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Oral Answers to Questions
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Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)
1. If he will encourage the Scottish Government to devolve responsibility for onshore wind planning to Scottish local authorities.
The Secretary of State for Scotland (David Mundell)
Before I answer the question, may I begin by commending you, Mr Speaker, not just for your attendance at the Davis cup semi-final in Glasgow, but for the enthusiasm with which you got behind Team GB for that momentous win? I am sure you will join me not only in wishing our Team GB the best in the final in Ghent, but in confirming that Glasgow, as it has once again demonstrated with the world gymnastics championships, is a great sporting city.
The UK Government have given local communities the final say on new onshore wind developments in England. Planning for onshore wind is a matter fully devolved to the Scottish Parliament and sadly the Scottish Government have kept that power to themselves. I would urge them to look closely at this Government’s policy of an affordable energy mix that also protects our natural landscapes.
Mr Speaker
I thank the Secretary of State. I shall be there in person, all being well, to support the team.
Glyn Davies
True devolution means that power should rest as closely as possible to the people in Scotland, in Wales and in Northern Ireland. Does the Secretary of State deplore the centralising policies of the current Scottish and Welsh Governments, who seem to think they know better than the people and the communities of Scotland and Wales?
David Mundell
I agree with my hon. Friend. The current Scottish Government are one of the most centralising Governments on record, routinely overruling the wishes of local people and local authorities. The UK Government are delivering devolution to Scotland. As Lord Smith recommended, let us see devolution delivered within Scotland.
Ms Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP)
The Secretary of State will be aware of the case of the Binn eco park in my constituency. It has the support of the local community, and the developers worked diligently to secure planning permission from Perth and Kinross Council. Despite that support, the development is threatened by the regressive approach to support for renewable energy that the UK Government have taken, putting local jobs at risk. Will he look again at the case? The development has been penalised because of a responsible approach to community engagement on planning issues.
David Mundell
I am always happy to look at individual cases raised by Members from Scotland. I would be delighted to meet the hon. Lady and hear more about the case she sets out.
John Stevenson (Carlisle) (Con)
Does the Secretary of State agree that the Scottish Parliament could learn a lot from the devolution debate in England? [Laughter.] Will he encourage the Scottish Parliament to devolve more responsibilities and powers to local government, which could even include elected mayors for the great cities of Scotland?
David Mundell
I agree with my hon. Friend. The response of Scottish National party MPs says it all—they think they know best and know better than local people. Let us see local decision making. Let us see Lord Smith’s individual recommendation on devolution within Scotland honoured by the Scottish Government.
Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)
In addition to this question, question after question on the Order Paper from the Nats queries the powers of the Scottish Parliament, yet the truth is this: they have missed the A&E waiting time in Scotland for six years; more than 6,000 children leave primary school unable to read properly; children from poor families get a particularly bad deal under devolution; and Scotland faces a housing crisis. When I visited Edinburgh a week or so ago, I was stunned at the level of rough sleeping in that city—it is much higher than in comparable cities. Should the Nats not be sorting out the things for which they are responsible instead of demanding all those other powers? They are not just the most centralising but the most useless—
Mr Speaker
Order. I have been generous. We must now hear from the Secretary of State.
David Mundell
The Scotland Bill will make the Scottish Parliament the most powerful devolved Parliament in the world. What we require now is to hear from the SNP and the Scottish Government how they will use these Parliaments. They prefer arguments about process. They do not want to tell us what they will do and they do not follow that through with action.
Mr MacNeil
Thank you, Mr Speaker. It was difficult to hear over the noise from Labour over there.
As we know of course, the only damage to onshore wind comes from the right hon. Gentleman’s Government, and for me the only centralising problem in Scotland is that it is not centralised enough—if only the Scottish Government could take control of inter-island flights. Planning is working well in Scotland. In fact, perhaps the Secretary of State could commend several things in Scotland to Wales, such as the political system, under which 99% of Scottish voters rejected the Tories and 95% of Members sent back here were SNP Members. He could learn a lot from that.
David Mundell
The hon. Gentleman could learn a lot from the leader of the Western Isles Council, who is keen to have confirmation that the Scottish Government will devolve responsibility for the Crown Estate to the Western Isles—a measure that he, as MP for the Western Isles, does not appear to support. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. The hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) is the Chair of the Energy and Climate Change Committee, and I urge him to behave in the statesman-like manner expected of such a high office holder. We might learn about onshore wind from Michelle Thomson.
Michelle Thomson (Edinburgh West) (Ind)
The provision of an extra runway for either Gatwick or Heathrow is likely to require related infrastructure improvements, to be met from the public purse. Given that the money spent will include a population share of the financial consideration from Scottish taxpayers, will it be taxation without representation or can the Secretary of State guarantee that Scottish MPs will have a vote on an extra runway?
Mr Speaker
I am genuinely trying to be helpful to Members. May I please urge them to look at the terms of the question on the Order Paper? This one is specifically about onshore wind planning. I think we must now move on.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
2. What recent discussions he has had with Her Majesty’s Treasury on the future of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs tax offices in Scotland.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
As part of its ongoing and long-term transformation, HMRC will shortly be making face-to-face announcements in all 170 offices to all staff explaining where its future offices will be.
Stuart C. McDonald
Good-quality jobs at our local HMRC office—the largest employer in Cumbernauld—are in serious danger because of this Government’s drastic cuts, debt management privatisation and proposed office mergers. What will the Minister and the Secretary of State do to protect the jobs of hard-working HMRC employees and the local economies of towns such as Cumbernauld?
Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP)
3. What assessment he has made of progress in meeting the recommendations of the Smith commission; and if he will make a statement.
The Secretary of State for Scotland (David Mundell)
The Scotland Bill delivers the Smith commission agreement in full. I have tabled amendments that strengthen the Bill and look forward to it returning to the House for debate next week. It represents another milestone in making the Scottish Parliament one of the most powerful devolved Parliaments in the world.
Angela Crawley
The Smith commission identified that Scotland’s budget should be no larger or smaller simply as a result of the initial transfer of new powers and recommended that the Scottish and UK Governments work together to agree a fiscal and funding framework for Scotland. Will the Secretary of State reassure my constituents that that framework will be in place to accompany the devolution of further powers so that Scotland’s funding is not adversely affected?
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that, rather than relying on subsidies from London, the Scottish Government should use their tax-raising powers to pay for the services provided to the people of Scotland?
David Mundell
I do not recognise my hon. Friend’s description of the Barnett formula, which of course will remain in place. The Scottish Parliament will now have significant powers over tax and welfare, and it is about time the SNP told us what it will do with them.
Angus Robertson (Moray) (SNP)
It is interesting that the Secretary of State did not take the opportunity to condemn the views of his Conservative colleagues who believe that Scotland is subsidised.
Only 9% of people in Scotland believe that the vow has been delivered, so unsurprisingly the Government are belatedly having to accept amendments. The financial framework underpinning the Bill is crucial. The Secretary of State could only give a one-word answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley), so will he elaborate and tell us exactly when the UK Government will update this Parliament on the progress made on the fiscal framework?
David Mundell
I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman did not read my written statement on Monday, which updated the House on the progress of the fiscal framework. What I recognise in the right hon. Gentleman’s comments are these words from the editorial of the Daily Record:
“Moan, moan…whinge, whinge. Their response has been as negative as it was predictable. A cynic might argue that the SNP don’t actually want those new powers because it makes them…accountable to the people of Scotland.”
Angus Robertson
The Secretary of State has now had a second opportunity to condemn the views of his Back Benchers that Scotland is subsidised. I challenge him to come to the Dispatch Box and disassociate himself from the views of his colleagues. His Government are bringing in detrimental measures that will impact on families and individuals—not just in Scotland, but across the length and breadth of the UK. Will he give us some detail on what is going on between the Treasury and the Scottish Government, and give an assurance that there will be no detrimental implications for people in Scotland as part of the fiscal framework?
David Mundell
Not only does the right hon. Gentleman not read written statements; he did not even listen to my answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman)—perhaps he will read Hansard. The reality is that the powers being delivered to the Scottish Parliament will make it the most powerful devolved Parliament in the world. Rather than SNP Members telling us what they will do with those powers, it is grievance and grudge. The Scottish Parliament acknowledges that tax credits can be topped up, so will the SNP top them up—yes or no?
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
I take the opportunity this Armistice weekend to pay tribute to our armed forces for their sacrifices to this country.
Scottish and UK Ministers have said repeatedly that the fiscal framework negotiations will be concluded this autumn. Will the Secretary of State explain to the House and the country why they have been delayed until January at the earliest?
David Mundell
As I set out in my written statement, the UK Government are proceeding towards the comprehensive spending review, which I am sure the hon. Gentleman accepts is a major task, and shortly thereafter the Scottish Government will proceed with the Scottish draft Budget. When I met the Deputy First Minister John Swinney last week, he gave me confidence in his wanting to reach a fiscal framework agreement. That is certainly the position of the UK Government, which is why I was able to answer the question from the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) in the way that I did.
Ian Murray
I thank the Secretary of State for that answer, but Scotland’s First Minister has warned that the SNP Government may reject the Scotland Bill
“if the accompanying fiscal framework”
is not
“fair to Scotland”.
It is clear that they are looking for any excuse for the fiscal framework to delay further powers for Scotland. Will the Secretary of State assure us that the fiscal framework will be agreed before the Scottish Parliament is dissolved in March, and can he explain why both he and the SNP are conspiring to make this agreement the tartan TTIP—the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership—delivered behind closed doors with no public transparency? That raises the question of what they are trying to hide.
David Mundell
As the hon. Gentleman well knows, a statement has been published after each meeting of the Joint Exchequer Committee. I take John Swinney and the Scottish Government at face value—that they want to reach a fair agreement for Scotland. The United Kingdom Government want to reach a fair agreement for Scotland. That is in all our interests and I am confident that that will be achieved.
Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)
4. What recent discussions he has had with Ministers of the Scottish Government on changes to the Scotland Bill.
Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)
11. What recent discussions he has had with Ministers of the Scottish Government on changes to the Scotland Bill.
The Secretary of State for Scotland (David Mundell)
I have regular discussions with the Deputy First Minister, John Swinney, and our officials are in close contact on provisions in the Scotland Bill. I have now tabled changes to strengthen the Bill in delivering the Smith commission agreement in full.
Owen Thompson
Having twice failed to acknowledge the question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Moray (Angus Robertson), will the Secretary of State disassociate himself from the financially illiterate comments of his hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) who suggested that Scotland is subsidised? The fiscal framework will allow the Scottish Government the flexibility to pursue separate fiscal policies to those damaging policies progressed by the UK Government, thereby ensuring the highest levels of transparency. Will the Secretary of State provide the House with a timetable for the publication of a draft fiscal framework?
David Mundell
Monday’s written statement set out that the fiscal framework agreement is likely to come after the comprehensive spending review and once the draft Scottish Budget has been completed.
Neil Gray
This is the fourth opportunity for the Secretary of State to disassociate himself from the comments about people in Scotland being subsidy junkies—will he do so? Will he also confirm that negotiations on the fiscal framework are taking place between the Treasury and the Scottish Government, and that he is relying on a Scottish Lord to advise those negotiations?
David Mundell
It is clear that Scottish National party Members do not listen to answers, and if they read Hansard they will see the response that I gave to my hon. Friend. The fiscal framework is an agreement. Who is negotiating on behalf of the Scottish Government? It is John Swinney, the Deputy First Minister. The comments of SNP Members suggest that they do not have much confidence in his ability to reach a fair deal for Scotland.
Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
At the weekend the leader of the Scottish Labour party announced that a future Scottish Labour Government would use powers in the Scotland Bill to compensate people for the money that they will lose because of Tory cuts to tax credits. I am sure that the Secretary of State would not like that to happen, but will he confirm that new powers in the Scotland Bill will give the Scottish Parliament the ability to top up tax credits?
David Mundell
I do not agree with Kezia Dugdale, but at least she has the guts to stand up and say that she will put up taxes and put up tax credits. The SNP has said precisely nothing. It wants an argument about process, instead of telling us what it will do with these important new powers.
George Kerevan (East Lothian) (SNP)
5. What discussions he has had with his Cabinet colleagues on reforming the estimates process to take account of the changes made to the Standing Orders of the House to implement English votes for English laws.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
Ministers have had discussions with the Leader of the House on English votes for English laws and their implementation. These sensible and pragmatic steps do nothing to limit Scottish MPs’ rights to represent their constituents.
George Kerevan
Is the Secretary of State as concerned as I am that Barnett consequentials that affect all three devolved nations are not clearly spelled out and safeguarded in the new arrangements for English votes for English laws? Will he take his fifth opportunity to explain what is happening with the fiscal compact?
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
As the Procedure Committee is planning to hold an inquiry into the manner in which the House deals with estimates, may I urge the Minister to defer holding discussions with his Cabinet colleagues until that report is to hand?
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
6. What steps the Government are taking to facilitate the sharing of best practice with the Scottish Government on public spending on health.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
Health spending is a devolved matter and the Scottish Government are responsible for the NHS in Scotland. It is up to the Scottish Government to decide how best to use their funding and deliver health services in Scotland. The UK Government are happy to share good practice with the Scottish Government to help ensure that people living in Scotland receive high-quality healthcare. Discussions between UK Health Ministers take place where necessary.
Andrew Bridgen
Has the Minister seen the recent Audit Scotland report which shows that the Scottish Government have completely failed to pass on health spending increases instigated by the United Kingdom Government, and that that has resulted in a 0.7% real-terms reduction in health spending in Scotland between 2008-09 and 2014-15?
Mr Gauke
I have seen that report, and my hon. Friend is right to bring it to the House’s attention. The fact is that a Conservative Government have shown more commitment to public spending on the NHS—[Interruption]—in England than an SNP-led Government have shown in Scotland.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
We now have “English votes for English laws” on issues such as health spending in England. Does the Minister not think that it is time for “Scottish Members for Scottish business” and “Scottish questions for Scottish Members”, and for Scottish Ministers to answer Scottish questions in this House?
Mr Gauke
I note that the hon. Gentleman has raised the issue of English votes for English laws, and that he gets very worked up about it. Let me remind him and the House that, just a year ago, he said that English votes for English laws was
“an issue that the Scottish people could not care less about”.
That does not seem to be his approach any more.
John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
7. What assessment he has made of the level of anti-Semitism in Scotland.
The Secretary of State for Scotland (David Mundell)
Recorded incidents of anti-Semitism in Scotland are thankfully low, but I am not complacent. I echo the Prime Minister’s view that tackling anti-Semitism goes right to the heart of what we stand for as a country. Whatever our politics and whatever our faith, we must seek to defeat it.
John Mann
Last week, 15 Scottish MPs attended a briefing by the all-party parliamentary group against anti-Semitism. Given the good will that clearly exists, will the Secretary of State talk to the Scottish Government about how the system of state-funded security in Jewish schools in England could be emulated in Glasgow?
David Mundell
I certainly will, and I am very happy to do so. I should also say to the hon. Gentleman that, despite the many robust exchanges that we have in the Chamber, all MPs from Scotland are united in the view that we cannot tolerate anti-Semitism.
Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)
The Secretary of State will know that, in my constituency, I represent Scotland’s largest Jewish community. At the briefing that was mentioned by the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann), I was pleased to hear about the very good inter-community relations and positive support from Police Scotland that exist in my area. Will the Secretary of State join me in applauding our Scottish Jewish communities for their great contributions to our country, and in deploring anti-Semitism and discrimination wherever they occur?
David Mundell
Absolutely, and I commend the hon. Lady for the extent to which, during her short time as a Member of Parliament, she has already engaged with that important Jewish community in Scotland. I also commend the work of the Scottish Government in that regard. As I said earlier, this is a matter on which we are all united, supporting Jewish communities and not accepting anti-Semitism.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
8. What steps he is taking to ensure that the new devolution arrangement which would result from the provisions of the Scotland Bill is financially neutral.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
The UK Government are delivering the cross-party Smith agreement in full, giving the Scottish Government substantial new powers over tax and spending. The Smith agreement stated that the devolution of powers
“should be accompanied by an updated fiscal framework”.
The UK and Scottish Governments are discussing that.
Deidre Brock
Let me offer the Secretary of State a sixth opportunity to disassociate himself from the subsidy claims that have been made by his own party in the Chamber. Will he do so now? Does he agree that the Treasury’s statements of funding policy over the devolution years have been a creaking and unstable mess, creating unnecessary friction, and will he recommit himself to a more open and transparent process—as he refused to do previously—for the calculation of the block grant to underpin the new fiscal framework?
Jo Cox (Batley and Spen) (Lab)
9. What discussions he has had with women’s organisations on devolving competence for abortion legislation to the Scottish Parliament.
The Secretary of State for Scotland (David Mundell)
The Smith commission recommended that abortion law be devolved to the Scottish Parliament, but recognised that the issue needed to be handled sensitively by the UK and Scottish Governments. Following ministerial discussion between Scotland’s two Governments, I confirmed that abortion would be devolved in the Scotland Bill, and wrote to interested parties. As I have already confirmed, there will be ongoing engagement with women’s groups as the matter is taken forward.
David Mundell
I think it would be helpful if I confirmed that because abortion law is being devolved, that does not mean that there will be any change. The existing arrangements will continue to apply in Scotland until they are changed by the Scottish Parliament. I am very pleased to note that the First Minister of Scotland has confirmed that she has no plans at all to change the existing abortion law in Scotland.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
May I urge the Minister to think again about the devolution of abortion to Scotland? To have smaller jurisdictions making such sensitive decisions on healthcare is deeply unwise and would allow those who want to lobby against the interests of healthcare to undermine the interests of women both in Scotland and in England. I urge him to consult far more widely before making this very big step.
David Mundell
I recognise, of course, the concerns the right hon. Lady raises, but the Scottish Parliament already has responsibility for criminal justice and health issues, and it has dealt with some very sensitive issues extremely well in my view. I have spoken to women’s groups in Scotland such as Engender, Abortion Rights Scotland and Scottish Women’s Aid. They believe that the devolution can take place but want to be consulted about that, and they will be.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
I have not forgotten the hon. Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies); I never do.
Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)
10. If the Government will make an assessment of access to university education for people from the lowest income families in (a) England and (b) Scotland.
The Minister for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise (Anna Soubry)
I am very pleased to report that the most recent UCAS statistics show a record year for university entry for disadvantaged students domiciled in England: 18.2% in 2014 compared with 13.6% in 2009. Unfortunately, the situation in Scotland is not as good; only 10% of the poorest 20% of Scots attend university, which is very concerning.
Mark Menzies
My right hon. Friend the Minister anticipated my supplementary question. As someone who came from a working-class background from the west coast of Scotland and who went to university in Scotland, I am deeply concerned about how Scotland is now lagging behind England and how working-class poor people are losing out.
Anna Soubry
It may sound strange: an English Tory elected to a Scottish university, but as a former honorary president of Stirling university—an outstanding university—I share my hon. Friend’s concerns, and indeed the Scottish Government could learn a great deal from the experience of the English universities.
Craig Tracey (North Warwickshire) (Con)
Q1. If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 4 November.
The Prime Minister (Mr David Cameron)
At the last Prime Minister’s questions before Armistice day I know the whole House will join me in paying tribute to all those who have fallen serving our country. They gave their lives so we could live ours in freedom, and it is also right to pause and reflect every year on Armistice day on the contribution of all those who serve our country.
This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others, and in addition to my duties in this House I shall have further such meetings later today.
Craig Tracey
I would like to associate myself with the Prime Minister’s comments and I look forward to joining the Armistice day parade in Bedworth in my constituency which has been in existence since 1921 and has grown to be the largest in Britain.
On the military, from speaking to constituents in North Warwickshire I know that the Government commitment to spending 2% of GDP on defence was very welcome. Does the Prime Minister agree that, given the volatile state of many parts of the world, it is more important than ever that we maintain that commitment and give our brave troops all the support, resources and equipment available?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We do live in a very dangerous and uncertain world, and we have made key commitments—the 2% on defence spending throughout this Parliament, the 0.7% on aid spending, which helps our security as well as making sure we are a generous and moral nation, and, crucially, having the ultimate insurance policy of a replacement for our Trident submarines.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
I concur with the Prime Minister’s remarks concerning Remembrance Sunday and Remembrance weekend. We mourn all those who have died in all wars, and surely we also resolve to try and build a peaceful future where the next generation does not suffer from the wars of past generations.
Last week I asked the Prime Minister the same question six times and he could not answer. He has now had a week to think about it. I want to ask him one more time: can he guarantee that next April nobody will be worse off as a result of cuts to working tax credits?
The Prime Minister
Let me be absolutely clear. What I can guarantee next April is that there will be an £11,000 personal allowance, so you can earn £11,000 before paying tax. What I can guarantee is that there will be a national living wage of £7.20, giving the lowest paid in our country a £20 a week pay rise next year, compared with the situation at the election. On the issue of tax credits, we suffered the defeat in the House of Lords so we have taken the proposals away. We are looking at them and we will come forward with new proposals in the autumn statement. At that point, in exactly three weeks’ time, I will be able to answer the hon. Gentleman’s question. If he wants to spend the next five questions asking me that all over again, I am sure he will find it very entertaining and interesting, but how it fits with the new politics I am not quite sure. Over to you!
Jeremy Corbyn
This is not about entertainment—[Interruption.] This is not funny for the people who are desperately worried about what is going to happen next April. If the Prime Minister will not listen to the questions I put, and will not listen to the questions that are put by the public, perhaps he will listen to a question that was raised by his hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) on tax credits last week. He said, “The changes cannot go ahead next April” and that “any mitigation should be full mitigation.” What is the Prime Minister’s answer to his Friend?
The Prime Minister
It is very much the same answer that I gave to the hon. Gentleman. In three weeks’ time, we will announce our proposals and he will be able to see what we will do to deliver the high-pay, low-tax, lower-welfare economy that we want to see. That is what we need in our country. We are cutting people’s taxes and increasing people’s pay, but we also believe it is right to reform welfare. So he will have his answer in three weeks’ time. But in the meantime, he has to think about this: if we do not reform welfare, how are we going to fund the police service that we are talking about today? How are we going to fund the health service that we could be talking about today? How are we going to pay for the defence forces that we are talking about today? The hon. Gentleman has been completely consistent: he has opposed every single reform to welfare that has ever come forward. If we listened to him, we would still have families in London getting £100,000 a year in housing benefit. So the answer to the question is: you will find out in three weeks’ time. Carry on!
Jeremy Corbyn
The reality is that the Prime Minister makes choices, and he has made a choice concerning working tax credits that has not worked very well so far. I shall give him an example. A serving soldier, a private in the Army with two children and a partner, would lose over £2,000 next April. I ask the question—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. The questions will be heard and the answers will be heard. It is as simple as that.
Jeremy Corbyn
Thank you, Mr Speaker. Surely it is the whole point of our Parliament that we are able to put questions to those in authority.
I have a question from Kieran, a veteran of the first Gulf war. His family are set to lose out, and he writes:
“It’s a worry to the family…There’s fear and trepidation about whether we’re going to be able to get by”,
and he asks:
“Is that how this government treats veterans of the Armed Forces?”
The Prime Minister
Let me take the case of the serving soldier. Many soldiers—indeed, I think all soldiers—will benefit from the £11,000 personal allowance that comes in next year. That means they will be able to earn more money before they even start paying taxes. Serving soldiers that have children will benefit from the 30 hours of childcare, and of course serving soldiers and others will be able to see our proposals on tax credits in exactly three weeks’ time. What I would say to the serving soldier is that he is now dealing with an Opposition party whose leader said he could not see any use for UK forces anywhere in the world at any time. That serving soldier would not have a job if the hon. Gentleman ever got anywhere near power.
Jeremy Corbyn
May I invite the Prime Minister to cast his mind to another area of public service that is causing acute concern at the present time? I note he is trying to dig himself out of a hole with the junior doctors offer this morning, which we await the detail of, but there is a question that I want to put to him. I quote Dr Cliff Mann, the president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, who said that
“this winter will be worse than last winter, and last winter was the worst winter we’ve ever had”
in the NHS. Can the Prime Minister guarantee there will be no winter crisis in the NHS this year?
The Prime Minister
First, when it comes to the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, it actually supports what we are saying about a seven-day NHS and the junior doctors contract. The hon. Gentleman says, “Wait for the detail.” I would urge everyone in the House and I would urge all junior doctors who are watching to go on to the Department of Health website and look at the pay calculator, because they will be able to see that no one working legal hours will lose out in any way at all. This is an 11% basic pay rise, and what it will deliver is a stronger and safer NHS.
As for the state of our NHS more generally, it is benefiting from the £10 billion that we are putting in—money that the Labour party at the last election said it did not support. I believe the NHS has the resources that it needs, and that is why we are seeing it treating more patients, with more treatments, more drugs being delivered and more tests being carried out. It is a much stronger NHS, and the reason is simple: because we have a strong economy supporting our strong NHS.
Jeremy Corbyn
I note that the Prime Minister has not offered any comment whatsoever about the winter crisis of last year or about what will happen this year. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. The Leader of the Opposition is entitled to ask questions without a barrage of noise, and the Prime Minister is entitled to answer questions without a barrage of noise. That is what the public are entitled to expect.
Jeremy Corbyn
If the Prime Minister will not answer questions that I put, then I quote to him the renowned King’s Fund, which has enormous expertise in NHS funding and NHS administration. It said that the national health service
“cannot continue to maintain standards of care and balance the books…a rapid and serious decline in patient care is inevitable”
unless something is done. May I ask the Prime Minister which is rising faster—NHS waiting lists or NHS deficits?
The Prime Minister
Let me deal directly with the King’s Fund. What we have done on this side of the House is appoint a new chief executive to the NHS, Mr Simon Stevens, who worked under the last Labour Government and did a very good job for them. He produced the Stevens plan, which he said required at least £8 billion of Government funding. We are putting in £10 billion behind that plan. That is the plan that we are producing, and we can see the results: 1.3 million more operations, 7.8 million more out-patient appointments and 4.7 million more diagnostic tests. What is going up in the NHS is the number of treatments—the number of successful outcomes.
If the hon. Gentleman wants to know who is heading for a winter crisis, I would predict that it is the Labour party. We have seen it in a lot of his appointments: his media adviser is a Stalinist, his new policy adviser is a Trotskyist and his economic adviser is a communist. If he is trying to move the Labour party to the left, I would give him “full Marx”.
Jeremy Corbyn
The issue I raised with the Prime Minister was the national health service—in case he had forgotten. I would just like to remind him that since he took office in 2010 the English waiting list is up by a third. There are now 3.5 million people waiting for treatment in the NHS. If his party cannot match its actions by its words, I put this to him: will he just get real? The NHS is in a problem: it is in a problem of deficits in many hospitals; it is in a problem of waiting lists; and it is in a problem of the financial crisis that it faces, with so many others. Can he now address that issue and ensure that everyone in this country can rely on the NHS, which is surely the jewel in all of our crowns?
The Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman talks about the health service since I became Prime Minister, so let me tell him what has happened in the NHS since I became Prime Minister: the number of doctors is up by 10,500; the number of nurses is up by 5,800; fewer patients are waiting more than 52 weeks to start treatment than was the case under Labour; we have introduced the cancer drugs fund; we have seen mixed-sex wards virtually abolished; and we have seen rates of MRSA and hospital-acquired infection come plummeting down. And it has happened for a reason: because we have had a strong economy, because we have some of the strongest growth anywhere in the world, because we have got unemployment coming down and because we have got inflation on the floor, we are able to fund an NHS, whereas the countries he admires all over the world, with their crazy socialist plans, cut their health service and hurt the people who need the help the most.
Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)
Q3. The UK’s internet economy is by far the largest of the G20 nations, at 12.4% of our GDP. But as consumers move online, so do criminals. Does the Prime Minister therefore agree that the investigatory powers Bill must give our security services the powers they need to keep us safe, while ensuring that proper controls exist on how we use those powers?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise this, and it is one of the most important Bills this House will discuss. Obviously, it is going through pre-legislative scrutiny first. The Home Secretary will today, at this Dispatch Box, set out very clearly what this Bill is about and why it is necessary. Let me just make one simple point: communications data—the who called whom and when of telecommunications—have been absolutely vital in catching rapists and child abductors and in solving other crimes. The question before us is: do we need those data when people are using social media to commit those crimes rather than just a fixed or mobile phone? My answer is: yes, we must help the police and our security and intelligence services to keep us safe.
Angus Robertson (Moray) (SNP)
At this week’s Remembrance events, we remember all the sacrifices from past and present conflicts. We also show our respects to veterans and to service families. Does the Prime Minister agree that everything must be done to deliver on the military covenant—both the spirt and the letter?
The Prime Minister
I certainly agree with both parts of the right hon. Gentleman’s question. These Remembrance services are very important, right up and down our country, and the military covenant is one of the most important things that we have. We make a promise to our military that because of the sacrifices they make on our behalf they should not have less good treatment than other people in our country and indeed that, where we can, we should provide extra support. We are the first Government to put the military covenant properly into law and to deliver almost every year big improvements in the military covenant—hospital treatment, free transport, council tax discount and so many other things—and we report on it every year.
Angus Robertson
However, is the Prime Minister aware that many, many service widows continue to be deprived of their forces pensions if there is a change in their personal circumstances? Does he agree that that is a clear breach of the spirit of the military covenant, and what will he do to rectify that wrong?
The Prime Minister
I think that it was last year that we made a big change at around the time of Armistice day to ensure that many people who had remarried were able to get their pensions. That was a very big step forward, which was welcomed by the British Legion. If there are further steps that we need to take, I am very happy to look at them and see what can be done. I also remember that, in the last Budget, we looked at the case of police widows, and we tried to put right their situation as well.
Dr James Davies (Vale of Clwyd) (Con)
Q5. Will the Prime Minister join me in congratulating the town of Prestatyn in my constituency, which is a finalist in the Department for Communities and Local Government’s great British high street awards? Will he confirm whether the UK Government will be holding discussions with the Welsh Assembly Government about the devolution of business rates to councils in Wales so that other town centres in my constituency, such as Rhyl, have a better opportunity to regenerate?
The Prime Minister
I certainly join my hon. Friend in congratulating Prestatyn. I do not know whether Prestatyn is in the same category for this prize as my home town of Chipping Norton, which has also been nominated, so I might have some conflicts of interest. Obviously, in Wales, business rates are a devolved issue, but it is open to the Welsh Government, should they choose, to take the approach that we are taking of devolving that business rate income directly to local councils, so that local councils have a better connection between the money that they raise and the decisions that they take to attract business, investment and industry to their area.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
Q2. I went to Cheltenham Ladies’ College and the Prime Minister went to Eton. Both schools invest heavily in excellent teaching and facilities for music, dance, arts and drama, and yet while he has been Prime Minister, the schools that educate 93% of our pupils have cut the number of teachers in those subjects. Will his legacy be that Britain stops being a world leader in creative and cultural industries and becomes an also-ran?
The Prime Minister
I do not accept that. If Members look at what has happened with school funding, they will find that it has been protected under this Government, and we want to continue protecting school funding. What I make no apology for is the very clear focus that we have on getting the basics right in our schools. It is essential that we get more children learning the basic subjects and getting the basic qualifications. It is then more possible to put in place the arts, the dance and the drama that I want my children to enjoy when they go to their schools.
Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)
Q6. The channel tunnel and the port of Dover are major pieces of national infrastructure, but when there are big disruptions to services it causes chaos on Kent’s roads. As the Government complete their final work on the spending review, will the Prime Minister give special consideration to the need for an urgent and long-term solution to Operation Stack?
The Prime Minister
I absolutely recognise the serious problems that are caused to Kent residents and businesses when it becomes necessary to put in place Operation Stack. We have already implemented short-term measures to reduce the impact, including using the temporary availability of Manston airfield as a contingency measure. I know that my hon. Friend and other Kent MPs met the Chancellor this morning. We are happy to build on that work. I understand the pressures, and we will do everything we can to relieve them.
Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)
Q4. May I associate myself with the Prime Minister’s comments about what will happen this weekend and also with the comments made by the leader of the Scottish National party, the right hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson)? Thousands of people who served our nation in the Royal Navy before 1987 are not entitled to full compensation. That means that people who have been exposed to asbestosis and have contracted the cancer disease mesothelioma stand to lose out massively when compared with people in civilian life. Someone who has been exposed to asbestosis in industry could get £150,000 in compensation, while it is probable that a service person will get only £31,000. Will the Prime Minister look into that and report back to this House, as it is clearly a moral outrage as well as a clear breach of the military covenant?
The Prime Minister
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising this issue. I understand that the Defence Secretary is looking at the matter. As I have said, since putting the military covenant into law, we have tried every year to make progress, whether it is on the issue of widows or of other groups that have been disadvantaged in some way. I am happy to go away and look at the point that he makes.
Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)
Q9. The Royal Society has identified a need for 1 million scientists, engineers and tech professionals by 2020. One way to bridge the skills gap is through an increase in high-quality apprenticeships, such as those delivered by PROCAT, the Prospects College of Advanced Technology, in Basildon. However, for every one place available, 20 people apply. Will my right hon. Friend redouble his efforts to meet our commitment to 3 million new apprenticeships?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is right that the 3 million target is essential, and I believe that we can achieve it. To go back to the question asked by the right hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), one way we can achieve that is by making sure that more of our young people have the qualifications necessary to apply for an apprenticeship. Many firms find that lots of people apply, but when we knock out the people who do not have a qualification in English or maths the number comes right down. I am delighted to announce today that my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi) will take the place of my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Richard Harrington), who has moved on to other things, as my adviser on apprenticeships to help me ensure that businesses deliver on this agenda.
Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)
Q7. Does the Prime Minister realise that my constituents in Blackpool face a double whammy on police cuts from his spending review and from the Home Office formula, which chops 14%, or £25 million, off Lancashire’s police? With letters from a cross-party group of Lancashire MPs, from my neighbourhood watch group, from our police and crime commissioner and six others, mostly Tories, and from our chief constable all saying that the process is flawed, how many blue lights does he need before we hit meltdown?
The Prime Minister
The reforms to the police funding formula are in consultation and no decisions have been taken. Through the hon. Gentleman, may I congratulate Lancashire police, as crime is down in Blackpool by 5% over this Parliament? Funding for Lancashire police is £180 million, the same in cash terms as in 2003, and Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary
“found that Lancashire Constabulary is exceptionally well prepared to face its future financial requirements.”
That is the view of HMIC in a country where crime, however we measure it, has fallen significantly since the Government took office.
Mrs Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)
Q12. My constituent, Dr Sarah Pape, one of the UK’s leading burns specialist, went out on Monday to Bucharest to help the Romanian medical teams dealing with the nightclub fire disaster. I understand that some 150 patients are in need of critical burns care and that there are only 25 burns beds in Bucharest. Sarah Pape has asked whether the Prime Minister will consider offering practical humanitarian medical assistance to these burns victims by allowing the use of UK burns facilities for their treatment.
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise the tragic events that took place in Bucharest last Friday. All our thoughts are with the victims and their families. I am pleased to hear about Dr Pape’s visit and her selfless work to help. It is a good suggestion to consider whether we can offer specialist help and support and I will take that away and see what can be done.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
Q8. The Prime Minister will understand the heartbreak of the death of a child, but for parents then not to know what has happened to the ashes of that child, as is the case for Mike and Tina Trowhill in Hull and other families up and down the country, is simply very cruel. Will the Prime Minister agreed to meet Mike and Tina to discuss why we need national and local inquiries into what happened to baby ashes in such cases?
The Prime Minister
I completely understand how the hon. Lady’s constituents feel. This must have been an absolutely tragic event, only made worse by not knowing what had happened to the child. I am happy to arrange that meeting. I am not aware of the case and had not heard of it before, but let me look into it very carefully and see what I can do.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
Q13. I was delighted that the Chancellor chose our county city of York to launch the new National Infrastructure Commission. Will the Prime Minister confirm that this is the start of a new era in which important investment decisions on issues such as roads and railways between the great cities of the north will help to bring growth and prosperity to our region?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is right to raise this issue. People in Yorkshire have long felt that there has not been a fair enough deal for transport funding for roads and rail. People can now see that £13 billion is being spent on transport in the north as part of our plan to rebalance Britain’s economy. We have committed more than £4.8 billion of major road improvements and are continuing to invest in improving the A64, which is vital for the people of York. We will go on looking at what more we can do to ensure that this vital part of our economy has the transport links it needs.
John Nicolson (East Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
Q10. On 9 September the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport told the Culture, Media and Sport Committee that“there are no plans to sell Channel 4”.Can the Prime Minister confirm that that remains the Government’s position, and that no discussions are under way to privatise, and thus imperil, this much-loved and important public institution?
The Prime Minister
First, let me say that I am a huge fan of Channel 4, which was a great Conservative innovation; I think that it was a combination of Willie Whitelaw and Margaret Thatcher who helped bring it to our screens. I want to ensure that Channel 4 has a strong and secure future, and I think that it is right to look at all the options, including seeing whether private investment could help safeguard the channel for the future. Let us have a look at all the options and not close our minds, like some on the Opposition Front Bench who think that private is bad and public is good. Let us have a proper look at how we can ensure that that great channel goes on being great for many years to come.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
Everybody who has had any contact with the adoption process will be familiar with the frustration that unnecessary delays cause prospective parents. Will the Prime Minister take action to speed up the adoption process so that more children can be placed with the right families much more quickly?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise this matter. We have seen a 72% increase in the number of children being adopted, and the average waiting time has come down by something like five months, but it is still far too long. If we look across the 150 different councils responsible for adoption, we see that around 68 of them have no mechanism for what we call early placement, where fostering and adoption are run alongside each other. If we can introduce that, not least through the regional adoption agencies that we will be establishing, we will see many more children get the warm and loving home we want them to have.
Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)
Q11. Will the Prime Minister spare a thought on Armistice Day for the 633 of our bravest and best who died as a result of two political mistakes: 179 in pursuit of non-existent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq; and 454 in the Helmand incursion that promised that no shot would be fired? Will he rethink his own plan to order more of our brave soldiers to put their lives on the line in the chaos and confusion of a four-sided civil war in Syria?
The Prime Minister
I have great respect for the hon. Gentleman, but I suggest, with respect, that on Armistice Day we should put aside political questions about conflicts and decisions that were made and simply remember the men and women who put on a uniform, go and serve and risk their lives on our behalf. Let us make Armistice day about that, not about other questions.
Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)
The past week has been a very good one for Cornwall airport in Newquay, with the announcement of the scrapping of the airport development fee, which was an additional tax on passengers and a barrier to growth, the announcement of new air links that will link Cornwall directly to mainland Europe, and the upgrading of the Gatwick link, with the support of the public service obligation. Will the Prime Minister join me in congratulating the team at Cornwall airport in Newquay on their excellent work supporting the Cornish economy?
The Prime Minister
I am a huge fan and frequent user of Newquay airport. The Government made a series of promises about helping the airport to ensure there is that vital connectivity between Cornwall and the rest of the country, and indeed continental Europe, and I am delighted that it is doing so well.
Norman Lamb (North Norfolk) (LD)
I thank the Prime Minister for his welcome—[Interruption.]
Norman Lamb
I thank the Prime Minister for welcoming the campaign launched this week whereby 200 leaders from across society will join the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), Alastair Campbell and me in calling for equality for those who suffer from mental ill health. The truth is that those who suffer from mental ill health do not have the same right to access treatment as others enjoy in our NHS. The moral and economic case for ending this historical injustice is overwhelming. Will the Prime Minister do what it takes to ensure that this spending review delivers the extra investment in mental health needed to deliver genuine equality?
The Prime Minister
Let me say to the right hon. Gentleman, who did a lot of work on this in the previous Parliament, that I very much welcome the campaign that has been launched and what it aims to achieve. We set out in the NHS constitution parity between mental and physical health and we have taken steps towards that by, for instance, introducing for the first time waiting times and proper targets for talking therapies. There are now twice as many people undergoing those talking therapies as there were five years ago. But I completely accept that there is more to do in healing the divide between mental and physical health, and this Government are committed to doing that.
Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)
Further to the question from the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), I thank the Prime Minister for his support and emphasise that this is indeed an all-party campaign. Does he agree that there is an opportunity now to build on the work of the coalition over the past five years and, with widespread support across all parts of society, end an historical injustice and inequality in the treatment of mental ill-health and physical illness?
The Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend is right. Let me tell him what we are doing. We are investing more in mental health than ever before—we will be spending £11.4 billion this financial year. Crucially, we have asked every clinical commissioning group to ensure real-terms increases in its investment in mental health services so that it cannot be treated as the Cinderella service, as has sometimes been the case in the past. If we do that and deal with some of the other issues, such as mental health patients being held in police cells inappropriately, we will have a far better system for dealing with mental health in our country.
Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)
With the announcement yesterday of the loss of 860 manufacturing jobs at the Michelin plant in Ballymena, one of the factors being high energy costs, will the Prime Minister undertake to work with the Northern Ireland Executive to address both the short-term and the medium-term issues as a matter of urgency? People who are currently in work in Northern Ireland are extremely worried about the impact of cuts to working tax credits. Given that the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and the Government are in listening mode and are showing a surprising degree of flexibility across a range of issues, will the Prime Minister reverse the thrust of that policy and remove the burden and threat against working families in Northern Ireland and across the country?
The Prime Minister
First, on the issue of industries, if a company qualifies as part of the energy-intensive industries, it will see a reduction in its bill because of the action that I announced from this Dispatch Box last week. Secondly and specific to Northern Ireland, we have passed in this House historic legislation to allow Northern Ireland to set its own rate of corporation tax. The sooner we can put together all the elements of the Stormont House agreement, the sooner Northern Ireland will be able to take action to try and build a stronger private sector in Northern Ireland, which is exactly what I want to see.
On the issue of tax credits, I give the right hon. Gentleman the same answer: he will know in three weeks’ time. He also knows that people who work in that business or in other businesses will be able to earn £11,000 before they start paying taxes, get more help with their childcare and have a higher wage to start with. Let us build an economy where people earn more and pay less taxes, and where we keep welfare costs under control so that we can build great public services.
Parking Restrictions in Scunthorpe
(8 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
The petition is from constituents who have been affected by the changes in parking regulations that were brought about in order to address one problem and have created another problem for the health and wellbeing of my constituents on Newland Drive.
The petition states:
The petition of residents of Scunthorpe County Constituency,
Declares their objections to the parking restrictions which have recently been imposed by North Lincolnshire Council on Newland Drive, Scunthorpe.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to request North Lincolnshire Council to review the new parking restrictions and the impact on local residents.
And the petitioners remain, etc.
[P001552]
Draft Investigatory Powers Bill
(8 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement about the draft Investigatory Powers Bill and our commitment to providing a new law consolidating and updating our investigatory powers, strengthening the safeguards, and establishing a world-leading oversight regime.
We live in a digital age. Technology is having a profound effect on society. Computers are central to our everyday lives. Big data is reshaping the way we live and work. The internet has brought us tremendous opportunities to prosper and interact with others. But a digital society also presents us with challenges. The same benefits enjoyed by us all are being exploited by serious and organised criminals, online fraudsters, and terrorists. The threat is clear. In the past 12 months alone, six significant terrorist plots have been disrupted here in the UK, as well as a number of further plots overseas. The frequency and cost of cyber-attacks is increasing, with 90% of large organisations suffering an information security breach last year. The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre estimates that there are 50,000 people in this country downloading indecent images of children.
The task of law enforcement and the security and intelligence agencies has become vastly more demanding in this digital age. It is right, therefore, that those who are charged with protecting us should have the powers they need to do so, but it is the role of Government and Parliament to ensure that there are limits to those powers. Let me be clear: the draft Bill we are publishing today is not a return to the draft communications data Bill of 2012. It will not include powers to force UK companies to capture and retain third party internet traffic from companies based overseas; it will not compel overseas communications service providers to meet our domestic retention obligations for communications data; and it will not ban encryption or do anything to undermine the security of people’s data. The substance of all of the recommendations by the Joint Scrutiny Committee which examined that draft Bill have been accepted.
So today’s Bill represents a significant departure from the proposals of the past. Today we are setting out a modern legal framework that brings together current powers in a clear and comprehensible way, with a new Bill that provides some of the strongest protections and safeguards anywhere in the democratic world, and an approach that sets new standards for openness, transparency and oversight. This new legislation will underpin the work of law enforcement and the security and intelligence agencies for years to come. It is their licence to operate, with the democratic approval of Parliament, to protect our national security and the public’s safety.
This Bill responds to three independent reviews published earlier this year: the first from the Intelligence and Security Committee; the second from David Anderson QC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation; and the third from the independent surveillance review convened by the Royal United Services Institute. All three reviews made it clear that the use of investigatory powers is vital to protecting the public. They all endorsed the current powers available to the police and law enforcement agencies as both necessary and proportionate, and they all agreed that the legal framework governing those powers needed updating. While considering those reviews, we have engaged with technical experts, academics, civil liberties groups and communications service providers in the UK and overseas. I also met charities supporting people affected by the crimes that these powers are used to investigate.
Copies of the draft Bill will be available in the Vote Office. Our proposals will now be subject to further consultation and pre-legislative scrutiny by a Joint Committee of Parliament. A revised Bill will then be introduced to Parliament in the spring, when it will receive careful parliamentary scrutiny. As the House knows, the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014 contains a sunset clause which means that legislation will cease to have effect from 31 December 2016. It is our intention to pass a new law before that date.
This Bill will govern all the powers available to law enforcement, the security and intelligence agencies and the armed forces to acquire the content of communications or communications data. These include the ability to retain and acquire communications data to be used as evidence in court and to advance investigations; the ability to intercept the contents of communications in order to acquire sensitive intelligence to tackle terrorist plots and serious and organised crimes; the use of equipment interference powers to obtain data covertly from computers; and the use of these powers by the security and intelligence agencies in bulk to identify the most serious threats to the UK from overseas and to rapidly establish links between suspects in the UK.
It cannot be right that today the police could find an abducted child if the suspects were using mobile phones to co-ordinate their crime, but if they were using social media or communications apps they would be out of reach. Such an approach defies all logic and ignores the realities of today’s digital age, so this Bill will also allow the police to identify which communications services a person or device has connected to—so-called internet connection records.
Some have characterised that power as law enforcement having access to people’s full web browsing histories. Let me be clear—that is simply wrong. An internet connection record is a record of the communications service that a person has used, not a record of every web page they have accessed. If someone has visited a social media website, an internet connection record will only show that they accessed that site, not the particular pages they looked at, who they communicated with, or what they said. It is simply the modern equivalent of an itemised phone bill.
Law enforcement agencies would not be able to make a request for the purpose of determining, for example, whether someone had visited a mental health website, a medical website or even a news website. They would only be able to make a request for the purpose of determining whether someone had accessed a communications website or an illegal website, or to resolve an internet protocol address where it is necessary and proportionate to do so in the course of a specific investigation. Strict limits will apply to when and how those data can be accessed—over and above those safeguards that apply to other forms of communications data—and we will ban local authorities from accessing such data.
I have announced today our intention to ensure that the powers available to law enforcement and the agencies are clear for everyone to understand. The transparency report I am publishing today will help, and copies of that report will be available in the Vote Office. There remain, however, some powers that successive Governments have considered too sensitive to disclose, for fear of revealing capabilities to those who mean us harm. I am clear that we must now reconcile that with our ambition to deliver greater openness and transparency.
The Bill will make explicit provision for all of the powers available to the security and intelligence agencies to acquire data in bulk. That will include not only bulk interception provided under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 and which is vital to the work of GCHQ, but the acquisition of bulk communications data, both relating to the UK and overseas.
That is not a new power. It will replace the power under Section 94 of the Telecommunications Act 1984, under which successive Governments have approved the security and intelligence agencies’ access to such communications data from communication service providers.
That has allowed them to thwart a number of attacks here in the UK. In 2010, when a group of terrorists were plotting attacks in the UK, including on the London stock exchange, the use of bulk communications data played a key role in MI5’s investigation. It allowed investigators to uncover the terrorist network and to understand their plans. That led to the disruption of their activities and successful convictions against all the group’s members.
I have also published the agencies’ handling arrangements relating to that power, which set out the existing robust safeguards and independent oversight. These make it clear that the data do not include the content of communications or internet connection records. The Bill will put that power on a more explicit footing and it will be subject to the same robust safeguards that apply to other bulk powers.
The House will know that the powers I have described today are currently overseen by the interception of communications commissioner, the intelligence services commissioner and the chief surveillance commissioner, all of whom are serving or former senior judges.
That regime worked in the past, but I am clear that we need a significantly strengthened regime to govern how these powers are authorised and overseen, so we will replace the existing oversight with a powerful and independent investigatory powers commissioner. This will be a senior judge, supported by a team of expert inspectors with the authority and resources to effectively, and visibly, hold the intelligence agencies and law enforcement to account. These will be world-leading oversight arrangements.
Finally, I want to turn to authorisation. Authorising warrants is one of the most important means by which I and other Secretaries of State hold the security and intelligence agencies to account for their actions. In turn, we are accountable to this House and, through its elected representatives, to the public. As the House knows, the first duty of Government is the protection of the public, and that is a responsibility this Government take extremely seriously.
Although there was a good deal of agreement in the three independent reviews I have referenced, all three reached different conclusions on the question of who should authorise interception warrants. The Intelligence and Security Committee supported authorisation by a Secretary of State; David Anderson said judges should carry out the authorisation; and the Royal United Services Institute said that the authorisation of warrants should have a judicial element, but also recognised the important role of the Secretary of State. I have considered the very good arguments that were put forward by the three reviews. My response is one that I hope the House agrees will provide the reassurance of both democratic accountability and judicial accountability.
As now, the Secretary of State will need to be satisfied that an activity is necessary and proportionate before a warrant can be issued. However, in future, the warrant will not come into force until it has been formally approved by a judge. That will place a double lock on the authorisation of our most intrusive investigatory powers. There will be democratic accountability, through the Secretary of State, to ensure that our intelligence agencies operate in the interests of the citizens of this country, and the public reassurance of independent, judicial authorisation. This will be one of the strongest authorisation regimes anywhere in the world.
For parliamentarians, we will go even further. The Bill will, for the first time, put into law the Prime Minister’s commitment that in any case where it is proposed to intercept the communications of a parliamentarian, including Members of this House, Members of the House of Lords, UK MEPs and Members of the devolved legislatures, the Prime Minister will also be consulted.
The legislation that we are proposing today is unprecedented. It will provide unparalleled openness and transparency about our investigatory powers; it will provide the strongest safeguards and world-leading oversight arrangements; and it will give the men and women of our security and intelligence agencies and our law enforcement agencies, who do so much to keep us safe and secure, the powers they need to protect our country. I commend this statement to the House.
Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)
I welcome the Home Secretary’s comprehensive and detailed statement, and the advance notice that she provided.
Huge changes in technology have clearly left our laws outdated and made the job of the police and security services harder. In a world where the threats we face, internationally and domestically, are growing, Parliament cannot sit on its hands and leave blind spots where the authorities cannot see. This debate will be seen through the prism of extremism and terrorism, but, as the Home Secretary said, it is about much more. It is about child sexual exploitation, serious online fraud and other important functions, such as the location of missing people.
We support the Government in their attempt to update the law in this important and sensitive area. We share the Government’s goal of creating a world-class framework. The Opposition’s position is clear: strong powers must be balanced by strong safeguards for the public to protect privacy and long-held liberties. From what the Home Secretary has said today, it is clear to me that she and the Government have listened carefully to the concerns that were expressed about the draft Bill that was presented in the last Parliament. She has brought forward much stronger safeguards, particularly in the crucial area of judicial authorisation. It would help the future conduct of this important public debate if the House sent out the unified message today that this is neither a snooper’s charter, nor a plan for mass surveillance. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]
On behalf of the Opposition, I echo the Home Secretary’s thanks to the Intelligence and Security Committee, RUSI and, in particular, David Anderson, QC, who has done the House and the country a huge service by setting out the basis for a new consensus on these important matters. Will the Home Secretary tell us whether David Anderson has expressed a view on her draft Bill, whether he supports the measures within it and whether he is satisfied with the checks and balances on powers and safeguards?
The House will want reassurance that the Bill carries forward the safeguards from previous legislation, particularly the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, such as the threshold for the use of the most intrusive powers. Will the Home Secretary assure the House that the far-reaching powers of content interception will be used for only the most serious crimes, as was the case under the original legislation?
We welcome what the Home Secretary said about internet connection records and local authorities, but the House will have been listening carefully to what she said about data retention and bulk storage. Will she say more about what kind of data will be stored by the authorities, for how long it will be stored and whether the information will be held in anonymised form? That is important because public concern will have risen following the attack on data held by TalkTalk. People will have heard her say at the beginning of her statement that 90% of commercial organisations have experienced a data breach. What lessons has she drawn from the TalkTalk attack? Does she believe that there is a need to enhance the security of bulk storage arrangements in both public and private bodies?
On encryption, the Prime Minister spoke some months ago about the possibility of introducing a ban. Clearly, that is not the policy that the Home Secretary has just outlined. Will she explain the reason for the change in approach? Alongside the proposals on encryption, it is clear that the Bill will place a range of new legal duties on communications providers. Will she tell the House whether all the major providers support her proposals, including those who are based overseas? I listened carefully to what she said on that point. She implied that the measures in the Bill would not apply to organisations that are based overseas. That suggests that there is a large hole that the legislation will not cover. Will she say more about that and reassure us on whether there will be voluntary arrangements in that area?
Will the Home Secretary say whether the measures will apply to individuals? There is rapid change in the development of online applications, so we need to know whether individuals might be liable.
The whole House will welcome what the Home Secretary had to say about the Wilson doctrine, but she did not mention journalistic sources. Will she say whether the legislation will provide protection in such cases?
My predecessor made a key demand in the crucial area of authorisation, which I have reiterated. We are pleased that the Home Secretary has listened. The two-stage process that she advocates seems to have the merits of both arguments: it will provide public and political accountability, and the independence that is needed to build trust in the system. There may be a worry that it will build in delays. Will she say more about how the two-stage process will work in practice and how delays will be avoided? Will judges sign off warrants in all cases? If the Secretary of State and the judge come to different conclusions, who will have the final say?
Finally, as well as looking at the specific proposals in the Bill, it is important to look at the wider context in which they are being introduced. The Home Secretary will know that there are fears in some communities, particularly the Muslim community, that the powers will be used against them disproportionately. We have seen in the past how police powers have been wrongly used against trade unionists.
David Anderson rightly laid great emphasis on the need to build trust in the new framework. It does not help to create the right context when the Prime Minister suggests that the entire Muslim community quietly condones extremism, nor does it build confidence in the new Bill when, at the same time, the Government are legislating in the Trade Union Bill to impose new requirements on trade unionists in respect of the use of social media and on the monitoring of it by the police. As the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) said, “This isn’t Franco’s Britain”. Can the Home Secretary see that to continue to build on the trust she has created and the good start that she has made today, the Government should drop some of its more divisive rhetoric and measures, starting with the measures in the Trade Union Bill?
In conclusion, the issues the proposed legislation seeks to tackle go way beyond party politics. Any Government will face a difficult task in balancing the security of the nation with the privacy and liberties of individual citizens. As someone who was in the Home Office on 7/7, I know that that challenge has got harder in recent years. We will examine carefully the detail of the draft Bill and seek to improve the safeguards to build trust. Having listened carefully to what the Home Secretary has said today, I believe that she has responded to legitimate concerns and broadly got that difficult balance right.
Mrs May
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the tone that he adopted for most of his response to my statement. I thank him for his willingness to understand and accept the importance of this legislation and for his clear comment that this is not mass surveillance. As he says, the message should go out very clearly from this House today that these are important powers that are necessary to keep us safe and secure, but that we must have the right safeguards.
The right hon. Gentleman asked a lot of questions. I will attempt to answer as many of them as possible, but if I miss any particular points I will respond to them in writing.
Before I come to the specific questions, I want to address the reference that he made to the Prime Minister at the end of his speech. I have to say to him that it was not justified by the tone that he adopted for the rest of his speech. What the Prime Minister has said, and what we are saying in our counter-extremism strategy—the strategy deals with extremism of all sorts, including Islamist extremism and neo-Nazi extremism—is that we want to work with people in communities and encourage mainstream voices. We want to work to ensure that, when people are in isolated communities, we identify the barriers that cause that isolation. That is why Louise Casey is doing the very important work she is doing. The characterisation of the Prime Minister that the right hon. Gentleman puts to the House is not one that I recognise.
The right hon. Gentleman asked about David Anderson’s view. I have had a private meeting with him on the matter and discussed it with him. We have taken virtually everything that he requested on board, but I do not think it is appropriate for me to say what his view is. That is for him to say separately. It was a private meeting and I just do not think it is appropriate for me to use it in that way.
The right hon. Gentleman referred to serious crimes. Yes, the measure will cover only the most serious crimes, as currently defined in RIPA. That definition will be brought into the legislation.
On the retention of communications data, it will be possible to require the intercept communications records to be retained for up to 12 months. That refers only to the front page of the website. As I have said, it is not exactly which pages within a website that people have been looking at, but just the fact of access to a website or communications device.
The right hon. Gentleman asked about recent cyber-attacks. The message we take from those is very simple: as criminals are moving into more online crime, we need to ensure that our law enforcement agencies have the power to deal with that cybercrime and work in that online space, which is precisely what today is about.
On encryption, the current requirement, which is in secondary legislation, that those companies issued with a warrant should take reasonable steps to respond to it in unencrypted form, is being put on the face of the legislation, but we are not banning encryption. We recognise that encryption plays an important part in keeping people’s details secure.
The right hon. Gentleman asked about providers. There may be a slight misunderstanding about requirements on overseas providers. There are some elements that we are not now requiring of overseas providers, but we retain the extra-territorial jurisdiction of our warrantry. It is still our view that we should be able to exercise against an overseas provider a warrant issued here in the UK. The work of Nigel Sheinwald, of which hon. Members will be aware, suggested that there was scope for a greater form of international agreement in this area. The Government will continue to look at that.
On journalistic sources, I did not mention it, but we will include in the legislation what we included in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 code earlier this year: access to communications data to identify a journalist’s source will require judicial authorisation.
The point of the double lock is that both parties have to authorise the warrant for it to go ahead. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the time delays. There will be an urgent process, so it will be possible for a Secretary of State to sign an urgent warrant that will come immediately into effect. There will then be a period of time within which the judge will have to review it and make a decision on whether it should continue. We will look to ensure that, in that urgent process, the time delay is as little as possible between those two parts of the process. As I have said, the purpose of a double lock is that, in most circumstances, we will have that double authorisation.
Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
In view of the size of the Bill, I will confine myself solely to the judicial authorisation aspects of it. Will the Secretary of State tell the House whether the measure will replace all 66 statutory approval mechanisms for intercept and use of communications data? Will the judiciary involved in the authorisation procedures be appointed by the Judicial Appointments Commission or by the Prime Minister? Will Members of Parliament get the same protections on communications data, to which she referred, that are being extended to journalists? My understanding is that that is not the case.
Mrs May
In relation to the warrantry that will be subject to the double lock and the process of interception, where the process currently requires a warrant signed just by the Secretary of State, it will in future have the double lock. Additional processes will be introduced in relation to some of the bulk capabilities to which I referred. Obviously, we have to appoint the investigatory powers commissioner. There will then be a process to determine who should be under the commissioner and the areas of expertise they should have. I have said to the Justice Secretary in Scotland and the Minister of Justice in Northern Ireland that we would expect to ensure that Scottish and Northern Ireland expertise is available to the commissioner.
Mr Nick Clegg (Sheffield, Hallam) (LD)
I thank the Home Secretary for her statement. Her last Bill on this fraught but important subject hit the buffers. The current Bill is a much-improved model, although I have the feeling that, under the bonnet, it retains some of the flaws of its predecessor. The Home Office has clearly put in a lot of work, which I welcome, as I do the dropping of some of the key provisions on third-party data and encryption. I am a little confused by the advance briefings on the Bill: some suggest that it is a radical departure from its predecessor, and others suggest that much of it is the same. It cannot be both, and the devil will be in the detail.
On judicial authorisation, the Home Secretary has set out a somewhat complex double-lock compromise that may incur stop-start delays. I heard what she said earlier, but I wonder whether it would not be simpler and faster to provide for direct judicial authorisation. I should like to understand from her why she has not decided to do that.
On web browsing, I strongly welcome what looks at first like a significantly more proportionate and targeted approach, but will the Home Secretary explain why it is still necessary to hold such large amounts of data retrospectively for a considerable period of time?
Finally, will the Home Secretary tell the House why she has not acted on the commitment she made in the last Parliament to establish a proper US-style privacy and civil liberties board to provide reasoned scrutiny on such Bills in future?
Mrs May
The right hon. Gentleman says that there was some confused briefing. Different reports appeared in newspapers, but that is not necessarily the result of briefing. The situation on the Bill is what I have set out today in my statement—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) says that I went on TV. I said on TV exactly what I am about to say to the House in relation to the difference between the Bill and the draft Communications Data Bill, which is that some of the more contentious elements are not in the current Bill. For example, the requirement for UK communications service providers to retain and access third-party data from overseas providers is not in the Bill, nor is the web browsing provision, to which the right hon. Gentleman referred, and nor is the provision that would have placed on US and overseas providers the same data retention requirements and obligations that apply to UK service providers.
On judicial authorisation, the double lock provides both judicial independence, but also, crucially, public accountability. That is what we get through membership of the House.
The right hon. Gentleman mentioned retrospective data. I put to him the case of the abducted child. We want to see who that child or young person was in contact with before they were abducted. We can do that through telephone records, but we cannot do it if they were using a social media app. That is what the intercept communications records enable us to do.
Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Con)
I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement. The Intelligence and Security Committee will, working in co-operation with the Joint Committee, provide scrutiny for the proposed legislation. In that context, my right hon. Friend referred to the earlier report of the ISC in March, in which there were 54 specific recommendations. While I appreciate that, in part, the draft Bill may be seen as a response to those recommendations, there is a duty on the Government to provide a specific response to the ISC report. May I urge her that, in the course of the next few weeks and while the debate takes place, the Government should provide such a response—it can be in quite a short form—to those 54 recommendations, because that will enable the House and the public to identify those areas that need to be looked at in the course of the debate, and to identify what has been taken on board and what, perfectly properly, has been rejected by the Government? I seek an assurance from her today that that will happen.
Mrs May
Of course, the ISC report went wider than investigatory powers, but I can reassure my right hon. and learned Friend that, in relation to those aspects that dealt with such powers, in a sense the new Bill is a response to the report. As he knows, we have been considering very carefully the full set of recommendations from the previous ISC and will respond to him and his Committee in a timely fashion.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
I thank the Home Secretary for her statement, its tone and the care taken to address many of the concerns raised. I also thank her for the conversations I have had with her and her Ministers in advance of the publication of the draft Bill and for having confirmed to me that a Member of the Scottish National party will serve on the Joint Committee that will scrutinise it. I would be grateful if she could confirm that she will continue her open-door policy.
We have our political differences, and I am sure there will be some over the content of the draft Bill—as the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg) said, the devil is in the detail, so we will have to scrutinise it carefully—but I think we all agree that we have a responsibility to protect the rights of our fellow citizens while being realistic about the threats we face. We live in dangerous times, with threats of asymmetric conflict and an accelerating pace of technological change that unfortunately is often first embraced by those who mean us harm. It is only right when we discuss these issues that we put on the record our appreciation of those charged with keeping us safe—the police and the intelligence services—but we should also thank campaigning groups such as Liberty, Justice and Amnesty that remind us daily why it is important to protect our civil liberties, which were won and protected at the cost of the lives of the many people we will be remembering this Remembrance Sunday.
As David Anderson said in his report, the law in this area needs a thorough overhaul. We need a modern and comprehensive law that can cope with the challenges of modern technology while taking account of human rights and civil liberties, particularly the right to privacy. Only time and careful scrutiny will tell whether the draft Bill fulfils the aims he underlined, but I would be interested to hear if the Home Secretary thinks that the Bill meets his key recommendations.
Other countries are watching what we do, and it is important we get it right. SNP Members believe that access to private communications must always be necessary, targeted and proportionate, and I would be grateful if the Home Secretary could confirm that she agrees with us. Safeguards are crucial, and there is a debate about the oversight of access to communications, particularly about who authorises warrants. In common with many Members on both sides of the House, we hold that judicial oversight and authorisation might largely be the answer to the concerns, but we are concerned that a hybrid system—involving both political and judicial authorisation—might add an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy and lead to error and delay in urgent situations. Can she give us any comfort in that regard?
Several hon. Members rose—
Joanna Cherry
I am nearly finished.
I welcome the Home Secretary’s indication that protection of all parliamentarians’ communications will be put on a statutory footing, but will that protection extend to people communicating with parliamentarians, such as our constituents, whistleblowers and campaigners, and will there be not just oversight by the Prime Minister, but judicial oversight?
Finally, and briefly but importantly, the Bill concerns not only issues of national security but the investigation of serious crime, and accordingly it will impinge on areas devolved to the Scottish Parliament. Will the Home Secretary confirm that she is aware of this and that a legislative consent motion will be required in due course, and that she has engaged, and will continue to engage, with the Scottish Government?
Mrs May
On the hon. and learned Lady’s point about an open door, I have already spoke to Michael Matheson about the Bill, and my officials have been, and will continue to be, in touch with Scottish Government officials. I am well aware that it impinges on matters devolved to the Scottish Government—the operation of Police Scotland and the signature of warrantry relating to law enforcement powers—and we will work with them. There is a question about whether a legislative consent motion is necessary, but officials are working through that and considering whether it would be appropriate.
I recognise that the Scottish Government have raised the timing of warrantry. We have every confidence that the process will not add greater bureaucracy, but will add the necessary independent judicial authorisation. In emergency warrant cases, the Secretary of State will be able to authorise a warrant immediately, but that will be followed by a speedy review by the judge to ensure there is still authorisation.
The hon. and learned Lady asked if David Anderson’s recommendations, particularly about the Bill’s being comprehensive, had been met. I genuinely believe that this is a clearer and more comprehensible and comprehensive Bill, although given its length, some Members might wonder how I can say that. It is an important Bill that will set out much more clearly the different powers available to the authorities. She asked about necessity and proportionality. Of course, warrants will still be judged on whether they are necessary and proportionate—that will still be the test applied by the Secretary of State to any warrants signed. On the issue of liberty versus security, some people think it is a zero-sum game—that if we increase one, we reduce the other—but I am clear that we cannot enjoy our liberty until we have our security.
Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)
Our success in preventing numerous attacks on the public, to which the Home Secretary rightly paid tribute, is down not just to the professionalism and skill of our security services, but to the rapid decision-making process for warrants. As she and I know acutely, this is a very serious responsibility, but I strongly believe that these decisions should be made by an elected Member of the House, accountable to the House and Committees such as the ISC. I am concerned that involving a decision maker from the judiciary, who might not have particular skills in this area, will bring delay and complication. As Secretary of State, I was often approached at short notice and at difficult times of the day—early morning, for example—for a decision, and in making such decisions, I was fully aware that I would be held to account later. Will she explain further how this system will work? How many hours after an early-morning decision by a Secretary of State will there be scrutiny by the judge? Will the Secretary of State be able to discuss the areas of concern, and will the intelligence services, which prepare the material—I always found it to be punctilious, correct and professionally drafted—have an opportunity to return with a further application with further detail, if the Secretary of State has understood the judge’s grounds for throwing out an application?
Mrs May
As he said, in his former role as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, my right hon. Friend did indeed witness the process of warrant approval. I am conscious of the need to ensure that warrants can be put in place within a reasonable timeframe. There are already agreements between the Home Office and the Security Service about the time needed for a Secretary of State to deal with a warrant and for officials to process the warrantry, and we would expect to come to similar agreements with the judicial commissioners in order to make clear the time in which a warrant needs to be considered.
The judicial commissioners, in considering the warrants under the powers they will be given, will apply the same principle as applied by a court on an application for judicial review, but in an emergency a Secretary of State will be able to authorise a warrant immediately. In normal circumstances, the double lock will be required for a warrant to be exercised, but in an emergency it will be possible to exercise it purely on the Secretary of State’s authorisation. The Bill makes it clear that the judicial commissioners should review that decision within five days and decide whether the warrant can continue or should be stopped, and if it is stopped, whether the material gained from it should be kept in certain circumstances or destroyed.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
Today the Home Secretary has ripped up RIPA—a piece of legislation that has been unfit for purpose. I particularly welcome the ban on local authorities accessing information about their own citizens. Although I welcome the additional judicial scrutiny, I have some concerns. Who will train the judges to deal with this very complex area? We shall need a panel of judges and a lot of expertise. Will she continue working with the internet providers to ensure that we track people of interest? I know that the Home Secretary said that the information is equivalent to an itemised bill, but there is a lot of information in an itemised bill. If I were to look at her itemised telephone bill and she were to look at mine, we might be surprised at who we were telephoning. [Interruption.]
Mrs May
I think that in their sedentary suggestion my hon. Friends made the right response to that particular point: “Speak for yourself!” There is an issue with the judicial panel, and a number of judges will need to be brought together. It is not the first time that changes have been made in matters relating to national security, where judges have to deal with them in different circumstances from which they have dealt with them previously. Judges are used to making independent decisions on a judicial review basis and on the basis of the law as they know it. Of course, a Secretary of State who, like me, has been in the position for some time will have seen a history of national security operations, for example, that provides a level of experience that would not be there the first time a judge looked at this. Ensuring that the judges are aware of that national security background will, I am sure, be part of the process. I have more faith in the judiciary and its ability to work independently than the right hon. Gentleman perhaps does.
Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
I agree with the Home Secretary about the importance of putting faith in the ability of the judiciary. What consultation will she have with the Lord Chief Justice on the selection of members of the panel that will be appropriately security vetted? Can she ensure, for example, that an appropriate senior judge is available to be on call on a 24-hour basis, as is perfectly common in other types of judicial review proceedings so that delay is minimised? Will she also provide more detail on how the appointment of the judicial commissioners will take place and who will be responsible for it? Finally, will she give an undertaking that the ambition to introduce the Bill by the spring will in no way truncate the pre-legislative scrutiny of the Joint Committee?
Mrs May
On the last point, we will be talking to the Chairman of the Joint Scrutiny Committee, when appointed, about the appropriate timetable. Although we have the deadline of December 2016, we want to ensure that the process of scrutiny by the Joint Committee is a proper one, and the timetable will reflect that. On the judicial commissioners and the investigatory powers commissioner, we have already had some discussions at official level with the judiciary, as my hon. Friend might imagine. We would not be putting these provisions into legislation unless we had spoken to the judiciary about the requirements. Discussions about the precise elements that my hon. Friend and others have raised about the choice and number of judicial commissioners will be ongoing.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
The police and the agencies will agree with what the Home Secretary and the shadow Home Secretary have said about the need both for powers to deal with serious threats and for safeguards that are needed in a democracy. I welcome the Home Secretary’s agreement to judicial authorisation and her significant points about transparency, both of which issues reflect the David Anderson report.
I want to ask particularly about the investigatory powers commissioner. It sounds like something we have called for, but will that commissioner be accountable to the Executive and to the Prime Minister, which has limited the operation of some of the existing commissioners, or will he be accountable instead to Parliament or to the ISC? How will this interact with the existing counter-terror reviewer? I think David Anderson has done an extremely good job in that role.
Mrs May
On the right hon. Lady’s last point, there is no intention to change the role of the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation. As she will know, we have made some adaptations to that role in respect of what it covers and the reporting requirements, but there is no intention to change that role. Indeed, we are having discussions with David Anderson, ensuring that he has extra support for the role he is required to carry out.
I apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) and others who have raised this issue. The appointment of the investigatory powers commission will be a prime ministerial one, and the Prime Minister will appoint such members of other judicial commissions as are considered necessary. The Bill will set out the relevant qualifications that judicial commissioners will need to have to undertake their role.
As the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) will know, the existing commissioners report annually on the work they undertake. It is a great pity that that part of our process of oversight has never really been seen by the public, precisely because the reports usually show that the agencies are doing a very good job, so do not hit the headlines in the way that different sorts of reports would. We expect the independent investigatory powers commissioner to ensure that recommendations are made and to make public any views on the processes that emerge.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. More than three dozen hon. and right hon. Members are still seeking to catch my eye. If I am to have any realistic chance of accommodating them without intruding excessively on subsequent business, brevity is now required.
Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)
Constituents of mine who work at GCHQ are some of the most talented and dedicated public servants anywhere in our country, but they are also conscientious and scrupulous about acting within the law. Does the Secretary of State agree that these measures contain a clear authorisation and oversight framework, including a welcome judicial element, which can command public confidence and, crucially, allow GCHQ employees to do their vital work with professionalism and pride?
Mrs May
My hon. Friend does well in speaking for his constituents who work at GCHQ, and indeed for all who work at GCHQ. Obviously, I have met and dealt with a number of them, and with our other security agencies such as the Secret Intelligence Service and MI5. I can confirm what my hon. Friend says—these people act with extreme professionalism in the work they do, and take extreme care with the powers they exercise. They are very conscious of the powers they hold and they are very careful in the exercise of them. As my hon. Friend says, the Bill provides the important strong oversight arrangements that will enable the people at GCHQ and our other agencies to get on with the job they do so well, day in and day out.
Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)
However much we all agree that action is necessary to combat terrorism and other forms of criminality, I remain concerned, even if I am one of only a few who is, about the excessive powers that will be given to the security authorities in addition to what they already have, although judicial involvement is better than no judicial involvement. I hope the Home Secretary will bear in mind the fact that there is a good deal of concern outside this House. I certainly believe that if this measure were to be passed without substantial amendment, it would be unfortunate and a bitter blow for civil liberties.
Mrs May
The hon. Gentleman says that he thinks there are substantial new powers in the Bill, but I have to tell him that there are not. What the Bill primarily does is to bring together the powers that are spread across a number of pieces of legislation—mainly RIPA, but others too—into one single piece of legislation in a much clearer and more comprehensible form than has previously been the case. There is a new power in respect of the retention of the internet connection—with limited access to internet connection records—but the other powers in the Bill already exist. What it will do is strengthen safeguards and strengthen authorisation systems.
Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)
I welcome the Home Secretary’s careful and thoughtful approach to this sensitive area, which is so important for all our safety, and I particularly welcome the new provisions on judicial oversight. If my right hon. Friend anticipates that additional specialist training will be required by members of the judiciary to fulfil the widened remit she has outlined today, will it be possible to ensure that there is no delay in putting the necessary training in place? Will she be able to carry it out in advance and in anticipation of the legislation passing through the House?
Mrs May
I thank my right hon. Friend, who is absolutely right. We shall take every step to ensure that as soon as the legislation is in place, the new processes and structures will be brought into operation. That means ensuring that those appointed as the investigatory powers commissioner and additional commissioners have the necessary training to enable them to undertake the role we are giving them.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
The Secretary of State will be aware that when in the past she has sought support from the DUP on national security issues, it has always been willingly given. Sometimes, however, we find it hard to take when the Government do not tackle serious and organised crime on the ground in Northern Ireland. Ministers could take immediate measures with statutory instruments to address serious and organised fuel crime, and they should do that urgently. More directly, does the Secretary of State recognise that some of the major godfathers of serious and organised crime will be in direct communication with some political representatives in Northern Ireland? To avoid the debacle that we had over the National Crime Agency, she should avoid a legislative consent motion for Northern Ireland.
Mrs May
I, and others in the House, worked hard to ensure that the National Crime Agency was able to operate in Northern Ireland, and it is now tackling serious and organised crime there just as in the rest of the United Kingdom. I am not aware that a legislative consent motion would be necessary in Northern Ireland, but we will be talking to the Northern Ireland Executive about such matters, just as we will be talking to the Scottish Government.
Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for coming to the House today and setting out such a comprehensive approach to these issues. She is right to do so because they affect fundamentally the civil liberties and rights of every citizen in the country. Parliament will need to look precisely at the words in the Bill, not least because—she alluded to this—there has been a certain amount of spin in the papers recently and we must be clear about what is suggested. On warrantry, from time to time I deputised for the Home Secretary and for my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson), and I am inclined to agree that the dual key is the right way to proceed. Does she accept that the judges appointed must not be those who work too closely with the police and security services—for example the Special Immigration Appeals Commission—because their independence will not be trusted or accepted by the general public if they are given such a role?
Mrs May
I thank my right hon. Friend for his work—as he said, he sometimes signed warrants on my behalf and that of other Secretaries of State. Those appointed as judicial commissioners must have held high judicial office—we are setting a high threshold for those appointed to this role. Because such extra, strengthened oversight is an important part of the Bill, those who are appointed must be seen by members of the public to have the independence that is required to give extra confidence in the whole process of warrantry.
Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)
The Home Secretary must be aware that there is wide acceptance of her statement in the House, and Members will consider the details of the legislation in due course. One question from Members of this House and the other UK legislatures is whether she is happy that the combination of the triple lock, as she described it, is the best way to ensure that extra safeguarding is provided?
Mrs May
Yes I am, and I apologise because I think one or two Members have already raised that issue. It is important to introduce the extra element—the third element—of consultation with the Prime Minister, so that everybody in the House will be clear about requests to intercept the communications of a Member of this House, the House of Lords, or the other legislatures. We will discuss with the Scottish Government the process that will be introduced for warrants that are currently signed by Scottish Ministers. That third lock is the right way to go, and I hope that will give people confidence in the process.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on her statement, and the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) on his remarks about the snoopers charter misnomer. The difficulty we often face is when the use and abuse of intelligence leads to poor policy decisions—I am thinking particularly of the September 2002 dodgy dossier from which I am afraid the reputation of the intelligence services has yet to fully recover. What can be done further to improve public understanding of the work that the intelligence services do on their behalf? I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for her remarks about the double lock and the investigatory powers commissioner, and for the fact that her statement draws on the three reports to which she referred. That is a good first step although I am sure she feels that more could be done. What more can we do as the Bill passes through the House?
Mrs May
My hon. Friend raises an important point about highlighting to members of the public the nature of the work being done by the agencies and the way they do it. A number of steps have already been taken, and I am sure we will build on them to ensure that the public have that confidence. Recently, the agencies have been more willing to come forward and explain what they do to members of the public—the director general of MI5 gave a live interview on the “Today” programme, and that is the first time any of our agency heads have given such an interview. Anybody who has read The Times over the past couple of weeks will have seen a considerable amount of reporting on the operations of GCHQ. Such things are important because they help the public to understand what our agencies are doing.
Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)
A large number of constituents have contacted me about this matter. Does the Secretary of State accept that concerns about her proposals go well beyond what is sometimes wrongly dismissed as the civil liberties lobby?
Mrs May
It is important that Members of the House make clear to people exactly what the Government are proposing, and the strength and safeguards in the Bill. I refer the hon. Gentleman to the review by David Anderson on these matters, in which he cited polling that showed that the majority of members of the public wanted the authorities and agencies to have the powers they need to keep us safe.
Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)
We often hear about the rights of criminals not to have their privacy intruded on. Will the Home Secretary inform the House about the perspective she has heard from the victims of crime?
Mrs May
My hon. Friend makes an important point. I met representatives from groups who support and campaign for victims of crime, including child sexual abuse, rape and stalking. They made it very clear that the Government must ensure that the police and others are able to use the powers necessary to bring the perpetrators of these terrible crimes to justice.
Alex Salmond (Gordon) (SNP)
A few weeks ago at the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, the Government’s QC, Mr James Eadie, seemed to argue—on the Home Secretary’s behalf and at public expense—that modern technology had rendered the Wilson doctrine impractical, and that it was not up to much anyway. Now that the doctrine has been reborn in the Home Secretary’s statement, will she say what has happened to modern technology over the past few weeks that has now made practical what was impractical? How will that protection extend to journalists, campaigners and whistleblowers who may be contacting their MP or MSP?
Mrs May
I am not sure that I recognise the right hon. Gentleman’s description of references to modern technology. I was clear in the statement that I gave to the House less than two weeks ago that the Wilson doctrine still exists. We are putting the third lock of consultation with the Prime Minister in the legislation. Over time a mythology has grown up around what the Wilson doctrine meant. Many Members of the House felt that it meant that no communication by MPs would ever be intercepted, but that is not what the doctrine said.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
If the first duty of the Government is the protection of the realm, their second duty is to ensure that those protections are fit for purpose—my right hon. Friend the Secretary and the Minister for Security have passed that test with flying colours and are to be congratulated. The Home Secretary mentioned in passing the benefits that her proposals will bring when clamping down on paedophiles and child sexual exploitation, and as a father of three young children I welcome that, as do all my constituents. Will she flesh out a little further what benefits she sees for the services that are involved in clamping down on such pernicious activity? What benefits will her proposals actually deliver?
Mrs May
My hon. Friend has raised an important issue. Let me give him just one example. Following a recent survey of more than 6,000 cases, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre determined that more than 860 paedophiles could not be identified precisely because it did not have the internet connection records power that we are introducing in the Bill. With that power, it would have been able to identify them.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
Under Operation Notarise, more than 30,000 individuals were identified as engaging in online child abuse, but, if I recall correctly, only 1,000 of those cases were followed up. Will the new powers be matched by resources to ensure that prosecutions and safeguarding interventions can take place as well?
Mrs May
As I said a moment ago to my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), the increased power relating to internet connection records will increase the ability of CEOP—and, indeed, others—to identify the paedophiles who are committing these horrific crimes. The National Crime Agency has made very clear that it continues to investigate those who are looking at online images of child abuse, and continues to take action against them.
Oliver Dowden (Hertsmere) (Con)
I welcome the fact that the proposed powers update the existing investigatory powers to reflect the existence of new technologies such as Facebook Messenger, which were not even thought of a decade ago, but what reassurance can the Home Secretary give the House that the Bill will be future-proofed so that we do not have to return to the issue very rapidly?
Mrs May
I have every confidence, because we have taken every care to draft the legislation in such a way that it will last for a good many years and will take account of the fact that new technologies develop. The draft Communications Data Bill was drawn so widely that there was great concern about what the authorities might have been able to do as a result, so we have had to balance the requirements very carefully, but we are obviously very conscious of the need to ensure that the Bill enables us to move forward as technology develops.
Tom Elliott (Fermanagh and South Tyrone) (UUP)
I welcome the statement, but it appears that every application to the Secretary of State and the judge will involve limited provision for investigative accessibility. Will applicants have to go back to the Secretary of State and the judge to make a secondary, or further, application every time something is found during an investigative process?
Mrs May
The requirement for a double lock relates to the most intrusive powers, mainly those relating to the interception of communications. Access to communications data will continue to take place according to the current process, which does not involve warrantry from the Secretary of State. Not everything in the Bill involves the warrantry; it is involved only in those most intrusive powers.
Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)
My right hon. Friend is to be congratulated particularly on the introduction of independent judicial oversight, which, as she will know, many Members in all parts of the House regard as an essential step towards ensuring that she can promote both the security of the people and their civil liberties. As she says, security and civil liberties are not a zero-sum game; they go together.
In relation to the double lock, has my right hon. Friend considered any kind of reconciliation mechanism to enable the judge and the Home Secretary to resolve the position—presumably over some time—if they reach different decisions, or will the intelligence services be able to come back again so that warrants are not simply lost?
Mrs May
That is an important point. I think that it was touched on in a previous question, and I apologise for not responding to it then.
Under the current system, if the Secretary of State expresses the view that a warrant should not be issued, it is open to the agency concerned to go away, reconsider, and then come back with more information about necessity and proportionality, or to abandon the warrant, or to consider applying for a different warrant. That process will continue to be possible under the new system.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
As the Home Secretary has acknowledged, David Anderson called for prior judicial authorisation. He also said that the new law should comply with international human rights standards. Given the uncertainty over the future of the Human Rights Act, will the Home Secretary confirm that the Bill will comply with that Act, and with the European convention on human rights?
Mrs May
As the hon. Gentleman will know, Ministers have to take account of the human rights issue in relation to any legislation that they present to the House. That has indeed happened, and I have every confidence that this legislation will comply with human rights requirements.
Nick Herbert (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)
I welcome the Home Secretary’s balanced approach. Is it not important for us to continue to reassure the public that this is not a proposal for mass surveillance, and to restate the essential need for the Bill? There is a new form of technology that is effectively shielded from the law enforcement and intelligence agencies simply because the law has not kept up with technological development, and it is therefore necessary to update the law with essential safeguards in order to ensure that the public are safe.
Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)
May we have some idea of any benchmarks that may have informed the Home Secretary’s declaration that these will be world-leading oversight arrangements?
Mrs May
As I think was mentioned by the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), other countries look to this legislation precisely because they feel that we are forging a path ahead. They will be looking very closely at what we do in the Bill, and, indeed, may wish to adopt some elements of it in their own legislation.
Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)
Will the Home Secretary comment on what was said recently by Lord Carlile, the former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation? He said:
“Judges are, of course, very good quality men and women”,
but
“if judges are going to authenticate these issues, they have to learn about national security”.
We have heard about three reports that had influenced the Government’s thinking. Will the Home Secretary tell us who else they consulted when they were drafting the Bill? I am thinking particularly of communications companies and internet providers.
Mrs May
My hon. Friend has quoted Lord Carlile, who, as she said, is a former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation. It will, of course, be necessary for any judicial commissioners who undertake the warrantry to be aware of the context in which they make decisions in relation to national security in particular. There have been a great many meetings with internet service providers from both the United Kingdom and overseas. The Security Minister and I have held round tables with United States internet service providers, and I met some when I was in the United States in September. We have also held round tables with United Kingdom providers, civil liberties groups, and charities representing victims of these serious crimes.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
I welcome the tone and nature of the statement, but may I ask the Home Secretary what in particular led her to decide that 12 months was the right maximum period for the police and security agencies to benefit from data retention?
Mrs May
It is the period that is currently in legislation that we reinforced in the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014. We looked at it again following the Digital Rights Ireland decision by the European Court of Justice. It had previously been possible to hold data for up to 24 months, but we felt that, given the need for a balance between not holding data for too long and holding data for a sufficient period to do the job required by the authorities, up to 12 months was the right and appropriate time frame.
James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)
I, too, welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement.. When we talk about nefarious online activity, we should bear in mind that cyber-bullying is a very worrying activity which often involves young, vulnerable people and, in the most serious cases, has led to suicides. In those most serious cases, could the new powers be used to put the perpetrators behind bars?
Mrs May
My hon. Friend is right to raise the issue of cyber-bullying, which affects the lives of too many young people—sometimes, as he said, with tragic consequences. The Bill will include a definition of serious crime, which is one of the areas in which it is possible for the agencies to apply for the most intrusive powers, such as interception warrantry. I would expect cyber-bullying, at the most serious end, to come within the definition, but I will check that point and write to my hon. Friend.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
Does the Bill deal with the process of applying to go through browsing history—the directory to which the Home Secretary referred? If there are no such regulatory procedures in the Bill at the moment, might the Home Secretary think about a system whereby somebody at the rank of chief superintendent, for example, would give initial permission under RIPA criteria?
Mrs May
It will not be possible for law enforcement agencies to access browsing history; they will just be able to access the first device or social media site that the individual device accessed, for the limited purposes I have set out—IP resolution, to see whether somebody is looking at an illegal website or to find out the communications services accessed. The arrangements for authorisation are those in existence for communications data in telephony, which were looked at by the Joint Committee on the draft Communications Data Bill. It felt that that was the right process to lead to serious and proper consideration of access—albeit not the browsing history—and that the right measures were already being taken in that authorisation process.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. I do not wish to embarrass any individual hon. Member, but may I just gently point out that a Member who was not here at the start of the statement or who has gone in and out of the Chamber during the course of it should not be standing and expecting to be called? We have a very long-established practice that a Member must be present at the start of a statement and remain present throughout the exchanges, and I think on the whole the House will think that is a very proper courtesy.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
I welcome the statement, which will help make the country safer and prevent local authorities from accessing communications data. The Home Secretary rightly condemned the extraordinary claim by the shadow Home Secretary in an otherwise positive response that the Prime Minister had said that the entire Muslim population condoned extremism. Will she confirm that in his speech on 7 October the Prime Minister specifically recognised the value of religious teaching across all religions, but said that the teaching of intolerance or separatism was not acceptable? Does the Home Secretary also agree that many of us know good examples of Islamic teaching in our constituencies and the message today is very clear: we should unite against extremism using all modern tools appropriately, and if there is nothing to hide, there is nothing to fear?
Mrs May
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In the speech to which he refers, the Prime Minister welcomed and recognised the important role that faith teaching plays in our society. We all wish to see an end to intolerance, separatism and division among those who would seek to divide our communities. That is why our counter-extremism strategy is so important.
Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)
As the home affairs spokesman for my party, I commend the Secretary of State for the reassurances given in her statement and her statements over the weekend about what is in the Bill, and perhaps more importantly, about what is not in it. We are grateful for those indications. There was an exchange earlier about the composition of the Joint Committee. May I encourage the Home Secretary to consider making sure that its composition reflects this House and more importantly the regions of this United Kingdom—that Northern Ireland’s voice can be present in those discussions to ensure that the legislation is drafted in full cognisance of the effects and impacts in Northern Ireland?
Mrs May
As the hon. Gentleman may recognise, decisions about the composition of Committees are taken by the business managers in the House, but I can assure him that it is my intention, as I indicated to David Ford when I spoke to him yesterday, that my officials will continue to work with Northern Ireland officials. Ministers will be available to speak to Ministers in Northern Ireland about these matters to ensure that we take into account the considerations in relation to Northern Ireland as this Bill goes through its scrutiny and through this House.
Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s comments that local authorities will be banned from accessing these sort of data. Can she give a little more information about the extension of the life of a warrant for any period and about data-sharing among those who are able to access those warrants—or will each authority have to access their own separate warrant?
Mrs May
Any agency that wishes to intercept and use these intrusive powers would need to have a warrant to do so. The current position, which it is intended will be replicated in the Bill, is that a warrant applied for by the security and intelligence agencies is normally in place for six months, and a warrant applied for by law enforcement is normally in place for three months. There is a much shorter period of time when an emergency warrant is signed; it normally must be reconsidered within five days.
Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
I, too, welcome the Home Secretary’s statement. Does she agree that it is important that the public feel reassured by these proposals and that, therefore, while it is clear that the police and security services need the very important powers set out today, where they are most intrusive it is right that they are authorised by Secretaries of State, who are, after all, accountable to the public?
Mrs May
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. That is why the doublelock is important. Many people have called for the involvement of the independence of the judiciary, but I think it is important not to abandon the public accountability of Secretaries of State. It is the Secretary of State who can stand in this House and who is accountable for the actions of the agencies, and that is why it is important that they continue to sign.
Mr Alan Mak (Havant) (Con)
I thank the Home Secretary for her statement. She will know that the debate about the use of investigatory powers often focuses on prevention of terrorism. Does she agree that the proposed powers are also important in keeping the public safe from financial cyber-criminals and organised crime?
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. Does she agree that the double lock will mean judicial oversight to ensure that the measures are legal and proportionate, and that the Secretary of State can ensure that the public interest test is satisfied by any warrant being issued?
Johnny Mercer (Plymouth, Moor View) (Con)
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement, which again shows why she is held in such high regard by those who operate in these teams. Does she agree that one of our great privileges in this country is the relative safety and security that we enjoy in a desperately unstable world, and that sometimes these privileges require a price, which in my experience the vast majority in this country are willing to pay so long as they are safe?
Mrs May
My hon. Friend, who of course has put himself on the line to maintain our security and defend this country, makes a very important point. Most members of the public want to know that the authorities have the powers they need to keep them safe, but they also want to ensure that those powers are exercised properly, and that is where the safeguards that we have put in this Bill are so important.
Mims Davies (Eastleigh) (Con)
I, too, welcome the statement. I have also been alarmed by the terming of the so-called snoopers charter and, unsurprisingly, have had correspondence from concerned constituents, but as a forward-looking Government, doing nothing is not an option. We should listen to the police chiefs and give them those essential tools. Does the Home Secretary agree?
Mrs May
Yes, that is important. The police have been very clear that they need these tools if they are going to be able to continue to do the job we want them to do in relation to serious and organised criminals and particularly in relation to paedophiles. On the first point my hon. Friend made, that is why I particularly welcome the comment made by the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham): across this House we can send out a message today that this Bill is not about mass surveillance.
Suella Fernandes (Fareham) (Con)
I congratulate the Home Secretary and her team on introducing into what has been an incomprehensible regime much-needed transparency and coherence, informed deeply by three independent reports and, importantly, enabling our intelligence, security and law enforcement agencies to have the powers they need to deal with the unprecedented scale and character of the threat this country faces. On warranting, does my right hon. Friend agree that the judiciary are well placed to deal with their new involvement? As a barrister, I made urgent applications on the phone late at night on an emergency basis to senior judges, so they are experienced in these matters. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that the double lock strikes the right balance between public accountability and appropriate checks and balances?
Mrs May
I thank my hon. Friend, particularly for her reference to her own experience. Sometimes people have a vision of judges taking a very long time to do all this, but as she says, there are many occasions on which they have to react very quickly to requests, and they have to be available to do so. I expect that they will do that in these circumstances as well. I believe that this Bill will strike the right balance between public accountability and the independence of the judiciary, which will give the public that extra confidence.
Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)
The House has generally welcomed the Home Secretary’s balanced approach, as do I, but may I urge her to be much more aggressive in one regard? In her statement, she referred to equipment interference powers. May I encourage her to frame those powers in such a way that they could be used to disrupt or even destroy servers distributing child abuse images or other criminal material?
Byron Davies (Gower) (Con)
Lord Carlile, the former terrorism laws watchdog, has said that there has been a lot of demonisation of the police and security services over their intentions regarding this information. He also said:
“I think it’s absurd to suggest that the police and the security services have a kind of casual desire to intrude on the privacy of the innocent.”
Does my right hon. Friend support that view?
Mrs May
Absolutely. The heads of agencies have also made it clear that they have no intention of intruding on everybody’s lives. That is why the message that this is not about mass surveillance is so important. This is about targeting those who are seeking to do us harm and ensuring that any action that is taken is always necessary and proportionate.
Points of Order
(8 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Alex Salmond (Gordon) (SNP)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You may recall that, last Thursday, there was considerable disquiet across the House about the seven-year delay in the publication of the Chilcot inquiry and the fact that the Government chose not to make a statement on that. You invited those on the Government Front Bench to consider that position, but I now understand that the Prime Minister has declined to make a statement. This involves matters that are clearly the Government’s responsibility, including claims that the Cabinet Secretary delayed the release of documents, and matters that relate to the national security timetable, which has been built into the release of Chilcot. Given the need to avoid such a disgraceful situation occurring again and in the light of the seven-year delay, can you confirm that it would have been in order for the Government to make such a statement without prejudicing the independence of the inquiry? Do you also agree that the decision not to do so—given the considerable offence caused to the 179 service families waiting for answers from the inquiry—is a matter for the Prime Minister alone?
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order. I am happy to confirm that it would have been entirely orderly for a statement by a Government Minister to be made on this matter. The right hon. Gentleman is an extremely experienced parliamentarian, and he knows that that is an entitlement of a Minister but that it is not an obligation that the Chair can impose upon a Minister. In the absence of an offer of a Government statement, he will also be well aware that there is a range of options open to hon. and right hon. Members who seek to elicit from the Government a statement of their current thinking on the matter in question. He does not need me to provide him with the toolkit, but I am happy to confirm its existence.
Mr Speaker
I am keeping the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O’Hara) warm. We will come to him in a moment. I call Ian Paisley.
Ian Paisley
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Twenty-seven hours ago, the single largest announcement of job losses in Northern Ireland was made, involving the loss of the jobs of 860 people directly employed by Michelin in my constituency. There has not been so much as a squeak from those on the Government Front Bench: not a statement, not a press release—quite frankly, naff all. It bothers me that a convention appears to be arising in this House that Northern Ireland has once again become a place apart, and that Ministers think that because we have a devolved Administration they do not have a responsibility to get to the Dispatch Box as a matter of urgency to issue statements on important matters that affect us, including, in this case, those 860 people in Northern Ireland. Mr Speaker, can you assure us that no such convention will be allowed to arise under your stewardship of that important Chair, and that a Minister will be urged to come to the Dispatch Box tomorrow?
Mr Speaker
I am very sensitive to the important point that the hon. Gentleman has made, and I very much hope that no such convention has arisen. Suffice it to say, without going into matters that should not be raised on the Floor of the House, there is sometimes competition for time in the House—a point to which I know that he will be sensitive, not least in relation to today, when we had an important statement from the Home Secretary, which I rightly anticipated would be heavily subscribed. However, there are other days and other opportunities of a variety of kinds, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will seek to take those opportunities. I can assure him, eyeball to eyeball and in front of all Members present in the House, that the Chair will be no obstacle to the pursuit by him and others of such opportunities.
Mr Speaker
I will save the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute till last. I call Paul Flynn.
Paul Flynn
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Yesterday, you ruled that you would seek consultation on the Prime Minister’s decision to take three long-serving, active and effective Conservative members off our delegation to the Council of Europe. Those members have now been removed—against their will, as I understand it—from the delegation. You said that you would consult on this and on their suggestion that Members of this House should consider the membership of the delegation. I have examined the proposed new membership of the delegation, and I am surprised to see that among the nominations is a Member of the other House who has twice appeared before its Standards Committee and been asked to make an apology to that House because of his links with lobbyists. Many of us would like to question the membership of the delegation on that basis. This could be a further reason why this should not simply be a matter for prime ministerial diktat. These people are representing Britain in Europe, and the membership of the delegation should be a matter that we can bring to this House so that MPs can debate it and vote on it.
Mr Speaker
I did indeed say yesterday, in response to a point of order on this matter, that I would reflect upon it. I have reflected upon it and I continue to do so. I also said to the House that it was my responsibility to be assured of the propriety of the process involved, but that it was not for the Chair to assess the merits or demerits of the individual prospective candidates for membership of the delegation. There may well be an opportunity for this matter to be considered by the House relatively shortly. I do not know that that will be the case, but it could be. In the meantime, I am happy to inform the hon. Gentleman that I have not sent the list of new proposed members of the delegation to the secretariat and that, pending possible consideration of the matter by the House, it seems prudent at this stage for me not to do so. I hope that that is helpful to the hon. Gentleman and to the House.
Brendan O’Hara
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Last week, I tabled eight detailed and specific questions relating to the proposed extension of the limit of restoration of electrical shore supply to nuclear submarines at Her Majesty’s naval base Clyde from 20 minutes to a maximum of three hours. I have been approached by my constituents and asked to raise this matter on their behalf. However, rather than answering my eight specific questions individually, the Ministry of Defence grouped them together and gave me one answer, in which it hid behind national security issues even though my questions related to health and safety. I firmly believe that nuclear safety at Faslane is not just a matter for the MOD and for Babcock, and that it is a matter of serious concern for my constituents. Their concerns should not be dismissed in this way. I would be obliged, Mr Speaker, if you could advise me of what, if any, recourse I have in these circumstances.
Mr Speaker
Let me first say to the hon. Gentleman that I feel his pain. He has tabled a series of serious questions, and he is dissatisfied by what he regards as a grouped and minimalist response. I remember as a Back Bencher once tabling several dozen questions to a particular Department and being more than a little aggrieved to receive a grouped and extremely minimalist response.
I am genuinely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me notice yesterday of his point of order. He has set out his concerns very clearly, and no doubt those concerns have been heard by those on the Treasury Bench, who will relay them to the Ministry of Defence. I must make it clear that the content of answers to questions is a matter for Ministers, rather than for the Chair. It is quite frequently the case, under Governments of different colours, that Members do not find the answers entirely satisfactory. While it is reasonable that the Government are unwilling to put into the public domain information that would damage national security or the effectiveness of the armed forces, there has long been a debate about whether the balance between security and transparency is appropriately struck.
The hon. Gentleman asked what recourse he can seek. If he wishes, he may refer the matter to the Procedure Committee, under the chairmanship of the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker), as that Committee monitors the answering of questions on behalf of the House. Alternatively, he may use his ingenuity to pursue the matter through other avenues. The Table Office is always ready to advise hon. Members on the options open to them. I feel sure that the hon. Gentleman will be making the short journey to the Table Office ere long.
Bill Presented
Marriage and Civil Partnership Registration (Mothers’ Names) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Christina Rees, Huw Irranca-Davies, Dr Rupa Huq, Frank Field, Clive Lewis, Paula Sherriff, Cat Smith, Gerald Jones, Carolyn Harris, Jenny Chapman, Nick Smith and David T. C. Davies presented a Bill to make provision about the recording of the names of the mother of each party to a marriage or civil partnership for registration purposes; to make provision for requiring such information to be displayed on marriage certificates and civil partnership certificates; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 4 December, and to be printed (Bill 90).
House of Commons (Administration)
(8 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to consolidate and amend provisions about the House of Commons Members’ Fund; and to make provision about the House of Commons resources estimates.
This is not a Government Bill or a Government hand-out Bill; it is a minor House of Commons management Bill. The Bill is not new: there were at least two similar private Members’ Bills in the last Parliament, which fell owing to lack of time.
I suspect few Members will be aware of the fund, apart from through the note of a small monthly deduction to be seen on their monthly Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority pay slip. The fund was established before the second world war, when there was no parliamentary pension to help former Members who had fallen into financial difficulties. It has been used to top up pensions for widows of Members who left the House when widows received a lower entitlement, and for a few isolated cases of hardship of former Members.
As the House will recognise from that description, as time has passed the demand has dropped. In the last financial year, payments worked out at £137,000, but the fund has grown to a considerable £7 million. At present, the fund is drawn from compulsory contributions from Members, earnings from its investments and an annual contribution from the Treasury of £215,000. That compares with Members’ contributions of £15,000 per year.
The Bill will remove the requirement under existing primary legislation for Members to make monthly contributions of £2. In effect, the trustees will be empowered to cease deducting contributions. Given the figures I have just stated, they intend to do so immediately, since the fund has, to put it simply, a considerable surplus. However, the Bill enables the trustees to recommend resumption of contributions, if needed, up to a maximum of 0.2% of pay. The trustees can, if they agree, return any surplus funds to the Treasury. The trustees have requested this particular discretion.
The Bill will extend the class of beneficiaries to assist all dependants of former Members who experience severe hardships. It will also remove the requirement for trustees to be current MPs. I am sure the House would agree that it seems sensible for the trustees to ask, for example, the Association of Former Members of Parliament to nominate one trustee. In addition, that will enable the trustees to get over the problem that arises when, at a general election, a number of Members who are trustees lose their seats. The Bill will allow such former MPs to remain as trustees temporarily, until they are formally replaced.
For efficiency reasons, the Bill will amalgamate various Acts governing the fund to create a comprehensive set of governing legislation. That will remove unnecessary or outdated costs, procedures and restrictions, and provide a streamlined service with reduced costs.
Finally, clause 10 will amend the description of the House of Commons administration estimates set out in the House of Commons (Administration) Act 1978. This amendment will enable the House to merge the administration and Members estimates into one at some future date, if that is deemed desirable. That decision would be taken by the House of Commons Commission, subject to discussions with the Treasury. There is cross-party and trustee support for this small tiding-up Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Sir Paul Beresford, Mr Nicholas Brown, Mr Peter Lilley, Mr Clive Betts and David Mowat present the Bill.
Sir Paul Beresford accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 4 December, and to be printed (Bill 91).
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
We now come to the Opposition day motion—I am purposely speaking rather slowly, but I cannot go much more slowly than this—in the name of the Leader of the Opposition.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The House is obviously anticipating an important debate. What procedures are in place if a Minister or shadow Minister does not turn up?
Madam Deputy Speaker
The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent and most immediate point, but I have to say—very slowly—[Interruption.] I am very pleased to be able to answer the hon. Gentleman that whereas I was looking for a solution to this point, the appearance of a certain Member through the door means that I no longer have to consider such a solution. I call Mr Andy Burnham.
Opposition Day
(8 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Policing
(8 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
18:58 - The House divided: - Ayes: 214 / Noes: 343 - Question accordingly negatived.
Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House notes with concern the loss of 17,000 police officers in the last five years; further notes the most recent Police Recorded Crime statistics, which show sharp rises in some of the more serious crimes including knife crime and sexual assault and that, alongside evidence that some crime is rising, there is evidence that crime is changing and moving away from traditional forms such as burglary and car theft and is being increasingly replaced by cybercrime; is concerned by reports that the police budget could face between 25 and 40 per cent spending reductions in the forthcoming Comprehensive Spending Review; notes warnings from senior police figures that this could result in over 20,000 further reductions in frontline staff, the effective end of neighbourhood policing and much of the public being exposed to much greater risk; accepts that further efficiencies can be made in the police budget for England and Wales but believes that budget reductions over 10 per cent would be dangerous; further notes the ongoing concern surrounding the Scottish Government’s oversight of Police Scotland and the findings of the recent staff survey which found only 30 per cent of staff thought they had the resources necessary to do their job properly; and calls on the Government to secure a funding settlement for the police that maintains frontline services and does not compromise public safety.
I rise to speak to the motion in my name and those of my right hon. and hon. Friends. At the start, I should thank the hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford), who is about to leave the Chamber. Old alliances forged over the cause of water fluoridation do, in the end, stand one in good stead. I am grateful to him.
We have just been discussing the powers that the police and security services need to keep us safe in the 21st century. I would be the first to argue that the House has a duty to provide those powers, alongside strong safeguards, but that is of course only half the story. Alongside the powers, we need the people to put them into practice. That bit was missing from the Home Secretary’s statement. In the 19th and 20th centuries, Britain led the world in policing, because our policing by consent model was based on investment in good people with a strong sense of public vocation. In the 21st century, crime is changing—it is moving online and becoming more complex—but what will never change is the simple principle that the foundation stone of good policing is that presence in every community and the building of those strong relationships at local level.
It therefore feels right to pay tribute at the start of this debate to police officers and police civilian staff. What unites this House is a deep sense of gratitude to the men and women who work every day to keep our constituents safe and put themselves in harm’s way to do it.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that among the police whom the public are most supportive of are our safer neighbourhood teams They have been so severely undermined by spending cuts in the past few years. In Westminster, we saw a 30% fall in police between 2011 and this spring, and many constituents are saying to me that they no longer see any evidence of safer neighbourhood teams on the beat. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is a cause of great sadness?
Andy Burnham
My hon. Friend anticipates me, because that is going to be at the heart of what I say today. I am sure that she, like me, feels great pride in what the last Labour Government did to invest in neighbourhood and community policing. Those changes have been noticed by the public and have built confidence locally in policing, and that is now at risk.
Joan Ryan (Enfield North) (Lab)
Let me make a point that I made during last week’s business questions. In Enfield, 152 uniformed officers have been lost from our streets since 2010, yet there has been a 22% increase in violent crime in the past year alone. There has been an increase in all categories of violent crime, and I think there is a connection between those two things. I wonder what my right hon. Friend thinks, because the reply I received from the Leader of the House was less than satisfactory.
Andy Burnham
My right hon. Friend rightly says that there is evidence that violent crime—knife crime and sexual assault–is on the increase and that the Metropolitan police have seen some reductions in numbers, particularly in her community. The big worry is that if the Government proceed with the spending plans they set out at the Budget, thousands of police officers could be taken off the streets of this country, particularly in London, where the change would be most keenly felt. That should concern Members on both sides of the House.
Andy Burnham
I will make a little more progress and give way later on.
Last week, the shadow Policing Minister and I joined the Home Secretary and the Minister for Policing, Crime and Criminal Justice at the police bravery awards. As I am sure we would all agree, it was a humbling evening. It was particularly poignant this year, with PC David Phillips in the minds of many. We think of David’s family today, and we hope that they take some comfort from the huge public response and outpouring of feeling that we have seen.
As I said when I started this job, when the Home Secretary gets it right, she will have my support—I have just offered that to her on the investigatory powers Bill—but where she and the Government get it wrong, I am not going to hold back from saying so, particularly where public and community safety is at risk. That brings me to my central point: this Government are about to cause serious damage to our police service and if they do not change course, they are about to put public safety at risk.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that all one needs to know about the Government’s policy is that four Conservative police and crime commissioners and the Mayor of London are preparing a judicial review, in the Met’s case because, in addition to a 43% cut in its budget—achieved and proposed—the Government are proposing another £184 million-worth of cuts as a result of the resourcing budget changes?
Andy Burnham
My hon. Friend tempts me on to important ground: we are considering today not only the overall size of the cake for the police—how much money the police budget gets from the spending review—but how that cake is then divvied up. This week, PCCs of all political colours, have come together to say that the rushed changes to the police funding formula could seriously destabilise our police services. I would be interested to know what response the Government will make to the letter they have received.
Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)
I spoke to my local PCC yesterday and he confirmed to me that
“we are in a strong position to face future financial challenges”
while maintaining front-line services. Does the right hon. Gentleman therefore agree that many factors influence performance, of which finance is just one?
Andy Burnham
That may well be the case—I do not know, as I have not seen the details. May I gently point out to the hon. and learned Lady, however, that that is not the position everywhere? I refer her to the comments that the chief constable of Lancashire made yesterday before the Home Affairs Committee. He said that if these cuts go through,
“people in Lancashire will not be as safe as they are now”.
The chief constable of Cumbria has said that that force may not be viable, and we face the closure of police stations across the country. Complacency will not serve Conservative Members well in this debate.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
South Wales police force has had a reduction of 600 police officers in the past three years. I have had the privilege of working closely with community teams in my constituency in crucial areas such as counter-terrorism and dealing with extremism. Mark Rowley has made it very clear that uniformed officers on the beat also play a crucial role in that work. Does my right hon. Friend agree that such work is put at risk when cuts are made in police forces across the country?
