake Lothing, approximately in their current positions, since 1830 when the first swing bridge was installed, linking the town centre to Kirkley and Pakefield. That bridge was replaced in 1897 with another swing bridge, the Jubilee bridge, which lasted until 1969, when it broke down. It was replaced in 1972 with the current bascule bridge. Two bridges over Lake Lothing were adequate while the main transport routes to Lowestoft were by sea and rail, but it was apparent even before world war two, with more reliance on road transport, that there was a need for a third bridge and that its absence was hampering plans to bring new employment opportunities to the town. The problem was compounded by the decision to construct a three-lane bascule bridge, which was illogical when one takes into account that there are four, and now sometimes five, lanes of traffic approaching it.
In the past 35 years, much of Lowestoft’s rich and proud industrial heritage has gone. The fishing industry is a pale shadow of its former self, the canning factory and the coachworks have long since closed, and there has been a move away from traditional home-based tourism. It would be wrong to blame the lack of a third crossing for their demise, but poor infrastructure to and around the town has hampered attempts to attract new businesses to the area.
The problems faced by coastal communities such as Lowestoft, which include inadequate infrastructure, are deep-rooted and will not be addressed in five years. However, since 2010 policies and initiatives have been put in place, and projects have been carried out, that will reverse the decline and enable the necessary road infrastructure to be built that can bring sustained economic growth back to Lowestoft.
First, the Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth enterprise zone has been a great success, with 40 new buildings now completed and £19 million of private sector investment secured, including the developments on the Riverside business park, which adjoins Lake Lothing. On his recent visit to Lowestoft, the Prime Minister announced plans for the future expansion of the enterprise zone, which could include land in the surrounding area. To realise the full potential of the enterprise zone and the assisted area designation, good road infrastructure is required, including a third crossing.
Secondly, a major constraint on realising the full economic potential of the Lake Lothing area has been the lack of adequate flood defences. That was all too apparent during the storm surge of 5 December 2013, which hit the area particularly hard. It is vital for businesses investing in their premises that flood defences are in place. Thus it is welcome that funding has been secured for a £25 million flood protection scheme. This major engineering project will be constructed over the next few years, during which time temporary arrangements will be put in place to provide the necessary protection. Addressing that problem means that developments can proceed, which in turn focuses attention on providing better road infrastructure.
Thirdly, Lake Lothing is not the only pinch point in the Lowestoft road network, and work is taking place to sort the others out. The Oulton Broad North level crossing is a major cause of congestion, but a solution to improve the situation has been found. When the railway line to Norwich is re-signalled, the platform will be extended and the signal board repositioned, so that trains can run into the platform while the crossing remains open to traffic. That work should be completed in 2016 and will result in a considerable reduction in the time for which the barriers are down, during which congestion builds up along Bridge road, Normanston drive and Gorleston road.
The long-awaited final phase of the northern spine road, which removes traffic from the Bentley drive area to the north of the town, will be completed in the next few weeks. The scheme is taking place as a result of a £4.63 million pinch point fund grant from the Government. A relief road for Lowestoft has in effect been built in phases over the past 30 years, and the new section of the northern spine road is the penultimate item of work. The final piece in the jigsaw, which will link them all together and join the north of the town to the south, is the third crossing. It is thus right that we now focus our attention on its delivery.
Fourthly, for too long during the past 40 to 45 years we have built roads in a piecemeal, scattergun way, rather than by pursuing a strategic planned approach. That explains why the gestation period for many projects is elephantine and why some schemes are woefully inadequate almost from the day they open, as was the case with the new bascule bridge in 1972.
In the past year there have been encouraging signs that a strategic approach will be pursued in future, as the Government have carried out feasibility studies on six trunk roads as part of their road investment strategy. One of those roads was the A47, which links north Suffolk and Norfolk to the A1 at Peterborough. The A47 is at present of poor quality along much of its 119-mile length, and its unreliability has meant that it has not functioned properly as the gateway to growth that it should have been. In December, the Government announced an initial investment of £300 million for upgrading the A47, to include some dualling, junction improvements and extending the road to Lowestoft. This is good news, but it is not the endgame. It is only the beginning of a campaign for a full dual carriageway link from Lowestoft to the A1. That would enable the road to function properly as a gateway to growth and ensure that the whole area along the length of the road realised its full potential. It would create an estimated additional 17,000 jobs and an increase of £706 million per annum in economic output across the region. The new, upgraded A47 now starts on the south bank of Lake Lothing, which provides the context within which we can now plan for the third crossing.
A start has been made, with Suffolk county council commissioning WSP consulting engineers to provide an overview of options both to the east, close to the bascule bridge, and in the centre of Lake Lothing. The study considered the engineering feasibility, the budget costs and the likely effect on traffic movements of the options, and concluded that bridge crossings both in the centre of Lake Lothing and to the east are technically feasible. From analysis of the report, it is clear that more detailed work is required to produce a robust scheme that everyone can get behind and that can be promoted to secure funding for the bridge’s construction.
There are further issues that need to be addressed. First, there is the bridge’s location. It needs to be in a position that both enables traffic to flow smoothly around the town and enables the port and the businesses located there to realise their full potential and make the most of the exciting job opportunities emerging in the offshore energy sector. When one looks at how the various phases of what is in effect the Lowestoft relief road have been built over the past three decades, one sees that the obvious location for the crossing, to enable traffic to flow smoothly, is at the centre of Lake Lothing. During that time, port operations have changed and vessels have got bigger. If the crossing is to be in that location, it must be a high-level bridge that does not have a negative effect on the potential to bring jobs to Lowestoft and that serves the emerging offshore renewables sector. Lowestoft is well placed to benefit from those opportunities, due to its geographic position close to wind farms, the skills built up in the oil and gas sector over the past 40 years and the town’s growing reputation for expertise in offshore renewables technology.
