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Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Elizabeth Truss)
First, I would like to pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s work on human rights reform as a Minister in this Department. He is a great champion of liberty.
The Government are committed to scrapping the Human Rights Act and introducing a British Bill of Rights.
Mr Raab
May I say at the outset that it is an honour to be the first Member to welcome the new Justice Secretary and the new Front-Bench team to their posts? I wish them every success. I also reassure my right hon. Friend, from experience, that being a lawyer is of very limited value in her Department—no offence to the Minister of State.
Britain’s decision to leave the EU will remove the jurisdiction of the Luxembourg Court, which is probably the biggest obstacle to delivering a Bill of Rights. May I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement on the intention to continue this reform and encourage the Government to proceed to consultation as soon as possible?
Elizabeth Truss
This is an important reform; we need to get it right. We will be introducing proposals in due course. We will deliver on this manifesto commitment.
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
Which convention rights does the Justice Secretary propose to leave out of the Bill of Rights?
Elizabeth Truss
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, and I remember with fondness our time together on the Justice Committee, where he had many good thoughts to put forward. We will be putting out our proposals in due course, which will discuss these issues in detail, but one of the important points is that we want the ultimate arbiter of those rights to be the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
Does the Secretary of State agree that one of the problems with the current set-up is that the code of rights includes many reservations and qualifications that the European Court does not embrace? A British Bill of Rights can ensure that there is proper balance and that the interests of justice are served.
Elizabeth Truss
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. It is absolutely the reason we want to pursue a British Bill of Rights to put that in place.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
If we are to have the Supreme Court as the ultimate arbiter, does that mean that the Lord Chancellor wants to withdraw from the European convention?
Elizabeth Truss
The Prime Minister has been very clear that leaving the European convention on human rights is not something that we are going to pursue.
Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)
May I, too, welcome my right hon. Friend to her post and her determination to proceed with a British Bill of Rights? Could I urge her to remember that the cornerstone of the rule of law in this country has always been the sovereignty of Parliament? May I urge her not to listen to those who argue that getting rid of an Act that came 40 years after we signed up to the European convention on human rights somehow or other undermines our position within the treaty.
Elizabeth Truss
My hon. Friend is absolutely right: human rights were not invented in 1998 with the Human Rights Act. We have a strong record, as a country, of human rights, dating back to Magna Carta, and the British Bill of Rights is going to be the next step in enshrining those rights in our laws.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
May I welcome the Secretary of State to her new role and say that while, of course, it is not a prerequisite for the person in her role to be a lawyer, she will no doubt wish to listen carefully to any legal advice she receives about any proposals to reform the law?
There is almost universal opposition to the repeal of the Human Rights Act in Scotland; this is reflected in the Scottish Parliament and across Scottish civic society. On 11 August, I wrote to the UK Government seeking clarification of their plans for so-called reform of the Human Rights Act, following press reports. I have yet to receive a substantive response. At what stage in her plans will the Secretary of State seek to consult the Scottish Government, and can she confirm that she will listen to and respect their answer?
Elizabeth Truss
I have already had a number of legal meetings about this issue, and I am sure I will enjoy working with the legal profession in my role. The Prime Minister has already had a very good meeting with the First Minister of Scotland. I will be meeting the Scottish Justice Minister shortly to discuss a number of issues.
Mr Speaker
Order. I do apologise; I had not realised that the hon. and learned Lady wanted a second bite of herself.
Joanna Cherry
I was rather hoping to have a second bite of Her Majesty’s Government, Mr Speaker.
If the Secretary of State has been having legal meetings about the Human Rights Act, she will have been advised that human rights are not a reserved matter and that therefore the Scottish Parliament must be consulted regarding any legislation with regard to human rights. During the independence referendum, Scotland was told that it was an equal partner in this Union. Does she appreciate that to proceed with repeal of the Human Rights Act across the UK would fly in the face of that promise and exacerbate the democratic deficit that already exists in Scotland, where a Tory Government we did not vote for are planning to take us out of the European Union against our will?
Elizabeth Truss
I would point out that this was in the Conservative party manifesto and we secured a majority at the general election. As I said, I will be in touch with the Scottish Justice Minister; I look forward to talking to him about this subject.
Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)
I welcome the Secretary of State to her new role. It is good to see a Leeds person at each Dispatch Box. I understand that, like me, she comes from good, left-wing Leeds stock, and I look forward to our exchanges.
At the Secretary of State’s swearing-in ceremony, she quoted with approval the late Lord Bingham. On the Human Rights Act, Lord Bingham said in 2009:
“Which of these rights, I ask, would we wish to discard?”
He went on to say:
“There may be those who would like to live in a country where these rights are not protected, but I am not of their number.”
To give the Secretary of State another chance, because she failed to answer the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner), which of these rights does she wish to discard?
Elizabeth Truss
I, too, welcome the hon. Gentleman to the Dispatch Box. It is great to have somebody who is also from Leeds facing me, although I learned the error of my ways after growing up in a left-wing household in that great city.
Elizabeth Truss
All I can say is that I believe that everyone is capable of reform, even those on the Opposition Benches. I have not yet given up hope on the shadow Secretary of State for Justice.
The whole purpose of the Bill of Rights is to enhance human rights in this country. We have led the world in human rights since Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights that was published in Wales in 1689, and we will continue to do so.
Richard Burgon
I thank the Secretary of State for that response, but let me say this:
“We were very clear that we will replace the Human Rights Act, which isn’t working for British people, with a British Bill of Rights that gives the ultimate power to citizens in this country.”
Those were the words of the Secretary of State on the “Today” programme in May 2015. Given that, and in the light of the answer that she has just given, can she explain to the House why she wants to rob the people of Britain of their rights? Will she admit that talk of a so-called Bill of Rights is simply posturing and making concessions to the hard right of the Conservative party?
Elizabeth Truss
Human rights were not invented in 1998 with the Human Rights Act. There are major issues with the Human Rights Act and we need to move forward. We need a British Bill of Rights that enshrines our ancient liberties.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. We now need to make progress as there are a lot of questions. Progress thus far has been slow, so we can be speeded up by Mr John Mann.
John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Dr Phillip Lee)
Hate crime is abhorrent and has no place in society. The Government published their plan to tackle hate crime, “Action Against Hate”, in July 2016. This Government believe that the enforcement of criminal legislation has an important role in tackling online hate. We also need deterrence and prevention, which require a broader response, from counter-narrative activity through to effective management from the internet industry.
John Mann
The last time I asked the Secretary of State a question in here, she invited me to join her on a delegation to China. May I reciprocate and invite her and her Front-Bench colleagues to come to Bassetlaw day in the Jubilee Room, hosted by me and the hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick)?
True Vision, the internet reporting organisation based in the Secretary of State’s offices, is the pride and joy of her Department and the envy of every other Government in the world. Is she going to allow it to disappear into some other Department, or is she going to keep it in her Department?
Dr Lee
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his characteristically delivered question. The Secretary of State has, I gather, recently written to him on this matter. The cross-Government hate crime programme is highly regarded by this Government and internationally. I am committed to ensuring that that important work continues.
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
I welcome my hon. Friend to his post. The Government were right to make posting revenge porn online a crime. Figures released today show that there have been 200 prosecutions for revenge pornography, yet more than 1,000 cases have been reported to the police. Does the Minister agree that, as with other sex-related crimes, anonymity for victims perhaps needs to be carefully considered in cases of revenge pornography?
Dr Lee
I thank my right hon. Friend for her question and, indeed, for the work that she and her Select Committee do in this area. Revenge porn is a terrible abuse of trust that can leave victims feeling humiliated and degraded. By making it a specific offence carrying a maximum sentence of two years behind bars, we have sent a clear message that this crime will not be tolerated. On anonymity, I am interested in what she says; if she would like to write to me about that issue, I will consider it.
Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)
I welcome the Minister to his post. Has he seen this morning’s comments by the Director of Public Prosecutions that social media is one of the driving forces behind the record high in recorded violent crimes against women and girls? I welcome what the Minister has said about the need for a broader response, so what does he plan to do to safeguard the many specialist services that exist to support women who are suffering online harassment and abuse, many of which are suffering funding cuts?
Dr Lee
As I have already said, this crime is deplorable. I suspect that it has always happened and that social media has facilitated it, and that we are now detecting more crime of this kind. I am determined to maintain services that support women and, indeed, men who are subjected to the crime, and I will continue to keep a close eye on that.
Mrs Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)
What action are the Government taking to combat online anti-Semitic hate crime emanating from extremist groups on campus?
Dr Lee
Online anti-Semitic crime, like revenge porn, is an appalling crime that is more easily committed through use of the internet and anonymity. With specific regard to anti-Semitism, the Government, thanks mainly to the fantastic work done by the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) and his all-party group, have made significant advances. I will consider my right hon. Friend’s comments on anti-Semitic crime, particularly on campus.
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Elizabeth Truss)
In the last year, assaults have risen by 31% and those on prison staff have risen by 40%. That is totally unacceptable and I am determined to tackle it. Reforming prisons will be possible only if they are made safer places for staff and offenders alike.
Bridget Phillipson
As the Secretary of State’s response makes clear, prison safety continues to deteriorate. That significant problem puts both prisoners and staff at risk, but a major issue that must be tackled is the retention of staff. Will she set out exactly what she will do to make that a priority and how she will succeed where her predecessors have failed?
Elizabeth Truss
I absolutely agree that the retention of staff is a very important issue. I have been to a number of prisons and seen how brave, fearless and hard-working our prison officers are. They are vital in turning around offenders and getting them the education and skills they need to succeed outside. I am determined to support and work with them, and over the coming months I will lay out more detailed plans.
Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
May I warmly welcome the Secretary of State and her team to their posts? Lawyers do sometimes have their uses, and so do non-lawyers. Her predecessor made prison reform a centrepiece of the agenda and rightly described the deterioration of safety in prisons as terrible. The figures have now got worse. He committed to an action plan to tackle violence in our prisons. Will the Secretary of State reaffirm that, and what specific steps will be taken to deal with what is a ticking time bomb in our criminal justice system, because nothing else has worked?
Elizabeth Truss
May I say how pleased I am to have been able to meet the Chairman of the Justice Committee? I take the advice of all my lawyers, but particularly that of the Chairman of the Select Committee, extremely seriously.
This is a critical issue that faces our prisons. We cannot have reform in our prisons if we do not have safe prisons for people to work in. Those two things go hand in hand. I am committed to an agenda of making our prisons safe and places of reform. I will be laying out my plans very shortly on this issue, and I look forward to discussing it more with the Select Committee tomorrow.
Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State look again at statements that were made by her Department recently about the number of prison officers? The Department claims that the number has increased, but it has not. Will she look at the matter again? I believe that she did not take into account staff being regraded or the number of hours that they actually work when she examined the number of officers in the system.
Elizabeth Truss
I will, of course, look at those numbers in detail. In fact, I am looking at them at the moment. As well as the number of staff, it is important to consider how staff are deployed and trained, and the powers that governors have to get the best out of staff working in prisons. I am looking at all those aspects, but I agree that staff are absolutely crucial to make our prisons work well.
James Berry (Kingston and Surbiton) (Con)
One of the causes of a lack of safety in prisons has been novel psychoactive substances. Does the Secretary of State agree that the ban on the possession of those substances in prisons should really improve the safety of other prisoners and prison officers, if it is properly enforced?
Elizabeth Truss
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that NPS have been a major issue in our prisons. When I visited HMP Norwich last week, I was pleased to see that it was using the new legislation to tackle that issue in the prison, to search people and to catch them out. HMP Norwich has succeeded in reducing the usage of such drugs already. I would like to see that type of programme happening more across our prison estate.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Elizabeth Truss)
Forgive me, Mr Speaker; I think that the summer recess has taken its toll on my memory of parliamentary procedure.
I am determined to ensure that our prisons are places of safety and reform. We need to help offenders to get off drugs, improve their education and get the work skills they need so they are less likely to reoffend when they come out.
Andy Slaughter
I thank the Secretary of State for concentrating. Does she see a connection between the long-term decline in prison officer numbers—they went down 30% between 2010 and 2013, and they are going down again—and this massive increase in assaults on staff, which went up 90% over the last Parliament?
Elizabeth Truss
There are many factors driving prison violence and self-harm. I am looking at the evidence about what will work and what steps we can take, but I am determined to tackle this. I am very clear that the current levels of violence are unacceptable.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
May I also warmly congratulate the Secretary of State and the new ministerial team on their appointments? Of course we need more prison officers in prisons, but may I urge the Secretary of State and her Ministers to consider the greater use of prisoners as mentors? Wandsworth is leading the way, with 50 mentors providing teaching and education, but that could also be used in employment, for therapeutic purposes and to cut down the use of drugs.
Elizabeth Truss
As a Prisons Minister, my hon. Friend did tremendous work in this area; we are very much learning from the work that he carried out in the Department. He makes an important point, and I think we need to look at the overall culture in some of our best prisons. We have exemplary work going on, such as mentoring, and we need to make sure that that is happening right across our prison estate.
Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)
The Secretary of State may be aware that the head of the prison service in Northern Ireland recently stood down. Attacks on prison staff are on the rise. Will the Secretary of State ensure that her Department engages actively with the Department of Justice in Northern Ireland to see what lessons can be learned and to try to improve safety in prisons in Northern Ireland?
Elizabeth Truss
I have been in touch with the Justice Minister in Northern Ireland, and I look forward to talking to her in due course.
David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)
May I, too, congratulate the Secretary of State on her appointment? Is not a large part of the problem the fact that we have so many Victorian prisons? Does she have any plans for a prison rebuilding scheme?
Elizabeth Truss
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have a big issue with prisons that are out of date and not fit for purpose, which makes it more difficult for our excellent governors and officers to manage them well. I am pleased to say that this summer we were able to close Holloway prison. We have a £1.3 billion building programme. I want new modern prisons to be built in which prisoners will get the education and work they need to succeed in outside life, and to close down some of our most dilapidated and out-of-date prisons.
Joan Ryan (Enfield North) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Dr Phillip Lee)
It is crucial that victims of crime are supported as effectively as possible. The victims code was revised in 2015. Victims of all criminal offences are now entitled to support from a wide range of organisations, as well as from criminal justice agencies. The reforms we are making to our courts will significantly improve services for victims and their families—for example, to enable them to give evidence remotely and digitally.
Joan Ryan
More than 23,000 individual crimes have been reported in Enfield during the past 12 months. For far too long, the victims of these crimes have been forgotten and ignored by the criminal justice system. Given that the Victims’ Commissioner supports the introduction of a law for victims of crime, when will the Government fulfil their election manifesto commitment to bring forward legislation on this issue?
Dr Lee
We want to make sure that all vulnerable and intimidated witnesses can give their best evidence in court and feel less anxious. We are committed to making sure that victims of crime get the support they need. We have protected the overall level of funding for victims across the spending review period, and we announced funding of more than £95 million in 2016-17 to fund critical support services. We will bring forward our legislation, as promised, in due course.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
Victims of crime want to see the perpetrators of that crime properly punished. Is the Minister happy that prisoners are automatically released halfway through their prison sentence no matter how disruptive they are or how much of a threat they still pose to the public, or does he agree with me that prisoners should serve the sentences handed down by the courts in full?
Dr Lee
The purpose of justice and the primary goal of the justice system must be to reduce reoffending. If somebody in prison has been assessed, is deemed not to be a risk to society and has been properly rehabilitated, it is in the best interests of that individual and of society for that person to be released.
Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)
Too often the victims of criminal driving and their families are not actually treated as victims of crime, but told that they have been involved in an accident. How can that culture be changed, and when, finally, will we get the review of sentencing for these types of offences?
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
One of the best ways to ensure that justice is served is to ensure that victims have the chance to make a victim impact statement to the court, but that does not always happen. What can the Minister do to ensure that it happens in every case?
Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)
As has been mentioned, today’s report on violence against women and girls shows an increase in prosecutions. However, victims charities remain concerned about their futures, as was stated by the chair of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners Supporting Victims Group when asking the Ministry earlier this year to clarify what funding is available to PCCs. The Minister told my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) that he will be “keeping an eye on this matter”. With respect, keeping an eye on the matter is not good enough. Will the Secretary of State now confirm that victims services will receive the full funding that they require?
Dr Lee
The victims services budget has increased significantly from £48 million in 2010-11 to about £95 million in the current financial year. In 2016-17, for example, we have allocated about £7 million to 99 rape support centres to provide therapeutic and practical help to male and female victims of rape and child sexual abuse. I do not recognise the description given by the shadow Secretary of State. The Government are committed to protecting victims, particularly women who have been victims of crime.
David Warburton (Somerton and Frome) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Sam Gyimah)
The illicit use of mobile phones in prison undermines security, order and control, and has been linked to many forms of criminality. The Government are determined to take action to stop it.
David Warburton
The connection between technology and radicalisation by the dissemination of extremism in prisons is one of the most critical challenges we face. Will my hon. Friend continue to do everything possible to ensure that prisoners, who already face difficulties re-engaging with society, do not have that difficult task made impossible by those who would use technology such as mobile phones to spread extremist poison?
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
There have been reports from Swansea prison of people throwing mobile phones over the wall, which provides anonymity that allows prisoners to indulge in all sorts of criminal activity. What is the Minister doing about that sort of thing?
Mr Gyimah
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Every governor I have spoken to in the last six weeks has mentioned the growing problem of illegal mobile phones in prison. I believe that technology is vital to detecting and blocking such phones. That is why, in addition to the range of technologies that have already been deployed across the prison estate, we have held a high-level meeting with mobile network operators and asked them to use their expertise to develop new technological solutions to deny mobile phone signals in prisons. As responsible businesses, I expect those operators to co-operate fully.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
The Minister for Courts and Justice (Sir Oliver Heald)
There is, and there will be, an appropriate level of court provision for the people of Bury.
Mr Nuttall
I warmly welcome my hon. and learned Friend to his new role and thank him for that brief reply. Although court provision might be regarded as adequate now, it is important that it continues to be adequate in the future. I ask the new Lord Chancellor and ministerial team to look again at the proposals for north Manchester and, in particular, at the consequential effects on the police budget, given that the police will be faced with longer journey times when they attend court.
Mr Speaker
We might be faced with longer questions as well, but we are immensely indebted to the hon. Gentleman nevertheless.
Sir Oliver Heald
May I start by paying tribute to the work that my hon. Friend has done and the proposals he has made for his local courts? He will know, as a lawyer, that we are investing a huge amount of money—a good £1 billion—to transform our courts and tribunals. Modern technology improves efficiency and means that fewer people need to attend court in person. Excellent facilities are available to the people of Bury and Manchester, which have some of the best courts in the country.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
The Minister will know that the proposals across the whole of Greater Manchester are far-reaching and that they are controversial in parts of the city region. Will he explain to the House precisely what was agreed with Greater Manchester combined authority in the memorandum of understanding that his Department signed with it? Does it mean that the combined authority can look again at some of the court closures?
Sir Oliver Heald
The hon. Gentleman will realise that none of these decisions is taken lightly. It is important to work closely with local government, and that is exactly what has been happening. To give him an impression of the tremendous improvement the court modernisation programme is making, it has been going for four months and 6 million pieces of paper have been avoided as a result.
Sir Oliver Heald
Yes, 6 million pieces of paper have been avoided by using digital case files. That is a pile of paper as high as the Shard—the largest building in London.
Mr Speaker
Order. Huntingdon is a splendid part of the world that deserves to be represented effectively by the hon. Gentleman, whom I have known for a quarter of a century, but it is a long way from Bury, to which this question exclusively relates. [Interruption.] Order. The question is about Bury, I say to the young fellow. He can come in later—we look forward to hearing from him.
John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Elizabeth Truss)
That information is published by the legal professions. For example, 13% of QCs are women, and 6% declare themselves as coming from a black, Asian and minority ethnic background.
Elizabeth Truss
We want a justice system that works for everyone and a legal services industry that uses all the talent in our country. I have already had very positive conversations with the Lord Chief Justice, who is keen to improve diversity figures in the judiciary, and I am due to meet the Bar Council shortly to talk specifically about the Bar.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
What assessment has my right hon. Friend made of opportunities to increase apprenticeship-based routes into the legal professions and prison services to increase social mobility?
Elizabeth Truss
I am a huge fan of apprenticeships. The new apprenticeship levy brings a big opportunity for some of our large legal services firms, and right across the board, to increase the number of apprenticeships. I will certainly be talking to those firms about that over the coming months.
Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)
At one London provider of legal education, fees for the academic year ahead are as follows: nearly £11,000 for the graduate diploma in law; more than £15,000 for the legal practice course; and near to £19,000 for the Bar professional training course. That is on top of the cost of university education. Such fees are beyond the reach of many people from ordinary backgrounds. Given that reality, how will the Minister ensure a diverse legal profession?
Elizabeth Truss
I have been discussing this matter right across the legal profession. At the younger end we are seeing a lot more diversity; the question is how people progress through the pipeline. I would like more transparency so that we can look at people moving through the system. I have no doubt that the Lord Chief Justice and leading judges want to see more diversity. They are very keen to work with me on this agenda.
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
Sir David Amess (Southend West) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Dr Phillip Lee)
Prisons must become places of rehabilitation where offenders can change their lives and turn away from crime. Addressing health needs, including mental health, is key to creating a safe and rehabilitative environment for prisoners. We are committed to meeting the mental health needs of prisoners. All prisons have procedures in place to identify, manage and support people with mental health illness.
Jason McCartney
Will the Minister confirm that governors will have new powers and abilities to run their own mental health and health budgets, and will that include co-commissioning of mental health services with local clinical commissioning groups?
Sir David Amess
Does the Department have a precise figure for the number of people in prison at the moment who have mental health issues? Will my hon. Friend reassure me that prison staff are adequately trained to deal with people who exhibit mental health issues?
Dr Lee
Based on a Ministry of Justice survey, 49% of prisoners were assessed as being at risk from anxiety and/or depression and 16% reported symptoms indicative of psychosis. Department of Health figures, however, are somewhat different; north of 90% of prisoners have a mental health problem if substance misuse is included. I am seeking more data on this area. We are committed to meeting the mental health needs of prisoners, which is why all new intake prison officers receive mental health awareness training as part of their entry-level training.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
One hundred people have taken their lives in our prisons in the past year. That is the highest level for over 25 years. More than 9,000 people have self-harmed in our prisons. That is an increase of over 25% in the past year alone. The Government should be ashamed: it is a dereliction of their duty of care. I want to know, having listened to the answer from the Government, what they are actually going to do to look after the thousands of prisoners who have serious mental health conditions and are not being looked after.
Dr Lee
The aetiology of mental health is pretty complex. The genesis of problems do not just occur over the term of a Parliament. The system in place for mental healthcare and the continuity of care for people before, during and post their stay in prison is clearly not where it should be. I would argue that that has been the case for many decades. I have been asked to look at this matter and will be doing so, but it is a huge and complex area. As a consequence, I am not about to make any commitments at the Dispatch Box.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
There is a particular risk for women in prison. Some 30% of women prisoners have had a previous admission for a psychiatric problem before they went into prison. In the past year, 11 women have killed themselves. My impression is that that is because the previous Secretary of State did not focus on the recommendations of the Corston report, which would have ensured a better level of mental health for women in prison. What is this Minister going to do on the Corston report and on women in prison?
Dr Lee
I have read the Corston report and it is a good report. It was published in 2007 and it is still relevant today; it has intellectual coherence with the Charlie Taylor report on youth offenders. I will be looking at it and I am personally persuaded by some of the arguments in it, but I see no evidence that the former Secretary of State was not in any way keeping a close eye on the matter.
Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Sam Gyimah)
We will always have prison places to fulfil the orders of the courts. Those convicted of sexual offences are just one cohort of a range we manage daily across the estate. In doing so, we will make sure that estate capacity is realigned to meet the demand for places, including for those convicted of sexual offences.
Maria Caulfield
Her Majesty’s prison Lewes in my constituency has seen a huge surge in prisoners either on remand or serving a sentence for sexual offences. This is putting massive pressure not just on staffing but on space and resources. What specific help can the Minister give HMP Lewes?
Mr Gyimah
My hon. Friend makes a very valid point. Those at HMP Lewes who are charged with sexual offences are generally held in separate units that provide suitable accommodation for their offending behaviours. Perhaps I can reassure her that the prison received £153,000 of the Government’s £12 million fund for safety, and that it plans to spend that on staff, focusing on safety and on violence reduction. There is a recruitment drive going on at the moment. Staff are being vetted and a number of staff will be starting imminently.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Surely the Minister understands that, whether it is prisoners who have been tried and convicted for crimes of a sexual nature or prisoners with mental health and other problems, it is the quality of the management of our prisons that must give us all great concern. When my Select Committee looked at education in prisons, we kept coming back to the fact that the culture of the prison comes from the top and is supported by well trained and well educated prison officers.
Mr Gyimah
On this rare occasion, I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman—the quality of leadership in a prison makes a huge difference to the regime. It makes a huge difference to how staff are inspired and to the rehabilitation of offenders. That is why Government Members are arguing for prison reform to empower governors, give them control of budgets and enable them to get local resources to meet the needs of offenders.
David Mackintosh (Northampton South) (Con)
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Sam Gyimah)
Most offenders arrive in prison with very low levels of educational attainment, very high levels of substance misuse and a very poor employment history. I believe that the purpose of modern prisons is to keep the public safe and to tackle each of those issues, so that prisoners have the foundations to secure and hold down a job on release.
David Mackintosh
I thank my hon. Friend, but I have recently visited prisoners from my constituency who told me that offenders do not have access immediately on their release to national insurance numbers, bank accounts or unemployment benefits. Will the Minister let me know what steps the Government are taking to improve this situation?
Mr Gyimah
I agree with my hon. Friend that if “through the gate services”, as we call them, are to work and to stop reoffending, national insurance numbers, bank accounts and so forth need to be in place. There is a series of programmes in place to tackle this problem, including an offender banking programme, which opens about 5,000 new bank accounts every year.
Tom Pursglove
The Minister has rightly identified the fact that research shows that employment after custody greatly reduces the chances of reoffending, so what work is his Department doing with the Department for Work and Pensions to make sure that offenders not only find work after they leave prison, but stay in work?
Mr Gyimah
As my hon. Friend has rightly identified, tackling the challenge—and it is a challenge—of getting prisoners work when they leave requires a concerted effort across government and locally across the community. Every prisoner has the opportunity to meet a DWP work coach before release, and the work coach’s role is to guide them towards employment. Work coaches can also ensure that prisoners know their national insurance numbers and get the other services they need to be able to make an appropriate transition into the community.
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
Many prisoners are already on short-term sentences of under nine months and are often in prison for very short periods. Will the Minister give us some advice on how governors will be judged on placing such prisoners into employment when the challenges are very difficult?
Mr Gyimah
Since being appointed to this job, I have met a number of governors, and most of them tell us that they want to be empowered to match resources to the needs of prisoners in their prisons, working with local employers and the whole community. That is what governors want, but this is not the responsibility of governors alone. If we want prisoners to be able to go out and find work, businesses have a role, the community has a role and we all have a role. If prisoners can leave, get jobs and restart their lives for the better, we all benefit.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
More than 60% of young people within the justice system have a communications disability, and more than a third of young offenders have speaking and listening skills at the level expected of an 11-year-old. With these skills being fundamental to the ability to hold down a job, will the Minister update us on what assessment the Government have made of speech and language support needs and of how well those needs are being met?
Mr Gyimah
The hon. Lady is obviously right that many prisoners arrive at prison with huge learning difficulties and disadvantages. That is well documented. We need individual programmes tailored to the needs of the prisoner, and the way to do that, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, is to empower governors to work with probation companies and rehabilitation organisations to deliver those programmes.
Mr Speaker
I gently say to the Minister that I wrote a little report on this matter in 2008, a copy of which I dare say he will find either on the internet or in the House of Commons Library, if it is of interest to him.
Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Elizabeth Truss)
Fewer than half of the people entering prison have basic standards of English and maths. This is a huge problem because we know that low levels of education can prevent people from securing jobs on release and leading law-abiding lives.
Neil Parish
The Secretary of State is quite right to say that both literacy and numeracy are essential to getting a job. Should we not therefore put more resources into educating prisoners on release so that they are able to get jobs?
Elizabeth Truss
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The fact is that too many people enter our prisons without those skills. We need to use their time in prison to help them to gain the basic skills so that they can succeed outside. We have started measuring prisoners’ skills by testing them as they enter prison. I am keen to see that we measure real progress made during prisoners’ stay in prison and hold governors accountable for that.
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State confirm that there will be no return to the policy of banning books for prisoners?
Mr Edward Vaizey (Wantage) (Con)
I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend to her position. I was delighted to hear the new Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport talking about the importance of the arts in prisons. I hope that my right hon. Friend will recognise how the arts can bring prisoners to literacy and teach them a huge range of skills. I hope she will meet the National Criminal Justice Arts Alliance at the earliest opportunity to discuss what the arts can do, particularly in respect of literacy.
Elizabeth Truss
May I say what a fantastic job my right hon. Friend has done in championing the arts in every part of our country? His legacy lives on, and it will live on in our prisons.
Mr Speaker
I think that the right hon. Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey) is overcome with emotion. What a happy day for the feller!
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
What discussions will the Secretary of State have with Justice Departments in devolved legislatures throughout the United Kingdom to ensure that best practice is replicated in the improvement of literacy in all UK prisons?
Elizabeth Truss
I look forward to meeting my counterparts from all over the United Kingdom and discussing these critical issues, because this is a challenge that we all face.
Kate Hollern (Blackburn) (Lab)
The Minister for Courts and Justice (Sir Oliver Heald)
The Government’s reform programme is intended to deliver a simpler modern justice system that is available to everyone.
Kate Hollern
East Lancashire, which includes my constituency and up to five other constituencies, has only one legal aid solicitors firm to deal with housing. What is the Minister going to do about that legal advice centre desert?
Sir Oliver Heald
It is important for legal aid to be available, and it is, in housing cases. It is also available in the most vital cases, in which people’s lives, liberty or homes are at stake. It is available in domestic violence cases, and cases in which children may be taken into care. I am, of course, grateful to the hon. Lady for highlighting the issue, but let us be clear about the fact that legal aid in housing cases is available, as is a national helpline, as well as the services of lawyers throughout the country.
Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (UKIP)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Elizabeth Truss)
I am proud to take on the role of Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary, upholding the rule of law and reforming our justice system. I am determined to ensure that our prisons are places of safety and reform where offenders can get off drugs, improve their education, and develop the work skills they need so that they are less likely to reoffend. I pay tribute to our brave prison officers and probation staff.
Over the next couple of months I shall lay out my plans for prison reform, and set out plans to modernise the courts so that we can continue to have a world-leading justice system.
Mr Carswell
Sir James Munby was asked to undertake a review of the family courts in August 2014. Can the Secretary of State update the House on any progress that has been made in opening up the family courts and ending the secrecy that can lead to injustice?
Elizabeth Truss
I am due to meet James Munby next week to discuss that issue in more detail. Some progress has been made in opening up the family courts, but there is, of course, a balance to be struck between highly sensitive issues and opening them up fully. I will look at the issue in more detail.
Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)
Elizabeth Truss
I am delighted to tell my hon. Friend that this summer the Legal Aid Agency pulled the plug on its contract with Public Interest Lawyers, who will no longer be ambulance-chasing our brave service personnel. Legal aid should support vulnerable people in our society, and should not be used to pursue spurious cases against the armed forces who do so much to serve our country.
Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)
May I join colleagues in welcoming the new Justice Secretary and her team to their roles?
The Government created the toxic conditions for the record levels of violence, drug finds and deaths throughout the prison system by reducing the number of prison officers by a third, yet the former Prisons Minister spent much of his time at the Dispatch Box this year telling me quite proudly about his Department’s successful recruitment drive. The Justice Secretary did not seem to have the figures with her earlier when she answered a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Jenny Chapman), so I will help her out. Can she explain why we have 421 fewer full-time equivalent front-line prison officers working in our public prisons than we did a year ago?
Elizabeth Truss
I fully acknowledge that we do have issues with violence and safety in our prisons. The levels are unacceptable. I am determined to deal with this issue and I will lay out my plans very shortly.
Jo Stevens
Since the Government’s probation privatisation, concerns have repeatedly been raised about the quality of pre-sentence reports for the courts as a result of arbitrary targets set. The probation inspectorate has this month described that as a persistent problem leading to inappropriate sentences being handed down. Vital safeguarding checks, such as domestic violence checks with police and child protection checks with children’s services, are not taking place prior to sentencing. Will the Justice Secretary today commit to an urgent review so that the public, probation professionals and sentencers can have confidence that when convicted criminals are sentenced, those deciding on them have all the necessary safeguarding evidence available?
Elizabeth Truss
Our probation services do vital work and the Minister responsible for prisons and probation is looking very closely at this issue, but I would point out that those now on shorter sentences get much more support thanks to our new probation contracts.
Mr Speaker
Contributions to topical questions must be brief, whether from the Back Benches or the Front. There is a lot to get through and not much time in which to do so.
Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Sam Gyimah)
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. Some of the problems in society are magnified in our prisons. As the Prime Minister said, if we are going to have a country that works for everyone, prison reform is very much a part of that, including on literacy, training, work in prisons and employment opportunities when people are released.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
Elizabeth Truss
This is an incredibly important issue. Both the youth justice Minister and I have met Charlie Taylor and we will publish our response this autumn.
Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)
Elizabeth Truss
English law has had a huge impact, spreading the rule of law around the world. It is the law of choice in over a quarter of jurisdictions, and Brexit gives us even more opportunities to promote this. I will be championing our £25 billion legal services industry as a key part of post-Brexit global Britain.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
The Minister for Courts and Justice (Sir Oliver Heald)
May I start by welcoming the Justice Committee’s report on court and tribunal fees? We are intending to respond, and we are also going to publish the review of changes to employment tribunal fees in due course. This is an important area and we will do that.
Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Dr Phillip Lee)
One hundred babies resided in mother and baby units in English prisons in 2015. Prisons do an excellent job in making these environments as pleasant as possible and babies are able to spend time away from the prison with nominated carers. However, knowing the importance of the early years for child development, it is essential that we consider alternative ways of dealing with female offenders, including those with young children and babies and other caring responsibilities.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
Elizabeth Truss
I thank the hon. Lady for her question, and I will be very interested in looking more at the details of that proposal.
Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)
Sir Oliver Heald
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this issue. He will be pleased to hear that I have had that notice taken down. The response to the consultation stated that the work would go to Stockport and Chesterfield, and that is what is happening.
John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
Further to a previous question, I have many constituents who cannot get access to employment tribunals because the fees introduced during the last Parliament have proved prohibitive. Will the Minister promise to make a statement to the House on the impact of those fees?
Sir Oliver Heald
As the hon. Gentleman will have heard, we recognise that we need to produce our review—which we are going to publish—and to respond to the Justice Committee’s report. Those documents will be available in the Vote Office, and that will happen in due course. We are committed to doing that.
Mr Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon) (Con)
Effective court administration is a very different matter from retaining inefficient and costly court buildings. The question is whether the closures are going hand in hand with investment, efficiency and the best use of technologies in the surrounding courts—not least in Bury, Mr Speaker.
Mr Speaker
I was not psychic; I now realise what the hon. Gentleman was driving at earlier. I am glad that he was persistent. Persistence pays.
Sir Oliver Heald
My hon. Friend is right. We need a programme of transformation that maintains the very high quality of our legal system—I am sure Members would agree that it is one of the best in the world—but we want to make it the most modern as well, and that is what we are doing. We are investing £1 billion, we have saved a Shard-load of paper, as I mentioned earlier, and we are going to do a lot more, so that our courts can benefit from the digital revolution that every other part of society is already benefiting from.
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
My constituent’s 17-year-old son Shaquan was murdered last year in Brockley. Will the Minister meet me and Sharon, Shaquan’s mother, to discuss the repeated failings in our justice system that mean that his killer is still walking the streets?
Elizabeth Truss
I would be very happy to meet the hon. Lady and her constituent, and I am very sorry to hear about that case.
Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)
Colin Pitchfork was convicted of raping and murdering two young girls in the 1980s. Will the Minister please assure me and the public of their safety, given that Mr Pitchfork is being moved to an open prison?
Mr Gyimah
My hon. Friend will be aware that the transfer of prisoners from one prison to another is based on a careful assessment of the risks involved. I am sure that that will have taken place in this case, but I would be happy to discuss the matter with him in more detail if he wants to do so.
Ms Margaret Ritchie (South Down) (SDLP)
Does the Secretary of State accept that the Human Rights Act 1998 is an indispensable part of the Good Friday agreement and that, whatever the plans are for elsewhere, the Government, as a co-guarantor of the agreement, are obligated to retain the Act in Northern Ireland?
Sir Oliver Heald
The UK has led the world in human rights, from Magna Carta to habeas corpus, and the Government are committed to bringing forward a British Bill of Rights further to build on those ancient protections. The Prime Minister has already met Nicola Sturgeon to make sure that the UK works together—[Hon. Members: “This is about Northern Ireland.”] As the Secretary of State said, we intend to meet all those across the United Kingdom who have concerns about this.
Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)
Over the summer I visited the job club at North Sea Camp prison in my constituency, which was set up at the behest of prisoners there. Does the Minister agree that some of the best examples of rehabilitation are to be found in category D prisons? Will he come and see that prison so that we can learn about what really good rehabilitation can do for prisoners’ life chances across the wider prison estate?
Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West) (Lab)
Half an hour ago, the Secretary of State said that when the Human Rights Act is repealed it will be replaced with a new British Bill of Rights that will include additional human rights. What additional human rights will there be?
Elizabeth Truss
I said that we will enhance human rights in this country, and we will bring forward our proposals in due course.
Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)
With proactive cross-Government work, we have seen a 41% increase in disability hate crime prosecutions. Will the Secretary of State keep that as a priority?
Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP)
I received assurances from the Government that the post-implementation review of tribunal fees would be published late last year. Nine months on and after thousands more discrimination cases, we are still waiting. Why has it taken so long for the Government to get a move on and publish the review? Will the Government follow the Scottish Government by abolishing tribunal fees completely—that is Scotland, not Northern Ireland?
Sir Oliver Heald
As the hon. Lady says, it is right that the review should be published. It will be published in due course with the reply to the Select Committee. We welcome the report and the discussion, so I thank her for her question.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
Will a Minister confirm that this ministerial team will continue the good work of its predecessor in considering how prisoners’ family ties can be strengthened to improve rehabilitation and reduce recidivism?
Elizabeth Truss
My hon. Friend has a long-standing interest in this matter, as does the former Prisons Minister. We are determined to pursue this important part of rehabilitation.
Mr Speaker
I am sorry to disappoint some colleagues but, as usual, demand has exceeded supply.
Royal Mail delivery office in Marple
(7 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)
I rise to present petitions relating to keeping Royal Mail delivery offices open in Marple and Bredbury. The two offices are currently being reviewed by Royal Mail with a view to their potential closure, yet they enable local residents to collect parcels and items of mail, provide a service that is vitally convenient and employ dozens of local people. Unfortunately, the nearest alternative facility is not in easy reach of the local population and has no direct public transport links.
Petitions organised by me and distributed throughout the area, as well as being placed online, had reached 3,105 signatures as of yesterday. The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges Royal Mail to keep delivery offices open in Marple and Bredbury.
[Following is the full text of the petition:
The petition of residents of the UK,
Declares that the Royal Mail delivery office in Marple, which enables local residents to collect parcels and items of mail, provides a service that is vitally convenient; further that there is no local alternative provision of this service; and further that the nearest facility is not in easy reach of the local population and has no direct public transport links.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges Royal Mail plc to keep a Royal Mail delivery office open in Marple.
And the petitioners remain, etc.]
[P001706]
Royal Mail delivery office in Bredbury
(7 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
[Following is the full text of the petition:
The petition of residents of the UK,
Declares that the Royal Mail delivery office in Bredbury, which enables local residents to collect parcels and items of mail, provides a service that is vitally convenient; further that there is no local alternative provision of this service; and further that the nearest facility is not in easy reach of the local population and has no direct public transport links.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges Royal Mail plc to keep a Royal Mail delivery office open in Bredbury.
And the petitioners remain, etc.]
[P001705]
Sellafield
(7 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State if he will make a statement on safety at Sellafield.
The Minister for Climate Change and Industry (Mr Nick Hurd)
Ensuring high standards of nuclear safety and security will always be a top priority for the Government. On Sellafield, I can assure the House that there is no safety risk to site staff or the public, and it is wrong to suggest otherwise.
As the hon. Gentleman knows more than anyone, Sellafield is a uniquely challenging site that contains the legacy of the UK’s earliest nuclear programmes, when nuclear waste was dumped with no plan for how it would be disposed of safely. The Government have been turning that around in order to clean up Sellafield as safely, cost-effectively and quickly as possible, which is an enormously complex task.
We have a strong regulatory system and all operators are answerable to an independent regulator. The Office for Nuclear Regulation is satisfied—it has confirmed that again this morning—that Sellafield is safe. The regulation of facilities is the ONR’s top priority with a team of around 50 inspectors deployed. The ONR requires the site to improve continuously. The ONR has confirmed that none of the issues raised in the “Panorama” programme is new. The ONR operates transparently. The issues facing Sellafield have been reported to Parliament in the ONR’s annual report and accounts, in which the ONR concluded that important progress has been made.
Mr Reed
I thank the Minister for his response. The safety and security of Sellafield are the most important considerations for everyone working at the site. Safety is non-negotiable. As a former third-generation Sellafield worker, I know that the Sellafield workforce are acutely aware of its responsibilities towards the entire community and the country as a whole. As such, I welcome the interest of journalists and politicians—anyone and everyone—in the work undertaken at Sellafield. Visibility and accountability for that work should be welcomed. I would like to see more of it and I would like to see that done in a robust and responsible way. That is why the work of the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee is so important.
As the Minister pointed out, the truth is that Sellafield is a unique site, hosting a unique and complex set of engineering challenges that have arisen over decades—arguably the most difficult engineering challenges anywhere in the world. Sellafield is a publicly owned site. The work of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, Sellafield Ltd and the rest of the supply chain is undertaken in the national interest using public money. Will the Minister commit today to long-term, predictable budgeting for Sellafield so that greater benefits can be gained and economies of scale achieved at the site? Public accountability for the work should not only be welcomed, but insisted upon, so it is vital that the NDA is allocated the resources necessary to discharge its responsibilities to our nation and my community.
In addition, it is essential that the industry regulator has the resources it requires to regulate effectively and efficiently. Will the Minister commit to providing the regulator with the resources it says it needs? I note that the regulator told “Panorama” that it was happy with progress being made at Sellafield. Will he ask the regulator to respond to the allegations made by the programme on a point-by-point basis? Does he agree, as I do, that the NDA was right to change the operating model at Sellafield and to replace Nuclear Management Partners? Does he also agree that the workforce should be commended for the work done in progressing the clean-up mission to date?
Crucially, in welcoming the renewed focus that “Panorama” has given to the work under way at Sellafield, will the Minister commit his Department to working with me, my community and the Sellafield workforce to acknowledge Sellafield as a national asset? The globally unique engineering challenges at Sellafield, accompanied with a truly world-class, highly skilled workforce, provide enormous opportunities for my community and the UK to become the global centre of excellence for the nuclear industry. Meeting the challenges of Sellafield places us in a unique position to meet the challenges facing the nuclear industry around the world, and we must utilise these skills. This should be worth billions to the UK economy. Alongside the development of the Moorside power station, my community should become one of the fastest growing economies anywhere in the UK. Will the Minister and his Department work with me, the local workforce and the local supply chain to make this a reality?
Mr Hurd
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his response, and I agree with him 100% about the non-negotiability of nuclear safety. There can be no disagreement on that, and I am glad that he recognises the progress being made all the time at Sellafield. I wish to place on record the Government’s appreciation for the difficult work done by the many people who work there. We have the most regulated and safest nuclear industry in the world. I do not want to encourage any sense of complacency about that, but it is a fact. Any nuclear power station in the UK must comply with our stringent nuclear safety laws, which are overseen by a robust industry regulator. We lead the world with our skills and expertise in this area.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned the regulator, which is clearly a massively important part of this landscape of protecting the public. As I said in my opening statement, the regulator has said very clearly that it is satisfied that Sellafield is safe, and it has repeated that again to our officials today. As he knows, the NDA has put out a detailed rebuttal of all the points made in the “Panorama” documentary, which I have watched; I think they were all rebutted robustly in the programme. As he knows, none of those points is new. Funding is incredibly important and it is done on a very significant scale; as he knows, it costs £2 billion a year to clean up Sellafield safely.
The hon. Gentleman asked me whether we agreed with the change in the operating model and, yes, of course, we do; it is generally recognised that that is a much better way of working. As I have said, I am assured that the regulator is doing its job, that progress is being made and that Sellafield is safe, and I wholly accept his offer to work closely with him to make sure that that is more widely understood and appreciated.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
Only last week, I was at Hinkley Point B seeing the very high safety standards the nuclear industry practises. Does the Minister agree that being able to have an open and sensible discussion about nuclear safety issues is a key part of keeping our industry safe? Does he also agree that we have one of the most effective regulation systems in the world, which has meant that we have had many decades of safe, clean power generated? Sellafield plays a key part in that in this country.
Mr Hurd
I thank my hon. Friend for that positive and constructive intervention. This is a massively important issue on which no Government can show any complacency, but I believe that we have set up a proper framework and a robust system of transparency and accountability. Considerable progress continues to be made, but the safety record continues to be an impressive one, which is why countries all around the world come to see how we do it.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
Yesterday evening’s television report on Sellafield was profoundly disturbing, and my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Mr Reed) was absolutely right to request this urgent question—I thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting it. My hon. Friend expressed his concerns at the revelations and referred to the importance of the storage and reprocessing facility for his constituency. Of course, the House must raise such concerns on behalf of the country.
I want to focus on a number of questions on which I believe the Minister should give the House either further information or reassurance, and preferably both. On minimum staffing levels, will he confirm that as recently as five days ago a formal notice was sent to the management, raising the unions’ concern about critical manning levels and the ability to comply with the appropriate procedures and practices when minimum staffing levels are not met?
Will the Minister also say whether he agrees with Dr Rex Strong, the head of nuclear safety, who said in last night’s programme that not meeting the minimum safety standards or staffing levels did not mean that there was a safety risk?
In 2013, the manager of the site, Nuclear Management Partners, produced its somewhat ironically entitled excellence plan, cataloguing the safety problems and the critical nature of the infrastructure with respect to both electricity and water supply on the site. Why did the Government not insist that further resources—staffing and, of course, financial resources—be invested in the site to clean it up at that point? The Minister will know that expenditure in 2012-13 was £7,348 million, with £3,157 million from the Department of Energy and Climate Change itself. The year following that report, the figure had fallen to £5,345 million. Will he explain why, after such a damning report, the resources going into the site decreased? Will he also confirm that the cost estimates for the clean-up of the site have increased at an annual estimate from £25.2 million to £47.9 million?
The programme also cited problems with alarms, and it was said that these were turned off repeatedly, without checking. Will the Minister confirm that that practice is no longer in force? Finally, will he confirm that he has absolute confidence in Dr Rex Strong as head of nuclear safety at Sellafield and John Clarke, the chief executive of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority?
Mr Hurd
Again, I thank the hon. Gentleman for a constructive response, which reflects the cross-party concern to get this absolutely right with no equivocation. Issues were raised in the programme about minimum safety levels. I think they were responded to adequately in the programme. We were reassured that the NDA always has enough people on duty to maintain the site safely, and if the work cannot be done safely it will not get it done. I think the programme and the response to it have reassured us on that front.
As I said in my opening statement, cleaning up Sellafield safely costs £2 billion a year, and maintaining the NDA’s overall annual spend on cleaning up the UK’s nuclear sites at some £3 billion reflects the continuing importance that the Government place on cleaning up the civil nuclear legacy and Sellafield.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the reaction to the number of alarms raised—another issue raised in the programme. Those alarms, as he knows, are not unusual, given the types of material that people are working with and do not necessarily mean that there is a safety issue. However, we are reassured that staff are briefed never to be complacent and always react to alarms if they are serious, which is a point that was made in rebuttals in the programme.
On levels of confidence, yes, we do have confidence in the NDA. We also have a great deal of confidence in the independent regulator, which has made it quite clear that, as far as it is concerned, the programme does not raise any new issues and that Sellafield is safe.
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that it is essential that the BBC give the same prominence to the regulator’s response as it has to the original claims made?
Mr Hurd
“Panorama” has historically served an extremely useful function in this country by shining a spotlight on some extremely important issues and throwing up some extremely challenging questions, and this programme was no exception to that rule. As we have discussed before, it is important that we have proper transparency and proper accountability on such a fundamental matter. Having watched the programme, I thought there was adequate balance in it, in the sense that the issues were raised and space was given for what I thought was adequate rebuttal of them in the rebuttals published by the NDA and the regulator, and the confirmation made to us about their view that nothing has changed in their perception of Sellafield. That is a matter of record and it is up to the BBC whether it continues to extend the balance shown in the programme and reflect that reality.
Callum McCaig (Aberdeen South) (SNP)
I welcome the opportunity to address the matter, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Copeland (Mr Reed) on successfully tabling his question. The issue is an important one and our prime concern on the Scottish National party Benches, as it is across the House, is the safety of staff and of the communities around Sellafield. The harsh lesson of incidents at nuclear power plants is that where safety is concerned, there can be no shortcuts in any circumstances. The Minister said that there would be no complacency on the Government’s part. What assurances has he sought that the issues identified in the BBC “Panorama” programme, particularly those related to staffing levels, will not be repeated at the Sellafield site?
The issue of a permanent storage facility for the high level toxic legacy that we have has caused some consternation over the years. What progress has been made in identifying a safe and secure deep geological storage facility? We know that the economic costs in the nuclear industry are high, but the cost of allaying security and safety concerns is astronomical. If the price is too high to pay, will we scrap the nuclear obsession with Hinkley? What assurances can the Minister give us that there will no repercussions or attempted retribution for the whistleblower?
Mr Hurd
On the last point, I can reassure the hon. Gentleman. Whistleblowers always have a role to play. They are part of the landscape of accountability and transparency, and anyone watching that programme will have reached their own view on the motivations of those individuals. It is not an issue for Government. The hon. Gentleman sought assurances that issues would not be repeated. The critical thing, as we have discussed, is this House’s confidence that the architecture of transparency and accountability in the process, the role of the regulator and the way in which the regulator reports to this House is sufficiently robust. I have not heard any comments suggesting that the House does not have confidence in that process.
The hon. Gentleman is right to say that we are dealing with an unsatisfactory legacy of the past, when things were not thought through properly and were poorly designed. Now, when we look at new nuclear, we see that the process has changed. The decommissioning process is negotiated up front. The hon. Gentleman is right that permanent long-term solutions must be found. When we are clearer about that, we will make announcements at the appropriate time.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
I welcome my hon. Friend to his new post. Given his new role in the Department, when does he expect to visit Sellafield to see it for himself?
Mr Hurd
I am delighted that my hon. Friend makes that point. It is a measure of the importance that the Government—effectively, a new Administration—attach to the issue that last week Sellafield was visited by not one Minister but two: Baroness Neville-Rolfe, who leads on energy in the Department, and, I am delighted to say, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. That is significant in itself.
Sue Hayman (Workington) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour the Member for Copeland (Mr Reed) for bringing this important matter before the House. I have many constituents who work at Sellafield and they have been in touch with me, as has the local Prospect union, because they are concerned about what the “Panorama” programme said about safe staffing levels. Those staff are committed to the highest standards of safety. They are a huge asset to our nuclear industry and they feel undermined by what was said in the programme. Can the Minister reassure my constituents and others working at Sellafield that there will be continued investment to fund the programmes and skills training there and show that the staff there are truly valued for the work that they do?
Mr Hurd
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving me the opportunity to reaffirm again the Government’s appreciation for the extremely challenging and incredibly important work that is done by people on the site. It is deeply impressive that, given the complexity of the site and the legacy—this is really difficult stuff—Sellafield’s safety record over the past three years is the best that it has ever been. I quite understand why residents and people working at the site may have been upset and disturbed by the programme last night, but I hope that my statement and corroborating statements from other Members have reassured them that as far as the Government are concerned—not least because the independent regulator attaches enormous importance to Sellafield, as reflected in the resources committed to monitoring the site on a very proactive basis—Sellafield is safe.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
I appreciate that the Minister has a duty to offer reassurance, but I have to warn him that the content and tone of what we have heard today come dangerously close to complacency. The people who have been responsible for the historical errors of judgment and underinvestment are still involved in the industry today. These words will be heard with concern in the north of Scotland, where we are seeing nuclear waste shipped out from the former Dounreay plant. Will the Minister have the risk assessment for that operation scrutinised independently of the people who were responsible for making the plans?
Mr Hurd
The right hon. Gentleman is an experienced Member of Parliament so I take seriously his warning about tripping over a boundary into complacency. I said at the start that I was determined not to do that. What I am trying to do is reflect genuine empathy with people who live close to the site and who work on the site, who will have been unsettled by the programme last night, which raised nothing new and which, I am keen to stress, in the eyes of the regulator does not change its position in relation to the safety of Sellafield.
The right hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I give some priority to that. He knows the reality of the situation at Sellafield, which is that as a legacy of the cold war, vast amounts of nuclear waste, dumped with no plan for how it would be disposed of safely, languished for decades without anyone properly tackling the problem. The priority for us is to do what we are doing now, which is to continue working to turn that round and clean up Sellafield as safely, cost-effectively and quickly as possible.
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
Given what the Minister says about transparency, accountability and the paramount importance of safety in the nuclear industry, and given the Prime Minister’s clear concerns about security and the more widespread concerns about the economics, can the hon. Gentleman give us an assurance that the Government will come back to this House before making a final decision on Hinkley C?
Ms Margaret Ritchie (South Down) (SDLP)
My constituency is directly across the Irish sea from Sellafield. I have visited Sellafield twice. My constituents contacted me last night. Like me, they watched that programme and were deeply unsettled by it. Given the catalogue of safety hazards that were highlighted last night, and also those that have been documented since Sellafield, and prior to that Windscale, were opened, and the history of both recorded and unrecorded discharges of radioactive waste into the Irish sea, will the Minister commit to working directly with the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority to ensure that an accelerated programme of decommissioning is put in place which will protect communities on both sides of the Irish sea and also ensure the safety of the staff there?
Mr Hurd
I understand the point that the hon. Lady makes on behalf of her constituents. That reinforces the point that I was trying to make earlier about the importance of this statement to try to give some reassurance to all communities that may be affected. I hope that I have done so. As I said, we have confidence in the NDA. We monitor its work closely in terms of both value for money and pace.
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister has talked a number of times about cleaning up Sellafield as “cost-effectively” as possible, yet it was only when the Public Accounts Committee in the last Parliament looked closely at the issue that the Government moved to remove Nuclear Management Partners, the American consortium that was running Sellafield. Will he now undertake, as the new Minister, not only to visit, but to make sure that, in all the complex engineering work on this very complex site—I think three of the top 10 engineering challenges internationally are at Sellafield—the difficulty does not overblow the challenge of benchmarking engineering projects in similar fields, so that we get good value for money for the taxpayer while carrying out the important clean-up?
Mr Hurd
I take this opportunity to congratulate the hon. Lady on the extremely effective way she has chaired that Committee. The point she makes about the role of the PAC in this is really important in terms of reinforcing the framework of transparency and accountability around this incredibly complex process. This process carries a huge bill for the taxpayer, so it is absolutely imperative for a Government of any colour to drive it forward in as responsible and cost-effective a way as possible, with value for money being a prime consideration, but I take on board her suggestion very seriously.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)
The UK Government’s entire nuclear policy, from Trident to Hinkley, is nothing short of appalling. If any of these allegations by the BBC are found to be true, it will surely be another in a long list of reasons to move away from this nuclear obsession. Does the Minister not concede that he should consider taking a leaf out of the Scottish Government’s book and ban the creation of new nuclear power stations to minimise the amount of waste going to Sellafield?
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The nuclear industry is normally a highly regulated sector. Has the Minister considered how his Department can work with Sellafield to ensure that there is faster implementation of safety measures and that the issue of storage—a very clear problem—is addressed as quickly and as safely as possible to ensure the smooth running of this vital plant?
Mr Speaker
Order. I am grateful to the Minister and to colleagues.
Bill Presented
Savings (Government Contributions) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, supported by the Prime Minister, Mr David Gauke, Jane Ellison, Gavin Barwell, Simon Kirby, Richard Harrington and Mr Rob Wilson, presented a Bill to make provision for, and in connection with, government bonuses in respect of additions to savings accounts and other investment plans.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed (Bill 59) with explanatory notes (Bill 59-EN).
Parental Bereavement Leave (Statutory Entitlement)
(7 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision for statutory entitlement to leave of absence from employment for bereaved parents and for connected purposes.
I seek leave to introduce a Bill to amend the Employment Rights Act 1996 to give parents who have suffered the loss of a child a statutory right to two weeks’ paid leave. May I start by paying tribute to the former Member for Glasgow South, who campaigned for this change, and to the many hon. and right hon. Members across the House who support this campaign?
Every Member of the House will agree that there can be few more distressing life events than the loss of a child. Yet, with up to 5,000 children dying every year, many thousands of parents go through this personal tragedy. As the House is aware, my wife and I lost our son, who was stillborn full term, in October 2014, and I was entitled to two weeks off work, protected by statute under the paternity rules. As it happened, I had a very understanding employer, so my legal rights did not come into question. However, it was comforting to know that I was entitled to two weeks off work by law—that I could take that time as needed to come to terms with the incredible loss. I know how valuable it was to spend precious time with my wife coming to terms with what had just happened, registering the death, making the arrangements for the funeral and preparing to say goodbye.
I cannot begin to understand what it would feel like to lose a child at seven months or at two, five, 10 or 15 years old. The grief must be unbearable, and my heart goes out to any parent who has had to go through this most terrible of life events. Yet, why should those parents not have the same protection in law as those who lose a baby through stillbirth or in the first few days and months of life? In such situations, a bereaved mother and father are entitled to full maternity and paternity leave, but if someone loses a child or an older baby—nothing. Surely that cannot be right.
At present, there is no statutory right to take time off on compassionate or bereavement grounds. However, all employees have the right to take immediate time off for dependants; in effect, that is a legal right to take time off unpaid to take the necessary action. Yet, there is no set limit on how many days can be taken as leave and a rather vague definition of a reasonable amount of time. Further, there is no statutory right to be paid during this reasonable amount of time. The reference to taking action distinguishes this form of leave from bereavement or compassionate leave. The type of action contemplated by the relevant provision is arranging and attending a funeral, registering the death and so on; it does not provide a right to leave to cope with the emotional reaction to the child’s death. An employee’s right to bereavement leave is therefore not protected by law in this respect, and the duty to show compassion is left entirely to the employer’s better judgment.
To be clear, most employers are excellent; they act with compassion and kindness, offering their bereaved staff the time they need to come to terms with their loss. However, some do not, and they behave in a manner that falls well short of what we would expect of them. Of course, we expect employers to act with sensitivity and flexibility in situations like this. Yet, given the countless examples of organisations acting without sensitivity and with utter inflexibility, surely it is time for the Government to act.
I am certainly alive to the pressures on businesses at the moment—especially small businesses—and I am loth to introduce any additional regulatory burden. However, given the relatively and thankfully small number of bereaved parents annually, the cost to business would be small. There is also an argument that such a proposal is beneficial to business. Most employers already go out of their way to treat their staff with compassion and often give them fully paid leave. This change would allow them to recover some of the cost of doing so.
So how much would this cost? It is difficult to say, because it would largely come down to the eligibility criteria, but research conducted by the House of Commons Library suggests that the cost could be as little as £2 million per year. However, the reality is that every bereaved parent is different; some will want to take time off, and others will want to get straight back to work. In the same way, not everyone takes their full maternity or paternity rights. The issue, however, is that they have the choice and protection by law.
Some will come at this from a religious perspective. In Hinduism, for example, when a death occurs, relatives are required to observe a 13-day mourning period after cremation. In Judaism, family members are required to stay at home for seven days of mourning after a death.
Statutory bereavement leave is a common right across Europe and in many countries across the world. While the exact conditions vary in terms of total time off and whether said leave is paid or unpaid, it is remarkable that one can argue that Albania or Bosnia and Herzegovina have better worker rights in this area than us. My proposal would give UK workers some of the best bereavement rights in the world in terms of the length of leave possible. While other countries, such as Israel, offer leave with full salary, longer leave at a lower statutory rate is a good starting point.
This is also a popular idea. The 2014 report “Life After Death” from the National Bereavement Alliance and the National Council for Palliative Care quoted research from ComRes, which showed that 81% of people agreed that there should be a legal right to receive paid bereavement leave. The Government e-petition calling for bereavement leave for parents, organised by campaigner Lucy Herd, has over 25,000 signatures, and a Change.org petition has over 165,000 signatures. The campaign also has the support of many organisations, including Child Bereavement UK, the Lullaby Trust, Working Families, Cruse Bereavement Care, Dying Matters—the list goes on.
I fully appreciate the concerns the Government and other Members of the House may have over such a Bill. It will not be perfect. There will always be sincere disagreements over the length of time given and the eligibility criteria. However, let us not make the perfect the enemy of the good. This Bill would be an important first step, giving thousands of bereaved parents up and down the country the opportunity to come to terms with their grief without feeling the pressure of having to return to work. I commend the Bill to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Will Quince, Johnny Mercer, Frank Field, Dr Sarah Wollaston, Stewart Malcolm McDonald, Suella Fernandes, Wes Streeting, James Cartlidge, Greg Mulholland, Mike Wood, James Cleverly and Stella Creasy present the Bill.
Will Quince accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 28 October, and to be printed (Bill 60).
Finance Bill
(7 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
14:09 - The House divided: - Ayes: 236 / Noes: 291 - Question accordingly negatived.
16:42 - The House divided: - Ayes: 261 / Noes: 309 - Question accordingly negatived.
16:57 - The House divided: - Ayes: 265 / Noes: 307 - Question accordingly negatived.
17:43 - The House divided: - Ayes: 303 / Noes: 250 - Question accordingly agreed to.
Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Mr Speaker
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 174, page 167, line 40, leave out clause 82.
Government amendments 149 to 151.
Amendment 175, in schedule 14, page 481, line 36, at end insert—
‘(12) Section 169Z makes provision about the expiration of this Chapter.”
Amendment 176, page 499, line 15, at end insert—
“169VZ Expiration of Chapter 5 provisions
(1) The provisions of this Chapter shall remain in force until six years after their commencement and shall then expire, unless continued in force by an order under subsection (2).
(2) The Secretary of State may by order made by statutory instrument provide—
(a) that all or any of those provisions which are in force shall continue in force for a period not exceeding 12 months from the coming into operation of the order; or
(b) that all or any of those provisions which are for the time being in force shall cease to be in force.
(3) No order shall be made under subsection (2) unless—
(a) a draft of the order has been laid before and approved by a resolution of both Houses of Parliament,
(b) the Secretary of State has commissioned a review of the operation of Investor’s Relief and laid the report of the review before both Houses of Parliament.”
Rebecca Long Bailey
I shall speak to new clause 14 and amendments 174 to 176. Amendment 174 would remove clause 82 from the Finance Bill, thereby preventing the proposed cut to the rate of capital gains tax. The cut will reduce the basic rate of capital gains tax from 18% to 10%, and the rate on most gains made by individuals, trustees and personal representatives from 28% to 20%. Gains on residential property and carried interest will still be charged at the higher rate.
I do not want to go over old ground, but I must emphasise the Labour party’s opposition to this reduction in the rate of CGT. I thank my colleagues from other parties for joining us in our opposition. At a time when our public services are stretched to breaking point, the NHS is on its knees, our education sector is over-stretched, housing is in a state of complete crisis, people across the UK are being forced to use food banks, some mothers are going hungry because they cannot afford to feed their children and themselves, and the wider economy is in desperate need of direct investment in skills, infrastructure and industry, it seems frankly absurd to give a tax break of £2.7 billion to the richest people in our society.
Let us not forget that this CGT giveaway hails from a Budget that also planned to take away billions in welfare payments from the most vulnerable people in need of state support. The Government seemed quite happy at the time of the Budget for 300,000 disabled people to lose more than £3,000 a year in their personal independence payments. In stark contrast, our own research has found that the CGT-cutting measures of the Finance Bill amount to a tax giveaway to 200,000 people of about £3,000 a year on average. I am pleased to say that due to Labour’s opposition and the support of some Members from other parties, the worst has not yet happened in relation to PIP, but that still does not justify this policy decision in the Bill. Labour party research shows that just 0.3% of the population will benefit, with those taxpayers likely to benefit to the largest degree being in London and the south-east. If the Government do not accept our evidence, perhaps they will listen to the Resolution Foundation, which said that the CGT cut was
“focused on those on higher incomes—unsurprisingly because in general better off households are the ones making capital gains in the first place.”
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)
The hon. Lady makes a compelling case. One of the major challenges we face in the UK is geographical and individual wealth polarisation. Based on what she says about where the likely beneficiaries of this tax system would be, what does she think that the policy will do to tackle the great challenge of wealth polarisation that we face?
Rebecca Long Bailey
I certainly do not think that it will address the issue that the hon. Gentleman raises—quite the opposite, in fact.
The Prime Minister herself made the following commitment to the British public on the steps of Downing Street:
“The government I lead will be driven not by the interests of the privileged few, but by yours.”
Going back on this policy today would be a good place to start.
Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)
Does the hon. Lady acknowledge that, even after this cut, CGT rates in this country will still be higher than they were for the majority of time under the previous Labour Government?
Rebecca Long Bailey
I note the hon. Gentleman’s point and thank him for making it.
If I could see some real benefit to the wider economy or society in these proposals, or if times were good for everybody, perhaps I could understand the Government’s rationale for making such cuts to capital gains tax, but as things stand these proposals are not driven by the interests of the nation as a whole, but to be enjoyed only by the privileged few. I urge all hon. Members to vote with us to remove these cuts from the Bill because the provision simply has unfairness at its very core.
Speaking of policies for the privileged few, new clause 14 would require the Chancellor to publish a report giving the Treasury’s assessment of the value for money provided by entrepreneurs’ relief. When entrepreneurs’ relief was discussed in the Committee of the whole House earlier this year, the then Minister said:
“officials have for some time been developing a detailed research programme designed to identify taxpayers’ motivations for using entrepreneurs’ relief, and I expect the results to be published at some point in 2017.”—[Official Report, 28 June 2016; Vol. 612, c. 236.]
It would seem opportune, then, for the Financial Secretary to accept our provision tying her down to a deadline, given that the Department is already conducting some of the research needed. The Government do not have the best track record of publishing documents when they say they will, so a deadline enshrined in legislation would help. To help the Government in this endeavour, we have listed particular reference points. The report would specifically consider the cost of the relief, the number of individuals who have benefited from it, the average tax deduction received by an individual and the number of new business start-ups since the relief was introduced.
Analysis by Tax Research UK shows that 3,000 people benefited by about £600,000 each from entrepreneurs’ relief in 2013-14, at a total cost of almost £2 billion to the Treasury. Unfortunately, the most up-to-date figures for 2014-15 are not yet available, but I suspect that similar analysis will show the same results. As I said in my remarks about clause 82, this amounts to a large sum going into the hands of the very few, and it certainly seems like an inefficient use of public funds. Of course, Labour Members are in favour of supporting entrepreneurialism wherever we find it and we want businesses to grow and flourish in the UK. However, is simply offering a massive tax break years down the line when a business is sold the best way to achieve that? Should not the Government be providing support to entrepreneurs in the early stages of their business development? How on earth could an entrepreneur know if he or she wants to sell their business further down the line, when it is only starting off, so as to factor in the benefits of this tax relief? Let us see some evidence today. I hope that the Minster will commit to taking my comments on board.
The same principle goes for investors’ relief, which is the subject of amendments 175 and 176. Those amendments would introduce a sunset clause whereby the relief would expire in six years’ time. To extend it, the Government would have to introduce secondary legislation, but in order to do so a review of investors’ relief would need to be laid before the House. When we debated a similar amendment in the Committee of the whole House, which would have brought the relief to a close after five years, the then Minister stated that the first set of data would not be available until 2020-21. We have therefore helpfully amended our amendment to suit the Government’s timetable. I hope that the Financial Secretary will now commit to this sunset provision. Without wanting to repeat the remarks I made in the earlier debate, I think that requiring a review of the scheme’s efficacy would represent good practice—for all reliefs, indeed, not just this one.
Too often, tax reliefs are provided with the admirable aim of incentivising a certain type of behaviour, but there is no analysis—published analysis, I should say—of whether the policy is achieving the desired aim. That means that the limited resources that the Government keep telling us about might be diverted away from our public services, or limits could be put on our capital spending, for reliefs that might not even be working. I will not press amendments 175 and 176 to a vote, but I really hope that the Minister will address the merits of including such provisions when future tax reliefs are introduced.
I will touch briefly on Government amendments 149 to 151, which will ensure that the upper rates of capital gains tax will apply to carried interest gains. In short, carried interest gains refer to the profits paid to investment fund managers from the fund that are classified as capital gains rather than income for tax purposes. We support the amendments.
I am sure that all hon. Members are aware of the 38 Degrees campaign on the Mayfair tax loophole, which filled up our inboxes over the weekend. I will briefly reiterate the Labour party’s position. Clause 37 provides for a tapered system of income taxation on carried interest gains received in respect of investments that are held by a fund for less than three years. As the Minister explained in Committee:
“If the average holding period is less than 36 months, the payment will be subject to income tax. If the period is more than 40 months, the payment will be subject to capital gains tax.”––[Official Report, Finance Public Bill Committee, 30 June 2016; c. 42.]
The Labour party supports that provision, but we would have liked all carried interest to be subject to income tax. We tabled an amendment in Committee that would have removed the taper completely, thereby ensuring that all carried interest was treated at 100%—in other words, taxed as if it were income. Unfortunately, the Government did not support us, but none the less we still support the steps they have taken towards closing the so-called Mayfair tax loophole.
I will press amendment 174 to a vote, because the Labour party cannot and will not agree to a measure that benefits so few by so much. We will divide the House to prevent the unfair cut to capital gains tax from going ahead.
Rishi Sunak (Richmond (Yorks)) (Con)
I know that when I mention the word “investor” in this House, some Opposition Members get a little a bit excited: their pupils dilate, their pulses quicken and their minds race with images of plutocrats rolling the dice of financial speculation. The reality, however, is a little different. I have spent my own career investing in businesses, and in this country private equity-backed businesses now account for almost 1 million people in employment. The latest research shows that in the run-up to the last crisis, those companies’ sales, investment in research and development, and, indeed, exports grew at a faster rate than the national average.
Furthermore, I am sure that everyone in the House would welcome more money for charities, more research funds for scientists, more scholarships for students who need them and lower insurance premiums, and that is indeed what the private equity industry delivers. The funds that private equity companies manage benefit all of us through university endowments, charitable foundations, pension funds and the floats of insurance companies. When the private equity industry does well, the pensioner, the scientific researcher and the scholar from a disadvantaged background all benefit.
This is a Finance Bill from a Government who value their investors and will not demonise an industry, and who know that no contribution, however great, should be allowed to skew the scales of social justice. The clauses that involve changes to carried interest will ensure that the rewards that investment managers receive for their efforts are taxed not only correctly, but fairly. The clauses will introduce a 40-month holding period to ensure that capital gains tax treatment is reserved for genuinely long-term investments, as it should be. I know that Members on both sides of the House support the welcome change to remove the base cost shift loophole, which allowed costs to be advantageously offset against gains. The Bill will also consolidate Government action on disguised fee income that was introduced in the last Finance Bill and ensure that fund managers are paying income tax when appropriate. All in all, the measures will raise in the order of £200 million in the next financial year.
Those new arrangements are not only fair for British taxpayers and society; they will also ensure that we remain competitive internationally. Our general treatment of carried interest, which has been the subject of much debate in this House and various Committees, is actually in line with the treatment carried out in the United States, Germany, Australia and France. All those countries agree with the notion that carried interest is capital in nature and should be treated as such. If we look across Europe, we will see that our rate for carried interest will sit in the middle of those for comparable countries: it will be a little bit above that in Switzerland and Germany, and a little bit below that in France.
The clauses reflecting changes to capital gains tax will ensure that the UK remains a pro-enterprise, pro-growth nation. Small and medium-sized businesses of the kinds that I used to invest in account for more than half of private sector employment in the UK. They are responsible for three quarters of all jobs created since 2008, yet I know from first hand that small and medium-sized British enterprises still struggle to attract enough equity capital to grow. Adjusted for GDP, the size of the UK’s venture capital market is a seventh of that of the United States. Just 3% of British companies manage to expand from three employees up to 10, which is half the rate in America.
When I hear about changes to capital gains tax rates, I think about how they will benefit all those small businesses, helping them get the capital they need to grow and to increase investment and employment. Indeed, investors’ relief and the other changes to capital gains tax included in the Bill will build on the success of the seed enterprise investment scheme, the enterprise investment scheme, the funding for lending scheme and the British Business Bank, all of which are providing British companies with the capital that is necessary for growth.
The changes will ensure that Britain remains a competitive prospect for investment without compromising Government revenue. The hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey) mentioned the state of our finances and the need for revenue. I am sure that she welcomes the fact that the Office for Budget Responsibility projects that capital gains receipts will top £7 billion this year and increase to £9 billion next year, which is higher than in any other year in the past decade and a half. Rather than being a sweet deal for the rich, our capital gains tax rate actually sits in the middle of the OECD league tables of capital gains tax rates. Ten countries have rates of 0%, and our rate of 20% will sit two points above the average.
As we contemplate leaving the European Union, it will be vital that Britain’s economy remains dynamic, open and competitive to attract the investment we need and maximise the opportunities afforded to us. The clauses relating to capital gains tax and carried interest will ensure that the UK does exactly that, and I will support them later today.
Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)
I want to speak to the Labour party’s new clause 14 and amendment 174, which, as has been ably pointed out by the hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey), would remove clause 82 and the increased nil-rate band for inheritance tax.
I will focus first on the entrepreneurs’ relief proposed by new clause 14, which makes a key point about the lack of Government transparency. When UK Governments of all colours introduce a tax change, they often do not return with the evidence to show that the policy has worked. They will implement the policy and say that it is wonderful, but they will not bring back the proof. The Minister was asked yesterday how many companies have benefited from the loan guarantee fund in relation to oil and gas, but she was unable to provide a detailed answer. I do not know whether she just did not have the answer at her fingertips or whether the Government have not actually sat down and worked it out. If Governments are going to make grand claims about what they are doing and how good their policies are, they really need to bring back their work and show it to us.
Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
It is important, particularly in relation to entrepreneurial relief, to point out that the last thing we want is an economy where there are quick-fire gains. One of the criticisms of the tax treatment in the area of private equity and venture capital is that there have been too many incentives for people to sell out too quickly.
The corollary of that surely must be that if an entrepreneurs’ relief is designed to encourage entrepreneurs to hang on to their businesses in the longer term, it is difficult for the Treasury to bring back, in a shortish period of time, figures that suggest that a scheme has been a success. We have to look at the general tenor of an economy such as the UK. To that extent, I think that positive changes are being proposed, but I do not think that it is realistic or fair to expect the Treasury to come back in double-quick time and say, “This has been a great success.”
Kirsty Blackman
To be fair, the new clause does not ask the Treasury to come back in such a short time; it asks for a six-month review period. Instead of just saying that they will not do a review, the Government could quite easily say, “We will do a review, but we will do it in 18 months.” I would find that acceptable. I would like to see how the schemes are working. I am not necessarily saying that any of them are particularly bad, but the Government need to come back with their workings and tell us how those things are performing.
The UK tax system is incredibly, massively complicated, and there are tax reliefs and taxes for all sorts of things. I am not convinced that the majority of them are working as they were intended to, particularly those put in place 20 or 25 years ago. The whole thing needs looking at, and considering individual things is a sensible place to start. The new clause is about Government transparency, and anything we can to do increase Government transparency around tax reliefs, in particular, is great. It would be very good if the Government considered this for some point in the future, even if not exactly in the terms suggested.
The other thing I want to talk about is inheritance tax. The Conservative manifesto said that the party intended to
“take the family home out of tax for all but the richest”.
As I mentioned in Committee, I have a real issue with regarding £1 million homes, or homes that are worth close to £1 million, as normal family homes and not the preserve of the very richest. In Scotland, the average sale price in 2015 for a detached house was £238,000. In Edinburgh, which is at the higher end of the market in terms of price, the detached average sale price was £382,778. Those are detached homes—not family homes, necessarily—so they are specifically at the higher end of the market. In the most expensive place in Scotland to buy, we are looking at homes costing £382,778.
I have been looking at what someone could get for £1 million. In Orkney—fair enough, it is probably not the best example—they could get a six-bedroom home with an attached three-bedroom lodge and a guest wing for less than £1 million. Nobody would call that a normal family home. In Ayr, they could get a 10-bedroom detached category B listed mansion for less than £1 million. Also in Ayr, they could get a six-bedroom home, which seems relatively modest, in these terms, with a swimming pool for under £1 million. None of those could be classed as normal family homes. They are, in the main, homes that have been inherited—[Interruption.] Very few people will have just picked up these homes.
The other thing that the Conservatives said in their manifesto was, essentially, “You have worked hard for your money; we would like you to keep it.” The vast majority of the homes in question will not be first-generation owned. They will have been sold by the second or third generation because they have been owned by the family for a long time. They are not, by any stretch of the imagination, normal family homes. Even in the centre of Edinburgh someone could manage to get an eight-bedroom, detached, very large house for £1 million, and that is the most expensive place in Scotland to buy a home.
The problem—this applies to a huge amount of the Conservative manifesto—is that the Conservatives think that what happens in the south-east of England is normal for the rest of the UK. It is not normal for the rest of the UK. I know that the south-east is where the majority of the population are based, but some thought needs to be given to this. Members will expect me to say this as a Scottish National party politician who supports independence, but if decisions were made closer to home, they would be more appropriate for people in Scotland.
Mark Field
I appreciate that my constituency is hardly typical as far as these matters are concerned —nor, indeed, is the Minister’s constituency on the other side of the river—but the logic of what the hon. Lady is saying is that we should move towards a regionalised tax system. I guess that she would quite like it to be a nationalised system, with the nation beginning on the other side of Hadrian’s Wall, but does she not recognise that the Barnett formula gives particular incentives to the nations of the United Kingdom, rather than to London and the south-east? I can understand the irritation that she feels about the fact that perhaps too much thinking is done for London and the south-east, but £1 million buys virtually nothing not only in my constituency but in many of the 73 constituencies in London, as well as those in the home counties. Short of regionalising our tax system, surely this is, at least, a sensible step forward to ensuring that those who have been able to bring up a family in a home are not forced to sell the home when a relative dies.
Kirsty Blackman
The right hon. Gentleman makes a good point. Perhaps we need to think about having differential policies across the UK, and possibly further devolution. That would be fantastic, and if he wants to support us in that cause, he is welcome to join us at any time.
This policy highlights a major difference between the south-east of England and the rest of the UK. The problem with Government being so far from people who are outside London is that policies are made for the benefit of the majority of the population—the people who live around here. That is really unfortunate for people in the north of England and in Wales, because the policies made by the national Government do not make sense for us.
Kirsty Blackman
I will not take another intervention; I am sorry. I just want to mention briefly the Prime Minister’s statement that she will take “bold action” on tax. We have a big problem—we will still have a big problem after the changes that will be made by the Finance Bill, including the tax changes that we discussed yesterday—with the lack of parity and fairness in tax. Nurses, carers and people who work in all sorts of professions pay 20% tax. I acknowledge that the personal allowance has been raised, and that is very much appreciated, but those people pay the tax that is due on the majority of their income.
There are still too many loopholes in the rest of the system. I understand the point that was made about carried interest, and we need to see how that works going forward. I would love to see the Government’s working on that, and whether the policy has the effects that the Government intend. However, unearned income is still taxed at different rates from earned income. I understand the point that was made about private equity supporting our economy and supporting some of our community organisations, for example. However, the people in question are not paying the level of tax that they should be paying to the Government, so the Government do not have the funds to disburse that they should have to disburse.
We need to do something a bit more radical than tinkering around the edges. We need to look at making changes that actually bring about parity. We need to look at ensuring that the people who are making the megabucks in the City of London pay at least as much tax, and as high a percentage of tax, as our nurses and carers pay.
Mark Field
I will speak briefly in favour of amendment 151 on carried interest. In my time as a Member of Parliament, I have sometimes been critical of elements of the tax regime that applies in the private equity and venture capital world. It seems to me that the generous tax regime, although it has been justified to support entrepreneurs, has often been misused by those in the industry—inadvertently; I am not suggesting that anything untoward or nefarious has taken place. I believe that many in the private equity field have, particularly in good times, in effect been financiers rather than risk takers. As such, it would surely be more equitable for their rewards to be treated more like income than capital gains. That has been at the heart of the whole debate about carried interest.
The Government have been aware of this issue. Let us give them some credit for that. To some extent, we are trying to play catch-up on it. Inevitably, there has been controversy about the treatment of private equity firms’ carried interest, which is levied as a capital gain, rather than as income. There was a time—pre-2010—when the difference between those two things was rather greater than it is today. That may be because capital gains tax has been raised, but the starkness of the problem is to some extent less pronounced now than it was during the time of the last Labour Administration in the noughties.
It is clear that the Treasury is doing the right thing in trying to provide a more favourable regime that is intended to reward genuine entrepreneurs. In principle, that must mean that where carried interest looks like income, it should be treated as such for taxation purposes. That is what we are slowly doing with amendment 151.
Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West) (Lab)
Has the OECD not recommended that all carried interest should be treated as income?
Mark Field
It has, but there is a distinction between different elements of carried interest, and we are trying to get to the bottom of that. To be brutally honest, in the longer term I would be much happier to have a regime in which we treated capital gains and income identically. There would not then be any sense in trying to arbitrage one way or the other. In many ways, perhaps inadvertently, the coalition began to move in that direction.
I am sorry that I was not in the Chamber to hear the whole speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Rishi Sunak), but he is absolutely right. Private equity has had a bad rap because of certain high-profile concerns—partly because of the misuse of tax to allow huge amounts of debt on to balance sheets—but a large number of businesses in each and every one of our 650 constituencies in the UK benefit from having private equity investors. Many jobs now exist because of the private equity investment that has come into play, particularly in growing businesses that will make a real difference in the future. The Government have broadly got this right, although I am sure we will have to come back and look at it again.