Andy Burnham
That is the point: we are already hearing that police services in England and Wales are overstretched and struggling to cover all their functions. That is because in the past five years 12,000 full-time officers have been lost—the total was about 17,000 police staff overall. Three weeks from now, the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be standing at that Dispatch Box announcing his spending review. If he follows through on what he said at the Budget, the country will soon have a very different police force, providing a much-reduced service than the one that has just been described. As it stands, the Home Office, like other unprotected Departments, is in line for a cut over the next five years of between 25% and 40%. If we assume that the Government are working to keep it to the lower end of that spectrum, it still represents a massive hit on resources. It will mean 22,000 fewer police officers than we have today. That is a massive number and the Government need to provide justification for cuts on that scale.
Dr Murrison
If things are as dire as the right hon. Gentleman is suggesting, why is it that crime across the country is falling? In addition, why is a 10% cut in police funding, which he said was doable at his party conference, apparently now “dangerous”, as his motion puts it?
Andy Burnham
I will come on to deal with that, explaining clearly what we think could be done and what takes us into the realms of dangerous cuts. The hon. Gentleman glibly says that crime is coming down, but he just heard what my right hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Joan Ryan) had to say a moment ago. We know that crime has moved online and that the crime figures have not yet been updated to include those cybercrime figures—5 million crimes. I do not believe it will serve the Government well if they continue to exhibit complacency on these matters. There is good evidence to show that crime is not falling, but is in fact rising.
Mr Ranil Jayawardena (North East Hampshire) (Con)
As a member of the Home Affairs Committee, I had the opportunity to question the chief constables that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned. Is it not true that efficiency has to be part of the settlement and that some forces spend over £75 more per capita than others? That surely is where savings can be made.
Andy Burnham
The hon. Gentleman makes a very valid point, and I will come back to it later. I am not standing here today saying, “No cuts. Things have to stay exactly as they are. There is no room for efficiency in the police service.” Of course there is room for efficiency. My right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) commissioned a report from the former Met commissioner Sir John Stevens in the last Parliament. He identified scope for savings of the kind that the hon. Gentleman just described. I am not saying that there is no room for cuts. The core of my argument is this: yes, make those efficiencies, but there comes a point beyond which the Government will be beginning to unpick the fabric of our police service and to put local communities at risk, and I am not prepared to see that.
Kate Hollern (Blackburn) (Lab)
Lancashire has one of the best performing police authorities in the country, but owing to a flawed formula, about which a cross-party representation was made to the Minister, Lancashire is set to lose £25 million. People talk about crime reduction, but does anyone recognise that early intervention by the police in Lancashire working with communities and residents—
Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)
There is no such thing as prevention any more.
Kate Hollern
Absolutely. It is an absolute nonsense that Lancashire should be penalised because of a flawed formula.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. I have a word of advice for the hon. Lady. Interventions must be short, because there are a great many people wishing to speak this afternoon. For future reference, during an intervention it is not acceptable to take another intervention from someone from a sedentary position however amusing it might be to the House. I am sure that the hon. Lady will now conclude her intervention and hand back to the shadow Secretary of State.
Andy Burnham
I am glad that my hon. Friend made that intervention, because it was a really important one and those on the Government Front Bench needed to hear it. They all shook their heads when she gave that figure of £25 million. Lancashire is not making that up. People are not speaking out for the sake of it. Doubtless the Government will want to accuse them of scaremongering, but this is nothing of the sort. Senior police are speaking out about what is happening. They can see that the proposed budget cuts, combined with the new funding formula, could seriously destabilise community and neighbourhood policing.
Several hon. Members rose—
Andy Burnham
I will give way in a moment.
That brings me to my first question for the Home Secretary today. I have just described how we saw cuts to frontline services in the previous Parliament. I have also said that we are looking at cuts of possibly up to 25%. What evidence can she point the House to today that says that the Government can safely shrink the police by a quarter from its current overstretched position and not put public safety at risk? In fact, what evidence is there that she can safely cut the police by 20%, 15% or even 10%? We would love to see it, but I do not think that we will. I do not think that that evidence even exists. This is what is happening: we are being asked to accept major changes to the police without the evidence to justify it.
Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
I commend my right hon. Friend on his excellent speech. He will be aware that the commissioner of the Metropolitan police has warned that he is concerned about the safety of London if the scale of planned cuts and changes to the police funding formula go ahead. In an interview, he said:
“We think we can expect to lose somewhere between 5,000 to 8,000 police officers.”
He said that responding to a “marauding terrorist attack” or 2011 riot scenario would be harder. How much weight does he think that the Home Secretary and Chancellor should pay to the most senior police officer in the country?
Andy Burnham
The Home Secretary should give those comments her full attention. The figure that my right hon. Friend has just quoted is backed up by independent research that I have commissioned. It suggests that if the cuts go ahead—cuts of around 25%—London could see 5,000 or 6,000 police officers lost from the frontline. I know that he will do what he can to oppose those cuts and the funding formula in the coming months. I look forward to seeing others on the Government Benches doing the same, and standing up for the people of London as I know that he will.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
May I take my right hon. Friend from London and bring him closer to home? He might be from Leigh, but he knows Merseyside like the back of his hand. Does he agree that the level of cuts that are about to be imposed on Merseyside do more than just take away a service? They risk undermining the foundation of trust between us and our police.
Andy Burnham
My hon. Friend puts it very well. Let us look at what Merseyside has said about what the proposed cuts would do. It has said that they would mean scaling down teams dealing with sexual assault and hate crime. Those are very serious implications. Where is the evidence to justify cutting the police on that scale? I have not seen it. I hope we hear it today, because this House cannot give permission to the Government to proceed with these cuts until they have made the case for what they are trying to do.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
Is my right hon. Friend as surprised as me to hear that there are Members who do not understand that, in certain parts of the country, crime is rising, not falling. Crime in Greater Manchester rose by 14% in the 12 months up to June 2015 compared with the previous 12 months. Recorded violent crime rose by 39% over the same period. Members must take account of the fact that some parts of the country are different. We have guns and gang violence in Salford, and it is a very serious issue.
Andy Burnham
My hon. Friend puts her case very well. Crime may indeed be changing, and moving away from volume crime, such as car crime and burglary, but that is not to say that crime is falling. As I have said before, online crime is not adequately reflected in the crime figures. She rightly says that there are worrying increases in the most serious crimes in a number of areas, including in our part of the world, in Greater Manchester.
Andy Burnham
I will make a little progress if I may, and take some further interventions later.
I was just saying that I do not see the evidence to shrink our police force back to the levels of the 1970s, leaving us with fewer police officers per head of population than other comparable countries. That brings me to my second question, which is not for the Home Secretary, but for the whole House. If there is no authoritative evidence that cuts on this scale will not put our constituents at risk, how on earth can we allow them through? We have called this debate today for the following reasons: to challenge the Government on what we feel is a reckless gamble with public safety; to give voice to the deep disquiet felt by thousands of police officers across all 43 forces in England and Wales about the future of policing and community safety; to initiate a proper debate about the future of policing and the needs of our communities, in advance of the spending review; and to alert the public to the enormity of what is at stake by launching a national campaign today to protect our police. Just as with tax credits, I cannot remember the public being told about these plans to decimate neighbourhood policing before they went to vote.
Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
What a lot of people outside this place will try to square is the right hon. Gentleman’s speech to the Labour party conference in which he said that he would cut these budgets by 5% to 10%. Rather than a thoughtful critique of what the Government are actually doing, what we have today is a cut out and paste standard attack on the Conservative Government for acting in a fiscally responsible way, which he suggested that they should do just a few weeks ago.
Andy Burnham
If the hon. Gentleman is going to intervene in the debate, he should at least listen to it. A moment ago, I said that we put forward plans for efficiencies before the election, so it would not be a sustainable position for me to say, “No cuts at all”, and I am not saying that today. What our motion says is that cutting the police by more than 10% would put public safety at risk. If he thinks that it is fiscally prudent to do that and damage public safety, then I beg to differ with him. I would love to see how he can justify cuts of more than 10% in his community.
Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)
Is my right hon. Friend aware that there has been a 23% reduction in the force establishment in Merseyside since 2010? By 2019, that will have gone up to 41% of the workforce. Does he think that those on the Government Benches have any idea about the impact that that will have on the community, safe policing and the safety of police officers?
Andy Burnham
I do not think that they do. Cuts on the scale proposed would mean the effective end of neighbourhood policing as we have seen it in recent years, particularly in rural areas and areas of lower risk. We would see thousands of bobbies taken off the beat. It would take us back to the bad old days of reactive and remote policing, with officers retreating to cars and to the station. They will not be out on the streets or visible in their communities.
Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)
The safer neighbourhood teams were started in Stonebridge in my constituency of Brent. They helped to build trust in the police and to lower crimes. We have had a 62% cut in our neighbourhood teams. Again, that is a false economy by the Government. There will be more crimes and fewer police to deal with them.
Andy Burnham
False economy is absolutely the point, is it not? The Government do not seem to equate the reduction in crime we had in the last decade, which began under our Government, with the investment in those community safety teams. That brings me to the role of police community support officers, one of the innovations of the Labour Government of which I, for one, am very proud indeed. Under the Government’s plans, they will become an endangered species. We know that they do not enjoy the same employment protection as warranted officers, so no doubt they are worried that they will be the first to go.
One of the gains brought about by PCSOs was that they substituted for warranted officers on lower level duties, such as managing the Remembrance Sunday parades we will see in our constituencies this weekend. Around the country, some of those parades are beginning to be scaled back and even cancelled because there is not sufficient police cover. Is it not a sure sign to the Conservatives that if the police can no longer cover events of such importance to our local communities their cuts have already gone too far?
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
The Aintree ratepayers association and neighbourhood watch is a non-party political organisation and wrote to me to say:
“It is, in our view, ‘criminal’ that such significant deep-rooted budget reductions are being considered, it demonstrates what value the Government places upon community safety and cohesion and totally sends out the ‘wrong message’ to those who do not want to abide by the mores of civilised society.”
I could not have put it better myself.
Andy Burnham
Civilised society; that is what matters here. If people want a glimpse of what the future might look like, they should have a look at Tiptree in Essex, where residents already have to club together to fund their own private security guards. Is that the kind of society we want, with private security guards roaming the streets in areas where the police have withdrawn? The Government deny it, but that is what is happening on the ground.
This is not just about the loss of capability in community and neighbourhood policing. Forces are talking about disbanding mounted sections and dog sections. The cuts could have serious implications for the police estate, with police station closures all over the country and the police becoming a blue light only service, responding to emergencies and not dealing with crime at a local level.
Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)
Today’s motion refers to Scotland, where we have 1,027 more serving police officers on the street than we had in 2007. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree, however, that it is iniquitous and unfair that Police Scotland should be the only force in the United Kingdom to be required to pay VAT on its operations, taking £23 million out of operational expenditure?
Andy Burnham
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that that should be considered, but I am afraid that I am not going to let him or the Scottish National party off the hook. The survey referred to in our motion says that only 30% of officers in Scotland feel that they have sufficient resources to do the job. I accept that that might partly be the responsibility of the Westminster Government, but I am not sure that the changes to the police in Scotland and the move to Police Scotland have resulted in the improvements that we were told would happen.
As I said only a moment ago, the police have spoken about becoming a blue light only service in places. In their briefing for this debate, Lancashire police state:
“We will attend fewer crimes.”
That prompts the question of which crimes. Where is the national public guidance on the crimes that can now safely be de-prioritised? Again, there is none, because the Government would rather pass the cuts and pass the buck down to a local level, leaving the public facing a confusing postcode lottery in policing.
If anyone believes that referring to a postcode lottery is an exaggeration, may I refer the House to the pilot scheme in Leicestershire, where the police attended burglaries only at houses with even numbers, a scheme that the Government claimed worked and that could now be expanded? At what point have we as a society or this Parliament accepted the principle that the police will no longer attend someone’s home if they have been burgled? At what point have we accepted the principle that some victims of crime can be abandoned in this random fashion? We have not, and I do not believe that this House should concede that principle. Policing practice should not be changed in such a way until the Government have provided sound justification for the change.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that cuts to the neighbourhood policing budget will undermine the follow-up work after serious crime, such as the gun crime that happened recently in Wood Green, in all our inner-city areas? Does he agree that for criminals this proposal is Christmas day 365 days a year?
Andy Burnham
I can do no better than refer my hon. Friend to the words of Peter Clarke, former deputy assistant commissioner of the Met’s specialist operations directorate, whom the House will know. Talking about what is in the offing, he said:
“We risk breaking the ‘golden thread’ that runs through the police effort all the way from local communities to the farthest part of the world where, in an era of global terrorism, defence of the UK begins”.
That is the point: that pyramid of policing that begins at a very local level and feeds intelligence into the system is not an either/or idea. We cannot just say that we will have officers dealing with online crime and withdraw people from the streets. We have to maintain a police presence in every community, which is a point that the Government seem not to understand.
Andy Burnham
However, I believe that the former Policing Minister does understand that.
Nick Herbert
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way, and he has been very generous. As I understand it, he is saying that cuts of up to 10% could safely be made now because, as he accepts in the motion, further efficiencies could be made in the police budget. Therefore, by definition, he has accepted that the efficiencies that have been made so far have not damaged policing. He shakes his head, but it is fairly obvious that if further cuts of up to 10% could be made safely he accepts that the reductions that have been made to date have not damaged policing. Is it therefore not extraordinary that Labour Members opposed those reductions in spending and said that policing would be damaged? Why should we believe them now?
Andy Burnham
I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman intervened, because I am not saying anything of the kind. I am not saying that the cuts that the Government have managed to date have been without consequence. I have just described how functions as important as managing Remembrance Sunday parades have been cancelled. I have also pointed out that crime is rising and I, for one, do not say that there is no link between police numbers and rising crime. We looked at a plan to protect the frontline by merging police forces. I note that the Government have turned their face against that. It is all about how they do it. The frontline can be protected if the Government are prepared to manage the cuts in a way that takes resource out of the back office. They are not prepared to do that, either, so consequently we are seeing unacceptable cuts in police forces up and down the country.
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)
I am very interested in the point that the right hon. Gentleman is making about the frontline. Perhaps he would like to add in to his speech the fact that the proportion of officers on the frontline has increased over the past five years.
Andy Burnham
“Proportion”—people will hear how the Home Secretary is trying to spin it. Let us deal in people, shall we, rather than proportions. Between 12,000 and 13,000 officers lost, police community support officers lost, and all at a time when crime is beginning to go up. She wants to take away 22,000 more. I say in all sincerity to the Home Secretary that with crime on the rise this is no time to cut the police.
Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab)
May I bring to the attention of my right hon. Friend another example of Tory promises? Croydon was hit very hard by the riots in 2011 and the Prime Minister came down days afterwards and promised to keep the area safe. Since then, the Government have allowed every single police station in Croydon North to close down and as of today we still have fewer police on the streets than in 2010, when these people came into government. Is that not yet more Tory broken promises?
Andy Burnham
Everybody will remember very well the terrible fire and the consequences of the riots on the streets of Croydon. People would expect promises like that to be kept, would they not? But with this Prime Minister and this Government, they are rapidly learning that such things are said in the moment to look good but are not followed through. Sadly, that is the hallmark of this Government.
The Government are sending the police on a dangerous journey without a route map. Where is the White Paper that sets out the case for these drastic changes to the police and the vision for the police service of the future? Where is the expert analysis of the changing nature of crime and society and therefore of the resource needs of the police? In the absence of all that, the only justification put forward by the Government, as we have heard today, is that despite reductions crime has continued to fall. I have dealt with that, Madam Deputy Speaker. I believe that in the last decade the reduction we saw was linked to the investment in neighbourhood policing and we are now beginning to see signs that crime is on the rise again.
The truth is that this whole process is not being driven by our future needs as a society, or by the changing nature of crime; it is a crude, Treasury-driven process that owes more to an ideological drive to shrink the state than to the good governance of the police and our public services. What we will soon be left with is the police service of the Treasury’s dreams but the public’s worst nightmares.
Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)
Does the shadow Home Secretary recognise the concern expressed by Sara Thornton, head of the National Police Chiefs Council, when she recently appeared before the Home Affairs Committee? She adopted the words of the chief constable of Merseyside police, who said that there is a political obsession with police visibility, irrespective of actual neighbourhood demand. Is not the shadow Home Secretary guilty, along with the shadow Ministers quoted in The Times today, of that political obsession, and of seeking to weaponise police numbers?
Andy Burnham
I think that the hon. Gentleman will regret those remarks. Listen to what senior police officers are saying. Is he accusing them of scaremongering? Is he saying that Peter Clarke, whom I quoted a moment ago, is wrong? Has he talked to his own constituents recently and heard their views about visible neighbourhood policing? I suggest that he speaks to them, because this is not about what politicians want. His constituents want to see a strong uniformed presence on their streets, keeping them safe.
As I have said, it is not just about the overall size of the cuts, because the Home Office, in characteristic fashion, is taking a bad situation and making it worse. The changes to the police funding formula—[Interruption.] The Policing Minister should not dismiss this, because the letter he received this week was a pretty difficult and sobering one for him. It talked about a process that is
“unfair, unjustified and deeply flawed”.
That is how his own Conservative colleagues describe it. It is highly critical of Ministers’ handling of the whole process, which they say was
“entirely avoidable and wholly unacceptable”.
They are now looking at a judicial review. Those are strong words, and is not the fact that it is Conservative voices saying them a clear indication that the Government are no longer carrying their own side, and that they are losing the confidence of the police as a whole?
Where do we go from here? A good start would be to put implementation of the formula on hold. Let me get to the heart of what we are calling for today. As our motion makes clear, we have not turned our face away from the idea of savings in the police budget, because there are changes to back-office structures and procurement that could protect the frontline. If one speaks to senior police officers, one realises that most accept that further savings of up to 5% are difficult but doable. Cutting between 5% and 10% gets more dangerous, and the cuts would be harder to make, but neighbourhood policing would have a chance in that scenario. My message to the Government is that if they cut the police by 10% or more, they will put the public at risk.
I hope that I can take it as read that the Home Secretary is fighting for the best deal she can get from the Treasury. Will she share with the House this afternoon what figures she thinks are acceptable without compromising public safety? If she can set out those figures, can she tell us where she thinks those savings can be made from within the police without compromising public safety? That is important, because her vision for the police needs to fit with the Government’s other plans for public services; they cannot be seen in isolation from the rest of the spending review.
Policing is the last safety net, and it will be forced to deal with the consequences of failure in other services. For instance, if the Government fail to tackle the crisis in mental health services in the spending review, that will only add to the pressure on the police and on police cells. If they force councils to close youth clubs, leisure centres and playing fields, the chances are that antisocial behaviour will be on the rise again. If they fail to invest in social care, they will leave our hospitals in crisis, ambulances trapped in queues outside and police cars having to fill the gaps. If they fail to sort out the mess in probation, caused by underfunding and part-privatisation, there will be a direct impact on re-offending and, ultimately, public safety.
Ultimately, that is the problem. What we are facing in this spending review is a drive to shrink back the state and then privatise it. In the response to this debate, we expect to hear plenty of talk about the deficit. Yes, the deficit is important, but there is not just one way to close it, and it is not more important than the safety of the public and of the country.
This is a milestone moment for the police service in Britain. The decisions that the Government make on funding over the next few months will determine the mission and the manner of policing and community safety in this country for a generation. That was the warning given by the Conservative police and crime commissioners in their letter to the Government this week. This is an issue that they now have to explain and answer. It is simply not safe to cut the police in the drastic way they plan, and they have failed to set out a case that it is.
Our motion makes a reasonable demand: put simply, it is to secure a funding settlement for the police that maintains front-line services and does not compromise public safety. Is there any Conservative Member who cannot vote for such a demand, or are they saying that they are ready to sacrifice public safety in the name of deficit reduction? It is not acceptable, and it will not be acceptable to their constituents, as it is not to ours.
Opposition Members understand the value of public service and public services. We have shown in the past that we can fight for our NHS, so we give notice to the Government today that we are ready to do the same for our police and for the safety of our communities. I call on Members on both sides of the House to think about what cuts on this scale will mean for their constituencies, put public safety before party politics and support the motion before the House tonight.
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)
I commend the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) for securing his first Opposition day debate since becoming shadow Home Secretary. I agree with his comments about the bravery of our police officers and the excellent job they do for us day in, day out. We were tragically reminded by the funeral of PC David Phillips earlier this week of the dangers that our police officers face when they put on that uniform and go out on shift, because they never know what they will face or what difficulties they will encounter. Sadly, in PC David Phillips’s case, a family was left bereaved. Our thoughts are with his family and with his colleagues in the Merseyside police.
However, I cannot commend the motion that the right hon. Gentleman has put before the House today. Not only is it simply wrong on almost every point of fact, but it shows that Her Majesty’s Opposition have comprehensively failed to learn the lessons of the past five years. I will happily turn to each of their points in turn, but before doing so I want to say this: when I became Home Secretary in 2010 and set out the need for reform of policing, the response from the Opposition Benches was to deny the need for change. The Labour party was united with chief constables and the Police Federation in saying that funding reductions would lead to a “perfect storm” of rising crime, falling public confidence and a depleted and damaged frontline. Five years on, and not a single one of those irresponsible claims has come true.
Crime, according to the independent crime survey for England and Wales—one of the most authoritative indicators of crime in any country in the world—is down by more than a quarter. Public confidence in the police has remained strong. Far from the frontline being damaged, police officers are now more likely to be deployed in front-line roles, like patrol or neighbourhood officers, than at any time in modern policing history. This is the uncomfortable truth for the right hon. Gentleman and the Labour party: communities in England and Wales are safer now than they have ever been. Their homes are less likely to be burgled, their cars are less likely to be stolen, and their friends and families are less likely to be confronted with violence on Britain’s streets.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
We had a meeting earlier this week at which we heard police officers say that 1% of fraud was being investigated. We heard concerns that cases of human trafficking were not being investigated. We know for a fact that the number of hate crimes against disabled people has increased by 25%. How can the Home Secretary be so complacent?
Mrs May
We are concerned about the investigation of fraud, which is exactly why we set up the economic crime command in the National Crime Agency, to improve the police’s ability to deal with fraud. With regard to human trafficking, it is the Conservative party that introduced the Modern Slavery Act 2015, ably taken through the House by the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley). It gives the police extra powers to deal with exactly that point. Police reform is working and crime is falling.
Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)
What message does the Home Secretary think she is sending to my constituents when only 16% of knife crimes in 2013-14 have been resolved? Is she suggesting that my local police force is incompetent or that tragedies such as the murder of Mohamed Duru-Ray, who was a 16-year-old stabbed to death, should go unsolved?
Mrs Flick Drummond (Portsmouth South) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend congratulate Hampshire constabulary, which has 96% of police out on the beat rather than stuck in back offices, because of efficiencies and reorganisation which have led to an 11% reduction in crime?
Mrs May
I absolutely do congratulate Hampshire police. I have visited Hampshire police. It is one of the police forces that has been at the forefront of using technology to help it investigate crime—through the body-worn video cameras, for example, and the tough tablets that they have taken out with them. They are also working very closely with the fire service and doing everything to ensure that they have been making savings and improving the service to the public.
Graham Stuart
On the new funding formula for the police, there is concern among many that it favours the urban over the rural. Will my right hon. Friend meet me and other colleagues from across the House who represent rural constituencies to discuss the formula and ensure that we get something that is fair to all?
Mrs May
I am happy to do so. I know that my right hon. Friend the Policing Minister has been conducting a number of meetings with colleagues to hear their views on the proposed police funding formula. I am happy to set up the sort of meeting that my hon. Friend suggests. The consultation on the police funding formula is still open and no decisions have been taken in relation to it.
Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)
The funding formula as it stands is out for consultation, but the proposals would lead to a 5.1% cut for Sussex police and a 5.2% increase for Surrey police next door—urban to rural. Would the Home Secretary say that that is fair, and that a city such as Brighton and Hove, which has very specific challenges, could cope with another 5.1% cut, on top of all the others?
Mrs May
The point I made is very simple. The police funding formula has been out for consultation for a while. We are listening to the representations and then decisions will be taken. He refers to the specific needs of certain parts of the Sussex police force area, Brighton and Hove being one of those. I take this opportunity to commend the work that Police and Crime Commissioner Katy Bourne has been doing in relation to certain communities in Sussex and the very real attention that she has given to the sort of issues that the hon. Gentleman refers to.
Joan Ryan
Enfield communities value their police community support officers, particularly given the rise in violent crime and the need for uniformed officers on the streets to reassure people. The right hon. Lady will know that having had a £600 million cut in budget, the Met police are now expecting another £800 million cut in the spending review and are considering making the decision in December to axe all PCSOs. Does the Home Secretary place any value on police community support officers?
Mrs May
Earlier the right hon. Lady intervened on her right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh and referred to the issues around knife crime. May I take this opportunity to commend her predecessor in her constituency, Nick de Bois, who did a great deal in relation to knife crime and ensured that further legislation was passed in this House in that regard? On the issue of police community support officers, of course we value them, but the decision is an operational one for chief constables as to how they balance their budgets and ensure the differentiation. The sort of comments that we are hearing now about PCSOs have been heard before. For example, in 2010 the chief constable of Lancashire, Chief Constable Finnigan, said that with huge regret he had told all 427 PCSOs in the force that they might lose their jobs as a result of budget cuts. Did they? No, they did not.
Police reform is working, and crime is falling. This Government have achieved something that no other Government have achieved: we have proved that it is possible to improve services, and maintain public trust and confidence, while saving money for the taxpayer. We must not forget why those savings are necessary. The right hon. Member for Leigh mentioned the deficit and yes, we did inherit a structural deficit, high taxes, record debt and unreformed public services. I hope I do not have to remind the right hon. Gentleman, who was Chief Secretary to the Treasury when the 2007 spending review was decided—a document that continued this country’s course down that fateful path of profligacy.
Andy Burnham
If I may correct the Home Secretary, I conducted the 2007 spending review as Chief Secretary and a decision was taken to grow public spending at a lower rate than overall growth in the economy—a decision that the current Prime Minister and the current Chancellor described at the time as tough. The right hon. Lady needs to correct the record.
I want to ask the Home Secretary a direct question, and she cannot leave the debate today before she answers it. If she is saying that everything is fine, she now needs to tell the House at what level she thinks it is safe to cut the police before public safety is compromised. What is the percentage cut that she is prepared to make without compromising the safety of our constituents?
Mrs May
It sounded as though the right hon. Gentleman was about to get his handcuffs out and stop me. [Interruption.] Perhaps I won’t go there.
The right hon. Gentleman knows full well that the discussions around the spending review are currently taking place. The spending review will be reported to this House by the Chancellor on 25 November. We are still consulting on the police funding formula, and in due course, after the spending review has been announced, the funding formula will be announced.
Since 2010, we have cut the budget deficit by more than half, we have lowered the tax burden for people up and down the country, and we have set about reforming public services to better serve citizens and communities. It is therefore with some dismay that I see the Opposition making exactly the same mistakes they made in 2010—misusing statistics, worrying decent members of the public, and wilfully ignoring the experience of the past five years. The similarities are uncanny.
The weekend before last, the right hon. Member for Leigh told the Sunday Express that
“the Home Secretary is gambling with public safety”,
just as five years ago his predecessor told The Daily Telegraph that police savings were “an irresponsible gamble with crime and public safety”. Indeed, in 2011 the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) even called an Opposition day debate on police funding, with a motion that bore more than a striking resemblance to the one we are discussing today.
Anna Turley (Redcar) (Lab/Co-op)
I admire the Home Secretary’s approach to the good use of statistics. I am surprised to hear her say that crime has fallen, when in Redcar and Cleveland in the past year we have seen an increase in crime of 21%. That includes a 77% increase in violence against the person. This does not accord with what she says about crime falling. Under the Labour Government crime fell by 43%. I am very proud of our record so it is disappointing to see that.
Mrs May
I think I am right in saying that the figures the hon. Lady quotes for crime falling under the Labour Government have exactly the basis as the figures that I have quoted for crime falling over the past five years—the independent crime survey of England and Wales. There is an issue about police recorded crime which I will refer to later in my speech.
The tactics and the language of the Opposition have not changed, but I thought the shadow Home Secretary’s mind had. As a number of my colleagues have pointed out, and as was very ably pointed out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert), the shadow Home Secretary told the Labour party conference:
“Of course, savings can be found.”
Savings are mentioned in the motion today. The Opposition say that further savings can be found. They therefore assume that the savings that have been made so far have not damaged policing. This was a point that the right hon. Member for Leigh completely failed to address when my right hon. Friend challenged him on it.
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
On savings, according to the chief constable of Sussex, the last savings term delivered not only efficiency but reductions in crime—for example, by merging arrest units with detection units. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is a question not just of how much money is spent, but of how well it is spent?
Mrs May
My hon. Friend is absolutely right: it is about how the money is spent, not about the absolute amount of money. That is a crucial difference between ourselves and the Labour party. Labour thinks the answer to everything is more money; we recognise that it is how the money is spent. It is not just about police officer numbers, but about how those officers are deployed.
Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)
Another problem that Labour seems to be repeating from its past, according to the shadow Home Secretary’s comments, is the plan to force mergers on to police forces. Will my right hon. Friend commend the way in which the West Mercia police force has worked in a bottom-up alliance with Warwickshire police? Only today, they have announced plans for a joint operational control centre with Hereford and Worcester fire service.
Mrs May
I do indeed commend West Mercia for the steps it has taken. The work that it has done with the Warwickshire force is an example of how forces can retain an individual identity while getting the benefits of working together and collaboration. It is a very important example.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mrs May
I would like to make a little more progress, because I am conscious that a lot of Members wish to speak, and I want to turn to each of the points in the motion in turn.
First, the motion
“notes with concern the loss of 17,000 police officers in the last five years”
and the possibility of “further reductions” in numbers during this Parliament. Of course, that is not Government policy. Decisions on the size and make-up of each police force are not a matter for the Home Office but a matter for chief constables to decide on locally in conjunction with their police and crime commissioners. Indeed, and Labour Members might be interested in some of these facts, a large number of the police officer reductions since 2010—8,153 officers, or 48% of the total fall—were lost in the 13 areas controlled by Labour police and crime commissioners. Nowhere is this more the case than in neighbourhood policing. Between 2012 and 2014, Conservative PCCs increased the number of neighbourhood officers by 5,813, yet over the same period, Labour PCCs cut them by 701. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) asks where these statistics come from. They should be familiar to Opposition Members, because they were released in response to a parliamentary question from the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) earlier this year. As Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary has said repeatedly over the past five years, what matters in policing and in the safety of communities is not how many officers there are in total, but how they are deployed. Since 2010, the proportion of officers deployed to the frontline has increased from 89% of officers to 92%—the highest level on record.
Andy Slaughter
I am sure that the Home Secretary will therefore join me in congratulating Hammersmith and Fulham Council, which is now funding 44 police constables on the beat in Hammersmith. At the same time, though, the Mayor of London has destroyed neighbourhood teams, is about to get rid of all PCSOs, and is closing two out of the three operational police stations in the borough. How can neighbourhood policing survive in that climate?
Mrs May
It is interesting to look at the Met, because it has been recruiting more officers, as is the Lancashire force, which I mentioned earlier. It is wrong to assume that the service that is offered by police officers is best judged by the number of police stations. Many forces up and down the country have sold off their police stations but have given the public better access to the police—as I saw when I visited my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Caroline Ansell) prior to the election—by siting them in council offices.
Amanda Milling (Cannock Chase) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that more can be done on collaboration between the police and the fire and ambulance services so that efficiencies can be made?
Mrs May
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There are very good examples of where that is taking place. I referred to Hampshire. Northamptonshire is also doing this, and there are other examples of where there are real opportunities for savings to be made and for a better service to be given to the public as a result.
Secondly, the motion suggests that there is evidence that crime is rising, including increases, in the most recent police recorded crime statistics, in very serious crimes such as knife crime and sexual assault.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
Will the Home Secretary give way?
Mrs May
I am going to make progress.
The right hon. Member for Leigh and others are right when they say that those crimes are serious, and it is absolutely right that the police are recording more incidents of each, but it is wrong to suggest that an increase in police recording necessarily means more crime in communities. As the independent Office for National Statistics said last month:
“as well as improvements in recording, this is also thought to reflect a greater willingness of victims to come forward to report such crimes.”
Victims of crime—often very vulnerable people who have endured horrendous suffering and torment—are coming forward to tell their stories to the police and to put the perpetrators of their abuse behind bars. Members across this House should welcome that and not seek to manipulate or use it for their own ends. As I said earlier, according to the independent crime survey, crime is down by more than a quarter since 2010.
Thirdly, the right hon. Gentleman says that crime is changing and traditional crimes such as burglary and car theft are being replaced by modern criminality like cybercrime. Crime is indeed changing, but the level of some digital crimes in no way compares with the dramatic falls in conventional volume crimes over the past five to 10 years. Crime survey data also show that the proportion of plastic card users who were victims of fraud is currently around 25% lower than its peak in 2009-10.
This Government have not failed to recognise the changing nature of crime; we have faced up to it. In 2012, we set up the National Crime Agency to lead the fight against serious and organised criminality. In 2014, we brought Action Fraud into the City of London police to better co-ordinate the response to fraud and financial crime. Our national cyber-security programme has invested nearly £900 million in protecting British people, businesses and state assets against cyber-attack. For the first time ever, the Office for National Statistics now publishes an estimate of the number of cybercrimes and frauds experienced by members of the public, making us the first major western country to capture the changing nature of crime.
Mrs May
I want to make progress because I am conscious of those who wish to speak.
However, it is the crux of the motion that I find most troubling—that is, the concern among Opposition Front Benchers that the police may endure spending reductions in the forthcoming comprehensive spending review. As I have said, in the previous Parliament we successfully halved the deficit. In a few weeks’ time, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will set out how we will finish that job in the comprehensive spending review. In doing so, he will show that this Government recognise the value of balancing the books, spending within our means, and lowering taxes for hard-working people, because the deficit is still too high, and it is right that police forces share in that effort, as they have done in the past five years. To echo the shadow Home Secretary’s speech to the Labour party conference, savings are still there to be made. The limit of those savings is not the arbitrary 10% that he sets out in his motion. Let us remember that usable financial reserves for police forces in England and Wales stand at just over £2.1 billion right now—built up, in part, to help soften the impact of future spending cuts. These reserves increased by nearly £100 million last year—up in 26 forces across England and Wales. Capital reserves are approximately £240 million in 2014-15—roughly the same as the previous year.
Nor can we forget the extraordinary savings and operational benefits that can be made, as several hon. Friends have said, from better collaboration between forces and effective joint working with other local services. Only last week, Cleveland, Durham and North Yorkshire constabularies announced a £5 million saving by bringing together their dogs units, while still maintaining a 24-hour service across the three forces. There are efficiencies afforded by better technology. Cambridgeshire police have saved an estimated 240,000 officer hours a year and over £7 million by rolling out tablet and mobile devices to officers to allow them to work better on the road and away from the police station.
Graham Stuart
I add to my right hon. Friend’s list the police and crime commissioner for Humberside, Matthew Grove, who is working hard with the fire service to have a joint service centre for vehicles across the two services, saving millions of pounds in capital and revenue terms over the years. We have not heard much today about Labour’s U-turn in recognising that greater democratic oversight of local policing has been a significant contribution to better policing and improvements in crime figures across the country.
Mrs May
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I commend Matthew Grove for the work that he is doing in Humberside, particularly in collaboration with the fire service. My hon. Friend reminds me that Labour Members have done a complete U-turn on directly elected police and crime commissioners. They were implacably opposed to them, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs, the former Policing Minister, will know from the time when he took the legislation on police and crime commissioners through the House, and now they have suddenly decided that they are a good thing and they should carry on.
Catherine West
The Home Secretary is painting rather a rosy picture of everything. What does she say to the orphans of Erdogan Guzel, who was tragically shot in Wood Green in the summer? The culprits still have not been brought to book because the police locally do not have the resources, despite the fact that the local authority, which is under immense strain, has pitched in and given them extra resources. Those orphans want an explanation as to what happened to their father and why that crime remains undetected because the follow-up work has not been done.
Mrs May
Obviously, I am very sorry to hear of that particular incident and the effect it has had on that family. Nobody wants to see anybody deprived of one of their parents through an attack of the sort described by the hon. Lady. I am very clear that I want the police to investigate such crimes and to be able to do so. That is partly why I stood here earlier to make a statement on a draft Bill that will ensure that our police have the powers they need to access certain data that they currently use to investigate crimes, but that, as modern technology develops, they are unable to access.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
Will the Home Secretary give way?
Mrs May
I apologise to the hon. Lady, but I did say that I would make progress and I am conscious that time is getting on.
I have just quoted a few examples of how collaboration can benefit forces and represent savings. They collectively represent opportunities worth billions of pounds in savings for policing, without the loss of operational capability and without cutting corners on the service the public expect. Policing has risen admirably to the challenge of lower budgets and a changing landscape in the past five years, and I have no doubt it will continue to do so in the next five.
Before I finish, I want to address the final point in the motion. Police Scotland has previously been held up—including by shadow Front Benchers—as a better alternative to the model of police reform this Government have pursued in England and Wales. If on nothing else in today’s debate, I agree with what it says about Police Scotland, because I firmly believe that the amalgamation of eight local forces into a single body was mistaken.
Richard Arkless (Dumfries and Galloway) (SNP)
I refer the right hon. Lady to her party’s 2011 manifesto, which said that it would agree to the creation of a single police force. If it was good enough in 2011, why is it not good enough now?
Mrs May
Top-down restructures of police forces do not deliver the benefits they supposedly promise. We as a party here have said that if forces wish to come to us and say that they have a business case and local support for a merger, we will look at it. On top-down restructuring, however, the economies of scale invariably do not appear. The complexity of bringing together distinct organisations can distract from the day-to-day business of fighting crime, and the most precious element of policing by consent—local accountability—can be lost. We must go further to drive deeper collaboration, better sharing of back-office services and a more intelligent approach to where police capabilities sit, to generate savings without the loss of local accountability and identity.
Andy Burnham
I am grateful to the Home Secretary for giving way one last time. We agree that savings can be made, but what we disagree on is the extent to which they can be made safely. My hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) said that the Home Secretary is painting a rosy picture, and I think that police officers watching this debate will conclude that she is not living in the same world as them. This is not about what we on the Labour Benches are saying; chief constables from London to Lancashire are saying that the safety of their public will be compromised if the cuts go ahead. Does the Home Secretary think that those chief constables are scaremongering?
Mrs May
I will repeat the point that I have already made: if the right hon. Gentleman would care to look back to 2010, he will see that chief constables were making very similar points then and they have dealt with the savings. As he himself accepts in the motion, policing has not been damaged by the budget savings made over the past five years. Otherwise, he would not be able to stand up and say that further savings could be made.
Over the past five years, officers and staff have worked day in and day out to cut crime. Chief constables and police and crime commissioners have demonstrated true innovation and creativity in meeting the challenge of lower budgets, and in doing so they have shown that that greater efficiency, improved effectiveness and strengthened legitimacy are possible, all at the same time.
For the Government, the job is not yet done. We are currently consulting on a new funding formula so that the police grant is allocated fairly and in a transparent way between police forces. We have made proposals to allow much deeper collaboration with fire and rescue services and ambulance services—to save money and improve the operational response—and later in this Session, the Police and Criminal Justice Bill will give police officers much greater professional discretion to allow them to make savings, cut crime and improve services for the public.
Police reform has worked. That is the lesson that the Labour party has not yet learned, but in this Parliament—under this Government—police reform will continue.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. Before I call the spokesman for the Scottish national party, it might be helpful for the House to know that after Mr Arkless has spoken there will be a time limit on Back-Bench speeches of six minutes.
Richard Arkless (Dumfries and Galloway) (SNP)
I am grateful that I have avoided the cull on speaking time and that I will be heard in full, but I do not propose to take up as much time as the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) and the Home Secretary.
I am delighted to be called to speak in this debate on policing. I am sure that everybody in the House would agree that the police in the UK are one of the best examples of civil law enforcement in the world. I have always been particularly proud of that. Police play a huge and invaluable role in all UK communities. They are a cornerstone of civilised society and the enforcers of what many of us understand to be the rule of law.
I offer personal thanks to all police officers and all civilian staff in all police forces across the United Kingdom. I also pay my condolences to the family of the courageous David Phillips. My thoughts and prayers are with them.
I pay tribute to all the civilian and police staff at Police Scotland, and thank them for their sterling and diligent work in admittedly challenging times over the past few years. When users were asked whether they felt confident that Police Scotland would deal with their inquiry efficiently, 79.1% gave a “very high” or “high” response.
My constituency of Dumfries and Galloway has faced challenging times with regard to policing. As the Home Secretary has said, the single police force was created in 2013, but not without concern locally. The local control room in Dumfries has been closed and I share the local concern about that. I am delighted to report, however, that last month the Scottish Government reacted by placing £1.4 million in an extra fund to train 70 to 75 call-handling staff. I am confident, therefore, that the Scottish Government are reacting to local concerns.
I have been clear that policing in Scotland has not been without challenges. In 2013, we created the single police force—a move supported by both the Conservative and Labour manifestos in the 2011 Scottish Parliament elections. That resulted in the amalgamation of eight police forces into one. I think it is right that a country of 5 million has one single police force. The crux of the move is to stop duplication, have a more joined-up approach towards policing and unlock potential savings over the next generation. The Scottish Government can confirm that they are on target to save £1.1 billion over 15 years. In fact, they have saved £120 million from Police Scotland’s budget since it was formed in 2013.
Good policing is not only about our fantastic police officers; it is about the wider criminal justice system. The causes of crime need to be addressed. Reoffending is down in Scotland, as is alcohol and drug abuse. The Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill, which is passing through the Scottish Parliament, will reform court procedures to make them less rigorous, so that evidence can be agreed in advance and there is less need for officers to attend court hearings. There are increased obligations to provide procurators fiscal, the equivalent of the Crown Prosecution Service, with better and more thorough information. The rehabilitation consultation in Scotland is considering extending the presumption against short sentences of under three months. The attacks on legal aid that have happened in England and Wales have not occurred to the same extent in Scotland. We are trying to maintain good levels of access to justice. I am proud to say that we have no criminal courts charge in Scotland.
At the crux of this debate is cuts, but if we scratch below that issue, it is the manner of the cuts and the areas that are cut that cause most concern, particularly to Opposition Members. In Scotland, we have decided to protect frontline policing. I am proud to report that since the Scottish National party came to power in the Scottish Parliament in 2007, we have created an extra 1,000 police posts—there are now an extra 1,000 police on our streets. That can be compared with what we heard before I rose to speak: almost 12,000 police officers have been cut in England and Wales. Worryingly, that figure could rise to 20,000 over the next five years.
Melanie Onn
If things are going so well, why in a survey that was published last month did 33% of respondents from Police Scotland say that they saw themselves leaving the Scottish Police Authority and Police Scotland in the near future?
Richard Arkless
The hon. Lady is correct that an independent survey of police officers in Scotland came up with that figure, and that is concerning. If we look beyond that figure, the survey said that 50% of those who expressed an opinion blamed that desire on the pension changes enforced by the Treasury at Westminster. It has compelled our police officers to put 14.25% of their income towards their pension. The decrease in morale is blamed predominantly on that decision by the Treasury. Of course, that finding is concerning and the Scottish Government are doing everything possible to work with the Scottish police force and the SPA to address it.
Melanie Onn
It is very neat to blame Westminster for all the ills, but the survey also found that
“47% of all respondents stated that they did not receive recognition for any good work that they do and 37% stated they were not motivated to do the job to the best of their ability.”
Surely you cannot lay the blame for that at the hands of Westminster.
Richard Arkless
It is not me who is laying the blame. I am using the words of the police officers in Scotland, who have told us that the reason their morale is dropping is the pension changes made by the UK Government. I am merely the conduit.
It is interesting to note that there has been no similar sampling of police officers in England and Wales. Given the dramatic cut of more than 15,000 officers—the reverse of what is happening in Scotland—I suggest that any such exercise would produce similarly concerning results.
I am very proud of our approach in Scotland. My constituents and police officers tell me, as does every indicator I see, that people feel more confident when there are more visible police on the streets. That is the decision that we have made.
Members on both sides of the House have alluded to the letter that seven police and crime commissioners sent to the UK Government this week. The content of that letter is worrying in the extreme. As the right hon. Member for Leigh said, it states that the cut of 14% or £25 million next year in Lancashire will result in
“the loss of almost all of its proactive crime fighting and crime prevention capacity by 2020.”
It gives me no great pleasure to say that. The seven commissioners have informed the Government that they are
“taking legal advice with a view to initiating a judicial review”.
That sounds like a crisis. That is not happening with the single police force in Scotland.
Joan Ryan
Is it not the case that Police Scotland has had a year of chaos, with control centres closing, harming public safety? I understand that staff cuts have meant that some of the police who are working in the call centres are not trained in that work, which is leading to serious problems. Will the hon. Gentleman comment on that?
Richard Arkless
I have just said that my constituency has been unfortunate to lose one control room, but that the Scottish Government have responded positively by providing an extra £1.4 million to train 70 to 75 call centre staff.
I must point out that in the week when the first Bill has been certified as an English-only Bill, this House has put forward a motion on a devolved matter that specifically criticises the Scottish Government. Scotland is watching and its people will be the final judges of what goes on in this House.
Police Scotland have done an incredible job recently on crime reduction. As I have said, the real test for the public is police numbers and crime levels. I am delighted to report that crime is down in Scotland. It is now safer to live in Scotland than it has been for 40 years.
Byron Davies (Gower) (Con)
If everybody is doing such a good job, why is the chief constable leaving after such a short time?
Richard Arkless
As I understand it, the issues for the chief constable were not operational. We are trying to find a successor quickly. It will be his job to deal with many of the concerns arising from the continued review of the police service.
Crime is down: violent crime is down by 52%; handling offensive weapons is down by 62%; homicide is down by 48%; and fire raising and vandalism are down since 2007 by 58%. In 2014, there were 270,000 recorded crimes in Scotland, which is down by 148,000 from 2007. Statistically, it is clear that Police Scotland, despite the pressures forced upon it, is doing an incredible job.
The reasons for the reduction in crime in Scotland are complex, but I believe that enormous credit must go to our exceptional officers within Police Scotland. Thereafter, there are other reasons. Perhaps it is due in part to our growing sense of community and our optimism about our country’s future. The devolved Parliament in Scotland engages directly with the community wherever possible. Our Government are made up from ordinary people from ordinary Scottish communities. Our sense of community extends to the Government—they are accessible and fully accountable to the Scottish people. We have been working and taking measures towards building a fairer and more equal society, so that people feel less ignored and more included.
The hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) alluded to a survey carried out in Scotland by an independent provider. It sought views on a range of subjects, including management, training, development, wellbeing, equality and communication. Twelve thousand officers took part. It found that there is a very positive team spirit within Police Scotland: 73% felt that their team works well to improve services; 83% said that they are treated with the utmost respect by their colleagues; and 78% expressed trust and respect for their line managers and said that they have strong relationships with their colleagues. The survey also highlighted the cohesion within Police Scotland.
Melanie Onn
It seems incredibly convenient that you are cherry-picking some of the—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)
Order. The hon. Lady should speak through the Chair.
Melanie Onn
I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman is cherry-picking the statistics, but nearly half of respondents felt overloaded with information that they did not need to know. Only 22% felt that they had appropriate information on what Police Scotland wanted to achieve, and only 12% felt that they had appropriate information on what the Scottish Police Authority wanted to achieve. Is the evidence he is presenting an inaccurate reflection of the survey?
Richard Arkless
Absolutely not. I freely admit that there are concerns, but when any organisation goes through the fundamental change that Police Scotland has gone through in the last generation, concerns will arise.
Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)
Does my hon. Friend agree that it is somewhat ironic that the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) criticises him for cherry-picking from a survey when that is exactly what the motion on the Order Paper does? It picks one line from any number of different points in the survey. In fact, if we cherry-pick in such a way, we can make surveys say anything we want. We might even be able to find one that says that the Labour party is a credible political force.
Richard Arkless
I agree with my hon. Friend. The reality is that over 1,000 more police officers are on the streets in Scotland. That is what the public want and that is what they have received. There is a 79% satisfaction rate that, if people complain to Police Scotland, it will be dealt with in an efficient and responsible manner. To me, those two indicators are key. Our police perform well and the people in Scotland live in a country that is safer than it has been in my lifetime. I am very proud of that statistic.
The survey was the first ever of that nature carried out by Police Scotland. Officers embraced the opportunity to participate and there was a high response rate. There is a huge amount of interest in the results. It is important that they are used in a constructive and positive way to help to build a better police force in Scotland both for staff and civilians. Indeed, the chairman of the Scottish Police Federation, Brian Docherty, recently said that Police Scotland was an excellent service and should be recognised as such.
Interestingly, there is no comparable survey of police forces in the UK. Perhaps one should be undertaken with haste so that we can have a clearer picture of the police service throughout the UK. These reports should be read by everybody in the Government and the Opposition, particularly those who voted for continued austerity cuts. Sadly, most of the stresses endured by our police are the result of the continued UK austerity measures. Unison, which agrees, has said:
“It is clear from UNISON’s 2014 police staff stress survey that our members are suffering adverse effects from the impact of the UK government’s austerity cuts to policing.”
In conclusion, the creation of Police Scotland has allowed the Scottish Government to defend front-line services from Westminster austerity. I am proud that we have more police officers on the streets of Scotland, I am proud of the selflessness and dedication shown by Police Scotland members during these challenging times, and I am proud that Scotland has never in my lifetime been a safer place to live.
Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)
As we have heard from the Front Benches today, this is a sad and sobering week to be debating policing. The funeral of Dave Phillips sets the context that we should always remember: police officers do a job that is always difficult and often dangerous—sometimes tragically so. Front-line officers police a society that is largely peaceful and law-abiding and in which crime has been falling for years, but they still put themselves in harm’s way every time they go out on patrol, and we should not forget that.
Within that sombre context, there is a legitimate debate to be had about how to run this essential public service. I hope that in the less partisan moments of this debate, everyone will acknowledge that the coalition Government’s police reform agenda was largely a success. The introduction of police and crime commissioners has led to much greater democracy and transparency in the oversight of police forces, so I welcome Labour’s U-turn in agreeing to their continuation, and there is a much greater commitment to professionalism based on evidence and the spread of best practice, through the College of Policing—an institution that receives much less attention than it deserves, but which was an important reform.
Furthermore, the newly introduced National Crime Agency is transforming the policing of serious and organised crime, and there is a much more positive attitude towards the introduction of new technology, which has the capacity to transform policing at the sharp end. The police innovation fund has played a significant role in encouraging forces to make better use of digital technology—body-worn cameras are perhaps the most visible example, but it does not end there. The use of digital devices, along the lines of smartphones, can revolutionise the way the police access intelligence, respond to calls and write reports. There is no need now to go back to the station after every incident.
The Government can be proud of their record, but the reform agenda never ends, and further changes are needed. I will make a few suggestions in a minute that I hope Ministers will consider, but we should first consider the central issue of finance, which the motion addresses. The shadow Home Secretary is in a difficult position, because he comes in a long line of shadow Home Secretaries who have stood at the Dispatch Box and predicted that cuts in spending will lead to soaring crime rates. They have all been proved wrong, and it is a tribute to police forces around the country that they have coped with tough spending settlements and re-organised themselves to become better at crime prevention and catching criminals.
Labour’s motions raises two essential points. The first is that we still need restraint on public spending. We are still spending £70 billion a year more than we raise and so increasing our debts. We have to stop behaving like this as a country, and the central task of Governments throughout this decade is to put our public finances back in order.
David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)
It was an honour to work as my right hon. Friend’s Parliamentary Private Secretary while he was Policing Minister. He did an excellent job then, and he makes an excellent point now. Cheshire police have not only cut crime and shown innovation, but achieved an outstanding score for efficiency from Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary. Is this not the balance—between crime reduction and fiscal responsibility—that we need to take forward?
Damian Green
My hon. Friend makes a very good point from his own position as someone with expertise in this area. He is right that the forces best at spending their money effectively are also often the forces best at fighting crime, which is what we want them to do. The overall issue of public spending is important.
The second point that needs to be considered is that the formula by which money is allocated to individual forces is out of date and needs to be changed. This has been a long process, and it is inevitable that when a formula such as this one is changed, there will be winners and losers—and the losers will shout very loudly and the winners will keep quiet. That is the phase we are in at the moment.
The point for today’s debate is that neither the overall amount of money available to the police, nor the distribution between the individual forces has yet been decided. Indeed, I think I am right in saying that the consultation period on the funding formula is still going on. We all know that tweaks, as well as transitional periods and damping and many other arcane tricks of the Whitehall trade, can be applied to any formula. I am sure they will all come into play over the coming months.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
Does the right hon. Gentleman agree with me that the formula for policing is grossly unfair—to the west midlands, for example? If comparisons are made with other police authorities, it is clear that about 2,000 to 3,000 policemen have been lost in this region over the last three or four years.
Damian Green
I am interested to hear what the hon. Gentleman has to say. We can all make eloquent pitches about how any formula is unfair to our own areas. I would happily talk to him about education funding in Kent, but perhaps not in this debate. As I say, all debates of this kind come down to losers always caring more than winners.
Whatever the final results of both the spending review and the funding formula distribution, there are serious underlying issues for police leaders and Ministers to address about the long-term viability of the way we do policing in this country. Assuming we do not return to irresponsible levels of public spending, settlements will continue to be tight, so if we want a serious debate, we need to address those underlying issues.
Let me make a few suggestions. First, we have only scratched the surface of the benefits of new technology—for making policing more effective and for making it more cost-effective. I have mentioned body-worn cameras and the information available on smartphones. Both can save time and therefore money. There are huge savings in police time to be made from the better use of technology throughout the criminal justice system, especially with regard to police attendance at court.
The days when a police officer wasted a day at a court waiting to give routine evidence for five minutes should already be over. Evidence can be given by video link, or recorded on video at the time of arrest and charge. Faxes and photocopying should be things of the past in a digital age. The piece of paper in a bundle of evidence that goes missing or has not been sent to the defence, causing trials to be postponed and further days wasted, should be playing no part in a modern criminal justice system.
Damian Green
It will come off my time now, so I am afraid I cannot. I can count as well.
The next main point is that we have reaped nothing like the full benefits of collaboration between forces, about which we have heard some examples. Economic necessity has forced some useful collaboration between neighbouring forces, providing more effective policing at less cost. Specialist units such as firearms, mounted police or dog handlers can well be shared. We need more of that, but we also need a radical change in procurement policies—perhaps with national contracts for repairing police cars, and indeed buying them. Clearly, too, computer systems should be able to talk to each other in a way that they cannot now. There is great scope for better and more collaboration between the different “blue light” services. This will be a huge area of useful co-operation in the future.
My final suggestion is that some force mergers are inevitable, and should be made easier. I completely agree with the Home Secretary that a top-down blueprint of the type that previous Home Secretaries have proposed, which failed, is not the way to go. Many sensible people will argue, however, that in the case of some individual forces, there is a logic that says they should merge with their neighbours. I have heard that argument advanced by police and crime commissioners.
Policing is always difficult, and so is making policy for the police. I think the Home Secretary has a record that she can be proud of in this area, and I hope that she will build on this with further radical reform in the future, because the police need it.
Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)
The wisdom and strength of the Opposition resolution was proved by a novel decision by Leicestershire police, which recently decided to experiment by investigating only those burglaries that took place in houses with odd numbers. If the house had an even number, the burglary was not investigated. The news was welcomed with gratitude by the Leicestershire branch of the burglars and footpads trade union, but it was less popular with residents of Leicester who live in houses with even numbers.
I pay tribute to the late Michael Winner—it is rare that one has the opportunity to do that—and the matter of recalling and commemorating the deaths of policemen. Mr Winner, who was not admirable in every way, set up a charity to establish memorials on the sites where policemen had died in the cause of duty. We do not use such anniversaries to achieve political benefit for ourselves; we wear poppies because we want—genuinely—to mourn the deaths of those who have given their lives in warfare, and learn lessons accordingly. It is disappointing when a Prime Minister accuses us of using the Armistice ceremony for political purposes, when he started Prime Minister’s questions today by using the Armistice service to score a futile point against the leader of the Labour party.
My point is about Mr Daniel Morgan, and it is an issue of enormous importance that is endemic to the police force. Daniel Morgan lived in Llanfrechfa on the edge of my constituency. He was a 37-year-old private investigator who was working in London on a job to investigate police corruption. He was found dead 27 years ago in a pub car park in south London. His brother Alastair, who I spoke to yesterday, has carried out a campaign over all those years to expose what happened and discover the reason for the murder. He is still unhappy, and rightly so.
I am one of the few Back Benchers who have had the opportunity to read an amazing document called “Operation Tiberius”—I recommend that anyone who has the opportunity to read it should do so. Two members of the Home Affairs Committee were allowed to read it under strict conditions, with a policeman standing next to us making sure that we did not take notes. Our cameras and mobile phones were also taken away so that we could not copy it. People are not allowed to know what is in “Operation Tiberius”, and I am bound by the secrecy vow that I made at the time not to reveal what I read. I can, however, reveal what the Independent newspaper has said about “Operation Tiberius”, and it is terrifying. The document reveals that corruption in the Metropolitan police force is endemic and has been for many years. The scale is staggering.
Andy Burnham
I am listening carefully to my hon. Friend, because I recently had the privilege of meeting Daniel Morgan’s brother, who has campaigned with unbelievable courage over the years. My hon. Friend should be in no doubt that although I am calling today to protect our police and for more resources, that does not mean that we should not learn the lessons of what happened at Hillsborough, Orgreave, Shrewsbury and in the case of Daniel Morgan. We must hold that mirror up to the past if we are to build a police service that is ready for the 21st century.
Paul Flynn
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, and I am far from being anti-police. I have known every police chief constable in my area since 1972—43 years—and they were all men and women of integrity who achieved great things in that police force. It is a fine force, and has been all that time. I was brought up to believe that all policemen were like “Dixon of Dock Green”, and that is why the contents of “Operation Tiberius” are so deeply shocking. It tells the story of crimes planned by little units of serving police officers of various ranks, and criminals. They met not in clubs or pubs where they would be observed, but in the branches of a secret fraternity. Jack Straw tried to persuade all police forces in the country to require a declaration of membership of that fraternity, but he was frustrated in that effort, because several of them refused to co-operate.
I believe that we must look at the “Operation Tiberius” report. I see no reason why it cannot be published with the names redacted. The names are all there—names of serving policemen and names of criminals—and the crimes are horrendous: they were plotting crimes, organising crimes, carrying out crimes, covering up crimes, and using people who were corrupted in all branches of Government. The report exists, and it is deeply serious.
I have already talked about Alastair Morgan. Another worrying example relates to the murder of Stephen Lawrence, and the way in which the police—certainly—tried to protect the perpetrators of that dreadful murder. We should recognise that a great problem existed then, and we should ask whether it still exists. When I raised it with Bernard Hogan-Howe in the Home Affairs Committee, he generously admitted that the issue was one of great seriousness, and that many people believed that the problem still existed.
The report, which was leaked to The Independent all those years ago, is also significant because, although it covers many parts of London, it does not cover south London, where Daniel Morgan was murdered. The suggestion is that there was some corruption in that leaking. I ask the Home Secretary and Ministers to examine the report and find out whether it is true that the contemporary situation in the Met is one in which endemic corruption still flourishes.
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)
I am very proud to be the second Kent Member to speak in this important debate, because we in Kent are very proud of our extremely effective police force. It has faced some of the greatest challenges with which our nation has struggled—a few months ago the chief constable, Alan Pughsley, said that some 900 migrants were coming into the country each month—and it has to deal with the immediacy that being a front-line county in our great kingdom involves.
I am extremely proud of Alan Pughsley’s work. He has done something remarkable: he has managed to increase the proportion of warranted officers on the frontline to 92%, which is the highest percentage for six years. That is a phenomenal achievement. Kent has some 3,000 warranted officers and 352 police community support officers, and they do a fantastic job. When I hear Opposition Mems bad-mouthing them or accusing them of failing in their duties, I feel offended for them, because they are performing their duties amazingly.
The officers in my constituency have done fantastically well too. The West Kent divisional commander is Chief Superintendent Julia Chapman, whose team has done fantastic work in West Malling, Tonbridge and Edenbridge. She is ably supported by two district commanders, Chief Inspectors Gill Ellis and Roscoe Walford. Sadly, Chief Inspector Ellis is moving on. I send her every good wish for her future career, but I am very sorry that she is not staying in Tonbridge, where she has done such fantastic work.
One of the PCSOs has done fantastically well in West Malling. Phillip Harrison has been the PCSO on duty on Remembrance Sunday for at least three years—probably more—and he will be there again this Sunday. Very quietly, like so many PCSOs, he will be carrying out his duties armed only with his strength of character and his personality, and he will do that phenomenally well.
Anna Turley
I am delighted to hear the hon. Gentleman pay tribute to PCSOs, because I genuinely think that creating them was one of the best things that we did as a Labour Government. I am sure he shares my despair and horror at the fact that so many of their jobs have been cut, because they do very important work and often free up regular officers to carry out much more serious and heavy duties. I appreciate his support for a Labour Government policy.
Tom Tugendhat
I am happy to welcome Labour policies when they work, and PCSOs do work. They are a brilliant innovation. I particularly welcome the efforts of my right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing, Crime and Criminal Justice in supporting them, and the amount of work that he has personally done in ensuring that they have every opportunity not only to serve in their current roles but to be promoted to warrant service if they wish—and, indeed, many do.
I am very grateful that PCSO Harrison will be there. These individuals across Kent—this whole team—have in the last year seen a reduction in crime of 6%. I know that that is not down to them alone; it is down to a network, and that network starts in Kent and spreads to the whole of the United Kingdom. That co-operation, which is led very much by the chief constable, has done an amazing amount to ensure the people of Kent are safe. Chief Constable Pughsley has ensured that we have been innovative in introducing new technologies, and I am grateful that my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green) has mentioned some of them. I would just like to raise one of them. In January, Kent Police introduced TrackMyCrime which I hope many other police forces will be introducing soon. It has seen the time taken for a crime report fall dramatically. It has also increased the satisfaction of those reporting crime. It is fantastic to say—or, rather, it is a mixed blessing—that 3,000 have been victims of crime and have used it; it is sad that there have been that many victims, but it is great that that many have used it, and the satisfaction levels have been very good.
The presence of police is not just about individuals, nor just about bricks and mortar, although I do know we all take very seriously the important decisions that will be taken over the location of police stations over coming years. The police station in Tonbridge and that in West Malling are extremely important. I welcome the work done in outreach—many policemen are now operating in our communities from council offices and, indeed, from supermarkets and mobile police stations, but it is not just about that; it is also about the work done across our whole nation.
That is why I am going to take a few moments to welcome the Bill introduced to this House earlier today. The draft Investigatory Powers Bill is absolutely essential. It is essential for ensuring that the intelligence the police need to do their job is available to them. It is essential to ensure that our intelligence services can co-operate effectively with the police so that we have the kind of integrated defence network we need to ensure that our communities are safe, not only from terrorism, violent crime and indeed child pornography and paedophilia, but also from more run-of-the-mill crimes that sadly blight the lives of so many of our constituents. I am delighted that the Bill is now before the House and will soon, I hope, become an Act.
Finally, I very much welcome the democratisation of police forces that we have seen under this Government. I know I am probably the only one in Kent who says this, but I welcome the new police and crime commissioner. That is not a universal statement in Kent—there are divergent opinions—but at least we know in Kent now who is taking the decisions.
Damian Green
Indeed, we do know who is making the decisions and we can hold the PCC to account. That is particularly important in that before the current PCC became the PCC she chaired the police authority so she was doing roughly the same job only with no public accountability. There cannot be a better example of the democratic improvement of having PCCs.
Tom Tugendhat
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right and speaks for me, because that is exactly what I was going to say.
Knowing now who actually takes the decisions on police priorities, the location of police stations, the use of resources and the priority of innovation, it is essential that when we get to the PCC elections—in 2016 in my area—we focus on who we want. These decisions are no longer for anonymous apparatchiks who hold secret sway over our policing; they are for people who are empowered with a huge burden of responsibility, and I greatly welcome the quality of candidates who are stepping forward on the Conservative side. I hope very much there will be excellent candidates from the other sides as well, because we need the best candidates for this job—not party political, but the best candidates. I am delighted to say that we have put forward some of those.
The growth in interest in technology should continue. It is not a process that is going to stop; in fact, it will accelerate as the criminals exploit ever-greater technological innovation, whether through secret messaging on WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger, through exploiting online banking to commit greater fraud or through phishing—in the internet sense—for greater riches. It is therefore absolutely right that our police step into that world and that our security services help them. I welcome the work being done in this area by the Minister for Policing, Crime and Criminal Justice and, in particular, by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary.
Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)
I declare from the outset that I grew up in a policing household. My dad is a retired police sergeant and one of West Yorkshire police’s finest. I am incredibly proud of all that he achieved in the police, but he would be the first to say that he does not recognise today’s force. I am certainly not here to argue that that is an entirely bad thing, however. As crime has changed, so has policing. As new evils manifest themselves, legislators and law enforcers have had to adapt in order to stay ahead and to protect those they serve.
My speech today is not like the others I have written. Since becoming the MP for Halifax, I have been keen to bang the drum for my town, to speak about the potential for jobs and growth, and to speak with pride about what we have got right and what we have to offer in order to bring in the investment and the tourists we need if we are to prosper. However, I would not be a credible MP if I spoke only about the positives at the expense of those issues that are difficult, that are a challenge and that pose a danger to the wellbeing of some of the most vulnerable in my constituency.
In May this year, on one of my first weekends in this job, members of the English Defence League marched through Halifax. They were there to protest about child grooming gangs, and the march highlighted to me, very early on, the value of local, informed and familiar neighbourhood policing teams. In Calderdale, we have had one of the highest numbers of arrests in the country in connection with child sexual exploitation. Crime may be changing, with a decline in certain types of criminal activity, but colleagues who have made the hard yards on raising awareness of CSE prior to my election—my hon. Friends the Members for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) and for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk) among others—will know just how complex CSE is to tackle.
According to the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, all four countries in the UK have seen the number of recorded sexual offences against children increase over the past year, and the type of policing required to identify, disrupt and prosecute those seeking to exploit children and young people is intensive: it takes care, persistence and time. There are now 957 fewer police officers in West Yorkshire. The thin blue line is thinner than ever. My conversations with the local police have revealed their worry that policing will become much more reactive—the blue- light service that we heard about earlier. Reactive policing is of limited use when we are striving to secure prosecutions and deliver a zero-tolerance approach to child sexual exploitation.
Further to this, Calderdale has also been deemed to be vulnerable to radicalisation and extremism, and in that context I cannot stress enough the importance of trusted local neighbourhood policing teams. Again, we cannot afford to take a reactive approach to radicalisation. Over the past three years, the number of terrorism-related arrests has gone up by 56%. Britain’s counter-terrorism chief, Mark Rowley, has said that regular officers on the beat make an “essential” contribution to developing relationships with communities. He went on to say:
“Counter-terrorism is not simply delivered by the counter-terrorism network”,
and
“mainstream policing makes a big contribution”.
On the day the EDL came to Halifax, it was thanks to local officers that the march went ahead with limited trouble. They knew exactly where any geographical flash points would be, and they knew where to look on social media to take the temperature of the situation. They also knew who to keep an eye on, and where they were likely to be. I want to thank the officers who were on duty that day for the work they did, and for the work they do every day.
West Yorkshire police has weathered the cuts so far, but hon. Members will appreciate my anxiety about another round of cuts as high as 25% to 40%, which would be devastating. Neighbourhood police and police community support officers are at the forefront of identifying vulnerabilities, frustrations and other causes for concern within communities and among individuals before radicalisation starts, almost irreversibly, to manifest itself. We will lose the ability to do this proactively if there are further cuts to West Yorkshire police—or to any force, for that matter.
I have mentioned CSPOs and their role. We heard a little more about that from the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat). In 2013, the Home Office said:
“Since their introduction in 2002…PCSOs…have proved to be an invaluable link between the police and the communities they serve…They bring key skills, values and diversity to policing.”
PCSOs have proved to be an incredibly effective way of building trust within communities, bridging the gap between policing priorities and the concerns of local people and gathering information in a way that officers may otherwise not be able to do.
West Yorkshire police has lost 137 PCSOs since 2010, a reduction of 18%. The Home Office has acknowledged what it describes as the “invaluable link” between police and communities delivered by PSCOs, so it must recognise that further cuts will start to diminish that link. Given the changes in crime—not only the complexities of tackling radicalisation and child sexual exploitation, but the urgency with which we must carry out that work—I urge the Government to think very carefully about how they reconcile the proposed cuts to services with their responsibility to keep people safe.
Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)
I am very pleased to contribute to this debate on policing. I am a criminal barrister by training, as I should probably declare at the outset. I have prosecuted hundreds of offences—from youth robberies in the magistrates court to murders and terrorism offences in the Old Bailey—and I know as well as anyone that our criminal justice system owes an enormous debt of gratitude to our police officers, particularly officers who carry out their duties with a tenacity that is always tempered by fairness. I believe our best police officers, particularly the ones I worked with in counter-terrorism and homicide cases, embody the finest traditions of British policing, with a determination to pursue lines of inquiry wherever they may lead and to get to the truth, however inconvenient that may be. The officers I worked with in serious cases were, without doubt, among the finest to be found anywhere in the world.
The background to this debate is the difficult funding climate that the police, and indeed other public services, have faced. We cannot get away from that, or forget that despite having the fastest growing economy in the developed world—generating more jobs in Yorkshire alone, the county of the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch), than in the entirety of France, and creating more employment for young people in the United Kingdom than in the rest of the EU put together—we are still running a very significant deficit. If we do not get the deficit under control, it will be a real and present danger to our financial stability. It is also right to say that if we do not get it under control, the deficit will do nothing to keep crime levels as low as we want them to be. Indeed, if we do not get it under control, we will not be able to continue to plough more money into our NHS and into protecting our schools.
How have the police responded to this funding climate? They have risen to the challenge magnificently. Crime has fallen since 2010: there have been 2.9 million fewer crimes, 189,000 fewer burglaries and 465,000 fewer violent offences. The independent crime survey for England and Wales shows a fall of 8% in the year to the end of June 2015. In my own county of Gloucestershire, crime is down by 18%. That is a tribute to the police officers who have shown such resourcefulness and dedication in serving the people of Gloucestershire, and my constituency of Cheltenham in particular. It is worth noting that those stunning falls have been achieved in the context of a much improved reporting culture, with people feeling better able to report crime, particular sexual offences.
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman, with his considerable experience, asserts that crime is falling. May I quote City of London Police Commissioner Adrian Leppard, who is the national fraud co-ordinator? He said in a circular to all police and crime commissioners and chief constables that the crime survey for England and Wales will shortly include at least
“an extra 3 million fraud and cyber incidents”.
That reflects for the first time the changing and true nature of crime and, in his words, is
“an increase of up to 40%.”
Alex Chalk
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that crime is changing. That is of course correct, and I will come on to that in a moment. However, the truth—the inconvenient truth for Labour Members, some might say—is that the figures cited are the very figures on which they relied, being those of the independent crime survey for England and Wales. It is no good saying, “Yes, we relied on those in the past but we are not going to rely on them now because they are inconvenient.” There has to be consistency across the piece. There is that consistency of reporting and the figures are unanswerable: crime has come down.
James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)
Has my hon. Friend thought about some of the reasons why crime is falling? Does he agree that it may be linked to our having a stronger economy, with more employment? On the link between crime and deprivation, does he agree that it may be linked to the fact that we have the lowest number of workless households on record?
Alex Chalk
My hon. friend makes an important point, one that I was trying to make at the outset. We have to live within our means, not least because if we do not and the implications of economic instability befall our country, one thing that will rise, just as the sun rises in the morning, is crime. That is another reason why we have to live within our means.
How have the police managed to achieve this fall in crime? They have been innovative and forward-thinking. Savings have been made through improved procurement, which has delivered more than £200 million; the police have become less top heavy, rebalancing their forces in favour of rank and file officers; and they have redeployed their assets, putting a higher proportion of police officers on the frontline. As for the Government, it is right to say that the key priorities have been maintained and properly funded. I am particularly interested in counter-terrorism, and £564 million has been put towards supporting counter-terrorism policing in 2015-16. The Independent Police Complaints Commission has received additional funding, as has the police innovation fund. The College of Policing direct entry schemes have also been properly supported. Let us just look at what the police innovation fund has done. It is a multimillion pound fund that will consider proof of concept bids, as well as implementation-ready bids, to support innovation and breakthrough ideas.
Jack Dromey
The hon. Gentleman has asserted that counter-terrorism is fully funded. There is unanimity across this House in our determination to tackle the generational threat of terrorism, and there is effective funding of the national and regional strategies accordingly. But what does he have to say to Peter Clarke, the former head of counter-terrorism, who has said that what the Government are missing is neighbourhood policing? He said that if we hollow out neighbourhood policing, we
“risk breaking the ‘golden thread’”—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)
Order. That is a very long intervention and the hon. Gentleman’s time is running out.
Alex Chalk
I am very grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Of course there needs to be front-line policing, too—that is simply unarguable—but I was going to discuss how resourceful and innovative police forces, doing more with less, have been able to deliver that. I wish to talk about what is happening in my county of Gloucestershire, but first let me address the change in crime, about which the hon. Gentleman made a point. He rightly said that crime is changing, but steps have been taken to address that. As we know, the National Crime Agency has been established to take the fight to organised crime, but Opposition Members made no mention of the £860 million invested in the national cyber-security programme to improve cyber-security. I respectfully invite them to mention it, because it is an important innovation. We have also had campaigns such as Cyber Streetwise to help members of the public.
In Gloucestershire, local officers have responded superbly. They have a commendable can-do attitude, they have rolled up their sleeves and they have got on with it. When National Police Chiefs Council officer Sara Thornton said that members of the public should no longer expect police officers to turn up at their door, officers in Gloucestershire said, “No, we will attend.” That is the right approach to take, because burglary is a horrible crime that robs people of their security and it requires a police response—and a police response will continue in Gloucestershire. It shows that Cheltenham and Gloucestershire’s officers are doing an excellent job—
Alex Chalk
I am sorry, but I am not going to give way. Gloucestershire’s officers are doing an excellent job of making important reforms while continuing to deliver on the public’s priorities. The truth is that further savings can be made, be it through collaboration—emergency services collaboration, where appropriate—procurement or reallocation to the frontline. Measures can be taken by which we face the financial reality but keep our people safe, too. We should back our police officers. They have done it in the past and they will do it again.
Julie Cooper (Burnley) (Lab)
I am pleased to have the opportunity to contribute to this debate and to support the motion. My constituency of Burnley is policed by Lancashire constabulary, which is renowned as a top-performing police force. It has already been mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Kate Hollern).
Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary has rated Lancashire constabulary as outstanding. Yet, since 2010, Lancashire has lost 20% of its officers and 23% of its community support officers. In 2010, Lancashire had six police divisions; it now has three.
Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)
Given what the hon. Lady has told us—[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)
Order. The hon. Lady must resume her seat while the hon. Gentleman is standing.
Kit Malthouse
Given that the hon. Lady has said that Lancashire has seen a reduction in the number of police officers but is still rated as excellent, will she accept that there is no connection between performance and bare police numbers?
Julie Cooper
As my speech progresses, the hon. Gentleman will see that I do not accept what he says.
There is no doubt that these reductions are impacting on crime levels and on the public perception of crime. Now, worryingly, crime is on the increase in some areas of Lancashire. Sexual offences, burglary and violent crime are all showing significant increases. In addition to that, and very importantly, the nature of crime is changing, and we ignore that at our peril. Cybercrime is growing at a phenomenal rate. A person is now more likely to be mugged online than in the street. Added to that, an ever-increasing amount of police time is spent countering terrorism and tackling child exploitation. Such crimes are more complex to investigate and place a massive demand on police resources. Bearing that in mind, I am hugely concerned by the further proposed cut to Lancashire’s policing budget. Under the new funding formula, the cut to Lancashire would be an additional £24.5 million.
I understand that savings must be made, but a reduction of that magnitude is particularly hard to stomach when the same formula proposes significant increases in funding for several other police authorities.
Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)
Yesterday, in the Home Affairs Committee we had the privilege of meeting, among others, the chief constable of Lancashire police. I asked him why he has a reserve of £65.3 million. Would that money not be better spent on front-line policing to cover the situation described by the hon. Lady?
Julie Cooper
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising that matter. The reserve is a result of prudent policing and developing new tactics to adapt to changing crime. It is about responsible policing.
There is no doubt that less delivers less, and Lancashire’s police constable has put his concerns on record. He talked about what would happen if the cuts went ahead. He said:
“Lancashire Constabulary will no longer be able to keep the public safe.”
Surely, when the police constable believes that cuts at the proposed level will mean that he cannot guarantee to keep the public safe, it is time to take notice. This is about not politics, but the safety of the people of Lancashire.
Last year, Lancashire police responded to more than 90,000 crimes.
Julie Cooper
No, I will not give way.
Lancashire police has been praised as an outstanding force, and yet it is to have cuts that go way beyond those of most other forces. There is no rhyme or reason to it, and, yet again from this Government, no fairness. What will the cuts mean operationally? The chief constable and the police and crime commissioner tell me that if these cuts go ahead at this level, the consequences will be this: no mounted police; no police dog units; the loss of the vast majority of our dedicated roads policing officers; the closure of every single public inquiry desk in the county; and dramatic cuts to our serious organised crime unit and the teams that deal with serious and complex crime—these officers deal with those criminals who pose the greatest harm to our communities. Added to that, police community support officers will become a thing of the past.
I know how much the people of Burnley and Padiham value their PCSOs. I have seen at first hand the positive impact that our PCSOs have on antisocial behaviour, but it goes further than that. PCSOs are key to delivering dedicated, accessible and visible neighbourhood policing. It has long been acknowledged that the mobilisation of local knowledge is fundamental in effective policing, and there is no doubt that PCSOs play a massive role in the prevention of minor crime and that the on-street intelligence that they access by virtue of their trusted role in the community often provides enormous assistance to major crime investigations. In addition, the presence of these uniformed officers on the street is a source of reassurance to the public. They make the public feel safe.
In all policing, safety is paramount. In Lancashire, we fully accept our need to take a share of the cuts, but I believe that we should never gamble with public safety. I urge the Government to listen to the professionals, including Lancashire’s chief constable, and to revisit the funding formula to ensure that cuts are shared fairly and that public safety is not compromised.
James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)
I pay tribute to the work of the West Midlands police and the men and women who protect communities across the west midlands. As HMIC has pointed out, police forces across the country have been facing significant challenges, but West Midlands police were singled out for praise for how they have responded to those challenges. Since 2010, crime has fallen by 17% across the west midlands. Certain categories of crime have shown recent increases, but that is due to the success of getting people to come forward more readily to report those crimes. West Midlands police have had to do more with less, and as a metropolitan police force has faced funding challenges.
Jack Dromey
HMIC has certified that the west midlands crime statistics are 99% accurate and they now show an increase of up to 5% in recorded crime. Would the hon. Gentleman therefore like to reconsider the comments he has just made?
James Morris
The hon. Gentleman knows that since 2010 crime has fallen across the west midlands by 17%. As I have just said, there have been some increases in crime such as domestic violence, which I think is a tribute to West Midlands police in encouraging people to report such crimes.
I welcome the Government’s plans to revise the funding formula. West Midlands police are a low council tax precept force and are dependent on Government grant to a large extent. One of the key criteria for the new funding formula is to take that challenge into account, so I look forward to seeing how the new formula will help West Midlands police with their funding settlement. There are big challenges for West Midlands police and I know that through the work they have done with Accenture they have carried out a comprehensive review of the future of policing in the west midlands and have mapped out some strategic priorities through a transformation plan. I support that work.
The West Midlands police and crime commissioner has made some decisions that have been characterised by short termism. They have been driven by a desire to generate political opposition rather than being taken in the long-term interest of West Midlands police. I would put the police station closure programme being considered by the police and crime commissioner, which includes the police station in Halesowen, in that category. It cannot be right that West Midlands police are spending £33 million on refurbishing their central base in Birmingham while proposing to embark on a closure programme across the west midlands and the black country that will probably deliver savings in the region of £3.5 million to £4 million. It is vital across the west midlands and the black country area, part of which I represent, that the police are not seen to be losing their footprint in local communities. The Halesowen chamber of trade has expressed concern, which I share, about the lack of police visibility in the town centre.
Mr Jim Cunningham
The hon. Gentleman talks about the closure of police stations and desks, but that has been going on in the west midlands for the past five years, as we have experienced in Coventry.
James Morris
My view is that the police and crime commissioner is making some short-term decisions on the basis—[Interruption.]
James Morris
I will not give way, because I have done so twice already, and I have not even finished responding to the last intervention.
The West Midlands police and crime commissioner is making some short-term decisions in order to generate lurid, populist headlines about Government cuts, rather than taking the right decisions for the people of the west midlands and the broader black country.
James Morris
I have already given way twice.
Would it not be better for the police and crime commissioner to have a more strategic response by exploring how local police stations could be used more readily as community hubs, bringing together different services and allowing police visibility, but also allowing the involvement of other partner agencies, because modern policing does not happen in isolation; it happens with partners, whether mental health services or local authorities? Can we not be more strategic about this? I have met the police and crime commissioner in order to try to persuade him of the need for a more strategic approach. We need a decentralised model of policing in the west midlands that does not centralise everybody in an expensive headquarters. The West Midlands police and crime commissioner should avoid the temptation to make these short-termist decisions, grab lurid headlines and consistently campaign in a politically motivated way, as he has done, in opposition to everything the Government are doing. That is not in anyone’s interests, including the public, who the police are meant to serve.
As other Members have pointed out, there are opportunities for other cost savings to be made by West Midlands police and other police forces across the country. As HMIC pointed out in its recent report, there are too many antiquated IT systems, and there are huge opportunities for efficiency savings in procurement. One example of a very successful collaboration in the west midlands has been the street triage system for mental health services. That pioneering collaboration between West Midlands police and the health service has led to a massive reduction in the number of people being taken to police cells after being sectioned under section 135 of the Mental Health Act 1983. It is an example of strategic thinking leading to cost savings and it is bringing a massive benefit to front-line policing. It is therefore in nobody’s interests to take a non-strategic view of what is happening. We need more innovation and creative thinking, especially at a time of fiscal challenges.
I will fight to save Halesowen police station from the decision taken by the West Midlands police and crime commissioner because I think that is the right thing to do in the long term to protect the visibility of policing in the west midlands. However, if he insists on his decision, I will continue to campaign for a successful high street presence in Halesowen. A successful example of that was when the local police took a shopfront and used it as a community hub. Why can we not make the right decisions?
I recognise that the challenges of modern policing are complicated and that crime is falling in the west midlands, but let us not take short-term, politically motivated decisions that undermine public confidence in the police. Let us do the right thing for the communities of the west midlands and the black country.
Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
Opposition Members recognise that the Tories have an ideological ambition to shrink the state. Attacks on the public sector have meant cuts in the workforce in almost all the areas where we try to serve our constituents, but I would never have thought that this Government’s ideological cuts would threaten to deliver the end of neighbourhood policing as we know it. That is potentially what we face if the Government go ahead with their plans for budget cuts.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) pointed out earlier, we have already seen a 25% reduction in real-terms funding since 2010 and 17,000 police officers have been lost since 2010, 12,000 of them from the frontline. I shall comment briefly on the potential cuts in Manchester as an example of the problem we face. Just as the Government have hit the poorest areas hardest with local government cuts, so it is with police funding. Generally, the more deprived areas, such as mine in Manchester, which rely on a greater proportion of central Government funding, will be hit hardest by Government cuts in police budgets.
Some 80% of Greater Manchester police funding comes from central Government. The disproportionate impact of the proposed cuts will mean that we would be among the hardest hit communities in the country. Greater Manchester has already lost £134 million from its budget—a quarter of the budget—since 2011. The majority of a police force budget is spent on staff, so these cuts directly hit the number of officers serving our communities. We have had the second biggest reduction in officers outside the Met. In 2010 Greater Manchester police had 8,200 officers. That is now down to around 6,500.
Richard Arkless
Given the tone of the hon. Gentleman’s contribution, does he agree that if cuts are to fall on police services across the UK, front-line officers should be protected from those cuts?
Jeff Smith
Absolutely. We would all want to see front-line officers protected. They are the boots on the ground and the voices that connect with our communities.
Richard Arkless
Does the hon. Gentleman therefore agree that the Scottish Government’s response has been correct, in that we have protected front-line services and increased police numbers by 1,000 since 2007?
Jeff Smith
If the hon. Gentleman does not mind, I am more interested in Greater Manchester and my own constituency, though I have nothing against Scotland.
The Home Office is asking for modelling of cuts at 25% and 40%. I asked the Greater Manchester police and crime commissioner what that would mean for Greater Manchester police. A 25% cut would take police officer numbers below 5,000. A 40% cut would be catastrophic. We might be down to fewer than 3,000 officers. From over 8,000 officers in 2010 to under 3,000 on the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary’s watch—do they really want that as their legacy? That is not sustainable.
The model of neighbourhood policing that works so well in my area and many others would be under threat. Bobbies on the beat is not some kind of romantic “Dixon of Dock Green” vision of how police forces should work. It is emblematic of the successful model of policing that we currently have—police officers and PCSOs connected to their communities and adding to community cohesion.
What the Government are proposing is a huge change. In the words of Lord Condon, who knows quite a lot about policing, these
“profound changes to the bedrock of British policing should be taking place only by design and after widespread debate . . . not by stealth as a consequence of budgetary change.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 20 October 2015; Vol. 765, c. 564.]
There are, of course, new challenges facing our police forces—terrorism, cybercrime, child sexual exploitation, human slavery and human trafficking, as well as changes in organised crime—and we need a proper debate about how the police deal with those challenges. We also need to consider how community policing helps to tackle those problems, because I believe, as do many police officers, that they are exactly the areas where local intelligence makes a vital difference, where good community relations are important, and where our police officers and PCSOs are the bedrock of those good community relations.
When I meet my local team—Ben and the other PCSOs—on the streets in Withington, I can chat to them and we can share our experiences of what is going on in the local area. That is useful for me and, I hope, useful for them. The conversations that we have add to their knowledge of the local area—their community—and to the intelligence that they can pick up on sensitive issues.
Another former very senior police officer, Lord Paddick, has said of the changing nature of terrorism and lone-wolf attacks:
“In many cases, community intelligence about the individuals involved may be the only way that we can prevent terrorist outrages.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 20 October 2015; Vol. 765, c. 565.]
The conversations that take place with neighbourhood policing add to the safety of our communities. Cuts in the number of officers and PCSOs are a direct threat to the safety of our communities. The Government are making a huge mistake in assuming that just because some types of crime have fallen we can cut back our police to unsustainable levels. Nobody is saying that the police should not make savings, but cuts on this level will be a massive blow to our communities. I urge the Government to think again.
Byron Davies (Gower) (Con)
I am delighted to be able to speak on this subject of such great importance, and to declare an interest in it. I had 32 very happy years in the Metropolitan police service as a detective serving in the counter-terrorist command and the national crime squad.
Not surprisingly, this motion has some fundamental flaws in the way that Labour frames its arguments about policing. It is far too simplistic to make a point about policing numbers when we are having a really serious debate about what sort of police service this country needs and wants. This is not, and should not be reduced to, simply a numbers game. If the Opposition were serious about discussing it, they would be asking questions about how they want the police services of this country to look, what their priorities are, and how they face the challenges of policing in the 21st century.
The system of policing in this country has had to evolve. We cannot think or accept that a system that was created and honed in the 1820s for a different time will be completely fit for purpose today. While many aspects of police work are excellent, we need to adapt, and the Government are doing just that. Technology has advanced at an incredible pace, and that has left previous models of policing in need of reform to meet today’s challenges. The Government continue to promote innovation and improved efficiency by allocating £70 million to the police innovation fund this year. That is key to my point about police numbers.
This is about efficiency, and about management effectively deploying the resources at their disposal. I have had numerous discussions with my former colleagues in the police about this issue, and I have found their views illuminating. It has made senior police officers think about how they manage and deploy their resources. It has required higher quality management, and, through that, the police service has reformed itself by having to prioritise what is important and re-evaluate how a modern police force needs to operate. That has rarely been done before, as Governments have never challenged how the police service works on a deep enough level. Under the previous Labour Government, there was too much bureaucracy and obsession with target-driven performance, as I well remember. While targets are vitally important, the Government have challenged the long-standing model of policing. Through that, police services have managed their priorities and resources more effectively, and policing has thereby become much more capable of meeting the challenges that it currently faces.
I commend the work of the Home Secretary and the Policing Minister in doing this. During such major reforms of such a vitally important part of British public life, I also commend the Government for providing the stability needed in the Home Office. We have had the same Home Secretary for over five years, and three Policing Ministers, including the current one. They have done an excellent job in providing the continuity and strong leadership required during this period. That is in stark contrast to the Labour Government, who, if I am correct, had six Home Secretaries and seven Policing Ministers. I well remember the days at Scotland Yard when most senior officers did not know who would be Home Secretary on any given day. The constant change of direction and personality in such a crucial role is not conducive to providing the confidence that the police need if they have to undertake major reforms.
The current situation has required courage and innovative thinking on the part of police forces. Given the many trials faced by policing, I am glad that the Government continue to invest heavily in the College of Policing, to ensure that the most talented individuals will lead our police forces in the future.
The Labour motion also mentions sharp rises in knife crime. Policing is complex and nuanced. It requires preventative and outreach work in communities, to try to change deep-rooted cultures that have built up over time. We must concentrate on how police tackle any rises in knife crime. I have read that some say that it is the fault of cuts in funding to police budgets, but that is a deeply misleading and dangerous statement to make about policing. The causes of knife crime are countless and diverse. Many are down to multifaceted and nuanced social reasons that have grown and transformed over decades. Crucial reasons for the recent rise in knife crime include the dark web being used to purchase weapons, a cultural change among young people, and improved recording of knife crime statistics.
Andy Burnham
I think the hon. Gentleman is saying—the right hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green) and other hon. Members have also said this—that there is no connection at all between police numbers and levels of crime. Is that seriously the argument that Conservative Members are putting to the House?
Byron Davies
It is about how people are managed and deployed, and managers have to be trained to do that properly. That is the argument. The police are making serious efforts to tackle knife crime and they are making some important changes. The police are there to investigate, prosecute and tackle knife crime.
That brings me on to something that is missing from the Labour motion. It states that traditional forms of crime are being replaced by cybercrime. That is no doubt true, but my point about the dark web being used to purchase weapons is important. We must examine and tackle the link between cyber and more traditional crime.
Finally, I simply do not agree with the notion that this is the end of bobbies on the beat. I am sure that the Government would never compromise public safety. In fact, the proportion of front-line police officers has risen in the past five years. I implore the Police Federation to debate, discuss and engage in positive dialogue with the Government on reform, rather than continue to adopt its militant stance.
We must be serious about how we progress with policing. This is no time for political grandstanding. We must move on from the political obsession with police numbers. The public deserve a far more serious and forensic approach to policing services, and I am glad that the Home Secretary, the Policing Minister and the Government are undertaking the serious work required to do that, rather than engaging in political point scoring.
As a former police officer, I offer my full support to the Home Secretary on her and her team’s excellent work on falling crime figures and on ensuring that policing is able to meet the serious and perpetually changing challenges of the 21st century.
Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to speak in this important debate. I grew up with a huge amount of respect for the police service and the job it does in keeping our communities safe. When I was young, my dad served as a special constable with South Wales Police for a number of years, reinforcing my belief in the important job that our police officers, civilian staff and special constables do.
My constituency of Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney is made up of a number of small villages and communities, each with different needs and priorities. The need for support from the police service is significant in many of the communities I represent, but that support is under threat from the Government’s proposed cuts.
Prior to being elected to this place in May, I spent 20 years as a county councillor. During that time I and my colleagues worked closely with the police service—specifically the neighbourhood policing team—to resolve a multitude of community concerns. As councillors we held monthly advice surgeries with the local policing team, delivering a joined-up service to local residents. That approach worked well and served to resolve most concerns that invariably required a two-pronged approach.
Neighbourhood policing has had a hugely positive effect on communities, with constables and community support officers being able to build a rapport with the communities that they serve. That in turn creates a greater sense of public safety and enables the police service to quickly target those who cause most problems. Neighbourhood policing also has benefits in reducing indirect costs for the public purse resulting from antisocial behaviour and low-level crime. By working at the grassroots in our communities, the police have been able to tackle the root causes of issues before they become major problems.
Unfortunately, due to the significant cuts over the past few years, neighbourhood policing teams are disappearing. Before they came to power, the Tories promised to protect front-line policing, but over the past five years they have cut about 17,000 police staff. In Wales, we have been fortunate that, despite the significant cuts to their budget, the Welsh Labour Government have funded the employment of 500 police community support officers.
The significant cuts to which police services have been subjected will put communities at greater risk. I know that in some large organisations, having fewer resources helps to create efficiency initially. I am sure that that is true of the police service, but the sustained cuts that we have seen and the further significant cuts that we face will serve only to weaken the service and impact on morale. There are many examples of how low the morale in the police service has become. I have heard at first hand of the most conscientious of officers leaving the service in the prime of their careers. That does not bode well.
We have all heard a variety of statistics, but stats have a habit of being interpreted in all sorts of ways. I prefer to listen to the people who know best—the people living in our communities and working at the grassroots of the service. Those people are saying that things are not getting better, but worse. This is hardly the time to cut investment. As we have heard, crime is not falling, but changing.
The Government’s proposals will take policing backwards in this country. My constituency is covered by two forces, Gwent and South Wales. With a 25% cut, we will see a 22% reduction in officer numbers in Gwent and an 18% reduction in South Wales. That can be compared with violent crime rates, which are up by 22% in Gwent and 28% in South Wales.
Community safety and law and order are too important to put at risk. The Government’s cuts will put our communities and residents in danger. I urge the Government to think carefully about the further cuts they are planning and the impact that those cuts will have on the lives of people in our towns and villages. Those cuts are not sensible. Most people do not live on gated estates; they live in ordinary communities and they need adequate protection from the police service. The proposed cuts will not allow the police service to give them that protection. I urge hon. Members to support the motion.
Seema Kennedy (South Ribble) (Con)
I welcome today’s debate on this important matter.
The headquarters of Lancashire constabulary are in my constituency of South Ribble. Indeed, I can see the building from my bedroom window. I have many neighbours and friends who are members of the police force. Lancashire constabulary was rated an outstanding force as recently as last month. I commend the work of Chief Constable Finnigan and Chief Superintendent Lee, and all those in the Lancashire police family who put their lives on the line every day to protect our communities.
I welcome the fact that police reform is working. Crime is down in South Ribble and down in Lancashire by over a quarter since 2010. Lancashire constabulary has made significant changes in the last five years. There is a centralised control room and there have been innovations using mobile technology. I know that the chief constable talked about that when he addressed the Home Affairs Committee yesterday. Such innovations, including those that my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green) spoke about, free up time for other police work. I know that there is more to do. The chief constable has told me that there is more to do in terms of real estate, particularly in respect of the large site at Hutton that the constabulary owns.
Lancashire has been mentioned many times in this debate, including by the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) and the hon. Member for Burnley (Julie Cooper), who is not in her place. Some of the figures that have been bandied about are speculative and slightly unhelpful.
Jack Dromey
The chief constable of Lancashire, Steve Finnigan, is one of the most outstanding chief constables in Britain. When he says that the proposed cuts will make Lancashire a less safe place to live, is he right?
Seema Kennedy
The word is “proposed”, but the problem is that a lot of what the police and crime commissioner says is based on figures that we know nothing about. There is a lot of speculation about what will come out in the autumn statement in three weeks’ time.
Seema Kennedy
I do not know whether I am allowed to respond when somebody speaks to me from a sedentary position and names a Member.
The Lancashire constabulary has made changes and will carry on making changes. Some of the talk about the changes has been speculative and unhelpful.
Andy Burnham
The hon. Lady claims that the talk is speculative, but did she not read the Budget documents published after the election? The Home Office is unprotected, and unprotected Departments are looking at cuts of 25%. That is why my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) and her chief constable say that her constituents will be less safe if that goes ahead. Is she happy to nod that through?
Seema Kennedy
First, I am not nodding it through. That is why I am speaking. The right hon. Gentleman mentions the figure of 25%, but the police and crime commissioner has spoken of a figure of 40%. They are both speculation about something else.
I would like to speak about the funding formula. We are talking about cuts and safety, but we can have a safe country only if we provide a strong economy so that, in future, our children are safe. It is all very well saying, “Safer now,” but if we destroy the economy in the longer term, it will not be safer now or later.
Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)
I am struck by the similarities between the actions of the police and crime commissioner in my hon. Friend’s constituency and those of the commissioner in my area of the west midlands. In her constituency area, the police have £65 million in reserves and yet are closing police services. In my area, we have £100 million of reserves. Will she reflect on that fact?
Seema Kennedy
I will reflect on it and address it later.
My hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Byron Davies) referred to deployment. It is not just all about the money, but about how well it is spent, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) said.
The consultation period on the funding formula is ongoing. I was glad that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing, Crime and Criminal Justice met all Lancashire MPs. Anyone who knows Lancashire—many Members do—will know that it is a unique county. It is mixed urban and rural—small towns with villages next to them. Lancashire MPs believe, on a cross-party basis, that the technical changes to the modelling have disproportionately disadvantaged Lancashire.
John Stevenson (Carlisle) (Con)
In Cumbria, we have a large geographical area, a small population, a mountain range and poor infrastructure. Does my hon. Friend agree that, when we consider the weighting formula and funding, rurality and the circumstances of each county must be taken into consideration?
Seema Kennedy
Yes, but I do not want to strain the patience of the House on the technical detail of the funding formula. It is a very complicated formula—the right hon. Member for Leigh referred to that.
In conclusion, I applaud the innovation in policing country-wide, and I applaud the work of my constituents and all members of Lancashire constabulary. There is more to do in terms of innovation and responding to 21st century crime.
Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)
I welcome today’s debate. Policing is a major concern in my constituency and across Merseyside. The motion moved by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) sets out the key areas. It mentions the loss of 17,000 police officers since 2010—in Merseyside alone, we have lost 1,000. It also mentions the sharp rise in serious crime and the move away from traditional forms of crime.
Several hon. Members have talked about how crime is changing. In my constituency, the rate of firearm discharges has been a major issue, so I welcome the 23% fall in that rate over the last year. In Merseyside as a whole, however, the last year has seen big increases in the levels of serious crime, such as hate crime, violence with injury, violence without injury, rape and other sexual crimes. Conservative Members are right that this is partly because more people are coming forward, but when they do their complaints have to be dealt with—the capacity has to be there—and we are concerned that as a result of the cuts we might not have the capacity to deal with those larger numbers.
Since 2010, Merseyside has faced a budget cut of more than £60 million, which represents a 17% reduction in spending, and lost 800 police officers, more than 400 other police staff and more than 100 PCSOs—overall, a cut of almost 20% in staffing levels. Assuming a cut in the CSR not of 20% but of 25%, Merseyside would need to make further savings during this Parliament of £66 million. That would mean a cumulative cut across the decade of this Government of 35%, which would be one of the highest in the country—and in an area of social and economic need facing very big challenges. By the end of 2019, we would have lost 900, or one in four, police officers, 1,300 other staff, which, at 59%, would be the majority, and 78% of PCSOs.
My hon. Friends the Members for Halifax (Holly Lynch) and for Burnley (Julie Cooper) spoke powerfully about the impact of PCSOs. I have seen that in my own constituency. Jane Kennedy, the police and crime commissioner for Merseyside, has said we might have no PCSOs at all in Merseyside by the end of the Parliament. That is a very serious threat.
Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)
We face a similar situation in London, where the future of PCSOs is under threat. Were they to go, which is entirely possible—likely, indeed—the loss of intelligence and a visible police presence on our streets would drive a coach and horses through traditional community-based policing. I am sorry to hear that that is the case in Merseyside. I am worried it will be the case in London too.
Stephen Twigg
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Our right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary was right to remind the House that PCSOs were a major reform under the noble Lord Blunkett, the former Home Secretary, of the nature of policing in this country, and it is a great shame to see its reversal as a consequence of these cuts.
The motion rightly focuses on the cuts in the CSR, but I want to comment on the police funding formula. My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith) spoke about the impact of cuts to the central police grant on Greater Manchester police. It is similar in Merseyside. We receive 85% of our funding from central Government—the third highest of any police force in the country—whereas 51% of Surrey’s funding comes from central Government. That means that the impact of a reduction in funding from central Government is much greater in Merseyside than in Surrey, which is protected by the council tax base. I do not think the Government have shown sufficient regard to that as they have made their cuts.
Peter Kyle
I have sympathy with my hon. Friend’s argument, but does he realise that down in Sussex it is even more absurd? Sussex police are being cut by 5.1%, as the review stands now, while neighbouring Surrey is getting an additional 5%.
Stephen Twigg
My hon. Friend has made that excellent point already, and it is made even more emphatically by his repeating it. He is absolutely right.
The consequence is striking. Over the last five years, Merseyside has lost one in five of its police officers, whereas Surrey has lost just 1%, and this contrast has a direct impact. The proposed changes to the funding formula will also have an impact. As others have said, there will always be gainers and loser when we change the funding formula, but under the current proposal, which I accept is still out for consultation, Merseyside will see a further cut of more than £5 million in our police budget. So, we have the cuts I have mentioned, the impact of our being much more reliant than average on central Government support, and a new formula that, if not changed—I very much hope it will be—will take another £5 million out of our budget.
I pay tribute to the entire police team in my constituency and across Merseyside for the fantastic work they do, and to the leadership of Jane Kennedy and our chief constable, Sir John Murphy. He has said:
“We will not deliver as good a service as we have done before. In some instances, it will take us longer to get there. In some instances, we won’t turn up. That’s an inevitable consequence of having less people to do more work.”
It is as straightforward as that.
I want to say three things in conclusion. First, the scale of these cuts, as the shadow Home Secretary said so clearly at the beginning of the debate, is unacceptable—and that is what the motion says. Secondly, the proposed formula change for areas such as Merseyside, Lancashire, Cumbria and indeed London will result in a loss that will exacerbate the impact of the cuts. Finally, we need a recognition that many areas of the country, particularly those with the greatest levels of deprivation and social and economic need, including Merseyside, are more reliant on support from central Government. When that support is cut, therefore, we are hit the hardest. It is the same with the local government cuts. The Government should recognise that as they go into the comprehensive spending review.
I appeal to Conservative Members, who represent a party that used to be known as the party of law and order, to think again about the scale of these cuts. No longer can they be seen as belonging to the party of law and order or the party for police and communities. In all parts of the country, but particularly in areas like mine that have suffered from serious incidents of crime and antisocial behaviour, it is vital that we have a visible, effective local police service. I know that Jane Kennedy and John Murphy will do their utmost with whatever resources they are given, but let us give them the resources so that they can do the job properly.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)
Order. Before I call the next speaker, I am going to have to lower the speaking limit to five minutes with immediate effect. I remind hon. Members, especially those hoping to catch my eye later on, that if they make a lot of interventions, they are eating into their own time. I hope that interventions will be kept to a minimum.
Mrs Flick Drummond (Portsmouth South) (Con)
I hope to be able to speak within five minutes. I would like to echo the thanks of everyone else to the police, and particularly to those in Hampshire, where our constabulary has been leading the way in channelling resources to the frontline. The force faces some particular challenges, to which I will return, but it does a fine job and I want to pay tribute to Chief Constable Andy Marsh and all his staff.
There has been a fall in crime of 11% over the last five years, and 96% of police are on the frontline. I hope that when the final funding formula is drawn up, it will recognise that Hampshire has already made the transition to becoming an efficient and responsive force. Hampshire should not be penalised when other forces, as we have heard, still need to catch up. It is very welcome that the Minister for Policing, Crime and Criminal Justice accepted this point in a speech to the House at the end of the last Parliament.
Across the country as well as in Portsmouth, we have seen a fall in crime since 2010, and I am sure that it will continue as society grows stronger under our long-term economic plan. This has coincided with a period of budgetary pressure on police forces across the country; as we have heard, some forces have responded better than others. I welcome the initiative to put senior officers in closer touch with local authorities by sharing facilities. In Portsmouth, we now have our chief inspector and her team in our civic offices—much closer to the city council team, including community wardens, that play such an important part in helping the police.
It makes equal sense to pool facilities and resources across the emergency services wherever this is possible, and both Hampshire fire and rescue service and Hampshire constabulary are leaders in that development. Hampshire has set up H3, which merges all the back-office staff and functions along with the county council. Sharing these resources makes sense, as more money can be spent on front-line services rather than replicating back-office functions. This has meant £4 million going back into front-line services. I know that some authorities are doing the same, but not all. I urge them to follow the example of this scheme. I know the Policing Minister has visited Hampshire and that as a former firefighter he was most impressed to see this. The early implementation of body-worn cameras by Hampshire police has had a dramatic effect in reducing violence towards officers, and on confrontational behaviour generally when officers attend an incident.
Like the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Seema Kennedy), Hampshire faces unique policing challenges. Some 85% of the area is rural, yet Portsmouth has the highest population density outside London. As a Member who represents an urban constituency, I was saddened to learn that rural crime is a huge problem. The farming industry in Hampshire is intensive and advanced, and there is a worryingly good trade in stealing equipment and shipping it out of the country through Southampton. That is a particular challenge for Hampshire, as it is for a handful of other forces that cover ports that have a rural hinterland.
I am especially keen to work with the police, local authorities and public health bodies on drug harm reduction and crime prevention, and I welcome the sustained fall in drug crime in Hampshire’s crime statistics. This year’s figures up to September show an almost 14% fall in reported drug crime. The police force has been running an excellent campaign against psychoactive substances in recent weeks—an issue that I campaigned on before my election to this House. Criminality from the drug trade is fought by street-level police intelligence. I welcome the shift towards getting rid of those drugs, something that the Government have promoted through the Psychoactive Substances Bill.
The Prevent strategy is working well. Six men went to Syria three years ago, but none has gone since. The police team have spent a lot of time with the families affected, and the Prevent team works closely with the Bengali community. I welcome the continued commitment of funding for counter-terrorism policing, which I am sure has stopped further young people travelling to join terrorist organisations. We now have more officers on the beat in Portsmouth as a result of the reforms, and I look forward to working with the police at all levels, from chief constable to police officers, as well as our valuable police community support officers, whose contribution is much valued.
Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)
The British police force is one of, if not the, most professional and efficient in the world. The Home Secretary said in her statement:
“As the House knows, the first duty of Government is the protection of the public, and that is a responsibility this Government take extremely seriously.”
If we look at the Government’s proposals, however, we see that that statement is a joke, and it does not square with her actions in capitulating to the Chancellor’s demands for more and more cuts. That is a disgrace.
The Home Secretary suggested earlier that the police should be given the tools to do the job, but that is the opposite of what is happening. She has been congratulated on the proposals in the draft Investigatory Powers Bill, but I am not prepared to congratulate a Home Secretary or a Government who are throwing caution to the wind by making cuts to everyday community policing.
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), I represent a constituency covered by Merseyside police, and I have regular contact with the police—on a professional level, I might add; the shoplifting claim was just an isolated incident! The police are feeling under siege, not from criminals but from the Government—the very people they look to for support and resource. My hon. Friend said that the Conservative party was once the party of law and order; it is now the party of law and order on the cheap.
What is the picture nationally? There are 17,000 fewer police officers compared with 2010, and 4,500 fewer PCSOs—the proposed cuts take the figure to 22,300. What about a fall in crime? Violent crime is up by 16% and knife crime by 9%, and all in the context of a £2.3 billion cut in funding since 2010, which is 25%. Twenty out of 27 forces say that their response times are going up—there is an average 17% increase in response time, rising to a 57% increase in response time in the worst hit areas. The number of rapes has gone up, not down, to 31,621, and numbers of other sexual offences have risen to 63,800. Violent crime is up by 25%, and levels of hate crime and cybercrime have risen. As my hon. Friend noted, the chief constable of Merseyside police has said that we cannot carry on doing more for less.
All this must be set in the context of major cuts to local government, probation services, other social services and partner agencies, including the voluntary sector. The issue of reserves is one of the fallacies and myths that the Tories persistently use about local government. The figures suggest that 88% of the reserves are earmarked for the next four to five years. The idea that they are being wasted—that they are lying around in some bank account or someone’s cocoa tin—is complete nonsense. Moreover, my local force does collaborate: the Merseyside fire service and the police have a combined command and control centre.
My area is to lose 20 PCSOs, who are familiar faces in the community. The concept of neighbourhood policing is going west. There has previously been consultation about whether three police stations in my area should be closed; we thought that we had put that one to bed, but it is to be revisited. The 7,350 police staff whom we had in 2010 are to be reduced to 5,773.
Conor McGinn (St Helens North) (Lab)
My hon. Friend and I share the Merseyside region. He is in the heart of Liverpool, while I am on the periphery of the region, in St Helens. Does he agree that the cuts mean that our police force will not be able to respond to the diverse challenges of policing in Merseyside?