Secondly, the report identifies further work that needs to be carried out to arrive at the optimum solution. That includes further traffic monitoring, taking into account not only existing traffic flows but changes that are likely to result from the completion of the northern spine road, new housing and new business development; full ground condition surveys and environmental investigations; an assessment of the impact of any scheme on existing buildings, including those that might have to be demolished; and the likely cost of necessary land acquisitions.
Thirdly, the business case for the third crossing needs to be worked up. Lowestoft has three economic assets: the port, the town centre and the south beach. At present, all three fail to realise their full potential due to the dysfunctional road system that serves them. The third crossing can solve that problem, thereby creating hundreds of new jobs. We must demonstrate how that will be achieved.
I am seeking Government support and assistance to take the scheme forward. The necessary background and preparatory work has been carried out, but we now need to move forward on two fronts. First, a full, credible and robust scheme needs to be prepared. The New Anglia local enterprise partnership and Suffolk county council have indicated that they will carry out that work if the Department for Transport confirms that it will give the scheme full and serious consideration and there is a reasonable expectation that funding for the bridge’s construction will be forthcoming. Will the Minister provide that confirmation?
Secondly, the work is detailed and will take some time to complete. While it is ongoing, it is important that short-term improvements are carried out to ensure that traffic flows more smoothly and to relieve congestion. Later this year, tidal flow arrangements over the bascule bridge, which are necessary as a result of the bridge having only three lanes, are due to be improved. The old signs and signalling equipment will be replaced. It is important that that work takes place on time. The Highways Agency is working with Suffolk county council on proposals to improve key junctions around the town, including the nearby Pier terrace, the Asda roundabout, Tom Crisp way and its junction with Blackheath road, and the junction by the Flying Dutchman. Will the Minister do all he can to ensure that those works take place as soon as possible?
For nearly 80 years, there has been a need for a third crossing over Lake Lothing, but requests to Governments of all colours have fallen on deaf ears. As a result, many people in Lowestoft feel let down by and alienated from those in Westminster. To get the third crossing built will not be easy. Plenty of challenges lie ahead, but there are reasons to be optimistic. First, the Government recognise the need for a strategic approach to building such large local infrastructure projects. It is helpful that the crossing is now on a strategic route, the A47, which has been identified as a growth corridor. Secondly, the acceptance of the need for such projects to be driven by local people and local businesses who know their area best, rather than by the man from Whitehall, is encouraging. Those people are better placed to understand what a scheme such as the third crossing can do for the Lowestoft and East Anglian economy. Finally, the success of the enterprise zone illustrates and confirms Lowestoft’s great potential, but that can be fully realised only by first-class infrastructure. In summary, there is a real opportunity to build the third crossing. I look forward to the Minister’s reply on how the Government will work with local people to turn that dream into a reality.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Robert Goodwill)
It is a delight to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) on securing this debate on the third crossing over Lake Lothing in Lowestoft. I know that the subject is of great importance to him and his constituents, including businesses within the area, and he spoke eloquently. I visited Lake Lothing and Lowestoft on 4 July as a prelude to my epic road trip along the A12/A47 that culminated at Peterborough. I know that the road is very important for a number of Members whose constituencies lie along it, not least my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), who I note is in her place.
Lowestoft is an important centre in Suffolk and the east of England. While its traditional industries, such as fishing and tourism, have declined over the years, the town has begun to develop as a key centre of the renewable energy industry in the UK. As with any key centre, having good transport links is vital for continued economic growth. With its particular geography—indeed, I believe it is the most easterly point of the British mainland—Lowestoft needs good connectivity to compete effectively. That goes for the country as a whole, and the Government certainly recognise the importance of an effective transport infrastructure to the economy and to delivering improvements targeted at supporting economic growth. That is why just before Christmas the Government announced the road investment strategy—the biggest upgrade to our motorways and key trunk roads in a generation. It is a £15 billion programme to triple annual investment by the end of the decade. It represents an enormous opportunity to transform the roads that traverse our nation and includes an unprecedented £3 billion of investment for the east of England, of which some £1.5 billion is new investment.
The key artery of the A47/A12 will see a £300 million package of improvements that includes dualling of three sections of the route and improvements to the Acle Straight and junctions around Norwich and along the A12 in and around Great Yarmouth. The aim is to address challenges and reduce congestion, delays and accidents on that key corridor. As part of the improvement package, we also plan to renumber the section of the A12 between Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft as the A47. The renaming will better reflect the route’s nature as a continuous corridor. Time scales for the next stages of work are due to be published in the Highways Agency’s delivery plan, which is expected to be published later this month.
Improving our national networks is about not just roads, but railways. They are all part of the picture of improving connectivity, of which the proposed third crossing is a vital part. The Government support the key recommendations put forward by the Great Eastern main line taskforce. The group wants to see better rail journey times to East Anglia, with the journey to Norwich reduced to 90 minutes—the “Norwich in 90” campaign. We want to see bidders for the new Greater Anglia franchise incentivised to submit plans for achieving these recommendations for services and other associated benefits along the Great Eastern main line. In addition, east-to-west rail connectivity is important. We understand that good progress is being made on the ambitious east-west rail project, which aims to link Ipswich, Norwich, Cambridge, Milton Keynes and Oxford by rail. Those are some of the fastest-growing urban centres in the country.