I would make one point to the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman). It is not about inheritance tax—we have had our joust on that—but on a more fundamental point, on which I think she is absolutely right: the more complicated a tax code, the more the door is open to tax avoidance of all descriptions. We very urgently need to begin to simplify our tax code. We will add yet more pages to it today. A lot of them are to apply Elastoplast in ways that we can all support for individual reasons, but we need to get back to the principles of a much simpler tax system.
I believe that one of the impacts of leaving the European Union will be not a race to the bottom in lowering tax, but a much simpler tax system. This is a wake-up call for all of us in the House—obviously, particularly for those in the Treasury—to have a much simpler tax code. Such a code will be readily understandable and supported by all our constituents, which is one of the issues we face. It will also say to those bringing in much of the inward investment that will come to the UK from across the globe that we have a simple tax code, which will not be tinkered with in successive Finance Bills because it is very straightforward, and they will be able to work on that basis. I know that may be wishful thinking—going back many years, most Chancellors have talked about having a simpler tax code—but this now needs to be looked at urgently. Urgent attention must be paid to getting simplicity. If we do not do so, we will all very much pay the price.
Rob Marris
I entirely echo the right hon. Gentleman’s comments about simplification. I may attempt to catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker, to address the House on that issue later. However, I caution him against linking that to Brexit, because almost all the complications, of which there are many in what we now call the tax code, are due to domestic legislation and are nothing to do with the European Union. Brexit may afford us an opportunity to start at the bottom on various areas of Government policy and endeavour, but leaving the EU will not provide such an opportunity in this case.
Mark Field
Obviously, the hon. Gentleman does not know me, or indeed the Minister, well enough to know that we are both very much on the pro-European wing of our party. I was not in any way blaming the EU. I was simply trying to make the point that, in looking to get a new set of trade arrangements with dozens of countries across the globe, we should not rush headlong into making lower corporation tax the incentive for companies. One of the big factors for them will be the sense that there is a simpler and more straightforward tax code in the United Kingdom, and that will make us open for business in the way that we have traditionally been open for business during the past 200 to 300 years.
The Floor of the House of Commons is not the place on which to make such a policy, but I very much hope that we will keep this very firmly in mind. There is now an urgent case for having a more straightforward tax system, even if it is one that only says what we are aiming to achieve. It will obviously be difficult to unravel tax benefits created in the past. I accept that it will be difficult to unravel all the reliefs, not least because entrepreneurs in the future, like those in the past, will want to rely on them in making investment decisions.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
The right hon. Gentleman is making some very important points about simplification and its impact in ensuring that measures work in the way intended. Does he agree that simplification and clarification of the objectives of reliefs would go a long way to making sure that small enterprises or first-time entrepreneurs could understand and gain greater access to the available reliefs, which may be intended for them but are perhaps used by others with greater experience?
Mark Field
I am sure there is a lot of truth in that. I was a businessman before I entered the House. It was a relatively straightforward business, based in the City of London, in the service industry, so there were not a huge number of reliefs available, although it may well be that 20 years of additional pages of the tax code have made it even more bloody complicated than it was for those working in and setting up businesses in the 1990s. I agree with the hon. Lady. Again, getting rid of reliefs and making the system more straightforward is the right way forward. Rather than having a whole lot of reliefs to recommend to would-be entrepreneurs, let us try to cut down the whole thicket.
Madam Deputy Speaker, I have spoken for long enough. I almost veered off the subject, but had I done so, I am sure you would have been the first to stand up and say so. I very much hope that amendment 151, among others, will be supported. It is definitely a move in the right direction, although I am sure we will have to come back to the issue of carried interest in the future.
Seema Malhotra
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate, which was opened by my hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey), on the new clause and amendments relating to capital gains tax. I will speak particularly about new clause 14, on “Entrepreneur’s Relief: value for money”, amendment 174, which would remove the capital gains tax cut, and amendments 175 and 176 on the investors’ relief sunset clause. Labour’s main issue of contention with the Government is the reduction of capital gains tax, the reasons for which have been well outlined. I want to highlight the very serious issue of value for money in public finances, and to continue to make our call for the Government to look at the way in which we scrutinise and review tax reliefs.
As we have argued since the Budget, the Finance Bill is inadequate if we are to rise to the challenges we face and to work towards a very strong economy in which we can all feel and believe that prosperity is shared by all. At a very tough time for the public finances, the Government have chosen to prioritise a corporation tax cut and a capital gains tax cut. Certainly while working on the Finance Bill, including as shadow Chief Secretary, I have had several conversations with business figures who quite openly said that they did not necessarily expect a corporation tax cut while other issues that are so important for their business success—investment in skills, housing, infrastructure and superfast broadband, and ensuring that we get the productivity shifts this country so desperately needs—require great attention. To purport that there is a simplistic link between a capital gains tax cut and a strong enterprise and investment culture is therefore not very honest, because it has not been proven that the cut is either necessary or sufficient to achieve that outcome, which we do indeed want.
Let us not forget that at the last Budget, the OBR took all the Chancellor’s measures into account and still downgraded the business investment forecasts. The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics estimate that business investment decreased by 0.8% between the second quarter of 2015 and the second quarter of 2016. Therefore, it continues to be a concern that the Government’s economic strategy does not take into account the wider needs of businesses beyond tax cuts.
It is the context of squeezed public services and lack of investment that leads me to raise the issue of tax reliefs, particularly those pertaining to capital gains tax, and the way in which we understand the needs of businesses. Tax reliefs are an important part of our tax system and have been needed for a variety of reasons, many of them extremely valid. However, after six years of this Government’s failure on the economy, in so many ways, with many people feeling the brunt of the cuts and with our public services under considerable strain, every penny of public spending should be going on much needed investment in our schools and hospitals and on supporting the most vulnerable. The figures got even worse this summer, with more than a third of children leaving school without the equivalent of five good GCSEs, and schools in my constituency tell me that they are giving out money every day to help parents buy school uniforms and shoes. We therefore need to justify every penny that is spent by the Exchequer.
That also has to apply to every penny that is not collected. Tax reliefs are effectively tax forgone. I firmly believe that we need to apply just as much scrutiny to relief as we do to expenditure. That is not to say that I am opposed to tax reliefs to incentivise good and positive business behaviours—far from it. For me, providing behavioural incentives to achieve economic and social goals is a central part of the role of Government, but they must use effective judgment that is based on the interests of fairness and prosperity. A Government who are working in strategic partnership with business and industry in the interests of the economy and society will actively consider such measures.
However, there is a serious paucity of scrutiny of whether and to what extent various tax reliefs are achieving those goals and whether they remain value for money for the taxpayer. The HMRC website lists 405 tax reliefs in the UK, but in reality there are many more. The Office of Tax Simplification has identified 1,140 tax reliefs. Of the 405 tax reliefs listed by HMRC, 102 cost more than £50 million, 84 cost under £50 million and there are 219 for which HMRC does not provide cost data.
Rob Marris
Does my hon. Friend agree that of all those reliefs, the biggest scandal is tax relief on pension contributions, which costs more than £30 billion a year in forgone revenue and principally goes to the most well-off? For years, the Department for Work and Pensions has had no evidence that that tax relief produces a change in behaviour that results in more people making pension contributions. We are, in effect, handing out a lot of money mostly, but not entirely, to a lot of rich people to get them to do something, when there is no evidence that it does so.
Seema Malhotra
My hon. Friend makes an important point. The conundrum of how we fund, finance and incentivise pension savings needs to be thought about much more holistically. He highlights an example of incentives that reach not the majority, but a minority. We must keep that under review.
The Public Accounts Committee took forward the work of the National Audit Office on these issues and took evidence. Its report found that some reliefs
“costing some £100 billion a year, are designed to deliver a policy objective that could be met instead through spending programmes”,
which would be more rigorous and more auditable. The report states that
“HM Treasury and…HMRC do not keep track of those tax reliefs intended to influence behaviour. They do not adequately report to Parliament or the public on whether reliefs are working as intended and what they cost and whether they represent good value for money.”
Nothing has really changed since the report was published last year. That is why Labour continues to raise this issue during the passage of the Finance Bill.
We need to question the efficacy of tax reliefs such as capital gains tax relief and entrepreneurs’ qualifying business disposals, or entrepreneurs’ relief. There are clear reasons for entrepreneurs’ relief and it can be argued that it incentivises investment, but does it make a great enough difference to be worth £3 billion a year to the Exchequer? I do not claim to have all the answers, but we do need evidence to prove that it makes that difference and the Government need to be challenged to justify this and other reliefs.
In Committee of the whole House, the then Financial Secretary to the Treasury defended entrepreneurs’ relief and, as usual, did so without evidence, saying:
“of course, as with all tax reliefs, it is entirely appropriate that the Government keep it under review to ensure that it is well targeted and not open to abuse”.—[Official Report, 28 June 2016; Vol. 612, c. 245.]
I challenge the Government to say when they will do that. New clause 14 would make the Government and all of us turn those warm words into action.
Furthermore, the Finance Bill introduces a new relief, investors’ relief, which extends the low rate of capital gains tax to investors in an unlimited trading company for at least three years. In principle, I support the idea of a relief that is intended to incentivise investment and to support access to capital for businesses, particularly at an early stage in a business’s life cycle, if we can provide evidence that it will help turn those with initial ideas into the successful job creators and innovators of the future. That is extremely important in creating the economy of the future, with all the opportunities that new technology and other initiatives can bring.
However, it concerns me that this could end up being yet another tax relief that is introduced for a good reason, but then left to mushroom into a relief that is extremely expensive and difficult to remove. We need a mechanism to ensure that there is time to review whether it is achieving the desired effect, whether the costs are aligned to those that are forecast and whether it constitutes value for money. For that reason, I support the sunset clause for the relief in Labour’s amendment 176, which would ensure that after a number of years, when we have the evidence on which to base our conclusions, those questions will not go unanswered.
I call on the House and the new Treasury Ministers to take seriously our scrutiny of tax reliefs and to support the Opposition amendments, which would put in place proper mechanisms for reviewing the reliefs and ensure that they remain targeted at supporting businesses, while showing evidence of value for money.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jane Ellison)
I will start by outlining the Government amendments in the group before responding to some of the points that have been made by hon. Members in what has been a thoughtful debate. As a new Treasury Minister, I have found a number of the speeches good food for thought as I look forward to a series of meetings into the autumn.
On Government amendments 149 to 151, the Finance Bill provides an incentive for people to invest in companies by reducing the main rates of capital gains tax from 18% to 10% and 28% to 20% on most gains made by individuals, trustees and personal representatives. We announced at the Budget that the 28% and 18% rates would continue to apply for carried interest. That is justified by the fact that carried interest is a performance-related award that is hybrid in nature, with characteristics that distinguish it from most other types of capital gain, as was alluded to by some hon. Members. We recently learned that it is possible to create an investment fund structure generating carried interest that, under clause 82 as it stands, would be taxed at 20% or 10%. That would clearly be unfair and contrary to policy. The amendments therefore ensure that the continuing 28% and 18% rates apply to all forms of carried interest.
Rob Marris
The Minister says that the measures will drive investment. What evidence is there for that?
Jane Ellison
That point has been made repeatedly. Contributions from those critical of the policy often miss the way in which measures interact. We are trying to create a climate that encourages investment. A number of international studies have indicated that low rates of CGT support equity investment in firms and promote higher-quality investment in start-ups. That is an important source of innovation and growth. The evidence is there. The measures are part of a package that is trying to create a climate that makes our country attractive to invest in and enables domestic investors to invest in company growth. At the same time, as we have stressed and as other measures in the Bill stress, taxes must be fair and must be paid; the hon. Gentleman took part in a good debate last night about some of those measures.
A number of external bodies have expressed support for clause 82—that also goes to the hon. Gentleman’s point. The CBI and the Institute of Economic Affairs have both welcomed the cuts as a means of encouraging entrepreneurship and growth, and, as I have said, there is a body of evidence, not least internationally, to indicate that lower rates support equity investment in firms and promote higher-quality investment in start-ups. Again, I welcome the support of and international perspective given by my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond (Yorks) on this subject.
The changes made by clause 82 are about encouraging investment where we want businesses to expand. As I have said, they are very much a part of a general pro-business agenda, but we have also been clear that we want fair and competitive taxes and that taxes must be paid. We addressed that in a good debate last night, when there was a good degree of cross-party consensus.
The hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey) mentioned the geographical distribution of the CGT cut. HMRC publishes national statistics on CGT each year that include a breakdown of its payers by geographical distribution, so there is transparency on that. It is also worth saying that it has been estimated that up to 130,000 individuals will pay lower taxes as a direct result of these changes to CGT, including 50,000 basic rate taxpayers.
The hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) made a typically thoughtful speech, not just on CGT but on her general thoughts on tax reliefs and how we review them, as well as on tax simplification. Again, I felt that she did not perhaps entirely address the interaction between the various measures—they cannot be seen in isolation. The other issues she mentioned are hugely important; for example, the investment in skills, but I did not think she was fair about what the Government have done on that agenda, which has resulted in record levels of apprenticeships. She is right to say that there are other issues such as that one, but these measures are part of a general package and are not the whole picture.
Amendments 175 and 176 were also tabled by the Opposition. In the 2016 Budget we announced the introduction of investors’ relief, benefiting long-term investors in unlisted companies. As has been explained, the amendments seek to end that new relief after a period of six years, with the option of an additional 12-month extension if agreed by both Houses, and ask the Chancellor to lay a review of the operation of the relief before both Houses.
The amendments are unnecessary as the Government keep all tax policy under review in line with normal tax policy making practice. The hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) again, I thought, did not really give credit to the interaction of different measures nor to the wider point that, given that the Government are bringing the measures forward to stimulate economic growth, there is absolutely no incentive for us not to keep a very close eye on them and review them at regular intervals. We do so all the time because we want measures to work—we want our measures to stimulate economic activity, and we do not in any way want them not to work. Indeed, there are a number of measures in the Bill to correct things that have been done in the past, where we feel that an improvement could make something work better.
We feel that there would be limited merit in conducting a review within six years as the first data on the uptake of the relief in its first year of operation will not be available to HMRC until 2021. Amendments 175 and 176 are neither needed nor useful, and we ask the Opposition not to press them to a vote.
New clause 14, again tabled by the Opposition, proposes that the Chancellor publish, within six months of the passing of the Bill, a report of the Treasury’s assessment of the value for money provided by entrepreneurs’ relief. As I have just said, the Government keep all tax policy under review because we want it to do what we have set out as the intention behind it, namely to stimulate economic activity and to make investment in business attractive to people. That review includes entrepreneurs’ relief, as demonstrated by recent action taken to ensure that the relief is effective, well targeted and not open to abuse. We will continue to act, where appropriate.
My predecessor as Financial Secretary has already informed the House of this, but it is worth reiterating, as it is germane to this point, that HMRC officials have commissioned an in-depth survey of taxpayers’ reasons for using entrepreneurs’ relief and its effects on behaviour. We expect the results of that survey, which will be published at some point in 2017, to inform future changes to the relief. I hope that that gives Members some comfort that the relief is being looked at very closely.
In our wider debate, some general points were made about the Budget being tilted towards the south-east of England. A number of points could be made in rebuttal, not least the debate we had last night, which touched on support for the oil and gas sector in Scotland. More generally, some interesting points were made about having a simpler tax system. In the next part of our debate on the Bill, there will be an opportunity to discuss the Office of Tax Simplification, but as this point came up during the current debate it is worth noting that the Bill puts the OTS on a statutory footing. Around half of the OTS’s 400 or so recommendations to date have already been taken on board. I again take on board the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field). I feel sure that this a topic that we will return to over the coming months and years.
I thank all Members who have spoken in the debate.
Rebecca Long Bailey
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 82
Reduction in rate of capital gains tax
Amendment proposed: 174, page 167, line 40, leave out clause 82.—(Rebecca Long Bailey.)
section (Tax treatment of supplementary welfare payments: Northern Ireland) of FA 2016 (tax treatment of supplementary welfare payments: Northern Ireland).”” |
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
New Clause 2
Review of the impact of the duty regime for high-strength cider
‘(1) The Chancellor of the Exchequer must carry out a review of the impact of the rate of duty charged on sparkling cider of a strength exceeding 5.5%, and lay the report of the review before both Houses of Parliament within 12 months of this Act receiving Royal Assent.
(2) The review must address (though need not be limited to) the impact of the duty regime on tax revenues and on the consumption of alcohol.”
New Clause 3
Review of the operation of the transferable tax allowance for married couples and civil partners
‘(1) The Chancellor of the Exchequer must carry out a review of the operation of the transferable tax allowance for married couples and civil partners under Chapter 3A of Part 3 of the Income Tax Act 2007 and lay the report of the review before both Houses of Parliament within 12 months of this Act receiving Royal Assent.
(2) The review must address (though need not be limited to)—
(a) levels of take-up of the allowance;
(b) the impact of the allowance on individuals with children aged five years or under;
(c) the impact of the allowance on low-income households; and
(d) ways in which the allowance could be changed to target low-income families with young children.”
New Clause 6
VAT treatment of the Scottish Police Authority and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service
The Chancellor of the Exchequer must commission a review of the VAT treatment of the Scottish Police Authority and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, including but not limited to an analysis of the impact on the financial position of Police Scotland and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service arising from their VAT treatment and an estimate of the change to their financial position were they eligible for a refund of VAT under section 33 of the VAT Act 1994, and must publish the report of the review within six months of the passing of this Act.”
New Clause 8
Review of changes to tax on dividend income
‘(1) The Chancellor of the Exchequer must commission a review of how the changes to the tax on dividend income implemented by this Act affect directors of micro-business companies, to include—
(a) the impacts across the distribution of such directors’ net income;
(b) the impact on company failure rates; and
(c) options for amending the law to minimise the impact on such directors who are on low incomes.
(2) The Chancellor must lay a report of the review before both Houses of Parliament within six months of the passing of this Act.”
New Clause 15
VAT on Installation of Energy Saving Materials
‘(1) No order shall be made under the Value Added Tax Act 1994 which would have the effect of raising the rate of VAT on installation of energy saving materials, or any individual category thereof.
(2) No order shall be made under the Value Added Tax Act 1994 to vary Schedule 7A of that Act by deleting or varying any description of supply within Group 2 (Installation of Energy Saving Materials).
(3) “Installation of energy saving materials” has the meaning given in Schedule 7A of the Value Added Tax Act 1994.””
New Clause 16
Review of impact of tax measures on intergenerational fairness
‘(1) Within six months of the passage of this Act the Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a report assessing the impact of —
(a) Sections 1 to 3,
(b) Sections 19 to 22,
(c) Section 82,
(d) Sections 92 to 96, and
(e) Section 140
on the burden of taxation by age demographic.
(2) A report under this section must include an analysis of the proportion of taxation paid by working age people under the age of 35.”
New Clause 18
Impact of section 24 of Finance (No 2) Act 2015 on availability of affordable housing
The Chancellor of the Exchequer must commission a review of the impact of changes relating to income tax made by Section 24 of the Finance Act 2015 on the availability of affordable housing, and lay the report of the review before both Houses of Parliament within six months of the passing of this Act.”
New Clause 19
Distributional analysis of the impact of taxation measures
‘(1) The Chancellor of the Exchequer must review the impact of the measures introduced by this Act on households at different levels of income, and lay before each House of Parliament the report of that review within six months of this Act coming into force.
(2) The Chancellor of the Exchequer must review the impact of government fiscal measures on households at different levels of income at least once in each calendar year, and lay before each House of Parliament a report on each review.”
Government amendments 132 to 134, 146 to 148 and 135.
Amendment 179, clause 99, page 185, line 20, at end insert—
“(c) “earning” do not include any amounts that constitute qualifying bonus payments within the meaning of section 312B of the Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003.”
Government amendment 138.
Amendment 141, schedule 3, page 337, line 1, at end insert—
“Provision for small amounts of partnership share money repayable to employees to be exempt from tax if instead applied charitably
10 In section 503 of ITEPA 2003 (charge on partnership share money paid over to employee), after “paragraph 55(3) (partnership share money paid over on withdrawal from partnership share agreement),” insert—
“paragraph 55(3A)(a) or (b)(i) (partnership share money paid over on withdrawal from partnership share agreement),”
11 (1) In Schedule 2 to ITEPA 2003 (share incentive plans), Part 6 (partnership shares) is amended as follows.
(2) In paragraph 55 (withdrawal from partnership share agreement)—
(a) in sub-paragraph (3) after “as soon as practicable” insert—
“, unless the plan includes provision authorised by sub-paragraph (3A)”
(b) after sub-paragraph (3) insert—
“(3A) The plan may provide that, where an employee withdraws from a partnership share agreement—
(a) if the employee does not agree to an arrangement in accordance with sub-paragraph (b), any partnership share money held on behalf of the employee is to be paid over to the employee as soon as practicable, and
(b) with the employee’s agreement—
(i) if the partnership share money held on behalf of the employee exceeds a threshold amount of not more than £ 10 specified in the plan, the full amount must be paid over to the employee as soon as practicable, and
(ii) if the partnership share money held on behalf of the employee is equal to or less than the threshold amount referred to in sub-paragraph (b)(i), as soon as reasonably practicable, the full amount must either—
(3B) Partnership share money paid over to a charity or accumulated for that purpose under sub-paragraph (3A)(b) shall not count as employment income by reason of section 503.
(3C) While the plan includes any provision authorised by sub-paragraph (3A), the company and trustees shall make available to participants and qualifying employees at least annually an account of the total amount of partnership share money that would have been returned to employees were it not for that provision and of the related charitable donations made.
(3D) The Treasury may by order amend sub-paragraph (3A)(b)(i) by substituting for any amount for the time being specified there an amount specified in the order.””
Government amendment 139.
Amendment 180, schedule 25, page 642, line 2, at end insert—
‘(4A) The Chancellor of the Exchequer may not appoint the Chair of the OTS without the consent of the Treasury Committee of the House of Commons.
(4B) The Chancellor of the Exchequer may not appoint the Tax Director of the OTS without the consent of the Treasury Committee of the House of Commons.”
Amendment 181, page 642, line 40, at end insert—
‘(2A) The Chancellor of the Exchequer may not terminate the appointment of the Chair of the OTS without the consent of the Treasury Committee of the House of Commons.
(2B) The Chancellor of the Exchequer may not terminate the appointment of the Tax Director of the OTS without the consent of the Treasury Committee of the House of Commons.”
Amendment 182, page 643, line 3, at end insert—
“References to Treasury Committee
5A (1) Any reference in this Schedule to the Treasury Committee of the House of Commons—
(a) if the name of that Committee is changed, is to be treated as a reference to that Committee by its new name, and
(b) if the functions of that Committee (or substantially corresponding functions) become functions of a different Committee of the House of Commons, is to be treated as a reference to the Committee by which those functions are exercisable.
(2) Any question arising under sub-paragraph (1) is to be determined by the Speaker of the House of Commons.”
Jane Ellison
In this final debate, there is an array of amendments and new clauses to consider across a wide range of subjects. I am sure that we will cover a great deal of ground.
Let me first outline briefly the Government amendments, starting with Government new clause 9. To ensure fairness in the tax system, new clause 9 allows for the exemption from income tax of supplementary benefit payments funded by the Northern Ireland Executive. Government amendments 132 to 134 deal with disguised remuneration and Government amendment 139 deals with aqua methanol. Amendments 132 to 134 change the date for withdrawing a relief on returns arising from disguised remuneration for those who have not settled tax due to 1 April 2017, while amendment 139 changes the date on which the new aqua methanol duty rate comes into force to 14 November.
Government amendments 135, 146 to 148 and 138 concern venture capital trusts, the lifetime allowance and dividends respectively. They make changes to ensure that these policies work as intended.
Let me deal with the new clauses and amendments tabled by the Opposition. New clause 15, tabled by the hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey) and her colleagues is designed to prevent the use of secondary legislation to alter the rate of VAT applied to the installation of energy-saving materials. Since 2001, the UK has applied the 5% reduced rate of VAT to the installation of 11 different types of energy-saving materials. That reduced rate remains in place and is unchanged. The European Court of Justice ruled last year that the UK had interpreted VAT law too broadly. Following that judgment, the Government published a consultation on this particularly complex issue, and we are considering the responses. While this new clause is designed to prevent the use of secondary legislation to alter the rate of VAT applied to the installation of energy-saving materials, the tax lock legislated for by this Government already achieves the same effect. Indeed, it goes further.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
Will the Minister confirm that, now we are leaving the EU, we would have no intention of raising VAT to that rate? I hope that we will scrap it altogether.
Jane Ellison
As the Secretary of State for Exiting the EU said yesterday in his responses to the lengthy statement, those are all matters that will be looked at. He confirmed that he is indeed looking at it, as is the Treasury.
We feel that the tax lock goes further by preventing the use of secondary legislation to vary the scope of any reduced or zero rate. In effect, the new clause would serve no purpose except to duplicate existing legislation.
New clause 3 on the marriage allowance would place a legal requirement on the Government to carry out a review. Although I am sympathetic and have discussed the concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) and others who support the new clause, I hope to be able to show that such a report is unnecessary and to address some of these concerns.
Let me reiterate that the Government remain committed to recognising marriage in the tax system and to ensuring that the marriage allowance is delivered successfully. As hon. Members will be aware, take-up of this policy was initially lower than expected, but the Government have taken decisive action to change that. In spring this year, HMRC ran a successful marketing campaign to help raise awareness among eligible families, and the results were quite dramatic. Daily applications increased by a factor of seven between November 2015 and March 2016. Next month, HMRC will receive its 1 millionth successful marriage allowance application.
We are going even further. HMRC will launch a more ambitious campaign to raise awareness next month to help to continue the momentum. The Government have also assessed the distributional impact of the policy, which I know is a matter of interest to my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate. We found that a quarter of those who will benefit are households with children, and most of the benefit from the marriage allowance will go to those in the bottom half of the income distribution scale. I understand that my hon. Friend will want to make more points about this issue in his contribution. I will seek to respond, briefly if I can, at the end.
My hon. Friend has also tabled new clause 2, which proposes a review of the impact of the rate of duty charged on sparkling cider of an alcohol strength exceeding 5.5%. The concerns that he raises—he has raised them before—are important, and the Government will continue to tackle alcohol problems as a driver of crime and support people to stay healthy, building on the alcohol strategy of 2012. The Government are aware that some ciders can be associated with alcohol harm and we have already taken action. Since 2010, for example, we have required drinks to contain a minimum of 35% apple or pear juice to be defined as cider, which is designed to increase the cost of the cheap white ciders.
From my previous role as a public health Minister, I am obviously aware of the concerns about alcohol harm. Further changes to alcohol policy would need sufficiently to target cheap drinks associated with these harms, without of course penalising responsible drinkers. The Treasury is always willing to consider any evidence about how these products should be taxed. Although I do not think a legislative requirement for a review is necessary, I look forward to hearing my hon. Friend’s contribution to the debate.
Amendments 180 to 182 deal with the Office of Tax Simplification. The amendments, tabled by the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), would require appointments to or dismissals from the position of the OTS chair to be subject to the consent of the Treasury Select Committee. The OTS provides the Chancellor with independent advice on simplifying the tax system. As I alluded to in the last part of the previous debate, to ensure that the OTS continues its important work, the Government are putting it on a permanent statutory footing and increasing its powers. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie), the hon. Member for Ilford North, whom I see in his place, and other members of the Treasury Select Committee for their commitment to safeguarding the independence of bodies within government and to increasing their transparency. The Government’s view is that there is a balance between ensuring that there is robust scrutiny and doing so in a way that is proportionate to the function of the OTS.
Having considered the representations of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chichester and the hon. Member for Ilford North, the Government will ensure that the Treasury Committee is able to hold hearings with future OTS chair candidates before their appointments are formalised, and to put appointments to a vote in the House. We believe that those arrangements should be a permanent method of appointment of future OTS chairs. I do not think there is any justification for going further and legislating for a power of veto, which is what the amendments would do. I hope that members of the Treasury Committee will welcome the arrangements that I have outlined, and I invite them not to press their amendments.
Mr Andrew Tyrie (Chichester) (Con)
I am grateful to the Minister for what she has said about the proposals. I am pleased that it has been possible to work out a compromise which I think is very reasonable all round, and which builds on the arrangements made by the former Chancellor for the appointments of the chairman and chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority earlier in the year. I see no reason why this should not form the basis for a permanent arrangement to ensure that we get the best possible candidate into the OTS, supported by Parliament, in future years.
Jane Ellison
I thank the Chairman of the Treasury Committee for his indication of support for these arrangements. As he says, we have set out a procedure for the future. I have written to him, and the Chancellor will write to him as well, to confirm that for the record.
New clause 8, tabled by members of the Scottish National party, would require the Government to review the way in which the changes in dividend tax will affect directors of microbusinesses. First, we feel that it would be impossible to deliver such a review, because information from the self-assessment process will not be available until 2018. Secondly and more fundamentally, the dividend tax changes cannot be viewed in isolation, as I pointed out in the previous debate. Small company directors will have benefited from various recent tax changes made by the Government, including cuts in corporation tax and business rates—with more to come into effect in the spring of 2017—and the introduction of the employment allowance, which has made a considerable difference to business people in my constituency to whom I have spoken and, I know, to those in other constituencies. We think that these matters must be looked at in the round, and we therefore do not feel that we can accept the new clause.
New clause 18 proposes another review, on the impact of section 24 of the summer Finance Act 2015 on affordable housing. Again, we feel that that is unnecessary. The changes made by section 24 are being implemented in a gradual and proportionate way. Only one in five landlords is expected to pay more tax, and we do not expect the changes to have a large impact on either house prices or rent levels owing to the small overall proportion of the housing market that is affected. It is worth noting that the Office for Budget Responsibility has endorsed that assessment.
I gather from my predecessors that the subject of new clause 6, which asks the Treasury to conduct
“a review of the VAT treatment of the Scottish Police Authority and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service”,
has arisen a number of times in the past, and I am afraid that I cannot add very much to the responses that SNP Members have heard before in the context of this and previous Finance Bills. The Treasury made it clear to the Scottish Government that the proposed changes would result in a loss of eligibility for VAT refunds. They chose to go ahead, which was their legitimate right, but there can be no expectation that we will review the issue, given that the consequences were clear beforehand.
Jonathan Edwards
If the United Kingdom opts for non-membership of the single market following Brexit, the UK Government—the Treasury—will be able to initiate all sorts of proposals relating to VAT, one of which may well be to devolve it to the devolved Administrations. The Scotland Act 2016 currently assigns responsibility for 50% of VAT receipts, but if the UK Government decided on the non-membership option, it would be possible to go further. Is the Treasury considering that?
Jane Ellison
As a number of Ministers have made clear in the House, we need to consider a huge range of issues as we proceed, but, as I have said, we are clear about the matter for the present. No doubt the hon. Gentleman will raise his point again during debates about our future outside the European Union.
New clause 16, tabled by Liberal Democrat Members, would require the Government to publish a review. I do not think that any Liberal Democrat Members are present, so I shall speak briefly before moving on swiftly to deal with new clauses and amendments tabled by members of other parties who are present.
The Government already undertake equality assessments of all new measures, which includes considering age as a protected characteristic. I am sure the whole House welcomes the fact that the Prime Minister has now launched an unprecedented audit of public services to reveal—among other things—racial disparities, and to look at the way in which public services serve people throughout the country. The Treasury will, of course, play its part in the audit, and no doubt some of these issues can be considered as part of that important exercise.
New clause 19 would require the Government to review the impact of measures in the Bill on different levels of income. In every Budget and autumn statement since 2010, the Treasury has published distributional analyses showing the impact of Government policy on the share of tax paid and spending received across household income distribution. Since 2010, the Government have published far more distributional analyses than their predecessors. As the Prime Minister has made clear on many occasions since taking office, we are determined to make Britain a country that works for everyone, and our policy choices and actions stand as proof of our commitment. The Government have received representations on this matter, not just from Opposition Members but from my right hon. Friend the Member for Chichester, on behalf of his Committee. We will consider the appropriate format of documents to be published at future fiscal events at a time closer to the date of the autumn statement.
Kirsty Blackman
When does the Minister think the autumn statement will be delivered?
Mr Tyrie
As the Minister knows, the issue of distributional analysis is of great importance to the Committee. The previous Chancellor accepted it in 2010, but resiled from it in 2015, to the Committee’s considerable concern. On the understanding that the Chancellor really is considering reinstating the arrangements that had been in operation for the preceding five years, I would not be minded to vote for new clause 19. Am I to understand from what the Minister has said that a serious reconsideration is taking place, and that she or the Chancellor will return to the House in due course to inform us of their conclusions?
Jane Ellison
Treasury Ministers and the Chancellor take points made by my right hon. Friend and his Committee members very seriously. As I said earlier and as has been confirmed in an exchange of letters between my right hon. Friend and the Chancellor, we will consider the issue at future fiscal events closer to the date of the autumn statement. I may be able to write to my right hon. Friend with further information, but that is what I am able to say at the moment.
Philip Boswell (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (SNP)
I thank the Minister for giving way. She is being most generous.
Yesterday, in an intervention on the speech of one of the Minister’s colleagues, I asked when we were likely to expect the very important autumn statement. The response was “some time in November, maybe December.” Can the Minister confirm that that is indeed the case?
Jane Ellison
As I have said, the date will be confirmed in due course, but I think it reasonable to assume that the window of opportunity to which the hon. Gentleman has referred is broadly correct.
I shall speak briefly—as, again, there is no Liberal Democrat presence in the Chamber—about amendment 179, which deals with the apprenticeship levy. This would exclude qualifying bonus payments to employees of employee-owned businesses from being considered as part of the employer’s pay bill when calculating the levy. To ensure the levy is as simple and fair as possible, the Government have decided to use the existing definition of earnings—those used for employers national insurance contributions. This avoids unnecessary complication. This point about avoiding complication was made repeatedly to us during the consultation. We feel the amendment would add complication and therefore we urge the House to reject it.
Lastly, Labour amendment 141 on employee share schemes proposes a tax exemption for residual cash amounts remaining in share incentive plans when they are donated to charity. While we appreciate the proposal is made with the best of intentions, we are concerned the change would, again, add complexity and the amendment lacks details. We would need further development and evidence of this idea before giving it further consideration.
I will end there, but I may look to respond briefly at the end if there are any further points I can add that would assist the House. I look forward to the debate.
Rob Marris
I am disappointed by the Minister’s concluding remarks on amendment 141, which is in my name and those of my hon. Friends. She says the amendment lacks detail. We are talking about simplification today and I will go on to address the House on that issue, but this amendment covers more than an A4 page, so there is quite a lot of it. It might be the wrong detail—I freely accept that I am not an accountant—but I cannot get my head around the concept that it lacks detail. So I am disappointed and urge her to reconsider.
I am pleased at the movement from the Government on amendment 180. It will not surprise SNP Members to know that I want to touch briefly, as the Minister did, on new clause 6. Frankly, they have made their bed and they should lie in it. They were warned that this would be the financial effect, and having an inquiry into the financial effect of something they knew was going to happen and has happened—it may be an adverse financial effect—is what you get with devolution; you make your decisions and you live with them. They should not be looking indirectly through this mechanism for yet another bung from the English taxpayer when they are already getting shed loads of money under the Barnett formula. I support the Barnett formula and the Union, but sometimes people can push their luck a bit and I think that is what is happening here since they knew in advance what would happen.
I want to make some brief remarks on the question of evidence-based decision making and the difficulties we have in that regard as policymakers and legislators in this House. That applies particularly to financial matters. Although the House of Lords scrutinises Finance Bills, it does not vote upon them for good historical reasons. It cannot, therefore, amend the Finance Bill and we have to get it right here.
Oppositions cannot table amendments to put up taxes and it has become commonplace in recent years to table amendments to express concern and call for a review. That has been the mechanism used by those who take issue with a particular course of action, or lack of a course of action rather than moving amendments to abolish something, as the Liberal Democrats extraordinarily did yesterday with their amendment to abolish corporation tax, which, as the Minister said, would cost £43 billion a year. In this group, new clauses 3, 6, 8, 16, 17, 18 and 19 all call for a review, as did new clause 14 and amendment 176 which were debated previously. It is the flavour of the day.
This highlights a problem that the Minister addressed in her concluding remarks in the previous debate. We have at the moment an economy with extraordinarily good unemployment figures, and I praise the Government for that. That figure has come down, and we have had 2.5 million more jobs in the past six years. That is great, but it has been bought on a sea of debt, with the deficit going up 60% under a Government who said that they were imposing austerity in order to bring public finances under control. They are still not under control.
Kirsty Blackman
In the absence of the Government showing any willingness to take the bull by the horns on tax simplification, how can we get them to part with the information that they say they have on the continual review on tax reliefs? I have not been an MP for very long, but it strikes me that there is a failure in the system if we are not seeing the transparency that we need. If the Government are actually doing these reviews but not providing their working to the Committees or to Opposition MPs, that strikes me as a failure in the system. How can we get them to part with that information?
Rob Marris
I quite agree with the hon. Lady. Sadly, I am unlikely ever to be a Minister, but I am hoping that the Minister will stand up this afternoon and say, “The hon. Member for Aberdeen North has made a jolly good point.” She has said that the Government keep all policies under review all the time, so let us have the transparency. I salute what the Government did for transparency yesterday in accepting amendment 145, tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint). I urge them to go that bit further today by publishing the evidence that they have and by marshalling more evidence and disclosing it. They must have the courage to seriously go for simplification, which would be better for business and employment in this country, even though there would be a cost to be borne by society in the form of less nuanced decision making and systems becoming more monochromatic and rough and ready. Some of that would of course rebound on Members of the House, because we would get constituents writing to us saying, “I have a particularly nuanced situation here, and you guys have made all these laws that are a bit monochromatic and do not help me.” We have to have the guts to say that that is a price worth paying, and as legislators we should be prepared to do so.
John Redwood
I had hoped to clear up my point in an earlier intervention on the Minister, but I fear that I was not happy with her answer so I shall try again and extend my case a little on the important matter of VAT on energy-saving materials. That is the principal issue at stake in new clause 15. As I was trying to explain to the Minister, many of us feel that it would be quite wrong to increase VAT on energy-saving materials, given that the House decided to choose the lowest rate that we are allowed to impose under European Union law. A case was then lost in the European Court, and the Government have wisely been undertaking a very long consultation into how they might implement this ill-conceived and unwanted judgment. The longer they consider it, the better, and the sooner we get out of the European Union, the sooner we can bring the whole charade to a happy end.
To many of us, this illustrates exactly what was wrong with our membership of the European Union, and this is something that we can offer to our constituents as we come out. They voted to leave and to take back control of their laws. That includes their laws over taxes. During the campaign, we on the leave side made a great deal of how we wanted to scrap VAT on energy-saving materials. Like many people in this House, we believe that we could do much more to save and conserve energy and to raise fuel efficiency, and if we did not tax those materials, perhaps they would be a bit cheaper for people. That would send a clear message that this was something that we believed in.
I urge the Minister to go as far as she can in saying that this Government have absolutely no wish to put up VAT on energy-saving materials, and that they would not do so if they were completely free to make their own tax decisions. I would love her to go a bit further—this might be asking quite a lot—and say that once we are free of the European Union requirements, we will be scrapping VAT on energy-saving materials altogether. It is not a huge money-spinner for the Government, and its abolition would send a very good message. It would particularly help people struggling in fuel poverty, who find energy-saving materials expensive. The extra VAT on them is far from helpful.
The Minister suggested to me that the Brexit Secretary was dealing with this matter, but I can assure her that he is not. He made a clear statement on these matters in the House yesterday and wisely told us—I repeat this for the benefit of those who did not hear him—that it is his role to advise and work with the Prime Minister to get our powers back. His job is to ensure that this House and all of us can once again settle the United Kingdom’s taxes without having to accept the European Union’s judgments and overrides. However, it will be for Treasury Ministers and the wider Cabinet to recommend how we use those wider and new powers and to bring to the House their proposals once they are free to do so.
Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)
I rise to address amendments 180 to 182 and new clause 19, tabled in my name and those of my hon. and right hon. Friends. As a relatively new Member, I want to place on the record my enormous thanks to the staff of the Public Bill Office, who over the course of the summer assisted in the production of not only these amendments, but more than 30 amendments to the Higher Education and Research Bill. I have been busy, but I have been keeping them busy. As a new Member, I have perhaps been slightly more demanding, so I am grateful for their time and support.
As the Minister acknowledged in her opening remarks, amendments 180 to 182 arose from concerns reflected right across the Treasury Committee about the nature of appointments to the most senior offices and the dismissal of post holders. The Office of Tax Simplification has an important public duty. Many of us want the tax code to be simplified, but we know that constraints are inevitable because the tax system is as complicated as life and will therefore always have a degree of complexity. However, we also know—particularly those of us with a large number of small and medium-sized businesses in our constituencies—that the more complicated the tax code, the more complicated it is for businesses to understand what it is they should and should not be paying. Companies with the means to get a great deal of expensive advice on how to make enormous savings are at a great advantage.
During the course of yesterday’s Finance Bill debate, my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) spoke about the widespread practice of aggressive tax avoidance by multinational corporations. If the tax code were simpler and clearer, that sort of aggressive avoidance would be harder. That is why there is such parliamentary interest in the work of the OTS and a determination to ensure that Government appointments to the most senior posts have an appropriate degree of parliamentary oversight—primarily, but not exclusively, through the Treasury Committee.
I welcome the Minister’s constructive approach and the agreement she made with the Chair of the Treasury Committee, the right hon. Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie), who does a sterling job of batting for all members of the Committee and on behalf of both sides of the House. This is a good example of how the Government and the Select Committee system can work together effectively to reach the right outcome. I do not intend to press amendments 180 to 182 to a vote this afternoon, because we have received sufficient assurances from the Minister and I look forward to that process continuing under successive Governments.
Turning to new clause 19, even newer Members of the House are familiar with the regular display and theatre of the Budget. In this modern age, there is an inevitable degree of briefing, counter-briefing and misleading in the run-up to the event in order to misdirect the Opposition and to enable the Government to be fleet of foot on the day and to save the best headlines for the Budget. On the day itself, we have the routine announcements about the business that needs to be conducted in any Budget and then, of course, we get the inevitable rabbit out of the hat. Once the smoke has cleared and the mirrors have been packed away, the real analysis begins of the consequences of each Budget item for the people whom we are sent here to represent. Even members of Select Committees or Bill Committees, who follow the scrutiny of Bills closely, know that trying to penetrate the real impact of a Finance Bill or any fiscal event is a significant challenge.
I must say that that challenge has been made more difficult by the decision of the previous Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Tatton (Mr Osborne), to move away from his commendable practice of publishing alongside the Budget the distributional analysis of the impact of tax, welfare and public spending changes. The first question that all hon. Members face when presented with a Budget is about the impact on our constituents. Those of us who are committed to social justice are more interested in the impact on the poorer household than the wealthier household. In fact, the right hon. Member for Tatton described the analysis as the
“most comprehensive and robust assessment available”.
That is why it was so disappointing that he decided to abandon that practice following the general election. The move was condemned at the time by a wide range of anti-poverty charities as a serious mistake. We could spend a lot of time debating why the previous Chancellor chose to abandon that practice at that particular moment, and we could have our usual exchanges about the priorities of Conservative Governments and Labour Governments, but with the appointment of a new Prime Minister and a new Chancellor I hope that we can instead debate the merits of the principle which we believe any Government, whatever their priorities and political shade, should follow.
The Chair of the Treasury Committee wrote to the Chancellor to express concern that at last year’s summer Budget the Treasury
“replaced its previously excellent budget distributional analysis series with a manifestly deficient substitute.”
Since her elevation, the Prime Minister has made great fanfare of the commitment she made outside No. 10 Downing Street to lead a Government who work
“not for a privileged few, but for every one of us.”
I would dearly love to have a debate with the Government about the means by which we achieve social justice and about whether it is a good thing in and of itself, but I certainly agree with the Chairman of the Treasury Committee that a
“high level of transparency about the effects of tax and welfare policy on households across the income distribution would seem to be a logical, perhaps essential starting point.”
That is what motivated the tabling of new clause 19.
It is important that all Governments are clear and transparent about a Budget’s effects to enable proper parliamentary and public scrutiny of decisions—as happens in the Chamber, in Select Committees and in conversations around kitchen tables up and down the country. Knowing that the analysis is being produced and seeing it form as the Budget is prepared helps to concentrate the minds of Ministers and civil servants. It asks the question and gives the Chancellor, before he or she stands at the Dispatch Box to announce their Budget, an opportunity to reflect on the Budget in its entirety.
Successive Governments and Chancellors have once or twice fallen foul of public opinion by realising that the Budget as a whole is not necessarily as great as they thought it was when each part was being considered. Having the analysis in place as the Budget is prepared will not only aid public and parliamentary scrutiny, but enable Ministers to make the right judgment about how Budgets should be balanced. The Opposition believe, particularly when difficult judgments are to be made about tax and welfare changes and public spending, that the books should never be balanced on the backs of the poorest. I hope that we can find agreement in that area with the new Chancellor and Prime Minister, particularly given her stated aims, but whoever occupies the highest offices of this land, we can surely agree that parliamentary scrutiny is vital.
We should also agree that, as the Treasury has the evidence to hand and we are not asking it to do additional work—the analysis already exists—simply requesting that it be put in the public domain is not too much to ask. I welcome the fact that this afternoon the Minister has left the door open and says that this area will be considered by Ministers. On that basis, I accept that Ministers, the Chancellor and the Treasury will consider it. I assure the Minister and the Chancellor that we will return to this issue, through the Select Committee and at future fiscal events, if a change is not made. On the basis that the Government have an open mind and open ears on this issue, I am prepared not to press new clause 19 to a vote.
Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)
It is a pleasure to take part in this stage of our consideration of the Finance Bill. I was interested to hear the carefully constructed arguments of the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting). Let me pick up on the point he made about wanting to see social justice from this and future Budgets, and to see it at the heart of the Government’s agenda, as was made clear on the steps of No. 10 by the new Prime Minister. He also talked about the impact on the poorest households, which is the focus of new clauses 2 and 3 and the reviews that they propose. As ever, it was also interesting to hear from the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Rob Marris), and to listen to his thesis on post-factual analysis, be it on the Labour leadership contest or on this Bill. He mentioned roads, so perhaps he should come down to Enfield and give us a post-factual analysis of the cycle lanes that are planned in my borough to see whether we should continue with that expensive proposal, given the need for best value.
Let me return to the matters at hand. First, I wish to speak to new clause 2, which stands in my name and those of my hon. Friends the Members for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and for Totnes (Dr Wollaston). Sadly, the latter cannot be here as she is leading her Health Committee on a visit, although she would want to be here to support this new clause. I hope and expect that across the House there is support for the principles of wanting to carry out a proper review of the impact of the duty regime, particularly in relation to high-strength cider, although I very much welcome the Minister’s comments. She will know all too clearly from her previous role in public health of the impact of alcohol and high-strength alcohol in particular, including cider, on the poorest and those most in need of our attention. I welcome the hint that a wider, more coherent view of the relationship between alcohol duties and harm could be taken, which was mooted by the previous Prime Minister but seemed to get kicked into the long grass—it has never returned. The Minister will be well aware of the permutations and the different interests across Government in relation to that review and its final outcome. The previous Prime Minister was talking about minimum alcohol pricing in terms of when not if, but this has now gone back to an if. I look forward in future Budgets and future consideration to a wider review and factual analysis of the relationships to harm and the impact on behaviour, particularly among the poorest.
New clause 2 hones in on an area that is about not just health harms, although that is the core of the argument, but an anomaly in our treatment of cider and of beer.
Rob Marris
I was a “remainer”, so at the risk of sounding like the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood), may I ask the hon. Gentleman whether he agrees that this is one area where, as a small silver lining, leaving the European Union may assist, because the rates of excise duties, the definitions and so on are related to our membership of the EU? For example, I am thinking of the way in which wine is treated, because of the Italian, Spanish and French wine industries. If and when we leave the EU, we will have more flexibility in this regard.
Mr Burrowes
I welcome reluctant converts to the cause of Brexit, whenever they come. That is a silver lining among many. I see this very much as sunshine, rather than silver linings. At the heart of it all, this is about our taking back control over a duty that has an impact on the most vulnerable, and we have already had arguments about VAT. I look forward to hearing the Scottish Members’ support for the same silver lining, because they have been battling to ensure that their proposal for minimum unit pricing is not subject to court and European Court interference. They, too, would perhaps welcome that silver lining; I look forward to their joining the hon. Gentleman in what he has just said.
As much as anything else, new clause 2 is about dealing with an anomaly to do with high-strength ciders. In the recess, hon. Members may have enjoyed ciders of all varieties. They may have popped their corks and had some sparkling cider, which is a substitute, perhaps a poor one, for champagne. They need have no fear about this, because the essence of my proposed review is very much about the nasty stuff. I doubt many hon. Members will have partaken in it, although they may have done. I am talking about people going down to their local office licence to get a large bottle or can of white cider, which is not particularly sparkling or pleasant. However, it attracts under-age drinkers and, in particular, dependent drinkers—
Mr Burrowes
It has never seen an apple. The Minister intimated that the same is true of pears. We need to look at the fact that white cider attracts the lowest duty per unit of alcohol of any product while representing the cheapest way to consume alcohol and get drunk, and to enable addicts to continue their dependency. Three-litre bottles of high-strength ciders are available for just £3.50; people can get completely wasted on £3.50, but they would struggle to buy a bottle of some mainstream ciders for that. As a result, these products are causing disproportionate levels of harm, which is closely associated with dependent, street and under-age drinking. The Government are rightly emphasising and prioritising tackling street homelessness and putting funds into preventing homelessness. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) has introduced the very helpful Homelessness Reduction Bill. We hope that, with cross-party support, he will be navigating its safe passage through this House on 28 October and all hon. Friends will attend to that.
Let me make a wider point about future Budgets, as connected to that is the need to examine the impact of duty and the evidence that price has a particular impact on behaviour.
Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)
My hon. Friend pre-empts the point I wished to make, and is making a typically eloquent speech. For too long, under all Governments and under generally liberal regimes, whether we are talking about salt, sugar, alcohol or fixed-odds betting terminals, there has not been a holistic approach from the Treasury that looks at the indicative costs to society. I am talking in terms of health services, social services and so on. I do not think any Government have got that right over the years: there is a cost if we do not get the fiscal policy right in trying to change behaviour across all these areas.
Mr Burrowes
That is a welcome intervention. I welcome the Minister to her place, as she has wide experience in this area. I understand that she was the longest-serving Conservative public health Minister. She can bring that experience to bear, not least because she has added responsibilities, given the make-up of the limited number of Ministers on the Treasury Bench, to cover those aspects of what some might call sin taxes and to create a better overall review. That can be linked up with what we look forward to receiving from the Government: the long-awaited life chances strategy. Be it on the social justice strategy, social reform strategy or life chances strategy, we must ensure that we focus on the poorest and most disadvantaged, who are particularly badly affected by high-strength ciders and other issues that have been mentioned.
High-strength ciders are usually about 7.5% alcohol by volume, they are sold in three-litre bottles and they contain 22.5 units of alcohol. That is over 50% more than the Government’s weekly limit guideline, just in a single container. The leading brands are Diamond White and White Ace. The price means that heavy drinkers of white cider can spend only a third as much on alcohol as low-risk drinkers would spend. These low-strength ciders and high-strength ciders range between 1.2% and 7.5% ABV, but we need to focus on the white ciders, because at the moment the tax is based on volume rather than strength. That has an impact on behaviours. Obviously, it has an impact on the behaviour of manufacturers. When they look at incentives and what they produce, they may say, “Let’s just go for volume. We won’t then be hit on strength.” There is not a similarity with the beer regime, which has that grading, and that has an impact, not least on what products come out. Unsurprisingly, on the high street there is much more of a market for lower-strength beer and different qualities of lower-strength beer. Meanwhile, there is a wide range of mainstream ciders, but no impact in duty terms on high-strength ciders.
In considering the impact of high-strength ciders, we should perhaps discuss Glasgow and Edinburgh where, I understand, 25% of alcohol treatment services patients drink white cider. Of those, 45% drink white cider exclusively, so this is a huge issue whether in Glasgow or Edinburgh, where there is a significant problem with high-dependency drinkers, or in London or elsewhere.
I am sure hon. Members will know of constituents who are particularly dependent on this harmful drink, which is the drink of choice for many a harmful drinker. Indeed, the chief executive of Thames Reach, Jeremy Swain, has said that 78% of deaths among his clients can be traced back to high-strength drinks such as white cider. That is a shocking statistic that needs to be out there. I implore the Minister, perhaps when she considers future Budgets, to look at what is happening, and why. Efforts have been made in relation to manufacturers and others—she will be aware of this from her previous role—to sort things out and become responsible, and it has to be said that retailers have done that: Heineken and Bulmers have withdrawn their white cider brands as they believe them to be socially irresponsible. That is to be welcomed and we should praise those companies.
Furthermore, retailers such as Costcutter, Morrisons, Nisa and Spar have acknowledged the problems associated with those products and reduced their stocking and promotion of white cider, but if hon. Members come to Green Lanes in my constituency, although they will not get near any of those established off-licences, they will see that high-strength ciders are readily available. They are, sadly, targeted at the heavy drinkers, who are more likely to have those white ciders. Also—this is based on evidence that needs wider debate and review—they are more responsive to the cheapest price for alcohol.
Those supporting such a review and such a measure are indeed those responsible retailers and manufacturers, as well as the health sector—those who see the impacts of liver disease and the changes brought about by lack of accessibility to and an increased price for such products. In addition, alcohol treatment charities, various parts of the drinks industry and dependent drinkers themselves have also made the point that they recognise the impact of having an increased price.
It is indeed time for the Government to provide additional reassurance that there will be a honed focus on the issue in future Budgets, as well as a wider review of the impact of high-strength alcohol, particularly with respect to cider duty and targeting on white cider sales. As the Minister said, we must always be proportionate in the way we handle duties and ensure that people are not unduly impacted when they either buy or go out for a cider, but these measures would not impact on most mainstream ciders of between 4% and 5% ABV.
On the issue of simplification, which was alluded to earlier, these measures would bring such products into line with the treatment of beer. Since 2011, there have been three tiers of beer duty, with low rates on low-strength beers and high rates on high-strength beers, so why do not the Government, to achieve simplicity, clarity and coherence, make similar provision in relation to ciders, particularly because of the impact of high-strength ciders on the poorest?
The Government have rightly put social justice at the heart of all they do, and that must include this area, where the spotlight of social justice must also shine in preventing harmful drinking. I look forward to the Minister perhaps adding a few words of support for a targeted increase in the price of high-strength cider, or at least agreeing to look at the issue again seriously in time for the next Budget so as to help the vulnerable and end the anomaly to which I have referred. That would recognise these proposals as part of a wider review of the important issue of alcohol duties and their relationship to harm.
Another issue has been of interest during previous debates on Finance Bills, and I wish to bring a strong focus to bear on it by speaking to new clause 3, which stands in my name and the names of 15 of my right hon. and hon. Friends. Indeed, others have indicated to me their support for a review of the marriage and civil partnerships transferable tax allowance. I want to comment particularly on low-income households, especially couples with young children. It would be very progressive if the Government were to focus on achieving more take-up—I welcome the Minister’s comments on that—and arriving at a more significant amount, which would disproportionately impact on lower-income households.
I welcome the introduction of the transferable allowance for married people and civil partners last April, so, unlike in previous debates, I will not, along with my hon. Friends, be imploring the Government to establish such an allowance in the tax system. We have that. That battle has been won and that promise has been kept. There is that recognition of marriage in the tax system, and it is evidence-based: the institution of marriage is valuable as it helps individuals to build social resilience, improves mental wellbeing and aids healthy relationships, particularly with children. I shall not dwell on that past battle because, as the Minister said at the Dispatch Box, she also, on behalf of the Government, is wholly committed to that transferable allowance. It is here to stay under this Government, which is wholly welcome and I very much appreciate it. If any other hands got on the tiller, I am sure that it could be under threat.
However, we must not sit back and be content. The bauble is there and we have recognised marriage, but we need to look, as we do across Government, at how that measure will impact on poorer households. Indeed, we need to consider incentives, including financial incentives, and disincentives around different couple relationships and penalties that still exist. I believe that we must prevent marriage, with its particular social benefits, which have been evidenced, from becoming the preserve of the more wealthy.
I am sure that Members from across the House will join me in not being content with the fractured society that is based around relationships breaking down. We must do all we can to support couples to stay together, particularly those with children, and consider the impact on children when couples do not stay together. Evidence states very clearly that the children of married couples, who have grown up with them, are better served by the fact that the couple stay together.
I recognise that there are different incentives and this is not all about the tax allowance. A range of support can be given to keep couples together, although that is perhaps the subject of another debate for another time. However, we can play our part through fiscal incentives. I recall a recent speech from the former Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks, who spoke about an issue that we often discuss. We pray in aid the fact that we are a party of one nation and that we want to build a country of one nation. Interestingly, Lord Sacks referred to the fact that there is a growing phenomenon of two nations, which he saw in terms of a failure to support marriage creating two nations with two very different sets of life chances. As the Government build on their strategy, we should not ignore this issue, and immediately the life chances strategy is published I shall be doing research on the word “marriage” and how much we are supporting marriage.
It is important to heed the words of Lord Sacks. He said:
“In Britain today more than a million children will grow up with no contact whatsoever with their fathers. This is creating a divide within societies the like of which has not been seen since Disraeli spoke of ‘two nations’ a century and a half ago. Those who are privileged to grow up in stable loving association with the two people who brought them into being will, on average, be healthier physically and emotionally. They will do better at school and at work. They will have more successful relationships, be happier and live longer.”
We should not allow that to be the preserve of one part of the nation. We can play our part fiscally to ensure that we are not divided and that many gain the opportunities derived from couples being together.
Kirsty Blackman
On that point, and particularly on the point about whether parents choose to stay at home or to work, despite the measure that has been put in, I support anything that allows parents to have a choice, or more of a choice, over whether they stay at home to look after their children or put them in childcare. However, we still have a massive problem with families not being able to make those choices, because childcare is not affordable for them, particularly for those caring for under-fives. Parents are still forced into being stay-at-home parents or taking low-wage jobs at strange hours because of the lack of affordable childcare. Does the hon. Gentleman support measures to change the childcare regime as well as the tax regime relating to this issue?
Mr Burrowes
The hon. Lady tempts me into a wider debate. If the Minister were to respond on this, she would certainly point to the measures on childcare. When one looks at supporting couples with young children, there are other things the Government have been very much involved in to improve the offer. There is work to do on access and affordability, not least, in my constituency, in relation to poor households accessing childcare.
I appreciate the fact that the hon. Lady talked about choice. There is also an issue about choice in that the Government are rightly encouraging as many people as possible to work and to exercise that choice, but it is sometimes an invidious choice for those who would want to stay at home, and the fiscal incentive to do that is not currently there.
There is a huge impact generally across the tax system on single-earner couples, which is not getting sufficient attention, and this proposal for the transferable allowance addresses that. There are lots of other measures across the tax and benefits system that seek to focus support on children, but we must particularly support the benefits of this allowance, which is around couples, marriage and the commitment to marriage and civil partnership.
In conclusion, following the cause of new clause 3 can be a win-win situation for the Government. It not only, obviously, recognises what we do already on marriage in the tax system, but it allows us to get the maximum effect from the Government’s original commitment, which I believe was welcome, but which was somewhat partial in terms of its original intentions. Recognising the financial challenges, I think new clause 3 would ensure that we can seek to remove some of the disincentives to marriage for those who wish to marry; it would help us to support social resilience and help with transferability; and it is also fiscally conservative. In short, new clause 3 is about getting more bang for our buck in supporting marriage and social justice.
Philip Boswell
There are several new clauses on which I intend to speak—most of them briefly—and the first is new clause 18.
New clause 18 calls for a review of the impact of section 24 of the Finance Act 2015. I and my SNP colleagues have concerns that the changes made in section 24 may have adverse consequences on the availability of affordable housing in Scotland and beyond. That legislation seems to be yet another London-centric policy that fails to take account of the diversity of the housing market throughout the UK.
Unlike other parts of the UK, where large rental agencies dominate, Scotland has a disproportionate number of landlords who own a small number of properties. That is hugely beneficial to tenants—particularly those on low incomes—as those small-scale landlords are often more willing to rent properties at an affordable price and to those relying on social security as a safety net. Owing to the changes introduced in section 24, we are concerned that those small-scale landlords may be forced drastically to increase rental costs, causing houses to be less affordable, or to sell their properties, potentially resulting in their being purchased by less sympathetic landlords or agencies. Given the UK-wide housing crisis that we are suffering and the rising cost of rented accommodation, it is incredibly important to ensure that landlords who rent at affordable prices and to those who depend on social security as a safety net are not pushed out of the market. New clause 18 therefore calls for a review of the impact of these changes on the availability of affordable housing so that those on lower incomes are not adversely affected.
New clause 6 calls for a review of the VAT treatment of the Scottish Police Authority and the Scottish fire and rescue service. I thank the Minister for her comments and consideration in her introductory remarks. Many in this Chamber may be familiar with the matter of VAT in relation to the Scottish police and fire rescue services, which my colleagues have raised in this House on a number of occasions. This remains an incredibly important matter that this Government have failed properly to address. Since the incorporation of police and fire authorities in 2013, the Scottish Police Authority and the Scottish fire and rescue services have been charged VAT by the UK Treasury. This UK Government have refused to grant an exemption to these vital services in Scotland, despite the fact that since the time of incorporation the HMRC has handed out exemptions to the new transport agency Highways England, and Olympic legacy organisation the London Legacy Development Corporation.
This Tory-backed charge on essential Scottish public services is costing emergency services tens of millions every year that could and should be spent on frontline services. Only in June, it was reported that Scotland’s police force has paid £76.5 million in VAT since it was formed three years ago and remains unable to claim this money. It is worth noting that only the Scottish police and fire services have been expected to pay VAT to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and not English, Welsh or Northern Irish services. This is a disgrace. It seems absurd and unfair for this Tory UK Government to continually expect the Scottish Government to rectify the matter and cover the difference, especially given the consistent cuts to the pocket money they grant Scotland to run devolved matters. New clause 6 therefore seeks a review of the impacts of the VAT treatment on the Scottish police and Scottish fire and rescue services, including analysis of the impact of the financial position of these services arising from their VAT treatment.
I turn briefly to new clause 15, which seeks to prevent VAT from being increased on the installation of energy-saving materials. I agree with the intent of the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) to prevent these VAT increases, if not his methods. This Tory Government have consistently instituted regressive policies in relation to clean energy and energy-efficiency measures, from cuts to the solar subsidies—
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that this would be a relatively cheap way of incentivising householders and energy-saving products in addressing some of the damage that the Government and the previous coalition Government did by, in effect, dismantling the green energy policy they claimed to support at the outset?
Philip Boswell
I thank the hon. Gentleman and agree wholeheartedly with his comments.
From cuts to solar subsidies, to the scrapping of onshore wind, to the scrapping of the green deal for energy for energy-efficient homes that the hon. Gentleman mentioned, to the selling of the UK Green Investment Bank—there are numerous other examples—this austerity-obsessed Government are taking the UK backwards with regard to renewable energy. I fear that with Brexit looming on the horizon this trajectory is set to continue. Given this environment of cuts, it seems logical for the installation of energy-saving materials to be exempt from a hike in VAT, as a bare minimum.
I will now speak to new clause 8 on dividend income. In Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Roger Mullin) tabled an amendment regarding the proposed changes to the treatment of dividend income by HMRC. My colleagues and I feel that this issue has not yet been sufficiently addressed by the Government. We did not press the new clause to a vote at that time so that we could address the matter at a later date, and we do so now. I do not wish to rehash previous points made, but this is a matter of great importance and, as such, we have tabled the new clause. Numerous stakeholder groups raised concerns with the Committee regarding the regressive impact of the changes to dividend income proposed in this Bill, particularly the effect on small and microbusinesses, which employ between one and nine people. Those raising concerns have highlighted that the changes will have a disproportionate effect on microbusinesses run by owner-operators on modest incomes, given that there are already numerous disincentives to running microbusinesses—as opposed to traditional salaried employment—including, but not limited to, a lower level of job security and a lack of employer pension contributions.
Kirsty Blackman
The Finance Bill was devised prior to the vote to leave the European Union. The measure under discussion will have a disproportionate effect on microbusinesses, so does my hon. Friend agree that the Government should accept our new clause and review the measure in the light of Brexit?
Philip Boswell
I must admit that I have sympathy with all who have reservations about any position taken in this Bill, given that, as my hon. Friend has said, it seeks to implement measures devised prior to the EU vote and therefore fails to provide for an economy that faces the harsh reality of Brexit. I am sure that we all look forward to the autumn or winter statement—whenever it will be—and the redress it will contain, imaginary or otherwise. We will then see, I presume, whether the new Chancellor is as good with imaginary numbers as the previous one was not.
The Federation of Small Businesses has raised serious concerns. It has highlighted that the changes are particularly acute for members of organisations who are on modest incomes. It has further submitted extensive evidence regarding member feedback on the proposed changes. A number of responses have highlighted concerns from the owners of small and microbusinesses that the changes may mean that they will not be able to continue to employ their small workforces.
In addition, evidence was submitted to the Committee by Jason Kitcat of Crunch Accounting, who has produced excellent work on the matter. I acknowledge that Mr Kitcat has been referenced several times in discussions about the proposed changes, but his analysis is significant and, as such, ought to be raised again. Crunch Accounting has highlighted how the changes as proposed hit lower-earning microbusinesses the hardest. The Government have stated that the changes in dividend income will be offset by planned future changes both to the way in which Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs treats corporations and to personal allowances. However, Crunch has highlighted how those anticipated changes will not fully offset the impact of changes to HMRC’s treatment of dividend income for microbusinesses, as proposed by the Bill. In addition, Crunch has highlighted how measures cited by Ministers, such as changes to employment allowances and the annual investment allowance, are rarely available to microbusinesses, as they have little capital investment requirements.
I stress that the importance of small and medium-sized enterprises to the Scottish and UK economy cannot be overstated. There are few things on which I agree with the Prime Minister, but I do agree with her statement last month that
“small and medium sized businesses are the backbone of our country.”
I further welcome her indication in the same speech that she intends to listen to smaller firms. However, I am concerned that, despite that profession from the Prime Minister, the regressive changes to dividend income will not only disincentivise new SMEs from forming, but have the potential to cause existing microbusinesses to fail.
It is essential to note the number of SMEs that are categorised as microbusinesses. The UK is home to 5.2 million microbusinesses, which employ 8.4 million people. In Scotland, microbusinesses play an essential role in the economy. According to recent Scottish Government statistics, 99% of businesses in Scotland are categorised as SMEs, the vast majority of which are microbusinesses. Overall, microbusinesses comprise 81.5% of the businesses in Scotland. The figures are similar for the UK as a whole. According to House of Commons Library research in late 2015, 99% of businesses UK-wide are categorised as SMEs, 95% of which are microbusinesses.
Microbusinesses are essential and central to the functioning of both local and national economies. Given that microbusinesses make up the vast majority of businesses in Scotland and UK-wide, I find it absolutely staggering that HMRC does not make an assessment of microbusinesses as a separate group. Given the prevalence of microbusinesses throughout the economy, it does not seem on this matter as though the Government have listened to the concerns of smaller firms, despite last month’s proclamations from the Prime Minister.
When my hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Roger Mullin) introduced the original SNP amendment regarding the proposed changes to the way in which HMRC treats dividend income, the response he received to his concerns about microbusinesses was that
“the Government have considered the general economic impact of the changes…the measure is not expected to have any significant macroeconomic impacts.”––[Official Report, Finance Bill Public Bill Committee, 30 June 2016; c. 18.]
This statement taken alone is staggering, given that, as I have stated, 94% of businesses in the UK are categorised as microbusinesses. I fail to see how introducing a change that principally impacts microbusinesses would not be expected to have any significant macroeconomic impact.
The Minister stated in her introductory remarks that we do not yet know the impact of such legislation. I would like to highlight oral evidence given to a Committee of the other place on 8 February 2016 by Cerys MacDonald, the deputy director of personal tax at HMRC. When asked by the Chairman about the impact of these changes on microbusinesses, Ms MacDonald stated:
“I can assure the Committee that we recognise that the dividend tax changes will mean that a lot of people in owner-managed businesses are now paying a higher level of tax than previously, despite the benefit that they will see in the reduction of the corporate tax rate.”
Those two statements seem to me to be at variance with each other. Do the Government believe, as indicated by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury that the proposed changes to dividend income will not significantly impact on microbusinesses? Or do they believe, as indicated by Ms MacDonald of HMRC, that the changes will impact on owner-managed businesses, despite the planned future change to the corporate rate?
Given the uncertainty surrounding the inconsistent responses from Government, coupled with substantial evidence from the Federation of Small Businesses, Crunch Accounting and others, it seems as though the Government have not fully and comprehensively considered the impact of the proposed changes on small and microbusinesses—the backbone of our economy, as I am sure we all agree.
New clause 8 would require the Government to conduct a review of the impact of the changes on microbusinesses, including the impact on the failure rate of microbusinesses and the options for minimising the impact of the changes on directors who are on low incomes. I therefore advise hon. Members that we will press new clause 8 to a Division.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
I rise to support new clauses 2 and 3, the social justice arguments for which, in support of some of the most vulnerable individuals and families in our society, have been so eloquently and comprehensively set out by my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) that, although I had prepared speeches on both new clauses, there is no need for me to take up the House’s time to echo what he has already said. I therefore simply put on record my full support for what he said, and I ask to be identified with his remarks.
Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)
I rise to support amendment 141, which is in my name and those of my hon. and right hon. Friends. I am extremely grateful to Mr Speaker for selecting my amendment, and I would also like to place on the record my thanks to the Public Bill Office, whose advice and help on the matter have been greatly appreciated by me and my office.
I hope that the amendment will find agreement on both sides of the House, and I hope that the Government will not oppose it. The amendment would establish a very small tax exemption for residual cash balances that remain in an employee share incentive plan when an employee leaves such a plan. A residual cash balance is a sum of money, insufficient on its own to buy a single share that month, which would usually be carried over to the next month but which has to be refunded if an employee leaves the scheme. I propose that that balance, capped at a maximum of £10, would instead be donated to charity. That would have the added advantage of reducing costly and burdensome processing by company payroll departments.
Share incentive plans are a good and tax-efficient way to save for the future, and many employees take them up. I believe we should encourage employee share ownership. When an employee leaves a share investment plan, there is commonly a cash residual amount remaining in the account; often, it is just a few pence or a few pounds. When the employee chooses to leave the plan—that is mandatory if the participant leaves the company’s employment—the cash residual can no longer be carried forward. Under the current system, any remaining cash held in the plan when the employee leaves the plan is required to be processed, via the employer’s payroll, to apply national insurance contributions and income tax via PAYE and to pay the net balance to the employee. This process typically costs between £2 and £9, but provides little benefit to the individual receiving such a small amount.
Furthermore, the benefit to the Exchequer is far less than the total cost to companies of administering these payments, with companies paying almost twice as much to process the payments as the Treasury actually receives. To put that into numbers for the ease of Members in the Chamber, it is estimated that the administration costs for companies are between £400,000 and £500,000, while the benefit to the Treasury is just £200,000. If amendment 141 was accepted, charities and good causes would benefit by about £360,000, on top of the savings that companies would make.
There is a precedent for such a change. There are already examples of situations in which HMRC has agreed to individual exemptions to share incentive plan providers, which are currently based on specific requests assessed case by case. There is an appetite for this change among share investment plan providers and HMRC. Amendment 141 would be only a very small change to this Bill compared with what it covers, but it is one that could bring benefits both to companies and to charities and good causes, while at the same time supporting share investment plans by removing a costly and bureaucratic part of the system. The amendment would also help to simplify the tax system and encourage more charitable giving, both of which are stated priorities for this Government and would be priorities for any Government.
I was very pleased and heartened yesterday when the Government accepted amendment 145 in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint). I sincerely hope that the Minister will accept this amendment and that we can achieve the same result today. If she does not say she will accept it, I will seek to divide the House, but I can genuinely see no reason why the Government would not want the amendment to be agreed to.
Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds). I rise to support new clause 3, to which I have added my name. I, too, agree with everything said by my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes). I cannot promise to be quite as brief as my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), because I wish to add one or two remarks of my own.
The fundamental problem is that family breakdown costs a staggering £47 billion per annum, according to the latest figures. Quite apart from the consequential social dislocation and pain that it causes, it is also undermining the British economy. Of huge importance is the fact that most breakdowns do not arise from divorce, but from the ending of relationships in which the couples concerned have not made to each other the public, exclusive and legal commitment that is marriage. Where they do make such a commitment, their relationships —not surprisingly—are far more likely to be stable.
In this context, there remains a massive public policy imperative to ask whether we are doing anything to make marriage less accessible than in other similarly developed countries. We are unusual in this country in having failed until recently to recognise marriage in our income tax system. The solution initially proposed was for a full transferable allowance, but in the event a transferable allowance of only 10% was enacted. A statistic that has already been mentioned but bears repeating is that the tax burden on one-earner married couples with two children on the average wage is 25% greater than the OECD average. The allowance is not making marriage more accessible in a meaningful way. In this context, it is no surprise that the take-up of the allowance has been so low, although the Minister welcomed the fact that the figure is moving in the right direction.
In going forward, two things could be done. First, if it is not possible in the short term to have a full transferable allowance, we should at least ensure that some married families on the basic rate receive a meaningful transferable allowance. Given that the research is so clear that child development is greatly enhanced by the presence of both mother and father in the family home and given the fact that the public policy benefits of marriage are so well developed, a full transferable allowance for married couples with children under five might be a good place to start.
Secondly, perhaps in the slightly longer term we could work towards the full transferable allowance for married couples generally. Of course that would not be cheap, but it would be considerably cheaper than the current cost of £47 billion. It would promote choice by removing obstacles to marriage. As has been pointed out, it is very much about promoting the life chances agenda. I look forward to the Minister saying one or two more words about this matter in her closing remarks.
Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)
I have a couple of questions about Government new clause 9, which relates specifically to Northern Ireland and the tax treatment of supplementary welfare payments that might be made there, but before I come on to that I want to acknowledge some of the other amendments before us.
The hon. Members for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) and for Wolverhampton South West (Rob Marris) spoke persuasively about amendment 141. The question that arises is: why would the Government and Parliament not do what is proposed in that amendment?
Similarly, on new clause 19, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), it is hugely important that this Parliament is in the business of making sure that there is transparency in our debates. Yesterday, the emphasis was on making sure that there was transparency in the tax affairs of companies. We as a Parliament should insist that we show full transparency in our intent on tax policy and taxation measures.
New clause 19 would take us back to having transparency on the anticipated impact of taxation on families and households of different incomes. There would also be an analysis later in the year of what the impact of particular tax policies and the cumulative impact of various tax policies had been. Surely that is what we should all be in the business of doing when we go through the complicated and confusing exercise of having the various stages of Budget debates here. One thing we all value is knowing what the impact of what we are talking about will be.
I was in this House when a Labour Government adopted a misguided Budget measure in respect of the 10p tax band. A number of Labour Members raised the alarm and said that there would be an adverse impact on people of low income. The Government briefed heavily that that was nonsense and people were marched through the Lobbies. Similarly, we had the recent experience of the proposed changes to working tax credit. People were celebrating the changes and thought they were wonderful, having believed the Chancellor’s spin. Thankfully, not only Opposition Members but Conservative Members raised real and practical concerns about what the impact would be.
Why would it be wrong to follow new clause 19 and ensure that in all our Budget deliberations in future there is an effort to have a properly appraised impact assessment for taxation measures? That would allow us to answer not the question that is usually asked immediately after a Budget, which is what credit particular MPs or Ministers should get for what measures—that is not really what a Budget is about—but that of who gets the benefit in terms of fairness, social equity and the efficiency of economic impact that that induces. For those reasons, I fully support new clause 19.
Similarly, many hon. Members have made the case for new clause 15. Many of them have made the straightforward point that it would be almost perverse for the Government to refuse a new clause that would preclude an increase in VAT on the installation of energy-saving materials. I know the Government will say that it is otiose because they have no intention of increasing it, but over the past few years, we have experienced the Government adopting a series of perverse measures that have confounded the underlying policy commitments in respect of the green economy, renewables and energy efficiency. Given that the Government have introduced so many measures that have had a perverse effect on that sector and an adverse impact on households, it makes sense to have the belt and braces of new clause 15. I cannot see what is wrong with that.
I also note in passing—and at the risk of another voice-activated intervention—that when the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) sought to contradict the Financial Secretary’s earlier comments, he cited what he thought was a point of clarity in the Brexit Secretary’s performance yesterday. He is the first Member to have offered me any point of clarity from that performance, which I thought demonstrated the new Secretary of State’s wish to be the first Minister to fulfil the new Government policy on environmental sensitivity, given that he treated us to more than two hours of cosmetics without a single microbead of substance.
The lead measure in this group, new clause 9, refers specifically to Northern Ireland. It deals with the ability there will be for the Northern Ireland Assembly to make additional supplementary payments as mitigation measures to offset some of the impact of the welfare reform measures now being imposed by direct rule from this House, courtesy of the so-called “Fresh Start” agreement. My party expressed our misgivings about and opposition to that overall arrangement, with regard to direct rule powers and the imposition of the effects of welfare reform legislation on Northern Ireland. However, we have long canvassed for mitigation and supplementary payments, and established that case with the Department for Work and Pensions early in 2012.
The one concern people will have about new clause 9 is with the language used. Although in the new clause the Government clearly provide for the Treasury to ensure that
“no liability to income tax arises on supplementary welfare payments of a specified description”
they also allow the Treasury to make regulations to
“impose a charge to income tax under Part 10 of ITEPA 2003 on payments of a specified description”.
The power is there to make sure that the Treasury does not activate a tax liability on supplementary payments that have been discussed and voted through by the Assembly but there also seems to be a power to subject some of those payments to tax.
I wonder why the Treasury feels the need to have that reserve power to impose a tax liability on such payments. We should remember that those payments will be made out of the Executive’s own resources in the devolved budget, because they come out of the departmental expenditure limit for the Assembly. The payments will not come under annually managed expenditure.
Why is that power there? Many people will be concerned that the Treasury will attempt to insinuate itself into any debate among Executive or Assembly parties about what measures they should adopt in mitigation of welfare reform by saying that it may subject some of those measures to a tax clawback. That is clear from subsection (3) of the new clause, and also from looking at subsection (4), which will permit the Treasury’s regulations to
“make…different provision for different cases…incidental or supplementary provision”
or “consequential provision”. That differential raises the question of why we want to reserve the power to impose tax on measures that the Executive or Assembly seek to bring forward and why the Treasury should be able to do so differently on a case-by-case basis, as that will give rise to arguments about inequity and capricious performance. The suspicion is that the Treasury sought to answer the stand-off on welfare reform in the Northern Ireland Assembly. The Assembly would not discharge the karaoke legislation it was being asked to pass in relation to welfare reform. The Treasury intervened by saying, “If you don’t pass it, we will effectively tax your devolved budget to the tune of what we estimate you would be overspending on welfare.” The Treasury insinuated itself into what should have been a debate for the devolved Assembly.
The danger is that now, even in the area of the mitigating powers—the supplementary payments the Assembly will be able to offer, as provided for in the “Fresh Start” agreement—the Treasury could, in the language of the new clause, insinuate itself in the choices and consideration undertaken by the Executive and Assembly. The Treasury’s past form shows that it has not resisted the temptation to insinuate itself. I therefore want assurance from the Financial Secretary that this language will not be there to give the Treasury the right to interfere in the choices that may be made by Ministers and Committees in the Assembly in respect of the supplementary payments they would be allowed to bring forward.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend all hon. Members who have made very valuable contributions, in particular the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes). He is no longer in his place, but I would like to speak to his presentation on new clause 3. He set out clearly where we stand.
I want to put on record again the consistent support of the Democratic Unionist party for the provision of the transferable allowance for married couples. I remember the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and I taking some verbal attacks in this Chamber—mostly from the Opposition Benches, I have to say—for our stance on this issue, but we persevered and the Government persevered. I thank the Government for bringing in the provision in their previous term. I had hoped there would have been some indication that the Government could support new clause 3. I understand, after talking to the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate, that he will not press it to a Division. If that is the case, we have to abide by that.
The sadness for me is that the Government have, until today, chosen to invest the lion’s share of their resources in their other income tax policy of raising the personal allowance. It is undoubtedly true that that policy helps poorer families, but it is very badly targeted. If I may say so in a respectful way, it seems to be targeted at those who can well afford it, as against those who cannot. I have to put on record that I have some concerns about that. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has demonstrated that 75% of the benefit—and now, as the allowance is being raised from £10,000 to £12,500, even more than 75% of the benefit—goes to those in the top half of the income distribution. That is what the available statistics and charts indicate and I have to say they are very stark. They indicate an imbalance in the system that, as the hon. Gentleman clearly stated, is a concern.
Fiona Bruce
There is another imbalance in the system. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is aware that the married couple’s allowance, which provides support to married couples where at least one spouse was born before April 1935, is worth £8,355 a year. Should we not also be looking at providing for those families with young children who are in the lowest socioeconomic bracket and supporting them similarly?
Jim Shannon
I could not agree more and I would like to make a comment on that later. New clause 3 clearly outlines the importance of that, but unfortunately we do not have the opportunity to support it today. I am sure the Minister, who knows I respect her greatly, will be able to respond to some of our concerns.
The IFS has demonstrated that, in contrast to the personal allowance, the transferable allowance results in 70% of the benefit going to those in the bottom half of the income distribution. The problem is that so far this has received only symbolic recognition. That has had two effects. First, the fundamental marriage accessibility challenge has not really been addressed, which is a massive issue given the impact on life chances of being brought up in a married home compared with a non-married home. Secondly, the very limited symbolic recognition has translated into low take-up. Given the distributional impact of the two tax policies and the impact of the transferable allowance on life chances, I have to say that if the Government are to have one symbolic policy and one substantive policy, they have got it the wrong way around. I say that with great respect. It would have been wiser to focus investment on the transferable allowance rather than redistribute billions to those in the top half of the income scale by raising personal allowances. I believe that we urgently need to change that. If the allowance cannot be made generally available to basic rate married couples, it should be focused, as the hon. Member for Congleton said, on families with children under five.