Peter Dowd
My hon. Friend is spot on. Our two areas are affected by a wide range of issues, from gun crime to organised crime, from day-to-day crime to fraud. A diverse community needs a diverse response.
By 2019, the workforce will be down by 40%. Specialist support teams dealing with such matters as sexual violence, hate crime, gun crime and organised crime will go, and that will have a significant effect on community reassurance. The police service is not just there to react. It is a bit like an insurance service: people like it to be there. All the partnership working is under a huge amount of stress.
Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)
My constituency is also in the Merseyside area. Does my hon. Friend agree that the threatened cut in the provision of PCSOs will have a devastating impact not only on community reassurance, but on the intelligence-gathering that is so crucial to police work?
Peter Dowd
My hon. Friend is absolutely spot on. I have talked about that issue recently, and, indeed, have given a presentation on it. PCSOs are the feet on the ground. They come into contact with members of the community day in, day out: in the shops, for instance. People approach those officers for information and intelligence. Losing them will have a deleterious, detrimental and significant effect on intelligence and the ability of the police to deal, on the ground, with issues such as gun crime, drug crime and organised crime. Whether the Conservatives accept it or not, that will happen as a direct result of the cuts. Indeed, it is already happening, and has been happening for a considerable time. The country, and my constituency, needs a Home Secretary who will stand up for safer communities and not put them at risk.
James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)
I am delighted to have been called to speak in this important debate. Let me begin by associating myself with what has been said by Members on both sides of the House about PC Dave Phillips.
Members have rightly spoken about the way in which our policemen and policewomen do their duty on the frontline, but we must remember that we, as a Government, have duties as well. Yes, we have a duty to maintain law and order and to deliver safe communities, but we also have a duty to balance the books and to deliver sound fiscal policy and sound public finances. I am proud that the Suffolk constabulary has excelled in delivering more for less, as we have asked it to do: it has delivered lower crime with lower funding.
I pay particular tribute to the excellent leadership of our police and crime commissioner, Tim Passmore. He is a Suffolk farmer, and he has used his Suffolk farmer’s common sense to take effective, practical measures that have delivered savings while continuing to carry out excellent policing. That has been achieved through, for example, collaboration with Norfolk and the wider eastern region, and the use of technology such as Toughbooks, which means that police officers can key in more data away from the police station and therefore spend more time on the frontline instead of behind their desk, and I commend them on that.
As a new MP I find having PCCs very useful as they are a direct line to what is going on when there is a live crime wave, as we have had in Suffolk. Since the end of August no fewer than 14 churches have been subjected to lead theft, including four churches in my constituency: Groton, Hawkedon, Stratford St Mary and the very ancient and historic church of Lavenham. I recently visited Lavenham church and walked on the roof. It is shocking to see the extent of the associated damage. It is not just the fact that the lead has been stripped. The criminals smashed crenellations and damaged the edge of the roof, which caved in, when they threw the lead down to a wheelie-bin on the ground, which they then went off with.
In the case of Hundon church, which is just outside Clare and in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock), falling lead damaged a grave, so this has become a matter of desecration. I have to say—I hope I am not going too far—that the United Nations has labelled the destruction at Palmyra as a war crime, and while I would not say for one moment that the damage to our churches is on that level, it is nevertheless a crime against our own Christian cultural heritage.
Fortunately, when one considers the huge costs our churches face—Stratford St Mary estimates it will cost £54,000 to make good the damage to its roof—our churches have an angel: the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), the heritage Minister. Following representations from myself and my fellow Suffolk MPs, on Friday she wrote to me to confirm that the Chancellor’s listed places of worship roof repairs scheme would be extended to include churches that have recently been the victims of lead theft, thereby hopefully providing the resources to ensure that they can repair the damage to their ancient architecture.
The other point I want to raise in relation to this recent crime wave in Suffolk is the issue of alarms. Unfortunately, the perpetrators of these crimes are still at large, although I know our rural crime unit is working hard to catch them. However, our churches have a duty to try to prevent this crime, as indeed do communities, because this sort of rural crime is almost impossible for the police to deal with. Many of our churches are scattered across the county in sparsely populated areas. We need the community to be alert, but we also need the installation of effective alarm systems. I want to make the point on the record that the Ecclesiastical Insurance company, which supports our churches, has a list of just three providers of alarms for churches in the whole country, including just one in the eastern region, meaning that alarms are incredibly expensive. I have received representations from firms that want to go on that list and I will be getting involved to make sure that they do.
At a time of tough budgets and necessary savings, which we have to make to deliver sound public finances, we need innovation and collaboration. We also need our community working in partnership with the police. In that way, we can continue to cut crime efficiently.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
I am sure that this House would like to congratulate the many policemen and women who attended the police bravery awards last week—the Minister for Policing, Crime and Criminal Justice was there—and also PC Winston Mugarura of the Met and PCs Adam Koch and Jean Stevens of the West Midlands on their exceptional bravery.
Policing has borne a significant burden of cuts since this Government became obsessed with slashing budgets and impoverishing the public good. Since 2010, overall central Government funding for the police, including grants and council tax freeze grants, has been cut by 22% in real terms. We are yet to find out how the police will be affected by the Chancellor’s forthcoming spending review, but we know that Departments have been told to plan for the same reductions requested ahead of the 2010 spending review; that is, of course, to model two scenarios of 25% and 40% savings within their own budgets by 2019-20 in real terms.
My local force, North Wales police, was staffed by 1,675 officers in 2005. It has lost 188 officers—11% of the total—in the past 10 years. Mark Polin, the chief constable, has announced that 57 further police community support officers are to go in the next three years. That police force serves a population of 676,000 people across an enormous 2,400 square miles.
I was fortunate enough to accompany the police during their Saturday night work over the August bank holiday. They were already tightly stretched, running between the busy towns of Abersoch and Pwllheli. Because the police responsible for that area of Dwyfor were concentrating on those towns, the rest of the towns in Dwyfor were effectively being ignored, and if anything had happened elsewhere, it would have been very difficult for them to cope with it.
There are already 17,000 fewer police officers in Wales and England now than there were in 2010. That means 17,000 fewer people to look after our communities, help the vulnerable, enable justice and provide security—and this at a time when child protection and digital crime are immense challenges.
Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
The hon. Lady is making a powerful case in relation to the impact of the cuts across Wales. We are facing a tremendous problem. Does she agree that the police in Wales play a vital role in the social fabric of communities, particularly in relation to dealing with the mental health crisis that Wales is experiencing?
Liz Saville Roberts
I agree with the hon. Lady. The police have talked to me about the difficult role that they play on the frontline when dealing with people with mental health issues.
The Government often brag about their commitment to national security. They brag about protecting the defence budget and spending upwards of £150 billion on a weapon of mass destruction that we will never use, but they are all too happy to use the old excuse of balancing the books as a matter of urgent necessity when it comes to vital community services.
The Welsh police forces are unique within the UK. They are non-devolved bodies operating within a largely devolved public services landscape. They are thus required to follow the diverging agendas of two Governments. It is essential that the people of Wales should be given a democratic choice, through their directly elected Government, as to how the police are to be governed and held accountable, just as the people of Scotland are. I was dismayed at Labour’s cheap dig at the Scottish Government. It was a divisive elbow-jab, given the immensity of the challenges facing police forces in England and Wales.
Transferring responsibility for policing to the Welsh Government would not be the tectonic shift that many Unionists claim it would be. Relationships between the Welsh forces and UK services such as the police national computer and the Serious Organised Crime Agency would continue as at present, as is the case in Scotland. Cross-border arrangements could also continue. Why then should the people of Wales not be given the same democratic freedom as that enjoyed by the people of Scotland and that proposed for certain English cities? Devolving policing powers would lead to greater clarity and efficiency by uniting devolved responsibilities such as community services, drugs prevention and safety partnerships with those currently held by the UK Government.
The Tories have been justifying many of their policies of late by claiming that the people voted for them, regardless of whether those policies were included in their manifesto or not. Perhaps that is a democratic oversight. The people of Wales did not vote for the Tories’ policies. They did not vote for this Government. The people of Wales voted in 2011 for a Parliament: their own democratic institution to make decisions on matters that relate to Wales and to her interests.
The Silk commission—a commission comprising all four main political parties in Wales—spent two years consulting not only the public but civil society, academia and industry experts. It received written evidence, heard oral evidence and visited every corner of Wales, and its report recommended the devolution of policing. That is what the people of Wales have asked for, and that is what the people of Wales deserve. Wales’s police forces cannot cope with continuing cuts, and they should not have to.
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to speak in this important debate on policing. Prior to my election to this place, I served as a district councillor for eight years and interacted regularly with Sussex police in that role. Back in 2010, when Sussex police announced plans to make efficiency savings of £50 million over the following four years, many in my community felt nervous that crime rates would increase. As it turned out, crime has fallen in my area of Sussex. Indeed, we have seen crime rates fall nationally by a quarter. I recall the chief constable for Sussex addressing my council chamber in 2014 and explaining that the cutbacks in funding had, in certain instances, actually helped to decrease crime. He gave the example of the merging of certain operations, which resulted in enhanced communication between units and led to better detection and arrest figures.
I recognise that additional reductions in funding for the next term will cause a further challenge to our police forces. That is particularly so in Sussex, which, having found savings of 16% during the last term, has one of the lowest cost bases from which to deliver further savings. I believe it is essential not to send out a message from this place that the police are not properly resourced and not able to do their jobs. To do so would be contrary to the facts, bad for police morale and bad for public confidence. Since I was elected, I have made it my business to meet police representatives in my constituency. My conclusion is that they recognise the challenges ahead, but believe in their ability to meet them head on, without detriment to public safety. I find that stoic attitude refreshing and admirable.
Having referred to the fact that the key to better policing it is not just the amount of money spent, but how it is spent, I want to mention police numbers. In this debate, the reduction in police numbers has frequently been used to highlight the idea that matters are in decline. In years gone by, crime detection required police manpower alone to solve cases. In our modern world, where technology provides surveillance, evidence-gathering and deterrence, there is no need to man as much of the front-to-back police operation as there was previously. Accordingly, it is too crude to use a reduction in police numbers to argue that policing must be in difficulty.
Finally, I would like to touch on the demands that this place and public campaigns put on our police. Since 1997, over 3,000 new criminal laws have been passed that our forces are ultimately required to resource and police. Most, if not all, of those laws are laudable, but each one passed is unlikely to lead to the decriminalisation of an existing law. The additional laws therefore stretch our police forces further, which may have a questionable impact not only on their own resource requirements, but on our civil liberties. One such example is the recent law prohibiting smoking in cars where children are present. Such a prohibition could be judged as sensible, but it has led one chief constable to state publicly that his force would not dedicate resources to cover it. I might add that that is not the best way to deter it. Does it not make more sense to consult the police about such occurrences before passing laws, and to consider whether public education, rather than criminal prohibition, is a better way to reduce such behaviour?
A further suggestion is to look at what we require the police to enforce. In my constituency, the police are required to ticket cars for overstaying in free on-street parking bays, even though around the corner it is the local authority that charges and tickets for car parks. The police have now made the call that they cannot continue to do that, but as parking is not decriminalised in my local authority, it has turned into a free-for-all.
Like every other Conservative MP, I was elected on a mandate that promised to make reductions in public spending in order to deliver a budget surplus. Paying down the annual interest bill on our national debt is essential. The interest bill alone is much greater than the national policing budget. That will be a challenge for many of our leaders in public service. I believe that the police, as they have previously demonstrated, will continue to deliver for my constituents and keep them safe and protected. I look forward to working with my police force in Sussex to that end.
Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)
I come to this debate with a slightly different perspective, as someone who worked for nearly a decade in the police service, supporting victims and witnesses of crime. I am increasingly concerned about the impact this Government’s cuts will have on the people I worked for and alongside. Victims of crime have often had one of the most traumatic experiences of their life; yet a recent survey of detectives showed that only 39% of them felt that they were able most or all of the time to provide the services that victims needed. That is a terrifying statistic, but it will only get worse if the proposed cuts go ahead.
As a consequence of 25% cuts in funding, a number of police forces will no longer offer to visit victims of burglary, which is an event that can have a devastating impact on individuals and families. It has been widely reported that one police force is now piloting a scheme whereby those who report a crime are dealt with via Skype. That may suit some circumstances, but surely it should be offered as an option, not as the standard service we can now expect.
Although falling levels of crime have been welcomed, there is evidence to suggest that rates of certain crimes are on the increase, particularly violent crime. It is entirely appropriate that significant police resources are being channelled into specialist areas, including the investigation of child sexual exploitation, cybercrime and fraud, but as a direct result of cuts to police numbers, far fewer police officers are available. Many believe that the day of the bobby on the beat will soon become a thing of the past, as the police service regresses to the provision of a reactive response-only service.
Jo Cox (Batley and Spen) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend share my concern that underpinning these cuts is a fundamental misunderstanding by the Government of the daily reality that many police officers face? As she will well know, in West Yorkshire many police officers spend 80% of their day dealing with safeguarding and vulnerable cases. These are cases that are often not reported but which place a heavy work burden on officers.
Paula Sherriff
I thank my hon. Friend for that comment. What she says is true. Although some crime levels have decreased in recent years, we are seeing a significant increase in much more complex investigations. A police officer recently told me that cuts were already hitting so hard that the scene of a serious sexual assault in a major city had to be preserved overnight as no detectives were available to attend until the following morning—that was just down to cuts in police numbers.
In common with many Members of this House, I have witnessed the benefits of neighbourhood policing at first hand. Many officers who serve in Dewsbury, Mirfield, Denby Dale and Kirkburton have nurtured and developed relationships with the communities they patrol, and take immense pride in seeing crime rates fall, cohesion blossom and trust build. While out door-knocking in streets across my constituency, it is refreshing to hear residents talk of their dedicated officer by their first name as an integral part of the neighbourhood. Officers working in and among local communities are an essential tool for intelligence gathering—this strength of eyes and ears should never be underestimated. Yet we see no sign that this Government are committed to preserving neighbourhood policing for the future. Prevention work is also being hit hard. I know of a local PCSO who runs football training twice a week for boys and girls. Within weeks of the project starting, antisocial behaviour in a previously blighted area had become practically non-existent.
The West Yorkshire police force, which serves my constituency, has seen a reduction of 1,100 police officers since 2010, and we fear that even more will be lost in the next round of cuts. An officer told me recently:
“we are just managing to keep our heads above water, any further cuts will see us drown. I fear a major incident happening around here.”
A survey of more than 32,000 police officers revealed that more than 70% felt that morale was low in their force, with only 10% saying that they would recommend joining the service. Officers talk of being stretched to capacity yet doing their utmost to deliver a comprehensive and professional service.
Of course, we know that the police service needs to evolve. Crime is changing and, like all public services, the police will need to find new ways to meet new challenges. But real reform needs modernisation not privatisation, investment not cuts, and partnership not confrontation. Unfortunately, we see the same attitude from Ministers to everyone in the public sector. As with teachers and doctors, this Government now treat police officers as public enemies, not public servants. Frankly, people in my constituency want police on their streets and a Government who are on their side. That is why they elected me to this House, and that is why I will be voting for the motion today.
Mr Ranil Jayawardena (North East Hampshire) (Con)
I am pleased to see in my constituency that police reform is working. Not only in my constituency, but across the country, crime is down by more than 30%, as a result of the police becoming ever more efficient. For example, strategic alliances between the Hampshire and Thames Valley forces have resulted in the sharing of many specialist units. My hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South (Mrs Drummond) also mentioned the sharing of back-office services with the county council. Those are all ways in which the police can become more efficient and protect the frontline. They are also doing that through procurement. Some £200 million has already been saved on procurement, and many sources suggest that there is about £300 million more to go. This is a strong direction of travel, ensuring that we protect the frontline, as has happened in Hampshire and as is happening elsewhere; it is protecting the roles that people want to see, while ensuring that the taxpayer saves money.
I am pleased that the funding formula is being reviewed because it is currently unfair. The fact is that a new simplified model, which is based on that review, will replace the current, complex, opaque and out-of-date model. The data on which the current model is based is from 2003-04. Indeed, the model even includes some information from the 2001 census. It is chronically out of date, and it is time for a change.
Yesterday, at the Home Affairs Committee, chief constables and police commissioners told us of the disparity that exists between the different police forces. One point that came through very strongly was the need to reflect the cost of rural policing. It is important that the Home Office considers that as part of the consultation. Further, and this point has been made by Members from both sides of the House, there is a lack of parity between different forces in the amounts that they get from council tax and from the central Government grant. That is why the funding formula changes will be felt more greatly in some parts of the country, but it is important that that is taken in the context of the efficiency savings that could be made.
Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)
My hon. Friend mentioned rural policing. I very much hope that he will continue his excellent work on the Select Committee to probe the Government on the funding mechanism, because some policing matters do cost more in rural areas such as Shropshire. I very much agree with his sentiment on that.
Mr Jayawardena
My hon. Friend is right that the cost of rural policing is important, but so too is the way that rural policing is administered. We need to ensure that communities feel safe. The concept of feeling safe is as important to many people as the level of crime.
On the consultation, I believe that we are moving in the right direction. The consultation is trying to create a fairer formula for the country as a whole. However, I urge the Government to consider the point of damping. Damping affects Hampshire to the tune of £10 million, which is a significant burden, whereas Surrey gains £6 million from it. It is important that, as part of this new funding formula, we reflect the actual need of particular areas.
Let me turn now to population distribution, which is where some of the rural issues come in. This is about not only the sparsity of the population and the difficulties in addressing any crime that might exist, but the fact that the police authority boundaries are arbitrary—they are the result of historical boundaries in counties and elsewhere that have existed for many hundreds of years. There is no reflection of the fact that crime can cross county boundaries. We must remember that any funding arrangement should reflect not simply the population within a police authority area, but the neighbouring areas, as crime will cross boundaries. Crime from Surrey or the Thames Valley can very easily reach my constituency of North East Hampshire, so it is important that police forces work closely together. Therefore, I suggest that population distribution should not be looked at in isolation.
I come back now to the point of efficiency. Hampshire is a low-cost force. It gets £38 million less than the average force, which means that it has had to drive those efficiencies faster than other forces. Indeed, between 2005-06 and 2010-11, it made savings when other police forces were spending more per capita. It then had to be even more frugal and it made further savings in 2010-11 through to 2015-16. We must ensure that those forces that have already made the savings are not penalised for having become more effective sooner than other forces, because that would be a perverse outcome, and I am sure that that is not what the Government intend.
That leads me on to the way that the police funding formula is taken forward, and needs to be seen to be taken forward. It is important that we do not scaremonger. The funding formula is designed to provide a long-term stable, simple to understand method of funding for police forces across the country, but there are then the local police commissioners, who are the best way to ensure local accountability and that funding for the future is determined by local people.
Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)
When my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Richard Arkless) made his speech, there were a number of calls from Labour asking why we would not be supporting the motion and why we were not turning our focus on the Government rather than on Labour, so let me start with the motion.
The motion starts by expressing concern at the loss of 17,000 police officers, and that is very concerning, yet in Scotland police officer numbers have been maintained, with an extra 1,000 since the Scottish Government took over in 2007. The motion claims that there is some evidence that crime is rising, but in Scotland crime is at a more than 40-year low because of the actions of the Scottish Government. The motion states that the police budget could be cut by between 25% and 40%, but in Scotland the Scottish Government, operating within a fixed budget, have had to make difficult decisions but have not made cuts to anything like that extent. If it was not for the fact that we have to pay VAT for police services in Scotland, which is not the case across the rest of the United Kingdom, there could perhaps even be extra money that could be invested.
When we can agree on all those points, why on earth does the motion have to include a line about the Scottish Government? It is bizarre that in a week where we have seen the first piece of legislation classified as England and Wales-only we have a motion from the Labour party that talks about a matter that is devolved to Scotland.
Anna Turley
Surely one of the most tragic and distressing incidents we have heard about in the past few months was the terrible incident on the M9, in which two people died after being left at the side of the road for three days. HMIC conducted a review into the call handling on the back of that and produced a report that found significant issues with poor performance. Does that not show that there are significant issues with performance in Scotland and that it is absolutely right that we should raise them in this Chamber?
Owen Thompson
Any force can have issues at any time. That was a tragic incident and I know there has been consideration of exactly how that happened, but such things happen regardless of where they are. Why include these references in the motion? It talks of the Scottish Government’s oversight, but if we listened to Labour Members of the Scottish Parliament, we would often be forgiven for thinking that they were asking for direct political intervention in the management of the police rather than any kind of oversight. That is not what anybody in this Chamber would want.
I want to pick up on the point about oversight, as I have a particular situation locally. Immediately before I was elected to this Chamber, I was the leader of Midlothian Council, and I have been a councillor there for 10 years. I saw how the council interacted with the police services pre-Police Scotland and post-Police Scotland. Pre-Police Scotland, Midlothian Council had two representatives to scrutinise police activity locally. They tended to be from the administration and, up until 2012, that was always the Labour party, so I, as a local elected member, had no oversight of the police in my local area. When Police Scotland took over, a local safer communities board was established in Midlothian that allowed members of the council across the political board to have direct interaction with the police and a direct say in the local policing plan. It is deeply unfortunate that today’s Labour motion criticises the Scottish Government’s oversight when the Labour party in Midlothian is the only Labour party in the whole of Scotland not to participate in the safer communities board to oversee local police operations. From my point of view, it is hypocritical for Labour to be saying anything about oversight of the police when a local Labour party will have nothing to do with the oversight of police and fire services.
Let me move on. The cuts to police services are tragic and, because of the Barnett consequentials, they filter through to Scotland. We need to ensure that we do everything we possibly can to maximise investment in policing so that we can continue to maintain the lowest crime levels we have seen in more than 40 years and to make the improvements we have seen across the country. If the Government would take just one more look at VAT, that would enable us in Scotland to make some of the changes we need to continue the progress we have made.
When I look at this motion, I cannot help thinking that somebody on the Labour Benches looked at a previously drafted motion and said, “Hang on a minute. We haven’t mentioned Scotland, so we need to do so.” It has ended up looking like a typical example of the Labour party saying, “#SNP bad.” The section about Scotland makes no sense at all in the context of the rest of motion. Had it not been included, I can see myself supporting the motion. Why has Labour included it? Was it simply to make SNP Members vote against it? It is utterly bizarre. This is a strange situation to find ourselves in, and it is really sad that it has come to this on such an important issue.
Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)
As possibly the only person in the Chamber who has actually handled a police budget, I must say that over the past few hours I have had an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. In my first week as deputy Mayor for policing in London I was told by various senior police officers that if I even thought about touching the budget, it would be the end of life as we know it. The first thing they would wave in front of me was safer neighbourhood teams. In every one of the four budgets I handled during my period at the Met, safer neighbourhood teams were the first saving to be rolled out. Of course, that was designed to frighten me and put me off making the much-needed savings and efficiencies in the force. Despite the fact that during my time I took something like 12% out of the overall Met budget, crime fell very significantly.
I also got used to armchair chief constables giving their views. Opposition Front Benchers have today made much of Peter Clarke. Lovely man though he is, Peter Clarke retired over 10 years ago, so he has not seen a budget for over a decade. Opposition Members would do much better to rely on more up-to-date expertise.
Jack Dromey
The concerns expressed by Peter Clarke about the impact on counter-terrorism of the hollowing out of neighbourhood policing have been echoed publicly in the past three months by the current head of counter-terrorism, Mark Rowley. Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that good neighbourhood policing—forming relationships, gathering intelligence and being the eyes and ears—is key to counter-terrorism?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. We need interventions to be short, because I am worried that the hon. Gentleman will not have enough time to respond to the debate in his own speech.
Kit Malthouse
I do accept the “golden thread” argument, but what I am trying to illustrate is that in February and March of every single year of my tenure that argument was waved in front of me, and it never came true.
I have some observations to offer on some of the arguments we have heard today. First, on the connection between police numbers and crime, I can say from experience that there is absolutely no direct connection between the two. The best illustration of that I can give is the apprehension of Delroy Grant, a night stalker in south-east London. That man terrorised and raped elderly people over a period of 17 years. The operation to catch him was the largest and most complex the Met had ever mounted and it cost millions and millions of pounds. They did not catch him for 17 years because they were trying to catch a rapist. They appointed a new investigating officer who realised that they were trying to catch a burglar, and then they caught him within two weeks. Millions of pounds was spent on the wrong investigative method. If they had adopted the right method earlier, they might have prevented a lot more crime. Homicide in London fell from 211 in 2005 to 101 in 2012—happily at the end of my tenure. Is anyone saying that we should have the same number of police officers investigating murder as we had back in 2005? Of course not. There is no direct connection between the two.
Those Members who are complaining about a rise in crime types in their constituencies would do better to ask serious questions of their police forces about performance, technology, targeting and skill. Let us look at two similar police forces, Warwickshire and Cleveland. Cleveland currently attracts a lot more funding than Warwickshire, despite the fact that they have similar populations. Warwickshire’s performance, however, is excellent. Cleveland has just been criticised for not handling antisocial behaviour correctly. Performance—skill, leadership and focus—has much more of an impact on crime types in any particular area than money does. I recommend that Members go and ask some of those testing questions. Most of the time, police officers know where, when and by whom crimes will be committed, and using intelligence better will be much more effective.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making his point in a typically powerful way. Does he agree—this might be a cynical point—that there are some who will say that we should not be playing ball as we have been doing in trying to reduce our budgets, in order to make political capital? That might make good political press releases; it does not make good policing.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. When I say I want short interventions, I do not mean, “Then carry on and make long interventions.” [Interruption.] No, I decide whether it is short. I am sure, Mr Hoare, you can find something else to do rather than challenging the Chair. I am sure that is not your intention. I want to get everybody else in, and the only way I am going to do that is to have fewer interventions. I want to allow the right amount of time for the closing speeches.
Kit Malthouse
My hon. Friend is right. I sat in the chamber at City Hall for year after year while Labour members waved the shroud for the public and tried to engender a sense of alarm, and of course crime dropped year after year, particularly very serious crime.
There is more to come out of police budgets—cars, buildings, reoffending rates, possibly a merger with the probation service. There is a huge amount that can be done. Many police forces still have not got a handle on procurement in the way that local authorities have, and many of them are saddled with scalping PFI deals that were brought in under the Labour Government. All of us bear the scars of that.
Much has been made of the supposed rise in crime as a result of online crime and cybercrime, but the truth is that no single force can tackle this. The idea that giving Lancashire more to deal with cybercrime will do anything for us is ridiculous. Often the perpetrator is not within the force area and may well be overseas. We would be much better off having a focused, efficient, combined central force to deal with cybercrime, which is exactly what is proposed.
Finally, I want to say something about the police formula. For many years it has been an unspoken secret—something that senior police officers sniggered about behind their hands—that the formula that was put in place 10 years ago was so manifestly unfair, but nevertheless politically sensitive, that politicians would never have the courage to meddle with it. During the four years that I was deputy Mayor for policing, there were constant complaints about the police formula and nobody really had the cojones, if that is parliamentary language, to get a grip on it. So I congratulate the Minister on finally dealing with it.
As my hon. Friend and neighbour the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena) mentioned, the biggest injustice in the formula has been damping. Most of the Opposition Members who have been complaining about cuts have forces that were beneficiaries of damping. Merseyside and Sussex did well out of damping. Hampshire has been significantly penalised over the past 10 years by damping, and its removal will be welcomed not only by those forces that have been penalised thus far and which will therefore benefit, but by anybody who is interested in fair play in police finance.
Some of the forces that have benefited from damping thus far, such as Lancashire, were wise and knew that they were living on borrowed time, so they took action and built up their reserves. Lancashire, as we have heard already in the debate, has £65 million in reserve. Much of that is money that has been accumulated by taking money away from Hampshire. Now that we are getting to a fairer formula and a level playing field for all counties, it is time for Lancashire to use Hampshire’s money to plug the gap that it may now experience.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
I want to talk about the serious gang-related violence and crime happening in my constituency and in Salford, and the strain that the incidents are placing on an already-overstretched police force in Greater Manchester and on our community.
Over the past 18 months in Salford we have witnessed a frightening escalation of gang-related gun crime, with 21 shootings. Hundreds of “threat to life” warnings have been issued to people in Salford in the past nine months. These “Osman” warnings are given to people, including children, whom the police believe are at risk of being killed or seriously injured. Recently, in the Winton area of my constituency, a seven-year-old boy and his mother were shot at close range on the doorstep of their home. Both were seriously injured, and the seven-year-old boy suffered life-changing injuries. This was a sickening attack which shook the whole community locally in Eccles and in Salford, and I was shocked by it. The escalating violence in my constituency and across Salford has been linked to feuding among armed gangs which are seeking to settle disputes. The use of weapons in Salford is now becoming a regular threat. Constituents have contacted me to tell me about their fears and how they feel about living in an area where shootings happen so frequently. After the seven-year-old boy was shot, people were very fearful about the safety of their own children and grandchildren.
Despite many of the comments by Conservative Members, crime is rising in Greater Manchester. From November 2014 to October 2015, recorded crime rose by 12%, and violent crime rose by 34%. Given this rise in violent crime and the shootings on our streets, I join our police and crime commissioner, Tony Lloyd, in saying that it is time for the Home Secretary to listen to him, to stop the policing cuts, and to invest in keeping our communities safe. As he says:
“Local people are rightly concerned about the cuts to GMP and, while police officers and staff remain committed to keeping people safe, it is getting…more difficult to put the public’s mind at ease. The reality is that we are heading towards 1970s police numbers where police were used simply as an emergency response”.
In Greater Manchester, we have already lost £175 million from our police budgets, meaning a loss of more than 1,500 officers. Now, any further cuts could be very damaging. We used to have a force of 8,000 officers, with former chief constable Mike Todd saying that that needed to increase to 11,000. It is obvious to me that the Government’s cuts to police numbers are leaving Greater Manchester police overstretched, and without the extra help that is needed to deal with the gang violence I have described. I am deeply concerned about the impact that any further reduction in police numbers could have on my constituents.
Recent comparisons have been made between the current situation in Salford and the gang-related violence that happened in the past in Moss Side. Our new chief constable, Ian Hopkins, has gone on record as saying that the gang violence would not be sorted out inside a decade. Our former chief constable had said previously:
“Certain families have been ruling the roost for many many years. That’s the sort of thing that needs to be tackled and it’s going to take…10 years to do that.”
So we are facing 10 years more than 10 years. High visibility policing and proactive community work have helped to tackle the gang violence in Moss Side. Our chief constable has said that
“the key…is gaining the confidence of the community...in south Manchester…the community said ‘enough is enough’ and worked alongside us, and we’ve seen a remarkable turnaround.”
Further cuts to our policing budgets could mean that our police force just becomes reactive, only able to deal with emergency calls. As we saw in areas of Moss Side in the past, proactive strategies are needed where police work with the local community, and we need a good visual police presence.
I hope that the Home Secretary will think again before forcing any more cuts on to Greater Manchester police, because we need not less, but more help to protect ourselves from the gun crime and violence on the streets of Salford.
Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak in this debate. It is a great privilege to follow the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley).
I want to put on record my thanks to the Policing Minister for his readiness to meet Lancashire MPs—including you, Mr Deputy Speaker—with officials to hear our concerns about the funding formula. The Minister was very generous with his time in listening to our concerns, and I have every faith that they will be taken on board. We may not get all the solutions we want, but he is definitely prepared to listen, engage, and see what progress can be made.
For me, the key thing is to maintain some of the real positives in policing in Lancashire, mostly in community policing. Community policing is important in Lancashire, where we have very mixed, diverse communities, whether in east Lancashire, with some of the challenging issues we face there, through to the rural communities or to Blackpool, with its very challenging night-time economy. Lancashire also has great challenges with regard to counter-terrorism. Community policemen and women are often the people there on the ground, speaking to residents, allaying their fears, and ensuring that their voices are heard. Whenever the funding formula is changed, I urge the Minister to ensure that everything that can be done is done to ensure that community policing is not adversely affected.
Lancashire has great variations in its seasonal economy, and that can often involve a policing challenge. My neighbouring constituency of Blackpool will see huge fluctuations in visitor numbers depending on the time of year, with hen nights, stag nights and so on. Having been out with the Lancashire constabulary late on a Saturday night, I know that they are stretched.
Let us not lose sight, however, of the fact that budget savings have to be found. Lancashire has a reserve and the onus is on the constabulary to make sure that the budget is spent wisely. As my hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) has said, the reserve is not a rainy day fund but should be used to provide policing. We also have to make sure that resources are being properly managed.
May I take this opportunity to thank the police in Lancashire for all they do to keep my constituents—and indeed yours, Mr Deputy Speaker—safe? That goes without saying. When the review gets underway, I urge the Minister to look at the funding formula, to see whether there are any anomalies and to make sure that the people of Lancashire can be very proud of what this Government continue to do to support the police.
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to speak in the same debate as so many Lancashire colleagues and to follow my parliamentary neighbour, the hon. Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies).
Lancashire has featured prominently in the debate, including the fact that the Lancashire constabulary has reserves. Under the funding formula, the Policing Minister’s local force in Hertfordshire has greater reserves than Lancashire. It has gained £6.6 million, while we have lost £24.5 million. Indeed, Lancashire faces a reduction in funding of between £134 million and £164 million between 2010 and 2020. The funding cuts are going to result in a fundamental change to policing in Lancashire. My hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Julie Cooper) has mentioned the huge decrease in police numbers. They have fallen from 3,611 in 2011, and we fear that by 2020 there will be only 1,699, if the cuts go ahead in full.
Statistics have been used liberally during this debate, but I want to share a very personal experience of community policing. When I finished work on 24 July 2013, I got the last train home from Preston to Lancaster, which arrives at about 11.30 at night, and then walked the short, 10-minute journey home. When I left the train station, a huge crowd of people travelled away from it with me. People slowly filtered off in different directions until I became very conscious that there was just one person behind me, following me suspiciously closely. An instinct kicked in and I decided to cross the road. This man crossed the road after me. I thought maybe I was making it up—maybe it was all in my head. I crossed back to the original side and he crossed back with me. That moment when you realise that you are not making it up—that you, at 11.30 at night in your home city, are being followed home by a strange man—is a terrifying one that can happen to any one of us.
I was very fortunate that I managed to come across PC Bruce Irvine, who was attending an incident while on the beat. At 11.30 on a Wednesday night, I could go to him and explain that a man was following me. He was able to put me in the back of his police car to make me feel safer and make sure that I got home safely. He spoke to the man who had been following me, who admitted that he had been following me and that he had intended to follow me all the way home to find out where I lived because he “liked the way” I looked.
The police cuts and the loss of community policing will have a real impact on real people’s lives. When my chief constable in Lancashire, Steve Finnigan, says that the cuts could result in Lancashire becoming a blue light only service, that terrifies me as a woman. When some councils talk about switching off street lights at night because of the cuts, that makes me question whether I, as a woman, can walk home safely from work in the evening. I am not the only woman in that position. Police cuts are having a huge impact on our communities and a particularly huge impact on certain groups that may be more vulnerable than others.
At a time when the national crime recording standard in England and Wales is showing an increase in the number of rapes and sexual offences being reported, I urge the Minister for Policing, Crime and Criminal Justice to take this matter seriously and to reconsider the proposals for Lancashire and other forces that have been adversely affected, including the neighbouring Cumbria force, because they will impact on women’s lives and make them scared to go out at night. Please consider that.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
The police do not usually do politics. The Representation of the People Act 1983 prevents them from influencing any person’s decision to vote by word or deed and the police’s code of ethics states that the police
“must not take any active part in politics.”
That did not stop an open letter being issued on 21 April from 1,000 past and present police staff, including 600 serving officers, 423 police constables and even four chief superintendents, warning of the grave consequences of a Conservative victory at the general election. It said that in power the Tories would “endanger public safety” and leave the force “perilously close to collapse”. We all know the result of the election and it was community safety, not just the Labour party, that was the loser.
The letter said that the public were in “blissful ignorance”, but people are becoming aware of the situation. I have received email after email from people in Hanger Hill ward—the least Labour-friendly territory in my constituency—who are disgusted that their PCSOs are going. And all this from the one-time party of law and order. Since May 2010, the Met has seen £600 million slashed from its budget, resulting in 190 fewer police officers and PCSOs in Ealing. We will find out in the spending review how many will be lost in the next round of cuts. People fear that, with the Tories unfettered by coalition government, things will get worse. The Guardian reckons that 22,000 officers will be lost. Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary said last week:
“The reductions in forces’ workforces are likely to lead to a further erosion in neighbourhood policing.”
Hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber have recounted the figures for the Met police. The number of officers has fallen from 33,367 in March 2010 to 31,877. Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, said last week in an interview with the Evening Standard that the combination of the comprehensive spending review and the recalculation of the formula would lead to £800 million of cuts, which amounts to between 5,000 and 8,000 officers. He stated:
“For the past four years we have taken cuts…and we have just got on with it.”
He continued:
“I genuinely worry about the safety of London.”
Sir Bernard spoke at a public meeting in Ealing town hall the other week that was organised by our Assembly member, Dr Onkar Sahota. He was asked how the cuts would affect Ealing. The answer was that if they were shared equally across all the Met’s frontline teams, including firearms and sexual offences specialists, Ealing borough would lose about 25% of its officers, which is 170 police officers. If they were sliced another way, with the specialist units being protected and the 8,000 officers being lost from all the London boroughs, Ealing would lose 299 police officers, which is equivalent to 44% of the current force.
I have been to Ealing and Acton police stations in recent weeks, where I have spoken to our chief superintendent and officers at every level. People are seriously worried. They talk about devastation and a lack of morale. Just like the iconic Scotland Yard, both those police stations will go and the officers will be relocated to Brent. Everyone was saying, “God forbid if anything like the August 2011 riots were to hit Ealing again.”
Dr Huq
I totally agree with my hon. Friend. The contact that means officers know the names of people on the streets is what we value about our police force, and it is endangered by the Government’s actions. The police in those police stations told me that the thin blue line is getting ever thinner and that precious human resources are being stretched to breaking point.
In the 2011 riots, our borough—my constituency—had one fatality. It was not just “happy shopping” or whatever people called it.
Among a long list of people, Sir Hugh Orde, the former Association of Chief Police Officers president, has said:
“The notion you can take money out of policing and numbers out of policing without increasing the risk exponentially is flawed.”
Hon. Members might have seen a story about Epping—the other side of town to my constituency—on BBC “London News” yesterday. A Remembrance day parade that has been held every year since 1919 is not happening this year because there are not the police to marshal and cordon off the areas for it.
In New York, the population is decreasing but police numbers are being increased. It is odd that the opposite is happening in London—it does not make sense. We are in the nation’s capital. Hon. Members see on the annunciator screens in our offices that the threat level is severe. How will slashing our police force to ribbons help? Many hon. Members have said that the nature and scope of policing have changed and that we have new crimes. We should listen to the unprecedented intervention of 1,000 past and present police officers. The letter says that we
“cannot stand by watching the destruction of the UK police service.”
The people of Ealing, Acton and Chiswick deserve better.
Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)
Mr Deputy Speaker, it is a pleasure to be called to speak by you. Most often when I have spoken in the Chamber it is you who have called me, so I am always relieved to see you walk through the doors. [Interruption.] I shall say something nice about the Minister in a second as well, so he should prepare himself.
It is interesting to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith). We have heard from hon. Members who have been affected by crime and there are many different perspectives on crime and policing on both sides of the House. I welcome those and enjoyed listening to them because it is important to get different perspectives. I have seen the impact and importance of policing from many different perspectives and angles. I have been a victim of crime—a victim of serious crime—and saw at first hand during that experience the humanity, professionalism and determination of good policing. When I hear from Conservatives who have had experience of policing, from the Minister to the hon. Member for Gower (Byron Davies), I never fail to have respect for their profession and the dedication they showed when they were serving, even though I disagree with the conclusions they draw. Similarly, my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Paula Sherriff) spoke about her work with victims of crime, which she did for 10 years. I saw that work at first hand too, and have absolute admiration for it.
I have spent time work shadowing with Sussex police. I recommend that all hon. Members do that if they have the opportunity. I spent time with the antisocial and hate crime unit in Brighton and Hove police—it is one of the very few police forces to have a dedicated unit for antisocial behaviour and hate crime. I learned an extraordinary amount about the complex work they do, and about the interdepartmental work they do on the ground, working with councils, social services and so forth to make policing integrated and to make it work for the long term.
As an MP, I see things from another angle, particularly representing Brighton and Hove. It is a complex place to police. We have 8 million visitors to our city every year and two universities, which bring with them specific opportunities and challenges. We have the highest number of pubs and clubs outside London. Being a party town is great fun, but it brings with it a price to police. We have very diverse communities. Some of the most privileged communities in our country are in the city of Brighton and Hove, but we also have communities in the bottom 3% for deprivation in the whole country. We also have Pride, which brings in 200,000 people.
I understand that good policing underpins our economy, something that has not been mentioned enough in the debate. Our economy in Brighton and Hove is dominated by retail, small and micro-businesses, small traders and the self-employed. Our economy is not hidden away in tall buildings with private security on the front door. Our economy happens on community high streets and people’s neighbourhoods. That requires good, solid community policing. Our economy needs a safe space to thrive.
Sussex police have already implemented a 20% cut, as a result of which 500 front-line staff have gone. This is where I extend an olive branch across the House. I have had many frank conversations about this matter. The hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) was slightly patronising earlier when he suggested that we needed to get out and speak to police. We do, and they have told us about their innovation and what they did to survive the first round of 20% cuts. In many cases, these are examples of best practice, doing more for less and learning from experience. There has been innovation, but the CPR will mean a further cut of between 25% and 40%. To put that in context, of its current budget of £250 million, my police force could lose up to £96 million. I do not believe Conservative Members who say that this will not have a direct impact on the frontline. Add to that a funding formula that could take another 5.1% away from our police force, and it is impossible to see how this is anything other than a Government waging a war against policing in cities such a Brighton and Hove.
Kate Osamor (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)
I stand here in solidarity with the police and crime commissioners and policing staff across the UK who are facing cuts, and I join them in urging the policing Minister to halt the proposed changes to the police funding formula, which are, to quote the PCCs’ open letter,
“unfair, unjustified and deeply flawed”.
I am strongly opposed to the proposed policing cuts, under which London will lose 11.3% of its central grant, which equates to £184 million in annual funding for its police service—equivalent to many forces’ entire budget or the loss of 3,000 police officers. In the middle of October, the capital’s most senior police officer told a meeting of Enfield residents that he feared for the safety of London as a result of the proposed cuts, and I agree with him.
The situation for my constituency is critical. Recent figures show violent crime has soared in London over the past 12 months, especially in the borough of Enfield, in which there are 18 offences every day. The level of youth violence has increased by 19% over the last 12 months, compared with the London average of 13%. In the same period, while London saw a 3% fall in the number of homicides, Enfield saw a rise of more than 250%. It is now 7%, which is the joint highest in the capital. Enfield cannot afford any more cuts. The region has been historically underfunded through the distribution of grants to London boroughs. In the last five years, two of its police stations have closed and more than 100 police officers and PCSOs have been lost.
I ask the policing Minister to think about the open letter. The attempt to appease PCCs for threatening judicial review has not helped. Given the extent of the opposition, I ask that the Government go further than merely refining the proposals, and radically rethink them. These cuts are unsafe and unjust.
Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)
Despite the best efforts of Southwark police, my constituents are concerned about the cuts to the borough force and the loss of 200 officers since 2010. These cuts were made despite a concerted campaign by Councillor Michael Situ, cabinet member for communities and safety on Southwark Council, and my constituents are nervous at the prospect of a further cut of 25% or 40% to the borough’s resources.
Four particular groups of crime have been raised with me. The first is drugs and the antisocial behaviour relating to their use and sale. In parts of my constituency, there has been a rise in the visible use and sale of class A drugs. This is in central London. In particular, residents of Tissington Court, in Rotherhithe, feel that the police were unable, or lacked the resources, to tackle the regular sale and use of heroin within the block. Families felt unable to send their children up and down the stairwell because of the use of heroin and its impact in that stairwell, including the voiding of bowels there during the day. To get that issue resolved, it took an incredible amount of time, and a concerted effort on my part with the Rotherhithe councillors, who took it to the police along with the local tenants association.
There has been a lack of focus in the debate on business crime, although my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) raised the issue far more eloquently than I probably will. There are concerns that relate to businesses in my constituency. The rise in shoplifting has been raised with me by Tesco managers. Particular businesses have been targeted—for example, pub users have had their mobile phones stolen. We have seen a dramatic increase in commercial squatting across the constituency, which I raised with the Met commissioner. The Albion in Rotherhithe and The Elephant and Castle—unsurprisingly, located in Elephant and Castle—have been targeted. Even the Metropolitan police’s own building, the former forensic lab in Walworth, was squatted by about 80 people until it was emptied for sale.
My constituency has also seen a rise in commercial burglaries, particularly around Borough and Bermondsey, Long Lane and Tower Bridge Road. Cold Mountain Kit, next to my constituency office, was burgled on the day it opened. Businesses are losing profits and confidence when targeted in this way, as well as losing their stock and facing higher insurance costs. They also live in fear of repeat incidents in the face of cuts to our policing.
We have seen a drastic rise in street robbery, too. The South London Press covered it just last week. A 46-year-old mum was mugged when picking her son up from school; a 70-year-old woman on Olney Road had gold jewellery stolen off her body; and an 85-year-old women was targeted for gold theft by muggers on Andrews Walk in a recent spate of incidents.
As other Members have mentioned, we have seen a dramatic rise in murders and knife crime in particular. It gives me no pride to say that Southwark has one of the highest murder rates in the capital. Knife crime has risen by 13% in England and Wales; and in 2013-14 only 16% of the knife crimes in Southwark led to charges being brought. I see that the hon. Member for Gower (Byron Davies) is back in his place, and he suggested that the police have the resources to deal with that. I think that is offensive to my local police force. With the track record of 16% of charges brought in cases of knife crime, the police clearly do not have the capacity to tackle that problem. Most recently, close to where I live in the constituency, 16-year-old Mohammed Dura Ray was murdered in a brutal knife crime on 14 September. His mum is desperate for answers and desperate for that terrible track record of solving knife crimes to be confronted.
Byron Davies
I did not say that the police had the resources; I said that they needed to use their resources properly—they need to be properly managed.
Neil Coyle
So the hon. Gentleman is suggesting that Southwark police are not using their resources properly. Brilliant! I thank him for that contribution.
I have met Mariama Kamara, the mother of Mohammed Dura Ray, and I am organising a knife amnesty in the constituency. The Prime Minister said he was unable to meet Mariama to discuss her concerns about policing locally. I hope that the Home Secretary or another Home Office would be willing to meet her.
The Minister for Policing, Crime and Criminal Justice (Mike Penning)
I am naturally prepared to meet any constituents, so the hon. Gentleman could take that up with my private office, which is listening.
Neil Coyle
Fantastic. I am pleased to hear that news, and thank the Minister for jumping to his feet to make that assertion so quickly.
Residents tell me that visibility and trust are the key to local policing, as well as the key to both public and business confidence. That confidence is lacking. We have seen the closure of Rotherhithe police station and the change from safer neighbourhood teams to the cluster of five wards of PCSOs. That has taken officers off the streets, which has contributed to the rise in crime in particular areas. Trust is essential to effective policing, and PCSOs are some of the most trusted officers we have right on the frontline in our local communities. They are the most reflective and representative part of the Met police, and they are the ones most likely to face the cuts proposed in the comprehensive spending review.
In the face of rising crime and the prospect of what lies ahead, I ask Ministers to think what message they are sending to my constituents and local businesses if they continue along the course of cutting the numbers of police officers. In particular, I ask them what message they are sending to my constituent, Mariama Kamara, after the loss of her son. If the track record of local policing is not improved, her son’s death may never be solved.
Anna Turley (Redcar) (Lab/Co-op)
I feel privileged to speak in this debate because policing is one of the most important issues facing my constituents, many of whom feel besieged in their estates by low-level crime—well, I call it low level, but it makes people’s lives a misery. Antisocial behaviour and crime is devastating some of our communities. I was shocked to hear from the Home Secretary about the Government’s fantastic record, because for me and my constituents that record is one of broken promises.
Before coming to power, the Prime Minister promised to protect front-line policing, but he has cut 17,000 police officers. Even now, Conservative Members like to talk about the inheritance that they received in 2010, so I will take a few moments to speak about what they inherited. The Government inherited a record number of police—up by 17,000 from when we took office in 1997. They inherited a level of crime that was down by 43%, and the creation of police community support offers—I welcome the supportive comments from Members on both sides of the House about the great job done by PCSOs. Every single community had a neighbourhood policing team that was committed to spending 80% of its time on the beat, and to respond to non-emergency issues within 24 hours. They inherited a record of domestic violence that had fallen by more than 50%, and the reporting of rape had doubled. They inherited the first ever powers on antisocial behaviour and a guaranteed response within 24 hours, as well as the first ever national victims service. I am incredibly proud of the legacy that we left the Government, and disappointed to see them destroying it. Constituents such as mine are suffering.
Where are we now? In the last year, Redcar and Cleveland has seen a 77% increase in violence against the person, and a 25% increase in domestic burglary. There has been an 18% increase in criminal damage, and a 77% increase in sexual offences—a total overall increase in crime of 22%. That does not accord with the good news and rose-tinted spectacles on the Conservative Benches—[Interruption.] And the SNP Benches.
Since 2010, Cleveland has had an 18% cut to its policing budget, which means that it lost a quarter of its full-time officers and a third of its community support officers. Police officers in my constituency have not been replaced after being on long-term sick leave. People in my community are fed up with antisocial behaviour, and with people on bikes and horses running riot across their estates. They are fed up with arson on the Eston hills, and with cars being smashed in Roseberry Square. They are fed up with open drug deals and estates that are no-go areas. All that crime is a direct consequence of the lack of deterrent and visible policing on our streets, and that in turn is a direct consequence of the reduction in front-line officers and the disproportionate cuts that Cleveland police has received. That is deeply unjust because police officers in my area are committed, dedicated and brave, and we owe them a huge debt of gratitude. The very least we can do is ensure that they have the capacity and resource to do what we ask.
In the time I have left, let me raise two brief issues that I hope the Home Secretary and her team will consider. First, the continued short-term funding position that the police find themselves in is unsustainable. Being allocated funding in December each year for a financial year that starts only three months later is a poor way to run such a pivotal public service, and it inevitably leads to short-term thinking, reactive decision-making, and therefore not to the best outcomes. The police need a multi-year settlement that incorporates the best estimates, and takes into account comprehensive spending reviews, funding formulas and transitional arrangements.
My second point is about the disproportionate impact of the cuts. Although police areas receive the same cuts in percentage terms, that does not equate to equal pain for all areas in either percentage or cash terms when it comes to overall funding. There is disproportionate demand in areas of high unemployment such as my constituency, and in areas of high vulnerability and disadvantage. I ask the Government to go away and think again, and in the meantime I am delighted to support the motion.
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
Last night in Alum Rock in Birmingham, the shadow Home Secretary and I saw British neighbourhood policing at its best, and a community transformed from a troubled past to a safe place to live with a thriving economy. Why? Because of 10 years of the patient building of good community relationships, as well as outstanding neighbourhood police officers such as Inspector Chris Smith and Sergeant Ifti Ali, who both said, “We love the job”. Local residents and retailers were waxing lyrical about their relationship with their neighbourhood police officers—my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) was right about the importance of good neighbourhood policing to strong local economies.
My hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Anna Turley) is right to say that one of the great legacies of the last Labour Government was neighbourhood policing. The Labour Government provided 17,000 more police officers and 16,000 PCSOs. They introduced local policing with local roots, giving people a local say and creating strong partnerships with the community and other key stakeholders. We were given evidence of that by my hon. Friends the Members for Bootle (Peter Dowd) and for Dewsbury (Paula Sherriff), both of whom made excellent speeches.
The Home Secretary has described the police as crime-fighters, but we have a wider vision than that. Policing is about preventing crime and diverting people from crime. That model is celebrated worldwide and is often celebrated in the House, but now, tragically, a generation of progress in the reduction of crime is being reversed.
The first duty of any Government is to maintain the safety and security of their citizens, but in the last five years this Government have made swingeing cuts. A total of 17,000 police officers have gone, which broke a promise given by the Home Secretary, and 4,500 PCSOs have gone as well. We have seen the progressive hollowing out of neighbourhood policing. Communities complain increasingly that there is no longer any visible presence of police officers, and they are right. There are profoundly worrying signs that the Government are ignoring repeated warnings, and that—in the words of a past president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, Sir Hugh Orde—the “tipping point” is now being reached. I shall say more about that later.
It seems that the Government are determined to blunder on regardless, oblivious to the consequences of their actions. As for the Chancellor, who gives hubris a bad name, he appears to be impervious to criticism as he presses forward with his ideological agenda to shrink the state. The cuts of between 25% and 40% that are currently being discussed will result in catastrophic consequences for our police service in the next five years; indeed, forces have warned that they could reduce the service to its lowest level since the 1970s.
These cuts are not just huge but unfair, as is clear from the fiasco of the funding formula. Only this Government could acknowledge that the current formula was opaque and unfair, and then, having made a complete mess of the consultative process, replace it with a formula that was opaque and unfair. That process has been described by Conservative police and crime commissioners as unjustified, deeply flawed and shambolic. It now faces a legal challenge, and the hon. Member for South Ribble (Seema Kennedy) admitted that it gave rise to concern.
I pay tribute to the way in which the police service has coped with immense difficulties in ever more difficult circumstances, but we are now talking about the cumulative impact of the last five years and what is proposed over the next five years. What will that mean? As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith), it will mean the end of neighbourhood policing as we have known it. As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), PCSOs are becoming an endangered species. And as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley), we are seeing a return to a reactive and discredited model of policing, with Robocops touring estates in cars rather than engaging with the community.
The thin blue line is being stretched ever thinner. The police are ever more removed from the communities whom they serve, and fewer and fewer of them are struggling to do ever more. As cuts in public agencies bite ever harder, the demands on the police, as the force of last resort, are becoming ever greater. We have already seen some of the consequences. Chief constables talk increasingly of becoming a blue light service. In some forces, response times have gone up by 57%, and in a number of forces, police are no longer turning out to deal with reported crimes such as burglary.
The Government cannot say that they have not been warned. In recent weeks, we have heard a chorus of voices from London to Lancashire. Police officers have spoken out, and powerful contributions have been made to today’s debate by my hon. Friends the Members for Burnley (Julie Cooper), for Halifax (Holly Lynch), for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq), and for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith). The message is clear: the growing impact is serious, and will become ever more serious during the next stages of this process.
Thus far, the Government have sought to hide behind a false alibi. They say, “Yes, we cut police, but we cut crime as well.” It is true that, as is the case in the western world, volume crime is falling. We have also seen the benefits of a generation of good neighbourhood policing in reducing some crimes, but the statistics do not give a full picture. The latest ONS statistics show a 5% increase in police recorded crime, and increasingly as police recorded crime is cleaned up with more effective recording, we are seeing a 9% increase in knife crime, sexual crime up 12% and hate crime up 18%, but it is the crime survey of England and Wales that the Government repeatedly depend upon. The only problem is it does not reflect the full extent of rapidly growing fraud and cybercrime. It is now being said by the police—by the national co-ordinator for fraud—that as 5.1 million crimes are included from the first quarter of next year, the crime survey will show an increase of 40%.
This is the worst possible time to cut the police service, not just because fraud and cybercrime are rapidly growing—RBS has said by 40% a year—but also because of twin challenges. First, there is the generational threat of terrorism. Powerfully evidenced by Peter Clarke, former head of counter-terrorism, and Mark Rowley, the current head is the fact that neighbourhood policing is the eyes and ears of the police service engaging with local communities. I have seen the success of that in the west midlands, which I am proud to represent. Secondly, as my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax said—she is from a police family—there are the immense challenges of child sexual exploitation and abuse. There is a great national will that we act, and the police are doing so, but in the west midlands alone the size of the public protection unit has gone up from 300 officers to 800 and they are struggling to cope. So it is the worst possible time to cut the police service.
The evidence is clear: the Government are putting public safety and the vulnerable at risk. I have searched high and low in the manifestos of Conservative Members and I cannot find one of them saying to his or her community, “Vote for me and I will support the cutting of 22,000 police officers.”
The time has come for the Government to listen to the growing chorus of concern, including from within their own ranks. The Home Secretary’s own PCC, the delightful old Macmillanite, Anthony Stansfeld, says he just cannot get home to the Home Secretary or the Prime Minister, who also lives in the Thames valley area, just how serious the mounting consequences are of what their Government are doing.
The Government may be impervious to the mounting concerns and oblivious to the consequences of their actions, but Labour is not. Of course, as the shadow Home Secretary has said, sensible savings can be made. We identified that ourselves in terms of a national procurement strategy, which was rejected by the Government. Of course we need a sensible reform agenda. We need to raise standards, hold the police to the highest standards and root out wrongdoing. We also need greater diversity. The Home Secretary was right to challenge the police to rise to the challenge of greater diversity, but it is wrong then to make it nigh-on impossible for the police to do that because, effectively, most police forces cannot recruit to achieve it.
The Government have to stop blaming the police for things that the Government are responsible for. All over the country I meet police officers who say to me, time and again, “They never have a kind word to say about us.” That remorselessly negative tone, combined with the growing pressures, is seeing morale plummeting and sickness and stress leave soaring. The Policing Minister says on many occasions that somehow Labour are criticising the police; on the contrary, we are standing up for a police service that is under immense and growing pressures from his Government.
We are rooted in the communities we serve and we listen to the voices of the police and the public because, ultimately, this is about the kind of country we want to live in and the kind of police service we want. We want policing by consent, in the great tradition of Robert Peel. The British model of policing is the expression of British values. Tonight, all Members have the opportunity to search their conscience and decide whether to stand up for the British police service. We will vote to do precisely that. Our position is clear: Labour is the party of public safety, and the Tories are putting public safety and security at risk.
The Minister for Policing, Crime and Criminal Justice (Mike Penning)
We have had a really good debate, up until the last five minutes. I always stand up and say in public that I am proud to be the Minister responsible for the best police force in the world, so how the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) can say that we never stand up for the police, I do not know. That was a strange thing to say. Colleagues who read Hansard tomorrow will see that Members on one side of the House have been supporting the police this afternoon and that those on the other side have been scaremongering yet again.
Thirty-four colleagues have made speeches this afternoon, and many of them have talked about the size of the police force. What I am interested in, as the Policing Minister, is how many police are on the frontline doing policing jobs. I am sure that other colleagues are interested in that, too. We are interested in how many warranted officers are out there. Her Majesty’s inspector of constabulary has said more than once that the size of the workforce gives no indication whatsoever of the quality of the service, and that it is the quality of the policing that matters.
We are still in the consultation, which, with the Home Secretary’s permission, we have extended so that more colleagues, police and crime commissioners and chief constables can have a say in the funding formula changes. The chief finance officer for Lancashire has said:
“We welcome the Government’s decision to fully review the police funding formula”.
Tony Lloyd, the police and crime commissioner for Greater Manchester, has said:
“I therefore urge you”—
presumably he means me and the Home Secretary—
“to commence the review as soon as possible.”
Several of my predecessors have spoken in the debate today, and in earlier debates, saying that chief constables and PCCs from the 43 police authorities for which we are responsible banged on their doors and said that the funding formula policy was opaque and not fit for purpose. That is why we have come forward with a new funding formula. I have said from the outset that there will be winners and losers, and that is true. We are still very much in listening mode, however. I am still in listening mode, and I would not do anything else, because if you have a consultation, that is exactly what you should do.
We have also heard extensively, particularly from Opposition Members, that crime is rising and that fraud has suddenly appeared in the statistics. Well, fraud has been out there for some time, but only one Government have had the courage to put cybercrime and fraud into the statistics—this one. We are leading the world by saying that crime is changing and that those crimes should appear in the statistics.
The hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington said that crimes such as sexual offences, fraud and domestic abuse were rising. As the Policing Minister, I am absolutely chuffed that people have the courage to come forward and report those crimes. The Office for National Statistics has said that the overall increase is likely to be due to the increased reporting of certain offences, such as fraud, sexual offences and domestic abuse. The ONS is not issuing a puff on behalf of the Government; it is saying what it thinks the rationale behind the figures is.
Any crime in any community is really difficult, but crime has fallen while we have reduced the funding for the police. That truly must be one of the most important things that we can look at. It is not so much about how much money you throw at the police. The previous Administration threw money at the police force over 13 years, but what did we get from that? Did we actually get warranted officers? We are now looking carefully at the funding formula. We will also make sure that we look very carefully at capabilities.
Mike Penning
I apologise to the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, but I have limited time. If I find time towards the end of my speech, I will give way, but I will not do so at the moment. [Interruption.] We would have had a lot more time if the shadow Minister had not kept on interrupting Back Benchers all the way through the debate, and Back Benchers would also have had more time to speak. I will just use my time, if I may.
One of the eminently important things to do is to make sure that the money we give to forces is spent correctly and that forces spend it. Our 43 authorities have £2.1 billion in reserves. I will not name and shame each individual force, but—at the end of the day, we are talking about money being tight, and there are real issues about forces wanting more money—hon. Members should take a close look at the forces that have £2.1 billion of taxpayers’ money sitting in reserves. They should take a look at how their local forces do procurement. They should go on to the Home Office website and look at how much their local force spends on body armour. For instance, why does one force spend nearly £300 more on body armour? All body armour has to be type-approved and it cannot be done on the cheap, so why is that the case? Why does one force have 100 warranted police officers not on operational duty because they are not fit? Some 10% of its operation force is not in. If they are not fit for duty, sadly—as when I was a fireman and was not fit for duty—they have to leave, because we need people on the frontline to do those jobs.
As was said by my colleagues on the Government Benches, when we look around the country, we can see forces that are doing exceptionally well in working with other blue-light organisations, particularly the fire service. We can look at Hampshire, which has been very well represented on the Government Benches during the debate. Hampshire has been enormously forward-thinking in what it has done. I have been to Winchester, where the brand new fire station happens to be in the police station. If one goes across the yard where the police and the fire service jointly train, one finds the police firearms unit at the bottom of the yard. That was a joint procurement, and it is a joint way of working. We need to see more of that, and we will.
Mike Penning
I will not give way at the moment.
Like Hampshire, other forces have real skills. I know the marine service in Hampshire does excellent work, and we need to look carefully at how it is funded in this difficult funding situation. Other forces around the country are starting to work with other blue light services. In Northamptonshire, the very forward-thinking PCC is not only bringing the fire service alongside the police, but is talking very closely to other blue light services, particularly the ambulance service.
In Hertfordshire, which is my own force, I have one of the best chief fire officers in the country. He must be, because just under 10 years ago he helped to put out Buncefield. He was the chief fire officer at Buncefield, which blew up half of my constituency. He is the chief executive of the PCC’s office, so he and the PCC can work closely together, keeping costs down and making sure that that approach is the way forward. We can see not only where that is starting to work, but how other forces can learn from the work being done in places such as Hampshire and Northamptonshire.
During the course of the debate, I did not want to interfere in Scottish National party Members’ little personal disagreements with Labour Members, but I thought that I might just help them a bit now. In an intervention earlier on, I think the lead spokesman for the SNP mentioned the effect that VAT is having. [Interruption.] Well, whichever SNP Member it was because, to be fair, one of them did. There was a bit of whingeing—that is what it is called in my part of the world—about VAT.
During the debate, I decided to take a look at why the Scottish nationalists are so worried about the fact that they cannot get their VAT refund. As they put their business plan together for combining the fire and police services in Scotland, including the savings they thought they would make, they took into consideration the fact that they would not be able to claim VAT back and would not get VAT refunds. I therefore find it strange that having done their business plan in 2012 and brought it in, they come to the House today to complain about the Chancellor not giving them their VAT refunds.
We heard a contribution from the Welsh nationalists earlier, with a lot of talk about the Silk commission and its recommendations as to whether or not policing should have been devolved. There was no agreement on the Silk commission by the political parties in Wales in respect of whether policing should be devolved. That is the situation. When they are trying to agree on what was going on, it is important that we get the facts absolutely correct.
As Members on both sides of the House have said, in the 21st century we need to make sure that the money of the taxpayers who send us here is spent correctly. We need to make sure that we continue to have the best police force in the world. We need to make sure that the public have trust in the police force in this country. It is imperative that the people elected to this House to represent their communities do not scare them with estimates of how many police they will lose, whether they will be attacked on the way home and whether there are different situations going on. Nobody knows exactly what the funding will be. Some Members have conflated the spending review, the funding formula, the chiefs looking at where co-operation can take place and whether some forces would like to amalgamate formally—I do not know whether that is the case, as no business plans are on my desk—or informally, as West Mercia and Warwickshire have done, very successfully. A lot more work could be done across the country, but we should not, as politicians, stand in Parliament and scare our constituents by saying that the police force in this country is going to collapse or that crime is dramatically rising, because it is not.
It is fundamentally wrong for an Opposition party to campaign against cuts and then for Opposition Members to come to this House to tell us that they would have a 10% cut—if people were stupid enough to elect them. That is seriously dangerous. As with their policy on PCCs, they have no policies. Vera Baird and Paddy Tipping clearly won the argument in the Labour party, saying that it should reverse its policy and there has been another huge U-turn on PCCs. Now the Opposition have said, with all their colleagues behind them, “The cuts the Tories have made over the last five years are terrible. They are massively affecting policing in our community. Oh, by the way, we will cut it by another 10%.” It is an absolutely ludicrous position. Anybody with any sense will not be going through the Lobby with the Labour party. The Scots Nats are not going to go through with the Labour party, and that tells me something.
Question put.
Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would be grateful for your advice. The House will be aware that last week a statutory instrument was passed upstairs in Committee that would allow surface-level drilling in national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty for the purposes of what is commonly known as fracking. It is yet to be taken on the Floor of the House, but today the Government issued a consultation on this very subject on their departmental website, which at the very least causes considerable confusion, but at worst may supersede the statutory instrument itself. Have you received any indication from a member of the Treasury Bench or a Government Minister that they intend to make a statement on the subject to the House?
Mr Speaker
I am bound to say to the hon. Lady that I have received no such indication. To date, nothing disorderly has occurred and, as I understand it, the relevant regulation has not been passed. Whether the issue of the consultation paper is to the taste of the hon. Lady or others is a matter for her, but with regard to propriety and order, nothing improper or disorderly has occurred. I must answer factually that, as of now, I have received no such indication, although what might be thought to be a request for such a statement will have been heard on the Treasury Bench. I thank the shadow Secretary of State for what she has said.
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petition
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Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
The petition is from constituents who have been affected by the changes in parking regulations that were brought about in order to address one problem and have created another problem for the health and wellbeing of my constituents on Newland Drive.
The petition states:
The petition of residents of Scunthorpe County Constituency,
Declares their objections to the parking restrictions which have recently been imposed by North Lincolnshire Council on Newland Drive, Scunthorpe.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to request North Lincolnshire Council to review the new parking restrictions and the impact on local residents.
And the petitioners remain, etc.
[P001552]
Palliative Care
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Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)
I am pleased to have secured this debate tonight on the important topic of access to palliative care for those who are dying. There are three key reasons why this debate is so timely and so important. First, it follows hot on the heels of the assisted dying debate that we had here on 11 September. No matter how Members voted, there was cross-party support for the movement for better access to palliative care in this country. Secondly, it is an important subject because from my experience as a cancer nurse working in one of the best cancer units not only in the country but in Europe, I have seen at first hand the difference that good palliative care can make, not just to patients and their families at the time of death, but in the last few weeks and months, making patients’ lives as fulfilling as possible.
Thirdly, the debate is important and timely because it fits in with the discussion of the Access to Palliative Care Bill in the other place. That Bill aims to ensure that wherever people are in the country and whatever disease they are suffering from, palliative care services are available to them. It would put palliative care services into the mainstream for the many, not the few.
Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate. Should we not see palliative care in its broadest sense, including medical care as well as social care? That co-ordinated approach could make end of life far more tolerable and would mean that people had to go into hospital to a far lesser extent.
Maria Caulfield
I agree, and I will highlight that point later in my speech.
For me, palliative care is about support and services that help to achieve a good death and underpin the care in someone’s final weeks and months of life. What happens now is that all too often the provision of palliative care is distributed on the basis not of need but of availability, and depends on the diagnosis, where the person is treated, and sometimes even their age, leading to a patchy and ineffective service. We heard during the Adjournment debate on Monday night about the impact of not having good bereavement services, which stays with relatives not just at the time someone dies but for years afterwards, and may never go away if they have had a bad experience.
This patchy service continues despite all the hard work in recent years reviewing palliative care provision across the country. As far back as 2008, an end-of-life care strategy was produced, and in 2011 the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence produced quality standards, yet palliative care services remain patchy. To highlight that further, let us look at a few more statistics.
Unfortunately, we know that 100% of us will die eventually, and that three quarters of those deaths will be expected. That means that three quarters of the population could benefit from palliative care, but currently only 48% of people who have palliative care needs receive palliative care support. Of the 500,000 deaths that occur in this country every year, 82.5% are among the over-65s, yet fewer than 15% of that group have access to palliative care. That tells us that those who need it most often have the hardest job accessing it. For older people, death is often seen as inevitable and not something that palliative care should be helping with.
More shockingly, between 50% and 70% of people who are dying say they would like to die at home, but only 30% actually do. Most people end up dying in hospital—just over 50%. Hospitals are amazing places, but they are acute settings helping to deal with urgent and emergency cases. While they do need to do more to provide better palliative care, we need to invest in our excellent hospice movement and facilities so that if people want to die in a hospice, they can. We also need to support our community outreach programmes so that if people want to die at home, they can have that choice too.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The need for palliative care always comes at a time when people and their families are feeling vulnerable. The importance of charities and Churches at that time is something that we all know very well. The hon. Lady referred to hospice care groups and organisations. Does she agree that their role should be recognised more by Government and by the authorities so that they can take better advantage of hospice care and do better for those people through it?
Maria Caulfield
I thank the hon. Gentleman. I absolutely agree. That point is picked up in the Bill.
The most shocking statistic concerns the diseases that people are suffering from. The London School of Economics says that 92,000 people a year miss out on palliative care help. At the moment, 88% of our palliative care provision goes to people with cancer. As a cancer nurse, I am certainly not saying that that needs to be reduced, but the majority of deaths are due to other diseases. Only 29% of people die of cancer, with 28% of deaths due to heart disease, 15% due to respiratory illnesses, 10% due to stroke, not to mention Alzheimer’s disease, motor neurone disease and multiple sclerosis. Until we ensure that palliative care provision is mainstream, and not just for patients with cancer, the majority of people will be denied access to a good death.
The Bill introduced in the other place comes up with solutions to resolve this situation and place the responsibility firmly in the hands of local clinical commissioning groups to ensure that all patients, no matter where they want to die or what disease they have, will get access to palliative care services. That will take the pressure off existing acute facilities that are currently having to provide them. The Bill makes some key practical proposals. The first is about the ability to admit people directly to palliative care facilities. This happens really well in a lot of places, but it does not happen everywhere. That goes back to the point made by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) about investing in our hospices to ensure that it can happen more widely. The Bill talks about support for healthcare professionals in all settings, so that whether they are an intensive care unit nurse or someone who works with motor neurone disease, they have a signposted facility to access specialist palliative care that helps them to help patients manage their symptoms.
The Bill fits very firmly into the Government’s seven-days-a-week NHS in calling for the availability of seven-days-a-week palliative care services. As I know only too well, it is at 4.30 pm on a Friday that a patient will phone up in pain and say they cannot cope, when pharmacies are closed and it is possible to get a prescription but not a drug. Someone who is breathless and needs a chest drain often has to wait until the Monday morning, in the meantime being admitted to A&E or a medical assessment unit and then finding it very difficult to be discharged to go home. This is why we need a seven-days-a-week palliative care service.
The Bill calls for some really basic things that should exist now but do not, such as sufficient equipment for our community services. It is unbelievable that a ward nurse who wants to discharge someone with a morphine pump cannot do so because the pump belongs to the hospital. Unless the community has a spare pump, that patient will not go home. That is why only 30% of people are dying at home—they are stuck in hospital because communities do not have the necessary equipment to look after patients. There are shortages of mattresses and feeding pumps, which would make a crucial difference if they were available.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Lady on calling this debate on such an important and often overlooked issue. I support what she is saying 100%, but does she agree that it is not just the NHS, the community and the charitable sector that need to join up? Joining up health and social care would enable the seamless transition she is talking about.
Maria Caulfield
Absolutely. I am touching on some of the Bill’s highlights, but we also need to incorporate social care, because that is often the kind of support that carers need in order to be able to look after relatives.
The Bill also highlights the fact that medication is not available at all times. I know only too well that if a patient’s pain needs to be better controlled, they can get a prescription but they cannot get the drugs on a Saturday or Sunday or during the night. Once again, they are admitted to A&E for help in managing their pain. That is not acceptable.
Practical solutions are available to enable people to choose where they want to die. I was disappointed by the response of Lord Prior of Brampton in the other place when he dismissed the Bill so easily by saying that we did not need to legislate for good palliative care. I strongly disagree. If we can legislate for a charter of budget responsibility, which I strongly supported because it is important for this country to run a surplus, and if we can legislate to freeze VAT and national insurance because that is also vital to this country, and to charge 5p for every carrier bag, why can we not legislate to provide good palliative care for every person who needs it?
I urge the Minister to consider the Access to Palliative Care Bill, which is currently going through the other place, as a way to improve access to palliative services and to support patients, families and NHS staff.
Mims Davies (Eastleigh) (Con)
On legislation, does my hon. Friend agree that it gives us as individuals and families the opportunity to start thinking about the unthinkable, to improve the process and to shape the palliative care we will want in the future?
Maria Caulfield
I completely agree with my hon. Friend. We need to make death a normal part of life, but until palliative care is available to everyone it will still be seen as something that happens in dark corners in hospitals, when it should be happening at home.
The NHS is supposed to be there from cradle to grave, but this country is not getting death right. People are going abroad to commit suicide because they cannot face a natural death. We are doing something fundamentally wrong. I therefore ask the Minister to consider legislating on access to palliative care. Years of reviews have not solved the problem. With 100% of us facing death, we need to ensure that end-of-life care is treated as a priority.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Ben Gummer)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield) for bringing this very important subject to the attention of the House and for doing so with her characteristic passion and verve. It has been a pleasure to answer her points in several previous debates. She has made her points with great clarity and it is with great pleasure that I will respond to every single one.
I will start where I finished on Monday night. This debate is timely, because it follows closely on that evening’s Adjournment debate, which was brought to the House by my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince) and to which other Members contributed with such great passion, interest and detailed knowledge. I firmly believe that, unless the NHS understands that the basis of care is not the end point of healthcare but a good in and of itself, we will not build a satisfactory foundation for the medical care that we hope is the experience of the majority in the NHS. For people for whom the end point is not recovery, but good and decent care, we must ensure that such care is embedded in the foundations of the NHS. If we do not, we will not provide a suitable foundation for good care throughout the system. That is why I see palliative care not as something that is nice to have—an added extra or a bonus within the NHS—but as something that is crucial to the delivery of good care throughout the system, whether or not people are likely to survive at the end of their care in hospital, in the community or at home.
I share my hon. Friend’s judgment of the debate on the Assisted Dying Bill, which I found fascinating. No matter where Members came from in that debate, what was clear was their wish to cherish, support and improve the palliative care services in our country and to ensure that people had access to the very best services not only in the UK, but in the world. That is where I will start my general remarks.
My hon. Friend is right to point out that the provision of palliative care is variable across the country, and I will turn to that in a second, but it is one of the areas that we should be very proud of, not least because of the dedicated work that people like her provide across the system in specialist settings and because of the unique gift that we have in this country of the hospice movement.
That is why the Economist Intelligence Unit, only a few weeks ago, judged that this country had the finest palliative care in the world in terms of access to services and the quality of those services. I do not say that in order to say that there is nothing to do—quite the opposite. The Economist Intelligence Unit pointed out that there are examples of extraordinarily good care across the country. I want to ensure that the experience is not variable, and that no matter where one is in the country, one receives the finest care.
Where should one look? I will point to a few examples of where exceptional care is being provided. In Bedfordshire, Sue Ryder has brought together palliative care services across the county. There is a brilliant linking up of services, whether they be in the community, in hospital or at home. As my hon. Friend knows well, home can encompass care home settings and private homes. That is a beacon of good practice that has been brought together by an expert charitable institution.
The Airedale, Wharfedale and Craven clinical commissioning group has blazed a trail with its expertise in palliative care, particularly through its adoption of the gold line telephone number, which is used not just by clinicians, but by families. People are lucky if they need palliative care and live in the Airedale clinical commissioning group area, because they are likely to receive the very finest palliative care available anywhere in the world.
I know that my hon. Friend has experience of hospital palliative care as a cancer nurse at the Royal Marsden, where exceptional care is provided that is comparable to the best care anywhere in the world. She will also be familiar with the work that is done at Frimley Park, where there is a comprehensive palliative care programme that goes across the hospital and is not seen as a bolt-on extra. The John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford has a similar approach with similar ends.
Sarah Champion
The Minister is citing excellent examples, but does he agree with me—I think that this is the intention behind the debate—that we should not just have exceptional examples, but 24/7 care wherever people are and whatever their condition is?
Ben Gummer
I agree completely with the hon. Lady. I was just about to turn to the very useful intervention that she made earlier, in which she said that palliative care is a mark of the integration of the health and social care sectors. It is no coincidence that one often sees good palliative care where there is good integration of health and social care. In a sense, the state of palliative care is a proxy for where care is well integrated and where it is not. That is why it should be seen as part of the larger challenge of achieving successful integration, on which there is a good deal of cross-party agreement.
My hon. Friend the Member for Lewes mentioned the fact that many people do not die where they would choose. She will be aware of the Choices survey, which was launched by my predecessor in the coalition Government, the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb). It has reported, and the Government have committed to replying to it. She can take that as an indication that there is policy to come, and that we will study carefully the things we have set up. We intend to ensure that people have greater access to the services they require to ensure that they can die where they wish. We made that commitment in our manifesto—we were very clear about it—and we intend to deliver on it, as we intend to deliver on the rest of our manifesto.
My hon. Friend was entirely right to point out that that will require changes in services where they are not good. That will require commitments on palliative care nurses and the spreading of training. They have been achieved in Airedale, but have not been achieved in other clinical commissioning groups, where care is sometimes significantly lacking. There is much to do in some areas of the country. If I may use Bevan’s words, it is about universalising the best. We know what the best looks like. We now need to ensure that we spread it across the rest of the country.
My hon. Friend was right that palliative care has, unfortunately, in some cases been associated with cancer care. That is not how it should be seen. She will be aware in great detail of the European Partnership for Action Against Cancer system, which is being used to ensure that cancer patients can indicate their wishes for the end of life. It can also help clinicians to manage that end-of-life period. The EPAAC system was originated and developed specifically for cancer patients, but we intend to roll it out for patients no matter what the cause of their death.
My hon. Friend mentioned the need to provide services 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Without wanting to state the obvious, that is one reason why we want to get a seven-day NHS working. When people need the NHS—whether they need medical attention that will save their life or pain relief that will mean that the end of their life is bearable—it cannot be right if treatment is deferred to a Monday because we do not have services available on Saturday and Sunday. That is the crux of what the Government are trying to achieve across our NHS reforms: we want to achieve a truly seven-day NHS.
Briefly, on the Bill introduced by Baroness Finlay in another place, I cannot disagree with the general sentiments of the proposal. The degree of variability that we have is obviously wrong and we must put it right. It should be right, in a sense, to say, “Let us legislate in order to make it so.” I have reservations about the Bill—I have made them clear to Baroness Finlay—but I should like to outline them to explain why I believe it may not achieve what it wants to achieve, and why, on a wider point, it might be counterproductive.
If enacted, the Bill would be the first instance in the history of the NHS that means we would make specific clinical demands on clinical commissioning groups about a specific clinical area. To take an analogy, we have not had a cancer services Bill that demands things of CCGs on cancer services. The Bill would therefore set a precedent, which requires very careful consideration. My current judgment, and that of the Secretary of State, is that we do not want to determine that demand from the centre in the manner in which Baroness Finlay wishes.
There are other instruments for achieving what Baroness Finlay wishes to do, such as the mandates to CCGs and to Health Education England. There are ways to achieve by similar means the same ends that she wishes to achieve, which is putting certain obligations on CCGs to ensure that they commission care in a way that we expect. We need to be careful about how we do it. Airedale is so good because it has come to that point by itself and developed its approach organically. Other CCGs around the country have come to equally good solutions in a different way.
I would not want to impose a solution from the centre that squashes the local innovation of good leaders. I think we can all agree that the NHS in the past has not been good at allowing staff locally to celebrate leadership and innovation. There are lots of brilliant people in the NHS who have great ideas, but they do not feel empowered to bring them forward. We need to be careful, therefore, about imposing solutions from the centre, either from the Department, NHS England or this place, that do not recognise the ability of local people to come up with local solutions. I have told Baroness Finlay that I want to develop policies that do what she wants to do but not by the means she proposes. I hope to empower local people to get to where she wishes to go, and I hope to do so in a manner that celebrates success and exposes failure, so that we can put it right, and universalises the best as quickly as possible, without taking a top-down approach, which might have the contrary effect.
We are in a better position than other countries because of the remarkable work of charities and voluntary bodies over the last few years, and we have now accumulated a mountain of evidence from charitable groups and Government. My hon. Friend pointed to the 2011 NICE guidelines, but there were also the five priorities outlined last year in “Priorities of Care for the Dying Person”, and we now have the NHS Choices review, to which the Government will respond. We have enough paper evidence. We know what looks good, how to make it happen and that it needs to happen, and we know that many people die in circumstances that leave much to be desired. I point in particular to those who die in hospital. It is clear from the VOICES survey, which tracks the experience of families and individuals at the end of life, that people’s experience of dying at home and in community settings, especially in hospices, is generally much higher than in hospitals. Broadly—I generalise—half of people in hospital do not have an optimum experience of death.
We can change some things quite quickly, but we have got to this point because of the sustained effort over many years and the accumulation of evidence in a clinical area where Britain leads the world. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend and other colleagues with expertise in this area, to the many academics who have worked hard on this, and to the hard work of NHS England and its director of palliative care, Professor Bee Wee, who is a remarkable clinician. Over the next few years, as we fulfil our manifesto pledge, I hope that all parties can work together on this, calling on the experience of people from every part of the country—it was great to hear from the hon. Members for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) and for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who shared their experience from other parts of the UK. If we can bring all this together, I think we can do something rather remarkable for people with no medical hope at the end of their life but to whom we should give the absolute guarantee that their care will be exceptional and will make what is never going to be a happy moment at least bearable and full of meaning for them, their families and their loved ones.
Question put and agreed to.
Poverty Eradication and sustainable development
(8 years, 7 months ago)
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The Chair
Before we begin, I will briefly outline the procedure. First, a member of the European Scrutiny Committee may make a five-minute statement about the decision to refer the documents. The Minister will then make a statement of no more than 10 minutes, and questions to the Minister will follow. Once questions have ended, the Minister will move the motion. Debate takes place upon that motion. We must conclude our proceedings by 11.25 am. Does a member of the European Scrutiny Committee wish to make a brief explanatory statement?
Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Turner. Let me, as is customary, explain some of the background and why the European Scrutiny Committee recommended this Commission communication for debate.
Members will no doubt recall that, in 2000, the United Nations agreed eight millennium development goals: to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; to achieve universal primary education; to promote gender equality; to reduce child mortality; to improve maternal health; to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; to ensure environmental sustainability; and to develop a partnership for development. Each goal had associated targets and benchmarks to measure progress, with a deadline of the end of 2015. Those eight MDGs and their 21 targets are now to be replaced by 17 new sustainable development goals and 169 targets, which incorporate and follow on from the MDGs, the Rio+20 UN conference on sustainable development and the financing for development conferences.
The communication, which was published on 5 February 2015, sets out the Commission’s views on a new global partnership to deliver the sustainable development goals. It was designed to inform EU positions in preparation for the financing for development conference in Addis Ababa in July 2015 and the UN summit in New York in September 2015. The coalition Government said, when the communication was first published, that the principles and key components were broadly in line with the established positions, although it was not formally agreed with member states. The Government described it as a good overview of what was needed for effective implementation of the post-2015 development agenda and for laying the groundwork for more specific policy development. The communication is not controversial in itself, though it is of undoubted political importance.
The new 2030 agenda for sustainable development—a global framework to eradicate poverty and achieve sustainable development by 2030, based on the 17 SDGs— was formally adopted by the international community at a dedicated UN summit between 25 and 27 September. The Addis Ababa action agenda agreed in July also forms an integral part of the 2030 agenda by setting out tools, policies and resources that need to be put in place to ensure that it can be implemented.
All three earlier, ground-laying Commission communications were debated in European Committees. It has always been the European Scrutiny Committee’s intention that, once this point was reached, this Commission communication should likewise be debated. The intention is to enable the House to be provided with and to discuss the Government’s analysis of the outcome of both the Addis Ababa financing for development conference and the September UN summit. That is particularly apposite now that there has been an opportunity for informed comment on those outcomes—for example, whether replacing the eight MDGs and 21 targets with 17 SDGs and 169 targets will stretch development budgets too far and not provide value for money. The Committee’s hope is that there can now be a wide-ranging debate on the most effective ways for the EU, in its own right and in conjunction with member states, to contribute to the achievement of the sustainable development goals.
The Chair
I congratulate the Member on his introduction. I now call the Minister to make an opening statement. I remind the Committee that interventions are not allowed during a statement.
The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Grant Shapps)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. I strongly welcome today’s debate, which is an opportunity to reflect on the outcome of the two major international events this year that my right hon. Friend has described. Together with the UN financing for development conference held in July in Addis Ababa and the outcomes of the UN global goals summit in New York in September, we have established a new approach to poverty eradication and development that is universal, comprehensive, integrated and leaves no one behind.
As a world leader in international development, and one of only a handful of donors to have met the commitment of 0.7% of gross national income for official development assistance, ensuring that these events were a success was a priority for the UK. On 16 July, at the first of the summits, the third international conference on financing for development was successfully concluded and the international community agreed the Addis Ababa action agenda: the AAAA. This historic international deal has fundamentally changed the conversation on development financing. It makes it clear that, while aid remains crucial, particularly for the world’s most vulnerable countries, harnessing private sector investment and developing countries’ own domestic resources, including tax revenues, is also absolutely essential for development.
In Addis, the international community committed to fostering the right policy and institutional environments at the local, national and international level to encourage and enable investment, provide security and justice, and, ultimately, allow every development pound to go further in helping to lift people out of poverty. Crucially, the AAAA underlines that all countries must take responsibility for eradicating poverty. That is not to say that rich countries should be let off the hook, but the commitment should be made and the Addis action agenda is very clear that aid remains crucial, particularly for the poorest countries in the world.
Aid alone will not be sufficient to deliver the new global goals agreed at the UN in September. The UK was clear that Addis should be about unleashing all the resources available to fund development: international and domestic, public and private. Addis recognised that aid needs to be increasingly used as a catalyst to unlock the private finance that is needed to drive economic growth and create jobs in developing countries. Ultimately, it is jobs, inclusive growth for women and men, and enterprise that will really defeat poverty.
The new financing agenda recognises that developing countries need to take action to tackle corruption, embrace transparency and create effective tax systems so that growth, when it happens, benefits everyone, not just the few, and so that growth produces tax receipts for investment in essential services, such as health and education. Of course, developed countries must also continue to put their own houses in order on issues such as tax transparency. The UK has taken a leading role internationally on these issues since our G8 presidency in 2013.
In Addis, we committed to doing even more. The UK will join the ground-breaking Addis tax initiative, and will double the amount of support that we give to help partner countries to improve tax systems and to raise more revenue. Under that initiative, developing countries also commit to step up their work on tax reform to improve the fairness, transparency, efficiency and effectiveness of their tax systems.
Additionally, the UK has announced a £735 million capital increase to the CDC Group—the UK’s own development finance institution—to invest in businesses to create jobs in the world’s poorest places. That will allow more investment in Africa and south Asia. Our capital is now supporting 666 businesses in Africa and 367 businesses in south Asia. Together, those businesses have created nearly 1.3 million direct and indirect jobs.
The second key moment this year was the summit on 26 September at the UN in New York when leaders from around the world adopted the 2030 global goals. The new global goals aim to finish the work that the millennium development goals started and will aim to go beyond those goals in the next 15 years. Over their lifetime, the millennium development goals have driven some of the most dramatic improvements that the globe has ever seen. I think these remarkable changes should be on the front pages of every newspaper every day. The target to halve extreme poverty has been met; many more children are in school; and deaths from malaria, the biggest killer disease in human history, have reduced by more than half.
Despite that progress, there are still 836 million people living in extreme poverty, although it is interesting to note that the numbers have fallen to the lowest percentage that the world has ever seen. Although population has increased, absolute numbers have stayed roughly the same. They are some of the hardest-to-reach, most marginalised people on earth. Many of them are girls and women who live in conflict states, many of which I have visited in the past six months.
Improving the lives of those people requires a broad approach incorporating peace, security, economic development and gender equality. Over the past three years, the UK has lobbied hard in international negotiations to ensure that the global goals cover the areas not reached by the original millennium development goals and ensure that nobody is left behind. We successfully pushed for a stand-alone goal on gender equality that includes targets against early and forced marriage, female genital mutilation and—against strong resistance—sexual and reproductive rights. To lock-in the economic progress made since 2000 and enable people to work towards their own prosperity, the UK helped to secure a goal on peace, security and good governance, which are the building blocks of stable, successful societies.
Despite being absent from the original MDGs, energy has featured strongly in the new set of global goals, which recognise the fundamental importance of energy in homes. That issue is particularity close to my heart. It is ludicrous that we expect countries to develop when, for example, two out of three Africans have no energy in their own homes. They live in one of the sunniest climates in the world, and it seems to me that solar energy is the way forward. The week before last, I launched Energy Africa with Kofi Annan, Bob Geldof and others in London to try to address that issue.
What is striking about the new global goals is that they take into account vital issues, such as energy, that have not been high on the international agenda previously. They are universal and inclusive, and are focused on ending chronic poverty for ever, for everyone, everywhere. The most marginalised and vulnerable people, whether disabled, hard to reach or affected by conflict, will not be left behind by the goals.
The UK is proud to have played a leading role internationally in securing such a forward-looking agenda. The goals balance lessons learned from the MDGs, reflect the challenges of today’s world and are ambitious in their reach. The global goals are universal goals for everyone, which means that the United Kingdom has to achieve them as well. A strong international commitment to the global goals is vital, and over the next 15 years the UK will not step back from the leading role it has played over the past three years.
I am proud to say the UK is clear that the global goals will be the starting point for the Department for International Development’s work. We will ensure there is a clear line of sight between the way we work as a Department and the goals. We will prioritise where we focus on, based on our comparative advantage as a Department and a country, and we will work with our multilateral partners.
It is still early days, and there are still elements of the agenda to be resolved, but DFID is already working to move forward strongly and confidently with our international partners. I am having many discussions and meetings about the agenda. It is also important to note that it is an agenda not just for DFID, but for all parts of the UK Government and the best of British institutions. We will all work together, along with the Office for National Statistics, which will play a key role in reporting on the UK’s progress. DFID will work closely with other Government Departments to ensure a joined-up approach, which will require us to think increasingly beyond aid over the next five—and, indeed, the next 15—years.
In conclusion, the UK has been at the vanguard of building these agendas, and will play a strong role in their implementation. We believe in being a country that shapes the world, both because it is the right thing to do and because it is firmly in our own national interest. This is an inspiring year for the UK and the world. I am glad we have the opportunity to debate these vital issues. I again thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford, and I look forward to the valuable points that will be raised in the debate.
The Chair
We now have 47 minutes for questions to the Minister. I remind Members that their questions should be brief. It is open to a Member, subject to my discretion, to ask related, supplementary questions. I will usually allow one question and one supplementary, and then move on to somebody else.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
I welcome the opportunity to scrutinise these important documents on the global partnership for poverty eradication and sustainable development. We broadly share the Government’s approach. I simply want to ask two questions.
These new development goals build on the original millennium development goals. We cannot go forward until we properly understand what happened previously. Will the Minister provide a full report on our delivery of the millennium goals, because I think that will provide the only sound basis for going forward to a new set of goals?
The global goals will be goals that we have to implement nationally. Some of them, in relation to broad development issues, are relatively achievable. However, do the Government have a plan specifically to take action on reducing inequalities in the UK, which is one of the new global goals?
Grant Shapps
The big difference with the original millennium goals was that they referred to developing countries. The global goals apply to us all, as the hon. Lady’s question implies.
We are absolutely determined to learn lessons from the original millennium goals. A huge amount of work has gone into this. When I was in New York for the UNGA and the launch of the new global goals, I attended many sessions that dealt with the extent to which the millennium goals have been implemented. I spent a lot of time looking at the relative success of DFID in the countries that we work with, particularly in Africa, and at their achievements against those goals. A large body of work was involved in that and I am very happy to write to the hon. Lady with further details on the extent to which we judged the millennium goals had been met.
The hon. Lady is right to say that the new global goals affect us all. We have signed up just as much as any of the African countries I was talking about. All the goals apply to us. It is early days, as I mentioned in my speech. The UK will be developing a framework for the way in which the goals will be judged. The Office for National Statistics will play a key role in that process and is currently working on it.
The hon. Lady specifically mentioned the issue of inequality. The Government are passionate about dealing with inequality. We believe that the best way to deal with it is to make sure that, for example, in this country, unemployment levels are kept low. We have half the unemployment level of our nearest similar economy, France—exactly half its unemployment level. Inequality is best tackled by making sure that people have work.
Inequality is certainly one of the areas that will be judged by the new global goals. Members will have more detail shortly on how that will be put into statistics.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
I associate myself with the remarks welcoming the opportunity for debate. Can the Minister say what discussions or communications he has had with the devolved Administrations about the implementation of the goals—the Scottish Government and the Welsh Assembly have an outreach and international development presence; I believe Northern Ireland is considering a similar role—and about the domestic application of the goals?
Grant Shapps
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. As he knows, I am always very keen to engage with the devolved Administrations. He and I have had many conversations, particularly about the excellent partnership between Malawi and Scotland, which has been so important to the UK’s development role in that country. I will certainly be taking those discussions forward with him and Members of the other devolved Administrations.
As I have mentioned, the goals were only put in place in September. Ensuring that we have a proper 15-year plan for their implementation, including the involvement of our devolved Administrations, is top of our agenda. Before anyone says, “Why isn’t this happening more quickly?” in the case of the millennium goals, I think the world was rather too slow in coming together. It took several years before people woke up to the fact that we were in danger of missing many of the goals and then things really got going. We are determined that that will not be the case here. The hon. Gentleman and others can expect to see a huge amount of activity by us as we frame how best to deliver the goals both domestically and internationally.
The Chair
If no more Members wish to ask questions, we will proceed to the debate on the motion.
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That the Committee takes note of European Union Document No. 5902/15 and Addendum, a Commission Communication: A Global Partnership for Poverty Eradication and Sustainable Development after 2015; welcomes this document as a contribution to a debate that is central to sustainable development policy; and supports the Government’s approach to the post-2015 development agenda.—(Grant Shapps.)
Ms Abbott
I broadly welcome the Government’s approach to the new global goals, but it is important to make the following points. We welcome the Government’s response and willingness to accept the Europe-wide policies in relation to implementing the global goals. In particular, we are glad that the Government welcomed the communication’s remarks on climate change. Given that initially they did not support the establishment of climate change as a stand-alone global goal, that represents progress. We hope that that will mean that the UK pushes with real vigour for a global deal next month at the UN climate change conference talks in Paris.
We regret the Government’s refusal to adopt the principle of burden sharing in relation to migrants and refugees before the Commission has come to its conclusions. There are a number of ways to go about burden sharing. We are not pushing for the UK to become part of Schengen, but, in the end, the migrant crisis we face is a European crisis. Whatever particular treaty obligations we think we have, we should step up in principle as a member of the European family of nations.
We welcome the Government’s positive response to the communication and we note that the UK is already meeting the 0.7% commitment, which is commendable. The Committee will forgive me for referencing the role of past Labour Governments—and Gordon Brown in particular—in creating the political conditions for a broad acceptance that we had to step up to that 0.7% commitment. However, we have to go further to eradicate poverty and ensure sustainable development.
We also have to go even further to ensure that aid money is spent effectively. I am an absolute supporter of the 0.7%, but there is still a debate to be had about how it is spent. There are questions about aid money being spent on budgetary support and what happens to that money. There are still questions about how much of that money goes to large NGOs rather than local NGOs, which may be more effective.
I welcome the Government’s commitment to 0.7%, but it is not just a question of getting the money out of the door in the easiest and quickest fashion. The reader of the Daily Mail and the woman on the high street in Accra share the same interest in aid and development funding: they want to know where the money goes and whether it is being used effectively.
Reservations about the global goals and how many of them there are were reflected in our earlier discussion, but they are widely regarded in the international community as a triumph that represents a bottom-up rather than top-down approach to development. It is hoped that they will cement and shape how we approach development for lasting change.
I welcome the Minister’s offer to write to me about our achievements in relation to the millennium development goals, but I feel strongly that there is a job of work to be done on the Opposition side of the Committee on tracking and challenging what happened to them. It is not enough to say that moneys were spent on certain aspects or that support was given for certain international institutions. We want to know about the outcomes—how was poverty reduced and development aided? I welcome the offer of a letter, but I believe we will still have to ask for a full report and a debate on the goals on the Floor of the House. We cannot look forward until we have looked back. There needs to be honest assessment of our successes and failures.
In addition, our experience in delivering aid and development programmes is the best way to ensure effective implementation of the global goals. Unlike the millennium development goals, we need to implement the global goals nationally; the Opposition will take a keen interest in that. The existence of this Committee and the response from various Departments to this communication are signs of collaboration and responsiveness, but we are keen to see how the Department for International Development takes the lead in developing a cross-Whitehall approach to the implementation of the global goals.
On the question of climate change, the Opposition are concerned that the UK Government appear to have rolled back many major national climate change policies. The commitment to zero-carbon homes has been cancelled, the green deal appears to have been scrapped and the climate change levy exemption for zero-carbon energy has been removed, to name but a few.
The only commitments that we have made leading up to the Paris talks are as part of the European position. It is good to see that Europe-wide consensus and we welcome it, but it falls short of our own Climate Change Act 2008, brought in by the previous Labour Government. The UK is going into those climate change talks saying we will deliver less than our own legislation demands. We believe that the 2008 Act sets an international standard that we must live up to. The UK should be saying that Europe is not ambitious enough, and using our influence to ensure a global deal that will impact on the lives of thousands. The Government appear to have no concrete position or plan to push for a global deal, and we are but a month away from Paris.
On migration and the Government’s apparent refusal to adopt the principle of burden sharing for migrants, the British public have seen and read about the appalling conditions in which Syrian migrants find themselves. We commend the Government on the money they are spending on the camps in the region. We urge the Government to get the other EU Governments to step up to the example we have set on funding those camps. However, it remains the case that tens of thousands of Syrians are crossing borders through the Balkans into Greece every month. We are seeing a steep climb in those numbers as Syrian refugees seek to escape the onset of winter and Russian bombing.
It is not enough for the Government to say that we are doing well in giving money to the camps. The Government must say what it is doing for the unfolding crisis we see in the Balkans, Greece and Italy. It is extraordinary that the Greek Government, and the Greek people in particular, have done so well in relation to the migrant crisis. The fact remains that of all the EU nations, the Greeks, due to their long-standing economic issues, are not best placed to provide systematic processing and support for migration. They need more help.
As this crisis gets worse and spikes with the onset of winter, we believe it is unreasonable and irresponsible for the UK not to adopt the settled principle of burden sharing, whether or not we are members of Schengen. As the communication states, the global partnership should be based on principles of shared responsibility, mutual accountability and respective capacity. We believe we cannot pick and choose when we adhere to each of those principles.
Members from both sides have said that the proposal for taking a capped number of 20,000 refugees up to 2020 is both pitiful and unacceptable. We have yet to hear how many Syrian refugees have actually entered the country under this process. Members challenged the Secretary of State on that question yesterday and did not receive a reply. We understand that we are expecting 1,000 before Christmas, but we do not know how many Syrian refugees have come in thus far.
Other European countries have taken as many refugees in a week as we are proposing to take in a year, and they have committed to taking thousands more. Until we hear the figures on the numbers of Syrian refugees who have entered, a question mark is cast on the Government’s proposals. After all, long after the refugee crisis is off the front pages there will be a need for a sustainable, Europe-wide strategy. It cannot be right for Italy, Greece and the Balkan states to be left alone to deal with all the migrants and refugees. The Government need to look at a more sustainable strategy that is more genuine about working closely with our European neighbours, because hundreds of thousands of lives depend on it.
Members would have been saddened to hear the mayor of Lesbos, one of the Greek islands receiving thousands of migrants day by day, say that there was no more room on Lesbos to bury Syrian refugees. How can it be that in 2015 a member of the European family of nations can have that said and not be able to look to Europe-wide support?
Broadly, we support the Government’s approach on the communication. We want to work closely with them to move towards implementation of the global goals. However, we still want detail on what was done to deliver the millennium development goals, we think that more can be done on climate change and we are concerned about inadequate Government proposals to meet the challenge of the Europe-wide migration crisis.
Patrick Grady
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. I declare something of an interest, because until the May election I was the vice-chair of the Network of International Development Organisations in Scotland. I also sat on the Scottish working group on the SDGs, which I might speak about briefly later.
I welcome the opportunity to debate the papers before us and the SDGs more broadly. I welcome the broad consensus behind finding the right way to implement the global goals and I echo a number of the points made by the Labour spokesperson, the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington. The Scottish National party fully supports the SDG framework, as do the Scottish Government. The Scottish First Minister announced over the summer that the Scottish Government intended to adopt the goals in full for both international and domestic policy.
The opening statement of the report before us touched on the number of the goals. When we debated the SDGs in a Back-Bench debate on the Floor of the House a while back, I said—and I repeat now—that, first, the goals have been agreed, so the debate ought to move on. Secondly, the number of goals is probably for a reason; it probably reflects the kind of holistic approach necessary if we are to end world poverty and to do so in a way that genuinely leaves no one behind.
I associate myself in particular with the comments made about welcoming goal 5 on gender equality—we want to ensure that that is at the heart of the development agenda over the next 15 years—and with the emphasis in the goals on climate change. Again, I highlight the work of the Scottish Government, who passed the highly ambitious Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 and established the innovative climate justice fund to support people in developing countries to mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change.
I thank the Minister for his response to my question about the role of the devolved Administrations. Co-operation across these islands is important to take the agenda forward. I highlight the work of the Scottish Government and of the working group, with its innovative approach over 18 months or more. I note that DFID officials are represented on the group, which is an excellent example of cross-stakeholder co-operation: it also includes NGOs, business community representatives, academics and representatives from the domestic anti-poverty organisations. There is a lot to learn.
The Minister also mentioned the co-operation that exists between the Governments of Scotland and Malawi. This week we marked the 10th anniversary of that co-operation agreement, so I take this opportunity to put my congratulations on the record, in case I am not able to in the Chamber before the end of the week.
The motion that we are debating finishes with the idea that the Committee
“supports the Government’s approach to the post-2015 development agenda.”
We cannot oppose that motion, but, like the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, my party intends to keep scrutinising the Government’s approach. Achieving the 0.7% target is only the beginning of the process if we really are to leave no one behind, adopt a truly person-centred approach to development and achieve the goals. They are achievable; it is purely a matter of having the political will to build the world free of poverty that they envisage.
Grant Shapps
I thank again my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford for bringing this matter to the Committee for debate. It is an important issue with many wide-ranging consequences, as we heard from the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, stretching to many areas that are not immediately obvious from the 17 goals and 169 targets in the agenda. Our debate could range widely, but I will restrict my closing remarks to the points that have been raised.
As I have said, the agenda is one not just for Department for International Development, but for all parts of Government. We will play our important supporting role in trying to ensure that the global goals are delivered. Climate change was mentioned, along with the extent of the United Kingdom’s commitment on that. If my memory serves me correctly, £3.89 billion was dedicated to the International Climate Fund in the previous spending round. That figure has recently been increased by 50% to £5.9 billion. Although not doubling down, 50% is a pretty big addition to a budget designed to do exactly what the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington talked about, namely to continue to work on climate change.
On the more intricate details, the hon. Lady questioned whether we were still committed to zero-carbon homes. As she will know, I was Housing Minister at one point, so can tell her that back in the 1990s homes built in the UK were emitting enormous amounts of carbon and were very energy inefficient, whereas the level of efficiency is now so close to zero-carbon that off-site allowances finish that off. I would not want Members to think that we were in any way watering down the targets; in fact, the United Kingdom will meet its national obligations, and is also putting enormous amounts of money into trying to meet international obligations.
Our wide-ranging debate strayed on to the migrant crisis and burden sharing. No country in Europe has done as much as the United Kingdom, not just during the crisis that hit everyone’s TVs this summer, but in the longer-running crisis, over three or four years, of the Syrian war. Over £1.1 billion has been invested in Syria to help people to stay in or close to home. I am not sure that the wisest approach is to encourage people to make life-endangering journeys. Britain has a proud record on this matter. It is absolutely right that we have been in there helping a lot earlier than other Governments.
Ms Abbott
No one is talking about encouraging people to make life-threatening journeys. The fact is that tens of thousands people have already made those journeys and are attempting to live in terrible conditions in Greece and Italy. It is not about encouraging anyone; with winter coming and people fleeing Russian bombing, the question is, what are we going to do to support the people who have already made those journeys?
Grant Shapps
Although this goes beyond the subject of the global goals, it is none the less important to consider whether Germany’s opening of the doors to a million people will then encourage a further million people to make that journey, thereby putting people’s lives at risk, and whether it is therefore better to tackle the problems people are experiencing at their root, in and around Syria. That is why I make the point that Britain has not suddenly joined the relief effort this summer; we have been involved for many years and have spent well over £1 billion. That is a proud record. As the hon. Lady knows and recognises, we have also launched a scheme to help 20,000 people come to this country. Of course we can debate the numbers and the rest of it, but I believe Britain stands tall in the world for having done more than any other country in Europe to prevent people from making that dangerous journey—and, by the way, in doing so, we have prevented a brain drain of the most fit, able and bright people from crisis-hit areas.
The hon. Lady and the hon. Member for Glasgow North mentioned the 0.7% target and how the money is spent. We will rigorously ensure that the 0.7% is spent properly and appropriately, and I welcome their keen eye on this. The House is absolutely right to want to see in great detail how that money is spent. In fact, this is an area in which transparency improves every aspect of international development. I genuinely believe that when we can see how money is spent and when people can challenge the process, we spend the money more wisely and get better outcomes. Within the Department for International Development, we will do everything possible to ensure that the books are as open as possible. We are one of the most scrutinised Departments, and I welcome that.
Ms Abbott
Does the Minister agree that transparency is not only important to the British taxpayer? It is also important, in our relationship with the countries to which we are giving aid quite generously, that the populations of those countries have transparency about how British aid money is being spent and whether it is really being spent to their benefit, rather than only to the benefit of local elites and the aid industry.
Grant Shapps
I absolutely agree. What the hon. Lady describes is, of course, the golden thread, which is about ensuring money is spent wisely and for the broadest possible spread of the population. Transparency enables people to see that their institutions are serving the broad mass of people rather than the elites, as she suggests.
The hon. Lady reminds me of a point she raised in her initial intervention about direct budget support. There is now almost no direct budget support through the DFID programme. In fact, I spend much of my time meeting Governments who are pleading for direct budget support. In many cases, we do not think that is a suitable way to spend money, not least because it tends to lack the transparency that she and others have called for, as we cannot see how those systems are spending the money. I agree that it is important to ensure that money is spent transparently. That takes many different forms, and she and I are on exactly the same page in terms of the golden thread and ensuring money is spent to the benefit of the masses, not the elites.
Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)
In that spirit of transparency, will the Minister suggest to people in his Department that putting up a sign or putting something on equipment provided by the UK’s aid budget is a good thing? Other countries do it all the time. Those of us who have been round the world will have seen fantastic projects delivered by the British taxpayer, but the vast majority of people have no idea that it is happening. We go down the road, however, and see signs saying, “A gift from the people of the United States,” or, “A gift from the people of Germany,” or, “A gift from the European Union.” We never make enough of what we give.
Grant Shapps
I absolutely agree. That is one of my greatest frustrations, and I would go further: just putting up a sign saying, “A gift of the British people through UK aid,” is not enough. I was driving back from taking my son to football the other week. We live in Hertfordshire, and my son pointed out that underneath the county’s sign, it says, “County of Opportunity.” I have lived in Hertfordshire nearly all my life and have never even noticed we have that slogan. That suggests to me that a sign saying, “A gift of the people of the UK and UK aid,” is not enough; we need to do more.
My hon. Friend makes a serious point. I have so far visited seven countries in Africa that we support directly, and my greatest reflection is that I would be hard-pressed to discover where the money comes from. Often, it is spent through international partners and therefore there is simply no branding at all. If the point of aid is to bring influence in the world—in other words, to ensure that people not only look favourably at the United Kingdom, but favour our approach to great administration, a strong civil service, civil society and the rest of it—then it is important, not just for our own PR purposes, but for spreading exactly the kind of broad-based Government that the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington and others have talked about. I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. I am on to this, and we will continue to press the point. Indeed, when I now approve new programmes, one of the questions I ask is not just, “How we are going to badge it?”, but how that will be made meaningful to the people who are in receipt of our development assistance.