The local road networks in Lowestoft are vital for the local economy and for the journeys that residents make day in, day out. As Members will know, local roads are the responsibility of the local highway authority, which for Lowestoft is Suffolk county council. From 2011 to 2015, Suffolk county council received £74 million from Government for the maintenance of its local road network, with a further £18.5 million for local transport improvements. As my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney mentioned, we have also invested in addressing known areas of local congestion through the Department’s local pinch point fund. In May 2013, Suffolk county council secured £4.6m of Department for Transport funding towards the £6.6 million cost of completing the Lowestoft northern spine road. That work is due to be completed shortly and will allow better traffic flows and a quicker route to the northern part of the A12. Members will be aware that we have made some substantial changes to how we fund local transport schemes. As part of the growth deal process, we have a more decentralised and devolved system through the local growth fund. That gives real decision-making power to local areas, allowing them to develop and prioritise key projects to best help to realise economic growth in their areas.
Transport projects play an important part in the process. The initial round of the local growth fund allocated about £6 billion to areas around the country, about £3 billion of which went to proposed new transport schemes. The local enterprise partnership for the east of England benefited, with £173 million allocated in the July growth deal announcement. A considerable amount of that allocation is for transport projects. In addition, a further £48.5 million was made available to the LEP through the second stage announced in January.
Many local transport schemes, such as the third crossing over Lake Lothing, will look for funding to further rounds of the local growth fund. However, the process is competitive and the funding is not a bottomless pit. Only the projects that produce the most compelling business case will be successful in securing funding, and they will also need to be top priorities for the LEP, as it determines which schemes are needed to deliver economic growth in the LEP area.
A third crossing at Lowestoft has been under consideration for some time now. I am aware that the Highways Agency commissioned a feasibility report into the options for a crossing at Lake Lothing a number of years ago, and I note the recent report commissioned by Suffolk county council to look at options for a new crossing. There have also been a number of public-facing events to gauge local opinion on the location and design of the options. The prospect of a third crossing appears to generate considerable local support, and I appreciate that my hon. Friend welcomes the momentum behind the project.
The Government would look to support well-evidenced local major transport schemes that are prioritised by the local enterprise partnership, would help to deliver local growth, and offer good value for money. We know that local residents are frustrated by the town’s long-standing traffic problems and want a solution, which is why, in July last year, the New Anglia local enterprise partnership secured £100,000 through the local growth fund towards development work to look at the options for a third river crossing in Lowestoft. That funding will enable the LEP to develop a more detailed technical feasibility study for the project. It is now for the LEP and its key partners to take that work forward.
As part of the next steps, I urge my hon. Friend and all the interested local partners to continue to help to take the project forward; to help to build an effective and convincing evidence base; to continue to gather strong local support; and to continue to develop that support through the LEP. We want to see local areas creating the best local infrastructure solutions for growth.
I thank my hon. Friend for raising this important topic, which I know has generated considerable local interest. I also thank him for highlighting the issues in Lowestoft. It is now for the LEP and local partners to take forward the assessment work and to consider the outcomes and the best way to take the proposal forward.
The Hague Abduction Convention
(9 years, 9 months ago)
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Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)
It is a pleasure to meet under your chairmanship at this stage of the afternoon, Sir David.
The subject of the debate is The Hague abduction convention, which is more fully known as The Hague convention on the civil aspects of international child abduction. It dates back to 1980 and has force in UK law under the Child Abduction and Custody Act 1985. Many of us, as MPs, will have come across the convention, perhaps from a number of different angles depending on constituents’ experiences. Such experiences can be brought to us either directly or by families whose members want to use the convention to try to ensure the restoration of a parent’s due and wanted relationship with a child, or by constituents or their families who feel that their family has been affected by a case taken under the convention in which their circumstances, or how events unfolded, have not been fully understood or appreciated.
The purpose of the debate is not to pretend that any of us in such cases, or in the general balance or mix of cases that we get, should look at the subject from the perspective of one interest or another, whether that of the parent who has custody of a child or that of the parent who is seeking custody under the convention. The real reason for proposing the topic for debate occurred to me in the light of experience. Some of that experience relates to a particular case; some relates to a few other cases in recent years in my constituency and in the wider area of north-west Northern Ireland.
Mark Durkan
As I was saying before the Division, I was prompted to introduce the debate by a number of issues and observations that have arisen from cases that have been shared with me by Foyle Women’s Aid—not all relate directly to people in my constituency, but all those involved have been using the support of Foyle Women’s Aid—and from some other cases.
I stress that at no point will I be questioning specific decisions in specific cases, nor will I be naming any of the people involved in the cases. That is partly because of the sensitivity of a current case, which I suppose has most prompted me to raise the issue. Just this week, a woman has had to return to Australia with her child, who was born in my constituency, on the basis of decisions that have been made following a case taken under The Hague convention.
I stress that I am not trying to involve the Minister in anything that would rightfully be within the purview of the devolved Department of Justice in Northern Ireland. Perhaps more importantly, I assure Ministers not just here, but in Northern Ireland, that in no way am I trying to second-guess any decision by any judge of the Northern Ireland courts. I want to be very clear that the Lord Chief Justice should have no concern with any of the aspects of the debate that I will raise here today. I do not believe that Members should use any forum of the House to try to second-guess or overturn decisions of judges or the courts.
Rather, the issues I want to raise today are about whether we as legislators need to give more consideration to The Hague convention as it stands, whether the 1985 Act is sufficient and whether additional light needs to be shed on the issue, given all the experience and understanding we now have in relation to the changes to family life and our understanding of it. There is also greater internationalisation of life now and far more complicated trans-jurisdictional arrangements are in place. Also, a more acute understanding has arisen as to the limited regard that different aspects of the law have had for key principles such as the best interests of the child. There is also the question whether the law is duly responsive to any evidence or allegations that arise about conditions of abuse that might have affected a child or that might affect a partner.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The hon. Gentleman has raised an important issue. A parent whose child has been abducted will be aware that their access to legal aid is restricted. Given the vulnerability of all the parties involved, does he agree that it is vital to ensure that they all have the assurance that they will be represented fairly?