Fiona Bruce
Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the highest levels of marriage breakdown occur when children are aged between nought and three? We are looking to support marriage at just that moment of greatest strain.
Jim Shannon
As always, the hon. Lady is wise in her interventions. I thank her for what she said, which underlines other important issues. If we can help at that critical time when the pressure is on, I believe that this House should do so. I hope that the Minister will do so, too, in her response.
The impact of the allowance on low-income households also needs to be addressed, as new clause 3 proposes. I hope we can do that at the right time. The new clause refers finally to
“ways in which the allowance could be changed to target low-income families with young children.”
Those points clearly illustrate for me what is necessary in this Bill, although the provisions may not be as hard and fast as I would like them to be.
Let me conclude; I am conscious of the time. In the longer term, there is a pressing need to adopt a more balanced approach to the resourcing of raising the personal allowance and increasing the transferable allowance. I fully support the transferable allowance and I would have hoped that the Government could commit themselves to it. Speaking as someone committed to progressive tax policy which targets those in the lower half of the income distribution scales rather than those in the top half, if the proposal means less money going to the personal allowance, in my judgment and, I believe, in the judgment of many in this House, that would be no bad thing.
Rebecca Long Bailey
I wish to speak to new clauses 15 and 19, and amendments 141 and 180 to 182, which were tabled in my name and those of my hon. Friends. I shall also touch on a few of the other amendments and new clauses in the group, which has turned into a bit of a rag-bag of issues.
New clause 15 relates to VAT on energy-saving materials. The new clause would prohibit the making of any order that would have the effect of raising the rate of VAT on the installation of energy-saving materials or any individual category thereof. In short, it would prevent the Government from implementing their planned hike in VAT through secondary legislation.
For hon. Members who might have forgotten the background, let me briefly recap how our ability to debate this amendment today came about. Amid the fallout from the so-called “ultra-shambles” Budget, the Government were forced to become the first in history, so far as I am aware, to accept an Opposition amendment to their Budget. It was designed to block the Government’s planned 300% increase in VAT on solar panels and energy-saving materials—essentially a green energy tax hike. The solar tax alone would add £1,000 to the cost of a household solar energy installation, punishing those who are trying to do the right thing and do their bit to halt climate change. It would also put at risk thousands of jobs in an industry that is already expected to experience up to 18,700 job losses, as was conceded by the former Energy Secretary, and this tax raid would have caused even more damage. For those reasons, we tabled an amendment to the Budget to enable the Chancellor to use the Finance Bill to maintain the current rate of VAT on green energy and home insulation.
The Government initially claimed that a European Court ruling prevented them from stopping the tax hike, although it was apparent that they had failed to negotiate at European level to protect the renewables industry. None the less, the industry made very clear that there was room, even within the ruling, to avoid the drastic measures that they were planning to impose. When that led to a significant number of Conservative Members adding their weight to calls from Opposition Members, it appeared that the Government would be defeated on the issue. Ministers initially backed down, claiming that what we were proposing had been their position all along, only to avoid making such a commitment when pressed during Treasury questions and, just a few weeks later, during questions to the Secretary of State for the now abolished Department of Energy and Climate Change.
That is not surprising, given the Government’s abysmal failure to provide any kind of certainty for the renewable energy sector in the United Kingdom. Over the past six years, they have consistently undermined support by, for instance, cutting the feed-in tariff by 64%, scrapping tax relief for clean energy projects, and removing subsidies for new onshore wind farms. The £1 billion for investment in carbon capture and storage has also been scrapped. At the same time, safeguards to reduce the environmental risks posed by fracking have been stripped away, and fracking under national parks has been given the go-ahead. The executive director of Greenpeace UK put it succinctly recently, saying:
“A tax hike on solar panels was just the latest addition to a litany of poor decisions”.
He also said that the Government should accept that they had
“a reverse Midas touch on energy investment”.
This would be an opportune time for the new Chancellor and his team to signal a change of direction by accepting our new clause, but I fear that, given the abolition of the Department of Energy and Climate Change, the Conservative party’s husky-hugging days are long gone. I am pleased, however, that the Government have finally seen fit to publish the report by the Committee on Climate Change on the compatibility of UK onshore petroleum with meeting the UK’s carbon budgets. I can see now why they sat on it for four months.
The report states:
“Our assessment is…that onshore petroleum extraction on a significant scale is not compatible with UK climate targets”.
That, it says, will remain the case unless three key tests are met: first,
“Well development, production and decommissioning emissions must be strictly limited”;
secondly,
“gas consumption must remain in line with carbon budgets requirements”;
and thirdly, the report specifies the importance of
“Accommodating shale gas production emissions within carbon budgets.”
Does the Minister agree, therefore, that tighter safeguards in fracking—for which Labour consistently called during the passage of the Bill that became the Energy Act 2016 —are now absolutely necessary?
I digress. Let me conclude my remarks about new clause 15. Opposition Members want to ensure that the original solar tax U-turn is guaranteed in statute in the Finance Bill, to prevent a second U-turn. That would give the renewable energy market the certainty that it needs and deserves, and would, we hope, send a signal that the new Administration are prepared to look again at the future of the industry in a green economy. If we are to take seriously the intention of the new Ministers to rethink these fundamental issues, now is the time for them to show it.
New clause 19 was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting). As my hon. Friend explained so articulately, it would require the Government to review the impact of the measures in the Bill on households at different levels of income. It would also require the Chancellor to review the impact of Government fiscal measures on households at different levels of income at least once in each financial year. It is an excellent new clause, and it has the full support of the Labour Front Bench.
As I pressed on the Government earlier today in the capital gains tax debate and yesterday on corporation tax, this Bill has unfairness at its very core. The reduction in CGT alone amounts to a tax giveaway to 200,000 people—just 0.3% of the population—of around £3,000 a year on average. Clearly this Government conduct no distributional analysis of the measures they introduce, or if they do the results are so bad that they do not publish them. This amendment would force the Government to publish such analysis, and therefore I am pleased to have heard the Minister’s earlier comments; it seems that the Government are seriously considering this matter and I hope she takes it forward.
Amendments 180 to 182 specify that the chair and tax director of the OTS would be appointed and terminated only with the consent of the Treasury Committee, in line with what happens with the Office for Budget Responsibility. A similar Labour amendment, which would have had the same effect, was debated in the Public Bill Committee, but we did not divide the Committee on it. During the course of that debate I made the point that while Labour supports establishing the OTS on a statutory footing, we feel its independence is of the utmost importance. As I am sure the Minister is aware, Labour has placed on record our concerns about the OTS potentially being used for political purposes, and ensuring that the chair and tax director is accountable to the Treasury Committee seems a sensible approach to safeguarding its impartiality. Again, I am pleased to hear today that the Minister seems to be taking our opinions and those expressed in the House today seriously.
Amendment 141 would introduce a de minimis tax exemption for residual cash balances remaining in a share incentive plan when they are donated to charity, with an upper cap of £10. This seems like an extremely sensible suggestion, and the Labour Front Bench is supportive of the amendment. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) on tabling it and explaining it so articulately.
I shall say a few quick words on new clause 8 in the name of the hon. Members for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Roger Mullin), for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) and for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Philip Boswell). This new clause would require a review of how the changes to the tax on dividend income will affect directors of microbusinesses. There are some concerns, as we have heard today, that the changes to dividend taxation will have a detrimental effect on the owners of microbusinesses. Jason Kitcat, who has become quite famous today, has done some detailed analysis which shows that the dividend tax changes included in clause 5 and schedule 1 are somewhat regressive in nature. For instance, Crunch analysis shows that a limited company director paying themselves through dividends would be paying £1,528 more a year when their pre-tax profits are £48,000, whereas a director with £78,000 in pre-tax profits would only be paying £1,343 more in tax.
The Federation of Small Businesses has also stated that these measures have caused substantial disquiet among its members. This is especially acute for members on modest incomes who, unlike their employed counterparts, will now see a rise in their tax liabilities. This is very worrying and indeed makes the case for distributional analysis, referred to in relation to new clause 19, even more important. A review of the impact of these measures therefore seems quite sensible at this stage and we will support the SNP if it divides the House on this issue.
Finally, Government new clause 9 relates to the tax treatment of supplementary welfare payments in Northern Ireland. The Low Incomes Tax Reform Group has outlined some technical points for clarification on which I hope the Minister can shed some light: in essence, which payments will be taxable? The Budget said:
“Where the Northern Ireland Executive intends to top-up UK-wide benefits from within its block grant as it implements welfare reform, the Government will exempt from tax the top-up payments to non-taxable benefits.”
The implication, confirmed in the explanatory notes to the amendment, is that top-ups to taxable benefits will be taxable as well. However, if we take the payments to mitigate the impact of time-limiting contribution-based employment support allowance it seems that two situations are possible. One is that the person’s contribution-based ESA ends and they claim, or are already getting, income-related ESA. If the income-related ESA awarded is less than the person would have received through contribution-based ESA, they will receive a welfare supplementary payment to cover the difference. The second possibility is that their contribution-based ESA ends but they do not get income-related ESA, in which case the WSP will equal the full amount of the lost contribution-based ESA.
Jane Ellison
The hon. Lady referred to the issues that we have debated this afternoon as a “rag-bag”, but I think that is a bit unkind. I prefer to describe the debate as a smorgasbord of wide-ranging issues and thoughtful speeches. I shall not repeat my opening remarks, but I shall try to add something to each of the areas where it is relevant to do so, in no particular order.
I thank the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), who is no longer in his place, for welcoming the fact that the Chancellor is looking at the issue of distribution analysis, as he said he would in his letter to the Select Committee Chairman. We will comment further on that in due course. As a result, the hon. Gentleman decided not to press new clause 19 to a vote. [Interruption.] Ah, the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Rob Marris) has returned to his place just as I was about to be nice about him. He must instinctively have known that I was going to thank him for his wide-ranging contribution to the debate. He presented me with some fair challenges as a new Minister. He also made some interesting points about tax simplification. I am due to have a meeting with the Office of Tax Simplification shortly, and he has certainly given me food for thought for my agenda. I reiterate that the Bill will put the OTS on a statutory footing, which I believe indicates the seriousness with which we take its work.
This has been a probing debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) is now on Select Committee duties and therefore unable to return to his place in the Chamber, but he made an interesting contribution on an issue that I know all too well—that of high-strength alcohol. This is something that needs to be looked at in the round, but I can assure him, given my three years in the job that I did before this one, that I take the matter very seriously. He was also generous enough to note, correctly, that the Department of Health has had a good deal of success, working with manufacturers, in reducing the number of very high-strength products on the market. I also note the discussion that took place about silver linings, in which varying views were expressed. I am sure that we will give further thought to these matters in due course. My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and others also stressed the matter of the cost to society of some of those products.
My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate also talked about the marriage allowance. I want it to be clear that the Government’s focus is on delivering the existing policy, but I did mention in my introductory remarks that a quarter of those who benefit are households with children. We do not want to create a two-track marriage system within the allowance, but the Government are none the less committed to helping low-income households and those with young children through a wide range of other policies including, for example, tax-free childcare and the new national living wage.
I want to add that the online application process for the marriage allowance takes only seven minutes. I call upon the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and my hon. Friends the Members for Congleton and for Enfield, Southgate and others who have an interest in this matter to assist us and promote it. I found in some of my summer recess meetings with groups in my constituency that awareness of the marriage allowance is low. It is of real benefit to lower-income married couples and all Members can contribute to promoting awareness and take up of it. None the less, I reassure all colleagues—my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson) also spoke about this—that I will continue to look closely at take-up with HMRC. I also suggest that promoting the personal tax account is another good way of promoting the take-up of the allowance, because when appropriate people take up a personal tax account they can get a nudge to apply. I reiterate that HMRC will receive the millionth application next month, putting us on course to meet the OBR’s revised forecast for take-up this year.
I have already mentioned the seriousness with which we take the Office of Tax Simplification, but it is worth noting that the recommendations led to the introduction of cash-based accounting for tax. One million self-employed individuals took that up in the first year alone, so those recommendations were important.
I appreciate the intention behind amendment 141 tabled by the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds), but I said that the Government feel that the change would add additional complexity; I do not think he agrees with that. We have received no indication that fewer companies are making use of share incentive plans due to the administrative cost mentioned by the Opposition, but we will keep that under review. To tease out why our views differ on how the scheme might work and why the Government feel that the idea needs further development, if the hon. Gentleman is willing not to press the amendment, I am happy to meet him to discuss the matter and to understand why he feels that way.
Jonathan Reynolds
I thank the Minister for those comments. I have a small sense of frustration as I believe that nearly every Conservative Member—indeed, all Members—would back the change on its merits, but I understand that Ministers have limited room for manoeuvre at the Dispatch Box, so I will accept that offer in good faith and will not press the amendment.
Jane Ellison
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that and look forward to our meeting.
Several Members spoke about new clause 15, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) and the hon. Member for Salford and Eccles, and I reiterate that nothing would be achieved that is not already achieved by the Government’s tax lock. The reduced rate of 5% has applied to installations of energy-saving materials since 2001 and that rate remains in place and unchanged. As for the wider issues about European Union VAT and excise systems, we are considering a range of issues as we look to exit the European Union.
On new clause 19, as I said, we feel that the tax lock, for which we have already legislated, actually goes further by preventing the use of secondary legislation, about which the hon. Member for Salford and Eccles was worried.
Turning to new clause 18, I will repeat to the hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Philip Boswell) what I said in my opening remarks: the Government do not expect the measure to have a large impact on rents due to the small proportion of the housing market affected—around one in five individual landlords.
On the SNP’s new clause 8 and the points made about the changes to dividend tax, I reiterate that the way in which such changes affect small and microbusinesses cannot be looked at in isolation. The Government take the concerns of microbusinesses incredibly seriously—I met the Federation of Small Businesses only last week, for example. As for listening to the concerns of microbusinesses, I point hon. Members to the changes made to the Government’s “Making Tax Digital” consultation documents as evidence of our sensitivity to such concerns and we look to respond to them when we can. It is important to note that we believe the dividend tax is still progressive overall, and individuals with higher incomes will still pay a higher rate of tax on their dividends.
On the wider changes to small businesses and microbusinesses, I point the hon. Gentleman to Budget 2016 in particular, as it is introducing the biggest ever business rate reduction, worth £6.7 billion. It has yet to come into force, but it will make a very significant difference to a very large number of microbusinesses across all our constituencies.
Lastly, I hope to answer the highly technical point made by the hon. Member for Salford and Eccles, as well as the point made by the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan). Government new clause 9 will exempt from income tax supplementary payments that mitigate tax-exempt benefits paid by the Northern Ireland Executive. Any supplementary payments that mitigate tax benefits will themselves be taxable. As a result, all supplementary payments will be taxed in the same manner as the benefits they are mitigating, to ensure fairness and consistency with the tax system. I was asked whether the power being taken in this Finance Bill would be used more widely. No, the power being taken in this Bill will be restricted to only allowing for the tax status of the Northern Ireland supplementary payments to be established in regulations. Full welfare devolution has always been part of Northern Ireland’s devolution settlement. I hope that adds some clarity.
This has been a wide-ranging debate. We have touched on some good issues and found some common ground. The measures in this Finance Bill will benefit working people, boost UK businesses, and take on tax evasion and avoidance. In the days we have spent on Report, and during the Bill’s earlier stages, we have debated many aspects of it thoroughly, and on Third Reading the House will have a final opportunity to consider the Bill as a whole. At that point, I will set out the main reforms for which the Bill legislates, but I hope that this afternoon’s discussion has been helpful and that my responses to points have helped the various Members who raised them.
Question put and agreed to.
New clause 9 accordingly read a Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 8
Review of changes to tax on dividend income
‘(1) The Chancellor of the Exchequer must commission a review of how the changes to the tax on dividend income implemented by this Act affect directors of micro-business companies, to include—
(a) the impacts across the distribution of such directors’ net income;
(b) the impact on company failure rates; and
(c) options for amending the law to minimise the impact on such directors who are on low incomes.
(2) The Chancellor must lay a report of the review before both Houses of Parliament within six months of the passing of this Act.”—(Philip Boswell.)
Brought up, and read the First time.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
Mr Speaker
Our consideration having been completed, I shall now suspend the House for no more than five minutes in order to make a decision about certification. The Division bells will be rung two minutes before the House resumes. Following my certification, the Government will table the appropriate consent motion, copies of which will be made available in the Vote Office and will be distributed by Doorkeepers.
Mr Speaker
I can now inform the House that I have completed certification of the Bill, as required by the Standing Order. I have confirmed the view expressed in my provisional certificate issued on 5 September. Copies of my final certificate will be made available in the Vote Office and on the parliamentary website.
Under Standing Order No. 83M, as modified by Standing Order No. 83S, a consent motion is therefore required for the Bill to proceed. Copies of the motion are available in the Vote Office and on the parliamentary website, and have been made available to Members in the Chamber. Does a Minister intend to move the consent motion?
The Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty’s Treasury (Stephen Barclay)
indicated assent.
The House forthwith resolved itself into the Legislative Grand Committee (England, Wales and Northern Ireland) (Standing Order No. 83M).
[Natascha Engel in the Chair]
The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Natascha Engel)
I remind the Committee that although all Members may speak in the debate, only Members representing constituencies in England, Wales and Northern Ireland may vote on the consent motion.
Resolved,
That the Committee consents to the following certified clauses and schedules of the Finance Bill:
Clauses 126 to 132, 141 and 142 of, and Schedule 16 to, the Bill as amended in Committee and Public Bill Committee (Bill 47).—(Jane Ellison.)
The occupant of the Chair left the Chair to report the decision of the Committee (Standing Order No. 83M(6)).
The Deputy Speaker resumed the Chair; decision reported.
Third Reading
Jane Ellison
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
I remind the House just how important the measures contained in the Finance Bill are for the success and prosperity of people in this country. It is about putting more money back into the pockets of all the people who work so hard but sometimes struggle to make ends meet. It is about helping our businesses to grow and succeed, to invest and create jobs, and it is about protecting the nation’s finances by taking action to stop any individuals or businesses that seek to evade or avoid tax.
The Bill has been thoroughly debated for weeks, including with me as the Minister during the past two days. I therefore want to take a moment to thank hon. Members on both sides of the House for their excellent scrutiny of it and for the insightful and wide-ranging debate that has taken place during its passage through the House.
It is worth noting a couple of breakthroughs for which the Bill will be long remembered. The first is the amendment that was moved last night by the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) on public country-by-country reporting, which the Government supported. The welcome degree of cross-party consensus cemented the UK’s position of international leadership on this issue. It is also worth noting the long and successful campaign by the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Paula Sherriff) and others that has brought significant progress on the issue of VAT on sanitary products. There are a number of other important measures, some of which we have debated today, and we have made important Government amendments to ensure that things work as they should.
I pay particular thanks to my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Gauke), for his excellent work. Indeed, he did the lion’s share of the work in steering the Finance Bill through each of its stages. I also thank my hon. Friends the Members for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) and for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) for setting out the Government’s case at different stages. I express my general appreciation to all hon. Members who have contributed to the Bill.
The Bill means that we will do more to help hard-working individuals and families, more to help businesses large and small, and more to safeguard the nation’s finances. Above all, it will ensure that we move forward into the new future from a position of financial strength in our economy. I therefore commend it to the House.
Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)
I pay tribute to the Financial Secretary for the way in which she has led the final stages of the Bill and to the hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey), who has led for the Opposition. She took over in difficult circumstances and has handled it with great composure and competence.
It is clear to many people in the Commons today that this is a right bourach of a Bill, as we would say in Scotland. Not long after the Government voted down the SNP’s new clause on Scottish limited partnerships last night, the distinguished commentator and author Ian Fraser took to Twitter to say:
“Now we know @theresa_may’s pledge to ‘reform capitalism’ was so much hot air”.
Indeed it was hot air. The only people smiling as a result of the Government’s opposition to our new clause are the criminals and tax evaders who will benefit so much from it.
The Government’s opposition to our new clause on oil and gas, which like our new clause on Scottish limited partnerships had much external support as well as support in the House, shows that they are ill fitted to lead the oil and gas sector into the future. It does not end there. The Government continue to victimise Scotland’s emergency services in respect of VAT, to press ahead with reforms that are compromising the provision of affordable private sector rented accommodation and to ignore the harm they are doing to micro and small businesses with their so-called tax reforms. The list could go on. It becomes clear that the SNP will oppose the Bill.
John Redwood
A great deal has happened politically since the March Budget and during the passage of the Finance Bill. Therefore, on Third Reading, when we are invited to consider the Bill in the round, we should ask ourselves how this set of composite tax measures and forecasts for revenues and budget deficits fits into what the Bank of England thinks is a rather revised picture today, although its gloom is probably exaggerated.
We also had a very significant event from the Government themselves over the summer recess, which has not been reported to this House or debated in this House, but which should not go without comment: the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave his consent for the creation of up to £170 billion of additional money and for the Bank of England to buy large quantities of Government debt and substantial quantities of corporate debt, making available a lot of cheaper money to the banks. As a result of that needless monetary relaxation—there was absolutely no evidence at the time that the economy had suffered an output or retail sales shock in the way that the Bank foolishly thought was happening—we see that interest rates have been driven down. In particular, longer-term interest rates, which are the Government’s price of borrowing, have been driven down, and so we now must imagine that the Budget arithmetic has changed quite a lot in a very favourable direction, as there is now presumably a substantial reduction in the forecast interest rate costs for Her Majesty’s Government over the balance of this year and into the next financial year, assuming that those programmes of aggressive bond buying continue to depress the rates in the way that is clearly planned.
At some point the Government need to explain why they endorsed the Bank of England’s very aberrant view. The Government’s forecasts for the economy, which are the thought behind this perfectly sensible Budget that we are in the process of approving, look forward to the UK economy growing by 2% this year and by 2.2% next year. The Bank of England now says that the British economy will grow by only 0.8% next year. I have no idea why the Bank thinks that, but it would of course change the arithmetic, and instead of our welcoming this Budget with an even smaller deficit, because of yield compression and cheaper borrowing, we should be worrying at this juncture about the shortfall in revenues next year on the back of a much-revised Bank of England forecast. Clearly revenues will be down by quite a lot next year if growth is to be only 0.8% rather than the 2.2% that was the premise of this Budget.
I fully support the Treasury’s March view. It is extremely likely that the British economy will grow by 2.2%. I do not have my own model but I understand how the Treasury model works and I do not think that the underlying assumptions behind the model for the March forecast were unrealistic. I do not think that they have fundamentally changed as a result of the events of the summer, with, perhaps, the one exception that if the Bank perseveres with injecting anything like £170 billion into the economy, growth could be even better than the Government were expecting, because that is a far bigger monetary stimulus than they clearly had in mind when they constructed the March Budget.
The Bank of England needs to be careful. One of the curious things about the timing of its decision was that it made that announcement before we saw the real economy figures for the first eight weeks after the Brexit vote. Those figures turned out to be perfectly reasonable. They were not negative in the way that the Bank had thought. The Bank also made the injection of money just after some very important figures came out, ones that it had obviously read in a different way from me.
If we read the money supply growth figures and credit growth figures for the second quarter of the current calendar year, we will see that they started to accelerate. We had pretty steady 5% growth for quite a long period, which was giving us a combination of low or no inflation and 2% or so growth, but then those figures suddenly accelerated to around 7% or 8%. It is therefore even more bizarre that, on the back of those numbers, the Bank of England should suddenly decide to try to pump so much money into the economy, at a point where it looked as if the commercial banking system was sufficiently strong and confidence had returned sufficiently to mean an even faster rate of money growth than the one that was achieving 2% growth overall.
I am not suggesting that we need to drop this Budget because of that very large monetary stimulus, but the House should be aware that a very large monetary stimulus has been added at exactly a point where we had a perfectly sensible Budget based on perfectly sensible assumptions. The Government also need to be very careful before authorising any further monetary stimulus given what look like perfectly satisfactory numbers.
How could the Bank be that wrong—it is quite difficult to understand—and why did the Government endorse its strange interpretation? It says two things. It says that a Brexit vote could damage trade. Well, the one thing we seem to know from the very relaxed timetable the Government are proposing for getting us out of the EU is that in all probability we are going to be trading under existing single market arrangements this year and next year. There will not, therefore, be any damage to trade. I do not think there will be any damage to trade when we are out, but we are going to be trading under the current arrangements for the forecast period, so it is very difficult to see why we would knock anything off GDP because of trade. Indeed, we should be adding quite a lot in relation to trade, because clearly exports will rise quite a lot on the back of a much weaker pound.
The other thing it says is that there will be an effect on confidence. We have seen from recent surveys that there was a very short term hit to the confidence of big business executives who did not like the result of the referendum, but there was no hit to the confidence of consumers. They went out and spent more in the shops immediately after the Brexit vote than they were spending before. We saw, in the following month, that many senior company executives regained a lot of their lost confidence because they saw they were wrong and that the customers were returning to, or staying in, the shops. They are buying cars and new houses. Confidence has not collapsed, something the banks seemed to think would happen.
I urge those on the Treasury Bench to think about these matters extremely carefully. The very long procedure on the Finance Bill means that, in all probability, we are approving a Bill that was constructed in what the Bank of England thinks were very different economic times. I think the economic forecast and the economic times of March are very similar to the ones we should now accept, and I urge the Government to take that view. The House needs to note, if it is the view of the House, that on top of a Budget that has a reasonably relaxed fiscal stance compared with intentions a few years ago—something I am quite happy with—we now have a very large monetary injection. The Government need to be aware of what that might mean.
Rebecca Long Bailey
I thank the Minister and her Treasury colleagues, past and present, for their progress of the Bill through the House. I thank my own shadow Treasury colleagues, past and present, for their hard work in holding the Government to account. I thank my shadow Treasury team staff for their hard work on the Bill in the interesting times in which we have found ourselves. The Clerks deserve a mention for being pestered every five minutes by members of my staff—indeed, by the staff of other hon. Members, too. I make special mention of all Members who have worked very hard on the Bill and participated in a number of extremely thoughtful and interesting debates.
The Opposition will not be supporting the Bill on Third Reading. Although it contains some measures that we support, we simply cannot vote in favour of a Bill that does nothing to address the underlying issues in our economy. It has unfairness at its very core. I will, however, run briefly over the areas where we have found some consensus across the House.
First, there is the need to zero-rate VAT on women’s sanitary products. Many Members across the House spoke in support of this yesterday. I appreciate the Government’s sympathy with the campaign by my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Paula Sherriff). I place on record once again my congratulations to my hon. Friend who, along with many women outside this place, has campaigned tirelessly on this issue. Unfortunately, we still had to divide the House, as the Minister refused to put down a firm date for implementation of the zero rating. I hope the policy will not be kicked into the long grass once the Bill has completed its passage through Parliament. I know the Minister supports the general principle of the policy and I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury will be very quick to call the Government out should they try to avoid taking this matter forward responsibly.
We have also found a broad level of agreement on country-by-country reporting. I am pleased that the Government saw fit to accept the amendment tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint). Again, I put on record my thanks and congratulations to my right hon. Friend for her hard work and determination on this issue. The amendment stated that the Government “may” exercise their powers in this regard. However, I hope that the Government “will” exercise their powers in that regard, and I shall follow their progress very closely.
We support the Government’s steps towards closing the so-called Mayfair tax loophole, even though they did not accept our amendment to provide that all carried interest would be subject to income tax—but that, unfortunately, is where the consensus ends.
One of the biggest problems facing the economy at the moment is low rates of investment. Investment by businesses has already fallen for the last two quarters and investment by Government is scheduled to fall in every year of this Parliament. Overall investment as a share of GDP is lower now than it was in 2007—despite rising profits to companies and an all-time low cost of borrowing for the Government.
The Government maintained in yesterday’s debate that cuts to the headline rates of corporation tax and capital gains tax contained in the Bill would incentivise business investment, but they did not convince me or my hon. Friends that that would actually be the case. When we debated the cut to corporation tax yesterday, I provided some helpful figures to demonstrate that it is not clear that reductions will deliver the investment that the country desperately needs. For the benefit of Members who were not in the Chamber yesterday, I shall briefly recap.
The House of Commons Library analysis shows that business investment was higher in the year 2000 when corporation tax was at 30% than it was in 2015 when it was a full 10% lower. There is no obvious correlation between a low rate of corporation tax and high rates of business investment. Furthermore, corporations are not in need of cash in most cases. Figures provided by the House of Commons Library show that the UK corporation industry was sitting on cash reserves totalling £581 billion last year, so something is clearly precluding them from investing in the future. Frankly, the measures in this Bill will do nothing to change that behaviour.
Because of this lack of investment, productivity in the UK has fallen. Every hour of work in Britain produces one third less than every hour worked in Germany, the US or France, while real wages have fallen by 10% since 2008. That is simply not good enough—it is not good enough for British workers; it is not good enough for the economy; and it is not good for our sense of national pride. We need investment in infrastructure, in skills, in innovation and in industry. Labour is committed to providing £500 billion-worth of investment: £250 billion will be Government capital spending; and £250 billion will come from the national investment bank.
The national investment bank, along with regional banks, would transform regional economies and rebuild our financial system. Government capital expenditure would be used to improve vital infrastructure such as transport, housing and energy supply. Those are the kind of policies that businesses need to thrive, and I hope that the Government will consider them. They have not put such policies into the Finance Bill, but they have the power to put them into further pieces of legislation as this Parliament progresses.
The Bill fails to address the long-term pressures facing the UK’s energy supply industry and fails to deliver on our climate change targets, as agreed just a few months ago by the right hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd), now the Home Secretary. The renewable energy sector, as we heard in the previous debate, has been consistently undermined by this Government, and the Bill before us today does nothing to provide the stability or support that this industry craves.
Earlier today, we debated a specific amendment on the VAT treatment of energy-saving materials in the hope that the Government would make it clear in statute that the proposed solar tax hike would not go ahead. Unfortunately, the Government would not agree to our new clause and as such the insecurity for this industry continues. Furthermore, the Bill still makes sweeping changes to the climate change levy, which could seriously undermine its efficacy. In Committee of the whole House, we tabled an amendment calling for a review of the impact of the climate change levy on carbon emissions, but we were unfortunately defeated in the Lobbies. The change will go ahead with no assessment of whether the somewhat altered levy will do its job. That, too, is just not good enough from the British Government.
Over the weekend, we saw China and the United States ratify the Paris climate deal. Together they are responsible for 40% of the world’s carbon emissions, so that marks a huge step forward in climate change responsibility. Our Government, however, have not ratified the treaty, and have rowed back on almost all their green commitments since the election. I will not list them again, as it is an extensive list, but the Bill does nothing to tackle the issue of climate change head on, and, we believe, weakens measures that are already in place.
As for the key issue of tax avoidance, I must reiterate our view that the Government’s piecemeal approach of slowly introducing new little schemes and penalties is simply not enough. As I said yesterday, we need to see real commitment to an overarching strategy that provides genuine “legal teeth” to tackle the tax avoidance industry. At a time when our public services are tearing at the seams as a result of increased demand and a lack of resources, it is not acceptable for people to be allowed to avoid paying their taxes. It is time for tax avoiders to understand that being part of our society means paying one’s fair share towards the upkeep of that society. Labour has set out its stall with its tax transparency and enforcement programme, much of which was reflected in the amendments that we tabled yesterday. I hope that the Minister took some of our suggestions on board.
It is disappointing, to say the least, that the Government did not see fit to accept our new clause proposing a wide-ranging review of the UK tax gap and its causes. They have to appreciate that we must design a system that will really challenge the tax avoidance industry. We must overhaul our tax laws so that they are based on broad principles that will make avoidance difficult. A full public inquiry would expose the perversity of the industry, and would signal to the world that we are serious about stamping out tax evasion and avoidance wherever they may flourish.
Let me end by saying this. Labour wants to build a high-investment, high-wage economy. It wants to build an economy that will allow the UK to be a country of the future, leading the way on research and innovation; an economy in which everyone pays their fair share, and support is provided for those who need it; an economy and a society of which the British people can be proud. However, that can be done only with a Government who are committed to making it happen. We do not believe that the Bill will achieve those goals, and we will therefore vote against it this evening.
Question put, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
Petitions
(7 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)
I rise to present petitions relating to keeping Royal Mail delivery offices open in Marple and Bredbury. The two offices are currently being reviewed by Royal Mail with a view to their potential closure, yet they enable local residents to collect parcels and items of mail, provide a service that is vitally convenient and employ dozens of local people. Unfortunately, the nearest alternative facility is not in easy reach of the local population and has no direct public transport links.
Petitions organised by me and distributed throughout the area, as well as being placed online, had reached 3,105 signatures as of yesterday. The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges Royal Mail to keep delivery offices open in Marple and Bredbury.
[Following is the full text of the petition:
The petition of residents of the UK,
Declares that the Royal Mail delivery office in Marple, which enables local residents to collect parcels and items of mail, provides a service that is vitally convenient; further that there is no local alternative provision of this service; and further that the nearest facility is not in easy reach of the local population and has no direct public transport links.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges Royal Mail plc to keep a Royal Mail delivery office open in Marple.
And the petitioners remain, etc.]
[P001706]
Oadby and Wigston Borough Council
(7 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Sir Edward Garnier (Harborough) (Con)
May I begin by thanking you for granting this Adjournment debate, Mr Speaker, and the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones), for being here to respond? I want to address the appalling state of affairs at one of the two local authorities within my constituency, the management of which leaves much to be desired at both political and administrative levels, is costing the local taxpayers vast sums they should not have to spend, and is a blot on the wider local government landscape. On any view, the Government need to get a grip of this council and ensure that it is turned from its present dysfunctional state into something that my constituents within the borough of Oadby and Wigston are entitled to expect and deserve.
Nothing that I am about to say will take the Minister by surprise because I have written to him and our right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), the former Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, and had informal discussions with them both about this council on several occasions over the past year or so.
In local government terms, apart from Leicestershire County Council, which has a county-wide remit outside the city of Leicester, I am concerned within my Harborough parliamentary constituency with Harborough District Council, which has a large Conservative majority, and Oadby and Wigston Borough Council, which has a large Liberal Democrat majority. Harborough District Council is well run and is not the subject of this debate, save in so far as it provides a marked contrast to the shambles that is Oadby and Wigston Borough Council. Walking into the offices of Harborough District Council allows one to experience a well-motivated, well-led and dedicated group of officers and staff at all levels of seniority. From the people at the reception desk to its most senior officers, despite the financial constraints that all local authorities now have to cope with, nothing is too much trouble. There is a can-do, will-do atmosphere, despite the small revenue budget of, I believe, under £10 million, its geographical size and the problems associated with rural sparsity.
In contrast, the atmosphere in the offices of Oadby and Wigston Borough Council is poisonous. It, too, has a small annual revenue budget, of about £8 million. It has an adult population of about 40,000. On Leicester’s south-eastern border, although a largely white British community, the borough has within its boundaries a growing black and minority ethnic population, mostly people of south Asian descent who came here directly from India and Pakistan or via east Africa. Many Leicester children attend its excellent schools, not least Beauchamp academy, the best school of its type in the east midlands. Several of Leicester University’s halls of residence are in Oadby, as are Leicester racecourse and the famous botanical gardens. Unemployment in my constituency is at or under 1%, and plenty of small to medium-sized businesses in the borough are doing well. It is, in short, a great place to live, to bring up children and to work, and there is much that its residents, my constituents, can be proud of and justifiably are. What spoils this happy picture is the borough council itself.
In 2015, nine senior members of the council’s staff initiated a grievance procedure against the senior management team—the SMT. I will not tonight identify these officers by name, be they the complainants or the respondents to the grievance, because their names are not important to the points I make, but their identities, particularly those of two of the three members of the SMT, the chief executive and the director of services, are well known locally, and there is no bar that I know of on others publishing their names, subject to the ordinary laws of defamation. Of the complainants, some have resigned fearing they would not face a fair hearing under the council’s internal disciplinary system, while others remain on full pay but are suspended, their work being carried out by agency or temporary staff. Some of the complainants are constituents of the hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), who is in his place.
Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)
The right hon. and learned Gentleman is making his case with typical force. Let me say to him and to the Minister that my constituents over the border in the city of Leicester are affected by this, and I entirely support the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s efforts and look forward to the Minister’s response.
Sir Edward Garnier
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, my parliamentary neighbour, for his intervention. I hope that between us we can persuade the Government to do something to improve the state of affairs in this borough council, he on behalf of his constituents and I on behalf of mine.
The grievance consisted of 214 separate allegations against the SMT. They were considered individually and collectively by Richard Penn, a former senior local government officer from elsewhere who was known to the SMT, but I do not suggest collusion or bias against him. He conducted two exercises: one investigated the complaints from the staff against the SMT, and the other made recommendations about the future management and leadership of the council. Although Mr Penn did not uphold any of the individual complaints, he did conclude—this must have been inevitable given the scale of the grievances laid at the door of the SMT—that they painted a picture of an organisation
“riven and very adversely affected by a deep division between the SMT and a majority of the second and third tier managers”.
Mr Penn concluded that the division between the SMT and the others exposed the need for the council
“to take urgent action not only to heal the wounds of and behind the grievances but also to organise itself in such a way that it has the capacity and stability to face the future with confidence”.
He stated that the council did not have the resource and capacity in-house to do this on its own, and that external support and assistance to both the political and officer leadership would, in his view, be necessary as part of the recovery process. Mr Penn’s rejection of the 214 allegations is, I understand, to be appealed, and the complainants who have not already left the council’s employment and remain suspended are to be subjected to disciplinary proceedings by the council. These personnel problems are not helped by the council’s chief executive being on extended sick leave for a good many weeks this year. I hope he is now restored to good health.
It is my view that Mr Penn, because he is cautious and wanted to find or promote solutions, used language and a tone in both of his reports that, to someone not familiar with the council, masked the serious nature of his findings about the quality of the managerial and political leadership of the council. My duty is to protect the interests of my constituents, all of whom deserve a functioning, effective, efficiently run and focused council that can organise itself, manage its finances and provide the requisite public services, rather than the internal squabbling and incompetence they have had to put up with over the last few years.
I had become used to getting slow and indifferent service from the council as regards replies to constituency correspondence. To be fair to the chief executive, he asked that all correspondence from me should be addressed to him so that it could be more efficiently dealt with, but I did not realise quite how appalling the state of the council was until the night of the May 2015 general election.
The election count is held in the borough. Apart from my first general election for Harborough in 1992, when the count took place on the Friday morning after the election of Thursday 9 April, all subsequent counts have been done overnight. As a rule, the result is declared between 3 am and 4.30 am. In May 2015, it was not declared until nearly 9 o’clock on the Friday morning. It became clear during the early hours of the morning to all the candidates, the press, and the high sheriff, who was the returning officer—indeed, to most of us in the hall—that the chief executive had failed to organise the counting staff and set in place systems to get the count dealt with expeditiously. One senior staff member at the count walked out as dawn approached and resigned, and others were trying to sort out what can only be described as a total farce. There was an air of sullen rebelliousness in the room among the counting staff.
The chief executive failed to demonstrate the leadership required on that occasion, but, as I later discovered, the state of personnel relations within the council was already bad and getting worse. The staff were having trouble getting the paper records of the ballot boxes and the votes counted uploaded on to the computers. In the end, the high sheriff, a man of almost limitless patience, and I, someone of less Christian forbearance, told the chief executive to give us the result on paper and forget his computers so we could all go home.
I cite this not because of any inconvenience I suffered, but because it starkly and publicly illustrated the shambolic nature of the internal workings and poisonous personal relations in the council. I have subsequently learnt that the SMT had a mole in the complainants’ group who was making secret recordings of their private conversations and handing them to the SMT. Quite apart from being underhand and possibly criminal, it can reasonably be inferred that the SMT or a member of it was aware of this person’s activities and, indeed, authorised them.
I have also seen documents that indicate that Mr Penn knew of these secret recordings, although so far as I can tell he was the passive recipient of the information and I cannot form a judgment about how they affected his conclusions, if at all. He did not, though, from memory, disclose in his reports that he had seen evidence of those secret recordings or received emails from the mole. If I am wrong about that, I will correct it.
Just some of the complaints made and then considered by Mr Penn, albeit rejected as matters of detail, can be briefly summarised as follows: there was no clear direction or leadership from the SMT, and there was little or no communication between the SMT and the rest of the council, particularly about what was or was not possible during the coalition Government’s comprehensive spending review. I am not concerned this evening about the truth or the falsity of the allegations and am in no position to judge that one way or another, even if I do have criticisms of the somewhat cursory approach that Mr Penn appears to have adopted, judging from the terms of his first report. But that 214 allegations were made and required Mr Penn to consider them is evidence of a council in poor health and, as the saying goes, a fish rots from the head.
On 16 January 2016, in response to Mr Penn’s reports, the borough council’s newly created change management committee agreed a 15-point plan for immediate action to rectify the problems, most of which can only be described as a précis of the blindingly obvious and things that should be second nature to any half-competent councillor or council officer. This House is entitled to ask why on earth they were not being done already. The committee also decided on a plan for further review of the implementation of the cultural changes and lessons required, consisting of planning the way forward, staff involvement, the role of leadership, employee buy-in, infrastructure, capabilities and measuring success. This House is entitled to ask why such obvious management tools were not in place already and why it took 214 complaints, two reports from Mr Penn and the suspension of the nine complainants to achieve so little at vast public expense.
To take just four suspended complainants, their absence, in one case from June 2015 and in three cases from November 2015, has cost over £215,000 in salaries alone, and their agency replacements will add to that figure. One temporary staff member has cost nearly £55,000 in financial years 2015-16 and 2016-17 for a two to three-day week. By December 2015 the council had spent £107,000 on the investigation and approved a further £100,000, money presumably spent and to be spent on Mr Penn’s services via the Local Government Association, on the fees of outside solicitors, on monitoring services provided by Leicestershire and Cambridgeshire county councils and by Mr Quentin Baker of LGSS, a firm linked to Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire county councils, and on a former employee of the Crown Prosecution Service instructed to consider the evidence necessary to support the disciplinary proceedings, as well as on other temporary staff.
As this farce continues, it is surely reasonable to hazard a guess that the total sums expended and to be expended could be as much as £500,000 which, when compared with the small size of the council’s revenue budget, is nothing short of a scandal. There is plenty more that could and should be said about the conduct of certain councillors from the majority group towards members of staff and opposition councillors, but time alone prevents me from dealing with that. Suffice it to say that the evidence I have seen does not make for pretty reading.
In the light of the facts as I know them to be, I now ask the Government urgently to appoint commissioners or other competent officials to go into the council and get it sorted out, or to discuss with the county council in Leicestershire or the borough’s neighbouring district councils how they can take over the management of this borough council. I make no party political complaint about the council’s majority or its leader. If the residents of Oadby and Wigston want to elect Liberal Democrat councillors, they are free, if unwise, to do so, and if a Conservative council behaved like this I would say the same, but the council leader and his councillors have either been wilful participants or asleep at the wheel and must take responsibility for the shambolic state of the council and its administrative leadership.
I am sorry to say it, but failure, mismanagement and incompetence on this scale within the council now requires decisive action from the Minister’s Department, as well as the resignations of the council’s leader and certain senior members of its staff. It is time to give back to the residents of the borough a council that works for them. Doing nothing is not an option and I earnestly invite my hon. Friend to take action without delay.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Marcus Jones)
First, I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier) on securing this important debate. We have, as he said, spoken and corresponded about Oadby and Wigston Borough Council on a number of occasions, and it is clear from our discussions and correspondence that he has a great passion for his constituency and the interests of the people he represents. I am certainly grateful to him for giving me the opportunity to discuss such an important issue. Local government delivers essential services to some of society’s most vulnerable people, and it is therefore vital that it operates effectively.
I wish to begin by setting out the context and emphasising that local government normally functions well. There are many examples of excellent and innovative practice to be found across all types of councils. Councils are held to account through an effective system of local accountability, and where they do require help or advice, sector-led support is available.
As my right hon. and learned Friend will be aware, local government is independent of central Government. Through elected councillors—and, where applicable, mayors—councils are accountable to the communities that they serve through the ultimate sanction of the ballot box. On hearing what he has had to say today, I am sure that many of his constituents will be thinking about how their council has been run, and is currently run, and will look at that accordingly when they make their choice next time at the ballot box.
Since 2010, town hall transparency has been improved by new rules requiring councils to make public a written record of all major decisions. The public also have the right to film, audio-record, take photographs and use social media to report the proceedings of public council meetings. The introduction of the local government transparency code in 2015 requires all authorities to publish certain data about their resources and expenditure. That makes it easier for local people to act as armchair auditors and hold their councils to account. In addition, councillors hold regular surgeries with local residents, councils conduct consultations on their policies and budgets, and the activities councils undertake are subject to external scrutiny in the form of an annual external audit.
The Local Government Association provides external challenge and targeted sector-led support where it is needed. For 2016-17, my Department has given the LGA £21.4 million so that it can provide training and support for members and officers. The LGA provides policy briefings and arranges peer support from other local authorities. Options include one-to-one mentoring for elected leaders, corporate peer challenges and additional targeted support where it is required. The LGA also has an overview of performance in the sector. That enables it to offer support on a proactive basis to councils that appear to be facing challenges.
Only as a last resort would the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government use his powers of intervention, and only where there is comprehensive evidence of extremely serious and widespread systemic failings in a council would that be the case. Statutory interventions are rare: the powers have been used only twice in the last five years, and only six times in the last 15 years.
As my right hon. and learned Friend will be aware, the Communities and Local Government Committee recently reported on our interventions in Tower Hamlets and Rotherham, and it agreed that our interventions in both those authorities had been justified. It also emphasised that removing control from democratically elected representatives is an extremely serious decision.
I will now turn to Oadby and Wigston Council itself. The authority has certainly had its challenges. In particular, there have been serious divisions between the senior management team and other officers. It is, however, currently benefiting from sector-led support, and I expect to see significant improvements with the council.
As my right hon. and learned Friend correctly said, a collective grievance was submitted by nine members of staff in May 2015. The council worked with the LGA and appointed an independent investigator, Richard Penn. Mr Penn is a former local authority chief executive with many years of experience as an independent investigator. He concluded that the 214 allegations that made up the collective grievance were unfounded. He found that
“Oadby and Wigston Borough Council is in many respects a well-performing organisation that punches above its weight”.
He provided evidence to support this, including that the council has met all its statutory targets and indicators; completed several major regeneration schemes, including in the town and parks; improved its leisure offer; and redesigned its customer service experience.
Mr Penn did not, however, give the council a clean bill of health. In a supplementary report on the organisational issues arising from his initial investigation, he found that there were
“deep divisions between the Senior Management Team and the officers who took out the collective grievance”.
It was his view that the council needed to take
“urgent action in order to tackle the major challenges of not only ‘healing the wounds’ but also of ensuring that the Council has the organisational capacity and stability to face the future with confidence.”
I consider it essential that the council take immediate action to address these issues, as it is imperative that management issues should not be allowed to impact on local service delivery and the services that are provided to my right hon. and learned Friend’s constituents. In March this year, I wrote to the leader, Councillor Boyce, highlighting my concerns and emphasising the importance of working with the LGA to take effective remedial action.
I am pleased to see that since Mr Penn’s report Oadby and Wigston has worked closely with the LGA. The LGA has met the section 151 officer, the chief executive and the change management committee on multiple occasions. The council has been supported to understand the issues faced, and an action plan has now been agreed.
Sir Edward Garnier
Am I not right in thinking that the section 151 officer is one of the temporary staff—the agency staff—brought in? This exemplifies the problem that I am facing. I really do think we need to be quite serious about requiring the borough council not to allow this just to drift on and drift on, and to fob us off with mealy-mouthed responses. We have to focus laser-like on this council, because otherwise it will just go on and on misconducting itself.
Mr Jones
I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for his intervention. The Department takes this situation absolutely seriously. I hope that he will be assured from the comments that I am about to make that we will continue to take the situation extremely seriously and to monitor how the work that Oadby and Wigston is undertaking with the LGA pans out and how it improves governance of the council.
The action plan includes the following: achieving cultural change in the council, ensuring effective prioritisation, improving ways of working, and improving understanding of officer and member roles and relationships. There are clearly areas where the council must improve, and this plan sets out the improvement journey that the council now absolutely needs to make. I expect the council to implement it fully and effectively. I understand that the LGA is running a programme of sessions with members and officers, separately and together, this autumn. These will cover all elements of the plan, although they will, in particular, ensure that members and officers understand their roles and how to work effectively.
The LGA now considers that Oadby and Wigston has a thorough understanding of what happened and what it needs to do to put it right. The council’s external auditor, KPMG, has also been kept informed, and it does not feel that there are currently any matters that warrant further scrutiny from an audit perspective. It is important that the council continues to keep its auditors informed as it works to implement its improvement plan.
The LGA will also work with Oadby and Wigston to conduct a peer review, whereby officers and members of another authority will provide challenge and share learning. That is something that I have strongly encouraged. The peer review should consider whether the council has made sufficient progress against its improvement plan. I will take a keen interest in the findings of the peer review, and I encourage the council to make those findings publicly available.
Indeed, I expect the council not only to take steps to address the challenges that it has faced, but to reassure the public that its problems are in the past. The council must act in an open and transparent way, if it is to be properly accountable to the community that it serves. Wherever possible, the council should make available details of the problems it has faced, the action it has taken to address those challenges and the progress made. Oadby and Wigston has certainly had its challenges.
Sir Edward Garnier
My hon. Friend is being extremely generous in giving way; there is nothing more tiresome than busy little Back Benchers who jump up and down all the time. What is the timetable that he has set himself and the council so that he will be able to measure whether there has been any change in the conduct of its administration? Saying, “We hope that the following things will happen,” is good, but unless that is done by a given date and it is required to report to my hon. Friend and the Department, things will drift and I cannot afford to see that happen.
Mr Jones
My right hon. and learned Friend should not think that being a busy little Back Bencher is a bad thing. In fact, in this case it is extremely important, because he has raised an extremely important issue. He makes a very important point that this is about not just warm words, but making sure that the issues that the council has faced and the remedial action taken to deal with them are followed through. In that context, I need only to refer to the action that the Department took in relation to Rotherham Council. The Audit Commission produced several reports on the council and the local authority responded with warm words, but the actions suggested by the reports were not followed through properly. Subsequently, Rotherham Council found itself in an untenable position whereby the Department—this is very rare—decided that intervention was necessary. I say to my right hon. and learned Friend that I will be watching the situation extremely closely.
On timescales, at this point I am content to see the work with the LGA undertaken, but I will not be content if significant progress is not made. I think that this debate will make the council fully aware of that. As I said at the outset, local government must maintain its independence from central Government, and it must answer to its electorate. In very rare circumstances we directly intervene in local authorities, but in this case I expect significant improvement.
I ask one thing of my right hon. and learned Friend, and I am sure that he will deliver on this. If he is made aware of any additional information or additional issues that arise at Oadby and Wigston council, I would be more than glad to hear from him to make sure that those issues are being addressed. I thank him for bringing this important issue to the House, and I look forward to keeping this dialogue going with him over the coming months so that his constituents can feel confident that they are getting the service that they deserve from Oadby and Wigston council.
Sir Edward Garnier
I wanted to intervene finally for two reasons: first, to welcome the wonderful Deputy Speaker to the Chair, and, secondly, to thank my hon. Friend again for the care and attention he has given to this matter. He has got lots to deal with in his portfolio, and I have every confidence, having heard what he has had to say, that he and his officials will keep a very close eye on this borough council. Of course, he and I will be in close contact with each other as the need arises, and I am grateful to him for helping out this evening.
Higher Education and Research Bill (First sitting)
Tuesday 6th September 2016
(7 years, 9 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Higher Education and Research Act 2017 View all Higher Education and Research Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 6 September 2016 - (6 Sep 2016)
The Chair
Good morning, colleagues. Before we begin, I have a few preliminary comments. First, we must silence or switch off mobile phones. Neither teas nor coffees are appropriate during our deliberations. I and my co-Chair, Sir Edward Leigh, welcome you all to the Committee. Today we are considering various proposals, beginning with the programme motion. We will then deliberate in private about the questioning of today’s witnesses. Later in the week we will move on to the formal line-by-line consideration of the Bill. We have limited time and have to finish the first question session by 10.30 and the second session by 11.25. Any time spent debating the programme motion will be taken out of the first witness session, but it is entirely up to the Committee how it wishes to deal with that.
Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)
Mr Hanson, is it in order for us to remove our jackets?
The Chair
It is. I will not be difficult about that. Indeed, Mr Smith has already removed his, as has Mr Howlett, and that is fine. I am fairly relaxed about that, so please feel free, Mr Marsden.
The Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation (Joseph Johnson)
I beg to move,
That—
(1) the Committee shall (in addition to its first meeting at 9.25 am on Tuesday 6 September) meet—
(a) at 2.00 pm on Tuesday 6 September;
(b) at 11.30 am and 2.00 pm on Thursday 8 September;
(c) at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm on Tuesday 13 September;
(d) at 11.30 am and 2.00 pm on Thursday 15 September;
(e) at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm on Tuesday 11 October;
(f) at 11.30 am and 2.00 pm on Thursday 13 October;
(g) at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm on Tuesday 18 October;
(2) the Committee shall hear oral evidence in accordance with the following Table:
Date | Time | Witness |
Tuesday 6 September | Until no later than 10.30 am | Universities UK; GuildHE; Independent Higher Education (formerly Study UK); MillionPlus |
Tuesday 6 September | Until no later than 11.25 am | Sir Alan Langlands, Vice-Chancellor, University of Leeds; Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, Vice-Chancellor, University Cambridge; University of Alliance; Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) |
Tuesday 6 September | Until no later than 2.45 pm | Which?; Confederation of British Industry; MoneySavingExpert.com; Professor Chris Husbands, Chair of the Teaching Excellence Framework and Vice-Chancellor, Sheffield Hallam University |
Tuesday 6 September | Until no later than 3.30 pm | University and College of Football Business (UCFB); Condé Nast College of Fashion and Design; Further Education Trust for Leadership; Prospects College of Advanced Technology |
Tuesday 6 September | Until no later than 4.15 pm | University and College Union; Alison Goddard, Editor of HE; Office for Fair Access |
Tuesday 6 September | Until no later than 5.15 pm | Universities Scotland; Royal Society of Edinburgh; Scottish Funding Council; John Kingman, Chair of UK Research and Innovation |
Thursday 8 September | Until no later than 12.30 pm | Research Councils UK; Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council; Innovate UK; The Royal Society |
Thursday 8 September | Until no later than 1.00 pm | Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy; Department for Education |
(3) proceedings on consideration of the Bill in Committee shall be taken in the following order: Clause 1; Schedule 1; Clauses 2 to 10; Schedule 2; Clauses 11 to 15; Schedule 3; Clauses 16 to 26; Schedule 4; Clauses 27 to 56; Schedule 5; Clauses 57 to 60; Schedule 6; Clauses 61 to 65; Schedule 7; Clauses 66 to 82; Schedule 8; Clause 83; Schedule 9; Clauses 84 to 104; Schedule 10, Clauses 105 to 110; Schedules 11 and 12; Clauses 111 to 113; new Clauses; new Schedules; remaining proceedings on the Bill;
(4) the proceedings shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at 5.00 pm on Tuesday 18 October. —(Joseph Johnson.)
I am pleased to be here this morning to start the Bill’s passage through Committee stage. I thank everyone who has given up their time over the summer to make the arrangements for us all to be here today, the members of the Committee, those who have submitted volumes of written evidence, and those who will be giving evidence today and on Thursday, who include higher education mission groups such as Independent Higher Education and MillionPlus, and vice-chancellors such as Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz of Cambridge University and Sir Alan Langlands of the University of Leeds, whose universities are affiliated to the Russell Group.
Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
made a declaration of interest. She said that, given that the Bill created a new office for students, witnesses from student organisations such as the National Union of Students should have been called to give oral evidence, as should representatives of the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education.
Joseph Johnson
said that it was open to all parties to propose witnesses, but that the Labour party had not proposed NUS representatives until so late in the process that they could not be accommodated within the programme motion. He commented that the Scottish National party had proposed witnesses representing Scottish higher education and that they would give evidence in the afternoon sitting.
Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)
made a declaration of interest in that he is an honorary professor at the University of Stirling.
Mr Marsden
made the point that the Government’s failure even to consider students’ presence in the evidence sessions before being pressed to do so was deplorable, and that they could have accommodated students on the Thursday, as they had the SNP at late notice.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
commented that it was odd not to have witnesses representing students, either from the NUS or those who had participated in QAA audits.
Joseph Johnson
thanked hon. Members for their comments and said that he did not want the Committee to think that the Government had not been engaging with students.
The Chair
reminded the Committee that further witnesses could be heard on Thursday if an amendment to the programme order were tabled and accepted at the start of the sitting on Thursday morning, although it would be a starred amendment and therefore subject to the Chair’s discretion.
Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)
made a declaration of interest as a member of the advisory panel for the University Partnerships Programme Foundation.
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
asked whether there had been any discussions about how the change in the machinery of government would affect the Bill, given that it would be split between two Departments.
Joseph Johnson
stated that the machinery of Government changes had gone through in July and that the lines of ownership were clear.
Mr Marsden
repeated his view that representatives of the NUS should be called as witnesses, stating that input from students was crucial, and this should be accommodated by the programming motion allowing half an hour on Thursday.
The Chair
repeated his advice regarding the tabling of an amendment to the programme order adding further witnesses, saying that the amendment would be a starred amendment and therefore subject to the Chair’s discretion, and that, if selected, it would be taken at the start of business on Thursday.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That, subject to the discretion of the Chair, any written evidence received by the Committee shall be reported to the House for publication.—(Joseph Johnson.)
Resolved,
That, at this and any subsequent meeting at which oral evidence is to be heard, the Committee shall sit in private until the witnesses are admitted.—(Joseph Johnson.)
The Chair
Good morning and welcome to our first witnesses. Thank you for joining us for the first session of the Bill today. We are going to hear evidence from the witnesses and I will ask Members to ask questions of the witnesses. Witnesses need to be aware that we will finish this session at 10.30 am. Questions can be put to specific witnesses or to the panel as a whole. If they are to the panel as a whole, given the number of members, I would appreciate brief responses. Will the witnesses please introduce themselves for the record, starting from the left?
Professor Simon Gaskell: I am Simon Gaskell, president and principal of Queen Mary University of London. I am also chair of the Higher Education Statistics Agency and am on the Russell Group board. My primary reason for being here is to represent Universities UK. I have led for UUK on regulation issues and in the responses to the Green Paper, the White Paper and now the Bill.
Gordon McKenzie: I am Gordon McKenzie, chief executive of GuildHE.
Professor Joy Carter: I am Joy Carter. I am chair of GuildHE and also Vice-Chancellor of Winchester University.
Pam Tatlow: I am Pam Tatlow, chief executive of MillionPlus, the association for modern universities, with members throughout the UK.
Alex Proudfoot: I am Alex Proudfoot, chief executive of Independent Higher Education, which represents alternative providers.
Paul Kirkham: I am Paul Kirkham, chief executive of the ICMP, an independent higher education provider. I am also vice-chair of Independent Higher Education.
Wes Streeting
Q Good morning. Thank you for coming to give evidence to the Committee. I have a really simple question to start with, and it would be good to get the views of each organisation represented, if not each panellist. Do you think it is right that there should be student representation on the governing body of every higher education institution, on the board of the office for students, on the board of the quality provider and the quality committee? Would you like to see the scope of the Bill extended to make that provision?
Professor Joy Carter: Absolutely. It has been a revelation to me to engage more with students in the delivery of higher education over the last decade. I think you make an important suggestion.
Pam Tatlow: Yes, we think it is important, but I do not think it is the only answer. We have made some proposals that all members of the OFS board, for example, should have some knowledge of social mobility, widening participation and student interest.
Professor Simon Gaskell: I think it is important to recognise the general point that students, quite correctly, see themselves as co-creators of their own education. That principle would suggest that their voice is extremely important. Your question covered everything from individual institutions to the OFS. As far as my own institution is concerned, we already have two student members on our governing body—one a member, one an observer, but the voice is very loudly heard. There are a variety of mechanisms for ensuring that the student voice is heard, often in conjunction with their own institutions. We can argue about the precise prescription of the extended membership, but the general principle of the student voice being first and foremost is absolutely the right one.
Alex Proudfoot: It is very important that the student voice is heard, both on governing bodies and on the office for students. I believe that the mechanism for that voice being channelled into the office for students is for Government to decide at this juncture. At the moment few alternative providers have student unions that are formally affiliated to the NUS, so I think it would be problematic if a directly nominated NUS representative was on the board, as I would have difficulty finding confidence in their ability to represent the views of the full spectrum of students.
Wes Streeting
Q Will you elaborate slightly on that final point?
Alex Proudfoot: Yes. I think student representation is an excellent idea, as long as the views of the full spectrum of students are represented. Students at alternative providers tend not to engage in formal student unions; they tend often to be professionals or mature students or to have responsibilities outside their studies. For that reason, it is difficult to require representation, but it should be encouraged.
Wes Streeting
Q Finally, I am interested in the panel’s views about the fairness of either institutions or Government being able to alter the repayment terms or the conditions of student loans—whether those are tuition fee levels or repayment terms and conditions—after a student has enrolled on a course or while they are still repaying the loan as a graduate. Do you think that enabling universities or Government to tinker with the terms and conditions has the serious risk that when students sign up as applicants, they do not necessarily know what they are signing up for? That has real risks for fair access and for basic fairness to consumers.
Gordon McKenzie: I think it is unfair to change the conditions after the student has taken out the loan. When the Government changed the repayment threshold and decided not to uprate it annually by inflation, GuildHE commented that it was unfair—we think it is unfair.
Pam Tatlow: I would distinguish between repayment and fees. Like GuildHE, we commented on and opposed the amendment to repayment conditions and indeed the proposal to abolish maintenance grants. In respect of fees, it has at times been the case under previous Governments that if fees increased by inflation, that could apply to the whole student body. We are dealing with a headline price, if I can put it that way, of £3,000. We might want to distinguish between fee levels and repayment levels. On repayment we have been very clear.
Wes Streeting
Q Is there a Universities UK view on that, Professor Gaskell?
Professor Simon Gaskell: The basic principle is that it must surely be right that students know what they are signing up to when they start their course. That places obligations on both institutions and Government. The general principle is that the terms of engagement, as it were, should not be changed after a student has started on their course and made a commitment to a university, as the university has made a commitment to them. The idea that the terms of engagement should not change seems to me to be a basic principle.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
Q Professor Carter and Professor Gaskell said that student representation is important and beneficial. Can I ask you to give us a quick example of how student representation has been beneficial and why we should have it?
Professor Joy Carter: It is about not so much representation, but the holistic sense of student engagement, of which representation is a part. If I can answer the question from a more holistic perspective, in my own institution—to give you one example—we have a student fellows scheme. Students work in partnership with members of staff on projects of their choosing to enhance the quality of the higher education that they are receiving. At any one time in my institution we have got 60 to 100 of those enhancement projects—real partnerships between students and staff—going on. The quality of enhancement that is achieved is beyond measure.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
Q To ask a broader question, how important do you think this piece of legislation is, given that there has not been any legislation for more than 20 years? Which part of the Bill, from your perspective, is the most important?
Paul Kirkham: As an independent provider, working with a very fragmented regulatory system for many, many years has been an absolute nightmare, so having a simple, straightforward, single regulatory system is absolutely crucial. The most important part is that we have a level playing field whereby providers are treated equally and correctly.
Pam Tatlow: I think we should be looking at the Bill in a holistic way. There is a real risk that we look at the Bill in terms of a silo—the office for students, and then UK Research and Innovation. What we have got at the moment through the Higher Education Funding Council for England is some holistic oversight over the whole of the sector, in terms of reporting. Therefore, there are issues around OFS, and some of the hard corners need to be taken off the regulatory framework. We look at the Bill as a whole, because one impacts on the other. Teaching impacts on research and innovation, and vice versa.
Mark Pawsey
Q How important is the Bill?
Pam Tatlow: The Bill is very important because the Government want to table it. It would not have been our most immediate priority, but there are regulatory things that need to be sorted out, as colleagues to my left have pointed out. You can undertake the teaching excellence framework without this Bill—we should be clear about that—and HEFCE is already making preparations to do so. We do not necessarily need the Bill to deliver the Government’s commitment to teaching.
Gordon McKenzie: I agree with Mr Kirkham that the Bill is essential. It was essential from 2011, when the Government made substantial changes to the fee regime. I think it is important to look at the Bill holistically. The essential part is the creation of the office for students and the ability to regulate all providers on a fair and equal basis, whatever their background and history. I have concerns that, in the approach taken—having the office for students on the one hand and UKRI on the other—some of the benefits of having a single body looking at higher education as a whole might be lost, but there are perhaps ways around that.
Roger Mullin
Q In terms of the panel members who have already commented on the regulatory framework, some people have been criticising the proposals as being overly summative and not formative enough to enable or encourage proper development. Would you like to comment on that?
Professor Simon Gaskell: I will come to your question in a moment. I just want to say, in terms of the need for the Bill, that clearly it is essentially replacing the 1992 legislation, which was appropriate at the time, although the times were quite different then. The argument for an upgrading of the regulatory framework for higher education is compelling.
Of course, it has to be admitted that throughout the coalition Government we survived on, frankly, a series of fudges, which nevertheless enabled the out-of-date legislation to allow the sector to continue. So one could not say that the Bill is absolutely essential, but it does have some important tidying-up aspects. The importance of the Bill derives largely from a measure advocated by Universities UK, which was to have a single entry into the sector through a well described and well regulated register of higher education providers. Whether one calls that a “level playing field” or some other term, that is an important aspect.
If I understood the most recent question correctly, it asked whether the Bill might perhaps be too permissive rather than directive in terms of its content. We at Universities UK and in our member institutions do have concerns about that. There are some aspects of the wording of the Bill which could be interpreted to enable directions from the office for students, or indeed from the Department for Education, that would allow measures to be taken which we think would not be in the best interests of the sector. These may be allowed rather than prescribed by the Bill. We are very aware of the need to get the wording and the detail right to make sure that something which may not be immediately intended would not be allowed by incautious phrasing in the Bill.
Mr Marsden
Q Since the Government presented the Bill, and indeed since it came before the House, we have had two major seismic shocks to the British political system. One of them, of course, is the impact of Brexit. The other, although perhaps not as seismic as Brexit, is nevertheless important for us: the changes to the machinery of Government which have moved this subject to the Department for Education rather than the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. I wanted to ask the panellists if they would give us their views.
The Government have made certain commitments to underwrite funding which comes from the EU, particularly in the area of research, but have made no commitments about where we are going from there. I know very well from conversations with many university providers how concerned they are about this—not simply from the research side, but because community-based universities are worried about loss of funding from the European Social Fund and other things. I wonder if I could take a quick snapshot of whether you think that the Government are on top of this and doing enough about it already.
Pam Tatlow: There are 120,000 EU students studying in the UK. We have a commitment to access to the student loan system only for this admissions year—that is, for students entering higher education in 2016-17. Ministers are, quite correctly, encouraging us to get on the Brexit bus, if I can put it that way. We are slightly worried that the best might leave before we have got all the commitments that we need in place. I think that my colleagues in Scotland also raised this with the Minister in Scotland. The commitments we need include the commitment to EU student funding beyond this academic year, however it is delivered in each Administration. Of course, there are also fairly major issues about how those students will be classified in the future.
The final point I would raise is that there are universities which are very engaged in structural funds. We talked with one principal last week, and there is now £50 million worth of structural funding in the west of Scotland. It is very important that the Government address these things, and that they are addressed not only in DFE but in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Department for International Trade and the Home Department. We need a joined-up approach.
Professor Simon Gaskell: We could have a long debate about the effects of Brexit, which I am sure would be inappropriate in this forum. Just to add to the list of concerns, as it were, clearly we are concerned about the loss of EU students. We are concerned about the polls that indicate that overseas non-EU students now find non-EU Britain to be a less attractive place to study. I am particularly concerned not only about the loss of EU students and EU staff, but about the loss of UK students and UK staff, who are not as enamoured of the system and the environment as they were before.
Clearly there are important financial issues, but actually what is more insidious is the loss of talent, the loss of networking and the loss of engagement with European partners. That will be much less easy to quantify but, unless we are very careful, it will become quite a damaging development over the next few years.
Mr Marsden
Q May I press you, Professor Gaskell, on that particular point? Members of the Committee will probably have seen the poll about the reaction to Brexit, which I think said that something like 40% of people between the ages of 18 and 35 were thinking about leaving the country as a result. That addresses one of the points that you made.
May I press you on the particular issues and concerns that you as a Russell Group member and also UUK generally have pressed the Government on? They relate to the very mixed position in terms of funding for research. We have heard all these stories about people being edged out. We know that the Government have supported Horizon 2020, but what is the position with the support they are currently not giving or are giving for beyond the 2020 process, while we are still in the EU and able to bid for these things?
The Chair
I remind colleagues that there is a wide debate on Europe, but we have to keep it within the context of the scope of the Bill.
Professor Simon Gaskell: You are absolutely right to be concerned. The assurances that have been given so far are welcome but do not go anywhere near far enough. Producing evidence will be very difficult, because my colleagues and I do not get phone calls saying, “We were going to include you in our research network, but now we are not.” They do not get the phone call. That will be the problem in amassing the evidence.
Paul Kirkham: There are many issues surrounding Brexit that are important for the sector, but I do not believe they in any way undermine the need for the Bill or its importance. I would hate for things to be distracted in any way as a result of these discussions.
Amanda Milling (Cannock Chase) (Con)
Q Good morning. I have a question for Mr Kirkham. I want to pick up on the point you made earlier about the importance of the single regulatory framework and creating a level playing field. I was wondering whether you could elaborate further on why that is so important and the benefits from your perspective.
Paul Kirkham: We do not think that the system as it exists is to the benefit of students, the taxpayer or a wide range of providers. There are myriad different regulatory bodies, conflicting data and information that need to be submitted in different ways, differences in fees, and differences in the tier 4 visa system—that is kind of outside the scope of this, but the differences exist.
From the point of view of the provider, having clarity on what we are expected to do is extremely useful. From the point of view of the student, having clarity on what a particular provider offers and how that compares to other providers is absolutely crucial. From the point of view of the taxpayer, where taxpayer funds are being used for student loans or other grants or associated support, it is absolutely critical to know where that is going and whether, for example, it is going to registered approved providers who are subject to equal quality assurance checks. At the moment, it is very difficult to differentiate between providers on all those issues.
Professor Simon Gaskell: It is seductively attractive to talk about a level playing field, but we should recognise that implicitly or explicitly, we have expectations of our universities that go well beyond financial sustainability. One of the obligations I feel in my university is that we should cover a broad range of subjects.
If I was concerned about financial sustainability, I would close our medical school and certainly would not engage in science and engineering—far too expensive. I would have a management school, a law school and an economics school. I would be wonderfully financially sustainable and attractive to the private sector, but we take on that obligation. That means that we are not on a level playing field with other providers who do not accept that responsibility. We need to be very careful nationally to understand what our expectations are of our universities, because that will help inform a term—“level playing field”—that can otherwise be flippant.
Pam Tatlow: We absolutely endorse that. You can have the lowest common denominator and have a level playing field. Actually, we want high criteria to protect the student interest. It is not so much about protecting the institutional interest; we have got to protect quality and standards for our students. We have also got to maintain a system in which we can maintain confidence. It is in nobody’s interest in the independent sector or the more established sector if any provider goes under. That would undermine confidence and therefore the global reputation of UK higher education. I know what my colleagues mean. They clearly want a level playing field, but we have to unpeel the onion a bit as to what that actually means.
Dr Blackman-Woods
Q Would the panel accept that, if we are looking at another playing field, we should consider something beyond regulation and maybe have a set of expectations about what institutions are actually delivering, so that, if it is a level playing field, it goes beyond regulation?
Professor Simon Gaskell: We certainly favour inclusion in the Bill of a clause that indicates that there is a responsibility for the public good of institutions that wish to call themselves universities.
Pam Tatlow: This is properly addressed in terms of the general duties of OFS. For example, we have proposed a reference to confidence and the public interest. In other words, we know that Ministers are very clear that they want a more competitive market. The risk is that we just see students as consumers. Students, and we ourselves, see students as much more than that, and higher education has got a wider purpose.
One way to address the issue would be to knock off what I call some of the hard edges around the general duties of OFS to ensure that there is a wider commitment, which I am convinced Ministers actually have.
Paul Blomfield
Q Can I press a little further on the regulatory framework? I think there is a consensus that we need a new regulatory framework and it is welcome that the Government are bringing forward a Bill to enable us to debate that. The Bill has also been brought forward in the context of trying to change the terrain of higher education and encourage greater diversity of providers. In that context, do you think that the regulatory framework as presented in the Bill is fit for purpose? Are there any risks involved in the proposals before us?
Gordon McKenzie: I think it is broadly fit for purpose. There are risks in some of the detail. Although I know the Government released some further information yesterday evening, which I have still to look at in detail, I do not think the Government are yet saying enough about how they will ensure that the new entrants to the market and sector are high quality.
I do not think the Government are yet convincing about their proposal that some people may be able to have the power to award their own degrees on a probationary basis, because I do not think that the Government have yet answered the question of what happens to the students if the provider fails probation. Who awards their degree? What have they got for their three years?
I think there are elements of the detail that require scrutiny. I do have concerns that at the moment the promised role of the office for students as taking an overview of the sector is not really there or enabled by the Bill. I think those things could be fixed—so it is basically fit for purpose, but with further work.
The Chair
As there are six members of the panel and time is limited, could you give relatively succinct answers? We have other Members who wish to ask questions.
Professor Joy Carter: I echo what Gordon said. For me the risks are in three broad categories. One is speed: are we moving too quickly to give the power to award degrees—the provisional degree-awarding powers and so on? The second category is around university title and the notion that we have already discussed about academic community and public engagement. The third category of risks is about autonomy and the power of the office for students and the power of the Secretary of State in relation to autonomous and successful universities.
Paul Kirkham: I would say that there is greater risk in leaving it as it is and not adjusting this right now. There are significant risks to student and taxpayer of a very static, non-changing universe of providers and way too much emphasis on the three-year, on-campus degree.
The biggest risk for me in the Bill is that it has not properly addressed the issue of student financing. We currently have a student loan system, which is essentially based around a calendar year and predicated primarily on the traditional three-year degree system. Until such time as we have proper reform of the finance system, we will not get proper innovation into the sector. I personally advocate some form of credit-based financing, which will give students much more flexibility, and when combined with more effective credit transfer will also give them much more mobility across the sector.
Pam Tatlow: I simply refer to clause 2, which we think extends the Secretary of State’s powers; we have an explanation around that if the Committee wants a supplementary submission on it. We have particular reservations around OFS being a validator and a provider. In other words, it seems almost to be the validator of last resort. You can’t have it both ways—the OFS being a regulator of the sector as well as a validator and provider. That is a contradiction in terms. We have specific queries around that.
We welcome part 2 on a sharia-compliant loan system, but it does absolutely nothing if you want to deliver accelerated degrees, for example. It is a missed opportunity.
Alex Proudfoot: Briefly, I think the OFS needs to have a power reserved in order to validate degrees because, unfortunately, the current validation system in the UK is so broken. That would not be necessary if the autonomous institutions in the UK that currently validate new provision acted as if they had a public interest in diversifying the landscape of higher education and making new provision available to students. Unfortunately, we find that, quite rightly within their own autonomous priorities and strategies, some institutions draw back from validation, leaving institutions and students high and dry. We see institutions blocking new courses from being validated because they compete with one of their own courses or, indeed, one of their own partner’s courses. Unfortunately, we see a very high cost and very limited transparency in the process across the sector.
We are currently doing some work to try to improve the situation, but it is important that the OFS has this as validation of last resort, as Pam referred to it. If nothing else, it should encourage validating institutions to take their responsibility seriously.
Pam Tatlow: May I come back on that? More than 100 institutions can validate throughout England. If you cannot be validated as an independent provider by one of those, what is the matter with what you are delivering? That is the point. This is not a closed shop.
Alex Proudfoot: In some cases, the matter—
The Chair
Order. Professor Gaskell?
Professor Simon Gaskell: I think the Bill is right and that the fundamental point is establishing a regulatory framework and pre-eminently the register of providers. That is overdue and very welcome. We need to get the entry standards to that register absolutely right because the key risk here is the reputation of the UK higher education sector. It was pointed out in the press earlier this week that the UK is second to the US in two areas of activity: winning Olympic medals and higher education. I think the second is probably more important to the country than the first, but that is a personal view. We risk that at our peril, which is why the detail is so important. The framework is right; the detail is critical.
The Chair
We do not have a university in my constituency, but we do have a gold medal winner.
Ben Howlett (Bath) (Con)
Q One of the key areas of regulation proposed in the Bill obviously relates to participation, and for a long time social mobility has been lacking in many areas of the regulatory system.
I want to unpick a bit, following on from the last question, your views on the Government’s ambitions for improving participation and also the regulatory framework around improving participation.
Professor Simon Gaskell: I speak as head of an institution where two thirds of our students are from ethnic minorities and 89% are from state schools, so I can speak with some authority on this. That of course is a set of achievements of which we are very proud and that have been achieved in the current framework—regulatory and otherwise.
My personal view is that widening participation is not enough. We need to do much more and indeed we are doing more at Queen Mary to ensure that students not only get into university and succeed academically while they are at university but, despite a lack of social capital in many cases, succeed after university. There is a lot to be done and we are doing it in universities. I do not think it needs legislation to enforce it.
We have had encouragement through the Office for Fair Access, which has been entirely aligned with our aspirations as an institution. Other institutions have perhaps needed more encouragement in that direction. Fundamentally, I think some universities at least, including my own, are leading the way in recognising what needs to be done in social mobility. Widening participation is not enough.
Pam Tatlow: We support the Government’s ambitions 101% and we would add that experience to that of board members to be taken into account.
We think clause 9, which deals with some of the participation figures and information, does not go far enough and, in fact, it should discuss some of the protected characteristics. It does not talk about age: one in three higher education students enter university for the first time when they are over 21, often entering modern universities. That must be reflected in the diversity of the sector. We are proud of that and should do more about it and, therefore, I think more could be done on clause 9.
Professor Joy Carter: Widening the market to alternative providers is often good for widening participation students, because many alternative providers focus on WP students and offer products and prices that are particularly attractive to them. That is good.
My concern about the marketplace and the effect on WP is about the work at primary school and the work of individual institutions at primary school. There is a lot of research that says young people are made or broken at that age and lots of universities already do fantastic work with primary-age children. In the new world allowed by the Bill, how much of that will continue?
Paul Kirkham: Obviously we support this ambition. Independent providers are, traditionally, very good at this in the main. Where you have a fee cap of £6,000 you have two choices: either you deliver a different kind of experience or you have to charge cash, up front, to students, which is not exactly a widening participation exercise. In many cases, we are disadvantaged in the work we can do when we would like to do it given that we have that fee cap of £6,000, but we understand the reasons why that is there.
Carol Monaghan
Q The OFS as the regulating body will be funded by subscriptions from higher education institutions. New providers or new entrants, by their nature, will be a higher risk than the more established institutions. Is it right that all institutions pay the same amount of subscriptions or should there be some sort of sliding scale?
Professor Simon Gaskell: Some thought needs to be given to this because you are right, not every institution will require the same degree of scrutiny. You could argue that the most established and most reliable institutions should pay least. To be fair, there is some offset against that, building on my earlier point: we are all concerned with the reputation of the sector and we all have an interest in the sector. I would not suggest an exact proportionality, but some system that takes note that the greatest demands on the OFS will come from the providers who represent the greatest risk seems to me a reasonable principle.
Pam Tatlow: I understand there will be a consultation if this remains in the Bill, but the more general point is that this is a direct switch from funding from what is now the Department for Education to universities and the average would be about £62,000. If you look at the White Paper, it shows that over several years, the bulk of funding for the OFS will come from providers.
Paul Kirkham: To be clear, not all independent providers are new and pose that kind of risk. Many have decades, if not hundreds of years, of experience in provision. My second point is that it should be equitable in terms of the cost. Many of the incumbent universities’ perceived lower risks have been achieved through decades of taxpayer support and I think it would be grossly unfair if a sliding scale were applied on the basis of some form of perceived risk.
Gordon McKenzie: As well as risk, it is also important to take account of a university or a provider’s size and resources.
Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)
Q This is a question specifically for Professor Gaskell. I should begin by declaring that my wife is technically a student at Queen Mary University London.
Professor Simon Gaskell: What does technically mean?
Matt Warman
Technically in the sense that she is on maternity leave, but she is still part of it.
The Universities UK report on sustainability and the future of higher education regulation was recently a tangential part of the Science and Technology Committee’s review of the future provision of skills. How do you feel the Bill addresses the concerns you brought up in that report?
Professor Simon Gaskell: I think I have covered some of those things already, in the sense that we were looking for a simplification of the system—an assurance of equity of treatment of all providers, whether established or new. That led us to propose a tiered register of providers, which would go well beyond the current HEFCE register, which is essentially a list. A key point that was emphasised in the UUK report was that the register has to have very clearly defined entry standards to protect both the reputation of the sector and, crucially, the position of students at less secure institutions. Indeed, it is often overlooked, but we also need to protect the interests of the alumni of those institutions. If you graduate from an institution that lasted for four years and then disappeared in a puff of smoke, you have a degraded qualification.
The need for a register was emphasised so much in the UUK report because all those things add up to the need not to simply try out a new institution, as it were, or give it an opportunity to fail. The failure of an institution is very problematic for students and the general public, and for the locality in which that institution is placed, because institutions often make critical contributions to their locations. To us, all that adds up to the need not only for a register, which the Bill certainly includes, but for a clear indication and a secure prescription of entry standards for that register, in the interests of students, the public and the locations in which universities are based.
The Chair
I am sorry to rush you, but we have nine minutes remaining and four Members want to ask questions. I am going to turn first to Roberta Blackman-Woods, then Valerie Vaz, Roger Mullin and Gordon Marsden. No Government Members have indicated that they want to ask any further questions.
Dr Blackman-Woods
Q In the interests of brevity, I shall push two questions together. As you know, the OFS will have a remit to cover standards as well as quality. Do you foresee any issues that might emerge from that? The Bill also puts in place provisions on market exit. Do you envisage many institutions exiting the market?