There was a comment about scrutiny, which we have covered, but let me say again that we will ensure that the 0.7% commitment is the most open to scrutiny of any country in the world. Indeed, we are the only country in the European Union and the only major country in the G7 who spend the 0.7%. I know it is difficult to get people excited about accountancy awards, but the Department has won top awards for openness and transparency on this subject for more than one year running—I think for two or three years running. Long may that continue.
I want to make a further point about our enthusiasm for working with the devolved Administrations. As the hon. Member for Glasgow North knows, and as I mentioned, we worked with the devolved Administrations throughout the process of agreeing the 17 goals and 169 targets. It is absolutely our intention to make sure that we continue to do that.
Finally, let me deal with the development effectiveness of the millennium development goals. I want to reassure the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington that the development effectiveness is measured constantly by the United Nations. This is a programme that we back very strongly, and I would certainly welcome any debate or discussion and any lessons to be learned from those millennium goals, because without that, I do not think it is possible for us to ensure that the new sustainable goals finish off the job correctly. We will continue to call on and support developing countries to take all the actions that those goals enshrine, on things such as tax transparency, anti-corruption and creating the right environment. However, we will also do more through our support for all the goals, which we support equally. Britain leads in some places—for example, on goal No. 7, which is on energy. I launched a campaign on that alongside Kofi Annan, and we will also work with our American partners, Power Africa, to make sure we can maximise the British impact on helping to bring power to two thirds of Africans who do not, at this stage, have power.
We will ensure that the United Kingdom is at the forefront of the new sustainable goals in all those areas. We look forward not only to the support, but to the analysis and to, I hope, the whole House holding our feet to the fire. I thank the Committee and my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford once again for securing today’s debate.
Question put and agreed to.
Westminster Hall
(8 years, 7 months ago)
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Prefabricated Housing
(8 years, 7 months ago)
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Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered modern prefabricated housing.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time in a Westminster Hall debate, Mr Owen. I thank colleagues who are present this morning to consider this important subject. I chose to use the word “prefabricated” in the motion because I thought that would give Members the clearest steer on the subject matter, although the housing industry’s preferred terminology is “off-site manufacturing”.
For many of us, prefabrication conjures up images of the immediate post-war era, when it was one of the solutions to the country’s incredible housing need, but things have moved on a lot in the prefabricated market. Modern methods of off-site construction and manufacture and on-site assembly have transformed the use of the technology and its application in modern housing. People may have seen modern retail parks such as BOXPARK in Shoreditch, east London, which was assembled from box units and can be disassembled and moved away, and wondered whether such methods are possible in housing and an answer to the our dire housing needs. I believe that they could be. The purpose of today’s debate is to explore that and to ask the Government what opportunities exist to incentivise and encourage the development of the technology.
There is no doubt that housing need in this country is great. The record modern high for house building completions was set in 1988. It is now estimated that 230,000 new accommodation units a year are needed. In the past few years, the Government have introduced incentives and simplified the planning system and announced schemes such as Help to Buy to help more people on to the housing ladder, but despite the success of such programmes and the welcome increase in the number of housing starts and completions, the number of completions is still running at around 130,000 a year—considerably less than the target. In many ways, that is a moving target. It would be nice to have the luxury of believing that if we could just catch up with the lost years of house building during the recession, we would be in a much better place, but while that would be progress, the number of new households created each year is rising faster than we can build homes to accommodate them. That is what is creating the massive pinch in the housing market.
The problem is principally one of supply—the lack of homes to buy and of affordable homes to rent. In previous debates, we have discussed rogue landlords and problems in the private rented sector, and I was pleased to see the measures that the Government are introducing in the new Housing and Planning Bill to give councils more powers to combat rogue landlords. One of the reasons why rogue landlords exist is the lack of supply of good-quality properties in the private rented sector at affordable prices. Rogue landlords can get away with exploiting their tenants because the tenants often have few options of other places to live. More and much higher quality housing at the lower end of the market is essential.
I said that prefabrication often conjures up images of the post-war era. The building industry has evolved considerably since then, so we should not seek to copy that era’s techniques and methods, but we should certainly consider the ambition. When Winston Churchill famously gave Harold Macmillan the task of building 300,000 new homes, there were the added complexities of post-war austerity and a simple lack of timber with which to build homes. Rather than putting up their hands and saying, “We don’t have enough wood to build the homes we need,” they harnessed the ingenuity of British engineering and design to come up with different techniques and methods of building homes. Famously, they designed the timberless house, which required very little wood to support its construction. With those new ideas and methods, they were able to meet their targets. We should similarly be looking at the new ideas and methods in prefabricated housing to unleash a revolution in the design and delivery of new homes for Britain to meet the Government’s targets and the people’s need.
Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful argument. He is right that prefabrication has moved on tremendously over the years. Does he agree that we should consider prefabrication not only in housing, but in schools and hospitals? Portakabin in my constituency has just signed a deal to provide a huge school project worth £44 million and is moving the technology further on every year.
Damian Collins
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. When thinking of portakabins, some of us may think of the rather inadequate buildings that we inhabited at school in the 1980s, but things have moved on a lot. We are looking at modern, fully furbished, fully functioning units that can be designed for almost any need and assembled quickly in any place to do any type of job. As my hon. Friend said, be it for schools, offices or accommodation, the units have many uses and can be delivered to an exceptionally high quality and specification. It is that sort of technology and approach that we want in the housing market.
I recently met the architectural practice Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners because I wanted to find out more about the Y:Cube project that it recently delivered in Morden, south London, which I know the Housing Minister has visited. The project involves specially designed pods that are manufactured off-site. The build cost for a one-bedroom studio flat in the development could be as little as £30,000 to £35,000, and they can be rented out from £150 a week. The units can be built in the factory in a week and assembled on-site in a further week. A whole project—not just a single unit—can be delivered in about a third of the time of a traditional development. The practice believes that it can deliver a block of 50 accommodation units in less than 11 months from the moment that a planning application is presented to the council to tenants actually living in the building, which is a radical change in the time it takes to deliver a project of such complexity.
Referring back to my hon. Friend’s intervention, the modern technology used in the design of modern prefabricated units means that they are cheap to run. Energy bills can be as little as £10 a month—much cheaper than in many of the properties in the private rented sector. The construction price is also low—it could be a third less than that of even the most affordable housing units currently being built. Prefabrication totally changes the economy of the housing market for both developers and tenants. It provides an opportunity for much lower rents and prices, based not on subsidy but on the fact that the property itself is much cheaper to construct using modern methods.
The value of a property is based not only on the materials and labour used to construct it, but on the value of the land on which it sits. The Government could consider whether their land assets could be made available to support the use and development of modern off-site constructed housing. Smaller plots of land, which are often uneconomic to develop and not of interest to house builders, could be used. We have a crisis in housing supply, but not necessarily among house builders, which have many projects to work on. The economies of scale that they get from delivering a large housing estate of thousands of properties cannot be derived from a relatively small piece of land that might be owned by a local authority or a public body such as Transport for London, where perhaps only a few flats could be delivered. New methods of off-site construction make such developments much more viable. Units can be constructed off-site and assembled on-site quickly with little disturbance to local residents.
One of the biggest challenges for the construction industry is waste, but there is virtually no waste with off-site construction and on-site assembly. Furthermore, when land already owned by local authorities and public bodies or land with little commercial value because of its location and restricted size is used, methods of off-site construction come into their own. When local authorities compile a register of brownfield sites under the new Housing and Planning Bill, perhaps the Minister will ask them to include a schedule of sites suitable for off-site construction housing projects—suitable because of the land’s limited commercial potential and value, and restricted size.
Off-site construction homes also come into their own for companies that are as yet uncertain about what the best value use of their land holdings will be. Some land might be developed for commercial or residential purposes but is not being utilised at the moment, and some of us get frustrated at land being held in land banks as an asset, and not released to meet its full potential because of market circumstances. The great thing about off-site construction and on-site assembly is that homes can be removed and reused in a different location. For example, a major developer with a big project to be delivered over 10 years or more might look at short-term delivery of housing units on a site—low-cost units to rent that could be moved on later. The Government—particularly the Ministry of Defence—have land assets, but they might be reluctant to sell to a commercial developer, or not want to release too much land in one go, thereby devaluing their assets, so they might look at whether some of their sites could be used for the deployment of prefabricated housing as an interim measure.
The technology is such that the units are advanced, well designed, well insulated and durable. Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners told me that the units in the Y:Cube project they worked on met all modern building specifications and would have a life of 60 years or more, so they could be delivered not only for low-cost rented housing, but to purchase at low cost. The units are mortgageable, because of their 60-year life.
There is massive potential for such construction and I want local authorities and the Government to look at their available assets for sites that could support the development of the technology. They should also look at the roll-out of the factory units to construct the properties, because new factory jobs can be spread around the country so that the houses are built in factories close to where they will be deployed. That might be a useful tool for economic regeneration in areas where that is needed.
The project in Merton, south London, will followed by others in Lewisham and elsewhere in the city. The technology suits the London market in particular, where the gap between people’s average earnings and the average property price is so wide that property ownership is out of reach to many people. That has also pushed rents up. Those challenges are faced throughout the south-east and, in many ways, throughout the country. Prefabrication could be a solution to rebalance the market not through subsidy, but through the development of new technology to offer new choice and lower prices.
I look forward to what the Minister will say about such opportunities. The scheme that I outlined is by no means the only one—Urban Splash has a project in New Islington, in Manchester, in which people can in effect pre-order and pre-design their home before it has been constructed. It will be manufactured off-site and then assembled on-site to their exact specification. Again that can be done for less cost than might normally be the case in the construction sector, certainly where that level of purchaser design is part of the end product. Other companies are also looking at similar schemes. We could be on the verge of an exciting new technology, which could revolutionise the design and delivery of homes in this country. I will welcome the Minister’s views.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
It is a pleasure, Mr Owen, to serve under your chairmanship for the first time in a Westminster Hall debate.
I thank the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) for securing the debate. I agreed with a lot of what he said, so there is a risk that he will think that I have cribbed his speech. The debate is timely given that earlier in the week we had Second Reading of the Housing and Planning Bill in the House. We discussed the right to buy in social housing, which I spoke against for various reasons. One thing that was agreed, however, given the right to buy, was the need for replacement housing to be put back into circulation. Obviously, as has been said, prefabricated housing or off-site construction is one way to speed up that process cost-effectively.
As the hon. Gentleman said, the term “prefabricated housing” takes us back to the image of post-war housing. Although those prefabricated houses are now somewhat maligned, I agree that we have to compliment the ingenuity of the time. The houses served a real need, providing housing on site quickly when there was a shortage of raw materials. Also, the people who stayed in those prefabricated homes in general loved living in them, and some remain today, which is a testament to how well the houses were built, although in energy efficiency they no longer serve modern purposes. When I was a councillor with responsibility for housing, adapting that older prefabricated housing to energy-efficient standards was a real challenge, if not impossible. It is therefore good to revisit the prefabricated home with modern technologies for the new house build.
Over the years in Scotland, especially in the private housing sector, there has been a switch to kit houses, with much of the frame built off site for quick assembly on site, speeding up the whole building process. It makes sense that off-site construction has evolved further to provide complete wall panels, which come with insulation or even services included, and modular units.
In off-site construction, “modular units” is a more popular term than “prefabricated houses”, because it does not have quite the same connotation in the imagination. Modular units are now used for schools and offices, and we have heard about a retail development. No one looks at those units and thinks, “Oh, they were prefabricated”, or, “That’s off-site construction; it will only have a 10-year lifespan.” They look and feel permanent and have similar lifespans to traditional builds. It makes sense for modular units to be extended into the housing sector.
Damian Collins
The delivery of the London Olympic games was a triumph for UK design and architecture in many ways, and a prefabricated or off-site constructed unit was used for the basketball arena. It was a temporary building that was constructed for the games, but could then be disassembled and relocated to other places around the country.
Alan Brown
The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point about the successful delivery of the 2012 Olympics and prefabrication helping to control budgets.
It might surprise the House to know that Scotland is ahead of the curve with off-site construction and prefabrication. In 2013 there was an estimated construction value of £125 million in Scotland, compared with only £46 million in the rest of the UK. That illustrates a stark difference. Also in 2013, it was estimated that 50% of new houses in Scotland had an off-site build element, which again is a much higher rate than in the rest of the UK. We also have a much higher new build rate in social housing and private housing, and the 50% rate clearly contributes to that. Scotland’s housing growth also means a potential increase in exports, creating new jobs and keeping traditional construction jobs on site. There has been a real fillip for the construction industry.
I agree that there is less waste on site when there is off-site construction, and vehicle movements to and from the site can be reduced by up to 40%. We should consider that housing developments often take place adjacent to existing houses, so that reduction in movements is great for reducing disruption to local residents. Of course, having fewer vehicles also brings a safety benefit.
Damian Collins
Does the hon. Gentleman agree—I would also welcome the Minister’s thoughts on this—that we could consider off-site construction and assembly as having an advantage in the planning system, because there is less disruption to residents during the construction phase than with a normal build?
Alan Brown
I agree. When I was a councillor I was also chair of planning, and I know that the number of vehicle movements drives a lot of objections from local residents. I was in committees where we debated planning conditions to control and limit the times of movements. If we had a system that much reduced vehicle movements in the first place, that could certainly speed up planning and take some of the heat out of those considerations.
Off-site construction clearly speeds up the construction process. The trick is to have utilities on site ready for assembly. Utilities are the one risk to construction programmes, but that risk exists in traditional build as well. I am sure we have all heard about problems with getting utility companies to stick to their programme and engage with developers. As we increase the number of off-site constructions, we need to ensure that the utility companies are up to speed and do not cause delays, because delays inevitably mean that people do not get into their new-build homes quick enough.
I have outlined the advantages of this type of construction, which has seen real growth in Scotland. I want to highlight a couple of specialist companies—it is no surprise that we already have such companies operating in Scotland. Rural House, based in Skye, does more robust prefabricated designs for the more inclement highland weather. Its houses are also aesthetically pleasing; they are designed to look like traditional steadings.
In my neck of the woods, but in a neighbouring constituency, there is the Wee House Company, which was started up by an entrepreneurial 22-year-old. It can produce one or two-bedroom models in three weeks, with costs that start at £68,000. In a debate the other day there was much discussion about what was deemed affordable housing, but it is clear that units that start at £68,000 fall in that bracket.
Off-site construction has a real future in the house building industry. To steal a quote, “Let’s not call it prefabrication.”
Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
May I say what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen? I congratulate the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) on introducing an interesting element to our housing debate.
This week we have rehearsed the point well that we are in the middle of a housing crisis. Last year’s output was only 117,000 homes, and we need about 245,000 a year, so anything that can help us to plug that huge gap in supply has to be looked at carefully, especially given the number of homes we are producing for social rent: we produced fewer than 11,000 last year—nowhere near enough. We should be delivering about 78,000 each year if we are to meet need. We should therefore look in some detail at providing what the hon. Gentleman rightly described as off-site housing, rather than prefab housing.
This is not an easy debate. The hon. Gentleman said that we do not come to this issue in a vacuum, because a number of us have experienced prefab housing built between the wars, and during and after the second world war—housing that had to be demolished in the 1970s and rebuilt. Results varied across the country. Some prefab estates lasted much longer than that, and many people who live in them really like them, but many of those houses were of insufficient quality to last and had to be demolished. We need to be careful to say that we are not talking about that sort of housing.
The Government’s off-site housing review report, commissioned in 2013, suggested that prefabricated construction methods could form part of the solution to England’s housing supply crisis. It would be helpful to hear from the Minister what the Government are doing about that report, and whether they plan to incentivise the building of that housing in any way.
The report highlighted examples such as Y:Cube, a prefabricated home scheme developed by the YMCA in London that boasts self-contained, one-bedroom flats with their own bathroom, living room and kitchen—all in a compact unit of 26 square metres. Those homes are for vulnerable young people, and it is encouraging that they meet code level 6 energy requirements. A three-week test showed that each home could be lit and heated to 20° C all day and all night for £7 a week. That is really good in terms of energy costs, and the home has a lifespan of 60 years or more.
Damian Collins
That scheme, which was designed for vulnerable people, is very exciting. It also makes it possible for someone who lives in a house in multiple occupation to think about having a home of their own.
Dr Blackman-Woods
I absolutely agree. The task is to try to envisage a wider role for such specialist housing. I think that we can see that, but there is a real issue about how we can spread it more widely. I want to raise a couple of issues that need to be taken on board if it is to have much wider application.
Although the units in that scheme in south-west London had high energy efficiency and insulation specifications, that is not always the case. Some off-site housing still has poor insulation, or uses insulation materials that will not stand the test of time. That must be taken on board.
Points were made about off-site construction using less raw material. That might be the case in construction, because when houses are built in a factory to the same design, companies will create less waste. However, in transporting these units, a lot of wood and plastic is often used; those issues need to be taken on board.
Julian Sturdy
Surely when new houses are built, those materials are moved on to the site anyway, so movement is irrelevant.
Dr Blackman-Woods
I am listing things that need to be taken into consideration. It is as if we had a balance sheet and needed to see the evidence. That is the point—we need evidence, and we need to make sure that these issues are addressed. The hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe said that he wanted a revolution. I am not suggesting for a minute that there is no role for this sort of construction, but before it becomes more widespread throughout the country and across different types of housing—before the revolution—we need to be sure that we are not building up problems with transport, or with more movement on and off site. We also need to ensure that people have the right skills to construct the units properly.
Damian Collins
One attractive thing about the schemes is that not only can we use a factory at a distance from the site, but pop-up factories can be built on site, to create the units where they will be deployed.
Dr Blackman-Woods
That is a point well made. If apprenticeships can be attached to those factories, that will be helpful. We need people with the skills to construct the units.
Julian Sturdy
The hon. Lady is being very generous with her time. She is absolutely right that we need a skilled workforce to deliver the units. As I have mentioned, Portakabin employs nearly 2,000 people in my constituency. I have visited and looked at what that skilled workforce has delivered, and the results are huge. Portakabin is an exemplar for delivery in apprenticeship schemes as well. It is driving this sector forward, as are other companies across the country—there is a UK-based industry that can drive this construction forward.
Dr Blackman-Woods
That is helpful. It would be good to hear more about what is happening in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, and perhaps for some of us to see that work and talk to the company, so we can better understand the industry, how it is emerging and how it could be rolled out elsewhere.
Alan Brown
We should be careful not to associate a potential lack of construction skills solely with off-site prefabricated house building. Whatever type of house building is undertaken, the skills need to be there, and the sector has to be able to deliver the homes we need. The hon. Lady’s point is not necessarily pertinent only to what we are considering. Construction skills are generally transferable, anyway, as tradesmen can adapt to different styles of construction.
Dr Blackman-Woods
I agree with that. We need to develop skills right across the construction sector, as there is a skills shortage, but that is no reason not to consider that shortage with regard to off-site construction.
As the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe mentioned, we also need land for the units. That factor needs to be considered, along with infrastructure. When thinking about a unit’s cost, it is easy to get carried away and think it is much cheaper than it actually is, because land has not been factored in. The cost of land varies around the country, but it can be very expensive indeed. Size is also an issue; many costs quoted are for small units. Although such units may suit some people in some sectors of the housing market, they will not suit everyone, and larger units tend to be much more expensive.
Finally, there is the issue of mortgage availability. If prefabricated units are to be rolled out more widely, they have to be of a construction type that will attract mortgages. They must be seen to have some longevity; the fact that the units appear to be short-term seems to be what prevents mortgages from being given. We need to change the thinking about the units; I am simply highlighting the issues that we need to address.
I have looked at what is available on the market. It is good to hear from the hon. Member for York Outer (Julian Sturdy) that Britain is leading the way on innovation in these products, because a lot of the information in the press is about companies abroad— especially American, Australian and German companies—that have developed units for use primarily in their own countries. We seem to rely quite heavily on German companies, so it would be good if we could get an exchange of knowledge going with German developers.
I will list some interesting examples. Topsider makes two-bedroom homes ranging from 60 square metres to 250 square metres, which can be built at a cost of between $60,000 and $350,000—that range is just huge. I emphasise my earlier point that these units are not necessarily cheap. In Germany, homes made by Baufritz are very expensive, as are some of the Australian-made ones, because they are high-end and use very good materials. They are a premium housing product, rather than a cheaper, more widely deliverable one.
I have talked a lot about issues that need to be addressed in rolling out such units, so lastly I will talk about some of the possibilities. We know that these types of homes can deliver impressive reductions in energy bills. They can also lead to faster construction and so a faster return on investment. Modular construction can reduce an overall completion schedule by as much as 50%. Speeding up housing construction is important, given that we need to increase supply very quickly. Because the units are produced indoors, they are, to a degree, unaffected by weather, increasing work efficiency and avoiding damage to building materials.
The units can be low waste, as the manufacturer is constantly building to the same plans, so often knows exactly what quantity of materials to use for any given job. That avoids the need for skips going on and off construction sites—we have all seen that. Units can be environmentally friendly, and not only because of the reduction in waste; if constructed properly, they can reduce disturbance on site. The properties are flexible, and can be extended or reduced because of their modular components; they could therefore be good housing for families, who could add to their home as their family grew. The builds are also often healthier, because of the controlled environment. Having said that, maintenance and repair can sometimes be more complex and costly; that needs to be factored in.
The real issue is how we ensure that the units and properties are well designed and of good quality to begin with, and that such properties can be produced at scale, as that is where the sector has failed in the past. Does the Minister intend there to be any financial incentives for the sector, particularly for low-cost housing? If so, how will he seek to ensure that we do not repeat the errors of the past and are able to welcome this innovation in housing design and delivery?
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Brandon Lewis)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) for securing this debate on a genuinely important subject. We have an opportunity to ensure good-quality affordable housing. Both he and my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer (Julian Sturdy) were right to highlight that this country has the opportunity to lead the way and showcase some of the excellent work done in this sector of the industry. That is why I was rather disappointed and slightly surprised by the remarks of the hon. Member for City of Durham (Dr Blackman-Woods). I cannot quite work out why the Labour party wants to spend so much time talking down the British housing industry. The hon. Lady spent more than five minutes talking about all the things she thinks are wrong in the industry.
Dr Blackman-Woods
I do not think I suggested for a minute that the Labour party would not support these innovations. I was arguing for good-quality design that could be rolled out at scale without repeating any of the problems of the past. I want to make it clear that the Labour party welcomes these innovations.
Brandon Lewis
I am pleased that we have managed to elicit that statement, given that we spent eight minutes listening to the hon. Lady list all the things in the industry she is not happy with. If Labour Members spent some time looking at what was going on in the British off-site and advanced construction industry, they would see that there is some phenomenal expertise out there. I am sure the industry will want to explain to them some of the things my hon. Friends and I have heard about through talking with the industry and visiting sites. I will talk more specifically about some of that later.
Today’s debate follows on from Second Reading of the Housing and Planning Bill and the problems we heard about then. The hon. Lady talked about the number of housing starts, but she, rather like the shadow Housing Minister, the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), seemed to forget that there were 75,000 and 88,000 housing starts respectively in the last two years of the Labour Government. That is the inheritance we had to build on, and the industry can play an important part in that. Fortunately, despite what the hon. Lady said—her figures are somewhat out of date—we were back up to 136,000 starts in the last recorded 12 months, which is a big improvement on the disgraceful situation that Labour left, with just 75,000 starts in its last year.
My hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe will be fully aware that, during the recent election campaign, the Conservative party made it clear that increasing home ownership and house building would be a top priority. He was right to highlight the fact that the industry has a big part to play. We have been working on this issue since 2010 and, as I said, we have built the numbers back up, although nobody disagrees that there is still a long way to go. We want to see a lot more happen, and that is where the industry has a large role to play.
The number of first-time buyers has doubled since 2009, so our success in that respect is already apparent, but our ambition, which we are determined to realise, is to go further. A fully functioning and efficient housing market is vital to meeting the aspirations of working people and to raising our country’s productivity. That is why we are committed to encouraging not only home ownership, but increased housing supply, to make sure that we have more good-quality homes that people can afford to buy and that we support all parts of the housing market and all tenures.
The way we do that is equally important. We need to deliver more new, high-quality homes, with well thought out interior design, built quickly and efficiently. As was outlined by my hon. Friend today and earlier this week by my Norfolk neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon), the industry can play a part by linking with custom build to make sure we remember that a house is built for a customer. We need to design homes that are right for the people who will live in them. The Government’s proposals in the Housing and Planning Bill are designed to achieve that.
We want to see innovation in the house building and construction sector. I want us to have a diversified industry —one that does not rely on the same old companies and build in the way we have for the last 50 to 100 years. The way we build homes—traditionally using the larger builders—involves the same techniques that have been used for 50 or, arguably, 150 years. On average, it can take 20 weeks to build a house, should there be—I say this only somewhat tongue in cheek—a good flow of weather. We need to move to a system where homes are built in weeks, if not days.
Innovation and new ways of working are key to the sector’s future. Industry needs to innovate to stay competitive. That applies to the construction of homes as much as to any other field. If the larger developers do not take these types of construction forward in the years ahead, there will come a point—even the chief executives of these companies have said this to me—where they risk being left behind. Competition is good for the industry. Homes in China are being constructed using 3D printers, and they are assembled in a matter of hours. It is suggested that such homes cost about £300 a square metre and it is claimed that they will last for 150 years. That might be a bit beyond where our market is, but it is certainly the kind of innovation that is coming. Such innovations should be a key part of our housing industry. Building the housing we need quickly and cost-effectively, so that people can move in within days of assembly starting, could transform this country’s rate of housing delivery from the 20-plus weeks we see with traditional techniques.
We are talking about modern prefabricated homes, but like others I like to use the phrases “off-site construction” or “advanced construction”. In our recent discussions with industry, we have been referring to advanced housing manufacture. Homes built using such techniques—there is a variety out there—are finally starting to set the benchmark for the latest, cutting-edge designs. They are built in highly controlled factory settings and the parts are assembled precisely and on-site. Advanced housing manufacture can not only deliver high-quality homes, but help to build them quickly and efficiently. The method is now being used widely in advanced economies around the world.
The Government are keen to encourage more innovation in the way we build homes, and we are doing that through our housing programmes. The hon. Member for City of Durham asked what we are doing, so let me outline that. Through our housing zones programme, 30 brownfield sites across the country will be developed using £600 million of public funding, and we are encouraging the use of innovative construction on those sites. As my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe outlined, brownfield sites are often in built-up areas, where small plots and busy streets are a perfect match for advanced techniques. It is good to have debates such as this so that we can highlight some of these points, and I hope people will take note of what is said this morning.
We are also funding innovation through our multibillion pound affordable housing programme. So far, a fifth of the homes in the homes and communities programme after 2015 will be built using innovative construction techniques. Our £1 billion Build to Rent fund is also helping to build 10,000 good-quality homes for private rent. Fifteen schemes to create more than 4,000 new homes are already in contract and more deals are in the pipeline. Again, we are encouraging innovative construction through that programme, and the private rented sector fits that approach perfectly. We are also backing the market with our £150 million Custom Build Serviced Plot Loans fund, which pays for the preparation of shovel-ready sites. Large numbers of custom and self-builders prefer to use off-site construction techniques, because they appreciate the high-quality, sustainable designs and the rapid construction.
Small and medium-sized builders are vital to achieving the higher levels of innovation we all want. We are supporting them through our £525 million Builders Finance fund, which provides loans to unlock small sites, and the £100 million Housing Growth Partnership run by the Lloyds group—we are partnering Lloyds in that—which helps small builders to invest in new projects and to develop their businesses.
The wider Construction 2025 strategy sets ambitious goals for reducing costs and speeding up the delivery of construction projects, as well as encouraging innovation in the sector. We are supporting construction firm Laing O’Rourke to develop its advanced housing manufacturing factory facilities through a £22.1 million grant from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. There is also funding from industry more widely.
The Government are supporting the development of new apprenticeship and training programmes with a focus on off-site construction. Those are being led by industry players such as Laing O’Rourke and Skanska. It is important that we develop skills in the sector. What is beneficial about the programmes is that the skills they develop are different from the skills used in traditional techniques, and they can help with the huge skills shortage we have in the house building industry.
I welcome moves by industry to promote innovation in house building and to point the industry towards the future. I also welcome the opportunities presented by the techniques we are discussing. Last year, Buildoffsite launched its new housing hub to promote the benefits of advanced housing manufacturing. The hub aims to promote knowledge-sharing between clients and suppliers; raise awareness of new techniques; encourage new members; and develop a methodology to demonstrate the value of off-site solutions. The hub is continuing encourage wider take-up of the Buildoffsite property assurance scheme, which aims to give lenders assurance about the quality and durability of homes built using innovative construction methods. As my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe rightly said, the lifespan these construction methods give—in many cases, as I outlined with the China example, it goes way beyond 60 years—makes these homes very viable for mortgage lending. I talk to mortgage lenders regularly about that and other schemes to make sure they are aware of the opportunities.
It is great when innovative schemes are brought forward, and I will describe some that I have seen. The Accord group in Walsall has a scheme providing homes for rent. They are made in a factory and assembled across the road on a housing site, and the staff are people who live in the area. I saw two homes being built in a day—a very impressive rate of building. Even if it was done to show off for “The One Show”, it proved what can be done. Bearing in mind comments made about skills this morning, I found it particularly interesting that of the 17 or 18 staff on that site, all but one of them, I think, had either been unemployed or had no experience of the housing industry before starting work, yet within a couple of weeks they were playing a part in building new homes. That is a good example how this approach can change the skills supply for the industry.
Innovative construction is also being used as part of the Bicester garden town scheme. High-quality energy-efficient homes are being built for rent, shared ownership and sale. I have also visited an off-site construction company in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk, who is in the Chamber this morning; people are even being taught how to build for themselves. That is a great opportunity for young people to learn a skill and to be part of building their own home. It fits perfectly with my hon. Friend’s ambitions for the use of off-site construction in custom and self-build, which he is passionate about.
I recently helped to launch the Y:Cube scheme in Merton, which has been mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe and others. Well designed, high-quality homes have been built there, using advanced housing manufacture; and they are being made available for rent to young people in the local area. Those homes offer affordable accommodation for single people who are volunteering or who are in training, education or full or part-time employment. They are well designed, drawing on the creativity of high-quality architects—some of the best we know, such as Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners. They use new forms of construction to save time and costs.
I have visited a factory in Derbyshire where homes are being manufactured quickly and efficiently, again showing the possibility of a different skill set. The clean indoor environment extends the working life of people in the industry. Some of the units developed there are being used by Urban Splash, which is developing an exciting custom build scheme in Manchester, using off-site construction to enable buyers to customise their homes and create a bespoke solution, tailored to meet their needs. That is exactly the kind of development we want in the housing sector.
At Creekside Wharf in Greenwich, Essential Living is using an innovative modular technique to produce high-quality homes for private rent. All those schemes are just examples demonstrating the benefits that advanced housing manufacture can bring. They are a sample of what is happening: faster construction and good quality design and build, with low energy bills and the creation of jobs and homes. Council and social housing can also reap the benefits, as I have seen from the south Norfolk company that has developed homes for the local authority in Great Yarmouth.
Challenges remain, however, including shaking off stereotypical images of prefabricated housing based on some poor-quality past schemes such as the hon. Member for City of Durham described. We do the industry no justice by making such comparisons. What now exists is different; it is innovative and the quality is high. We need faster and more widespread take-up by a range of industry players who will encourage collaboration between developers and architects and work with communities, home buyers and planners, with the support of lenders. Then we can get things right. We need to build more homes in communities. Buyers, self-builders, renters and communities across the country appreciate homes of high quality and thoughtful design that are affordable and that are built quickly, in the right place. Advanced housing manufacture can achieve, or help to achieve, all that. It has enormous potential to create jobs and growth through a new factory-based industry. I encourage industry to go further with it, and use it more often. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe again on securing such an important debate.
Damian Collins
I thank the Minister and all hon. Members who took part in the debate. As the Minister said, we are at an important stage in the development of the advanced manufacture of homes for Britain. I was pleased to hear about his personal interest in the subject, as well as the Government’s interest, and about the role that advanced manufacture has in meeting the housing targets we have set for affordable homes to rent or buy. I hope that local authorities and public bodies that pick up on the debate will consider the use that they could make of such techniques in meeting their housing targets. I shall talk to the councils in my constituency about it, and I hope that other hon. Members will do the same. I am sure that we shall return to the subject in future housing debates.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered modern prefabricated housing.
Secondary School Places (London Borough of Sutton)
(8 years, 7 months ago)
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Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered secondary school places in the London Borough of Sutton.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. Some years ago, school place planning around London dictated that a number of schools, especially across Sutton, should contract in size. Across London, though, it was quickly discovered that the plans were horrendously wrong, and that in fact the exact opposite was required: there were more people moving into the borough, there was a higher birth rate than was originally predicted, and during the economic downturn fewer parents sent their children to nearby independent schools.
The London Borough of Sutton moved to expand primary schools across the area. Bulge classes and permanent new buildings sprang up in every school. Despite a number of people asking about secondary education, the council seemed to forget that children have a funny habit of growing up and needing secondary school places. We were assured that the council could cope.
Secondary schools have been through the same process as primaries. New buildings and classes have popped up. Stanley Park high school in Carshalton has moved to a new location and expanded considerably as a result. I was on the project board for that school when it was built; it was one of the last Building Schools for the Future projects. It was built on a former hospital site after more than a year of wrangling between two public bodies: the council and the NHS. Between them, about £1 million of taxpayers’ money was spent on legal fees. From that experience, I know about the difficulties and inertia when working with the public sector.
In subsequent years, the private sector, which on the whole is far more nimble, started to look at Sutton after development opportunities in surrounding boroughs were exhausted. Many of the plots of land that might have made a good school site were snapped up for residential, retail and other mixed development. Now, we are scratching around to find sites that can deliver the infrastructure improvements required to support an expanding population.
Sutton has a particular environment when it comes to schooling. It regularly features at the top of the list of local education authorities for results, which is one of the biggest attractions for families coming to Sutton. At the centre of that excellence are its five grammar schools. Those selective schools have deservedly excellent reputations. However, their existence means that Sutton is a net importer of children, with students coming not only from neighbouring Croydon and Merton, but from central London and even the south coast. Pressure is therefore more acute in Sutton than in many other parts of London. If Wallington County grammar school applies for and opens an annexe in Croydon, as has been reported, that may help to alleviate the situation regarding school places in the east of the borough by keeping children in Croydon closer to home, but there is still a long way to go to secure enough secondary school places in the coming years to satisfy predicted demand.
I will quickly share the chronology of events that has led us to an impasse in trying to secure the school places that we so desperately need. In November 2012, Sutton council acknowledged that a new secondary school might have to be built in Sutton as early as 2015. Early reports showed that the predicted shortfall in places would be most acutely felt in the centre and to the north of Sutton town centre. In June 2013, Sutton council’s education committee instructed officers to investigate sites for a new secondary school. That October, the same committee noted that a new secondary school would probably be required in 2017 or 2018. In the following January, the council confirmed that a new 10-form-entry secondary school would be required in 2017. That was the advice from the secondary schools partnership—a body made up of senior representatives from all the local secondary schools. The reference to 10-form entry was later changed to eight-form entry, which remains the estimate today. However, it was reported that the council did not have sufficient resources to build that school.
In December 2013, the then MPs came out in public as supporting part of the soon-to-be redundant Sutton hospital site as their favoured location for a new school opening in 2017. That site is in the south of the borough, close to the Surrey border.
In March 2014, the council’s secondary school expansion plan acknowledged the difficulty of identifying suitable sites for new schools:
“Due to the difficulty in acquiring even one suitable site, any new school should be as large as possible…to take greatest advantage of such a site.”
In June 2014, the council’s education committee was told that a site for a new secondary school would have to be acquired
“in the very near future”,
and there was a lead-in time of two to three and a half years for getting the new school open. Therefore any site would have to be sorted as early as 2016 for even a 2019 opening.
At that time, the council was refusing to share with the public the long list of sites that it was looking at, so I starting looking myself and noticed an overgrown, derelict, full-size artificial football pitch at the back of a park in Rosehill, just to the north of Sutton town centre, where demand is most acute. At the time, that was out to tender for a five-a-side football pitch arrangement after years of being left unused and locked up. The council already owned that land, so it would clearly save money. I spoke to the owners of Sutton Sports Village, a world-class tennis academy immediately adjacent to the site. They were supportive of a school being located there and expressed an interest in sparking up a partnership when it eventually opened.
In November 2014, Sutton Council announced that it had identified two sites for a new secondary school: part of the Sutton hospital site and Rosehill all-weather pitch, my preferred site. It commissioned feasibility studies for both sites, despite the fact that the Education Funding Agency, which is ultimately responsible for choosing the plot, would conduct its own. Before the council’s studies were complete, the council spent about £8 million buying land on the Sutton hospital site from the NHS. That parcel of land was not the same as the one first envisaged as suitable for a school. In fact, the council’s own feasibility study, when it was completed, showed that it was only 20% of the recommended size for an eight-form-entry secondary school. There would be no playing fields, no recreational area. In reality, to fulfil demand, any school on that plot would have to be in the order of four storeys high, built close to the street line, and just 2 metres from the closest family home. It would be totally out of keeping with the area, and as someone who served on Sutton’s planning committee as a councillor for four years, I cannot envisage how such a proposal would ever get planning permission from anyone with an independent eye.
In June 2015, the EFA confirmed that the Sutton hospital site was too small, but cleared the Rosehill site to proceed, leaving it as Sutton’s only viable new school site. The council and the EFA continued talks over the summer, leading the EFA to believe that heads of terms would soon be agreed when I met the person in charge of negotiations on 16 September. However, just two days later, Sutton council’s political administration pulled the plug on that site, saying that they would not release the land at Rosehill and insisting that the school could be built only on the land at Sutton hospital.
Last month, the approved sponsor for the proposed free school, the Greenshaw Learning Trust, said that the land that the council had bought at Sutton hospital was not sufficient for the school that it has approval for, and that it is still looking for a site. The EFA has confirmed that it is helping it in that endeavour. And so we reach the current deadlock.
There are three options for moving this matter on. The EFA can try to buy more land at the Sutton hospital site, which will cost even more money, leave the school in the wrong part of Sutton, and start to eat into land that is earmarked for an ambitious joint venture for a cancer research hub between the council, the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, the Institute of Cancer Research and the Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust. That would be an expensive short-term fix that would hamper strategic plans, and all because of an intransigent approach at this stage. A new provider on the site would not get Department for Education approval for a free school until next summer at the earliest, delaying the project for yet another year. There is also the small matter of the chief executive of the relevant hospital trust making it clear that he has no interest in selling off more of the site.
The second option is that another site could be found. There are examples of free schools across the country that have been built in unconventional styles. Fresh thinking may throw up an interesting use of an as yet unidentified site. I like to think that I am up for a bit of creative thinking, but over the last two years nothing, but nothing, has come to mind.
The third option is the most obvious: to look again at the Rosehill site. The political administration of the council—the senior Liberal Democrat councillors—dismiss that site, as it is classified as metropolitan open land, but that environmental argument is inconsistent for a number of reasons. Sutton council was happy to build an incinerator on metropolitan open land in another part of the borough. It is also planning a primary school on metropolitan open land in Hackbridge. It appears that only metropolitan open land on this site, in the ward represented by the leader of Sutton council, is immune from consideration this side of the 2018 local elections. In fact, the site has not been dismissed as being unavailable for any secondary school that is required by 2020, so we may see a school here anyway—just too late.
Sutton is fortunate to have many parks and open spaces, so I did not easily reach the conclusion that this site was best. As London expands and local residents wonder how their children will be able to afford housing in the area where they grew up, we need to plan to meet that demand and to cope with the resulting pressure on infrastructure. The Rosehill solution addresses that as best it can. That was echoed by a valuer who looked at the site and said that it was the best site for a school that he had seen in years. The footprint of the school building can be contained on the plot of the derelict artificial pitch. Car parking can be limited to an already-concreted area to the north of the site. Not only can the parkland remain, but if it is used as playing fields it can be maintained by the school and shared with the community.
I regularly speak to the Mayor about the need for a Sutton tram extension, which is included in his plan for London. The proposed route for that tram extension runs along the front of Rosehill. A train station is close by, and several buses run along the two roads that surround the site. That is in contrast to the junction at the Sutton hospital site, which would inevitably have to be remodelled to cope with the increased traffic, and which has fewer public transport links.
There are two secondary schools close to the Rosehill site: Greenshaw, which is the original school behind the Greenshaw Learning Trust, and Glenthorne. Both are incredibly popular and successful schools, and they are regularly over-subscribed. There is only one secondary school near Sutton hospital, Overton Grange. That might seem, at first glance, to suggest that there is a shortage of spaces in the south, but I believe that Overton Grange has been less popular than the other schools in recent years, so it has been under-subscribed. The biggest centre of demand appears to be in the roads around Sutton bus garage, to the north of the town centre. Although the Minister represents a seat close to Sutton and Cheam, I would not expect him to know the exact geography of the area, but I am always happy to show him around. Suffice it to say that Sutton bus garage is only five to 10 minutes’ walk from the Rosehill site.
We need immediate action. Residents have been waiting for years to see something at least get started. Just as we thought that was happening, things came to a juddering halt when the matter became politically difficult. It was put off in the lead up to the 2014 local elections, and again before this year’s general election. We cannot have the 2018 local election dictating school place planning policy in Sutton. We need proper reconsideration of the council’s position in a measured and open way. We cannot allow the council to continue with the approach that it has been taking lately, and that has spurred me to bring the matter to the Minister. The first that the EFA and the approved school provider, the Greenshaw Learning Trust, knew about the decision to about-turn and refuse to release the Rosehill site was via a press release that they received indirectly. That is no way to conduct business. Not a lot gets me annoyed, but playing politics with the education of our current cohort of nine-year-olds, who risk not getting a local school place in two years’ time, frankly appals me.
I cannot help thinking that when the Mayor looks at the issue when he is considering whether to invest in the tram extension, when international cancer research companies look at the proposed London cancer hub in the south of Sutton, or when developers look to Sutton for opportunities to build the housing that we so badly need, they will think again. They will wonder whether the time, energy and money spent on early planning might not be wasted, because the rug may be suddenly pulled out from under their feet on a political whim. They will be reluctant to work with a local authority that conducts its discussions via press release.
Sutton council says that it can open a school on the Sutton hospital site, but there is no evidence of any achievable plan. We need a school to accommodate 240 pupils in just two years’ time simply to start meeting demand. We know that a school will take two to three and a half years to build, and we still do not have a site. Securing planning permission for any site will not be straightforward. I am all for local decision making, and I am very much in favour of greater local accountability, but I do not believe that the parents of those nine-year-old children are aware of the totally avoidable crisis that we face as a direct result of the locally elected representatives. I hope that the Minister can help to break the impasse by stepping in and getting the council to take a truly strategic, common-sense view, breaking the deadlock, and securing the school places that the council is failing to provide, and that we so desperately need.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Sam Gyimah)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully) on securing the debate. I have noted his invitation to join him for a tour of his constituency. I look forward to a formal invite, and I would very much like to visit the constituency in due course. He has brought to the House an important issue that will have a significant impact on the residents of Sutton in the coming years, and I share his confusion at the outcome of the council’s deliberations on the Rosehill site.
First, I want to take the opportunity to reiterate the Government’s commitment to one of our key priorities: ensuring that there are sufficient school places across the country. We have already shown the strength of our commitment to making sure that every child has access to a good-quality school place. We plan to invest £7 billion over the Parliament to provide new school places, including through basic need allocations to local authorities. That is £2 billion more than was allocated for school places under the previous coalition Government, and almost four times as much as was allocated from 2007 to 2011.
Ensuring that every child has access to the benefits of a good-quality education is a fundamental responsibility of all of us across the education system. As my hon. Friend knows, the statutory duty to provide school places rests with local authorities. Our financial commitment is a concrete demonstration of the level of importance that the Government attach to the provision of school places, and to our wider commitment to ensuring that every child has a good school place.
We committed in our manifesto to delivering at least 500 new free schools during this Parliament, creating 270,000 school places. Since the election in May, 18 new free school applications have already been approved, and many more are now entering the process. We continue to encourage businesses, cultural and sporting bodies, charities, community groups and parents to come forward with proposals for new schools, to add to the 304 open free schools and the more than 100 that are currently in the pipeline.
It is important that local authorities across the country see, and seek to capitalise on, the opportunity presented by the free schools programme. Such schools work alongside local authorities to create the school places we need to provide a good education for our children, and many authorities are choosing to work actively with the Government to meet that challenge.
As well as funding places, the Department keeps a close eye on the progress that local authorities are making in meeting basic need. Between 2010 and 2014, more than 445,000 new places were created through the work of local authorities and, of course, the Government’s free schools programme. Many more places have been delivered since then, and thousands more are in the pipeline. In 2013 and 2014 alone, local authorities reported adding an additional 110,000 primary and 74,000 secondary places into the system. The free schools programme is also adding significant capacity to the system; more than 153,000 new places have been created by the 304 free schools that have been established, with the promise of many more to come.
I pay tribute to all those in authorities and in schools who have helped to deliver the significant progress we have seen in recent years. The task, however, is not yet done. As the numbers I mentioned some moments ago suggest, the increase in pupils moving through the primary phase is now beginning to be felt at secondary level. My hon. Friend touched on that. Local authorities and academies must rise to that added dimension of challenge at the same time as primary numbers continue to grow, albeit less rapidly than in recent years. We should not pretend that meeting that challenge will be easy, which is why we are committed to helping both with funding and by establishing new schools directly under the free schools programme.
As a thriving global city, London has a large part to play in meeting that challenge. Some 35% of the new places delivered by 2014 were in London, and the capital will have a big part to play in meeting the challenge in the coming years. As my hon. Friend highlighted, the London Borough of Sutton has its own local context, with a wealth of strong local schools attracting pupils from beyond its borders. The popularity of those schools is a healthy sign, and I commend those who work in them.
A key strength of the current system of co-operation on school places, and one that is particularly seen across London, is that pupils can access schools beyond the border of their own local authority and find the school that is best suited to their needs. We do not want to lose that strength, nor the resilience that it helps to bring to the system. However, we need to find ways to support the boroughs that most keenly feel the impact of cross-border movement, such as the London Borough of Sutton.
The way that we provide funding for new places recognises that movement and is based on local authorities’ own assessments of the number of pupils they expect to have. That approach has helped the Government allocate Sutton council more than £110 million of funding for school places from 2011 to 2018, making it the 18th highest- funded authority for basic need in the country, and that funding has been put to work. Sutton council worked with its schools to put in place an additional 2,289 primary school places and 1,143 secondary school places between 2010 and 2014, with plans to create many more when they are needed in the coming years. That leads me to the matter in hand.
The Government are helping Sutton council to meet its places challenge directly, with the approval of the Sutton free school, which will see the borough join the many local authorities that have already benefited from the free schools programme. As my hon. Friend mentioned, the Sutton free school is scheduled to open in 2017, and is being built to provide eight forms of entry and a welcome new capacity of 1,550 places to the borough. The new school will add to the variety of options in the area and give parents even more choice in selecting the right school for their children. The school represents an exciting opportunity to broaden provision within Sutton and, with the co-operation of the council, it and other free schools can be delivered to help to meet the need for new school places. I am therefore perplexed by the current situation.
The Department for Education had meetings with officers of Sutton council about the Rosehill all-weather pitch site and was told that the council would agree for the land to be transferred to the Department for the school. I am seriously disappointed that the council has since changed its mind about the site and removed it as an option. Rosehill remains the preferred site for the Sutton free school due to its size, its access to playing fields and being in a good location for a much-needed, large, eight-form-entry secondary school. It is on metropolitan open land, but building on such land would not be a precedent in Sutton. Indeed, as my hon. Friend mentioned, there is an incinerator on metropolitan open land in Sutton at the moment.
The alternative site, the Belmont hospital site, could accommodate a smaller secondary school to help to meet the need for places from 2018 onwards. However, in its current form it is not suitable for the Sutton free school. Other free school proposers have been in talks with the council about a further, smaller secondary school in the next round of free school applications next year. Given the demand for secondary school places that is projected by the council, the ideal solution would be to take forward plans for both sites, with a proposer to be identified for a second school on the Belmont hospital site.
At this early stage, we still have the opportunity to review the options for bringing forward two much needed secondary schools in Sutton. I urge the council, in the strongest terms, to reconsider its plans to meet its basic need for secondary school places. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this important issue.
Question put and agreed to.
Treasury Support for UK Science
(8 years, 7 months ago)
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Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the role of the Treasury in supporting UK science.
First of all, let me say that it is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe.
I start my speech today with the simple assertion that science is a critical part of our everyday lives. It is important not only because it explains the world we live in—the world we see, hear and feel every day, which we all take for granted—but because it also makes the world of tomorrow. It shapes the future in a way that fascinates most people, and it does so with breathtaking speed. Who knows what will be possible in the future? Without science, our world would be a very different place and many of the things that we take for granted would not exist. We live longer, thanks to science; we live better lives, thanks to science; and we live broader and more expansive lives, thanks to science.
The UK, for its part, has always punched above its weight in science and innovation. Our laboratories, universities, research councils and innovation bodies are world-leading. To exemplify this point, I will refer to the startling statistic that although the UK’s population equates to just 0.9% of the global population, we account for 15.9% of the world’s most highly cited scientific research articles; since the start of the 20th century we have had 78 Nobel prize-winners, 12 of them since 2004.
We are first in the world for the impact of our science. We have built a strong record of converting science-driven discovery into economic gain, with the UK now ranked second in the world for innovation, and for every £1 invested in public research and development, there is a boost of between 20p and 30p per annum in perpetuity. The UK knowledge economy sustains a third of our businesses, with wage rates 40% higher than the average wage in the field. To be fair to previous Governments, investment in science and innovation has delivered impact in many of the areas identified as priorities, such as promoting innovation, growth and—very importantly—improvement in public services.
Maintaining our leading position in science is increasingly difficult, though, thanks to an increasingly competitive global marketplace. With countries such as India, China, and South Korea increasingly competing in the technology stakes, it is becoming clear that we need not only to maintain our research base, but to grow it. To do that, we need a commitment from Government to invest in science. It is time to take stock, to remind ourselves just how important science is to our economy, and to assess how seriously we may be damaged if we fail to support our scientific research base with adequate public funding. In my view, the most persuasive way of making the case for the importance of science to the economy is to seek a simple answer to a simple question—what has science ever done for us?
For a start, let us look at one of the major contributions made by my home city, Sheffield, which of course is where stainless steel was invented, just over a hundred years ago. Stainless steel is a technology that literally changed the world, to the extent that we do not even realise now how widely it is applied in the technologies that we all enjoy. Let not us forget either that Sheffield is also the home of Ronseal, which not only does what it says on the tin, but plays a leading role in developing environmentally friendly coatings for use in the home. Sheffield leads the way even now, with two fine research universities and its Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre, the original model for the country’s catapult initiatives. In joint ventures between Sheffield University and companies such as Rolls-Royce and Boeing, cutting-edge materials are being developed for the aerospace industry, such as the use of carbon fibre blades for the next generation of aerospace engines and lightweight aeroplane bodies.
In the chemicals field, the UK leads the way. Chemical and pharmaceutical products are our largest manufacturing export, with the chemicals sector alone enjoying an annual turnover of £60 billion. It sustains some half a million jobs throughout the country—well paid, for the most part—and finds solutions that make life better and more secure for all of us. Let us bear in mind that penicillin is a British discovery that has transformed medicine, saving countless lives. Today, the pharmaceutical industry employs 68,000 people in the UK, with 23,000 of them employed in highly skilled R and D roles.
The work goes on. British scientists from across the spectrum work on projects that impact on every aspect of our lives, helping us to meet the challenges of today—not just the obvious challenges, such as using agri-tech research to help to feed a growing world population or how to use modern science to develop the technologies we need if we are achieve a truly low-carbon economy, but other challenges that are none the less important. For instance, researchers at the University of Leicester have developed new technology that reveals previously undetectable fingerprints on metal objects; the method has been used in more than 100 criminal cases so far and is enabling the reopening of closed cold cases. Also, research into the structure of graphite is extending the lifetime of the UK’s nuclear reactors, resulting in an effective saving of £40 million to date and helping not only to keep the lights on but to reduce the country’s carbon footprint.
As we can see, science is all around us. It gives us hope for the future, for our health, for our security, for our living standards and for the sustainability of our living standards. We are good at science here in the UK—after all, we are the country where Newton discovered gravity and Faraday made early advances in harnessing the power of electricity, fundamental advances that revolutionised our understanding of the world.
Science has done a great deal for humanity and it is precisely because it fulfils such an important role in changing lives that it is also vital to our economy, particularly if we are to maintain and grow our economy and our knowledge base. A modern knowledge economy has to be underpinned by science. For example, my constituency is home to Tata’s Speciality Steels, which works at the top end of high-value steelmaking. Tata knows that it has to stay ahead of the game with its research if it is to survive the challenges presented by developing economies such as China. It almost goes without saying that if steel is one of our foundation industries—I think it is commonly accepted that it is—science is one of the vital foundations of steelmaking itself.
Our position on science has been strong. The UK has enjoyed a powerful public research base, creative innovation mechanisms and a supply of highly skilled workers, who help to drive up our productivity and further develop our knowledge economy. Our position on science has encouraged inward investment. The UK is the largest recipient in Europe of such funding, despite the squeeze on public investment and the long-term neglect of our science capability. However, this rather unbalanced approach to investment cannot continue without damaging both the UK’s reputation and our economy. Government investment in R and D acts as a powerful magnet for industry investment, both domestic and foreign, and the announcement in the comprehensive spending review of any more cuts would risk damaging our overall funding profile even more.
Mr Andrew Smith (Oxford East) (Lab)
I am sorry that I missed the very beginning of my hon. Friend’s excellent speech. On her last point, does she agree with me that it would be a great mistake if the tax credit grant element of research help to industry was converted into loans, which has been mooted in some quarters and which businesses that carry out a lot of R and D are very worried about?
Angela Smith
I agree entirely with my right hon. Friend that any fiscal levers designed to improve the research profile of UK science should be maintained.
It is worth mentioning that according to a study by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, every £1 of public investment secures an increase of between £1.13 and £1.60 in private funding. The importance of public funding for science is underlined by comparisons with our international competitors. The comparisons are not flattering—indeed, since the mid-1980s, our investment in science and innovation has fallen behind, leaving us sixth in the G7 for overall spending and last overall for public investment alone. South Korea enjoys public and private investment in science equivalent to 3.6% of GDP—no wonder it looks likely that South Korea, rather than Forgemasters in Sheffield, will be making the pressure vessels for our nuclear power stations—and in Germany and the USA, the figure is 2.8%. Here in the UK, the figure stands at just 1.7%.
We have punched above our weight, but it is clear that that cannot continue. Comparatively low levels of investment in research and development risk losing any competitive advantage we have over other innovation leaders who are investing more. As we all know, our economic productivity has already fallen by at least 15% from a pre-financial crisis position of steady growth. International studies demonstrate impressive and positive impacts on productivity from increased scientific research and development profiles, and it is clear that our 1.7% GDP investment rate is causing problems.
I acknowledge, of course, that the Government ring-fenced funding during the last Parliament and that that decision helped to keep safe £1.2 billion of private sector investment, but it is also true that the cash limit on research and development represented a real-terms cut of around £l billion. Although that decrease has been weathered in the short-term, if extended, it risks serious damage not just to our science base, but to the economy itself. If this Government and this Chancellor are serious about rebalancing the economy and closing the productivity gap—as a northern MP, I include the northern powerhouse in that—we need to see robust and secure funding plans for science put in place. How can we hope to become, as the Chancellor wants, the highly skilled, highly advanced economy with a healthy export profile and a healthy balance of payments if we allow our science base to slide further down the international league tables?
As we come to the all-important comprehensive spending review, we need to see the Chancellor’s warm words matched with a commitment in the review to tackling the underfunding of science in our economy.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
I commend the hon. Lady on securing this debate and on making a powerful speech. She talks about the forthcoming spending review. Does she agree that we would like to see more than just words about one nation science? The Minister and his colleagues should liaise with the devolved legislatures across the UK, particularly on universities, so that one nation science becomes the reality, rather than just a soundbite.
Angela Smith
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that. I agree that wherever in the UK a university is, if it is demonstrating real expertise in a scientific discipline and it comes up with good, robust proposals that are approved by its peers in the scientific community, it should benefit from an equitable spread of funding for research and development.
I conclude by asking the Minister for assurances about future public funding for our science and research base. First, will he commit to maintaining the ring fence for Government science spending over the next period, and will the Treasury fund real-terms protection of the science budget? We need funding stability, and we need to encourage business confidence. We also need to maximise our capital investment. I know that the capital budget has been settled, but too many science facilities remain under-utilised, which is wasteful and damaging to our economic growth ambitions. We need to align capital and resource investment to maximise the return, but we also need to rebuild our science base, as I have already pointed out. Will the Minister therefore also commit to an ambition to increase spending on science when sustained economic growth returns to the economy? Such a commitment in the CSR will send out the right signals to investors and scientists everywhere and ensure confidence that the UK is determined to use its science base to build economic success.
The Minister might also like to comment on the need for a broad spectrum of public investment in scientific infrastructure, from lab bench through to mid and large facilities. Equally, it would be welcome if he commented on the principle of allocating scientific funding according to a gold standard, based on independent expert peer review of research. That was the point I was trying to make to the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell).
Finally, it would be reassuring to hear the Minister acknowledge the importance of curiosity-driven fundamental research. It is easy to understand the importance of applied scientific research, but some of our greatest achievements—scientific and economic—came from fundamental research. Laser technology is a good example of that and I am sure everyone can think of other examples. Although private investment is important to increasing our science research base, without adequate public support we will see that investment increasingly put at risk. Already we are falling behind our competitors, and in today’s world to stand still is to fall behind.
Today’s debate has been heavily supported by the royal societies and the universities, which I thank for their help and interest, and by numerous organisations spanning food and drink, pharmaceuticals and health. From the British Medical Association and Arthritis Research UK through to the Food and Drink Federation, the interest in the debate has been immense. That all emphatically underlines the sheer extent of the reach of science—I have tried to convey that in this debate—and thus its importance to the economy.
The debate, in title and in application, demanded a response from a Treasury Minister. The fact that the Chancellor’s ministerial team chose to bypass the opportunity to talk about science goes against the spirit of Westminster Hall debates and is deeply disappointing. No blame is apportioned to the Minister here now—we are glad to see him here—but where is the Treasury Minister? The Minister for Universities and Science can do more than repeat the speech—good as it was—that he gave in response to the excellent and well attended debate on this topic that was recently brought to the House by the hon. Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew). After all, it is official Government policy to support science. They have developed a science and innovation strategy, which states that
“capital investment alone is not sufficient to ensure our research infrastructure is able to continue to deliver world class outputs. We recognise that our science base requires adequate resource funding, and will give full consideration to these requirements when we take a decision at the Spending Review next year.”
On the basis of that statement, I call on the Minister not only to ensure that Treasury Ministers are made aware of today’s debate, but to commit to being an ambassador for science to the Treasury. He needs to go out there and make the case for science funding. I look forward to his response.
Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. I offer my congratulations to the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) on securing this debate on UK science. It is an important subject, and it is great to be able again to make the case on behalf of the UK science industry before the spending review. British science is world-leading in many areas, is highly productive, has the capacity for increased investment while maintaining its productivity and is vital in maintaining our competitive advantage.
As the hon. Lady said, the UK population represents only 0.9% of the world population, but produces 15.9% of the top-quality research findings. A productive research environment must have Government investment in science capital and resource, such as the National Graphene Institute, which will secure Manchester as a leading centre of graphene research and commercialisation. We should not allow the UK’s current and historic strength in science and research to lead to complacency. Having worked in the mass spectrometry industry for nearly 20 years, I know that our science enables world-leading businesses to flourish in Britain, often producing the low-volume but high-value goods that we need. Jobs in science are often the most rewarding and interesting. They also encourage entrepreneurship and the development and commercialisation of innovative technologies.
Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Research, investment and experience in facilities can often attract investment such as we have seen in Southampton, where Lloyd’s Register has come to the Boldrewood campus of the university, providing the biggest link-up that we have in this country between a university and a commercial enterprise.
Chris Green
It is always good to hear such fantastic examples of link-ups. I am sure all the Members here will have many other such examples.
Science strengthens economic growth, productivity and the UK’s ability to compete in an increasingly competitive market, as was highlighted earlier. It is a highly effective way to invest public money to drive economic growth. Although we in Britain invest less in research and development than many of our competitors, it is not because of the lack of excellent opportunities for research. We can significantly increase our research investment without reducing the quality of the research. That will then increase the base from which innovation and commercialisation starts.
The past five years were about creating economic stability, and it was right that the Government protected the science budget, but the next five years must be about building upon what we have secured. The science and research ring fence was an important signifier of the Government’s commitment to the value of research. The flat-cash protection has maintained the UK’s position during a time of economic uncertainty. Now we should be planning and investing so that we encourage further investment to build and create the industries that we as a country want. By investing in science through the dual support system with a mix of project-based and institutional-level funding, the Government leverage investment from charities and industry, generating further scientific and economic growth. It is estimated that each additional £1 of public funding has the potential to give rise to an increase of up to £1.60 in private funding for both industry and charities.
A strong science industry is a vital base for preparing for our future needs in many policy areas, such as food security, national security, antimicrobial resistance, health innovation and meeting the needs of an ageing population. Government investment levels must take that into account when we decide what message we want to send to investors in Britain and across the world.
Craig Williams (Cardiff North) (Con)
I commend the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) for securing this debate and for the manner in which she has conducted it.
Some 68% of Welsh universities rely on UK Government funding, and the ring fence that my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) has touched on is extremely welcome. The universities are very much looking to the end of this month. I commend GE Healthcare for the work that it has done in my constituency. It has worked with the university, using the block funding, to build an innovation campus and to work with the public and private sectors, much as he has described. They are working together to invest in the Government’s long-term economic plan, but they are also creating jobs in Cardiff.
Chris Green
Our national Government have a huge role in ensuring that we have strong science throughout our United Kingdom. There are many great instances in Wales. I used to do a great deal of travelling up and down the country in my previous job, and I recognise that there is investment right across our United Kingdom, as far as the University of Highlands and Islands in Thurso. It is a bit of a long trek up there, but it is fantastic to see investment right across the country. We must reflect on the needs and benefits that exist in our thriving scientific sector.
Several hon. Members rose—
Steve McCabe (in the Chair)
Order. I do not want to impose a time limit, but if people try to stick to five or six minutes, we can get everybody in with ease.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) on securing this important debate and on her excellent speech.
Supporting UK science should absolutely be a priority in this Parliament and beyond, and I hope the Chancellor will take heed of the points made here today. As Members will appreciate—they have probably heard me say this before—Cambridge is a leader for science in the UK.
Daniel Zeichner
Along with Oxford, of course.
Cambridge is a buzzing hub of research labs, biotech companies and innovation centres, and science is fundamental to both our economy and our collective identity. Nearly 60,000 people are employed in the Cambridge cluster alone. It is thought by some that Cambridge and its leading scientific reputation are untouchable. That is not the case. We must not take our assets for granted. Only with careful future planning and sustained, stable economic investment can Cambridge continue to function as a centre for scientific excellence, attracting investment and expertise from around the globe.
I want to see Cambridge’s scientific stature secured, but I also want to see the knowledge economy increasing across the entire country, ensuring that the UK remains a leader for science on the world stage. This is not a zero-sum game. Cambridge doing well will help other parts of the country. Cambridge going backwards causes the whole country damage. A genuine long-term strategy for science is vital if we want to promote innovation and increase productivity in our country. The Chancellor says that that is what he wants, but the wrong decisions over the next few weeks risk sending us in the wrong direction.
The Government and their cheerleaders helpfully remind us about the long-term economic plan—I see that some Government Members recognise that phrase—but we need that to be a reality rather than a soundbite. The truth is that in the previous Parliament we actually saw a substantial real-terms cut in science funding. The Campaign for Science and Engineering has shown that the resource budget accumulated a real-terms shortfall of £1 billion during the previous Parliament. Data from the OECD suggest that our country’s investment in research and development has been on a downward trajectory for the past few years and is well below the EU average of 0.64%. As Universities UK tells us, the UK comes 27th in the EU27 and eighth in the G8 in total science and research investment as a proportion of GDP.
The argument is familiar. The Minister has told us before that we still do well and that we punch above our weight, but as the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood), the Chair of the Select Committee on Science and Technology, has pointed out on more than one occasion, it may be that we do well because of funding from the past. We cannot assume that with lower levels of public support we can continue to be competitive when other countries are upping their game.
Let me raise one specific worry. Many are talking about it, but I was struck by a representation from a biotech company in my constituency, Discuva. It develops new antibiotics to combat antimicrobial resistance and recently won an innovation award from Innovate UK. Indeed, I believe the award was presented here by the Minister. Discuva received a biomedical catalyst grant in 2012, which helped grow its business enormously, giving it the necessary risk capital to take chances and ultimately sign the world’s largest preclinical antibiotic drug discovery deal with a major pharmaceutical company. Its products will feed into the UK healthcare system, saving lives, reducing the healthcare burden and consequently increasing GDP.
I am sure we will all champion such businesses, but Discuva is just one of many that have expressed alarm over the suggestion that the Treasury is considering swapping research grants for loans. It tells me that this would be disastrous for companies in its sector. It argues that a significant loan on the books of many small to medium-sized high-tech companies would make them technically insolvent and affect relationships with potential investors, presenting a major business obstacle. I hope the Minister can assure us today that those suggestions are just speculative rumour in the wider rumour mill, and that those important grants will not be converted into loans.
I conclude by reminding Members that the Treasury has repeatedly said that it will prioritise spending in areas that drive productivity and growth. Well, 51% of UK productivity growth between 2000 and 2008 was due to innovation, with 32% being attributable to changes in technology resulting from science and innovation. That tells us that we need to see greater investment in mechanisms that support innovation—more, not less.
I have a suspicion that the Minister is largely persuaded by the strengths of the argument, but for reasons we all understand he will possibly have to be circumspect in his reply today. Those of us battling for science and innovation wish him well in his battles over the next few weeks. Funding for a secure, long-term, successful science and innovation sector is vital for the future prosperity of our whole country, and it must not be sacrificed for a short-term political fix. It is important that the Minister is successful and that the dead hand of the Treasury does not win out yet again.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) on securing this debate.
I do not want to rehearse all the advantages that come from spending on science, other than to say that we in Northern Ireland have found that it has helped us to increase investment. There is a strong correlation between what a company spends on science, research and development and its ability to export and about two thirds of increases in productivity are the result of spending on innovation, research and development.
In a debate such as this, I suppose the first question people will ask is: a lot of the work on improving science spending in places such as Northern Ireland and Scotland is done by the devolved Administrations, so what are they doing? In Northern Ireland, we have focused on a number of areas. First, £45 million is being spent on research facilities in universities, and by 2020 we hope to be funding 1,000 postgraduate research places a year in local universities. That will not only allow universities to increase their research capacity but ensure that there is a pool of skilled labour for the inward investment that we hope to attract. Invest NI has devoted £80 million a year to bringing projects from the lab to the marketplace.
Those are examples of the positive things that the devolved Administrations can do, but it is important to note that the devolved Administrations are dependent on decisions made by the Treasury and central Government. Their ability to do those things and to be innovative in their policies depends on the core funding that comes to them. That is not to say that they should not or do not look for other ways of attracting additional funding, bringing in their own resources and prioritising their own spending, but because the block grant is the main source of the spend available to the devolved Administrations and since most tax policy is decided centrally, there is a role for central Government.
I have four points to make about central Government’s role in spending on science, innovation and research and development. First, although it was ring-fenced over the five years of the previous Government, central Government spending has fallen by 15% in real terms. That affects the resources available here in England, but also, through the Barnett formula, the amount of money available to the devolved Administrations. I know we have difficult spending decisions to make, but look at the success of science spending. I will not repeat the figures that have been quoted already, but that money translates into a very high success rate, as shown by the many research papers cited as a result of the work financed by that spending. When the Government are deciding on spending priorities, surely the priority should be those areas where the spending is actually seen to work.
Secondly, I want to discuss the distribution of money. I was pleased by the Minister’s speech at Sheffield’s Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre about one nation science. I am sure he will regret ever saying this, but he said that one nation science
“means developing that excellence for the whole country, making sure all areas and all groups of people can reach their full potential”.
That is not happening in practice. If one looks at the money distributed by the research councils, although Northern Ireland has 3% of the population, we receive only 0.7% of funding—indeed, per head of population, seven times more money from the research councils goes to London as to facilities in Northern Ireland. The Minister could well argue that London has greater capacity, but we have proven ourselves. For example, although we account for only 0.03% of the world’s population, 0.3% of the research papers that are cited as being highly significant come from Northern Ireland. We perform 10 times better than our population distribution would suggest. We do need to look at how the money is distributed across the United Kingdom.
Thirdly, there are additional sources of money, especially the Horizon 2020 funding that is available from the European Union. I am no great fan of the EU, but the money is there. A condition of that funding is that there must be collaboration between companies and universities in different member states. What could central Government do to improve performance and encourage that kind of collaboration? It helps to expose companies and universities to new knowledge and markets, and there is value in that.
Finally, the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) mentioned research and development tax credits. There is talk about whether they should be translated into loans or kept as tax credits, but the one thing I know is that those tax credits are an important way of levering in private finance. Last year, their notional cost to the Treasury was £1.8 billion, but that drew down £14.3 billion of research and development, expenditure and innovation. To me, that is a good return for a fiscal measure, so those tax credits should be maintained.
I know that not all the points I have made fall within the Minister’s remit, but the Government should consider them when dealing with this important issue.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) on securing this important debate.
There are real anxieties among the scientific community and associated industries about the current scale of science spending. Following the 2010 spending review, the science budget was frozen in cash terms at £4.6 billion, but that meant a real-terms drop of 10% over the Parliament. By 2012, UK public investment in science fell to less than 0.5% of GDP—a lower rate than any other G8 country had invested in R and D in the preceding 20 years. The G8 average is now 0.8%, whereas the UK Government spend a mere 0.44% on science.
Last week, I had the privilege of visiting the University of Glasgow’s Centre for Virus Research. It is leading the world in developing treatments for hepatitis C and is carrying out sector-leading research into insect-borne viruses such as the dengue virus, which could have devastating effects on the world’s population, more than 40% of which currently lives in a dengue area. The centre recently put together a new funding application; it has increased by £3 million since its last award was received, but staff there told me that the additional £3 million is not required to do anything new or make great steps forward; it is needed merely to keep the centre’s head above water. Flat cash really does mean a real-terms cut. Addressing the Science and Technology Committee recently, Universities UK spokesperson Dr Dandridge stated that long-term under-investment in publicly funded research in the UK is leading to an erosion of capacity. That is a really serious allegation.
The Minister for Universities and Science, who is with us today, has previously stated:
“The UK Government is committed to maintaining the strength of the UK’s world-class research base”.
I welcome that, but I would add that we have to balance business innovation with blue-skies research, which, as the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge said, is research that has no immediate application. It is research for the sake of doing research, and scientists often enjoy it the most, because they have a free hand. When we take from one to the detriment of the other we will have long-term problems.
The hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) mentioned our science infrastructure, and I completely agree with what he said. In terms of current infrastructure investments, the Treasury has recognised that there is a territorial dimension to the science budget. We keep hearing about the northern powerhouse. In the autumn statement, we heard about the £235 million investment in the Sir Henry Royce Institute, which follows a £100 million investment in Manchester’s National Graphene Institute. That is great news for Manchester, but with the majority of science infrastructure projects remaining in the so-called golden triangle, we have a real issue if we are talking about developing centres of excellence across the UK. There is a need to map out investment thematically and territorially to make sure we make the most of the talents we have available. It is important to identify the governmental structures and Departments that are best placed to optimise investment in a local context.
The Chair of the Science and Technology Committee, the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood), recently asked the chief scientific adviser why the taxpayer should,
“among all other priorities, fund science and research?”
He responded:
“I would…focus resources on the things that so demonstrably contribute to productivity…Against that background, I would back science.”
With his final point, I wholeheartedly agree.
Jo Churchill (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)
I thank the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) for securing this important debate.
The depth and breadth of the UK science sector belie the UK’s size, but people should make no mistake: the UK is in the midst of the fast growth of a modern scientific revolution. Having started slowly during the first half of the last century, that revolution has gathered pace and, as the Government recognise in their productivity plan, it is driving UK growth. Yet we have heard the statistics, which I will not repeat, and about the sector’s worries. I have met many pharmaceutical companies and agri-tech companies, and they have repeated those worries to me, too.
To turn to the positives, the UK is a leader in Formula 1 racing car development, with seven of the 10 Formula 1 constructors based here. The worldwide revenues of almost £4 billion that we see from the sector are testimony to the fact that Formula 1 has settled here. The industry’s development in the UK delivers improvements not only to our cars and bikes, but to our advanced engineering sector and, more importantly, our hospitals. It delivers innovative design and thinking across sectors. In just five years, the UK has gone from 14th to 2nd in the global innovation index, but it is important that we keep up the pressure. The future of the industry in the UK lies in leading its competitors. We look forward to welcoming the world’s first 1,000 mph car from the British-led Bloodhound Project. That would not be happening if we were not investing in such industries or in other science and research-led fields. If we do not continue to fund the industry, not only will the UK fall behind, but we could well lose its science sector.
We have seen huge medical advances in the last 40 years—indeed, the first test-tube baby was British. Some 380 pharmaceutical companies are based in the UK, employing 70,000 people and with an annual turnover of £30 billion. The medical technology and medical biotechnology sectors employ more than 96,000 people and have a combined annual turnover of a further £20 billion. As we have heard, the life sciences industry is truly a jewel in the crown of our economy. Companies, universities and charities invest hundreds of millions of pounds. Last year, Cancer Research UK alone spent £434 million on research institutes, hospitals and universities across the country.
The Government do provide essential investment in UK science, but we still fall short compared with our major competitors. As the hon. Lady mentioned, we invest over 50% less than South Korea, the world’s leading investor. We need to make sure we are in the premier league. We must support the industry to research, to learn, to fail and to grow. That will ensure that the UK continues the push global boundaries in research and development.
As Members have pointed out, we lead the world in research in many disciplines, and all with a population that is less than 1% of the world’s total. To keep our place at the top of so many fields, it is vital that we do not simply rely on private initiatives, but back our pledge to industry with a commitment. Science has the potential to grow our economy and expand our horizons, giving us far more bang for our buck than most areas.
The science sector can deliver if it is helped, but as in many cases, simply handing over money is not the answer. To ensure that we get the most out of the sector, we must look to schemes that incentivise the best in the field and drive growth. We need competitive bidding processes to reinforce successful organisations and tax breaks to alleviate the load on start-up businesses and to grow cutting-edge enterprises. We also need match funding, especially in the academic arena, for R and D projects. As the hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) mentioned, assistance through Horizon 2020 is a good idea. Greater input from the scientific community in apportioning grants would also give far greater credibility to funding.
The Government invested £198 million through the charity research support fund only last year. One benefit was that that levered in £805 million from charities, which was then invested in our universities. The Treasury’s investment in science supports breakthroughs in pharmaceuticals and prevents and cures diseases. Spending and saving are a double win in this ageing society.
It is important that we push the boundaries—that we make a real difference to our scientific heritage. However, while the science industry is proving that it can deliver the results, it is up to a strong and committed Government to deliver the security. I therefore urge the Government to continue to protect the science budget across Departments this November, to unleash the full potential of the UK and the science industry.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. I commend the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) on bringing this issue to Westminster Hall for consideration.
I spoke to the Minister beforehand, so he knows which two issues I shall bring to his attention. I want to take up the issue of Northern Ireland, which was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson). I want to give two examples of science funding enabling universities in Northern Ireland to move forward with tremendous innovation and long-term vision to create and perfect medicines and research that will benefit people with diseases.
In Northern Ireland, we benefit from funding from a range of sources, including the EU, industry and charitable bodies, and others, including the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill), have mentioned where moneys come from. A raft of funding comes into play. The key to that is the large amount of funding that comes centrally from the UK Government, which could be at risk if the UK science budget is cut in the spending review.
The UK science budget funds UK research councils, which in turn fund l5% of the research done by higher education institutions in Northern Ireland. The science budget also funds recurrent research funding. When I was about eight, which is a long time ago, I played with dominoes; one hits the next, and so on right round. There is that sort of domino effect with funding. The recurrent research funding covers 35.5% of the research income of higher education institutions in Northern Ireland. In addition to funding from the UK science budget, Northern Ireland also receives money from other UK Government sources that are not part of the UK science budget, such as Government Departments and Innovate UK. That represents some 22% of the research income of higher education institutions in Northern Ireland. A significant amount of Northern Irish universities’ research income is provided for by the UK Government. I am sure that that shows how important the budget is to the Province, to our students, and to innovation.
We need to continue with positive steps that will send out a strong signal of stability to the industry not just in Northern Ireland but across the United Kingdom. Evidence shows that private sector funding of science follows the lead of public sector funding.
The Minister for Universities and Science (Joseph Johnson)
indicated assent.
Jim Shannon
The Minister is nodding—in agreement, I presume; and if I am right I will get positive answers later, which is good news. In the UK every £1 invested in public research and development results in an average £1.36 research and development investment by the private sector; spend £1 and get £1.36 in return—that must be good news.
I will give two examples of STEM research in Northern Ireland universities, and the first is at Queen’s University Belfast, which has been doing research on cystic fibrosis and the optimal delivery of antibiotics. Work on cancer and heart research have also been done there. The new drugs being created there, and the advances being made in medical treatment, are world-leading. Professor Cliff Taggart of the school of medicine, dentistry and biomedical sciences has been leading research into the delivery of antibiotics in cystic fibrosis. He has said:
“One of the big problems is getting drugs delivered in such a way that they are effective. Infection takes hold at a very early stage in life and constant treatment with antibiotics through the years will inevitably lead to antibiotic resistance.”
However, with the science funding provided centrally, Queen’s University is building up a drug to respond to the cystic fibrosis lung issues, and the build-up of mucus and other secretions.
Professor Taggart and his colleagues came up with the idea of devising compounds that combine antibiotic and anti-inflammatory entities. That is what they do with the money coming from the Government, along with the other moneys that flow to them. Professor Taggart has commented:
“The life expectancy of someone born with Cystic Fibrosis used to be six months. Now people are living until their thirties, although they need huge numbers of drugs to keep them alive. Our aim is to develop a drug that will dampen the bacterial load and inflammation much more dramatically and allow individuals to have a lifespan that goes beyond what it currently is.”
That is the job that is being done at Queen’s University Belfast. It happens because the Government fund the science budget and help universities throughout the United Kingdom to make advances.
Researchers at Ulster University have taken an important first step towards the first cure for hereditary blindness, pioneering a personalised medicine that targets and repairs genetic damage in part of the eye. The scientists have discovered a treatment that can repair damage caused by cloudy deposits in the cornea, the outer clear part of the eye. That condition, called corneal dystrophy, worsens with age, eventually leading to blindness. Using a novel DNA-editing technology—clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats—Ulster University’s vision science experts have designed a method of targeting the specific DNA or gene in the eye that is responsible for the cloudy deposits, and they are now making progress towards human trials.
I have outlined truly amazing positive developments—world-leading medical advances, to benefit not just the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland but the world; and I am sure that there will be many others. I hope that the Minister and shadow Minister will take on board the importance of the great work done using the science budget. More such work could be done; a budget cut now would be detrimental to innovation and advances.
Steve McCabe (in the Chair)
May I ask the Front Benchers to make sure that they leave a few moments at the end of the debate for Angela Smith to wind up?
Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to take part in a debate under your wise chairmanship, Mr McCabe. I hope that that quality of wisdom will appear in the Minister’s response. I congratulate the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) on raising this important matter. I have a personal interest in the topic, not least because my late brother chaired the science and technology committee of the OECD at one stage, and was also secretary of the Science Council of Canada. Although I am not a pure scientist as he was, I have a deep commitment to the issues that the hon. Lady raised.
I was particularly interested in the hon. Lady’s opening remarks about the pace of change driven by science. It reminded me that several years ago I attended a lecture by Professor Tom Stonier. He related some statistics to the effect that in the last 25 years of the 20th century, more people had been working on pure research than in the entire previous history of the world. That fact, and advances in new technology and computing science that enable information to be processed very quickly, mean that we live in a world where the pace of change is great and accelerating. People at the forefront of that have a great advantage, but that pace of change means that those who do not keep themselves in the frontline can too easily fall behind rapidly. That is my concern.
Several of this afternoon’s fine contributions by hon. Members from various parties have touched on the balance between blue-sky thinking, and thinking that might be said to have a business-innovatory basis. I have felt concern at times reading remarks by the Minister, which seem to show him as heavily biased towards business-related innovative research. It is too easy to forget the importance of true blue-sky thinking, and how often its results cannot be predicted. Nevertheless, some of the most profound scientific effects and advances happened simply because someone with an inquiring mind was interested in finding out more. I have every sympathy with the 30 academics—including four Nobel laureates—who wrote to The Daily Telegraph on 2 June 2014:
“Sustained open-ended enquiries in controversial or unfashionable fields are virtually forbidden today and science is in serious danger of stagnating”.
No one who has taken part in the debate would want British science—or Scottish or Northern Ireland science—to be compromised in any way, or to stagnate because of a failure to understand the importance of blue-sky research.
I was impressed by the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan), not least because the statistics she gave mean I can glance past two or three of my own paragraphs. A comment I would make on those statistics is that all current measures of research intensity confirm the same thing: that the UK is now a laggard compared with other advanced societies. We are, as she said, at the bottom of the G8, and we lag behind on a host of other measures.
I was interested, as I always am, in the contribution of the hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), who spoke about the contributions in the Northern Ireland economy, and the way that funding from the Northern Ireland Executive is geared towards research. He said that no doubt the same was true in places such as Scotland. I can confirm to him and the Minister that that is only too true. Notwithstanding the erosion of the amount of flat cash in recent years, and the constraints caused by the Scottish Government’s limited powers because of the reserved nature of the spending, they were able to increase expenditure on research and knowledge exchange by 11% in 2013-14, and by 38% since 2007. They did that not because they received extra money, but because they chose to protect the research and science budget as much as possible. Scotland has a long history of supporting science, and I would like to think that the Scottish Government’s willingness to choose to make sacrifices in other areas to sustain scientific research is something that the UK Government will follow in the spending review.
As we have heard from many Members, there is a strong economic case for investing in science, which helps to drive and sustain the economy, but there is much we still need to understand. We need a better understanding of all the connections that are essential to driving progress in scientific fields of endeavour. One of the key means of stimulating progress and innovation is to engage different types of thinkers and researchers though networks, so they can feed off one another—a factor acknowledged by many writers.
One of my teachers many years ago was the late Professor Tom Burns. He was noted for many pieces of research, including a fairly seminal book in the early 1960s called “The Management of Innovation”, in which he pointed to the importance of networks of interacting researchers, scientists and the like. That is something that universities and the academic community are particularly well equipped to do. Hughes and Martin, writing about the value of public sector research and development, captured this pretty well, stating that
“the issue is not so much about isolating and assessing the impact of publicly funded research per se nor about determining its optimal level in isolation. It is instead about analysing how best to understand and manage the connections between differently funded and motivated research efforts in an overall system of knowledge production and innovation.”
A number of Members mentioned scientific infrastructure. Recent work, most notably that of Dr Stephen Watson at Glasgow University, has pointed to the huge significance of the infrastructure spend component of Government investment in science. There is, however, a huge mismatch between UK Government infrastructure spend for the Oxford-Cambridge-London triangle, and the spend for elsewhere in the United Kingdom. National research infrastructure investment is known to play a key role in driving fundamental scientific discovery and attracting business investment. We therefore need to map out such investment, both thematically and territorially—something that no Government have ever done.
In conclusion, I have four questions to pose to the Minister, one of which relates to the tax credit issue, but I am not going to rehearse that argument because other hon. Members have already made it fully. First, what is the Government’s view of my argument that more, not less, investment in blue-sky scientific research is needed? Secondly, will the Government commit to restoring the scientific budget spend to at least 2010 levels, in real terms? In other words, will they undo the cut of the previous Parliament? Thirdly, will the Government commit to reviewing infrastructure spend in science to ensure that the talents of the scientific community in all parts of the United Kingdom are properly supported? Finally, will the Minister confirm that there is no prospect of converting any element of research funding into loans?
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate and to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) on securing this important debate.
I am grateful for the contributions of hon. Members from all parts of the UK, including the hon. Member for Bolton West (Chris Green), my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), the hon. Members for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill), for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Roger Mullin) and for Strangford (Jim Shannon), and others. They raised a range of issues, including the need for a long-term strategy, which is vital for innovation; the need to focus resources where they work; the importance of research through the universities; the need to build connections to ensure we get the most out of contributions and the progress that comes from that; and the need for strong and committed Government action. Notwithstanding the contribution that the Minister will make, it is disappointing that there is no Treasury Minister here today, because this is essentially a Treasury debate.
My hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge said that the UK has always punched above its weight in science and innovation. We should be proud of our record, and as politicians we should recognise our role in ensuring that success for the future. I thank all the organisations that have contributed in so many ways to the debate, including the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Royal Society of Biology, the National Centre for Universities and Business, the Campaign for Science and Engineering and many others.
Science matters, and Treasury support for UK science is absolutely critical, not least because of the pivotal role of scientific research in driving innovation and productivity and its importance in building the high-tech, high-skilled economy that we need. This issue is at the very heart of the choices and questions facing our country. We need strategic and sustained investment to secure our future prosperity.
Independent analysis suggests that every pound spent by the UK Government on research and development raises private sector research and development output by 20p a year in perpetuity. Even that is an underestimate of the full multiplier effect of public investment in science and research, because Government investment stimulates additional private sector investment. The scale of public sector investment is greater than what the private sector can do on its own, as the lead that other countries have over us shows. Government investment also has a wider role in developing the wider capabilities that we need.
The Chancellor likes to talk about his support for science, but, as in so many areas, there is a gap between what the Government say and what they do. Their record of investment in our country’s future is not as good as we want it to be. They like to boast about the success of catapult centres, which we support—indeed, they were an initiative of the previous Labour Government —but the support that those centres receive under this Government falls short of the amount provided to comparable schemes in other countries such as Germany and France, which benefit from more than 10 times as much public support. We under-invest in the science-industry linkage. Similarly, Finland spends about 10 times as much per capita on innovation funding as our Government do.
The protection that the Government say they are providing to the science budget is only in cash terms, which means that inflation has eaten up about £1 billion of its value over the past five years. The Government’s commitment to science needs to be subjected to critical scrutiny. This is no time for complacency. There are disturbing signs that we are falling further and further behind key competitors when it comes to investment in innovation and technology, which is critical for future business growth and our competitiveness in the global economy.
The previous Labour Government established a target to increase UK R and D, both public and private, to 2.5% of GDP by 2014. The latest official figures from the Office for National Statistics show that R and D expenditure was at 1.67% of GDP in 2013. We are behind many countries and behind the EU average. OECD figures for 2012 show that the US spent 2.8% of GDP on R and D and that new global players, such as China and South Korea, were forging ahead of us. Furthermore, the UK continues to have a lower level of business R and D spending than the OECD average. That has been exacerbated in recent years by short-termism in corporate planning.
A recent report from PwC is clear that the UK lacks the skilled workforce and the necessary skills to complement and drive R and D at scale. As a result, we continue to fall behind our competitors. Recent labour market trends have confirmed the importance of technology-related investment in creating new jobs. As Sherry Coutu’s report for the previous Government shows, we face a worrying scale-up gap, with too many small businesses struggling to access the skills and support they need to grow into global players. Just two of the world’s top 20 companies for R and D spend are located in the UK. One of them, GlaxoSmithKline, is based in Hounslow, which is my borough, and both of them are pharmaceutical companies. We continue to need long-term leadership from Government to ensure that businesses get the support they need to be able to scale up.
All the trends demonstrate that, contrary to the current Government’s outdated laissez-faire attitudes, we cannot rely solely on private sector investment to secure our place in tomorrow’s high-tech global economy, nor can we leave the private sector to fend for itself without the support of an active and strategic state. Although standard figures show that the majority of aggregate R and D investment is undertaken by the private sector, that risks obscuring the fact that the public sector delivers most of the research, so that the private sector can concentrate more on development. Moreover, the public sector has a key role to play in ensuring a smooth division of labour between the two, building the relationships and institutions that can foster horizontal linkages between basic and applied research, or science and industry, to maximise the positive feedback effects between the two.
To get Britain to be competitive, it is therefore essential that both public and private R and D not only rise but work more closely together. We need not only increased investment but greater strategic focus. That is why we have asked Professor Mariana Mazzucato, a leading authority on the role of the state in creating innovation ecosystems in which knowledge-led enterprises can thrive, to join Labour’s council of economic advisors and to contribute to the development of our plans to ensure that the UK can seize the economic opportunities available to us.
I am glad to be able to add the voice of Labour’s shadow Treasury team to the call for support for science and innovation in this month’s spending review. I can reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge, all the Members who have spoken today, and all those who care about the future of our science base and our economy that if the Government do not listen, the Labour party will.
The Minister for Universities and Science (Joseph Johnson)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. I congratulate the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) on securing the debate, which is the fourth on the subject in as many months. The topic is also the subject of an ongoing Science and Technology Committee inquiry. All that activity underlines the great importance of science to our economy and to Members throughout the House. We have had an excellent debate, which has included fine contributions from Members representing all parts of the country from Bolton to Bury St Edmunds and Belfast, from Pudsey to Cambridge, from Cardiff to St Ives, and from Glasgow to Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath. Many issues have been raised, and I will try to touch on some of them later on, but all Members have essentially made the same fundamentally important point, which is that science is vital and so is the Government’s role in underpinning our excellent science base.
A reference was made, somewhat disobligingly, to the “dead hand of the Treasury” in all of this. Given that this debate specifically requests the Treasury’s view on our science budget—I am here representing all of Government, including the Treasury—I would challenge that characterisation and point out that the Treasury hand has fed the science base well in difficult times. Let us not forget the financial circumstances that we were in back in 2010 when the decision was made to protect the science ring fence. At a time when we were making decisions that involved discretionary cuts of £98 billion across the rest of Government, the Chancellor decided to protect the ring fence. We can be proud of that decision, and we welcome any scrutiny of our record.
The Chancellor has subsequently followed through on that big statement about the importance of science in our economy. In April last year, he set out his vision in a speech in Cambridge and said that he wanted the UK to be the best place in the world to do science. He has taken action since then to deliver on that ambition with, most recently, the publication of the Government’s productivity plan, which sets out our proposals to boost the UK’s growth and has science and innovation at its heart. We have a track record of demonstrating our understanding of the importance of science to our economy at a time of difficult decisions elsewhere in public expenditure.
Going into this Parliament, we made clear the importance to us of setting out a clear road map on the capital side of science expenditure. We committed to invest £1.1 billion per annum in the UK’s research infrastructure, rising with inflation, from 2015 all the way to 2021. That investment will ensure that the UK stays at the cutting edge of research and will help us to meet some of our greatest challenges. We can see the fruits of that commitment around the country. The Francis Crick Institute, which is almost complete and in which the Government have invested £350 million, will be a world-leading bio-discovery centre that will solve fundamental questions of health and disease. I was pleased to announce the other day that we had entered into negotiations with a preferred bidder for the building of a £200 million polar research ship that will keep Britain at the forefront of ocean science for decades to come. Tonne for tonne, the UK will have the most advanced oceanographic research vessel fleet in the world. I am delighted that the Cammel Laird shipyard in Birkenhead was selected to undertake that important work, which is a real boost for our shipbuilding industry. Earlier this year, I launched a £113 million capital investment partnership with IBM at the Hartree Centre in Daresbury, near Warrington, with the overall investment package from IBM being worth £200 million. There are many more such examples.
The Government’s activity is also evident in the constituency of the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge. We are building on its rich history of scientific discovery, to which she alluded, including stainless steel and Ronseal. Innovate UK has invested more than £61 million in Yorkshire since 2010, including more than £12 million in projects in the Sheffield city region last year. I recently announced £10 million of funding for a pioneering component manufacturing facility at the University of Sheffield’s Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre. In York, we have invested £27 million in a quantum technology hub to harness the potential of an area in which the UK is a world leader. The University of Sheffield is also home to two nodes of the high-value manufacturing catapult, in advanced machining and materials and in nuclear, with well over 100 industrial partners.
The setting up of catapults, the elite centres that commercialise new and emerging technologies, is another major initiative by the Government to entrench scientific excellence in the regions. Since the general election in May we have continued to roll out our catapult network. In the summer the Chancellor announced a new medicines technologies catapult to be based in Alderley Park in Cheshire, building on a pre-existing centre of excellence. We have also announced a precision medicine catapult to be based in Cambridge.
We have heard contributions from Scottish MPs this afternoon, and I will dwell briefly on Scotland and other devolved Administrations. Scotland is punching well above its weight within the UK, demonstrating its strong science and research base. It receives about 11% of the total pot of research council, Innovate UK and higher education research capital funding, compared with its share in our population of about 8%. I was in Glasgow last week and was delighted to inaugurate the construction of a new £68 million imaging centre of excellence, to which the Government are contributing £16 million as part of the precision medicine catapult. The hub of that catapult is in Cambridge, but an important spoke in the operation is in Glasgow. I have had dengue myself, so I was pleased to hear about the good work on the treatment of that unpleasant disease being funded up in Glasgow.
I can give many other examples of good scientific activity in Scotland that are in receipt of significant public support, but I also want to mention Northern Ireland, as we have had contributions from some of its Members. We want to do more to help Northern Ireland secure support and be more competitive when applying for grants.
Danny Kinahan (South Antrim) (UUP)
I apologise for not having been present to speak earlier, but I want to mention the numerous cuts in Northern Ireland as a result of the overall cuts. Will the Minister look at something similar to what we have in shared education, which is a £500 million loan facility? It could work with businesses and with how we do things in Northern Ireland, but be solely for science. In that way we could turn back the cuts that have happened, from primary schools right the way through to universities, which are still doing wonderful things.
Joseph Johnson
We want to help parts of the country that are receiving less than their share of science spend to be more competitive in the allocations of restricted funding. We have recently announced a process of science and innovation audits to enable areas to assess their potential fields of expertise, competence and excellence, so that they may focus on where they have a chance of being world-leading, globally excellent and more competitive. We look forward to helping consortia from Northern Ireland and other parts of the country—including universities, local enterprise partnerships and local authorities—to come together to assess where they can build on existing centres of excellence and become more competitive.
Government and Treasury investment in science goes much further than simply what the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and its partner bodies do. Research and development tax credits have been mentioned a number of times, and they are extremely valuable and fast-expanding support for business investment. R and D tax credits are now worth £1.75 billion in relief to more than 18,200 companies, supporting more than £14.3 billion of innovative investment, as has been mentioned. In that context, I want to mention the patent box, a key initiative in making the UK tax regime competitive for innovative high-tech companies. It helps to drive growth and investment in the UK, creating high-value jobs in innovative industries. Some 639 companies have received benefits totalling £335 million since the relief was introduced in 2013.
UK science investments must be seen in perspective. We must look at the outputs of, as well as the inputs to, our science base. What I have described thus far is serious, substantial and robust investment, which has been delivering real results. We are the most productive science base in the G7, and our scientific impact on the world is out of proportion to our size as a nation and our level of investment. For every £1 spent by the Government on R and D, private sector productivity rises by 20p a year in perpetuity.
Government funding for science is only part of that story. Research and development in the UK also benefits from the private sector spending that the Government help crowd in. Business spending on R and D has risen by 8% to £18.4 billion. In a recent Westminster Hall debate secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew), we heard about the important role of medical research charities, such as the British Heart Foundation. Charities receive additional support from the Treasury through gift aid on donations. On top of that, last year we spent £198 million from the charity research support fund.
Last year, Cancer Research UK reported gift aid income of more than £34 million. Overall in the past financial year, UK charities received £1.2 billion in tax repayments on gift aid donations. We have to look at direct Government spending through BIS and its partner bodies in the context of the bigger ecosystem that it creates. When we look at the bigger picture, we see that the UK’s overall spending on R and D reached £28.9 billion in the last year for which we have full data—up 7% on the previous year. That is an important context for us to bear in mind.
I will wrap up, so that the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge can conclude the debate. Debates such as this help to highlight the issues and choices involved in our responsibility to fund science. The UK science base is extraordinary; our cutting-edge research base is world-leading; our universities are world-class; we develop and attract the world’s brightest minds; and we have earned 14 Nobel prizes in the sciences over the past 12 years as a result. Science is one of our clear comparative advantages in the global race. BIS Ministers are working hard on making the strongest possible case to the Treasury. Our case will of course be balanced against priorities across Government, but we are hopeful that we have made the strongest possible case on behalf of science.
Angela Smith
I thank the shadow Minister and the Minister for their responses. I particularly thank the Minister for pronouncing my constituency properly, because few people do. I also welcome the debate we have had and the strong consensus on the issue throughout the House, across all political parties. We have had some excellent speeches.
I go back to my big point, which is about how deeply embedded science is in our society and our everyday lives. Some of our most important innovations have become such a part of our everyday lives that we take them for granted. Stainless steel, for example, forms not only our cutlery, saucepans, washing machine drums and microwave oven liners, but hot water tanks and equipment for such activities as catering, brewing, distilling, food processing, and water and sewage treatment. Every part of our lives is affected by technologies such as the one that produces stainless steel. The key question, therefore, is whether as a nation we want to continue to play a leading role globally in scientific innovations that will shape the world of tomorrow, in the same way as our innovations in the past have shaped the world of tomorrow.
The Minister’s response acknowledged the Government’s role in underpinning our science base. He also made it clear that a capital commitment is already in place. The Campaign for Science and Engineering has made the point that if the cash ring fence is maintained, the loss in real funding will rise to more than £3.1 billion by the 2020 election. That amount would pay for four research institutes equivalent to the £700 million Francis Crick Institute being built in London—one for the north of England and one for each of the devolved regions. That point is well made.
According to the Minister, the Treasury has funded the science base well in difficult times. I acknowledge that, but the commitment to revenue to match the capital commitment made by the Government is important. The £400 million ISIS neutron source at Harwell will run for only about 120 days this year, instead of an optimal 180 days, because of the lack of revenue funding. That underlines the fundamental point of the debate. We did not quite get the commitments that we were looking for, but the Minister acknowledged our case implicitly. He has told us that he is arguing and fighting hard for science funding. We thank him for that—
Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).
Wanless Review and the Dickens File
(8 years, 7 months ago)
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John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the Wanless Review and the Dickens file.
Valerie Vaz (in the Chair)
Before the hon. Gentleman begins, I advise him and other hon. Members that, in line with the House’s sub judice resolution, no direct reference should be made to the substance of criminal or civil legal proceedings that are current—that is, those on which a judgment has not yet been issued or on which appellate proceedings are active. Clearly there are still police investigations current that relate to the matters that he intends to raise and I am sure that he is aware that the House would not want him to prejudice those investigations by anything he might say here today.
John Mann
Thank you, Ms Vaz. I assure you that I have no intention of prejudicing any investigations. I am keen to challenge those commentators who say that there is some big conspiracy to hunt out and name people who are innocent, and that everything has been overstated when it comes to historic child abuse. Some have got quite a track record in saying that. I would say to them: Rolf Harris, Stuart Hall, Max Clifford and the former Bishop of Lewes; 1,400 children in Rotherham, children in Derby, in Northampton, in Halifax, in Newcastle, in Oxford, in Telford, in Peterborough, in North Yorkshire and in Wrexham; bishops in Belgium, Norway and Austria—all over the world, there has been a spate of arrests and huge numbers of convictions of people involved in child abuse from the past, so those who say that this has somehow been dreamt up are factually wrong.
My involvement began in 1988 when, looking at corruption in the London Borough of Lambeth, I was told that when boys left children’s homes—boys over 16, therefore—they were being cajoled into prostitution. That was being done through various bars in the borough. There were suggestions about how and where, and that was all given to the police. I was told of a place that I had never heard of called Dolphin Square, which was one of the places where those boys were going to parties that involved Members of Parliament. I will refrain from giving the detail I was given. It was given to the police at the time and it has been given many times since. The police told me about a year into that investigation that somebody on high had curtailed the investigation—stopped it. I know; I was there. That is what happened.
Then, several years later, in 1994, Inspector Clive Driscoll, who was looking at a different, possibly related sex abuse scandal in the same borough came to see me. He was taken off his investigations and told to stop investigating. It now transpires that at Coronation Buildings in Lambeth in 1980 another police investigation was curtailed. In that case, special branch moved in to stop it. Therefore, we know that three separate investigations mysteriously disappeared and, in one case, I was there when that happened.
I have no intention of naming names, not because of the advice given, but because that is not appropriate. I do not know who is guilty. That is not my job. It is not the job of any MP and I have never done that. Let me therefore correct the record. One newspaper, The Mail on Sunday, suggested that I had named a Member of Parliament. That is factually inaccurate; it is not true. The story was fabricated. It was taken—I think as a spoiler—from a newspaper called The Sun, which said that two MPs had made various allegations. Not true. There are not two MPs and I am not an MP involved in doing that. If I was, I would not have named anyone; I would have given the evidence to the police and kept my mouth shut. It is fair to say that I have given information—evidence in some cases—to various police forces and some of that involved prominent people. I am not naming those people, I have not done that and I will not, because it is for the police to investigate and make a case for prosecution in the courts if they feel that is appropriate. My criticism and complaint is about where that does not happen. It is important that those matters are clarified immediately.
Look at the scale of what is going on. I believe there was a further arrest just this afternoon, but so far in north Wales a whole series of people have been arrested and jailed. That is also the case in other parts of the country. According to Simon Bailey, the chief constable of Norfolk constabulary, there are at the moment 89 national or local politicians, 145 radio, TV and film persons, 38 music industry persons and 15 people from the world of sport under investigation, as well as 2,016 others, including people from religious institutions, teachers and careworkers. That is what the police said to the Society of Editors on 19 October this year. Operation Pallial in north Wales has made over 40 arrests. In Lambeth, people have been jailed—in other words, they were successfully prosecuted. The idea that this stuff is in some way fanciful or made up is again not proven by the facts. The commentators who suggest that are wrong—very sadly wrong.
Let me talk about Nottinghamshire. A gentleman came to see me; he flew in from Canada for a 20-minute meeting—he had not been in this country for 30 years—about an allegation in relation to the Ashley House children’s home in my constituency, which he and I knew could not be prosecuted. It was not possible. For a 20-minute meeting—he flew in and flew out just to tell me that. He was not making it up.
The woman who claims to have been abused at Skegby Hall near my constituency and at various other locations is not making it up. The dozens of children at Beechwood in Nottingham who made detailed allegations are not making it up. Those who have come to me in relation to schools and churches or family abuse, including rape as young children, are not making it up. People do not go to their own MP and make this kind of thing up.
The man who came to me alleging that he, aged 11, was forced to work in a foundry full time, and before that, from the age of eight, was forced to work in a field, gave precise locations and precise names. He has a full file of precise records. He is not making it up; he is telling the truth about what happened. The whole issue of children being sold on to farms as slave labour is a scandal yet to emerge in this country. It is a part of this big, historic problem and more will emerge from that.
That is not the conspiracy. The conspiracy was the conspiracy of silence at the time—the conspiracy of connivance, the conspiracy of cover-up. That is the conspiracy. Do you know what the man who was enslaved wants more than anything? Strangely, because he never went to school, he cannot read and write, so he wants literacy lessons. This is my battle at the moment. I have a letter on it that arrived in the last hour from a county council that has given him five literacy lessons, questioning whether he needs more, when he was not allowed to go to school because he was enslaved. That is the cost of child abuse in this country.
This debate is about people like that man, who are living with this stuff today. There are people whose lives have been diverted, with many going abroad. Some have channelled it into great success, by being single-minded about their goals in life, but others are very damaged, and many lives have been totally destroyed. These campaigners are not going to go away, because they know what happened. I am fortunate. I was never beaten as a kid; I was not sold or raped as a child, but I have met lots of people who were. Some of the names are jaw-dropping. They are not going to go public, for lots of good reasons, and that is their choice, but the numbers coming forward and who have confided in me are extraordinary. They are not asking for anything to be done; they are supporting the campaign. They do not want to relive their trauma. The scale of the problem is absolutely phenomenal. I know there will be some sceptics about what I am going to say, and all I can say to them is, “Open your eyes and ears. See and hear what is going on.” What is under the surface will always be far bigger than what has emerged.
My approach is to give absolutely everything to the police. Material I have seen recently relating to the Dickens dossier incorporates stuff relevant to North Wales police and to other forces. I will not go into details, because that would prejudice those investigations, but there are dozens of documents that are hugely important.
There were two Dickens files. I have met someone who has not come forward because of the Official Secrets Act but who saw the first Dickens file. There were approximately 16 names in it; they were cross-party and not all were well known, but some of them were. That was the result of research done by Geoffrey Dickens. I do not know whether it is true or not, but I do not know that he gave the file to Leon Brittan in November 1983.
On 18 January 1984, a second person gave a second file to Geoffrey Dickens. I have a copy of that file, which I call the second Dickens dossier, and so do the police. The information in it was provided by two former Conservative MPs, Sir Victor Raikes, the former Member for Liverpool Garston, and Commander Anthony Courtney, a former British Navy intelligence officer and former Member for Harrow East. There was an internal battle going on within the Conservative party, specifically within the Monday club—they were both key figures in that—with a new organisation, the Young Monday club. They were part of that factional battle, and the second file emerged because of it. I do not think that they thought that what they described in the file as paedophilia was of particular importance other than for doing the other side in.
What is significant is the details, the allegations that were made and the fact that those allegations were not investigated. The file is unambiguous. I have an original. I have met, spoken to and got a copy from the person who personally handed it to Geoffrey Dickens, who in turn then personally gave it to Leon Brittan. In the first line, it says, “GK Young heads up a Powellite faction known as Tory Action.” George Kennedy Young, now long dead, was deputy director of MI6. The allegation is that he manipulated a group of people, and that, within that, there were paedophile rings. The file goes into detail about who it is alleged was involved and where. I will not give all the locations because I think some would be sensitive and might identify people, but London is one, Greater Manchester another, and North Yorkshire is a third. I should stress to any journalists listening, that Mr Leon Brittan is obviously not in that file, or indeed the other Dickens file. Geoffrey Dickens was not stupid. He did not give Leon Brittan a file that named Leon Brittan, but there are lots of other names in there.
The file is intriguing, to say the least. Information and allegations in it include allegations of sex with children, names of people alleged to be involved, and suggestions both of locations, including one precise location, and of a third-party organisation that was directly involved. I will not name that organisation. It will all come out—there is no reason why it should not—but it would not help the police if it came out today. It would be a pretty straightforward investigation for the police to look into the precise location that is in the file, but there was no investigation. The question is, why not?
It is worth saying one other thing about George Kennedy Young. He was involved in many dubious activities; he tried to get some kind of private army called “Unison” going. I have seen a range of background documents that would be of interest to anyone campaigning on the Shrewsbury pickets and on infiltration of the miners’ strike, with names that correlate. There are a lot of allegations about him attempting to undermine both the Heath and the Wilson Governments. He was clearly a manipulator, and is key to what was going on. I do not know why he is so prominent or why the Society for Individual Freedom, which he set up, is named in this, but he is a significant figure and that may give some sort of reason for why things then disappeared.
After the review by Mr Wanless and Mr Whittam, the Prime Minister said that their report meant that
“people who’ve been looking for conspiracy theories will have to look elsewhere.”
I am not looking for a conspiracy theory. To me, this stuff is fairly simple. There are always simple explanations. But we do not need to look elsewhere any more. I have here a copy of part of what I call Dickens dossier No. 2. It went to Leon Brittan at the time. We need to know why it then disappeared, what happened to it and where the Home Office investigation into it went. Why did the file disappear when such serious allegations are made within it? It is incongruous that there could be no investigation, given the information in here. It is not possible that this dossier would not raise all sorts of issues.
I could reveal more from other documents I have seen, from the same person, that suggest that quite a lot of people were aware of the issues, but it would be inappropriate. I am certain that some people who are named in the file were on the periphery—not involved in anything that could be described as child abuse, but a bit too close for comfort in terms of embarrassment—and they knew some of the sorts of things that might have been going on and had suspicions. I think those people are guilty of nothing other than a loose connection—being at various events or venues—but they know things. It is clear from correspondence I have seen that some of them must know things.
Part of the problem is that when we talk about paedophilia, most people think we mean under-16s. But at the time the term could be used in relation to 16 to 21-year-old men. With Dolphin Square and Lambeth, the issue is the allegations about Members of Parliament paying for sex with boys over 16 who had been procured from Lambeth children’s homes after they had left them. I would call that major sleaze, but at the time, it was illegal. The file also alleges things involving children younger than that. I do not know—I have not got a clue —whether any of it is true, or what bits are true, but there is sufficient information for a major police investigation.