Mark Durkan
I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that point. Legal aid is a key issue for anyone involved at either end of cases such as these, whether they want to bring a case to have their child restored to their custody or they find themselves accused and become a defendant in such a case. The question of legal aid, and the restrictions on it, is particularly acute. Although Ministers have, perhaps understandably, changed position on some elements of legal aid because of more specious cases or cases in which people were testing any sort of claim culture connected to accidents, the fact is that, for a parent, a case about their child is a matter not of calculated choice, but of the emotional imperatives that come with being a parent.
It is important that people should have as much recourse to legal aid as possible, and the decisions around legal aid should be duly sensitised to such situations. Certainly, in a recent case that I know of, a woman has found herself facing a case of child abduction, and on being told to take a child who was born in Northern Ireland back to Australia she found herself in precisely the position whereby she was weakened, so I know this can come on either side of such cases. I am sure that the Minister would be sensitive in all such situations, although we are talking in this case not particularly about one side or another, but about the balance of justice, which goes to the heart of the legal aid questions.
I want to return to the points that particularly concern me, which arise from decisions made recently. I am not concerned because the court made those decisions, but a question arises for legislators and for the Government as the transposing signatory to The Hague convention as to whether we are perhaps leaving courts in a position where they have to take decisions on fairly narrow grounds in fairly shady light, sometimes having to disregard evidence that people try to bring forward in relation to either abuse against them that they allege took place at the hands of the other parent or where they say they have evidence of ill treatment or questionable treatment by the other parent of the child.
It seems that the courts tend to set a very high threshold in relation to consideration of any such evidence, and also then say that it would not be for them to determine anyway, but would be for the court in another jurisdiction if the child was to be returned to that other jurisdiction. It seems that in child abduction cases the courts and the legal profession find themselves almost adopting a standard akin to the rules of the road. For instance, in car accident cases it is automatically presumed that if a person has driven into the back of another car, the liability lies with that person. It does not matter about any other circumstances or conditions; the court does not want to know. It is straightforward.
I hear such a message from people who have handled a number of cases, and the woman who has this week had to return to Australia felt that she was in such a situation. The evidence that she had been raising and pursuing was essentially set aside. That is not because the court did not want to know or because judges wanted to be insensitive to that, but that is not how the law stands and it is not how the law tests such things. Essentially, for the court, the real issue was to decide where the jurisdiction on the matter should rest, and the court has basically said that any of the other issues would be for a court in Australia to decide. That point does not stand alone.
The mother obviously appealed the decision that was made in respect of her and her two and a half-year-old child, but she had to give undertakings. On losing the appeal, she had to sign the following:
“The Appellant agrees not to institute, encourage or pursue any criminal proceedings whether in Northern Ireland or Australia, against the Respondent in respect of any of the allegations made against the Respondent in the course of the Hague Convention proceedings.”
Here we have The Hague convention being operated and brokered via the courts on the basis that, even if there is evidence that could give rise to possible criminal proceedings, as part of the discharge of a case under The Hague convention such evidence is not to be pursued.
As a legislator, I believe that that goes against the grain and the spirit of much of what we have heard from the Government in recent times about more responsive and alert reactions to evidence that arises in different family circumstances.
In this particular case, issues did arise around whether the child was exposed to risk. I do not want to go into any of the particulars of that, but the determination seemed to be that that was not a matter on which the courts would or could hear anything. Again, to my mind, that is inconsistent with the very clear standards that we hear ringing right across all the political institutions in recent times: in relation to the position of children, every effort will be made to ensure that the best interests of the child are fully considered and addressed.
In relation to how such cases are addressed, it seems to be very hard for anyone to find out whether anybody has the role of advocating the best interests of the child. It is not clear that the court is in a position to hear or take the evidence. Perhaps we need to apply some of the yardsticks developed under the Modern Slavery Bill, which states that in some instances there will be a child advocacy service whose responsibilities will be particularly to speak to and address everything on the basis of the best interests of the child. Perhaps that should be applied here.
I hope that the Minister and his Department, and his colleagues in other Departments, because I know this cuts across various Departments, will take the spirit of what has been said on so many other fronts and make sure that it also informs how we go forward with The Hague convention, in terms of how we address it as legislators, how the Government address their role as a signatory and how they take forward their discussion with other Governments in modernising The Hague convention and the various memorandums of understanding that go with that, so that none of what we are saying in relation to child abuse and domestic violence—violence against women or anything else—runs out when it comes to the very important and vexed issue of The Hague convention.
Meg Munn (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab/Co-op)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) on obtaining this important debate. I thank him for allowing me to make an extremely brief contribution to add to what he has said about the importance of looking at the issues from the point of view of the child. Like him, I have a particularly difficult constituency case at the moment. I know that the Minister is aware of it. I will not refer specifically to it, but I want to raise the issues that concern me, which add to what the hon. Gentleman has already outlined.
There are issues about the content and operation of the convention, which mean that the best interests of the child are clearly not always served. I understand the importance of the issues of jurisdiction and freezing the situation where it is, but, in the constituency case that I have, it cannot by any stretch of the imagination be in the interests of the child for the decision-making process to take so long. A very young child has not had contact with one of their parents for two years. The likelihood of a relationship developing as one would want between a parent and the child—whether they live with them or simply have contact—is almost impossible. It is extremely heartbreaking and very difficult to deal with.