Professor Simon Gaskell: There is some apparent confusion in the current wording of the Bill. I believe that some amendments have been suggested to correct this, but the distinction between standards and quality is critical. In higher education parlance, quality refers to the quality of the provision, while standards refers to the achievements of the students who receive that provision. That clarification needs to be made much more clearly. I, and UUK, would argue that standards are the fundamental responsibility of autonomous institutions, whereas quality is something we need to be very much concerned with nationally and as a sector.
The Chair
Q Does any member of the panel have a view that is different from that?
Witnesses indicated dissent.
Valerie Vaz
Q I think the UK leads in the league table of Nobel prize winners, so we need to protect that.
On the split between education and research, do you think there is enough protection for, for example, postgraduates who do some of both? What are your views on the split between the two departments?
Paul Kirkham: I think some consideration should be given to how those two arms of the regulatory system will work together.
Pam Tatlow: We are at risk of forgetting that HEFCE has funded postgraduate students and undertakes the research excellence framework exercise. There are implications for the devolved Administrations as well. There has to be on the face of the Bill a very clear idea of joint working, because some things are not referred to. The section on UKRI very much concentrates on what are currently the research councils. We have to do better on what we think those responsibilities are.
One final thing is that I have no idea why students should not be on the board of UKRI as well. I do not agree with the idea that students have no interest in it. We want not only the great and good scientists there, but people who deliver innovation and who are very engaged.
Gordon McKenzie: I agree with that. There is an opportunity to make it clearer on the face of the Bill that both the office for students and UKRI have a joint responsibility for the sector as a whole.
Valerie Vaz
Q A quick question about clause 2, which is on general duties. Subsection (1)(c) refers to
“the need to promote value for money”.
Do you know what that means and do you think it would help to include a public interest amendment there?
Professor Simon Gaskell: That covers a lot of things. I think universities absolutely do know the value for money. Certainly my finance and investment committee is very keen on value for money and we work on that all the time. In a sense, this addresses a general point—the fiction that the universities do not work in a competitive environment. The current environment is highly competitive. Talk to my colleagues who worked like Trojans a couple of weeks ago on confirmation and clearing—hugely competitive. All this adds up to a very significant current demand for value for money. So, yes, universities do understand what that means.
Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)
Q This is about seeing if we can have new providers in the sector. Mr Proudfoot, what is your assessment of the level of demand for new providers?
Alex Proudfoot: The level of demand is clearly significant because already between 250,000 and 300,000 students are currently studying with alternative providers. I do not foresee a deluge of new providers opening up the day after the Bill passes. At the moment we have 700 institutions in the UK which are not considered part of the mainstream framework. We need to be able to bring them into the mainstream framework and provide effective regulation for the benefit of students and taxpayers and provide information that students can use to make choices between the providers.
I think there will be some new providers interested in coming into the sector and some interesting innovations. Already we have seen in the past few years, for example, large employers starting their own colleges and higher education programmes, simply because they were not finding the graduates they needed to take the jobs they had available. That should be encouraged and the opening of overseas higher education institutions could, of course, be a positive effect.
Professor Joy Carter: Current demand requires an environment where bold, innovative, new higher education flourishes. The Bill allows us to do that, but we have to maintain the reputation of UK higher education and the autonomy which leads to that reputation.
Roger Mullin
Q The way in which discussions about diversity have been confused with the need for new entrants has been very unhelpful. I come from a Scottish tradition where I would say that quality enhancement of existing institutions is the way to create diversity. When I look at the landscape in Scotland with everything from the University of the Highlands and Islands to traditional universities such as Edinburgh and newer universities such as Stirling, there is plenty of diversity through quality enhancement.
Mr Marsden
Q This is a very specific question for Mr Proudfoot, but other colleagues might want to comment briefly. Mr Proudfoot, you have expressed your exasperation with the present system. You must therefore be very pleased that the Government are preparing to give you most of what you want in being able to start off with university-like things from the beginning. Given the issues around security, what extras, representative of those organisations, do you think that alternative providers now need to put into the pot in terms of public interest? Specifically, do you think that issues around size and track record of new providers should be a contingent part of the registration process?
Alex Proudfoot: A great many quality assurance and regulatory burdens are already placed on alternative providers. I think the new system would make that more transparent, clearer and more consistent across the sector. I agree there should be a high bar in quality for new entrants and a very high bar for degree-awarding powers with close monitoring.
Mr Marsden
Q And for track record?
Alex Proudfoot: I think not necessarily track record of higher education delivery. There may be education providers in other parts of the sector who have not had a higher education track record who would be well placed to deliver higher education from day one. There could be overseas institutions that would be well placed to deliver higher education from day one. What we need is a flexible system which has proper monitoring in place but a range of options—
Paul Kirkham: It is very frustrating—my institution has 30 years of history and many have much longer than that. Every institution has to start somewhere. Look at the history of the university sector—look at the history of King’s and UCL, for example, look at the red bricks. Everybody has to start somewhere. I think if a provider is capable of providing something that a student needs and the wider economy needs and the regulatory framework is correct, why should they not?
The Chair
Q Final comment, Miss Tatlow.
Pam Tatlow: The issue here is not that we do not want competition, nor that we cannot accept new entrants into the sector; the issue is on what terms and conditions they are allowed to flourish. That is a real challenge for the Committee as it works through the Bill.
Gordon McKenzie: Briefly, diversity—yes, agree with that. We have suggested an amendment that would help protect the existing diversity including specialist institutions and those founded by the churches.
The Chair
Order. I thank the panel for their attendance and stand them down.
Examination of Witnesses
Sir Alan Langlands, Professor Quintin McKellar, Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz and Mary Curnock Cook gave evidence.
The Chair
We now commence the second witness session of the morning that has to be completed by 11.25 today. It would be helpful if the panel could introduce themselves from left to right.
Sir Alan Langlands: Good morning, my name is Alan Langlands and I am the Vice-Chancellor at the University of Leeds.
Professor Quintin McKellar: Hello, I am Quintin McKellar and I am the Vice-Chancellor at the University of Hertfordshire.
Mary Curnock Cook: Mary Curnock Cook: I am the chief executive of UCAS, the University and Colleges Admissions Service.
Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz: Les Borysiewicz, Vice-Chancellor, University of Cambridge and formerly head of the Medical Research Council.
The Chair
You are very welcome and my colleagues will commence questions, starting with Mr Marsden.
Mr Marsden
Q If I can ask the panel generally—we have already heard in the previous session about issues around Brexit and the impact that that is going to have. Do you think that the Government have taken sufficient cognisance of the issues around Brexit, particularly in terms of research but also in terms of the development of staff in your organisations?
Sir Alan Langlands: I think, given where we are and how we arrived at the vote, Government have responded as quickly as they could to try to reassure particularly the science and research community. That does not mean that all is particularly well, because people are very anxious. Equally, sensible people are aware that there is a much wider discussion going on about trade and the free movement of people that will dictate the final outcome of other issues in relation to Brexit. I think the higher education sector is patient; I am sure its patience will be tested over time—
Mr Marsden
Q The question is whether we have enough time. We are already hearing stories of researchers and people losing grants and things like that.
Sir Alan Langlands: We have had one example of that and I think it needs to be challenged. The discussions that Ministers have had in Brussels have been helpful in essentially saying, “The law is the law, the rules are the rules, and things continue as they are for now,” and it is down to individual universities to make sure that our partners—
Mr Marsden
Q So they are on their own?
Sir Alan Langlands: No, I do not think we are on our own. I think there has been good co-operation across the sector. There have been good discussions in Brussels, as I say, in very difficult circumstances. I think Ministers are doing their best to reassure but patience will wear thin as time goes on, there is no doubt about that.
Professor Quintin McKellar: I think we have the wellbeing of our students at heart and we have a lot of EU students within our university. The Government have responded quickly to give us reassurance regarding those who are currently in train within our universities. The issue for us is what is going to happen in the future, and that is an area of considerable concern for us. As for research, the Government have quickly put in place some helpful reassurances. Again these are short-term, and we need to think about what is going to happen in the longer term with regard to research collaborations across Europe, but in the short term they have done all they could.
Mary Curnock Cook: Only to say that the European student intake this summer seems to have been growing strongly, as in previous years, and that includes some who applied before the referendum vote was known and a few who applied afterwards. It will be important for us to be able to tell applying students in the next few weeks what their fee situation will be for the 2017 intake.
Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz: The University of Cambridge shows the largest number of awards from the European Union of any institution in Europe, let alone the UK. The total financial sum is in the order of £100 million, so the impact is quite significant in financial terms. We are quite confident that we can deal with the assurances that the Government have given in the short term. The problem is the long term. We have not experienced what many institutions have experienced, with people not being asked to continue on grants. In fact, we have continued to attract considerable sums from the EU, even in the current setting. However, there are two major issues: first, students from the EU contemplating coming to UK universities are already looking at the 2017-18 entry. Current assurances only provide entry for those coming in during this year so we will be looking to Government to provide that assurance. The second issue is the nationality issue. 19% of our staff at the University of Cambridge are EU nationals, and those people want to know whether or not they can reside in the UK, bring up their families, and make their future careers in the UK. That is the current impasse that is probably causing more disquiet among staff than any other. Some statement on this would be very helpful.
Mr Marsden
Q Just on that specific point: the issue around EU postgraduates is also important. Would it be helpful if the Government were to make some movement and some flexibility in terms of what those postgraduates themselves could do in this country to contribute locally to the economies?
Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz: I think there are a variety of issues that we are exposing here, and if we are not careful this will open up into a whole debate on the immigration issue and the capacity of individuals to make their future lives and help our economy. I do not want to go there, but for the postgraduate side on the EU, nearly 30% of our postgraduate entry is around the EU or around continental European students. We have to remember that on the postgraduate side, over 60% of students are coming into the UK from overseas, and a further 10% to 15% are coming in from the EU. These issues have to be resolved if we wish to remain internationally competitive.
Mr Marsden
Q May I put one further brief question to the panel? It relates to the new institutions that have been developed and the Bills around research: there has already been concern about the overlap of responsibilities between the new institutions and UKRI—UK Research and Innovation. The devolved Administrations have raised that as well. Is this an issue for the competition between English-only funding and UK funding, and the impact on the UK brand internationally?
Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz: I can only reflect back on my own time in the research councils and therefore the bearing that this has on the matter. There is a long-standing issue, which was identified in the Nurse review, of ensuring that there is an overall view and perspective taken of where the individual siloed research councils actually sit. There is a lot of sense in having a body that will scrutinise, and ensure that we can take a wider purview of the UK R and D effort. By R and D, I do not just mean science and technology. It is just as important for the humanities, bearing in mind that this is a major source of income for humanities research. There is a lot of sense in what is being proposed. The key things are always going to be the key things. How is this managed at an individual and personal level? You must not degrade the authority of individual research councils—you must make sure that those individuals have standing, because they are well recognised by the research community.
The addition of Innovate UK is welcome, because it means that industry and the translation to industry has skin in the game at the very basic level. That is really important, as is the proposal that Research England play a huge part in ensuring that we can sustain credible international competitiveness for the United Kingdom’s very enviable research position. So it looks quite good.
Mark Pawsey
Q Again, I would like to go the general and ask if you would tell us which are the most important parts of the Bill as far as you are concerned, and why the Bill is so important right now.
Professor Quintin McKellar: The Bill is important because we have had such a significant change in higher education over the past 20 years. We now have almost 50% of 19 to 23-year-olds going to university, which is a significant change from the situation that existed previously. Even more fundamental to our students is the fact that they are now paying through their tuition fees for that education, which creates a different relationship between universities and students—you might call them customers as well. That has changed significantly and I think that the Government’s idea to have an office for students that would primarily be interested in student wellbeing and the student experience is a good thing. Clearly, separating it from research presents some challenges; nevertheless, the idea of UKRI bringing together the majority of the research funding bodies within one remit is a good thing as long as the innovative part of that continues to be business-focused. The challenge might be linking the two and ensuring that there is commonality in membership so that the research activities continue to inform our teaching excellence, at undergraduate and postgraduate level.
Mark Pawsey
Q Are you happy with the Bill as it stands on that issue or would you like to see some form of change?
Professor Quintin McKellar: I do not know whether the Bill explicitly suggests that there will be commonality between UKRI and the OFS, but it might be helpful if it did.
The Chair
Does any other panel member wish to respond to Mr Pawsey?
Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz: We are broadly supportive of the recognition that the Government are giving to teaching in particular. That is really good, because for a long time the criticism has been that research gets a disproportionality to teaching. I also particularly like the implicit and explicit recognition of autonomy, as originally proposed by Robbins and Dearing, the fact that diversity in the sector is lauded and also that dual support is for the first time given real recognition for the work it does in supporting the sector.
The problems we see are brought on a little by Brexit and a little by the fact that the remits of research and teaching are now under two different Secretaries of State, so I would be looking for safeguards regarding the unity we were able to get, and in those safeguards I would be particularly looking at PhD students, because all the expertise for ensuring that there is a research environment will sit within the UKRI sector; it does not exist in the OFS sector, yet we note, for example, that higher degrees, which may be largely research-based, are going to sit with the OFS. There are some musts that need to be introduced in the Bill to ensure that there is absolute co-working between UKRI and the OFS in that area.
Sir Alan Langlands: The symbiotic relationship between teaching and research is central, and therefore the office for students and UKRI must collaborate. They need to have equal standing. It is not explicit, of course, but my sense is that UKRI is in the Bill as an independent organisation—a non-departmental public body—to advise Ministers, and the office for students is there to do what Ministers tell it to do. We have to be clear that they have equivalence. For example, the suggestion that was made by, I think, Universities UK, that UKRI provide advice to Ministers show flow to the office for students and be explicit.
My sense is that we have to be clear that the office for students is not just an instrument of Government but is an organisation that is reflecting back to Government the issues and the challenges facing the sector, and that balance has been hugely important since 1992 and has to be sustained.
The Chair
Q Ms Cook, do you wish to add anything?
Mary Curnock Cook: I would just say that from the UCAS point of view what we want to be able to do is make sure that students are very clear about what they are getting when they apply for higher education, what they are paying for through their loans or other means—
Mark Pawsey
Q Does the Bill make that more explicit? If so, does that help students who are applying to your organisation to understand more?
Mary Curnock Cook: I think it does and, in particular for us anyway, the register of providers, which sets out very clearly the status of each provider, is important, because a lot of providers want to be listed on UCAS, because it gives them a sort of credibility, and to be honest some of the providers who apply to us to use UCAS services are quite shocking in terms of how small they are, how parlous their finances are and so on. It will be very helpful for us to have that kind of regulatory support for who comes into the UCAS service.
Dr Blackman-Woods
Q One of the things that the Bill does is open up student data, including individual-level data, to a wider range of people, possibly taking the use of that data outside current research protocols. Do you see that as a problem and something that we should address as a Committee? Also, would it be helpful to have all the data in one place? There are lots of requirements on individual institutions to produce data, but would it be helpful to have all that data available in one place, for example in UCAS?
Mary Curnock Cook: Yes. We broadly welcome clauses 71 and 72, which require UCAS or potentially other organisations like UCAS to share admissions data for research purposes. Indeed, we have recently signed an agreement with the Administrative Data Research Network, and we will make a very large deposit of data going back to 2007, which will be available to researchers under clearly controlled conditions, including that they only have access to de-identified data, but then they can also link it to other administrative data sets.
We have proposed some amendments to the Bill because the Bill gives powers to the Secretary of State to provide those data from us or organisations like us to other parties, and we are very keen that that is done in a way that offers the same protections to students, particularly over their personal data. Some of the amendments that we have put forward suggest that it is made very clear that access to these data is for researchers and particularly only for public benefit.
UCAS is a charity and our trustees are concerned that UCAS should not have a sort of blank check available, such that data requests could be made on us at any time for multiple purposes, which would obviously increase our costs very considerably and those increased costs would inevitably have to be passed on to students and higher education providers.
The Chair
Thank you. Does any other member of the panel wish to respond to those points? I am conscious that we have to get a number of questions in.
Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz: Briefly, the data have a range of granularity and are invariably collected in this sector with a major contextual element. The sector as a whole is keen that where the data are provided, the pure context, which varies from institution to institution, is provided alongside, with a responsibility on the researchers to take into account all the elements. This is not a simple set of numbers merely to make headlines out of; it is something to be very carefully considered.
Sir Alan Langlands: In 2012 I chaired the administrative data taskforce for the Government. The proposals within that were accepted by Government, principally by BIS and the Cabinet Office. If the data, which largely derive from UCAS, are handled properly and within the framework set out in that report, and if UCAS’s suggested amendments to the Bill are made, I think people would be content with that.
Professor Quintin McKellar: Very quickly, I would say that as long as the individual is protected, that is fine. I think, though, that the other point to bear in mind is that the effort of collection ought to be proportionate. In other words, it should be value for money, if I can put it like that, to collect the data.
Ben Howlett
Q I want to find out what your views are on the creation of UKRI, and your thoughts on whether it will bring a greater sense of oversight and more strategic direction as well. Professor McKellar, perhaps you can start off.
Professor Quintin McKellar: I am very comfortable with the creation of UKRI. It seems that bringing together the major funders for what you might call blue- sky research with those that have responsibility for innovation and knowledge transfer is a good thing. What we must reassure ourselves of is that those two different activities are and continue to be funded in an appropriate way. We would want neither the blue-sky research—I am using “blue sky” in a generic sense—nor what might be classified as the business-facing research that is undertaken to be sacrificed at the expense of the other. Provided that we can get those reassurances, putting the whole thing together potentially provides administrative savings and seems a relatively straightforward and sensible way to go.
Ben Howlett
Q Do you agree with that assessment, Professor?
Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz: Yes, overall I would, but one has to remember that of the research funders in the UK, UKRI merely looks after the Government component side of the funding. For instance, 30% of funding sits with the charitable sector. What is important with UKRI, which is fine as is currently laid out, is that the support and the safeguards proposed in relationship to Research England are also very good. It has to be a body that takes into account the whole of the United Kingdom in its purview. It also has to work closely with other funders and other organisations that have a say in this important area, and it has to relate to individual researchers and research communities. It is a very important body, but it has to be born of the community to be able to provide the right guidance and advice that Ministers can call on in making decisions about policy and public direction. It has a role and I think it is a good structure that is proposed.
Ben Howlett
Q Does the legislation as it currently reads enable that to take place?
Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz: In the main, I would read it that it probably does. I would want to see a much tougher line in terms of the postgraduate student and the research environment in which postgraduate students find themselves, because I do not see where in OFS that expertise sits. It sits in UKRI, whose constituent members will after all be funding those postgraduate courses, so it has to have a role in assuring itself that the environment in which that investment is to be made is an appropriate environment for the UK as a whole.
The Chair
Does any other member of the panel wish to comment? Sir Alan.
Sir Alan Langlands: Going back to an earlier point, I think that this depends on very strong personal relationships. The relationships not just between UKRI and the charities, but with industry contacts, other parts of central Government, the Government’s chief scientist, and now, critically, with the EU and other overseas research organisations, are absolutely critical. That comes down to personal relationships.
I can remember a time when all of those different players were falling out with each other. We have now lived through a time, in England and across the UK as a whole, where the science and research community at a national level has really got its act together. We must sustain that into the future, so those relationships will be absolutely critical. To reinforce that point, now, given Brexit, UKRI has a hugely important part to play in promoting and looking after the interests of UK science and research around the world.
Carol Monaghan
Q Following on from that, I am looking at clause 84(2), which appears to give the Secretary of State the authority to add or remove a council from UKRI. Does that concern the panel at all?
The Chair
Does anybody wish to comment?
Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz: It is a very important measure. Clearly, that would be debated in the public context and among the scientific community. The question is, at what level within the Bill would the Secretary of State have to account for that to Parliament? It is a moot point. Also—still speaking as a Welshman—the role of devolved Administrations is important. A lot of investment goes on locally, not just in the devolved Administrations but in the regions, to ensure that the research enterprise can work. How that can all be brought together and, at the same time, have a body that is not so unwieldy that there are 100 members sitting round a table—which means that it can decide nothing—is very important. As my colleague Alan Langlands said, it is very much down to the individuals leading this organisation, who will have to be engaged, inclusive, and listen hard, both to the research community and communities outside the UK, if we are to sustain Britain’s enviable leadership in this area. Let us not forget that that is the real prize that UKRI has to fight for. We are in a fantastic position internationally; despite everything else, we really want to make sure that that is retained.
Carol Monaghan
Q You have answered my second question, namely: is there a requirement to have devolved Administrations represented on the board of UKRI?
Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz: That is an interesting one. If you are going to have a manageable board of 12 individuals—and I note that the Russell Group is proposing that the chair of each of the research councils sits on it, with which Cambridge would not agree—there would be little opportunity for additional input. If you have all four devolved Administrations represented, it tends to load the committee with particular areas. So the choice of members of that committee will be absolutely vital. These will have to be individuals who are broadly respected across the devolved Administrations, the different elements of research across industry and the different players, so that they are genuinely seen to be acting in the interests of UK research and our international positioning, first and foremost.
Professor Quintin McKellar: It is a really good point. The research councils have evolved into the shape they are in over a period of time and that has helped to deliver extraordinary success for the UK. What we would not want to see is any of the particular areas of research activity weakened as a consequence of one of the research councils or the remit of one of the research councils disappearing. As you have heard, that would be debated long and hard before it actually happened. The fact that there is legislative power in the Bill to remove the title of one of the research councils presents a challenge, but one that can be dealt with.
Sir Alan Langlands: I was the vice-chancellor of a Scottish university for nine years. It was absolutely critical that we were part of the UK-wide discussion and that we had access to UK-based charities and the UK research councils. Even given the dynamics of devolution and the fact that essentially we are dealing with four different financial systems and four different policy frameworks, the one thing that has stuck together through all this has been the UK science and research community. The research councils, HEFCE and, indeed, BIS have played a hugely important part in that. It is very precious: the Scottish universities and the universities in Northern Ireland and Wales make a huge contribution to UK research output. Damaging that would be something we do at our peril.
Amanda Milling
Q Good morning. I want to go back to the creation of the single regulatory system. I want to understand how important you think it is, and why—the benefits, but also any points you want to raise in the context of the system.
Sir Alan Langlands: I think it is important, because for some time, through the growth of student numbers, the introduction of higher fees, the creation of the Office for Fair Access and the changing arrangements in relation to quality assurance, everything has been very untidy. Having sat at HEFCE for four and a half years, I would say that it was very difficult when something went wrong—sometimes things did go quite badly wrong in higher education—to find a locus for intervention. There needs to be a bit of sorting out. I think the Government have struck a reasonable balance, and putting students at the centre is sensible, but we need to be careful not to go too far, because the whole system is based on institutional autonomy. We already have a hugely diverse higher education system in this country, and one set of rules does not apply to every institution around the country; many of them have very specialist needs. My sense is that, yes, it is the correct thing to do, but we must be very careful, and I am particularly concerned about some of the changes that might begin to eat away at institutional autonomy.
I have three specifics to mention quickly. The first is clause 2; I really do not understand why the Secretary of State’s guidance need
“in particular, be framed by reference to particular courses”.
Equally, in clauses 13 and 23, which deal with quality and standards, I am not sure that the current definition of “standards” in the Bill sits comfortably with the requirements and the dynamic of an autonomous institution. I would like to see that softened a bit; the Russell Group and others have suggested amendments to that part of the Bill. I hope we are talking about threshold standards, because there are some very clear benchmarks already in place for each subject. It is often a complex area, and we cannot move ourselves into a national curriculum mindset. There still has to be flexibility and innovation in how universities design their own programmes. We also often have to take account of external regulators in the development of professional programmes: regulatory bodies for engineering, for example, or the General Medical Council for the way we design medical education. There are many parts to this jigsaw, and universities are very good at it, in the main. The notion that another body, removed from the action, would somehow second-guess universities on standards and on the quality of their degrees needs attention.
The Chair
Order. I apologise, Sir Alan, but we have very limited time and a number of Members wish to ask questions. Does any other member of the panel wish to respond to Amanda Milling’s points?
Professor Quintin McKellar: I support Sir Alan in what he said, and would say essentially the same things, with one exception—perhaps not an exception, but I emphasise that the Bill looks at too granular a level, in the sense of looking at courses within universities. We develop our own courses according to their popularity and according to the expertise within our institutions. Having the autonomy to develop those courses has helped our institutions become great, if I am allowed to say that, so I think removing it at that level would be a mistake.
Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz: If you remove that ability, you remove the ability of institutions to innovate and to remain at the cutting edge. It is therefore important to retain that right at the autonomous institutional level; it is also right to scrutinise it to make sure that it is appropriately continued. The powers seem a little over the top at times in relation to what is going on, because most institutions could not continue courses that were not financially viable.
Valerie Vaz
Q To touch on the split between research and education—you have made your views clear—is there anything that would help the collaboration between the two parts? Obviously, there is still a big gap about where postgraduates fit between the two. We would like people, rather than having lots of discussions and meetings, to just get on and do their work. This is not a leading question, but is it your view—this is to all of you—that it would be better if it sits in one Department?
Sir Alan Langlands: I think it may well be better if it sits in one Department. There have been instances in the past where the educational activity in higher education has been in one place, and science and research has been in another place, but not since 1992 have the questions of funding for teaching and quality-related funding for research been separated. That would be a big thing, and something that we have to be careful of. The Government are very clear about wanting to protect dual support, and that is welcome. We are dealing not just with quality-related funding for research. At the moment in HEFCE, there is funding related to charity support, support for research degrees, and businesses research and innovation. All those things need to be resolved. It needs to be very clear between UKRI and the Government who is doing what in those areas.
The Chair
Does any other member of the panel wish to comment on that?
Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz: May I just comment—
The Chair
Professor McKellar first.
Professor Quintin McKellar: Can I emphasise that while we have, to some extent, focused on the contribution that research makes to postgraduate teaching, it also makes a huge contribution to undergraduate teaching? We must not forget that. Ensuring that there is an appropriate relationship between UKRI and the office for students is going to be critically important. I cannot answer your question about whether it is important at a departmental level, but certainly at the level of the organisations it is going to be absolutely critical. We have suggested that there be commonality in membership between the two.
Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz: That is the point that I was going to make. If the two Secretaries of State can work together, this can be made to work, but it requires an awful lot of collaborative work between those two versions. Continually scrutinising it is going to be an important issue for Select Committees and other bodies.
Valerie Vaz
Q Briefly, on science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects, there is a great opportunity to put things into this Bill to protect certain subjects. You do not operate on a basis on which you can make a profit on things like that, because all those subjects operate at a deficit. There are laboratory issues that you have to work with, and medicine is a long degree. What can we do that is not already in the Bill to protect those subjects? To the best of your knowledge, how can we protect the strategically important vulnerable subjects—for example, chemistry and physics?
Sir Alan Langlands: We probably should not get into the funding argument, but there is, I think, a funding shortfall in the top-up for STEM subjects, and that should be registered very clearly. I think people are aware of that. You struck an important point in focusing on the health of subjects. That is where the research community and those who oversee it and the education community need to come together. If you want to worry about the health of physics and chemistry, or other subjects, such as foreign languages, in the UK higher education sector, you need to do so from an educational and a research perspective. The two things have to work hand in hand. That is why the office for students and UKRI have to work together. At the moment, HEFCE is able to fulfil that role, but often it does so with reference to the wider research community and the charitable community.
The Chair
Order. I must remind the Committee that five Members have indicated that they wish to ask questions and we have 16 minutes left before I have to call order, so we need brief questions and answers.
Jo Churchill (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)
Q Moving to a slightly different area, do you think the reforms in the Bill will help to drive social mobility and widen participation? I am particularly interested in capturing the more mature people in our workforce to ensure skills are kept up throughout a working life.
Professor Quintin McKellar: We would specifically hope that the Bill might include not only elements that drive competition but those that drive collaboration, because we think that collaborative activity can help us with our widening participation. To give one example, black and minority ethnic students have currently got an attainment disadvantage across the sector and we are working together collaboratively across the sector to try to address that. Without that sort of collaboration—if we were simply competing with each other—it is very difficult. Collaboration is hugely important, particularly in regard to social mobility.
Mary Curnock Cook: While the arrangements for making data from UCAS, for example, available to researchers will not change social mobility in itself, it does open up the opportunity to look specifically at different aspects of social mobility.
Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz: One potential advantage that we must recognise of the move of some of the education and OFS to the Department for Education is that it may well begin to address the continuum of education and the attainment shortfalls that largely reside within the secondary schools. If that promotes greater interaction between the requirements for entry into higher education and a greater understanding of that within secondary education and more cohesion at that level, that could be a real help towards closing the attainment gap of BME students.
Paul Blomfield
Q May I pursue the issue of the regulatory framework a little further? Obviously, this is the first major discussion we have had on this for some time and it is important that we get it right. It is in the context of a Bill that is also seeking to encourage new providers. What thoughts do members of the panel have on how we should get it right and whether there are any ways in which the Bill could be improved in relation to the entry point of the new providers, the overall oversight of the system and the potential for market failure?
Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz: This is a difficult issue. I think the provision of diversity in the sector is something that has stood British higher education well. Different institutions have different goals and directions and cater for different needs for higher education within the sector, from mature students at one end, to vocational courses, to those operating in a very academic sphere.
New providers have to be looked at in the context of what is the positive contribution they can make. Two important issues will be the demand from the sector for this new provision and, secondly, the standards under which those institutions are recognised. From my point of view there is a third which is very important: high standards have to be set for the sustainability of new providers in the sector. It is no good an operation starting with an income stream that is predicated on a business plan of recruitment without a sufficient resource to ensure that those entering in year one will be able to complete their studies and end up with a degree that is actually worth something when facing employers. Otherwise, this is something that becomes not helpful and potentially very detrimental to the achievement and attainment of those individual students. That is the one area on which I would like to see rather more stress paid; the sustainability of the provision by a new provider.
Professor Quintin McKellar: We would support the diversity and competition that new providers would bring to the sector. The concern we have is one that has been raised already: that they cherry-pick subjects. In terms of continuing to provide across the board STEM subjects of engineering, mathematics and so on, it is unlikely that the new providers will enter those areas, and that could be a risk for the rest of us.
Sir Alan Langlands: I think the Bill does try to strike the balance between rigour in relation to new entries and streamlining the system a bit. We have to be careful that we are not driven too much in the direction of streamlining without the rigour. The rigour has to be on quality and standards, access and participation, good governance. Linking to Professor Borysiewicz’s point, it is hugely important that financial sustainability is seen alongside academic sustainability. This has got to be a long-term effort, if you are developing a new universe.
Mary Curnock Cook: Briefly, I would like to echo the points about sustainability, because I think it is absolutely catastrophic for students if their provider is forced to exit the market. A lot of higher education is very local. A lot of students go to university within a few miles of where they live, and there are not necessarily other providers where they could continue their studies if their institution fails.
The only other point I would make is about university title. I do not want to start a debate about “What is a university?”, but I think that most people, their parents, advisers, teachers and everyone else involved has a clear idea about what they think a university is. It would be of concern if students were applying to something that they thought was a university in the general understanding of the issue and found that it was something quite different.
Matt Warman
Q I want to return to the issue of data, but not looking at the social mobility aspect. We know that students struggle to come to sensible decisions in their own eyes about which university to go to. Do you feel the Bill will address the level of data that is available to students to allow them to make better decisions about which universities to go to?
Mary Curnock Cook: Honestly, the more data that are published—whether that is about who goes to university, who does not go to university, what qualifications they go with and their retention and success in their studies, which relates to the transparency clause—the more that organisations like UCAS have a much better opportunity to make that information available and accessible to students. A lot of students and the people who advise them think that they have information overload, because there are so many sources of it in the technological age. It is not as simple as just making more and more information available. The transparency duty and the ability of UCAS to make data available to researchers will be helpful overall.
Matt Warman
Q Would the duty put organisations such as UCAS in a better position to be able to translate the data and see what the worthwhile stuff is that students should perhaps look at first?
Mary Curnock Cook: It does not necessarily put UCAS itself in a better position, because we have most of the data. The critical bit for us is being able to link our data with the Higher Education Statistics Agency, which then allows us to track progress all the way through. We are talking to HESA about doing that so that the transparency goes right through application, retention and success and even to employment afterwards.
Roger Mullin
Q The clear concern is about some of the managerialist assumptions that are built into the Bill. Can the panel help me understand what they think the Bill will do to help their institutions enhance quality development?
The Chair
Any takers?
Sir Alan Langlands: I think having a national system of quality assessment is important and has proved to be important in recent times. It is only as recently as 2014 that the new UK quality code was published. I think it is a good model that works extremely well, within reason. It certainly creates within institutions a clear sense of responsibility for the quality of provision. People sometimes misunderstand the extent and depth at which institutions tackle this issue on a day-to-day basis. I come back to my point about standards. I do not think that interfering further in standards will help UK higher education at all. I think it will just be an extra administrative burden that will take us nowhere. Being content with the current benchmarked approach, as I outlined earlier, would from my point of view be a better way forward.
Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz: In the main, what the Bill does within an institution such as Cambridge is about the broad statements that are made. There is the implication of trust in the autonomy of an institution. There becomes a partnership between the institution and the Government in trying to deliver an end outcome that is done on the basis of trust and not imposition. That is something that is implicit and really important.
Another statement the Bill makes is that diversity is valued. If you have new ideas for new courses and new areas, that is now going to be lauded and supported. That matters. The fact of dual support, and the positioning that those who work in universities will not be subject to an institute-driven direction in research, are an absolute recognition of the fantastic contribution which British universities make to research diversity.
On UKRI, the capacity to establish a voice in some of the major decisions the United Kingdom has to make about capital infrastructure for large-scale projects and programmes, and the capacity to be overtly engaged in some of those debates and discussions, are the take-away areas. Above all else, even in an institution such as Cambridge, we are hearing for the first time that teaching is as important as research. That goes to every higher education institution in this country. There are some very important statements in the Bill in the round, but I think that the specifics will have much less impact.
Wes Streeting
Q Mary Curnock Cook, you said it was important for applicants to know what they should expect when they apply to university. Do you think that that also applies to student finance? What challenges present themselves from the Government or universities being able to tinker with repayment terms and conditions after students have entered university?
Mary Curnock Cook: It does. You are absolutely right. UCAS goes to extraordinary lengths to make sure that students know how they can fund their tuition, and there are pages about this on our website. We are a UK organisation so obviously there are different arrangements in the four countries. It is not for me to comment on the tuition fees going up or down in line with the teaching excellence framework outcomes, but our concern is that we need to get the information early enough in the cycle so that we are able to tell students who are starting to apply for 2017 clearly what they are getting into. Right now—this week—we opened the UCAS application system for 2017. We need to be able to tell students about this so that they are making those choices and those applications with their eyes open. We just want to make sure that, whatever decisions are made, we know about them and we are told early enough to make sure that students make informed decisions.
Wes Streeting
Q Is it right that universities or Government should be able to alter the terms and conditions after a student has enrolled on a course or after they have graduated?
Mary Curnock Cook: I do not think that that is really for me to say, but as I said we are on the receiving end of decisions that are made and do our best to—
Wes Streeting
Q Nicely dodged. We have a few minutes left, so let me ask Professor Borysiewicz why the university council proposed to move in the wrong direction when it came to access and participation targets for low-participation neighbourhoods?
Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz: Sorry, that was based on a series of information from more than 10 years of data collection, and what we thought was a realistic target that was subject to discussion. The universities agreed a 13% target on POLAR—participation of local areas—one and two.
Wes Streeting
Q When the university council made its approach to OFFA, how did the target move from the moment you first engaged with OFFA to the agreement you reached? What was the difference, and how would you characterise that process of discussion?
Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz: There was a productive discussion with OFFA over the issues that they saw as opposed to what the data indicated to us. As always, this was resolved by amicable discussion between OFFA and ourselves.
Mr Marsden
Q Sir Alan, you said earlier that OFS was there to do what Ministers told it to do. I assume that you meant that that was the ministerial view, rather than the OFS view. Do you think that there are sufficient safeguards to the autonomy of the OFS in this legislation, in particular the autonomy of the director of the Office for Fair Access? This is very specific; you have had 20 years at the highest levels in these areas and you know that the devil is in the details.
Sir Alan Langlands: I do think that there may be an issue there which needs to be looked at. I was very clear in saying—and maybe this is born from experience—that the tone seemed to me to suggest that the Government were perhaps going to be more directive in relation to OFS than they were to UKRI. I think that that is fundamentally wrong. The strengths of the financial allocation system and the regulatory system in higher education have depended on HEFCE playing it absolutely fair, and working clearly to the Government’s remit while representing the interests of the service.
The Chair
As there are no further questions, I invite the Whip to move the motion to adjourn.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(David Evennett.)
Higher Education and Research Bill (Second sitting)
Tuesday 6th September 2016
(7 years, 9 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Higher Education and Research Act 2017 View all Higher Education and Research Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 6 September 2016 - (6 Sep 2016)
The Chair
Welcome to our afternoon sitting. We will now hear oral evidence from Which?, the Confederation of British Industry, moneysavingexpert.com, and the chair of the teaching excellence framework panel and vice-chancellor of Sheffield Hallam University.
Would you like to introduce yourselves? The session is quite informal. Colleagues will ask you questions—already about six colleagues have said that they are interested in doing so. Obviously, we have not got a lot of time, so I ask for brief answers. I will leave it to you to decide, as a question is asked, which of you wants to answer it. Would you like to introduce yourselves quickly?
Martin Lewis: I am Martin Lewis, founder of moneysavingexpert.com and former head of the Independent Taskforce on Student Finance Information.
Neil Carberry: I am Neil Carberry. I am director for people and skills at the Confederation of British Industry.
Professor Chris Husbands: I am Chris Husbands. I am Vice-Chancellor at Sheffield Hallam University, and I have been appointed to chair the teaching excellence framework panel.
Pete Moorey: I am Pete Moorey, head of campaigns at Which?
Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)
Q 55 May I say at the beginning of this sitting that it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward?
Let me turn to our colleagues. Can I start you off with a question about the issue of students as consumers? Obviously, the language of the Bill talks, significantly—as the Government have—about boosting the rights of students as consumers, yet the paradox is that, in the past few months, some of the main controversies have been about the way in which students as consumers seem to be getting a raw deal from the Government, who have moved the goalposts in certain areas. With that in mind, would you like to comment, first, on whether the Government are right to put so much emphasis on students as consumers and, secondly, on whether there are practical measures in the Bill that strengthen their position as consumers?
Pete Moorey: I am happy to start. The fact is that universities have been covered by consumer law for some time—that was further confirmed by the passage of the Consumer Rights Act 2015—but the Competition and Markets Authority, partly as a result of research that Which? conducted, has demonstrated that, on occasion, some universities have failed to comply with consumer law. That has gone across a range of issues, including the information that they made available to students, whether prospective or sitting; their terms and conditions; their complaints handling; and a whole range of other issues. We welcome the fact that as a result of the Bill we will have, hopefully, a proper regulatory structure to deal with that issue.
We very much welcome the creation of the office for students. We think that there has been an issue with regulation of this sector. Clearly, we now need to ensure that that regulator works effectively and has the powers to take action because, although we have seen some improvements from universities, in the way that they are complying with consumer law, we are still finding too much evidence from students around problems that they are facing. Therefore, action needs to be taken by regulators when that is found, so that students who are, obviously, now paying an awful lot of money are properly protected.
Martin Lewis: I think that raises lots of things. Students as consumers is a difficult one. It is a difficult to be a consumer where we should not automatically give a good consumer full choice: they should not choose what the make-up of their course is and what the academic standards are. The subtext to this question is the abominable and disgraceful behaviour of the Government in the retrospective hike in student loan fees. Looking at students as consumers, if they had borrowed money from a commercial lender, the Financial Conduct Authority would have struck out in a second the idea that, five years after announcing that the repayment threshold would go up from £21,000 in April 2017 with average earnings, that would be frozen.
Let us make no bones about it: that is a hike for students. They will pay more each month and the vast majority of them will pay more in total. In fact, the only ones who will not pay more in total are the very high-earning ones who will pay off their loans more quickly. There has been a lot of debate about whether the Government actually promised this or not. It was not in the terms and conditions, but the FCA regulations are quite clear: if your major marketing states that you will do something, whether the terms and conditions have an exemption for it—we have seen it with shared appreciation mortgages and others—it will be ruled out.
I am very pleased that last week—which was rather wonderful timing—I finally got my hands on this letter that I would like to submit as evidence, if I may. It is from David Willetts, the former Minister for Universities, and is written to a parent telling them that the rate would go up in April 2017 with average earnings. If I were sitting in another forum I would be here lobbying you, if a company had done this, for mis-selling and for compensation for the students who have been affected. We have a higher education Bill, which touts throughout, and goes on about, equality and fairness. It is built on a lie if the Government and the state itself are not behaving fairly to students.
This is a retrospective hike. It breaks all good principles of good governance. It breaks all good principles of good finance. Moreover, not only that, but this breach of trust makes it more difficult for people like me who have been trying to say to students, regardless of the political spittle generated—forgive me—by you people when you argue over these issues, that students can still afford to go to university. I get asked the question, “Can we trust what you say?” Well, how can they if the Government will retrospectively change terms?
Let us not just treat students as consumers; let us treat them as voters and citizens. The danger here is that, when you retrospectively change terms, when people have signed a contract with the Government and you breach that contract, you knock not only the faith in the student finance system, but the belief in politics as a whole. It is absolutely wrong and until that is sorted out, until student finance is put on statutory terms and until the Minister—who it is nice to see sitting there, and we have discussed this—gets his Government, in this new era of fairness and equality for all, which we hear about, to turn this abomination around, then no, students will not be treated fairly as consumers and this whole thing is a bloody farce.
The Chair
Okay. I will appeal for crisp answers. Are you finished with your question, Gordon?
Mr Marsden
No, I am almost speechless at that strong rhetoric that was used. I would like to press one—
The Chair
One more question—perhaps we will just get one answer to the next question, because there are a number of other people who want to come in.
Mr Marsden
The point that you touched on, Mr Lewis, is about the spirit of the proposals, as well as the letter of the proposals. It is in that spirit that I want to—
The Chair
Gordon, you have the floor for a brisk question and a brisk answer. As time is now galloping on, just one answer from our panel to each question, please—and a crisp answer. You decide between you.
Mr Marsden
Q Thank you, Sir Edward. Moving on from the consumer issue, I want to ask about where the panel sees the role of skills in the Bill. Mr Carberry, you have waxed lyrical on this issue on a number of occasions, but the fact of the matter is that the skills issues that affect us are, I would suggest, relatively untouched in the Bill. Are you concerned by that? Do other people have concerns?
Neil Carberry: You are right to raise it. Clearly, we live in different times from the last time we regulated universities. Participation at higher levels is much higher, and necessarily much higher now. Our key concern regarding skills is, first, making sure that the diversity of our university base is protected through things like the teaching excellence framework, and what it recognises as good provision. To ensure that diversity of provision is encouraged, we would very much like to see more focus on a statutory basis for the promotion of part-time learning, which is something we need to be thinking about, as most of the people who will be in the labour market in 2030 are in the labour market now. Broadly, the approach of the Bill is one that we support.
I will put one other thing on the table, which is around research and engagement with business on the research side. A lot of focus goes into things like the higher education innovation fund and knowledge transfer, which helps businesses to develop their skills and production. We would like to see more focus on knowledge exchange and protection for the Innovate UK role so that that remains business focused and we get some really genuine business engagement out of the new system.
Ben Howlett (Bath) (Con)
Q I want to move on to the alternative provider of student finance, which some of the panel have talked about heavily. Given that, over the years, a large number of religious students are not necessarily able to access that funding, I was wondering in terms of the Bill itself whether you support what is being detailed and outlined here, or is there anything that should be enhanced or improved?
Martin Lewis: Certainly on sharia finance, I think it is a very good move towards having an alternative. The provisions need to make sure that there is no benefit or disbenefit in doing so, and that it works on the same basis as for other students. I think that is important, because having been out there talking to people, there is often a question from non-sharia students, “Does this mean that they’re getting a better deal than us?” We do not want to get involved in that type of social division. On a straight basis, certainly having given many, many talks on this issue over the years, every time I go there and there are members of the Islamic faith there, if they are more religious they are disengaged from the student finance process and looking at parents funding them. That is not often possible, because we are talking about large amounts of money and, generally, it is bad finance for anyone to be funding up front—it does not work with the way our system works. Therefore, they are disfranchised from the system, so I wholeheartedly support it—it is something I have asked for in the past. I need to do more work on the exact structure, but presuming it is a sharia-compliant mimic of the existing system, I think it is very good news.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
Q Since tuition fees were trebled in 2012, there is no evidence to suggest that there has been an improvement in either teaching quality or student satisfaction. Do you have concerns that we are tying in TEF to fees and that we could have a situation where there is no benefit for the students involved?
Professor Chris Husbands: To answer that from a TEF point of view, it is worth putting this into a slightly longer term context. Since 1986, when the research selectivity exercise became the research assessment exercise that became the research excellence framework, there has been a performance management regime around research, which is a critical function of universities but only one function. What that has tended to do at some institutional levels is focus attention on career development through research. The bulk of university income, for virtually all universities, is from teaching. What the TEF is designed to do is provide a framework that encourages universities to focus on teaching quality, in much the same way that the REF has encouraged them to focus on research quality. The fees issue is absolutely critical. What the tripling of fees for students did in 2012 was not to shift the amount of resource going to universities, because the fee backfilled the loss of T-grant. At some point, we as a sector are going to need to look at fee increases, because if there is a fixed fee against rising costs, essentially fees have been falling since 2012. What we are interested in the TEF doing is providing a mechanism for focusing attention on quality at a time when we need to look at the way in which the fee increases to meet rising costs.
Carol Monaghan
Q Are you confident that the metrics used within the TEF are going to tease out that quality?
Professor Chris Husbands: I will take that on two levels. It seems to me that the broad core metrics, which are about teaching quality, learning environment and student outcomes, are absolutely the right places to look in a mass higher education system. There is more work to be done on how you drive that out in terms of precise metrics. We have some indicators in there, largely from existing datasets. My assumption is that, as the TEF develops, pretty much as the REF develops, so the nature of the metrics will develop over time.
Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)
Q If I may step back for a moment, picking a higher education provider is one of the most important decisions any of these younger people—or, indeed, older people—can take. Do you think that students have sufficient information at the moment on which to make such a life-changing decision?
Pete Moorey: No. From our perspective, we think an awful lot has been done over the years to make information more available to students, but we think that a lot more can be done with that. One of the things that Which? does in the university space is provide Which? University: a website that prospective students can use to find the right course for them. That is really important. The critical thing that needs to be done is ensuring that more people and organisations such as Which? have access to a rich dataset, which they can be taking, analysing and presenting to students and parents, so that they can make the right choice. I think that more can be done in the Bill on that. There could be an amendment to clause 59, which could explicitly state that third-party information providers such as Which?—but not just us; there are plenty of other organisations that do it—could have access to this information so that we can make it more readily available to prospective students. Also, the office for students will need to look quite carefully at the range of information that is provided. We have a long list that we would be happy to provide to the Committee around a whole range of information that we think should be made available.
Professor Chris Husbands: May I gloss that with one sentence? I think that the issue is not so much about the range of information available but navigating that information. There is a vast amount of data out there; it is navigating it that is difficult.
Martin Lewis: There is a secondary issue, in that universities do not yet present themselves in the way that one would expect of large corporate entities. I have been to open days where grand professors of a subject have come and spoken to the students. Once some clever students picked up and said, “How many contact hours do you have?” and the professor said, “Actually, I don’t teach undergraduates.” That was the person who was doing the talk on undergraduates, set up to sell. In other categories that would be a mis-sell; I think we have to be careful about that.
If I could go back to the earlier point for a second, I think that the language of the trebling of tuition fees is a rather dangerous one for institutions, because it makes the public perceive they have had three times as much money which, as we all know, is far from true. It was just a shift from the state paying directly to the state giving the burden to the student to pay and to pay back.
There is a bigger point regarding the increase of fees that comes with the ratings up to £9,250. I do not have much of a problem with that, because when you do the maths, only students who start on £35,000 salaries and who have above-inflation pay rises afterwards will pay any more from the increase to £9,250. The rest will not clear within 30 years anyway, so it does not have any increase.
The problem with this whole system—and this is an opportunity for me to say this—is that it is time for all of you to change the name. These are not student loans. They do not work like any other form of loan. They are paid through the payroll. It is somewhere between a loan and a tax, and the fact that we call it a loan scares people from non-traditional university backgrounds from going because they are scared of debt. More so, it also inures students to other forms of debt—credit cards and payday loans—because we have educated them into debt with the student loan.
Other countries call our system the graduate contribution. If I call the system a graduate contribution it is much easier to explain, because that name actually fits the product. When we start to talk about tuition fee rises and we have this hideous language of “You will be £53,000 in debt,” this is a meaningless figure. Some people will pay nothing back while others will pay hundreds of thousands of pounds back, with the interest on top.
It is time to change the name for the benefit of our future generations so they understand what they are getting. Call it a graduate contribution. Of course, some parties are suggesting a graduate tax. It is not that dissimilar, except a graduate contribution stops and a graduate tax does not. This is a good opportunity to start looking at the language.
I know politicians are scared of this, especially those from the parties that introduced it, because they fear it will look like they are trying to spin, but we have a duty to our future generations to start calling the product what it is.
The Chair
Okay Mr Lewis, thank you very much. You have made your point in a very articulate way, but lots of people want to ask questions.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
Q Can I probe Chris a little bit more on the teaching excellence framework? When we conducted an inquiry on the Select Committee into teaching quality, there was uniform agreement that it is good for the Government to focus on teaching excellence, but concern about the metrics. It is welcome that Government thinking has been evolving and did so during the course of our inquiry. You were suggesting there is room for further evolution. I am thinking particularly about how satisfied you are with the pretty crude metrics around employment retention and the national student survey. There is also the balance between the quantitative metrics and qualitative assessment.
Professor Chris Husbands: My brief is to deliver the TEF in a transparent, robust and reliable way. What I said and what I would defend is that the three broad areas—teaching quality, learning environment, student destinations—are absolutely the right place to look. I am also comfortable with the fact that we have started with already existing datasets: essentially, the national student survey and the destination of leavers from higher education. That gives us a purchase on what are some really difficult issues.
My professional judgment is that, as we go forward, we will refine the metrics within those broad indicators. The TEF will work by getting the initial fix on institutional performance from the core metrics. There is then a providers’ submission, which allows providers to draw on a range of quantitative and qualitative data that will allow them to gloss those data or throw further light on them in ways that paint the institutional picture.
I am broadly comfortable that this is a very difficult task that we have started in broadly the right place. As ever in these things, as you take the logic of applying this technically, bringing professional judgment into play, we can deliver this in a way that does what it is intended to do—providing better information for students; encouraging an institutional focus on teaching quality; and drawing all that together in a frame that looks at student outcomes.
Paul Blomfield
Q You mentioned earlier a comparison with the REF. To get to the current stage with the REF took a considerable amount of time. Do you think we are rushing it with the TEF before moving on to stages two and three?
Professor Chris Husbands: At the risk of giving a slightly technical answer, the REF always began with peer review and it has increasingly supplemented that with metrics. Given the range and amount of data we now have across the sector, the TEF is doing this the other way around, starting with metrics and supplementing it with peer judgments.
We have a published timetable. We look at institutional judgment in year 2; judgments that we will reach in the early part of next year. We will then work with the sector to work out how we can most effectively move that to institution level and probably at a slightly later date move that to incorporate postgraduate teaching quality as well. I am broadly comfortable with the timetable, while accepting that these are technically difficult questions.
Paul Blomfield
Q Will you be able to take account of the work that HEFCE is doing on value added?
Professor Chris Husbands: We will certainly be able to take account of the HEFCE learning-gain work. There is some really interesting stuff coming out of that.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
Q I would like to know whether the changes we are making will provide our businesses with more qualified people with the right qualifications to enable our economy to grow. Mr Carberry, is the CBI satisfied that the Bill does that?
Neil Carberry: We are broadly supportive of the Bill. Our members feel that—
Mark Pawsey
Q What else would you like? What is not there that you would like to see?
Neil Carberry: Higher education is a critical part of our industrial strategy. We support the TEF. As Chris has just said, we favour an element of narrative alongside the metrics to allow for acknowledgement of things such as student entrepreneurship and engagement with careers. These are really important things for universities to be thinking of alongside pure teaching and student experience.
I come back to the point I made earlier. We need to make sure that the Bill works for students on all parts of the life span and not just those who go at 18. We need to make sure that the office for students is looking at making sure that part-time and later life learners—
Mark Pawsey
Q Do your members think that once the Bill is implemented, they are more likely to get the kind of graduates that they need than they would have had previously?
Neil Carberry: I think broadly that is the case. We would like to see a move on part-time. We would also like to make sure that the development of the TEF is an inclusive process that includes business throughout its development. As Chris has just said, it is a long path. I think broadly business feels we have got to a very positive place on the REF now. We would like to go in the same direction on this.
Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
Q Returning to the TEF, do you think it is going to raise teaching standards or is it going to provide a mechanism to increase fees? Could we end up with a very complicated system of fees, where the levels are changing from one course to another or from one year to another, leaving quite a difficult situation for students to comprehend?
Professor Chris Husbands: The policy intention is to provide clearer information for students. The question some way down the track—I do not think the sector has begun to think this one through—is whether once you move to discipline level TEF you end up with discipline variability in fees. There is experience on this. If you look at the postgraduate or international market, which are unregulated in terms of fees, there tends not to be, with one or two exceptions, institutional differentiation—intra-institutional differentiation—on fees, so I think that is unlikely.
As I said earlier, at some point, the reality of higher education economics is that we have to have a framework for increasing the fee basis. We cannot be here in 30 or 40 years’ time on £9,000 fees when prices are considerably higher. The challenge for me and the panel is to make sure that as those fees increase, the institutions are appropriately focused on developing and further enhancing teaching quality.
Mr Marsden
Q At the risk of making this a TEF love-in, I would like to pursue a final point with Chris. The elephant in the room on TEF, which has not surfaced today, although it has at many other meetings, not least the meeting of vice-chancellors with the all-party parliamentary group, is the basis on which the TEF is produced. If we go back to the consumer conversations we had earlier, if you were a consumer, you would not just want to know whether chocolate was good or bad for you; you would want to know whether dark chocolate or white chocolate was. This inevitably raises questions about whether you do the test on the basis of disciplines, which would probably be hugely complicated, or perhaps by schools of humanities, et cetera. Have you any thoughts at the moment? Have the Government given you any guidance on where they want you to go with that?
Professor Chris Husbands: I will make three brief points if I may. First, the Government did not need, I suspect, to appoint a serving vice-chancellor to chair the TEF panel. I have taken that as an indication that they want to work with the grain of the sector on this. The second point is that we have said that as we move beyond year 2 and from institution to discipline level we will be working as far as we can to co-design this with sector bodies—with individual institutions, mission groups and the sector. That is very important.
The third thing—I genuinely do not have an answer to this, and as this is a TEF love-in, I am very happy to come back for another one—is this. There are some challenges that we have to negotiate in relation to discipline level, because one of the things that Neil’s members value is the very broad variety of course provision in universities. There is a real danger—I am keenly aware that we have to avoid this—that you produce an assessment regime that leads institutions to make their offering less entrepreneurial and more small-c conservative, whereas what we need to be doing to meet the demand in a very dynamic economy is increasing the diverse provision at discipline level. We have to get that right and we have to work at it. There are a range of ways—I have had some discussions with civil servants about what it might look like, but we are not in a position yet to say what it looks like.
Amanda Milling (Cannock Chase) (Con)
Q I too want to pick up on the subject of the TEF. This question is for Mr Carberry. We talked about metrics at length in the Select Committee. From a business perspective, what is your view of including employability in assessing teaching excellence?
Neil Carberry: One has to approach employability with a certain amount of care, but to me, there are three things that would be a sign that universities were engaging with employability. The first would be that they have a robust careers framework placed around students and focused on destinations—not necessarily coming to one of our members, but maybe doing other things in future, including student entrepreneurship, which really matters.
The second thing would be business engagement. I am thinking back to the other parts of the Bill, on research, where our concern is making sure that the business-focused part of the Higher Education Innovation Fund and Innovate UK is not lost. We want to see that travelling across into the teaching side. Where there is genuine business engagement in courses, we see innovation; we see accelerated courses, which we have not seen since the fees reform. All of that over time ought to encourage businesses as and when they have apprenticeship levy funds—a subject on which I have many opinions. At higher level, the apprenticeship level, it ought to encourage businesses to lean in to work with universities more, to do more engagement.
The third thing—going back to the Wakeham and Shadbolt reviews on some of the science, technology, engineering and maths work—is this: how often are curriculums in universities being refreshed to match up to the needs of, the nature of, UK business and UK society more broadly?
Those things, I think, are good proxies for employability. I would probably also say that measuring students’ employment outcomes six months after they have left university is a little soon; we need a longer view than that.
The Chair
Thank you, gentlemen. That concludes this session. We are very grateful to you and we apologise for the interruption.
Examination of Witnesses
Dame Ruth Silver, Neil Bates, Professor Philip Wilson, Angela Jones and Susie Forbes gave evidence.
The Chair
Welcome to our fourth panel of witnesses. We will now hear oral evidence from the University College of Football Business, Condé Nast College of Fashion and Design, the Further Education Trust for Leadership, and Prospects College of Advanced Technology. Ladies and gentlemen, would you like to introduce yourselves very briefly?
Dame Ruth Silver: I am Ruth Silver. I am co-chair of the Skills Commission with Barry Sheerman, and I am the president of the Further Education Trust for Leadership.
Neil Bates: I am Neil Bates. I am the chief executive and principal of Prospects College of Advanced Technology.
Professor Philip Wilson: I am Philip Wilson. I am the provost and chief executive of UCFB, and also the chair of Independent Higher Education.
Angela Jones: I am Angela Jones. I am the academic director of the Condé Nast College of Fashion and Design.
Susie Forbes: I am Susie Forbes. I am the principal of the Condé Nast College of Fashion and Design.
The Chair
I am afraid that I am bound by a programme motion which is quite rigid in its timings, so I will call for crisp questions and answers. The entire panel does not need to answer every question, so let us have perhaps one person answering each question. We want to try to let in all of my colleagues who want to ask questions. First, Gordon Marsden.
Mr Marsden
Q All the members of the panel are—I will not say not in the mainstream—not in the usual stream of what people think of as higher education. I want to ask two questions to two sides. To witnesses from what might broadly be described as the vocational and further education sector, do you feel that this Bill has enough for you? There has been a lot of talk about alternative providers, but there is not much detail in the Bill about skills or about how FE and vocational education can help with the promotion and expansion of HE.
To our other witnesses from UCFB and Condé Nast college, a further question. You operate at the moment as independent providers in a different field. Some of your fees, not least those of Condé Nast, are fairly eye-watering. How would you feel about your institution and others being brought into the central process, where you might be regulated more than you are at the moment?
Susie Forbes: I can speak for Condé Nast college as its principal. I feel that we are already pretty regulated. Yes, we are operating as an independent, but we have already had to adhere to QAA and all of the other normal bureaucracy that everybody else is facing, so we are already in a highly compliant and regulated industry as part of the HE field. I believe that the idea is to bring in more streamlining and more ease for people such as us, so that we do not have to depend on HEFCE, QAA and everybody else. When we have a tiny team of 10 people it is quite hard to deal with the multiple systems of the HE pattern, so in principle that streamlining and ease of the OFS might help us. I do not get the impression that we are about to get a new fee structure imposed upon us, because we remain a private provider.
Mr Marsden
Q That is perfectly true, but it is also true that one of the aims of the Bill is to widen access and participation. The fees for your school are £27,000 per year. Clearly, at the moment you are probably not in a very good position to do that. If you come into a mainstream system, how will you be able to address that particular aspect of the Bill?
Susie Forbes: The way we do it now is to offer three full, free scholarship places. Out of 100 students that is not a bad proportion. We are also interested in looking at projects beyond the bricks and mortar college in Greek Street, and earlier somebody mentioned the apprenticeship levy. There are all sorts of things that we could do beyond our building. We also only set out to be a very—we give incredible value for money, and that is what all of our students say.
Mr Marsden
It is a very niche offering.
Susie Forbes: It is a very niche, very specialist offering. We sit where we sit.
Angela Jones: There are also economies of scale.
Mr Marsden
Q To be fair, perhaps I should bring in Philip to give us his perspective on that.
Professor Philip Wilson: We very much welcome the new HE Bill opportunity. Again, we are very highly regulated. We proactively subscribed to QAA oversight four years ago, and we are looking to start the TDAP—taught degree awarding powers—process in the next six to 12 months, hopefully with the university title following that. So we are very much conforming to the checks and balances of wider higher education. We charge a £9,000 fee through our validation partner, so any fee changes would be in line with any public provider.
Dame Ruth Silver: There is lots to welcome in the Bill in relation to further education colleges. Neil and I represent the college sector and the independent sector. The college sector, of course, has its roots in Victorian mechanics’ institutes, so we have long been around in this field. The Bill does much to lift lots of parts of the college sector.
I welcome the plans for regulation, though I am concerned about its fairness, both in terms of costs and data. If we look at the numbers of what is going on in colleges, 220 colleges offer HE provision, and 70 of those have more than 500 learners, but a lot have much smaller groups of learners, and for them to be paying the same fee as everybody else is really prohibitive. So, fairer regulation that is fit for size, context and purpose is what we are looking for in the FE sector.
Neil Bates: We are the first new college of advanced technology to be established since the Further and Higher Education Act 1992. We have been established to try to address a fundamental problem within the skills system, because we think there is a fundamental faultline that runs through it. On the one hand it unhelpfully channels people between an academic and vocational route, while equally a significant skills gap exists, particularly at technical professional levels 3, 4 and 5, which we need to solve. The UK economy is not going to be globally competitive unless we have people with the right skills to respond to that challenge.
We approach this not just from the point of view of the student, but from the problem we are trying to solve, which is that, in the engineering sector alone, we need 80,000 new technicians at levels 3, 4 and 5 in order to support businesses. The faultline has occurred because, after the 1992 Act, polytechnics became universities and a whole gap opened in HNC and HND level of provision. Further education colleges saw part-time participation in HE decline dramatically and the consequence is a gap between apprenticeships that are high volume and low level and an HE system that is high level but remote from the needs of business.
Mr Marsden
Q But what do you see in the Bill that is actually going to change that? Is there much read-across from the Bill and, for example, some of the proposals from the Sainsbury review? When you look at the forecasts in the technical documents that go with it, the number of FE colleges that are guesstimated to be providing HE courses in 10 years’ time is more or less exactly the same as at the moment. The concerns of many people are that this is a Bill that is predicated for alternative providers, but the FE sector does not really seem to be at the table.
Dame Ruth Silver: I have been both surprised and shocked at two things: first, the lack of mention of skills generally in the Bill, and secondly, the lack of knowledge or appreciation of what colleges do. To give some figures, 10% of HE graduates in 2014-15 came through colleges—180,000 learners every year. Those learners are different from the traditional, rather “boarding school” model of universities. They are part-time working while they have families, they are women returners and so on. Colleges widen access in crucial areas and areas where there is a cold place for communities. They are local, they are everywhere, and they are actually well used to the coming challenges, too. Neil talked about the polytechnics, which came from colleges of advanced technology, but the CATs came from technical colleges, so we have a long tradition of moving in, challenging and enriching the spread and fairness of offer to all in our communities, especially those in cold spots.
We are nearly ready. Look at the number of colleges that award higher education qualifications. I am hoping you will look, too, at thinking further about colleges having degree-awarding powers as well, again fitting employers’ and local community needs. This could be rather like the Olympic legacy planning. Start early and work with local communities; bring them in and bring them on. Go downstream and give people a fairer chance in the way that local colleges and local training providers can.
Amanda Milling
Q Good afternoon. I want to take a slight step back. Could you outline some of the barriers and challenges that new providers face in entering the market? How do you feel the Bill and the reforms will address these?
Angela Jones: We have just been through the whole process of finding a validating partner for our degree, and it was really difficult. There was no one place to go. There was no guidance. It was just a case of trying a few different bodies and trying to find some place that would support us. There was nothing central—no one that you could go to and say, “This is what we are looking to do. Can you advise us and help us through that process?” For us, the idea of an office for students in a central place to go and be supported through that process is very helpful.
We got a very different response from different universities. We started our own piece of research into the places that would suit us. We shortlisted five different universities that might work with us on the validation of our BA, and the responses that we received were wildly different. Some people just did not want anything to do with us; with some people we could not even find the information, despite them doing it as part of their business. Finding the partner initially was the biggest challenge. Anything that can address that for alternative providers is very important.
Professor Philip Wilson: We have been through the same process with finding a validation partner. The fees quoted by vice-chancellors for a validation partnership are very different. Because these agreements are often for a four to five-year period, business planning in the long term, particularly around capital expenditure on buildings, staff recruitment and staff planning, is very difficult. It almost encourages a shorter-term view of your business strategy, rather than something longer term. I totally agree about having a centralised place where there could be a list of universities that would be prepared to enter the validation market. That has become more difficult since the student number controls came off, because universities do not necessarily need the income. We have seen a number of institutions pull the ladder up from colleges on validation powers with pretty much no notice, which has caused a number of issues—it filters down to the students and causes disruption.
Neil Bates: Can I pick up on Gordon’s question? We as an organisation provide a whole range of high-level HE provision, but it is all delivered in the workplace context. All of our students on HNCs, HNDs or indeed our new degree apprenticeship in embedded electronics are employed by the businesses we work with. Our relationship with those businesses is extremely close. We support them in all their workforce development. We will be applying to have our own awarding powers because of our concern about the ability and capacity of universities to deliver degree-level programmes in a workplace context.
We spoke to two universities about our degree apprenticeship. One wanted to deliver it over six years and the other wanted to deliver it over four years. All of them wanted the apprentices to spend a whole year at the university, which is not what businesses want. Businesses want a responsive way of training their workforce up to degree level, and universities either have to become much more flexible and much more responsive or they are going to face competition from other organisations that are prepared to do that.
Ben Howlett
Q One question that came up a number of times earlier today is about social mobility. We often hear in the media that we should be focusing on the red brick and Russell Group universities. We hear a lot about that, but obviously organisations and institutions in the same sectors as your own have a responsibility to do that, too. What I would like to hear, further to your reading and understanding of the Bill, is how that is going to be enhanced within your sectors as a result of this Bill being introduced.
Neil Bates: One of the ways that is enhanced is that colleges are much more responsive to their local communities and much clearer about the needs of the local community and those areas of disadvantage. In our own college, 53% of our students come from disadvantaged areas, and we target those areas deliberately to try to encourage mobility.
The other issue is that if someone comes to us and does an advanced apprenticeship over four years and then goes on and does an HNC, they are earning from day one. On one of our advanced rail apprenticeships, they are earning £18,500 in year one; they are earning £40,000 by the end of a four-year apprenticeship; they have no debt, and they have four years of employment experience. That makes it much more accessible for young people to follow a higher education route without having to take on debt, live away and all of that. It is a much more responsive approach to linking the needs of individuals to those of the economy.
Dame Ruth Silver: The FE colleges, of course, have the long tradition of the dual mission: widening participation into education and widening participation onwards into economic life. Doing that at a local level, and with local employers, we offer part-time short courses and full-time courses flexibly to people who have needs other than learning needs—social needs and support for care. Colleges too are closely linked to employers in order to enable links for job offers. You will find employer days in colleges: employers coming down to offer opportunities to people.
The benefits of colleges are that we are local, we are everywhere, and we do evening classes, part-time classes, weekend classes and short courses. We are responsive and offer a variety of entry points.
Ben Howlett
Q I am glad you are but social mobility is not just about socio-economic factors; it is also around the public sector equality duty. In terms of BME for example, and in relation to women within STEM as a prime example of under-representation, do you see this Bill presenting new opportunities to enable greater participation in other areas, not just in socio-economic terms?
Dame Ruth Silver: I think it is what I meant when I talked about cold spots. My own college was in downtown Deptford and we had a high percentage of all that you mentioned and a long tradition of engineering and construction down in docklands as well. It opened up all sorts of opportunities: good relationships with universities and with local authorities, for example, made movement and change much more available. Also working with people in work, with employers—a different stage from Neil—we were able to work out special compact programmes as the area needed, and as people like the planning authorities decided. That flexibility and the fact that most of the members of staff there—and I am concerned about how you get staff ready for this increased participation in vocational education—of course, had come through the vocational route and its strong contacts.
Ben Howlett
Any comments from anyone else?
Neil Bates: I just wanted to pick up on the gender issue as it is a real issue. We always start by asking, “What is the problem that we are trying to solve?” As a practical example, in the rail industry there is a huge shortage of technician engineers, partly the result of having an ageing workforce that is about to retire without the investment in training over the last decade, and they are finding it extremely difficult. Yet at the same time there are no more women working in the rail industry than there were at the end of the first world war: only 4% of women are technician engineers. We need to be saying to employers, “You’ve got to play your part. There is 50% of the workforce that you are largely ignoring.” We can do some of that work in producing those pathways for young women to go through into that industry because we are connected to the local economy.
Professor Philip Wilson: One thing that alternative providers do very well is the recruitment of students from a very wide, diverse background. It is not death by UCAS points, because we are smaller. To judge an 18-year-old on 16 hours—which is eight exams on four A levels—is short-sighted, because they have been on the planet for 18 years, and we look at people with a holistic approach. In the same way, if you apply for a job your degree or your postgraduate qualification gets you in through the door but you are employed based on who you are as an individual, and that is what employers look for.
We do very well on that: we have got 94% employability for our graduates. On the day of graduation last year, 90% of our graduates already had a job. That is because we recruit people who are suitable for the industry because we ask the industry and then fold that back into the way we recruit the students, so we work on being work ready for day one. That encourages people from very diverse backgrounds.
I would probably also touch on the reporting of the ranking of how institutions are perceived. Take what is called “good honours”—first class degrees and 2:1 degrees. If we are going to look at wider participation, then the dichotomy is that we get clobbered at the other end by having students with lots of 2:1s, 2:2s and thirds. For me, the impact on an institution is: what does that institution do for a young person for three years in their building? If you have a good public institution that recruits people with straight As and they all go through an automatic path and get first class degrees, where is the impact? If you get students from a wider participation background and they get a 2:2, that could be the absolute pinnacle of their academic achievement, and will change their life. So the way that educational success is understood needs to be examined at the other end of the process.
Paul Blomfield
Q You made a very powerful point, and contributed to the discussion that we have been having around the TEF and its metrics. I wanted to raise a different point which is around part-time students, because whatever the other impacts of the 2012 changes to fees and student funding, which we could debate, the consequences for part-time students have been devastating—I think everybody agrees on that. Do you see anything in the Bill that addresses that issue?
Dame Ruth Silver: It depends on who else you let into the sector. The Bill is predicated on a very traditional model of HE. It is not systematic or systemic reform. So bringing in new providers, particularly colleges, is quite important. It is easier for FE students locally to manage some of the costs. There is quite a gap to be caught up with since 2012, and it has been difficult for part-timers to do this. Full-timers are much easier to serve. So there is a real catch-up there, but this notion of “local is easier, flexible is easier, part-time is easier” will, on the whole, happen in non-traditional HE.
Neil Bates: I do not have the exact figures, but if you looked at participation at levels 4 and 5 in FE some 10 years ago, you would have seen large numbers of people who were in work, coming into their FE colleges in the evenings, attending twilight sessions to get their HNCs and HNDs and so on. That whole system evaporated as colleges were driven towards full-time students and away from workforce training. We are living with the consequences of that now.
Dame Ruth Silver: May I comment on the disconnect between the skills world and the reforms going on there? There are 3 million apprentices to be trained: those are high-level, in great part. The Institute for Apprenticeships is about to start as well. That is not connected to this. It is a traditional model but it is also a very closed system of higher education, and it is in the other areas where you find a more flexible, responsive curriculum on offer. That responsiveness is key to dealing with the long problem we have had here relating to technicians in the economy and also high-level skills qualifications.
Dr Blackman-Woods
Q I wonder if it is entirely accurate to categorise universities as boarding schools, having no links with business and not having employability as part of their agenda. The picture of HE is actually quite diverse, and that is creating a bit of a problem for the TEF. I wonder whether some of the issues that you are raising could be addressed by making employability, for example, central to the TEF.
Dame Ruth Silver: It depends which part of the UK you look at. I know you have got colleagues coming from Scotland where the third highest number of graduates come through the FE sector and come through a relationship jointly with universities called articulation at high-level skills qualifications. Wales is different as well. It varies; there are national variations in what is going on.
What has happened with all the reforms in universities is that today it is easier to take more and more bachelor degree, full-time younger people. There is an impact. It depends where you are looking for impact. I am very focused on access and social mobility and those are the things that universities are not strong at, certainly in England. They are very closely connected to employers in postgraduate roles and in research.
Mark Pawsey
Q I want to ask the representatives of the independent sector here today how representative are you of the sector? How much bigger could the independent sector be once the Bill is enacted? Are you the tip of the iceberg, or are you just going to be able to grow a little bigger and do a little bit more than you used to be able to do?
Professor Philip Wilson: The majority of the independent sector are specialist in a narrow field, in which case there is a glass ceiling of how many people want to work in a certain industry, whether it be in the arts or within our degree portfolio. I think there will be a natural point where, because employability will be everything, we as an institution have to be very careful of market saturation.
We have actually self-imposed a cap for the number of students we will take in the UK because of that. The majority of the independent sector have no ambition to become the University of Manchester with 30,000 students. With an independent HE hat on, anyone who says different to that is maybe not representative of what the independent sector feels.
Mark Pawsey
Q Why is this Bill so important to you?
Professor Philip Wilson: It is about a level playing field, absolutely. We want to be considered and judged and monitored the same as everybody else. That then leads through to more informed student choice. I get frustrated at open days talking to parents who spend more time researching their summer holiday on TripAdvisor and look for more information than they will do on their university of choice. We need to educate the parents and the families on how they choose their institutions. It is not just based on longevity—how long an institution has been around.
Angela Jones: For us it is about a change in emphasis away from research and into teaching quality and excellence because that is what we do and do well. We are providing an excellent environment for students to learn in and that is our focus. Higher education has always traditionally been judged on research output. If we are being judged against people based on research output, essentially we have to compete on a different level and the TEF is better.
Professor Philip Wilson: I also think the QAA need to expand and broaden their assessment when they come into an institution. We have had some very successful QAA reviews but when they do not actually go into a classroom it beggars belief—I just do not get it, because that is what the student interaction point is; that is where the customer service interaction is. I really would support the QAA getting into the classroom, sitting at the back of the room and understanding what the teaching quality is like, so that students are not having PhD students doing the majority of their teaching. Institutions must be held to account of qualified people standing at the front of every room.
Mr Marsden
Q Both our colleagues from the FE sector have laid stress on the way that higher degrees can be delivered through very strong local connectivity. To be fair to the Government, the Government have banged on in the Bill all the time about higher skills but there are issues at the moment, I would suggest, around the implications of Brexit for funding. The figure that I had from the Government just before the referendum was in the region of £725 million of ESF funding.
We have heard from colleagues this morning about the support that the Government are giving to the university sector in terms of research. Are you concerned that a lot of that money that fuels the sort of work that you do will go west if there is not a renewed effort on that part by the Government?
Dame Ruth Silver: It is a growing concern certainly in colleges, where European social funds come through local authorities and through universities. A lot of partnership work is funded by that, so it is a great concern. What will be removed would be those new initiatives that seem to have an impact on bringing people in, dealing with individuals but helping employers as well. Diversity of employers in Lewisham has certainly been helped by that. It is the loss of the layer below that will infect and affect progression for those communities. There is a concern that that money will be lost at the same time.
Mr Marsden
Q So you are looking for similar guarantees to the ones that the HE sector and universities have had?
Dame Ruth Silver: Absolutely.
Neil Bates: I would like to link this back to the previous question on why we are interested in offering degrees in our own right. Part of the answer to that is that we are not much interested in providing a traditional degree like the universities. We are not trying to compete with universities like that. We are trying to create a legitimate pathway for young people who do not want to go down the A-level, university and degree route, but who want to get their professional development, high-level skills and degree through a work-based route. Frankly, we are better positioned to be able to provide that kind of experience, through the College of Advanced Technology, than many universities are.
In our experience, the universities’ default position has been to go back to the traditional model and to offer that as the diet for people who want to do a degree. We are looking to do this in a different way. There is a mile of difference between the funding of a university compared with the funding available in FE. One of the real challenges for us is levelling that a bit so that we can actually provide the quality of experience that they would expect.
Dr Blackman-Woods
Q We have heard quite a lot already about a level playing field. For the independent sector, it is generally about regulation. Do you think that we should look at a level playing field in other ways? If a student goes to university, they have access to a whole range of cultural and sporting activities, they have intensive student support and they can exchange with other universities. Should not that be a set of demands that we also place on the independent sector?
Angela Jones: I think they are getting something different, and that is the point. We do not do what big universities do. They come to us because they do not want to go to a big university. We can give them other experiences and arrange for other things for them to do that our small numbers allow, but our small numbers do not allow us, for example, to have whole departments to support student activities such as sports clubs and things like that. We do everything that we can to provide access to those things or point our students in the right direction. We have a really particular set of students and that is not why they come to us. They do not want those things from us. They have a different set of expectations and demands.
Dr Blackman-Woods
Q So is it not right then that you remain outside the main university sector and you are never categorised as that, and that it is clear to the students that, although they may be getting specialist education, it is not the same as getting university education?
Angela Jones: I would not go so far as to see it that way. They are still getting a university education in the sense that they are getting a degree and a really high standard of education in the classroom. It is the extra-curricular things that are different.
Professor Philip Wilson: I would agree but also disagree. Purely from a UCFB perspective, we provide all those additional services for students. We have very successful teams—male and female—in football leagues and other sporting areas. A degree means different things to different people. Some people just want to get a piece of A4 with the word “degree” on it. Some people want to have the specialist vocational experience and knowledge, particularly in the arts and music sector. For other people, it is about growing as a human being.
When I speak to parents at graduation, they do not talk about the great lecture their son or daughter had on gearing in their finance degree in year 2. It is more about how they have grown up as an individual, so our enrichment is different. I have created what we call the complementary curriculum, which runs parallel to the academic curriculum and is a three-year journey of personal and professional development. We give our students double the contact time of a traditional institution. That includes everything from essentials of public speaking certificates to food and wine appreciation—if you are in the business world, you need to understand those softer skills—media training and so on.
We try to create an all-round, holistic human being, not purely get people through to pass exams. This brings up the point that we are representative of the same sector and we would be in the same bit of the Venn diagram, so to speak, yet we have differences.
Susie Forbes: I would like to add something. The word “eye-watering” was used about our fees earlier. When we have open days, people have a choice. No one is sending them to our college with a big stick, saying, “You must pay £27,000 a year and go to that one.” They choose us, and all of the things we are talking about are the reasons why.
Mr Marsden
With respect, the point is that that is the classic definition of the freedom to dine at the Ritz.
The Chair
I am afraid that is going to have to be the last answer.
Dame Ruth Silver: May I make a point? I think that the non-traditional sector needs to be represented at the Office for Students and the quality assurance committee. The Education Committee must scrutinise the student experience—not just the culture, but learning support for learners who may struggle in a different flexibility.
The Chair
Thank you very much for your evidence, ladies and gentlemen.
Examination of Witnesses
Sally Hunt, Professor Les Ebdon and Alison Goddard gave evidence.
The Chair
Q We will now hear oral evidence from the University and College Union, the editor of HE and the Office for Fair Access. Perhaps you could kindly introduce yourselves. Remember that the acoustics in this room are not very good and you are not necessarily talking to the person asking you the question, who might be quite close to you; you are also talking to someone 10 rows behind you and, more importantly, to me. I want to hear every word you say.
Alison Goddard: I am Alison Goddard. I am a journalist who has been reporting on higher education and research for the past 20 years.
Professor Les Ebdon: I am Les Ebdon. I am the Director of Fair Access to Higher Education.
Sally Hunt: I am Sally Hunt, the general secretary of the University and College Union.
Mr Marsden
Q Yes, if I may. We have heard this morning some spirited conversation from witnesses about the extent to which this is a Bill for students, the issue of representation and the office for students, for example, as part of that process. I wonder whether I could ask the witnesses to look more broadly than simply the issues in terms of students, and to look at all the people who make HE institutions tick. Obviously, that includes students, and it also includes big issues around the extent to which, for example, the director of fair access at OFFA is empowered more in this Bill than he or she is at present. To start us off, does the Bill do enough to put students more in the driving seat? Does it do enough for the people who work in our HE institutions?
Sally Hunt: I will start, and please tell me if I have not got the volume right, because I agree—I was finding it very difficult to hear at the back. Does this put students in the driving seat? I think that what it actually does is turn the whole debate on where students sit within the university system and the degree awarding system—be that within universities, further education or others—into a debate on the level of fees and on the relationship being one of customer and provider. Rather than empowering them, that actually gives them quite a strange set of tests—if I may put it that way—by which they are meant to judge the whole system, which, I acknowledge up front, is complex, can be intimidating and can sometimes be quite opaque.
What I think would be helpful, in response to the more general point you are making, Gordon, is that, if we are looking through this Bill to improve student experience, employability and quality—all of which I would tick the box on for the people I represent, in very strong terms—what we have to say is, how does the Bill actually do that? Does it actually make it a better experience for students, or is it simply a case of fulfilling a manifesto commitment? Is this a case of reinventing the wheel in terms of how we justify and explain increased fees for students? Is this a way by which we are going to open the door for different providers to come in to a sector that is already under great strain? That is the question that has to be answered straightaway, because unless you can actually show that the student is going to come away better as a result of the Bill—and I really question that—I do not know why we are at this point anyway. I think we ought to ask that question before we get into anything else.
Professor Les Ebdon: In a sense, I have a role not only to protect the interests of current students but to protect the interests of potential students and the opportunity for those with talent, wherever they come from, to get to university. I welcome the Bill, in the sense that fair access and participation will have the possibility of permeating all the activity of the office for students. I am fond of saying that universities that are successful at fair access have embodied that in the totality of their strategy. There is the opportunity in this legislation to do that for potential students to make a significant stride in social mobility and towards a fairer society.
The concern that I would have is around whether it actually gives more power to the director of fair access or not. At the moment, the director of fair access has the sole authority for deciding whether an access plan is sufficient and universities have done what is sufficient to promote and safeguard the interests of students. I know there would be a number of universities that, if they had somebody else—another chief executive above me—to go to, would take my decision to them, because they argue long and hard with me about the decisions I make.