That is why it is absolutely critical that the lid is lifted. We need to know where the file went, why it disappeared and what is going to happen now. The original is with the police. Why did the Home Office and the whole of Government fail to come up with that document, when it had been given to Leon Brittan in 1984? I think the answer to that question will unlock part of the cover-up of the time, explain it and help the police. It is imperative that the Government now reopen the Wanless and Whittam investigation to see why they were not given the file at the time by someone in the Home Office, and why civil servants at the time did not co-operate.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Karen Bradley)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Ms Vaz. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) on securing the debate and on the points he raised. He has been a tenacious and very determined campaigner on this matter.
Before dealing with the specifics of the Wanless review and the Dickens file, it is important to highlight that tackling child sexual abuse is a top priority for this Government. Victims should, and increasingly do, feel able to come forward to report abuse to the police and get the support they need. We have been consistently clear that when an allegation of child sexual abuse is made, whether it occurred now or in the past, it must be thoroughly investigated by the police, so that the facts can be established. Let me be clear: the Government are determined that forces should do everything they can to bring perpetrators of child sexual abuse to justice. Child sexual abuse now has the status of a national threat in the strategic policing requirement, meaning that forces are able to maximise specialist skills and expertise in both preventing and investigating allegations of offending. Police forces and police and crime commissioners must have the capabilities they need to protect children from sexual abuse.
It is sadly only too true that in the past, these horrific crimes were not always given the priority they should have had. We are appalled that abuse was allowed to proliferate in the very institutions where children should have been most protected: schools, hospitals and care homes. Child sexual abuse is now rightly centre stage as an issue that we must confront. I want to be clear—the hon. Gentleman alluded to this—that it is incredibly important that victims feel they can come forward, and will be listened to and believed.
Tackling this issue is a shared effort. The “Tackling Child Sexual Exploitation” report, published in March, sets out the national policy response to the failures seen in towns such as Rotherham, Manchester and Oxford. Collectively, the actions in that report will: strengthen accountability and leadership in professions and local government; address the culture of inaction and denial that led to victims being dismissed and ignored; improve joint working and information sharing, so that agencies intervene early; strengthen the protection of children who are at risk; reinforce law enforcement efforts to stop offenders; and provide greater support for victims and survivors. It is a wide-reaching and ambitious programme of work, driven forward at pace by an inter-ministerial group chaired by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, who shares my deep personal commitment to this important work. I am sure that that broad range of activity will confirm to the hon. Member for Bassetlaw that this Government are absolutely committed to learning from the failures of the past and ensuring they do not recur.
In that context, I turn to the so-called Dickens dossier and the Wanless and Whittam review, which the hon. Gentleman spoke about. It may be helpful if I set out the circumstances and findings of that review. In July 2014, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and the Home Office permanent secretary approached Peter Wanless, chief executive officer of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and Richard Whittam, QC, to ask them to conduct a review of two independent investigations in respect of information the Home Office received about child sexual abuse between 1979 and 1999. Peter Wanless and Richard Whittam, QC, were chosen as esteemed, highly experienced and knowledgeable individuals in the field. Their review and findings were published last November.
The Wanless and Whittam review focused in part on how the Home Office responded to information relating to the Dickens file, as well as how the police acted on any information passed to them at the time. As referenced in their report, Peter Wanless and Richard Whittam, QC, were given free access to the Home Office’s filing system. They also undertook wider searches in other Departments and agencies, and their requests were complied with. Among their conclusions was the following statement:
“It is very difficult to prove anything definitive based on imperfectly operated paper records system at 30 years remove.
Whilst a sophisticated cover up would be unlikely to leave papers in the general registry system of a major Government Department, extensive searches of paper records for the period, well beyond the Home Office itself, have not uncovered any evidence of organised attempts by the Home Office to conceal child abuse, either in specific documents retained by them or others, or through an obvious pattern of destroyed files.”
Their work shows that the original reviews did not cover anything up, and it neither proves nor disproves that the Home Office acted inappropriately. Likewise, they do not prove or disprove that public money ever found its way to the Paedophile Information Exchange, but they make clear that they saw
“no evidence to suggest PIE was ever funded by the Home Office because of sympathy for its aims.”
Wanless and Whittam made three sets of recommendations for the Home Office, all of which related to how the Department dealt with sensitive allegations, how officials passed such information on to the police, and how the details of those allegations were properly recorded. The permanent secretary accepted all three sets of recommendations, and the Home Office has undertaken considerable work to implement them in the year since the report was published.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Bassetlaw on locating material that he believes constitutes the so-called Dickens dossier. I am unable to offer an explanation as to why he has apparently been able to locate those documents when the Home Office has not. I can only refer to the outcome of the diligent work by Mr Wanless and Mr Whittam, who met with the hon. Gentleman during their review. I reiterate that neither they nor the previous independent reviewer were able to identify a Dickens dossier within the Department’s holdings.
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for passing whatever information he has to the Metropolitan Police Service. It is not for the Home Office, or for me in my role as Minister with responsibility for preventing abuse and exploitation, to comment on or intervene in individual ongoing investigations. As such, I will not comment or speculate on what might be in those papers. It is right and proper that any material relevant to the matter or any allegation of child sexual abuse be passed to the police so that it can be properly investigated. I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on doing just that. I understand the police are reviewing the documents passed to them, and I look forward to hearing the outcome.
As I said, it is vital that victims and survivors report the abuse they have suffered so that it can be investigated and the truth can be established. The Government are determined that no stone shall be left unturned in pursuit of that aim. That is why my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has established an independent statutory inquiry on child sexual abuse. The inquiry will challenge institutions and individuals without fear or favour, and will get to the truth. Justice Goddard is leading the inquiry’s important work, and is grasping this once-in-a-generation opportunity to expose what has gone wrong in the past and learn lessons for the future. The right place for further consideration of the Home Office’s or other institutions’ handling of the so-called Dickens dossier and other non-recent abuse allegations is the inquiry, which is free to consider evidence from any point in the past without restrictions and has the power to compel witnesses and call for evidence.
We are committed to the inquiry having the full co-operation of Government and access to all relevant information, including secret information where appropriate. Although it would not be appropriate to give a blanket undertaking that people who have signed the Official Secrets Act will not be prosecuted for reporting information relating to possible child sex abuse offences, the Attorney General gave an undertaking on 15 June that no document or evidence provided to the inquiry would result in, or be used in, any prosecution under the Official Secrets Act, or any prosecution for unlawful possession of the evidence in question.
Finally—I cannot emphasise this point enough—the Home Secretary has been clear that it is vital that the whole Government fully co-operate with the inquiry on its important work. All Departments must and will ensure that they have the systems and processes in place to do so. I assure the hon. Member for Bassetlaw that the Government are determined to uncover the truth. We must all work together to ensure that the inquiry is able to do so.
Question put and agreed to.
Care Homes (Regulation)
(8 years, 7 months ago)
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Peter Heaton-Jones (North Devon) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered regulation of care homes.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Ms Vaz. The purpose of today’s debate is to highlight what I believe to be serious shortfalls in the current system for the regulation, inspection and investigation of private care homes and nursing homes. At the moment, I believe, quite simply, that we are letting people down—the people who are least able to speak up for themselves. They are the estimated 300,000 older people who currently live in around 17,000 registered care homes in England. Their average age is 85 and a significant proportion suffer from dementia. They are people largely without a voice and that, I believe, needs to change.
Two and a half years ago, some time before being elected to this place, I was contacted by a constituent in North Devon. He told me the very moving story of his mother, a former resident at a private care home, who had died in 2009. Her son believed then, and still believes to this day, that there are serious questions about the care that she received in the final months and weeks of her life.
In the following years, my constituent has pursued all the avenues open to him to have his mother’s case fully investigated. Invariably, though, he hit a brick wall, so he began to look beyond his individual case at the more general question of how care homes are regulated and complaints investigated. He came to the conclusion that the current system is simply not fit for purpose. It is a conclusion that I share, which is why I sought today’s debate.
Let me stress that this debate is not about my constituent’s individual, specific case. I do not seek to reopen it nor to raise any questions about the standard of care in that establishment today, six years on. Indeed, last night, I spoke to a senior director at the home’s parent company to give her that assurance, which she accepted. However, my constituent’s individual case is the starting point. That is how it must be, because at the heart of this issue are people, and we must always remember that when we talk about systems, institutions and processes. It is the people who matter, and at the moment, I believe that we are letting them down.
To seek evidence for that, we have to look no further than the website of the Care Quality Commission, the body that currently has responsibility for the regulation and inspection of care homes. Today, that website tells us that of the 700 care homes most recently inspected by the CQC, a staggering 44% have been rated as either “Requires improvement” or “Inadequate”. There is no reason to believe that those figures are unrepresentative of the sector as a whole, so that means that four in 10 of all establishments are not currently reaching the required standard. Surely the purpose of any system of inspection and regulation must be to drive up standards. Those figures alone, therefore, suggest that currently the system is simply not working.
Let us look at that system, because it has undergone some significant changes in the recent past, and indeed it still is undergoing change, even as we speak today. It seems to be a process, however, that in its fluidity is encountering considerable difficulty. We are in a flexible mode, I think it is fair to say, as far as the CQC’s arrangements are concerned.
In June 2013, the CQC issued a consultation called “A new start”, which proposed a whole new approach to inspection across all sectors, including care homes. That approach was confirmed in October two years ago, and the new provider handbook for residential care came into effect from 9 October last year. In April this year, the CQC introduced a special measures regime, as it was called, for failing services. However, it is clear that there are problems in the implementation of some of those new processes.
The CQC’s most recent publication, which was published as recently as 28 October, is called “Building on strong foundations”—I have a copy here, hot off the press. It sets out
“some of the choices it faces in responding to changes to how health and social care is delivered”.
Well, it must face some pretty tough choices, because it is pretty clear that what it seeks to do in changing its processes is not fully working.
Let me quote an article from The Guardian, which I admit is not one of my usual media choices. The columnist, Michele Hanson, wrote on 28 September this year:
“Do you fancy being a CQC inspector? You can. Anyone can. You don’t have to be a social care expert, just have a six-week induction course. And luckily, once you start inspecting, you don’t have to inspect everything. You can just inspect a couple of the Key Lines of Enquiry (KLOE), because they’re not all mandatory.”
The article goes on to say:
“You can leave out management of medication, or quality of life, or complaints, and you can inspect different KLOEs in different homes, which means you can’t compare”
what is good and what is not good. She concludes:
“Which is perhaps why our local care home, rated ‘excellent’ by CQC”
was exposed on the television a short time afterwards
“over the fearful abuse of one resident”.
Clearly, something is wrong with the system. What is the cause of that? It seems, as I said, that the CQC has encountered particular problems recruiting sufficient expert inspectors. In July this year, the National Audit Office found that just 9% of care homes have so far been assessed, because of a shortfall of 160 inspectors. Indeed, the February 2016 deadline to complete the work has now been pushed back to next October.
I have a great deal of respect for the many hard-working staff at care homes and at the CQC. Those at care homes in particular receive low wages for a job that I would never want to do. I also have some sympathy for the many care home providers who are having to cope with the ever-changing regulation regime. The goalposts are constantly moving, and it is costly for those care home providers to comply with the system. Care homes have to pay to be registered by the CQC, and, depending on how many residents they have, the cost can be anything from £276 to more than £13,000 a year. It is fairly obvious where those costs are going to be passed on to.
Let us make no mistake. In cases where something goes wrong, it is the care homes and the people who own and manage them who bear the ultimate responsibility for getting things right, but the regulatory framework that we—the state—impose has to help them, encourage them, and yes, force them to improve. At the moment, it does not.
Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful case and is clearly a strong advocate for fairness and transparency in the care home sector. On whether providers are being managed in the right way by the CQC, is not the point that they have said to Department for Business, Innovation and Skills that they feel that they are being asked to provide paperwork and not care, and that there is sometimes duplication between the local authority and the CQC in how the sector is regulated?
Peter Heaton-Jones
My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. This must be about the elderly people who are in the care homes. They must be the entire focus of those who work in, manage and own those care homes, not the bureaucracy and the paperwork.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate, and it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz. You will remember that we looked at this issue in the Select Committee on Health in the last Session, as will the shadow Minister. We welcomed the new inspection regime, but I seem to remember that one criticism we had in discussions in the Committee related to the fact that we are dealing with often very elderly, very frail people who cannot speak for themselves, and one thing that the CQC could perhaps do better is engagement with families. That is not just after an inspection, when everything is all right. It needs to ensure that family members of those in care homes understand what the inspection regime is and how they can engage with it before, after and during the process. Although some of the changes have been positive and there is now perhaps better regulation in England, the people whom we ask to give feedback are often not able to speak for themselves, so we need to engage families much better.
Peter Heaton-Jones
My hon. Friend makes an extremely pertinent point, and I will talk about some challenges in the entire system when it comes to engaging with people. As he rightly says, people have difficulty in understanding the best way to engage with the system.
When things go wrong and a member of the public needs to raise a complaint against a care home, I am afraid the system becomes even less satisfactory. The CQC’s website says that it
“is unable to investigate individual complaints”
against providers. So how does someone complain if something goes wrong and they are worried about the care that is being given to an elderly relative in a care home? It is difficult. What can someone do if they fear that an elderly relative is being neglected, mistreated or not given the right healthcare, or if they fear that their relative’s life might even be in danger and the care home provider has dismissed the complaint or will not listen to it? The CQC has that said it will not handle individual complaints, so should they go the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman? No, because the ombudsman says:
“By law, the Ombudsman cannot look into complaints about privately funded healthcare.”
If someone tries to go to the ombudsman they reach a brick wall. The CQC will not handle individual complaints and the ombudsman does not accept them. There is one possibility: an organisation called the Independent Healthcare Sector Complaints Adjudication Service. The ombudsman’s website states that “you may”—I stress “may”—
“have the option of going to the Independent Sector Complaints Adjudication Service…which represents some independent healthcare providers.”
If someone’s healthcare provider is not one of them, they are stuck.
The system is bewildering. It lacks accountability and transparency, and would leave most people confused and frustrated. How are people in care homes supposed to deal with that bewildering system? They may be vulnerable, old and frail and perhaps suffering from dementia. Their loved ones might put all their time and energy into caring for them, but how are they supposed to navigate the system? It needs to change.
What changes am I proposing to try to put right some of the issues I have highlighted? Despite the best efforts of the CQC—I say again that this is not a criticism of individuals at the CQC, much less those who work in care homes—I am afraid that, as currently manifested, it is simply not fit for purpose when it comes to the regulation, inspection and investigation of standards in care homes. Its focus recently has rightly been on NHS hospitals and providers. In light of the Mid Staffordshire scandal and the findings of the Francis report, that is hardly surprising—indeed, it is right—but the unintended consequence has been insufficient focus on the private care home sector.
In the short term, we must hold the CQC to account and insist on significant improvements now, because the situation needs to be addressed immediately. In the long term, it seems to me that the solution is to create a new, single, dedicated body whose sole responsibility is the registration, regulation and inspection of private care homes. Crucially, that body should also be the first point of contact for anyone wanting to raise a complaint about a specific establishment or the care of an individual patient. It would have the responsibility and necessary powers and resources to investigate those complaints thoroughly and rigorously, and in real time.
At the moment, if someone has an immediate concern about the care being given to an elderly relative and the care home either disagrees or denies that there is a problem, there is nothing to be done and nowhere to turn. That could be a matter of life and death. It needs to change, and it needs to change urgently. When things need to be taken further, we need a complaints system that is easier for the public to access and more transparent, and whose findings are accountable to Parliament in individual cases. The current complaints infrastructure is bewildering and is just not working.
My constituent to whom I referred at the start of my speech has lived with the problem for the past six years. Over that time, he has invested a great deal of work, research and thought in it. It has been his life, and it has undoubtedly been part of the grieving process for his mother. He has produced a document that is the product of a lot of work, and I have it here. It contains 24 very detailed points, questions, proposals and recommendations. He is frustrated that despite his best efforts and with a few notable exceptions, the issue has been largely ignored by the media and not given sufficient focus by politicians. That is something I want to put right today.
In the many hours my constituent and I have spent discussing the issue, we keep coming back to one thing. It is not about processes, systems or organisations, it is about people—people who do not have a voice in a system in which, let us remember, four in 10 care homes currently fail to reach a satisfactory standard on the CQC’s own measures. That means that people—vulnerable, sick and elderly people—are not being properly cared for. That cannot be right. We must do something about it. I believe we have a moral duty to do something about it, and that we must act now.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Thank you for calling me, Ms Vaz. I congratulate the hon. Member for North Devon (Peter Heaton-Jones) on bringing this topic to Westminster Hall, setting the scene and explaining its importance from his personal experience and knowledge.
Care homes should and must provide care and services to some of the most vulnerable in society. I believe and the House believes that those who have worked hard and have contributed to society and the economy all their lives deserve appropriate care and dignity in their old age. We have the opportunity to be a voice for those who cannot be a voice for themselves. That is the issue the hon. Gentleman has brought to the House today. The people involved are often at the fringes of society and are of all ages. Many people in care homes do not have immediate family and that is another concern. We read stories in the press and we may be suspicious of them, but they illustrate the problem. There is no smoke without fire, so if there is a story in the press there must be at least some truth in the story.
Some people may be physically unable to look after themselves, including those who are elderly or have learning difficulties, dementia or Alzheimer’s. They deserve the very best care in care homes and their families need the assurance that they are well looked after. If someone has dementia, Alzheimer’s or a physical disability, they deserve the same treatment and care as others to ensure that their meals are correct and that they are given a wee bit of time, compassion and understanding, as the hon. Gentleman said. It is imperative to do all we can to protect those in care homes and to ensure that they receive the care and dignity they deserve.
I welcome the opportunity to question how the Government intend to improve regulation of the industry so that the people who are cared for are protected. I am always a bit suspicious of statistics—as the saying goes, there are lies, damned lies and statistics—but they are clear. Only 64% of care service providers in England are registered with the Care Quality Commission, so there is a question to be answered. I have great respect for the Minister’s understanding and I think the world of him, so I am sure that in his response we will hear the compassionate understanding that he feels personally and as a Minister. I look forward to that.
The Care Quality Commission monitors and regulates care organisations to ensure that they are continuing to meet national standards, and herein we encounter the first issue about regulating care homes. We need to press for much higher levels of registration if we are even to think about improving regulation. We cannot improve regulation if we do not have registration. I hope that we can make higher levels of registration a key part not just of this debate, but of the Government response. We cannot improve regulation if 36% of care service providers are not registered with the main body for monitoring and regulating the industry. Indeed, we should express immediate concern about whether those unregistered care providers are up to the national standard. I am not saying that they are not, but Government observation and monitoring is needed to ensure that they are.
Last year, following years of scandals, the Care Quality Commission announced that it would reinspect all care services and then rate them individually. We do not want to go into too much detail about the most horrible stories and incidents, but they do resonate with all of us as elected representatives. Care homes judged to be inadequate would be shut down and their directors banned from working in such positions again.
Andrew Percy
The hon. Gentleman is making a very important speech. He references the examples of abuse, mainly involving physical abuse, that we have heard about. Does he share my concern that in other care homes the problem is not physical abuse, but people not receiving proper nutrition? It is a national scandal that £13 billion of NHS money is spent every year dealing with poor nutrition, much of it in the elderly population. There are no doubt some very good nursing homes and care homes, but the quality of the food in homes often contributes to the decline of residents, and the CQC needs to get a handle on that as well.
Jim Shannon
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention; he is right. I tried to make the point earlier about the food that residents eat and its nutritional value, and about the time that may need to be spent looking after someone and feeding them. I thank the hon. Gentleman for highlighting another very important issue.
The National Audit Office found that just 9% of services had been assessed as of July this year, despite the deadline for inspections being February next year—a deadline that has been pushed back. Obviously, the February deadline cannot now be met, because 91% of homes cannot be inspected in that time, but perhaps when the Minister responds we can get an idea of a new deadline in relation to the inspection regime.
However well intended the Care Quality Commission system is, there are clear failings in the current way of doing things, and today’s debate gives us the opportunity to discuss the way ahead in terms of improving the poor rate of inspection. The right hon. and hon. Members who are here will illustrate that very clearly. Concerns have been raised across the political spectrum, both in newspapers and by political representatives, and I hope that the solution to those concerns can also be found on a cross-party, bipartisan basis. After all, this matter concerns us all. It is not a matter of scoring points—it is never that with me anyway, but it certainly is not with anyone in this debate, because we all have the same focus and commitment to delivery of the same level of care and to ensuring that all homes reach a certain level.
We have had many issues in the past in Northern Ireland. I know that this is a devolved matter and the responsibility of someone else, but having the appropriate protection and regulation is so important to ensuring that abuses are not happening. The historical and the up-to-date abuse cases that we see in the papers need to become a thing of the past.
We can come together from both sides of the House, set the right course, address the issues and hopefully, through the Minister and the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley), provide some direction in relation to the solutions. I hope that my contribution and the issues I raised have been noted by the Minister—indeed, I know that they have been—and that they will prove useful to eliciting a strategy and a response from Government to ensure that this matter is addressed correctly as a matter of urgency, as the hon. Member for North Devon said, and to the best of our ability.
Several hon. Members rose—
Valerie Vaz (in the Chair)
Order. I intend to start the winding-up speeches at 10 past 5.
Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)
Thank you, Ms Vaz. I shall endeavour to speed through my comments. First, I commend my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Peter Heaton-Jones). We are both MPs from the south-west, and our constituencies have a significant number of elderly residents and therefore of care homes and nursing homes. The issue he raises is crucial, but perhaps I can take the opportunity to broaden the debate, because I believe that the problem is not as simple as just the CQC. Many of his points about the CQC were well put, but this is a broader challenge.
I shall start by explaining that nine statutory bodies—all independent and all accountable to Parliament—are overseen by the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care, so it is a question of looking not just at the CQC, but at all those bodies together. You can appreciate, Ms Vaz, that nine bodies will inevitably have various sets of regulations, which will not necessarily be consistent and work well together. Indeed, the Professional Standards Authority report in 2015 made it clear that the regulatory framework was unfit for purpose.
However, this is not just about the regulatory framework; it is broader than that, too. Rules and regulations do not make people good. Regulation is about trying to ensure best practice and that those who default are made to sort the situation out. As my hon. Friend said, too much bureaucracy takes the care out of caring, and this is really about care. It should not be about bureaucracy —box-ticking. It should be about ensuring that elderly residents are properly respected and cared for.
The Professional Standards Authority has concluded—unsurprisingly, given its oversight of nine authorities—that less is actually more. It suggests that we need a new framework and that we should look at sharing objectives across all the regulators and sharing the theories of what works so that there is a consistent approach. Most importantly, we should rebuild the trust among the professionals, the public and the regulator, because at the moment there is an awful lot of mudslinging among the three and that is not helpful. What we need is a good system that works for our society. We also need proper risk assessment models to ensure that we are looking at the things that really matter and actually put residents at risk.
There are, inevitably and tragically, many cases that none of us want to be repeated. It almost goes without saying—my hon. Friend has already made it clear—that there are plenty of examples. Indeed, the statistics demonstrate that there is clearly something wrong. The report “The state of health care and adult social care in England 2014/15” showed that 60% of providers found to be inadequate were not improving, so there is clearly something not quite right. In Bedfordshire the Old Village School home managed to go from “good” to closure within six months; previously it had been excellent. There is clearly something at the root of this that is not just about regulation and bureaucracy, but is more fundamental.
Before I move to that broad picture, I have a couple more thoughts on the Care Quality Commission itself. I have met Andrea Sutcliffe on a number of occasions and I believe that she is cognisant of and takes seriously the concerns raised by my hon. Friend. However, there is a challenge, which is that the remit of the CQC was expanded to cover so much that in reality it is almost inconceivable that it could do the job properly, to the right standards, given how stretched it is. Indeed, in its own survey in 2014, 40% of CQC staff felt that they were not adequately trained. There is clearly a challenge—about regulation, about structure and about asking an organisation to do more than realistically it is capable of doing. If that is the case, we should not be surprised when things fall apart.
There was an interesting comment, however, from the National Audit Office. It said that the CQC does not know whether its model for predicting staff numbers is accurate enough. That, for me, goes to the heart of the matter. We can have as much regulation as we like, but if we do not have staffing right—if we do not have the right numbers or the budget to pay for them—inevitably, there will be huge problems.
I have looked at the care home reports for Teignbridge District Council in my constituency. The new regime and the five new tests came into play April this year, and the new tests are absolutely on point: the home must be safe, efficient, caring, responsive and well led. That is absolutely right. Twenty-one of the 70 care homes in the area have been inspected and 10 have been found to be good. I share my colleague’s concerns about the homes that were not found to be good, but I took to reading the reports to find out what they actually said. Although the reports covered 10 or 15 different areas, if I dug down to the root causes I found that they were really about staff and the adequacy of both numbers and training.
I meet people from my care homes regularly, every three months, and they tell me that if hon. Members do as I did, they will reach a similar conclusion—that it is a real challenge to find the managers needed to run the homes. Without those managers, the homes are found wanting but they have no ability to resolve the problem. There is a similar challenge in the shortage of nurses. Being a nurse in the care home sector is much more challenging, I think, than being a nurse in the NHS. Care home nurses often work on their own at night, whereas a nurse in an NHS hospital will be surrounded by lots of colleagues. In the care home sector, nurses often work with difficult individuals who have complex problems, often including dementia, with all its attendant behavioural complexities.
The feedback from those responsible for care homes in my constituency conveys much frustration. They understand the role of the CQC, but they feel deeply frustrated that they cannot always put right the things that are found to be wrong. That must be incredibly frustrating. They feel that there needs to be a new balance between scrutiny and support. Although they feel it is right that they are properly scrutinised, they also feel that there is a lack of support. I had the pleasure of talking to the Minister only yesterday, and he was at pains to tell me that the CQC was indeed endeavouring to provide such support. I said to him then, and I will repeat it today, “They don’t see it and they don’t feel it.”
In the old days, under the CQC’s predecessor, care homes received guidance as well as criticism. Because of the desire to separate the two, which I can understand conceptually, they now feel as though they are left on their own. I am proud of our Devon homes, because we have produced our own kitemark for dementia care, as a result of which the homes work together, peer review each other and provide their own training schemes. I think that that is a good way forward.
For me, the big question is: are we looking at everything that impacts the system that endeavours to provide care in care homes and nursing homes? I do not think that we are. There is a big piece missing—the commissioning. At the moment, we review and scrutinise the provision of care, but we do not scrutinise the commissioning done by local authorities and unitaries. If they do not get the commissioning right and ensure that the right providers are providing what is needed, the system will fall down. I have, for example, seen individuals placed in care homes who should be in nursing homes because they have needs that are well beyond the capabilities of a non-nursing care home. That is something that must be critically and urgently addressed.
I am also concerned that we should look in a fair and balanced way at what we are paying our providers. At the moment, commissioners are not in any way held to account for what they pay providers. There is no standard review of the pricing across the country. If pricing is worked out on an ad hoc basis, the amount of money that local authorities pay their providers will vary across the country. At the end of the day, however, although there will be minimal differences in some staffing costs, by and large the costs will not be as diverse as the pricing structure indicates. There needs to be a proper analysis of the prices paid and what we are getting for the money. Are we getting tin tacks, or are we getting platinum? Is the situation as diverse as I fear it is? As a civilised society, we need to determine what we should be giving our citizens, and we need to ensure that that is delivered consistently across the country. The failure to do so will give rise to safeguarding issues.
My final point on commissioning is that we should separate commissioning and provision. At the moment, a local authority can do both, so there is a potential conflict of interest. I am conscious of the fact that time is not in my favour and you would like me to move on, Ms Vaz. I have made most of the points that I wanted to make, so I will just say that dealing with that is a key issue. Regulation is only part of the problem. As the sun slowly comes out, we need to start to fix the roof, and this has to be a key part of that process. We need a proper system of care, not merely compliance. It needs to be properly funded, and staff need to be properly trained.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
I will be very brief, because I have already made the points I wanted to make about nutrition, and about family involvement and engagement in the inspection process. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Peter Heaton-Jones) on securing this debate on a subject that has always bothered me in my other role, which members of the Health Committee have heard a lot about, as a volunteer first responder with the ambulance service in Yorkshire. In that role, I have spent a lot of time in care homes, and there is a real mix of standards.
There are two things worth raising with the Minister that bother me and that, I hope, broadly come within the scope of this debate. One is the quality and dignity of care for elderly patients in care homes. When they need to be taken to hospital, they are often, sadly, taken on their own. I remember watching a very elderly lady who was having a suspected stroke on a hospital trolley at Scunthorpe hospital. She was alone and obviously very distressed. The ambulance crew were doing the best that they could, but they were booking her in and all the rest of it. I remember looking at her and thinking, “I would not want that to happen to my grandma.” That happens too often.
The second point is about the need for an understanding of palliative and end-of-life care in care homes. That is an issue of training and standards. I have been called to care homes where I have had to try to resuscitate people who are clearly at the end of life in a very unpleasant situation. We must get better at that, because we know what inevitably happens to many people in care homes before they even get to nursing homes, so proper training must be given. In that respect, proper standards of care and the quality of training of people working in care homes are in desperate need of improvement. In some areas and some care homes, those things are very good. I have a wonderful care home in my constituency, which has a cinema and a hairdresser, and it is lovely to go into. It does not have some of the problems found in other care homes. People have to pay for that, however, and only those who can afford to do so get it. Too many people cannot afford that, so they do not access the same quality of care or staff training. I hope that the Minister can respond to those two brief points.
Natalie McGarry (Glasgow East) (SNP)
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz. I congratulate the hon. Member for North Devon (Peter Heaton-Jones) on securing this important debate. Ensuring that our older people, and those of a younger demographic who have complex needs, have access to high-quality care is a vital role and duty of any Government, and I am pleased to have the opportunity to contribute to the debate. Across the political divide, and in all parts of the UK, our older people deserve comfort, dignity and decent care. Many important points have been raised, and I think we all agree that strong regulation must be in place to ensure that care facilities that provide vital support meet the highest possible standards. With an increasingly ageing population, that is a necessary consideration that transcends party politics. It is not for me—a Scottish National party MP for a Scottish constituency and a spokesperson for the party—to dictate English policy on a matter that is devolved to Scotland, but I hope that by sharing the approach we have taken in Scotland, I can help to inform the debate and show some examples of best practice.
Members have contributed thoughts and experiences from their constituencies. The hon. Member for North Devon made the important point that we are talking about people, not merely systems and processes. He was a powerful advocate for our agreeing to ensure quality care for everyone. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) constructively articulated the need for cross-party consensus and argued for compassion and care. The hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) made a pertinent point about nutrition and standards, and spoke of the requirement to engage families in the care process. He brought his own experience to the debate. The hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) successfully broadened the debate beyond the regulatory framework and the CQC, and raised a key concern about pay in the sector.
The debate has underlined the need to get things right for people in care everywhere. That was the key point of emphasis in our approach in Scotland, where Scottish Ministers have developed national care standards to ensure that everyone in Scotland receives the same high quality of care, no matter where they live. By articulating clear standards underpinned by the principles of dignity, privacy, choice, safety, realising potential, and equality and diversity, we are able to explain what someone can expect from any care service they use. The standards are written from the point of view of the person using the service, and help people to raise concerns or complaints.
Although the national care standards have served Scotland well, and ensured that we have a clear and robust regulation regime, the Scottish Government have committed to undertaking a review and are consulting the public on updating those standards. The SNP believes that the rights of our older people to decent care and dignity in care homes are human rights, and that is at the heart of the Scottish Government’s consultation. The Care Inspectorate and Healthcare Improvement Scotland are asking everyone with an interest and involvement in health or social care—personal or professional—to take part in the consultation, which will help the standards evolve to meet the needs, rights and choices of people across Scotland. I especially urge anybody with experience of care homes to give their input to the process in Scotland, as the consultation closes on 10 December.
Standards of safety were addressed in Scotland’s care homes following the tragic fire at Rosepark care home in Uddingston in 2011. In March 2014, the Scottish Government put revised guidelines in place to ensure the utmost standards of safety and care, and they continue to progress their improvement agenda. Improving safety, care and regulatory standards in care homes is a key priority for Members of all parties. The Rosepark case and the Scottish Government’s response underscore the importance of learning lessons from failings.
We need an open and inclusive debate on standards in care homes that involves all parties and, most importantly, members of the public who use the services—a debate that carefully considers how we can improve the care experience for all. In the past 45 minutes, we have made at least some contribution to the wider debate. I thank the hon. Member for North Devon for securing the debate, and I look forward to what I am sure will be a proactive and constructive response from the Minister.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate with you as our chair, Ms Vaz. I congratulate the hon. Member for North Devon (Peter Heaton-Jones) on securing this debate on an extremely important issue. I have read the document he referred to, which was sent to me by his constituent. I sympathise with his constituent and others who have lost their loved ones in similar circumstances; those are tormenting times for people. If any patient is failed by the NHS or a care provider, we must ask them serious questions about what went wrong. We must try to ensure that no patient or family member has to go through a similar situation. Often, what family members want is for nobody else to have to suffer in the way that they have.
The regulation of care and nursing homes is extremely important, particularly as more people are likely to rely on those homes given our growing elderly population. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the CQC and its recent reports and developments. It said in its “State of Care” report that
“there is room for improvement across the whole of the adult social care sector.”
That is a very damning conclusion for it to come to, having moved into social care and nursing care inspection. The hon. Gentleman referred to the statistics. Only around two thirds of social care provision was rated good or outstanding, and 7% of services were rated inadequate. It is of even more concern that fewer than half of nursing homes were rated good or outstanding; 10% received the lowest rating of inadequate. Out of 1,275 nursing homes that the CQC inspected, 127 homes were rated inadequate. That is very serious if we think about how many people are in those homes. Would any of us accept that standard for our grandparents, mothers, fathers, wives or husbands? Of course we would not. We would demand the highest standards for our family members, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) mentioned.
The CQC found examples of extremely bad practice, including a nursing home with an overpowering smell of urine and with mould on the walls, and a care home that did not administer medication properly. Recent evidence to the Public Accounts Committee showed that improvements were needed to the CQC’s regulatory regime. However, the CQC now appears to be having to manage with fewer resources. I understand that it plans to pioneer a new approach of “co-regulation”, with providers sending in
“self-assessments of how they think they’re doing”,
which the CQC would then verify. When less than 50% of nursing homes are judged to be good or outstanding and 10% are rated inadequate, I find that very concerning. This is not the time to move to a system of self-assessment—a move that seems to be driven by a projected cut to the CQC’s resources. As the hon. Member for North Devon said, it already has serious staffing issues, with one third of its inspection positions vacant.
More needs to be done. We covered that well during the debate. I agree that more needs to be done to help families to raise cases of bad practice, so that lessons can be learned—a point that the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) touched on when he talked about the CQC working better with families. Complaints about health and social care are dealt with by different services, which follow local complaints processes. The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman looks at complaints about the NHS, the independent Health and Social Care Advisory Service undertakes investigations, and the Local Government Ombudsman investigates issues regarding local authorities and adult social care. It is clear that care is changing, but care in nursing homes always spanned all those areas.
Vulnerable older people being cared for in nursing homes can rely on a variety of health and social care professionals. In nursing homes, older people often have a number of medical and care needs, which are dealt with by different people, including care assistants, nurses, GPs, and through hospital treatment and care. We need to ensure that the regulation of the sector takes that into account. When there are failures by multiple organisations, all those involved must be held to account. That very thing—the changeover—makes it difficult. How can the regulatory framework for nursing homes be improved to deal with that overlap? We are now talking about the integration of health and social care in Greater Manchester and other areas of the country, but we need a regulatory and complaints system that works with what we have. We should be striving for a health and social care system in which all older people receive the care that they need. If that does not happen, we need clear procedures enabling people to have their issues investigated. It is not clear where family members can go if they become alarmed that care is not being provided adequately.
The social care system helps some of the most vulnerable people in our society. When they do not have a voice, we must ensure that they are heard. In this debate we have heard some worrying statistics about care not being provided as it should have been. We need to improve our regulatory and complaints system, so that we learn from cases such as that of the constituent of the hon. Member for North Devon. I am glad that there has been quite a bit of consensus in the debate about the need to improve standards of care and regulation. We look to the Minister to tell us how that improvement might happen.
The Minister for Community and Social Care (Alistair Burt)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz. You will not find a lack of consensus here today; I am glad to start off in that way.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Peter Heaton-Jones) on securing this debate, which has been really good. Colleagues have made some very moving and pertinent points. I find myself in the position that Ministers find themselves in; understandably, I have responsibility for an inspection and regulatory regime that we are all working hard to ensure does its job of protecting people in the manner that we all described. Inevitably, however, the issues that arise are always the things that go wrong. The question is how to strike the balance between, on the one hand, giving an assurance about the chief inspector of the Care Quality Commission, and the assurance that our degree of concern about what happens in care homes is absolutely appropriate, and, on the other hand, in no way being complacent about the issues that colleagues spoke about, and about where the problems are. That is what I hope to address.
I am really appreciative of the contributions made. I will come to the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon in a moment. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) spoke with his usual decency and compassion. He wants speedier action, and he recognised our non-partisan sense of interest in those who require care. My hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) made a number of interesting points, including about managers in care homes. When I have spoken to CQC officials and others, I have found that issue to be vital. If there is good management, it will be a good care home; if there is not, it will not be. The lack of registered managers is a genuine problem, and we are on to that. The issue of commissioning is also underplayed.
My hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) spoke movingly about the issue of loneliness and isolation. He talked about someone who was taken from a home in an emergency, needing urgent care, who found themselves on their own. That raises questions about the extent of care delivered to individuals in those circumstances, and I hope that anyone who heard that would question their procedures to ensure that it did not happen to anyone they were looking after.
This morning, I met Unison officials in the office and we had a word about training standards. We have to be absolutely certain that training is available for all who are active in care homes. As we know, there is the skills care certificate. However, I am led to believe that we cannot be sure that everyone is getting the training they need, and as a result of this conversation, I am really interested in finding out what more we can do to ensure that training is available for all.
Andrew Percy
One area of training where we really could help to take the pressure off the ambulance service is in relation to falls, which place a huge demand on our local health services. Paramedics often say to me that they feel those falls could be dealt with more appropriately by care home staff—or even avoided—if staff were trained properly.
Alistair Burt
I take my hon. Friend’s point, which confirms what I was saying about the need for training, and for appropriate treatment and rehabilitation to be available after falls. The role of occupational therapists should not be minimised after such incidents.
I am all too willing to hear from the hon. Member for Glasgow East (Natalie McGarry). The fact that this matter is devolved is of no interest; what is important is that we share best practice and best standards of care. I very much appreciate her contribution. The hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) again challenged me on what we are doing, and really that is the meat of the remarks I prepared to give in response to the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon; I am grateful to him for sharing those with us before the debate.
Let me put one or two things on the record. The Government are committed to improving the quality of adult social care, and to ensuring that people receive high-quality and compassionate care. We have taken a number of firm steps in that regard, and that is partly because of the sort of issues raised today. However, we are in a relatively early phase of the use of the new powers given to the CQC, and in a sense this debate reflects the sort of baseline from which we all have to work.
My hon. Friend referred to the experiences of his constituent, whose mother died in a local care home, and he spoke powerfully about the frustration that his constituent experienced in raising concerns with the care home provider and other bodies, such as the CQC and the local clinical commissioning group. We offer our condolences to my hon. Friend’s constituent, and I share his frustration that the experiences of service users and their families have not always been central to the provision of care or the oversight of regulation. I know that my hon. Friend’s constituent has met senior staff at the CQC on more than one occasion, and I hope that those meetings were helpful to him. However, I appreciate that this debate is not an opportunity to reopen this case, which I know the CQC has investigated extremely thoroughly.
Picking up on some of the concerns expressed today, I want to reassure my hon. Friend that we have come a long way; we have made real improvements in the regulation of adult social care in quite a short time, but of course there is more to do. Our reforms to the CQC have been central to those improvements. The regulation of adult social care has three key roles: first, to identify poor practice and take action to protect service users from the risk of harm; secondly, to encourage improvement by identifying areas of weakness; and, thirdly, to highlight and share good practice and success. All these roles are built on the foundations of effective use of data and rigorous inspection. In that respect, the CQC has been transformed in recent years, not least by having been given new powers in 2014, which is obviously not all that long ago. Those powers need to be built on.
The CQC has put in place specialist inspection teams under the leadership of the chief inspector of adult social care. These teams include “experts by experience”—people who have personal experience of care—and inspections now take particular account of the views and experiences of the users of services and their families.
The great majority of CQC inspections are unannounced. In a very small number of cases, when there are good practical reasons for doing so, notice may be given, but in the vast majority of cases services are not tipped off or warned that an inspection team is on its way. Providers registered with the CQC are required to meet a new set of fundamental standards that govern the quality and safety of services. These standards only came into force on 1 April, but they are the standards of safety and quality that providers must always meet. The CQC has a range of enforcement powers that it can use against providers that breach these fundamental standards. These powers vary from issuing warning notices and fines and imposing conditions on a provider’s registration, to cancelling registration, which withdraws a service’s permission to operate, thus closing it.
The new fundamental standards include two important new registration requirements. The first—the duty of candour—requires providers to be open with service users about all aspects of their care, and to inform them when there are failures in their care. The second—a “fit and proper person” requirement for directors—ensures that accountability for poor care can be traced all the way to the boardroom if necessary.
The CQC’s model does not just assess whether providers are meeting the fundamental standards. The CQC asks five key questions of each service: is it safe? Is it caring? Is it effective? Is it responsive? Is it well led? All inspections deliver a rating for each of these five key questions on a scale running from “inadequate”, through “requires improvement” and “good”, to “outstanding”. Inspections also result in an overall rating for each location.
There was much talk about what has been found so far in relation to those ratings, with a small number of providers deemed to be “outstanding” and more providers deemed to be “good”. However, a number of providers were deemed to “require improvement” or be “inadequate”. In starting its inspection process, the CQC looked first at those providers that might have more difficulties than others. The CQC is aware of what is going on, and it started its inspections at the end of the scale where it expected to find difficulties. That was designed not to force closures, but to recognise where improvement and support, which my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot mentioned, is so important. In 40% of those cases, improvement has been made; on a subsequent inspection, things were found to have improved. However, that still leaves a percentage of those providers having not improved, and I think it is those providers that have been highlighted today.
Having met Andrea Sutcliffe, I am quite confident that her determination is exactly the same as that of everyone in this room. However, it is clear that there are so many places to cover that we have to be certain of ensuring that the standards that we have spoken of, and that the CQC is working to, will be delivered by all providers. Those are standards in training, management and ensuring effective monitoring.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Devon used the phrase, “There’s nowhere to go”, in relation to someone having concern about an individual. I would not want that to be the message; I would not want anyone to feel that they had nowhere to go if they felt that someone was at risk of being, or was being, ill-treated in a care home. That is not the case. The truth is that if someone has such a fear, they can contact the CQC, which will act if it agrees that a person’s safety or wellbeing is at risk, and if need be the CQC will contact the police. I would not want anyone to think that if they knew of someone in a care home being ill-treated, there was nothing they could do as of this moment. They can and should do something.
However, it is also clear from the nature of the debate that if the CQC’s most recent report has set a baseline, there are things that we need to do and improve. The sort of information available to us through our constituents, and the sort of interest that specialists such as those here have taken, will give me good guidance on how to ensure those improvements are seen through.
Written Statements
(8 years, 7 months ago)
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Strathclyde Review
(8 years, 7 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (John Penrose)
The Government have commissioned Lord Strathclyde to lead a review into how to secure the decisive role of the elected House of Commons in the passage of legislation.
By long-standing convention the House of Lords does not seek to challenge the primacy of the elected House on spending and taxation. It also does not reject statutory instruments, save in exceptional circumstances. Until last month, only five statutory instruments had been rejected by the House of Lords since World War II, none of which related only to a matter of public spending and taxation.
The purpose of the review is to examine how to protect the ability of elected Governments to secure their business in Parliament in light of the operation of these conventions.
The review will consider in particular how to secure the decisive role of the elected House of Commons in relation to its primacy on financial matters, and secondary legislation.
Lord Strathclyde will be supported in his work by a small panel of experts:
Jacqy Sharpe, former Clerk of Legislation in the House of Commons and Clerk to the Joint Committee on Conventions in 2006;
Sir Stephen Laws, former First Parliamentary Counsel; and
Sir Michael Pownall, former Clerk of the Parliaments
Lord Strathclyde and the panel of experts will not be paid a fee for their work on the review. Lord Strathclyde will aim to submit his recommendations to the Prime Minister by the end of the year.
[HCWS292]
Fuel Duty Fraud
(8 years, 7 months ago)
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The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Damian Hinds)
The Government are committed to tackling fuel fraud. HMRC’s oils fraud strategy has seen the UK tax gap for fuels reduce from £1.5 billion in 2002 to around £100 million in 2013-14. In Northern Ireland, where this issue has been a particular problem, the illicit market share has been reduced from 26% to 8% over the same period. However, the Government recognise there is no room for complacency.
One form of fuel fraud is fuel laundering—the removal of chemical dyes and covert markers from rebated fuel to give the appearance of legitimate road fuel. To tackle this problem, the UK, together with the Republic of Ireland, introduced a new fuel marker, Accutrace, from 1 April 2015.
Since its introduction, HMRC have been monitoring its performance. I will deposit a copy of HMRC’s evaluation, based on the first six months’ worth of data, in the Library of the House.
The review suggests the new marker is having a positive effect, but it is too early to say if the reductions are sustained, or to establish causality. HMRC will continue to monitor the impact of the new fuel marker and will publish a further update on the first 12 months of data. HMRC will keep the fuel marker under constant review and will take further action if required.
[HCWS289]
Design and Technology GCSE
(8 years, 7 months ago)
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The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)
We are reforming GCSEs to make sure that they give students the best possible preparation for further and higher education, and for employment. We want new GCSEs to set expectations which match those of the best education systems in the world, with rigorous assessment that provides a reliable measure of students’ achievement. The reforms are extensive and represent a new qualification gold standard.
Today, I am publishing subject content for design and technology GCSE, for first teaching in 2017. This follows a public consultation which ran from 1 July 2015 until 26 August 2015. The new content moves the subject on from its craft based roots into a cutting edge qualification focused upon both design and making, that will better prepare students for further study and careers.
The content emphasises the iterative design processes that all students should understand and be able to demonstrate and which is at the core of contemporary practice. It will allow both breadth and depth of knowledge, without limiting students on the materials they can work with, enabling them to make choices appropriate to their design, rather than creating a design around a particular material.
The new GCSE also sets out in greater detail the mathematical and scientific content that students must know and understand in relation to design and technology.
These changes aim to ensure that all students have the knowledge and skills to design and make prototypes, using the best material, equipment and techniques, to solve real world and relevant problems across a range of contexts.
The new GCSE in design and technology will be introduced for first teaching in September 2017.
The GCSE content document, and the Government’s response to the consultation are attached to this statement.
Attachments can be viewed online at: http:// www.parliament.uk/business/publications.
[HCWS290]
Junior Doctors Contract
(8 years, 7 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)
This Government are completely committed to the values of the NHS—the same values that encourage aspiring doctors to take up a career in medicine.
Junior doctors are the backbone of the NHS, but the current contract has failed to prevent some working unsafe hours, and does not reward them fairly. We know also that they feel unsupported because consultants and diagnostic services are not always available in the evenings and at weekends.
Today a firm offer for a new contract has been published by NHS Employers. The new contract will be fairer for doctors, safer for patients and juniors alike, better for training, and will better support a seven day NHS.
This offer builds on the cast-iron guarantees that I have previously offered the British Medical Association (BMA) including that we would not remove a single penny from the junior doctors’ pay bill, and we would maintain average earnings for junior doctors. The proposals offer an 11% increase to basic pay, with further increases linked to progressing through training and taking on roles with greater responsibility—instead of being based on time served.
Our ambition for the NHS to be the safest healthcare system in the world is underpinned by reducing, not increasing, the number of hours junior doctors work each week. Juniors will be supported by improved contractual safeguards—the best protection junior doctors have ever had against working long, intense and unsafe hours. For example, no junior will be required to work more than a weekly average of 48 hours without consent and those who opt out of that legal limit in the European working time directive will not be able to work more than a weekly average of 56 hours. The number of hours that can be worked in any single week by any junior will be limited to 72, down from 91; there will be a 13 hour limit on shifts; and there will be no more than five consecutive long days or four consecutive nights, compared to the current contract which permits seven consecutive night shifts or up to 12 consecutive day shifts.
Putting patients first is the responsibility of employers and staff. Where doctors are asked to work in conditions that they believe are unsafe, including being asked to work patterns that put patient safety at risk, they will be asked to use reporting mechanisms available to them to raise the issue with the board of their trust, and reporting data will now be available for the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to use during inspections. We would expect trust boards to look at any such report and decide how to respond to it; and we would expect the CQC, when it carries out an inspection, to look at how the board has responded to this and other data reporting safety incidents and concerns—a tough new measure to ensure safe working.
In order to better support a seven day NHS, basic pay will increase by 11 % to compensate for an extension in plain time working on Saturdays during the day and on weekday evenings, and there will be enhanced rates for hours worked at nights, on Saturday evenings and Sunday. The Government have also decided that plain time will be extended only to 7pm on Saturdays, instead of 10pm on Saturdays, and want to improve training and ensure better clinical supervision from consultants as well.
We will offer new flexible pay premia for those training in hard-to-fill training programmes where there is the most need, such as general practice, emergency medicine and psychiatry, and we will protect the salaries of those who return or switch to training in these programmes. Junior doctors who take time off for academic research that is part of their NHS training, or which contributes to the wider NHS and improvements in patient care, will get additional pay premia to make sure they do not lose out.
Today, I have also written to all junior doctors in England confirming that no junior doctor working legal hours will receive a pay cut compared to their current contract during transition. Around three quarters will see an increase in pay and the rest will be protected. The exception to this is those who currently receive up to a 100% salary boost as compensation for working unsafe hours. Instead, new contractual safeguards will ensure they are not required to work unsafe hours at all. To see how the offer affects them, junior doctors can now log on to a pay calculator published by NHS Employers where they can calculate projected take home pay.
Our preference throughout has been, and continues to be, to reach agreement through negotiations. We have maintained that, in reforming the contract, we must put patients right at the heart of everything the NHS does every day of the week. A fair, sustainable contract with stronger safeguards, together with the greater availability of consultants at the weekends and evenings, is good for patients and good for junior doctors.
The details published today represent the Government’s offer in England, which will be for doctors and dentists in postgraduate training programmes overseen by health education England.
Since they withdrew from negotiations in October 2014—despite agreeing the need for change as far back as 2008—the BMA have refused to return to the table. In light of today’s announcement we hope that the BMA will now agree to return to negotiations.
[HCWS288]
Wilson Doctrine
(8 years, 7 months ago)
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The Prime Minister (Mr David Cameron)
On 17 November 1966, Harold Wilson made a statement to the House regarding the interception of the telephone calls of Members of Parliament. He said that there was to be no tapping of the telephones of Members of Parliament. If there was a development that required a change in the general policy then the Prime Minister would, at a moment as seemed compatible with the security of the country, on his own initiative, make a statement in the House about it. Together with a number of clarifications to that statement made by my predecessors over the years, this has become known as the Wilson doctrine.
One of the clarifications extended the doctrine to Members of the other place. Another extended it to electronic surveillance that is authorised under a warrant signed by a Secretary of State.
I, and my predecessors, have confirmed on numerous occasions that the Wilson doctrine continues to apply. This remains the case.
With the publication of the draft Investigatory Powers Bill today, and also prompted in part by a recent judgment of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal and the debate in this House on 19 October, I wanted to explain this Government’s position on the Wilson doctrine.
First, the interception of communications of any person, including Members of Parliament is governed by the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA). This, and the code of practice issued under it, set out a series of robust safeguards for any instance of interception. There is independent oversight from the Interception of Communications Commissioner. This is the current legal framework for the interception of communications.
Second, I do not believe the Wilson doctrine was, or is, an absolute bar to the targeted interception of the communications of Members of Parliament or an exemption from the legal regime governing interception. The Home Secretary has made that position clear in the House on a number of occasions. The doctrine recognised that there could be instances where interception might be necessary.
Third, some have assumed that the Wilson doctrine requires the Prime Minister of the day to approve any proposed instance of the targeted interception of a Member of Parliament. I do not believe the doctrine itself requires this. It simply indicates that in certain circumstances the Prime Minister would make a statement to the House at a time of his choosing when national security allows. However, it is the policy of this Government that if there was any proposal to target a Member’s communications then I would be consulted by the relevant Secretary of State.
Fourth, I can confirm that, in future, as a matter of policy the Prime Minister will be consulted should there ever be a proposal to target any UK parliamentarian under a warrant issued by a Secretary of State, notwithstanding the general policy set out in the doctrine. This applies to Members of this House, Members of the other place, the Scottish Parliament, the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Welsh Assembly and UK Members of the European Parliament. It applies to all activity authorised by a warrant issued by a Secretary of State: any instance of targeted interception and, electronic surveillance and equipment interference, when undertaken by the security and intelligence agencies. This is in addition to the rigorous safeguards already in the legislation itself. This means that, going forwards, the safeguards for all parliamentarians will be the same, with one exception: the Prime Minister will play no role should there ever be any proposal to conduct any such activity by Police Scotland, where these warrants are authorised by the Scottish Government. It would be up to the Scottish Government how they wish to handle any such case, should it ever arise. Updated interception and equipment interference codes of practice which make this policy clear have been laid in Parliament today.
Fifth, the draft Investigatory Powers Bill, published today, will update the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and provides for even greater safeguards. The Bill will establish Judicial Commissioners to review warrants and also puts the Prime Minister’s role on a statutory basis. This will provide for further scrutiny by an independent judge on top of Secretary of State authorisation. The independent judicial scrutiny, alongside the role of the Prime Minister, will establish a tripartite process should there ever be a proposal to target a parliamentarian: the Secretary of State, the Prime Minister and the Judicial Commissioner.
Finally, I want to clarify today the safeguards for any targeted requests for communications data of parliamentarians. These are set out in the acquisition and disclosure of communications data code of practice. While there is no role for Secretaries of State or the Prime Minister in approving these requests the code requires that special consideration must be given by the public authority requesting the data.
Harold Wilson made his statement almost 50 years ago when there was no legislation on interception or independent oversight. The world has moved on since then. My statement today sets out how this Government continue to apply the doctrine in the 21st century.
[HCWS291]
Grand Committee
(8 years, 7 months ago)
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Enterprise Bill [HL]
(8 years, 7 months ago)
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The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Haskel) (Lab)
My Lords, if there is a Division in the Chamber, the Committee will adjourn and we will resume after 10 minutes.
I must draw the attention of your Lordships to the groupings list. The first amendment should be Amendment 52R, not Amendment 53R.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
“UK Green Investment Bank
Omit Part 1 of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 (UK Green Investment Bank).”
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Neville-Rolfe) (Con)
My Lords, this is the Government’s only amendment tabled for Committee. It has the effect of repealing Part 1 of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act, which is the legislation controlling the Green Investment Bank. I apologise that this matter has had to be introduced by amendment and that we were not therefore able to debate this issue at Second Reading. Its inclusion in this Bill at this stage is as a result of late developments during our work to introduce private capital into the Green Investment Bank, which we announced in June.
I will explain a bit of the background and set out the rationale behind the amendment. The Green Investment Bank was, I believe, a real success of the last Government. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, will agree with me on that. Indeed, I hope that all noble Lords will agree.
The Green Investment Bank was set up, in 2012, to mobilise private sector investment in the green economy. It is doing its job remarkably well. So far it has committed £2 billion to 55 green projects and seven funds, alongside £6 billion of additional private investment. So for every £1 that the GIB invests, it is mobilising an additional £3 from the private sector, and it is doing it all on fully commercial terms, showing that green investment can be profitable. It is helping to bring new investment from long-term institutional investors, such as pension funds, into green projects. For example, last month it announced that an additional £355 million was being committed to its offshore wind subsidiary fund, bringing the total in the fund to £818 million. That is all private sector money, albeit managed by the public GIB.
No doubt your Lordships will ask why the Government want to change something which is already so successful. The simple answer is that government ownership is holding back the GIB’s ambition. All the while it is owned by government, it is limited in what it can do. It is limited in the amount of funding it can access, because it must compete for its funding alongside schools and hospitals, and it may not borrow freely on the capital markets while on the Government’s balance sheet. It is limited in the range of sectors in which it can operate as it is constrained by state aid rules. Moreover, it is limited to operating within the UK all the while it is funded with taxpayers’ money. It is currently undertaking a pilot with the Department of Energy and Climate Change to do some international work, but we believe that it could do more. The GIB has been going from strength to strength, and because of this, its ambitions are beginning to outstrip the supply of capital that the Government can and should provide. Our policy aim is to get the market to work in tackling green policy challenges. Bringing private capital directly into the GIB is the natural next step for the company rather than leaving it to rely on public funds.
The repeal proposed in the amendment is not something that the Government have decided upon lightly, but it has now become apparent that it is a necessary step if we are to move the GIB into private ownership. If the GIB is to enjoy the benefits of private ownership, including having the freedom to borrow and raise capital, it must be declassified from the public sector. If it remains in the public sector, it could not raise equity or debt without impacting public sector net debt. The decision on whether an organisation is classified to the public or private sector is made by the Office for National Statistics on the basis of EU-wide rules. In making its decision, the ONS will look at a number of factors, including any relevant legislation, to determine whether the Government have control over the organisation, so control is the key point. The legislation in the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 is highly likely to constitute government control over the GIB, even if the bank is no longer owned by the Government.
The Government understand that people will be concerned about how the Green Investment Bank will continue its green focus without the statutory lock controlling it. I will not pre-empt those questions as I would like to hear what your Lordships have to say, but I will say now that the Government want and expect the GIB to maintain its clear focus on the green economy, and we are confident that it will do so. Indeed, that is precisely the reason why investors will be buying it.
I will bring my remarks to a close by saying that the GIB’s management and its independent board is fully supportive of the Government’s intention to bring in private capital and understand the need for this repeal. This includes the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Kelvin, who is the chair of the GIB, located of course in Scotland. I hope that your Lordships will be able to support this amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment 53ZA (to Amendment 53)
Lord Stoneham of Droxford
“(“ 1) Subject to subsection (2), ”
Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)
My Lords, our first concern is that this is a blunt instrument to amend the previous legislation. In fact, it brings to my mind the son of Stalin taking up residence in BIS to obliterate all evidence of this institution, so I am grateful to the Minister for saying that the Green Investment Bank has been a great success and was one of the achievements of the last Government. From our side and for the record, we are not going to see it written off, eliminated or wiped clean. There is too much at stake and quite a significant government investment has been made into it.
Let me express our concerns. This is a long-term investment institution. The projects take two to three years to build and begin to earn any operational return, at which point they start to provide a long-term profit stream. We hope that the Government will be trying to take a long-term view and not resort to the short-term thinking which is too common in the City and in the market. It has been very successful. We have already seen £2 billion loaned, matched by £6 billion of private funds, and it is beginning to look as though the bank is a successful operation. But nobody will invest at a premium when we have had less than a year of profit. If the Government are to get their return and the bank is to be put into safe hands, our view is that they should not rush into this. The bank cannot really realise its potential until it has been in operation for at least five years. Having said that, we also recognise that the Government are not really fully committed to it. I suspect that one of the reasons that the executives have been supportive of this proposal is that they have been told that there is no further government funding, so if they do not go down this route they will hit a dead end.
Our final concern is that anybody with the slightest experience of setting up an organisation like this, which has been in place for only three years, will know that it is at its most critical stage when it is trying to approve projects with profitable streams and manage projects that it has already set about investing in. We are now going to have a huge distraction for the executive team over the next six months, as to how it is going to be sold and who is going to buy it. This is another case of where the Government should be setting an example and seeing something through, just as we should be telling the Stock Exchange that it should see more companies through in long-term decision-making and investment, rather than simply trying to get a quick return.
Those are some of our longer-term concerns. Turning to the future, I hope that the Government will confirm that they are going to freeze future funds so that there is no alternative to what they are doing, which is to privatise this organisation. In those situations, we are more understanding: if the Government have limited interest in the green economy then it is better for the bank to go it alone.
There are three objectives in the amendments that we have put forward. We do not think it is good enough simply to amend past legislation without saying what will be in its place, and what restraints on investment there will be in the Green Investment Bank. This organisation has had a central role in promoting green technology, innovation and supply-chain development. How do the Government intend to protect its purposes? The bank has shown that it is sustainable and has long-term objectives. How are we going to make sure that it does not lose its green focus? We do not want it to be like a different organisation, 3i, which was set up by the banks a long time ago. 3i was set up to support businesses but became yet another sort of investment bank. In my view, it lost some of its focus. Are we going to allow that to happen to the Green Investment Bank? We certainly should not when it is there with a specific purpose, set down in the original legislation. We want that protected somehow but it will not be easy.
Inevitably, whoever takes control of the Green Investment Bank—unless there is some controlling shareholding—will find it quite easy to change the articles and objectives. We want to ensure some ongoing green focus which continues the purpose of this organisation, and we have to ensure that the Government get the best return from their investment. There have been some pretty poor examples of this in the past, even in the recent past, and there has been criticism. If necessary, we want the Government to have an ongoing stake in this organisation so that they can get the return and exert some control over an organisation that is only three years old.
We accept that this bank has had real success. It has mobilised investment, shown that green investment can be profitable and set down a marker that we want to see it continuing. We therefore think that before the Government invoke the obliteration of the previous legislation they must set out exactly what they will do, what controls they will insist on and how they will maintain the success of the investment that the Government have already put into this and should see coming forward in future.
Lord Teverson (LD)
I shall also speak to our amendments and to the government amendment. I thank the Minister for having gone through the Government’s motivation here in some detail. I am not completely against privatisation; I understand why the Government might want to do it. However, I think it is a great shame because it is too early and, as my noble friend Lord Stoneham has mentioned, the taxpayer will not get full value if we do this at the moment.
I am afraid that our own amendment is very imperfect. In a way, it is a probing amendment. I had rather hoped that the Government’s amendment was also probing because it is about something that is far too fundamental to bring to a Grand Committee, where we cannot vote on the subject or the amendment. There is a real problem there about scrutiny.
As my noble friend said, the Green Investment Bank has been a huge success. I went along to its third annual general meeting when the Secretary of State announced the Government’s intentions, and heard about the great things that the bank is doing. Indeed, the Conservative Party should take great credit for it; the bank was in its 2010 manifesto, which said:
“We will create Britain’s first Green Investment Bank, which will draw together money currently divided across existing government initiatives, leverage private sector capital to finance new green technology start-ups”.
That was a great vision, which was taken on in the coalition agreement after the Wigley commission, which was set up by the Conservative Party. It was in our manifesto and possibly in the Labour one as well. Anyway, there was consensus that it would be an excellent institution, as it has turned out to be. I have talked to the chief executive, Shaun Kingsbury, on a couple of occasions, one of them fairly recently, and the first thing I did was to congratulate him and his team on everything that they had achieved.
However, the fundamental problem here, even if we accept that privatisation is going to have to happen—that is not all bad, even if it is slightly early—is that we have no idea how slowly or fast there will be mission creep, in terms of the way that the objectives or the memorandum and articles of association of the company might change in future. The government amendment takes away all restraint in terms of legislative boundaries and replaces them with nothing. I deal with companies, most of which are private limited companies as opposed to public limited companies, but it is my understanding that any constitution of a company can be changed, certainly by resolution of 75% of the shareholders. Nothing can be done about that. So I am very concerned that we are taking out the five principles within the previous Act that laid down very precisely what should happen, and which indeed have been the basis of the success of this organisation, its vision and motivation. The question is: how do we keep those principles and that direction for the long term?
I was particularly interested in my noble friend’s example of 3i. I have some experience of 3i, as someone else who was in that field for a while. It was set up under the Bank of England soon after the war as the Industrial and Commercial Finance Corporation, mainly with private bank money but very much under the purview of the Board of Trade. In 1983, it was let loose into the market to carry on its work. Originally, it was established to deal with SMEs but its current website features very large mid-cap companies. Its investors will probably not get out of bed for a deal worth less than £50 million to £100 million. It closed all its regional offices as time went on and has a very strong international portfolio. In fact, it rightly brags that it has teams in some nine or 13 countries across the globe, yet it was set up to stimulate SMEs within the United Kingdom. Many years later, this is where it has got to.
I also question whether it is necessary to take this section out. I have talked to staff at the Office for National Statistics and looked at the websites and at the European System of Accounts—ESA 2010, as I am sure the Minister has. If she has, she probably fell asleep after the second paragraph, as I almost did. One of the things that came over to me from looking at ESA 2010 was its impreciseness and the degree of interpretation that was possible. When I looked at the Postal Services Act 2011, which privatised Royal Mail, strangely enough I found articles of special legislation that restrain what the Royal Mail can and cannot do. Section 29 of that Act is headed “Duty to secure provision of universal postal service”. Section 30 talks about the details of the “universal postal service” provision and Section 31 even talks about detailed minimum requirements of that provision. It seems to me that Act deals with exactly the same thing, in that a constraint could be imposed by a regulator in that instance but a constraint could be imposed in this instance by one of the many successors to the Financial Services Authority, which is now the FCA. I am sure that provision could be transposed into this legislation.
This boils down to two things. First, for this to move ahead we have to have an anchor to make sure that this organisation stays within the role it is meant to fulfil. I completely agree with my noble friend that we need value for taxpayers’ money, although that may be difficult to achieve given the speed at which the Government are proceeding. Secondly, as shown by the Royal Mail privatisation, which is no longer a public body and does not appear on the public accounts, there is no certainty at all that the provision I am discussing is not needed. I ask the Minister to provide us with the advice that she and the department have received from the Office for National Statistics so that we can assess it for certainties, uncertainties or probabilities. I understand entirely why this has happened but I reiterate that it is unfortunate that such an important government amendment has been brought forward in Grand Committee, when we cannot vote on it. That is a fundamental problem and we need to consider how we move it forward in this Committee.
Lord Cope of Berkeley (Con)
My Lords, I disagree with the last point the noble Lord made. If the Government wish to propose an amendment of this kind, the Committee stage is exactly the right place to do it. That is where it can be discussed in detail and at length. If it were not introduced until Report, I think that people would complain about that and about the more restricted nature of the debate that would take place. Therefore, I do not think that my noble friend the Minister should apologise for introducing it in Committee. On the contrary, she should be congratulated on that.
Lord Mendelsohn (Lab)
My Lords, I declare an interest in that I have a corporate finance business. We have not commercially done any work in this sector, although we informally provided some advice on this area.
I welcome the discussion and the introduction of this amendment. I will preface my comments by saying that we on this side take a very questioning view of these provisions in Grand Committee, and we are more than happy to adapt our view to explanations that are forthcoming. We may take a different view on Report, but we have far more questions now than we are comfortable with as regards this provision. I thought that the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, was very good, and I share a lot of the reservations that the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, just expressed.
I will give a sense of where we are coming from on this. Our overall concern at this stage is that this is all tactics and no strategy. Our query is whether there is a strategy, but this tactic does not tell us what it is. Our concern is that as a tactic in and of itself it is probably incorrect. We understand the Government’s stated objectives, which are that they want to grow the business and make it possible to take on a wider range of sectors, to have a multiplying impact on mobilising investments and to encourage private sector enterprises to get the green investment tide rolling. Of course, nothing makes that happen more effectively than beneficial public policy, and I am not sure that we have had a great deal of that or that it is encouraged in a lot of the areas that the Government had previously wished to encourage, but that is another matter that I may return to later.
There is also no doubt that the Green Investment Bank has indeed had some successes. I will also state that its structure, the recruitment of the staff and many of the aspects of the operation that exist are to be commended. It is a good team and a good group of people, and they have played a very good role in triggering great attention and focus, trying to lever investment and interest in green investment. The costs of the bank are not inconsiderable; I think the run rate is now probably something in the region of around £30 million, which is covered by a grant from the Government. That will soon fall on its operating budget, which does not currently exist, although with the establishment of its most recent fund it now has some management fees to be able to offset that.
However, we take a different view about the green investment market, and the notion that things are all hunky-dory and that things have completely changed is patently not the case. It is absolutely clear that the green funds are underperformers, and it is certainly true that a number of green investments have vanished; the participation of an institution such as the Green Investment Bank has provided reassurance and time for investment professionals to be able to work out a number of the details which other commercial organisations do not have the time or ability to do. It is also true that the investments are quite hard to sell and that in many cases the funds will end up being recurring revenue streams and will be sold on that basis. It is also true that the price of oil is still low, having tumbled, which means that exploration becomes less economic, reducing supply and increasing the problems with the viability of renewable markets. Indeed, fairly recently Jan-Willem Bode, the director of one of the largest green energy organisations in the UK, said that many shareholders,
“feel like pulling the plug right now because it is just too much negativity thrown at the sector”.
That was in relation to the Government’s approach to green subsidies. Dwindling demand and low supply in the energy market have not boded well for a floundering alternative in the energy investment market. It is therefore not entirely accurate to take the view that everything is absolutely fine.
I believe that the bank has had a tremendous success most recently with its most recent subsidiary, the Green Investment Bank financial services fund, which is focused on offshore wind. I want to make the point that offshore wind is in a different category—it has a totally commercially viable fund capacity. The new generation of offshore wind equipment is larger and much more efficient and is something the market can already take up. I do not want to undermine the success of the bank; it is good that it did it, but that success is not an exemplar, nor does it prove a variety of other things. In fact, it is the exception which, in many ways, proves the rule.
The key to the Government’s argument is that this is a technical amendment needed to satisfy the Office for National Statistics. In another place, there was recently a debate on this and there was assurance that this amendment does not change or alter the objectives of the Bill, or even close in the articles for assisting in other green projects. There was assurance that these objectives will remain and that the bank will be fully committed to them. Our analysis is that this is clearly not the case.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for this useful discussion. The noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, talked about “son of Stalin”; I think that it is more “son of Thatcher”. This is an enterprise Bill, after all, and we all seem to agree that the GIB is remarkably entrepreneurial. That is why we want to free it up. I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, is not opposed in principle to privatisation. Indeed, I agree with him about a lot of the positives that he mentioned concerning the framework in the UK, with shareholder rights and so on. I think that we have a very good base here. He brings a lot of expertise to the debate. He has rather naughtily asked a few commercial questions and I am not sure that I can answer every single one. However, we understand that this is an important issue that is of interest to a great many people, beyond the confines of this room today. There are a number of points raised to which we will give careful consideration.
I will now move on to the amendments and will answer questions as I go through. Amendments 53ZA and 53ZB would require the Government to lay a report in both Houses detailing the proposal to dispose of shares in the GIB, before the repeal of the existing legislation contained in the 2013 Act could take effect. I welcome the intention behind these amendments, which is to ensure that Parliament is kept informed of the Government’s move to introduce private capital into the GIB. That, frankly, is entirely right and fair, not least because of the level of interest. However, I would be concerned that these amendments, as drafted, might prevent the Government ensuring that the legislation is repealed at the appropriate point in a transaction process, if that were to fall at a time when the House was not sitting. As your Lordships will understand, the Government need to retain the flexibility to manage the complicated sale process.
However, it is our intention to keep Parliament fully informed. I am happy to commit today that the Government will be sure to provide Parliament with much of the kind of information suggested by noble Lords as soon as possible after any sale has taken place and at the appropriate time in the future, should the Government retain a stake that might be sold later, which obviously is an option.
Moving to the Government’s amendment, I hope that I can reassure noble Lords on a number of specific points that they have raised today. The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, asked whether it was too early for privatisation. I believe that the answer is no. We feel that moving GIB into private ownership is the natural next step for the business. The company itself, as I have already said, fully supports the move. There is strong interest in acquiring a stake in the bank from a number of larger-scale institutional investors, as could be confirmed by some comments. In his evidence to the Environmental Audit Committee last week in the other place, the CEO, Shaun Kingsbury, expressed his support for government plans to seek private ownership for the bank.
To answer the question from the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, the Government will explore all options for a sale and, as I will emphasise, our decisions will reflect the outcome that we believe is in the best public interest. Obviously the proceeds will depend on how big a stake is sold and the outcome of negotiations with investors about the value of the company. We will need to be satisfied that any transaction represents value for money for the taxpayer.
Noble Lords are interested, understandably, in the transaction details, in particular whether the Government intend to retain a stake. The Government intend to sell a majority of the bank, as we have made clear, so that could involve retaining a minority stake. Our decision will depend on the outcome of the discussions that we are having and will have with potential investors. Some investors might welcome government retaining a stake, while some might want to buy 100%. To respond to the noble Lord’s point, whatever we decide to do, we will be driven by the public interest and our goal of achieving the best outcome for the Green Investment Bank itself. However, I must point out that if the Government retain a sizeable minority stake—by which I mean one that would allow them significant control over decisions made by the company—we may not achieve our objective of ensuring that it could be classified to the private sector.
Lord Mendelsohn
I will ask the noble Baroness a quick question. She said that this would be in the interest of the Green Investment Bank. The Green Investment Bank is a commercial institution which the Government are about to sell, so the terms of its commercial operations are very different—they are not inherently in the public interest because the public interest is defined as the mission which they gave it, and the members of the Green Investment Bank and its management have an obvious alternative economic interest. When she uses the terms “public interest” and “the Green Investment Bank’s interest” they are two entirely different things which may conflict in many ways when it comes to a transaction. Could the noble Baroness please be a bit clearer about what she means when she uses those terms?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I will come to that as I come to my final paragraph, if I may. Perhaps I could first clear up one or two points that have been raised. The first was about the advice from the ONS, which I think the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, asked for. We are satisfied that unless all the legislation is repealed, there is a real risk that the GIB could not be classified to the private sector. We have come to that view based on our understanding of the European statistics authority’s guidance, which the noble Lord has also had a look at. I was also asked whether the Government will freeze future funding.
Lord Teverson
I will not interrupt the Minister regularly but should I understand it that this is a government interpretation of reading the ONS material and the European statistical material, or have the Government received any advice from the ONS? The way I read the Minister, it was the Government’s interpretation.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
The Government have been in discussion with the ONS but this is a serious matter involving a major transaction, and the Government have to take their own view of the rules as laid down. That is the view we have come to after very serious thought. As your Lordships can imagine, we would not lightly have added this provision to the Bill, enterprising though the GIB is. We are convinced of the need to do so, for the reasons that I set out because of our interpretation of the ESA rules.
Lord Teverson
Can I ask the Minister one follow-up question on that? If the Government found that it were possible to keep those five principles in legislation, would they wish to do so?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
The noble Lord makes a good point. It is clear to the Government that we cannot retain control over the Green Investment Bank if it is to be declassified from the public sector following a sale. I do not think that really answers the question about the five objectives, which I will reflect on and come back. I think the Committee can understand the basic point that we are making and obviously, as I will come on to explain, we want the Green Investment Bank to continue to be a Green Investment Bank and to operate effectively.
Perhaps I could therefore move on to the question of the remit and reiterate the point that I made in my opening remarks. It is the Government’s policy to move the bank into private ownership and we cannot retain control over its operations. That has to be interpreted in law and is the challenge that we are working with. However, I would like to give a bit more detail on how the bank will, as we see it, retain its mission.
Lord Mendelsohn
Just to be absolutely clear: is the Minister saying that the principal, driving objective is to transfer the Green Investment Bank into largely private ownership? If that is so, everything else is entirely secondary. If those are the terms, that is why there will be variations as to whether the Government have a long-term commitment or wish to do any funding. Is that the principal and overriding concern, more than anything else? Because if that is the case, it means that everything else is willing to be thrown under the bus.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
We want the package to look right, so “thrown under the bus” is the wrong metaphor. But we said clearly in June that we want to privatise the Green Investment Bank and when we came to do the work, we discovered that the ESA/ONS rules would not allow us to do that in this form. That is why we have taken the step of bringing this amendment to the House.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)
I hesitate to cause more pain to the Minister but my noble friend Lord Mendelsohn has hit the nail on the head. If you are selling more than 50% of the stake then you are not in control of the bank. But control is exercised in public corporations at a variety of levels, as the Minister knows all too well from her own commercial experience. It would not be possible for a government shareholder holding around or less than 30% to make any impact on the overall management and control of the company because it would be down to the majority shareholders. The point is: what are the Government trying to do here? Is it just 51% to 49% or would they accept, in favourable circumstances, 71% to 29%? Those are the two options and, within that, the Government have a very limited role to play.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I think I made it clear that there are a number of options regarding the share, but I had also made it clear that we are looking to sell only a significant stake. The heart of the problem is that if we could keep the legislation without prejudicing the bank’s status we would, but the advice we are working on is that we cannot do that.
Lord Teverson
That is an excellent response and I welcome it. I hope that we can find a way of showing the Minister that it is indeed possible, and in that way help the Government to achieve their objectives. That would be an excellent solution to find.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I am glad we are making progress. Green investment, which I am not an expert in, as all noble Lords know, is what the Green Investment Bank does. As I see it, that is the brand of the Green Investment Bank—after all, it is called the Green Investment Bank—so the parallel with 3i is not entirely fair. Because of that, the Government fully expect that potential investors will wish to maintain the bank’s green focus and values; they will know what they are buying into.
Lord Mendelsohn
On that point, is an absolute assurance or guarantee required? Would the Government fetter their ability to do it, or would that lead them into the same problems during the sale process?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I think I will have to answer as I have before: we cannot prejudice the bank’s status. I think that our heart is in the right place but we are in some difficulty here. As part of any sale discussions, potential investors will be asked to confirm their commitments to these values and set out how they propose to protect them. We envisage that this would involve the new shareholders agreeing to retain the green objectives in the Green Investment Bank’s articles of association, to which the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, referred at the beginning, and to ensure that the bank continued to invest in a way that achieved a positive impact. I hope that that helps. We also expect that new shareholders will agree to continue the GIB’s existing standards of reporting on its green investment performance, and provide independent assurance of that. I understand that these commitments are not as strong as a statutory lock, but it is simply not an option to impose more binding conditions that would require the business to act in a particular way since that would have exactly the same effect as this legislation. The GIB would very likely have to remain in the public sector, with the problems that I described before.
Lord Mendelsohn
I am trying to hone this down to one particular point. The Minister has said that these are expectations, not commitments that we can readily accept. An expectation is not a commitment in the first place. I am trying to work out what thresholds any potential investor has to pass in order to meet her expectations.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
My Lords, I am in some difficulty because we are still designing the sale process. I know that the noble Lord has been in meetings where we have tried to explain the situation, and he has asked lots of questions. We have to try, with the House’s help, to find a way through. I have tried to explain some of our expectations and what we are trying to achieve, which I do not think is a million miles away from what others here want to achieve.
The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, rightly asked a question about the Royal Mail and whether the controls over it helped us in terms of a precedent. Actually, his comments show how valuable it is that we have introduced this amendment in Committee rather than leaving it until Report because he has asked some very good questions, and the Bill will of course go on to the other place. The simple answer on the Royal Mail is that it is regulated because it is designated as a universal service provided by Ofcom; it is not itself controlled by legislation. The same is true for other utilities, such as water companies, that choose to operate in a specific sector.
I understand that noble Lords will want to reflect on our discussion. The Government too will of course reflect on the discussions raised and on the amendments proposed. I note that noble Lords wish to debate this on the Floor of the House.
I said that I would respond on the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, about public interest in the GIB. The public interest lies in the GIB having a strong and secure future in the private sector as a green institution, and securing the best value for money for UK taxpayers.
I agree with my noble friend Lord Cope of Berkeley that it was right to raise this in Committee. In view of today’s discussion and the points made by noble Lords, I will withdraw my amendment for now and the Government will retable it on Report.
Lord Stoneham of Droxford
Can I just clarify one thing? I accept that the Minister says that she will withdraw her amendment. She said that she agreed with most of the points in my amendment, and that Parliament will be properly consulted. Given the uncertainty, what is the problem with putting some procedural amendment—I took my drafting from the Postal Services Act—in the Bill? Why cannot something like this be considered? I ask her, with due respect, please to consider coming back with a fuller amendment rather than something that gives the Government a complete blank cheque, which will not be acceptable in this House or the other.
Lord Teverson
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Cope; he was absolutely right that this debate should have come to this Grand Committee. What concerned me was that the Government might try to make us agree the amendment, and I am grateful to the Minister for not doing that. It is an excellent step that I fully welcome.
Lord Mendelsohn
From this side, we thank the Minister for her approach to this. We want to be clear that we believe that it is possible to structure this so that the mission can be protected and there can still be a transfer into the private sector. If the Government come forward with such a proposal, it will have our wholehearted support.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I am grateful to noble Lords for their courtesy. It is a bit like going to the gym, this afternoon, but I am glad that we have had the discussion. Of course I will consider before Report what we can do to meet the concerns expressed. As I said, I am as keen as noble Lords to find a way forward that allows this privatisation to go ahead and does not lead us into this rather surprising cul-de-sac. We will have a think about process, given that there is agreement—not on everything but on some aspects of issues that we have discussed this afternoon.
Lord Whitty
“Report on the Pubs Code
(1) If the Pubs Code Adjudicator identifies a pattern of cases of pub-owning businesses selling tenanted pubs in order to exempt their business from the Pubs Code to the detriment of the tenant, the Adjudicator shall write a report to the Secretary of State outlining recommendations of action to be taken.
(2) The Secretary of State shall issue a statement within three months of receiving any report under subsection (1) outlining what action he or she intends to take to protect the tenant and if none is to be taken the reasoning for that decision.”
Lord Whitty (Lab)
My Lords, we are about to move not to the gym but to the pub. After my previous exertions on this matter, I had hoped that I could resume my normal relationship with pubs as a consumer rather than going into the details of tenancy arrangements. However, I am afraid that the Government have forced me to bring it up again in this Bill.
To understand the context of these amendments I need to take the Committee back to the related predecessor Act—the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act, passed only earlier this year, and in particular to the proceedings of the Grand Committee in this Room on 28 January. There is unfinished business here concerning the relationship between large chain pub companies and their tied tenants. This is often quite a fraught relationship. Sometimes it is quite happy but it is always pretty unbalanced. The 2015 Act led to the establishment—or should have—of a Pubs Code and the Pubs Code Adjudicator. When I tabled the first two amendments in this group, my intention was simply to give the Government a gentle nudge. I was trying only to work out why it had taken 11 months for any proceedings on the Act’s provisions to come forward to fulfil the changes agreed at that time. However, only on Thursday of last week, all that changed. The department issued a consultation document which purported to be the basis for bringing forward the intention of the previous Act to provide a market-only rent option and a process for assessing the choice for tenants, as had been promised in Committee and later stages of the then Bill in this House. However, the consultation document that emerged last week is a complete travesty. It dilutes and distorts the Act’s intentions and goes directly against assurances given by Ministers, including those given in this Room. It is such a distortion that my charge against the Government is not just one of delay but the rather more serious one, I am afraid, of a degree of bad faith.
I need to take the Committee back to the history of the earlier Bill. It is quite an unusual history because during the Bill’s passage through the House of Commons, the Commons included in it the then Clause 42 establishing the right of a tied tenant of a large pub chain to move to the market rent only form of tenancy free of tie. The clause was proposed by a Liberal Democrat Back-Bencher but had widespread support on the Back Benches of all the major parties. It was opposed in the Commons by the Government but the Government were defeated. It seems to me that the Government have not got over that defeat, although we have a slightly different Government now.
When that Bill came to the Lords, the department and Ministers argued that the Commons clause was unworkable as it stood. They said that the Government accepted the principle of the clause, which the Commons had supported, but that it would need to be substantially redrafted and put into effect by secondary legislation. In Committee in this Room on 28 January, they tabled a complex series of amendments to replace the Mulholland clause. I think that the discussion on those amendments went on for even longer than did the discussion on the previous amendment this afternoon. No doubt the noble Baroness remembers it.
It has to be said that campaigners and the proponents of the then Clause did not initially agree with the position of the Government on this issue. However, the Government argued strongly that they accepted the principle, and that therefore their amendment reflected the principle more accurately and was more workable, and that the provision to introduce secondary legislation would achieve exactly that—make it more workable. Some of us in this Committee—the noble Lords, Lord Stoneham and Lord Snape, and my noble friend Lord Berkeley, who is not in his place, and, indeed, my own Front Bench—expressed concerns about that position. Others, however, to put it gently, probably represented more the views of relatively large brewing chains.
For my own part, on that day I went into the Committee thinking that I would oppose the Government’s amendment and shout “Not-Content”. That is quite an unusual thing to do in Grand Committee but I felt that strongly about it. Therefore, the relevant amendments would have fallen and the Mulholland amendment would have stood. However, that day, the assurances which were given by the Minister herself of the Government’s good intentions, which she beguilingly argued, convinced me that I ought to accept the Government’s good faith, as well as the fact—there was another fact, of course—that if we did not accept the Government’s amendment they might have removed the whole clause at a later stage, and we would have been slightly over a barrel. Nevertheless, I came out of that meeting thinking that there was good faith all round. Indeed, in the early stages thereafter there were discussions between the department and the various industry and tenants’ organisations and so forth, and that faith seemed justified.
However, then we all got tied up with an election, changes of ministerial responsibility within the department and changes in the civil servants responsible for this area, which of course I understand. Therefore there was a delay in producing the consultation, and communications with the tenants’ organisations and the campaigning organisations virtually ceased. Then, as I say, after some months of virtual silence and with no consultation on the text, two days after I submitted my first two amendments in the group, the consultation document was issued to an astonished world last Thursday—astonished, and pretty alarmed.
One person in all this context who has not changed, apart from some of my noble friends and others on this side of the Room, is the Minister herself, for whom I have great respect, even affection. She is in no way personally to blame for this, in the sense that she has never had the executive responsibility within the department for this area. Having been a Minister myself, I know that we sometimes have to take legislation through this House that has been concocted by our colleagues and which we may not entirely understand or indeed agree with. In this case, I understand that her colleague Anna Soubry is responsible for this area. Anna Soubry is marketed as the Small Business Minister, but in this context she appears to have acted entirely on behalf of the large brewery companies rather than the small businesses which the tied tenants represent. The fact remains that the Minister, on behalf of the Government, gave certain assurances on the 28 January proceedings.
To boil it down, there are two key ways in which the consultation document appears to negate the intention of the original Commons amendment. There are significant limitations on the triggers for a market rent option, and there is a complete deletion of the provisions for a parallel rent assessment, which would give the information to tenants of all sorts on which to base their decision as to whether to go for an MRO or not.
On the first of those, on that day in January, the Minister said:
“Our amendments will provide tied tenants with the right to a market rent only agreement at a number of trigger points, including at a rent review; at a lease renewal; when there is a significant and unexpected price increase; or if a local economic event occurs that is outside the tenant’s control”.
However, in the consultation document the Government limit this to when there is a rent change that increases the rent above inflation, or to a situation where tied beer goes up by over 5% or tied services and other products go up by over 30% or 40%. Clearly, this greatly limits the trigger points for the MRO to be sought, and is contrary to the assurances made.
In the same debate the Minister went on to say:
“Although prospective tenants will not have the right to the market rent only option, our amendments provide that they will have the protection of the parallel rent assessment—PRA—which will show them how their tied deal compares with a free-of-tie deal”.—[Official Report, 28/1/15; col. GC 92.]
However, in the consultation document, the PRA is deleted entirely. Its new, prospective or indeed long-standing tenants who are not affected by the limited triggers for MRO will not be able to find out if their rents are fair before they go down that road through the PRA process because that process is now dropped. This is a rather sorry state of affairs. Given that there is no easy place in the text of the Bill to hang these amendments, I hope that we can resolve this in some way before we end the proceedings on it.
My Amendment 53ZC, which of course was drafted before the consultation document appeared, would simply require the adjudicator to report on any manoeuvres of pub-owning businesses trying to circumvent the effects of MRO by selling off or otherwise disposing of pubs. Amendment 53ZD is in the same area, really; it revisits the discussion that we had last time on the threshold issue so that pubcos gaming the system to avoid inclusion in the MRO rights for tenants by changing the status of some of their pubs, to bring their total of pubs below the 500 threshold, would be changed by making the 500 threshold apply to pubs of any kind. On present numbers this would probably affect only one pub chain, but you could conceive that it could happen in future. Also, it may be only one chain but there are rather a lot of tenants involved.
My third amendment, however, goes to the heart of the matter. It reflects my concern at the consultation paper, and tries to reinstate and require the right to parallel rent assessment for all tenants and therefore restore the original intention of not only the Mulholland proposal but the final amendments that the Government put into the Bill in Committee and on Report in this House. I imagine that the Minister might have been advised to soft-soap us and say, “Well, all this is in the consultation and we can reply to it”. It is interesting, though, that while the consultation is long, as are many consultations, and we are asked to reply on 22 specified questions, not one of those questions refers to the PRA. The dropping of the PRA is simply stated. True, people can reply on the totality of the document, but most people’s responses will be based on those questions, not on the Government’s pre-emptive strike of saying that they are not going to proceed with part of the Act that they themselves put in.
There has of course been another change: a change of Government. There are no Liberal Democrats now in BIS. I have to take account of political realities, even here in the House of Lords, but it is a pity that consistency did not run through this, nor indeed does respect for the will of the House of Commons. I presume to advise the Conservative Party that it should not go back to a position that it very much held in the early years of the last century—namely, that it was essentially the political front of the large brewers. That is what this is about, because the balance of power between the tenants and the large brewery companies is very much in favour of the latter. The Mulholland amendment was designed to change that in an important way, and I and other noble Lords thought it had achieved a degree of consensus politically in both Houses. However, the Government, through their consultation paper, now appear to have sabotaged that.
In my view, the best solution would be if the department decided quietly to jack this consultation paper and withdraw it. There is another stage of consultation to come on other parts of the Act, and the department could relatively easily present us with a different consultation paper. If it does not, although I cannot press these amendments today, this is something that we will have to find a way of returning to on Report. Meanwhile, I beg to move.
Lord Snape (Lab)
My Lords, I support these amendments so ably moved by my noble friend. Like him, I hesitate to lower the temperature of the Committee. As he put it, earlier we had amicable discussions that did not please everyone making representations to noble Lords on both sides of the Committee about the future. We thought, after our discussions on 28 January, that we had an agreement and that we could rely on the good faith of the Minister. As my noble friend says, although the Government have changed since 28 January, we have the same Minister as when we discussed the previous Enterprise Bill.
I hope that I will not need to get too personal in the course of this debate about ministerial responsibility and accountability. However, I remind the Minister that she made certain pledges during those deliberations on 28 January and that we expect those pledges to be confirmed today, rather than her simply sticking to the terms of the consultative document. Like my noble friend, I was shocked to see this. My first indication that the consultative document had been issued was when I received a phone call asking if I had seen the front page of the Morning Advertiser. Surprisingly enough, that is not a publication that I normally enjoy over my breakfast cornflakes, but I made a point of looking at the content of the front page online and, like my noble friend, I was shocked at what I saw. It appears that those pledges that were given on 28 January are to be cast aside because we have a new Government, and I feel that people who made representations about the previous Bill and the present one will feel betrayed—I choose my words carefully—if the words in the consultation document are to become law.
On 28 January, I said in Committee that:
“At Second Reading, the Minister accepted on the part of the Government the will of the Commons and said, basically, that the Government would adopt the principles that the Commons had advocated with regard to pub codes and publicans.”—[Official Report, 28/1/15; col. GC 141.]
All that has been cast aside. The Minister replied in her pleasant and emollient way that she would listen to what the Committee had said and that we could in effect rely on her to bring forward legislation that would meet at least some of the points that we had made. However, as we heard from my noble friend when he moved his amendments, the PRA aspect for the future has been dropped completely.
I ask the Minister what connection there may be between the publication of the consultation document last Thursday, in such an apparently hurried fashion, and the notification from my noble friend and others that various amendments would be tabled to the Bill to ask about progress so far on these matters. It will not have escaped the attention of noble Lords on both sides that the normal procedure for legislation like this, if the House of Commons had voted in the way that it has and the House of Lords had accepted the view of the House of Commons, would be a Bill that would have incorporated the changed views that had been agreed by both Houses. We accepted from the Minister in good faith the need for a consultation period lasting up to a year, and we accepted the assurances that the will of both Houses of Parliament would be respected in the future. That is not what we have here.
I await with interest the Minister’s explanation as to why, other than the fact that the Government has changed. Some former House of Commons Whips more senior than I are present in the Committee today, and I realise that there is a convention that one Parliament cannot bind another. However, I hope that there is also still a convention that ministerial promises are worth the paper that they are written on. We in this Committee expect those promises that were made on 28 January to be kept this afternoon.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)
My Lords, those of us who sat through the long reaches of the night on the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill earlier in the year may feel like the football manager being interviewed on “Match of the Day” who says, “I have a sense of déjà vu all over again”. We are repeating the arguments and, although it is almost a year later, I should say that two years ago next February I was a director—I should not say that I was a director, but that I had an interest in it—of one of the pubcos that is covered by the code. At some point I think I ceased to have an interest, but for the purposes of the debate I think I should put that on the record.
Behind the thinking of the noble Lords, Lord Whitty and Lord Snape, about parliamentary procedure is really the question of pub closures and the impact on tenants in particular, along with the reasons why our pub sector is contracting. This is what parliamentary procedure promises and it may be the hook to hang it on, but that is what we are concerned about, wherever you stand on the argument. Underlying the noble Lords’ arguments is the belief that the basic reason for the accelerated rate of closures in the pub sector is the activities of the larger pub-owning companies. It may be argued that they are often predatory and inimical to the rights of tenants. I have to argue with that because I am afraid I think that that is too simplistic an approach to a very complex matter. It is more complex than those who have moved this group of amendments appear to comprehend. Indeed, I argue strongly that if the Government were to accept the amendments, the danger is that it would accelerate rather than slow the rate of pub closures.
If the noble Lords are right about pubcos predating on tenants, the rate of closures in the tied sector would be much higher than in the independent sector, whereas the CGA Strategy analysis shows that the rate of closure is broadly the same—perhaps slightly higher in the independent sector but, as I say, about the same. In those circumstances, it is strange that it is being argued that the pubcos are the cause of it. It seems to me, given that the rate of closure is the same across both sectors, that it is about something much more deep-seated than merely the activities of three or four companies. The reality is that the whole pub sector is under the most terrific pressure. It is not the operators that are causing it—they may have done in some places, but I will come back to that in a second—rather, it is the market.
The market can be looked at in various ways. The brutal fact of the matter is that we can leave this House and buy a pint of lager for 75p, 80p or 90p a pint. It is available in the local supermarket. Many people would prefer to pay that price than pay £3 for a pint in a pub. They take the drink home and drink it there. Along with the fact that some young people buy “a slab”, as it is called, in the supermarket to drink in the street and then go into the pub to watch the football, that is one of the reasons why pubs are struggling. Moreover, there has been a regulatory impact on pub operators, owners and tied tenants, whether it is licensing, smoking, drink-driving, the increase in council tax or the late night levy for pubs that wish to extend their financial take by opening for longer. Not one of these issues on its own is back-breaking; they are all straws, but together they make the life of a pub operator in whatever form very difficult. The sector is not profitable enough now and it is under pressure wherever it is. Unsurprisingly—if I was a tenant I would think this—tenants think that somewhere there is a hidden pot of gold that they cannot get their hands on and is somehow being hidden from them.
There is another, psychological reason for disapproval of larger pubcos. For many people, taking on a pub is a lifestyle choice—a second career. As they undertake it, they leave the pressure of a nine-to-five job and have visions of themselves as cheery landlords dispensing pints and homespun philosophy over a bar as the evening sun goes down. However, tonight there is not much sun going down. You will be sitting in your pub dispensing not many pints to not many people and wondering why on earth you are there. In reality, running a pub is grindingly hard work and not everybody is cut out to be a landlord. None of us, wherever we are, likes to accept that the failure lies with ourselves in whatever we are trying to achieve. We think that there must be some external reason that has caused us to fail, and who better to blame than our landlord or pubco? If they could help us more, we would be in a position to make sure that everything was all right.
When the inevitable problems happen—and happen they do—there is a very sympathetic reaction among the community. The community believes that there are three essential ingredients: a post office/shop, a pub and a church. People do not want to use them much but they will go to the post office and shop when they have failed to buy a pint of milk at Tesco; the rest of the time they do not go at all. They will go to the church for what are vulgarly called “hatches, matches and dispatches”, and occasionally they will go to the pub. They like it to be there and, if they see it disappearing, they are upset and believe that it should be preserved. Unfortunately, you have to use a pub or you lose it, and too often, to be candid, pubs are not being used.
Also behind the noble Lords’ thinking is the CAMRA belief that if you could remove the dead hand of the big pubcos there would emerge a range of independent pubs that would provide new, independent opportunities for beer brands. I am afraid that that is misplaced optimism.
Lord Snape
Perhaps I may tell the noble Lord that I am not a member of CAMRA and that I do not even like real ale very much. That will probably get me denounced in some political circles. The noble Lord is giving a highly polished speech, which it should be as he has delivered it two or three times already. It is a rather—if I may say so without offending him—Second Reading speech. Would he like to talk about the matters before the Committee at present, particularly the difference between the consultative document and the agreement that both sides of this Committee thought we had with this Minister in January this year?
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
I am afraid that I have to disagree with the noble Lord. I am explaining why the background to these amendments is the rate of pub closures. That is what we are seeking to consider. That is the whole background to the amendments. I am sorry if the noble Lord feels that I am making a Second Reading speech but I am just trying to set out the status of the pub sector at present. In about a minute and a half, I will come to the treatment of the three amendments that the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, has tabled, and I shall certainly tackle them straight on. However, I need to do that against the background of the reasons for the problems in the sector. Those are not merely to do with the operation of the Mulholland amendments but are part of a bigger societal change.
Going back to CAMRA for a moment, I think that this is misplaced optimism. There is not the demand for a wide range of specialist beers changing week by week—Old Boot Polish one week and Sheep Dip the next. Some pubs will be interested in selling those but, for the most part, demand is for the well-known lagers such as Stella Artois, Peroni and so on. That will be the profitable and sensible way for landlords to trade.
I would not want the Committee to think that I was arguing that everything in the sector was rosy. In a sector with 20,000-plus tenants, there are bound to be pubcos—and, dare I say, tenants—who do not behave quite as well as they might. I freely admit that in the tied sector that conflict of interest is most acute.
Lord Mendelsohn
Given this rather large view of returns on the market, I have a quick question. If there were not the unsustainable leverage and the change in the business models of the companies concerned, would the noble Lord be making the same speech?
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
Certainly. The noble Lord is a businessman to his bootstraps. He knows perfectly well that if you are running a public company, you will be required and encouraged by your shareholders to take on a certain level of gearing. He would; I am sure that he does in his own businesses, which no doubt he looks after splendidly. The idea that somehow a business should be run with a completely different model because it happens to be in the pub sector does not hold water. It is bound roughly to march to the beat of the same drum that applies to public and private companies generally.
I promised the noble Lord, Lord Snape, that I would get to the specific amendments, of which there are three. Amendment 53ZD is obviously concerned with introducing all pubs. That really has absolutely nothing to do with anything that the Minister has said or any part of our discussions earlier in the year. Managed pubs are an entirely different matter and are run in an entirely different way. They are run by employees, who have a bonus system and a wage system. To say that this is a way of gaming the system, as was said by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, is not accurate at all. If the amendment were passed, some companies that have no tied pubs at all would be caught, so the tied pub area would not even be further dealt with. I cannot see that Amendment 53ZD has any relevance to what has gone before, to what the Minister said, or to tackling the basic problem that we have been considering.
Amendment 53ZC has exceptionally vague wording. One important aspect of maintaining pubs is for there to be some effective secondary market. Pub companies rebalance their portfolios where they have too many pubs in one part of the country and want exposure in others. To be perfectly honest, some pubs will operate better with individual ownership and should therefore be sold to individual proprietors. An acceptance of this amendment, with its broad powers and imprecise determinations, would freeze up that secondary market and make it almost impossible for new entrants to come to the market, or indeed for existing pubcos to operate effectively.
Amendment 53ZF is about parallel rent assessments. Although the noble Lord has specified Section 43(5) I think that he means Section 42(5), but we do not need to worry about that. As I understand it—if my noble friend does not support me on this, I shall go down in flames—when the market rent option is triggered, there will be an opportunity for the PRA to be introduced. That is provided for in the consultation. Therefore, no tenant undertaking the MRO route can be precluded from the parallel rent assessment. He or she can make a judgment as to which is the best route to follow. That answers the point about the dangers of the PRA being unduly sidelined.
Finally, I think that the noble Lord, Lord Snape, believes that somehow big pubcos want to close pubs. I was the director of an integrating brewery; we wanted to sell our beer. We wanted good pubs because that meant that we managed to sell more beer. We wanted to find every way to make our pubs do better. The same may not be true of the pure pubcos that do not have brewers in them, but I urge noble Lords to be careful what they wish for. There is now the concept of a real estate investment trust, or REIT. It would be perfectly possible for a pubco to create a REIT to remove all the support from their pubs. They would make quite a lot of money in the short run because quite a lot is spent on supporting their pub chains. Over time, some or many pubs would fail and they would close them down and sell them off. They could do so within the very tax advantageous structure of a REIT.
We have not even reached the stage of implementing the results from the last set of consultations and already people are starting to think about how things should be tightened up, changed and altered. We should at least allow some time for the structure to settle down so we can see how things develop. Creating further uncertainty in a sector that is under extreme pressure, as I have explained, would be a grave error. It would not help all of us who would like to see the maximum number of pubs maintained in a way that is fair to all parties.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
The noble Lord said he wanted to have good pubs and that he was worried about uncertainty in the sector. I recall that in the Committee and Report stages that my noble friend referred to, the noble Lord repeated that but could not answer the questions of so many landlords who are working very long hours for very little money. There seems to be a turnover of landlords in many pubs of not much more than a year or 18 months. That does not make a good pub and it creates uncertainty. There may have been one or two cases when landlords were not performing but probably the financial pressures from the pubcos were so high that they could not cope. Does the noble Lord not recognise that that is at least as much of a problem as the one he is talking about?
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
Of course I understand the pressure on tenants. But the noble Lord must agree that the pressure on the sector is terrific. If your primary product can be bought down the road at 25% of what you sell it for you are under pressure. You will find it exceptionally difficult to buy a pint of lager for less than £3 in a pub. But I will take the noble Lord out, when Committee ceases to sit this evening, and we will find lager at 75p a pint within two miles.
Lord Snape
Does the noble Lord realise that he has just made a very effective case for the argument we are putting from this side of the Committee?
Lord Stoneham of Droxford
My Lords, the arguments have been very well put by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty. I support them and there is no point repeating them. These provisions are largely probing because the events of the last week mean that we are going to have to give greater attention to this. I had the inevitable job of dealing with the Member for Leeds North West on the basis of the assurances I had from the Minister. I hope she will be helpful in her reply so that when I go back to him he will not tell me, “I told you so”.
Lord Mendelsohn
My Lords, we first intended to introduce these amendments as an expression of our happiness at the collaboration and assurances that we had had. Our intention was to give the Minister a full toss, applaud her from the rafters, and say how wonderful it was that the Government were progressing with the work, because it was not contained in the Bill. This was a free hit for applause and I thought that it would compensate for many of the things we had said on other provisions, where we had taken a more questioning view. There are, of course, issues with some of the actions of companies, which I will come to in a second. To be in this position is a massive source of regret. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, gave an outstanding oration on the issues in speaking to the amendment; the noble Lord, Lord Snape, too, gave an outstanding recitation of what is important about it. I also share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham.
I have agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, on quite a bit of the Bill, but on this issue I feel an extraordinary sense of profound disagreement. I simply cannot believe that, in this day and age, someone is suggesting that there should be some sort of state meddling to maintain a market and that we should set ourselves completely against the operations of the free market, changing consumer tastes and increased competition. That is the wrong approach.
There is a problem with the pub sector. As the noble Lord rightly says, the causes of that are, more than anything else, changing consumer tastes and supermarket prices. Closures have come as a direct result of the choice of business model to go for unsustainable levels of leverage. I hope that, in my professional practice, we advise companies on what are sustainable levels of leverage. It was always clear that these would be very aggressive business models. It is important that we should not accept the beating-up of small businesses to maintain the capacity of large businesses. That is utterly wrong, but it is what we have to deal with.
The source of most regret relates to the fact that, over the last period, as companies were announcing their results, I was seeing some encouraging signs, unlike the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson. One company identified like-for-like growth over the year. It reported higher levels of underlying EBITDA. One company was able, on revenues of around £450 million, to look at levels of underlying EBITDA approaching £200 million. That is a fantastic achievement and it has allowed it to pay down debt. It is encouraging to see, in interim statements, companies saying that actions have already been taken to provide a more flexible business model “in light of the anticipated reduction of the market rent only option in 2016”. Companies have taken proper account of what was said and they have adapted their models. This is a case of the Government putting a cost on business by totally going against what they said before.
It is not enough to say that this is just a consultation. There is a sense of bad faith, which I will express in these terms. In commercial arrangements, when you have two positions, you come to a deal called a “heads of terms”, which is the overarching structure under which you define the agreement. I suspected that the Act, as the overarching heads of terms, accepted by all sides of the House, would be followed, but this consultation follows nothing like it in how it deals with conditions on the market rent only option and the parallel rent assessment—all that has changed. Even where there are provisions on market rent only options, they are not consistent with the terms that were there before. This is wrong. It is not unfair to say that we expected better.
I do not want to detain the Committee, but I have a few pages of this. The Minister previously expressed strongly the points on which we came to agreement on all sides of the House. There is even a complimentary reference to the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, which I draw to his attention—I do not say that it is all bad. The noble Baroness said on Report, on 9 March 2015:
“I come to the parallel rent assessment itself. Following the introduction of market rent only in the other place, the Government sought to restrict the scope of this assessment so that it applied only to prospective tenants, as they will not have the right to market rent only. This was an attempt on our part to reduce bureaucracy and increase simplicity. However, it is clear from discussions since Committee that tenant stakeholders actually like the parallel rent assessment and feel strongly that it should be retained for existing tenants. There are tenants who have no wish to exercise market rent only but who want to ensure that they have a fair tied deal. They would far prefer to gain this reassurance by requesting a parallel rent assessment, rather than by starting the market rent only process. There are also arguments that the transparency of the PRA may help a tied tenant to decide whether market rent only is for them.”
The noble Baroness continued:
“Therefore, Amendment 33J”—
a government amendment—
“seeks to reinstate the parallel rent assessment. We will consult on how best to streamline this with the market rent only provisions so that, as far as possible, the processes are integrated to help both pub companies and their tenants and to minimise bureaucracy. I know this is something that my noble friend Lord Hodgson is very keen to ensure.”—[Official Report, 9 March 2015; col. 451.]
I have four or five pages of this. It was really a summary of where everyone was, and it was said not just in this House. Jo Swinson made comments in another place that were very similar. Something has clearly gone wrong.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
Before the noble Lord concludes, can he explain why we are going back over the managed pub issue? We have covered that already. We agreed that there was an issue with tied pubs, but Amendment 53ZD takes us back to stuff that we cleared away before. I accept the arguments and discussions about the parallel rent assessment, but it was perfectly clear that we were not going to include managed pubs, because they do not operate in the same way as tied pubs. Nor indeed did we talk about further reports on people wishing to sell tied pubs. People are free to sell tied pubs. Why should that be something that applies particularly to the adjudicator?
Lord Mendelsohn
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, for that intervention. I shall make it very clear. We introduced these as probing amendments to test a variety of things. The context is that that was prior to the publication of the consultation, and the debate that we have had is very different from the one that we would have had. I and, I suspect, some others in this Room would have tickled the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, on some of those issues in other circumstances, but these are the circumstances that we are presented with: we are focusing on the consequences of the consultation.
It will come as no surprise to anyone to hear that I was always sceptical of the legal advice—we are going back to the constants of “may” and “must”—but I also presented in meetings counsel’s views, which have turned out to be rather prescient. I would be very grateful if the noble Baroness, who will always resist publishing the advice, would at least give us a much greater recitation of what legal advice has been given and whether the Government have taken effective external advice, as well as advice on whether the consultation was consistent with the Act. Will the Minister give a timetable for the Government to come forward with a proper impact assessment of the consultation proposals, as opposed to the proposals that we all agree to? We would also be grateful if she would set out whether existing legislation will allow the Pubs Code Adjudicator to deal with the pubcos gaming the system. If this measure goes through in the form it is in now, it will mean that the pubcos can game it to their hearts’ delight.
We would also be grateful if the Minister could give us an indication as to whether the Minister in the department directly responsible for signing off this consultation gave direction to the officials to draft the consultation on the basis of the proposals not contained in the Act and whether there has effectively been a change of policy to ignore the Act and introduce a different form. This more consistently follows what was proposed previously as opposed to the Act, and we would be very grateful for some assurance that such directions were not given by the Minister responsible.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for triggering this debate with their amendments and for taking us back—unexpectedly on my part—to pubs. I am very glad that the noble Lords, Lord Whitty, Lord Snape and Lord Berkeley, are all here to explain very clearly their concerns. I also welcome back my noble friend Lord Hodgson. I very much take the point that he made about the complications of this area and the risk of pubs closing—which I think we all want to try to avoid—and the fact that we must not get this wrong. Although the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, agreed with the concerns of others on his side, he also pointed out the importance of the consumer in all this, which we must never forget.