I am grateful to the Minister for the time that he has given to me and my constituent on this issue, but I do think that, in the circumstances—the hon. Member for Foyle is raising fundamental questions—this is a good time for the Government to say, “Could we be doing more? Should we be raising this in international forums? Should we be looking at how we can have the best interests of the child—as our legislation, the Children Act 1989, puts it—clearly at the centre of what happens?” I look forward to what the Minister will perhaps commit a future Government to doing.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Simon Hughes)
I am very happy to be serving under your chairmanship, Sir David. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) for raising this really important issue. I am conscious that I can only deal with his constituency case by factual commentary, as it were, and not by intervention. I am pleased that the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Meg Munn) has also spoken. I was very happy to accommodate her and her constituent when she raised an issue to do with Ukraine. Clearly that case has dragged on for a long time and I hope that we have been able to at least suggest the best ways forward in a difficult situation.
This issue is really important, as all colleagues know. Child abduction can have a devastating effect on the child, let alone on the other parent, who is left feeling that their rights have been violated. It can hugely damage the relationship between the child and both parents, actually—not just one parent—and the happiness of the family, the extended family and the like.
I would like to respond briefly to the general issue that the hon. Member for Foyle raised and then, because there is a lot of information that I would like to be shared more widely about where people can go for advice and help, I propose to write to him and put a copy of that letter in the Library for public record. I will copy that to the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley as well, because I do not think everybody understands what the opportunities are, even though those may not be as extensive as people wish.
The hon. Member for Foyle specifically raised the 1980 Hague convention on child abduction, which is the key document. The purpose of the convention, although it has been there for a long time, is to set up obligations between contracting states aimed at seeking the return of a child, wrongfully taken or wrongfully retained away from the place where the parent believes they should be, to their country of habitual residence. However, it does not provide a legal court that can adjudicate, nor does it determine the parental rights. It provides a mechanism of communication between one country and another, if they are both participating countries in the convention.
The hon. Gentleman raised a case in Northern Ireland that relates to Australia, and the hon. Lady’s case relates to Ukraine. We have accepted the accession of the following countries and work the convention with them: Argentina, Australia, the Bahamas, Belarus, Belize, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Fiji, Honduras, Hong Kong, Israel, Japan, Macau, Mauritius, Mexico, New Zealand, Panama, Peru, St Kitts and Nevis, South Africa, Turkmenistan, the USA, Ukraine, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Venezuela and Zimbabwe. For those countries, there is an arrangement, but that means that all the other countries do not have an arrangement. Therefore, for families whose child is taken somewhere else, we cannot even avail ourselves of the system that we have at the moment.
The 1980 convention provides a civil law mechanism to allow one parent to seek the return of a child wrongfully removed or retained. It is a summary procedure with the aim of getting the child back as soon as possible, so the court in the country of the child’s habitual residence can make its long-term decisions.
The hon. Gentleman rightly says that the test has to be about the welfare of the child and what is in the child’s best interests. That is what our court applies in England and Wales and what the courts in Northern Ireland and Scotland similarly apply. The test is the best interests of the child, always. The court that is seized with the responsibility will have to make that decision. Sometimes, as in the Ukraine case that the hon. Lady brought to me, in which that decision is going through the Ukraine courts, we have to watch—the parent has to participate if they can—as they make their decision, but we cannot exercise sovereignty over the courts of Ukraine or Australia, because they have their own jurisdiction.
The decision on whether or not to return the child is made by the court, applying the convention, in the country in which the child has been taken or retained. There are defined and limited grounds for non-return under article 13 of the convention. Under article 13(b), if
“there is a grave risk that his or her return would expose the child to physical or psychological harm or otherwise place the child in an intolerable situation”
the child does not have to be returned. That is the test under the convention for the foreign court dealing with the case.
The Hague conference, which is the body that oversees that, has no enforcement powers, so we cannot take any country to court if they are not complying. Every four to six years, the Hague conference holds a special commission that allows countries to feed back on the operation of the convention. There have been two supplementary sets of decisions since then to try to make the system more effective internationally.
First, there was Council Regulation 2201/2003—the EU Regulation Brussels IIA—which has provisions to enhance the operation of the convention among EU member states. One such provision is that the court in one member state of the European Union should not refuse to return the child to another member state if protective measures have been put in place to protect the child in the member state of the child’s habitual residence. There is an additional obligation that helps in the EU but does not apply in the two countries that colleagues have specifically raised.
Subsequently, there has been a further development in terms of international agreement: the 1996 Hague convention on jurisdiction, applicable law, recognition, enforcement and co-operation in respect of parental responsibility and measures for the protection of children. That was ratified by the UK in 2012 and it provides for greater co-operation between the central authorities in each contracting state, so that information on vulnerable children can be exchanged and measures to protect the child considered at an early stage.
As the hon. Gentleman will know, three different authorities in the UK act as the relevant post box and implementation authority. There is one for England and Wales, one for Scotland and one for Northern Ireland, so he would address, as I am sure he has, his engagement to the authority in Northern Ireland. The hon. Lady addressed hers and that of her constituents to the authority in England and Wales. They act as the agency, and in my experience, having looked at the Ukraine case, they do so very efficiently, but it falls short of what the hon. Gentleman is suggesting that we might need to do, which is beef up the system and decide whether we ought to have additional penalties or actions.
I have just some comments on how frequently this happens, and I have answered a couple of questions recently on the matter from the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) and the hon. Member for Hendon (Dr Offord). The central authorities in the UK have shown that, in the years 2009 to 2013, across the UK, the following number of parents have applied for the return of their child from another country under the convention: in 2009, there were 236; in 2010, there were 167; in 2011, there were 214; in 2012, there were 246; and in 2013, there were 243. There were some in each year from England and Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, so there is a fairly consistent number of applications.