Mr Marsden
Q Are you concerned that the specific and technical nature of the clauses that have been put in regarding where you sit in relation to the OFS and the Secretary of State do not give that clarity at the moment?
Professor Les Ebdon: I am concerned that there should be clarity in those clauses to make it clear that the responsibility, particularly for deciding on an access plan and approving it, should rest with the director for fair access and participation. There should be absolute clarity about the responsibility. The expression used in the Bill at the moment is “report”; I understand from lawyers that a report is a narrative exercise and the report could describe a good or a bad situation. I want to see words like “responsibility” and “accountable for” in there.
When it comes to the delegation of authority, as far as access and participation are concerned, that should be exclusively delegated to the director for access and participation, so that there is clarity about that particular role—and indeed, a greater power there—and the progress that we have made in recent years through OFFA can be sustained and, indeed, we can make further and faster progress.
Alison Goddard: I come to this as an observer, rather than a player in the higher education game. I applaud the aim of the Bill in putting students at the heart of the system; however, I have concerns that it will fail to do so. I have concerns especially about the funding of the office for students. It strikes me as being much more of an office for higher education. At the moment, it is funded almost entirely by universities. There may be some role for Government funding. If the office for students is to regulate properly the university system, it cannot be funded by those universities themselves.
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
Q I want to pick up on some points that you have made. I have not got the feel of a definitive answer from any of you as to whether the Bill puts students at its heart. Professor Ebdon, you have been doing the job around fair access. My view is that students think they are paying £27,000 net for higher education, and yet they are receiving bills for £45,000, which comes as a great shock to them. Also, I cannot see anything about lifelong learning here—the value of education throughout one’s life. Could you be a bit more definitive about whether you think this is a good, necessary Bill and whether it fulfils the function of putting students at the heart of it?
Professor Les Ebdon: The Bill is not fundamentally about funding the system and that is not my responsibility. Parliament decides on the level of fees and I believe you may soon have a vote on that matter. I am concerned that we continue to make progress in fair access so that people from all parts of the country, all groups, can get to university.
We have seen a 65% increase in the numbers of students from the most disadvantaged communities in our universities since 2006, in the first 10 years of access agreements. The entry rate has gone up by some 65% for the most disadvantaged 20%. I want to see us building on that and increasing that dimension and I think that we can do that. We have found in access agreements a way of doing that. Incidentally, the application rate is up by 76%. If we could turn that increase in application rate into an increase in acceptances, we would be doing even better.
Valerie Vaz
Q I sometimes get responses like this from the Minister, who says lots of people are doing it, but if you drill down into the figures, that is not quite what I was asking you. I was asking, is the Bill necessary, does it put students at its heart, and does it address the issue of lifelong learning? After all, that is what education is about. We do not just do it at university, we go on—for example, the diversity, the part-time learning, that kind of thing. I do not want to deal with Brexit that much, but there is a change. We also have a change in the machinery of government. Are all those issues really addressed in the Bill?
Alison Goddard: My answer to that question is no, but that is at least in part because it is a very difficult thing to do. When you try to put students at the heart of the system, your first question is, what do we mean by students? We heard from the previous panel how parents very much value the way in which children grow up at university. The person who arrives is not the person who leaves at the end. You have the elements of lifelong learning.
I would say the Bill does not take on lifelong learning and it really cannot put students right at the heart of the system, not least because students are evolving the whole time, they are a diverse bunch of people and the institutions at the heart of this are the universities, which are ancient institutions that have a very strong track record of providing high-quality, world-class higher education and research. So, at present, the university is very much in the driving seat.
Sally Hunt: My answer is no, I do not think the Bill is going to address the points you have made, Valerie. Although you said that you do not want to explore in depth the issues surrounding Brexit, the changes in where higher education and further education in particular sit within the government function mean you really do have to think about that because the timelines that we are talking about with the Bill are exact when you look at the timelines that you are talking about with the implementation of the Brexit vote. That is just reality. The reality is also that, as a result of that, we have a system that, while having to perform at a very high level and maintain the high quality that we expect of it through the work it does, is going to be put under severe pressure. So I think there is an issue there. I put that in the UCU submission and I would ask you to reflect on that.
Does the Bill put students at the heart of it? Every single measure I have ever heard from any Government has always said that students are at the heart of it. That, again, is fact. It is also rather sad that, if we are talking about this issue, we do not have the National Union of Students giving evidence to you in some way, shape or form because I think it has a view that reflects the student body. The NUS is not here. I am, and I represent the people who teach students and undertake research with them. What I think this does is introduce a further justification for higher fees. What I think this does is introduce a rationale for extending the system and access to public funds for profit. What I think this does is introduce a further complication to quality through TEF, which is not necessarily going to hit the nail. Since those seem to be the key pointers in the Bill, I do not see that it actually addresses what it should be doing, which is, what is the great experience that every student should have at university? That is about the teacher and the students in the lecture hall, in the seminar or in the one-to-one interaction that they should have. That is something that does not need this Bill, but it does need a lot of discussion and a lot of thought about what actually drives that and makes it better.
Alex Chalk
Q May I ask about social mobility? Professor Ebdon, you rightly said that since 2006 there had been a 65% increase. This Bill contains a number of provisions requiring providers to publish more information about all sorts of metrics. Do you think it provides the architecture for us to move to the next phase of improving social mobility between now and the end of this decade?
Professor Les Ebdon: With the amendments that you should make to ensure that you properly empower the director of access and participation, I think the Bill can make a contribution. Of course it will be backed by a number of regulations, which I hope will reflect a recognition that postgraduate education represents almost a double glazed glass ceiling these days. We have made good progress on access at undergraduate level, but we need to make progress at postgraduate level. How can we do that? Perhaps there is an opportunity in this legislation to make progress on postgraduate education. If we really want this concept of social mobility to permeate the OFS, we should make it one of the criteria for appointment of the board. Strangely it has dropped out, but I think it should be one of the criteria so that people focus on it. It would also help to have an annual report to Parliament on progress, as we do at the moment.
Dr Blackman-Woods
Q I want to return to the student issue. The sell of this Bill, and I am sure the Minister will correct me if I am wrong, is that opening up the sector will provide more diversity and more choice for students and that the TEF will deliver more information to students to help them make up their mind about where to go, which will add some transparency on the quality of teaching and provide a mechanism to relate it to fees. We know what the possible positives are, but the risks to students from the Bill are less clear. Have any of you thought through what some of the risks could be?
Alison Goddard: I have thought through some of those risks, and I am afraid that to my eye they extend far wider than risks to students. There are also risks to the future economic success and the cultural, scientific and diplomatic strengths of this nation. What we have here in the UK is a world-class system of higher education and research, which has taken hundreds of years to emerge—its roots lie before the formation of the modern state. Fundamental to that success is institutional autonomy. At the moment, universities are answerable to Parliament. Creating the office for students and enabling it essentially to override existing royal charters and previous Acts of Parliament will allow what is essentially a Government body to remove from universities the right to call themselves universities or to award degrees; it will make those Government functions.
If I can draw a parallel, the BBC is also protected by a royal charter at the moment. The Bill appears to enable removal of the protections of the royal charter; if that applied to the BBC, it would essentially make the BBC a body within the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. I really worry that, if the Bill is passed unamended, it will allow future Administrations to interfere with institutions and universities to the extent of damaging the future prosperity of the whole nation.
Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)
Q I am going to dare to ask a question similar to one that was asked of an earlier panel and that led to some hilarity. I have deep concern about the applied managerialist approach in the Bill. If you look at the institutional architecture and the metrics that are being used, I do not see how they are going to contribute very much to true quality enhancement, either for students or for research. Would you like to comment on that?
Sally Hunt: I will probably be picking up on some of the points Dr Blackman-Woods was asking about as well. If we are looking at a risk matrix, which is the same point phrased in a different way—“What does this actually do to enhance the sector or our ability to contribute to our nation’s economy or to a world-class reputation within higher education?”—there are real risks. If you start from where the student is being given information and the university is being given the funding stream, those become very narrowed by the Bill. They become narrowed for the student because the questions they are being schooled to ask—“What is your employability? What is the drop-out rate?”—are very narrow and do not necessarily give the right indications. To me, those things do not tell you the quality of the course; they tell you that there might be differences in your ability to go through three years, depending on your class, your type of university and the student intake, but that is not the same as saying whether the course is good or bad at providing a good foundation. They are too narrow and too opaque. They do not ask us to encourage the student to say, “What is the level of the teacher who will be giving me the education and the teaching I have signed up for?”
I think someone made the same point earlier: as the student, you are not being told at any point how many of the people who will be teaching you are on casual contracts, how many can guarantee they will be there in a year’s time, or how many will be able to say, “I have been paid enough that I can do proper preparation, teaching, feedback and all the stuff I ought to be doing to enable you to be confident of getting what you signed up for.” None of that is in the Bill as it stands.
There are some very practical points at issue. Alison’s point is really important. I think you should all be very concerned about the issues of governance and the lack of oversight given to Parliament by the Bill, because that is going to strip away the ability for us to guarantee and protect academic freedom, which is fundamental to student choice and student education and is important for our ability to develop critical thinking and difficult and challenging research areas. That is not there in the Bill. As it stands, the office for students is very much Government-driven; it does not have staff representation or enough student representation on it. All of these points need to be teased out. As I said at the beginning, that is set against a really stressful time for universities. They do not have the answers about student funding or about the stability of their staff, and they have big questions about their ability to deliver against the current environment, let alone if this is put in place. There are real problems alongside opportunities. We should all say that these opportunities are positive. We should all say that we are looking to increase quality, increase choice and increase knowledge, but I am not sure that the Bill is delivering at this point. I hope that that covers both the points.
Professor Les Ebdon: I am not sure that I entirely recognise the picture that has been painted. For a start, you can make a very strong case that increased transparency is not inimical to freedom. I welcome the requirements for increased transparency of data. You might argue with the particular data points specified in the legislation, but they are just indicative of the points that could be asked for. I have no problem with that transparency of data.
Of course, there is clear recognition within the Bill of the importance of academic freedom. The way that we approach access agreements at the moment is a good indication of how you can work with the grain, using the context of institutions. This could involve getting the institutions themselves to set their own challenging targets and negotiating with them to do this, and also giving them support, particularly through enhanced research and evaluation of what is happening. This would go with the grain of the institutions and build on the great strengths of our universities in terms of researchers and their interest in finding out what works to achieve the kind of success that we have. I do not see a tremendous threat to academic freedom in anything related to access and participation which, clearly, are the parts of the legislation that I have studied in detail.
Roger Mullin
Q I was not suggesting that, and I accept that it is not a threat to academic freedom. That was not the point I was making. Professor Ebdon, your response makes me more concerned, because you talked about data and the use of data. It is the metrics that I am concerned about, and the way in which they are moving away from a concern about quality development and quality enhancement. One of the great features, which I think Alison talked about in her earlier remarks, is that institutions have built up over centuries. They have developed cultures of engaging in different ways with the learning as well as the research in their institutions. That is just so difficult to capture through the kind of metrics that are applied in the Bill.
Professor Les Ebdon: I certainly understand the point that the data have to be interpreted in the context of the institutions, and I think that I was implying that in terms of the way that we approach access agreements. I do not have a problem with that information being in the public domain. I am surprised that in this day and age people do have a problem with that.
Roger Mullin
Q I do not have a problem with it. It is just that it is an inadequate way of looking at teaching in universities.
Alison Goddard: I think that there is always a danger that you end up with metrics looking at what can be measured, rather than what you actually wish to measure. That is a problem which pervades modern life.
Amanda Milling
Q The research excellence framework has been in place for some time now and is well established. Ms Hunt, you referenced TEF briefly. Do you recognise the need for greater emphasis on the teaching aspect of the sector? That is a question to all three of you. What will that ultimately mean for students?
Sally Hunt: We have always said that teaching ought to have greater recognition and greater celebration in terms of the funding streams for universities, because without that there has always been a mismatch between some universities and others depending on whether they have a stronger research stream and reputation. We have found from what our members have told us that that has never been about the quality of experience for the students. We have no objection whatsoever to teaching being raised up, being part of the standard by which a university is judged, alongside its research. In fact, we would say that that is a good thing. All we are questioning is how.
All we are saying—we have said it repeatedly—is that if you start this process, rather than using blunt instruments that do not necessarily address the core issue that we are all told this Bill is about, which is increasing the quality of teaching for students, you need to look at what is going on in the classroom and why. That means that you have to address the fundamentals of how teaching is delivered in most universities. In most universities, if you are an undergraduate student, particularly in your first year, you are going to have the least experienced, qualified and stable—in terms of their contracts— group of teachers in universities. That, I think, is the issue that has to be addressed, not simply the outcomes, which as I said, can be quite blunt in the way that they are interpreted. They are not themselves necessarily about the quality of the course or the teaching. But in terms of the principle, absolutely; teaching is as important as research in terms of how the quality of a university should be judged. That is something that should be welcomed in the debate that is starting to happen now.
Amanda Milling
Q In the Select Committee, we talked a lot about metrics and the balance between quantitative and qualitative metrics. Does the use of qualitative measures to evaluate performance address some of your concerns?
Sally Hunt: It is hard to answer the question. I do not mean to avoid it. What I am trying to convey is that TEF is not enough as it is constructed at the moment, with the criteria and tests that are being put in place and the links that are being created, for example, with fees. Peer review should be sitting at the core of it. What should also be at the core of it is universities showing students that the teachers in place are well trained, resourced and supported. That is not necessarily something that will be delivered through the criteria put in place at this point in time.
We are concerned about the Bill because it will put in place a system that will increase the complexity that universities have to weave their way through in order to get funding. It will increase the pressure on teachers, who are already under a great deal of strain—the average week is 50-plus hours and the average contract is very insecure—without necessarily asking universities to embed what will make the real difference to teaching, which is making sure they have quality terms and conditions for staff.
That is my central point on this. I recognise that others do not necessarily agree with us, but I think it is our duty and our role to bring it to your attention. There is nothing in the Bill at the moment that talks about the quality of staff, in terms of how they are supported, resourced and employed. At the end of the day, staff members and students in the classroom are critical, rather than everything going on around them.
Mr Marsden
Q The White Paper that gave birth to the Bill talks—in fact, it waxes lyrical—about the trials and potential successes, but also the downside, of the market. It talks about market failure. Particularly in respect of new providers and the proposals to lower the threshold at which they can come in—and, indeed, enjoy a form of university title almost from day one—what do the panel think the pluses and minuses of that process might be, in terms of both the teachers at those institutions and of the students? Obviously in your case, Professor Ebdon, if we have a large number of market failures, there are implications for what you are trying to do with the Office for Fair Access.
The Chair
Time is running out, so perhaps a crisp answer and then we will move on to a couple more questions.
Professor Les Ebdon: Students are weak consumers, which is why it is important to have a regulator to ensure that their interests are protected. University education is expensive and it is a one-off investment that students make, and therefore it is very important to protect students. I do recognise particularly that some of the newer entrants have been quite active in recruiting students from disadvantaged areas. I welcome the opportunity now for proper regulation across the sector.
Mr Marsden
Q What if they go bust?
Professor Les Ebdon: The interests of those students must be protected. If they have paid their fees, they need to be protected. I would always hope that the sector would be able to come up with something on that, but I assume that the regulations underpinning the Bill will ensure that they are protected. I would certainly think it a national scandal if students had invested their money—aided and abetted, as it were, by the state, through the Student Loans Company—and not received the education for which they had paid.
Ben Howlett
Q Going back to some of the points raised earlier by Professor Ebdon in relation to the independence of OFFA, how does the Bill deliver true independence and actually enhance independence?
Professor Les Ebdon: I am not arguing for independence in the sense that we have independence now. I quite value the coherence that bringing the Office for Fair Access activity into the office for students brings. I am concerned about the authority of the director for access and participation. Based on my experience, you need to have the authority to sign off or not to sign off on an access agreement and for that to be untrammelled, other than the usual opportunity to appeal against a totally unreasonable decision. That does not guarantee it.
I also think that it is important, if you are going to get a high-profile director for access and participation, that that authority is enshrined. The responsibility lies with the director. One of the reasons I can be successful is that I am a former vice-chancellor. I know most of the tricks; in fact, I invented one or two. Therefore, that gives me greater authority in dealing with universities. That is my concern.
Paul Blomfield
Q I was going to ask much the same question as Ben, so perhaps I could drive that home a bit further. Since you were not an uncontroversial appointment by David Willetts, you have been extremely successful. What do we have to hang on to from that success, in integrating the Office for Fair Access into the office for students?
Professor Les Ebdon: A single focus. I do not have to worry about things other than access and participation. We need to ensure there is independence; that the role is not trammelled by an interfering chief executive or chair of OFS, for example—or indeed, dare I say it here, a Secretary of State or Minister.
You need somebody who is going to be a champion of fair access, keeping it high up on the agenda. One reason we are successful now is because it is recognised as a vitally important aspect of modern society that we build a fairer, more inclusive society. That is all about championing fair access and participation.
The Chair
Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, for your evidence.
Examination of Witnesses
Alastair Sim, Dr John Kemp, Dr John Kingman and Professor Jonathan Seckl gave evidence.
The Chair
Good afternoon. We are now hearing oral evidence from Universities Scotland, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Scottish Funding Council and the chair of UK Research and Innovation. Please remember that the acoustics in this room are not good, so you are speaking to both ends of a rather large room, not just the person asking the question. We have limited time, and not every person needs to answer each question.
Dr John Kingman: I am the chair of UK Research and Innovation, which is a body that currently exists in shadow form and will, subject to the Bill’s passage, come into existence from April 2018.
Alastair Sim: I am a director of Universities Scotland, the representative organisation for Scotland’s university leaders.
Dr John Kemp: I am the interim chief executive of the Scottish Funding Council.
Professor Jonathan Seckl: I am vice-principal at the University of Edinburgh, representing the Royal Society of Edinburgh. When I do not do that, I am a humble hormone doctor.
The Chair
Good. As there is a Scottish theme to this session, I think Roger should ask—[Interruption.]. Sorry, Carol wants to ask the first question.
Carol Monaghan
Q Thank you very much for coming. I know you have come at short notice this afternoon, so we appreciate you taking the time to be here. One of our concerns is that at the moment Scotland’s quality assurance in higher education is distinct. We have concerns that that is not being recognised in the TEF. Do you think that Scotland’s distinct quality assurance is being considered fully and is there provision for further work to be done on that?
Alastair Sim: It might be helpful if I describe what the sector leadership is thinking about this. We think that the Bill has presented us in Scotland, with the TEF, with what one might describe as a bit of a cleft stick. On the one hand, we are not sure that the TEF is exactly right for Scotland; on the other, there are strong competitive pressures. If institutions are going to get markings for being very high quality in terms of their teaching in England, there is a competitive disadvantage to Scottish institutions in not being part of that. The reasons that we have reservations about TEF is because we think that what we have in Scotland is, in some respects, quite special. It is a very collaborative system, which involves students very much at the heart of assessing whether quality and enhancement is what it should be. It is very enhancement-driven; it is about institutions learning from themselves, from peers and from international panellists on enhancement review panels about how to make the system better and how to collaborate across the system—for instance, produce graduates that are more employable and respond to that sort of challenge. There is a strong feeling in Scotland that we want to protect the best of what we have, but we also wonder whether, given this competitive pressure, institutions will end up deciding to go into the TEF. We do not know the answer to that yet. Given that that is also a possibility, we are working with the Department for Education to make sure that as the TEF is engineered, it does not have metrics in it that are perverse to Scotland, that sufficient recognition is given to the way things are done in Scotland and that potentially an equivalence is drawn between an evolution of the quality enhancement framework in Scotland and the teaching excellence framework in England.
Dr John Kemp: To be clear, there is no intention to get rid of the Scottish quality system. We will retain a distinctive Scottish quality system. However, we are keen to make sure that the possibility exists, should institutions in Scotland and the Scottish Government wish, for Scottish institutions then to have the TEF. For comparative reasons internationally, and also because a substantial number of students at Scottish universities come from England, that might be valuable; but we have no intention of changing the Scottish quality system and replacing it with the TEF. The TEF would sit alongside, rather than replace it.
Carol Monaghan
Q Alastair Sim, you mentioned the potential implications of what Scottish institutions choose to do. Can you expand on that?
Alastair Sim: The essential implication is a competitive one. Everyone is out there to attract the best students and to build the best possible reputation for their institution. If you have institutions in England being able to say, for instance, that they are outstanding in terms of teaching quality and you have an unvariegated system in Scotland where everyone is working on this consensual basis to continually enhance and improve but not compete against each other in a gamed system to get better marks than your neighbour, there is a risk, competitively, that you are not seen to be as high quality as English institutions, even if you believe in the integrity of the Scottish system.
Professor Jonathan Seckl: From an institutional point of view, the metric that TEF will give is obviously sought after—I say that on the day the University of Edinburgh moved up to 19th in the world on the QS rankings, so I am sitting here with a big smile on my face.
The Chair
Yes, we all want to congratulate you.
Professor Jonathan Seckl: It is clearly a badge we would all like. We would be very keen for TEF to recognise the differences in the Scottish system, to recognise the equivalent but different nature of what we do and maybe celebrate that and incorporate the best of the best.
In some ways, the devolved nature of the United Kingdom allows a lot of experiments in how to do things, and it would be good if we could take the very best from what this experiment delivers and incorporate it more widely.
Carol Monaghan
Q Do you think there has been enough engagement between the UK Government and the Scottish Government or Scottish higher education institutions in the run-up to the White Paper and then the Bill?
Professor Jonathan Seckl: I cannot comment on what Governments do in terms of their engagement; it is way outside my humble pay grade. I think there is an opportunity going forward for learning and appreciating the best of the two systems, as I said.
Alastair Sim: If I may say, on a clerical note, over the past few weeks the engagement with the Department for Education has been constructive and creative about how the metrics of the TEF might be configured in ways that take account of Scottish interests. I think Scottish institutions are still on the cusp of this decision about whether to go into TEF or to do something, as Professor Seckl says, that is different but equivalent.
The Chair
Well, I think we want to hear from someone from an even more humble pay grade. Matt?
Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)
Q I am not sure how to take that.
As Carol and Valerie will know, part of what the Bill seeks to do is put the Nurse review into effect. Where there is some concern—if there is concern—it is about putting research and innovation together and ensuring that the innovation aspect continues to be complementary but also to work as well as it can. Dr Kingman, can you tell us how you envisage that working in practice and how you will safeguard the innovation aspect in particular?
Dr John Kingman: You are absolutely right about the range of views on this topic, though I think they might be coming together a little bit.
I believe very strongly that we would be better advised to have Innovate UK in the new body. I have been involved in this area over a long period and I think one of the things we have got better at over the years is recognising that the world does not divide starkly between the basic pursuit of pure knowledge and the exciting innovation happening in British companies. Actually, there is an interesting terrain between these two extremes and it is much better filled than it used to be. We are seeing part of that in how Innovate UK has really come on as an organisation and it is doing a lot of interesting work, working with the research councils within that terrain.
I think we would lose something and it would be a step backward if we somehow disconnected Innovate UK. That said, there are very important protections in the Bill that I fully support. It is correct to say Innovate UK has a very different culture and mission and a rather different—for the want of a better phrase—client base than the research councils. I was involved in the creation of the original technology strategy board that preceded Innovate UK. As I said, that organisation has really come on, and my responsibility, if Parliament chooses that it should be, is to nurture that and to build within this mid-terrain as far as we can.
Matt Warman
Q Will you give us a sense of what that means in practice in terms of the measures that you approve of in this Bill that you mentioned but were not specific about?
Dr John Kingman: The Bill is very clear that Innovate UK has to focus on the growth of the economy and on business, which obviously involves a distinct set of legal duties from those that apply to the research councils. It is also quite clear that the separate status and standing of Innovate UK as an organisation is permanently protected in the Bill and I welcome that. Frankly, even if these protections were not in the Bill, my approach to the role would certainly be one that—you know, I would like to see Innovate UK come further faster. I will be challenging it to do so in a supportive and constructive way. That simply reflects the approach that I have taken throughout my career with other hats on.
Roger Mullin
Q As a former student and teacher at Edinburgh University who is pleased to see us doing so well at the moment, I am a bit concerned about some the institutional architecture. I am sure it was without any malice whatsoever but the first draft of those called to give evidence did not include any representatives from Scotland. Carol and I intervened and we got plenty of co-operation to allow that to happen. My concern is that in some of the institutions proposed in this Bill, I do not see any place for formal representation of the Scottish sector which, as already indicated, has some particularly unique and important features. Do you have a view on that?
Dr John Kemp: Yes, we do. Clearly, because UK Research and Innovation—I presume you are talking about the architecture of UKRI—is UK-wide as regards some of its funding and because a substantial amount of research council funding comes north of the border, we think it is important that Scotland is part of that architecture and that somebody with knowledge of the Scottish research landscape is involved in it. It is also important that in the architecture of UKRI the distinction is drawn between the UK-wide parts and the England-only parts, which mirrors what is called “balanced funding” in the Bill: keeping the idea of a distinction between focused research council funding and wider RAE funding. It is important that the architecture keeps that distinct.
Alastair Sim: If I could pick up on what John Kemp has said, in our paper we suggested some specific ways in which the Bill could be amended that would address these concerns. It would be sensible for UKRI to be a under a general duty to discharge its functions for the benefit of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Membership-wise, yes, the membership should be expertise-based but it should also be based on geographic balance so as to have people with experience from across the UK sitting on UKRI and on the councils within it.
Innovate UK presents a particular issue. As an agency it particularly relates to economic policy and given that there are different economic policies within the devolved jurisdictions, I think it is sensible for UKRI to have regard both to UK Government and to devolved Administration economic policies. Given that the devolved Administrations are themselves major research funders, when UKRI is developing a strategy or a Secretary of State is considering whether to approve a strategy, that should be the subject of consultation with the devolved Administrations.
Research England raises a bit of a special issue. Here we have an institution of England-only funding relevance sitting within a UK-wide UKRI. Culturally, that raises some issues that UKRI will need to address about how to make sure there is no unconscious bias that favours the institutions you work with most closely on a day to day basis through your Research England function. More for the legislation, I think it would be sensible for the whole of the UK for there to be a statutory firewall between the funding of UKRI’s UK functions and UKRI’s English functions, so that money is not leaching across without parliamentary consent and without devolved administrations being consulted about the UK functions of UKRI and the England-only functions of UKRI.
The Chair
The wind-ups are starting in the main Chamber and I do not want to keep our witnesses waiting through a Division, so perhaps we will carry on until the Division and perhaps we can have some quick questions and answers.
Valerie Vaz
Q Dr Kingman, you are obviously quite interested in the science side of things and preserving that. I want to focus on the research element of UKRI and the teaching element given that postgraduates have to do the two. Do you think it will work having it separated like that?
Dr John Kingman: I am very confident about this. In my role so far I have obviously had a great deal to do with colleagues in HEFCE because there are very important links, as you say. All that dialogue has been incredibly constructive and helpful. I think it is quite clear that this whole structure could not be made to work unless these two bodies work hand in glove. I have no doubt whatever about our ability to do that.
Valerie Vaz
Q You will know the understanding and definition of dual funding. That definition has slightly changed in the Bill in clause 95, where it is called balanced funding. Do you understand that to mean exactly the same thing as dual funding and preserving dual funding?
Dr John Kingman: Yes, and for what it is worth I have always been a very strong supporter of a dual support system.
Valerie Vaz
Q Why do you think there has been a change in wording?
Dr John Kingman: I am afraid I do not think that I am qualified to answer that. It is probably a legal question. [Laughter.]
Valerie Vaz
It is not actually funny, because it is not a legal question. This person will be the head of an institution that is going to try to understand what that is, so it is not funny. It is about money going to certain areas of science research. With the greatest respect, you should understand the difference.
Dr John Kingman: What I believe very strongly and what—
Valerie Vaz
You were involved in the White Paper, weren’t you? Were you involved in the White Paper?
The Chair
Order. This is not a personal conversation, so let’s have an answer for the room.
Valerie Vaz
He is a witness and I am entitled to ask the witness a question.
The Chair
Would you like to answer the question, then?
Dr John Kingman: What I believe very strongly is that it is a huge strength of the UK support system for science that we have both project-specific support within research and institution-specific support. If that were to change, I think it would be a huge step backwards. I intend to preserve it, but even if I did not intend to preserve it, I think the Bill ensures that I have to preserve it.
Valerie Vaz
Q I understand your commitment absolutely and appreciate that. My question was why was there a difference in the terminology and do you understand the difference to be the same? Are you convinced that the change of words is going to protect dual funding?
Dr John Kingman: I am absolutely confident of that and that is how I understand it.
Valerie Vaz
Q One last question. I know you are a Treasury man. If I was a researcher I would be a bit terrified of this. You hope that the aim is making sure that we invest every pound wisely. Do you believe that is currently not taking place in UK research?
Dr John Kingman: I go back to Paul Nurse’s report, which I think sets the agenda for the organisation I have been asked to lead. It does not describe a broken system, but it does describe a system where certain things are lacking. One is strategic prioritisation between disciplines across the system, particularly when it comes to interdisciplinary work, which is becoming ever more important; another is a perspective across the system and an ability to speak for the system. I think the organisation I have been asked to set up is one that needs to be very clearly focused on those specific roles and not, as it were, attempt to throw up in the air the institutional arrangements underneath it which broadly speaking, I think, do an excellent job.
Dr Blackman-Woods
Q Do you think the measures in the Bill are sufficient to protect the excellence of research in the UK and enhance it, if that is possible, post-Brexit?
Professor Jonathan Seckl: The concern I have is about the potential for emasculation of the research councils which have served us so well. It has been well aired here I am sure, and it is well aired in the press that the UK is No. 1 pound for pound in delivery of research excellence on the globe. We do this really well. The academic community—the Royal Society of Edinburgh has to reflect that—has concerns about this. There is some reassurance, but it will be interesting to see how it works out.
The research councils are highly trusted by their constituents and it would be terrible to see their ability to drive forward research in their communities being lost. I fully endorse the inter-disciplinary argument—we have enormous opportunities to become more inter-disciplinary, but we must not do that at the expense of losing our existing world-class disciplinary expertise.
Ben Howlett
Q There is an elephant in the room, and I am surprised that it has not yet come up. The Sutton Trust report which came out earlier this year—this is more of a question to Mr Sim—it stated that Scottish 18-year-olds from the most advantaged areas are still more than four times more likely to go straight to university than those from the least advantaged areas, compared with 2.4 times more likely in England. First, why do you think that is the case? Secondly, we were talking about experiments earlier on: how long is an experiment that is causing a reverse trend in social mobility going to continue?
Alastair Sim: Before I deal with the substance of that question, I would quickly address the statistical basis. One of the frustrations of my professional life is that there is not a statistical basis for comparing widening access in Scotland and England, because they use different statistical means of calculating who is in a deprived population from which we are drawing. That has been very frustrating, because it does lead to these miscomparisons.
We have had a serious challenge in Scotland from Ruth Silver’s commission on widening access which has said, “There are lots and lots of good things going on, but somehow across the school, college and university system they are not adding up to the sort of step change we would want to see in addressing the attainment gap and improving access to higher education.” I think that we, as a university leadership community, want to take ownership of pressing things forward. We want to look at how we can make better and greater use of contextual admissions so that people from disadvantaged backgrounds are recognised and are able to get an offer at a potentially lower level that recognises that their exam grades are harder won than those of more privileged people. We want to look at how we can further build articulation routes from college—which are often second chances for people from challenged backgrounds—and we want to look at how bridging programmes can be used to give people from challenged backgrounds an easier transition from school into university, and a wider choice of where they transition into.
Ben Howlett
Q So you have identified the problem, and you have come up with what is almost a small tweak to the system. Surely, with a four-times disparity, that requires fundamental change in the system itself?
Dr John Kemp: I do not think we would accept that there is a four-times disparity. As Alistair said, it is quite difficult to compare the figures across the two countries, because of the different ways of doing so—
The Chair
Okay, let him answer.
Dr John Kemp: I accept that point. However, we are not talking about tweaks here. The Government in Scotland have set fairly radical targets for improving widening access, which will be backed up by outcome agreements with the universities and a programme of work, some of which might begin to be announced this afternoon. It is far more than tweaks to the system in Scotland to widen access. We recognise that meeting the targets set by the government in Scotland will require substantial work by the sector, by the funding council and by other sectors, including schools and colleges in Scotland too. It is something that sees a whole-system approach rather than tweaks.
Mr Marsden
Q I have a fairly quick question to Mr Kingman. You have talked eloquently about where you want to take UKRI. I am sure that your senior roles in the Treasury will equip you in many ways for that task, but you are going to be doing it at a time when there is going to be a flux between the development of HEFCE and QAA and finally the OFS. As someone said earlier, that may mirror the time it takes us to operate Brexit. How are you going to promote the UK brand, which you need to do, when you have the OFS coming up, which may in decades come to be a sufficient substitute for the Privy Council brand internationally but certainly will not be initially?
Dr John Kingman: I think it is a very fair point, but I would argue that the creation of UKRI means that, for the very first time, there is an organisation whose job is partly to put the case internationally for the extraordinary strength of the UK science and research base. I am in the process of recruiting a chief executive of this organisation, and I believe we will be able to hire an outstanding one, part of whose role will be absolutely focused on that. That is a new role that has never existed historically. This whole architecture was designed in a pre-Brexit world, but as it happens, I think it is very opportune.
Mr Marsden
Q Okay. You are optimistic about this, but I have a supplementary. There is a great queasiness—I put it no more strongly than that—in the representations that I and others have had from the research community about the powers that this new Bill will give the OFS, and by implication the Secretary of State, in relation to research councils. Are you queasy about the fact that research councils could be abolished under this Bill, without it having to come to the Floor of the House?
Dr John Kingman: I would certainly say that I cannot imagine it. The Bill provides for circumstances in which Ministers could change the structure of the research councils.
Mr Marsden
Q But is that the same as abolishing them?
Dr John Kingman: I cannot imagine circumstances in which Ministers would choose to exercise that power without consulting widely.
Roger Mullin
Q Can you confirm, Dr Kemp, in terms of access in Scotland, that over 20% of students entering HE do so through the college sector?
Dr John Kemp: Yes, and the students entering HE in the college sector more or less exactly match the population, in terms of social background.
The Chair
Thank you very much, gentlemen, for some excellent testimony. We are very grateful.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Mr Evennett.)
Westminster Hall
(7 years, 9 months ago)
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Local Government Reform
(7 years, 9 months ago)
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Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered local government reform.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. This morning I hope to start a meaningful conversation about the future of local government and its reform. Over the past year, I have prepared a report into a bunch of radical ideas about where to take local government. Some people will agree with some aspects of my report, and others will totally disagree with other aspects, but I hope that from that process a certain consensus can be formed, and that the Minister will get some idea of direction from the debate. For the record, I state my thanks to Mr Joshua Harvey, who has done a lot of research for me while putting the report together. That has led us to where we are today.
I will give a brief history of local government, which I am sure many people understand, but I want to make a couple of points in context. The 1832 Reform Act gave the franchise to a lot of people, but it was 1835 that saw the first decentralisation of government with the creation of municipal corporations. Only in 1888 was there the creation of 66 county councils, which for the first time had increased powers—over financial and political administration, roads, bridges and council buildings. County boroughs were then created, so that areas with more than 50,000 people could self-administrate, and that was the first multi-tier approach to local government. What struck me was that at the time the telephone was in its infancy and there was certainly no computer power, so how things were administered relied on that—a 19th-century approach to slimming down authorities in order to cope with the municipal areas.
In 1894, the massive introduction of parish and district councils gave that direct link between the parishes and the county councils, because they covered both urban and rural areas. Mainly, they replaced the sanitary districts. So the two tiers really started to come in about 1894, although another result was the shrinking of several other bodies, which had grown up piecemeal in local communities.
The Local Government Act 1933 was an attempt to consolidate the mass of legislation from the 1800s through into the 1900s into a single Act. As we moved on, however, a lot of the consolidated powers started to be spread out again—perhaps to corporations or central Government, with social housing, education policy, the welfare state and the NHS.
The Local Government Act 1963 enacted a major restructuring in London—London City Council powers going to the Greater London Council and the boroughs. I will not dwell too much on that, because in my paper—as I intend in the debate today—I talk not about London, but about the rest of England. The situation in London is very different and is not something I want to bring in at this stage.
The Redcliffe-Maud report of 1969 recommended the introduction of unitary authorities—this is where things start to get interesting. In the 1970 manifesto the Conservative party stated that it would adopt the Redcliffe-Maud report but in the end, basically, it did not. The Conservative Government did not feel that unitary authorities would work because they might reduce the connection between communities and local government —I will argue that that is not working today and will propose a way in which a better link between communities and local government may be formed; instead, the Conservative Government brought in six metropolitan councils and 41 non-metropolitan councils, with 333 districts.
In 1985, the metropolitan counties were abolished, most becoming unitary authorities, because the existing system was deemed wasteful and to have an unnecessary tier, and that is something that keeps coming back in consideration of local government reform—that some tiers replicate work by other tiers. The 1992 Conservative manifesto wanted to implement single tiers for all non-metropolitan councils.
The Banham commission recommended the creation of 99 unitary authorities, but only 46 were created, given the need to get the legislation through the House. Again, as with all Governments that have attempted to reform local government, the ambition of the Government came up against a barrier, so they only achieved some of it. Likewise, in 2006 the Government advocated unitary authorities throughout local government, arguing that two tiers did not accurately reflect communities’ lines and that unitary authorities would improve accountability and leadership, but by 2009 only 10 had been created. Moreover, in 2010, under the coalition Government, some of those were reversed.
In 2011, obviously, significant powers were passed down to local authorities, and I argue that those should be increased. Police and crime commissioners have also been created, and now there are Mayors on top.
In the process of preparing my report, I looked at other systems around the world. Interestingly, where there are other tiers of local government in Europe and elsewhere, often they do not sit under each other, but next to each other.
Sweden has unitary authorities with four-year terms. Germany is interesting, with the Federal Government and regional government, which then splits down into counties and municipalities—they are divided and split down to reduce the power that any one area can hold. In some areas, however, a six-year term is served, which is an interesting approach. Belgium is really interesting because it has federal, regional and community governments, all of which sit at the same level; all have independent powers that do not cross over, and have well defined areas of responsibility. They sit for six-year terms. The USA has federal and state government, and then the counties—a lot of that is due to size.
The proposal in my paper involves first looking at whether we have proper accountability between councils and their people—are councillors accountable as representatives, and do the public have the ability to make a definite change? In that process, I looked at my unitary authority in Leeds, which has three councillors per ward and the council elected in thirds. It is therefore hard for the public in any one election to say, “We want to change the council.” In fact, it is notable that the last time there was a huge change was during an all-out election in 2004. Gradual chipping away was then followed by the high-turnout elections in 2010, held at the same time as the general election, and the council changed colour again. Can the public get any change when they are only electing a third of the council? Consider which wards are safe, which are likely to change and which parties might split across, and the public probably cannot change the council.
Probably the most controversial area in my report is the proposed abolition of the two-tier system of district and borough councils. We should keep the town and parish councils because they are in the heart of the community and have the absolute, direct link to villages and towns. They can play an important role in discussing with county councils future planning policy, parks and countryside. With that I would still include the provision and maintenance of facilities, including arts and crafts, allotments, car and bicycle parking, cemeteries and crematoria, parks, village greens, playing fields, public rights of way, public toilets, signage, village halls, war memorials and so on.
Chris White (Warwick and Leamington) (Con)
With one tier of local authority, is my hon. Friend suggesting that parish and town councillors be given more powers?
Alec Shelbrooke
An enhancement of contribution would be a better description than more powers. My constituency includes several parish councils and a town council—I would encourage two of my towns, Rothwell and Garforth, that they need a town council. Where the contribution is not taking place is between Leeds City Council and the areas that do not have a town or parish council, on the future direction of planning policy. It is not a question of passing more powers down, but of enhancing the ability of areas to take part in sensible negotiations and conversations, and reflecting that in council policies.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
My hon. Friend is providing an interesting overview of local government. I served as a councillor for 12 years. On the point about parish and town councils, the direction of travel through reorganisation and changes of financing arrangements is clearly to give more responsibilities—to passport them down—to lower, possibly more accountable tiers. Does he agree that whereas district, county and borough councils now know that there is a capping regime, the occasional uncertainty from the Department about the precept and capping makes long-term financial planning not as easy as it could be for town and parish councils?
Alec Shelbrooke
My hon. Friend makes an important point about some of what I see as the disconnect in long-term planning among different levels of council, from those at the top—the county or unitary authorities—down to the parish councils. One of the ways in which I hope to simplify local government is to give clear delineation and planning for a fixed period.
The key change that I am talking about is effectively to have unitary county councils, with one member per ward of 15,000 people. I have chosen that figure, but I am not wedded to it; it is simply the case that in my city of Leeds, we have three councillors representing wards of 15,000 to 18,000 people. One councillor representing those wards would have more of a direct link to those people, rather than the link’s being diluted among three councillors. That is by no means to disparage any councillor. My experience has been that the local councillors in my constituency all work hard and make a contribution to the community, but I have reached the conclusion that it is time for councillors’ hard work and the fact that new powers have been passed down to them to be recognised by paying them a much larger salary. That would allow people to take up the role of councillor and give it their full attention on a full-time basis. I proposed in my paper that that salary should be £37,481, which is half of a Back-Bench MP’s salary.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s opening remarks and his report, which, as he said, stimulate discussion and debate about the future. I have one issue about councillors. The Communities and Local Government Committee held an inquiry in the last Parliament in which we looked at the role of councillors. We recognised that many still work, and they lose out financially when they become a councillor. That is perhaps okay until they get a family, but then it all becomes too difficult. My concern about his proposal is not that it is intended to elevate councillors’ income to some degree, but that it will almost exclude people who have careers and want to continue with council work.
Alec Shelbrooke
The hon. Gentleman makes a reasonable point, and I have tried to tackle that issue in what I have put forward. One of the reasons why I thought that it was time to move to paying councillors a considerable salary was that a lot of people are currently excluded from council work because they have a career in another area and find it hard to be a councillor alongside that. That issue is certainly evident in the make-up of some councils. I fully accept that the conundrum here is how we set a professional salary and allow people to come in from the outside world to contribute to council work, while allowing people to do that who may not necessarily be able to get the time off work. Whatever the law may state, there comes a point when people make that consideration for themselves.
Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)
It is great that we are exploring these issues. With greater devolution comes greater responsibility. We need to attract captains of industry, who are talented yet short of time. Rather than offering them £37,000 a year, we could perhaps have shorter meetings and ensure that meetings are in the evenings, so that they do not clash with daytime work.
Alec Shelbrooke
That is a sensible suggestion, and we need to assess it in considering how best to make local councils work. I am in no way suggesting that people would be councillors and that is it. MPs do not do that. Many MPs have business interests outside the House, and that is to be encouraged, because it brings in a diverse range of people: those earning six or seven-figure salaries; those with experience in all walks of life; perhaps those who have come up through the trade union route or just from a blue-collar background; white-collar workers; business owners, and so on. That brings diversity to Parliament, and that shows through in many debates. There is a conundrum, and this area can be debated more, but the solution that I have looked at is attacking that in one way by paying a rather large salary.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
My hon. Friend has mentioned the word diversity, yet he is trying to impose a new blueprint. Does he not think that one of the great strengths of local government in England is diversity? There is strength through diversity. Why does he not believe in allowing each council to decide the best structure for itself—whether it wants to meet in the evenings, what it wants to pay its councillors, and so on?
Alec Shelbrooke
My hon. Friend makes a point about how we can run local government, and he is right that councils have been able to make many of those decisions for themselves, but our Government have forced many extras on local councils as part of the devolution deals and so on. There has been multifarious tinkering, with people saying, “This is what must be done,” and I rather worry that the system is becoming over-complicated. That creates an issue: where does the responsibility actually lie? The aim of my proposal is to clean up the system, allow people to have real power and make real decisions, and at the same time allow the public to know exactly who is responsible for issues and make more casting verdicts.
When I did my research, I looked at some of the ways in which responsibilities operate throughout Europe, but my proposal fits the state governor and state senate model of the United States. Above the council—with one elected member per ward, a cabinet system, and a leader from the largest party—there would be a county Mayor, whose day-to-day job would be to deal specifically with all transport issues, from the running of buses and rail stations, and anything that might fit under Metro in West Yorkshire, to major infrastructure projects. As prescribed, the county Mayors would regularly meet the Secretary of State, and one of their roles would be to work on linking up national infrastructure projects among counties to ensure that we really moved forward with those projects.
I would have multiples of salaries for different roles. There is one thing that I looked at but then thought, “I’m not sure this can work.” I was looking at checks and balances. I thought, “Should the opposition parties chair the scrutiny committees?” I thought, “That’s not a bad idea—but hang on a minute: there are plenty of councils around the country where there simply aren’t enough opposition councillors to chair enough of the scrutiny committees.” As I thought through some of these things, I came to the conclusion, “That might sound okay, but it’s not going to work.” That is one area that needs to be looked at.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
In his consideration of there not being enough opposition parties in councils in many parts of the country, has the hon. Gentleman given any thought to introducing an electoral system such as single transferable vote, which would bring in a diversity of candidates and parties?
Alec Shelbrooke
I thank the hon. Lady for her comments. I did look at that, and I concluded that I am trying to achieve direct accountability between elected officials and the public, and the public must have a clear and simple view when deciding whether to change things.
I have two examples. The first is the Mayor of London. Let us be honest: when the Mayor of London was established, it was generally thought that it would be almost impossible for there to be anything other than a Labour Mayor. However, for various reasons—I do not want to go into that debate now—the mayoralty changed colour, and it has changed colour again. The second example is the 1997 general election, when there was a clear mood among the public that they wanted to change the Government. They knew what they had to do, and they went to the ballot box and voted in their millions in specific constituencies to kick out 18 years of Tory Government. The Tory party went from a majority Government to 165 seats, losing seats that it never thought possible to lose. The public knew, “It’s first past the post, so we can go in there and change things.”
That is why I have always shied away from changing first past the post, because it gives ultimate power to the public, who can say, “I haven’t got to think about alternative votes; I haven’t got to think tactically. I’m just going to go in and vote for Tony Blair and that’s it. I’m not interested in any other party.” That is what happened in 1997, when we had that massive, seismic change in British politics, and what happened from that period still reverberates today. I appreciate the long-held policy of the hon. Lady’s party and where she is coming from. I hope she recognises that I am trying not just to pass down bigger powers and make one person responsible, but to say to the public, “It will be really easy for you to change who is governing you at a local level if you want that.”
Alec Shelbrooke
I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. Part of my proposal is for a five-year term, and I would have that as a mid-term between general elections. That is for two reasons. First: all out. In the space of five years, the public would go to the ballot box twice—for a general election and for all local elections—and they would be able to change a council wholesale if they wanted. One of the weaknesses in my council is that we elect by thirds. Mathematically we really cannot make a real change when electing by thirds, yet when we have had all-out elections councils have changed colours. I therefore entirely agree with his point, which is a key plank.
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)
I have listened carefully to the hon. Gentleman’s thoughtful speech. The basis of representation is taxation, and what has bedevilled local government since it was set up is the nature of the rates changing to poll tax and then council tax and the relationship of that with business rates. One of the reasons for electing by thirds is that when the rates, poll tax or council tax are put up, people have an immediate ability to make a judgment on that taxation. I would be interested in the hon. Gentleman’s thoughts on the future of taxation in local democracy.
Alec Shelbrooke
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Perhaps controversially—this is a policy put forward in the past not by my party but by the Liberal Democrats—as much as possible I would move money-raising powers down to the local authorities. Certainly we are seeing the passing down of business rates and although I do not know the exact proportions, so I would not like to put on the record what the change is, more and more of the local government settlement is coming from within local government rather than from central Government grant.
That opens up a much wider debate than time will allow—I know several people want to speak—but the point of the drive I am making is that significant powers would be passed down to councillors with the increased salary and accountability. For example, I would give the chair of the clinical commissioning group—one CCG for the county—a cabinet position in the local authority. I was commenting earlier that Nicola Sturgeon was a very well known MSP across the UK before she was leader because she was in charge of healthcare. She made a real name for herself there. People knew exactly who was responsible for what happened, and that could work in local councils. A lot of healthcare could be passed down to the local authority, and it could have people there.
I thought about putting police and crime commissioners in the cabinet, but I did not do so. As I have said on the record several times, I favour merging West and South Yorkshire police—the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) totally disagrees with me on that—so I would keep PCCs separate from the county councils because otherwise we would remove that option. That is one area that I would not bring into the county council set-up.
Mr Betts
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way once again and I apologise to him and to you, Mr Howarth, because I probably cannot stay to the end of the debate as I have an appointment at 11 o’clock. I very much agree with his comments about moving tax-raising powers down and about bringing health and social care together. However, he proposes that a model be forced on authorities. Combined authorities work because counties come together to pool their powers. The met councils come not work because they were an imposition from the top, which districts really resented, and that created a lot of conflict. I wonder whether he has thought through that concern.
Alec Shelbrooke
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. This is a controversial proposal and I am effectively saying, “I’m going to tear up everything that exists and the Government will enforce a new pattern, which I believe is better.” That is a totally controversial policy and many people may disagree with it. However, to promote working together I propose a new model under which, instead of just having the leader of the council, there would be a county Mayor—a separate, elected person who would work together strategically with the other authorities and feed that in as a joint partnership.
I do not shy away from the fact that I am putting forward some really radical ideas and radical reform, and that there will be people who strongly disagree with them. I welcome that, because I genuinely want to start a conversation about how to move forward. I do not expect that a great many of my ideas will ever be adopted, but I think there are aspects that a lot of people can agree on, and local authorities around the country, who I am sure are listening today, may look at those aspects and think, “Actually, I don’t agree with imposition from Government on these issues, but perhaps there is an argument for having just one all-out election.”
To take the City of Leeds, it costs £1 million to run an election. If we had one all-out election, we would save £2 million—half a million pounds a year—which in tight local government budgets is a considerable sum of money.
Several hon. Members rose—
Alec Shelbrooke
I want to crack on, so if people will forgive me I will not take any more interventions. The Mayor would not just deal with transport issues but have the ability to declare a state of emergency. To take the example of West Yorkshire and the tragic flooding we had last boxing day, that flooding occurred across five authorities, all of which command areas of the services differently. The Mayor would be able to take control of a command post for emergency services and fundamentally, having declared a state of emergency, that could be funded through central Government. That is an important aspect to ensure that the best job can be done.
I have a couple of points to raise on costs. Funnily enough, moving to single members for each ward representing 15,000 people and paying them almost £38,000 in salary would save £30 million a year. That is a basic calculation on back-bench salaries and we would need to look at allowances paid on top, but that does show that it is possible to reward councillors more and more. I would like to give a lot more powers to local councils. I would like to give them direct accountability from an all-out election, with one member per ward, and direct, named responsibilities on areas that really affect people’s lives. I honestly think that would improve turnout at local elections.
The time has come, effectively at the start of the 21st century, to look at how we take what happened in the 19th and 20th centuries to make a system that can last for the next 100 to 150 years and give real accountability and a direct approach to the electors. I will be very interested to hear people’s contributions. Fundamentally, this is a debate for the Minister. I would like him to hear what I have said and what other people say, and see if there are aspects that can be taken forward.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) on setting the scene. I have spoken to the Minister, and I want to give a perspective that may be helpful in the debate—because we have made some changes in local government in Northern Ireland—and add some thoughts on the way forward. The issue is close to my heart, because I was a councillor for some 26 years, on Ards Borough Council. I resigned that position when I became the Member of Parliament for Strangford. That was one of my election commitments. I also stepped down from the Northern Ireland Assembly.
In the few years since I left there have been massive changes in local government in Northern Ireland, and I believe that there are lessons of merit there for the reform proposed for England and Wales, which the hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell has set out today. On 22 November 2005 Peter Hain, the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, announced proposals to reduce the number of councils in Northern Ireland from 26 to seven. As I discussed with the Minister before the debate, change is by its very nature unpalatable to some, but carried out correctly it can be constructive in finding a better way forward. That was what we found when we made the changes in Northern Ireland.
The super-councils, as they were named, were to have a number of new powers in such areas as planning, local roads, regeneration—the preparation of my council area’s regeneration plans has concluded, and they are awaiting endorsement and a way forward—and the fostering of community relations. Those things are to be transferred from the existing joint boards and other bodies, which are much closer in size to the proposed local authorities. The changes were made with a purpose. A lot of thinking and ideas went into them. Legislation was to be introduced to prevent serving councillors from also being Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly. I stepped down, as indeed did my parliamentary colleagues. I found it very hard to say farewell to my job as a councillor, which I enjoyed, and to the Assembly. Of all the jobs I have ever done, I enjoyed that of councillor, because the council dealt with bread-and-butter issues, which kept us in touch with our local people.
The Local Government (Boundaries) (Northern Ireland) Order 2006 was made on 9 May 2006 and provided for the appointment of a local government boundaries commissioner to recommend the boundaries and names of the seven districts, and to divide the districts into wards. An eight-week public consultation on the proposals, during which members of the public could make written submissions, ended on 5 January 2007. Public hearings conducted by assistant commissioners were held in January and February 2007.
To be fair, the old councils really just lifted the rubbish and buried the dead. The changes that came in gave the new councils extra powers, and with that came the necessity for knowledge and time to make things happen. The hearings were essential to ensure that the end result would be workable. It was found that the reduction from 26 councils to seven would mean a loss of local feelings of identity and co-operation; it was therefore announced that there would be 11 councils. That was the balance of the agreement. I love the Ards council area, and those who represented North Down love that area. Sometimes debates on small things such as names are important for us all. The end result was the name Ards and North Down Borough Council. After much deliberation by the councillors, we found a way. It was almost a shotgun wedding; maybe there was not a lot of love at the beginning, but certainly that relationship came together. Even now, two years into the process, the local councils are starting to gel and work together. It is about time and change and state of mind. That is the first lesson that needs to be learned in local government reform from the review of public administration. It is essential that there is consultation, as the hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell mentioned. I urge the Minister to ensure that there will not simply be a check-box exercise, but consultation is seen as an integral part of the process.
The legal framework for the creation of the 11 new councils was put in place by the Local Government (Boundaries) Act (Northern Ireland) 2008, passed by the Northern Ireland Assembly. In England and Wales there are nearly 500 fewer councillors than there were in 2010, according to Local Government Chronicle analysis of data shared exclusively by the Local Government Boundary Commission for England. The 111 boundary reviews completed in the past six years have resulted in the number of members being cut at 69 councils, and a net fall of 491 councillors. There will be more to come if the changes happen at the same level as in Northern Ireland, where what the media called a golden handshake was offered to long-serving councillors with more than 12 years’ service. Those were up to an amount of £35,000, amounting to £1.8 million.
There may also be something to be learned there. It is good to have fresh blood in a council, but experience should not be overlooked and forgotten. Having spoken with experienced or older councillors in the new council, I think it is clear that experience is often what is needed. I urge the Minister not to throw out the grey-haired babies with the bathwater. Their experience is crucial and critical alongside the new developments and the new way forward, and we sometimes need those with experience to continue to be involved. There must always be an adequate number of councillors for each aspect of council work, and there must be accountability to the public. My fear is that in allowing a reduction in some areas, we may find ourselves with a healthier short-term bank balance and a not-so-healthy council chamber. I know that the Minister and the shadow Minister will talk about that.
I could continue to draw comparisons between the Northern Ireland perspective and the plans for England and Wales, but time does not allow me to do so at any length, so I have made just a few comments. However, I want to underline the fact that a council is not a business; it is a service provider. The hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell and other hon. Members are right to say that there must be a wage that encourages people to be councillors. In Northern Ireland the wage for a councillor is a minimum wage, which is more than there was before, but along with that comes a mileage allowance for going to meetings. Meetings are held with the agreement of councillors, whether during the day or at night. Most are probably at night, because most of the councillors on the Ards and North Down Borough Council have other jobs to keep, and they have to fit meetings into their employment. That issue cannot be ignored.
A council is legally obliged to provide a service for the constituents it serves. Financial responsibility is one of the greatest issues that a council faces—how do we keep costs down while preserving the quality of service? Any reform must be based on that question, and any successful reform will involve consultation and adaptability to change. A councillor’s responsibilities may go far beyond their remuneration, which is something that should be dealt with. As a former long-serving councillor I am often bemused by the way our new council runs things, and I wonder why changes have to happen in the way they do. However, as a ratepayer living in the Ards and North Down Borough Council area, my interest is to ensure that my rate bill, and that of my constituents, is acceptable, and that the quality of the service is of an appropriate standard. That is all that people throughout England and Wales want as well. I urge the Minister to take the time to hear about and take on board the changes that we have made in Northern Ireland and the sensible proposals made here and in other forums. The changes involved much deliberation, thought and discussion, and I think they can help in the debate that the hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell has initiated. They can help us ensure that the people get what they want and, more importantly, what they need from their local government body.
I apologise, Mr Howarth, to you, the Minister and the shadow Minister, that I must leave at a quarter to 11, because I have a meeting of the Select Committee on Defence.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr George Howarth (in the Chair)
Order. Three more Members have indicated a wish to speak, and I propose to call the Front-Bench speakers at 10.30 am. I do not propose to impose a time limit on speeches, but I ask hon. Members to be mindful of the fact that if all three of them are to get in they will need to be relatively brief.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I apologise for not having turned my mobile phone to silent earlier in the debate. It was actually the leader of the council on the phone, who was no doubt going to tell me. “Don’t say that, under any circumstances.”
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) on initiating the debate. I was going to say that it is timely, but it is one of those subjects that we debate about every six months, coming to similar conclusions and perhaps not advancing as much as we would like. We ought to congratulate the Minister, and both the present Government and the coalition that preceded them, on advancing the localism and decentralisation that those of us who have served on councils have encouraged. In my 26 years as a councillor, whatever Government were in power, there was more and more centralisation, and we railed against it to no effect. We have now got a reversal of that, and we should congratulate the Secretary of State and his predecessor for the work they have done on that.
If the Government believe, as they clearly do, in the process of devolution—and to some extent in elected mayors, though they do wobble on that occasionally—they have to grasp the nettle and move forward. I have some sympathy with what my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell said when he spoke about having a county mayor. The problem, of course, is that counties such as Yorkshire and my own county of Lincolnshire are somewhat large. Lincolnshire is 75 miles from north to south, and the connection between, say, Gainsborough in the north and Spalding in the south is somewhat tenuous, both in their local economy and in the fact that, in all honesty, people in Gainsborough rarely, if ever, go to Spalding, and vice versa, nice though those towns are.
My preference is for unitary authorities across the board. Personally, I would have them headed by elected mayors. We should not be frightened of the elected mayor process, as other Members have said. It is a form of direct election in which, as with the referendum and so on, the voters give a clear answer; it is black and white. I think that is to be encouraged. I know people will draw comparisons with the police commissioners and say that we should look at the terrible turnouts, and that nobody really knows who the commissioners are and so on, but it is early days yet. I genuinely think that the police commissioners have a role to play, though I would not be opposed to transferring their powers to an elected mayor.
There are problems with that, of course. My own county of Lincolnshire is actually served by two police forces. Unfortunately, those of us in the north of the county still have the relics of the County Humberside scheme—we have Humberside fire and Humberside police and so on, but that could be corrected relatively easily. I think we should move forward on that. We are moving forward in the sense that we have the Greater Lincolnshire devolution deal, which the local authorities have signed up to, although there are reservations about the role of an elected mayor. As I said, I am personally very much in favour of an elected mayor, and I hope the Government do not wobble on that. One or two of the authorities are wobbling, mainly because the consultation came out with more or less a 50:50 decision.
The reality, of course, is that such consultations are pretty meaningless. How many real voters actually took part in the consultations? Yes, there was the chamber of commerce and the institute of this, that and the other, but the reality is that they do not engage the average voter. Why should they? The man and woman in the street want the bins emptying, the streetlights going on and the potholes filling. They want an efficient local authority. The structure of the authorities is completely irrelevant to them, though of course they want to be able to influence the outcome, particularly in relation to the setting of council tax.
The hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) made a point about having more regular elections. Personally, I have always been in favour of election by thirds. I recognise that does mean that there cannot be a clean sweep and people cannot make a sudden change, but in the past one of my arguments has always been that having elections every year is actually good for local political parties. Across the political spectrum, we struggle to maintain interest in local elections and local parties. The local parties are a vital part of the structure of our democracy, and I do not think we should lose sight of that.
Alec Shelbrooke
Is that not a party political argument rather than a local government argument? Is the problem of electing on thirds not that, a couple of months after an election, people are immediately looking to the next election, and long-term strategic decisions that may be controversial at the start but have a long-term effect do not get taken?
Martin Vickers
That is certainly true, but the opposite of that is that local authorities are constantly looking over their shoulders at the electorate—and so they should. That is the whole point of accountability. The one thing that perhaps weakens the argument about the importance of keeping local parties involved is that we now have more elections, because we have police commissioners, and under my system we would also have elected mayors, so there is a constant move toward elections. Personally, I think we should give local authorities the option of having elections not by thirds but by halves every year or two years. That might be a sensible way forward.
Mindful of your comments of wanting to get other speakers in, Mr Howarth, I will not dwell on the matter too much further. I like the idea that my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell put forward of having the chairman or chief executive of a clinical commissioning group as some part of the structure. I also draw attention to the role of local enterprise partnerships. Yes, they have grown and are playing an important part, but they suffer from a lack of accountability. If we had cross-border unitary authorities, it would be useful to transfer some if not all powers from the LEP to the unitary authority.
Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) on securing the debate and on his paper.
I believe we need reform, and I welcome this debate, but there are a couple of proposals with which I disagree. First, I do not believe that the role of councillor should be a full-time position with a full-time wage. On the Isle of Wight there is an all-purpose council. There are currently 40 seats, and the council is led by an independent group with a small majority. The basic allowance for a councillor on the Isle of Wight is £7,700 a year. Last year, the average received by 39 councillors—not the leader—was £10,800. Under my hon. Friend’s proposal a council leader would earn £74,000 and the basic salary would be £37,000. I fear that would create a purely economic incentive to stand for the council, and in my view we should not lose the long tradition of the incentive to become a councillor being someone’s dedication to the community they serve.
Secondly, I disagree that one councillor should represent 15,000 residents. That reform would bring down the number of councillors on the island from 40 to seven. One person would represent the entire western area of the island and a ward in the south. For those unfamiliar with our geography, that is a physically large area for one councillor to cover. Having one councillor who represents 15,000 people might be appropriate for an urban situation, but I do not believe it would work well in rural areas. The benefit of having smaller wards is that constituents feel closer to their representative. Many know him or her personally, so their councillor is better positioned to represent them. That is especially important for under-represented groups. An example of that is a ward that is generally one of two represented by the Labour party. I believe that reducing the number of councillors and paying higher wages would disconnect councillors from constituents, and I fear that the effect of my hon. Friend’s proposal would be to turn well-known, devoted, grassroots politicians into more remote and distant figures.
Thirdly, in difficult economic times some proposals that would never be considered in other circumstances might seem tempting, but when looking at reform we must look beyond the short term and find sensible plans that will work long into the future. We are, in fact, already facing local government reforms through the devolution agenda. The Isle of Wight Council—a small local authority with unique challenges—is in a very difficult financial position. Unsurprisingly, a proposal for a mayoral combined authority, with promises of more funding, has tempted the ruling group on the Isle of Wight, but the council leader has told me that he feels we are being pushed into the Solent deal by the Government.
The Isle of Wight now faces the possibility of being combined with Southampton and Portsmouth in a Solent authority. The line being peddled is that the Solent authority would join the councils together, when in fact it would separate them. The situation and needs of the two cities and the island are disparate. The suggestion is that spending plans for the new authority would require unanimity, but what would happen if they could not reach unanimity? I fear that the views of the island council would be overruled and the island would lose out.
Mr Turner
Well, so they say, but the council has been advised that if unanimity fails, two out of three will do. That is what I am told on the Isle of Wight.
I would welcome clarification from the Minister on stories that have been circulated over the summer about the change in Government thinking on directly elected mayors, which may make other, more suitable options possible. I also ask for a commitment to sit down with the Isle of Wight Council to look at how the underlying problems might be resolved until a fairer funding formula is in place, together with an assurance that it will not be pushed hell for leather into a structure that will not suit the long-term interests of the Isle of Wight.
Many cities that decided they did not want a Mayor in 2012 now face one being imposed. There is no single clearcut answer to what form local government should take, but I am sure of one thing: we should not rationalise by making local government bigger, but we should deliver what the people want.
Chris White (Warwick and Leamington) (Con)
May I start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) on securing this important debate? I applaud him for the serious work he has done on this issue.
In my brief remarks, I would like to take this opportunity to reiterate my call for Warwickshire County Council to become a unitary authority. I know that the Minister is quite familiar with Warwickshire. I have taken the opportunity to write to all the county councillors, district councillors and town and parish councillors who are elected representatives in my constituency. I have not stepped over to other constituencies, but I wanted to test the view of local representatives in Warwick and Leamington. To my great delight, the response I received was very favourable indeed, which I think is based on two factors.
The first is the financial factor. Early estimates are that something in the region of £17 million a year could be saved if there was a unitary authority. By unitary, I mean not abolishing the districts, the boroughs or the county, but merging the two tiers, because £17 million is money that we well need. At the moment we have something in the region of 240 councillors across Warwickshire. That could be reduced to 100. We have a number of chief executives across the county and a number of assets for both our districts and our county. Those could be reduced, and the money could be either saved or used elsewhere.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) spoke very well about the practical considerations, such as the efficiencies, the doubling up of work, the number of CCGs we have, the different procurement officers and the different commissioning officers. My view is that when my highly educated and engaged population think of their local representation, they think they have one council already. That should continue. To have a single point of contact could be nothing but favourable to our local residents’ ears. It would make it much easier for people to relate to their local representatives when wondering who to speak to about housing or if they want double yellow lines.
My concern is when I see on the front page of my local paper, The Courier, the headline, “Grave concern over potential cuts to disabled services in county” and read underneath in the article that “difficult decisions” need to be made. I appreciate that difficult decisions need to be made, but perhaps the most straightforward decision of all would be for our counties and districts to work together to pursue the unitary agenda, not least because in Warwickshire we have local county elections coming towards us in 2017. I hope that across the different authorities, a great deal more work will be put into fleshing out the proposals. I am sure they will be looking eagerly at the paper written by my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell.
I want to ask the Minister the following questions. Does he agree with the proposals to create efficiencies and savings? Does he agree that it is better to first cut the cost of politics, rather than cut what I consider to be vital services? Thirdly, and perhaps slightly bravely, will he follow my lead in Warwick and Leamington and discuss with his councillors, as a constituency MP, the value, savings and next steps forward for his local representatives in Nuneaton?
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I have found the debate very interesting, and I am glad that the hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) secured it. I commend him for producing this report, because it makes a useful contribution. He made an interesting presentation about the background of local government in England, which I find particularly fascinating because it is so complex. In Scotland, we have 32 unitary local authorities, which is pretty simple. It is not perfect by any manner of means, and there is a lot of diversity. We have huge city councils such as Glasgow, with a population of 600,000, and very small councils such as Clackmannanshire, with a population of around 50,000. Glasgow has 79 councillors and Clackmannanshire has 18. There is a great deal of diversity.
When considering local government, we cannot make one size fit all, because we have to be aware of the local circumstances and what local communities need. The hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) made that point very well when he talked about having one council ward per 15,000 residents and the impact that would have in his area. We need to be very careful as to how that works. The most stark example in Scotland is the Western Isles, which has a total population of around 25,000—the size of some council wards in Glasgow. They have looked at those circumstances and said, “Well, that would be impractical for the Western Isles and needs to be looked at more carefully.”
Alec Shelbrooke
For clarity, my paper focuses on England. I take the point that the hon. Lady makes, but my paper is about England.
Alison Thewliss
I do not want to misrepresent this at all. When looking at different island communities or very rural communities, we need to consider exactly how we set the limits, and there needs to be flexibility around that and the size of council wards.
As I alluded to in the intervention I made earlier, in Scotland we have the single transferable vote and multi-member wards of three or four councillors. That has opened up democracy in Scotland hugely, and it ought to considered when looking at a review. I would welcome the Minister’s thoughts as to whether he wants to do that. The Electoral Reform Society has done a great deal of work on this and has said that moving to a system such as STV would start to challenge rotten boroughs, where we have one-party states in many parts of the country and very little scrutiny. As the hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell mentioned, there are not enough councillors to chair scrutiny committees because there is not enough opposition, but we need that diversity of voices in local councils. That will make them truly representative of the communities they serve.
After STV was brought in in Scotland in 2007, the Electoral Reform Society did some work on that. It spoke to all the different local authorities in Scotland and said, “What has been the change here?” There was a telling quote from Glasgow City Council, which said, “It felt like we got our council back.” That was from one of the council officers. Previously, decisions would be taken by councillors behind the scenes and there was never that public debate or public scrutiny. That change has been extremely healthy for councils in Scotland.
STV does not mean that there has not been change in local authorities. We can come to an election and still see change under STV. There were changes in 2007 and 2012. We hope in Glasgow that there will be changes in the elections next year. It has been a Labour council for many years, but under STV we have chipped away at that. That has been quite good for the Scottish National party, too, because we have not taken over the council dramatically, suddenly, with very little experience, but have been able to build up experience over the past two council terms. We hope to be in a position next year to take the council in Glasgow. That has been about engaging with the public, building up trust and letting people get to know their local representatives. We have had to work very hard in Glasgow. I was a Glasgow city councillor for eight years before coming here. That has actually been quite good and quite interesting.
STV has also given local communities a choice of councillors. In a one-member ward, even if people think that their local councillor is lousy, they are stuck with that councillor; there is nothing they can do. A three or four-member ward gives people options and means that they can go to different councillors. If people have a local campaign, they can get their three or four local councillors behind it. It can be a very powerful thing in a council to allow for lobbying—it allows communities to have their voice. Three or four councillors working together, as happens in many council wards, on a cross-party basis can be very powerful and useful in those communities.
I agree with some of the things that the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said. He mentioned that he was a councillor for 26 years and he referred to councils lifting the rubbish and burying the dead. I think that we also need to have a debate about the diversity of services that councils now provide. Councils provide a huge range of services, which people do not always see. As long as their rubbish gets lifted on the right day, they do not really care about the rest of it. In the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government, whose Chair, the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), is present, we are currently conducting an inquiry into public parks and the impact of austerity on park services. Those services are very valued, but we do not really talk about them when we talk about local government. We need to think about the huge diversity in local government and the services that it provides.
I want to say a little about salaries and the impact that there might be in that respect. It is fair that local councillors are paid a wage. In Scotland, when we moved to STV, we moved from an allowance-based system to basic annual pay, which currently stands at £16,893. That is not a huge salary, and some people in councils in Scotland do still work. Depending on what the council looks like, it may meet in the evening; it may meet during the day. Glasgow and, I think, Edinburgh—the bigger councils—generally meet during the day. We have to think about the kind of people that we want to come into our council and the impact that the wages have on them. If someone is a parent or carer and would have difficulty in coming to meetings in the evenings, they will not stand for council. If they look at the council and see all those meetings in the evening, they will say, “I need to be at home; I have responsibilities at home to attend to,” and will not stand for council.
The phrase “captains of industry” was mentioned. At the moment, captains of industry are largely male. Councils in this country are hugely male. We need to think about exactly how we bring women in and encourage women into councils. That may have to do with wages, but it also has to do with how councils run their business and the practices that they have. That is also an important debate.
There was a lot of talk by various hon. Members about the different complexities of local government and the understanding of local government. The hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White) mentioned the need for simplification and efficiencies. Looking at the local government structures in England, I, as a Scottish MP, would not want to impose these structures on anyone, either. There needs to be a sensible look in the round at local government in England. Which responsibilities are held where? Are they in the right place? I am not certain that bringing in things such as mayors on top of already complex structures will help that. If people want to know who is responsible for this service or that service and they do not know who to go to, that will be very disempowering for those individuals.
This morning’s debate perhaps has not concentrated enough on what people want to see from their local authorities. Things absolutely must be done in consultation with local people. The hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) questioned how many people would want to talk about the structure of local government—how many people would want to engage in that debate—but it is actually quite important. People need to know who their local councillor is. They need to have a person they can go to and they need to know what they do and why they do it. That is vital. Keeping a local link is also important, as the hon. Member for Strangford mentioned. He talked about the importance of local identity. Some of that is getting a bit lost in local authorities in England. I hear again and again in debates in the main Chamber and here that the local authority does not really fit with what people understand to be their local area. Perhaps it would be useful to start with that issue.
There was some debate about the cost of politics generally. I will just reiterate the point that is often made in these debates: politics and democracy do not come cheap. We need to think about that, whatever the structures are.
Teresa Pearce (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I am standing in for my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris), who is very disappointed that he cannot be here today. I thank the hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) for initiating this important debate and for his thought-provoking report—I would expect nothing less than thought provocation from the hon. Gentleman.
With the recent unprecedented cuts to local authority funding, reform and the new wave of devolution, the future of local government is a matter that we now need to look at, and all hon. Members and their constituents share an interest in it. I would welcome any changes to local government that bring about a greater accountability and connection between local people and those who are elected to represent them. The decisions made on their behalf affect them every day—they affect their town, their village, their street—and quite often local people do not know how those decisions are made or who is making them. Often they will ring our offices, thinking that it was us, when in fact it was not us at all. We need to make that connection.
This has been a measured and very well informed conversation. It is interesting that we have heard contributions from many different constituencies, such as Strangford, Cleethorpes, the Isle of Wight, North Warwickshire and Glasgow. That shows that one size does not fit all and that decisions should be made locally, because across our country communities are very different.
The hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell spoke about his report, in which he made a number of recommendations. He said that many of them are radical, and they are, but a radical shake-up is needed. We needed to start this conversation, and I am very glad that we are doing so. Any report on the future of local government is welcome, but there are many questions, and I hope that the Minister will be able to share his thoughts on some of the concerns that have been raised and some of my concerns.
On council structures, the report makes a recommendation that a uniform system of unitary councils be introduced. I would be interested to know the Minister’s estimate of the sort of impact that that would have on local services. Does he agree that local government should be invited to determine local structures, rather than something being imposed from the centre? If reforms such as that were pursued, how would our cities and elected mayors fit into that model?
The proposal features a separately elected mayor who would sit above the council and have powers including approval of the budget. Would that not simply reintroduce a second tier? Does the Minister agree that vesting powers in an executive county mayor would add another layer of government, which would be expensive and sometimes prolong decision making? Should not local people be in the driving seat in terms of determining localised policy, rather than a potentially remote county mayor?
On council funding, the hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell recommends powers to generate income through council tax, income tax and business levies. I hope that the Minister accepts that council services have been decimated in some areas as a consequence of cuts. We need to look at new ways of funding, but I fear that if the proposed model were pursued, it would create a greater imbalance between local authorities and there could be a postcode lottery. What effect would that model have on individual residents’ finances if they were asked to pay income tax both nationally and locally? Does the Minister agree that devolving powers without a clear way to increase finance would simply be to devolve cuts, and the blame for those cuts, to local government?
The final question I would like to ask came to mind after the SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), raised the issue of salaries. One of the things that concerns me, and I would be grateful if the Minister looked at it again, is pensions for local councillors. Many local councillors give years of service. Sometimes that means they have to forgo career progression; sometimes it means they have to give their careers up altogether for a period of time.
A colleague of mine was a headmaster of a local school and he could not possibly do that while running a local council, so he had to give to give up that career and consequently about 15 years of his pension, I think. If we are going to encourage people with ability into local government, we need to understand that they are giving a lot of themselves. Where we are trying to encourage the whole nation into auto-enrolment, we should really look at what is a fair return for the years that local councillors give.
I reiterate my thanks to the hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell for bringing forward this important debate. Any debate on the future of local government is welcome, particularly in this period of uncertainty, when the old ways of doing things do not work any more and we need to look at new ways. In the wake of the outcome of the referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union, we have seen calls for a readjustment of our constitution, from reform of the House of Lords to reform of local government, and I am sure that this debate will be just the start of a coming conversation on local government reform. Local government faces new and varied challenges and requires new, and maybe radical, solutions. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Marcus Jones)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) for securing this important debate and note his report on local government reform. I certainly welcome the opportunity to discuss this matter. My hon. Friend said that he wanted to trigger a debate on how local authorities are governed, and he certainly has triggered debate in this Chamber. There have been many, varied views from hon. Members and colleagues who have considerable experience in local government, including my hon. Friend.
Local authorities play a vital part in all our lives. They deliver local services, from collecting our bins to caring for some of the most vulnerable citizens in our society. At a time of wider public sector fiscal constraint, and as demand for many of the services increases, the best of local government has shown itself to be agile and enterprising. Government too are focused on ensuring that wherever people may live, they benefit from effective and efficient services. We committed to that in our manifesto and we will continue to set the right conditions for that to happen. We have committed to giving councils greater flexibility and control over their budgets, introducing the ability to retain 100% of business rates in their areas, giving them greater certainty through offering guaranteed funding across this Parliament, rather than annual budgets, and offering the ability to use capital receipts from sales to fund innovation and reform of local authority services.
I share my hon. Friend’s desire for local government to be efficient, effective and accountable. As I know many councils believe, more can be done to improve local government and service delivery, and to provide accountable and stronger local leadership. However, I do not believe that change should be centrally mandated. The right approach is bottom-up, where the initiative is taken locally. When I come to mention my hon. Friend’s comments in more detail, I will elaborate on that.
That is the approach underpinning the Cities and Local Government Devolution Act 2016. It is the approach that we are following for devolution and bringing about governance changes, whether as part of a devolution package, in anticipation of a devolution package, or free-standing to give local people and taxpayers a better deal. Government enacted the Cities and Local Government Devolution Act to enable us to take proposals forward and to implement them where we, and Parliament, are satisfied that they will deliver the better local governance that an area is seeking. There must be a good deal of local consensus. Any new structures must be sustainable and facilitate public service delivery, including effective partnerships with other public agencies, and they must also avoid any unnecessary fragmentation of local services.
Our manifesto set out the need to
“devolve far-reaching powers over economic development, transport and social care to large cities which choose to have elected mayors.”
We have already achieved significant success with 10 devolution deals agreed, nine of which either have established or will establish mayoral combined authorities, covering 30% of England’s population. We remain open to discussing credible proposals from other areas. I will go on to clarify some of the points raised, in particular by my hon. Friends the Members for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) and for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers).
The deals that we are talking about are to give local leaders the power to drive growth in their areas, but I would reiterate a comment that I have made many times before: there is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Devolution is not just about our largest cities; it is for the whole country—cities, towns and rural areas of all sizes. I have also said many times before that each deal will be negotiated to meet the needs of the area in question. However, devolution must include effective, efficient and accountable governance arrangements commensurate with the size and scope of the powers to be exercised. In some areas, that might mean that local areas may wish to look again at their governance structures.
The report by hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell also recommends changes to local election arrangements, including moving to whole council elections and single member wards. This is generally for the Local Government Boundary Commission to consider, but that does not mean councils cannot approach the commission to request a review of their electoral arrangements, should they wish to. My hon. Friend’s comments today may well stimulate significant debate in that regard.
The role of a councillor has been discussed, but I would certainly say that a councillor is a community champion, and that the role is a vocation and not necessarily a profession. That is not to say that councillors do not bring significant professionalism to their roles; they make complex decisions that impact on the lives of tens of thousands of people in their areas. They do that repeatedly and successfully and, in my experience, the vast majority of councillors do it in an extremely professional way. In keeping with that vocational role, councillors receive not a salary but an allowance to ensure that they are not left out of pocket as a result of performing their public duty. Standardising a scheme of allowances, as my hon. Friend mentioned, would go against the principles of localism and devolving power to local authorities. We should trust councillors to ensure that the scheme of allowances they set is fair and proportionate.
Certainly, having a full-time job and being a councillor can be a challenge. I know that a number of hon. Members in this room have experienced the challenge of juggling different roles. My experience is that I was the leader of a district council, I had a full-time job and, latterly in that role, I was also the parliamentary candidate. I did feel as though I was spinning lots of plates and trying to run from one end to the other to keep those plates in the air. I do think there are benefits, as one or two hon. Members have mentioned, in having councillors that can bring their employment experiences to the council chamber. There are also benefits to people being able to take their experiences of the council chamber and the council back to their workplaces. That can benefit businesses and the roles that they undertake in their private capacity.
At this stage, let me pick up a few points that have been made. My hon. Friend gave us a very eloquent run-down of the history of local government. This Government have used that history to learn significantly from what has happened, which is why we have gone for a bottom-up, rather than a top-down, approach.
My hon. Friend mentioned the importance of parish councils and town councils, and the Government recognise that. He said that one or two areas in his constituency may benefit from having a town council, and I would direct him to have a look at Sutton Coldfield Town Council, one of the latest town councils to come into being. It is in a district of Birmingham, which is the largest local authority in the country, so he may want to look at that example.
My hon. Friend made an important point about how we conduct local government elections. He and I are absolutely on the same page, as are the Government, on retaining first-past-the-post elections as the best way to hold elected representatives to account.
Simon Hoare
The Minister mentioned town and parish councils. Clearly, with devolution there is a flow down to a more granular level, and we all welcome that. May I invite him to give some departmental thinking time to the codes of conduct and standards? They are very clear on the lines of communication at a county, district or borough level, but are less so at lower levels of local government. As they are going to be handling more money and be more involved in the delivery of often complex local infrastructure and facilities, we need to have a little think about that, because there is a lot of confusion about which rules cover town and parish councils and which do not.
Mr Jones
As ever, my hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Parish and town councils are there to serve local people; they should have transparent arrangements and be accountable to local people. That can obviously be done through the ballot box and through parish polls. Generally, when there is an issue of standards, the person with that issue can seek redress through the monitoring officer of that local authority, which is usually the principal council for that area. That said, my hon. Friend makes an important point and the arrangements in that regard are something that we constantly look at. We will continue to do so.
Let me mention an issue raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes, who welcomed the devolution agenda and having a strong and accountable elected mayor. I reassure him that there is no change in policy in that regard. The choice about whether a local area wants an elected mayor is very much one for that area, but when significant and ambitious powers are to be devolved from Whitehall and from Secretaries of State, who are currently accountable in the Chamber to Members of this House as the local representatives, we— understandably, in my view—require a strong figure who would be locally elected and locally accountable.