I can understand why some noble Lords are disappointed by the Government’s decision not to implement the parallel rent assessments. I assure noble Lords that I made my previous commitments in good faith, as I am sure they know. However, noble Lords will recall that the pubs measures in the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act were agreed at great speed towards the end of the last Parliament, and of course since then, as has been said, the Government have changed, and we have reviewed the best way to achieve the objectives. I will come on to that in more detail later if the Committee will allow, but the key point is that the Government are trying to strike the right balance, delivering fairness for tenants and stability for the industry. I cannot accept what has been said about my right honourable friend Anna Soubry, who is a great advocate for small business and is genuinely trying to find the right answer, as I will try to explain when we go through this in more detail.
Our proposals are out for consultation at the moment, and my officials are meeting tenants’ representatives and pub companies next week to discuss this matter in great detail. There was a blank space on page 66 of the consultation document for people to add comments. I have just looked at that document and it makes it quite clear on page 12 that there has been a change on the PRA point. We are not trying to hide that there has been a change of policy here. However, I will explain the current approach later on.
I add that we are fully focused on meeting the important May 2016 deadline for implementation. There was agreement that we should get on and implement this and not leave it for years and years. Obviously, the consultation process is very conscious of that deadline. I also wish to reassure the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, that there was stakeholder engagement over the summer, which was carried out by officials. It was balanced and they listened to views from across the sector. My right honourable friend Anna Soubry visited Burton-on-Trent on Monday and met with pub companies, and she will be meeting tenants’ representatives later this month.
I will take the amendments in turn. I know that there is most concern about the third set of amendments but, for the record, I will answer the points raised on the others.
Lord Mendelsohn
Does the noble Baroness mean that her right honourable friend met people prior to the publication of the consultation or afterwards?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
My understanding is that she met with the pubs after the consultation, as, in turn, she will be meeting the tenants once the consultation was published. I have to reject the underlying implication that somehow we are not balanced on this. Consultation is a serious matter for business. You have to put things out in draft and you have to listen to what is said, which is what we always do.
I turn now to Amendment 53ZC. I understand the concerns about potential manipulation of the ownership of tied-pub estates but I am not convinced that this amendment is the way to address the issue. It would place an additional burden on the adjudicator by requiring him or her to monitor all pub sales, to make a judgment as to whether they reveal a pattern of divestments, and to assess whether their effect is to exempt the pub companies concerned from the jurisdiction of the Pubs Code, thereby causing detriment to the tenants concerned. While one large pub company sold around 150 tied pubs earlier this year to a company that will not be covered by the code, another has recently purchased more than twice as many tied pubs that were previously outside the scope of the code. Purchases and sales of this order have been a feature of the sector for at least 15 years. However, the Secretary of State has a duty under Section 46 to review the operation of the Pubs Code every three years, and that will present an opportunity to look again at issues around sales and acquisitions.
Amendment 53ZD was debated in Committee on the 2015 Act. Parliament’s decision to define the threshold for the Pubs Code in terms of tied pubs reflected more than a decade’s worth of evidence that the problem in the pub sector related to abuses in the tied sector. We talked about this at the time. It is those abuses that the Pubs Code Adjudicator has been introduced to address, and I remain of the view that Parliament was correct to define the threshold solely in terms of tied pubs. At present, the amendment would bring within scope just one company with tied pubs—Mitchells & Butlers, which has in total around 1,800 pubs in England and Wales but fewer than 60 tied pubs. Bringing these few extra tied pubs into scope would create the anomaly of leaving a number of companies owning several hundred tied pubs outside it. Such an anomaly would have risked legal challenge—noble Lords will remember that we discussed this before—possibly imperilling all the pubs measures, which was something that we were keen to avoid.
Section 69 gives the Secretary of State the power to amend the number of tied pubs required to meet the threshold. That is the right safeguard for ensuring that the code delivers its overarching principles.
I turn now to Amendment 53ZF. I know that it is a disappointment to some noble Lords that the Government have decided not to proceed with implementing the PRA, if I may call it that. As noble Lords will recall, it was the previous Government’s intention during the passage of the Bill to introduce PRA and to streamline it with the market-only option. We have had a change of government and the incoming Government have looked again at the commitments that their predecessors made in order to get the legislation on to the statute book. We have looked at the best way of achieving the objectives of this policy. Our focus has been on providing a robust Pubs Code and adjudicator that deliver fairness for tenants and stability for the industry within the timeframe set out in the Act. It became clear, when working through the details over the summer, that the complexity of introducing PRA alongside MRO would put unnecessary burdens on the industry. Having two processes which can be triggered separately but on the same bases, which are not administratively connected and which follow different timetables and rules is not a practical or sensible proposition. We want to minimise the burdens on business. Not taking forward PRA at this time would reduce the regulatory burden of the pubs measures by £600,000 a year. These are burdens that we would have to compensate for by a reduction in another regulatory area, so it is a big figure at a time when pubs are closing.
Lord Snape
Was that figure not available on 28 January when the noble Baroness made that pledge? She said that,
“our amendments provide that they”—
that is, the tenants—
“will have the protection of the parallel rent assessment—PRA—which will show them how their tied deal compares with a free-of-tie deal”.—[Official Report, 28/1/15; col. GC92.]
That appears to be a specific pledge. Did it not cost £600 million then and, if it did, why did she make that pledge?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I am sure that we had some measure of the costs available at the time. I am not trying to dispute that. What I am trying to explain is why we have changed the situation. The costs are not the only matter. I am trying to explain how the two measures sit together and how we have sat down to have a look at these things. Perhaps I may proceed.
Lord Mendelsohn
I am probably unnecessarily confused here. Is the Minister saying that the burden on business was £600,000?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
It is £600,000 for having the PRA in addition. I am sorry if I gave the figure incorrectly. I felt that it was helpful to share that figure of £600,000 with the Committee.
Lord Snape
In the context of government expenditure, we are grateful for that but it does not really amount to a great deal, does it?
Lord Mendelsohn
What assessment has that figure taken into account? As I read a statement from a company’s report of what it has currently spent, does it mean that that £600,000 includes the fact that it has now wasted a large amount of management time and money to that effect? Is that included or is it outside it? Has the company calculated that number?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
This is a figure for the burden on business, so to that extent there is a parallel. Perhaps we can move on but there is a cost, and a complexity, in having a double system. We want to try to do this the right way. The market rent only option is the central plank of the Pubs Code. It is a fundamental change for the industry and, I believe, a powerful new tool for tenants. I do not think that there is any disagreement there.
The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, was concerned that the significant increase in price thresholds had restricted the access of tenants to the MRO trigger. We have taken the advice of stakeholders from across the industry on the definition of a significant increase in price. Our draft code reflects the advice we received: that the primary focus should be on the price of beer and that the threshold should be in the order of 5%. We are consulting on this and the percentage increases for other tied products and services. As I said, we welcome the views of stakeholders.
It is vital that we get this right for all concerned. The market rent only option will ensure that tied tenants are no worse off than free-of-tie tenants. That is the actual principle in the Act. Tied tenants will be able to request a market rent only offer when certain trigger events take place. The Government have published draft provisions that allow for the request by the tenant of an MRO in all the circumstances required by Section 43, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty. There are four circumstances, which I will not go into again because noble Lords in this Committee are extremely familiar with this.
When we discussed these provisions before, there was a view that giving tenants access to a variety of comparators was of itself a good thing. That was what was being said in the Chamber, but the conclusion we have come to is that that is not really necessary. What really matters is that the tenants are given meaningful comparisons so that they can make the right business decision. We believe that MRO provides that. They will not be committed to accept the MRO offer but can compare it with the tied terms they are being offered. They can use the MRO offer to negotiate a better tied deal, if that is their preference, or choose to take up the MRO offer. They will not need a PRA to do either of those things. I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, that there is scope for comparison when a tenant requests an MRO, as he or she can request a tied rent assessment. That allows the comparison process to happen.
However, if experience of the Pubs Code in action produces evidence that the introduction of the PRA provisions would be a useful addition to the options available to tenants, this is something that the Government can of course reconsider. The point has been made. It is in the legislation. The power to introduce PRA remains in the Act but it is the Government’s view that we should focus first and foremost on introducing the MRO-only option and the other key provisions of the code on transparency, with the new adjudicator to enforce them.
Lord Snape
Before the Minister leaves that point, how was it possible without PRA for a tenant to demonstrate that they would be worse off? The purpose of PRA was to allow them to prove it one way or the other, was it not, so how can they do that without PRA?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
My Lords, I am sure we will come back to this. I will take that point away and go through it again myself. There is scope for a comparison in the way that I have described, so the tied tenants should be able to look at the options easily and clearly. We are trying to bring in a system that is simple, clear and well understood. We have looked at the provisions in the Act and come forward with a consultation that we feel is fair, right, simpler, easier and better.
Lord Mendelsohn
My Lords, the idea that this is a good thing for small business and that a burden of £600,000 stands in its way utterly beggars belief. This provision was set up specifically in order to deal with the power and information asymmetries affecting smaller businesses with regard to larger ones. Again, it was the Minister who said on Report that,
“we have decided to reinstate PRA for existing tenants for a specific reason: because some tenants who do not wish to be free of tie would prefer the PRA, as they consider it a less confrontational way to secure a fair tied deal”.—[Official Report, 9/3/15; col. 464.]
Has any calculation been made about the cost to small businesses of not being able to have that provision, and indeed of the unfairness? Can the Minister say to me today that that cost would be significantly less than £600,000 if this was allowed to happen? I do not think she can.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
My Lords, I am not sure that there has been a complete understanding of what we are proposing. They will have a free-of-tie rent and a tied rent assessment, and they consider this in the context of their own business planning, which is in their own best interests. Stakeholders and officials have sat down through the summer and done flowcharts and so on to try to work out how this will best work. Obviously I am listening to what noble Lords are saying today. We have come forward with proposals that we would like to be considered in the context of the consultation that we launched last week. Obviously, I understand—
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
Is it not ironic that in working together with the previous Government to achieve a package that could get through on a tight timescale, to protect the Bill that the Minister was in charge of at the time, we have ended up in a worse position today than we were then? We should have learned that Governments are not to be trusted and gone with our instincts, which were to ensure that all these points were in primary legislation. Does the Minister not feel a scintilla of shame about the way in which we are now being dealt with? This is a real traducing of all our best endeavours and the support that we gave to her over that period. I personally feel very betrayed by it. I also feel betrayed by us not being told—in the spirit of openness that we tried to engender between ourselves in approaching legislation—that this was in the air, because the Minister must have known about it for some considerable time.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
My Lords, I think that we have been through the arguments. I understand the disappointment. Noble Lords need to understand that the Government are trying to do this in a way that is less bureaucratic and more effective. That is the basis of the consultation. However, I understand the strength of feeling that has been expressed today. We want to get the implementation of the Pubs Code, the adjudicator and the provisions right. We are genuinely consulting on the proposals that we have put forward. There will be a meeting of representatives of tenants’ groups and pub companies as early as next week to discuss the proposals in detail and to take them through our thinking. This subject is on the table, so it can be discussed. I very much hope that by Report we will have satisfied the obviously genuine concerns raised today. In the mean time, I hope that in the light of my comments noble Lords will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Berkeley
The noble Baroness has talked an awful lot about the consultation that has gone on this summer with the different groups. Did any of them express a view on PRA and whether they wanted it or not, particularly the tenants, or was it not discussed?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
My Lords, my understanding is that PRA was not discussed but I will engage further in the process and ensure that it is discussed in the context of the consultations going forward next week. As I pointed out, it is mentioned in the consultation paper, so obviously it can be on the agenda of the discussions taking place this month.
Lord Whitty
The noble Baroness played an effective defensive game on a very sticky wicket with a fair amount of hostile bowling. However, I do not think that she actually scored any runs. She is in a difficult position, as we all recognise. The fact of the matter is that she has clearly admitted that there has been a change of policy. As far as I can see from her responses to the various questions from my colleagues, that change of policy was not conveyed to the participants in this industry. In effect, it changes the legislation, which certainly was not communicated to us as legislators. That is a failure on behalf not of the Minister but of the department. We are therefore faced with a rather difficult situation regarding this issue between now and Report on this new Bill.
In terms of my two amendments which relate to the threshold, yes, we have discussed this at great length before but I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, or the noble Baroness. I put them down so that we could look at this again but they were at that point probing amendments. The real issue before us is the nature of the consultation document and the degree to which it differs from what our understanding was prior to the election—in this Committee, in this House on Report and in the House of Commons—and from the position that is reflected in the current legislation and the understanding of most of the parties in this industry.
The central issue here is not the economic state of the industry. We all deplore what faces most pubs. There are one or two pubs that I would not mind closing but I would prefer most pubs to stay open. Irrespective of the state of the industry, there is an imbalance between the individual tenant and a large brewer or pub chain organisation. This legislation was designed to redress that imbalance. Whatever view we may take, the MRO was seen as one way of redressing it. We would see the PRA and the MRO not as alternatives; they are complementary. However, what has happened with the consultation paper is that the triggers for the MRO have been limited, as has the availability of the PRA to those who might not necessarily want to go for the MRO but need to understand how the situation with their rent arrangements would compare with going for an MRO. It would therefore inform their discussions and relationships with their landlord.
That is fairly straightforward but we have limited the triggers and dropped entirely the provision for any tenant to get hold of that comparative information. That is a restriction on where we were under the previous Bill. It is a restriction on the discussions that we had just before the election involving all aspects of the industry to try to reach consensus. I understand why people feel betrayed. It is an emotive thing when people feel that the Government have not played straight with them.
Lord Snape
Is the position not even worse? How is a tenant able to request a rent review under MRO without a rent increase? Is it not presupposed under the Government’s proposed legislation that all current rents to tenants are fair and that only if they are increased can a tenant make this application under MRO? Am I right in thinking that? I asked the Minister but she did not give me a straight answer. Perhaps my noble friend can help me.
Lord Whitty
As I understand it, some of the triggers that were outlined by the Minister at the previous stage were dropped. Triggers remain if there is a rent increase, or if the price of the supplied tied goods goes up beyond a certain level. There are now therefore only two triggers, whereas we previously had four or five. If you add to that the drop in the PRA, then access to information by tenants of all sorts has been seriously limited.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I demurred from reading out the triggers because I did not want to labour the Committee with too long a speech. I do not think they have changed or been reduced to two.
Lord Snape
I am as anxious as ever to help the Minister out but I put the same question to her as I did to my noble friend: do the conditions that the Government have attached to MRO under these proposals not mean that a tenant could apply for a rent review only if he or she received a rent increase, and that they could not apply on the basis of the existing rent?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
My Lords, given the disappointment and concerns expressed and the lack of complete clarity as a result of my not having read the consultation paper in detail—I have tried to do so and my understanding is that there are actually four triggers—I suggest that we come back to some of these issues in a meeting, outside Committee and formal debate, between now and Report. In the mean time the discussion should continue at a technical level. We are trying to get a good outcome that will help tied tenants and will help the industry go forward in a prosperous manner. We have put out a consultation paper that was designed to try to do things in a simpler way. It is a genuine consultation. Noble Lords have raised concerns and we will obviously look at those. We will try to clarify the various points raised from the perspective of the concerns that have been expressed.
Lord Whitty
I thank the Minister for that. It would be useful if some of what she said was conveyed to us in writing. More importantly, it should be conveyed to the representatives of tenants, with whom her colleagues will be consulting over the next week or two. If there is misunderstanding about what the changes mean then we need to clarify that rapidly because there are some very hurt feelings out there, let alone among ourselves in this House. We can take it but they should not have to. We will have to think again about what we do between now and Report, and any information that the Minister could convey to us would be helpful.
Lord Mendelsohn
“Protecting small businesses online
(1) The Secretary of State, after consulting the relevant bodies, shall publish advice and guidance to businesses in relation to keeping their business safe and protecting it against online threats.
(2) The guidance published by the Secretary of State under subsection (1) shall include but not be limited to advice on protecting computer-based equipment and information from unintended or unauthorised access, change, theft or destruction.
(3) The City of London Police is a relevant body for the purposes of subsection (1).”
Lord Mendelsohn
My Lords, I am pretty sure this will be significantly briefer. This is largely a measure to highlight a particular issue and should certainly engender less confrontation. We are very supportive of the Government and other institutions on matters of cybercrime. This is a nudge. It is our attempt to add some measures to an important part of enterprise: sustaining effective and secure business, and the ability to secure cyberspace.
The ONS crime survey established that during the period surveyed there were 5.1 million frauds, of which 2.5 million were cybercrimes. These are crimes committed under the Computer Misuse Act. Their detection is based on footprints—that is, looking at devices affected by viruses, hacking, denial of services and virus proliferation, all those sorts of elements. Surveys, as I am sure the Government are aware, have indicated that 74% of small business and 90% of larger business have identified some form of cyber breach. In recent times there have been prominent cases where people who have been breached have suggested that they have the problem under control. We wish to raise this point because we do not believe this to be the case.
I personally participated in what I think outside America is the western hemisphere’s largest conference on cybersecurity, which took place in Tel Aviv with participation by chief information security officers— a term I had not heard of 18 months ago but these individuals are now very significant in their companies—law enforcement, intelligence services and government representatives, who were able to identify that the vast majority of offences actually are detected. It is easier to introduce a virus that is undetectable afterwards. In fact, cyber thieves produce around 250,000 novel variants of viruses every day, which is a huge amount, and I will come on to other aspects that impinge on this. We are seeing massive problems that we have to address.
It was instructive to learn during the course of the conference that the Sony cybersecurity breach that gained great prominence was identified only because they purposely left an imprint to make sure that people understood. Despite the fact that it had the participation of the most powerful cyber nation on this planet, you could not identify what the source was or its full extent. You could not even identify that it was North Korea by any form of examination of where it had been penetrated. It was only via the means of the traditional intelligence services that they were able to identify that it was North Korea. What hope, then, do businesses have in these circumstances?
Furthermore, there is a huge imbalance in the spend between larger and smaller businesses. Government figures that were published some time ago suggest that small and medium-sized businesses with 100 or more employees spend £10,000 a year on cybersecurity, but the smallest firms with fewer than 20 employees spend around £200 a year. This is highly problematic to the aim of having markets that are fully protected.
Over the past few years cybercrime has evolved, and it is now an enormous industry. The City of London Police estimate that it is a £39 billion industry, most of which is recycled into other forms of criminality. It is a hugely circular flow. Actually, it is an incredible market with suppliers, merchants and service providers. There are all sorts of things going on. It used to be said that armed robbery rates went down because if you wanted to be a criminal it was easier to sell drugs. Now, why carry a gun when you can make more with a laptop? The massive infrastructure of cybercrime is hugely problematic.
What I found most interesting at a different session of the cybersecurity conference was where it was identified that there is a massive penetration of companies’ customer details. Those details are blended and traded so that no company can ever detect that their particular security was breached. The details are sold in batches and strips. Even if your security is breached, no one actually knows the extent of the customer payment details that have been penetrated. In any blended list, you are not likely to have more than 2% of any particular company’s list in any list that is used for a cyber hack. I found this to be of extreme concern.
Mobile has been less prone to these sorts of attacks largely because Apple, Google and BlackBerry are the ones that integrate their encryption systems—this is relevant to a debate in other areas. The internet of things is now extremely vulnerable. The disaggregation of security is a huge problem and some fundamental strength is needed.
Criminals are able to recruit from security, intelligence and private sector organisations because they can pay more than the others, so I think that we have a massive issue here. As I say, the Government have not done enough. They have done quite a bit and many good initiatives are in place, but we are suggesting these amendments to try to give greater prominence to and amplify what they are doing, as well as to prod them to move in a couple of directions. I wish that we could have tabled an amendment that we were not allowed to, which would have been to try to encourage more small businesses in this country that are actually creating cybersecurity products. We wanted to table an amendment that would have mandated government departments to spend 8% of their entire IT spend on cybersecurity, because that would generate an ecosystem of cybersecurity firms. We have some good ones, although in this country really only in Cambridge, but imagine what a boost it would be to our cybersecurity capacity if we were able to do that.
Instead we believe that there is a role for government to set standards. In particular, we should promote our best: the City of London Police are outstanding. They are utterly world-leading on this and I pay a massive tribute to Adrian Leppard, who has been an outstanding commissioner. He is a world-leading and well renowned figure and the City of London Police are undoubtedly seen as one of the most significant, important and expert agencies in this. We would be very encouraged if the Government were to consider providing more prominent advice to businesses, which do not really know how to deal with this or know the right sort of things, and promoting the best in practice that we have—that of the City of London Police. I beg to move.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
My Lords, this amendment is designed to protect small businesses from cyberattacks. I was really pleased to hear about the knowledge of the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, on this issue. I wish I had been at the conference which he described and I agree with his objective of amplifying the issue, especially in relation to small business. I also agree with him about the role of the City of London Police.
When I worked in business, an attack on personal data held by the company was one of my top risks and concerns. Recent events demonstrate that businesses need to take action on cybersecurity and can benefit from external advice and guidance. I think it is fair to say that the Government are doing a great deal in partnership with industry on cybersecurity. We have a strong strategic programme in place, which is right. There is a five-year plan for an £860-million national cybersecurity programme to provide a range of advice and guidance to businesses of all sizes, including a specific guide, Small Businesses: What you need to know about Cyber Security. I have copies of that guide.
We have stepped up this activity recently by relaunching the “Cyber Streetwise” campaign, which offers small businesses clear and simple advice on how to protect themselves. There is information in the press and the Committee may have seen advertising at train stations or on the tube. In addition, the Government’s “Cyber Essentials” scheme shows small businesses how to protect themselves against common cyberthreats. Since October 2014 the Government have required their suppliers to hold a Cyber Essentials certificate if they are handling personal data or sensitive information. That is all increasing awareness by amplification. There are more than 1,000 Cyber Essentials certificates, which have been issued to big organisations such as Vodafone, JCB, Barclays, the Royal Mail and BAE, as well as to colleges, universities and so on. We are working to get thousands of companies and their supply chains to adopt the scheme.
Our approach is to work with a range of law enforcement and other bodies to build partnerships with businesses, representatives and trade bodies, and to use these to increase awareness. We do not believe that the suggested amendment, which I think is mainly probing, goes beyond the existing approach in ambition or effectiveness. Putting guidance into legislation could result in a tick-box approach where guidance is merely published without the associated awareness-raising, partnership-building and behaviour change that is completely essential in this area.
We want to avoid unnecessary regulation. The amendment would create uncertainty as to what businesses were legally required to do and what was best practice, possibly even giving rise to litigation. It could also reduce our flexibility in dealing with what is, frankly, a very fast-moving issue. I think we were all astonished by the Sony leak and by recent events in the UK. We are not convinced that legislating in this Bill is the right thing to do. Following the information leak at TalkTalk, though, a committee of the National Security Council is now looking at this. Cyber Ministers are looking as a group at what further changes are needed. In addition the Digital Economy Minister, Ed Vaizey, promised last week that we would meet the Information Commissioner.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
As my noble friend is talking about the broad range of plans that the Government have, could they address something with the European Commission? As the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, pointed out, cybercrime is no respecter of boundaries. The Commission has located a cybersecurity centre in Heraklion in Crete, a place that you cannot fly to in winter because you have to go via Athens. In this very fast-moving area, it would be sensible to find a way of placing the centre more centrally where people would be prepared to work and operate. I mention that in passing because it is something that needs to be looked at. I underline absolutely what the Minister says—the Government are doing a very great deal here—but this is something that just does not fit with our plans, because the European convention is so important.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I am grateful to my noble friend, and I shall certainly make sure that people are aware of the point that he has made. There is something of a carve-out in the EU institutions. I was at OHIM in Alicante a couple of weeks ago. The cybersecurity office, in the days when it was rather less central, was put in Heraklion. However, the key thing is that member states, as well as cyber Ministers in the UK, should get together because the cybersecurity industry is no respecter of boundaries, and a lot of visits, meetings and decision-making are made outside Heraklion.
I will not delay the Committee any longer. I wanted to give a feel of the fact that things are being done. I agree with the sentiment of the amendments: we need to make sure that small businesses, as well as big businesses, which of course suffer bigger reputational damage from leaks, are doing the right thing. That is why we have a strong strategic approach, along with targeted action to help small businesses. I hope that noble Lords have found that somewhat reassuring. I am sorry that we cannot really spend any longer on this important area this evening.
Lord Mendelsohn
I want to make the following staccato points. First, we spend £856 million. Unfortunately, that is spent principally on national security and too little is given to the other side. It would be nice if the Government could give that more consideration. We welcome the appointment of the former British ambassador to Israel, Matthew Gould, who will have a key role in cybersecurity inside the Cabinet Office—a very useful and important position.
The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, made a very important point. We are being targeted by criminals, not from various parts of, or cities in, this country but from every part of the world. That is very easy to do and it is a significant factor. I want to make a very simple point. The scale on which this activity can multiply is absolutely extraordinary, and it goes up by factors. We cannot afford to believe that simple awareness campaigns will work; much more effective measures are needed. There is a great deal of concern about this, and discussions have taken place between a number of countries, including our own—which was represented at the conference—on how you deal with the fact that there is an information lag and that you become the weakest part of the chain if you do not deal with it. It was entirely inappropriate for the proposal to be put forward in an amendment. Of course this is a much broader issue, but we just wanted to highlight it.
My final point is that the real problem about TalkTalk is not so much that the hacking happened. All the comments about how absurd it was that a company of that nature could run a system like that are fairly irrelevant. The extraordinary thing is that most of these serious crimes go undetected. That is the bigger problem, rather than the problem of the crimes that are detected. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Mendelsohn
“Broadband: rollout
(1) The Secretary of State may by regulations set targets for electronic communications bodies to roll out, to businesses and commercial organisations, more than 95% coverage of—
(a) basic broadband,(b) superfast broadband, and (c) mobile phone coverageby the end of 2016.(2) The Secretary of State must prepare and publish an annual report assessing the progress that has been made on the targets provided for by subsection (1), and the impact of basic broadband, superfast broadband and mobile coverage technology on enterprise and growth in the rural economy.
(3) The report provided for in subsection (2) should be laid before both Houses of Parliament.”
Lord Mendelsohn
I am going to go for the record for the briefest-ever introduction of an amendment. This amendment seeks to set stronger targets for the rollout to businesses of basic broadband. There is a range of issues concerning broadband, not least in the UK. One area that we are most concerned about is allowing companies to market speeds that they can never attain or sustain—they are unable to do the work to achieve that. However, we have a whole range of concerns about how the market works, and I would set them out if I had more time. Some very effective comments were made in the Chamber by someone who occupies an exulted position here today. That person has been a doughty champion of broadband.
I want to focus on one element here. Most of this is really about trying to find additional funds to supplement the rural broadband rollout. In that regard, our main question is: is what has already been developed a failure? Are the providers that have been entrusted to do this, and which have previously assured us that the funds were available, wrong? Has there been a mistake? What would be the benefit of being able to do this? Has money been apportioned to this purpose, or will we be waiting for the spending review to find out what it is?
Lastly, I think that we will return to this on Report but I feel rather foolish as I spent too little time reading about the Industrial Development Act and these amendments are consequential to it. In this year’s annual report on that Act, under this wonderful gem, “Other Current Section 8 Schemes and Miscellaneous Section 8 Awards”, I notice that the Industrial Development Act, which we are essentially amending, was used to support the Prompt Payment Code. That was a rich treasure that I failed to fathom, and I hope to return to it on Report. I beg to move.
Lord Stoneham of Droxford
I do not want to delay the Committee. I think the Minister knows of my ongoing interest in the subject, and indeed she herself has shown great interest over the years. I must declare my interest as someone who has inadequate broadband; only one mobile company operates in my area, and the parliamentary system operates only upstairs in my house. As I do not live too far from two quite important industrial city centres, I regard this as completely inadequate.
I simply do not believe some of the figures that we have supposedly achieved with super broadband. Obviously, though, the big issue coming is what happens after 2016. The Government have to address that because it is very important, particularly to remote rural areas where quite important businesses can operate and must have access to these facilities. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.
Lord Deben (Con)
Could the Minister help me on this, too? I have had exactly the same experience. I think that people around the country always find the figures very difficult to believe, because if you happen not to be in the section that is provided with broadband, you do not believe that anyone else is getting it. You form your opinion from your own experience. I wonder whether there is a possibility of helping those who are still waiting for broadband or, as in my case, are told that they have broadband but it does not actually work, which I think is what happens in much of Suffolk. I wonder whether there is a better way of helping us to feel that there might come a day in which we could operate our businesses more effectively from home than we can at the moment.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I very much agree with noble Lords that it is important for consumers and businesses to have transparent information on how mobile and broadband coverage is improving. I am glad that my noble friend Lord Deben has joined the discussion. He is right: the truth is that perception in this area is lacking reality. It was a slow start, there is more to do and there are lots of individual problems with broadband, but the Government’s plans are now beginning to yield impressive dividends.
We are of course committed to ensuring that the benefits of improved broadband and mobile services are felt right across the nation. That is why we made a universal service commitment to provide minimum service levels of at least 2 megabytes per second by the end of 2015. Basic broadband is already available to virtually 100% of UK premises, and by the end of this year only about 1% of premises will receive less than 2 megabytes per second.
To deal with the remaining 1%, which in a sense is where we are, all premises will have access to at least 2 megabytes per second through the option of satellite broadband connections. They will have the capability of delivering superfast broadband for those who want it. Noble Lords may not know that the satellite scheme is currently being trialled in West Yorkshire and Suffolk, close to my noble friend’s home, and a national scheme is due to go live in December. We are very pleased with the results so far.
We remain on track to provide 90% superfast broadband coverage by early 2016, and we are aiming for 95% of UK premises—the number in the amendment —to have access to superfast speeds by December 2017.
As I think I told the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, superfast is already available to over 83% of homes and businesses in the UK. Importantly, that is up from 45% in 2010. So that was a good effort by the coalition Government. That is the highest coverage among the top five European economies.
Recognising problems in rural and remote areas, the Government have made available up to £8 million to support pilot projects to extend superfast broadband beyond 95% of UK premises, using satellite and wireless, as I said, and will publish further lessons from those pilots later this year.
Improving mobile connectivity is also a priority. Around 94% of the UK’s land mass has coverage from at least one mobile network operator and 69% has coverage from all four. But we want to go further. To this end, a landmark agreement was reached with all four operators in December to ensure that 90% of the UK’s landmass will have voice and text coverage from each MNO by 2017. What this also means is that 97.7% of the UK will have a signal from at least one mobile operator.
These are relentless and concrete measures that the Government have taken to improve coverage. We are striving every day to make improvements so that everyone can benefit from the digital economy. I share the frustrations of everybody at the time that this has taken, but we are committed to ensuring that we have the infrastructure we need for this fourth utility.
The noble Lord proposed a requirement to report on progress being made in improving broadband and mobile coverage. This is already widely available from lots of different sources. I can make the list available to noble Lords so that they know what is being done. I am not convinced that the information gap is there; what I think is there is the need to continue getting this fourth utility fully across the UK. I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw this amendment.
Lord Mendelsohn
I thank the Minister for her comments. The one thing that comes across very strongly in this Committee is that in many ways one of the real crises we have in business is that far too often too much is said and marketed. It has become very apparent that trust in business is continuing to fall, and on very reasonable grounds on the part of the consumer. I have a lot of kids so I have two broadband connections into the house, neither of which provides consistency of service or provides anywhere near the advertised level of service. I would be interested to know whether at some point the Government will consider making it a condition that you can market only the minimum guaranteed and consistent service; that could be attractive rather than these pie-in-the-sky numbers. It is not acceptable to put in a fibre-optic cable to one point and then market it to a whole area with no consideration being given to whether you will put in a superfast connection.
We have to be able to say, “We do not want to be followers. We want to be leaders”. This rollout has become very difficult. I hope that the Minister takes note of the following. I know this is an area in which she has a personal and keen interest and that many members of the Government are also very interested in it. It would be a good and positive move to encourage the commercial operators in this sector to do more and to do it faster and harder. That inevitably makes sense. The Minister talks about using satellite or wireless. Given the money we have invested and the provisions we have made, we might just as well have given the cash to Google and Facebook—I declare an interest in that my wife works for Facebook—to use their drones or balloons because we probably would have been able to do the whole thing a lot faster and quicker with those mechanisms. We should not be in the position whereby the provision of this service is so slow. I am more than happy to withdraw the amendment but hope that the Minister will be consistent in her efforts to make sure these operators deliver.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I am delighted to say that our efforts continue. We are trying to make sure that, as it were, reality goes faster. It has been a huge investment programme. I agree with a great many things that the noble Lord has said. I think there is a feeling right across the House that investment in this area is really important, which is one of the reasons I am so pleased that everybody supports the amendment we have put forward to the IDA, which obviously would allow extra spending in areas beyond things like the code that the noble Lord referred to.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
My Lords, Amendment 53ZH is in my name and that of my noble friend, Lord Stevenson. I will also speak to the other amendments in the group, which go to the heart of the exit payment problems.
It is not that we are particularly against what the Government said that they wanted to do in curtailing the very large exit payments made to a tiny handful of public servants who then re-enter the service of the state, albeit in a different guise. Indeed, as I am sure the Minister does not need reminding, the original words in the Conservative Party’s manifesto—on page 49, I think, if she has a copy here—were:
“We will end taxpayer-funded six-figure payoffs for the best paid public sector workers.”
Best paid? No, the cap will affect those with long service rather than those on the highest pay—hence our probing amendment to discover what exactly the Government are out to achieve. This is not aimed at the “best paid” of our public servants. The Cabinet Office confirmed that some earning less than £25,000 a year could be affected because of their long service—that is, serving the public, often for salaries below those in the private sector.
We assume that this was not the Government’s initial intention, especially given that they said in their memo to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee that the regulations would only prevent “vast benefits” being paid to “a few individuals”. That is not what we have, so why has it changed? Has the Government’s intention changed or is this just poorly thought-out legislation, which ends up hurting long-standing rather than highly paid staff?
Will the noble Baroness give the explanation that I think is due to us and, indeed, to all public servants? Does she consider that £25,000 equates with “best paid”? Has the intention changed, so that the Government want long-serving workers to be caught? Is this just a rather nasty, crafty little device that they have alighted on simply to help to reduce the deficit, given that the Chancellor seems to be having difficulty with it, by hanging that deficit around the neck of their own employees? Or is this just mistaken drafting, which the Minister will be happy to amend on Report?
As I suggested, the impact assessment suggested that the cap could save “low hundreds of millions” over given years, as if anticipating relatively small numbers being caught. However, no formal impact assessment was undertaken,
“as there are no obligations or costs imposed on business”.
Of course, an impact assessment is always possible and the impact on the people concerned, or indeed on the efficiency of government, should have been a central concern, although it was clearly not to Ministers.
We will come later to the particular impact of “strain payments”, but in the mean time we would like some clarification of why the particular figure was chosen. Was it simply to be under the “six-figure” that had been mentioned in the press? What thought was given to the impact across the public service? Were medium-or even lowish-income employees meant to be caught by it? Also, why is there a disparity with the NHS figure?
Furthermore, if the Government are really intent on dealing with the mischief of some super-payouts in this rather crude formulaic way via a cap, then not only should the Minister consider whether the figure is correct, but she should also give a commitment to index-link the amount before even Foreign Office cleaners are included. The Local Government Association supports the amendment to ensure that the figure is re-evaluated on an annual basis, so as to take into account differences in pay increases in separate areas of the public sector.
I am sure that the Committee is familiar with the figures as to who could be caught by the cap. According to the Cabinet Office, more than 20,000 in the main Civil Service and many more in arm’s-length bodies would be. It is the combination of age, and length of service rather than high pay that trap these people. The examples given have included a librarian, with a career average salary of £25,000—perhaps 34 years with the council when its library closes—and she is redundant at 55. It is a bit late to start a new career, and there are not a lot of private libraries to which she can move. She will be caught by the cap. Similarly, a 52 year-old tax inspector, or indeed a prison warder, who has worked for 25 years, or a 50 year-old health and safety officer with 20 years’ experience, or a 56 year-old school inspector after 16 years with Ofsted, or perhaps with FOS, if PPI ever got sorted.
Other groups include educational psychologists, mostly employed by local government, earning between £40,000 and £50,000 a year. They do not consider themselves the “best paid” in society, and I share their view. However, again, they will be caught, not because of their pay rate but because, if they are over 55, of the so-called strain payments—money which, of course, does not go to the person concerned but to the pension scheme, as we will come on to in later amendments. Can the Minister therefore say what thought the Government gave to the public servants who do such valuable work for all of us?
The cap as it is in the Bill at present covers compulsory redundancies, where of course the individual has no choice as to whether to walk and no opportunity to weigh up the pros and cons of leaving the service, but will simply lose the rights and reasonable expectations built up over a career. They—and we—deserve to know why this figure was chosen, and whether it really was aimed at these “good and faithful” colleagues. I beg to move.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)
My Lords, I inform the Committee that if this amendment is agreed to I cannot call Amendments 53ZJ to 54BC inclusive by reason of pre-emption.
Baroness Donaghy (Lab)
My Lords, Clause 26 sits rather oddly in a Bill about enterprise, a bit like a carbuncle on the end of a nose. I am not sure whether it belongs here; however, as I want the whole clause deleted, I will not suggest where it should go, except through the door market “Exit”. After a minimal consultation, a misleading manifesto statement and an all-round rubbishing by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, the Government still seem to want to go on to attack public service workers. One thing I ask—plead, even—is that if this clause is not deleted, the Government must announce the date when the cap is to be applied. This uncertainty is causing anguish to a lot of individuals and uncertainty to the reorganisation plans of employers.
Possibly one of the most surprising elements of Clause 26 is that there is no impact assessment—or at least, it took me two days and the support of the Printed Paper Office to find a small footnote contained in an annexe to the main impact assessment. It is the size of an office ruler—that is the impact assessment for this clause. As my noble friend Lady Hayter already indicated, this very brief reference said:
“No Impact Assessment required as there are no obligations or costs imposed on business”.
This is extraordinary. Even with the legislation on dangerous dogs there was a 50-page impact assessment. This tiny statement goes on to say that,
“the cap could result in savings in the low hundreds of millions of pounds over the course of this Parliament. This is about ensuring tax payers get a fair deal”.
That is as scientific, objective and factual as this impact assessment gets.
The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee has made its view clear. It recommends that,
“the affirmative procedure should always apply to regulations made under new section 153A(1) to (3) of the 2015 Act (inserted by clause 26 of the Bill)”.
The committee indicated that:
“Given that the regulations could potentially affect large numbers of persons, we believe that the affirmative procedure should always apply”.
The committee accepted that it was,
“feasible that the … powers would apply only to a relatively few public sector employees leaving their jobs in closely defined circumstances, and that the type of exit payments prescribed may be very limited”.
It went on to say:
“However a future Government could recast the regulations so that they applied to all or most types of public sector employees and exit payments”.
In response to the Delegated Powers Committee, the Government suggested that the regulations would operate only to prevent “vast benefits” from being conferred on “a few individuals”, as my noble friend Lady Hayter has already said. The committee disagreed and thought that the number of individuals affected was,
“potentially far more significant than implied”.
Lastly, the committee did not agree with the Government’s statement,
“that Clause 26 … merely raises ‘questions of management of public service workers that have traditionally been a matter for Ministers’. The regulations could override accrued contractual or legislative entitlements to exit payments calculated in a particular way. This is not, we believe, simply a management of personnel issue that requires only a modest level of Parliamentary scrutiny”.
I add that Clause 26 is proposing to amend an Act that is less than a year old. The Delegated Powers Committee’s statement that a future Government could recast the regulations more widely could also apply to this current Government, if they are constantly going to amend new legislation before it has had time to take effect. The Government want to give themselves and future Governments Henry VIII powers to overturn negotiated agreements, renege on current ones, create anxiety and stress among thousands of public service workers and make it more difficult for employers to reorganise.
I turn to the consultation document. The consultation that took place did not adhere to the Cabinet Office principles, which state:
“Timeframes for consultation should be proportionate and realistic to allow stakeholders sufficient time to provide a considered response and where the consultation spans all or part of a holiday period policy makers should consider what if any impact there may be and take appropriate mitigating action”.
The footnote to this principle makes it clear that the “holiday period” includes August. The consultation was launched on 31 July 2015 and concluded on 27 August 2015. That covers the entire holiday period. The Government have said several times in their response to the consultation that few alternatives to their proposals were put forward. That is hardly surprising when most people would not have seen the significance of the proposed cap in many industries, or how complex contractual or pension rights might be affected.
It is a credit to those organisations that did respond—over 4,000, according to the summary document—and it was clear that a significant number were not in favour of a cap, given other reforms to public sector terms and conditions. It was also clear that a significant number of respondents disagreed with the Government’s intention to include early access to unreduced pensions within the scope of the cap. Having had some experience of these consultation exercises that Governments in power, irrespective of party, indulge in, I know that the statement that “a significant number” object to something usually means that a proposal is very unpopular indeed.
I welcome the fact that the Government intend to exclude payments for untaken annual leave within the scope of the cap, just as I welcome the fact that the Government are currently minded not to include individuals with protected TUPE terms. However, they will include payments in lieu of notice. This gives employers less and less flexibility to deploy their staff, particularly during periods of constant reorganisation. It also means that employees may not budge until they are thrown out by means of compulsory redundancy because of the inflexibilities that this provision provides. It will be a game changer in most public services and there is bound to be a reaction, but perhaps that is what the Government want. I believe that the Government set out with the intention that the headline severance figures for the top brass in some sectors should be curbed, if only as a DMA—a Daily Mail appeaser. All the public statements made seem to point that way. I am beginning to wonder if the Government have changed their focus and see this as a golden opportunity to impose another hit on public service workers and public services, and thus to undermine national agreements and clawbacks on central control, with quite shocking Henry VIII powers.
I have been involved in collective bargaining in the public sector for more than 40 years and I know for a fact that every agreement reached in the public services is crawled over by the home department. It knows to a farthing how much a deal will cost. To adopt a shock-horror approach now to deals that have previously been agreed by government departments is disingenuous. The Government pretend to represent working people, but that is a hollow boast, and will be seen as such by thousands of loyal and long-serving public servants in their fifties whose life plans will change dramatically as a result of this clause. Far from representing working people, the Government are in danger of undermining them both in terms of their morale and their bank balances. Moreover, public sector authorities are crying out for an announcement by the Government on when the cap might be introduced. As the Local Government Association has said, workplace restructuring plans for 2016 and beyond will already be under way in local authorities, and any further delay on this will restrict councils from taking important decisions.
I should just say that the figure I suggested in one of my amendments simply reflects a set of agreements already negotiated in the National Health Service. It has taken two years to reach and would probably solve quite a lot of the problems that we are talking about here. Alternatively, of course, if some indication can be given about longevity of service, that might provide peace of mind to some people. Finally, I urge the Minister to give us some reassurance about annual re-evaluation. Given the earlier discussion on pubs and the difficulties in that area, again, having something in the Bill to that extent might go a long way to relieving some of the individuals affected.
Lord Stoneham of Droxford
My Lords, as housing associations have been designated as part of the public sector, I ought to declare my interest as the chairman of Housing and Care 21. I will refer to the housing sector in the course of my remarks on these amendments. Personally, I have deep concerns about this. We know that it was a manifesto commitment of the governing party. It was a good selling point for them because it was populist, but I fear and know that it will result in poor legislation and will have unintended consequences.
I am one of those who is immensely worried about management capability in the public sector with all the demands to reform, change and improve it. But here we are, again putting public sector staff at a disadvantage as against the private sector at a time when, frankly, that sector remains rampant in terms of its conditions, benefits and even its pay-offs, certainly for high-level staff. We will find as a result of this change that we have further difficulties getting the managers that we want for these very difficult jobs, where we are trying to get change and reform. It is not easy and the very best people are needed. I have said this before but 100 good managers are worth £1 billion in public spending. This puts them at a disadvantage.
The noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, said that this does not affect just the high paid. It also affects some of the lowest paid in the public sector, for all the reasons she set out. This is not simply a populist measure because it deals with the high paid; it affects others. Pensions are the main problem here. There are generous aspects of public sector schemes but we have recently been through a renegotiation on a lot of these and we are now going to break them once again. What is the Government’s word going to be worth in these situations where contractual obligations are being overruled by legislation?
I will give one example from the housing sector. The most difficult job in my career is making changes where people have to be made redundant. I always find it painful, but I have always ensured one thing—you have to show other employees that when you make changes you look after the people who are vulnerable in that situation. Whether we like it or not, we are going to face those situations in the next five years. We have never before seen the reform and change that is going to come in the public sector on the scale that is coming. We will know more when we see the public spending commitments but it is huge. At this precise moment we are undermining morale and will increase resistance to change.
In every housing association I have chaired we have had to make changes and we have sometimes had to make payouts in excess of £100,000. However, I have never regretted doing so because we have saved millions in return. If we give up these opportunities for change by putting in inflexibilities which make change more difficult, it will hold up reform and improvements that need to be made.
It is absolutely essential that there is some flexibility here. Normally, there would be a ministerial guideline that all payments above a certain level should be approved. That should be a normal management guideline instruction, and if this was not part of a populist general election commitment, it is what would happen. It would be the best thing for the public sector. It would provide restraint and a guideline on what is appropriate. Above all, it would provide flexibility for those who deserve payment and need to be protected. That is what should happen, so anything we can do in this legislation to provide a loophole and some flexibility must be welcomed. Ministers will regret not doing it in a year or two when they are finding it difficult to get change in the public sector or when they are trying to get people to believe agreements they want to make. People will say, “Well, you made an agreement a year ago and you broke it. It was on pensions, something that is pretty important, and you just it let it go, so why should we trust you now when you are trying to make even bigger changes?”.
Equity, sensitivity and trying to get change are important issues and are going to be very important in the next five years. Any Government that go into these changes wearing these handcuffs will find it very difficult to get change and improvements, nor will they deserve to do so. At the end of the day, change is painful and difficult for the employees in the sector where it is being done. They need to be able to say that the people who are being sacrificed for change are being well protected and that their agreements are being honoured. That will actually help achieve change quicker. I hope the Minister will assure us that on Report they will look at giving themselves some flexibility. That will be welcomed.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I am grateful to noble Lords for their comments. At the outset, I shall address the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, made about whether the cap had been extended deliberately. First, £95,000 is a large exit payment, whatever the level of an individual’s former salary. The Government do not believe that the taxpayer should continue to fund exit payments larger than that. The clause allows for the cap to be relaxed, including to take account of exceptional individual circumstances. The large majority of workers are not affected by these arrangements; for example, less than 2% of recent exits in local government would have exceeded the cap. But where generous early retirement provisions are offered that include immediate payment of unreduced pensions, some lower-paid staff with very long service can currently be eligible for exit packages above the level of the cap.
The Government recognise the importance of exit payments in providing workers with support as they get back into employment or enter retirement. However, the fundamental point is that the Government do not believe that it is fair for taxpayers to continue funding the small minority of exit packages that cost over £95,000. The Government made a clear commitment in their manifesto—the source of the figure—to end six-figure exit payouts for public workers.
The noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, asked about consultation; she said that it had been inadequate. The measure has been public for a long time. We announced the intention to legislate in May, I think, in the Queen’s Speech. We received over 4,000 responses, and do not believe that that suggests that there has been insufficient time to comment. Obviously, the measure will go through full parliamentary scrutiny during the passage of this Bill; we discussed it at Second Reading, are discussing it today, and I am sure that it will be discussed again. I express my thanks to the noble Baroness for her positive comments about some of the exclusions, which she has rightly highlighted. She also asked about the impact assessment. It is not a private sector impact, so it does not go through the RPC. There was an impact assessment as part of the consultation, which followed the usual criteria set out in government guidance. I do not know whether she has seen that; if not, obviously I will send it to her. I understand that the public had an opportunity to comment on it.
It is currently possible for employers to use taxpayers’ money to fund excessive exit payment, as a substitute for good management practice. I remember the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, saying at Second Reading how important management was. I think he said that 100 good managers were worth a billion pounds. The availability of very large payments can lead to issues of poor performance. The possibility of redeployment is not always given adequate consideration, which we would all like to see. The cap and the additional scrutiny it brings to payments will encourage employers to act with discipline and proportionality in considering public sector exits, and will help to ensure that good management practices are embedded in decision-making.
Amendment 53A seeks to increase the value of the cap to £145,000, a much higher figure. It would require taxpayers to continue to fund six-figure exit payments for public sector workers. Statutory redundancy pay is of course capped at £14,250. Exit payments of £145,000 would of course represent payouts of 10 times that amount. A cap even at the level proposed by the Government will not affect the large majority of public sector workers, as I have said. For the few who receive such payments, the cap does not reduce their compensation to an unreasonable amount and still compares favourably to the private sector. In addition, as I have said, the clause applies for a waiver power to allow the cap to be relaxed in exceptional circumstances.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
I am desperately trying not to use the word “shameful”, but I am afraid that that is what I think it is. It is fine to use taxpayers’ money to bring umpteen new Peers into this House, which costs around £100,000 per year, and it is fine to use taxpayers’ money for ministerial redundancy, but somehow paying someone a reasonable amount that they had reasonable expectations of receiving—which I think may be challenged in court—because of their length of service is not acceptable. I do not accept that there is a manifesto commitment on this. That was for the very best paid. I think I am right in saying that at least the Minister accepts that some lower-paid people will be covered by the cap, but that was not the manifesto commitment.
I think that the Minister said that fewer than 2% of recent payments would have exceeded the cap, but 2% involves a lot of people. Those people would not have got what they would have genuinely earned because of their long service. There may now be a rush to get out before the summer, knowing that otherwise something that one has earned over one’s life will suddenly be taken away. If the private sector were doing it, they would find themselves in court fairly quickly. The Minister said that this could be reviewed under regulations, but of course the fear is that the figure could come down. The whole point of having it reviewed to ensure that it keeps up with inflation is that it is a one-way movement. The Government could suddenly decide that £80,000 or £70,000 was the right figure, or they might not want to pay their employees at all.
I am afraid that I find this fairly shameful. The idea that you can be redeployed in a high area of unemployment at the age of 57 is fanciful. The idea that someone who has been a specialist worker can be retrained at that age is a nice thought; some of us have managed it after the age of 60 but we are the very lucky ones in life. Most people are not like this.
I regret that the plea from the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, about giving us guidelines and flexibility to enable the public sector to be flexible and provide what is best for all their staff—those remaining and those going—and for the management structures has received no response. This is not one of the Government’s best days. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Borwick
Lord Borwick (Con)
My Lords, this amendment does not try to amend the purpose of Clause 26; rather, it would change an ambiguity in the final line of new Section 153A(1) inserted by Clause 26, where the qualifier,
“any period of 28 consecutive days”,
could be said to refer to payments rather than to exits. It might be possible for a generous employer to pay £95,000 every month, which I presume is not the intention of the clause. My amendment would change the wording so that it would clearly refer only to the exits and ensure that duplication of payments could not be made.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I thank my noble friend Lord Borwick for his support for the cap and for his interest in helping us to ensure that the provisions that implement it are clear and understandable to those who will be affected. To cut the cackle, I am happy to accept his amendment.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, I apologise on behalf of my noble friend Lord Wills for his absence, which was completely unavoidable. On behalf of him, the noble Lord, Lord Low, and myself, I shall move Amendment 54. It is a simple amendment and I think that the case is fairly clear. The public, consumers, other workers and, indeed, very often the Government need whistleblowers if the public sector is to perform to the standards that we all expect of it in serving the community, protecting both its clients and employees and indeed ensuring that we as taxpayers get value for money from every part of the public service. Uncovering mismanagement or fraud, risks to vulnerable people or poor governance—all these sorts of things are in the public interest. Those who see things from the inside that quite rightly need to be known outside their coterie must be encouraged to whistleblow, but safe in the knowledge that they will have proper protections.
In supporting the amendment, the Association of Educational Psychologists, to give but one example, considers it vital to exempt whistleblowers from the cap. To quote the association:
“If one’s whole career is to be risked then an exit payment limited to £95,000 or less might act as a deterrent resulting in less whistleblowing”.
That would be a loss to all of us. I trust therefore that the Minister will accommodate this exemption, if not today then by bringing something forward herself on Report. I beg to move.
Lord Low of Dalston (CB)
My Lords, I put my name to these amendments and I am very happy to support them, but I confess that the forces in their support are in some disarray today. We have already heard about the unavoidable absence of the noble Lord, Lord Wills—prevented from attending by a rival speaking engagement to which he was committed. I myself am less fully briefed and more underpowered than I would wish, having literally stepped off a plane this morning from the United States to find that the amendments were coming up today. I had been expecting them on Monday; indeed, for some time this afternoon it seemed as though they would not be reached until Monday, such was the Grand Committee’s rate of progress, but here we are. I am most grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, for riding to the rescue and moving the amendment.
The concern is basically that those settling claims where they might have got unlimited damages had they gone to tribunal will be disproportionately prejudiced if the amount at which a claim may be settled is capped. This is certainly the case with claims under PIDA, the Public Interest Disclosure Act, but it may just as much be the case with discrimination cases. The Minister might care to comment on that, as we may wish to take it up on Report. A second concern is that capping settlements where there is no limit on the level of damages that may be obtained at tribunal can operate only as an incentive to go to tribunal—to go to litigation rather than settle.
The noble Baroness spoke to the amendments very ably and, given the hour, I do not think I need say anything more about them, save that I fully support them.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I thank noble Lords, including in his absence the noble Lord, Lord Wills, for tabling this amendment. I was able to have a good discussion with him last night, and I hope that there will be some positive news for noble Lords.
I reiterate that the amendment has three components: a regulatory referral system for whistleblowing, access to legal advice for whistleblowers receiving exit payments, and the publication of guidance. If an exit payment relates to a potential whistleblowing disclosure, that would need to be agreed by both parties under a settlement agreement or following conciliation through ACAS. I assure noble Lords that no such agreement can prevent an employee from making a public interest disclosure as stipulated in the Employment Rights Act 1996. Any provision that sought to do so would be void, so a regulatory referral system is unnecessary to enable proper investigation of any malpractice. Any employee entering into an agreement that involves waiving the right to take such an issue to employment tribunal should be fully advised of the impact that would have.
There have been a number of recent developments on whistleblowing, including new guidance. The guidance for employers recommends that they confirm in their whistleblowing policies that settlement agreements cannot prevent workers from making disclosures in the public interest. The guidance for workers clarifies this point. So, too, does guidance published by the Cabinet Office in February this year for Civil Service organisations and their arm’s-length bodies on severance payments and settlement agreements.
Finally, I hope that what I say in relation to Amendment 54 will be good news. The amendment seeks to exempt payments to whistleblowers from the cap on public sector exit payments. I assure the Committee that, where a whistleblower successfully brings a case to an employment tribunal, the cap will not apply to the award made. Under the indicative regulations, which set out how it is proposed to implement the cap and which the Treasury has made available, any payment made under an order of any court, including employment tribunals, would be outside the scope of the cap.
I hope that noble Lords have found that explanation reassuring. The noble Lord, Lord Wills, certainly did, and I hope that on that basis the noble Baroness will agree to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Low of Dalston
It is not in dispute that the awards which may be made at tribunals will not be capped. The concern is that the settlements will be capped, and I am not sure that, from that point of view, the Minister has met the point of the amendment.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Low, for raising that point. It is important that I check the situation and, if I may, I will write to him. I think that our objectives in this area are the same, but it is important that I understand precisely the interplay of this provision and other legislation. I will come back to him.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
The noble Lord, Lord Low, calls himself underpowered and then he understands every jot and tittle. The point that he has just raised is the key one. Where these sorts of things happen, it is much better if they can be dealt with by settlement rather than involving expense and coverage for the employer and everyone else. I, too, will want to look at this carefully and to take advice from my noble friend Lord Wills. However, for the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Donaghy
Baroness Donaghy
In order to save time I will speak to the next group of amendments, if that is all right. There is a lot of overlapping, not because I am boring but because the amendments are all intended to try to elicit from the Government what their intention is regarding the salary level that is going to be affected and to ask whether they think that honouring national agreements is sufficiently important to allow those agreements to take their course, perhaps introducing a two-year period if those agreements are already in place.
These are probing amendments. I will cut down considerably what I was going to say but I want to come back to the question of what the acceptable line on the impact of the exit cap is. We want moderately-paid employees with long service to have peace of mind. I ask the Minister whether the Government have gone back on the statement made by the then Treasury Minister, Priti Patel. In January 2015 she said:
“This commitment, which will be included in our 2015 General Election manifesto, will cap payments for well-paid public sector workers at £95,000. Crucially, those earning less than £27,000 will be exempted to protect the very small number of low earning, long-serving public servants”.
The impression given is that the cap applies to well-paid public sector workers and not to low-earning, long-serving employees. What has happened to the figure of £27,000 that was quoted? Is this another example of reneging on a promise?
The manifesto said that:
“We will end taxpayer-funded six-figure payoffs for the best paid public sector workers”.
Not the better paid, not the moderately paid, or the averagely paid, but the best paid. How misleading is that? Will the Minister clarify what the Government mean by “low earning” and “best paid” and how they will deal with the vast majority in the middle? Does she believe that the manifesto referring to the “best paid” would have rung alarm bells for thousands of public sector workers in their fifties? I do not think so. Some noble Lords may have received correspondence from people who will be affected. I will read some lines from Leona Parker, who said:
“I work at Dungeness A site, one of the original civil nuclear reactor sites where many of my colleagues have worked many dedicated and proud years of service”,
and,
“are being faced with the prospect of long-standing agreements being reneged on. What kind of Government would say this is fair?”
I had other examples that, to save time, I will not use.
In the consultation response, the Government referred to the waiver process and included the line,
“the full council to take the decision whether to grant a waiver of the cap in cases involving local authorities and for local government bodies within their delegated powers”.
There is no reference to this in the Bill. I know that certain assurances have been made about this, but there is no reference in the Bill to the waiver. Ministers are given powers to do something, but there is no indication in the Bill at the moment. I would feel more assured if this could be done.
The Local Government Association is also concerned about how the proposed waiver process will apply in schools, where governing bodies have their own decision-making powers. It is important that the Government make a clear statement that they plan to include regulations that will allow the full council of local authorities, which is a full public meeting of the council, to choose to waive the cap in circumstances of their choosing. Clearly, authorities would be required to publish a policy on the limited circumstances in which they would consider the granting of an exemption. That is only right and proper. I would prefer to see this in the Bill but I will listen with interest to what the Minister says to reassure us. I beg to move.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, the amendments in this group are pretty crucial. In part, they take forward what we said in the first group about exit payments and helping the good management of the service at local and national levels. There are clear examples of where existing rights and agreements should not be undermined, such as payments in lieu of notice where they are part of a contractual entitlement of employment, which, as has been said, is often a useful tool for employers in managing exits.
In the Civil Service the proposed cap cuts across the negotiating of an agreement. The then Minister for the Cabinet Office, now the noble Lord, Lord Maude of Horsham, described the agreement reached in 2010 as one that would be lasting. He said that it would provide,
“a fair balance between the interests of taxpayers and the interests of civil servants and protect those approaching retirement and the lowest paid”.—[Official Report, Commons, 14/12/10; col. 849.]
This Bill should not undermine that agreement, whatever one thinks about the desirability of the principle of the cap itself. Nor, as we have heard, should the cap hamper the reorganisation and modernisation of public services, as suggested earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, and as wanted and supported by other parts of the Government. As my noble friend has said, the Local Government Association is particularly worried that the cap would threaten its future staff restructuring because it is such a rigid cap and because of its particular impact on long-serving employees who may be exactly the ones whose tasks or skills are now less in demand. It would also exclude some staff from early retirement who might otherwise have been part of a headcount reduction exercise, with strategic restructuring now hampered as councils are perhaps forced to keep on their highest-paid staff instead of allowing them to retire and bringing in lower-cost replacements.
The cap, of course, once it is in, will also act as a disincentive to those considering voluntary redundancy. That is likely to mean there will end up being more compulsory redundancies as well as difficulties in modernising the service. This matter is of particular importance to local government, which is partly why we have tabled Amendment 54H to include in the Bill rather than in secondary legislation the ability to make exemptions where the full council of the local authority decides to grant a waiver of the cap. The Government have now published their draft statutory instrument allowing for a waiver where the full council so agrees. However, as my noble friend Lady Donaghy said, this ability could be swept away if it is only in secondary legislation, with local government having no guarantees in this regard. That makes future planning very difficult. We therefore hope that Amendment 54H will be considered a better way forward as the principle has already been signed up to by the Government, but the amendment would give everyone confidence in it.
The amendments containing specific figures that we have now brought into this group seek to push the Government to define the words that we all keep using—that is, what is meant by “the best paid”? Is it people on a salary of £30,000, £35,000 or £40,000 a year? It is important to be clear about that. It is hard to imagine the Government not accepting that anyone earning below the national average wage should be excluded from this provision. Therefore, we hope that Amendment 54BA will be accepted.
We also think it important to exclude from the provision people with long service. That is important not just for their sake, and what they have earnt during their career working for all of us, but because of the advantages that this offers to management. After all, those people have earnt those benefits. We do not consider that the Conservative manifesto wanted to catch people who have given long service to this country. Those are the people we would like to see excluded from this provision. I imagine that the Minister concurs with that objective and hope that she can find a way to accept that amendment.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
My Lords, this group seeks to delay the implementation of the cap, create exemptions or introduce an earnings threshold. I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, for grouping these together.
Amendment 54B seeks to ensure that the cap cannot stop payments of more than £95,000 if they are already allowed under current arrangements. The effect of this would be that employers would have to make amendments to compensation schemes, or to make changes to existing contractual entitlements before the Government could stop such payments. This would have the effect, I fear, of making the exit payments cap ineffective, or delaying it indefinitely.
Amendment 54G seeks to put in place a transitional period of two years after Royal Assent during which the cap would not apply in cases of what she describes as “institutional reorganisation”. The Government do not accept that it would be appropriate to frustrate the intention of the cap by delaying its full introduction for two years. However, the Government recognise that workforce restructuring can be a lengthy and complex process. There may be instances where exits that have long since been agreed will not take place until after the £95,000 cap comes into force. We recognise that there may be instances where it would be appropriate to give effect to such agreements after the cap comes in.
Amendment 54H concerns the power to relax the restrictions imposed by the cap. The clause provides that this is exercisable by Ministers of the Crown, and ensures that any exercise of that power is subject to scrutiny. The Government agree that it is appropriate that the power to relax restrictions be vested outside Ministers in relation to certain bodies outside central government. This includes local authorities. The draft regulations, which noble Lords will now have seen, provide that the power to relax restrictions on exit payments may be exercised by full councils of local authorities in respect of payments that they make. However, we need to ensure that the level of scrutiny and reassurance remains the same so whoever exercises the power must do so by reference to guidance issued by the Treasury, and must of course keep a record of the exercise of that power.
Baroness Donaghy
I thank the Minister for dealing with all those amendments so quickly. First, I think that the flexibility is entirely on the Government’s part. The exercise of Henry VIII powers will increase the uncertainty and the lowering of morale among public servants. It will increase litigation and encourage people to go to employment tribunals. The Minister gave no indication whatever as to the level of salary that the Government had in mind beyond which they did not think this would have an impact. I thought that was interesting. We gave her several opportunities and quoted several figures, including one from a former Treasury Minister, not just as bait but to get a rough idea of what the Government had in mind. We have not had a single indication, so this will be railroaded through. I do not believe that that summer consultation allowed adequately for people who will be affected. The Minister herself said that hard-working, long-serving public service workers will be affected. I do not believe they knew that when that consultation document came out in the summer. In the circumstances and in view of the time, though, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Borwick
“(1A) Where provision is made under subsection (1) it must also secure that if, in any period of 28 consecutive days, two or more relevant public sector exits occur in respect of the same person, the total amount of exit payments made to the person in respect of those exits does not exceed the amount provided for in subsection (1).”
Baroness Donaghy
Baroness Donaghy
This will take three minutes. At least I hope I can be as quick as that. Not because this amendment is not important—it is probably the most important aspect of the discussion on exit caps.
The purpose of this amendment is to exempt pension costs from the exit cap. My objective throughout these debates on Clause 26 is to protect those employees on lower income with long service. If pension strain costs are included in the exit cap it will affect thousands of people in the public services. I will use local government as an example.
The local government pension scheme, LGPS, has approximately 4.6 million members. Recent changes to the pension scheme rules, as a direct result of pension legislation, mean that an employee over the age of 55 years who is made redundant is automatically entitled to early retirement without any reduction in pension. It is important to remind ourselves that in these circumstances the redundant employee would not be receiving a lump sum of money. He or she would simply be entitled to access their pension early. While the redundant employee will not have earned as much pension as they would have if they had remained employed for more years, there would normally be a significant reduction to the pension for accessing it before the normal retirement age. As part of the agreement, the employer pays the pension fund a lump sum to compensate the scheme for having to pay an unreduced pension much earlier than anticipated. This is known as the strain payment.
The employee benefits indirectly because they receive an unreduced pension. They do not receive a direct pay off in the sense normally understood by the high-profile cases. Those with long service, say 20 years, on a moderate salary who are made redundant at 55 could easily be affected by the provisions in the Bill. To give a hypothetical example, a career librarian with an average salary of £25,000 per year reaches 55 and is made redundant after 34 years of service. Her pension would be calculated at £17,346.93 per year. The librarian would receive this 11 years earlier than her normal retirement age, so the initial strain payment would be £190,816. To offset that, money would have been saved in salary and salary increases for 11 years and other factors such as local longevity would also be taken into consideration. So, the strain payment is always lower than the initial calculation. Nevertheless, a cap of £95,000 would almost certainly be breached and the employer would be unable to make the member redundant without either breaching the proposed cap or the current local government pension scheme regulations. These were recently negotiated and would not have been cleared without the Government’s consent. Multiply that by the 99 pension funds which exist and have their own actuarial methods of calculating the actual strain payments.
In Schedule 4 to the Bill it is very clear that the pension regulations will be amended to allow for this cap. This makes a nonsense of the previous Government’s statement that there would be no more meddling with public service pension schemes for 25 years. To renege on an agreement is bad enough. However, the schedule also makes it clear that where a pension strain payment would breach the cap the consequences would either be a reduced pension or that the member would have to find a lump sum in order to buy out that reduction. I remind the Committee of what I said earlier: the member will not receive a lump sum on redundancy in this instance. They would have to find the lump sum from their savings. I do not know how many public sector employees on £25,000 a year have substantial savings. More importantly, neither do the Government. I say that because I am still looking for the impact assessment and I look forward to receiving the copy that I have been promised.
This is an extremely serious issue for all people in public sector pension schemes. It will be treated as if it is going back on very recently negotiated agreements on pension changes.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, this is the amendment that the Government really ought to grab hold of if they want to achieve their stated objective of stopping big payments to the highest paid rather than to the longest serving of their own employees. It is this amendment which would prevent the longer serving, albeit lower earning, workers from being caught. As my noble friend has said, it is so unfair because these strain payments do not even go to the individual, it is an actuarial change from what is at the moment available from their current employer to the pension scheme. However, it will reduce the amount that they are able to take as their pay.
We have already heard of examples from my noble friend and we are talking about this becoming a bigger problem. We could have someone with 35 years’ service earning perhaps £30,000, but because of the later retirement age now of 65, a person on that salary will undoubtedly hit the cap and not be able to take a well-earned and justified amount of money. It can also happen with much smaller sums in terms of long service. This is going to hit older workers, and to me it feels discriminatory towards them. I do not know whether any challenges will be made on this basis, but they are the people who will be caught—it is not by virtue of their pay, but by virtue of their age.
I will add one more point. As the Bill stands at the moment, it will affect those who, under the present arrangements, can take a non-reduced pension on compassionate grounds. I assume that that is also going to go out of the window. This is an absolutely crux amendment. Solve this on pensions and we will have gone a long way to solving what is between us on this matter.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I thank the noble Baroness for her amendment. It is late but I will try to respond because the noble Baroness and her noble friend have both made important points about a key area. The amendment seeks to exclude any pension top-up element from the scope of a cap on exit payments. The Government do not believe that such an exclusion would be desirable for reasons that I will explain.
Let me be clear: the Government’s proposals, as I said at Second Reading, do not involve taking away people’s group pension rights, so the cap will not affect in any way an individual’s right to their earned pension, nor does it engage the 25-year guarantee on pension rights. It is focused on limiting the amount that a public sector worker can receive from an employer when leaving employment. The cap is intended to cover all the various types of payment that an employer may make, and the Government think it right that it should include payments made to a pension scheme to fund early access to that payment, otherwise you will have a different problem.
Noble Lords will be aware that where an individual takes early retirement, pension payments are normally reduced to reflect the expectation that they will be paid for longer, and the amount of the reduction is calculated by the scheme actuary to ensure that the consequences for the scheme and for the individual are cost-neutral. In cases where the individual is retiring early on the basis of ill-health or redundancy, certain pension and compensation schemes may allow an employer to make a payment into the pension scheme to buy out any reduction so that the individual can have immediate access to the unreduced pension. These additional costs to the scheme, those of providing a pension of greater value than the individual would otherwise be entitled to, are met by the employer and, ultimately of course, by the taxpayer.
I can make it clear that these provisions do not alter the position in relation to early retirement for ill-health and injury, but I am not sure about compassion, so I will have to look into that. As I alluded to earlier, it is only where such a payment forms part of a redundancy package in place of or additional to a lump sum redundancy payment that it will be within the scope of the cap. The Government do not accept that as a rationale for excluding this type of payment from the cap. Payments of this type are sometimes some of the most expensive and place the greatest burden on employers and taxpayers. I would also like to reassure noble Lords that the Government believe that redundancy packages should still retain flexibility to allow early access to a pension where employers have the ability to top up an employee’s pension. These proposals will simply ensure that any top-up is within the limits of the cap, and Schedule 4 to the Bill gives a power whereby the employer can still make a payment into the pension scheme to reduce the actuarial reduction that would otherwise have been made.
I note the points that have been made and I understand the emotion behind and importance of this issue. It is serious, but the Government have brought forward a scheme. It involves picking up these extra payments that are made to top up pensions, and I hope that, in the interests of time, the noble Baroness will be prepared to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Donaghy
I thank the Minister for her response, but she has not convinced me by one iota. However, in view of the time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Borwick
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, this group of amendments has been spoken to in part by my noble friend Lady Donaghy. I am taking up the incredibly good and thorough work of our Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, and in fact I will draw completely on its insights, experience and recommendations. Without these changes, it is possible—from something the Minister said earlier as a slight aside—that she may accept it. If so, I shall save myself from making a speech. If she is likely to do so, I will move the amendment formally. If not, I beg to move.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
My Lords, we have received the committee’s report, and I take this opportunity to thank the committee for its detailed scrutiny. This is a last-minute amendment, but of course we appreciate the spirit in which it has been made. We are giving close consideration to the committee’s recommendations, including the need to ensure that we reflect the devolution position correctly. Perhaps I may therefore revert to this on Report with a proposed amendment on the subject.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
I am sorry if this has not been done in quite the right order, but in view of what the Minister has said it sounds as though we are very close on this. I look forward to seeing an amendment on Report, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
House of Lords
(8 years, 7 months ago)
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Tax Credits
(8 years, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Lister of Burtersett
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the impact of the proposed reductions in tax credits on the number of children in working families living in poverty.
Lord Ashton of Hyde (Con)
My Lords, the Government are committed to moving from a high-welfare, high- tax, low-wage economy to a lower-welfare, lower-tax, higher-wage society. As the Chancellor has made clear, the Government will set out in the Autumn Statement how we plan to achieve the same goal of reforming tax credits and saving the money we need to save to secure our economy while, at the same time, giving help in the transition, including to families with children.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
When the leader of the Opposition asked the Prime Minister a question about this matter this morning, he made reference to increases in the minimum wage and personal tax allowance, due next year. Does the Minister accept that those measures will do little to prevent the 200,000 increase in child poverty figures, forecast by the Resolution Foundation, if the tax credit cuts go ahead? They cannot target support on children and will not, in any case, be of benefit to many of those affected by the cuts.
Lord Ashton of Hyde
My Lords, we believe that work is the best way to help children. There is evidence to support the fact that children in workless households do worse than those in working ones. In addition, we are helping families with children. We are doubling free childcare and, under universal credit, we will support the increase to cover up to 85% of childcare costs where all parents are in work, regardless of the number of hours worked. The early years pupil premium provides £50 million in extra funding. We are currently providing free school meals for all infant school pupils in the first three years and we are introducing tax-free childcare from 2017.
Baroness Manzoor (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Chancellor for listening to the debate on tax credits. Will exemptions be made for the child element within tax credits, particularly in exceptional cases: for instance, where there is domestic abuse in a family with more than three children; where a family with more than two children face the bereavement of the person who is working; or a family where the third child is disabled? I would welcome the Minister’s assurance that the Government are listening to this.
Lord Ashton of Hyde
My Lords, I am afraid that I am going to have to disappoint the noble Baroness. The Autumn Statement is when the Chancellor will announce what he is going to do about the transition and what will happen to the tax credit position following the events of last week. It is worth repeating what the Chancellor said.
Lord Ashton of Hyde
The noble Lord may not want to hear it but I will tell him anyway:
“We will continue to reform tax credits and save the money needed so that Britain lives within its means while at the same time lessening the impact on families during the transition”.—[Official Report, Commons, 27/10/15; col 177.]
The Chancellor has said that he will set out those plans in the Autumn Statement.
Baroness Meacher (CB)
My Lords, does the Minister have an estimate of the number of disabled children whose families will be driven into debt as a result of the planned tax credit cuts? Will he give the House an assurance that he will put pressure on the Chancellor to mitigate these quite appalling consequences in his Autumn Statement?
Lord Ashton of Hyde
My Lords, I am not quite sure what the planned tax credits are now, which is why we will wait until the Autumn Statement. However, I can say that for disabled people we have until now protected those benefits related to the additional costs of disability and we will continue to do so.
Lord Morgan (Lab)
My Lords, is it not shown by the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission that 7 million children will suffer as a result of the cuts in tax credits and that the income of 45% of working families will go down? This is not a constitutional crisis, it is a humanitarian crisis, for which the savage and shameful policy of the Government is solely responsible.
Lord Ashton of Hyde
It is interesting that since we took over as the Government in 2010, 800,000 fewer people are in relative low income before housing costs and 300,000 fewer children are in relative low income.
Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)
My Lords, is the Minister aware that, following an exchange in the debate we had last week, his noble friend, the noble Earl, Lord Howe, sent a communication to my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours? I have permission to quote that communication, in which the noble Earl says:
“The plans in the draft regulations would mean that, from April 2016, a family with children who are in receipt of child tax credits would receive those tax credits elements at the same rate of payment as currently applies in respect of those children”.
How does the Minister justify that as a true and fair view? What is paid in terms of tax credits reflects not only the various elements—the building blocks—but the net effect of applying the income threshold and the taper. The former has been dramatically lowered and the taper accelerated. So why will the Government not come clean? This does mean that there will be reductions in child tax credits and working tax credits.
Lord Ashton of Hyde
My Lords, the noble Lord is referring to a television programme with David Dimbleby. The PM said that,
“child tax credit, we increased by £450”.
The presenter asked:
“And it’s not going to fall?”.
The PM confirmed:
“It’s not going to fall”.
The award has not changed. It is £2,780 and it was before.
Lord Farmer (Con)
My Lords, can the Minister explain how the new focus on changing people’s life chances will be more effective in addressing the root causes of poverty than the child poverty targets introduced by the last Labour Government?
Lord Ashton of Hyde
My Lords, my noble friend’s question slightly moves away from tax credits on to the welfare Bill, which this House is going to consider in a couple of weeks’ time. We are working to end child poverty, and until now, the talk about poverty has been caught up in the old mindset of an arbitrary limit, and this needs to change. The existing statutory framework, which was set around four income-related targets, is flawed because it focuses the government action on tackling the symptoms, rather than the root causes, of child poverty. This new system will focus on the root causes of poverty: there will be two new measures—educational attainment and the number of children in workless households—plus various non-statutory life-chance indicators. The Second Reading of the welfare Bill is on 17 November.
Teacher Training
(8 years, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Donaghy
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure the supply of adequately trained teachers, particularly teachers trained by university departments of education.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
The Government believe that our best schools should play a leading role in training new teachers, so that they are fully equipped to succeed in the classroom. Many schools are actively choosing to work closely with universities in delivering teacher training, recognising the benefits that they can bring. We are committed to ensuring that the teaching profession can attract and retain the very best people. We now have more, better-qualified teachers in England’s classrooms than ever before.
Baroness Donaghy (Lab)
I thank the Minister for her reply, and I know that this is not her area of direct responsibility. However, she must be aware that we have an unstable teacher supply framework, that there are going to be shortages of teachers in some regions in both the short term and the medium term and that the unstable income stream for higher education might mean that some universities—particularly those in the Russell Group—will opt out of the connection with teacher education altogether. Does she really think that that adds up to a good policy for this Government?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
I thank the noble Baroness for her question. She is right that we are moving to a school-led teacher training system, but that involves collaboration between universities and schools. A teacher-led or school-led system does not mean a university-excluded system, and we are seeing great collaboration whereby, for example, 70% of School Direct places are actually being delivered by universities. It is improving the link between schools and universities, but also putting in charge of teacher training those who know best what they want in their schools—the head teachers.
Baroness Coussins (CB)
My Lords, in light of the proposal to make the EBacc compulsory, and of the welcome inclusion of statutory foreign languages at key stage 2, what specific steps do Her Majesty’s Government plan to take to reverse the shortfall of modern language teachers, which last year was 21% according to DfE figures? With the falling numbers of students taking a modern language degree, does the Minister agree that the supply chain for future languages NQTs needs urgent attention if government policies are going to be successfully implemented?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
We certainly recognise that teacher recruitment is challenging. As the economy grows, graduates are in ever-increasing demand, and there are certain subjects where this is particularly challenging. That is why we are taking a broad approach, offering training bursaries and salary grants to the best graduates and career changers, putting schools at the centre of teacher training and trying to tackle the problems that teachers tell us bothered them the most once they were in posts, which were unnecessary workloads and poor pupil behaviour. We recognise that there are challenges ahead, but we also recognise that teaching is an extremely attractive profession, and is very fulfilling for those graduates who decide to take it up.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford (LD)
My Lords, in light of the answer that the Minister just gave, why have the Government cut the bursaries in some of the shortage subjects, such as design and technology and primary teaching?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
I reassure the noble Baroness that this year we recruited the number of primary school teaching graduates that we wished to. That is very good news. We are increasing bursaries in a number of key subjects. From next year, there will be £30,000 bursaries for graduates who are going into teaching in some of the most difficult subjects.
Lord Lexden (Con)
How will the new national teaching service announced yesterday help to raise standards in schools that have difficulty recruiting teachers?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
The new national teaching service is looking to help those schools that are struggling to recruit teachers in some of our most challenging areas. By 2020, we intend and hope to recruit and relocate 1,500 outstanding teachers to help underperforming schools. They will relocate for up to three years to help to improve those schools and to offer inspirational teaching to young people in those areas.
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)
My Lords, will the noble Baroness agree that it is as important to retain teachers once they have been recruited as it is to recruit them in the first place? I think she will, because she mentioned it already in one of her answers. Does she think that the current system of inspection and monitoring of teachers is conducive to their retention, and to their growing and developing into the kind of creative and innovative teachers that we need in the future?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
I entirely agree with the noble Baroness that teacher retention is crucial. I put on record that some of the scare statistics on the number of teachers leaving the profession are simply untrue. In fact, the latest figures show that 90% of teachers are still teaching after their first year. More than three-quarters are teaching after five years. This shows the dedication of our teachers and the great rewards that teaching can bring.
Lord Maginnis of Drumglass (Ind UU)
My Lords, is it not a reality that, when we speak about adequately trained teachers, we are talking about a profession where 70% of teachers are not professionally trained? I do not want to decry those who, some after taking Mickey Mouse degrees, move into teaching and spend a year there when they cannot find anything else to do—there are many good people who have moved—but there are many failures who move in through the one-year supplementary course. Our primary schools are being abandoned by professionalism.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
I am afraid I do not recognise the figures that the noble Lord used. In fact, 96% of teachers in the state sector are qualified. It is also right that head teachers have the chance to ask a RADA-trained actor to teach some drama to their young children, or perhaps have Premiership sports coaches come and teach PE. We want teachers who inspire young people. Of course they have to be trained and have the skills to do it, but anything that encourages a love of learning is something we should welcome in our schools.
Employment
(8 years, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Seccombe
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what change there has been in the number of British nationals employed between (1) May 2005 and May 2010, and (2) May 2010 and the most recent month for which statistics are available.
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Altmann) (Con)
My Lords, between May 2005 and 2010, the number of British nationals employed fell by 455,000. Since 2010, the number of employed British nationals has risen by 1.1 million.
Baroness Seccombe (Con)
My Lords, that is excellent news, as I am sure all Members of the House will agree. My particular interest is the position of women. Will my noble friend tell the House exactly what the position over the same period was for women?
Baroness Altmann
I would be delighted to tell my noble friend. Since 2010, the number of women in work has risen by 920,000. The female employment rate has increased by 3.3 percentage points to a record level of 68.8%. By contrast, between 2005 and 2010, the employment rate for women fell by 1.3 percentage points.
Lord Wrigglesworth (LD)
My Lords, however good those figures are, is the noble Baroness aware that the black cloud of unemployment hangs like a shroud over thousands of families, and the whole community, in Redcar on Teesside? Is she aware that this is a huge site of eight square miles, with a blast furnace as big as St Paul’s Cathedral, and that it will take a great deal to bring it back into use after the facilities have been demolished? There is a site next door—also of eight square miles—with another steelworks whose future is also in doubt. Down in Ebbsfleet in Kent, the Government have given £200 million to rehabilitate the site. Will they look at the figure given for the Redcar site of £80 million, £20 million of which is going on redundancy payments, to see if it can be increased, and bring together a task force to do something for that community?
Baroness Altmann
My Lords, we understand that the position in Redcar is terribly distressing for all the families involved, and the Government are already addressing this issue. There are measures already in place to help the workers affected to retrain. The Government are committed to full employment, and there are record numbers of people in work. We have had tremendous success in helping people back into work and we will continue to do that for Redcar and around the country
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister did not mention that over a third of the new jobs created between 2010 and 2014 were people becoming self-employed, and that those jobs tend to be less secure and lower paid. Will the Minister therefore confirm that self-employed people will not benefit from what the Government call the new living wage—the higher minimum rate for the over-25s—and yet will still lose through the changes to tax credits? What are the Government doing to compensate them?
Baroness Altmann
My Lords, self-employment is a very important route into work for many people, particularly many women, and we have set up, under Julie Dean, an independent review of any barriers to self-employment that may exist. We will also continue to work with the noble Baroness, Lady Mone, in supporting start-ups for disadvantaged communities.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
My Lords, does my noble friend agree that the problems of the steel industry have been greatly exacerbated by our inability to deal with dumping from China because of our membership of the European Union and the huge levies imposed on high-energy businesses as part of the green agenda, promoted by the Liberals with such vigour?
Baroness Altmann
I think the issues for the steel industry go wider than that; there are macroeconomic factors as well.
Lord Christopher (Lab)
My Lords, I listened carefully to the figures that the noble Baroness gave. Of course, they sound very creditable. However, can she comment on the fact that six million—about 23% of the workforce—are below the current acknowledged living wage?
Baroness Altmann
When Labour was in power, it did not increase the national minimum wage to the national living wage, and pay is increasing rapidly. There has been a 3% increase in average earnings, the fastest rate for many years.
Lord Dobbs (Con)
Does my noble friend agree that the great success this Government have had in creating new jobs goes wider than simply the economy? Does she also agree that rising employment is the only permanent way to tackle poverty, that it is the best way to keep families together, and that there is a distinctive, powerful and important moral reason for continuing this Government’s successful economic policies?
Baroness Altmann
I certainly agree with that. The Government are on the road to achieving their target of full employment. The employment rate is at a record high, and there are nearly 740,000 vacancies in the economy, which is much higher than before the recession. We therefore have a record to be proud of in this regard.
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)
My Lords, perhaps I can assist the Minister by giving her the opportunity to acknowledge that the Labour Government actually introduced the minimum wage—let alone anything else—and when we introduced it, we were told it would finish off industry because companies would not be able to afford it. However, I want to push her on other things she has been talking about. I agree that economic opportunity is at the core of good family and community life. Redcar, which we have been discussing, is in the north-east, which still has the highest unemployment in the country and will suffer, I suspect, more from changes in the tax credit regime—whatever they are—than anywhere else in the country. The Government are therefore piling on top of each other lots of things that will bring my region real problems. What are she and the Government going to do to tackle them?
Baroness Altmann
My Lords, as I said, the Government are rolling out their policies, which have created and will continue to create new jobs at a record rate. The northern powerhouse will be powerful in ensuring that the benefits are spread more widely. As to the initial point, we were talking here about the national living wage rather than the minimum wage.
Criminal Justice: Transgender People
(8 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the current policy on the treatment of transgender individuals in the criminal justice system.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Faulks) (Con)
My Lords, criminal justice agencies are mindful of their duties under the Equality Act 2010. In particular, the National Offender Management Service policy on the care and management of transsexual prisoners states that prisoners are normally placed according to their “legally recognised gender”. The guidelines allow, however, some room for discretion and in such cases senior prison management will review the circumstances with relevant experts to protect the prisoner’s safety and well-being, and those of other prisoners.
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)
My Lords, Tara Hudson—a woman, after six years of gender reconstruction—was originally imprisoned at HMP Bristol, a tough prison for 600 men, causing her great distress. She was moved to a women’s prison only after the judges considering her appeal suggested that the Prison Service reconsider. How can prison allocation be so insensitive to transgender offenders, particularly in the light of the Minister’s Answer? Will his department ensure that in future, if a transgender defendant is at risk of a custodial sentence, full and careful thought will be given to allocation before sentence rather than after placement?
Lord Faulks
I am slightly surprised that the noble Lord has commented in such detail on Tara Hudson; he will be aware of the obligations under the Data Protection Act and the Gender Recognition Act 2004, which place restrictions on the disclosure of information relating to prisoners. As noble Lords will be aware, it is the policy of the Ministry of Justice and its executive agencies never to discuss individual cases. However, without breaching any of the obligations under those Acts, I can assure the House that she is being held in an appropriate environment and is receiving the care that she needs.
Lord Cashman (Lab)
My Lords, I agree entirely with the Minister on the approach to anonymity but, in this and other cases, there is deep concern about treatment within the criminal justice system. There are, however, good works being undertaken, such as at Her Majesty’s Prison Stafford. Will he reassure the House that there is ongoing training and awareness-raising of the issues of transsexuality, particularly when aspects of the criminal justice system are outsourced?
Lord Faulks
The noble Lord makes an important point. There is an emphasis in the prison officer training, which has been extended in its length and its content refreshed, on respecting the needs and rights of each individual prisoner in their care. There is a component of the mandatory training that addresses the Equality Act and the nine characteristics protected under that legislation, of which gender reassignment is one. Probation officer training has a consistent emphasis on meaningful engagement with individual offenders to support their rehabilitation.
Lord Scriven (LD)
My Lords, if the key issue is legal recognition, why, in the care and management of transsexual detainees for immigration purposes, does the Home Office manual state that it is appropriate to place transsexuals in the estate of their acquired gender,
“even if the law does not recognise them in their acquired gender”,
and why can that not be applied to the Prison Service as well?
Lord Faulks
As I indicated, the Prison Service tends to—correctly, I suggest—allocate prisoners according to their legally recognised gender, but there is a discretion to respond to the individual circumstances of a case, which is often as a result of a thorough risk assessment involving both the prisoner and other prisoners. Often, a multiagency panel will be involved. It is indeed the policy of NOMS to make sure that these matters are dealt with sensitively.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
My Lords, returning to what the noble Lord, Lord Marks, said, the Minister seemed to suggest that this happens at the point of prison, which really is too late. Surely, when a person is leaving court, they need to be in the right van to go to the right prison. Should the decision not be taken earlier, before they leave court? Can he assure us that the staff there are properly trained and that the decision is taken at the right point?
Lord Faulks
The noble Baroness makes an important point and the National Offender Management Service is currently looking at ways to facilitate the proper recording of this information through the introduction of an equalities self-declaration form to be completed by all defendants who are adjourned for the preparation of a pre-sentence report. These details are very difficult to obtain while adopting appropriate sensitivity and recognising the obligations under the Gender Recognition Act.
Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)
In light of some of the comments on previous cases, will the Government review the medical and bureaucratic hurdles for securing a gender recognition certificate under the 2004 Act?
Lord Faulks
The Gender Recognition Act is generally considered to be working well. It is not something to be undertaken lightly. Gender recognition certificates are granted by the gender recognition panel and I understand that there is no great criticism of the process. It is an important step forward from where the law was reluctant to recognise change of gender hitherto.
Lord Patel of Bradford (Lab)
Does the Minister agree that, while all the issues he has put forward are very practical and implementable, the problem is that the prison system is bursting at the seams? We have more than 86,000 prisoners and staff numbers have been cut year on year. How will officers prevent the homophobic attacks that have been occurring a lot in prisons, and how will they support the systems the Minister has put forward to help?
Lord Faulks
Our prison officers face a great many challenges and they perform their duties with admirable resolve and skill in often challenging circumstances. They have duties to all prisoners but particular duties to those who may be undergoing gender recognition. They are particularly aware of those challenges and will treat those prisoners with appropriate sensitivity.
Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)
My noble friend Lord Patel raised an important issue about overcrowding in prisons. Under those circumstances, the sensitive consideration of to which prison a prisoner is to be allocated is made much more difficult simply because there are not enough vacant prison places for the allocation to take place.
Lord Faulks
In deciding on the appropriate allocation, there must sometimes be a period of hiatus. Where it is unclear what physical and anatomical risks an individual may present in their contact with other prisoners, they are often held in a secure environment away from other prisoners while their circumstances are clarified, so that a considered decision may be made after advice has been received from appropriate professionals.
Bank of England and Financial Services Bill [HL]
(8 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Bridges of Headley
That it be an instruction to the Committee of the Whole House to which the Bank of England and Financial Services Bill [HL] has been committed that they consider the bill in the following order:
Clauses 1 to 13, Schedule 1, Clauses 14 to 16, Schedule 2, Clause 17, Schedule 3, Clause 18, Schedule 4, Clauses 19 to 30, Title.
Energy Bill [HL]
(8 years, 7 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change and Wales Office (Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth) (Con)
My Lords, before I address the government amendments, I thank the Bill team, my Whip, my noble friend Lord Younger, and the ministerial team in the department for their help and support. I also thank all those who have scrutinised the Bill. I am extremely grateful to noble Lords for their participation in our proceedings in discussions in the Chamber and indeed outside the Chamber, which have been very helpful.
Although I know that there are points on which some of us do not agree, the debate on the content of this Bill has greatly benefited from the wisdom, experience and insight that a number of noble Lords, sitting on all Benches, have brought to deliberations. I also thank specifically the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, for her contribution to the debate and wish her well in her future endeavours as she steps down from the Opposition Front Bench. She has shown incredible commitment and great brio and has made many very valid points, and I am sure that she will continue to do so from the opposition Benches.
This is an important Bill and although, as I say, we have not agreed on key elements—particularly the early closure of the renewables obligation for onshore wind—we have agreed on many issues, including the need to tackle the threat that climate change constitutes to the environment, our security and our economic prosperity. The Government will decarbonise the economy and will do so cost-effectively.
We have had a substantial measure of agreement on carbon capture and storage. If nothing else, I think I can take great credit for bringing together my noble friends Lord Ridley and Lord Deben and Members of all sides of the House on the importance of carbon capture and storage. I am most grateful in particular to the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, for agreeing to head a parliamentary advisory group on carbon capture and storage. This will provide advice to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Amber Rudd, within 12 months of the Act coming into force. I would feel less guilty if I did not know that if I am taking him away from anything, it is from orienteering with his family in his spare time. I know just how busy and able he is, so I am most grateful for that.
Government Amendment 1 is a minor and technical amendment to Clause 7, which reflects an error that has occurred as a result of other government amendments made on Report. The purpose of Clause 7 is to ensure that where functions are contracted out to the Oil and Gas Authority by relying on Section 69 of the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994, they may be contracted out for a period exceeding 10 years. Clause 7 also provides that Welsh Ministers may enter into a contract with the Oil and Gas Authority, authorising that body to exercise the functions of Welsh Ministers.
Clause 7(1) limits the effect of the rest of the clause to circumstances where the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994 has conferred functions on the Oil and Gas Authority. However, the subsections inserted by our amendments on Report are intended to deal with a set of circumstances where that Act does not apply—that is, a power for Welsh Ministers to enter into an agreement with the Oil and Gas Authority authorising that body to exercise the functions of Welsh Ministers. With that in mind, subsection (1) should apply only to subsection (2) rather than to the whole of the clause. This amendment corrects that error.
Government Amendment 2 is a minor and technical amendment to ensure that the levy to fund the Oil and Gas Authority is not payable in respect of functions that it carries out under agreement with Welsh Ministers. This is achieved by inserting wording into the list of matters in Clause 14 that the Secretary of State must ensure are not covered when making regulations on the levy. This provides consistency with the current provision which excludes the levy from being charged in respect of functions carried out under Section 69 of the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994, for example on behalf of Scottish Ministers. It is also consistent with the approach taken towards fees under Clause 13, where the Oil and Gas Authority will not be able to charge fees for the exercise of functions that it is authorised to exercise either on behalf of the Scottish Government or by virtue of an agreement with Welsh Ministers.
Government Amendment 4 updates the Bill’s Long Title to ensure that it complies with the parliamentary convention that Bills should leave this House and move to the other place in a proper state. I beg to move.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness (LD)
My Lords, I do not wish to detain the House other than to respond to the opening remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, and to express gratitude and appreciation for his willingness to engage during the passage of the Bill. On many occasions he was left in an unfortunate position which was not of his own doing—for example, amendments coming in late and assessments not being available—but he has engaged, certainly with my party, in a most courteous manner. Although we were not able to agree on the earlier closure of the onshore wind renewables obligation, our discussions were nevertheless very useful and have no doubt paved the way for further discussions when the Bill reaches another place and comes back to your Lordships’ House.
The amendments the Minister has just moved are technical and sensible updating measures, but very much appreciated. The first Part of the Bill implements the proposals of the review by Sir Ian Wood, which we were committed to doing when in coalition government. I welcome the fact that this is now taking shape in statutory form, and thank the Minister for his engagement with the Bill.
Baroness Worthington (Lab)
My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for the way he has conducted the debate inside and outside the Chamber. It has been a genuine pleasure to work with him.
When the Bill arrived, it appeared relatively simple but did not seem to flow from the understanding we now have of the energy trilemma: having to balance the need for reliable, resilient energy systems with affordability and decarbonisation. The Bill focused almost exclusively on extraction of fossil fuels—something we will continue to do—but contained nothing about the other elements of the trilemma, other than two short clauses on onshore wind. I hope that, following the scrutiny it has received, we now have a better balanced Bill, due in part to the contributions from all sides of the House but also to the way the Minister has engaged, so I thank him for that.
This is going to be my last official opportunity to speak as the shadow Minister, so I take this opportunity to thank all my colleagues who have worked with me not just on this Bill but on the previous one—this in fact is my second energy Bill. I particularly thank Catherine Johnson, of our research team. This has been a tricky Bill to work on, with lots of detail and condensed timescales, and she has dealt with everything we have thrown at her admirably. I also thank my Whip, the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, all my colleagues on the Front Bench and my colleagues in the shadow DECC team in the other place.
Everyone knows that energy and climate change are passions of mine, and I have found it an absolute privilege to work on two significant pieces of legislation. We have not always agreed and we have differences, but there is a common core aim: to decarbonise our economy, as the Minister has reiterated. That, we know, is certain, and we seek to do so cost-effectively and with a reliable outcome. The challenge is in working out exactly how to achieve that, and the Bill now is testimony to the subtleties involved in that complex challenge. It has been a great privilege to be part of that remarkable process.
I shall be moving on, although not very far. I shall return to the Back Benches and follow the passage of this and subsequent Bills that will address this topic, because this is a multi-decadal challenge and no country has all the answers. We are at the forefront of trying to work through some of these difficult issues. As the Minister said yesterday:
“There is no silver bullet”.—[Official Report, 3/10/15; col. 1591.]
There is no blueprint we can simply pick up and follow. We are inventing the rules as we go. We will make mistakes and will have to revisit issues, but I hope that this House in particular will do so in the spirit of shared endeavour, as we seek to decarbonise cost effectively and to create a reliable system. I hope that we will continue to revisit this issue, improve policy and, most importantly, send clear signals to the outside world, bringing investors with us, maintaining investor confidence and moving forward as a country, united in this endeavour.
The amendments the Minister has introduced are technical—I am particularly pleased to see that the Long Title is changing to reflect the more balanced approach to the energy trilemma we are grappling with—and I am very grateful to him for tabling them.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
My Lords, perhaps I may say how sorry I am to hear that the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, is leaving the Front Bench; it is news to me. I have learnt a lot from listening to her. I do not agree with everything she says, but her grasp of climate issues is unquestioned and she has added a great deal to the debate.
I also thank my noble friend for the way he has conducted this complex debate. I hope that the Bill goes to the other place with the clear message from our debates on it, and from yesterday’s debate on electricity resilience, that the whole of our energy policy needs rebalancing. Not that one necessarily wants a lot more energy Bills to come through your Lordships’ House, but I hope that this is just the beginning of a move to a better balance than the current position, which has led to some quite serious muddles. The noble Baroness mentioned one of those last night: that, in our attempts to establish good capacity three, four and five years out, we appear to be ending up with a lot more diesel engines, which is the opposite of what was intended. That arises from the lack of balance between subsidies for wind, which we discussed, and the unwillingness of people to invest in new combined cycle gas turbines.
That is not strictly connected to the government amendments, but I thought I should register my admiration of the amazing grasp that the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, has of this very complicated subject.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)
My Lords, I think I speak on behalf of all my colleagues on the Back Benches who have sat through debates on the Bill when I say that we, too, will miss the enthusiasm and inspiration of my noble friend Lady Worthington on the Front Bench, but we know that she will still be with us in different ways, and we look forward to that.
As I am on my feet, I take this opportunity to ask the Minister to explain. Perhaps I have missed it, but I am still not exactly sure that he has explained when and how the Government will respond to the decision of the House of Lords on the former Clause 66, so that the uncertainty in the industry can be lifted. I hope that he will give us some indication of when and how the Government will respond when he replies.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, first, I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, for his most kind comments. It was a pleasure working with him and his colleagues, as it was with the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington. They were not difficult colleagues to deal with on the Bill, and I am sure that it is in many respects a better Bill than it was.
I also thank my noble friend Lord Howell for his comments and echo what he said about the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington. I am not sure that I can echo what he said about more energy Bills—I think I heard a thud from the Bill team behind me when he said that, as they thought of another energy Bill coming down the tracks—but we are looking at crafting a fresh approach on energy policy. This is a fresh Government, so you would expect that. At the moment we are in the middle of a spending review, but we are very conscious as a ministerial team of the importance of crafting a vision on energy policy bearing in mind the three issues that we need to address in the trilemma which is at the heart of our policy.
In response to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, we responded immediately in a statement. The democratic House of Commons will look at it. I am not a Member of the House of Commons, and it is a matter for the House of Commons. As I made clear, we regard this as a manifesto commitment and all noble Lords will agree that the elected House will express its will and the matter will come back to us in due course.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
The Minister is not naive; I have worked with him before he became a Minister and I know that he has a lot of experience and knowledge of these matters. He knows that whatever is put to the House of Commons will be put to it by the Government, and he is a member of the Government, so he must have some idea what they propose and how it will be dealt with.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, I cannot make it any clearer. It is very clear what we are proposing. It was what we proposed to this House and it is what we will be proposing to the other House, as a Government. It is then for the House of Commons to give its view as the democratic Chamber on that issue. I beg to move.
Lord Oxburgh
“Carbon capture and storage strategy
(1) It is the duty of the Secretary of State to—
(a) develop, promote and implement a comprehensive national strategy for carbon capture and storage (CCS) to deliver the emissions reductions required to meet the fifth, and subsequent, carbon budgets at the scale and pace required;(b) develop that strategy in consultation with HM Treasury, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the Oil and Gas Authority and other relevant stakeholders including the CCS industry; and(c) have that strategy in place by June 2017 and report to Parliament on the progress of its implementation every three years thereafter.(2) The strategy provided for by subsection (1) shall, amongst other things, include—
(a) the development of infrastructure for carbon dioxide transport and storage;(b) a funding strategy for implementation including provision of market signals sufficient to build confidence for private investment in the CCS industry;(c) priorities for such action in the immediate future as may be necessary to allow the orderly and timely development and deployment of CCS after 2020;(d) promotion of cost-effective innovation in CCS; and(e) clarification of the responsibilities of government departments with respect to the implementation of the strategy.”
Lord Oxburgh (CB)
My Lords, I, too, would like to pay tribute to the Minister himself for the courtesy and patience which he has displayed in dealing with the myriad matters that have been raised. I join the other speakers in expressing my gratitude to him. Equally I would like to offer my best wishes to the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington. She will certainly be missed. Her wisdom and her comments—sharp and to the point—will be missed as well.
The issues to which Amendment 3 is addressed remain important, but it is a tribute to the Minister’s persuasive legal tongue that in the time between Report and now he has persuaded me that the same objectives can be substantially achieved by a different route. Although I prefer the approach that was proposed in the amendment, I will be happy to withdraw it.
Baroness Maddock (LD)
My Lords, I also add my thanks to the Minister for the way in which he has dealt with us all through some tricky times, as is always the case with energy Bills in my experience. I also pass on my best wishes to the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington. We will certainly miss her knowledge and her boundless enthusiasm, whatever time of night we are here. We will certainly miss that.
I am really pleased, having heard the opening comments of the Minister, and the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, that the Government are taking seriously the issue of carbon capture and storage. I am not sure that we felt that that was the case when we began this Bill, so I am very pleased that the Minister has been able to move other minds as well on this. I hope that we will hear in due course very good outcomes from the proposals he has made.
Lord Howell of Guildford
My Lords, I add a final word on carbon capture and storage before the amendment is withdrawn. My noble friend Lord Oxburgh has been second to none in bringing home the huge significance of commercial CCS: this would be the way in which the fossil fuels could continue to be burnt without CO2 emissions. That would be a great reassurance. We can look forward to the affordability, reliability and decarbonisation of our energy system.
I hope I will not strike too sour a note in noting that we learned in earlier parts of the debate that the amount of taxpayers’ money being set aside by the Government for the promotion and experimentation and development of CCS was £1 billion—that is, £1,000 million. That is the most enormous sum of money. It is rather more than the entire budget of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office—and all directed, not to the generality of decarbonisation, but to one technology. It is a sobering thought, if my memory serves me right, that under the Labour Government before 2010 there was an intention to make that figure £3 billion or £4 billion. These are vast sums.
All I would add is the thought, as this Bill goes on its way, that we at least should remember not only the importance of the climate problem—the importance of achieving affordable and reliable energy and electricity resilience—but we should think about cost. We should always keep in mind that the costs are there and have got to be weighed all the time against the objectives we are trying to achieve. A billion pounds is a lot of money in anybody’s currency, in any language, and at any time—particularly at times when we are struggling in several other areas of public policy to find money desperately to help extremely worthy causes.
With that marker to this discussion of CCS, about which we have learned as much as we have given in the debates—it is a fascinating subject—I would just end by saying: please let us remember costs as well as benefits.
Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)
I hesitated whether to enter into this debate but, on the basis of the last remark, I think that I would like to. I am certainly not rising to my feet to oppose carbon capture and storage, only to make the comment that it has proved an elusive goal, despite significant amounts of time and effort spent on research and development. I make no more comment than that.
Baroness Worthington
I thank my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, for tabling the amendment and for pursuing this aspect of our discussions to this point. I am very grateful to hear from the Minister what I think will be a very effective way forward in the creation of an expert group that will report to the Secretary of State. That is a very welcome development. It seems to be the season of paying tributes, and I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, who, not just through the passage of this Bill but for many years has been a fantastic champion of CCS and the group of technologies that falls within that. I know that he is stepping down as the chairperson of the CCSA fairly soon, but he has played a pivotal role in bringing this technology to the minds of policymakers and decision-makers. I thank and congratulate him for that.
It is right that we have a brief discussion about CCS in this debate today, because of the Redcar situation, as my noble friend pointed out, which illustrates how important it is that we get our energy and industrial strategy right. There is a risk to dragging our feet and there is an urgency involved in sorting out our policies on how we are going to not just maintain but actively attract industrial players back to the UK to reindustrialise our nation.
We are home to brilliant engineers and bright graduates, and we have a skilled workforce. We have and need the infrastructure that requires us to have a vibrant primary industry. There are ways in which we can rekindle that industry, but it will not be through trying to push back the tide of green policy, trying to deny that climate change is happening or blaming green taxation for our woes; it will be the reverse. It is like a judo role. We have to go into this subject in a positive way and not just accept that we are going to decarbonise but do so with conviction. If we do that, if we embrace the fact that of course there are engineering solutions that will allow us to continue to produce steel but without the emissions, we can go forward with a positive investment agenda, attract European money and external investment, and persuade Tata that this is the country where it should be developing the steel production plants of tomorrow, now.
We can do that, because we can act without fear of falling foul of state aid. With every rescue package we try to put together that denies the reality of climate change or seeks to bail out companies that are failing for global trade reasons, rather than anything to do with carbon pricing, we will fall foul of state aid. If, however, we embrace the fact that we need inward investment into zero-carbon and low-carbon production, Europe will be on our side. We can then draw down funds, apply our own funds, and recycle funds out of our carbon pricing policies into an inward investment programme.
We have a policy tool almost readily designed to do that, in the form of contracts for difference. As they were introduced in the Energy Act 2013, contracts for difference were designed for power investment and power projects. They can be adapted. We can create a contract for difference, strike off the carbon price and make it available to industrial investors. That would derisk the investment and give a guaranteed income to people, so that they could see for certain that they will be able to come to the UK and that at least one of the factors that controls whether or not they will be profitable will be taken care of. If we move with the agenda of Europe towards decarbonisation and take CCS seriously, that is the way out of this problem. To do anything else would simply be to stick our finger into a dyke that will burst: there is no escape from the inexorable move towards a low-carbon agenda. If we want to maintain our industrial activities and investment, we have got to have technologies that allow us to do that with low carbon—and that means CCS. It does not just mean CCS on its own; it can be combined with electrification, once we have a low-carbon power system. But CCS is going to play a huge role.
As we have discussed previously in this debate, by CCS we do not just mean one technology. It is very similar to renewables; a whole group of technologies falls under that category, some of which produce a usable product. Carbon capture and utilisation is also grouped within this. I am very much looking forward to the creation of this expert group. We could not have chosen a better chairperson for that endeavour, and I hope that I might be able to play a part in my new role as a Back-Bencher. We can explore these issues; we have an opportunity here and should grasp it. We are almost on our own in Europe in understanding how important CCS is and having a populace that supports us in that. Germany needs it but cannot deliver it. The only other countries that are close to us in terms of understanding are Holland and Norway. We can work with them to form a North Sea alliance to make this happen. There is huge potential: the UK is blessed in terms of its ability to embrace this technology. I hope that that endeavour, led by the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, will lead to concrete changes in policy, a new approach, with new vigour and energy, and ultimately to UK plc becoming once again the home of industrial innovation and engineering excellence that will lift people in those communities currently suffering job losses, give them hope for the future and bring all the social and economic benefits that come from that.
I shall not detain the House any longer, although I am tempted because this is one of the topics I like to talk about a lot. I wish the Minister well in the remaining stages of the Bill and in the associated regulations and legislation that will come his way. There is a lot more work to be done. Some of the topics we have touched on, including the recalibration of the capacity mechanism, are urgent and outstanding areas of work. We look forward to hearing more about the CFD allocations in the autumn. There are big challenges outside the UK that the Minister and his department will be grappling with. Paris is upon us, and I am looking forward to that being a historic move forward in the world starting to take this issue seriously and moving forward on a united front. Europe has a huge part to play in this.
My final word is that on energy policy the best way to engage with Europe is to engage positively with new ideas, take our vision to Europe and persuade it that our technology-neutral, all-of-the-above, focus-on-least-cost way is the right way to do this. We have some great tools and great examples of policies that work. We must work with Europe and persuade our colleagues that ours is the right path. We should not seek to disengage. We can benefit hugely from Europe, and it can benefit from us. I hope that that will be the basis on which we continue. For now, I say thank you and goodbye.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh. As has been indicated, the noble Lord is the right person to chair this group and I have no doubt that he will do so in the very fair way that he approaches all these proceedings. The remit of the committee has been worked through with the noble Lord, and it is for him to decide who goes on to it, but I am sure it will be done on a cross-party basis. I very much hope that the noble Baroness can be a part of it, but that is entirely a matter for the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh.
I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, for her kind comments. I agree with my noble friend Lord Howell that a lot of money is being put into carbon capture and storage. That is because the department regards it as a top priority. We have made sure that that is reflected in the Bill. I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Young, and I am glad he has come in with words of support for the main aim of the Bill which is to maximise economic recovery in the North Sea. That remains very much the thrust of what the Wood review sought to do, and it is an important part of moving us to a low-carbon future. We cannot get there instantly and we are going to have to depend on gas. It is far better that it is British gas with British jobs and all the safety features and so on that we ensure through the North Sea. It also provides us with an historic opportunity for CCS. We have already invested £130 million in this since 2011, and we are committed to spending a lot more during this Parliament. We already have two projects—White Rose and Peterhead—moving forward. CCS is a proven technology. There are 14 plants globally and a further eight under construction.