The courts in this country have prompted a consideration of whether we ought to do more. The previous Lord Chief Justice, I think—rather than the present one—has suggested that the matter ought to be looked at again, so it has been referred to the Law Commission. It reported recently, at the end of last year, and I refer both colleagues to its report, which was called “Simplification of Criminal Law: Kidnapping and Related Offences”. It recommended that kidnapping and false imprisonment, which are currently common-law offences, be made statutory offences, and that the kidnapping offence should be simplified, with some of the current elements of the offence removed and the offence of false imprisonment renamed “unlawful detention” but otherwise remaining unchanged. It recommended that the maximum penalty for child abduction be increased from seven years to 14 years and that the child abduction offence covering parents abducting children out of the UK be extended so that detaining children outside the UK without consent would also be an offence. That is a very important issue, because at the moment it is an offence to take a child illegally; it is not an offence to take the child legally and then not bring them back. That issue has been raised by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley and other colleagues.
Following the report’s publication, the co-chairs of the all-party group on child abduction wrote to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in January to ask what action was planned, particularly on the new offences. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims, who is a Minister in both the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office, indicated that we would need to consider fully our response. The Law Commission published its impact assessment in February 2015. We, like any Government, have an obligation to respond within six months. We will do that, but self-evidently we will not get the response delivered before the general election. The issue will be on the desk of whoever is in the Ministry. I hope that I will still be the person responsible. I would be very happy to be that person, but that is a matter for a greater decision-making body—namely, the great British public. Let me reassure the hon. Member for Foyle, however, that the question whether we need to do more in the criminal law is very much alive. There is a problem of course, because if, for example, we added extradition to the ability to bring back someone who had taken a child away but was acting illegally and committing an offence, that still would not necessarily get the child back, so the answers are not as easy as we might wish.
I will mention a couple of other things if I may. There is a charity called reunite—the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Lady may have heard of it—which deals with a wide variety of queries on child abduction and operates a 24-hour helpline, funded by the Ministry of Justice. That charity’s statistics for 2014 suggest that domestic abuse is not present in many of the cases that it is involved in; the majority of its cases have to do with the breakdown of a relationship and one parent wanting to return to their home country with the children.
The other thing I should say is that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office regularly intervenes on these issues, is very willing to do so and, on an annual basis, takes up many cases with the authorities in other countries. I assure the House that we do not think that the present system can just be left to work. We do not have an international enforcement system; we have an international communication system, but on the agenda are propositions as to how we might make it stronger. I am open to all ideas and I hope that all those reading the record of this debate, as well as those participating in it, will feel free to send their ideas to us at the Ministry of Justice.
Question put and agreed to.
Written Statements
(9 years, 9 months ago)
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EU Competitiveness Council
(9 years, 9 months ago)
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The Minister for Universities, Science and Cities (Greg Clark)
My noble Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, Minister for Intellectual Property, Baroness Neville-Rolfe, has today made the following statement.
The Competitiveness Council took place in Brussels on 2 and 3 March. I represented the UK during the internal market and industry discussion on day one, with Shan Morgan the Deputy Permanent Representative to the EU representing the UK for the research discussion on day two. I also attended a Council breakfast where Vice-President Ansip led a useful informal discussion on the digital single market.
The Council started by discussing and adopting the draft conclusions on single market policy. The text included calling on the Commission to adopt a sectoral approach to services, with the focus being on professional and business services, construction and retail. In the accompanying debate the Commission highlighted the single market as the most important pillar of its €300 billion investment package, pressed the need for single market rules to be adopted far more ambitiously and highlighted the cost of starting up a business as one the problems dampening investment and growth.
Several member states (MS) intervened to highlight the importance of an ambitious and sectoral approach to services liberalisation. MS also emphasised the importance of other sectors such as energy. I spoke about the importance of better enforcement and called for decisive action in the single market strategy. This could include legislation where necessary, but I reminded the Council that any new legislation should be drafted in accordance with better regulation principles. I highlighted the need for action on the regulation of professionals, the provision of indemnity insurance, and legal form and shareholding requirements in particular.
We then discussed the EU investment package which was also debated in relation to research on the following day. The presidency noted that discussions were under way in the ECOFIN Council. Some MS intervened to say that the EFSI (European fund for strategic investment) should address four key points—flexible management, rapid implementation, “additionally” of projects and the need for significant equity component. In response to this, the Commission said the EIB (European Investment Bank) was going to increase its support for SMEs and stressed that the investment package would not just remove funds from the Horizon 2020 package.
The next item related to the Frontrunners initiative by like-minded countries, including the UK, to share good practice in implementing the single market. I intervened to support the project and highlight the work of the UK in the projects on e-commerce and regulated professions.
We then discussed the implementation of transparency reporting requirements in the accounting directive. A number of MS emphasised the importance of a level playing field in extractives transparency reporting, and the important role the Commission has to play in ensuring the US authorities act quickly in bringing forward robust requirements. I intervened to highlight the importance of the EU continuing to show leadership in this area.
The afternoon session started with a discussion on the digital single market and EU industrial competitiveness. The Commission highlighted the importance of digital technologies within industry and set out five specific areas: spreading high-tech and digital technologies into all industrial sectors, not just the most advanced ones; ensuring internet platforms are “not instruments of control but instruments of opportunity”; developing interoperable standards for digital products; ensuring the regulatory framework was fit for digitalisation; and helping MS to address skills shortages so that there are more “digital executives”. MS were supportive of the areas identified by the Commission and there was broad support for the removal of barriers to e-commerce.
I emphasised the importance of industry leading in the development of smart products and of the removal of barriers to start up tech companies. I also highlighted the UK’s digital industrial strategy, and our focus on technology clusters, catapult centres, and improving the skills base including the teaching of coding in all primary schools.
The Commission gave a summary of the responses to the Single Business Act consultation. Most respondents agreed that the top priorities should be reducing administrative burdens and increasing access to finance. The Commission announced that a quarter of funding from the investment plan would be directed towards SMEs and that more information would be presented at the next Competitiveness Council in May. There were no interventions by MS.