Martin Vickers
I welcome the Minister’s comments. Does he agree that if a combined authority for a county is created without an elected mayor, the meetings of the combined authority will lack the necessary coherence? Individual council leaders go to those meetings with a mandate to look after their area; supporting a road improvement scheme 50 miles down the road rather than one of their own is very difficult, unless somebody is overseeing the whole project.
Mr Jones
Consideration needs to be given to that role, as it does to adequate scrutiny arrangements in that regard. Any combined authority consists of constituent members who will be there not only to provide advice and support to the mayor, but to scrutinise their work. Ultimately, however, the mayor would be accountable to the people, which is the most direct form of democracy.
I turn to a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight; we have had many discussions about the situation on the island, which is unique compared with many of the places elsewhere in England. I certainly undertake to have another meeting with my hon. Friend’s councillors. It is important that we retain a dialogue about what happens going forward on the island, but I reassure him that this Government do not mandate devolution deals for areas. We listen to what local areas put forward and then consider whether that is an acceptable proposition for the Government to undertake. I say to my hon. Friend that we should keep that dialogue going. I know that the Isle of Wight is speaking to the other local authorities in the Solent area, but it is a choice for the Isle of Wight whether they want to—
Mr George Howarth (in the Chair)
Order. I remind the Minister that it is customary to leave some time for the mover of the motion to wrap up.
Mr Jones
Thank you, Mr Howarth; I will conclude my comments in a moment or two.
I will pick up on the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White), who tempted me to go down a path that, as a Minister, it may not be too wise to go down, but I understand what he said. I say to him that we agree that unitary authorities can bring many benefits, but this has to be done with local consensus. A number of tests need to be met and I will write to him in that regard.
Given what you said, Mr Howarth, I will give my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell the floor for the last three minutes of the debate.
Alec Shelbrooke
I am delighted with the way the debate has gone today, because we have had a range of opinions from different parts of the country, including from my hon. Friends the Members for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White), for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner), and for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers), among other Members. I thank the SNP and Labour Front Benchers for their contributions, and, of course, the Minister.
I said from the outset that I wanted to start a debate. I am sure that people will look at this debate with interest—some will look at it with anger, some feeling that this is the way forward and some with incredulity. However, one thing for certain is that we have started a discussion about where local government needs to look over the next century, compared with where it has come from over the last 150 years.
The Minister made an important point about history showing that many Governments have introduced the idea of a top-down organisation to unitary authorities. I do not hide away from the fact that that is exactly what my report says should happen. He is right, but as history shows, the conclusion is always that Governments do not get there, and it does not happen. However, I think councils around the country will take a closer look at some things that have been said today.
If I had a priority starting point, I would hope that many councils really take a look at going for an all-out election, because I believe that it gives people a real opportunity to change their council in one hit. I listened to what my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes said and I see his argument, but as I said when intervening on him, I am not sure that having an election every year allows councils to take the real decisions they need to take. In terms of savings, in Leeds I think it costs £1 million to run an election, so that would be £0.5 million a year over a four-year period. That could be invested back into police community support officers and would not actually change the organisation of the council.
Thank you, Mr Howarth, for chairing the debate, and for the responses from everybody who took part. I hope that this really will spark a conversation that leads to some reform brought up from the bottom.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered local government reform.
Transport Infrastructure: York
(7 years, 9 months ago)
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Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered transport infrastructure in York.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth.
Appropriate and effective transport infrastructure is a fundamental requirement for the economic growth and success of every village, town and city across the country. However, York’s historical setting presents a unique challenge for transport infrastructure in the city. Its Roman foundations and medieval layout would certainly not be approved by today’s planning authorities, and traffic congestion in the centre will always be a difficult issue for the city to tackle.
In some ways, York is a victim of its own success. It is an attractive place to live and do business, sitting in the heart of Yorkshire just outside the A1(M) corridor with good links to London, Newcastle and Leeds. As York’s population has grown, its transport network has come under increasing strain. Sitting in my constituency is the A1237, which is known locally as York’s northern outer ring road. Some might call it other names, but I probably could not divulge them in this setting.
The road is in desperate need of dualling. It was built by North Yorkshire County Council back in the 1980s, and the single carriageway is now greatly over capacity, causing serious consequences not just for York but for Yorkshire and the north. The number of vehicles using the road has increased substantially over the past decade, and there has been a 10% increase in journeys on the road since 2012. There is no longer a peak period, as severe congestion persists throughout the entire day. The current average journey time from Hopgrove roundabout to Askham Bryan is more than 30 minutes, meaning that the A1237, which is a national speed limit road, has an average speed of less than 20 mph.
As an infrastructure development that was designed to reduce journey times and make villages to the north of York safer, the A1237 is no longer fit for purpose. Many drivers now choose to divert their journeys away from the road via the city centre or through outlying villages such as Haxby, Skelton and Strensall, and then on to the A64. Back in 2013, our then Prime Minister came to York Outer to visit Portakabin’s headquarters in Huntington, and experienced at first hand the “car park” on the A1237—those were his words, not mine.
Some might say that the congestion is just an inconvenience, but that would be to overlook the terrible impact that overloaded roads have on businesses and the wider economy. As journey and delivery times increase, so do costs, and there are knock-on effects when goods vehicles are persistently late. The impact of traffic on the A1237 on York is most evident at Clifton Moor business park, where many buildings are now sadly sitting vacant as businesses no longer see it as an attractive place to relocate to and shoppers are choosing to go elsewhere.
Simply put, the congestion on York’s outer ring road is acting as a noose on the city. It is choking growth and disincentivising inward investment. Having said that, York is still a great place to do business, and it is in a prime position to lead a regional economic surge at the heart of Yorkshire, but we cannot let poor infrastructure stand in the way of that great opportunity.
It must not be lost on anyone that the congestion issue on the A1237 has a wide-ranging regional impact beyond York. The road is a major east-west road for Yorkshire and serves journeys from the wider area, including the districts of Harrogate, Ryedale, Hambleton, Scarborough and East Yorkshire. There is also a significant amount of heavy goods traffic between Teesside and Teesport in the north and Hull and the wider Humberside area to the south. Much of that traffic comes along the A19 and bypasses York via the A1237. If we are to rebalance our economy to make it work for everyone, it must also work for Yorkshire and the north, and infrastructure investment in projects such as upgrading the A1237 is key to achieving that goal.
I have painted a rather grim picture of the current situation, and things will only get worse without future investment. City of York Council is currently consulting residents on York’s latest local plan, which allocates a considerable amount of land to housing developments to the north of the city and will only increase traffic pressure. York needs more housing, but it is vital that it has adequate transport infrastructure to accommodate those increases. The York Central teardrop site—one of Europe’s largest city centre brownfield sites at 72 hectares—will put further strain on the northern section of the ring road. In addition, the British Sugar site, which is a mere stone’s throw away from the A1237, will include more than 1,000 residential units. Failure to upgrade that key section of the road will burden our fantastic city centre with even more traffic congestion.
Back in the 2014 autumn statement, there was welcome news as the Government announced an investment of up to £250 million in upgrades to the A64 and the Hopgrove roundabout. The A64 loops around the southern side of York and is dualled, with grade separated junctions. The new investment will allow for works hopefully as far as Whitwell-on-the-Hill on the A64. That road is under the authority of Highways England, but surely we must take a wider and more strategic approach to infrastructure investment and examine where taxpayers’ money can be best spent.
Some 44,000 vehicles use the dualled section of the A64 south of York on a daily basis, compared with 35,000 vehicles using the York northern ring road. The average speed on the A64 is just over 50 mph, dwarfing the less than 20 mph that is achieved on the A1237. Many drivers now use the A64 as a way to simply avoid the northern ring road and save time. Upgrading the northern ring road would undoubtedly reduce the amount of traffic on the A64 and therefore cut the distances that motorists are travelling and the unnecessary extra emissions produced.
On the topic of emissions, the City of York Council has a robust programme to reduce carbon emissions and stimulate economic growth by influencing travel behaviour. That includes promoting walking, cycling and the use of public transport in the city, incentivising hybrid electric taxis and a growing number of electric charging points for vehicles in the city centre. York has one of the best and most successful park and ride facilities in the country. The four park and ride routes include a number of electric buses and have significantly reduced the total number of vehicles travelling into the city centre. However, although sustainable transport initiatives must continue, there is a limit to their effectiveness when the core transport network is insufficient. Sadly, the A1237 is the weak link that is causing a host of problems elsewhere in the city.
As I am sure the Minister is aware, the City of York Council has submitted a bid to the local major transport fund announced by the previous Chancellor in the 2016 comprehensive spending review. That investment allows local authorities to bid for funding for projects that sit beyond the reach of the local growth funding pots. Upgrading the A1237 is a great example of a transformative infrastructure project that has been an aspiration for far too long. The bid to the local majors fund has been listed as the York, North Yorkshire and East Riding local enterprise partnership’s No. 1 transport priority and has the full support of the Leeds City Region local enterprise partnership.
Funding is being sought to develop the business case for increasing capacity on the northern ring road. As I have outlined, the northern ring road is critical to York’s future success. Along with Clifton Moor Business Association, York and North Yorkshire chamber of commerce, Make it York and Transport for the North, I have submitted a letter of support to the bid.
Developing the business case for upgrading the A1237 to a dualled carriageway would complement the roundabout upgrades that have already been delivered, as well as the further upgrades planned to be completed by 2021 through the West Yorkshire transport fund. The initial upgrade will help to resolve some of the pinch point issues at the roundabouts, but it is effectively a sticking plaster over a much more serious problem that will only get worse.
Delivering a scheme of such magnitude clearly comes with significant cost. Dualling the A1237 between Copmanthorpe and the Hopgrove roundabout will have an estimated £142 million capital cost. Naturally, that is the scheme’s major hurdle, but the benefits of that work should not be underestimated. This is not just about making travel more convenient for local residents; it is about delivering the well-connected economy outlined as a key priority in the York, North Yorkshire and East Riding strategic economic plan.
Fast and reliable journey times between key centres are crucial to the region’s economic development and its attractiveness to UK and international markets. Tourism is incredibly important to York’s economy. The city hosted nearly 7 million visitors last year alone. In order to continue to attract visitors from across the UK and further afield to experience all that York has to offer, we must ensure that our transport network functions properly.
Of course, there are key transport infrastructure projects other than the dualling of the A1237 that are important to the city. Our north-south rail connection is strong, with journey times to King’s Cross being as little as one hour and 50 minutes. However, it is not acceptable that travelling from York to Manchester, a journey of just 70 miles, takes an hour and 25 minutes at best. Electrifying the TransPennine Express route will be incredibly important, with reduced journey times and increased overall capacity playing an integral part in that upgrade, which I welcome. We all know that the north-south divide provides a major challenge that we have to overcome. To ensure that we get economic growth right across the north, the Government must ensure that key infrastructure projects are delivered and that more budgets are devolved to regional decision makers. The arrival of High Speed 2 will make a difference to rail capacity, as well as reducing journey times. When the Government come to look more seriously at extending HS2 beyond Manchester and Leeds, as I fully expect they will and should do, as a local MP I will be shouting from the hilltops to ensure that York is not bypassed.
Finally, I ask the Minister for an update on the new stations fund. Haxby and Wigginton, with a population of more than 14,000 people, sits to the north of York in my constituency. The York to Scarborough line runs through Haxby, but its station has been disused for more than 80 years. The economic case for reopening the station is compelling, and a station would help to take cars off the York outer ring road, which is the primary subject of this debate. Is there still a fixed cost for local authorities to submit bids to the new stations fund, which is non-refundable if the bid is not successful? If so, does the Minister think the fixed cost might deter bids?
I hope that I have outlined to the Minister the real need for transport infrastructure upgrades in York and the north of England. I welcome him to his position. Will he look closely at the local majors bid made by City of York Council as a crucial step towards the dualling of the A1237? Dualling would allow the fantastic, historic city of York to thrive long into the future.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mr John Hayes)
Benjamin Disraeli said:
“The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches, but to reveal to him his own.”
During my brief speech I hope to reveal to my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer (Julian Sturdy) the riches that he has brought to this debate and, indeed, to all his work in advancing the interests of the people of York, particularly on the need for infrastructural investment to improve their wellbeing and their social and economic prospects. He is right that we need to think about such things strategically and, indeed, the Government’s infrastructural investments are founded on exactly that principle. I commend and congratulate him on securing this debate, which gives me the chance to say a word or two about that.
My hon. Friend is right that York is a wonderful ornament to our country and its history and, more than that, is a vibrant living place that does much not only for its inhabitants but for its area. My wife did her master’s degree at York University, and I have visited York many times. Indeed, I often holiday in East Yorkshire and North Yorkshire, particularly at Whitby, so I understand my hon. Friend’s point about the wider impact of transport around York and its effect on East Yorkshire and other parts of that important county.
The Government agree with my hon. Friend’s core assertion that work between local partners and national Government in delivering infrastructural investment—the kind that he recommended to us today—is critical. We are investing significantly in transport infrastructure, as he said, and we have brought forward major investment programmes for road, rail and local transport. To that end, we created Transport for the North precisely for the reason he highlighted—the necessity of a strategic approach. The aim of Transport for the North is to provide plans that support economic growth in the north, and I will return to that in my closing remarks.
I will dedicate a good part of my short, pithy but, I hope, none the less impressive speech to my hon. Friend’s particular concerns about the York outer ring road, which he described as a “noose” around the neck of the city. He is right that there are ongoing challenges in respect of that ring road. I support his desire for the roads around York to work effectively in order to minimise traffic disruption in the centre of the city, to ensure that people can get to where they need to go quickly and reliably, and to support the city’s continued growth.
My hon. Friend made an important point about housing development. Bluntly, the Government need to do more to co-ordinate policy across a range of elements of growth. The important relationship between infrastructural investment and population growth must be part of our thinking, as he has powerfully described in respect of his constituency. I acknowledge his point that we need to think laterally and strategically in those terms.
My hon. Friend acknowledged that York Council has already made improvements to the route by improving a number of roundabouts. He will know that the council also has plans in train to access funding from the West Yorkshire Plus transport fund to improve the remaining seven junctions on that outer ring road. It is a good example of central and local government combining, as I described a moment ago. As he made clear, the West Yorkshire Plus transport fund programme, which is worth up to £783 million over 30 years, is being funded from the Government’s local growth fund awards in July 2014.
City of York Council is currently developing the business case for its next plan of work and schemes, and will be taking it forward through the West Yorkshire approval process. Once funding is confirmed, York will start a programme of works to improve seven roundabouts in 2017, which the council expects to be completed in 2021-22. In addition, York Council has also made a bid to the Department’s large local majors scheme for development funding to build the case for dualling the route. That is a separate and significant piece of work.
We set up the scheme for exceptionally large and potentially transformative projects that, because they are too big to be taken forward through the normal local growth fund allocations, would otherwise not be funded. We have allocated £475 million in local growth fund money to a competitive scheme that will enable local enterprise partnerships to implement the best of those large schemes. It is a two-stage approach, as my hon. Friend will know. Recognising that transformative schemes can take significant time and resources to develop, we are enabling sponsors to apply for development costs for their business case and then, later, to apply for full scheme costs.
The criteria for the development funding are clear; I hope that this will be helpful to my hon. Friend. We are considering schemes that will help deliver area growth objectives, which were at the heart of his speech, and clear value for money, and that can produce an outline business case quickly but with robust and plausible time scales. The schemes must be deliverable and have strategic impact that can be delivered cost-effectively. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has already announced funding for four schemes in the fast-track round of the competition.
The Department is now considering bids under the main round, including the bid from York. The winners will be announced around the time of the autumn statement later this year. I must say to my hon. Friend that the process is very competitive; I am sure that he imagined so anyway, but it is important for me to put it on record. The Department has received a significant number of bids, and of course we want to back the strongest proposals. As I am sure he will appreciate, I cannot comment further on York’s bid. None the less, he has highlighted the significance of the challenges associated with York and its infrastructure needs. In that respect, he has done a service to the House, his constituents and the city of which he is so proud.
We are investing record amounts in the strategic roads network. My hon. Friend will know that when I was in the Department for Transport previously, I took through the House the Infrastructure Act 2015, which gave life to the road investment strategy. We are committed as a Government to creating a better road network that works for drivers and the people who live in and around cities and communities such as York. In Yorkshire and the north-east, we are investing £1.4 billion in the strategic road network, delivering the biggest increase in capacity in the region since 1971. That includes an upgrade to the strategic roads serving York and North Yorkshire.
As my hon. Friend mentioned, the road investment strategy also announced a scheme to improve the A64 Hopgrove junction by upgrading the Hopgrove roundabout east of York. That scheme is set for delivery by the end of the second road investment strategy period of 2020 to 2025, and Highways England is currently conducting a feasibility study to identify options for upgrading the roundabout.
My hon. Friend referred to wider transport issues for the north. He will know that the Government remain committed to creating a northern powerhouse to rebalance our economy, which is why we created Transport for the North. We have given £200 million to resource that effort, providing both a long-term financial commitment and the leadership required to deliver that kind of vision. The north now has a single joined-up body to shape the investment that will transform transport across the north of England.
It would be remiss of me not to mention in the time available the significant investment that we are making in railways. The north of England rail infrastructure upgrade programme will transform rail travel in the region, delivering faster and more frequent rail services with benefits and better connections for many cities across the north by 2019. Our £1 billion investment programme includes a substantial electrification programme and other track, station and signalling improvements to improve capacity and the number of services, making journeys quicker and more reliable.
Between Manchester and York, for example, options are being developed to deliver an improvement in journey times of up to 15 minutes by the end of 2022. Passengers will benefit from additional infrastructure and other franchising investments. York travellers are already benefiting from the extra seats and services provided by the Virgin Trains east coast franchise awarded in 2014. I point out that I often travel on trains that originate in York, getting on the train at Peterborough and travelling to King’s Cross, so I know that service well and how important it is for the many who travel from York to London. Further proposed investment in that line will add benefits to travellers like my hon. Friend and me.
I am pleased to say that the Government and our agencies are working with York Council to develop the potential of York station as a major gateway to York, Yorkshire and the north. Successful developments at stations such as Birmingham New Street, Manchester Victoria and London King’s Cross have delivered transformational improvements to the communities that they serve. As I have responsibility across the Department for the built environment, I am determined to ensure that all station improvements are as good as the development at King’s Cross. We must ensure that they are not only ergonomically satisfactory but aesthetically of the highest order. As he will know, York station was announced to be part of the station regeneration vanguard in April this year.
My hon. Friend said a word or two about Haxby station, so it would also be remiss of me not to mention it briefly. He will know that the new round of the new stations fund was launched on 26 August, making £20 million available to promoters. Haxby bid in an earlier round of the fund, and I understand that it is likely to bid again. As he will also know, the criteria have been altered. Although I cannot comment on the outcome, I am keen—although I am not the Rail Minister as a rule, I take the opportunity to say this now, because for the purposes of this debate, I am—to open new stations. We should be ambitious about reopening stations where there is a strong business case for doing so. My hon. Friend has done a service in highlighting the case of Haxby station in this short debate.
As I say, my hon. Friend has done a service to the House, and in doing so, has given me the opportunity to restate this Government’s commitment to the kind of transformative investment and strategic approach that he has recommended to us. It is vital that this House and these debates inform Government thinking. It is not good enough for Ministers simply to parrot what was going to happen anyway; we must also think carefully about the arguments made by Members across this House and, where necessary, recalibrate and rethink policy approaches accordingly. That is precisely the approach that I have taken as Minister, and I shall continue to do so as a result of this useful contribution to our thinking.
I spoke earlier of Disraeli, and I will end with him too. He said:
“Man is not the creature of circumstances, circumstances are the creatures of men. We are free agents, and man is more powerful than matter.”
Let us gauge circumstances and create a better future with the power that men can bring to alter those circumstances where necessary.
Question put and agreed to.
Claim of Right for Scotland
(7 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Peter Bone (in the Chair)
Before I call Patrick Grady to move the motion, may I say that I have not yet had any written requests to speak in this debate? Mr Speaker has asked the Panel of Chairs to remind Members that it is the convention of the House that they should submit in writing to the Speaker’s Office if they want to speak in a debate.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the Claim of Right for Scotland.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I know that you are a great champion of grassroots democracy, so I hope that a lot of what I have to say will strike a chord with you. This has not been the most straightforward debate to bring to Westminster Hall. Members who pay close attention to the Order Paper will have noticed that before the recess, it originally appeared in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant). He has the same initials as me, but I clearly have considerably worse handwriting than him—bad enough for even the stellar cryptographers in the Table Office to be stumped.
After sorting that out, the Clerks and Library specialists wanted to know which Claim of Right for Scotland I wanted to debate: the ancient claim dating to 1689, which asserts the right of appeal against perceived judicial injustice; the more modern claim, signed in 1989 as the founding document of the Scottish Constitutional Convention; or the claim adopted by the Scottish Parliament in 2012, in the context of the independence referendum. The answer is not one of those, but all of them—or, more accurately, their central assertion, endorsed in 1989 and 2012, which acknowledges the sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine the form of government best suited to their needs and the obligation on elected representatives that in all our actions and deliberations, the interests of the people of Scotland shall be paramount.
My argument is that the Claim of Right is not, or is no longer, an historical document. It is a concept, and indeed a fundamental principle, that underpins the democracy and constitutional framework of Scotland. It is as relevant today as it has ever been. The economy on the brink of recession; the Government hopelessly divided on Europe; the Labour party in turmoil; a woman Prime Minister in Downing Street; and Scotland living under yet another Conservative Government it did not vote for, pushing through damaging social policies against the will of the vast majority of people and parliamentarians—yes, that was the situation in 1989, when parliamentarians, councillors and church and civil society leaders gathered on the Mound in Edinburgh to sign the claim of right and begin the work of the Scottish Constitutional Convention.
It is an historical fact that Scottish National party members were not present for the signing and did not take part in the convention. The SNP took part in early discussions, but withdrew when it became clear that the convention would not countenance independence. We argued at the time, and might still argue today, that to rule out such an option was to deny a key principle of the claim: the right to choose the best form of government. However, the claim signed in 1989 represented something of a consensus in the country that the democratic deficit experienced throughout the Thatcher years was becoming intolerable, and the convention paved the way for the Parliament that now meets in Holyrood. Today, the First Minister is outlining her programme for government, implementing as best she can with the powers available to that Parliament our vision of a more progressive and socially just Scotland.
The excellent briefing produced by the House of Commons Library for this debate contains an appendix showing the 1989 claim and its list of signatories. Some of the names are familiar: Gordon Brown, Alistair Darling, John McFall, David Steel, Jim Wallace, Archy Kirkwood. Some of those individuals can still be found at Westminster, although they go by slightly different styles and titles and work in another place with little in the way of a democratic mandate.
Another signatory is a constituent of mine, Elspeth Attwooll, a former Liberal Democrat MEP whom I credit for inspiring this debate. Before the European referendum, we both took part in a hustings where she reflected on what it meant to her to have been a signatory to the Claim of Right. It made me think about how far Scotland has come over the nearly 30 years since the claim was signed, and indeed over the years since the referendum on devolution, the 19th anniversary of which we will mark this coming Sunday. We have come far, but we still have much further to go.
The Brexit result is only the most glaring and recent example. Despite all the powers that have been devolved to the Scottish Parliament, Westminster still holds the purse strings. After three Scotland Acts since 1997, 70% of taxes and 85% of welfare spending, two of the most crucial levers of social and economic policy, remain reserved to Westminster. The Scottish Parliament, 58 out of 59 of Scotland’s MPs and local authorities across the country have all voted against the renewal of Trident, but it will still go ahead, less than 40 miles from our biggest population centre. The bedroom tax, welfare cuts, the undermining of energy and climate change policy, the threatened withdrawal from the European convention on human rights and even the removal of a tugboat from the west coast of Scotland are all directly against the will of the people of Scotland, as expressed democratically at the ballot box, yet all of them have been foisted on us by Westminster Governments.
It will undoubtedly be argued that the people of Scotland exercised their sovereignty on 18 September 2014. Some have argued that during those 15 hours when the polls were open, Scotland was truly an independent country: the future of our governance was in the hands of our people and nobody else. Disappointed though many of us were by the result of the referendum, we accept that Scotland voted to remain in the Union. However, voters were told repeatedly during the referendum that a no vote was not a vote for the status quo, and that choosing to stay in the Union would bring about a new relationship in which Scotland would lead the UK, not leave it. A vow was made to deliver something as near to federalism as possible, and a guarantee was given that Scotland would remain a member of the European Union.
As we approach the second anniversary of the referendum, none of those promises have been kept. There might have been a new status quo on the morning of 19 September 2014, but there was also one on the morning of 24 June 2016, when the Union for which people in Scotland voted came to an end. That United Kingdom—a United Kingdom that would remain part of the European Union, guaranteeing people in Scotland freedom of movement for themselves and their goods, capital and services across a continent to which we have always looked and of which we have always seen ourselves as a part—no longer exists. The Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union said as much yesterday: Brexit means that the UK will leave the European Union. That is not what people in Scotland voted for, either in 2014 or in 2016. In choosing the form of government best suited to their needs, people in Scotland, on both occasions, chose a form of government that involved continuing membership of the European Union.
That is why the Scottish Government have pledged to work as constructively as possible to protect and defend Scotland’s interests within the Brexit process. I hope that the UK Government will work constructively with the new Scottish Government Minister for UK Negotiations on Scotland’s Place in Europe as they prepare for the article 50 process. The First Minister has appointed a standing council of expert advisers to help explore different options to maintain a relationship between Scotland and Europe that reflects the choice made by people in Scotland in the European referendum.
That is also why the Scottish Government and Scottish Parliament must ultimately reserve the right to hold another referendum on independence for Scotland. If it becomes clear that the best or only way for Scotland to remain in the EU is to become an independent member of the EU, we must have the right to make that decision for ourselves.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
On the advantages of the EU, the hon. Gentleman will know that my party agrees with his—we voted in the Scottish Parliament to support the First Minister in taking every possible avenue to keep the advantages of the EU—but is he honestly telling the House that the solution is for Scotland to turn away from its much bigger trading partner, the UK?
Patrick Grady
I am saying that all the different options must be explored. The Scottish Government have committed on a cross-party basis to explore all those options as constructively as possible, but we must retain the right to revisit the question of our independent membership of the European Union if that becomes the best or only way to protect the benefits that we get from that membership. That is the crux of the Claim of Right: it is for the people of Scotland to choose the form of governance best suited to their needs. If our democratically elected Parliament decides on a cross- party basis—it will have to be on a cross-party basis, as we have a minority Government—to call for another independence referendum, will the UK Government seriously stand in the way?
The Edinburgh agreement may have been signed to pave the way for the 2014 referendum, but it is a de facto acknowledgment of both the general principle of the Claim of Right and the more specific question of whether Scotland has the right to become an independent country in a referendum. So when the former Prime Minister said in the Chamber that his county of Oxfordshire had voted to remain but that no one was calling for it to have an exemption from the UK-wide vote, he demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding of the constitutional framework in Scotland. Indeed, it was the same kind of misunderstanding that led one of his predecessors to describe the Scots Parliament as a “parish council”. There has never been a claim of right for Oxfordshire, as far as I am aware, nor has there been an Edinburgh agreement recognising Oxfordshire’s right to become an independent country, but such principles are now firmly established in Scotland—indeed, they always have been.
Historically, the monarchs in Scotland were Kings and Queens of Scots. They ruled at the sufferance of the people, rather than ruling over the land or exercising a sovereignty vested in their own person or in the Crown in Parliament, as the tradition has it here in Westminster—although, as I said in this Chamber yesterday, I was interested to hear how many converts to the idea of participatory democracy there were on the Government Benches, and how keen some of them had become to cede some of their hallowed parliamentary sovereignty to popular opinion expressed in a referendum.
One reason why I bid for this debate was that I heard a number of colleagues both in the Government and in the official Opposition say informally that there would not be another independence referendum because the Prime Minister would not allow it. That reminds me of the famous words of the convenor of the Scottish Constitutional Convention, Canon Kenyon Wright, who said at the opening of the convention:
“What if that other voice we all know so well responds by saying, ‘We say no, and we are the state’? Well, we say yes—and we are the people.”
So I ask the Government—I note that the Minister here today is the Deputy Leader of the House, not a Minister from the Scotland Office, because of course it has no junior Ministers—whether they accept the principle of the Claim of Right for Scotland. The Conservatives, uniquely among political parties in Scotland, refused both to sign the declaration in 1989 and to back it in the 2012 Scottish Parliament vote. Given the promises made during the independence referendum, the respect agenda and the partnership of nations we are supposed to belong to, will they reconsider?
If the Minister cannot bring himself to commit to something so momentous today, will he at least recognise that the differential result in the Brexit referendum means that there must be a differential response from the Government? Will they consider seriously any proposals that come forward from Scotland, whether they are about participation in Erasmus, the Horizon 2020 programme or, more fundamentally, efforts to build a coalition that protects the UK’s membership of the European single market? Will the Minister and the Government consider how effectively the voices of Scotland’s MPs of all parties are heard in this House? Surely it is time for a review of the English votes for English laws procedures, which are wasting parliamentary time and continue to undermine our supposedly equal status in this House.
There may be parallels with the prevailing political and economic situation in 1989, but this is 2016. Scotland’s voice is articulated not only by Members of Parliament here at Westminster, but in a modern, vibrant and diverse Parliament at Holyrood. Those of us who have been elected to the House of Commons come from a very different tradition from our predecessors. We have not come here to settle down, bide our time and hope for a seat in the House of Lords one day. When I leave this place, as I am well aware I will, it will be because I have decided not to put myself forward, because the voters have decided they want someone else, or because at last there will be no need for Scotland to send MPs to Westminster.
In the SNP, we make no secret of the fact that we think the form of government best suited to the needs of people in Scotland is an independent one. In the words of our party constitution, it is
“the restoration of Scottish national sovereignty by restoration of full powers to the Scottish Parliament, so that its authority is limited only by the sovereign power of the Scottish People to bind it with a written constitution and by such agreements as it may freely enter into with other nations or states or international organisations for the purpose of furthering international cooperation, world peace and the protection of the environment.”
But we also recognise that we have a job to do in persuading a majority of our fellow citizens of that case, which is why the second clause of our constitution is simply
“the furtherance of all Scottish interests.”
We make no special claim to the Claim of Right; it belongs, by definition, to everyone in Scotland, regardless of which political party they support or which constitutional option they prefer. But it encapsulates the right to decide and keep deciding the best form of government for their needs and for the time we live in.
When the Scottish Parliament debated and adopted the Claim of Right in 2012, it did not endorse the principle of independence, but it acknowledged the principle of deciding on independence, so the Claim of Right is not just an historical document or a scholarly debating point; it is a fundamental principle on which our democracy rests. If the UK Government are serious about maintaining the present Union as a partnership of equals, they need to understand that.
I hope that, 27 years since the declaration was signed, 19 years since the devolution referendum, 17 years since the Scottish Parliament was established, nine years since the first SNP Government were elected, two years since the independence referendum, 18 months since the UK general election, four months since the Scottish Parliament elections and three months since the European referendum, the Government might finally start to get the message.
Michael Gove (Surrey Heath) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Bone.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) on the lucid, passionate and effective way in which he laid out the case for independence, and on using the constitutional history behind the Claim of Right as a legitimising factor for independence. However, as he was gracious enough to acknowledge, when the Claim of Right was re-established in 1989 by cross-party consensus, the Scottish National party stood aside from that consensus. That was because the SNP position towards our constitution has always been what Henry Ford’s was towards the Model T. Henry Ford said, “You can have your car in any colour you like, as long as it’s black,” and the SNP says, “The Scottish people can decide on any constitutional future they like, provided they choose independence.” So when at that time there was a consensus—I will admit that the Conservatives were outside it—in favour of devolution, the SNP said, “This assertion of popular sovereignty is wrong because it doesn’t agree with me.” In that sense, the SNP was a bit like the proud mother who notices her son marching out of step with everyone else in the regiment and says, “Everybody is out of step, apart from my Willie.”
What the SNP has in consistency, which is admirable, it lacks in honesty about where the true centre of Scottish public opinion lies, and that is in favour of devolution. From 1989 to the present day, there has been support for a Scottish Parliament within the United Kingdom, and when the arithmetic in the constitutional convention did not suit the SNP in 1989, it stood aside, proud in its solitary conventicle. And now, even though it has a majority of representation for Scotland in this House, it regards the fact that a majority of people in Scotland voted against independence in the referendum as a mere temporary interruption and inconvenience.
Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)
Will the right hon. Gentleman clarify exactly what is being suggested? Is it being said that, because a political party—in this case, the SNP—has a desired and preferential constitutional outcome, somehow its adherence to that negates any genuine commitment to allowing people to choose between a number of options? If that is the case, would it not also apply to the Conservative party or any other political party that has a preferential outcome? Surely the whole point of having a choice is that different parties can put different perspectives before the people and allow them to choose.
Michael Gove
I absolutely agree. It is to the credit of the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues that, as I said earlier, they put the case for independence with fluency, with authority, with passion, with commitment. I take nothing away from the power of the case that they make. But the Scottish people have rejected that case: in a referendum, the Scottish people clearly—by 55% to 45%—said no to independence.
But now the SNP is claiming in this debate that the long-held constitutional principle that the Scottish people are sovereign means that the Scottish people should be independent. But either the Scottish people decide their own constitutional fate, in which case we should respect the decision taken in that referendum, or they are perpetually wrong because they do not agree with the SNP. I also point out that since that referendum we have seen the SNP move from being a majority Government in Holyrood to a minority Government, and we have seen that support for Scotland’s position within the Union has remained resolutely at the same level as in the referendum. We have also seen Ruth Davidson, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, become the single most impressive and popular politician in Scotland. The latest statistics and opinion polling reinforce what everyone knows, which is that she is the single most formidable politician in Scotland. Those are the facts and, as Robert Burns once pointed out, we all know that,
“facts are chiels that winna ding”.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
Does the right hon. Gentleman believe that that most formidable and respected politician in Scotland should categorically denounce the xenophobic comments made by one of her party spokespersons against Christian Allard, who has given massive service to the Scottish Parliament and to the Scottish people?
Michael Gove
I am unaware of that eventuality. All I would say is that xenophobia has no place in political discourse and that, throughout her leadership of the Scottish Conservatives, Ruth has been consistent in making it clear that Scotland should be a warm and welcoming home for people from every background and every community.
Ian Murray
The right hon. Gentleman is one of the architects of Brexit, which has brought about this debate and is the reason behind some of the other debates in this House about Scottish independence. Will he reflect on the fact that the very person he just spoke about promised the Scottish people that if they voted Scottish Conservative they would protect the Union? How is that going?
Michael Gove
The Union is in robust good health, as is shown by the support for the continuity of the United Kingdom, which is maintained at the same level as it was during the heat of the referendum campaign.
It is important to acknowledge something more. The hon. Member for Glasgow North pointed out that, in the run-up to the referendum campaign, my party, the Labour party and the Liberal Democrats issued a commitment to increase the level of devolution given to the Scottish Parliament—the vow, published on the front page of the Daily Record. The keeper of the vow—the independent figure who was responsible for ensuring that that promise was kept—was Lord Smith of Kelvin, and he stated unambiguously that the vow had been maintained.
More than that, powers that existed before the vow and the passage of the Scotland Act 2016, and powers that are now conferred on Holyrood, have not been used by the Scottish Government. Why is it that there has been such timorousness about the exercise of the powers that the Scottish Government already have? Why is it that the tax-varying powers that have been conferred on Nicola Sturgeon and the Executive have not been exercised? Why is it that a party that claims that the answer to all Scotland’s problems is more power in Edinburgh has not even exercised the powers that it has? I can only conclude that the SNP wants a perpetual state of irritation and grievance with our current constitutional arrangements, rather than a determination to make them work. That is one reason why the SNP, having achieved unprecedented electoral popularity under Alex Salmond, is on a slow, gentle but irreversible slide in public opinion.
There is more. It is not just that the powers that we, as a United Kingdom Parliament, conferred on Holyrood, and that the Scottish people voted for, have not been exercised; it is also the case that in those policy areas that have been devolved to Scotland since the establishment of the Scottish Parliament, the SNP-led Administration have signally failed to deliver for the Scottish people.
Let us look particularly at education. When I was growing up and a student in Scotland’s schools, Scotland boasted, to good effect, that its education system was superior to that of England and any other part of the United Kingdom. The principle of the democratic intellect; the character of the lad o’ pairts; the principle, established at the time of John Knox, that there should be a school for every child in every parish—all stand testament to the fact that the Scottish people have valued education, historically, more highly than anyone else within these islands.
However, if we look at the reality of Scottish education now, we can see that children from poor backgrounds in Scotland are less likely to go on to higher education than children from poor backgrounds in England. The gap between educational outcomes for rich and poor has grown under the SNP Government. As was pointed out by Brian Wilson, formerly a Member of this House and still a distinguished journalist, one has to look very hard to find a single effective redistributive measure that has been introduced by the SNP whereby power or resources have been taken from the rich to the poor in Scotland, or whereby the opportunities available to poor children in Scotland have increased. Once again, the question has to be asked: why is it that the SNP, having had a majority Government and now having a minority Government with the support of the Greens, has been able to do so little to improve educational outcomes for Scottish children? The answer to which I am again inevitably drawn is: because the SNP is more interested in manufacturing grievance than it is in governing Scotland well.
Another example is the aftermath of the vote for Britain to leave the European Union. I remind the House that yes, of course a majority in Scotland did not vote to leave the European Union, but a significant minority did, and they did so in the teeth of a political establishment united in opposition to that proposition. Many of the people who did vote to leave come from backgrounds that I know well, in farming and fisheries. They recognised that an independent United Kingdom, with Scotland exercising power through its own Parliament, would have new powers over fisheries and farming when Britain left the European Union. But so far we have seen no effort to deploy any imagination, energy or passion in pointing out the ways in which Scotland’s agriculture and fisheries economic backbone can be strengthened by our departure from the European Union. As we saw with the start of the national conversation, there has been an attempt to use the vote to manufacture grievance rather than to ask the question, what is in the best interests of all the Scottish people?
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
Just to clarify, after the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union yesterday outlined what Brexit would mean by not outlining anything, is the right hon. Gentleman saying that Scotland is going to get full control of its fisheries policy?
Michael Gove
My point is that when we were making the case for Britain to leave the European Union, it was perfectly clear that fisheries and agricultural policy would come back. Had a Scottish Parliament existed prior to our entry into the European Union, those policies would have been administered by the Scottish Parliament. There is the potential for the Scottish Parliament, already supercharged by the vow, to become even stronger. But, instead of exploring those opportunities—rather than regarding the glass as half full or even looking optimistically at the situation and thinking, “Well, I may not have voted for it, but I am determined to make it work for the people of Scotland”—the vote is being used to fuel a narrative of grievance and separation.
My principal charge against the SNP is this: there is no shortage of talent on the SNP Benches in Westminster and there is no shortage of passion or brainpower in the Scottish Government. Some of the most impressive men and women in Scottish public life staff the Scottish Government. This is a golden opportunity for them to show what devolution can deliver, but that opportunity is not being taken because, as this debate shows, a focus on the constitution, the generation of grievance and the creation of division trumps the cause of good government.
There are so many ways in which the devolution settlement could help the Scottish people to flourish within the United Kingdom. It is only within the United Kingdom that Scotland can, in the short to medium and, I would argue, long term, be absolutely certain that its people will have all the opportunities they deserve. Over the past month, it was remarkable when we discovered the impact of a diminution in global oil prices on Scotland’s economic position. It was remarkable the extent to which the commodity that had been relied on throughout the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s to underwrite independence had moved from being a well-stuffed piggy bank into an arid emptiness. I speak as someone whose family live in Aberdeen and for whom that fall in the oil price is, of course, a source of sadness, because individuals have lost their jobs.
More important than that being a source of sadness for the people of Aberdeen, though, is the stark fact for the people of all of Scotland that, as the author of the Scottish Government’s own White Paper on independence has admitted, the economic case for independence has been blown out of the water. I ask the SNP: now that oil is no longer the well-stuffed piggy bank that it used to be, what is being done to ensure that Scotland thrives economically? Yes, the First Minister has set up a growth commission, but what about the devastation that has been wrought on the further education sector? What about the lack of investment in skills in Scotland? What about the long-term decisions that could have put Scotland on a stronger economic course, but have not been taken? They have not been taken in order to manufacture grievance, create irritation and reinforce division.
Peter Grant
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way once again and I am fascinated by this assumption that a set of figures that demonstrate how poorly the Scottish economy is performing under Conservative UK Government control is somehow an indication that Scotland cannot survive independently.
However, I go back to a comment the right hon. Gentleman made a minute ago about the impact of the fall in the price of oil, because any economic indicator that I have seen suggests that the economy of Norway is far more dependent on oil than the economy of Scotland ever has been or ever will be. Can he explain why the Norwegian economy has managed to ride out the storm? Are the Norwegians selling their oil to somebody paying a higher price? Have they got special gold-plated oil that is worth more than other oil? Or is it perhaps that they had the chance to put their oil aside when there was plenty of it because they had control of their own resources? How does he explain the continuing success of the Norwegian economy, which is more dependent on the falling oil price than we are?
Michael Gove
I am tempted to remind the hon. Gentleman that of course Norway is outside the European Union and has been since it voted to stay outside the European Union, and as a result it has been able to invest not just its oil wealth but its fishing wealth, and indeed to capitalise on its other advantages, to create a sovereign wealth fund and to take the decisions to enable it to be a country that many of us envy.
Of course, there are some nationalists who follow through on the logic of that. The former Member for Govan, Jim Sillars, has been consistent throughout in saying that sovereignty, if properly interpreted, would mean that Scotland would not only be outside the United Kingdom but outside the European Union. Although I do not agree with Mr Sillars on everything, one thing I have to say is that it is remarkable that Scots would want to give up the pound—they would have to do so if they left the United Kingdom—in order to embrace the euro, which they would have to do if they entered the European Union.
Of course, there is another alternative to that, which was outlined by the First Minister’s economic adviser, Mr Joseph Stiglitz, the other day. It is that we should have a new independent Scottish currency—a Scottish pound. It will be interesting to see if that is SNP policy and if it is, all I can say is, “If you want to go into the next independence referendum saying, ‘We’re ditching sterling and it’s a choice between the euro and our new Scottish pound’, good luck with that!”
That is because Scots voters, who were given the chance to vote in the last referendum campaign, absolutely wanted to ensure that there were more powers for the Scottish Parliament but they also wanted—even more—to ensure that Scotland remained within the United Kingdom. It was a decisive vote, providing an unprecedented mandate for the United Kingdom. The timing of the vote, the nature of the vote and the extent of the franchise were all dictated or chosen by the Scottish Government. So the Scottish Government chose the pitch, chose the rules and chose the referee, but it was still victory for the United Kingdom.
Therefore, the question that arises and that was dodged in the admittedly eloquent and fluent opening speech by the hon. Member for Glasgow North is, “Given the powers that the Scottish Government currently have that they have not exercised, why haven’t they been exercised?” The question for all SNP MPs here in Westminster is, “Why haven’t you chosen to make a success of the current arrangements in order to argue that that is the case for more devolution, more power and perhaps ultimately independence? Why instead have you allowed those powers to remain unused, in order to be able to point the finger at current arrangements and say that they are unsatisfactory?” That is the paradox at the heart of the SNP position. The SNP is afraid to exercise the powers that it has, because it is determined that the current situation should never be seen to work.
My argument is that that position is a betrayal of what the Scottish people voted for; it undermines the principle of the Claim of Right; it is an attempt to weaken the United Kingdom; if there ever was another referendum on Scotland’s place in the United Kingdom, people would see through the SNP’s manipulation of the politics of now for the politics of never-never; and on that basis the Scottish people would vote, as they always have done when they have been given the chance to do so, to remain in a strong, robust Union that works, which is the United Kingdom.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
Thank you very much, Mr Bone, for calling me to speak; it is a great pleasure to serve with you in the Chair.
It is also a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), whose great passion for Brexit—I re-emphasise—has brought us to this particular position. We would not be having debates again about rerunning the independence referendum if the former Prime Minister had not gambled the UK farm and lost. Indeed, there was no apology in the 17 minutes of the right hon. Gentleman’s oratory for the campaign bus or for getting us into this constitutional quagmire.
I emphasise that the leader of the Scottish Conservative party, who had no other policies whatever, made it her one policy at the Scottish elections back in May to say to the Scottish people, “Vote Conservative and we will protect the Union.” Everything that has happened since then has risked the very United Kingdom that I and many people in this Chamber have voted for and worked very hard to protect.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) on securing this debate. There is one thing that I agree with the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath about: the fact that we never have debates in Westminster Hall on how to eradicate poverty in Scotland, on how to use the powers of the Scottish Parliament to make sure we can provide finances for public services, on how to close the attainment gap or on how to ensure that Scotland is outward-looking to the world. Instead, it is all grievance, it is all constitution, and it is all taking the debate and the agenda away from the issues that really matter in Scotland about public services and how the Scottish Parliament, by using its powers—or in this case, not using them—would be a good place to lie.
Patrick Grady
I point out again to both Members who have followed me, the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) and the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray), that the First Minister is at this moment addressing the Chamber of the Scottish Parliament to announce, among other things, £750 million to help to close the educational attainment gap, a guarantee that the health budget of Scotland will increase by at least £500 million more than inflation every year, and a doubling of the amount of free care available to all three and four-year-olds, and the most disadvantaged two-year-olds, across Scotland. The idea that the Scottish Government are not using the powers of the Scottish Parliament and are not delivering for the people of Scotland is simply false.
Ian Murray
I am delighted to hear that, because after 10 years it is about time that the Scottish Parliament started to invest in closing the educational attainment gap and in public services. That intervention by the hon. Gentleman highlights the fact that the Scottish Parliament has powers to make a difference in people’s lives, but in his speech to begin this debate he said that the Scottish Parliament has no powers whatever. Indeed, he even mentioned the tugboat that was taken away, as if the Scottish Parliament meets to discuss what it cannot do rather than trying to change the lives of people in the ways that it can.
Let us get back to this debate about the Claim of Right. It is worth just reading out the start of the declaration of the 1989 Claim of Right, which was indeed re-emphasised in the Scottish Parliament and voted on in 2012. It says:
“We, gathered as the Scottish Constitutional Convention, do hereby acknowledge the sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine the form of Government best suited to their needs, and do hereby declare and pledge that in all our actions and deliberations their interests shall be paramount.”
We have heard much from the hon. Gentleman, who is the mover of the particular motion that we are debating today, about the importance of respecting Scottish sovereignty. Respecting the popular will is important, not only in Scotland but across the United Kingdom. Let us not forget that, as the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath mentioned, the Scottish National party, along with many Scottish Tories, did not participate in the constitutional convention; the SNP did not participate in that conversation with civic Scotland, politicians, groups, universities and business about what the future of devolution should look like. Moreover, the SNP did not accept the wording of the Claim of Right that that convention was founded upon. Indeed, it is only the Labour party and the Scottish Labour party that have been entirely consistent in upholding the words of the Claim of Right, because it pledged:
“To agree a scheme for an Assembly or Parliament for Scotland; To mobilise Scottish opinion and ensure the approval of the Scottish people for that scheme”.
It went on to say that it also pledged:
“To assert the right of the Scottish people to secure implementation of that scheme.”
When the Labour party was elected to Government in 1997, one of its first Bills delivered the referendum on devolution, mobilised popular support for its approval, asserted the sovereign right of the Scottish people, delivered on the result of the referendum and created the Scottish Parliament that we have today. There was no mention of all that from the hon. Member for Glasgow North; there was no mention of how we said to the Scottish people that we would deliver something, got into power and then delivered it, on the basis of what the Scottish people were telling us they wanted to happen.
To be fair, when the SNP was elected in 2011 on a manifesto that pledged an independence referendum, we respected the mandate for that referendum, too, because the Scottish people had voted for it. Consequently, in 2014 we had that referendum and that time the Scottish people voted to stay in the UK. So, taking the word of the Claim of Right as our guide, if we can, we acknowledged
“the sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine the form of Government best suited to their needs”.
The Scottish people voted for a powerful Scottish Parliament, but with Scotland being an integral part of the United Kingdom. The Claim of Right was put into practice: it was voted on in 2012 in the Scottish Parliament; the referendum happened in 2014; the Scottish people spoke; and
“the sovereign right of the Scottish people”
is to stay within the United Kingdom, but with a much more powerful Scottish Parliament. That was the spirit and the substance of the Claim of Right that we are discussing today.
I want to go back to the intervention from the hon. Member for Glasgow North. The Scottish Parliament is one of the most powerful devolved Parliaments in the world. It is about time that the politicians elected by the people looked back at that Claim of Right and said, “We were elected to deliver for the Scottish people with a powerful Scottish Parliament” and got on with the day job that they were elected to do. But every single day since the polls closed on 19 September 2014, the SNP has looked for any single trigger to get a different result in the referendum. That is surely the complete antithesis of the Claim of Right.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
Does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that during the independence referendum campaign, it was made very clear that one of the major benefits of being in the UK was remaining part of the EU? That is now simply not the case.
Ian Murray
The evidence shows that people did not vote on that particular basis. What the SNP is now telling us is that because the UK has turned away from a market worth £12 billion and 250,000 jobs to the Scottish economy—I was on the same side as the hon. Lady in wanting to stay in the European Union—the solution is for Scotland to turn away from another Union that has 1 million jobs and £50 billion worth of trading. That is surely not in the best interests of the Scottish people.
We have supported the SNP and the First Minister to make sure that the UK and Scotland can get the best deal from Brexit, but if the solution to Brexit is to turn away from an even bigger partner, to mount on top of one disaster—this constitutional decision at UK level—another disastrous constitutional solution, we are surely in the wrong place. That goes to the hub of the argument.
Deidre Brock
Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that in the case of Scotland’s becoming independent, England would be so petty-minded as to turn away from its nearest neighbour and not continue to trade in any meaningful way?
Ian Murray
We are back to rerunning the 2014 independence referendum. The key thing is—the hon. Lady and her party admit this—that the best solution in terms of currency is for Scotland and the UK to stay in the currency union. That was the SNP argument in 2014, so it has conceded that argument, unless it wants to go down the route of the hon. Member for East Lothian (George Kerevan) and go for a separate currency, which he says would involve many years of fiscal consolidation and require the selling of assets. Is the SNP talking about the euro? No, so it has already conceded that a currency union with the rest of the UK is the most important thing.
Let us consider the figures from the recent GERS report, with the £15 billion fiscal deficit, and how SNP Members fought for the fiscal framework to make sure the Barnett formula was maintained: that is an admission that the economic and fiscal framework is in Scotland’s best interest. Let us take as a starting point that it is in Scotland’s best interest to stay in the UK with a fiscal and economic union and a currency union. Is the SNP honestly saying that it will turn away from all that to be a part of the European Union when it does not know what the access requirements will be? The party does not know whether Scotland would get in. We had all these arguments in 2014. Indeed, it could be argued that entering the EU today would be much more difficult than in 2014, because there will be no grandfather rights when we leave as the UK. All of these issues have muddied the waters much more.
On the Claim of Right of the Scottish people in terms of this debate, they have voted clearly for Scotland to stay within the United Kingdom, but they also see the benefits and advantages of staying in the EU. It cannot be right to have two polarised camps in Scotland. We have the Scottish National party camp that says, “Independence at all costs” and a Scottish Conservative party that says it wants Scotland to be in the UK, but not in the EU, given the result of the EU referendum.
Both those polarised camps are completely wrong, because what Scotland wants, and what the UK and what I am sure the Prime Minister want, is for Scotland to stay within the United Kingdom, but for the United Kingdom to maintain the benefits of and its relationship with the European Union. That is what people voted for. That is what the Claim of Right would tell us they voted for.
The Claim of Right does not address the myriad problems in Scotland: the underfunded NHS, the growing attainment gap, the shambles that is Police Scotland and undervalued and overworked public servants. It does not deal with any of those issues. We know that the best way to deal with the eradication of poverty and the reduction in inequality—all the things we want to see in a much more socially just Scotland—is to maintain the fiscal, economic and currency union with the UK, but to ensure that Scotland’s position and advantages in the EU are maintained.
The right hon. Member for Surrey Heath is absolutely right. There is no discussion about agriculture, fisheries, regional policy or the environment. Those are all issues that should go straight back to the Scottish Parliament, which has responsibility, working in close partnership with the rest of the UK. But a fiscal transfer would have to happen. It is the same fiscal transfer that the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath had on the side of the bus. His fiscal transfer wants £350 million a week for the NHS. I want £750 million a year more for Scotland, along with these powers, so they can deal with the issues that would be repatriated to Scotland. Those are the big issues with regard to the Claim of Right.
If it is the case that every political party in Scotland now abides by the words, principles and substance of the Claim of Right, then the Scottish people have spoken. They have said they want to stay because they know it is in their economic, financial, political and cultural interests to be part of the UK, but they want to maintain the advantages of being in the EU. That is a challenge for the UK Government, the Scottish Government and the entire political, social, cultural and civil class in Scotland: to try to make sure we get the best possible deal for the people whom we seek to represent.
I am grateful that the hon. Member for Glasgow North secured this debate. I hope that, when he stands up in the Westminster Parliament, the SNP conference or in front of his constituency party in Glasgow North and talks about the Claim of Right, he will admit that Scotland voted to stay part of the United Kingdom and moves on to the great opportunities of using the powers of one of the most powerful devolved Parliaments in the world. My two amendments to the Scotland Bill that transfer welfare powers to Scotland were accepted by the Government, but nobody is talking about that, because the obsession with the constitution is destabilising Scotland and making the uncertainty around Scottish business and Scottish civic society polarised in terms of what the Scottish people want.
Let us get rid of all the constitutional arguments. Let us repaint buses and take all the lies off the sides of buses. Let us concentrate on what people want: the eradication of poverty; a reduction in inequality; making sure public services are properly financed; opportunities for our young people; making sure the next generation does better than the current one; and making sure we have adequate housing. Those are all the responsibilities of the Scottish Parliament. That is why we need to protect the fiscal, economic and cultural union with the UK and why we need to leave no stone unturned in making sure that Scotland’s position in the EU and the advantages that Scotland gets from the EU are protected. That is what the Scottish people have asked for. It would be a dereliction of duty if we did not try to deliver it.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Peter Bone (in the Chair)
Order. I think two Back Benchers are trying to catch my eye and I ought to start the wind-ups at half past. Will Members bear that in mind?
Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I should advise you that I did write to the Speaker’s Office and spoke to someone there today about giving a short speech. I promise to be brief, because we have already heard an eloquent speech from my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) encapsulating all the points that I wished to make.
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) for securing the debate here today at Westminster. The debate is not so much about a Claim of Right of the people of Scotland; it is more a claim by the SNP to have a right to determine the will of the Scottish people. There is nothing new in that position. I have heard it for almost 30 years. As has already been mentioned, we had a thorough, full debate during the Scottish referendum in the two years leading up to the September 2014 referendum.
All the issues were extensively discussed round the family kitchen tables, in schools, in businesses and at the highest political arena. Even during those debates the SNP repeatedly said through their senior politicians that the exercise of the sovereign will of the Scottish people would be a once in a lifetime, once in a generation matter. Implicit in that statement is that once in a lifetime, once in a generation must be about 40 or 50 years.
During that time, sovereign countries can enter and exit from international groupings, as, indeed, the United Kingdom is about to do by exiting from the international grouping of nations in the EU. At no point in the lead-up to the referendum did the SNP suggest that the exercise of the sovereign will of the Scottish people would be called into question, and that the SNP would have to assist the Scottish people once again—to help them think again and come to the answer that the SNP wants by having yet another referendum.
The SNP, rather shamelessly, has been doing nothing but grievance and gripe in the past two years, in this Chamber and in the House, and across the United Kingdom. All of us on the side of the United Kingdom are clear about why it is doing that; it is because it has one overriding objective, which is not to help the people of Scotland by furthering public services, reducing educational inequality and ensuring the quality of the Police Service of Scotland. Its objective is about none of those things: it is about ending the United Kingdom of Great Britain.
Thus the Scottish nationalists will never agree to any ambitious proposal for the United Kingdom, particularly with the challenges and opportunities that we now face with Brexit. They have no interest in agreeing on a path that will benefit the sovereign will of the Scottish people. The only path they want to adopt in the months and years to come is that of gripe and grievance. Today’s debate is an example of that.
Patrick Grady
I am hearing a lot of grievance, and I do not think it is coming from the SNP speakers. The hon. Gentleman has used that phrase several times. Do he and his colleague the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath accept in principle the sovereign right of the people of Scotland to determine their form of government? The Conservatives, uniquely in Scotland, have never endorsed that language, which is contained in the Claim of Right.
Alberto Costa
I am merely reiterating the claim made by the hon. Gentleman and saying that if he accepts the key principle of that claim, which is that sovereignty lies with the Scottish people, surely he agrees that two years ago that sovereignty was exercised when they said they wanted to remain part of the United Kingdom.
By the way, the Claim of Right does not define Scottish people. My right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath confirmed this afternoon that the SNP determined the rules for the 2014 referendum, which excluded thousands of Scots men and women—Scottish people like me—from determining the future of Scotland. I and many hundreds of people in my position had to accept those rules. The view proffered by the Scottish National party that it somehow represents the sovereign will of the Scottish people is entirely dishonest because of its refusal time and again to accept that sovereign will, which is to stay part of the United Kingdom.
We have heard about powers. The Scottish Parliament has had unique powers since its creation in the late 1990s. We have seen little exercise by the SNP majority Government—and now minority Government—of those real and tangible powers for the benefit of the Scottish people because they simply do not want to improve matters. My right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath used the word “paradox”; I would say that it is clear that the exercise of powers that would benefit the people of Scotland might lead to their telling the SNP, “Everything is working fine under the United Kingdom.” That would go against the SNP argument, so the paradox might go both ways.
The truth is that the SNP exists for one reason alone—to end Great Britain. There is nothing that hon. Members on both sides of the House who believe in the United Kingdom can do that will satisfy that constitutional thirst for the destruction of our great and sovereign United Kingdom.
Today’s debate is yet more smoke and mirrors—another excuse to get a headline in the Scottish media, saying that SNP politicians are somehow the only ones who have the people of Scotland in mind. That is wrong. All of us who love the United Kingdom have the intentions and wishes of the Scottish, Northern Irish, Welsh and English people at heart, to work together for the betterment of all our peoples throughout the United Kingdom. If there is any Claim of Right to be had, it is the Claim of Right to live a peaceful, tolerant, successful, stable life in a stable and successful country—the United Kingdom.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone.
I wanted to start with a sentence about respect, but I am sad to say that I have heard precious little respect today, from the Members who have spoken, towards Scotland or its elected representatives. I am very sorry about that. There has been a lot of mention of the independence referendum, and I have wondered about the promises made by the people who galloped up over the border in the closing weeks before the referendum. There has been a lot of talk about grievance and gripe, but I wonder what Members make of the many people in Scotland—not simply the SNP, although that makes up a considerable part of the population—who are annoyed and upset about the promises made to them in the run-up to the independence referendum. They included the protection of jobs at Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs; staying in the EU, as I mentioned earlier; the protection of shipbuilding jobs; and a vow that falls far short of what is commonly meant by home rule. Those promises were sold to the people of Scotland, and I urge Members to bear that in mind when they are addressing SNP Members.
Michael Gove
Will the hon. Lady enlighten us as to the view of Lord Smith of Kelvin, the keeper of the vow, about the decision of the Westminster Parliament to honour it? Did he agree that it had been honoured?
Deidre Brock
There were certainly members of the commission who were unhappy. None of the SNP amendments to the Scotland Bill were accepted for consideration until it went through to the unelected House of Lords, which is laughable.
To get back to the issue of respect, politicians, monarchs and bureaucrats need to understand and accept that powers lie with the people we serve, not with us. It is about knowing that the colossus that bestrides the world stage is people power and that those who lead are servants of the people, not masters. That is what the Claim of Right is. It is a declaration that the people are sovereign, as has been mentioned, and that it is in their gift to decide how that sovereignty should be used. Governments and Parliaments rule only with the consent of the people, and they exist only because the people allow them to. That is a reality that politicians forget at their peril.
It is important to note a clear difference between the attitudes struck towards Parliament in Scotland and in England. I understand that that point of difference is also noted in the legal concept of sovereignty in each nation. In England there is a belief in, tradition of, and historical precedent for the absolute sovereignty of Parliament, but there is no such belief in Scotland. The Scots’ attitude, and our constitutional law—which perhaps my learned friends will confirm—is that sovereignty rests with the people. That principle is embedded in the 1320 declaration of Arbroath, in which the King and future kings were warned that if they displeased the people, the people would elect another king—more like a president than a king, I suppose. That principle is embedded in the Claim of Right.
It is not quite right to say that no Conservative has ever acknowledged that principle, because it was acknowledged by the current Chair of the Select Committee on Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs, the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), when he said in a debate in the House on 22 May 1997:
“The ultimate sovereignty of the Scottish and Welsh peoples is a fact. Whatever the niceties of international law, Scotland and Wales can claim the right of self-determination if that is what they want”.—[Official Report, 22 May 1997; Vol. 294, c. 872.]
It took a bit of time from the publication of the Claim of Right to the interim solution—the creation of a devolved Administration—but 10 years is nothing in the great scheme of things, and in the march of nations it is but a blink of an eye. I have to say, though, that the Conservatives have a lot to thank the Claim of Right and Scottish devolution for—they saved their party. In fact, the current Scottish Secretary owes his political career to the Scottish Parliament. There had been few opportunities for Tory politicians in Scotland, even those who had previously been Social Democratic party councillors. The proportional representational element of the Scottish electoral system revived a party that was frankly dying, and which had ironically opposed its creation in the first place. Democracy, properly energised, gives some strange, interesting and unexpected results.
The Claim of Right was democracy in action. It emerged from civic Scotland, the Churches, the trade unions, small business and organisations the length and breadth of the country as a demand to address the democratic deficit that arose from being governed by a Government who could not command support in Scotland. It is interesting to note that John Major’s Government had 14% of the Members representing Scottish seats while the current Government have a bit less than 2%, so there is work still to be done in removing that democratic deficit from Scotland and rendering those of us who are Scots MPs redundant.
Mr Peter Bone (in the Chair)
Order. I do not want to rush the hon. Lady, because she has been waiting patiently and was kind enough to write in to request to speak, so we can extend her speech to 3.34 pm and bring the Front-Bench speeches down to eight minutes each.
Deidre Brock
You are very kind, Mr Bone.
Independence, in our view, is the logical end point for the journey that the Scottish Constitutional Convention set out on, and it is interesting that the original convention refused to countenance that possibility—there has been some mention of that. I am told that that is why the Scottish National party stepped away from the convention. It was some years before my time in the party, but I am told that the prospect of devolution caused great debate about whether it was good for Scotland, and that the refusal even to discuss independence in the convention was the final straw. My much older and more grizzled colleagues will be able to correct the record if I have misspoken in that respect—they have long and detailed memories.
The Claim of Right, resting on the principle that the people are sovereign and imbued with a notion of changing the form of government to address a democratic deficit, has an increased resonance now. In June, the UK voted to leave the EU. Scotland did not. Some 52% of UK voters voted leave, and 62% of Scottish voters voted remain—untimely ripped from the European Union were we. The democratic deficit remains stark, real and unrelenting. The conditions that necessitated the Claim of Right and the creation of the devolved Administration and Parliament in Edinburgh remain.
There is but one answer that will address that deficit and Scotland’s needs; one simple, elegant solution—the dissolution of the UK, Scottish independence and the creation of good neighbours as separate nations. No one has the right to fix the boundary to the march of a nation. No one can tell a country, “This far and no further”. The ultimate sovereignty of the Scottish and Welsh peoples is a fact. Scotland’s march goes on, and independence beckons.
Mr Peter Bone (in the Chair)
I remind the Front-Bench speakers that they will now have a maximum of eight minutes each, and I remind the Minister that under the new procedure he should allow at least two minutes for the proposer of the motion to sum up. I call Patrick Grady—I am sorry, Peter Grant.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
Thank you, Mr Bone. I think that means we are quits for the time my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) became me on the list when the debate was originally tabled.
I have perhaps misunderstood something from the reading I have done to refresh my mind about the various Claims of Right for Scotland and from listening to someone who presumably knows about the matter, because he led the debate. I thought that the Claim of Right for Scotland was about the people, but all we have heard from the Better Together Benches has been about political parties, Governments and political leaders. There has been precious little about the people. I still do not know whether either of the Conservative Members who spoke agree with the sacrosanct fact that sovereignty in Scotland resides with the people and that the people have the right to decide.
Peter Grant
If the hon. Gentleman is going to confirm that he agrees 100% with the right of the Scottish people to decide for themselves, I will happily give way.
Alberto Costa
I agree 100% that the sovereignty of the Scottish people was exercised when 55% of them said “No thanks” to the SNP and yes to the United Kingdom in a once-in-a-generation referendum. Let us leave it at that. Let us leave it for 50 years.
Peter Grant
Well, there we have it. Given an explicit opportunity, one of the few Conservatives who could be bothered to turn up to the debate has refused point blank to accept what has been established in our nation since 1320—that sovereignty resides with the people. I cannot help wondering how much less of a constitutional boorach England would be in right now if it had a fundamental acceptance of the sovereignty of the people.
We spent three hours in this room yesterday talking about a misguided, I think, but understandable demand from more than 4 million people to have some kind of rerun of the European Union referendum and set a threshold, because they were so bitterly disappointed with the result. A lot of the argument was constitutional nicety about whether Parliament has the right to ignore that result and hold referendums until it gets the right result, or just to say, “We’re staying in the European Union anyway.” Fundamentally, the answer is that no one really knows, because England does not have the benefit of a clear statement about where constitutional sovereignty ultimately lies. If sovereignty lies with Parliament, the European Union referendum was advisory only. Wisely, very few people have had the temerity to suggest that, either before the vote or since.
I want to go back to some of the documents that constitute the Claim of Right for Scotland. The Better Together parties, through their determination to carry on with the #snpbad hashtag, have turned the issue into an attack on the SNP despite the fact that the 1689 Act was a wee bit before the SNP had even been thought of. They have missed a chance to celebrate a collection of documents that show the way forward for democracies even to this day.
Ian Murray
The hon. Gentleman keeps referring to the Better Together parties celebrating those documents, but his party did not agree or sign up to them, so we need to get on to the substance of the SNP’s position on the Claim of Right. I have made my position clear, which is that the Scottish people have voted to stay part of the United Kingdom—that is the substance and the spirit of the Claim of Right.
Peter Grant
As I have just said, one of the documents I am talking about is the Claim of Right Act 1689. Guilty: the SNP did not sign up to that. We did not vote for it. We did not exist—neither did the Labour party for that matter.
In the preamble to the 1689 Act—I apologise, the language is kind of 1689, but I will not try to say it in an Edinburgh accent—the Scottish Parliament denounced its sovereign king, who did:
“Invade the fundamentall Constitution of this Kingdome And altered it from a legall limited monarchy to ane Arbitrary Despotick power and in a publick proclamation asserted ane absolute power”.
As long ago as 1689, the Scottish Parliament, which at that time was not the most democratic or egalitarian bunch of people, regarded that statement as a long-established fact—that the king had to be answerable to the Parliament and thereby to the people, and that the concept of an absolute monarchy was utterly alien.
The concept goes back even further, to 1320, to a document some parts of which many people will be familiar with to the detriment of others: the declaration of Arbroath. It is usually recognised as a declaration of Scottish independence, but it is also a declaration of the sovereignty of the people. In describing how Robert the Bruce came to be King of Scots—not King of Scotland—the Scots nobles at that time credited his accession to the throne to
“divine providence, his succession to his right according to our laws and customs…and the due consent and assent of us all”.
Even in 1320, someone who had contributed so greatly to the wellbeing of the nation as Robert the Bruce had no right to call himself King of Scots unless the Scots were prepared to accept him.
A lot of the 1689 Act’s anti-Catholic rhetoric would not go down too well today, just as the anti-Semitism of parts of Magna Carta is perhaps better left in the 13th century. Long before there was talk of any of the political parties in existence just now, and long before the grievance politics we are seeing just now, the documents I am talking about established a principle that can be held up as a beacon, as it has been for centuries in Scotland. It can be held up as an example of how to sort out the mess that the Government have got England, and to an extent Wales, into. It is being held up as a beacon elsewhere, because the declaration of 1320 became the framework on which the American declaration of independence and constitution were founded. I noticed that the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) suggested that an independent Scotland would have no trade ties with England. I have not checked the recent figures for trade between Britain and its former colony across the Atlantic, but I do not think anyone would argue that there has been no trade between Britain and the United States of America since independence.
Talking about the Claim of Right for Scotland does not mean that we are arguing about whether Scotland should be independent, or about who should form the Government of Scotland and what promises they should be implementing. We are arguing about something much more important than that, and I am frankly appalled that there is any disagreement with it. We are talking about the fact that in the nation of Scotland, the people of Scotland are sovereign. There is no doubt in the hearts and minds of the people of Scotland as to who we mean by that. We mean those who have chosen to come and live among us. That is why I am enormously proud that my Polish constituents, my French constituents, my Slovakian constituents, my English constituents and my Scots-born constituents are regarded as democratically equal in every election and every electoral test that the Scottish Parliament has the right to legislate over. It was shocking that so many of them were not allowed to decide whether we would be taken out of the European Union.
While we are talking about the Claim of Right for Scotland, just for an hour or two could we not have forgotten about this ingrained hatred of the SNP and everything we stand for? People can disagree with what we want—that is a democratic right—but they should not use that as an excuse to usurp the absolute right of the people of Scotland to take decisions for ourselves. Incidentally, yesterday we were challenged by one of the Tories in the European debate to have faith in our country. We have faith in our country. As Hugh MacDiarmid said:
“For we have faith in Scotland’s hidden powers
The present’s theirs, but all the past and future’s ours”.
Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)
It is a privilege to be here before you today, Mr Bone. I congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) on securing this debate.
I am proud that the Labour party is the party of devolution. The Labour party pushed for devolution while in opposition and supported the constitutional convention in every way. We made sure it worked and saw it embraced by the Scottish people. We have consistently supported more powers for Scotland, even when we have not been in a position to implement those additional powers in the devolved Administration. We were supportive of the in/out referendum in 2014 and we were the ones who drove the vow that the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) spoke about. The people of Scotland overwhelmingly supported that vow less than two years ago. That led to the Smith commission, which has delivered to Scotland the most complete and powerful devolved Administration on Earth.
On a personal note, I have been an ardent supporter of devolution for many years. I was the chair of the policy committee of Unison in the late 1990s. During that time, we committed funds, practical and political support and physical resources to London, Wales and Northern Ireland and in particular to Scotland, where we were an integral part of the civil society voice that drove forward the constitutional convention. Things have changed in recent days. We know that the British public’s decision to vote for Brexit, whether we agree or disagree with that outcome, has left the United Kingdom fractured. That is the nature of politics. We make decisions—in this case the electorate made the decision for us—knowing that there will be others who disagree with the outcome. While we are in such a fragile economic state, we have a duty to the people to ensure that we do not exacerbate the situation.
Everyone in the Chamber knows the end goal for the Scottish National party. The clue is in the name; it is written on the tin. The question we must ask ourselves, though, is whether now is the time to be pushing that agenda. I take on board what the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) said. I respect the Scottish people. Let me set the record straight: unlike some, I would never say that the Scottish people are unable to choose a Government who represent their best interests. Nor would I say that were Scotland to remove itself from the UK, the country would become destitute and cease to be. What I would say, however, is that there have been two referendums in two years. That is a matter of fact. There was one for the people of Scotland and one for the people of the United Kingdom as a whole. In both, the people of Scotland voted to remain as members of those Unions. Is it therefore right to remove them from those Unions against their democratic will?
In the EU referendum in June, 62% of the Scottish electorate exercised their right to vote. In the independence referendum in September 2014, 85% of the same electorate exercised that very same right. The Labour party is the party that is willing to explore the possibility of fulfilling the wishes of the Scottish people as expressed in both referendums to see whether we can give them what they have asked for.
The SNP claims there has been a real shift in public opinion since the independence question and the EU referendum. That is not borne out by what has come over very clearly in public opinion polls. The latest YouGov survey had 54% of those polled expressing their desire to remain within the UK, despite the EU referendum result. Only 37% said they would back another referendum. Are we really saying that that shift warrants a second referendum? Time and again, I have sat and listened to SNP Members expressing their discontent at the people of Scotland repeatedly being ignored by a Government not of their choice. This may come as a surprise to the SNP, but that problem is not experienced solely in Scotland. My constituents in Blaydon elected me as their MP. Only 16% of my constituents voted for the Tories, meaning that a party voted for by only 16% of my constituents is now governing them. As much as it may not be particularly palatable, that is democracy, no matter how much we might not like it.
What is contrary to the principles of democracy, however, is attempting to defy the wishes of the electorate by attempting to use their vote in one referendum to supersede the other. The purpose of devolution was to allow the devolved Administrations to govern themselves and deal with issues that are particularly prevalent in their areas. We are increasingly facing scenarios where those powers go unused, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) so eloquently said. I am referring to the refusal by the SNP Government at Holyrood to use their newly devolved additional income tax-raising powers to alleviate the cuts imposed on them by the Tory Government. The plans proposed by Scottish Labour to raise income tax by 1% would have generated an estimated £600 million a year for the Scottish Government. That would be enough to alleviate the cuts affecting the poor and most vulnerable in our society and to support vital public services.
To use one example, NHS Scotland is facing enormous cuts. In Glasgow alone, it is estimated that there will be cuts of £258 million by 2021. The refusal to raise income tax strikes me as odd. After all, we are dealing with a self-proclaimed left-wing party—a party that surely would wish to do its utmost to alleviate the cuts to the poorest in society and to protect their public services. If we had those powers in Blaydon, I would ensure that we used them to protect the poor, the vulnerable, the sick and the disabled so that they would not suffer any more than they already have at the hands of the Tory Government.
Peter Grant
If increasing income tax is such a fantastic idea, how does the hon. Gentleman explain the fact that on the back of that promise, his party had the worst electoral disaster in Scotland for more than 100 years and is now even less popular in Scotland than the Conservatives?
Mr Anderson
The whole debate is about the will of the people. People chose not to go for that, and that is their choice. Scotland, despite the claims made by the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath about Ruth Davidson, still remains historically a socialist heartland. The majority of the electorate are inherently socialist. I therefore argue that to have a Government who would introduce and implement socialist policies, their only option now is to choose Labour.
I turn to the UK Government and express my utter dismay at a piece of correspondence I received recently. The correspondence came in the form of a letter from Citizens Advice Scotland that drew my attention to a report it produced on the poverty premium in Scotland. The report highlights the issues faced by those on the breadline—those who have to choose between electricity and food, as well as those who are forced to go to payday loan companies to make ends meet. The report looks at the impact that has on their mental and physical health and their personal relationships. Those are the daily problems that people face, and they are the issues we should be dealing with. It is what the Labour party would do, and it is what the SNP should be doing. I say to Members from Scotland: please stop talking about constitutional matters and get down to the business of actually helping the people of Scotland. If they did that, they would get more respect.
I am genuinely grateful to hon. Members for the history lesson that I have received today, but I am worried about the problems facing the people in the present and the huge uncertainties we face in the future. That is what we should be spending time talking about in this place and in Holyrood.
The Deputy Leader of the House of Commons (Michael Ellis)
I start by saying what a pleasure it is to appear before you, Mr Bone, a fellow Member from Northamptonshire. I congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) on securing this debate, which is one in a series along similar lines, I think, that have been secured. It has been an important opportunity to discuss the democratic tradition in Scotland, of which both the 1689 and 1989 Claim of Right documents form an important part, and to highlight the significance of that tradition today. It is good to be reminded that the constitutional issues which we grapple with are not new. Of course, it is arguable that the Claim of Right was put into practice in 2014, as the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) mentioned. The people had a say then—they voted to stay in the United Kingdom and that should be respected.
The United Kingdom shares a democratic tradition, exemplified by the Parliament in which we are gathered today, which works in harmony with and not against the particular traditions of Scotland. That was recognised in the devolution settlement, for which the 1989 Claim of Right, drawn up by the Scottish Constitutional Convention, helped make the case, and which was voted for in the 1997 referendum and reaffirmed in the 2014 referendum. That settlement respects the right of the Scottish people to have a say, in two Parliaments, on a range of important issues affecting their lives while remaining a strong and vital part of the United Kingdom.
Most recently, the Scotland Act 2016 ensures that the Scottish Parliament has a significantly greater say on matters including taxation and welfare support in Scotland, putting into practice the agreement of the Smith commission, to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) alluded. That agreement was reached by all the major parties in Scotland. The heads of agreement in the commission’s report recognise the principles of the 1989 Claim of Right by citing
“the sovereign right of the people of Scotland to determine the form of government best suited to their needs.”
The Act now being implemented, with a number of its new powers having already come in force, provides the right balance to the devolution settlement and will create a more powerful and accountable Scottish Parliament within a strengthened UK. That is what the people of Scotland voted for. It balances the desire for more decisions to be taken in Scotland, closer to those they affect, with retaining the strength and security which come from membership of the larger United Kingdom and for which people voted in the crucial, once-in-a-lifetime referendum in 2014.
The Scottish Parliament at present has extensive powers. Today, it has a budget of around £30 billion, but with little responsibility for raising the funds it spends. The 2016 Act, when implemented, will provide the Scottish Parliament with much greater tax-raising powers. From responsibility for raising around 10% of what it spends today, Holyrood will in future be responsible for raising more than 50% of what it spends. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath mentioned, the Scottish National party is not currently using the powers that it has, and one can draw conclusions from that.
The Scottish Parliament will be given unprecedented flexibilities on income tax to set income tax rates and thresholds for earned income, including the ability to introduce new bands. These crucial powers represent around £12 billion of income tax revenues. In addition, there are extensive new powers over welfare and employment support, which allow the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government to support those who need it in a way that reflects Scottish circumstances.
What is important now is how those new powers will be used for the benefit of people in Scotland. We respect the importance of historical traditions and we have heard a great deal this afternoon about the 1689 Claim of Right. Traditions are very important, but the priority should be the future. We have delivered on our commitments in the Smith commission, and the United Kingdom Government will support the Scottish Government using those powers in the interests of the Scottish people.
On the outcome of the EU referendum, the Prime Minister has had constructive discussions with the First Minister and has made her position clear. Hon. Members may have heard that position enunciated frequently: Brexit means Brexit and we are going to make a success of it. It was a high priority for the Prime Minister to visit Scotland and meet the First Minister to discuss that matter very soon after she became Prime Minister, but in 2014 the Scottish people decided in a legal, fair and decisive referendum to remain a strong part of the UK. That is a vivid example of the Claim of Right in force, and should be respected. That is how we will now approach our negotiations for leaving the EU—together as one United Kingdom. I say to the SNP that our focus should now be on working together to get the best deal for Scotland and the whole of the United Kingdom in the negotiations with the European Union. The people of Scotland will expect the United Kingdom and Scottish Governments to work closely together, as part of team UK, to find a constructive way forward and therefore, as we prepare for a new negotiation with the European Union, we will fully involve the Scottish Government. I say in the strongest terms that our aim should be to unite to ensure the best deal for Scotland and the whole United Kingdom as we take forward the necessary work following the referendum result.
The 1689 Claim of Right and its more recent successor are important documents that reflect a venerable democratic tradition in Scotland, but they should not be invoked now in an attempt to justify another independence referendum. That is not what should happen. Respecting the will of the Scottish people means respecting the result of two referendums by ensuring that we negotiate an exit from the European Union that achieves the best deal for Scotland so that it remains stronger within the United Kingdom. The focus now should be on working together to achieve that aim and, at the same time, on ensuring that the significant new powers that the Scottish Parliament has are implemented and used in such a way that delivers practical benefits for the Scottish people.
Patrick Grady
I am very grateful to all right hon. and hon. Members who have taken time to participate in the debate in a very constructive and good-spirited manner. I was not trying to rerun the arguments of the independence referendum—my point is that the circumstances have changed significantly since then. What I wanted to understand—I am not entirely sure that it has become any clearer—is the Government’s position on the principle of the sovereignty of the people of Scotland. The Conservatives never endorsed the Claim of Right and, by the end of the day, still have not. That is going to be particularly important in the context of decisions that will come to this Parliament on the future of our membership of the European convention on human rights and on the possibility of a British Bill of Rights. It will be important for the decisions that the Scottish Parliament, founded on the back of the Claim of Right and a referendum, will have to make, on a cross-party basis, about the potential for any future independence referendum.
I have heard the accusations that we are navel-gazing and talking about constitutional matters. Well, the constitution is still reserved to Westminster. All the examples I gave of policies that are against the will of the people of Scotland are policies that are reserved to Westminster. While we have been debating this, the Scottish Government have been laying out their programme for government, for progressive reform, for a more socially just Scotland—an ambitious vision—using the powers that we have and that have been endorsed three times in Scottish general elections where the Scottish National party was elected to Government. I would say to the hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson), who said that the clue to our purpose is in our name, that our name is the Scottish National party and not the Scottish nationalist party.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the Claim of Right for Scotland.
Mindfulness in Schools
(7 years, 9 months ago)
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Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered mindfulness in schools.
It is, as always, a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. It is good to be able to highlight the work of those bringing mindfulness training into UK schools. I pay tribute to all those supporting the ongoing work of the all-party parliamentary group on mindfulness. In particular, I pay tribute to the enthusiasm and passion of our former colleague, Chris Ruane, who continues to be an outstanding ambassador for mindfulness.
Childhood is a time for acquiring life skills alongside academic knowledge. Good schools teach young people how to keep their bodies fit, and encourage regular exercise and a healthy diet to promote good physical health throughout life, but mental health is equally important to a child’s long-term wellbeing, academic success, behaviour and eventual life outcomes. The training of attention is a foundation on which the cultivation of good mental health rests. A growing body of scientific evidence shows the benefits of mindfulness to resilience, concentration and the relief of anxiety. An evidence-based approach to mental wellbeing should have a vital part to play in the way we prepare our children for life. It makes sense, therefore, for mindfulness to be taught more widely in our schools.