The noble Baroness’s contribution was a typical tour de force. It is absolutely right that we have to see how we can provide incentives for the steel industry to decarbonise, but I am sure she recognises that the trilemma is never more evident than in dealing with the steel industry. I know because I have been at meetings where a lot of MPs of all parties, including the Labour Party, have been pressing us to do something about the energy price. It is a factor, but it is certainly not the only factor. The noble Baroness is right that there are many other factors in play and we have to move towards a low-carbon solution. I am sure that she understands that we have to do what we can through Europe to see how we can provide assistance, but she is right that this is not the sum total of what needs to be done. I believe that much more can be done on the procurement front. In the department, we are looking at what we can do about public procurement with the much more relaxed rules that are now adopted in Europe. I think the UK has been the first country to have its rules cleared through this new procedure.
Lord Oxburgh
My Lords, I had not expected this amendment to give rise to the little discussion that we have had. It has of course reminded me that I ought, once again, to have declared my interest as president of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association.
I respectfully remind the noble Lord, Lord Howell, with whom I so commonly agree on these matters, that CCS is expensive, but if we turn our thoughts back to the report of my noble friend Lord Stern, the sum which is committed to CCS is a tiny fraction of the sums that will be at risk if we do not. It is not nice to have to spend money, but it is the lesser of two evils.
I conclude by thanking noble Lords on all sides for the kind remarks that they have made and by endorsing the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington. It is essential that we be seen in Europe and, more widely, abroad to have embraced the low-carbon agenda, and that we are not being dragged, screaming and kicking, into that area, because we will have much more influence in that case. Indeed, it will be much better for British industry, for which there will be many opportunities if we get this technology right, and get it right quickly.
A succession of Governments has not been, shall I say, all that dextrous in handling CCS in this country. I think that, had things been handled a little differently, not just by the previous Government but by the Government before that, we would not be in this situation today. However, we are where we are, and so we must press on with enthusiasm and good grace. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Draft Investigatory Powers Bill
(8 years, 7 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Bates) (Con)
My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement made by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary in the House of Commons earlier today.
“I should like to make a Statement about the draft investigatory powers Bill and our commitment to providing a new law consolidating and updating our investigatory powers, strengthening our safeguards, and establishing a world-leading oversight regime.
We live in a digital age. Technology is having a profound effect on society. Computers are central to our everyday lives. Big data are reshaping the way we live and work. The internet has brought us tremendous opportunities to prosper and interact with others. But a digital society also presents us with challenges. The same benefits enjoyed by us all are being exploited by serious and organised criminals, online fraudsters and terrorists.
The threat is clear. In the past 12 months alone, six significant terrorist plots have been disrupted here in the UK, as well as a number of further plots overseas. The frequency and cost of cyberattacks are increasing, with 90% of large organisations suffering an information security breach last year. The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre estimates that 50,000 people in this country are downloading indecent images of children.
The task of law enforcement and the security and intelligence agencies has become vastly more demanding in this digital age. It is right, therefore, that those who are charged with protecting us should have the powers they need to do so, but it is the role of government and Parliament to ensure that there are limits to those powers.
Let me be clear: the draft Bill that we are publishing today is not a return to the draft communications data Bill of 2012. It will not include powers to force UK companies to capture and retain third-party internet traffic from companies based overseas. It will not compel overseas communications service providers to meet our domestic retention obligations for communications data. And it will not ban encryption or do anything to undermine the security of people’s data. The substance of all of the recommendations by the joint scrutiny committee that examined that draft Bill has been accepted.
Today’s Bill represents a significant departure from the proposals of the past. Today, we are setting out a modern, legal framework that brings together current powers in a clear and comprehensible way. It is a new Bill that provides some of the strongest protections and safeguards anywhere in the democratic world and an approach that sets new standards for openness, transparency and oversight. This new legislation will underpin the work of law enforcement and the security and intelligence agencies for years to come. It is their licence to operate, with the democratic approval of Parliament, to protect our national security and the public’s safety.
This Bill responds to three independent reviews published earlier this year: the first from the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament; the second from David Anderson QC, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation; and the third from the Independent Surveillance Review convened by the Royal United Services Institute. All three reviews made it clear that the use of investigatory powers is a vital part of protecting the public. They all endorsed the current powers available to the police and law enforcement agencies as both necessary and proportionate, and they all agreed that the legal framework governing those powers needed updating. While considering those reviews, we have engaged with technical experts, academics, civil liberties groups and communications service providers in the UK and overseas. I also met charities supporting people affected by the crimes that these powers are used to investigate.
Copies of the draft Bill will be available in the Vote Office. Our proposals will now be subject to further consultation and pre-legislative scrutiny by a Joint Committee of Parliament. A revised Bill will then be introduced to Parliament in the spring, where it will receive careful parliamentary scrutiny.
As the House knows, the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act contains a sunset clause which means that legislation will cease to have effect from 31 December 2016. It is our intention to pass the new law before that date.
This Bill will govern all the powers available to law enforcement, the security and intelligence agencies and the Armed Forces to acquire the content of communications or communications data. These include the ability to retain and acquire communications data to be used as evidence in court and to advance investigations; the ability to intercept the contents of communications in order to acquire sensitive intelligence to tackle terrorist plots and serious and organised crimes; the use of equipment interference powers to obtain data covertly from computers; and the use of these powers by the security and intelligence agencies in bulk to identify the most serious threats to the UK from overseas and to rapidly establish links between suspects in the UK.
It cannot be right that, today, the police could find an abducted child if the suspects were using mobile phones to co-ordinate their crime, but if they were using social media or communications apps they would be out of reach. Such an approach defies all logic and ignores the realities of today’s digital age. So this Bill will also allow the police to identify which communications services a person or device has connected to—so-called internet connection records. Some have characterised this power as law enforcement having access to people’s full web browsing histories. Let me be clear: this is simply wrong. An internet connection record is a record of the communications service that a person has used, not a record of every web page they have accessed. So, if someone has visited a social media website, an internet connection record will show only that they accessed that site, not the particular pages they looked at, who they communicated with or what was said. It is simply the modern equivalent of an itemised phone bill. Law enforcement agencies would not be able to make a request for the purpose of determining, for example, whether someone had visited a mental health website, a medical website or even a news website. They would be able to make a request only for the purpose of determining whether someone had accessed a communications website or an illegal website or to resolve an IP address, where it is necessary and proportionate to do so in the course of a specific investigation. Strict limits will apply to when and how those data can be accessed, over and above those safeguards that apply to other forms of communications data, and we will ban local authorities from accessing such data.
I have announced today our intention to ensure that the powers available to law enforcement and the agencies are clear for everyone to understand. The transparency report that I am publishing today will help, and copies of that will also be available in the Vote Office. However, there remain some powers that successive Governments have considered too sensitive to disclose for fear of revealing capabilities to those who mean us harm. I am clear that we must now reconcile this with our ambition to deliver greater openness and transparency. So the Bill will make explicit provision for all of the powers available to the security and intelligence agencies to acquire data in bulk. That will include, not only bulk interception provided under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and which is vital to the work of GCHQ, but also the acquisition of bulk communications data, relating to both the UK and overseas.
This is not a new power. It will replace the power under Section 94 of the Telecommunications Act 1984, under which successive Governments have approved the security and intelligence agencies’ access to such communications data from communication service providers. This has allowed them to thwart a number of attacks here in the UK. In 2010, when a group of terrorists was plotting attacks in the UK, including on the London Stock Exchange, the use of bulk communications data played a key role in MI5’s investigation. It allowed investigators to uncover the terrorist network and to understand its plans. This led to the disruption of its activities and successful convictions against all the group’s members.
I have also published the agencies’ handling arrangements relating to this power, which set out the existing robust safeguards and independent oversight. These make clear that the data do not include the content of communications or internet connection records. The Bill will put this power on a more explicit footing and it will be subject to the same robust safeguards that apply to other bulk powers.
The House will know that the powers I have described today are currently overseen by the Interception of Communications Commissioner, the Intelligence Services Commissioner and the Chief Surveillance Commissioner, all of whom are serving or former senior judges. This regime worked in the past, but I am clear that we need to significantly strengthen it to govern how these powers are authorised and overseen in the future. So we will replace the existing oversight with a powerful and independent investigatory powers commissioner. This will be a senior judge, supported by a team of expert inspectors with the authority and resources to effectively, and visibly, hold the intelligence agencies and law enforcement to account. These will be world-leading oversight arrangements.
Finally, I turn to authorisation. Authorising warrants is one of the most important means by which I and other Secretaries of State hold the security and intelligence agencies to account for their actions. In turn, we are accountable to this House and, through its elected representatives, to the public. As the House knows, the first duty of government is the protection of the public, and it is a responsibility this Government take extremely seriously. While there was a good deal of agreement in the three independent reviews I have referenced, all three reached different conclusions on the question of who should authorise interception warrants. The Intelligence and Security Committee supported authorisation by a Secretary of State; David Anderson said judges should carry out the authorisation; and RUSI said the authorisation of warrants should have a judicial element, but also recognised the important role of the Secretary of State. I have considered the very good arguments put forward by the three reviews. My response is one that I hope the House agrees will provide the reassurance of both democratic accountability and judicial accountability.
As now, the Secretary of State will need to be satisfied that an activity is necessary and proportionate before a warrant can be issued. But in future, the warrant will not come into force until it has been formally approved by a judge. This will place a double lock on the authorisation of our most intrusive investigatory powers: democratic accountability, through the Secretary of State, to ensure that our intelligence agencies operate in the interests of the citizens of this country; and the public reassurance of independent, judicial authorisation. This will be one of the strongest authorisation regimes anywhere in the world.
For parliamentarians, we will go even further. The Bill will for the first time put into law the Prime Minister’s commitment that in any case where it is proposed to intercept the communications of a parliamentarian—including Members of the House of Commons, Members of the House of Lords, UK MEPs and the Members of the devolved legislatures—the Prime Minister would also be consulted.
The legislation we are proposing today is unprecedented. It will provide unparalleled openness and transparency about our investigatory powers. It will provide the strongest safeguards and world-leading oversight arrangements. And it will give the men and women of our security and intelligence agencies and our law enforcement agencies, who do so much to keep us safe and secure, the powers they need to protect our country.
I commend the Statement to the House”.
Lord Rosser (Lab)
I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement made in the Commons earlier today on the draft investigatory powers Bill, which the Government intend should receive Royal Assent before the sunset clause in the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014 comes into effect at the end of next year. An important stage in the consideration of this Bill will be undertaken by the pre-legislative scrutiny committee and its findings will, I am sure, be awaited with considerable interest.
We have also had a number of different reports on this issue in the last few months including from, but by no means only from, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, David Anderson QC, the Intelligence and Security Committee, and the review convened by the Royal United Services Institute. All three of those reports supported an overall review of the current legislative framework for the use of investigatory powers and the replacement of legislation such as the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.
The Anderson report was commissioned on the basis of an opposition amendment when Parliament was asked to legislate very quickly to introduce the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014. We argued then that it was the right time for a thorough review of the existing legal framework to be conducted as we, and others, no longer felt that the current arrangements were fit for purpose. Fast-developing technology and the growing threats we face internationally and domestically have left our fragmented laws behind and made the job of our police and security services, to whom we all owe a considerable debt of gratitude, harder.
We support the Government in their attempt to update the law in this important and sensitive area, particularly since the Statement appears to indicate that the Government have listened to at least some of the concerns that were expressed about the original proposed legislation put forward during the last Parliament. However, we hope that this Statement and the draft legislation does not prove to be a bit like some Budget speeches where it is only afterwards that some of the detail proves to put a rather less acceptable gloss on aspects of some of the changes and measures proposed.
Although it is becoming something of a cliché, the need is to secure the appropriate balance between the requirement to safeguard national security and the safety of our citizens, and the requirement to protect civil liberties and personal privacy, which is surely one of the hallmarks of a democracy compared to a dictatorship. The extent to which the proposals set out in the Statement, and in the draft legislation, achieve that difficult balance is clearly going to be the subject of much discussion during the consideration of the Bill. However, the Statement indicates stronger safeguards than were previously being proposed, including in the important area of judicial authorisation, and it appears as though in broad terms that difficult balance may be about right. We will examine carefully the detail of the Bill and where necessary seek to improve the safeguards to increase the all-important factor of public trust.
The proposals set out today do not of course relate just to national security. They also have relevance to preventing serious and abhorrent crimes and apprehending those who commit them, including murder, major fraud and child sexual exploitation. In that regard, can the Minister confirm that the far-reaching powers of content interception will be used only for the most serious crimes, as applies under RIPA? The Statement indicated that the detailed web browsing of individuals will not be accessible, which we support, but will the Minister set out precisely what internet activity of an individual will be accessible without a warrant?
Clearly, vulnerability of information has gone up the agenda of public concern in light of the attack on TalkTalk. Since data retention and bulk storage were referred to in the Statement, what steps do the Government intend to take to ensure the security of bulk storage of data by public and private bodies?
The Statement referred to the change of approach on encryption from the possible ban previously mentioned by the Prime Minister, and reference was also made to communication providers and legal duties. Are the Government satisfied that they can make any such legal requirements stick against some of the largest and most popular online names, many of whom have headquarters overseas?
The Statement also referred to the protection of communications for parliamentarians. Will that protection also apply to people communicating with parliamentarians, whether on personal matters or on providing information? What protection arrangements will there be for sources of information used by journalists? The Statement said that, if it were proposed to intercept the communications of a parliamentarian, the Prime Minister would also be consulted. What in this context does “consult” mean? Does it mean that the Prime Minister would have to give his or her agreement?
The Statement also addressed the issue of authorisation, and set out a two-stage process which is clearly intended to address the twin points of accountability to Parliament on the one hand and sufficient independence from the political process on the other in order to build trust—an issue referred to by David Anderson QC in his report. What will be the powers of the judges involved in the authorisation of warrants process in view of the reference in the Statement to a warrant being “formally” approved by a judge, and will judges have to sign off warrants in all cases? Will the information made available to the judge in order to make his or her decision be the same as the information made available to the Home Secretary? Will the criteria against which the judge will make a decision be the same as the criteria against which the Home Secretary makes her decision, or will the judge have a different remit? Who, or what body, will appoint the judges who will be involved in the authorisation of warrants process? How long is it expected to take to go through the double-lock authorisation process outlined in the Statement, and what will happen if there is an emergency requiring immediate authorisation of a warrant?
One of the key themes of the report by David Anderson was that a core objective for the renewal of legislation concerning investigatory powers ought to be public trust from all sections of our community in the use of those powers by government agencies, since public consent to intrusive laws depends on people trusting the authorities to keep them safe and not to spy needlessly on them. That in turn, as David Anderson said in his report, requires knowledge, at least in outline, of what powers are liable to be used, and visible authorisation and oversight mechanisms in which the wider public can have confidence.
The Bill will go through its stages in the Commons before coming to this House. It is, of course, a matter for the other place to determine, but one can only express the hope that a Bill of this importance will have received full and proper consideration before it gets to this House, although I am sure there will be no lack of willingness in this place to make up for any deficiencies in that regard and to ensure that the powers being sought are necessary and proportionate in relation to the issues and potential dangers they are intended to combat and address.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for repeating the Statement made by the Home Secretary in the other place. Clearly, we would like to be reassured by the Home Secretary’s claim that the draft Bill is not a return to the draft Communications Data Bill 2012, which the Liberal Democrats in the coalition Government quite rightly blocked, and from which this Government now appear to want to distance themselves.
There are some clear and very welcome changes proposed, including judicial authorisation of interception warrants and a promise not to interfere with encryption, but we must look very carefully at the detail of what is being proposed, particularly in relation to what the Home Secretary calls, “internet connection records”. Clearly, there has been a great deal of concern about communications service providers storing everyone’s web browsing history and handing over this information to the police and the security services. While the Home Secretary says that the proposed Bill would not allow that, I will probe very gently whether that is the case, so as to dispel concerns that this is just smoke and mirrors.
Intuitively, the Home Secretary must be right that if the police can use mobile phone data to find an abducted child, they should be able to do so if criminals are now using social media or communication apps instead of cellular data. Our concerns are: first, whether this is technically feasible; secondly, whether it is technically feasible without prohibitive costs to communications service providers; and, thirdly, whether it is possible without the risk of disproportionate intrusion into innocent people’s privacy, whether by the forces of good or by hackers such as those who breached TalkTalk’s security, as the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, mentioned.
Talking to experts, I was told that communications service providers would be unable to tell the police or the security services whether someone had used the internet to communicate, as opposed to just browsing, without storing content. This requires billions of pounds of hardware investment, and even then it may not be possible to tell the difference between browsing and communication. Determined suppliers of applications that enable people to communicate covertly could disguise internet communication as passive browsing, for example. Will the Minister say whether the Government know that it is technically possible for internet service providers to provide a record of the communications services a person has used without a record of every page they have accessed? What would be the cost to communications providers? Has a risk assessment been undertaken of the possibility that, having stored sensitive personal information, that information might be accessed unlawfully?
Finally, in 2005 the police, backed by the then Labour Government, asked for a power to detain terror suspects without charge for up to 90 days—a power that the security services did not ask for and that Parliament, quite rightly, rejected. Will the Minister also confirm whether the requirement to store internet communication records has come from the police alone or from the police and the security services?
Lord Bates
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, for his broad welcome of this. He is right to point to the antecedents of this whole process. It rests very much in a cross-party approach. We recognise the seriousness of the problems we face. This legislation is important to see in a context. Although it is very different from the draft communications data Bill in 2012, it is part of a long string and timeline of argument and debate that we have had. All of the recommendations in the report of my noble friend Lord Blencathra’s Joint Committee on that Bill have been accepted here. More than 200 recommendations were made in the three reviews to which the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, referred. They are also reflected in the draft Bill. He is absolutely right on that.
I turn specifically to the questions that the noble Lord asked. He asked whether the serious crime threshold will still be there. The answer is yes, absolutely. Warrantry will be undertaken in the same way as it currently is. There is no change in that. Bulk storage of data is a critical issue currently being discussed with the communications service providers. That covers some of the points that the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, raised. I will come back to that. We are in constant dialogue with them. My noble friend Lady Shields, who is the Minister for Internet Safety and Security, plays a crucial role in that dialogue, as did Sir Nigel Sheinwald, who produced his report last year. That work with the industry is ongoing.
In respect of parliamentarians, there was the Wilson doctrine in 1966, which was about wire-tapping. I do not want to have a whole debate about that but it is quite interesting to go back and look at what the Wilson doctrine actually was: effectively a requirement, as I understand it, for the Prime Minister to make a statement when communications had been intercepted, at a time when it was appropriate for national security to allow him to do so. That additional element—requiring the Prime Minister to be consulted—is a very real safeguard. In terms of the appointment of judges, we are in dialogue with the Ministry of Justice, as would be expected, and also with the Lord Chief Justice, to ensure that the appointments process is done correctly and we identify the specific skills that we are looking for in the team of judges. We anticipate that about seven judges—judicial commissioners—will be required.
On the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, about social media, what we are really getting at here—what the police and the security services are saying—is that wireless telephony, in the space of just five years, has gone from a position where a mobile phone was the way in which people communicated, to one in which they now use Skype, WhatsApp and other social media. A third of calls are made through internet service providers, and everything suggests that that proportion will increase. That is why the argument for going for the internet records—specifically which app or site they were using to communicate—is so important.
The noble Lord’s question quite rightly referred to the fact that when David Anderson did his review he said, “If the case was made”. The noble Lord is right to pick up on that point: we discussed it a lot. That is why the operational case for the powers that was put forward by the police is also being published today. It is available on the website, but I can make sure that copies are available in the Printed Paper Office, if that is helpful.
In regard to the costs of doing this, an impact assessment accompanies the Bill. That puts the cost to the industry at about £174 million over 10 years. Those costs, and the impact assessment, will be precisely the types of detail that the process of pre-legislative scrutiny should thrash out and test. I hope that it will do so.
Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)
My Lords, I start on a rather personal note by saying to my noble friend how pleased I am—I think that the House will be too—that he is still in the job that he was doing so well before the last election. The House knows the care and consideration that he gives to this extremely difficult issue. Those of us who have tried to accelerate the process to get to where he is trying to get to now recognise the tremendous efforts that he made at that time.
I think that the House had better be ready for a pretty busy July and October, because the interest in this Bill is going to be massive. If we have a joint scrutiny committee of both Houses, then it goes to the Commons and then comes to the Lords, I think that the end of the summer is the earliest we can expect to see it here. My worry all the way through has been about the delay this involves and the risks facing this country. I was struck by the fact that two speakers on the Front Benches opposite both referred to TalkTalk, as though this was an interesting new development illustrating a new problem. I wonder what else may have happened before July and October that will condition our thinking about the range and number of threats that we face. I hope that I am not being too pessimistic, but we know that this is an extremely dangerous world.
I support the introduction of judicial authorisation, but, as somebody who used to sign a number of these warrants in my executive capacity as Secretary of State, the judges will, without question, need help in the early stages in understanding some of the background issues about national security with which they may not initially be familiar.
Lord Bates
I am grateful to my noble friend. Of course, I recognise the work that he undertook, not only as chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee, which led a lot of the work on this area, but thinking back to those heady days earlier this year when we were taking through the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill, which is now on the statute book. He is right about the urgency. DRIPA has a sunset clause of December. Sometimes I think that the House is at its best when its mind is focused. I think there is a general consensus that we need to get this in place so that those powers continue to be available and that they are strengthened and made more accountable. I believe the timetable that has been set out is quite achievable but it will require a lot of focus.
Lord Blair of Boughton (CB)
My Lords, I echo the words of the noble Lord, Lord King, about the Minister. I am very glad that he is here. He has heard all the arguments before; he is familiar with the pressure from people who have been involved in these sorts of operations. The issue that the House will have to be absolutely clear on is the matter of trust. Do the public trust the idea that these data about internet access are safe? The worst thing that could happen is that those data could be penetrated and leaked. When we and the various committees come to consider this, that aspect of the security of the data that are being retained by the state or the internet service providers will be crucial in defining whether or not the public trust what the Government, the agencies and the police are doing. Without that public trust, we fail.
Lord Bates
The noble Lord is absolutely right, of course, and brings his wealth of experience to this area. That is why David Anderson was absolutely right when he titled his report, which has been so influential on our thinking, A Question of Trust. He said that that went to the heart of it. It is also worth noting that, on page 33 of that report, David Anderson reflected some opinion poll data, which showed that there was a very high level of public trust when it came to prioritising,
“reducing the threat posed by terrorists and serious criminals”—
71% supported the initiatives that were being taken. However, we cannot take that support for granted. The transparency and openness of the process through this stage of the legislation will be important in strengthening it.
Lord Hutton of Furness (Lab)
My Lords, I think it is necessary that we take the new powers and I broadly welcome the additional safeguards that the Minister has outlined, but can I ask him specifically about the process of authorising interception warrants? Just like the noble Lord, Lord King, I have had responsibility for signing these warrants in the past, and I would like to know why the Minister and his colleagues in government have felt unable to accept the recommendations of the Intelligence and Security Committee in this regard. I believe that issues of national security are properly matters for Ministers, and I am not entirely sure that it makes sense to ask the judges to stand in the shoes of Ministers when it comes to important decisions about national security. Far from this being a double lock, it is quite clear from what the Home Secretary has said in the other place that in future it will be judges, not Ministers, who decide whether or not these warrants in relation to national security matters are going to be brought into effect. I am not persuaded that that is the right decision.
Lord Bates
In many ways, we are starting from similar positions. The noble Lord believes that the people who are accountable to the public for the decision, if it goes right or wrong, should be the ones who sign the paper. However, it was very clear through the process of the reviews, which we have listened to, and the other work that previous committees have done in looking at this matter that the level of public confidence would be strengthened if there was a judicial element to it. If there were an imminent threat, the Home Secretary would retain the right to be able to issue the warrant herself, but it would be subject to a judicial review within five days. That ability is there and the two-pronged approach is probably about the right level, considering where the public mood is at this time.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for his kind remarks about the Joint Committee I was privileged to chair four years ago. I think we were the first to point out that RIPA was not longer fit for purpose. It is clear from the Home Secretary’s Statement, from glancing at the section headings in the Bill and from looking at the adoption of the Anderson report and the other independent reports, that this Bill is a far cry from the original Bill that we scrutinised. To me, the crucial thing is that any extraordinary powers we grant to the security services and the police are not wrapped up and hidden in some obscure clause so that we are not quite sure what we are voting for, but are set out clearly so that Members in both Houses have a chance to vote for or against them as the case may be. That transparency should reassure the public that we are giving the security services and the police the appropriate powers, approved by Parliament.
Will the Minister consider a couple of additions I have spotted at the moment? I think we need a technical advisory committee that will look rapidly for new technological or internet gizmos or whatsits and be able to recommend to the commissioners that the Bill needs to be amended. Then we need something, such as the super-affirmative procedure, to amend the Act rapidly. Otherwise we will be in the same position as with RIPA, which gets older and older and is not updated all the time. We need those changes, I suggest.
Lord Bates
My noble friend is right, but that might not be necessary. I appreciate that the Bill has only just been published and is 300 pages long, but it has been worded as far as possible to allow for future proofing of the legislation. My noble friend Lady Shields plays an important role as a Minister looking at this area with her immense technical knowledge. I personally have benefitted from that knowledge in preparing for the Statement. A final point is that we have a plethora of different powers spread across different bits of legislation and a key driver of the Bill is that it is a great opportunity to bring them into one place so that they can be subject to that kind of scrutiny. I think that that is another element that we will strengthen along the lines of what my noble friend proposed.
Baroness Ludford (LD)
My Lords, I, too, welcome the continuity and the expertise that the Minister brings, as well as his charity fundraising. Perhaps I may just pick up on a point that the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, touched on: what exactly will the judicial powers be, and what evidence will the judges have? It was suggested today that the judge will be able to reject only on judicial review principles—that is, to ensure that the procedure was correct—but will not be able to look at the substantive evidence available to the Home Secretary. Will the Minister please clarify that? Secondly, and continuing a point that my noble friend Lord Paddick made, what confidence do the Government have that all ISPs can maintain the security of data?
Lord Bates
In terms of the judicial role, the judge will have sight of the same information as the Secretary of State currently has—which is the justification. Of course, the judge will be able to subject that justification to testing and review in terms of the process and content and ask them to go back and get more if required. That is certainly what the Secretary of State does at present. Those elements will be important in strengthening that part of the process. Again, however, that can be fleshed out in the pre-legislative scrutiny.
Lord Tebbit (Con)
My Lords, perhaps I may remind my noble friend and the House that there are four parliamentarians who would have wished to engage in these debates but are not able to do so: Airey Neave, the Reverend Robert Bradford, Tony Berry and Ian Gow. I hope it will be remembered by all Members of this House that they have no human rights whatever. They were all extinguished by a lack of the intelligence to prevent their murder.
Lord Bates
My noble friend is absolutely right. We talk a lot about liberty and security but in order to enjoy our liberty we must first have security. That is what this is about. I mentioned in the Statement that six terrorist attacks have been thwarted by the outstanding work of our security and law enforcement services over the past year alone. The transparency report which I am publishing here today shows that some 299 people have been arrested in the past year on terrorism-related offences. It shows that the threat is real and the powers are necessary.
Lord West of Spithead (Lab)
My Lords, although I agree with the noble Lord, Lord King, that it is a delight to have the Minister in his post, I would have preferred to be in that post myself after the election—but that is a different issue.
This is not before time. It has taken a long time, but we should all celebrate today, as this is good news. We hopefully get rid of the old RIPA, which is discredited—not surprisingly, because it is so old—and of emergency legislation which we passed only because we got ourselves in such a muddle about this. Here is a real opportunity for us to set a gold standard in the ability to protect our people and ensure that we can track these ghastly people who wish to kill us and do us harm, but also to pay due regard to the privacy of the individual. With pre-legislative scrutiny of all the issues we have been discussing and a White Paper, and with sufficient time, there is no reason why we should not be able to do this. We have to realise that we must not delude ourselves: there are people out there who wish to kill us. We know they want to kill us, and there are a large number of them. This is a real threat. Not doing this would be madness.
I get annoyed, I am afraid, by some comments which seem to indicate that our own security forces and agencies are the bad guys and the ones who are threatening us. That is just not true. Some people use emotive language, such as “snoopers’ charter”. The emotive language I would use is that if we do not do something like this, those people are giving the people who wish to kill us a licence to kill—but let us not use emotive language and instead look at this in a balanced way. It has to be done and it is very important that it is done.
Have we really thought about some way of ensuring that there is better data protection, not just in this Bill, but more broadly? We are not as good at it as we should be, which is a real worry. We have to make sure we do it, because people are concerned when data are held anywhere. It is no reason not to do this, but we do need to have some way of making sure that is dealt with.
Lord Bates
The noble Lord is absolutely right. This is why it is important to work with communication service providers: this has to be a partnership between the industry, the law enforcement agencies and the Government to make sure that we get this right and that there is a way of doing it which is secure. He is right about the threat being real. I have heard some of the reports from meetings which the Home Secretary has had with families who have been victims of the online sexual exploitation of children. They feel exactly the same way as my noble friend Lord Tebbit feels in terms of the actions which could be taken to ensure that their children and their loved ones do not have to suffer the exploitation which they have suffered at the hands of these heinous criminals.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, this has been described as a tidying-up Bill, and the reason for it is that the security services and the police have overstepped the mark and misused their past powers. The noble Lord, Lord Blair, talked about trust. What guarantees can the Government give that the security services and the police will not overstep these powers as well?
Lord Bates
That is one of the reasons why we have put in place a much stronger, clearer and well-resourced investigatory powers commissioner. That will also give an opportunity for cases to be brought to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal. There will be more transparency and openness there for people to take advantage of if they feel that we have got the decision wrong.
Lord Pannick (CB)
Can I press the Minister on what the Government intend by judicial authorisation? The Statement that the Minister repeated says that,
“in future, the warrant will not come into force until it has been formally approved by a judge”.
However, in Clause 19 and many other places, the Bill speaks of a judicial review test, which, as has already been explained, is a matter of assessing reasonableness and the formality of procedures. The real question is whether the Government intend that the judge will have the power to countermand the initial decision of the Secretary of State if the judge considers that the warrant is either unnecessary or disproportionate.
Lord Bates
We have stated that there is a double lock, and it is just that. Without both the judge and the Secretary of State giving their approval, it simply cannot happen. Some details are being published today in terms of draft codes of practice, and more information will be fleshed out, in co-operation with the Ministry of Justice, the Lord Chief Justice and, crucially of course, the judicial commissioners themselves, as to how this process will work in an effective and speedy way.
Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)
If the judge, in the explanation just given by the Minister, can effectively veto the Secretary of State’s decision, where does accountability lie?
Lord Bates
Accountability lies in that it was the Secretary of State, first, who made the decision and that is then checked by a judge. That would be the element of public accountability in that circumstance, but we are talking particularly about warrants which are required in relation to intercept, which is the most intrusive form of investigation power, not necessarily the communications data.
Lord Strasburger (LD)
My Lords, shortly after being introduced to this House I had the temerity to start raising concerns about the plethora of unfit legislation covering digital surveillance powers and the ineffective controls and oversight over their use. Initially, my questions in this Chamber were met with a mixture of stonewalling by Ministers and ridicule from certain noble Lords connected to the security establishment.
Lord Strasburger
It will come. I am gratified to see that all parts of the House now recognise that the current laws are hopelessly flawed and that we need to start with a clean sheet of paper to build a fresh legislative framework to cover this important and contentious area. When I start to read this 370-page document I shall do so in the hope that the detail can live up to the billing the Home Secretary gave it a few hours ago. From listening to her replies to questions, I know already that there are several concerns, including a forthcoming deadly embrace with the industry over encryption.
Lord Strasburger
I shall save my questions for the Select Committee, but in the mean time I shall ask just one. What is the timetable for the forming of the Joint Committee and when do the Government hope to receive its report?
Lord Bates
The Joint Committee is in the process of being formed, through the usual channels. It is hoped that that will happen in the next few weeks. It is hoped that it will have produced its report by the spring and that a revised Bill, if it is necessary to revise the Bill, will then be published for consideration in the other place.
Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)
We talked about trust and getting the balance right in the Bill, but it works both ways. Yes, of course, the public have a right to feel confident that there will be controls on the way in which these investigatory powers are used, but they are just as concerned, as the Minister said, to ensure that we understand the very real threats to the security of this country, not just from terrorism or paedophilia, but from significant areas of crime where the internet is being used almost unchecked at the moment. It is not a question of our security services overstepping the mark; with the current legislation they do not have the ability to deal with the very real threats. When we talk about balance and trust, it is on both sides. I would welcome the Minister’s views.
Lord Bates
I totally agree—that is why the police have put out such a thorough operational case for this. It is very important that, as well as explaining the threats we face, whether they be terrorist, child sexual exploitation or financial crime, we point out that the process through which this legislation is going is almost unprecedented in its openness and transparency. What will come thereafter, should the Bill pass all its stages through the House, will be a much strengthened, much more clear and transparent approach in which we can all have trust and confidence.
European Union Referendum Bill
(8 years, 7 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Anelay of St Johns) (Con)
My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 41 and 42, 44, 47 to 49 and 62, which are all in my name. They all relate to the donations and loans controls that will apply to campaigners at the referendum.
Amendment 33 is a technical amendment which, alongside Amendments 47 and 62, ensures that the Bill will contain one definition of “referendum period” rather than multiple, identical definitions. These minor amendments are necessary as a result of a more substantive amendment, Amendment 48.
Amendment 48 addresses an issue with the rules relating to loans and other financial transactions that benefit political parties that register as permitted participants at the referendum. To keep matters straightforward, I will henceforth refer to these transactions simply as loans.
Political parties are eligible to become permitted participants at referendums under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000—PPERA. If they do, they will be subject to the same controls on referendum spending as apply to other permitted participants, but the major parties will not be subject to the same controls on donations and loans. This is simply because political parties other than minor parties are already subject to ongoing controls on donations and loans under PPERA. The exclusion of these political parties from the donation and loan rules at referendums is not a reflection of their having a different status to other permitted participants at a referendum. It is merely an administrative measure to avoid double counting and excessive compliance burdens, given their ongoing requirements in relation to donations and loans.
Under PPERA, the list of those eligible to make donations or loans to political parties is the same as the list of those who are eligible donors and lenders in relation to permitted participants. However, for the EU referendum, the Bill adds to the list of those eligible to make donations to permitted participants. It does this at the recommendation of the Electoral Commission, to bring the list into line with the list of non-party campaigners who are eligible to register under PPERA for election purposes, as amended by the Transparency of Lobbying Act. The list has also been extended to take account of the inclusion of Gibraltar in the referendum. For example, Gibraltar electors will be eligible to make donations to permitted participants, as will royal chartered bodies and Scottish partnerships.
The Bill also introduces controls on loans to permitted participants. The list of eligible lenders is the same as that for eligible donors for the purpose of the referendum. As political parties are regulated separately, it is necessary similarly to extend the list of eligible donors and lenders to political parties that register as permitted participants. An amendment made in the other place effected this measure in relation to donations. This now forms paragraph 22 of Schedule 1. Amendment 48 completes this work by extending the eligibility to make loans to political parties acting as permitted participants to the newly added individuals and bodies. As with the rules for donations to political parties, this eligibility will be time limited and will apply only during the referendum period.
This is about having a level playing field in the run-up to the referendum. It must be right that political parties that register to campaign be able to accept donations and loans from the same sources that are available to other permitted participants.
Amendment 48 contains an additional control to prevent the terms of a loan agreement allowed under it being varied to increase the value of the loan. This aims to prevent political parties using loans entered into as a permitted participant as a means of borrowing more money after the referendum, which they would not normally be able to receive in their capacity as a political party under the ongoing party funding rules.
Amendment 42 relates to the changes made through Amendment 48, which I have just spoken to, and the similar amendment made in the other place in relation to donations to political parties. These ensure that the rules on who can donate and lend money to political parties that register as permitted participants are the same as for all other permitted participants. In effect, however, this means that during the referendum period, political parties that register as permitted participants will be able to receive funding from otherwise ineligible sources.
Lord Tyler (LD)
My Lords, I ask the Minister to address one very simple point. She referred to the advice of the Electoral Commission in relation to Amendment 48. I am more concerned with Amendment 49, which is extremely important to all those who are going to be involved in this exercise. She will be only too well aware that, during the debate on Tuesday evening, various Ministers were extremely effective in rubbishing the advice of the Electoral Commission. Would I be right in thinking that, on this issue, they have taken the advice of the commission? This will be extremely important for all those involved in this exercise, and Amendment 49, on the face of it, is actually quite difficult to understand. I hope she can give your Lordships’ House that reassurance.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, indeed I can. The amendment to which the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, refers is a matter of access to the register. I can give an assurance that we have taken full account of the advice provided by the Electoral Commission.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
The Minister was relatively explicit about this, but I have a question in relation to Amendment 49 and the operation of the requirement to check registers in Gibraltar. I hear what she said about this being passed through the appropriate parliamentary procedures in Gibraltar, but it is a bit unique that we have another Government doing something. Of course, compliance with donations will require political parties to check properly. I wanted to be absolutely certain that we will be properly advised as to when that approval is given.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, that is a very reasonable point to make. As I mentioned earlier, with regard to Amendment 49, it is a matter on which the Gibraltar Government will bring forward legislation —not only in respect of this but on the wider issues of Gibraltar being part of the referendum franchise. I will happily undertake to inform the noble Lord by letter when that legislation goes through, and I shall pop it to other noble Lords who have taken an interest.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, I had never realised before this Bill came along how important Gibraltar was, and I am impressed by the number of references to it in our amendments today, as in earlier days. I once spent an entire afternoon in Gibraltar and felt that I had got to know it rather well. There are some 22,000 voters in Gibraltar, so it is very good that we pay so much attention to them.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick
“Designation of organisation for only one of the possible outcomesSection 108 of the 2000 Act (assistance for designated organisations) has effect for the purposes of the referendum as if—
(a) at the end of subsection (2)(a), for “but” there were substituted “or”; and(b) for subsection (2)(b) there were substituted—“(b) may designate a permitted participant in relation to only one of the possible outcomes.””
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, I rise to move this highly technical amendment. Other Members of the House may have as much difficulty as I do in understanding the precise wording. As very often is the case when we are working with reference to other bits of legislation, it is a bit abstruse. However, rather than subject the House to yet another lengthy dissertation from myself, I shall read from the Constitution Committee’s report on this point. The committee said that the 2000 Act,
“provides for a designated organisation to be appointed by the Electoral Commission as a lead campaign group for each side of the referendum debate. It does not allow the Electoral Commission to designate one organisation only; for there to be any designated organisations in a referendum campaign at least one from each side must apply … This arguably allows one side in a campaign to ‘game’ the system. If they are well funded but do not want the other campaign to receive the financial and other advantages of designation, then they simply fail to apply for designation. Notably, there was no designation in the Welsh referendum in 2011 because the Electoral Commission took the view that there were no lead campaigners that met the statutory test of adequately representing the ‘No’ side. The danger of gaming was also raised in the context of the Scottish independence referendum. The Scottish Independence Referendum Act 2013 attempted to overcome this potential problem by allowing for the designation of one side only, although in the end two campaigns did indeed apply for recognition … Whilst we consider it likely that there will indeed be applications for designation by each side, the House may wish to consider whether the Bill should be amended to avoid a situation where one side could, in effect, prevent the lead campaign group on the other side from being designated”—
and, of course, from getting funds.
My amendment simply uses the wording of the amendment in the Scottish Act, which the Government agreed to put into the Scottish Act; it is replicated here, I hope in the correct place and the correct way, to have exactly the same effect as took place in Scotland.
It will not have escaped your Lordships’ notice that it never had to be used in Scotland. That is the purpose of moving this amendment. If it is accepted by the Government and put on the face of the Bill, there will not be a problem, because the certainty that one side can get itself designated even if the other side does not, and can therefore be a recipient of funds, will mean that the other side has no interest whatever in gaming the system. So I hope that this can be discussed on a totally technical, non-political basis, because I think that the Bill will be improved by the inclusion of this provision—and once we have included it, we can just forget all about it.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 37 in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, and also to say how much I support the amendment just proposed by the noble Lord. I think that this might be a first in consideration of this Bill, but I think that it is a very sensible proposal.
Amendment 37 is following the same theme, which is ensuring that there is fairness in the conduct of the campaign. I was rather shocked this morning to read Hansard from the other place, where Mr Chope asked the Deputy Leader of the House of Commons to,
“confirm that the real reason why three independently minded former Ministers are being purged”,
from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe,
“is because we voted in favour of a free and fair EU referendum with a strict 28-day purdah period, as recommended by the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission and our Electoral Commission?”.—[Official Report, Commons, 3/11/15; col. 887.]
I do not want to get involved in that particular row, except to say that Christopher Chope, Sir Edward Leigh and Cheryl Gillan are three very distinguished former Ministers, and I am very shocked that they should be removed from the Council of Europe, and even more shocked that it should be suggested that that is the reason for their removal.
I emphasise this point because, whatever the outcome of the referendum, it is important that at the end of it people feel that the Government did not abuse their position—whatever their position turns out to be—and that the campaign was conducted in a fair and balanced way. This, presumably, is why we have the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000.
My amendment seeks to remove from political parties their ability, which arises from the 2000 Act, to spend money on the campaign itself. I thought that the whole point of having an Electoral Commission—which, incidentally, costs half the cost of the entire Royal Family—was to ensure that we had fair and balanced conduct of elections and referenda. That is what I thought it was about. I thought the whole purpose in having a designated campaign on each side with limitations on their expenses was to ensure fairness. But what do I find? I find that the Government have brought into the Bill the ability of the political parties to spend money in addition to the designated campaigns. In the case of the designated “in” campaign, it can spend £7 million; in the case of the “out” campaign, it can spend £7 million. That is fair enough; but then on the inside, the Labour Party can spend £7 million; the Liberal Democrats can spend £3 million; the Greens can spend £700,000 and the CBI and other organisations can spend £700,000.
The Conservatives have said that they will remain neutral—and it is very considerably to the credit of the Conservative board that it took that decision.
Lord Collins of Highbury
Did I not hear the noble Lord say that he thinks the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, is fair and reasonable because it is not right that people game certain situations? Political parties have a right to campaign on issues that they feel united about and on which they have had support from the electorate. If there is a problem with the Conservative Party, I do not see why the noble Lord should take that view and extend it to other political parties.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
I thought the leader of the Labour Party was a certain Jeremy Corbyn, who wished to leave the European Union, but perhaps I am misinformed. Perhaps he has changed his position. The noble Lord knows perfectly well—
Lord Collins of Highbury
The noble Lord should not assert something that is not true.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
What is not true: that Jeremy Corbyn is not leader of the Labour Party or that Jeremy Corbyn was not in favour of leaving the European Union? I will give way to the noble Lord if he tells me which statement is not true.
Lord Collins of Highbury
The Labour Party’s policy is perfectly clear. The problem we have in this debate is that the Conservative Party does not have a clear policy. I do not see why the noble Lord should impose, through his amendment, his problems on to other political parties, including the Scottish nationalists and other major parties.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
The noble Lord is suffering from the disadvantage of not having listened to what I am going to say. Perhaps when I have said it, he might want to come back on that point. I am simply pointing out that all these political parties have the ability to spend money in addition to the designated campaigns. If you add that up as it is set out in the Bill, those who wish us to remain inside the European Union will be able to spend £25.5 million and those who wish us to leave, together with the political parties—because UKIP will be able to spend £4 million—will be able to spend £11 million. That seems to me to be a tad unbalanced.
As the noble Lord knows, all political parties have people with different views on this matter. That is why we need to have a designated campaign, so that people of all political parties and persuasions can join together and make their case, whatever it is. This Bill, which raises the limits, makes the position even more unfair. Before the Bill, under the rules set out under the 2000 Act, the “in” campaign could have spent £20 million and the “out” campaign £10 million: twice as much for those who wish to maintain the status quo. As a result of this Bill, the figures are £25.4 million and £11 million —2.3 times as much. That simply is not fair. At the end of the day, as we know from American elections and elsewhere, the ability to spend money can have a marked effect on the result. If the campaign to stay in is successful, the last thing we want is people arguing that the referendum result was bought, that it was unfair and that it was led by big business and big money. I am surprised that the Labour Party, of all parties, is seeking to defend this position.
Lord Collins of Highbury
It is tempting to come back by asking what happened in the 2015 general election. Who had the most money? Do we call that into question? Who paid for it? I know exactly how much the unions gave the Labour Party, and I know how that money was collected. The corporate hedge funds gave money to the Conservative Party and enabled it to outspend every other party. Does the noble Lord not feel that that was unfair?
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
My Lords, I know the noble Lord has never stood for election, so perhaps he is unfamiliar with this, but we have strict rules governing how much the parties can spend in general election campaigns. They are designed to ensure that we have fairness. What I am complaining about is that the rules in the Bill give an unfair and disproportionate advantage, and that the amendment to the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act makes that even worse. That seems completely unfair, which is why I suggest that we reduce the figures that can be spent by the various political parties. In the 2000 Act, that is done as a percentage of the vote. Originally, it was £5 million if a party exceeded 30% of the vote, £4 million if it exceeded 20% but not 30%, £3 million if it got 10%, £2 million if it got 5% but not more than 10%, and £500,000 if it got not more than 5%. If we reduce all these numbers to zero, we will have a fair and balanced campaign, which is what my amendment seeks to do. I would have thought that everyone in this House would be in favour of that.
Lord Collins of Highbury
The point is that the Conservative Party, under the PPERA, is able to spend up to £7 million on the referendum if it chooses to, as a registered participant. If it decides not to register, why should its decision impact on other parties which have policies and desires to campaign for in this referendum? That sounds undemocratic.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
I agree with the noble Lord, which is why I want to make sure that all parties cannot spend any money at all, and that the people who can spend the money are the designated campaigners, so that there is a fair basis. I beg to move.
Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)
The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, has a lot of logic. I was amused, however, when he referred to how difficult it is to understand legislation that refers back to previous legislation. Exactly—and that is what a lot of us complain about with the European Union. The noble Lord may remember that, when the constitutional treaty had to be ratified by national parliaments, no comprehensive single version was available. Everybody had to refer back to previous legislation. In the case of the Czech Republic, the relevant documents had not even been translated into the national language.
That said, I very much agree with the points the noble Lord made, and I support his amendment. I would, however, very much like to support my noble friend Lord Forsyth. I am somewhat bemused by the intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Collins, who does not seem to take on board that we are talking about funding: about limits laid down by Parliament on the funding of both sides of the referendum. What surprises me—this is the issue I would like my noble friend to address—is that the Government simply decided to consolidate the PPERA into this legislation and did not introduce their own. They have, after all, amended various parts of the PPERA; they do not have to accept what is written into it as if it were tablets of stone.
I followed the debate in the House of Commons, which touched on this issue. The Minister in the Commons said that it is a good thing—that this is the first time we have had such comprehensive and far-reaching limits. Okay, but if you have limits they ought to be fair to the two sides of the referendum. Otherwise, why have limits at all? Would it not be better to let both sides raise what money they can and spend it? It seems to me there is a fundamental flaw in the proposal. The whole point of referenda is to deal with issues that cut across political parties; that is partly why we have them. I very much doubt we would have referenda if there were not constitutional issues that cut across different political parties. It seems perverse to say, just because a political party in a general election some time ago got 30% of the vote, it is entitled to X amount of money; and another party, which came third the time before and second last time, is allowed Y proportion of money. Why?
Lord Lamont of Lerwick
I will give way in a minute. If you are going to impose limits on spending, let them be fair between the two sides. After all, the government grant is equal for each side, and the limit on what the designated organisations can do is equal, one with the other, so why bring in political parties? Why say that because the Conservative Party won 30-plus% of the vote it is allowed to spend £7 million, because the Labour Party scored about 30%, it is allowed to spend £7 million, because UKIP got above 10% of the vote it is allowed to spend £4 million and because the Liberals, scored somewhere around 10%, they are allowed to spend £3 million? Of course, as my noble friend Lord Forsyth said, when you add them all up—let us exclude the Conservative Party, because it has said it is not going to fund either side in the organisation—there is a huge inequity between the limit on one side and the limit on the other. I find it very difficult to understand how this can be justified. I do not see the necessity of it. It would have been extremely simple, if the Government insist on having a cap on spending in the campaign, to have it the same for both sides. The noble Lord wanted to intervene.
Lord Lamont of Lerwick
I am glad that I have his agreement—or perhaps I have not, but we shall hear in a minute. The provision seems fundamentally flawed. I do not see why the Government just picked up that legislation and incorporated it into this. It seems not to make any sense whatever.
Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)
My Lords, Amendment 58 is in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Liddle, who apologises that he cannot be present today. Before I address the substance of the amendment, perhaps I may say how much I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, in his amendment and therefore agree with what the noble Lords, Lord Lamont and Lord Forsyth, said about it—that is an interesting axis of agreement across the Floor of the Chamber which does not often occur.
The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, asked why we should bring in political parties. I was astonished by that. No one is bringing in political parties; political parties are there; political parties are part of our democracy; political parties are part of every sophisticated democracy in the world. Political parties expect to take part in political campaigns, in elections or in referenda. It would be quite extraordinary if a political party was not interested in a major political campaign.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
I am sure that the noble Lord does not mean to misrepresent me. I was not suggesting that political parties should not participate—I defer to his experience of political parties, which is greater than mine—but I was referring to the fact that we should not have to bring in expenses from political parties.
Lord Davies of Stamford
I have an interesting experience of political parties. I have talked for some time about that in the past, but I shall not delay the Committee on that subject today.
I was actually quoting the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, who asked, “Why bring in political parties?”. That was an extraordinary thing to say, because political parties are part of the structure of our system and part of our national life. It is inconceivable to me that you could have a body of men and women—
Lord Davies of Stamford
I will give way in a second, but let me just complete my sentence, or my paragraph.
It would be extraordinary if you had a body of men and women who were interested in public life and the choices facing the nation and who wanted to play their part in determining the future history of our country, and a big referendum of the importance which this referendum represents came along and they did not take part in that campaign or have any views at all. The Conservative Party has of course decided to opt out of this campaign, but that is because of the peculiar situation in which it finds itself where the leadership of the party is terrified by the Eurosceptics. That has been the history of our relationship with the European Union during the past five years: everything is vetoed by the Eurosceptics and the Government are often paralysed by them. The Government are continually coming up with some ploy to buy off the Eurosceptics and, on this occasion, the Government have decided not to have their own party take part in a campaign. It is an extraordinarily anomalous position, in which a major party is supposedly silent on the great issue of the day. Just because the Conservative Party has got itself into this mess and this absurdity is no reason to deny the important role of political parties generally in a democracy or to handicap other political parties that are in no way responsible for the shambles of the Conservative Party and prevent them doing what they should have a natural right to do in any democratic election or electoral campaign.
Lord Davies of Stamford
I will give way to both noble Lords but will do so first to the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, who has been trying to catch my eye for quite a long time.
Lord Lamont of Lerwick
I was not aware that the noble Lord was the Speaker yet, but I am grateful to him for giving way. It was a very long paragraph; perhaps he should have a few more paragraphs in his prose.
No one is saying in supporting this amendment that political parties should not campaign vigorously or be a very important part of the referendum argument. What we are saying is that the spending limits on either side in a referendum should not be related to political parties nor to some historic measure of how the parties fared in the previous election.
Lord Davies of Stamford
That is not a sensible argument. If they are going to campaign, political parties need money. Campaigning needs money, so political parties will need money if they take part in it. If their members and supporters are willing to dig into their pockets and give them money, it would be quite absurd, in a democracy, if we used the legislature to try to prevent people campaigning in that fashion. The real problem is that the noble Lord cannot reconcile himself to the fact that there are more political parties in this country which support our membership of the European Union than there are which are against it. That is very unfortunate for him, but I have not created the situation, nor has he and nor has the legislature. It is a fact of life and it reflects the will of the people. They have decided to join parties, a numerical majority of which actually support our membership of the Union. They should be allowed to raise a reasonable amount of money in order to pursue the campaign and to continue to make sure that political parties play the part in our democratic life that they are entitled to. It ends up with the kind of arithmetic which he was quoting, except that the arithmetic used by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, was completely artificial because it left out the Conservative Party’s potential use of £7 million. It is entirely a matter for that party if it decides not to use it and this cannot be blamed on anyone else.
Lord Tebbit
Does the noble Lord remember that the party to which he belongs had an election for its new leader not very long ago? It elected, overwhelmingly, a man who wanted to leave the European Union. How has it come about that the noble Lord now says that he belongs to a party which wants to stay in the Union?
Lord Davies of Stamford
That is an extraordinary question to ask me. I am the living embodiment of the fact that one can change one’s mind. I believe that Mr Corbyn has, in the light of events, learned wisdom which he did not possess 10 or 20 years ago. I assure the noble Lord that that wisdom consists in supporting—I repeat, supporting—our membership of the European Union. That is the official position of the Labour Party and will, of course, remain so.
Lord Flight (Con)
The noble Lord must be aware that a large number of members of the Labour Party—among those who are left—happen to have views about EU membership which are not that supportive. Although the Labour politicians at Westminster may or may not have strong views, they control the spend and the members of the Labour Party are not going to be very happy if the party spends all their money campaigning in a direction which they may not support.
Lord Davies of Stamford
I do not think that the noble Lord is a great expert on the views of the Labour Party. I would be delighted to take him to some party meetings in Lincolnshire where he would find enormous support for our membership of the European Union from people in all walks of life. The fact remains that the Labour Party supports our Members of Parliament in the other place who, by an overwhelming majority, have voted, and will continue to vote for our policy of believing that it is fundamentally in this country’s interests to remain part of the European Union.
I must move on to speak to Amendment 58. If there is a discordant element in my sudden change of subject, I say, in anticipation of someone rising to complain, that I am not responsible for the grouping of amendments.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UKIP)
Will the noble Lord enlighten your Lordships as to whether he would be taking the same attitude on the last amendment if the Labour Party was as split on this matter as the Conservative Party? UKIP got 8% of the electorate voting for it in the last general election, against 24% for the Conservatives—one third of their vote. We all know that the Conservative Party is pretty split on this issue. Would the noble Lord, Lord Davies, be taking the same attitude if his party was in the same position?
Lord Davies of Stamford
In relation to the principles of our public life and our constitution, I like to think that I take positions that are consistent. Therefore my answer to the question must be yes. Political parties have an essential part to play in our democracy and their position should be respected. They should not be in any way suffocated by being told that they cannot have any money for a campaign that they genuinely believe in and where their members are willing to support them financially.
As for the complaints that the noble Lord always makes about the treatment of UKIP, in this case he does not have the ground that he normally has for complaint, because the amount of money available to UKIP—
Lord Davies of Stamford
I must finish my sentence—and it will only be a sentence on this occasion. The amount of money available to the noble Lord’s party in the referendum campaign will be a function of the votes cast for his party and not a function of the number of MPs elected with his party label. If that was the case, he really would be in a bad situation. I give way once again to the noble Lord, Lord Lamont.
Lord Lamont of Lerwick
I am most grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. Again I stress that this amendment I have been supporting has nothing to do with political parties participating. It has everything to do with spending limits. My question to the noble Lord is: if in a general election the laws provided that what each party could spend in a general election was related to how it had done last time, would he think that that was fair?
Lord Davies of Stamford
We could argue this for a very long time but we actually have a consensus. Until this issue arose, there was a general consensus in public life in favour of the 2000 Act. Therefore, it is quite right that we should base ourselves in this campaign on that consensus and on the practice over the last 15 years. With that, I will leave that subject—I will not take any more interventions on anything else—and turn to Amendment 58.
Amendment 58 is very important because it is all about the Government being straight with the public—which I do not think they are planning to be at the moment. They have launched a very complicated negotiation, which many of us have many thoughts about, and they hope that it will result in a deal. If it results in a deal, they intend to call a referendum and to advise the public to vote for that deal. If they do not get the deal, of course none of those things will happen.
I totally understand that while the Government are negotiating they do not want to give a running commentary—that is the Government’s phrase, not mine. I even understand why they are a bit reticent about saying exactly what their aims are in the negotiation. In fact, Eurosceptics will always say that they are not aiming high enough and will always say that whatever they get is not adequate. So they are wasting their time, but I can understand why they have got themselves in this position.
However, I cannot understand any hesitation about the Government’s duty, once they have a deal—if they have a deal—to be absolutely straight with the British public about what that deal is and to make an official, authoritative declaration to the British public of what that deal consists of. We cannot possibly have a situation in which knowledge of the deal comes out through unattributed and deniable press briefings from special advisers and spin doctors and so on. We need a clear government document when the day comes, if that deal arises.
Lord Davies of Stamford
I will not give way for a moment. I will continue and give way later in my remarks. If, as a result of the deal, the Government call a referendum, they should give advice to the British public and the electorate. They owe to the public the duty of their judgment and the duty of declaring the facts. If they do that, it is important that they do that in a public, authoritative document and not by the back-stairs methods or spinning methods that are so beloved of this Government. That is the point of the amendment in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Liddle. When we come to the referendum campaign, if the Government recommend, as they did in 1975, a yes vote, they should explain to the British public in an authoritative document why they are making that recommendation and set out what they consider to be the essential facts on which that recommendation is based. At this point, I will give way to the noble Lord.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
I am most grateful to the noble Lord and I know how passionately he feels about these matters. But does he feel that his case is so weak that he is arguing that it is necessary to rig the whole thing in favour of his point of view? Looking at Amendment 58, he is suggesting that a statement from the campaign to leave, a statement from the campaign to stay and a statement from the Government, which may be to leave or to stay, should be sent to every household. From the point of view of people receiving this material, it is unbalanced. Why is the noble Lord so concerned about his case that he feels that it is necessary to have an unbalanced position in respect of his own amendment and in his opposition to mine?
Lord Davies of Stamford
For the first time since I debated on these matters with the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, I am very surprised at the gaps in his historical knowledge, which normally is extremely extensive and accurate, and often brought to bear very effectively in debates in this House. He seems to have forgotten what happened in 1975, which I am old enough to remember. I had my first political campaign; I was part of the City in Europe campaign, and I am very proud of it. I have not rigged or invented anything. In this amendment, I am following precisely the wording we had in the Act which set out the basis for the 1975 referendum and entirely the practice that was followed. I am being the most rigorous constitutionalist. I hope that the noble Lord will approve of that—I think he normally does. I am following precedent and I am suggesting that precedent lays down the basis for fairness, and is always a good basis for credibility and legitimacy in public life. I will give way again, although I cannot go on giving way or I will be trying the patience of the House with the time that I am taking up.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
The noble Lord will never try the patience of the House. Perhaps he is a little older than me. I can just remember the 1975 campaign and voting in it. But is he suggesting that during that campaign, every household got a leaflet from a campaign to stay in the European Union, a leaflet from a campaign to leave the European Union and a leaflet from the Government saying that we should stay in the European Economic Community, or the Common Market, as it was then, all at public expense? I do not think that that is what happened at all. But that is what his amendment proposes.
Lord Davies of Stamford
It is very unusual that I am able to answer a quite lengthy intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, more than satisfactorily with a single word—yes. That is exactly what happened in 1975, exactly what my amendment calls for and exactly what I think is required on this occasion. I will give way to the noble Lord.
Lord Greaves (LD)
I merely intervene to say that I must be older than the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, because I played an active part in the 1975 referendum. It was not a leaflet that was put out from each side and from the Government: there were three little booklets. Does the noble Lord, Lord Davies, agree with that?
Lord Davies of Stamford
I am most grateful for that intervention. I know that the noble Lord has a very long history of public life in local government before he came here and takes a great interest in these matters. He is absolutely right. Exactly what I have in mind is something that is an intelligent summary of the case which sets out the essential facts. There is far too much spin in the political world in which we live. We know that there is far too much dishonesty, suppression of material fact for the convenience of Governments and far too many back-stairs, deniable, non-attributable briefings and so on.
We want a situation in which any household in this country can have access if they wish to intelligent arguments both ways and can make up their own minds on that basis. Not only do I think that this would be an important element in the campaign and a great contribution to democratic transparency and democratic involvement, it would be a very good thing to go back to some of those first principles which we had in 1975 and make sure that this campaign involves serious consideration by as many people as possible of the real issues—albeit that we know that some people will be influenced by prejudices and emotive language, and some by the tabloids. But we hope that the number of those people is small in relation to our total democracy and that we have intelligent discussion, debate and consideration before we take a dramatic decision about our nation’s future.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, I have listened to my noble friends Lord Forsyth and Lord Lamont. I say to my noble friends that if my preamble takes more than 11 minutes, please move a Motion that I no longer be heard ever again. This is a relatively simple matter. In any United Kingdom election involving the four countries of the union, there will be about a dozen major political parties and thousands of fringe candidates. Between them, the major parties will offer hundreds of different policies, and it is right that they have spending limits and are able to advance their arguments for all those hundreds of policies. That is why the political parties need to spend money arguing totally different cases.
However, in the case of this referendum, there are only two campaigns: one to remain and one to leave. In those circumstances, I cannot understand why the political parties will also get money to spend on campaigns. There is nothing to stop the Labour Party or the Conservative Party or any other party campaigning: let them join the “remain” campaign or the “leave” campaign. Let them put all their effort into helping those two options: leave or remain. In those circumstances, it is grossly unfair and illogical that the political parties are getting money to spend, based on their last election results, to campaign on a simple question: do we remain in the European Union or do we leave the European Union? Let the political parties weigh in behind either campaign, and keep it simple and fair.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon (Ind Lab)
My Lords, I was not going to intervene but I really felt that I had to do so to support the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford. He will be surprised at that, perhaps—but he was absolutely right when he said that three documents were issued at the 1975 referendum. One was from the in campaign; one was from the out campaign; and one was from the Government, with a preface by Harold Wilson. The Government recommended that we should remain in and, of course, they gave their reasons for it. Unfortunately, the Government’s reasons turned out to be rather suspect, because one of the claims that they made was that they had ruled out the prospect of economic and monetary union. We now know that that was a false statement because we have got economic and monetary union. Although we are not members of the euro, we are, in fact, members of EMU. I hope that that was a little help to the noble Lord, Lord Davies.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
I hesitate to put words into the noble Lord’s mouth, and I freely acknowledge that I was wrong on the matter that, in the 1975 campaign, there were two leaflets that argued the position in favour of remaining in the European Community and only one against. The noble Lord says that he will support the noble Lord, Lord Davies, but he has spent almost a lifetime arguing that the wrong decision was made and that people were misinformed about the position. Was it not wrong, actually, for there to be two leaflets on one side as opposed to one on the other?
Lord Stoddart of Swindon
Yes, I agree with that. I was only confirming that the noble Lord, Lord Davies, was correct in saying that there were three pamphlets. At the time, the Labour Party was in favour of coming out. Unfortunately, the Labour Government were in favour of staying in. We are almost getting into the same situation now, although in reverse, as we approach the next referendum. That is all I wish to say about it.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
My Lords, as we are in Committee, I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Davies, can prevent me from saying what I wanted to say at the end of the first part of his recent peroration. I would just like to confirm that I was not complaining about UKIP’s possible position, and I would like to correct the record. Of the votes cast at the last general election, the Conservatives got 36.9%, the Labour Party got 30.4%, UKIP got 12.6%—not a mere 10%, as the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, suggested—and the Liberal Democrats got all of 7.9%. Those are the correct figures.
Turning to the present amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Davies, I have to disagree with him in his suggestion that there should be a statement from the Government, not only for the reasons just put forward by my noble friend Lord Stoddart, but also, more generally, because I do not think that the British people are going to be able to trust the Government’s statement on this referendum any more than they could on the last one. I will add another example to the deception that my noble friend Lord Stoddart mentioned as regards the last referendum. In 1975, the Labour Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, made a promise that if we voted to stay in the then Common Market,
“there would be no loss of essential national sovereignty”.
Of course, we all thought that he meant that there would be no loss of sovereignty whatever, because we all thought that all sovereignty was essential. However, in a somewhat subtle—to put it politely—way, he did not mean that at all. What he meant was that there would be no loss of any sovereignty that he thought was essential. Since then, the British people have discovered that we have lost most of the sovereignty that he promised we would retain. So I really do not think that we want a statement from the Government, as in this amendment, but it would be perfectly in order to have a statement from each side.
Lord Collins of Highbury
I just want to correct a figure. It has been mentioned several times that the Labour Party will have the ability to spend £7 million, but, of course, the figures on the popular vote are slightly adjusted because of the Labour and Co-op Members, where there are joint parties standing. Therefore, the figure for Labour, according to the Electoral Commission, is 29.3%, which would give it £5.5 million. According to this, UKIP would have the ability to spend £4 million. Am I to understand that the noble Lord is in favour of his party, UKIP, being limited to spending £10,000?
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
My Lords, my party would like to spend as much money on this campaign as it can. I was looking at the suggestion that we should have 12.6%’s worth, that being our share of the votes cast in the last election. Personally, I am in favour of that, of course.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)
I want to lower the temperature with a deeply nerdy amendment, Amendment 55, which concerns purdah. I apologise for not following the noble Lord, Lord Pearson—
Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)
My Lords, we have heard a lot of history this afternoon. Although the lessons of 1975 might be of interest, they are, in fact, history, and we are debating a Bill for a future referendum, rather than the past. I am speaking on behalf of the Liberal Democrats to support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, as this amendment fits with the views of the Constitution Committee and appears to be very sensible. As to the role of political parties and how much they are funded, although it is very easy to look back and say, “Well, in 1975 this happened, that happened and the other happened”, since that time we have passed the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act. The Bill relates to and amends that legislation. My party has no objection to the Government’s position on that.
The final amendment that I want to speak to in this group is Amendment 58, tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Liddle and Lord Davies. Although I can see an intuitive allure in the amendment, there is another issue here which goes back to the PPERA question and pre-empts Amendment 55, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, on purdah. It is clearly in the interest of everyone to understand the Government’s position. At Second Reading in the other place, the right honourable Philip Hammond, the Foreign Secretary, talked about wanting to suspend Section 125 of the Act because the Government would want to come back and sell the deal that they had renegotiated. In practice, if purdah is in place the assumption will be that circulating three documents—remain, leave and the Government putting forward their own case—is in danger of breaching purdah rules. Although Amendment 58 sounds intuitively interesting, it is quite difficult to support it as currently drafted.
Lord Tebbit
My Lords, what the noble Baroness says is right. This would offend against the purdah rules. Even more, how will the Government produce a leaflet to set out their position? Would they set out the position of the majority in the Cabinet, or the position of two groups in the Cabinet? It would be a jolly task, would it not, to set out the views of the Eurosceptics in the Cabinet, as well as the—
Lord Davies of Stamford
I am grateful to the noble Lord. The honest answer to his question, and certainly the answer that I have always envisaged, is that we should follow the precedent of 1975, when a single, coherent pamphlet was produced by the Government, justifying their recommendation of a yes vote.
Lord Tebbit
The noble Lord is terribly attached to this precedent. It is only one precedent from one occasion ever. To suggest that we cannot change anything that was done then because that set the precedent is totally absurd. I am a Conservative, but even I would not suggest that what had been done once would always have to be done again and again in vaguely similar circumstances. It is quite improper.
Lord Collins of Highbury
Is the noble Lord suggesting that the Prime Minister, when he goes to negotiate on behalf of the United Kingdom, will say to the other Governments, “By the way, I’m only representing half my Government; the other half may have a different view”? How does he expect the Government to conclude negotiations?
Lord Tebbit
I am terribly sorry, but I am afraid that the noble Lord misunderstands it. When the Prime Minister negotiates he speaks for the Government as a whole, but his evaluation of whether the negotiation is sufficiently good for us to remain in the European Union is another matter.
There will be views and views within the Cabinet—we are pretty sure about that. It is highly likely, is it not? We would have to have a leaflet that said, “The position of the majority of the Cabinet”—or the majority of Ministers, perhaps. I do not know whether it would include PPSs and all sorts of other people. Perhaps we could add in the spads, I do not know. However, it would have to say that there are others who take a different view. It is total nonsense. It is the product of a mindset that wants to set the thing up to be biased in one direction time and time again. Lord knows that the Bill as drafted is bad enough, but it would be a darned sight worse if we were to accept the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Davies.
Lord Flight
My Lords, I campaigned in the 1975 referendum to stay in the Common Market. To criticise the precedent, I well remember that we thought we had been rather clever because we had the establishment onside and we had 2:1 of the brochures sent to people. The whole objective was to marginalise the campaign of those who were not in favour of staying in. It was, in essence, a scheme to rig the whole vote.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)
I very much agree with my noble friend Lord Flight. Just because Harold Wilson rigged the 1975 referendum so that my noble friend Lord Forsyth and I—and indeed my noble friend Lord Flight—were conned into supporting staying in the EU, is that a reason for rigging this one? That is the question we have to ask.
The House will have noticed Amendment 40 in my name. Even my closest friends advise me that this amendment is rubbish. All I say to my noble friend the Minister is that I will not press my amendment. She will not have to spend any time telling the House that my amendment is rubbish because I agree with that anyway.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I am well aware that the political definition of a level playing field is a field in which, when the ball is placed in the centre, it rolls naturally towards your opponent’s goal. That is one of the problems with trying to define a level playing field.
I am fascinated to hear so many Conservative Peers speaking in favour of an expenditure cap to ensure that one side in a campaign does not spend more than another. I look forward to the speeches that will come from those Benches the next time we discuss political party funding. Perhaps they will support a similar principle then. The Conservative Party spent a great deal more than any other party in the recent election. I do not recall any complaints from Conservatives on that—whatever position they take on the European Union—either then or since.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom
Is the noble Lord saying that the general election principle is unfair because one party can raise more money than another, and that this unfairness should continue in the referendum?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
I am simply remarking that principles should apply across the field. I am strongly in favour of greater control over political parties’ spending, which the Conservative Party has resisted extremely strongly. I just remarked that we need to be a little more consistent than we were being.
I will make one other point relating to this group of amendments and to the next.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
May I continue? I will give way to the noble Lord in a minute or two.
There is a principle that we have a Government. We are not like the United States, where Congress can stop the Government taking everything through if it wants As we were told with reference to the House of Lords’ vote last week, the principle is that the Government must be allowed to get their business through and must be able to say what they think is in the national interest. At the end of this negotiation, the Prime Minister has to be able to say, on behalf of the Government, what he now considers to be in the national interest. I note that a number of noble Lords think that the Prime Minister should not be able to make that case. That seems to me to be moving towards the sort of deadlock between Congress and the presidency seen in the United States, where what the President says has no impact at all. This is a renegotiation. At the end of the renegotiation, the Government are entitled, under our constitutional arrangements, to say what they think is in the national interest. I trust that they will do so.
Lord Lamont of Lerwick
My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I actually said that I would be perfectly happy with no cap: I was not talking about caps and supporting them in the way that he suggested. However, would the noble Lord be quite content if there were caps in the general election and the Liberal party were capped at less than half the spending allowed to the Conservative and Labour parties because it got less than half the votes of those parties at the previous election?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I have some familiarity with the previous negotiations on political funding and whether there should be a state contribution. The discussions on whether there should be public support for political parties had indeed taken on board the issue of how many votes each party got in the previous election, so the principle might well be taken, but the issue of caps on expenditure is not really one for a referendum which, I think, the out camp fears it may lose. It is a wider issue.
Lord Collins of Highbury
My Lords, it has been an interesting debate. One of the problems with referenda is that they assume there are simply two sides to an argument, when actually there are often lots of different opinions and reasons why people may wish, in the case of the European Union, to stay in or to leave. The interesting thing in this debate is that we have heard that UKIP will wish to argue its case strongly as a political party. We have heard the Conservative Party saying no, we are not going to do that. In effect, the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, will limit UKIP to £10,000—it will not be able to spend more than that—while if, for example, Unite registered as a participant, it could spend £700,000, as could any other organisation or individual if they registered properly as a participant.
The real issue here is how we have a fair political debate: how we ensure that all the different views in favour of remaining or leaving are properly expressed. It is clear, as we have heard, that there is a problem among those who want to leave. They do not appear able to reconcile their differences and come together as one—perhaps because they have absolutely different views about why Britain should leave. The Conservative Party has clearly not been very keen to sit on platforms with UKIP to argue its case, and certainly individuals within the party have not been keen to join in. The idea that political parties should absent themselves from this campaign is purely ridiculous.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
The noble Lord keeps repeating this. Nobody is suggesting that political parties absent themselves. I am listening carefully to his argument. If you decide to have a cap on expenditure, it has to be fair to both sides. If the noble Lord is arguing that there should be no cap, that is an entirely different position. The Government’s position—arising from the 2000 Act—is that there should be a cap. Therefore, it is not that the political parties cannot participate, but that the vehicle through which they participate consists of the two campaigns. If the noble Lord is arguing that there should be no cap, I can see where he is coming from, but he seems to be arguing that there should be a cap and that the available expenditure should be unbalanced. That is ridiculous.
Lord Collins of Highbury
Actually, I am arguing that all participants in the referendum should properly account for what they raise and what they spend, and that that be recorded and sent to the Electoral Commission. That is what I am arguing for. We have heard in the debate that somehow you can create a level playing field by setting a cap on the total amount spent. What, then, is the noble Lord saying: that the “remain” campaign and the “leave” campaign agree beforehand exactly what they are going to spend and then say that is what they are going to do?
I know what caps do. I, too, have had a debate about political funding, and some dialogue with the Conservative Party about funding election campaigns. The caps on spending were important in trying to stop this continual outbidding of each other, but no political party has ever reached the cap that has been set in general elections. The Conservative Party has consistently outspent the Labour Party in general elections. There certainly has not been a level playing field. There is only one way to achieve a level playing field: by saying that £20 million from the government purse will be provided for this campaign and that it should be divided equally and then spent.
I do not, however, think that that is what noble Lords want. What noble Lords want is a fair and open debate. Political parties have an important role in that and the idea that you can cap the Labour Party’s spending to £10,000 on arguing its policy—and it does and will have a policy—is absolutely ridiculous. It is not right or fair to the democratic process. My opinion is not simply that of my party; it is also that of the Electoral Commission. The commission says, first, that, irrespective of the cap, there can be no certainty that there will be equal resources. This is a bit like a general election, where we have had caps on spending but there has been no level playing field in respect of the money that can be spent.
The other aspect of this is that everybody’s talking as if £7 million, and £5 million, is going to be available. Political parties, however, will have to raise the money. They will have to account for it. This is what all the amendments in the first group were about: transparency. The public will be more interested in transparency than the notional caps that the noble Lords opposite are talking about. People will certainly want to know who is funding the yes campaign, but they will also want to know who is funding the no campaign—who is behind it: perhaps the hedge funds or the businesses that simply see an interest in being outside.
All these things are important, but, as the Electoral Commission has said, the number of participants on each side should not be artificially limited by rules. We have seen that UKIP will want to play its part in the referendum campaign and to put its case, irrespective of whether it participates in a joint campaign. I know that the Labour Party will want to put its case strongly in respect of the social dimension to Europe and how Europe has defended workers’ rights. I do not think that the Prime Minister will necessarily wish to be part of that campaign. We will put our case, and the idea that you simply limit the Labour Party’s spending to £10,000 is not acceptable.
I strongly support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, not least because—this is the strongest case for it—when this was considered previously it was thought appropriate to put it in the Scottish referendum. If it was appropriate for Scotland, why is it unnecessary for this referendum? Clearly, it is.
Regarding my noble friend’s amendment—we raised this issue in Committee on Monday—the Government will come to a decision. They will need to report that decision to the people of this country. It is important that the Government’s decision is not mediated solely through these campaigns, which noble Lords opposite seem to think will have a clear view about the reasons for leaving or staying. It is really important that the Government communicate with the electorate, so they understand what the Government have negotiated and can come to a conclusion. The argument that it can be mediated only through a yes campaign or a no campaign is not acceptable. The Minister may not accept my noble friend’s amendment but I hope the Government will think seriously about how the conclusions of the negotiations are communicated properly to the electorate without being mediated through a third party.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
Can the noble Lord explain where he gets this £10,000 figure from?
Lord Collins of Highbury
If you are not a permitted participant in the referendum, under PPERA you are limited to £10,000. That amount is also recorded in the Electoral Commission’s briefing, and I know that the noble Lord is very keen to support the role of the Electoral Commission.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
I would have thought that,
“£500,000 in the case of a person or body falling within section 105(1)(b) but not designated under section 108”,
might apply.
Lord Collins of Highbury
Political parties are treated differently, as the Minister indicated at the outset. The fact is, they are different. They are covered, as she said, by separate elements of PPERA. If political parties do not register as participants in the referendum, they will be limited to spending £10,000. I do not have to answer for the Conservative Party but, in effect, by advocating this amendment noble Lords are saying to local Conservative associations, “You cannot use your office, your staff or your resources in this referendum campaign because if you exceed £10,000, the Conservative Party will be acting illegally”.
Lord Lamont of Lerwick
I have tried very hard to follow the noble Lord’s speech. I still do not understand the £10,000 figure, but going back a bit in his speech, he expressed himself as being strongly in favour of caps in general elections—fair enough. If we are to have caps in general elections, should they not be the same for all political parties?
Lord Collins of Highbury
I do not know that I strongly expressed my support for caps. I said I thought they had a function and a role. Actually, what the public demand of our political parties is greater transparency. The noble Lords opposite constantly refer to the trade union movement supporting the Labour Party. Every single penny of that money is properly accounted for under a range of legislation, including the trade union Acts that cover the establishment of political funds, but I am not so sure that is clear in the case of some company donations, the origins of which can be obscure and unclear. For me, the most important thing in funding is transparency.
I am a strong advocate of capping donations, which is far more effective than having a cap on spending. Caps on spending have not been particularly effective. As we have seen in every general election since PPERA was enacted, no political party has got anywhere near the spending cap. But capping donations—limiting how people might influence policy—is much more effective. When the Committee on Standards in Public Life held an inquiry into the funding of political parties, I argued that we should have a cap of £500 on political donations because members of the public would understand that amount. Most members of the public would find it incredibly difficult to raise £50,000, which was the amount suggested by the Conservative Party. Not many members of the public would be able to donate that amount. But if you had a cap of £500, most members of the public would say, “Yes, that is a reasonable amount”. But that is the debate: it is more effective to have caps on donations than on spending. No doubt we will return to that debate some other time.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
My Lords, I think I heard the noble Lord say that he assumed UKIP would want to take part in the referendum campaign, and of course it will, but I should just confirm what my great leader Nigel Farage has said: he sees UKIP as an important but cohesive part of the eventual campaign to leave the European Union. That is where UKIP is on that one.
Lord Collins of Highbury
I am glad to hear that but at the moment it does not look as though there is a single campaign. If the Conservative Party and UKIP unite as one, so be it. The public will no doubt take account of that. But the business currently before this House is an amendment that says to UKIP, “If you register as a political party, you will limited to £10,000”. I am not sure that would cover Nigel Farage’s flights around the country, so I think he will be concerned about that.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom
On the question of the designated organisation for leaving, does the noble Lord not accept that there are members of the Labour Party who are members of this? It is not a Conservative organisation; it is completely cross-party.
Lord Collins of Highbury
I have no doubt that individuals within political parties will wish to campaign one way or the other. I have absolutely no problem with that but I do have a problem with the idea that the Labour Party—like UKIP—is not entitled to have a policy or to be able to campaign on that policy and articulate its own message. I admire the Prime Minister. I admire his ability and I hope very much that he will use his extensive negotiating skills to achieve a settlement that will be in the best interests of this country. But that will not stop the Labour Party arguing its own view about Britain’s national interests, which will not be related solely to the reasons that the Prime Minister has. That is why it is really important that political parties have the right to campaign properly.
PPERA sets limits on what political parties can spend on a specific campaign. I am familiar with the requirements of PPERA. I am familiar with the quite onerous responsibilities of political parties, not least that they have to make sure that every single donation received is from a permitted donor; they have to double- check and cross-reference. Errors have been made in the past, I know. But we have to understand that this debate is about a cap on the ability of parties to campaign and that is why it is so important that we resist it.
As for all the questions about who has what, I am sure the Minister will clarify all the positions that I have set out. It is not for me to argue—this is a government Bill—but I am sure she will do so well.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, Amendment 34 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, would allow the Electoral Commission to designate a lead campaigner for one side of the argument at this referendum without having to appoint one for the other. This would override the current rules that apply for designated lead organisations. These provide that the commission must designate a lead campaigner on each side, or not at all. The reason for this is clearly, as noble Lords have argued tonight, that in such matters there should be as fair a playing field as possible.
In the case of multiple applications for designation as a lead campaigner, the Electoral Commission must appoint for each side the applicant which represents “to the greatest extent” those campaigning for a particular outcome. This is intended to ensure the designation of organisations which represent the broad spread of opinion on each side. The benefits then available to the designated lead organisations ensure that each side of the argument has a fair opportunity to put its case to the wider voting public. Taken together, these provisions aim to ensure informed voting after a vibrant debate.
However, the rules for this referendum must also ensure that the referendum is run fairly and that we do not create any perception of bias. The principle that the Electoral Commission cannot designate on just one side is intended to support that objective. The benefits available to the designated lead organisations are significant. I am talking not about political parties per se—they may not end up being designated as lead organisations—but organisations designated by the Electoral Commission as lead organisations.
Allowing public funds to be used to create a distorted campaign with only one designated lead organisation would naturally raise public concern. This would clearly be the case where the commission receives applications from both sides but does not consider that those on one side meet the statutory tests. Under the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, in this circumstance the arguments of the side that does not get appointed would not get a fair hearing. The administrative failings of those who failed to meet the statutory test should not invalidate the right of both sides to an equal opportunity to make their respective cases.
There is, of course, the view that this amendment may help avoid a circumstance where one side deliberately refuses to apply for designation to prevent the other side receiving its benefits. This could occur, for example, if one side lacks the funding to take advantage of the benefits, particularly the higher spending limits, or wishes to avoid debate on an issue of low public interest. I do not think any noble Lord is going to suggest that this case will be a matter be of low public interest. That is not going to be a feature of this referendum. Given the public interest in the referendum, a more cynical attempt to deprive the other side of the benefits of designation surely would be widely reported and deeply harmful to a campaigner’s own cause—it would be seen as being a cheat.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick
The noble Baroness seems to have come to the end of a passage which contains no explanation of why the Government legislated in the case of Scotland to deal with this potential problem, and no recognition of the fact that by so legislating they ensured that there was no problem. All her suggestions that this might seem to be unfair will not come about if this amendment is accepted, because there will then be two designated organisations and no interest whatever in gaming.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, the noble Lord’s amendment does not achieve that. It allows for one-sided designation. The noble Lord referred to Scotland. That was a matter for the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament, not the UK Government. In respect of the Scottish referendum, the Electoral Commission commented that the approach of having one-sided designation possible was appropriate in the specific circumstances of the independence referendum to reduce the risk of,
“a tactical decision not to apply for designation”.
However, it says that in other circumstances that does not necessarily pertain. So we would certainly argue that having one-sided designation could unduly damage proper and fair treatment of the arguments that need to be put forward.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
Is my noble friend not trying to argue two contradictory things at the same time? In rejecting the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, she said that it would be wrong to allow funds to create a distorted campaign. The argument was that if you had one side only gaining funds it would create a distorted campaign. My amendment may not be perfect in its drafting, but does the Minister accept that it must be wrong to allow political parties to spend sums such that one side is able to spend 2.3 times what the other can spend? It is not consistent with her principle that we should not allow funds to create a distorted campaign.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, I think there is some confusion between the issue of a political party carrying out a campaign and a designated lead campaigner. If my noble friend is saying that there should be a level playing field with regard to the sums of money to be spent on each campaign, that would be saying that the designated lead campaigners, if they were not a political party, would have to have a total sum of not only what they spent but what every single other person in the country who agreed with them spent. I really do not think that that is what he is trying to achieve. I accept that my noble friend is trying to introduce a discussion about apparent unfairness in the funds available to political parties. I think that that is a debate for a wider issue as to what political party funding may comprise.
Lord Collins of Highbury
I am seeking explanation only because the Minister referred to the designated campaigns earlier. This debate seems to be solely about the ability to spend money, but other things come with being a designated campaigning group, not least the right to free mail and other access. Can the Minister explain that, so we understand the importance of it?
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, I will jump to a little later in my speech and just say that the designated lead campaigners are entitled not only to the spending limit which has been the subject of this debate but to a grant from public funds of up to £600,000, free delivery of mailings to every household or every elector, eligibility to make referendum broadcasts and the use of public rooms. I hope that is helpful.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
I accept the point that my noble friend is making about there being a certain degree of confusion because of the way in which PPERA intersects with this Bill. However, we are talking not about spending but about a cap on the amount that can be spent. The reason for having that cap is, surely, to ensure fairness. Where is the fairness in having a cap which is 2.3 times higher for one side of the campaign than for the other?
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, my noble friend is, again, conflating spending by a political party—which may not end up being a designated lead campaigner—with spending by a designated lead campaigner. To do that, we would have to change the whole nature of how this country allows its elections to be run. All I can say is that before PPERA was put into statute, matters such as this were considered, and the resulting Act tried to come to the fairest conclusion. With regard to the changes my noble friend referred to, the increase in the total amount reflects the fact that the Act received Royal Assent in 2000. The amount has merely been raised in line with inflation. No remarks were made about that in another place.
My noble friend Lord Hamilton cast scorn on his own amendment, Amendment 40. I appreciate that he tabled it because of the concern—expressed firmly here today but also in another place—about the capacity of well-funded individuals and organisations to use their spending power to influence the outcome of the referendum, as indeed might be the case in any election. My noble friend invited me not to go into too much detail on his amendment, and many of his concerns were aired in the debate on my noble friend Lord Forsyth’s amendment, so I am grateful to him for that.
The Bill includes additional controls on campaigners acting in concert, which means that where expenses are incurred as part of a common plan, they will usually count towards the spending limit of each campaigner that is party to the plan. This is supported by the Electoral Commission and aims to prevent groups of individuals or bodies colluding to circumvent spending limits. This is a well-established approach which is practical and enforceable but which also, most importantly, encourages participation.
The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, spoke to amendments on behalf of his noble friend Lord Liddle. I will explain the import of the amendments, were they to go into the Bill, and then address his pertinent point about how the Government should make their case in a statement and get information to the public. Amendment 58 would provide for every individual elector to receive a statement from each of the official lead campaigns, as well as a statement of the Government’s position through the post, although the amendment does not specify that the Government’s position must be contained within the same document. PPERA already confers a significant number of benefits on the designated lead campaigners. As I mentioned a moment ago when I was invited to list them by the noble Lord, Lord Collins, they include a free mail delivery to every household or every elector. We expect, naturally, that this opportunity will be taken up by the lead campaigners. In that respect, the noble Lord’s amendment duplicates existing provision.
However, I appreciate that the noble Lord perhaps intended his amendment to do something else: to hold the Government to account by requiring them to make a statement about what had happened in the negotiations and what the results were. We had a discussion about this on Monday in Committee in the three or four groups relating to information. The noble Lord’s amendment puts the Government in a position where they would be required to provide the statement during the period of purdah, which is not the Government’s intention. Our discussions on Monday made it very clear that the Committee wanted the Government to consider carefully how we should make a statement about our position. I made a clear commitment on Monday to look at these matters and to see what I could bring forward on Report by way of an amendment that would apply to the information being provided before the essential period of purdah.
My noble friend Lord Forsyth had the lead amendment in the last group we debated on Monday, which I think gave us a very good starting point to have a fair description of what the Government have achieved without using it as a campaigning document. I happily give way to the noble Lord if that does not answer his point on Amendment 58.
Lord Davies of Stamford
The noble Baroness will have understood that the important thing in my mind is that the Government state clearly to the public what they think about these things. In my view, if there is a deal, there should be a clear document setting out the Government’s description of that deal. During the campaign, a document should be made available setting out the authoritative case the Government are making in favour—if they are making such a case—of our remaining in the European Union. We should not be in a situation in which we just have to refer to ministerial speeches, or to this, that or the other kind of leak or suggestion. There should be one authoritative document, to which everybody in the campaign can refer. The Government seem to be shying away from that, which I very much regret. It is rather like the chairman of a company refusing to make a statement to shareholders about an important event for the company at an EGM. It is an abdication of the Government’s responsibility. In my view, that statement should be made. It could be made just before the purdah period— 29 or 30 days before the vote. That would be perfectly acceptable and would get round the purdah point.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, I obviously did not make it clear: we are proposing to do exactly what the noble Lord requires. That was my commitment on Monday, and we are in negotiation with noble Lords about what an amendment to that effect might look like. It is clear that any amendment from the Government must be acceptable to both Houses of Parliament and not just one, because it will have to go into the Bill. This is a matter we take very seriously, because of course the public should receive this information. There is no abdication of responsibility whatever. We are on the front foot on this, albeit carefully. Perhaps I should say we are on both front feet—trying not to fall over—so that it is an even playing field.
Amendment 59 would provide that the designated lead organisations for “leave” and for “remain” would receive a full-page advertisement in each UK national newspaper in the last 10 days of the campaign. I have already explained what the lead campaigners are entitled to. Appointing lead campaigners and providing them with these benefits seeks to ensure that both sides of the argument in a referendum are given an opportunity clearly and effectively to make their cases. The benefits, most notably broadcast and the mailings, represent well-established electoral tools to ensure that voters have information from both sides.
The noble Lord’s amendment suggests that the current benefits are insufficient to achieve this outcome and need to be expanded to include adverts and newspapers. For the amendment to be consistent with the provisions relating to the other benefits that campaigners receive, the benefit would have only to extend to avoiding the cost of placing the advert in the newspaper. All expenses incurred in designing and producing the advert would fall to be met by the campaigner and count against the spending limit. I make it clear that there is nothing in PPERA or the Bill which prevents campaigners taking out adverts in newspapers if they so wish. The noble Lord’s amendment would require them to do it and to incur the costs of preparing the advert.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick
The noble Baroness has not made a very persuasive case for me to withdraw my amendment. I am not referring to other amendments in the group. She has spoken, if I understand her rightly, as if Scotland were a faraway, foreign state with which we had nothing to do. When the legislation was passed to enact the referendum in Scotland it was felt that this provision needed to be put in to prevent any possibility of gaming. Our own Constitution Committee has warned the House—and that includes the Minister—that there is a risk of that here, and the Government appear not to wish to take any account of it.
When it is suggested that to put such a provision in would make the playing field less even, that is to ignore the fact that if there were gaming which resulted in there being no single designated organisation on one side, that would mean there would be no funds for the other side and there would be a level playing field: it would be nuclear winter. That would not be, I suggest, a satisfactory playing field on which to play, any more than nuclear winter is satisfactory. If we deprive an organisation that has properly designated itself of any possibility to get funds in the campaign, I do not think the Minister would think that that would be a very fair way to proceed. I do not quite know how we are to move forward on this.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
I was trying not to force my way in, as I must sometimes do: I know that noble Lords have been lively today. I sought to point out earlier that the Government have evaluated the risk with regard to the referendum on the European Union, remain or leave, and put it in the category where we feel that there is enough public interest that there will be somebody who will apply—and not just one, perhaps more—to be considered as a designated lead campaigner. So that will not arise. Clearly, I did not make enough of an effort to explain it in full, but I hoped I had set out the dangers there would be if the Electoral Commission appointed only one lead campaigner and the voice of another could be stifled to the benefit of one.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick
The noble Baroness is ignoring a risk. It may not be a very high risk and if this amendment were accepted it would be a nil risk. She seems to be saying that the Government would prefer to run even a very small risk of this situation occurring than put a provision in the Bill which made it absolutely certain that it would not occur. I feel that that is a little unreasonable.
The noble Baroness will have noticed that my amendment has been supported on all sides of the Committee and both sides of the argument. Is she really unable to say two things? The first is that if the Government’s view on this prevails and the amendment is not accepted, she will give a commitment that if, sometime in the next few months, it becomes clear that there is not going to be a properly designated organisation on both sides, the Government will then legislate, in emergency legislation, to ensure that the other side will not be deprived of any funds. If she gave that undertaking, it would be very helpful. If she cannot give that undertaking, will she at least take this away and look at it a bit longer? We have a space between now and Report and I do not believe that this amendment is open to the suggestion of unfairness. As far as I know, nobody in Scotland complained.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, I do not think that the Committee would wish to contemplate even further legislation, but I can certainly contemplate further consideration on the basis of what the noble Lord has said. I have to say that I thought we had considered properly before today, but of course I always listen to the points made by the noble Lord and am prepared to do so before Report.
Lord Collins of Highbury
I have a question for the noble Lord about the potential risk. My understanding is that the risk is not simply gaming on the part of one side to deprive the other of funding. We constantly talk about funding when, actually, it is access to broadcast, access to free mail and all the other things that go with being a designated organisation. In evaluating the risk, does the noble Lord recognise a difficulty? Say, for example, there is no consensus among the leave campaign, so we end up with three, two or four organisations. Is the Electoral Commission, in those circumstances, permitted to decide on the merits of two or three, or does it have to say there is no lead designation?
Lord Hannay of Chiswick
I am not knowledgeable enough to answer the noble Lord’s question. I shall come to the Minister’s last intervention, which was helpful, in a minute, but I think she underestimates the range of possibilities.
Of course, our own Constitution Committee has raised the issue of gaming and that must be one risk, but I think there are other risks. One concerns whatever attempt the Electoral Commission makes to come to a conclusion about the designated organisation on the leave side. I do not think there will be any problem on the remain side—I cannot be certain about that, but I do not think there will be; it does not look as though there will be—but on the other side there is obviously the potential for a really serious problem. There are already two organisations, a third is said to be going to enter the fray, and if these organisations go on slugging it out and the Electoral Commission tries to adjudicate, the matter could then go to judicial review. The decision of the Electoral Commission could be appealed on judicial review. That would mean, as the present law is drafted, that the remain campaign would be deprived of all the advantages that exist for a designated organisation. That is pretty serious, frankly. What I feel is unreasonable about this is that, were this amendment accepted, none of that would happen.
I accept the noble Baroness’s offer to take this away and reflect further; she is always extremely fair in her dealings with the House. She has said she will go away and consider this further and that there will be further contacts with various noble Lords who have tabled amendments. We have a little time before Report, but I honestly think that the risk, even if it is a 1% risk, should be dealt with here and now. The case for that is pretty strong. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, I shall speak also to my Amendments 36, 43 and 46. This group of amendments deals with the restrictions on the Government and publicly funded persons and bodies under Section 125 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 and Clause 6 of the Bill. My amendments ensure that, for the purposes of the referendum, the definition of public funds in PPERA encompasses Gibraltar public funds.
In addition, government Amendment 45 ensures that the provision on restrictions on the Government and publicly funded persons and bodies publishing material in the 28 days ending with the poll also applies to the Government of Gibraltar and other bodies that are funded from Gibraltar public funds. Finally among my amendments, government Amendment 51 ensures that exclusions in any regulations made under Clause 6 would also apply to the Government of Gibraltar and other bodies funded from Gibraltar public funds.
The issue of Section 125 and Clause 6 has been the subject of much debate already. I take this opportunity, before I conclude my words on my amendments, to set out clearly to the Committee the Government’s position on the issue, having carefully considered the views expressed at Second Reading.
I can assure noble Lords that the Government do not intend to bring forward amendments to the Bill in relation to the restrictions on the Government publishing material in the final 28 days of the campaign. We have, however, as I said, put amendments before the Committee that ensure that the restrictions apply to the Government of Gibraltar and publicly funded bodies in Gibraltar. Nor do we have plans to bring forward regulations under Clause 6. The Government have accepted the outcome of the debate in another place and the arguments put forward at Second Reading, and are not seeking to disapply Section 125.
In the Commons, we highlighted the risk that Section 125 may give rise to legal challenge because it is so widely drawn. We sought to reduce that risk of challenge by putting it beyond doubt that business as usual is not in scope of Section 125. However, another place did not accept the Government’s amendment to the section.
We agree with another place that Section 125 cannot have been intended to prevent the Government acting as the Government in carrying out routine business, including in the EU, in the last 28 days before the date of poll. We think this gives the Government a strong argument to defend against any legal challenge to wider EU business carried out in the final 28 days.
Let me be clear: we have no plans to bring forward any regulations to provide exemptions from Section 125. It remains our view that it would be wise for Clause 6 to remain in the Bill, but the issue is clear. There could be some completely unforeseen eventuality when the House would consider it appropriate that regulations should be brought forward. The Bill is clear on that, if it were to happen, but we do not foresee it and it is not our intent. We could not rush Parliament or the public with proposed changes at short notice. Any regulations would need to be made at least four months ahead of the poll, in consultation with the Electoral Commission.
The addition of the power was the considered view of another place and the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which said that the approach of using regulations to specify exceptions was appropriate.
I know how much interest there is in this subject, and I shall listen very carefully to the debate this evening. I know that there was a little error in the PA report of something I said on the first day of Committee, when I said that we were not going to have a snap poll. The report left out “not”, which caused a little frisson in one or two newspapers. I repeat that we have no plans to bring forward any regulations to provide exemptions from Section 125.
In the light of that, at this stage, I wait to hear the views of other noble Lords on their amendments which lie in this large group, but I beg to move.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 38, 39, 52 and 54 in my name and that of others. Amendment 38 is designed to strengthen the controls on public money and resources during the purdah period. As my noble friend will know, Section 125 of the 2000 Act only prevents the Government publishing certain materials. It does not apply to general government activity during the final four weeks of the campaign, which remains regulated by constitutional convention, not by statute.
The amendment would prevent the Government campaigning and trying to promote a leave or remain vote in the purdah period, and restrict taxpayer-funded special advisers—who, we must remember, are civil servants and paid civil servants—from assisting in referendum campaigns during the purdah period.
Amendment 39 would prevent EU institutions incurring referendum expenses or doing anything to procure a remain vote during the referendum period. Both the Government and the Electoral Commission accepted that principle when similar amendments were tabled in another place. However, they claimed that the law was sufficient to prevent EU campaigning. That is mistaken. The law referred to is the European Communities Act 1972, which provides EU institutions with full authority to engage in activities authorised by EU law. The 1972 Act must be specifically disapplied for the EU institutions to be made subject to the same campaign controls as other foreign Governments.
Amendment 52 is a short amendment to do with the Electoral Commission. At the moment, the Bill advises that Ministers should “consult” the Electoral Commission. The amendment adds “and obtain the consent”, which is an important adjustment, because we must be bound by the Electoral Commission.
Amendment 54 would leave out subsection (8), which means that Section 4(1)(c) could enable the Government to abolish purdah together. I am sure that is not their intention in the Bill, and therefore I commend the amendments.
Lord Spicer (Con)
My Lords, I am very relieved that my noble friend Lord Hamilton did not say that his amendments were nonsense this time, because I support them. I do so because I am concerned about a situation where the prospectus being put to the country is not exactly false but uncertain—where, not necessarily through any fault of their own, the Government have reached an agreement which all sides think is fine but where there is an endemic structure within it that makes it unstable. I can best illustrate the situation by very briefly going through what I understand to be the four objectives of the Government in their negotiations.
The first objective is to stop the ever-closer union. One has to say that although all sides might be able to agree to that in words, there is the acquis communautaire —the acquis communautaire is endemic within the treaty. It is there to self-implode in this context, particularly as it has always supported the move towards a centralised Europe, the European Union, by the court.
The second objective is more competition. The European Union is a trade bloc. Trade blocs exist to protect themselves against foreign competition outside the trade bloc, otherwise there is no point in having a trade bloc in the first place. A trade bloc is and always will be anti-competitive.
The multicurrency objective—that we should be allowed to have lots of currencies—is next. When we were discussing the Maastricht treaty in the other place I always felt that an endemic feature of a single European Union is that there will eventually have to be a single currency. That is always put the other way round—that a single currency means that you will have to have a single Government—but the converse is also true: that to have a single union you will ultimately have to have, if the union is to mean anything at all, a single currency. The fourth objective is to deal with immigration. I cannot think of any union, market or trade bloc that does not ultimately have freedom of movement of the people within it.
I have to say that, through no fault of the Government’s own—the various countries may well establish an agreement in the negotiations—the agreement will be unstable for the reasons I have just given. We therefore need the kind of spending restrictions implied in my noble friend’s amendments.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard
My Lords, I speak to Amendment 55, which stands in my name. It seems to me that the problem that we are facing comes from the very wide language of the PPERA, which clearly was not intended to deal with the problem that I am drawing attention to. No Minister or servant of the Crown can publish any information which deals with any of the issues raised by the question during the 28 days—and “publish” is defined very widely as making,
“available to the public at large, or any section of the public, in whatever form and by whatever means”.
My worry is whether that might prove obstructive to the conduct of government business in Brussels. Ministers will continue to go there, European Union committees and the Council will continue to meet, and the myriad working groups will continue their work. It seems to me that it would be possible to construe that everything said—such as a document or briefing note passed to Members of the European Parliament, a document sent to the Commission or a pleading before the court—could be said to be relevant to the issue of the question of the referendum and could be caught by this 28-day ban.
I am sure that that was nobody’s intention, and I quite understand why the Minister does not wish to go back and reopen the language that we are confronted with. I am sure that people such as Mr Bernard Jenkin, who spoke on the purdah issue in the Commons, had no intention of making it impossible for the Government to carry out their business in Brussels. These are honourable people making a completely different point.
I am puzzled by the noble Baroness saying that she is confident that the Government would have a sufficient defence if challenged during the 28-day period. I am concerned about that. It seems to me that a judicial review—a challenge in court—could be disruptive to business, even if that challenge was successfully resisted in court. It seems to me that the possibility of the challenge might be an inhibition on our people in Brussels who are working in the national interest, doing the job they are meant to do. I am therefore very puzzled by what I think I heard the noble Baroness say—that she did not envisage making any regulations on this issue. I do not know whether we can be sure. If I were the Permanent Representative, I would be very uncertain whether I would be able to do what I am paid to do with the threat of legal challenge.
I may be exaggerating the problem but it is certainly a real one. Mr Lidington, Minister of State in the Foreign Office, told the European Union Committee in evidence in July that Section 125 of the PPERA would make it,
“very difficult if not impossible for us to undertake a whole range of routine EU business in the four weeks leading up to the referendum date”.
I admit that Mr Lidington said that in the context of the presidency. The hypothetical question was: “Suppose that the referendum date and the 28 days fell within the second half of 2017, during the UK presidency of the EU”. He was talking about how very difficult if not impossible it would be to undertake a whole range of routine EU business as the presidency. However, it seems to me that if it would be difficult to advance and defend the EU interest, as the presidency is meant to do, it would be just as difficult to advance and defend the UK interest, which is the daily business of our representatives in Brussels.
Lord Lamont of Lerwick
I am listening very carefully to what the noble Lord is saying—and of course he has huge knowledge of this—but Section 125 refers to “promotional material”. That is what it talks about. It says that it specifically excludes material which is requested by a member of the public. If the Scotch Whisky Association or somebody wanted a particular copy of something that had been discussed, they would still be able to do that. What this prohibits is promotional material. Surely that is wholly right—that promotional material should not be allowed in this way.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard
If the noble Lord is right, I am delighted. If the meaning of Section 125 of the PPERA is that only material of a particular kind defined as “promotional” is caught, my problem is much smaller; in fact; it disappears. But it seems to me that the language of the Act says that any Minister of the Crown, government department or local authority may not “publish”, which,
“means make available to the public at large, or any section of the public, in whatever form and by whatever means”—
for 28 days, any material bearing on the issue that is in the question. If that is to be the case, then for 28 days we are going to be saying, “Stop the world while we consider whether we want to get off”. I worry that the answer to that is to say, “Don’t be silly; we would defend ourselves in court”. The atmosphere might be quite febrile. There might be legal challenges brought. I think there would be a considerable inhibition on the public service doing its job.
I ask the Minister to look at my amendment, which would not require the making of any regulations. It would simply create a small carve-out, an exemption, for the normal business of the Government with the European Union, in and with the Council, with the Commission, with the Court and with the Parliament. It seems to me that that is much safer ground on which to rest than the thought of defending challenges in court. I am quite sure that when they drafted the PPERA nobody intended Section 125 to have effect on the pursuit of government interests and policies abroad. I am sure that that was not what they had in mind. I am sure that nobody in the other place, in the great debates that took place there over purdah, had it in mind to make it more difficult for the Government to defend the national interest in Brussels. I would argue for my amendment as the simplest way in which to deal with that problem.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
My Lords, I should like to speak to Amendments 53, 56, 61A and 61D, in my name. First, I say thank you to my noble friend the Minister for her decision to abandon making regulations under Clause 6(2). That is a fantastic step forward. Many of us expressed concern about that at Second Reading. It makes my Amendment 53, which simply required notice of any change, look a bit feeble, so I am extremely grateful. Given that my noble friend has undertaken not to make any regulations modifying Section 125 for the purposes of the referendum, I wonder whether she might be amenable to removing it from the Bill altogether, so there is no ambiguity about the position, thus ending the concerns which have been expressed. I commend the notes prepared on the PPERA, which makes it clear that Section 125, as my noble friend Lord Lamont pointed out, is concerned with promotional material. Although I have tried very hard to support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, I do not think it is necessary, given that the Government are not planning to make regulations under Section 125, the fear having been that it would be used as a back-door route to get round purdah. That is a great step forward.
The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, referred to the Scottish referendum campaign. In considering the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, one thing that I recalled was extremely irritating in the Scottish referendum campaign was how, in the last few days, the Government suddenly published, in concert with the other political parties, a vow, which has caused us endless difficulties subsequently. An amendment such as that of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, would open the door to that kind of activity, which is thoroughly unhelpful. The noble Lord is groaning, but I am sure he takes the point.
At Second Reading, I asked whether the restrictions and purdah imposed under Section 125 would apply to the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland Governments and to the European Commission. My noble friend said that, yes, they would apply to any person and there was no cause for concern. As my noble friend will see, I have tabled Amendment 56, which restricts the promotion of promotional material by the Scottish and Welsh Governments, the Northern Ireland Executive and the European Commission. That is not because I thought my noble friend was wrong in the assurances she gave, but because it relates to Amendment 61A, which introduces a personal surcharge on anyone who incurs expenditure in breach of these rules. This may not be the best way to do it, but I tabled the amendment because I was astonished to discover that, although Section 125 imposes purdah and restrictions, if anyone chooses to breach that purdah there is absolutely no penalty for doing so. Therefore, we have a paper tiger. All that can be done is to seek judicial review of that action, by which time the train will have left the station. The notion that a referendum could be rerun because there was a breach of purdah is stretching credulity to the point of fantasy. We had this great argument about purdah and Section 125—it has been through the other place and come here—but there is actually no penalty.
The Electoral Commission thinks that my amendment might go a bit far. However, there are precedents; I remember Dame Shirley Porter being personally fined no less than £20 million. The surcharge rules have since been taken out of local government legislation, but they certainly existed—and it would certainly concentrate the minds of the Scottish Government or anyone else tempted to breach purdah if there was some kind of sanction. I propose this in the hope that my noble friend will respond to the concerns expressed by the Electoral Commission—if not by me and others—and consider what sanction could be put in place to ensure that the purdah rules are observed.
Then, of course, we have the European Union and its institutions. It is difficult to see how we could have any sanction as, of course, we are mere vassals of the European Union. How could we possibly punish it for, or indeed prevent it, breaching purdah? Amendment 61D is an attempt to reach a negotiation—an approach that I know the Prime Minister is keen on to deal with the difficulties we have with the European Union. It proposes that there should be a negotiation now to,
“conclude an agreement between the Government and the institutions of the European Union, to the effect that the institutions will … abide by the provisions of section 125”,
and not be tempted to take on a promotional or campaigning role during the referendum.
My noble friend will no doubt tell me that that is very unlikely. However, I happened to read a piece in a newspaper a fortnight ago—I assumed it was some kind of joke—suggesting that in Scotland, the European Union was going to require farmers to put up in their fields posters indicating that they were supported by the European Union, and that the size of the posters would be determined by the amount of subsidy they received. The prospect of all the fields in Scotland being adorned with European flags and messages telling the public how generous the European Union had been in spending the money which we gave them in the first place, while we were in the sensitive period of a referendum campaign, seemed rather chilling. That makes my Amendment 61D rather important, because I would interpret suddenly providing new publicity to mislead the public about the extent of the support provided by the European Union to those farmers as an example of exactly the thing I am concerned about—and, of course, something the Government can do nothing about.
Even if my noble friend does not accept the substance of these amendments, I hope she will take them away and consider how we can strengthen the position in respect of Section 125—and perhaps even consider removing Clause 6(2) from the Bill altogether, or even Clause 6 itself, although she has said that that would be a step too far. I am most grateful to my noble friend, who has responded to the concerns expressed in the other place and delivered what it wanted, and responded to the concerns expressed by many noble Lords on Second Reading.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
The noble Lord referred to the notices that our masters in Brussels have required to be erected all over the countryside. I have an idea for the farmers in question. Alongside the notice that gives the great news that our masters in Brussels have given us so much money, they could put up a notice saying, “PS. Of course, for every pound they give us, we will have given them £2.66”—which I think is the present amount. Perhaps that would put those notices into perspective, because there is no such thing as European aid to this country, as I am sure all noble Lords will agree.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom
Does the noble Lord not agree, though, that if somebody did something as impudent as that, measures would be taken to take their grant away?