The day ended with the Commission giving an outline of the energy union package which was published in February. The package consists of the energy and climate work programme; an “interconnections” communication on meeting the 10% electricity interconnection target; the Commission’s view of key elements of agreement in Paris; and its proposal for the EU’s contributions. The aims of the package are energy security and efficiency. There were no interventions from MS.
The Latvian presidency opened the research day of the Council with a discussion on the annual growth survey (AGS) and the Juncker package’s financial instrument (EFSI). They highlighted the importance of investment in excellent research for growth as recognised in the latest AGS published by the Commission, and the role of the Juncker package to achieve this. They also emphasised the importance of national initiatives and road maps to deliver the European research area.
The UK intervention, while welcoming the AGS’s emphasis on innovation, focused mainly on the investment package. The UK and others called for the investment selection committee to include expertise in the field of R and I investment and that the emphasis of Competitiveness Council discussion should be on ways we can encourage project uptake of the fund. The UK, on the back of significant concerns raised by university stakeholders, also asked the Commission to reassure academia that the “mainstreaming” of social sciences and humanities would continue to take place.
The second policy debate focused on unlocking Europe’s digital potential and alongside this Science 2.0 (AOB). This discussion mirrored one from the previous day on the digital single market but focused on the research aspects. The main discussion was around the need for research and innovation to have access to data and that the necessary systems should surround them, for example, data storage and management. The Commission stressed how rapidly data is growing and that to make the most of these opportunities, Europe needs the skills and a shared vision of the opportunities and gaps in the landscape. Two points were raised by the UK: copyright reform to address academic text and data mining and the need for data protection legislation to not hinder research, ensure the necessary protections and permit us to reap the benefits of big data. This received broad support. A joint UK-Netherlands non-paper on open access was also circulated and received a warm reception from several member states. The presidency concluded the debate by recalling that there would be Competitiveness Council (research) conclusions on this topic in May.
Despite not being on the agenda, the Commission introduced an AOB item on Partnership for Research and Innovation in the Mediterranean Area (PRIMA) initiative, to confirm the formal mechanism by which the initiative will be funded (through article 185 TFEU as a public-public partnership) and to announce that a proposal will be bought forward (this may take some preparation). Under an AOB item on the BONUS programme (which covers research in the Baltic sea), the Commission noted the positive evaluation of the programme and noted that BONUS members are looking at a possible BONUS2. There were no interventions by the UK on BONUS or PRIMA. The European research area (ERA) was only touched on briefly in the Council and over lunch, with the presidency outlining the process so far on the ERA road map and referenced the need to address ERA governance issues (such as the number and structure of expert groups) preparing the way for conclusions on this subject in May.
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ECOFIN
(9 years, 9 months ago)
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The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr George Osborne)
A meeting of the Economic and Financial Affairs Council will be held in Brussels on 10 March 2015. Ministers are due to discuss the following items:
Investment plan for Europe
The objective of the Council will be to reach a general approach on the proposal on the European fund for strategic investments (EFSI).
Current legislative proposals
The presidency will inform delegations about the state of play of legislative proposals in the field of financial services.
Implementation of the banking union
The Commission will inform delegations about the state of play on the bank recovery and resolution directive (BRRD) implementation and the ratification of the intergovernmental agreement (IGA) on the single resolution fund (SRF).
European semester: country reports
The Commission will present the “country reports” published on 26 February.
Implementation of the stability and growth pact
The Commission has issued assessments of the performance of France, Italy, Belgium and Finland under the stability and growth pact (SGP), and Council will discuss the Commission’s recommendation for next steps it may take for these countries.
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Finance Bill 2015
(9 years, 9 months ago)
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The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
The Finance Bill will be published on Tuesday 24 March.
Explanatory notes on the Bill will be available in the Vote Office and the Printed Paper Office and placed in the Libraries of both Houses on that day. Copies of the explanatory notes will be available online at: http://www.gov.uk.
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Firefighters' Pension Scheme Regulations
(9 years, 9 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Penny Mordaunt)
The Independent Public Service Pensions Commission, chaired by Lord Hutton, identified the need to reform public service pension schemes to provide a fairer deal for employees and taxpayers and to ensure that they are affordable and sustainable in the long term. The reforms to pension schemes are essential. People are living longer, with the average 60-year-old living 10 years longer now than they did in the 1970s. As a result, the cost of public service pensions has increased in real terms by around a third over the last 10 years and is now £32 billion a year.
Lord Hutton also found that the firefighters’ pension scheme 1992 is the most expensive public service pension scheme. Currently, for every pound a firefighter pays into the scheme, taxpayers are paying in an extra £5. In 2012-13, the scheme cost taxpayers £557 million. As such, on 28 October 2014, the Firefighters’ Pension Scheme (England) Regulations 2014 were laid, setting out the main elements of the new career average pension scheme to be introduced from 1 April 2015.
The firefighters’ pension scheme 2015 will provide one of the very best pensions available, with guaranteed benefits that are inflation proofed. The coalition Government recognise that firefighters regularly undertake duties under tough conditions and that they deserve a good and generous pension. This is why, since the start of the reform process, we have agreed to a number of enhancements, including improvements for those who choose to retire early. In the 2015 scheme, a firefighter retiring at 55 would see a 21.8% reduction to their pension—and no reduction to benefits earned in the 1992 scheme if the firefighter was a member of that scheme. This compares very favourably with the 40.5% reduction applied in the 2006 scheme which was introduced by the previous Administration. In addition, the normal pension age of firefighters is 60, and has been since 2006. It is lower than the pension age for other public sector workers, reflecting the physical nature of the occupation. A normal pension age of 60 is being retained for firefighters in the 2015 scheme.