In my professional and personal life, I am aware of the need to be present, focused and grounded to face all that life and work throws at us—at the moment, that is quite a lot. I am one of about 130 MPs and peers who have taken a mindfulness course in Parliament in the past three and a half years. Like many of my colleagues, I found the course compelling, with personal benefits for everyday life.
Abundant research shows that attention is fundamental to mental functioning. The eight-week mindfulness course undertaken by parliamentarians taught us how to train our attention to remain more focused and engaged in the experience of the present moment. By steadying one’s attention in that way, one can learn to respond in more clear-headed, versatile and creative ways to daily choices and challenges, instead of being driven by habit and impulse. Those simple, accessible mental skills can be taught to everyone, but, as with so many things, the most effective time to learn is during childhood.
Children and young people are under tremendous pressure in today’s society. According to Government figures given to the all-party parliamentary group, 32.3% of 15 to 25-year-olds suffer one or more mental health difficulty, and 11% suffer mild, medium or severe forms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Only last week, the Children’s Society published disturbing evidence in its annual “Good Childhood Report” that levels of unhappiness are rising among 10 to 15-year-olds. It called for more mental health and wellbeing support to be made available in schools to tackle low wellbeing early. Mindfulness has a role there.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. He rightly talks about the level of the alarming mental health crisis. Some 10% of children experience mental health issues between the ages of five and 16, and half of those who experience mental health issues as children go on to experience them as adults. Given the scale of the problem, does he agree that there is a real urgency to innovate?
Nic Dakin
My hon. Friend is absolutely on the money. If this issue can be tackled in childhood, it will be less of a problem in adulthood. At the moment, the picture in adulthood is not very pretty either. The use of antidepressants among adults has increased by 500% in the past 20 years in the UK. The World Health Organisation states that by 2030, the biggest health burden on the planet will be mental ill-health. Many factors have been suggested as explanations of the apparently massive increase in mental ill-health among the young, including family breakdown, school-related stress, bullying, cyber-bullying, information overload, watching too much TV and digital technology rewiring our very brains.
Mind with Heart, which runs teacher-training workshops on mindfulness, has shown that teaching children mindfulness helps to reduce bullying, which is a significant contributor to youth depression, anxiety and suicidal tendencies. Much of that stress and mental ill-health can be avoided or alleviated. The possibility of prevention or effective management is greatly increased if skills for managing one’s mind through life’s challenges are learned early. That is why it is vital that schools and colleges play their full part, not only in spotting and addressing mental ill-health, but in teaching the basic life skills of good mental health. A growing body of research suggests that mindfulness could have a foundational role to play in providing evidence-based mental training for children and young people.
Following the publication of more than 50 promising pilot studies, the Wellcome Trust is currently funding a £7 million research project into the effects of mindfulness training on pupils aged 11 to 18, led by Oxford University. It is likely to confirm and strengthen the existing scientific evidence base for the adoption of mindfulness education programmes in schools around the world. Staff from the Centre for Mindfulness Research and Practice at Bangor University have introduced a curriculum for seven to 11-year-olds and are developing a course for three to seven-year-olds. The university is also researching the impact of mindful parenting programmes.
One of the fathers of modern psychology, William James, said in the 1890s that,
“the faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of judgment, character, and will. No-one is”
master of himself
“if he have it not. An education which should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence. But it is easier to define this ideal than to give practical directions for bringing it about.”
The courses and curriculums I mentioned not only define but deliver that ideal. There is promising evidence that mindfulness training enhances executive control and emotional regulation in children and adolescents, in line with adult research. Those crucial contributors to self-regulation underpin not only emotional wellbeing but effective learning and academic attainment.
Research highlighted by the prominent American psychologist, Daniel Goleman, show those capabilities to be the biggest determinants of life’s outcome. They improve concentration, response to stress and meta-cognition, all of which are crucial skills for learning. They support effective decision making and creativity. In other words, the soft skills are the foundation of the hard skills.
Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that those soft skills also provide a brake between thought and action? In the case of self-harming, which seems to be increasing exponentially, they are an important brake on action and on injuring oneself—particularly for girls. Some of our schools are becoming the biggest procurers of mental health services outside the NHS.
Nic Dakin
My hon. Friend is absolutely spot on. The opportunity for reflection, attention, thought and pause is encouraged through mindfulness training.
At the launch of our all-party group, it was wonderful to see 10-year-olds and teenagers showing an impressive understanding of the workings of the brain, demonstrating absolutely the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh). They knew about the role of the tiny reptilian part of the brain, the amygdala, which hijacks higher psychological functions such as kindness, creativity and compassion; they spoke about practising regular mindfulness meditation in order to remain anchored in the present, rather than being swept away by strong emotion; and they explained the difference that such training made to their lives, with the ability to make considered responses, rather than being the victim of impulsive reaction—in many ways, exactly the point made by my hon. Friend.
Jessica Morden
To back up my hon. Friends, I should say that many hon. Members, including me, have visited mindfulness programmes in our constituencies. I was struck by how highly the programmes were talked of by people, and by how enthusiastic they were about them and the techniques. Does my hon. Friend agree that we would welcome hearing from the Minister that he is willing to visit some such programmes?
Nic Dakin
That is a very good idea. I suspect that the Minister will be delighted to seize the opportunity when he responds to the debate. I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention—she is right that seeing such programmes being delivered is inspirational.
Teachers need the training to deliver the courses. This week, one teacher contacted me to say that she had paid for herself to become a qualified mindfulness teacher, and she has seen a remarkable impact on her students from the courses she teaches. As she rightly points out, however, we need courses to be run for the teachers themselves, because they need to embody mindfulness before it can be taught effectively. We then need teachers to be taught how to teach it.
In the context of education, our all-party group on mindfulness is concerned not only with pupils and students, but with those who work in education. Sadly, according to the statistics, the challenges that they face are compelling. According to an NASUWT survey, half the teachers polled had visited their doctor with work-related physical or mental health issues; more than three quarters of them had reported anxiety; and 86% had suffered sleeplessness. Mindfulness has the potential to tackle such issues.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)
Order. The hon. Lady was not present at the beginning of the debate. I will let her make an intervention, but please, colleagues: you have been here for a year and a half. You know the rules.
Margaret Ferrier
I had a view of some research in a 2014 Clinical Psychology Review. Researchers at Montreal University, who looked at 209 studies covering more than 12,000 people, concluded that mindfulness is especially effective to reduce anxiety, depression and stress. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that mindfulness would be extremely beneficial for young people to use as a tool to cope with stress and anxiety, be it social, exam-related or otherwise?
Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)
Will my hon. Friend give way? I, too, apologise for not being present at the start—
Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)
Gosh: we now have a free-for-all. I will be less generous next time, but if the hon. Gentleman wishes to give way—
Nick Thomas-Symonds
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. He is making a powerful point that mindfulness is extremely useful throughout life. For example, it can also help with transition when people have long-term health conditions, which is beneficial for the person and for our public services.
Nic Dakin
Absolutely—another intervention that was worth taking, although my hon. Friend was a little tardy in arriving.
Before the recess, I chaired a meeting in Parliament at which Professor Craig Hassed of Monash University, Melbourne, informed MPs about work he has been doing for 25 years to introduce trainee doctors and teachers to mindfulness as part of their curriculum. It would be good to see that practice emulated in British professional training.
To conclude, in the past few years we have made real progress in the field of mindfulness in education, but a great deal more can be done. A strategy that considers how best to train the attention of young people from childhood through adolescence and early adulthood would help to stem the tsunami of mental ill-health that is enveloping the youth of the western world, while simultaneously supporting learning and helping to tackle behavioural issues.
Mindfulness training offers preventive strategies to grow resilience in our young people. With mental health issues on the rise in schools and colleges, and CAMHS—child and adolescent mental health services—under pressure throughout the country, it is imperative for us to seize the opportunity to make that resilience training a natural part of our children’s education. I am proud to be working alongside mindfulness advocates, educationalists, academics, scientists and fellow politicians, across party, in taking the issues forward for the benefit of the next generation.
The all-party group has had consistently positive responses from Education Ministers, who have been keen to work with us. For example, in 2014 the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), then an Education Minister, met the group and we had a useful discussion; and last October the right hon. Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan), then the Secretary of State for Education, spoke at the launch of our APG report, “Mindful Nation UK”.
I thank the Minister present for already agreeing to meet a cross-party delegation in the near future to discuss issues further. Meanwhile, I would be interested if he took up the offer so well made by my hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden): to visit a school where mindfulness is being taught, so he may see that at first hand. Will the Minister commit to support the growth of mindfulness courses in schools for children and staff? Will he also work with his ministerial colleagues to look at the latest research into, and best practice for, the wellbeing of teachers to ensure that they have the psychological and emotional resources to provide world-class teaching for our children and young people?
The Minister for Vulnerable Children and Families (Edward Timpson)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Walker.
I am pleased that the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) was able to secure the debate, and I thank him for a thorough, informative and thoughtful contribution. Ensuring the wellbeing, happiness and success of our children and young people is a top priority for me, as it is for him. The debate is timely in that, given the change of Government, I have recently taken on departmental responsibility for children’s mental health, which is an area that I feel passionately about and with which I have been involved through my work for children in care.
I am fortunate to have been the Children’s Minister for four years. Throughout, my focus has been on improving the lives of all children in our society, in particular the most vulnerable and disadvantaged. Now, I will be working closely with my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood) in her new role as the Under-Secretary of State for Health with direct responsibility for child and adolescent mental health, as well as with ministerial colleagues in other Departments, to ensure that we garner knowledge about and growing evidence for the impact that we can have if we work earlier, more collaboratively and with more conviction to tackle such issues.
One of the Government’s main priorities is to prepare all young people, wherever they live and whatever their background, for life in modern Britain, to ensure that they all have the opportunity to develop necessary character and resilience and to grow up to become well-rounded individuals who can make a positive contribution to society. I am in no doubt that positive wellbeing—emotional, as well as physical and mental—the ability to cope with life’s challenges, and good mental health are key aspects in achieving just that. We still have a long way to go, but we are working hard to make real and lasting improvements. We all have to acknowledge that, historically, the importance of good mental health has not been prioritised in the same way as physical health, despite the fact that the impact of poor mental health can be just as profound on young people’s education, overall health and life chances.
That alone will not compensate for all the years in which the area has been underfunded and under-prioritised, but yes, we have committed £1.4 billion in funding to turn around and transform services, asking local areas to identify the needs of their local populations and to look at developing new approaches, in particular those focused on upstream investment in preventive approaches. At the same time, national organisations such as the UK Council for Child Internet Safety, which I co-chair, are working to improve all aspects of internet safety, including on cyber-bullying and self-harm.
As the hon. Member for Scunthorpe said, and as we know from a 2004 study by the Office for National Statistics, about one in 10 children and young people had a diagnosable mental health disorder—the equivalent of three in every classroom—and another four or five in each class had poor mental health. That was 12 years ago, and due to the huge and in some ways unimaginable changes in society since then, young people are growing up in a very different environment from the one in which we grew up and are facing a whole new set of challenges. A ChildLine report published in January suggested that modern-day pressures such as cyber-bullying and social media are affecting children’s confidence and self-esteem. Children cannot unplug from their online world, and that is changing the shape of many of their relationships and the pressures that they come under at a much more tender age. In order to understand much better the impact of that, the Department of Health is undertaking a prevalence survey to look at the state of the mental health and emotional wellbeing of children and young people across the country. When that survey’s findings are reported in 2018, they will give us a comprehensive and far clearer picture of what young people need.
There is still much more for us to learn and do to enable all children to enjoy good mental health and emotional wellbeing, and I completely agree that schools and colleges have a vital role in achieving that. That is where mindfulness—a modern innovation born from the deepest traditions of meditation—comes in. Such approaches, which focus on building skills and resilience to help children and young people to be far more aware of their own mental health and give them the confidence to ask for help when they need it, have the potential to be incredibly useful when used in school and college settings.
I have been interested for a while in how mindfulness can be used to help children and young people to focus their attention and develop their concentration skills—a real problem for many youngsters at a much younger age than ever before. I have also been struck by the testimony of many teachers and pupils—we have heard more of that today—who have adopted this approach and found that they are calmer, more fulfilled and better able to deal with stress and anxiety. I took an interest in mindfulness because my dad was on “Desert Island Discs” earlier this year, and he spoke about some of the moments of acute stress in his life and the debilitating effect that often has, and about the importance of being able to talk to someone about that in the hope that help can be given, coping strategies can be worked out and stress can be pre-empted and prevented from developing in the first place. Again, from what I know, much of that appears to be at the heart of what mindfulness is all about.
Many schools successfully use mindfulness approaches such as those offered by the Mindfulness in Schools project, and some of our teaching schools, including the Alliance for Learning, offer mindfulness training to other schools, both as part of their staff continuing professional development and as a way of supporting their pupils. Anthony Seldon, the former head of Wellington College, is a strong advocate of that approach. I am keen to learn more about the impact of such courses and would welcome the opportunity to hear more about such approaches from members of the all-party parliamentary group—I am grateful to one of its co-chairs, the hon. Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden), for taking part in the debate—and to visit one of the mindfulness programmes in action. I am not sure whether we will necessarily end up in Wales, but I am sure that we will find a school that will give me a really good insight into the positive impact that mindfulness is having on its pupils and staff, and on the wider community.
It is important that schools and colleges are able to choose programmes and interventions that are right for them and their pupils. No single approach will be right in all circumstances, and it can be difficult for schools and colleges to know what is safe and most effective to offer to their pupils. Rightly, our first step is to have a better understanding of what schools and colleges are doing, so we are in the process of conducting a large-scale survey to ask them what approaches and interventions they use and which they find are the most effective. Mindfulness is specifically mentioned in that survey, so when the report is published early next year, we will have a much better idea about what is being provided and what difference it is making. That report will add to the evidence that is already being collected by the Oxford Mindfulness Centre through its mindfulness and resilience in adolescence research project, as the hon. Member for Scunthorpe said, not to mention the APPG’s report, which I have had the opportunity to read.
Because schools need to decide what is best for their pupils, our approach is to support them by providing information, support, advice and guidance about the many options available to them. We have focused on four key areas of support: prevention, identification, early support and access to specialist help. The prevention strand covers a range of activities and programmes that raise awareness of mental health and emotional wellbeing and promote resilience. We want schools to have a whole-school approach that makes talking about feelings, emotions and wellbeing as normal for pupils as talking about their physical bodies. That might include lessons taught as part of the PSHE curriculum, whole-school programmes such as mindfulness that become a normal part of the school day, role play in drama lessons, or offering meditation or yoga sessions, which I know the hon. Gentleman is particularly keen on. I am a pilates man myself, but they both help mind as well as body.
Improving identification of potential problems, including increasing awareness of those who might be vulnerable to such problems, will help everyone to become more aware of the warning signs of a problem and help children and young people to become more confident about asking for help. Often, one of the biggest barriers is that they do not have that confidence.
Our voluntary and community sector grants programme has allowed us to support schools and teachers by working with the likes of the Anna Freud Centre and Place2Be, which develop really good programmes that enrich teachers’ knowledge, promote mental health education throughout the whole school and offer targeted support for those who need it. Teachers’ knowledge of mental health is supported through resources such as the excellent MindEd, which includes a module on mindfulness, and by funding new and existing projects such as MindEd for Families and the YoungMinds helpline for parents, we have been able to help to support identification outside school settings. One of the difficulties is that some problems are trapped away from the school, and that work is about how we manage to bring them to the surface by making children feel confident that even in the family setting, there is help for them should they need it.
When problems occur, early support can help to prevent them from getting worse. Schools and colleges have put in place a range of practices that are effective, such as having a named adult whom young people know they can turn to, or providing access to a school counsellor, as most schools already do. Many young people also want the option of talking safely to their peers about their concerns, so we are looking at what is involved in creating and running a good peer support programme. I was delighted that nearly 2,000 young people responded to our call for evidence, ensuring that their voices will be at the heart of what happens next, and we will publish our findings in the autumn.
However, there are still many circumstances in which despite all our best efforts, children and young people need to access specialist mental health support. To help improve joint working between education and health professionals, we have been part of a £3 million pilot with NHS England over the past year that has provided joint training to staff and tested how having a single point of contact in schools and child and adolescent mental health services can improve referrals to specialist services. The outcomes of that pilot are being independently evaluated, and we are looking at how we can share that learning and best practice so that more children can benefit from similar bespoke support.
Although mindfulness is only one way of addressing the stresses and strains of modern life, it is becoming more widely known and used, and I am sure more widely appreciated. Its definition, which is set out in the APPG report—
“paying attention to what’s happening in the present moment in the mind, body and external environment, with an attitude of curiosity and kindness”—
is one that we should all heed when bouncing blindly from one day to the next. That is why I welcome the opportunity to get off the treadmill for a few hours and visit a school so I can perhaps practise some mindfulness myself.
As the evidence base grows and best practice becomes better known, mindfulness has the potential to play an important role in providing children and young people with the mental and emotional resilience that they need to fulfil their potential. That, I think, is what they call optimistic thinking.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered mindfulness in schools.
Educational Performance: Boys
(7 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)
Colleagues, this is a one-hour debate and it is massively over-subscribed. You are not all going to get in. If you keep your comments to three minutes, most of you will get in, but I am afraid that if you do not—with the exception of Mr McCartney, obviously—you are not all going to get in. Minister, you will have 10 minutes at the end. The SNP spokesman and the Labour spokesman will have five minutes each. I call Mr McCartney to move the motion.
Karl MᶜCartney (Lincoln) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the educational performance of boys.
It is a pleasure to follow my greater Lincolnshire colleague, the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin), who has now left, and to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mr Walker. I am pleased to see so many Members from both sides of the House here. I hope everyone will have an opportunity to take part in the debate, should they so wish.
I am delighted to lead the debate, because the educational underachievement of boys is a one nation issue. It is an equality and fairness issue and an issue that should be front and centre of the country’s conversation on education and social mobility. The issue of our gender education gap and its impact has not been addressed adequately by this House or by successive Governments of all colours and the education sector seems reluctant to take action on it. That is a shame. This issue is not just about working-class boys or no-income families, albeit those groups do need attention. It is an issue that affects boys across the board, including a group so often missed out—boys from low to low-middle income households.
As Members of this House, we all hold dear the desire to ensure that every young person in our great country has the opportunity to make the most of their life and their skills. We also want a cohesive society, the opportunity for social mobility for all and a successful economy—even more so in a positive post-Brexit economy. We may all have different ideas on how to achieve that, but surely our aims are all the same.
The reason for the debate is to set out what the gaps are, the impact to date, the reasons and what action needs to be taken, for it is such positive action to tackle this inequality that has been lacking, and which needs to be quickly addressed. We cannot afford to keep letting further generations of our boys down by not addressing this glaring gender education gap. Talk, or more talk and no action, will no longer pass muster.
It is also important to set out the framework of the debate, which is about closing the gap between the educational performance of boys and girls, but not at the cost of reducing girls’ performance. That is a socialist creed which I will not countenance. I want levels of attainment for all to be comparable and raised, not lowered. We need the performance of both to keep on improving, but for the gap between them to close.
It has to be recognised that the performance of boys has continued to improve over time. The number of boys going to university each year is 46,000 higher than a decade ago and there has been a steady improvement in GCSE and A-level results. What has stayed the same, though, is the clear gap between boys and girls, and in some areas such as higher education the gap is increasing. At key stage 2—in old money that is 11-year-olds—the pass rate gap is six percentage points and boys are often already behind on entering primary school. For five GCSEs including English and maths in England, the gap is now nine percentage points and in my county of Lincolnshire it is 10 percentage points. The gap at 16 years of age in Wales is 7.5%, in Scotland 7% and in Northern Ireland 7.3%. For the English baccalaureate the gap is just under 10%.
As we move further through the education system, at A-level the average grade for a boy is C and for a girl is C-plus, albeit a higher percentage of boys achieve three A’s or A*s than girls. In terms of higher education, fewer boys go to university, due to lower attainment in earlier school or college years—60,000 fewer in 2015, and there is a gap of more than 460,000 over the last 10 years. Results at university also show that boys will achieve lower grades and are more likely to drop out. Two thirds of all courses now have more women than men on them.
As we all know and see every day in our constituencies, while facts are one thing, it is the actual impact on the lives of individuals and their families that matters. The gap affects our community, our businesses and our ability to compete as a nation. I see its impact when driving around certain areas in the daytime and I see young men hanging around when they should be in work, on an apprenticeship or at university or college.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
With reference to the impact on the hon. Gentleman’s constituency and all our constituencies, in some instances—in Northern Ireland, for example—targeted interventions have taken place. In particular, in literacy and numeracy we had a programme over two years that seemed to get to the nub of the problem. Unfortunately it did not go far enough and there was not enough money spent on it, but that was a good targeted intervention and we should look to projects like that for the future to try to address that problem.
Karl MᶜCartney
I agree with my colleague, who makes a very good point, and it is something that I will cover later on in my speech. I am happy to take as many interventions as possible.
Most males who are not in education, employment or training are unemployed. For those men with no or low skills, that has an impact on their mental health, employment and predilection to commit crime. Those men constitute the largest group in our criminal justice system. When it comes to apprenticeships, there are now 30,000 more female apprentices, a trend and gap that has been in place for at least the past five years. After university, a lower percentage of male graduates will be in full-time work, a higher percentage will be unemployed and far fewer enter the professions. Nowadays, there are more women becoming doctors, vets, dentists, solicitors and teachers than men every year, which reflects the numbers taking related degrees. Twice as many women are now training to be a GP as men.
We can see that all played out when it comes to wages. According to the Office for National Statistics, on average men in full-time or part-time work under 29 years of age are paid less per hour on average than similarly aged women. That remarkable transition flies in the face of the shrill equal pay brigade, who while proclaiming the need for equality seem quietly to gloss over that fact when shouting from the rooftops with regard to equal pay. I want equal pay for those with equivalent experience and qualifications and skill levels regardless of their gender or age.
What is causing the gap—a gap that broadly was not there before the 1980s but which has been increasing since then? That has been an area of some contention, which may partly explain why so little investigation has so far taken place, because it is difficult to agree or find solutions if there is no agreement on what is causing the problem. In essence there are a number of themes.
The first is that boys develop more slowly in their teen years than girls, so boys and girls are not at the same natural development level, even when they are the same age. Many of us long ago accepted that boys and girls are different. The second is around social attitudes and background. There is some evidence that boys have less positive attitudes towards education than girls have, and that they receive less support at home. The role of fathers and/or role models is seen as vital to instilling in their sons the importance of education.
William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)
On that note of support at home, does my hon. Friend agree that one of the issues is with parents’ confidence in their own literacy? Reading to their children can be quite intimidating if their own standards of literacy are poor. Is it not therefore necessary for the Government to focus on that area to address the early years?
Karl MᶜCartney
My colleague from Hazel Grove makes a very good point.
Perhaps longer working hours and one-parent families where the father is not the primary carer are also an issue. The economy has changed, so the value of job opportunities in masculine-type work, such as in heavy industry, has changed, or such jobs are not as available as they once were.
Another theme is whether the education system is boy-friendly. I believe that the educational system, schools and the sector as a whole are not focused enough on supporting boys. That could be because schools lack understanding about boys and what makes them tick. Practical education, a level of freedom to think and act for themselves, clear goal-setting, career and subject choice support, all within a clear disciplinary framework, are needed, as is an environment that nurtures and celebrates, and does not denigrate, masculinity. The situation is exacerbated by a lack of male teachers and role models in schools. If boys see only women in schools, in whatever roles, that reinforces their view that education is just for girls.
I and others have noticed that the majority of pictures in the national papers recently—each year, it seems—were just of girls celebrating their exam success, not boys and girls, which perhaps sends a subliminal message to boys that education and success are a girl issue and not for them.
David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Does he not agree that one of the key things for young men in particular is motivation and aspiration? I note that a few years ago Ofsted said in a report that,
“a third of the schools failed to provide sufficient opportunities for students to engage directly with local businesses.”
Does he not think that if we get more businesses to provide role models and experiences for young men, they are more likely to get motivated about opportunities and then focus more on their studies to help them to achieve those goals and aspirations?
Karl MᶜCartney
Indeed, I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. I point him in the direction of what is now Career Ready—it was formerly Career Academies UK. I helped to set up a Career Ready in my constituency. It is very much a London-and-south-east-centric charity, but I believe it needs to be rolled out across the country.
Perhaps the education sector shies away from any focus on boys because it is not politically correct. Certainly, there is deafening silence from the education trade unions and others. There would be no silence if the genders were reversed—of that I am sure. Also, the move from all-or-nothing exams to continual assessment at GCSE has been seen as favouring a female way of learning, albeit with the recent changes swinging the pendulum slightly back towards a level playing field.
Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
I think this debate is very important and much needed, coming from an area that is still reliant on heavy industry—although there have been setbacks in the last couple of years, whether that be the steel sector or indeed potash mining or the chemical industry. What is of real concern, particularly for young men who seek skills-based training for employment, is the Brexit vote. As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, my area of Teesside and east Durham was one of the primary areas of European social fund and European development fund funding for sector-specific training in industry, which primarily benefited young men who needed skills training to enter heavy industrial work.
Karl MᶜCartney
The hon. Gentleman from the Opposition, who is my friend, makes a valid point from his point of view, but I would counter that I see Brexit as much more positive than perhaps he does.
Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. It should be remembered that this problem has arisen while we have been in the EU, not as the result of any prospect of leaving. Does the hon. Gentleman agree with the initiatives that have been undertaken in the Greater Shankill area in my constituency, which is one of the most deprived areas, suffered a lot during the troubles and has a lot of educational underachievement among young boys? One of the things we have done is to create a children and young people’s zone, which brings together educationalists, school teachers, community activists and agencies of Government to work together with children from the earliest age to try to tackle this particular issue.
Karl MᶜCartney
I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. I thank him for making a good point, to which we should all pay attention. As I was saying, the pendulum has slightly swung back towards a level playing field and it will be interesting to see whether that makes any difference to the gender educational gap over the next few years.
Lastly, there is something else at play around the 16 to 18 age range regarding the welfare system, especially for low or no-income families: the effect on young men who may be reluctant to take up an apprenticeship because their families will lose their child benefits and it will affect their working tax credit. Some families do not want their sons or daughters to take up apprenticeships. That is an issue encountered by a well-respected and successful training provider in Lincolnshire called Lagat, which has made me aware of examples of opportunities being denied to young people of both genders because their families do not wish to be disadvantaged financially. My colleagues in Government need to take heed and act positively to ensure that this penalty is removed quickly.
Two things strike me about this issue. First, there is not a wholesale body of research or agreement on the causes, and it seems that the educational sector is not focused on the issue at all. That is despite the valuable work by pressure groups, charities and think tanks, and from organisations such as the Higher Education Policy Institute—particularly its “Report 84”, authored by Nick Hillman and Nicholas Robinson, with a foreword by Mary Curnock Cook, which I recommend to anyone who is interested in the issue. Other organisations doing good research on the matter include Save the Children, the boys reading commission, which is part of the National Literacy Trust, the Sutton Trust, the Social Mobility Commission and many others.
Secondly, there does not seem to be agreement on what causes the gender educational gap, which makes it far harder to decide what to do to address the problem positively. I have set out the statistics, impacts and the broad debate on the causes, but what are the solutions? We know that the limited number—if there are any—of solutions that have been implemented are not working, because the gap is not closing.
The first theme is to encourage and instil in the minds of parents and sons that a good education is to their benefit, and to reinstil a sense of aspiration, pride and understanding. As Steve Biddulph’s books on parenting show, parents need to step up to the plate too, to ensure that boys are inspired and given opportunities to excel and aspire to do as well as their fellow female pupils at all ages. Using practical examples, case studies, mentors, destination data, inspirational people from the local community, the National Citizen Service and other such methods will surely have a positive effect as quickly as possible. We have to provide clear reasons for boys to go to school and college and to concentrate and work hard while they are there. We need to communicate with parents to ensure that through the interaction they are offered they support boys every step of the way.
The fact that girls from low and no-income families still do better in educational attainment means that parental attitudes are not the only issue at play in this arena. The educational sector at a national and local level has to, and can, do more. There are certainly schemes that form part of university access agreements to persuade more boys to go to university. That is no criticism of universities, which need more boys to achieve the grades to be able to go, stay and not drop out. I believe, as do many others such as Mary Curnock Cook, chief executive of UCAS, that we need more male teachers in schools at every level. Fewer than one in six primary school teachers are male, with fewer than two in five at secondary level. That ratio is not improving on an equality level. That cannot go on, and I am confident it is one of the main causes of boys being behind their female classmates.
Karl MᶜCartney
I will continue where I left off. We also need schools to rethink everything they do to ensure that it is boy-friendly and not just girl-friendly.
The third theme is to be positive about masculinity in schools. Boys need outlets for their creativity, energy and natural instincts. They need to know it is okay to be masculine, and that masculinity is the equal of femininity. It is a positive thing to like cars, engines, building sites, getting your hands dirty and playing sport. It is also a positive thing to like dancing, painting, sculpture, acting and writing plays, but we must not shy away, at any level, from celebrating what traditional male or masculine roles are; they are what we as males were born to do. It may also surprise some ladies that some males can multitask. Some of us can cook, wash, sew and manipulate a Dyson without instruction and make a damn good job of it.
Karl MᶜCartney
I will give way to the hon. Lady, who might have some personal experience of my skills with a Dyson.
Patricia Gibson
I assure the hon. Gentleman that I am not going to pick up on those particular points. Those in the room expressed their views on that for themselves. Given what the hon. Gentleman said about masculinity, what would he say to international research on 1.5 million 15-year-olds, across a range of countries around the globe, which shows that girls do better than boys even in those countries where girls’ rights are severely limited and gender equality is appalling, such as Qatar and Jordan?
Karl MᶜCartney
Those are some of the points that we will discuss today—and might well do in the future, as the Chairman has indicated—so I thank the hon. Lady for her point.
We also like to compete at Scrabble, cards, Jenga, football, rugby, cricket, hockey and whatever else we might have the opportunity to engage in, and there is nothing wrong with that. I fear the over-feminisation of our education system has, and is, turning boys off education. We need to nurture men and play to their strengths. Boys want to be young men, and young men want to be grown men; that should be seen as a positive. Some say grammar schools could be the answer and they may be for some, but we need all schools to be successful.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I just want to put this on the record. In Northern Ireland only 19.7% of young Protestant boys actually achieve five or more GCSEs. That is an indication of the many per cent who do not achieve that. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there is a need for vocational courses with on-the-job training, and that they must be available at all large schools to enable those who do not have the academic ability to forge ahead vocationally?
Karl MᶜCartney
I thank the hon. Gentleman from Northern Ireland, who never fails to make a good point in debates in Westminster Hall.
Bringing back secondary moderns for those who do not go to grammar schools and ensuring they attain the same results would cost a fortune, and may not be attainable in the short, or long, run. So any moves on this policy need to be well thought out. No one, whatever their gender or background, deserves to be left behind.
If I am anything, I am someone who believes in striving for a utopian, completely level playing field in life’s chances; but I am a realist and I know that such a dream can never be. I will do my best to ensure that our young people realise that, as my maternal grandma said to me and my younger brothers on more than one occasion, “No one can ever take your education away from you.” She wanted us to work hard at school and go on to college or university and it is only through the second, and perhaps third, chances that I have been granted, mainly through her sacrifices and those of my grandfather and parents, that I was able to achieve what I have. That is why I am honoured and privileged to stand in this place in front of hon. Members today as one of the 650 Members of Parliament who have been elected to represent their fellow countrywomen and men of all ages and levels of educational attainment.
Additionally, I believe we should also have three-year, five-year or seven-year apprenticeships equivalent to degrees but that are vocational for those who are non-academically minded. Those should of course be available to girls as well as to boys, but we need to think differently; it works in countries like Germany, so why not here? University is not for everyone, and certainly with an increase in participation rates from circa 5% in the early ’80s to 30% in the early ’90s and 47% now, it should not mean it is automatically the primary option for young people. The Labour con of the late 1990s to keep youth unemployment figures low is not a good reason to increase university attendance and participation, although I believe that wanting to win in a global economic race with a well-experienced, well-educated and motivated workforce across the myriad economic sectors is.
I find it odd that although we are all promoting more women to be engineers and scientists, there are no such reciprocal schemes for boys. Given the lack of young men now entering the professions, where are the schemes for young men enticing them to apply themselves and to enter professions where they are now underrepresented, such as teaching, medicine, law, psychology and a raft of other subjects and specialisms?
My final theme is about focus and political leadership. There has been precious little attention and focus from the Department for Education, or anyone else in Government and Whitehall for that matter, in terms of recognition, policy and action on this issue. Given that this pattern has emerged and then become embedded for three decades, it is for Governments of all shades, including the last Labour Government, to hang their heads in shame and hold their hands up in acknowledgment that they missed a trick and seek redemption.
I am almost certain that if the genders were reversed this current situation would not exist. Indeed, for more than 20 years copious amounts of taxpayers’ money have been successfully spent on encouraging female applications for STEM subjects and a plethora of degree subjects, college courses and, in more recent years, apprenticeships. That is all to be welcomed, but where has the focus and investment been for boys? I also looked at what focus there was from the Government Equalities Office, the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the educational trade unions; little, if anything, was the result of such fruitless searches.
In conclusion, this subject is not going to go away. We cannot wait any longer for more generations of boys to fall behind girls educationally. That is why I believe the Government need to set up an implementation taskforce, as they have on so many other important policy areas. This is exactly such a policy area. The Government have rightly given much focus, policy and leadership on matters such as the lack of women on boards and the gender pay gap. There is an unarguable case that the Government should give the same level of focus, policy and leadership on the gender education gap as they have on those worthy issues that have received much media and BBC coverage in recent politically correct years.
The Department for Education and Ofsted need to step up to the plate and ensure that schools, whether run through local education authorities or as academies and free schools, are boy-friendly. The gender education gap is a very serious matter affecting boys, their families, communities, businesses and our country as a whole. It is a one nation issue, a fairness issue, an equality issue and an issue that has been ignored for far too long. Our boys’ underperformance at school deserves national attention and action. They, their teachers, parents, we as their Members of Parliament, and our nation should expect nothing less.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)
We have 23 minutes before the wind-ups. Colleagues, look at how many people are standing; try to do three minutes each.
Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)
I apologise for being brusque. I would like to challenge the assertion made by the hon. Member for Lincoln (Karl MᶜCartney) that educational attainment is about gender: it is about social class and it is about the white working-class social class.
To quote the educational warrior Sir Michael Wilshaw from a speech in 2013 on his report “Unseen children: educational access and achievement 20 years on”:
“Let me emphasise, this is not a gender issue. Poor, low-income White British girls do very badly. So we should stop talking about ‘white working class boys’ as if they are the only challenge.”
Indeed, while boys receiving free school meals are consistently in the lowest-performing overall group at GCSE level, white girls receiving free school meals are consistently the next lowest-achieving group of girls. The attainment gap between children receiving free school meals and those who are not is evident even before a child reaches the age of four. The pattern continues throughout a child’s life. Only 32% of white working-class British students receiving free school meals achieved the GCSE benchmark last year. That is compared with 44% of mixed race students, 59% of Bangladeshi students, 42% of black Caribbean students and 47% of Pakistani students—all receiving free school meals. This is because the educational attainment of white working-class students of both genders has improved much more slowly than that of almost any other ethnic group over the past 10 years.
Optimistically, there is a world of difference between the performance of white working-class students in inadequate and in outstanding schools. What works for all, works even more with working-class students. I will just take the Harris Academies in south London. Last year, about 56% of white British students nationwide secured five A* to C GCSEs including English and maths, but at Harris Academy Greenwich 60% of white British students secured those grades. Just five years ago, the school was under special measures—not now. Under the excellent leadership of a strong principal, George McMillan, the school has undertaken an unimaginable transformation. Harris Academy Falconwood, just a mile away, has a staggering 73% of white British students securing those grades. Yet again, the rate of success at that school is incredible. In 2008 only 17% of its students achieved those grades, but under the leadership of the female principal Terrie Askew, the school is now judged “outstanding” by Ofsted.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
In the time allowed, my hon. Friend will probably not be able to go into what is making the difference at those academies, but if she is able to, I would really appreciate it.
Siobhain McDonagh
It is about doing more of what we know works for everybody else: more extra lessons, more tutorship and more assistance.
The two schools are very different and the gender of the head makes no difference; they are both excellent heads achieving excellent results for the white British, and therefore all other, students. It is about social class, and the sooner we recognise that and stand up and do something about it, the sooner we will make it better for everyone.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
One million children have no significant contact with their fathers. Research recently cited by the Department for Work and Pensions says that children with highly involved dads do better at school, have higher self-esteem and are less likely to get in trouble in adolescence. If we say that male role models as teachers are important, how much more so for boys are father role models? Addressing family stability is critical and this is a social justice issue too, because in lower-income families there are far greater levels of family breakdown. We need to address that and to support them.
The Institute for Public Policy Research produced a report entitled “A long division”, which found that only about 20% of variability in pupils’ achievements is attributable to school-level factors. About 80% is attributable to pupil-level factors and particularly family influence. The IPPR says:
“Even if every school in the country was outstanding there would still be a substantial difference in performance”.
We need to help families strengthen, so that we can help these children and boys.
Here are some solutions, very quickly. First, the Government need to appoint a fatherhood champion. Secondly, they need to set up a fatherhood taskforce, perhaps mirroring the taskforce that my hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln (Karl MᶜCartney) suggested, to develop a distinctive set of policies aimed at encouraging father engagement. Thirdly, all new fathers should be offered and encouraged to attend parenting classes. At present the majority who attend are from affluent families who say that they learn a little. A minority are from low-income families but when they do attend, they say they learn a lot.
Mrs Helen Grant (Maidstone and The Weald) (Con)
We also know that a disproportionately high number of black boys are excluded from school. Does my hon. Friend agree that there needs to be a much greater understanding of the barriers and hurdles that these boys have to face, both inside and outside school, such as racism and, as she said, the absence of fathers?
Fiona Bruce
I do. There is much evidence to show that parental involvement and support, even for the most disadvantaged children, can translate into good educational outcomes. Children from poor families where there is a strong commitment to learning achieve better results. For example, 69% of Chinese boys from low-income families gained five or more GCSEs at grades A* to C compared with just 17% of boys from white working-class backgrounds. Interestingly, the number is very similar for those from black Caribbean backgrounds, where again there is a high level of father absence.
To conclude the solutions, fourthly, every community should have a family hub. As chair of the all-party group on children’s centres, I recently published a report on that issue and I ask the Minister to look at it. I am talking about a place where every family can go to get help, to strengthen their family lives before they perhaps become troubled families or before a marriage begins to disintegrate completely, or to get help with a troubled teenager.
Fifthly, any efforts to regenerate the 100 worst sink estates in the UK should put family and relationship support at the heart of those new developments. Regeneration of the estates needs to go far beyond bricks and mortar if lives are to be transformed, and a healthy relationships fund should be properly resourced to ensure that parenting, couple relationship and family support programmes are included in the master planning processes, not just for this, but for the other Government initiatives such as troubled families, children’s mental health and parenting. They need to include a specific focus on the couple relationship and on strengthening the whole family to ensure that the additional benefits of family stability are reaped by these young boys.
Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. The educational performance of our children is a topic that deservedly occupies considerable time within not only this House but the other place. It is the most potent policy tool in the hands of Government to raise aspiration and improve social mobility, but today we are here to focus on a very specific aspect of this policy debate: the educational performance of boys. In turn, as a Member who represents a predominantly working-class constituency in the city of Bradford, I propose to narrow even further the focus of this debate to the underperformance of working-class boys within our school system.
Let me make it clear at the start that this is not a call for girls to level down but for boys—indeed, for both working-class boys and working-class girls—to level up. What does the desperate underperformance that is endemic across our country mean for the life chances of our working-class boys? Because of that underperformance, they are most likely to find themselves condemned to temporary, low-skilled and disjointed working lives that offer little career progression or job satisfaction. Perhaps more disturbingly, they will, beyond doubt, find themselves increasingly ill-equipped to compete in today’s dauntingly globalised world, where the rules of international commerce mean that my constituents are no longer competing with Leeds, Manchester or Sheffield, as in the last century, but increasingly with regional cities in Taiwan and Brazil and so on.
As ever, painting such bleak pictures must inevitably beg the question: what are this Government going to do? The answer is certainly not to rob Peter to pay Paul. Funding for other disadvantaged cohorts should and must be maintained. The real answer is to end the first real-terms cut in school funding—a policy of this Government—without delay. It is arguably the single most regressive policy of this Government. That is undeniable. I expect the predictable response from the Government to my call for increased funding will be—excuse me if I paraphrase—something about a “magic money tree”. We have all heard it before, but that is simplistic and little more than a diversionary tactic. There are always choices to be made about competing calls on hard-pressed public finances, and this Government without fail choose time and again to back the wrong side.
As a case in point, under this Government, a choice was made to continue the charitable status of private schools. That tax break at a time of the first real-term cuts in schools funding in over a generation is plainly wrong. It favours the privileged few over the disadvantaged many and prefers the entrenched élite over the undervalued majority. The hundreds of millions of pounds in lost revenue to the Exchequer could, if that tax break were ended, be easily and swiftly redirected to tackle the unfairly disadvantaged in our school system and, in particular, to help address the desperate underperformance of working-class boys and working-class girls. Perhaps the Minister in his response will kindly offer the Government’s justification for their continuation of this unjust and damaging tax break.
Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln (Karl MᶜCartney), and it is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins).
I would like to bring a different view to this debate. Although we have been talking about cities and inner cities, I represent a shire county, a rural area in west Cheshire. First of all, I declare an interest in that I am a white working-class poor boy. I left school at 16 with no qualifications and I was written off for low-paid employment, exactly as the hon. Lady talked about. I am also a governor of a school in my constituency. I feel passionate about helping poor, working-class people of any gender to succeed in life. I also have two boys and a little girl at state school.
The north-west is underperforming compared with the national average—71% of girls achieved five GCSEs at A* to C compared with 59% of boys. That is a gender gap of 12%. In my constituency, it is even worse—it is 15%. The total university applications from Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales are an equivalent number to the gender gap, so this is a massive issue for those of us in England.
White working-class boys are far less likely to go to university than any other group in the country and I say to the Minister that “coasting” schools in shire counties such as Cheshire have been an absolute scandal over many years. Some progress has been made by previous Governments—Labour Governments—in inner cities, certainly in London, but those of us representing shire counties in the north of England, for example, have been badly let down.
I am keen to allow other people to speak so I just ask the Minister to look at “coasting” local authority schools and schools generally in the northern shire counties to see what can be done to make sure that working-class boys, currently and in future, get the best opportunities available to them in a new globalised economy.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
I just want to make a few quick points. I think it is well accepted that working-class children generally do less well in school, in university and later in professions. We have recently learned that boys are performing worse than girls, especially at a young age, which is concerning. It is a well-known fact that if someone’s linguistic skills are good, and if they have started learning those skills from a young age, they will inevitably perform far better at school and go on to university or an apprenticeship and get a good job.
My constituency is very much white working-class. I have particular concerns because only 71% of children under the age of five in my constituency achieve the expected standard of speech and language skills, which is well below the national average of 80%. There is also evidence of a significant gap between boys and girls. In fact, only 65% of boys are achieving the expected level, as opposed to 78% of young girls. That is a major gap, so it is right that we are debating the need to address the concerns about young boys. In Bolton, 290 five-year-old boys were already behind when they started school recently. If they had performed as well as the girls, 109 more would have met the expected standard.
We need to address the problem. I think everybody understands it and is aware of the issues, but what is the way forward? How do we address the inadequacies and problems? One way is to have more intervention in the early years. I am not trying to make a party political point, but Sure Start centres are a great way of helping a lot of young children from working-class backgrounds to get their linguistic skills up and perform better in school. We should have specialist early learning teachers in nurseries to impart skills and help young children. We also need to spend money on working with families to help them to educate their children within the home.
Some of the social issues that accompany this topic are important, and I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) about the importance of parents in preventing problems. I reiterate what my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) said, as I entirely agree with her. In some respects, she could quite easily have been talking about some parts of my constituency.
I ask the Government for extra funding targeted at junior schools, primary schools, nurseries, and the families and parents of young people who have difficulties and issues. If we identify and target all aspects of the issue, young boys and girls should be able to do well and achieve their full potential.
Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln (Karl MᶜCartney) for raising this extremely important issue. It does exist, and we should not deny that. Many of us here represent white working-class areas, which adds the dimension that the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) mentioned, but I do not want to dilute my hon. Friend’s strong message. We know that whatever measure we use, boys from disadvantaged socioeconomic groups perform less well at school.
In Telford, only 28% of white boys on free school meals achieve five GCSEs at grades A* to C, whereas girls from similar backgrounds perform significantly better. Naturally, the boys who do not achieve that do not go on to higher education. The attainment gap starts early, and as they go through their lives without the tools they need to achieve their potential, the gap widens. As opportunities and options close down to them, the impact is felt in all areas of their life. More boys than girls experience behavioural difficulties, are excluded from school and are admitted to pupil referral units.
Many boys start to see themselves with a bad-boy image, which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. There is so much that goes with that, including anger, frustration and self-harm, and then the life chances are set in stone. A downward spiral and a domino effect begins.
Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)
Is my hon. Friend aware that there is a physical dimension to the issue? Research from the University of California suggests that boys take longer to get going in the morning. They tend to need to sleep in later in the mornings and then work later into the evenings, and that may have implications, for example, for the timing of the school day.
Lucy Allan
My hon. Friend makes an interesting point, which I completely understand because I have a teenage boy.
The same “lost boys” to whom the excellent Save the Children report refers then become lost young men in the criminal justice system—in the prison population, or joining gangs or committing knife crime—and it is harder and harder for them to get back on track and turn their lives around. Although it may be uncomfortable, we need to shine a light on the causes of that. All too often, it is a cycle of underachievement. The men in those boys’ lives may have had a bad experience of school, which they have then passed on to their children.
There is a culture of low aspiration and a pattern of cultural isolation, and young people find it difficult to break out of the world into which they are born or to see the limits beyond the horizons that have been set for them. While we in this place may get distracted by focusing on alternative school structures, curriculum content and mandatory personal, social, health and economic education, we must not forget those boys in Telford, those boys on free school meals or those boys in care.
At the core of what the Government must do is continuing to drive up standards in every school, creating opportunities for every child so that no one is left behind. In calling for the debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln has taken the opportunity to make that point loud and clear. On behalf of the boys in my constituency who are struggling to achieve their potential, I thank him.
Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)
I will call Patricia Gibson to speak for two and a half or three minutes, and then Flick Drummond. If the Front-Bench spokespeople lose a couple of minutes, I hope they can live with that.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
Unlike the hon. Member for Lincoln (Karl MᶜCartney), to whom I express my thanks for securing the debate, I do not believe that this is a one nation issue. It is a global issue, and we need to broaden the debate so that we can learn lessons from countries as far away as necessary.
From 2000 to 2010, psychologists at the universities of Glasgow and Missouri looked at the educational achievements of 1.5 million 15-year-olds from around the world using the programme for international student assessment. They found that girls do better at school even in countries where women’s liberties are severely restricted. Girls outperform boys in maths and reading in 70% of countries, regardless of gender equality. Even in countries such as Qatar, which is infamous for its lack of gender awareness, the girls still outstrip the boys in educational performance.
There were only three regions in the world where boys outperformed girls. Bizarrely, those places were Colombia, Costa Rica and the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. We should look at those places and see what they are doing that we are not. The better performance of girls than boys happens regardless of high or low levels of social, political and economic inequality, and there is no significant difference between performance in the United Kingdom and the United States. We need to look at such things if we want to address the issue seriously.
In Scotland, we have taken steps to try to address the issue, but clearly the causes are fundamental and deep-rooted. We need to address it on an international basis and learn from one another. No child should be held back by their background or gender. We need a serious debate about what is going on globally, and we need to tackle the issue with a more holistic approach than just looking at counties and constituencies. It is far more deep-rooted than that.
Mrs Flick Drummond (Portsmouth South) (Con)
Thank you for allowing me to speak, Mr Walker. I will be as fast as I can. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln (Karl MᶜCartney) for securing this important debate.
It is disappointing that the gender gap starts before children go to school and goes all the way through to university. In 2014-15, 56% of all British students were female, which represents a major reversal over the past three decades and corrects centuries of male domination. I am not saying that female domination is a bad thing. I do not have a problem with women ruling the world for the next few centuries as men have done in the past, but I think we are prepared to be more equal.
What to do? We need to stop the blame culture in which higher education blames secondary schools and secondary schools blame primary schools, which in turn blame early years and the parents. We need to look at education as a whole, which is why I am so pleased that higher education is back in the Department for Education.
In Portsmouth South, 73% of boys met the standard for language development last year, compared with 87% of girls. Falling behind at the early stage puts children at a disadvantage, so interventions need to be put in place early. Language begins as soon as children are born, and I would like to see every pram and pushchair designed with the child facing the parent so that they can be talked to. Good childcare is crucial and needs to be well funded. Get it right at that stage and money will be saved in the future.
Boys and girls have the capacity to learn exactly the same subjects. There should be no difference in what girls and boys learn, but there is a difference in how they learn. According to the OECD report, boys are 8% more likely to regard school as a waste of time. Boys learn in short phases and need more breaks. They need to be able to move around more than girls. Thirty-five minutes has been identified as the best length of lesson for boys, so they need short, specific, focused activities. More sport is needed in schools.
Some very good schools have embraced pedagogy with a range of teaching approaches. Using different intervention strategies is proving effective, and good practice needs to be widespread. Each teacher will have a different style, and I am glad that the Government are encouraging teachers to develop their own style rather than forcing them to teach in a particular way. Literacy strategies should include a holistic approach to reading, writing, speaking and listening as an integrated whole. Children also need to be competitive. Target setting and mentoring are crucial. The Portsmouth education business partnership is proving incredibly effective in working with pupils one to one.
Lastly, children need to be challenged and praised. Many boys appear to be full of confidence but are not. Bad behaviour is often a cover for a fear of failure. Good teachers will adjust their attitude to encourage boys to get more involved in activities. I think this is a temporary blip, but we need to work hard quickly to ensure that no boy is left behind.
Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)
I thank the hon. Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston) for his selflessness. Everyone in Westminster Hall owes him a great debt of gratitude. I ask the Opposition Front-Bench spokespeople to be brief and to leave the Minister nine minutes at the end.
Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. I congratulate the hon. Member for Lincoln (Karl MᶜCartney) on securing this important debate. I do not intend to mention every Member who has spoken, but I will mention a few of the good ideas that have come out of this debate. I will do so as quickly as possible to give the Minister plenty of time to respond.
The hon. Member for Lincoln was right when he listed why boys’ attainment is less than that of girls, but he should temper what he is saying. It almost came out as boys versus girls, which should never be the case. As other Members have said, we should be encouraging attainment for all in schools. We need to move this forward.
I specifically commend my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) for her international outlook. I was astonished to hear some of her statistics and research, because there is not only a problem in the UK, in England and Wales or just in Scotland; there is a problem across the world. All education systems should look at what is happening elsewhere to seek improvement and to raise attainment.
I have a focus in this debate because I was the first woman in my family to go to university. I went to university in 1967, when young working-class women just did not do that. I was fortunate. [Interruption.]
Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)
We have another Division. Will this debate ever end?
Marion Fellows
As I said, I was the first in my family to go to university, and I was a white working-class girl. Things have changed, but we should not be considering this a gender-specific issue; as has been said, it is a social justice issue. It affects the whole economy and all of us.
I urge the Minister to consider some of the systems used by the Scottish Government, including a very good one called “Getting it right for every child”, which starts with early intervention and goes all the way through. That is where this debate should lead us. We should be considering how to improve children’s education and life chances, because that is what we all want. We all want everyone to be educated, in the true sense: that is, we want what they have inside to be drawn out and used to the advantage of us all.
Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. I will try to be brief. I thank the hon. Member for Lincoln (Karl MᶜCartney) for securing this debate on such an important topic. I will resist going where I was tempted to go with some of the comments that he made. As a white working-class girl, I would not want to stamp down a white working-class boy; we have to show solidarity.
Equality issues affect those from many backgrounds, but I will focus on what I believe to be the elephant in the room, which many Members have raised—class. Class is much more of a determining factor in this debate than gender, and it affects the issue disproportionately. I agree fully with the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh). All children have the right to a good-quality free education. All of us in this Chamber can agree on that.
I refer back to the comments made by the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce). Although I agree that fatherhood is important to the issue, healthy relationships are also important. That is why the Opposition want the Government to do more to equip young people by offering age-appropriate resilience and relationships education in all schools. Although boys from prosperous backgrounds dominate the very top of the attainment scale, there is growing concern about boys performing poorly overall at school compared with girls. I thank the hon. Member for Lincoln for sharing with us his story about his gran. He and I also have that in common: I had a strong gran who pushed me forward.
Boys are more likely to have the worst results, drop out and leave education unskilled and poorly qualified, as the hon. Gentleman eloquently said. Some 38% of boys eligible for free school meals fall behind in early language and communication. That is nearly double the national average of 20%. In our increasingly unequal society, it is not surprising that class is still such a massive barrier to education attainment. I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman agrees—other hon. Members alluded to it—that grammar schools are not the answer to the problem. We need to raise standards across the spectrum of schools.
I was moved by what the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Graham Evans) said as well. I did not know his back story, but I am pleased that he shared with us his own experiences as a white working-class boy. Like him, I fought tooth and nail to get where I am today, and I had key social levers to help me that have now been, sadly, asset-stripped away by this Government.
Many hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) and the hon. Member for Telford (Lucy Allan), spoke at length about the importance of early years, which is absolutely right. I focus in my closing remarks on asking what the Government will do to invest in good early years education, because it is not happening at the moment; the funding is being cut. We know that funding from central Government is important in early-years intervention services, and that the cuts will have a massive impact on boys and girls from working-class backgrounds. What steps will the Government take to raise the aspirations and self-belief of students from poorer backgrounds, particularly boys?
Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)
Minister of State, you have ample time to answer the debate: more than 10 minutes.
The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)
Well, let me get on with it, Mr Walker. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln (Karl MᶜCartney) on securing this important debate. It has been an excellent and pacy debate, with excellent speeches on both sides of the Chamber, particularly the passionate speech, based on personal experience, of my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Graham Evans), the thoughtful speeches of my hon. Friends the Members for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), for Telford (Lucy Allan) and for Portsmouth South (Mrs Drummond), and other speeches that I will refer to in a moment.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln and the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) have so clearly set out, there are still far too many young people—boys and girls—who are held back by their background and circumstances and who leave school without the basic building blocks for a successful future. The Government are determined to tackle those issues. Tackling educational inequality means raising the bar, setting the highest expectations for all pupils at every stage and raising standards so that every school can deliver a world-class education.
We have already made enormous strides. More than 1.4 million more pupils are now being taught in schools judged good or outstanding by Ofsted than in 2010. Once again, this year’s A-level and GCSE results are testimony to the hard work of thousands of pupils and teachers. But while it is right that we celebrate those achievements, we must also recognise that there are groups of pupils for whom the chances of achieving good GCSEs and A-levels are simply too low.
Tackling the inequality driven by socio-economic background is a key priority for the Government, as is tackling the inequality driven by gender. Whichever way we read the data, they show that girls outperform boys at all educational stages in most areas of the curriculum. In 2015, there was a gap of nearly 16 percentage points between girls and boys judged to be achieving a good level of development at the end of the early years foundation stage: 74.3% for girls and 58.6% for boys. The gap persists at primary school in most, but not all, subjects.
In 2015, while boys’ and girls’ performance in mathematics was consistent—87% of boys and girls achieving level 4 or higher in the key stage 2 maths assessment—a significantly higher percentage of girls than boys achieved the expected standard in reading, writing and grammar, punctuation and spelling. In reading, writing and maths, 83% of all girls achieved at least the expected standard, compared with 77% of boys.
By the time pupils reach the end of key stage 4 at secondary school, the gender gap in attainment has increased. Girls outperform boys across all major curriculum subjects, although the size of the gap varies considerably by subject. For example, in 2015, girls only just outperformed boys in maths and individual sciences, but in English the gap was nearly 15 percentage points, and in the most commonly studied languages—French, German and Spanish—it was around 10 percentage points. Girls remain more likely than boys to be entered for the English baccalaureate: in 2015, more than 43% of girls studied the suite of English baccalaureate qualifying subjects, compared with 34% of boys. More girls than boys achieved it, too: 29% of girls, compared with around 19% of boys.
The cumulative impact of low prior attainment during primary and secondary school is likely to be one of the main factors influencing the slightly lower proportion of boys progressing to a sustained college or sixth form at 16 and the slightly higher likelihood that boys will be not in education, employment or training at the same age. In England, young women are 36% more likely to apply to university than young men; the difference in application rates between them is the highest on record.
It is important to note, however, that gender gaps are a common occurrence internationally, as the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) pointed out. They are in favour of girls in reading, in favour of boys in mathematics but mixed in science. According to the most recent PISA study—the programme for international student assessment, conducted by the OECD—the reading ability of girls is higher than that of boys in every country.
On average across OECD countries, 15-year-old girls are around a year ahead of boys—38 PISA points. The size of that gap is narrower in England: our girls outperform boys by 24 PISA points. The gender gap in maths is reversed—boys do better—and is not as large: 11 PISA points, or four months of education, across the OECD. In fact, boys only scored significantly better than girls in 27 out of 65 countries, and the gender gap remains in favour of girls in Jordan, Qatar, Thailand, Malaysia and Iceland, as I think the hon. Lady referred to. The size of the gap is similar in England to the average across all OECD countries, which is 13 PISA points.
What are the drivers of boys’ under-achievement? I listened very carefully to the excellent speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South. While there is a plethora of data to show where and by how much girls do better than boys in education, there is only limited evidence that explains precisely why boys do not perform as well as girls. There is no shortage of theories, but many of them are not supported by robust research evidence. For example, it has been argued that boys naturally prefer examinations and girls prefer coursework, so boys may have been disadvantaged by the move from exam-based assessments to GCSEs, which place a greater emphasis on coursework. In fact, the attainment of girls at the end of secondary school was already improving before the introduction of GCSEs, and subsequent reductions in the weighting of the coursework component of GCSEs have had little impact on gender attainment patterns.
Another view, which my hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln referred to, is that the performance of boys is held back by the lack of male teachers in schools, particularly during the primary phase. He is right to point out that there is a huge disparity in the numbers of men and women teaching in primary schools, but studies that have looked for correlation between teacher gender and pupil attainment have mostly found no relationship of improved attainment when boys are taught by male teachers—although that does not mean we do not want to address the imbalance in the gender of primary school teachers.
The research evidence does suggest that the behaviour and attitudes of boys and girls towards school and academic study tend to differ in a number of ways—my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South referred to some of those. Pupil-level factors appear to play an important role in the gender attainment gap. We know that there are some schools in which pupil attainment is high and the gap between girls and boys is small or non-existent. Those schools tend to be characterised by a positive attitude to study, high expectations of all pupils, high-quality teaching and classroom management, and close tracking of individual pupils’ achievement.
As the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden so passionately and ably pointed out, academies in the Harris Federation in her constituency are improving educational standards for pupils from poorer backgrounds because they adopt those attitudes to education. I have not yet seen evidence of the gap closing, because I do not have the data, but if the hon. Lady has them, or if I can get them from Dan Moynihan, it would be interesting to see the extent to which the Harris Federation’s approach to education is having an impact on the gender gap.
It is important not to generalise. It is simply not true that all boys do badly and that all girls do well. For example, white British girls who are eligible for free school meals generally do much worse than white British boys who are not. Indeed, there is clear evidence that poverty is a much bigger predictor of poor educational attainment than gender, as the shadow Education Secretary pointed out. While gender imposes a relatively consistent educational performance gap across all ethnic groups, the impact is compounded significantly by deprivation. As the Prime Minister noted in her inaugural speech, the chances of going to university are extremely low for white working-class boys. In 2015, fewer than one in four white British boys eligible for free school meals achieved five A* to C grades at GCSE, including English and maths, compared with more than 56% of non-disadvantaged white British boys.
The question is: how are we tackling educational underachievement? The Government’s approach is to set high expectations for what all pupils will achieve by introducing an ambitious and stretching national curriculum and world-class qualifications. To deliver such reforms, we are building a school-led, self-improving education system, characterised by high levels of autonomy and strong accountability arrangements, through which the characteristics of high-performing schools, such as those referred to by the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden, can be shared and embedded across the whole system.
We want all pupils to secure the basics in literacy and numeracy by the end of primary school, and we have set higher standards in those areas of the curriculum. We have embedded the teaching of phonics in key stage 1, which we know is the most effective way of teaching reading for all children, and we are providing catch-up funding to secondary schools to support those pupils who do not achieve the expected standard at 11. As a result, 120,000 more six-year-olds are on track to become fluent readers. Our introduction of the English baccalaureate sets a strong expectation that all pupils will receive a rigorous academic education that prepares them for adult life and success in our modern economy. We have made clear our aim that, by 2020, the vast majority of pupils, boys and girls alike, will take those facilitating subjects as part of a well-rounded education that opens the door to education and employment.
Our new performance accountability measures are also intended to drive up attainment across the board. Secondary school performance tables now report on pupils’ progress from the end of primary school to the end of secondary school, as well as their GCSE attainment. The new measures, known as progress 8 and attainment 8, will encourage schools to focus their attention on the progress and attainment of every pupil, not just those at or near the borderline of a particular performance threshold.
Looking beyond the curriculum, our commitment to character education seeks to ensure that all pupils develop the essential qualities of resilience, perseverance and self-control, all of which are critical for success in both education and adult life.
Angela Rayner
In the spirit of this debate, and bearing in mind what is happening in the media, does the Minister believe that grammar schools will help with his aspirations or make things harder?
Mr Gibb
The Prime Minister and the Secretary of State have been clear that we need to build a country that works for everyone. We are looking at a range of options to allow more children to go to a school that helps them to rise as far as their talents will take them. We will, of course, say more in due course, as policy is developed under the new Secretary of State.
Our vision for a self-improving school system is fast becoming a reality. Our growing network of teaching schools and multi-academy trusts is ensuring that institutions can collaborate and receive the support they need to raise standards. We are working hard to create a sustainable and diverse succession plan of high-quality school leaders and headteachers, and our expansion of the highly successful Teach First programme—
Written Statement
(7 years, 9 months ago)
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Defence Estate Rationalisation
(7 years, 9 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mark Lancaster)
The Ministry of Defence (MOD) is nearing the completion of an ambitious estate optimisation strategy programme which will provide a plan for a smaller, but significantly better defence estate to meet the needs of the armed forces. The MOD expects to announce the finalised estate optimisation strategy later this year and can today confirm the expected release of 13 sites, shown below. These will contribute some £225 million toward the MOD’s £1 billion target for land release sales as set out in spending review 2015.
These sites also contribute to the Government commitment to provide land for 160,000 homes in this Parliament. The intent to dispose of these 13 sites will provide land for up to 17,017 homes (of which some 12,565 are expected to materialise in this Parliament). In addition to the sites announced in January and March of this year, this represents the expected provision of land for up to 14,700 homes this Parliament against the MOD target of 55,000. The remainder of the target will be met through other rationalisation activity including the reserves estate, the training estate and MOD accommodation.
The estate optimisation strategy aims to better support military capability and force generation; allow the formation of clusters of sites which facilitate the collocation of similar functions and thereby reduce running costs through shared resources; as well as dispose of under-utilised sites for which there is no longer a long-term defence requirement.
Over the coming weeks further work carried out in consultation with all stakeholders including the trade unions will determine the future reprovision of each site. The release of land by the MOD has the potential to provide land for new homes and we will continue to engage with impacted local authorities to determine how the Department’s assessment of housing unit allocation against each site may be considered as part of the authority’s local plan. I acknowledge that these moves will have an impact upon civilian and military staff; the Department is making arrangements to provide for units and functions based at sites which will not have a future defence requirement. I will make a further announcement setting out the estate optimisation strategy with details on the sequencing and timing of these moves later this year.
RAF Henlow (Bedfordshire)
Middlewick Ranges (Essex)
Amport House (Andover)
Land at Harley Hill (Catterick)
Chalgrove Airfield-(Oxford) Transferred to the Homes and Communities Agency
Colerne Airfield (Chippenham)
Azimghur Barracks (Chippenham)
Prince William of Gloucester Barracks (Grantham)
Old Dalby (Melton Mowbray)
Venning Barracks (Telford)
Parsons Barracks (Donnington)
Southwick Park (Fareham)
Royal Marines Stonehouse (Plymouth)
[HCWS133]
House of Lords
Iran: Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe
(7 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Alton of Liverpool
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress they have made in securing the release from Iran of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and her daughter; and what assessment they have made of the detention and execution of dual nationals in Iran.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Department for International Development (Baroness Anelay of St Johns) (Con)
My Lords, we continue to raise our strong concerns about British prisoners in Iran, including Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, at the highest levels in both London and Tehran. Both the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary did so in their introductory calls with their Iranian counterparts. We cannot assess the conditions of dual nationals detained in Iran as the Iranian Government do not grant us consular access. We oppose the use of the death penalty in all circumstances.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. In the upgrading announced yesterday of our diplomatic relations with Iran, and the decision of British Airways to provide six flights a week to Iran, what account was taken of this brutal regime’s execution of 1,000 people last year, the continuing incarceration of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe and the detention of her two year-old British daughter whose passport has been confiscated? Setting aside the prematurity of that decision, given that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been in solitary confinement and suffering dangerous weight loss and loss of mobility, what can the Minister tell us about the state of her health, the plight of her daughter and whether, as part of the deal in upgrading diplomatic relations, we have secured consular rights of access to the prison?
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, to address the main points there, we share the concerns of this family about the situation. The stresses and strains that they have been through are appalling and we have a great care for not only Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe but her whole family, including Gabriella. Gabriella is not detained in Iran. We have not requested the return of her passport, as her father has decided that she should stay with her grandparents for the time being. With regard to the generality of the noble Lord’s questions about BA, that is a commercial relationship but of course it is part of the development whereby we see Iran coming back into the international community, with all the responsibilities that that involves. Yesterday, when the Foreign Secretary commented on the upgrade of diplomatic relations, he specifically said that it,
“gives us the opportunity to develop our discussions on a range of issues, including our consular cases”.
Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)
My Lords, I knew Richard Ratcliffe when he was an accountant at the National Audit Office. He was seconded to the International Development Committee, which I chaired, and gave us very good work. The only reason why his wife and daughter were in Iran was to visit her family, Gabriella’s grandparents. It was on their return that they were arrested. There is no evidence whatever and no charges have been brought. In the circumstances, should the Government not make it clear that it is unacceptable for Iran to expect an improvement in relations if it behaves like this? The Government have previously forbidden BA to operate, as they did during the Ebola operation in Sierra Leone. They could do so now with regard to Iran.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, it is a fact that we take consular cases very seriously. It is also a fact that Mrs Ratcliffe has dual nationality. We are therefore not able to have consular access; we have our contact through the family. That does not mean that we take no action, it means that we support wherever we can, including pressing for proper access to health and legal representation, and that we do. As I mentioned a moment ago, it is our assessment that by ensuring that we have an ambassador there, we are in a better position properly to press the case for consular access and for proper treatment of people who hold dual nationality. As the noble Lord will know, dual nationality is not recognised by Iran. We find that wrong.
Lord Maginnis of Drumglass (Ind UU)
My Lords, I fully support the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Alton. Will the Minister attempt to put Iran’s ongoing outrages in context? Is she aware of the audiotape released on 9 August this year featuring the late Hoseyn Ali Montazeri addressing the 1988 death committee, when he pleaded in vain opposing the massacre of 30,000 Iranians? Instead of some parliamentary colleagues pandering to the mullahs’ regime through goodwill visits to Tehran, is it not time that our Government gave a lead by pressing at international level prosecutions of those criminals, some of whom are still in power?
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, I understand that the noble Lord refers to the reports of a 1988 massacre of political prisoners in Iran. It is absolutely the fact that Iran’s human rights record remains a serious concern—it is appalling—in particular in its use of the death penalty. However, the UK Government have little corroborated evidence of the reported massacre to which the noble Lord refers, which the Iranian Government have repeatedly denied took place. We still press the fact in our engagement with Iran that their re-engagement with the international community brings with it responsibilities on human rights.
Baroness Afshar (CB)
My Lords, as an Iranian-born Member of your Lordships’ House, I feel very vulnerable about ever returning home. Now that negotiations are ongoing about Iran’s participation, it is essential that we ask the Government to deliver, particularly on the arrest of human rights activists, scholars and feminists in Iran. There must be negotiations and conditionality for international participation.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, the noble Baroness raises the important point that when human rights are abused, it undermines the way in which society and government work. Not only have our Government frequently released statements condemning the human rights situation in Iran which cover the issues that the noble Baroness mentioned, we have joined action led by the international community. We have designated more than 80 Iranians responsible for human rights violations under EU sanctions, we have helped establish a UN special rapporteur on Iranian human rights and lobbied at the UN for the adoption of a human rights resolution on Iran. We will continue to fight for the causes the noble Baroness describes.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean (Lab)
My Lords, have Foreign Office Ministers called in the Iranian ambassador to discuss this issue and, if not, are there plans for Ministers to ask the Iranian ambassador to come into the Foreign Office to discuss it, since after all it is a really serious issue for us?
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, as I explained earlier, the agreement to have an ambassador in Iran occurred only yesterday, so the letters of accreditation were presented then. At this stage, we are looking to pursue the implications of having representation at ambassadorial level. I hear what the noble Baroness says and feel the concern of this House, which I take into account.
Calais and Dunkirk: Refugee Children
(7 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Roberts of Llandudno
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to speed up the reuniting of refugee children in the camps of Calais and Dunkirk with their families in the United Kingdom.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, the primary responsibility for migrants in Calais lies with France, but we continue to work with the French authorities and others to improve family reunification processes for unaccompanied children. We will shortly second another UK official to the French Interior Ministry to work on this issue. Transfer requests are now generally processed within 10 days, and children transferred within weeks. More than 70 children have been accepted for transfer this year from France.
Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD)
I thank the Minister for her reply. I was happy to hear over the weekend that the Government considered that they were on track and that we will receive 20,000 refugees by 2020. Could we not start with the children? The winter is coming, and conditions are dire in northern France. Could not we have a special humanitarian effort this year? Kindertransport does not belong to yesterday alone. It could belong to today—and we could bring over some 380 children who are eligible to come to the UK in a matter of weeks. Will the Minister take that to heart?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I certainly sympathise with the sentiment of what the noble Lord says—nobody wants children to have to survive a winter in cold conditions. But there are several things that we have to consider. First, what is in the best interest of that child in terms of safeguarding? Secondly, there are laws that we have to abide by from various countries. For example, if the child is not in this country, we have to do those negotiations to get the child out.
Lord Dubs (Lab)
My Lords, it cannot be in the best interests of any child to stay in Calais, in awful conditions with no proper safety or security apart from a few British NGOs. It is deplorable. If the Minister would come to Calais—I was there last Saturday—she would see what I am talking about.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I thank the noble Lord for bringing that up. Perhaps I can clarify what I said about negotiating with other countries and their laws and, certainly, the welfare interests of the child. While a child is in France, it is under the jurisdiction of France. Of course we work with France—and most children are out of the camps very quickly when they have relatives in the UK. But there are all those issues to consider. Of course, nobody has to stay in the camps. Reception centres have been made available; there are 130 of them for people to go to rather than stay in the camps.
Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)
My Lords, I, too, visited the Jungle with my noble friends Lady Jenkin and Lady Morris in July. We saw how desperate the situation is there and met some of the children. Can I press for them to be processed as quickly as possible? They are at risk in these camps. There may be reception centres, but for a child of 10 such as we met it is very hard to get to them. They are at risk all the time. So can the extra official who is going to France please connect with the children in the camp and get those who are entitled to come to the UK here as fast as possible?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I totally agree that no child should be in the camp and that they should be resettled as quickly as possible, but the reception centres will certainly give them some of the support that is needed for their welfare, education and resettlement. British assistance has been commendable throughout that process. We now have a £10 million refugee fund for Europe, for unaccompanied children and for children separated from their families.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)
My Lords, I have not seen these children but I have worked in childcare for more years, probably, than most Members of this House. It is appalling that our country and our Government leave these children in such conditions. Every day there are media reports clearly showing the terrible conditions. We know that there are children there of 10 and under and that there are children who have the right to come and be with their families. Local authorities were often accused of bureaucracy in their childcare. Surely the Government will not have a whole lot of bureaucracy to prevent children being saved from this coming winter.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, we all want the same thing for these children: for them to be safe and to be in an environment that is in their best interests, away from the Jungle in Calais. This Government are working tirelessly with the French Government to ensure that those processes are expedited as quickly as possible.
The Archbishop of Canterbury
My Lords, the Question has been extremely specifically put about children who have families in this country; this is not about all unaccompanied children. My own diocese of Canterbury has taken on a staff member who is working in the Jungle, in co-ordination with a staff member taken on by the Catholic diocese of Arras. We are still having continual reports of delays for really quite young children who are not being brought across. Does the Minister not agree that where children—particularly young ones—have families in this country there is no reason why they should not be brought across within the day?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, many of the children are coming here very quickly, but if any child has to stay over in the camp for any longer than it should that is one child too many. I commend the most reverend Primate on the work that Lambeth Palace is doing in taking its first family. We are clear that refugees in Calais should first of all claim asylum in France and then come over here through the Dublin process. The good news is that 120 children have come here this year under the Dublin regulations, 70 of them from France.
Climate Change: Fracking
(7 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness McIntosh of Pickering
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they plan to ensure that the three tests set out by the Committee on Climate Change with regard to shale gas exploitation by fracking are met before any fracking work proceeds, and if so, how.
The Minister of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Baroness Neville-Rolfe) (Con)
My Lords, shale could promote the opportunity of a new, domestic source of gas which adds to our energy security. Since 2000, UK gas production has decreased and import dependency has increased. This Government have been clear that shale development must be safe and environmentally sound. As our response to the Committee on Climate Change report states, we believe that each of the three tests for shale gas development will be met.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
I am most grateful to the Minister for that Answer. Will she explain to the House how the Government intend to meet those tests and, in particular, satisfy the Committee on Climate Change regarding greenhouse gas emissions, which would increase in intensity with the extraction of such a fossil fuel on a large, significant scale? Also, how do we intend to meet our carbon reporting targets in those circumstances?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
We have made it clear that we will take steps to meet our carbon targets, particularly by 2050, and we agreed on the fifth carbon budget before the Summer Recess. In relation to the tests, the first test is met by our regulatory system; tests 2 and 3 will be met by the commitments we will be making in the carbon budgets.
Lord Wigley (PC)
My Lords, does the Minister accept that one of the main considerations with regard to fracking is the geological stability of the land, particularly in those areas where there has been coal mining and the seepage of water can go many miles? Does she accept that, in these circumstances, any decision on fracking should be taken as locally as possible so that local opinions are taken into account?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I agree with the noble Lord that we need to be careful. I also agree that the permission should be dealt with by the relevant local planning authority. However, we are fortunate in having strong regulators. The Environment Agency focuses particularly on water and, of course, the Oil and Gas Authority has operated for many years and has very strong regulations in relation to seismic activity.
Baroness Featherstone (LD)
My Lords, gas is a fossil fuel wherever it comes from. Given that the Government are going to miss our legally binding targets on reductions in carbon emissions, would it not be better altogether if the Government simply banned fracking and got on with delivering reductions in emissions rather than increases?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I cannot agree with the noble Baroness. I believe that shale has the potential to make a strong contribution to the transition from a heavily coal-fired carbon-inducing energy mix to the vision that I think we all share for 2050.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)
My Lords, in the Forest of Dean, to my sorrow, licences have been granted despite the opposition of all members of the community. There is great concern that the complex hydrology, local subsidence and faulting issues, as well as the shallowness of the carboniferous shales and coal-bed which the licence holder intends to explore, will be particularly prone to ground-water contamination through fugitive methane emissions and the chemicals used in the fracking and drilling process. Given that methane is 80 times more significant as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, what level of fugitive emissions —that is to say, leakage—would the Government define as an acceptable level?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
The noble Baroness is right to draw attention to methane. That is, of course, one of the key focuses of the Environment Agency, which has control over the permitting process and environmental emissions.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, in fact there is mounting evidence that the methane leaks associated with fracking are far dirtier than those associated with energy derived from coal. Therefore, I do not see how it is possible for us to have clean energy and fulfil all our commitments if we carry on fracking. Is it not time that we followed the devolved countries of Scotland and Wales and abandoned fracking in England?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I think the key thing is to have a proper regulatory system of controls. We have learned from US experience in setting up our system. We are also focused on all the Kyoto basket of gases, which includes methane. I assure the noble Baroness that that is an important part of our thinking. But I return to my first point, which is that we need a mix of energy in the transition to 2050.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)
My Lords, will the noble Baroness try again to answer the question of my noble friend Lady Royall: what amount of leakage is acceptable?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I think this is a matter for the experts concerned in the particular circumstances. Our regulatory system is site specific. You go to the particular site and work it out. Clearly, you want to minimise the emissions of all six of the Kyoto basket of gases. I think that would be an agreed objective.
Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)
My Lords, is that why the Government do not have a view on what is an acceptable degree of leakage, or are they perhaps consulting the experts? If so, will the Minister share with us what advice has been received on what would be an acceptable level of leakage?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I can certainly write to noble Lords about what advice we have received, if that would be helpful. I return to my point that we have a strong regulatory system right across the board in this area and we should look to this as an opportunity.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton (Lab)
My Lords, I declare an interest as a Lancashire resident. Would the Minister be prepared to inform the House, in writing if necessary, how many of the controls, considerations, regulations and judgments will be made by those external to the industry concerned and how many will be made by those involved in gaining profit, however low they choose to set the safety targets? My recollection is that the Government did not want all the regulation to be external, and that they wanted the industry itself to tackle this. Some of us are concerned about that.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I am the new Energy Minister, but I have been struck by the variety of independent outside agencies that are involved in this site-specific process. There can also be benefit to the community, both through the community benefit package, which involves an industry contribution, as the noble Baroness is suggesting, and from the shale wealth fund, on which we are consulting, which will allow some of the tax revenues to be shared with individual members of the community.
Southern Rail
(7 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Randerson
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, following the granting of additional funds, what further steps they will take to ensure a better service for all customers of Southern Rail.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)
My Lords, Network Rail has committed £20 million for improvements to the Southern network. This fund will be focused on track and infrastructure works and additional staff to ensure that performance improves. The Secretary of State for Transport has also announced the appointment of Chris Gibb to head up a project board, whose remit is to deliver service improvements and closer working relationships between Govia Thameslink Railway and Network Rail.
Baroness Randerson (LD)
My Lords, the £20 million extra funding to assist Southern, despite its 27% increase in profits announced last week, surely gives the Government a stronger hand to insist that long-suffering passengers get a better deal. Can the Minister explain to us why Southern has been allowed to reject applications for compensation for train delays, which have been made using a special app, and when will the Government introduce the entitlement to compensation for delays of 15 minutes, which was promised last year by David Cameron?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
On the noble Baroness’s second point, I know that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State is looking at the whole issue of compensation, including making it available for delays of 15 minutes; noble Lords will know that it is currently available for delays of 30 minutes. On the specific app, GTR has specific processes for delay and compensation, and an online form is available. One thing it does not entertain is third-party applications. If there are specific examples of compensation applications being directly made via the online application that have then not been paid out, I would be happy if she wrote to me with the detail so that I can take it up directly.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, can the Government confirm that the train operators concerned in this present dispute have safety cases to allow one-person operation of the trains? I recall that it happens in many parts of the country and clearly, they must have got it, but this problem has been going on for much too long. Will the Government put as much pressure as they can on Chris Gibb and his team to get everybody around a table to sort it out once and for all?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
I am sure that many of those who know the rail industry also know that Chris Gibb himself also brings around 30 years’ experience. His appointment will expedite the resolution of what has been, as the noble Lord rightly points out, a long-standing dispute; obviously, the people who are suffering are the customers.
Lord Dholakia (LD)
My Lords, Southern is boasting about returning to service some of the trains which were cut—about 350 of them a few weeks ago. Yesterday a 12-coach train was reduced to five and this morning a 12-coach train was reduced to four. Is anybody monitoring the situation to find out what the impact has been on individual commuters and, more importantly, the tourist trade and the economy of this country?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
Again, the noble Lord is right to point out the operational challenges posed to consumers and those visiting the UK. I assure him that the new Rail Minister is in constant dialogue with the operator and with Network Rail. In addition, it is important to note that while a reduced timetable has been in operation, I am pleased to say that 119 services which were originally suspended have today been reintroduced, which I hope will have a positive impact on the scheduling of services.
Lord Rosser (Lab)
Unless the Government take the hardly objective view that no responsibility of any significance for the poor level of service provided by Southern Rail can be attributed to the performance, or lack of it, of the top management of the company and that industrial action is the only cause of that poor service, why is Southern Rail not in breach of the terms of its franchise contract? Why has the Government’s response been not to take any action against the company for that breach but, instead, to provide additional money to improve services when Southern Rail is part of a transport organisation which we now know would have no difficulty in finding that money itself. That additional money is coming from the taxes of the very passengers having to put up with poor service and cancellations over a lengthy period—a double whammy for Southern Rail passengers if ever there was one.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
As the noble Lord is fully aware, while there have been issues with GTR, there have also been problems on the tracks. Only yesterday I learned that a challenge was posed by a hole appearing near Waterloo East, and other issues apart from the industrial dispute have compounded the challenges on this line. However, the Government have taken responsibility in imploring the train operator and representatives of the different trade unions to get round the table, negotiate a settlement and move forward on this long-standing dispute. It is important that we do so in the interests of the long-suffering commuters and other users of that network.
Baroness Donaghy (Lab)
The Minister will know that some railway stations on those lines are dangerously overcrowded. Passengers can be dumped without notice, including foreign visitors who have just arrived at Gatwick. The passenger levels at some stations, including East Croydon and Clapham Junction, are reaching the point where there are going to be terrible accidents one day with so many people on the platforms. What health and safety issues are being discussed, and can the Government give us an assurance that these will be dealt with?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
As I said, the Government are looking at this matter, and that is why the Secretary of State has announced the new fund. To give some reassurance to the noble Baroness, £2 million of the £20 million fund will be spent on additional rapid response teams, which will be located at known hot spots to reduce the time needed to fix problems, £800,000 will be invested in additional signal supervisors, and there will be additional investment in the stations mentioned by the noble Baroness to ensure that people are well informed. However, I totally accept, as I have previously, that there are major challenges on this network that require a resolution. The Government are seeking to provide this company with support and direction through the Rail Minister to get this long-standing dispute resolved in the interests of all.