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
I do not think they would be in a position to do that. If farmers were forced to do that, it would be a very good thing for those of us who wish to leave the European Union.
On Amendment 61D, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, he worries about the provision not having enough teeth to ensure that the European Commission behaves itself—which, of course, I forecast it will not. One could add on Report a clause which says that any money the European Union does spend in this regard can be deducted from the £12.5 billion net that we are sending to Brussels at the moment. Perhaps we can get the money back that way.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
I was concerned not about the money but about the expenditure taking place within the campaign, which was breaching the rules of purdah—that is, the use of the money, rather than the actual amount.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
I accept that; but if they knew they were going to lose the money if they spent it, they might be less inclined to spend it.
Lord Collins of Highbury
Of course, in the other place the Opposition resisted strongly the disapplication of purdah provisions and the other place agreed with that. Therefore, our position is quite clear. Obviously, however, Clause 6 was agreed to in the other place. I hear what the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, is saying, but I am not sure that I quite understood his interpretation of the noble Baroness’s remarks. There is clear indication that there is no intention to lay regulations. There may be a risk, but we do not know: there are unforeseen circumstances. I am assuming that Clause 6 will be retained, and we would support that if it enables the Government to respond to something unforeseen. I assume that is what the noble Baroness is saying, and that is why we would support that. I am certainly sympathetic to the views expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
Before the noble Lord leaves that point, could he give one example of something that might justify making the regulations?
Lord Collins of Highbury
I fear I might sound like Donald Rumsfeld if I did—talking about the unknown unknowns and the known unknowns—and I will resist the temptation. I will leave it in the capable hands of the Minister to give those examples.
However, this group of amendments gives rise to some issues, including how we define the actions of Ministers and special advisers, and the question of acting in a personal capacity. I fear that all these things are incredibly difficult to prescribe, not least: when is a Minister not a Minister; when is a spad not a spad? What about when they are working at home at weekends? The situation is clear with matters such as having no government transport, or no paid facilities when campaigning.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom
The noble Lord asks, when is a spad not a spad? A special adviser is paid as a civil servant, so surely he should never get involved in matters such as a referendum.
Lord Collins of Highbury
The difficulty is in the name itself. A special political adviser is not like a civil servant, though they are governed by certain Civil Service rules. Let us talk about Ministers—when is a Minister not a Minister? Such things are very difficult to legislate on, so there are problems. When special advisers are members of political parties, they are often engaged in political discussions. It seems very difficult to legislate in this Bill about how we govern them.
A good point is being made about the question of EU institutions. The Electoral Commission, which the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, has quoted, has said that although we cannot necessarily legislate about these things, we can ensure that there is clear guidance agreed between the parties. That is a good idea.
On Amendment 55, we would appreciate the Minister repeating her assurances that normal business can be conducted and that the requirements of Section 125 will not impinge on that. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, has quoted the Electoral Commission, which is satisfied that the Scottish and Welsh Governments and the Northern Ireland Executive are covered by the requirements of Section 125. However, the noble Lord made a very good point about regulations and sanctions. In fact, the perpetrators do not get fined—it is the victims who get fined and the taxpayers who pay for the offence. That is something we need to look into, but I am pretty certain that clauses in a Bill are not the appropriate way to do so. We have had debates recently about the Ministerial Code. Perhaps we could table another quick amendment to ensure that what is required of Ministers is clear. That could also apply to Civil Service codes. It is within the powers of the Government to act on what the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, is seeking, without necessarily supporting his amendment.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, in my opening speech to this group of amendments I set out the Government’s position on Section 125 of PPERA and Clause 6 of the EU Referendum Bill. This is a complicated group of amendments, so I suggest that I take them sequentially as much as possible. I will further elucidate the position on Clause 6. In particular, the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, has assisted the debate today and I am grateful to him—I know that it was his intention to facilitate a debate in the House in a constructive way.
Amendment 38, tabled in the name of my noble friend Lord Hamilton, relates to the involvement of Ministers, departments and local authorities in activities for referendum purposes in the 28 days before the referendum. I can assure my noble friend that his proposed amendment duplicates to a certain extent provisions already included in the Bill.
Section 125 of PPERA places restrictions on publicly funded bodies and persons from publishing certain material in relation to the referendum in the final 28 days of the campaign. The restrictions of this section will apply, in full, following an amendment made on Report in the other place, which was referred to by noble Lords. These restrictions will apply not only to Ministers, government departments and local authorities, but also to other publicly funded persons and bodies. The Government have consistently been clear that we will not undertake any campaigning activity during the 28-day restricted period.
In addition, Ministers and civil servants, including special advisers, are subject to purdah guidance which will be issued in advance of the restricted period. This guidance will reflect the statutory provisions. Special advisers are covered. In line with long-standing precedent and convention, this guidance will make it clear that Ministers and civil servants, including special advisers, will not undertake campaign-related activity during the 28-day period. I hope my noble friend will understand that we do not support his amendment as it specifically relates to special advisers. It is already there—it is dealt with by Section 125.
Ministers acting in their official capacity, advised by special advisers and other civil servants, will be prohibited from publishing certain material in relation to the referendum in the final 28 days of the campaign. A publication by a special adviser on behalf of a Minister would also be covered by the prohibition. The role of special advisers is set out in the special advisers’ code of conduct. This code includes clear provisions in respect of special advisers’ involvement in national political activity. They will be subject to the purdah guidance that will be issued to departments ahead of the 28-day restricted period. Any campaign activity that might be undertaken by special advisers must be in their own time, outside office hours and without the use of government resources. They cannot think they can do it while on annual leave; that does not work. If a special adviser wanted to campaign full time or publicly, they would first have to resign from their government post. It is right that special advisers are able to undertake other activity in their own time and without the use of official resources. My noble friend’s Amendment 38 would inhibit their ability to do so and we believe it would place unfair restrictions on this particular group. I hope my noble friend will understand that I do not support his Amendment 38.
My noble friend’s Amendment 39 relates to the role of the EU institutions. It seeks to prevent the EU institution donating to permitted participants or directly campaigning at the EU referendum. Turning first to the issue of donations, I understand my noble friend’s concerns. This is a debate about the UK’s membership of the EU, and we need sensible controls on who can spend money to influence the outcome. As we have already discussed on previous groups, PPERA provides controls on spending and on foreign funding of permitted participants. Broadly speaking, the list of those eligible to donate to permitted participants is the same as the list of permissible donors to political parties as set out in PPERA. However, we have extended the list to take account of the inclusion of Gibraltar in this referendum and to include the bodies that since the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act have been eligible to become third-party campaigners at elections. Significantly, this means that permitted participants cannot accept donations of more than £500 from anyone who is not a permissible donor. The list of permissible donors does not include the European institutions. My noble friend referred to the European Communities Act 1972, but the provisions of that Act have no bearing on this. I can assure my noble friend that it does not provide the European institutions with a get-out. Permitted participants cannot accept donations of more than £500 from the EU institutions. It is banned.
My noble friend’s amendment aims further to prevent the EU institutions, including the European Commission, campaigning at the referendum. I am sure my noble friend is aware that under the European Union Referendum Bill the EU institutions are not on the list of those eligible to register as a permitted participant. In relation to campaigning, the Bill does not place controls on the activities of the EU institutions directly, which I know is my noble friend’s concern. That is because our national legislation does not regulate behaviour outside our jurisdiction, but also because if the institutions are operating within our jurisdiction, they are afforded immunities and privileges under EU law. We recognise my noble friend’s concern, which is shared by others, but we believe that the best way to prevent the EU institutions influencing the outcome of the referendum is through a process of constructive dialogue. I can assure the Committee that Ministers are already deeply involved in just that.
I now turn to the amendments which relate to Clause 6. I shall again go sequentially for the moment and then deal with Clause 6 as a whole. I have already explained the history of what happened to Clause 6, so I shall not weary the Committee by doing it again. My noble friend Lord Hamilton has expressed further concern about the clause. He explained that Amendment 52 provides that the Government must obtain the consent of the Electoral Commission before making regulations under Clause 6. The clause as it stands requires Ministers to consult the Electoral Commission prior to making regulations. This is consistent with other provisions in electoral law that require the Electoral Commission to be consulted on proposed legislative changes. However, Ministers are not obliged to obtain the Electoral Commission’s agreement, and we do not think it is necessary to take a different approach for the EU referendum.
My noble friend Lord Hamilton tabled Amendment 54, which removes subsection (8), to ensure that we do not go back on our word that we will not reintroduce the exemption from purdah. As I understand it, he thinks that subsection (8) would give the Government the opportunity to reinstate the original exemption from purdah. I assure him that the way Clause 6 is drafted means that the subsection he is worried about would give powers to act only in matters not related to Section 125 or to matters of purdah. We do not intend to abolish purdah. Subsection (8) simply does not give the Government the power to do that.
My noble friend Lord Forsyth kindly indicated that he would not proceed with Amendment 53, so I hope he will allow me not to cover that now. He asked me for clarification on my statement at the beginning with regard to the proposals about Clause 6. I repeat that we do not plan to bring forward any regulations under the provisions of Clause 6. At the moment, we do not see the eventuality where we would wish to do so. We have considered this very carefully, and I will refer to that again when I refer to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr. I shall subsume the two amendments.
Amendment 55, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, seeks to ensure that normal government business, including business between the Government and the EU institutions, is not covered by the restrictions that will apply to the Government in the final 28 days. The noble Lord has given the Government the opportunity again to look very carefully at the estimate of the level of risk to government business. I can assure the Committee that the Government have been considering these matters very carefully since the consideration in the House of Commons at Third Reading earlier this autumn. We have considered this in great detail from that moment, we continue to do so and we listened to this House at Second Reading. The Government agree that there is a risk that Section 125 may give rise to legal challenge because it is so widely drawn. That is still our position. We tabled an amendment in the other place, which was not accepted, and we live with that decision by another place.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
Can my noble friend give us an example of something unexpected that might happen that could justify using these powers?
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, I just referred to the fact that a Government must have care for the security of their public. I therefore think it would be unwise to venture into any speculation on what that might be.
I ought to say, out of courtesy to my noble friends Lord Forsyth and Lord Hamilton, a word about Amendments 56 and 57—more than a word or two, by the look of this. Both Amendments 56 and 57 provide that the restrictions on publications and certain material in Section 125 also apply to the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive and to Welsh and Scottish Ministers as well as Ministers in Northern Ireland.
Amendment 61A, tabled in the name of my noble friend Lord Forsyth, provides for the Electoral Commission to propose a surcharge. I beg his pardon; my noble friend explained that he tabled his amendment because of Amendment 61A. I will come to his amendment later because it is rather different from that of my noble friend Lord Hamilton.
I can assure my noble friends Lord Forsyth and Lord Hamilton that we do not believe there is a need for clarification because Section 125 already applies to the devolved Administrations and Ministers in those Administrations, because they fall within the definition of persons or bodies whose expenses are met wholly or mainly from public funds. Therefore, Section 160 of the PPERA provides a definition of public funds that includes payments made out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom, the Scottish Consolidated Fund, the Welsh Consolidated Fund or the Consolidated Fund of Northern Ireland. Therefore, it really is clear that there is no need for this amendment.
I know that my noble friend Lord Hamilton referred to Amendment 57—which seeks to place restrictions in Section 125 on the Government of Gibraltar—as being for the avoidance of doubt, but Amendment 45 in my name, which refers to the Government of Gibraltar, modifies Section 125 for the purposes of a referendum so that the restrictions apply to the Government of Gibraltar, a government department of Gibraltar or any other body wholly or mainly funded from Gibraltar public funds. Therefore, my Amendment 45 should please my noble friend because it delivers what he wants. I can assure the Committee that the Government of Gibraltar, like the devolved Administrations and their Ministers, will therefore be subject to the restrictions in Section 125.
My noble friend Lord Forsyth also seeks to place restrictions under Section 125 on publications by the European Commission. Amendment 61D, in my noble friend’s name, seeks to achieve a similar end and place a dialogue between the Government and European Union institutions on a statutory basis, rather than the procedure I have already outlined. My noble friend would require the Government to seek a voluntary assurance from the EU institutions that they will comply with the provisions of Section 125.
I am not convinced that it is appropriate to make a statutory provision for voluntary assurance, but I can assure my noble friend that the Government will continue, as I mentioned earlier, to work with the EU institutions to prevent undue influence. Decision on our membership of the EU is rightly a matter for us—for the British public alone. Some of my ministerial colleagues and officials have been engaging with their counterparts in the European Union to explain that this is a question for the British people. The Bill makes that clear by omitting the institutions and foreign Governments from the list of permissible donors. I can say to my noble friend that we have received reassurances that the European Commission understands that this is a matter for the British people, and they will take no active part in the campaign.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
My noble friend said I want to make Amendment 61D statutory. All it says is that the Government should have discussions with the European Union’s institutions—which my noble friend says we are doing—but that the Secretary of State should lay before each House of Parliament a copy of any agreement that could be concluded. Can my noble friend give an undertaking that the terms of the agreement that has been reached with the European Union should be made available to both Houses of Parliament?
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
The reason I say that my noble friend’s provision was intended to be statutory is in the very nature of an amendment; if it were go to go into the Bill, it would become statutory. My noble friend makes a request about what information may be available from the European Commission. I will look very carefully at that, to see what is already available and what we may achieve over the coming months. It is a reasonable request from my noble friend, and I will see what may be done. Clearly, there are circumstances in which discussions are going ahead from which a public document has not been produced, but if we are in a position where there is a public one, I will certainly do my best to provide that to my noble friend and to other noble Lords who are interested.
I ought to add, in parenthesis, that European officials are clearly aware of how counterproductive an intervention from Brussels might be, whatever it is. They will be taking clear account of that.
Amendment 61A, in the name of my noble friend Lord Forsyth, provides that the Electoral Commission should impose a surcharge if any body or person to which Section 125 applies breaches the restrictions in that section. I understand entirely what my noble friend seeks to do. He feels that there should be an immediate punishment rather than judicial review, but I say to him that the Electoral Commission has no role in the enforcement of Section 125. The Electoral Commission has made it absolutely clear that it does not welcome such a role. We consider the current arrangements sufficient—that where a breach of Section 125 might happen it should be subject to judicial review—but I certainly hear what my noble friend says. Even if I am not able to come to a conclusion that helps him, I will certainly look at that again to see if there is something that can avoid judicial review.
These matters have already been considered on many occasions, and it has not yet been possible to find a way of doing it succinctly. I can see that my noble friend wishes to intervene.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
I am most grateful to my noble friend for that offer. She is being a little selective in quoting the Electoral Commission. It is true that it does not want the task of surcharging elected people, and one can see why it might recoil from that, but it is also true that it has said that the present position, where there is no sanction for people who breach purdah, is unsatisfactory and it has suggested that the Government should consider that. I would be grateful if my noble friend could come back on Report, because, clearly, if the Electoral Commission is saying that this is a paper tiger, it is certainly not acceptable.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, as I have said, we always listen very carefully to the views of noble Lords and consider the results of debates here. I hope I have been able to reassure noble Lords that we are trying to deal with the concerns that they have expressed. I know that it has been a long debate but it is one about which noble Lords felt very deeply. I therefore commend Amendment 35, which is in my name, and invite other noble Lords not to move their amendments when they are called.
“14A Schedule 13 to the 2000 Act (expenses that are referendum expenses where incurred for referendum purposes) has effect for the purposes of the referendum as if in paragraph 2(a) after “public funds” there were inserted “or Gibraltar public funds”.”
“( ) In relation to a donation in the form of a bequest sub-paragraph (3)(a) is to be read as referring to an individual who was, at any time within the period of 5 years ending with the date of the individual’s death, a Gibraltar elector.”
“Financial limit on certain donations etc to registered parties other than minor parties23A (1) This paragraph applies where the permitted maximum is exceeded by the aggregate value of—
(a) relevant donations which are received and accepted, and(b) relevant regulated transactions which are entered into,during the referendum period by a permitted participant that is a registered party other than a minor party.(2) Each of the relevant donations and relevant regulated transactions falling within sub-paragraph (3) is to be treated for the purposes of Parts 4 and 4A of the 2000 Act (as modified by paragraphs 22 and 23 of this Schedule and paragraphs 10 to 13 of Schedule 2) as if—
(a) it had been received or entered into, as the case may be, at the end of the period of 3 months after the end of the referendum period,(b) in the case of a relevant donation, it had been received from a person who was not a permissible donor at the time, and(c) in the case of a relevant regulated transaction, it had been entered into with a person who was not an authorised participant at the time. (3) A relevant donation or relevant regulated transaction falls within this sub-paragraph—
(a) if—(i) it is the first of the relevant donations received or is the only one,(ii) no relevant regulated transaction has previously been entered into, and(iii) the value of the donation alone exceeds the permitted maximum,(b) if it is the first of the relevant regulated transactions entered into or is the only one, and the value of the transaction alone exceeds the permitted maximum, or(c) in a case not falling within paragraph (a) or (b), if the aggregate value of the relevant donation or relevant regulated transaction and the relevant donations and relevant regulated transactions previously received or entered into exceeds the permitted maximum.(4) But—
(a) in the case of a relevant donation within sub-paragraph (3)(a), only so much of the donation as exceeds the permitted maximum is a donation falling within sub-paragraph (3), and(b) in the case of a relevant donation within sub-paragraph (3)(c) where the aggregate value of the relevant donations and relevant regulated transactions previously received or entered into does not exceed the permitted maximum, only so much of the donation as exceeds the difference between that aggregate value and the permitted maximum is a donation falling within sub-paragraph (3).(5) In this paragraph—
“authorised participant” means an authorised participant for the purposes of Part 4A of the 2000 Act;“permissible donor” means a permissible donor for the purposes of Part 4 of the 2000 Act;“permitted maximum”, in relation to a permitted participant, means an amount equal to the limit imposed on that permitted participant by paragraph 1(2) of Schedule 14 to the 2000 Act (as modified by paragraph 21 of this Schedule);“relevant donation” means a donation which is received from a person who is a permissible donor in relation to that donation by virtue of paragraph 22 of this Schedule;“relevant regulated transaction” means a transaction which—(a) is a regulated transaction for the purposes of Part 4A of the 2000 Act (see section 71F of that Act), and(b) is entered into with a person who is an authorised participant in relation to that transaction by virtue of paragraph 10 of Schedule 2.(6) In this paragraph—
(a) references to a donation and to the value of a donation have the same meaning as in Part 4 of the 2000 Act (see sections 50 and 53 of that Act), and(b) references to the value of a regulated transaction have the same meaning as in Part 4A of that Act (see section 71G of that Act).”
“24A Paragraph 4(1) of Schedule 15 to the 2000 Act (payments etc not to be regarded as donations) has effect for the purposes of the referendum as if after paragraph (a) there were inserted—
“(aa) any grant provided out of Gibraltar public funds;”.”
“(b) before paragraph (b) there were inserted— “(ab) section 56(2) shall have effect as if for the words from “by virtue” to the end of paragraph (b) there were substituted “by virtue of paragraph 6(1) of Schedule 15, or which it is decided that the party should for any other reason refuse, then—(a) unless the donation falls within paragraph 6(1)(b) of Schedule 15, the donation, or a payment of an equivalent amount, must be sent back to the person who made the donation or any person appearing to be acting on his behalf, and (b) if the donation falls within that provision, the required steps (as defined by section 57(1)) must be taken in relation to the donation,”; and”, and(c) at the end of paragraph (b) there were inserted “; and(c) section 58(1) shall have effect as if in paragraph (a) for the words from “by virtue” to “party” there were substituted “by virtue of paragraph 6(1)(a) or (b) of Schedule 15, the party”.””
“Application to Gibraltar public bodies of restriction on publication of promotional material31A (1) Section 125 of the 2000 Act (restriction on publication etc of promotional material by central and local government etc) has effect for the purposes of the referendum with the following modifications.
(2) Subsection (2) has effect for those purposes as if after paragraph (a) there were inserted—
“(aa) the Government of Gibraltar or any Gibraltar government department; or”.(3) Subsection (2)(b) has effect for those purposes as if for the words from “wholly or mainly” to the end there were substituted “wholly or mainly—
(i) out of public funds or by any local authority; or(ii) out of Gibraltar public funds.”(4) Subsection (3) has effect for those purposes as if after “Sianel Pedwar Cymru” there were inserted “or the Gibraltar Broadcasting Corporation”.”
“Interpretation38 Section 160 of the 2000 Act (general interpretation) has effect for the purposes of the referendum as if the following subsection were inserted after subsection (4)—
“(4A) References in this Act (in whatever terms) to expenses met, or things provided, out of “Gibraltar public funds” are references to expenses met, or things provided, by means of—
(a) payments out of—(i) the Gibraltar consolidated fund; or(ii) monies voted by the Gibraltar Parliament; or(b) payments by the Government of Gibraltar or any Gibraltar government department.””
“Persons with whom certain registered parties may enter into loan agreements etc10 (1) Sub-paragraph (2) applies if—
(a) a permitted participant— (i) is a party to a transaction which is a regulated transaction for the purposes of Part 4A of the 2000 Act, or(ii) derives a benefit from a transaction which is a connected transaction for the purposes of that Part,(b) that transaction is entered into during the referendum period,(c) the permitted participant is a registered party that is not a minor party,(d) any of the other parties to the regulated transaction or any of the parties to the connected transaction (as the case may be) is a person (“the unauthorised person”) who, in relation to that transaction, is not an authorised participant for the purposes of Part 4A of the 2000 Act by virtue of section 71H of that Act, and(e) the unauthorised person is a person within sub-paragraph (3).(2) In relation to the transaction mentioned in sub-paragraph (1)(a)(i) or (ii), the unauthorised person is to be regarded for the purposes of Part 4A of the 2000 Act as an authorised participant.
(3) The persons within this sub-paragraph are—
(a) a Gibraltar elector;(b) a body falling within any of paragraphs (b) to (g) of section 54(2A) of the 2000 Act;(c) a body incorporated by Royal Charter which does not fall within section 54(2) of that Act;(d) a charitable incorporated organisation within the meaning of Part 11 of the Charities Act 2011 or Part 11 of the Charities Act (Northern Ireland) 2008;(e) a Scottish charitable incorporated organisation within the meaning of Chapter 7 of Part 1 of the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 (asp 10);(f) a partnership constituted under the law of Scotland which carries on business in the United Kingdom.(4) In this paragraph “Gibraltar elector” has the same meaning as in the 2000 Act (see section 160(1) of that Act).
11 Where paragraph 10 applies in relation to a transaction to which a permitted participant is a party, or from which a permitted participant derives a benefit, paragraph 2 of Schedule 6A to the 2000 Act (details to be given in quarterly reports) has effect as if—
(a) in sub-paragraph (1) for “(10)” there were substituted “(10C)”, and(b) the following sub-paragraphs were inserted after sub-paragraph (10)—“(10A) In the case of a body within paragraph 10(3)(c) of Schedule 2 to the European Union Referendum Act 2015 (body incorporated by Royal Charter) the report must give—
(a) the name of the body, and(b) the address of its main office in the United Kingdom.(10B) In the case of a body within paragraph 10(3)(d) or (e) of that Schedule (charitable incorporated organisation) the report must give—
(a) the name of the body, and(b) the address of its principal office.(10C) In the case of a body within paragraph 10(3)(f) of that Schedule (Scottish partnership) the report must give—
(a) the name of the body, and(b) the address of its main office in the United Kingdom.”12 (1) This paragraph applies to a variation of a regulated transaction if—
(a) the regulated transaction was entered into by a permitted participant during the referendum period,(b) the permitted participant is a registered party that is not a minor party,(c) one of the other parties to the regulated transaction is an authorised participant in relation to the transaction by virtue of paragraph 10 of this Schedule, and (d) the variation has the effect of increasing the value of the regulated transaction or enabling it to be increased. (2) It does not matter for the purposes of sub-paragraph (1)(d) when the variation is entered into or when the increase takes effect or could take effect.
(3) The variation is to be treated for the purposes of sections 71I(2) to (4) of the 2000 Act as a regulated transaction in which another participant is not an authorised participant.
(4) An order made under section 71I(4) of the 2000 Act in relation to a variation to which this paragraph applies may in particular—
(a) require that any amount owed as a result of the variation be repaid (and that no further sums be advanced under the terms of the variation);(b) where any additional security is provided under the terms of the variation, require that security to be discharged.(5) In this paragraph—
(a) “authorised participant” means an authorised participant for the purposes of Part 4A of the 2000 Act;(b) “regulated transaction” and references to the value of a regulated transaction have the same meaning as in Part 4A of the 2000 Act (see sections 71F and 71G of that Act).13 (1) Section 71L of the 2000 Act (offences relating to regulated transactions) has effect with the following modifications.
(2) In each of subsections (1)(a), (2)(b), (3)(a) and (4)(a), the reference to entering into a regulated transaction of a description mentioned in section 71F(2) or (3) in which another participant is not an authorised participant includes a reference to entering into a variation to which paragraph 12 of this Schedule applies.
(3) In relation to such a variation—
(a) subsection (3)(b) has effect as if for the words “that the other participant is not an authorised participant” there were substituted “of the matters mentioned in paragraph (a)”, and(b) subsections (3)(c), (4)(c) and (10) each have effect as if the reference to the transaction were to the variation.(4) In subsection (9), the reference to a regulated transaction with a person other than an authorised participant includes a reference to a variation to which paragraph 12 of this Schedule applies.”
Atrial Fibrillation
(8 years, 7 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Black of Brentwood
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to improve the diagnosis and management of atrial fibrillation.
Lord Black of Brentwood (Con)
My Lords, I am honoured to have the opportunity to lead a debate on an issue which affects hundreds of thousands of our citizens, and I am grateful to all noble Lords who are taking part.
I have an interest to declare in this subject, but not one you can find in the register. It is that for many years I have had a form of AF known as paroxysmal atrial fibrillation. It is brought on by a significant rush of adrenalin—not the sort, of course, which comes from listening to debates in your Lordships’ House but the sort which comes from sudden exertion. I am lucky, however. A doctor diagnosed AF when I was in the midst of an episode and referred me to a specialist. Regular monitoring and medication ensure that, so long as I am careful, I have no problems. Today’s debate is about those who are not so lucky, either because they are not diagnosed or because they are not getting the right treatment.
Atrial fibrillation is a heart condition that causes an irregular and often unusually fast heartbeat. It happens when abnormal electrical signals fire from the top chambers of the heart in a way which overrides the heart’s natural pacemaker. The causes of AF are not fully understood, but it affects up to 1.5 million people in the UK, including around one in 10 people aged over 65. It often runs alongside other cardiac conditions such as high blood pressure or clogged arteries.
There are various ways to manage the condition, including drug therapy, cardioversion from electric shocks and, if all else fails, ablation, where areas of the heart causing the abnormal heart rate are destroyed by radio frequency pulses. The use of one or all of these methods makes AF a condition that is manageable provided it is diagnosed—and that is a key point for this debate. For while AF can be extremely uncomfortable, producing palpitations, chest pains and dizziness as a result of the heart racing at well over 100 beats a minute, it can present no symptoms at all. That is when it is at its most dangerous. Undiagnosed and untreated, a heart that is not beating regularly can lead to the formation of blood clots inside it which can then enter the general circulation in a way that blocks arteries in the brain; in other words, the cause of a stroke.
Diagnosis of AF is therefore a crucial public health issue, as many people—perhaps up to 750,000 in the UK—are simply not aware they have it, significantly increasing their risk of a stroke. According to NICE, around 7,000 strokes a year, and 2,000 premature deaths, are likely to result from the failure to detect AF and treat it with anticoagulant drugs. As Professor Mark Baker, NICE’s director of clinical practice, said:
“This needs to change if we are to reduce the numbers of people with AF who die needlessly or suffer life-changing disability as a result of avoidable strokes”.
A good deal of progress has been made in recent years in dealing with this problem and I know how seriously the Department of Health and NHS England take it. I was enormously grateful to the former Health Minister, the noble Earl, Lord Howe, who met me to discuss it last year. I know that the Minister will take that work forward, and I look forward to hearing from him this evening what progress has been made in a number of areas, three of which I will highlight.
The first is improving diagnosis. In many ways, this could not be simpler, because it can be done through a plain old manual pulse check at an ordinary GP appointment. The irregular heartbeat is easy to feel; the examination takes seconds to do; and it is of course completely painless—one of those genuine occasions when, when the GP says, “This will not hurt”, it does not.
Given that there is nothing like a practical demonstration, I can even show noble Lords how quick and easy it is. Next Tuesday morning, I shall host a drop-in event in association with AntiCoagulation Europe and Bayer HealthCare, where parliamentarians can come and get their pulse checked by an expert doctor who will be able to talk about this issue and advise on any irregularities in colleagues’ pulses. I hope that there will not be many of them, but it pays to be on the safe side, so I invite noble Lords to come along to Room G between 10 am and l pm to see what I mean.
Given that diagnosis is so easy and effective, why is a manual pulse check not routine, especially for over-65s? The reason is that the UK National Screening Committee, part of Public Health England, recommended in a report in June 2014 that it is,
“uncertain that screening will do more good than harm … because … treatment and care for people with AF is not optimal”.
Given that we are talking about a simple test that saves lives, I do not believe that the quality of existing services—which have been improving but perhaps not rapidly enough—should be cited as a compelling reason not to introduce screening for AF. We need to do what we can, of course, to ensure that care becomes “optimal”, but, in the mean time, we should not endanger people who are unaware that they have this condition by failing to test them. Will the Minister join me in calling on Public Health England and the National Screening Committee to review this recommendation?
Once AF is diagnosed, it needs effectively to be treated. Some patients with AF need anticoagulation therapy to stop their blood clotting and reduce their risk of an AF-related stroke. Identifying those patients is not always straightforward but has been made much easier by the introduction of a new tool for GP practices called GRASP-AF, which helps identify patients at risk by assisting GPs to interrogate their clinical data. GRASP-AF is being rolled out across England, but data suggest that only about one-third of GP practices are using it. I would be grateful if the Minister could update us on the rollout of this programme and on what his department is doing to ensure that GPs most effectively assess AF patients’ risk of stroke.
My final point relates to the anticoagulant drugs that are used to treat AF where this is judged necessary by a GP or consultant. The most widely used treatment option in this area is warfarin, which has been deployed for over 50 years and has undoubtedly saved many lives. However, as many noble Lords will know, it is not an ideal drug, as it requires regular monitoring and dose adjustments to ensure that it is working properly, usually in a specialist anticoagulation clinic. This is a problem for those in full-time work, and often difficult for elderly or immobile people. My late father was on warfarin for the last few years of his life, and, as he was to all intents and purposes housebound, his regular tests became very complex and stressful for both my parents.
On top of that, many foods can interfere with warfarin or alter its effects, along with alcohol and some medicines. In other words, it is far from ideal. Warfarin is one of the most common causes of drug-related adverse events and is responsible for about 6% of all fatal and severe drug-related incidents. This is a terrible cost in lives and a substantial financial cost to the NHS. Many GPs therefore do not like prescribing it, and I can understand why. As a result, they either do not treat the condition at all—and audit data suggest that 46% of AF patients who should be on treatment to prevent blood clots are not—or they treat it with aspirin, which is not recommended by NICE.
Yet there is an effective alternative to warfarin in the form of novel oral anticoagulants, or NOACs. These drugs were developed specifically to overcome the limitations of warfarin which I have just described and are recommended by NICE as clinically effective for stroke prevention in AF as well as being cost-effective for the taxpayer. Treatment of AF through NOACs significantly improves a patient’s quality of life because it does not require routine monitoring or ongoing dose changes; it does not entail dietary restrictions; and it provides predictable, stable and regular levels of anticoagulation. Against that background, it would be advantageous both for patients and for the taxpayer if the use of NOACs was more widespread. However, at the moment, data from NHS England show that only 11% of anticoagulants prescribed are NOACs—possibly because of lack of clinical awareness and confidence in using them rather than warfarin, or because NICE guidance is being implemented too slowly.
Under the NHS constitution, patients should have access to the full range of treatment options recommended by NICE, but at the moment that does not seem to be the case. Will the Minister tell us what action is being taken to ensure that more patients have access to NOACs, in line with NICE guidance, and to reduce variations in their use across the country? For instance, might he consider providing specific support for clinical commissioning groups with the lowest rate of NOAC use, to ensure that patients in those areas have better access to treatment?
I greatly look forward greatly to the contributions of noble Lords this evening. This is no peripheral health issue, but one of real importance to the lives of hundreds of thousands of individuals and their families. Great progress has been made in recent years, but, thanks to the development of new drugs and new technology, more can be done. This is an occasion when a tiny hand on the tiller by my noble friend could mean significant further advances in diagnosis and treatment, with real public health benefits. I hope that our debate tonight will gently nudge the noble Lord in the direction of that tiller and lead to life-saving changes.
Baroness Murphy (CB)
My Lords, I am delighted to support the noble Lord, Lord Black of Brentwood, in his campaign to get better recognition for the causes and treatment of atrial fibrillation. I am interested because I have spent a good part of my professional life as a psychiatrist working with elderly people suffering the emotional and neuropsychological aftermath of serious stroke. It makes me hopping mad to come across people who still have atrial fibrillation after they have been treated for their stroke and have then come on for further psychiatric treatment. It is a tragedy to recognise that they still have the atrial fibrillation that could be treated to prevent a further stroke.
I am now retired from clinical practice and I understand that things have improved. It is now much more likely that patients will arrive with appropriate treatment. I congratulate this Government, the previous coalition Government and the Government before that, on supporting the major stroke initiative that has led to much better targeted care of people with stroke, from access and recognition of stroke right through to focused centres and better outcomes in mortality and morbidity. We are making good progress, but there is still much more to be done.
Atrial fibrillation is extremely easy to diagnose, as the noble Lord, Lord Black, said. If you are treating a lot of elderly patients every day, it is very nice to sit down and gently feel their pulse, right at the beginning. This breaks the ice and is a very good way of making contact with an elderly patient you might not know very well. We are now getting to the point when we are joining the elderly generation. Some of us are already well into that period of life. The time has come when we are the patients who need to know about atrial fibrillation and know when we have an irregular pulse. We are the ones who need to understand. The population increasingly understands the causes of stroke and what to look for. We can teach people, with education and public information, how to feel their own pulse. Most people already know; it is so easy, so there is no problem there.
I agree that there is a problem with the drugs. I went to see an elderly friend of mine who was also a doctor in her time and is now 90. She has a touch of atrial fibrillation and she said, “I will take anything except that rat poison”. I told her that she was taking a bit of a risk but she said, “I have discussed it with my doctor, but my next-door neighbour has just died of a cerebral haemorrhage. Are you really going to subject me to that risk as well?”. There are now four new drugs on the market, some of which have been around for about two years, but the problem is that they do not diminish the risk of haemorrhage. We need to discuss the risk with individual patients, but patients are still having to think through whether or not they really want a drug when the side-effect risks are huge.
I have been speaking for four minutes, so I will shut up, but my final point is that we need to take heart from some of the newer treatments. Left atrial appendage ablation, which is available in the States now, and is coming here, is the way forward for the future.
Lord Rennard (LD)
My Lords, I draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Lords’ Interests. I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Black of Brentwood, on securing this important debate. Approximately 900,000 people in England have been diagnosed with atrial fibrillation, or AF, and there are perhaps half a million people here with the condition who have not yet been diagnosed. The condition causes an irregular heartbeat and it is one of the most important risk factors for stroke, contributing to one in five strokes. If left untreated, AF increases the risk of stroke fivefold.
AF-related strokes are often more severe, with higher mortality and greater disability arising from them than from other strokes. The Global Burden of Disease Study in 2013 suggested that atrial fibrillation and atrial flutter resulted in 112,000 deaths in 2013, compared to 29,000 in 1990. So it is a growing problem. Treatment with anticoagulants significantly reduces the risk of stroke in people with AF, but according to the Stroke Association, almost half of all the people in the UK with AF are not receiving the full anticoagulation treatment which significantly reduces the risk of stroke.
The issues for us to consider, and for the Minister to respond to, must therefore begin with the question of whether greater attempts at screening, which could enable early diagnosis, could be justified in terms of lives saved. Patients often do not feel any symptoms when their heart rate changes. There are many causes of this but not all of them are obvious. Can we simply rely on many people turning up at their doctors with other concerns leading to the identification of this condition? For those who are diagnosed, is enough being done to promote these anticoagulation treatments, including those most recently developed?
Surveys suggest that patient access to novel oral anticoagulants is lower than should be expected, highly variable across the country and much lower than in other European countries. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence produced an excellent atrial fibrillation quality standard in July, which was endorsed by the Department of Health. But there is real doubt over whether that standard is being properly applied uniformly and in a timely fashion. The evidence suggests not.
An NHS Improving Quality report estimates that just over half of people with AF are getting drug treatment in line with the recently updated best practice guidelines. A year ago, it produced a report which suggested that better care of people with AF could help prevent an additional 11,600 strokes and save the NHS as much as £124 million per year. It also suggested that full implementation of new best practice guidelines could prevent almost 28,000 strokes each year and lead to overall savings of £293 million for the NHS in England.
I hope the Minister will respond positively by telling us that there will be rapid progress towards full implementation of these best practice guidelines.
Baroness Masham of Ilton (CB)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Black of Brentwood, for this debate and for his ongoing questions to the Government on atrial fibrillation. Both my late husband and one of my best friends had irregular heartbeats. I used to check their pulses and told them that they must get checked out for atrial fibrillation, but their doctors did not take these abnormalities seriously. This is why I strongly support this debate on improving the diagnosis and management of AF.
I declare an interest as the vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Atrial Fibrillation. I am pleased to tell your Lordships that there is to be a meeting tomorrow in Portcullis House on transformation of AF services following NICE clinical guideline 180 and what it will mean for patients. It is good to have these specialising all-party groups to help to make Parliament aware of the many needs.
My husband had a stroke while watching a cricket match on TV and I knew exactly what was happening. Neglect in the local hospital, bleeds, clots and diabetes followed. It was a nightmare. If strokes can be avoided, that must be a priority. Prevention is much better than cure because so often there is not one. We need to prioritise prevention. Sadly, many people with AF are not diagnosed and many who have been diagnosed do not receive the anticoagulation treatment that they need. It has been estimated that as many as 700,000 people in the UK may be undiagnosed. Improving access to the full range of anticoagulation therapies would bring benefits to patients and the NHS.
For many years, I have felt that basic first aid should be taught in all schools to pupils above a certain age. Taking the pulse manually should be commonplace. I have been amazed that so many people cannot take their pulse. With so much talk about self-management and self-care, surely it is time to show everyone the way with basic training. Does the Minister think that all GPs have read the NICE guidelines on AF? If they have, why are they still prescribing aspirin?
I congratulate the Stroke Association on all that it is doing to help with AF. If all the estimated 1.4 million people with AF in England were detected and adequately treated, an estimated 16,000 strokes could be prevented every year. In addition to reducing mortality and severe disability, additional health and social care costs could be avoided. The NHS alone could save £130 million with appropriate detection and treatment of AF. I hope that the Minister will give us some encouragement. It is a very important issue.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con)
My Lords, I suppose I should declare an interest. Some years ago I was told that I had mild atrial fibrillation—it might have been named intermittent. Now, it is clearly stated that I have permanent atrial fibrillation. I am aware of this diagnosis and the fact that it means my heart is less efficient. Noble Lords have heard everything from everyone else about that. I take Warfarin daily to keep my international normalised ratio within appropriate levels recommended by my cardiologist. It seems to be effective, but regular monitoring through blood tests is required to ensure that my INR remains as it should. The test is straightforward and involves a finger prick to obtain a blood sample, which is put into a reading system that provides the answer. The dosage of tablets is then increased or decreased to correct an unsuitable reading. It is the sort of test that people with diabetes—particularly type 2—need to carry out several times a day.
Yesterday, I discussed this with a distinguished Member of your Lordships’ House who has been in exactly this position—as a type 2 diabetic—for some years. He said he gets warnings: when he feels that he is getting muddled, that means that his blood sugar is low and it is time for another test. If he is feeling slothful and lethargic, his blood sugar is high. He has to do this test up to five times a day and carries out these procedures himself; he has no problems with this. Why is it that individuals requiring very similar blood tests for atrial fibrillation are not able to do their own tests in this same way?
Over the years, I have raised this question, especially with my noble friend Lord Howe. In his days as Health Minister, he told me that it would be logical for those who wished to self-test to do so. I was informed that this would help to reduce National Health Service workload, and sure enough, the INR clinics are always very busy and in demand in most of the major hospitals and in many general practices. The NHS supported self-help, according to my noble friend. In that case, why is there not more self-monitoring for atrial fibrillation? Is this still the case?
For some years, manufacturers of self-test appliances have provided demonstrations in the House of the simplicity and effectiveness of the process. There would be considerable savings for the NHS if patients bought their own machines—I believe that many would—and the NHS provided the small disposable items needed for the tests, such as finger-prickers and solutions. At present, different areas of the NHS provide others with different items. In some areas, the situation is very unsatisfactory for those who feel they should have access to these items. If there were just one system and all the patients therefore had the same choices, there would be a considerable saving.
Mention has been made of the drugs that could be taken instead of Warfarin. My cardiologist said, “Don’t do that”, because the good thing about Warfarin is that its effects are reversible if you suddenly find that your reading is much too high or too low. However, the effects of these new tablets—which have been referred to as NOACs—are not reversible. You have to wait until the body gets rid of them, so there is a time-lag and the situation could become quite dangerous.
In Australia, children born with heart conditions have such machines loaned to them, so that all the treatment can be administered at home. Again, that is very important. My noble friend Lord Black mentioned the difficulty a lot of people face in getting to a hospital. I hope the Minister will support the view that there should be access to self-monitoring.
Lord Rea (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Black: he has done us all a service by bringing atrial fibrillation before us. It is not the first time it has been debated in the House, but it is very relevant. Like him, I suffer from the condition of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation. What he and many other people have said more or less follows what I have prepared; I agree with nearly everything that has been said so far. Atrial fibrillation is on the increase and is a really serious problem, in that it can cause a stroke.
It is also relevant that I am a former GP who has treated a number of people with atrial fibrillation, but that was some years ago and we did not have the tools and medications—the drugs—that we have now. Some of my information, therefore, has been gained through reading rather than practice.
Atrial fibrillation increases with age, so it is not surprising that a number of your Lordships suffer from it. Some of us may not even be aware of it, as has been said, since it gives rise to quite mild symptoms and sometimes none. Sometimes it is continuous, but sometimes it is episodic or paroxysmal. Treatment consists of measures to detect and, as far as possible, correct any conditions that might underlie the atrial fibrillation—and there are quite a few—and then to restore normal rhythm, if possible, with drugs, electrical cardioversion, or surgical ablation, as has been mentioned. Most important is the prescription of suitable anticoagulants to minimise the formation in the left atrium of clots, which can be carried around the body, block an artery and deprive an area of the brain of its blood supply, leading to an ischaemic stroke. A stroke caused by atrial fibrillation is often more serious than one from other causes, so it is particularly important to detect it as soon as possible and start treatment with effective anticoagulation. Until recently, this was not emphasised adequately by clinicians and the standard drug used was inadequate—low-dose aspirin.
Trials have shown that more powerful anticoagulants have a measurably better effect than aspirin in reducing embolic stroke. The first of these, as has been said, is Warfarin—rat poison—which inhibits vitamin k action, an essential part of the clotting process. It is remarkably cheap, and its cost is amply repaid by the savings incurred by the National Health Service that it gives rise to through stopping atrial fibrillation-related stroke. I take warfarin, like the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner. My condition is under control, but having to be tested from time to time is a nuisance. I thoroughly agree with the suggestion that self-monitoring should be made available. The instruments cost about £200.
The main trouble with warfarin is that it takes some time for its effects to cease, and it can cause internal bleeding. If such bleeding occurs and cannot be brought down quickly, that is a worry. Despite what the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, said, NOACs allow the clotting time to increase quite rapidly after stopping taking them, so they are safer than warfarin.
On detection, it is very important, as has been said, to find the cases that do not have much in the way of symptoms. I will say a few words on that. Sadly, detection has been woefully inadequate up to now. That may be simply because the doctor or nurse has failed to take the patient’s pulse.
Lord Colwyn (Con)
My Lords, everything that could be said probably has been. I declare an interest as a member of both the AF APPG and the stroke APPG. We have meetings tomorrow, as we have heard. I also have personal experience of living with AF for many years.
Atrial fibrillation is the most common sustained cardiac arrhythmia and estimates suggest that its prevalence is increasing. If left untreated, atrial fibrillation is a significant risk factor for stroke and other morbidities. Men are more commonly affected than women and prevalence increases with age.
It has been suggested that AF can be detected by a simple pulse check. I have found that a pulse check should be verified with an oximeter. It is difficult to self-diagnose irregular cardiac rhythms that are often in excess of 150 beats per minute without the use of an oximeter. Perhaps that is what the GRASP machine is; I had not heard of it before. AF affects around 1 million people in the UK. Sometimes the condition does not cause any symptoms and a person with it may not be aware that their heart rate is irregular. It is important that AF is diagnosed so that medical practitioners can decide when active treatment is needed.
The aim of treatment is to prevent complications, particularly stroke, and to alleviate symptoms. Drug treatments include anticoagulants, to reduce the risk of stroke, and antiarrhythmics, to restore or maintain the normal heart rhythm or to slow the heart rate in people who remain in atrial fibrillation. Non-pharmacological management includes electrical cardioversion, which may be used to shock the heart back to its normal rhythm, and catheter or surgical ablation to create lesions to stop the normal electrical impulses that cause atrial fibrillation. I have had both of these techniques.
There are also new updated guidelines that address several clinical areas in which new evidence has become available, including stroke and bleeding risk stratification, the role of new antithrombotic agents, and ablation strategies. The recommendations apply to adults—those aged 18 years or older—with atrial fibrillation, including paroxysmal, persistent and permanent atrial fibrillation, and atrial flutter. They do not apply to people with congenital heart disease precipitating atrial fibrillation.
Sadly, many people with AF are not diagnosed and many who have been diagnosed do not receive the anticoagulation treatment that they need. Between April 2014 and March 2015 only 38% of patients with diagnosed AF who were admitted to hospital with a stroke were being treated with anticoagulants. It has been estimated that as many as 700,000 people in the UK may have undiagnosed AF.
In recent years several anticoagulants, known collectively as non-vitamin K antagonists, have been recommended by NICE. Under the NHS constitution, patients should have access to the full range of treatment options recommended by NICE. However, data from NHS England reveal that only 11% of patients being prescribed anticoagulation are receiving these treatments. Improving access to the full range of anticoagulation therapies would bring benefits to patients and the NHS. The Government have estimated that up to 7,100 AF-related strokes could be prevented annually if everyone with AF were appropriately managed.
Since 2012 four novel oral anticoagulants have been recommended by NICE as both clinically effective and cost-effective for the prevention of strokes in patients with AF. These treatments should now be available to all patients whose doctors wish to prescribe them. Their use is increasing, but it is lower than expected. All healthcare professionals caring for people on anticoagulation therapy should be familiar with the full range of treatment options. Despite having a NICE recommendation as being clinically effective and cost-effective, many GPs appear to lack confidence in the use of NOACs to prevent AF-related strokes.
Lord Plant of Highfield (Lab)
My Lords, most of what needed to be said has been said. I echo everything that noble Lords have said about the initiative by the noble Lord, Lord Black, and I am very pleased that he called for this debate. Like other noble Lords, I have had AF for a very long time—20 years or more—and I have been taking warfarin every day, along with a low-dose aspirin, for 20 years. This medication was changed recently and I was rather nervous about it. The aspirin was replaced by clopidogrel. So far no adverse effects have been detected, but it is a bit of a big thing when you move from one medication to another.
I am pleased that in its guidance NICE says that there should be proper consultation between the patient and the cardiologist about any sort of medication. I wonder whether an organisation such as the British Heart Foundation could produce one of its short pamphlets explaining the action—the function—of these drugs in a fairly straightforward way. I hope that I am a person of at least moderate intelligence, but I did find parts of the NICE guidelines completely incomprehensible. It would be worth having a leaflet setting out the pros and cons of different kinds of therapy.
Given that a lot of people—most people, probably—will stay on warfarin for the foreseeable future, I am worried by its prescription into quite old age and the risk of falling. If you fall and your blood is very thin, the chances of having some kind of bad event are quite strong. I remember—as will many members of this House—our friend Donald Dewar, the former Secretary of State for Scotland, who fell over in a frosty street in Edinburgh and died as a result of a brain haemorrhage. He was on warfarin: it was a contributing factor. So it is important that we consider knocking off warfarin for elderly people and perhaps replacing it with some of these NOAC drugs, so long as they do not have the same sorts of risks. Perhaps they do.
There is another thing that happened to me recently that perhaps the Minister could think about, although not necessarily today. It is where you have atrial fibrillation and you have a stroke. I had a stroke in November 2014, which badly affected the sight in my right eye, and almost immediately after the stroke, which was caused by AF—they knew that because I was in hospital at the time and my heart was in atrial fibrillation when I had the stroke—I had a carotid artery endarterectomy. That was a slightly alarming operation, to put it mildly, but it seems to have helped things along. How routine is offering carotid artery surgery to otherwise fit patients who have had an AF-induced stroke? It would be useful to know whether it is pretty routine or an exceptional thing.
I have been fortunate since I have had all this trouble to have lived in Oxford, where there is an exceptional cardiology department, and now Southampton, where there is a regional centre for cardiology. I just wonder how far the ease with which my symptoms and the carotid artery operation were dealt with was due to the fact that Southampton is a regional centre, or whether you could get that kind of treatment in a much smaller hospital. It would be useful to have some indication of that. If the Minister could write about that, I would be very pleased.
Baroness Wheeler (Lab)
My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Black, on securing this debate and pay tribute to his work highlighting the importance of early detection and effective management of AF. I also very much welcome the important walk-in clinic initiative he is promoting within Parliament, with AntiCoagulation Europe providing pulse checks to help prevent strokes and blood clots for people with AF, and hope that as many MPs, noble Lords and Parliamentary staff—if they are included—as possible will go along on 10 November.
I am also very grateful for today’s debate because it sets the scene for my own debate on 18 November on the updating of the now eight year-old national stroke strategy. The strategy runs out in April 2017 and today’s focus on AF underlines the priority it needs to have in the future strategy for preventing stroke and reducing the number of people who have strokes that could have been avoided.
As a vice-chair of the All-Party Group on Stroke, as well as being the carer of a disabled partner who had a major brain haemorrhage stroke in 2008, I am sure that noble Lords will understand why most of my remarks on AF will focus on stroke-related aspects. Better diagnosis and treatment through early detection and effective management of AF with an anticoagulant would result in the prevention of more than 4,500 strokes and 3,000 deaths across England each year. Untreated AF is a contributing factor in 20% of strokes in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and, as we have heard, more complex disability can result from AF-related strokes.
We have heard a number of figures about the scale of the problem. The Stroke Association’s figure, cited by the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, is that an estimated 16,000 strokes could be prevented every year. The association hears many accounts from stroke recoverers about the devastating consequences of poor detection of AF, so it is worth putting on the record just two of those case histories.
David had a stroke at 62 which had a considerable impact on his life. He now has reduced mobility and this impacts on his job as an electrical engineer. David was not diagnosed with AF until after he had the stroke, and when discussing how to reduce the risk of having another stroke caused by AF, his GP seemed keen for him to take aspirin rather than an anticoagulant; that is, clot-reducing medication. However, David conducted his own research and then pressurised his GP into prescribing an anticoagulant drug.
Another stroke recoverer, Brenda, suffered a stroke thought to be caused by AF. She initially had a mini-stroke and was told by the hospital she was taken to that she had had an arrhythmia; there was no mention of AF. She went on to have a stroke 18 months later. Often AF is discovered only after patients are admitted to hospital with a stroke, and obviously by then it is too late. The Sentinel Stroke National Audit Programme found that only 28% of stroke patients known to have AF when admitted to hospital were on the anticoagulant medication they should have been on. The noble Lord, Lord Colwyn, gave this figure as 38%, I noticed.
Significant underdiagnosis and undertreatment remain, despite the incentives mentioned by noble Lords in the quality and outcomes framework, last year’s reissued NICE guidelines and the new quality standard on AF. It is imperative to address the low level of knowledge among GPs of the importance of early detection and the appropriate treatment of AF. The toolkit AF: How Can We Do Better?, developed by the Stroke Association for GPs and others in primary care, is one of a number of key actions that would lead to the increased awareness and understanding that are needed, particularly about the link between AF and stroke. Government support for NHS Improving Quality’s new GRASP-AF guidance on AF risk assessment and stroke prevention within GP practices would also make a significant difference.
How will the Government be supporting these initiatives? Does the Minister acknowledge that if swift and routine pulse checks were included as part of every GP visit, huge progress could be made and thousands of lives saved? Does he agree that the current low levels of awareness among health professionals are not conducive to developing better understanding among the public? Finally, I support the inclusion of indicators on detection and treatment of AF in the public health outcomes framework. Local health trusts need to be assessed on the efforts they are undertaking to prevent strokes and other major conditions that can arise from AF to ensure that vital opportunities to save lives are not missed.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord Prior of Brampton) (Con)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Black for initiating this debate. It has been very interesting for me. I did not know anything about atrial fibrillation until I researched it for this debate. What always strikes me is the extraordinary depth of the contributions noble Lords make to these debates.
I shall draw out four themes that we often come across in these debates before I respond in detail. The first is how expert patients or carers of patients have become and what a contribution they can make to helping NHS England and clinical commissioning groups in structuring the right kind of care pathways for these serious illnesses. The second point is the variation around the country, from GP to GP, from CCG to CCG and from one region to another, every time we debate almost any disease in this Chamber. The third point, which was made strongly by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, is the correlation always between quality and cost. We often think of them as separate and in opposition to each other, but good quality is usually also achieved at lower cost. The fourth point is the growing role of self-care. My noble friend Lady Gardner and others mentioned that as technology develops self-care will become an increasing part of how we deliver care. On education, the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, talked about basic first aid, such as learning to take your pulse at school. It is so obvious that you would not think it needed saying, but I have never done a first aid course and I am not proud of that fact.
I start with diagnosis of AF. Around 18% of cases of AF remain undetected. That means a lot more needs to be done. NHS England is encouraging clinical commissioning groups to work with local practices to target people at risk of AF. In addition, the NHS Health Check programme’s best practice guidance recommends that a pulse check is carried out as part of the process of taking a blood pressure reading. People found to have an irregular pulse rhythm should then be referred to their GP for further investigation. Other innovative approaches are being used to identify AF in older people, such as pulse testing at flu clinics and by some dentists.
There is also research under way. The National Institute for Health Research is funding a study into how a hand-held device can be used in primary care to provide an automatic diagnosis of atrial fibrillation. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence—NICE—published an updated guideline on AF in June 2014 which includes recommendations on diagnosis. I looked at the care guideline before I came here. I did not find it as complicated as the noble Lord opposite but no doubt it could be simplified.
My noble friend Lord Black stressed the importance of screening. I do not think I have a very good answer. I have a response here on screening but I am not sure it will satisfy him—it did not entirely satisfy me. There are calls for screening for AF, as we have heard today. Ministers are advised by the UK National Screening Committee. In 2014, it recommended that a systematic population screening programme for people aged 65 and over should not be offered. This is because, based on the evidence in the review, the committee was not convinced that such a programme would bring more good than harm to the population offered screening. This position will be reviewed in 2017-18, or earlier if new evidence emerges. I am very happy to meet the noble Lord, Lord Black—or any other noble Lord—and the people from Public Health England responsible for the decision if he would like to understand more fully the reasons why. I am not saying they are wrong—they may well be right—but I should like to understand in more detail the reasons they believe that screening is not appropriate. I think the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, suggested a reason in her speech. Maybe we should depend more on people taking responsibility for themselves and less on a screening programme, although I am not sure whether that was the point she was making. In any event, it is an issue that I would like to explore further with the national screening programme people.
As for the treatment of atrial fibrillation, NHS England has identified the improved management of AF as a priority for reducing premature mortality. NICE’s updated guidance suggests the use of anticoagulants unless there is a reason not to do so. I know there are concerns—they have been mentioned this evening—that aspirin is still being prescribed instead of anticoagulants, but NICE makes absolutely clear that aspirin on its own should not be used for stroke prevention in people with AF. There is NICE technology appraisal guidance recommending the use of newer anticoagulants for some people, which a number of noble Lords have mentioned this evening. NICE also published a quality standard on AF in July 2015, which sets out what a high-quality AF service should look like and will help drive improvement locally. The QOF contains indicators for the management of AF which cover the use of anticoagulation therapy. That provides a further incentive for doctors to ensure that AF patients receive anticoagulation where appropriate to manage their stroke risk. These actions should help ensure that people receive the anticoagulation treatment that is right for them.
I know there are concerns that some people with AF are not able to access the newer anticoagulants that NICE has approved for certain patients. There is a legal requirement on commissioners to provide funding for treatments and drugs recommended in NICE technology appraisal guidance within three months of that guidance being published. This is enshrined in the NHS constitution. The need to reduce variation and to strengthen compliance with and the uptake of NICE technology appraisals was identified in Innovation Health and Wealth, published in December 2011. In response, NHS England and the Health and Social Care Information Centre have developed an innovation scorecard, published on a monthly basis, to enable commissioners to benchmark their own position and increase transparency to patients and the public. This will assist the NHS in the identification of variation and the adoption of treatments such as NOACs that are recommended in NICE technology appraisals.
Some progress is being made. The uptake of newer anticoagulants—the NOACs—across England in 2014-15 was more than double that in 2013-14. In 2013-14, the figure was 45,708 per 100,000 of the resident population; that had risen to 126,845 in 2014-15. In addition, NHS IQ is promoting the use of GRASP-AF within GP practices in England. This audit tool, which was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Black, and other noble Lords this evening, simplifies the process of identifying patients with AF who are not receiving the right management to help reduce their risk of stroke. NHS IQ continues to support the use and rollout of this audit tool. In answer to the noble Lord’s question, I understand that, to date, 2,938 GP practices across the country have used the tool and have voluntarily uploaded their data to the online database. The database now contains information on the management of more than 327,000 patients with AF.
As to self-monitoring, when patients are taking warfarin, they need to have regular blood tests to monitor their internal normalisation ratio—their INR—which measures how fast blood clots. It is important that this remains in the correct range. Understandably, some patients find having to make regular trips for blood tests to monitor their INR disruptive. I am running out of time but it is worth just saying that NICE has recently recommended two point-of-care devices in diagnostics guidance for people taking long-term anticoagulation therapy who have AF or heart valve disease, if they prefer to use this type of monitoring.
To conclude, I hope that some of what I have said reassures noble Lords that we and the NHS take this illness extremely seriously. I am pleased that we are coming back to talk about stroke in more detail later in November and I reiterate my offer to have a meeting with the national screening people if noble Lords would like to find out more about their reasoning behind the decision not to screen for AF.
I am told I have three minutes; I thought I had to finish. I apologise. Having concluded, it is rather difficult to start again. At the beginning of the debate the noble Baroness opposite talked about stroke. I think we are coming back on 18 November to talk about stroke care in more detail. There have been enormous improvements over the past five years in the way that stroke has been treated in this country, in part because of the work done in London to concentrate stroke care in a smaller number of hyperacute hospitals where they can provide thrombolysis—clot-busting drugs—much more quickly. Certainly, in the hospital I was involved with in Norfolk we have seen a huge change in the quality of stroke care in the past three or four years. Before that, stroke had been a very poor relation compared to heart attacks or cancer, for example. In many parts of the country, if you had a stroke after 5 pm on a Friday your care was very poor. We are able now to provide stroke care on a much better basis.
It is hard to start again when you have finished, but my 12 minutes are up. The noble Lord, Lord Black, said that he is supervising a walk-in session on Tuesday for people who would like to have their pulse taken to see whether they suffer from AF. Sadly, I will not be able to make that walk-in session, but I encourage noble Lords to do so.
European Union Referendum Bill
(8 years, 7 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Greaves
“(1A) The steps mentioned in subsection (1) must include taking action, as soon as the date of the referendum has been announced, to bring to the attention of eligible electors who are not registered what they must do in order to register in time to vote in the referendum.
(1B) In carrying out the action provided for by subsection (1A), the Electoral Commission must in particular take steps to promote the registration of—
(a) young voters, and(b) eligible United Kingdom electors who are resident in other member states of the European Union.”
Lord Greaves (LD)
My Lords, this amendment moves back one stage, from talking about how to get people to vote, and how to get them to vote in different ways, to the question of registration, which is how to make sure that people are actually on the electoral register so that they have the opportunity to make a decision whether or not to vote.
The House got terribly excited about registration last week when we were talking about the statutory instrument, and a decision was made. As a result of that decision, the new system of individual registration will come in from December this year and something like 1.8 million names will be removed from that register. What nobody really knows, as far as I can see, is how many of those names are genuine voters who should be there and how many are not. However, it is very clear—from talking to some of these people locally and helping them to get registered—that many of the 1.8 million are people who should be on the register and, indeed, many of them are people who voted in the elections in May this year. I do not think anybody knows exactly how many of the 1.8 million voted this year. There is a problem and a challenge there now for everybody to try to make sure that as many of them as possible who are real voters get back on the electoral register.
In addition, according to the Electoral Commission, throughout the UK there are something like 8 million voters who ought to be registered but are not. Although some of them may be people who have no interest, do not want to be registered and never will be, whatever the law may say, quite a few of them are people who ought to be registered and, if they were, might take the opportunity to vote.
The purpose behind the amendment is to probe the Government and the Electoral Commission about what they are going to do and what they think should be done specifically to get people on to the electoral register for the referendum, when it comes. Of course, we also have elections in May next year, but this is specifically about the referendum.
In the amendment, I have highlighted two groups of people who are underregistered: young voters and eligible voters who live in the rest of the European Union—although many eligible voters who live abroad live in other parts of the world and would have the right to vote in the referendum if they were registered. They are eligible if they are UK citizens living abroad and have not lived abroad for more than 15 years—or whatever period we end up with in the Bill; at the moment, 15 years.
I had a very useful letter about the amendment from the Electoral Commission, which rightly points out that there are other underrepresented groups that it will wish to target. It points out that the two groups that I have mentioned are two among several more groups that it targeted before the general election with some success—different levels of success, I think. They include people who have moved house recently, people in private rented accommodation—in areas where private rented accommodation is pretty well at the bottom of the housing market, they are often the same people who are moving around all the time—and some BME groups, not all, but some, which are underrepresented.
I want particularly to focus on the question of people living within the European Union, because these are clearly British citizens who have a particular personal, direct interest in the outcome of the referendum, whatever they may think about it. According to the Electoral Commission, something like 100,000 overseas voters were registered at the general election. Whatever the total number of British citizens abroad eligible to vote in UK elections, 100,000 is a small proportion of them. It was higher than it has ever been before—three times as high as it was at the previous election, I think —but still very low.
It is said that there are 2 million or more United Kingdom citizens resident in the EU. I do not know how many of those are entitled to vote under the 15-year rule, and I do not know how many of them are adults—not children, who cannot vote—but it is clear that there is a large number of British citizens living in the EU who have a direct interest in the referendum who are not registered at the moment. I have seen estimates from other people suggesting that the figure of 2 million is on the low side, because it is based on people who are registered as living in other European countries, and there are lots of British citizens who do not register with the local authorities. Many of these people have dual addresses; they have an address in this country, and they spend part of the time in the rest of Europe. They ought to be registered here, where one of their homes is. So perhaps 2 million is the figure to consider.
Anecdotal evidence from people I have talked to in other EU countries—including people I talked to in the south of France when I was there fairly recently—is that if you live outside this country, registering to vote as a UK elector is not as easy as it ought to be. I have spoken to people who tried to vote at the general election but failed the double obstacle that they have to go through. The first obstacle is registering to vote and the second is applying for and receiving a postal vote—getting on the postal voters register.
The electoral registration can now be done online, and that applies wherever you live in the world—so that is okay. But what if the national insurance number that you have to give now in order to be put on the electoral register is not validated by the DWP? That happens with lots of people. I do not know why that is the case; I have not got to the bottom of it. However, there is no doubt at all that the validation has not worked for lots of people, which is one reason why there are many among the 1.8 million coming off the register who are genuine voters and genuine people. They have not been able to match up their national insurance numbers and not provided other means of identification to replace the NI number. Providing those other means of identification is more difficult and messy if you live abroad The anecdotal evidence is that, before the general election this year, local authorities were not always quick enough in processing and dealing with these applications.
Secondly, the postal vote applications have to be in writing. There must be a piece of paper which is sent off, or it can be scanned and sent by email—and perhaps by fax as well. That is a more complicated process. I have talked to people who managed to get on the electoral register but did not manage to get through the hoops of getting a postal vote when they were up against the deadline shortly before the elections. There seem to be some bureaucratic obstacles in this situation which are causing more difficulties for people in Europe than for some of the people here.
Registration for people whose NI numbers do not match with the DWP and are not validated is sometimes a nightmare in terms of getting the appropriate documentation in. It is not easy—and I have been dealing with some specific cases back in Lancashire where I live. In addition to what the Electoral Commission tells me it will do—that is, conduct a similar campaign to the one it held to get people registered before the general election; it had something called a “boats and planes” campaign for people outside this country—it will have to make very special efforts indeed, together with the Government, starting as soon as possible, if people living in other European countries are not to be deprived of the vote in the referendum to which they are properly entitled. I beg to move.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Anelay of St Johns) (Con)
My Lords, Amendment 48A, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, would require the Electoral Commission to inform unregistered eligible voters of the steps they need to take in order to vote in the referendum. The amendment requires the commission to do this as soon as the date of the referendum is announced, and to take particular steps, as the noble Lord says, to approach two groups of people. He acknowledged in moving his amendment that other groups also need to be alerted to their right to vote in the referendum. Of course, the Committee will understand that I am sympathetic to the noble Lord’s underlying aim, which is to ensure that people understand that they can vote and know how to register to do so. It is important in any democratic society that it is a duty of us all to be engaged in that, whether we are a voluntary worker in a political party, a paid politician, a member of the Electoral Commission or working in the community. It is part of what we should do to enable people to take part in the democratic process.
I can assure the noble Lord that provisions are in place to set in motion what he hopes to achieve. His amendment is unnecessary because the duties it imposes are already encompassed in paragraph 11(1) of Schedule 3, which requires the Electoral Commission to take,
“whatever steps they think appropriate to promote public awareness about the referendum and how to vote in it”.
As the noble Lord said, he has heard from the Electoral Commission, and it is fully seized of its duty and the actions it should take.
I am sure we all agree that this is about all eligible voters, not just making specific groups aware of their right to vote—not just those British citizens living in the other 27 countries of the European Union, but those who live more widely abroad. The Electoral Commission has made it clear that it will take prompt action to alert people of their right to vote, and has made clear exactly what it plans to do. It plans to produce public information that explains the voting process, and to run a UK-wide campaign through TV, radio and digital advertising which highlights basic information about the referendum, such as the date and how to register to vote. This campaign will inform eligible voters in the United Kingdom of all ages of their right to vote, and additional steps will support this.
For example, the Cabinet Office continues to work closely with civil society organisations, including Bite The Ballot, to encourage underrepresented groups to register. The Electoral Commission is also working closely with officials in the Cabinet Office and my officials in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to ensure that eligible voters overseas are made aware of their voting rights and can vote with ease. This work includes ensuring that postal ballots sent overseas are correctly addressed and include the correct postage—details that have sometimes been overlooked. I appreciate the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. Alongside this, online registration is making registering to vote far more convenient, accessible and simple for young and overseas voters—far better than ever before. A person can register to vote on their smartphone, tablet or PC in as little as three minutes, as long as the link is working. The systems are there.
As the Bill already requires the Electoral Commission to take the action set out in the noble Lord’s amendment, and as clear progress is already being made in achieving its aims, I invite him to withdraw it.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for setting that all out. It is all absolutely true. She talks about the duty set out in the Bill, which is absolutely right, but the problem is carrying out that duty with regard to overseas electors. If only just over 100,000 were able to be on the register for the general election, clearly, the system up to now has not worked. My point is that, because of the very nature of this referendum, particularly as it impacts on British citizens in Europe—the Minister referred several times to people in the UK, but these people are not in the UK—more needs to be done than was done last time, and in different ways.
“Supply and use of register of electors12A (1) The Representation of the People (England and Wales) Regulations 2001 (S.I. 2001/341) have effect for the purposes of the referendum with the following modifications.
(2) Regulation 106 (supply of full register etc to registered political parties etc and restrictions on use) has effect for those purposes as if—
(a) in paragraph (1)(c), for “, other than a registered political party” there were substituted “which either is not a registered political party or is a minor party within the meaning of section 160(1) of that Act”, andat the end of paragraph (4)(b)(ii) there were inserted “, and
(iii) the purposes of complying with the requirements of Schedule 15A to that Act (control of loans etc to certain permitted participants), and(iv) the purposes of complying with the requirements of paragraphs 32 and 33 of Schedule 1 and paragraphs 5 and 6 of Schedule 2 to the European Union Referendum Act 2015.”12B (1) The Representation of the People (Scotland) Regulations 2001 (S.I. 2001/497) have effect for the purposes of the referendum with the following modifications.
(2) Regulation 105 (supply of full register etc to registered political parties etc and restrictions on use) has effect for those purposes as if—
(a) in paragraph (1)(c), for “, other than a registered political party” there were substituted “which either is not a registered political party or is a minor party within the meaning of section 160(1) of that Act”, andat the end of paragraph (4)(b)(ii) there were inserted “, and
(iii) the purposes of complying with the requirements of Schedule 15A to that Act (control of loans etc to certain permitted participants), and(iv) the purposes of complying with the requirements of paragraphs 32 and 33 of Schedule 1 and paragraphs 5 and 6 of Schedule 2 to the European Union Referendum Act 2015.”12C (1) The Representation of the People (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2008 (S.I. 2008/1741) have effect for the purposes of the referendum with the following modifications.
(2) Regulation 105 (supply of full register etc to registered political parties etc and restrictions on use) has effect for those purposes as if—
(a) in paragraph (1)(c), for “, other than a registered political party” there were substituted “which either is not a registered political party or is a minor party within the meaning of section 160(1) of that Act”, andat the end of paragraph (4)(b)(ii) there were inserted “; and
(iii) the purposes of complying with the requirements of Schedule 15A to that Act (control of loans etc to certain permitted participants); and(iv) the purposes of complying with the requirements of paragraphs 32 and 33 of Schedule 1 and paragraphs 5 and 6 of Schedule 2 to the European Union Referendum Act 2015.””
Lord Blencathra
“Creation of EU Referendum Broadcasting Impartiality Authority
(1) The Electoral Commission shall establish, for the purposes of the referendum on whether the United Kingdom should remain a member of the European Union only, an authority to rule on the impartiality shown by the sound and vision broadcasting media based in the United Kingdom regarding all news and media stories relating to the referendum.
(2) The authority shall be created by the Electoral Commission and be operational within 3 months after the passing of this Act, and shall cease to operate when the polls close on the day of the referendum.
(3) The authority, for the duration of its existence, shall assume and exercise all the impartiality functions currently vested in OFCOM and the BBC to the extent necessary for the fulfilment of its functions.
(4) The decisions of the authority shall take precedence over any decision by OFCOM or the BBC.
(5) The authority shall adopt all the rules on neutrality and impartiality currently applied by the BBC and OFCOM during General Elections but shall be authorised to amend them as it sees fit in relation to the referendum.
(6) The authority shall publish its neutrality and impartiality guidelines as soon as practical after its creation.
(7) It shall be a criminal offence for any relevant broadcaster to breach the guidelines or fail to follow instructions from the authority.
(8) The cost of the authority shall be kept to under £50 million and the costs shall be met from public funds.”
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, I beg to move the amendment standing in my name and those of my noble friends. I think that the new clause tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, is superior to my version, so I will not go into detail on mine.
I have found it a bit of a long and tiring day, so I ask permission to conclude my remarks from a sedentary position.
An Evening Standard report in April 2012 had extracts from a leaked report carried out by the BBC when my noble friend Lord Grade was in charge. It admitted bias on a range of topics. In that report Andrew Marr is quoted as saying:
“The BBC is not impartial or neutral. It’s a publicly funded, urban organisation with an abnormally large number of young people ... It has a liberal bias, not so much a party political bias. It is better expressed as a cultural liberal bias”.
As Mr Rod Liddle, a former “Today” editor, repeatedly says in his splendid column in the Sunday Times, BBC staff do not set out to be biased and believe utterly that they are neutral and represent middle England. They take their guidance from the Guardian, which they think is an absolutely centrist paper, with the Times a bit to the right and the Telegraph off the right-wing scale. I believe that recently some senior BBC insiders, such as Robin Aitken and Peter Sissons, have also confirmed that there are still institutional prejudices prevalent in the BBC. Of course, when accused of bias, the BBC denies it; but I can recall at least two occasions in the last 10 years when the BBC has said, “Well, yes, we looked at our coverage of immigration issues in the past and it was a bit biased but it’s all okay now”. I think it also said, “We looked at our coverage of the welfare debate and yes, it was biased in the past but we are getting it right now”. So that is the standard defence: we were biased in the past but we are perfect now.
When an organisation called Minotaur Media Tracking measured the level and content of the BBC Radio 4 “Today” programme’s coverage of the European Union, it found that the BBC gave less coverage to EU issues than the newspapers, gave roughly twice as much coverage to pro-EU voices as anti-EU voices and consistently presented the Eurosceptic case as wanting to leave Europe instead of the European Union. I read somewhere recently, but I cannot find it now, that the BBC has concluded that its past coverage of EU issues was slightly biased, but it is going to be okay in the future. In that case, I look forward to interviewers referring to the BSE campaign as the “Britain Stronger in the European Union campaign”—but I do not hold my breath for that.
The EU’s transparency website shows that £20,152,000 was disbursed to the BBC from EU funds between 2007 and 2012. A lot of that went to so-called research and development projects and to creating programmes to bring about change in countries outside the EU. In 2009 alone, the BBC got almost £1 million to,
“provide support for media capacity in the area of EU integration”.
Noble Lords may say that I am biased on this, but surely there is an element of conflict of interest somewhere which calls into question the ability of the BBC to police itself on EU matters when it is receiving funding from the EU.
My new clause suggests that broadcast coverage of this referendum is too important to be left to a combination of Ofcom and internal BBC policing. Everybody trusts the Electoral Commission for its impartiality. I suggest that for the duration of the referendum only, all media monitoring of TV and radio currently carried out by Ofcom and the BBC should be transferred to a unit under the control of the Electoral Commission. Noble Lords can read the subsections for themselves, and I will not bore the Committee by reading and explaining them. Indeed, I will go further: I know that this new clause is going nowhere, so I do not expect, and the whole Committee would not want, my noble friend to spend a long time demolishing the eight subsections and pointing out their inconsistency, inappropriateness, illegality and everything else that is wrong with them.
My intention is to highlight to the Government that there is a track record in the BBC of bias on EU issues and it would be intolerable if it continued right up to referendum day. No one wants to interfere with the independence of the BBC, but I believe that we should interfere with the bias of the BBC, since I believe it exists. All I want to hear from the Minister—my noble friends may wish for other things—in her wind-up tonight is what the Government will do to ensure that the broadcast media are absolutely fair, impartial and unbiased in all their reports, news and programmes leading up to polling day. As soon as the exit poll is issued, I do not care what happens. I beg to move.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UKIP)
My Lords, my Amendment 61BA is similar to Amendment 60, to which I have also put my name and which has just been moved by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. I suppose the inspiration for both these amendments— I confirm that my amendment is also a probing amendment—is that we do not entirely trust the broadcasting media to be impartial throughout the referendum campaign, so we feel that they need a little extra assistance in this regard in the shape of the temporary broadcasting adjudicator suggested by this amendment. The noble Lord’s amendment suggests a temporary broadcasting authority.
My experience of the BBC’s EU coverage goes back to 1999, since when I and others have been sponsoring independent analysis of that coverage, to which the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, was good enough to refer. I had a debate in your Lordships’ House on 11 March 2002 which revealed the early results of our initiative, and another on 7 May 2014. Both debates are relevant to these amendments and suggest the need for them. Both amendments require the impartiality of broadcasters in dealing with the conflicting claims made by each side of the argument. However, my Amendment 61BA goes further and requires the new adjudicator to judge whether the BBC has covered a sufficiently broad scope of subjects about our EU membership to allow the electorate to reach an informed opinion about their future. Broadcasting bias is not only bias about the subject in question; there is of course also bias by omission.
I have singled out the BBC because only the BBC, under its charter and guidelines, has the duty to educate and inform. That duty would still apply to areas which may not have been raised by either side of the referendum debate. Your Lordships may feel that every conceivable argument under the sun will be raised by one side or the other during the campaign, but I am not so sure.
For instance, I suppose it is possible that neither side will deal with the founding big idea behind the project of European integration, which was that European nations had caused so much bloodshed that they had to be gradually emasculated and put under a new form of technocratic government—hence the EU’s claim to have brought peace to Europe since 1945. Hence also the almost unbelievable powers of the European Commission at the expense of national Governments. I am not sure that either side will go sufficiently into all this, and so I feel it should be the duty of the BBC to do so if they do not.
It can be difficult to know where you want to go if you do not know why and how you have got to where you are—the direction of travel. Even if the campaigns do touch on these areas, I fear they do not lend themselves to soundbites, and so they may be covered inadequately. If so, I suggest the BBC should examine them dispassionately and in some depth—and very interesting it would be, too.
In conclusion, I am happy to report that the BBC’s coverage of EU matters has improved recently. We have had John Gray delivering a learned critique of the euro on “A Point of View”. We have had an Icelandic politician assuring us that the UK would be welcome and better off in EFTA. We have had a Nissan executive explaining why his company would not necessarily relocate outside the UK if we left the EU. We have had Nigel Farage being interrupted only by rapid fire instead of his usual machine-gun treatment. Best of all, the wonderful Labour MP Kate Hoey has even been allowed to make some of the case, on the “Today” programme, for the UK to leave the EU.
These are all absolute firsts for the BBC. Nothing like them has ever happened before. I trust that they are the first signs that the BBC is at least going to try to be fair in the forthcoming campaign. But old habits die hard, and so I trust that it and the other broadcasters will welcome the additional encouragement proposed by these amendments.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, these amendments are totally without merit, but I just want to remark that the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, has suggested that we need controls on the broadcast media. I assume he means we should be as tough on Sky as on the BBC, or perhaps he wishes to take on only the BBC under that heading. Perhaps we should take on all the media. We had a great debate about how much we need tougher press regulation. I am sure noble Lords would want to consider the biases of the Daily Mail and occasionally the Daily Telegraph, whose Brussels correspondent for many years was a joker called Boris Johnson, who used to make up the most wonderful stories, most of them entirely without basis, about what was wrong with the European Union. Is it perhaps that we are having an attack on just the BBC?
I have read in the Spectator and various other publications that, because the BBC has received a certain amount of money over the years, amounting to a maximum of 0.3% of BBC income for any given year—largely to fund the development of broadcasting in Serbia, Moldova and other eastern neighbourhood countries—it is unavoidably biased in favour of the European Union or perhaps has almost become a vassal of the European Union, which is the phrase used by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth.
The BBC does have a certain bias: it is a bias in favour of evidence—that may be the liberal bias, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. I know that evidence is sometimes a little difficult for some. The part of the “Today” programme that I find to be biased is its tendency to take the headlines in the Daily Mail as the basis for some of its stories. That is a bias with which I am rather unhappy.
The BBC has had two reviews in the past 10 years on accusations of bias, the Wilson review in 2005 and the Prebble review in 2013, both of which were thorough and both of which said that the BBC did not display a deliberate bias. I have seen Nigel Farage on “Question Time” more times than I really wanted to in the last 18 months. They have given him a fair crack of the whip. I do not see that the BBC should be pushed further in one direction or another. We understand what is going on. While the right-wing press’s dominance in the print media, with the competitive broadcast media interest that the Daily Mail and the Murdoch press have—hence their constant attacks on the BBC—is acceptable, the BBC, because it is seen to be prepared to explain how globalised the world has become and how difficult it sometimes is to manage national economies without a degree of international co-operation, must necessarily be biased. As I have said, there have been BBC reports; they have both cleared the BBC of bias. The accusation that the BBC has been significantly funded by the European Commission and is thus dependent on it is not valid.
Lord Blencathra
I was not suggesting that the BBC is so heavily funded that it is dependent on EU funding. The funding of £20 million over the past five years, running at around £3 million per annum, is not to be sneezed at. Floating voters, or the public, get 75% of their information from the broadcast media, not from the press. The press is largely irrelevant in influencing elections because it is read by people who are already committed. As far as press balance is concerned, the Mirror, the Guardian, the Independent and the Financial Times will be rabidly pro staying in Europe. That leaves the Times and the Sun sitting on the fence until Mr Murdoch does his opinion poll to decide who is going to win. The Telegraph will probably be against staying in and the Daily Mail probably will be as well. Finally, I respect the intellect of the noble Lord, but if he seriously thinks that the editors of the “Today” programme are spouting Daily Mail propaganda or taking that for their lead stories, he is living in another world.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I merely observe as a frequent reader of the Daily Mail that the broadcast media, in particular the “Today” programme, take their cues from the stories that are in the morning press, particularly the Daily Mail, which, as we all know, is the most influential printed newspaper in this country and we all follow it.
I think I have said enough. I see no merit in this amendment. I know where it is coming from. I have read those who have suggested that the BBC is significantly dependent on the EU as a result of this—that is part of the paranoia of the Bruges Group right. I note that the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, used the expression “rabidly” for those who are pro-European and “moderate” for those who are not. Again, that is a perhaps a matter of unintentional bias on the part of the noble Lord, but I leave it there.
Lord Blencathra
I applied “rabidly” to the Financial Times, which is more rabid than the Guardian in wanting to stay in Europe—and being wrong.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, whether he has actually read either of the two debates I referred to, from 11 March 2002 and 7 May last year? Is he also aware that the Wilson report of 2005, which was inspired by our analysis, found that the BBC was biased, both in its coverage and in what did not cover? It did not think it was deliberately biased but it was, nevertheless, biased at that time. Has the noble Lord also read the Civitas report on the Prebble whitewash of the BBC’s EU coverage, which was so incestuous as to be dishonest?
Finally, has the noble Lord read—and, if not, will he do so—the News-watch website, which goes into great detail and irrefutable fact on all these matters, and which comes to the conclusion that the BBC has been biased in favour of the project of European integration? I hope he will appreciate that I end my remarks with the hope that some small shoots are growing that give us the possibility that the BBC will be fair during the forthcoming campaign. However, I feel it needs some encouragement, at the very least from the noble Baroness when she responds to these amendments.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
I deeply regret that I have not read the noble Lord’s debate from 2002 and I shall, of course, try to dig it out before I go to bed.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)
I am fascinated by these two amendments and by the name of the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, being on both of them. They seem to call for completely different courses of action. I am reminded of the story of a crash between two Concordes in mid-Atlantic, with Henry Kissinger being found in both. The noble Lord should make up his mind. Is he in favour of an impartiality authority and a criminal offence, as proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra? I am particularly against that one: the creation of a new criminal offence requires a fair amount of thought. Or does he prefer, as I do, his own amendment? Actually, I am not really in favour of either of them. This is all a bit over the top.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, these amendments are not so much probing as having a go. Their purpose is clear: this is a warning shot. I was stunned by the telling possibility that, instead of the campaigns themselves determining the issues, we should leave it to the BBC to decide which campaigns were admitted. In moving the amendment, the noble Lord once again rated the Electoral Commission highly. However, the commission has looked at the amendments and said they are unnecessary. Ofcom believes they are overkill and the BBC has also set out how it will develop its own specific guidelines. I have no doubt that the issue of bias will draw attention from both sides during the campaign. Listening to the “Today” programme may annoy me on some occasions and make the noble Lord just as annoyed on others, but we may have heard completely different arguments. It is in the nature of things that we do not approach these issues without bias ourselves. Clearly, we are all committed. The important thing is that provisions to ensure fair reporting of the campaign do exist. The BBC will also set up specific guidelines for the referendum and will constantly run impartiality reviews during the campaign so that it can ensure delivery against its editorial standards. That all happened during the Scottish referendum. These amendments are having a go rather than probing. I hope the Minister will support that view.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, Amendments 60 and 61BA deal with the crucial question of bias. Both noble Lords have made it clear that that is the basis of the views they put forward. How should one and how can one ensure fair and impartial broadcast media coverage? Noble Lords have approached the matter in slightly different ways. However, it is absolutely right that the public will expect and demand of its broadcasters that news and current affairs coverage of the EU referendum and of all other issues should be balanced and impartial, and must enhance the democratic process through informing the public. This will of course be pivotal to the public debate ahead of the referendum. Therefore, it is the right thing to demand.
Given the unique reach and impact that the broadcast media have on our lives, members of the public can and do complain that broadcasters sometimes miss the mark in terms of the impartiality of their coverage and the balance of their output. Certainly, from time to time, there have been errors of judgment. Considering the importance of the media to forming opinions, it is right that we should consider modes of redress where mistakes are adjudged to have been made. These issues are too important to leave such errors to hang unchallenged or uncorrected. However, I do not believe that these amendments are the right way to address the issue.
It is the Government’s position that the existing regulatory framework is robust and well understood, and that the establishment of a new authority in this specific circumstance would not be workable or proportionate. But I do appreciate that noble Lords were trying to draw attention to bias rather than creating new bureaucratic structures.
My noble friend’s Amendment 60 puts a duty on the Electoral Commission to take on the role of establishing a new authority. As the noble Lord, Lord Collins, has alluded to, the Electoral Commission does not currently have the power to set up such an authority; nor does it have any expertise in policing the impartiality of broadcasting. That expertise is in the BBC Trust and Ofcom. The Electoral Commission has made it clear that it would not welcome such a role even if it were possible to legislate for it.
Even so, both amendments contain important points which demand serious attention on the matter of bias. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport wrote to Ofcom and the BBC Trust on 15 June asking them to explain how, as the responsible regulators, they will look to deliver prompt, proportionate redress where lapses in editorial judgment are adjudged to have been made. Ensuring that redress is made, and made promptly, is, I think, the overriding intent behind the new clauses.
Both the BBC Trust and Ofcom have responded, underlining the strict enforcement of the rules on impartiality and the additional steps that the BBC and Ofcom take to expedite the handling of serious complaints during an election or referendum period. Ofcom also confirmed that it will be reminding broadcasters of their responsibilities ahead of the referendum. If it would be helpful to noble Lords who have taken part in this debate, I would be happy to supply them with copies of those letters.
Issues, both recent and historic, have been raised over the impartiality of our broadcasters’ coverage of important issues and events. The review of the BBC’s coverage in 2005 by the noble Lord, Lord Wilson of Dinton, highlighted several issues; for example, that the BBC’s coverage needed to be more demonstrably impartial and that while there may have been no deliberate bias in BBC coverage of EU matters, there were perceptions that the BBC suffered from certain forms of cultural and unintentional bias.
Although the BBC implemented several changes following the noble Lord’s report, more recent complaints about the media’s coverage of the election and the Scottish independence referendum, and accusations of bias, have come to light. The speed at which today’s news media move and the potential for content that is not duly impartial to gain, by the very speed of it, an unwelcome, detrimental foothold in the minds of the public, means that we should all recognise the need for prompt, effective redress where mistakes are made.
It is vital to the high regard in which the UK’s broadcasters are held that their independence, impartiality and even-handedness are beyond question. In a world of increasing dominance of state broadcasters in other nations, where blatantly partial voices are gaining increased power and reach, it is critical that the integrity and impartiality of our broadcasters in the UK cannot be called into doubt or undermined. The quality and independence of our news coverage in the UK is a calling card for democracy, and carries huge weight in terms of our soft power abroad. We have debated that in relation to Foreign and Commonwealth Office policy issues over the past year.
Lord Blencathra
My Lords, I am most grateful to the Minister for that incredibly robust response: it is a tougher response than I anticipated when I tabled my amendment. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Collins, that I was not “having a go” or probing: it was more a shot across the bow, or rather flagging up a very important issue, because we cannot have biased reporting in this campaign from any broadcasting media outlet.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
If this is to be brought back at Report, can we be assured that Sky and other broadcast media will be included in the coverage?
Lord Blencathra
I do not intend to bring it back on Report, now that I have heard my noble friend’s response —but if I do bring it back on Report, it would be a very detailed clause that is much more accurate than the one we are discussing at the moment.
I was going to say that I had no idea that my right honourable friend John Whittingdale had actually written to the BBC, the other broadcast media and Ofcom, and I had no idea about the reply. That might explain why the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, says that he has identified—as I have as well—that the BBC has been more neutral on EU issues over the last few months. That is all that we wanted to achieve: we want that neutrality.
This very important little debate has taken only 30 minutes, and it is on the basis of two new clauses that were shot full of holes to begin with, but we have got some very important answers. As a little aside, I see my noble friend Lord Tebbit in his place; he has, in the past, as Conservative Party chairman, complained about BBC bias. Perhaps if he had bunged them £3 million a year from the Conservative Party, he might have got more favourable coverage. I am very grateful to my noble friend for her response tonight; I look forward to reading the letters and I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Wigley
“Count for votes cast
The count for votes cast in the referendum shall be carried out and declared separately for—(a) Scotland,(b) Wales,(c) Northern Ireland, and(d) England.”
Lord Wigley (PC)
My Lords, in the unavoidable absence of the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, it falls on me to move Amendment 61, which, fortuitously, has my name attached to it. The amendment does what it says: it provides for the result of the referendum to be declared for each of the four constituent nations of these islands. It may well be that this amendment is not necessary to ensure that the people of each of the four nations know the referendum vote in each of their respective territories, but it puts the matter beyond doubt. It recognises the right of each nation to know how it has voted, and for the world to know that as well.
That brings me to the linked amendment in this group, as we come to the end of our Committee Stage debate. Amendment 61C, standing in my name, relates to one aspect on which we have only just touched, and perhaps have deliberately skirted around because of its far-reaching implications. That is the consequence if there were a split vote across the countries of Britain, with one or more of the constituent nations of the UK voting in a different direction from the UK as a whole.
The main focus of attention in this context has been Scotland voting to stay in the EU and the UK voting to leave. However, the arithmetic could equally apply to Wales or—perhaps in a different way—to Northern Ireland. I accept, for better or worse, the constitutional reality that the context of this referendum is the United Kingdom as a whole, for the simple reason that the UK is the member state of the EU which is contemplating leaving the Union. Therefore, it is a decision that has in the first place to be taken by the UK as a whole. If the UK as a whole votes to stay in the EU, even if one constituent nation voted to pull out, it would be extremely difficult for that nation to do so without erecting border controls between itself and the rest of the UK, and between itself and the rest of the European Union. I have not heard that option being seriously argued. If noble Lords feel to the contrary, they are clearly at liberty to put forward their own amendments to deal with that somewhat remote possibility.
However, we are all aware of the very real prospect that Scotland could vote to stay in the European Union and the UK could vote to leave, and that that could reopen the debate about rerunning the independence referendum in Scotland, with the real possibility that this time—for a variety of reasons, of which the EU dimension is just one—Scotland could vote for independence. If it did so, the Scottish Government might well aim, over the same period of time it might take for the UK to negotiate our departure from the EU—heaven forbid—to negotiate their own continuing membership. That road would clearly have its challenges. I do not intend to go down the highways and byways of that possibility at this late stage of the evening.
Incidentally, this is not a question that immediately arises in Wales because at present there is nothing like the same level of support for independence in Wales as there is in Scotland. At present in Wales, there is a widespread desire to secure greater autonomy, some of which is being addressed by the draft Wales Bill, which was recently published. There is certainly a feeling in Wales, and further afield, that the countries of the UK need a new relationship—a balanced partnership, if I can call it that, between the nations of these islands—but that does not manifest itself in the type of momentum towards independence we have seen in Scotland. However, the principle is equally valid in Wales, as it would be in Northern Ireland—or, indeed, in England. If England voted by a very small margin to stay in the EU, and the overall UK result was in favour of pulling out because of the votes of Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, I believe that the same question would and should arise in an English context.
That brings us to the heart of the issue: what is to be the future relationship of the four nations of these islands? On 8 September, former Prime Minister Gordon Brown gave evidence to the panel chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, inquiring into better devolution for the whole of the UK. It was set up by the All-Party Group on Reform, Decentralisation and Devolution, co-chaired by the noble Lords, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord Purvis of Tweed. Gordon Brown and I have not often seen eye to eye. I would never imagine myself turning to him for words relevant to my argument in the context that we are debating tonight. However, in his opening remarks before answering questions, he made a statement of immense significance. I quote directly from a transcript that has been cleared by his office:
“The UK is a voluntary association of nations and I would stress that if the UK is to exist in the future, then it has to do so for a clear and stated purpose”.
Those were his words in a Committee Room upstairs here.
I add that one such valid purpose is to work together within the EU. It is an immensely important vision and one on which the future relationships of our four nations should be built, for I believe that there is not a person in this House who does not realise that there must be an evolving relationship if the United Kingdom is to survive as a meaningful constitutional unit. If we are to consider ourselves a family of nations, that has implications for the responsibilities we have, one towards another. All happy, functional families intuitively realise that this is the case. There is give and take. It is not a matter of father laying down the law and everyone else doing what they are told.
There was a good example in our extended family a short while ago. The father wanted to move house. He had seen a property that appealed considerably to him some 15 miles away. His wife was willing to go along with the move, although undoubtedly it would cause her much additional work. However, the two children, who attended primary school in their home village, were horrified. They would have to move school, leave their friends and lose the out-of-school activities that were a key part of their lives. They were beside themselves with grief. The father realised the pain he would be inflicting on them if he imposed his will, as he had the authority to do. He wisely decided to forget his plans, in the interests of the happiness and cohesion of the family as a whole. That is the situation we potentially face in this referendum. If we are indeed a family of nations, we should behave as a family. This is the time to face such questions, not in the acrimonious aftermath of a knife-edge referendum result.
Amendment 61C provides for a quadruple lock that defines the basis on which the outcome of the referendum can be perceived as a vote to quit the EU. It would require a vote to do so not only by way of the aggregate outcome of all the votes cast in the United Kingdom, but also within each of the four nations which make up the United Kingdom. It provides that all four members of this family of nations should concur on such a far-reaching move. I am putting this forward to give the Government an opportunity to tell the House how they would handle the situation in which, for argument’s sake, Scotland had voted to stay within the EU while the total aggregate vote in the UK was in favour of leaving. With respect, it would not be good enough to say, “Well, we will cross that bridge when we come to it”, because by then it may be too late. Events will have gathered their own momentum. We would inevitably be facing another Scottish independence referendum. Is that what the Government, and this Chamber, really want?
There may be other formulations of words that would better achieve my objective in proposing this amendment. If so, let us have an improved wording from the Government at Report. All I say, in conclusion, is that if we are indeed living in a family of nations which is a voluntary association, this issue has to be addressed, and I hope the House can agree with that sentiment. I beg to move.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
My Lords, as the noble Lord is perfectly entitled to move his amendment, and although this late hour is probably not the moment to discuss some of these matters, I am just amazed that the noble Lord, Lord Liddle—I apologise as I am criticising him while he is not in his place—has put his name to at least part of this debate in support of having separate results announced in separate parts of the United Kingdom. We had a referendum in Scotland which we were assured by the nationalists would decide the matter for a generation. The Scottish people decided to remain part of the United Kingdom and within days the nationalists broke their word. Now we have the leader of the nationalists in Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, talking about another referendum being inevitable.
The polls still show that a majority of people in Scotland wish to remain part of the United Kingdom. The issue is for the United Kingdom to decide. It is the United Kingdom that is a member of the European Union. I am appalled at the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, and at the Opposition—I hope that the opposition Front Bench will distance themselves from this argument—for embarking on this nationalist language. It is what has destroyed the Labour Party in Scotland. They have talked about the Tories throughout the 1980s as not having a mandate in Scotland. They used the rhetoric of nationalism and they have been surprised to find that they themselves, as unionists, have been destroyed by it. Here we go again, arguing that this is somehow a decision that Scotland, Ireland, Wales and England should have representations on and that there should—as this amendment suggests—have to be a consensus between the four parts of the United Kingdom. It is a nationalist, or regionalist, argument, and should be no part of the consideration of these matters.
I understand why the nationalists in Scotland—and in Wales, it would seem—are scratching around for a reason to justify breaking their word. The Labour Party’s argument has been that we need to have a referendum quickly because of the uncertainty. The damage that is being done to jobs and investment in Scotland because of the uncertainty about the future of Scotland created by this irresponsible nationalist rhetoric, is immense. We took a decision in the referendum and I very much hope that when we have this referendum, whichever way it goes, that is the end of the matter and it is decided and we can get on with the business of creating wealth and jobs in our country. The exploitation of this referendum by the nationalists as a way of trying to create division and dissent in our country is reprehensible.
I know that the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, is a decent and honourable man but he should go to Scotland and look at the division that has been created there by the intimidation that the nationalists were responsible for in the campaign, and the need for healing. The very last thing we need is a further attempt to create divisions between the peoples of this United Kingdom.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard
As so often, I wish that we had a Scottish nationalist in this Chamber to respond to the noble Lord’s points, with most of which I agree. I bow to no one in my respect for the noble Lord, Lord Wigley. His was a very moving speech and I agree with his description of the difficulties that could arise were different results to occur in the different parts of the kingdom. I think he is correct about that. I think his solution is absolutely wrong. I cannot support his amendment.
The amendment in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Wigley and Lord Liddle, is probably unnecessary because I suspect that the votes will be counted separately in any case; I would hope so because there will certainly be rumours about what the result has been if it is close and it would be far better that there should be something on the record. With respect to the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, it is a little harsh to accuse the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, of being a violent Scottish nationalist because he has put his name to that amendment.
There is a fundamental issue with Amendment 61C. The noble Lord, Lord Wigley, proposes a quadruple lock in the situation in which, say, England has voted to leave the European Union and Northern Ireland has, by a very narrow majority, voted to stay in. If the noble Lord’s amendment was carried and became the law, we would stay in. That seems an unacceptable situation. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth: it is a United Kingdom decision.
It is important to note that we have no threshold requirements in this referendum and we have had no amendment in Committee proposing that there should be a threshold. That is constitutionally quite surprising for a decision as big as this. The precedent would lead one to think about a threshold. I would not have wanted a threshold. I would not have wanted a supermajority, as in the precedent in Scotland in the 1970s. I do not like referenda but the essence of a referendum is that you win or lose. It is clean; it is 51% to 49%, for example. If 51% are in favour of our leaving the European Union, we will leave, and we should not create any fudge round that. This is a yes/no decision, and if you decide to go, you go. The double referenda theory attributed to Boris Johnson, which he appears to have come off—that if the decision was to go, there would be another negotiation in which the foreigners, astonished and timorous, would come creeping, offering us far better terms to stay in—is nonsense. If the country votes to leave the Government will be required to invoke Article 50 and start the process of coming out. It has to be clean. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, that I think he is correct in his description of the difficulties that would arise, but the difficulties which would arise if his amendment were the law of the land would be much greater.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
The noble Lord said that if the country voted to leave the Government would invoke Article 50, but surely that does not follow. It would be possible for us to remain in negotiations having voted to leave and then subsequently invoke Article 50, would it not? He is the expert.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard
I do not know what form these negotiations would take. I think that the position of a Government who said, “Okay, we have heard the nation speak, but now we are going to go and negotiate something else with Brussels. We are not acting on the decision the country has taken”—
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
My point is that if you invoke Article 50 you are then no longer a member and it does not necessarily follow that that would be the most appropriate way of dealing with it. You could remain as a member and negotiate our withdrawal and then use Article 50.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard
Actually, you are a member while the Article 50 negotiations are proceeding. You are a member of every council. Your MEPs do not leave the European Parliament, your judges do not leave the court and your Commissioners do not go home. The only difference is that in the Article 50 negotiations you do not have a vote on the position of the EU—the position that it has in its negotiation with you. That is all. You remain a member throughout the period of the Article 50 negotiations unless you decide unilaterally to go home. You do not have to do Article 50 at all. If you want you can just stop paying the bills, stop turning up at meeting and in due course it will be recognised that you have gone. It is not the case that once you invoke Article 50 you are no longer a member of the European Union.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)
Surely the key to the decision taken in the referendum is that it is advisory and not mandatory, so therefore it would not be necessary at once for the United Kingdom to apply for Article 50. We could merely carry on with the negotiations with absolutely nothing changing whatever.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard
Technically, that is correct. It is advisory. But it seems to me that anybody who thinks that the Government could do other than act fairly quickly on the advice they had received from the entire country is in cloud-cuckoo-land. The noble Lords, Lord Forsyth and Lord Hamilton, are right in a sense in that our influence in the councils of the European Union would go into very rapid decline. We would still be there but we would not be listened to a great deal if we were heading for the exit door. That is certainly true. However, we would be members, and the idea—with all respect to the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton—that the Government might consider whether they were going to act on the advice of the country or going to try some form of new negotiation is nonsense. If the country votes to come out, we come out.
Lord Tebbit (Con)
My Lords, it seems to me that this is a piece of nonsense. Wales is not a member of the European Union, nor is England, Scotland or Northern Ireland. The United Kingdom is the member of the European Union. Therefore, it does not matter a damn whether some region or another—whether it is Wales, London, Ponders End or wherever—votes one way or another. The only thing that matters is which way the United Kingdom votes.
I do not intend to be provocative at this time of night—good lord, I never intend to be provocative—but it is worth remembering that there is considerable doubt over whether, if Scotland had voted to leave the United Kingdom, either it or the remainder of the United Kingdom would have continued to be a member of the European Union. The state which entered the European Union was the United Kingdom; if the United Kingdom had ceased to exist, then probably neither Scotland nor the remainder of the United Kingdom would have been a member of the European Union. It would have been up to the Scottish— and possibly the Welsh at some time or another—to negotiate entry into the European Union. We could all have a bit of a chuckle about how that would have gone, but essentially this is just a piece of nonsense which is not even worth discussing at this time of the evening.
Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)
My Lords, I do not want to detain the Committee for long. I am aware that the last two evenings I have said I would be brief but then was not; this evening, I really do want to be brief. As for Amendment 61, as the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, has said, the assumption is that we will hear the results by region and possibly by constituency. Therefore, including in the Bill the idea of counting by nation, rather than state or region, is unnecessary—although we will all be delighted to know what the result is in Gibraltar, given that we have spent so much time talking about it. So many of the amendments and briefings seem to talk about Gibraltar.
Amendment 61C is the more substantive. Although it is clearly important that we listen to the views of all four nations—I suspect the Cornish, if they were standing here, would be saying that they wanted to be heard too—and that all parts of the United Kingdom are heard, in practice, as we have heard from most parts of the Chamber, if not from the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, this is a vote by the United Kingdom. Amendment 61C seems, in that sense, inappropriate.
Lord Collins of Highbury
My Lords, I begin by saying just how much I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit. The question is about the United Kingdom’s membership—there is no other question being asked and therefore the answer will be that we remain or that we leave. There is no doubt about that, but I will pick up just one point.
No matter how tempting it would be for me to enter into a long discussion about the history and politics of Scotland, I will resist that. However, I think the first amendment, tabled by my noble friend Lord Liddle, is unnecessary. I cannot be certain about the exact process, but what we all want is a very clear, transparent declaration of a result. I can assure all noble Lords that nobody would be satisfied with a computer output saying, “In the United Kingdom, X million voted this way”. We must have transparency: every voting area must declare and we must be able to see how that result is made up. That is how we have always done things and I cannot see any reason for changing that. I therefore think my noble friend Lord Liddle’s amendment is a bit unnecessary. However, this still does not avoid the point that whatever the result, it must be the result for the United Kingdom. One possible scenario is that England will vote, potentially by a small minority, to leave, while the rest of the United Kingdom will vote by large majorities to stay. That could happen, but it would not change the result. The result would be very clear: if we vote that way, even by a majority of one, we leave the European Union.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
At this time of night, it is tempting simply to say, “I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Collins of Highbury”, and thereby with my noble friends Lord Tebbit and Lord Forsyth, but I have a duty to put on record the reasons why the amendments are not welcome.
Amendment 61, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, seeks to ensure that votes cast in the referendum are counted and declared separately for Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England. I can give an assurance that, under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 and the Bill, that is already the case. Counting officers will declare separate results for Northern Ireland and Gibraltar. Regional counting officers will declare separate results for Scotland and Wales. In addition, the chief counting officer will declare results for the combined UK and Gibraltar, which will then be the overall result of the referendum.
It may assist the Committee if I set out briefly how the 2000 Act already achieves this, just to put to bed—so to speak, at this time of night—any remaining questions. The Bill provides for the UK and Gibraltar to be divided into different voting areas and for groups of voting areas in Great Britain to be treated as different electoral regions. The referendum will be administered on the ground by counting officers, one for each voting area. In England, Scotland and Wales, these will be the returning officers who act at local elections and the voting areas will mirror local authority areas. Northern Ireland will form a separate voting area and its counting officer will be the Chief Electoral Officer for Northern Ireland. Gibraltar will also form a separate voting area and its counting officer will be the Clerk to the Gibraltar Parliament.
The chief counting officer may also appoint a regional counting officer for each electoral region in Great Britain. The electoral regions mirror those for the European parliamentary elections. Scotland and Wales will each form an electoral region; separately, clearly. England will be divided up—I prefer that to “broken up”—into nine regions. Regional counting officers will co-ordinate the actions of counting officers and deliver the referendum in their region. Under the 2000 Act and the Bill, each counting officer must count the votes cast and make a declaration as to the votes cast in his or her voting area. Each regional counting officer must do the same in his or her region and the chief counting officer must make a declaration of the votes cast across the whole of the UK and Gibraltar.
Lord Blencathra
Does that mean that we will not have individual declarations in each district council area but that they will be aggregated and we will hear a declaration from a European region? I presume that we will still get access the next day to the figures for each district council.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
The short answer is pretty much yes—there will be local reflection of that. The effect of the provisions is that there are separate results declared for the regions that are the subject of this amendment; Scotland and Wales separately, because they are electoral regions and that is their process; Northern Ireland and Gibraltar, each of which is called a voting area, separately; and further declarations will be made by the regional counting officers in each of the regions of England. It will be possible to add together all the published information to produce the result for England as a whole. So we get there in the end.
Amendment 61C, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, seeks to impose a so-called double majority lock. Under this amendment, the chief counting officer could declare that a majority had voted in favour of the UK leaving the EU only if there is a majority for that result in each of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. I have made it clear that I agree entirely with my noble friends Lord Forsyth and Lord Tebbit and the noble Lord, Lord Collins, that that is not at all appropriate. It is a decision for the whole country. The people of Great Britain, Northern Ireland and Gibraltar will have a vote, and each vote will and should count equally. That is the only fair way to take a decision of this magnitude. We are one United Kingdom. The referendum will be on the United Kingdom’s membership of the EU and it is right, therefore, that there will be one referendum and one result. I invite the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, to withdraw Amendment 61.
Lord Wigley
My Lords, I am very grateful for the response and for the interest that this debate has generated among a number of noble Lords. I cannot say that I am entirely surprised at the tenor of the debate or the comments that have been made, but before withdrawing the amendment, I will say just two things. First, I passionately want all four nations of the United Kingdom to stay part of the European Union because I believe that both our local family of nations and the greater family of nations are apposite for such a relationship.
I also ask noble Lords to think, between now and Report and as this campaign goes on, what will be the consequences were that to happen. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said that he very much wanted to see the end of debating an independence referendum again. I am sure that he would accept that there is a greater danger of that referendum coming closer if those two results are different and the consequences of the referendum are taken for the UK as a whole.
If that is not the case, it flies in the face of what has been happening in Scottish politics—the fact that 56 out of 59 Members of Parliament are SNP. That surely has a message, and we should be thinking about how we respond to it. I am trying to put forward ideas and grasping at some ideas that Gordon Brown is putting forward about a new association of family members within these islands. We have a commonality of interests in many ways, and we have our distinctive differences as well. There is a need to build on that basis for the future, and the European referendum is one of those contexts.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
The noble Lord is right: 56 out of 59 of the MPs were elected as Scottish nationalists. They stood in the general election on a platform that the referendum had decided the matter and that the election was not about the issue of independence. During the referendum campaign, their party gave an assurance that this was a once-in-a-generation decision. So it is quite wrong to suggest that that result in any way vindicates the idea that you can rerun the referendum if something else happens which you may or may not agree with.
Lord Wigley
I understand entirely what the noble Lord is saying; all I am saying is that if the outcome was as I postulated, and as he accepts is a possibility—not a probability, but a possibility—there are consequences which, unless we think our way through them ahead of the referendum, will come back to haunt us. I put the amendment forward in a constructive spirit, not to try to pull things to bits. I am sure that the words of the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, will be heard loud and clear in Scotland. I am not trying to pull things to bits; I am trying to feel a way forward so that we can work together. Even if this is not the formula, there needs to be some formula.
On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
““the referendum period” has the meaning given by paragraph 1 of Schedule 1;”