Last month consequential regulations were made and last week we laid regulations setting out strengthened governance arrangements for the 1992, 2006, and 2015 firefighter pension schemes. Today, we are laying the final set of regulations required to ensure that the 2015 scheme can come fully into effect on 1 April, as required by the Public Service Pensions Act 2013. These include the Firefighters’ Pension Scheme (England) (Transitional and Consequential Provisions) Regulations 2015, which describe how the benefits of firefighters who are moving from the 1992 and 2006 pension schemes into the 2015 scheme, will be protected. Benefits already accrued by scheme members under the existing schemes will be preserved and continue to be linked to final salary. In addition, because of the strong protections already built into the 2015 scheme, no firefighter will have to work beyond their current expected normal pension age until 2022.
We are also laying two further orders. The first of these updates the provisions relating to compensation for injury so that they also apply to members of the 2015 scheme. This instrument also gives authorities an additional six months to complete the exercise of enrolling eligible firefighters into the modified scheme for retained staff who were unable to access a pension scheme between 2000 and 2006. The order also increases the pay bands that determine contribution rates under the 2006 scheme by 1% each year to 1 April 2018, in line with the 2015 scheme. This should avoid a scheme member being drawn into a higher contribution band because of a pay rise designed to reflect inflation. The final instrument makes this latter change, but in respect of the 1992 scheme.
The introduction of these regulations completes the new regulatory framework for firefighters’ pensions, fulfilling our commitment to completing the reform process within the lifetime of this Government, and ensuring that firefighters continue to receive one of the best pensions available in the public sector.
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Local Authority Publicity
(9 years, 9 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Kris Hopkins)
On 29 January 2015, I explained to the House, Official Report, column 28WS, the coalition Government’s commitment to protecting an independent free local press. This reflects commitments made in the coalition agreement, and the legislative provisions made by Parliament through the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014. I described how the Government were seeking to take action on the practice by a small number of local authorities to publish local authority newspapers, which given their frequency of publication, can push out and undermine that independent press.
A very small number of councils continue to breach the recommendations of the local government publicity code about the frequency of publication for council newspapers. In my written ministerial statement of 3 March 2015, Official Report, column 49WS, I outlined the steps the Government are taking in relation to the continued weekly publication by the Royal Borough of Greenwich.
Today, I am announcing the conclusions to date of the review into the actions of three further councils; the London borough of Hackney council, the London borough of Newham council and the London borough of Waltham Forest council. Each of these has a fortnightly municipal newspaper.
In each case, my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Eric Pickles) is minded to exercise his powers in the Local Government Act 1986, as amended by the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014, to direct the council to comply by no later than 30 April 2015 with the provision in the March 2011 code of recommended practice on local authority publicity that:
“Where local authorities do commission or publish newsletters, news sheets or similar communications, they should not issue them more frequently than quarterly”.
Accordingly, as required by the statute, the Secretary of State is today issuing to each of the three councils a written notice of the direction he proposes to issue to it.
In reaching these conclusions, the Secretary of State has carefully considered the representations each of these councils has made in response to a notice given to it on 25 September 2014 of a proposed direction relating to frequency of publication of council newsletters, newssheets or similar publications. He has also considered other information available to him about each of the three council’s publicity, and had regard to an equality statement about enforcing the 2011 code of recommended practice on local authority publicity.
Each council now has 14 days to make written representations to the Secretary of State about the proposed direction. Following this, the Secretary of State will take his final decision in each case about whether or not to issue the council with a direction. Each decision will be taken on its own merits.
I will be placing copies of the associated documents in the Library of the House.
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Ofsted: Contingency Fund Advance
(9 years, 9 months ago)
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The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)
A budget and cash transfer of £19,400,000 to Ofsted has been agreed with the Department and HM Treasury and has been included in the 2014-15 supplementary estimate, for parliamentary approval.
Parliamentary approval for additional resource of £16,900,000 and additional capital of £2,500,000 for this service will be sought in a supplementary estimate for Ofsted. Pending that approval, urgent expenditure estimated at £19,400,000 will be met by repayable cash advances from the Contingencies Fund.
As Ofsted is a non-ministerial department, I am making this statement on behalf of its accounting officer, to ensure that Parliament is informed of this advance from the Contingencies Fund in the normal way.
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Motorcycle Compulsory Basic Training Consultation
(9 years, 9 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Robert Goodwill)
Research conducted in 2014 recommended a number of areas for the improvement of compulsory basic training for learner motorcyclists. I am today announcing a public consultation on proposals to strengthen the structure and delivery of the course.
The research was commissioned by the Department to gain a more detailed understanding of who is taking compulsory basic training and why; to seek the views of trainers and learner riders on the current course content and how any changes to the content or structure would affect them.
The Government recognise that motorcyclists, particularly those who are young and/or inexperienced are especially vulnerable and are disproportionately represented in the killed and seriously injured statistics. In 2013, motorcyclists accounted for 22% of all road user deaths despite representing only 1% of vehicle traffic; 19% of all reported motorcycle casualties involved young riders aged 19 and under.
Compulsory basic training has remained largely unchanged since its introduction 25 years ago. This consultation does not propose any changes to the syllabus of the course. However, as a result of the increasing numbers of new young riders who do not take a test and who feature in the casualty statistics, it is now appropriate to review the delivery of compulsory basic training, to help ensure that learner riders are better prepared to ride safely on today’s public roads.
The proposals set out in the consultation paper, which have been developed in conjunction with motorcycle stakeholders including trainers, are primarily aimed at younger riders. However, we believe that there will be benefits for all new riders as the changes proposed would also improve the training received by riders aged 24 and over.
The proposals under consideration cover three broad areas:
The structure and content of compulsory basic training courses;
The qualification process for instructors;
Standards checks for instructors.
A copy of the consultation paper has been made available in the Libraries of both Houses and can be found on the Department’s website at: https://www.gov.uk/dft#consultations.
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