Fixed-term Parliaments (Repeal) Bill [HL]
Recess Dates
Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)
My Lords, it may be for the convenience of the House if I make a short statement about recess dates for the Christmas and February periods. A note of all the dates that I am about to announce are available in the Printed Paper Office. The following dates are of course provisional and are subject to the usual caveat of the progress of business.
We will rise at the conclusion of business on Wednesday 21 December and return in the new year on Monday 9 January. We will then rise for the February half term at the conclusion of business on Thursday 9 February and return on Monday 20 February. Dates for recesses in the remainder of the Session will be announced in due course but I hope that it is helpful to noble Lords to have the notice that I have been able to provide today. Dates for the forthcoming conference and November recesses have already been announced and will be included in the information available.
Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Bill [HL]
The Earl of Clancarty
The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, for his support for this amendment. It has a straightforward intention, which is to ensure that the language used in the Bill is consistent and, crucially, consistent with the language used in the Second Protocol. I refer your Lordships to Articles 15 and 21 of the Second Protocol, which use the terms “serious violation” and “violation”.
We have already discussed this matter in Committee in detail, so I will be brief. What is required is simply that the headings to Part 2 and Clause 3 of the Bill are amended so that, in both, “serious breach” is changed to “serious violation”. I am not permitted to do that through an amendment, but I understand that the Government can make these changes if they were to look favourably on the spirit of this amendment. I beg to move.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)
My Lords, I will be very brief indeed. I simply want to endorse what has been said by the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, and point out that this matter can be resolved at relatively short notice when the Bill is reprinted prior to its next stage. I look forward to the Government’s response on that point.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Ashton of Hyde) (Con)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to respond for the Government to the noble Earl’s amendment, especially as I hope to give him an answer that he will approve of. I am very conscious that I have come late to this Bill and that many noble Lords did sterling work at Second Reading and in Committee, not least my noble friends Lady Neville-Rolfe and Lord Courtown, to whom I am very grateful for getting us this far. And now, before the Deputy Chief Whip intervenes to say that I am breaking the rules for Report, I shall return to the noble Earl’s amendment.
I recognise that there are concerns in some quarters about the differences in terminology between the titles of this Bill, the convention and the Second Protocol, and the potential for confusion that this may cause. My noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe explained in Committee that we have used the term “breach” in the titles of Part 2 and Clause 3 because that is the more widely recognised term in English law and the meaning in this context is the same. However, we have listened to the points made in debate by noble Lords, and I am pleased to inform your Lordships that the Government have agreed to change the word “breach” to “violation” in the titles of Part 2 and Clause 3 when the Bill is next reprinted, which, I believe, will be before it goes to the other place. Therefore, it will now say, “Offence of serious violation of Second Protocol”.
I hope this will fully address the concerns that the noble Earl and the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, have raised. In the light of this commitment from the Government to change the titles, I hope the noble Earl will withdraw his amendment.
The Earl of Clancarty
My Lords, I thank the Minister for agreeing to make the changes to the headings. This is a small amendment but one that strengthens the Bill. On the understanding that the headings of Part 2 and Clause 3 will be amended as has been promised, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 1.
Lord Ashton of Hyde
Lord Ashton of Hyde
My Lords, I take this opportunity to introduce an amendment to Clause 4 which has arisen as a direct result of the scrutiny and debate on the Floor of this House and to put on record the substance of the letter that I sent to noble Lords last week to explain the amendment.
As was discussed in detail in Committee, Clause 4 deals with the extraterritorial application of ancillary offences. For example, it means that if an individual abroad attempts or conspires to commit an act, that act would be an offence under this legislation.
Noble Lords may recall that in Committee, the noble Lords, Lord Touhig and Lord Stevenson, tabled an amendment to subsections (4) and (5) of Clause 4, which makes provisions for England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The essence of the amendment is to try to understand why these provisions were drafted differently from those relating to Scotland. My predecessor, my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe, explained that this was due to a difference in Scottish criminal law. While subsection (6) was not the subject of the noble Lords’ amendment, the debate prompted the Government to reflect on the drafting of this clause and to conclude that the original drafting would benefit from some clarification to ensure that the Bill’s provisions relating to the ancillary offences had the intended effect in Scotland. The Scottish Government and the Crown Office in Scotland have been consulted regarding this amendment and have agreed the appropriate drafting.
I hope noble Lords will accept the amendment. I am grateful that the close consideration this House has given the Bill has resulted in this improvement in its drafting. I beg to move.
Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury (LD)
My Lords, I welcome the noble Lord to his position and thank him for his previous acceptance of the noble Earl’s amendment and for this amendment. We all agree that this is a good Bill and I am grateful for these two improvements to it.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
I am looking sideways because Hansard will not be able to record this unless I explain what has happened between me and my noble kinsman, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope. When this point first arose in Committee, I rather stupidly intervened ahead of the noble and learned Lord and he rose magisterially, if that is not too otiose a phrase, to explain that, even though I hail from Scotland and carry a Scottish town in my title, I was hopelessly under-read about how the law operates in Scotland and I should know better than to try to amend a Bill that he was able to assure us was in good order at that time.
Or was it? I did not know very much about it—and did not intend to say that I did—but, in the tradition of these Bills, I tabled a probing amendment. We rarely have an opportunity to see probing amendments come home to roost with such extraordinary felicity—I am still nervous that the noble and learned Lord will jump up and shout at me—but I relish that this has now happened. I also welcome the fact that we are having a good afternoon with two concessions already, so I shall not say any more.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
Perhaps I may follow those kind remarks by saying that I entirely approve of this amendment. The phrase originally used in that part of the clause was rather too terse. These additional words certainly have resonance in Scotland and it is wise to include them.
Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (CB)
My Lords, I will move Amendment 3 and speak to Amendment 4 in the place of my noble and learned friend Lord Woolf, who yesterday underwent a knee operation. I am happy to tell the House that it all went well and that no doubt he will be ready to respond to the call for “Strictly” whenever it comes.
I confess to having played no part in earlier debates on the Bill, but I am a keen supporter of the principles and objectives that underlie it. As will readily be appreciated, these amendments to Clause 6 are designed to separate out the primary or principal offences under Clause 3; that is, serious violations of the convention and the Second Protocol from ancillary offences, which are dealt with separately in Clause 4. As presently drafted, all are subject to a maximum term of 30 years’ imprisonment. We propose in these amendments that in the case of ancillary offences—let me make clear, as does paragraph 37 of the Explanatory Notes, that we are talking not just about offences ancillary to the principal offences but to offences ancillary to ancillary offences—the maximum penalty should be reduced to 14 years. This point was first raised, and the change urged, by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, on which my noble and learned friend Lord Woolf serves. The chairman of the committee, Harriet Harman, pointed out in a letter to the department that an example of an ancillary offence is someone destroying evidence to conceal an attempt by a friend to steal property that is protected under the Hague convention.
Of course, I well recognise that a 30-year maximum sentence ultimately leaves it to the court to decide on what the appropriate punishment or sentence should be for any particular offending. In one sense, one might ask where on earth is the harm in having what is, I suggest, for ancillary offences an absurdly high maximum. But on that approach, why not have 40 years or life imprisonment? The fact is that the fixed maximum gives some indication of the relative gravity with which offending is viewed by Parliament. If, as here, it becomes wildly out of touch with reality, far from strengthening the legislation, I respectfully suggest that it actually weakens it. Better by far to keep the matter in a proper perspective.
A sentence of 14 years for an ancillary offence is itself likely to be way beyond any appropriate sentence, but at least it would highlight the true comparative gravity of a principal as opposed to an ancillary offence. I should just add that the department responded to the Joint Committee’s plea to change this by saying that the policy in this legislation is to mirror the position with regard to war crimes under the International Criminal Court Act 2001. That also provides for a 30-year maximum sentence to be applied equally to ancillary offences and principal offences. It is true that the definition of a war crime includes,
“intentionally directing attacks against buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes, historical monuments … provided they are not military objectives”.
I suggest that such an offence would be equivalent to one at the very upper end of offending under our convention, the Hague convention. Realistically, the 30-year limit prescribed for war crimes is rather more apt for classic war crime offences—genocide, crimes against humanity, crimes against peace and such like. In short, war crimes provide an imperfect parallel with our legislation, particularly with regard to ancillary offences, and it is for those that we propose in these amendments to reduce the maximum to 14 years. I beg to move.
Lord Foster of Bath (LD)
My Lords, my noble friend Lady Hamwee is one of the signatories to these amendments. Sadly, she cannot be in her place but she, too, is a member of the JCHR, to which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, already referred, as he did to the letter to the department from the chairman of that committee. As the noble and learned Lord eloquently explained, the letter from Harriet Harman makes it very clear that we are talking about two sets of offences. One is the offence of a serious breach, the other is an ancillary offence—or, indeed, even an ancillary to an ancillary offence. These amendments clearly suggest that, in the light of the differences between them, there should be two sets of maximum penalties accorded to them. That has been very clearly laid down.
My only point is to ask a further question of the Minister that follows on from the letter that Harriet Harman sent, which says:
“Moreover, with an unusual offence of this kind, we would also ask whether the Government plans to request that the Sentencing Council issue guidelines (and if not, why not?)”.
The House would be interested in the Minister’s response to that query from Harriet Harman.
Lord Hope of Craighead
My Lords, I suggest the Minister might be rather cautious about the length of the sentence referred to in the amendment. I am in sympathy with the idea of separating the principal offence and the ancillary offence and looking at them separately—but, drawing on my experience as a prosecutor in Scotland and referring to the phrase “art and part” in Clause 4(6)(a), very often the difference between a person who is found guilty of being art and part in the commission of a crime and the principal actor is very thin. It is quite difficult, in the absence of hard facts, to establish precisely where the line should be drawn between the two maximum sentences.
I suggest that if the Minister is inclined to follow the suggestions made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, he might be wise to consult the Crown Office in Scotland to see whether it has a view as to whether the maximum suggested sentence of 14 years is realistic, given there can be a much closer alignment between a person found art and part and the person who is the principal actor. I would not quarrel with the idea of separating the two; I simply introduce this note of caution as to whether the right figure has been selected.
Lord Inglewood (Con)
My Lords, having heard the remarks of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, it seems to me that the point he makes is very pertinent. In particular, a concern I sometimes have is that parliamentary draftsmen, when bringing forward proposals, identify equivalence between different statutes which, perhaps under further closer examination, are not as equivalent as they would like you to believe. Therefore, there is an underlying and important point in that respect.
Also, now I am on my feet, I will say that in Committee I suggested some proposals on mens rea and Clause 17. I put on record that I am having a constructive and cordial dialogue with my noble friend the Minister on that, which is why there is nothing on the Marshalled List about it today.
Lord Ashton of Hyde
My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, for taking on this brief. I also take this opportunity to wish the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, a speedy recovery from his operation.
The amendments give us the opportunity to discuss the important concerns of the Joint Committee on Human Rights in relation to the maximum penalty for ancillary offences under Part 2 of the Bill. Noble Lords referred to the fact the JCHR raised this matter in its letter of 29 June, to which my predecessor replied on 8 July.
I understand the concern that the penalty for ancillary offences should not be disproportionate in any particular case. The Government have carefully considered the amendment but we have concluded that we should retain a maximum penalty of 30 years for ancillary offences. This is primarily for reasons of consistency with existing UK legislation: namely, the International Criminal Court Act 2001 and its Scottish equivalent. That legislation provides, as has been said, for a maximum penalty of 30 years for the offence of committing a war crime, and provides expressly that the same maximum penalty applies in relation to ancillary offences. I think that that answers the noble and learned Lord’s question about why it should not be 40 years or life. It is the same as the existing legislation.
Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood
My Lords, I am grateful to all those who have taken part in this short debate and to the Minister for his reply. I do not pretend to have been persuaded by most of what he said, or to believe that there is the close analogy between war crimes—even those of destroying buildings which are for cultural purposes—and the legislation which we are now concerned with. I respectfully endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, said about the dangers of suggesting that other legislation is necessarily closely parallel to that which is under direct and immediate consideration. All that said, I am confident that at the end of the day the judges, in their discretion, will reach sensible solutions. It is a pity that Parliament looks by this to be a little out of touch. The maximum penalties cease to have quite the same conviction if they lose perspective but I am certainly not proposing to divide the House and I accordingly seek leave to withdraw the amendment.
“( ) For the avoidance of doubt, a warrant under this section may not be issued in respect of the Parliamentary Estate.”
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
My Lords, this matter was discussed at some length in Committee. At the time of that sitting, we were in receipt of letters from the noble Lord, Lord Lang of Monkton, on behalf of the Constitution Committee, and from the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, as the Minister in response. It was made clear in Committee that this was a slightly moving target. The purpose of this amendment, therefore, is to invite the Minister to bring us up to date with where things have got to and to make it clear to us whether there are any outstanding issues that he might wish to return to at later stages.
It is worth mentioning this issue because I think it will come up again in the following amendment. It is about the powers that the Bill needs to contain so that it can empower the Government to sign the convention in relation to seizure, primarily of goods in transit where they are found to have originated in a conflict area and therefore become subject to the Act or the convention. In the discussions in Committee, the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, made it clear that the Government are seeking to fulfil an obligation under the First Protocol to be able to return the property that I have described to its country of origin. She pointed out:
“That obligation is absolute and does not allow for any exceptions”.
It therefore needs to be the case, she said,
“that the police have the power to search for and seize unlawfully exported cultural property wherever it may be in the United Kingdom”—[Official Report, 28/6/16; col. 1532]—
including in Parliament.
During the debate, however, it turned out that, in December 2015, the Constitution Committee had made it clear to the Leaders of both Houses that:
“When Bills contain provisions that could apply to Parliament”,
in relation to legislative drafting, including the type that we are talking about,
“the authorities in each House are meant to be consulted at an early stage”.
I think we picked up from the noble Baroness’s response at that time that the DCMS had not been as effective in communicating its wishes to the parliamentary authorities as it might have been. So we have an issue which raises and engages with the powers of our Parliament and the way in which the powers to enter and seize property operate within the Parliament, and an issue of consultation. I invite the Minister to bring us up to date and to explain where we stand on these matters.
Lord Ashton of Hyde
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, for the opportunity to discuss the important concerns that he and the Constitution Committee have raised about search and seizure powers, which the committee outlined in its letter of 15 June. As the noble Lord said, my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe replied to that letter on 27 June. My officials are also liaising with the relevant parliamentary authorities.
The purpose of the search and seizure provision is to enable the UK to fulfil our international obligations, as the noble Lord said. This is in relation to cultural property which has been unlawfully exported from occupied territory. In particular, it enables us to fulfil our obligation under paragraph 2 of the First Protocol to return such property to its country of origin. That obligation is absolute and does not allow for any exceptions. The provision also enables the UK to fulfil our obligation under Article 21 of the Second Protocol to take the necessary measures to suppress illicit export, removal or transfer of ownership of such property.
Therefore we need to ensure that the police have power to search for and seize unlawfully exported cultural property wherever it may be in the United Kingdom. I listened carefully to the noble Lord’s arguments and I read the debate in Committee. We consider it right in principle that the search and seizure powers in Clause 23 apply equally to the Parliamentary Estate, and we consider that the drafting of the Bill allows for this. As we know, the Bill has been roundly welcomed and it is right that Parliament should be seen to be leading the way, rather than expecting special treatment or exemption from the Bill’s requirements. It is highly unlikely that unlawful dealing in cultural property, particularly this sort of cultural property, would take place within the Palace of Westminster, but if it does, the appropriate enforcement powers should be available. This building should not be a haven from the law or our international obligations.
In her letter to the Constitution Committee my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe noted that we consider that this provision applies to the Palace but that any search or seizure taking place within the Palace of Westminster would, of course, need to be exercised in a way that respects the privileges of Parliament. Of course, in practice, we would expect there to be a high degree of co-operation between the police and the House authorities, both with regard to the need to obtain a warrant at all and with regard to the execution of any warrant obtained.
The noble Lord also raised the mistake that my department made about notifying the House authorities. That has been done, and it has undertaken in future to do it at an earlier stage. There have been various exchanges of correspondence with the House authorities since my officials wrote to them on 22 June. The question of the privileges of the House are a matter for the House authorities. There are differences between this House and the other place. I note that there is a protocol in the other place outlining how these things should be dealt with. There is no such protocol here, but the privileges of the House and how they are dealt with are a different issue and not for this Bill.
It is important that this House is subject to the powers. I therefore hope that the noble Lord will feel that these provisions have been appropriately considered and that he can withdraw the amendment.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
I thank the Minister for his response. I just reinforce the point, although I am sure that I made it clear, that drafting was never the issue. The wording of the Bill is, of course, appropriate and we support it. The question was really about the processes surrounding the necessary consultation with the House authorities, which the Minister explained was not done in the way that had been suggested by the committee. That point has been noted. He has now read into the record confirmation that the Government would expect that the appropriate processes in place in both parts of Parliament would be followed in the unlikely event of any case being raised in respect of the Bill. I am not sure that I entirely followed him on whether there was a bit of a gap emerging over the protocols that should apply in this part of Parliament. Although it is not a matter for us—I am sure it is way above my pay grade—I hope the Clerk of the Parliaments has noted the point. He is nodding, so I think he has. Perhaps there is something that the Government might wish to raise with him arising from the Bill about the need for a proper protocol to be prepared so that we are ready should this event occur. With that bit of business in place, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
(a) it is seized or forfeited under or by virtue of an order made by a court in the United Kingdom, and(b) the court is required to make the order under, or under provision giving effect to, an EU obligation or any international treaty.”
Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood
My Lords, again in place of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, I move Amendment 6 on Clause 28. This amendment has been requested by not only the Joint Committee on Human Rights but also the Constitution Committee of this House. As drafted, Clause 28 prioritises compliance with Article 14 of the Hague convention over compliance with every other legal obligation that the United Kingdom may be under pursuant to EU or other international law. Under the amendment, if conflicting obligations do indeed arise under international law, it will be for the court to decide where, ultimately, the priorities should lie.
As your Lordships of course appreciate, Clause 28 deals with cultural property in the United Kingdom; it dictates that in certain circumstances, when it is protected it cannot be seized or forfeit. With this provision, there is, I respectfully suggest—contrary to the position under the matter I was discussing earlier—a useful and close analogy. As pointed out by the Joint Committee and the Constitution Committee, the analogy is with the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 which, in order to facilitate loans of property to museums and galleries in this country, provides assurances that objects which are normally kept outside the United Kingdom will not be seized or forfeit here. In other words, to encourage foreign galleries or owners to lend property for exhibition here, there is the assurance that those objects in the United Kingdom will not be seized or forfeit. But importantly—this is the crunch point—Section 135 of that Act is subject to the proviso that it has no effect where a court is required to make an order,
“under, or under a provision giving effect to, an EU obligation or any international treaty”.
Essentially, it is just that same proviso which we are seeking, by Amendment 6, to introduce into this legislation.
It is true, as the department has said in the Minister’s letter that it is “very unlikely in practice” that there will be any conflict between our obligations under the Hague convention and any other international treaty obligations. But what possible disadvantage is there in providing for such a conflict to give the discretion to the court in case the conflict arises? Surely it is better to provide for it than not and to leave matters prioritising it, as the Bill as drafted does.
I urge the House to consider how moderate, how measured, how sensible and how restrained our amendment is when one compares it to the altogether more radical amendment which I suspect is shortly to be spoken to and which would delete Clause 28 altogether. I beg to move.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
My Lords, we have an amendment in this group. It is nice to be described as the radical party—I thought we had lost that tag. To be vigorous and radical with a proposal to delete a clause is always a good thing. However, our intention was exactly the same as that of the noble and learned Lord. The issues raised by the Constitution Committee needed a further outing, and he has expressed them in such a brilliant way that I see no need to add to that. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Lord Deben (Con)
I beg the House’s pardon, but there is a little bit of a problem here, given that this is exactly the time that we in this country should be very careful about our international obligations. As we are busy trying to untangle ourselves from entirely sensible international obligations because of very un-sensible policies, this is the moment to make sure we do not make any other mistakes, and I hope very much that we will pass this amendment.
Lord Ashton of Hyde
My Lords, I will address the noble and learned Lord’s amendment and the clause stand part amendment together, but will just start with the noble Lord, Lord Deben, who talked about not making any mistakes in our international obligations. I respectfully point out to him that this international obligation was made in 1954 and has therefore been an obligation for a very long time. We all agree that we should pass the Bill so that we can ratify our international obligations and bring this into domestic law.
The amendment tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, and moved by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, seeks to make the protection from seizure or forfeiture explicitly subordinate to any other international or EU obligations. It would enable a court to order the seizure or forfeiture of a protected object if it was obliged to make such an order by virtue of another international or EU obligation, whereas the present Clause 28 provides contains no such caveat. I understand the noble and learned Lord’s intention is to address concerns about potential conflicts with other EU or international obligations.
I also understand that, as the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, explained, the amendment to omit Clause 28 altogether was tabled with the same intention, but in fact I think it was really tabled so that we could have a discussion of these issues, which we are doing now. For the record, if the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, were accepted, it would in fact prevent us from fulfilling any of our obligations under Article 14 of the convention and Article 18 of the regulations.
The matter of potential conflicts with other international or EU obligations was raised, as the noble and learned Lord said, by both the Constitution Committee and the JCHR. We have replied to explain that it is, in our view, highly unlikely—as, again, has been said—that a conflict would arise between our obligations under the Hague convention and those under other international or EU laws. Clause 28 is required to implement our obligations under Article 14 of the Convention and Article 18 of the regulations for the execution of the convention. It requires us to provide immunity from seizure or forfeiture for cultural property that is being transported to another country under special protection for safekeeping in line with Article 12 of the convention. It also provides for cultural property under special protection for which the United Kingdom has agreed to act as depository in order to safeguard the cultural property during an armed conflict.
It is our view, which is supported by academic commentary, that the obligation to provide immunity from seizure contained in Article 14 of the convention is absolute. It is worth noting that no state parties, including the vast majority of other EU member states, have made any reservations in relation to the immunity from seizure obligations. We believe, therefore, that accepting the proposed amendment would be incompatible with our obligations under the convention.
It is important to note that immunity will apply only in extremely limited, prescribed circumstances, and only during an armed conflict between states. Stringent requirements must be fulfilled for cultural property to be transported under special protection. Given those extremely limited circumstances in which immunity will be provided, we think it highly unlikely that a conflict could arise in future between our obligations under the Bill and any other EU or international obligation. We note that the Convention is a specialist treaty regulating a very particular subject matter in situations of armed conflict.
In addition, if there were ever any concerns about potential conflicts, the UK could refuse to accept transport of cultural property under special protection to or through its territory. It can also refuse to act as depository.
The noble and learned Lord referred to comparisons that have been made between Clause 28 and the qualified immunity provided under the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 to objects on loan to museums and galleries. Under that Act, the immunity provided is expressly subject to any international or EU law obligations that would require a UK court to order the seizure or forfeiture of the otherwise protected object. We can understand the reasons for the comparison, but it is our view that to make the immunity in the Bill automatically subordinate to all other international and EU obligations is unnecessary. The 2007 Act is a purely domestic piece of legislation designed to facilitate exhibitions at museums and galleries, whereas the Bill is implementing our international obligations to protect, in very precise circumstances, the world’s most important cultural heritage in times of armed conflict.
We are unaware of any existing conflicting EU or other international law obligation and can take the necessary steps to avoid any potential conflict arising. We note that the vast majority of other EU member states will also wish to avoid such a conflict arising, given that they also are bound by absolute obligation to provide immunity. If a conflict did arise with our EU obligations, my officials advise that, if necessary, the courts would interpret Clause 28 as implicitly subject to EU law. If a conflict arose with international obligations, the UK court would be bound to apply the domestic legislation, but if the other international obligation had also been incorporated into our national law, the conflict between the two pieces of primary UK legislation would have to be resolved by the court in light of the relevant treaty obligations.
I hope that the House will understand that it is not our intention to elevate our obligations under the Hague convention above all other treaty obligations, but, equally, we do not think they should automatically be relegated to the bottom of the pile. With that in mind, I should be grateful if the noble and learned Lord would feel able to withdraw his amendment and that the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, would withdraw his objection to clause stand part.
Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood
My Lords, I am most grateful to the Minister for that full explanation of how the department sees this matter. I am reassured that it, too, would like to achieve the position where if, ultimately, in the improbable event that there is a conflict in international obligations that this country owes in respect of this property, it will be for the courts to resolve. I respectfully disagree that our amendment would make the obligations under the Hague convention subordinate. I respectfully suggest that they would have left the position substantially as the Minister says that we are now left with them: for the courts to determine any such conflict. However, I find his explanation as a whole altogether more satisfactory and reassuring, if I may say so, than that on the previous amendment and I therefore respectfully ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Neighbourhood Planning (Referendums) (Amendment) Regulations 2016
(7 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 29 June be approved.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government and Wales Office (Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth) (Con)
My Lords, the regulations set a latest-by referendum date in the final stages of the neighbourhood planning process. I beg to move that they be approved and come into force on 1 October.
Neighbourhood planning gives communities direct power to develop a shared vision for their neighbourhood and to shape the development and growth of their local area. For the first time, community groups can produce plans that have real statutory weight in the planning system. So far more than 1,900 communities across England, representing nearly 10 million people, have started the process of neighbourhood planning. More than 200 plans have passed a public referendum and are now in force. These plans are now the starting point for planning decisions.
We are fully committed to strengthening neighbourhood planning. The introduction of the neighbourhood planning Bill shortly will further empower local communities to get the homes and infrastructure that local communities need delivered as quickly and effectively as possible. But we need to ensure that the neighbourhood planning process is as simple and expeditious as possible so that communities see the benefits of their plan without unnecessary delays. Neighbourhood planning can take, on average, two to three years. Slow decision-making by local planning authorities can be particularly frustrating for communities and can discourage them from taking up neighbourhood planning. That is why we introduced a number of measures in the Housing and Planning Act 2016 that could speed up neighbourhood planning by an average of 17 weeks.
Complementing the new powers in the Housing and Planning Act is a power in Schedule 4B to the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 for the Secretary of State to make regulations prescribing a date by which the referendum must be held or before which it cannot be held. Holding a referendum is a key step required to bring a neighbourhood plan or order into force once it has been through public consultation stages and an independent examination. Where the neighbourhood area has been designated as a business area, there is an additional referendum for the businesses in the area. On average, referendums have been held within eight weeks of a local planning authority’s decision to submit a neighbourhood plan or order. However, while some authorities have called a referendum within six weeks, others have set a referendum date more than 17 weeks after their decision to do so, and some have been far later even than that. This is why we consider that it would be beneficial for new regulations to set out a clear expectation regarding the time period for holding a referendum.
In February, we consulted on proposals for these regulations as part of a wider package of measures. A summary of the responses to the consultation has been prepared and is available on the department’s website, along with the Government’s response. The proposal received considerable support, and a small number of technical amendments were made as a result of the consultation to ensure that the regulations could be implemented effectively. The details of the regulations have been agreed with the Electoral Commission and the Association of Electoral Administrators.
The regulations, if approved, will be an important safeguard to ensure that a minority of local authorities do not cause delays to the neighbourhood planning process. The regulations would require local planning authorities to hold a referendum on a neighbourhood plan within 56 working days of their decision that a referendum should be held, or 84 working days in certain more complex cases. The cases where the 84-working-day limit would apply are where there is also a business referendum; where the neighbourhood planning area falls within more than one local planning authority area; or where the local planning authority is not the principal authority responsible for arranging the referendum, as with mayoral development corporations or national park authorities.
There are three exceptions to the 56 or 84-working-day time limit. First, they are where a neighbourhood planning referendum can take place on the same day as, or be taken together with, another poll due to be held within three months of the end of the 56 or 84-working-day period described above; where there are unresolved legal challenges to the decision to hold a referendum; or where a local planning authority and the neighbourhood group agree that the referendum need not be held by that date. Those exceptions provide necessary flexibility to allow for local circumstances to be taken into account.
Neighbourhood planning has been hugely successful in making planning more accessible to local people. It empowers significant numbers of communities to take an active role in determining the future of their areas, and it is a principle that we can all agree on. This Government are committed to speeding up and simplifying the process so that even more communities benefit. It is important that we set time limits for key local planning authority decisions in the neighbourhood planning process to speed up and simplify the system in a sensible and pragmatic way, and I believe that that is what the regulations will do. I therefore commend the draft regulations to the House.
Lord Beecham (Lab)
My Lords, the proposals that the Government embody in these regulations are of course accepted. I declare my relevant local authority interests, which are referred to in the register.
There are a number of questions I would like to put to the Minister. He told us that 190 communities have started the process, that being the figure contained in the background documents which are available in the Printed Paper Office, and that 200 communities have proceeded to implement—or at least to agree—a plan under this procedure. However, that is 200 out of 1,900 in three years. Can the Minister say how many of those communities abandoned their projects or had them rejected in that time? What is the average time for concluding the process? The Minister referred to a reduction of some 17 weeks which will flow from this provision: 17 weeks compared to what as the average time so far? Moreover, the documents reveal that 89% of those who voted—presumably of these 200—voted in favour of the plan as drawn. The question is: 89% of what? What was the actual turnout relative to the potential turnout in these votes? There might well have been 89% voting in favour, but that could have been 89 people out of 100 who took the trouble to vote in a community of some thousands. It is simply not clear. I would be grateful if the noble Lord enlightened us. I do not suppose that he has the information immediately to hand, so I would be grateful if he wrote to me and placed the answers in the Library subsequently.
One of the problems for local authorities is that the planning service is under huge strain. Often, local authorities are reducing the number of planning officers because of the financial constraints on them. The Government, in paragraph 39 of their response to the consultation, indicated that they would enter into,
“updated arrangements for funding local planning authorities”.
Perhaps the noble Lord can enlighten us as to what progress has been made in that respect. As I understand from the documents, the Government do not accept that this process was a new burden, although any local authority would surely have thought it was, in the sense that it is a new responsibility which has been created, however welcome it may be. What funding is to be made available and what estimate has the department made of its impact on the number of officers who would be enabled to carry out this work, which would be in addition to the current work of planning departments, which are already considerably overstrained?
If we are looking at timescales, what are the Government doing about the hundreds of thousands of planning permissions granted for development upon which no action has been taken? We have here a measure which prescribes a very limited timescale, understandably in many ways, because in the most part we are not talking about large projects. However, what is sauce for the local government goose does not appear to be on the menu for the developer gander because long-standing planning permissions are simply lying on the table. At a time when everybody acknowledges the need for hundreds of thousands of new houses to be built, it seems extraordinary that the Government are prepared to impose a pretty rigid—I concede it is not entirely rigid—timescale for the processing of these plans, but no timescale at all on the implementation of planning permissions granted, in many cases, some years ago. Will the Government look again at the question of imposing a timescale for planning permission for significant developments to be implemented, rather than simply leaving it to the developer—who is presumably hanging on to the land in the hope that ultimately prices will rise and greater profits will accrue—when there are many, many people looking for new homes to buy or rent? The principle here, which is a fair one, is to make progress on community plans, but can we also see some progress on the carrying out of development in accordance with permissions already granted?
Lord Foster of Bath (LD)
My Lords, I am pleased to follow the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, although it was very difficult to gauge from his remarks to your Lordships’ House whether or not he supports neighbourhood planning. I make it very clear that I am a huge supporter of neighbourhood planning and neighbourhood plans, which arose from the Localism Act 2011. I was delighted that the Minister made very clear his support for them. I entirely support his and the Government’s desire to speed up and simplify the process so that still more communities can benefit from the opportunities that neighbourhood planning will bring to them.
I share of course the concern of the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, that the Government are often very keen to impose tight time limits on other bodies whereas they themselves do not necessarily have to live up to similarly tight timescales. But in the area of neighbourhood planning and enthusiasm for it, while I entirely support these measures, I ask the Minister to look carefully at the departmental website and the way in which it increasingly does not show the same initial enthusiasm for neighbourhood planning that perhaps once existed. For example, the departmental website has had a series of notes on neighbourhood planning. It currently goes up to addition 17—at least, that is what is available on the department’s website. In 2015, additions 14, 15, 16 and 17 were spread over roughly three-monthly periods. Yet, as far as I am aware, there has been no further note on neighbourhood planning from the department. Will the Minister identify whether they exist and, if so, whether they can be given more publicity because they contain—at least up until December—some very interesting and helpful information for local communities that want to go down the neighbourhood planning route.
While on the issue of the departmental website, will the Minister agree to take on a small exercise when he eventually gets home tonight? Will he see whether he can find on the departmental website the results of the consultation to which he referred? No fewer than five people have worked with me on trying to find it. It was only with the help of the very efficient staff in the Library that we were eventually able to find it. But I note that the details provided on the website are somewhat different from the information provided in the Explanatory Memorandum. For example, the website says that there were 362 responses to the consultation but the Explanatory Memorandum says that there were only 321.
The point is that the report, which can eventually be found if noble Lords take the time to get to it, does not provide any helpful information whatever. Clearly, any noble Lord who wishes to participate in this debate would want to know what the objections were from those councils that were not happy with the proposal. The report merely says that the vast majority were in favour and that a few came up with some suggestions for changes. I hope that the Minister will agree to publish a fuller document on the responses to question 5.6 of the consultation.
Having been somewhat niggly, for which I apologise to the Minister, I will say that I entirely share his enthusiasm for neighbourhood planning. In my brief time as a Minister in the department, I had an opportunity, along with Mr Nick Boles, to see many community groups working on them and know the real benefit that they can bring to communities.
Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes (Con)
I hope that my noble friend will clarify a few points for me as I found the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, extremely interesting. What role has the main local authority planning officer in this procedure? Can he at any time override or question—possibly for good reasons—conclusions that have been reached? Have any estimates been made of the cost of carrying out these new procedures, and who will pay for them? Finally, will ordinary planning proposals that the local authority planning people are looking at be delayed because they will have to pay close attention to this procedure?
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, first, I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, and congratulate him on his new appointment and responsibilities. I know that he has been in the job for some time but this is the first time I can formally congratulate him and wish him well in his new position. We will not agree on everything but I assure noble Lords that I will engage constructively with him on all matters in his brief that come before your Lordships’ House. Where we believe that the Government have got it right I will happily say so, and when we offer alternatives from this Dispatch Box it will be because we believe that there are better solutions to the problems being considered. I also declare that I am an elected councillor in the London Borough of Lewisham and a vice-president of the Local Government Association, and in general refer the House to my declaration of interests.
I am a supporter of neighbourhood planning and allowing maximum community involvement in decisions that affect local communities. As I have told the House before, in the ward I represent on Lewisham Council, Crofton Park, we are developing a neighbourhood plan. We hope to be able to submit it to the council early next year and then proceed quickly to a referendum. It is right that a referendum is held as soon as possible and in most cases 56 days, as the order allows for, gives enough time to undertake and prepare for the vote but also means that it is still a fresh and live issue locally and is not allowed to drift. There are a few alterations to that when situations are a bit more complicated, as the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, outlined, and allowing a group and the council to agree sensible variations to enable the poll to coincide with a local event or an election that is taking place in three months in the same area is sensible and has my full support.
I agree with the points made by my noble friend Lord Beecham in his contribution to this debate, in particular on the funding proposals that will be made available. I hope that the Minister will respond to those.
That brings me to the assertion, which we heard many times from noble Lords opposite during the passage of the Housing and Planning Act, that somehow all these councils are dragging their feet and holding up all these planning applications and all this development. That assertion was made many times and I remember putting a few Questions down, which showed, as my noble friend highlighted, that literally hundreds of thousands of applications have been passed by local authorities but nothing has happened. I know of one in my own ward: an application went in to put some new shops and houses on a big site, but all that has happened is that a sign has gone up which says, “Full planning permission given”. Nothing else has happened —it just sits there. So local planning authorities are not the problem; there are thousands of sites that we need to deal with and get on with. I hope that the Minister will be able to bring some solutions to the House in the future.
I could go on but I am supportive of what is in the proposals here and I am happy for them to be approved.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have participated in this debate. I shall try to pick up the various points—there are some interesting ones—in the order in which they were made, so I will first address those made by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham. He raised questions about how many plans have been abandoned. Communities are beginning the process on a daily basis. Some 450 draft plans have been published and we are supporting communities through this process. I will give the noble Lord some indication of the financial assistance in a minute. He also asked about turnout of voters and kindly said that I probably did not have the precise figures for all areas at my fingertips, which was an accurate summary of the position. However, so far, the average turnout of voters across referendum areas has been 32%, which I think he will acknowledge is in line with local authority elections generally. Obviously there is some variation; I will get a letter to him giving a more detailed breakdown and I will put it in the Library as well, so that noble Lords have access to the information.
The noble Lord quite validly asked about the funding available, I think for neighbourhood planning in general and perhaps for the referendum process in particular. We are funding neighbourhood planning with a £22.5 million support programme from 2015 to 2018. On referendums, money is available for every planning authority—£5,000 for each of the first five neighbourhood areas they designate and £5,000 for each of the first five neighbourhood forums; that is, where there are businesses that they designate. In addition, they will receive £20,000 when they set a date for a referendum following a successful examination of a neighbourhood plan. So money is available for this process because there is a cost associated with it.
The noble Lord will correct me if I am wrong but I think he is supportive of neighbourhood planning. He is indicating that he is so, gladly, we can get that on the record. He made a more general—somewhat off-piste—point about the regulations for planning applications. I hope he will accept that that is perhaps the subject of a debate for another day. I recognise that it is an issue to look at and perhaps we can do so in a QSD or during debate on the forthcoming Bill. I acknowledge that there is an issue there but I do not think it should detract from this very specific matter, which I believe he supports. Certainly the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, indicated support for it from the Front Bench.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, for the general support he offered. I know he has a good history on this issue in the Commons. We will be looking at the website in the light of his comments on the general position and the specifics, and we will obviously update it in the light of the new regulations—as I hope they will be at the end of this debate. However, I thank him for his general support for the concept of neighbourhood planning and for these regulations.
My noble friend Lady Oppenheim-Barnes made a point about a possible legal challenge on the costs. There are costs associated with referendums. I suppose it is rather like the cost of democracy in holding elections in general, where there will always be a cost. The planning officer cannot override neighbourhood plans or, under these regulations, hold them up unless there is a valid legal challenge, which will have to go through the courts. I readily acknowledge that hold-ups occur across local authorities under different political control—there is no partisan point here. I could name the authorities in question and am almost tempted to do so. However, the longest hold-up is 400 days, which is too long. Frankly, that is why we are bringing these regulations forward. We want to ensure that neighbourhood planning is given the boost that it needs.
Finally, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, for his typical graciousness and generosity from the Front Bench. I also thank him very much for the constructive approach that he always brings to bear in looking at government proposals, and I look forward to our exchanges across the Dispatch Box. I am sure his contributions will be well thought-out and helpful, as they always are. I come back to the general point from the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, on planning, which he supported. Yes, let us have a look at that, although it is perhaps something to be dealt with on another day because it is a bit off-piste in relation to these regulations.
Committee on the Equality Act 2010 and Disability Report
(7 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Deech
To move that this House takes note of the Report from the Committee on the Equality Act 2010 and Disability (Session 2015-16, HL Paper 117).
Baroness Deech (CB)
My Lords, this Motion could not be more timely. I quote the Prime Minister, who said on her first day in office that we need to build a country that works for everyone. She said that every child should be allowed to rise as far as their talents will take them and that birth should never be a barrier. The Select Committee on the Equality Act 2010 and Disability agrees. The Prime Minister has ordered an audit of the equality of treatment by public services. Our report was ahead of the game and delivers for the Government the very audit that she is seeking. It shows the inequality that was uncovered, with straightforward remedies to remove unfairness. If our recommendations are acted upon, a prime ministerial goal will be achieved.
What I learned during my chairmanship of the Select Committee, which was a privilege and an enriching experience, was that disability potentially affects nearly everyone in the country. Our report contains statistics that show that, as we all live longer, it is very likely that our last few years will be spent with a sight, hearing or mobility impediment. Indeed, the number of years spent living with disability is increasing. One has but to look around your Lordships’ House to see how true this is. Therefore, our report addressed how to ensure that employment, travel, education, information and even politics are accessible to all of us, whether born disabled or affected by injury or simply old age.
First, I thank our skilled and committed clerk, Mr Collon, and his team, who went beyond the call of duty. I also thank our members, several of whom have first-hand experience of the impediments described in our report. Special thanks go to our witnesses, some of whom were severely disabled and yet conveyed to us in a moving and articulate way how they battle against the insouciance with which some employers and organisations fail in their simple duties under the Act. We were also the first Lords committee to take evidence in sign language.
Our committee was charged with post-legislative scrutiny of that portion of the Equality Act dealing with disability. Our task was to consider the adequacy of the law. Has it strengthened disability discrimination law? Are there gaps in legal protection against discrimination that impact on the ability of disabled people to play their full role in society? Are reasonable adjustments being made in relation to access to goods and services and to employment, bearing in mind that it is government policy to reduce unemployment among disabled people? Is enforcement of their rights effective and accessible? Is the Equality and Human Rights Commission doing all that it can in this regard? The answer to those questions in our report, after investigation, was a resounding no.
Having pointed out the repercussions of our longer lives, we concluded that we must plan for the inevitability of disability and mainstream adjustments in buildings, services, travel and licensing. Every organisation and every branch of government should be pro-active in planning for disability access, not wait for problems to arise and then be so slow in solving them that the disabled person loses the opportunity to enjoy the service.
We need to listen to disabled people explaining their needs. They themselves need to be made aware, as we all should be, of their rights. Sadly, as is common now throughout the legal system and its users, the law and the courts are failing as enforcement mechanisms through lack of legal aid and increased fees. Disabled people need champions at law and a champion in government so that when cuts, benefits or new laws are considered their needs do not slip through a gap. The cumulative impact of cuts and new laws must be taken into account in order that the gravity of the situation is fully revealed.
Once the evidence of our report is taken into account, it is impossible for any Government—except a nasty party—to ignore our recommendations, which have been crafted to be almost cost free. We need willingness on the part of government to take care of all our people, and we need organisations and services to be forced to adapt if the softly-softly approach does not work—and I am afraid it has not. We were disappointed with the government response in July, which in general I can sum up by calling it buck-passing and the dragging of heels.
We have all enjoyed the Olympic Games this summer and look forward to the Paralympics with enthusiasm. Yet when it comes to ensuring that sports grounds are open to all, regardless of disability, the Government are stalling; as they are in relation to ensuring audio-visual guides on all buses and alterations to common parts at the request of the tenant and at his or her expense. There is simply no need for any more consultation or pilot schemes. We show that the need is clear and the actions straightforward and cost free to the taxpayer. The Bus Services Bill passing through the House at the moment is a good opportunity to ensure audio-visual provision on all buses. The DfT calculated that this would cost only £5.75 million a year to apply to all new buses.
A recurring theme in the government response is that conversation and raising awareness achieve more than regulation and are cost free. Sadly, the evidence in our report shows that this is a faulty belief. For example, although we demonstrate that tribunal fees have almost certainly led to a fall of 68% in discrimination claims, the Government attribute this to an improving economy and alternative dispute resolution. We do not agree. We recommend that more new homes should be wheelchair accessible, but the Government want to leave that change to local authorities.
There is so much thoughtlessness. We heard from a disabled tenant who had to wait three months for an advocate to read the tenancy agreement to him because it was not anyone else’s job. There are banks that phone deaf customers, who cannot hear them, while the bank refuses to speak to anyone else. There are announcements at railway stations of platform changes which are missed by those who cannot hear them. There are employers who will not accommodate those who have to take insulin. There are mothers with huge baby buggies who will not yield to wheelchair users—I wonder whether it is not time for a limit on buggy size on public transport, rather like the limits on hand luggage on planes. There is the pedestrianisation of shopping centres and shared space traffic management which removes safe places for disabled people to cross and to park.
Government activity and ongoing government reviews have, it seems, been long drawn out. There is no need for more reviews and talk. We need action. “Law-law is better than jaw-jaw”, if I may adapt a phrase. Now that we have a new Government with a new equality policy, is it too much to hope that the government response will be withdrawn and rewritten to reflect their more inclusive and more socially mobile goals?
Another theme in the government response is the failure to recognise the burdens that existing inadequate law enforcement places on disabled people, whereas, by way of contrast, the Government are only too sensitive to burdens that might fall on, for example, taxi drivers or landlords if they had to make the adjustments that the law—on the books, at least—requires. Removing red tape is all very well, but that red tape does not vanish into cyberspace: it falls as a strap, tying up the efforts of disabled people to join in the activities and employment that they want and are entitled to.
Other noble Lords will examine particular aspects of the scope of our inquiry; I can touch on only a few. The EHRC joins with us in wanting the Minister for Disabled People to be a member of the Cabinet social justice committee. It is not enough for the Government to respond that he or she should be present only when specific disability items arise. We call for him or her to be a constant member in order that issues that affect disability, which may or may not be on the surface, are not overlooked.
The EHRC agrees with us that a cumulative assessment of the effects of new laws on disabled people is feasible and practicable. We call for this impact assessment, which would do so much to ensure that the needs of disabled people are never overlooked in the government programme.
Some of what we recommend can be easily and cheaply achieved. Section 36 of the Equality Act has not been commenced, and it is shocking how many sections of that Act lie dormant, ignored and uncommenced. That section provides that disabled tenants may ask the landlord to agree to alterations to common parts of blocks of flats to facilitate access at the tenants’ expense. The landlord has to agree if it is reasonable. The Government’s excuse for not activating this is that they are waiting for results from the Scottish experience of this provision. However, as the Scottish regulations have not been made, there is no such experience. The Government reviewed this area of the law in 2005 and have announced another review, apparently concerned that landlords might be deterred from renting to disabled tenants. This is speculation. This is Alice in Wonderland:
“I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it”.
There is no need for any more reviews—just do it. Which is a way to call on the Government to implement this section forthwith.
Another example of reticence on the part of the Government in helping disabled people at no cost is the interpretation of the public sector equality duty under Section 149 of the Equality Act, which requires public authorities to have due regard—note that it is “due regard” and no more—to the elimination of discrimination and the advancement of equality of opportunity for those with protected characteristics. Witnesses before our committee urged us to recommend to the Government, as we do, that the PSED section should be amended to ensure that public authorities do not just take account of equality but actually take steps towards achieving it in the carrying out of their duties. Will the Government back an amendment to achieve this? It is no answer to say that a further review will consider it. Our witnesses gave us all the evidence that one could reasonably need to support this conclusion.
Other noble Lords will address the issue of travel—perhaps the most significant and comprehensive issue facing disabled people and all of us, and one where we were shocked to discover that provisions about taxis and disabled people have been sitting on the statute book ignored and uncommenced for 20 years. Over that period, the Government have flouted the will of Parliament in this matter and this must stop. Provisions to enable taxi drivers to claim health exemptions from helping disabled passengers have been commenced but not the substantive provisions to assure disabled passengers that they can get into a taxi and not be charged extra. Although it has been announced that by the end of this year—why so long?—the core duty set out in Section 65 of the Equality Act will commence, some other important sections about the details of accessibility remain frozen and vital regulations cannot be made. This is incomprehensible and we call on the Government to commence the entire chapter of the Act; otherwise, one can conclude only that yet again the Government are more mindful of the alleged burden on taxi drivers and local authorities than the real burden on disabled people. The Government want to see disabled people in employment and the lever is in their hands.
In general, our report has secured the backing of the EHRC, itself hamstrung by the lack of resources it has suffered and by the inclusion of disability as just one of the many characteristics it has to protect. It agrees with our report that it should be able to offer conciliation services where there is an employment dispute. We see no reason why the Government should disagree with that. Nor is it possible to understand why the Government ignored our recommendation and the will of the EHRC in relation to the Equality Advisory and Support Service helpline. The EHRC agreed that it wanted this service returned to it either in-house or as contract manager. The Government flouted that request—and the recommendation set out in our report—by themselves tendering for the service in April of this year. The EHRC will get to sit only on the project board. This is in itself incomprehensible.
To whom was the contract to run the helpline given, which is so valuable to disabled people seeking advice that they call it a lifeline? It has been given to G4S. We have all read about G4S in the news recently, because the Medway secure training centre which it runs was condemned for growing levels of violence. It was G4S which failed to provide adequate trained security staff for the 2012 Olympics. An Angolan deportee died while being restrained by G4S staff. It is reported that G4S ran a call handling service in a police control room to which hundreds of bogus calls were made to enable it to meet its target. The company is described by the Guardian as an,
“endlessly scandal-hit global security firm”.
The internet is awash with sites questioning the exercise of the tender, and I echo them. The precious lifeline for the disabled person who is seeking advice does not seem to be safe in G4S’s hands, so it must go back to the EHRC.
All in all the Government’s response has been ill-informed, and with a new Government the committee calls on them to withdraw that response and start again. The committee is fortunate in that the House of Commons has set up a Select Committee on Women and Equalities whose chair, the right honourable Maria Miller MP, is interested in picking up our work of promoting the interests of disabled people. We are fortunate to have its backing. I assure the Minister that she and the Government have not heard the end of this. That is because, taken overall, the recommendations of our Select Committee were about promoting a more inclusive and socially mobile society. If this is a genuine goal, our recommendations cannot be ignored.
In sum, we call for the restoration of the Equality Advisory and Support Service and conciliation services to the EHRC. We call for a cumulative impact assessment of the effect of cuts and financial changes on disabled persons; for amendments to the PSED, buses Bill and licensing objectives; and for technical guidance to be laid before Parliament as codes of practice. We call for the Government to take up the Accessible Sports Grounds Bill, promoted by the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, a member of the committee; and in general we call for a fresh approach—a positive and holistic one—to every member of society who is not 100% young and fit, and that means all of us eventually. I beg to move.
Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con)
My Lords, first, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, on securing the debate. I also pay tribute to her. It was a pleasure to serve under her chairmanship of the Select Committee for this inquiry.
It will not surprise noble Lords to know that, as a member of the committee, I agree with the noble Baroness. Quite simply, more must be done. As she mentioned, legislation to prevent disability discrimination has been on the statute book for more than 20 years. In spite of that, here we are in 2016 and many disabled people continue to be excluded from public buildings, public transport and other services. This is, frankly, unacceptable.
I will centre my contribution on access to transportation. For any person, access to transportation is essential to play a full role in society: to get to work, school or university; to attend community, cultural or sporting events; to attend medical, legal and other appointments; and so on. Yet, the evidence to our committee demonstrated that this was one of the areas in which disabled people face the most challenges—challenges that have significant wider consequences. As the evidence we received from the group Transport for All makes clear:
“The difficulties disabled people face using transport is one of the major factors behind our exclusion from work; from healthcare; from education and from public life in general”.
Unless we take seriously the need to make our transport systems accessible for all, we will never succeed in providing disabled people equal access to many sectors of public life.
I begin by examining the situation of access for disabled people to taxis. As was acknowledged by many who gave evidence to our committee, the door-to-door nature of the service provided by taxis and private hire vehicles makes them particularly attractive to those for whom public transport may not be suitable. The committee heard that two-thirds of wheelchair users say they have been refused a taxi. Others report having been charged extra. Back in 1995 Parliament passed provisions in the Disability Discrimination Act to prohibit both these actions, yet successive Governments have failed to bring those laws into force.
Fifteen years after passing the original laws, Parliament reiterated its commitment to the necessity of legal protections to ensure taxi services are made available for those who use wheelchairs by incorporating them into the Equality Act 2010. Yet, six years later, those provisions are still not in force. I therefore welcome wholeheartedly the Government’s commitment in their response to the committee’s report that they,
“will now proceed to bring the measures into force, aiming for commencement by the end of 2016”.
Today I ask the Minister not only for details of when we can expect the commencement of Sections 165 and 167 of the Equality Act 2010 but for her assurances that the Government will put into place clear guidance and structures to enforce these duties.
I accept that there may have been a need for a transition period to ensure that taxi businesses are able to meet the requirements but 20 years is far too long to wait. I hope the Minister will give the House an assurance today that the commencement timetable will ensure that the duty will be applied as soon as possible. As we said in our report, we do not see that taxi drivers,
“can complain about the burden of converting their taxis to be wheelchair-accessible, since they have known for 20 years that this might happen”.
For too long the interests of taxi businesses have been placed above those of disabled people. This was clearly demonstrated by the fact that the provision allowing for exemption was brought into force almost six years ago without any parallel introduction of the duty itself. This must change. I am hopeful that with the commencement of Section 165, the Government will begin to redress that approach.
Ensuring that taxis are available for wheelchair users requires more than just commencing Section 165. We need local authorities to take a lead in supporting and encouraging taxi drivers to be open and able to carry disabled passengers. Local authorities must use their licensing powers to nudge and, where necessary, require taxi businesses to make their vehicles accessible for disabled people, as well as ensure that drivers receive disability awareness training. We must make vehicle accessibility and disability awareness a part of licensing obligations. The past 20 years have shown that leaving it up to the good will of drivers, or expecting the purchasing power of disabled people to produce accessible taxis for all, simply does not work. I welcome the Government’s promise in their response to our report that they will be producing guidance for local authorities, and considering how licensing regimes should incorporate accessibility criteria. I hope the Minister can give us some good news about that process.
I shall now address some other key concerns relating to transportation which arose in the course of our inquiry. First, there is no doubt that wheelchair accessibility has improved since the first disability discrimination legislation, as evidence to the committee demonstrated. However, far too many buses, trains and stations are still not accessible by wheelchair. We heard the shocking story of Crossrail—it is scarcely believable that it was considered acceptable for a new piece of public transport infrastructure built in the 21st century to have seven stations without step-free access. Much more training, transparency and accountability are required to ensure that all future new-build public transport infrastructure has wheelchair access throughout.
Accessibility is also an issue in many bus stations around the country. That is why the committee has recommended that Network Rail, Transport for London, train operators and bus companies around the country should put more resources into making their stations and vehicles accessible for wheelchair users. There is particular need for improved services in rural areas, where public transport is already much less readily available than in larger towns and cities. Companies should not need the threat of enforcement proceedings before operators comply with existing regulations. The Public Service Vehicle Accessibility Regulations 2000 came into force for single-deck buses earlier this year and will do for all double-deck buses by 1 January 2017. It is essential that these regulations are enforced by the Driver & Vehicle Standards Agency.
The evidence we received in the inquiry also highlighted that accessibility is not simply a matter of putting rules and infrastructure in place, though those are undoubtedly necessary. Stations and trains are accessible only if that infrastructure is maintained and the necessary equipment and staff are provided. We heard one terrible story of a lady who, despite her best efforts in communicating with the guard on the train, was completely forgotten, so she missed her stop not once but twice, which resulted in her being dumped at a completely different station and having to phone her husband to come and collect her. As the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee told our inquiry:
“Although much of the basic accessibility provision is now in place through the construction requirements for rail and bus ... there is little effort going into making sure that accessibility features are consistently in place and working”.
We need bus and train operators to put sufficient resources into maintaining as well as building this accessibility infrastructure.
Another form of physical infrastructure which is vitally needed is audio-visual annunciators. For passengers who are hearing or visually impaired, the making of announcements via both visual and audio media is essential for them to utilise the bus and rail network. Evidence to our committee highlighted the discrepancy between the regulations for trains, which include requirements for audio-visual information, and for buses, which do not. This lack of regulation seems to have led to a situation where very few bus companies outside London have installed audio-visual annunciators on their buses. The importance of annunciators was shown clearly by information from the organisation Guide Dogs, which showed that seven out of 10 bus passengers with sight loss have been forgotten by a bus driver who was asked to let them know when the bus reached their stop. As Guide Dogs told the committee:
“For a sighted person, missing a stop is an irritating experience; for somebody unable to see, it is distressing, disorientating and sometimes dangerous”.
It is clear that more resources should be devoted to providing annunciators. Particular attention must also be paid to the production of new buses. There are already requirements that no new trains be put into service without having audio-visual information systems and we need the same requirements for buses.
I was disappointed that the Government’s response to our committee’s report rejected our recommendation for the mandatory installation of annunciators in new buses via the Public Service Vehicles Accessibility Regulations 2000. The evidence is that without such regulations, the industry will be slow to respond to the needs of visually and hearing-impaired passengers. While I appreciate that the Government are concerned about placing too onerous a burden on bus companies, I do not believe that our committee’s requirements are in fact onerous. We were told by Transport for All that these information systems form only 1% of the cost of a new bus—a minimal cost for such a facility. It would increase the ability and confidence not only of passengers with sight or hearing loss but of those with learning disabilities and any passengers making unfamiliar journeys. I ask the Minister to explain today the Government’s reasoning for determining that a requirement for new buses to be fitted with annunciators would be too burdensome and invite her to commit to reconsidering the committee’s recommendation relating to new buses specifically.
Fitting information systems to buses already in service may be more costly and our committee therefore did not recommend that such action should be mandatory, although we do urge bus companies to put more resources into fitting annunciators to all their vehicles. I also welcome the Government’s support for initiatives to develop lower-cost information systems and new technologies which may make it easier and cheaper to assist disabled passengers overcome these challenges in using buses, especially on older buses which do not have audio-visual annunciators fitted.
Finally, it is essential that staff operating public transport have adequate training on disability equality. There will always be individual staff who fail to act in accordance with the training and guidance they receive, but ensuring widespread, consistent delivery of training of a sufficient standard is an important factor in reducing incidents where staff fail to respond to disabled passengers in an appropriate way. If we are to see the standards of staff behaviour improve across the board then we need to have an agreed level of training for all bus, coach and rail staff. Without it, levels of training, and thus the quality of services, will remain patchy across the country and divergent between different companies. Training for front-line rail staff is already mandatory as a condition of the licensing regime. I fail to understand why a similar requirement cannot be placed on bus operators. I welcome the MacDonald review that the Government have commissioned into delivering disability awareness training in the transport industry and hope that the Government will seriously consider the recommendations of both that review and our committee. Too often we found in the course of our inquiry that, across many sectors, a desire to remove so-called red tape and to avoid burdening business has resulted in a failure to enforce or prioritise disability equality. We must take a longer, harder look at where we set our priorities.
I conclude by again welcoming the Government’s positive response to some of our committee’s recommendations but also by urging a reconsideration of the others I have mentioned.
Baroness Prosser (Lab)
My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, for bringing this report to the attention of House. I also thank those members of the committee who worked on producing the report. It is a thorough, excellent piece of work. I hope the Government are prepared to take seriously the recommendations in it.
The report comments on the Government’s preference for progress over process. Largely, I agree with it, but it has to be understood that hindrances to the ability of any of the protected groups covered by the 2010 Act to access services which the rest of us take for granted are almost always systemic. Recommendations within the report regarding greater co-operation across departments, giving more seniority and clout to the responsible Minister and taking note and acting upon which bits of legislation are or are not working well should be music to the ears of the Government because those changes do not generally cost any money but could make a world of difference to those who need the services. Having said that, nothing much else in life is for nothing. There are two areas of concern that I want to raise, both of which come down to what I and many others see as likely damage to the service that can be provided by the Equality and Human Rights Commission resulting from a lack of sufficient funding.
First, recommendation 10 in the report requests that the Equality Advisory and Support Service, known to everybody as the helpline, be brought back into the commission’s house. We know now that this will not happen because the Government Equalities Office has tendered the work out and the service will now be provided by G4S. The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, has already gone into this in great detail; she set out some of that company’s activities in recent years which have come to the attention of the public and the authorities and which do not put it in a good light. Commenting that giving this work to G4S may be a bit surprising could be described as a massive understatement. It does not have a reputation for a deep and clear understanding of the needs of vulnerable people.
It is worth pointing out, however, that there are a number of areas of concern contained under the 2010 Act for which the Equality and Human Rights Commission is responsible. A variety of people with different needs may well be calling the helpline, not just those with disabilities. I question whether members of the black and minority ethnic communities will feel confident or comfortable phoning G4S, given the company’s background in its treatment in many cases of people from those communities. How will the requirements of the service for a helpline be met by G4S? What training programmes have been put in place and have been required? What follow-through will G4S be expected to provide for callers with ongoing needs?
Secondly, there is the overall budget of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. The commission’s duties cannot be produced out of thin air. The continuing reduction in staff numbers and in money for planned projects will obviously have a major impact on staff morale and on the staff’s ability to deliver a service. It also sends a message to society at large regarding the seriousness with which the Government take this agenda. Does the Minister agree that the growing lack of public confidence in the likely success of the austerity agenda for the economy generally and for society in particular should lead to a rethink of the policy of continuing cuts to public service? I welcome the comment of the noble Lord, Lord McColl, that what is always referred to as red tape, as though it is always a blooming nuisance, is quite often the provision of work and service upon which people depend. The noble Lord’s comments focused largely on transport issues, which are hugely important. He called upon the need for various kinds of investment but also changes in attitude. The Government’s stingy attitude towards the funding and provision of equality services is hardly likely to enthuse others when it comes to positive thinking for this agenda.
Finally, the one recommendation in the report with which I do not agree is for a separate decision-making disability committee. That was the case when the Equality and Human Rights Commission was first established—a correct decision at that time, because dedicated work at a national level on disability was then very new. However, the commission has responsibility for issues relating to all protected groups, and it is my opinion, having been deputy chair of the commission for six years since its inception, that disability issues are likely to be much better served within the overall family structure of the commission as a whole.
Baroness Thomas of Winchester (LD)
My Lords, I have been about this House in one capacity or another for nearly 40 years, and it struck me at the beginning of last year that the progress disabled people have made and the noise they have had to make in order for things to change had all but ceased. I pay tribute to all the many disabled Peers who manned the barricades during that time from this position in the Chamber, which led to this area being called the mobile Bench—almost certainly the smallest but most formidable group in the House during the 1980s and 1990s.
Cut to 2010, when the Equality Act hoovered up all people with protected characteristics into a single Act, repealing the landmark Disability Discrimination Act 1995, which my noble colleague Lady Campbell of Surbiton had such a lot to do with. Was this why the voices of disabled people had stopped being heard and progress seemed to have ground to a halt? Or was it simply assumed that the rights of disabled people were done and dusted? Whatever the reason, it was a worry, so I was very pleased that the Liaison Committee agreed to set up this committee to look afresh at the disability provisions in the Equality Act under the banner of post-legislative scrutiny. We could not have been better served by our chairman and staff, and I feel immensely proud of our report. It is so clearly written that it is a really good read, and we all hope it will inform the debate on the rights of disabled people for many years to come, especially if its recommendations are acted upon.
All through the report, the voices of disabled people who gave us their views come through loud and clear. I just wish that these same voices could be heard more of the time across all government departments. We do not just talk about dry-sounding, although important, matters such as the public sector equality duty but about the lived experiences day to day of disabled people and what happens to them when no one appears to be checking to see whether the Act is being adhered to.
There was one subject dear to my heart which we could not tackle, and that is the benefits system as it affects disabled people, because that flows from various welfare reform Acts, not the EA, and so was outside the scope of our inquiry. But there was a crossover in our recommendation 35 for a cumulative impact assessment—which has already been referred to this afternoon—to be undertaken on fiscal measures introduced by the Government which may disadvantage disabled people. This is something many organisations have been calling for, as there is now an increasing number of disabled people living in poverty. As we have heard, there is a difference of opinion between the Government and the EHRC on this. I urge the Government to listen to the EHRC and carry out the impact assessment as a matter of urgency.
There was a real problem with including disability in one Act with the other protected characteristics, because disabled people do not just want equal treatment; they want reasonable adjustments made so that they can live their lives to the best of their ability—which does, yes, in many cases mean receiving special rather than equal treatment. But the report does not call for the Equality Act to be unpicked, and nor did most of our witnesses. We certainly suggest changes to both primary and secondary legislation—we have heard about many of them already this afternoon—but many of our recommendations do not require legislation and are cost neutral.
Before leaving the question of disability being swept into the EA, it has been illuminating to note, as our chairman did, that inequalities are now top of the new Prime Minister’s agenda, but she has not so far talked about disability as a subject to be addressed under that headline. I hope that that changes soon.
While on the subject of the Prime Minister’s agenda, it is worth looking at where disability sits in government. Our Minister is now Penny Mordaunt MP, whom I welcome to her role, and who I am pleased to say is a Minister of State, unlike her predecessor. She is the sixth Minister for Disabled People in six years—there is no long service medal in this role—and we hope that she will really champion the rights of disabled people across government. It has been very dispiriting for those of us who try to establish a good relationship with a Minister over several months to find that we have had to start all over again with yet another Minister after such a short time.
We are now in a time of flux when there is a great deal of change in how the Government are organised. The Government Equalities Office sits at present in the Department for Education under the Secretary of State for Education and Minister for Women and Equalities, but the Office for Disability Issues, which was set up to provide coherence across Whitehall on disability matters, sits in the DWP, along with the benefits system, thus not helping with the perception that all disabled people are to be characterised as benefit claimants at best and scroungers at worst. It is important for this part of the DWP to stop emphasising what it cannot do, take a grip and start being much more proactive, particularly if the Government are serious about trying to halve the disability unemployment rate, which needs a huge step change of activity from both the Government and the EHRC if it is ever to happen. We were expecting a Green Paper about that later this year, but goodness knows where that has got to.
Thousands of disabled people are very keen to contribute to this country’s economy and become active participants rather than just recipients of benefits, but they need help to make employers aware of what they need, or do not need, in the workplace by improved guidance and examples from the EHRC of reasonable adjustments and transport, including taxis, that is accessible and reliable, with disability training made mandatory.
Before leaving the whole subject of where disability sits across Whitehall, I wonder whether the very fact that it spans almost all departments of state without anyone having an overview is the reason why the government response to our report is so inadequate. It is deeply complacent, and I endorse the call of the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, for it to be withdrawn and rewritten. How can “initiating conversations” achieve more than “the blunt instrument of regulation”? When did a conversation ever equate to enforcement?
I was at one such conversation or round table held with people from the hospitality industry and the former Minister for Disabled People earlier this year. It was a perfectly amicable event, but I have still put my name to an amendment through the Policing and Crime Bill to the Licensing Act 2003 to make failure to comply with the Equality Act a ground for refusing a licence. In other words, local authorities would have power to revoke any licence of a restaurant, pub, club et cetera, in extreme circumstances when reasonable adjustments were not made to existing premises—something that local authorities cannot do at present.
Let us get rid of this ridiculous characterisation of regulation as a bad thing in itself, as the noble Baroness, Lady Prosser, said. This comes from the Red Tape Challenge, which is about ridding the business world of burdensome regulations. Often getting rid of such so-called burdens on business puts a greater burden on disabled people, as the report makes clear. Why was no one in government pointing that out? For example, the power of tribunals to make wider recommendations was repealed, and the EHRC’s conciliation powers were abolished. Why did no one in government speak up? Presumably, it was because it was not the job of any one of them.
The question of “reasonable adjustment”—an anticipatory requirement for services, although not for employment—was at the top of the page when we identified five items from the report. Should those two words be defined more clearly in statute, because they sound quite vague? A disabled employee, or a carer of a disabled person, might need their working hours adjusted to become more flexible. What about a ground-floor business premises which has no room for an accessible toilet? A local authority access officer, or one from the Access Association, might be able to advise on making an existing facility suitable for everyone to use. The little-known Access to Work scheme run by the DWP for disabled employees might help to pay the cost. An access officer might also be able to find a practical solution to making a listed building accessible. It is a myth that listed buildings are untouchable.
In the report, we recommended keeping the flexibility of the words “reasonable adjustment”, but urged the EHRC to issue more guidance and examples, which is what our evidence called for. So our message to the Government is, “Please implement our recommendations without delay. There is no excuse for not doing so”.
Baroness Campbell of Surbiton (CB)
My Lords, I, too, welcome the Prime Minister’s desire to create a country that works for everyone. Last December, disabled people marked the 20th anniversary of the Disability Discrimination Act with a very big party. So it is a good time for renewed government commitment on the eve of the Paralympics. It is worth remembering the extraordinary success of the London Paralympics, seamlessly integrated into the overall planning of 2012, in deep contrast to what is happening in Rio.
It was a great privilege to be a member of the Select Committee. I have been involved in the campaign against disability discrimination from the very beginning. I lobbied and demonstrated and I even got arrested in the 13-year battle for the DDA. I served on the ministerial taskforce that set the parameters for the legislation and then on the Disability Rights Commission to enforce the law, educate the public and develop good practice. When the commissions on race, sex and disability were merged with the new protective groups into the overarching Equality and Human Rights Commission, I was again appointed as a commissioner and the first chair of the disability committee. I tell noble Lords this because I believe that I am uniquely placed to compare disability equality under two Acts and two commissions, one with a specific disability focus and the other generic.
First, I pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Deech, whose chairmanship of the committee was exceptional. She steered it with strength, commitment and great foresight, providing leadership that, frankly, inspired us all. Our collective endeavour speaks for itself, including the excellent work of the clerks and the special adviser. It was a joy to be part of. The report recommends workable, low-cost, legislative and practical changes that would greatly enhance equality for disabled people in this country. This has been echoed in another place by Maria Miller MP, chair of the Women and Equalities Committee.
Turning to the Government’s response, I welcome the positive decision—albeit after 20 years—to enact Section 165 of the Equality Act, requiring taxis to carry wheelchair users at no extra cost. The timing of the announcement was quite uncanny: it was the very day that Channel 4 invited me to talk about the report. I hope that it asks me more often. Sadly, that did not set the tone for the rest of the response. I note that where the committee accepted the status quo the Government agree, but otherwise they merely report on meetings held or in the pipeline, which perhaps explains why equality for disabled people has so markedly stalled since the demise of the Disability Rights Commission.
At some point, talking has to give way to action. Our report was guided by the life experiences of disabled people, in written and oral evidence, and we also visited the inner London Centre for Independent Living, run by disabled people. So I am sure noble Lords will understand disabled people’s frustration at the failure of the Government to embrace the recommendations more fully. There is a striking similarity in the Government’s response to the 1980s series “Yes Minister”. At that time, if the Permanent Secretary wanted to avoid action, one of his techniques was to establish an interdepartmental committee to review whatever was on the table. These committees could easily sit for years, ensuring that there was plenty of activity but absolutely no action.
The preamble emphasises the Government’s distaste for regulation, reverting to the arguments of the 1980s and 1990s. Once again, I hear the exhausted cliché that regulation will not change hearts and minds, and that,
“changing hearts and minds will lead to better attitudes, better access, and better outcomes for disabled people”.
The Government claim they have achieved more by initiating “conversations” with disabled people and the public and private sectors than the “blunt instrument of regulation”. Our report clearly demonstrates that this approach is not working. All the evidence shows that without legislation we cannot win “hearts and minds”. One of the first formidable disabled campaigners for civil rights legislation, Sir Peter Large, argued in the 1970s that:
“I do not care what people think about me. I am concerned about how people behave towards me. Laws regulate behaviour”.
The Government’s response suggests that cutting the employment and support allowance is helping disabled people. They also boast about Disability Confident. Sir Bert Massie, who chaired the Disability Rights Commission from its inception, reminded me, as I prepared for this debate, that it was only when we used carrot and stick that the employment gap began to narrow. We were ready to enforce the law, which captured employers’ attention, but it was supplemented by codes of practice and education. Regulation is crucial in changing hearts and minds.
I turn to our specific proposals. We recommended that the Equality Advisory and Support Service is restored to the EHRC. The Government defend the current service. They then seek to justify the decision to put the contract out to tender, claiming that the EHRC did not express an interest in taking it in-house. This is not true. The EHRC flatly refutes this, saying it strongly supports our recommendation, and made clear to the Government its concerns about EASS, and its desire to take back responsibility or at least greater control. However, EHRC’s role has been restricted to a seat on the management board for the new service. This is not simply a discrepancy between two accounts; it indicates a total lack of understanding by the Government of the central role of the helpline. It was one of the DRC’s prime assets, enabling it to monitor the kind of problems disabled people were experiencing. Indeed, a number of its key legal cases started with a call to the helpline. The new contract has now been awarded to G4S, which is devastating news. It beggars belief that a company with such an appalling history of abuse and mismanagement could have been appointed to provide such an important and sensitive service.
The helpline is even more critical now that access to justice through the courts is all but impossible because of tribunal fees, severely reduced legal aid and red tape procedural changes. It is deeply disturbing that the Government have rejected all the committee’s proposals to remedy what is a denial of justice: for instance, changing the costs rules; restoring statutory questionnaires and tribunals’ power to make wider recommendations; and allowing charities to bring class actions.
Another area of concern is the public sector equality duty—a tool to help public services ensure disabled people’s inclusion in society. My noble friend Lady Deech has referred to the due regard duty but we also recommended new specific duties to bring them closer to Scotland and Wales and the previous disability equality duty. Public authorities would have to make an action plan and involve disabled people, collect and publish data and report on progress. As we know, the Government were planning to review the duty again. We suggested that our proposals should be the starting point—eminently sensible, you might think. Therefore, it is deeply dispiriting that the Government’s response is merely that our concerns and recommendations will be taken into account in any review.
I refer to codes of practice. We recommended that the Government should lay the EHRC’s technical guidance on the public sector equality duty, schools and further and higher education before Parliament as statutory codes. The Government’s response—that the advice is already available as technical guidance and can be taken account of in the courts—completely misses the point. Technical guidance does not have the status of a statutory code of practice, which must be taken into account. That is what gives codes the authority that they have. It is also what makes them helpful to employers and service providers as it makes clear what has to be followed and what need not be. Therefore, when the Government say they need “clear evidence” that codes of practice would help compliance with the legislation, they are ignoring the evidence they have.
In contrast, all the DRC codes of practice were accepted by the Government of the day and approved by Parliament. They were welcomed by everyone who used them for the clarity and practical help they provided. Is it not time that the Government departed from their dogmatic principle that regulation is bad and flies in the face of their sacred Red Tape Challenge?
When the committee was taking evidence, I became acutely aware of how many people mourned the loss of the DRC and the positive impact it had on their lives over its seven years’ existence. The EHRC has nine years under its belt. How do they compare? During our nine months of receiving evidence, I was struck by the vast number of submissions from disabled people and their organisations who complained that the broader remit was not effectively combating disability discrimination. Unlike the noble Baroness, Lady Prosser, I was disappointed that the EHRC rejected our suggestion to retain a disability committee when its statutory role comes to an end. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Prosser, I sat on the EHRC, but unlike her, I also sat on the Disability Rights Commission for its entire existence, so I am able to make that comparison. The disability committee at the very least provides a structure to focus on the barriers specific to disabled people. Eradicating inequality, as the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, said, does not mean treating all groups in society the same. No to integration; yes to inclusion. When I was at the EHRC I felt that we were on the side of integration and not quite there on the side of inclusion.
The demise of the DRC has undoubtedly put disability equality in the slow lane because the broader remit has simply become too broad to identify the host of complex disabling barriers faced by disabled people. Can the Minister explain how the complex nature of disability will be accommodated in the Government’s new “broader remit” they speak of in their response?
Much of the EHRC response to the committee’s report was heartening and I welcome the new chair’s recent reference to “a more muscular” approach—it desperately needs it. But I agree with my noble friend Lady Deech that the Government need to go back to the drawing board. On 27 August our new Prime Minister crystallised her determination to address the burning injustices in society by announcing an equality audit of public services, starting with a review into how ethnic minorities and white working-class people are treated by public services. Disabled people are part of the black and working-class population and face dual discrimination. It graphically illustrates why Section 14 is necessary. However, I ask the Government to ensure that disabled people are at least included in this audit if, as they say in their response, the Government do not feel that Section 14 should come into force.
In preparing for this debate I asked Sir Bert Massie, a trusted adviser to Governments over three decades, for his reaction to the Government’s response to our 55 recommendations. If anyone understands how to tackle deep-rooted discrimination, he does. He said:
“It is now ... 35 years since disabled people called for the right to be treated as equal citizens. Yet the Government still wants to ... talk and meet. It is no wonder disabled people are ... becoming increasingly angry. The Government’s tepid response to the Committee’s report clearly demonstrates a deep lack of understanding and concern about Britain’s disabled people”.
I am afraid that this just about sums up how the committee and disabled people feel about the Government’s disability agenda in 2016. Yes: it is time for the Government to go back to the drawing board.
Lord Northbrook (Con)
My Lords, first, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, for her excellent chairmanship of our committee. Major thanks are also due to our clerk, Michael Collon, and his assistants Andrew Woollatt and Joseph Coley. Tansy Hutchinson is also on the roll call of thanks as our policy analyst, and Catherine Casserley, our legal adviser, also deserves the committee’s great gratitude for all her hard work. For me, the committee’s visit to Real, the disabled people’s organisation in Tower Hamlets, was moving and enlightening.
The 169-page report, with its 55 recommendations, is a major piece of work on the impact of the Equality Act 2010 on disabled people, yet the government response to it has been very disappointing. A major theme of the response to recommendations about the Equality and Human Rights Commission is to pass the buck to the EHRC to deal with the issues, although I can support the Government’s responses to some of the recommendations where they produce detailed, sensible arguments.
In the time available, I shall focus on our recommendations where the EHRC is involved or has an interest. The government response to these and the further response by the EHRC refer to a few other report recommendations. Looking at our recommendations in detail, number 8 says that the EHRC should co-produce a disability plan with disabled people and disabled people’s organisations. The EHRC accepted this in principle but rejected the mechanism as it wants it to be integrated into its whole work programme. To me, this seems to demote the interests of disabled people compared to the regime before the Equality Act came into being.
Our recommendation 9 states very sensibly that the EHRC should re-establish the disability committee from April 2017, closely mirroring the statutory disability committee, and ring-fence resources. The EHRC rejected this recommendation—wrongly, in my view—stating far too vaguely that,
“it is essential that … we think more broadly about how we engage all people affected by our work”.
Our recommendations 10 and 11 have received very different reactions from the Government and the EHRC. This has been well covered by the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, so I will not go over all the detail, but I should just like to reiterate that the Government contradicted the EHRC. In their response, the Government say:
“In early discussions between the GEO and the EHRC about the future of the”,
EASS,
“the EHRC did not express an interest in taking it ‘in-house’”.
However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, said, the EHRC response directly contradicted that.
Recommendation 12 states—again, the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, went into detail on this—that the Government should lay before Parliament technical guidance on the public sector equality duty, schools and further and higher education as codes of practice. This is strongly supported by the EHRC but the Government disagree. Their argument is that courts can already take into account this technical guidance, and they are not in favour of publishing substantial extra statutory material unless there is clear evidence that it would ensure or facilitate compliance with the legislation. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, said, this is not a code of practice.
Moving on to the area of communication and language, our recommendation 14 requires the EHRC to work with local and national disabled people’s organisations on a wider educational programme to raise awareness of disabled people’s organisations’ rights and dutyholders’ responsibilities under the Equality Act. The government response has referred this to the EHRC. The EHRC agrees in principle. It is helping to fund a report by disabled people’s organisations for the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, an examination of the UK in 2017, and will shortly publish a report on disability with an analysis of evidence according to impairment. It will explore with disabled people’s organisations the best way to raise awareness of rights and responsibilities.
Moving on to reasonable adjustments—RAs—the EHRC reacted less positively to our recommendation 18, which requires it to produce a specific code of practice on RAs, preferring our recommendation 19 in principle. This states that the EHRC should consult disabled people’s organisations in producing industry-specific guidance on RAs, in partnership with professional and regulatory bodies where appropriate. The EHRC says that it is assessing the best way to supplement existing codes and guidance and will work with disabled people’s organisations on how best to promote RAs. Also, the EHRC will put disability case law updates on its website.
Recommendation 20 states that common parts provision should be implemented without further delay, as other speakers have mentioned. The EHRC agrees. The Government acknowledge our committee’s frustration and agree that landlords should seek to co-operate with reasonable requests by disabled tenants to make adjustments to hallways and foyers. The rest of their response is difficult to understand. Will the Minister explain why the consequences of the Scotland experience are unclear and what the implications are for the better care fund, which supports local authority health and social care services?
Recommendation 21, about accessible sports grounds, is welcomed by the EHRC. However, the Government feel that, at present, the EA legislation is untested and therefore does not need alteration. They will report annually to Parliament on progress on sports strategy commitments, work with football authorities to ensure that clubs make reasonable adjustments for disabled spectators, and enable the Sports Ground Safety Authority to help sports grounds reach required accessibility standards. The EHRC will be monitoring the Premier League’s commitment to comply with accessible stadia guidelines by the start of next season. So I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, although he may not feel he has achieved all that he wished for.
I move on to the subject of carers, covered by our recommendation 23. The committee advised that the EHRC should work with carers’ organisations to produce and disseminate guidance on the rights of carers under the Equality Act. The government response referred this to the EHRC, which accepted it in principle. Recommendation 24 requests that the GEO, the Office for Disability Issues, the Department for Business, Innovations and Skills, and the EHRC jointly encourage employers to respond positively to carers’ flexible working requests. The EHRC accepted this fully. The Government gave a very detailed response. The most important points I picked out were as follows. First, nine local authority pilots are engaging local businesses on the benefits of supporting carers, including through flexible working. Secondly, the DWP is working with employers on the best practice to support carers in work. Guidance also will be tested soon on responding to flexible working requests for carers in a new disability-confident self-assessment accreditation scheme. The EHRC emphasised that it will be testing capacity to encourage employers to increase flexible and part-time job adverts.
Moving on to the area of transport, recommendation 25 asks for train operators and bus companies to put more resources into making stations and vehicles more easily accessible to wheelchair users. The Government’s response can be summarised as follows: rail companies are doing quite well; refurbished and replacement stock will comply with accessibility standards by 2020; stations are a more gradual process; and buses are up to local authorities to sort out. The EHRC response is that there is a good opportunity in the bus Bill to improve the accessibility of buses.
Continuing with the theme of transport, recommendation 28 says that the training of rail, bus and coach staff to a proper level is essential. The Government, in principle, agree in the case of rail, but point out that it is the duty of Network Rail and the train operators to carry this out. In the case of buses, their opinion is much vaguer, talking about disabled people’s “inter-reaction with drivers”. The EHRC rightly takes a firmer line, agreeing with our committee that there is a lack of disability awareness training for support staff. It is supporting legal cases challenging barriers to disabled people—for instance, Paulley v FirstGroup—
“because of the importance of public transport for many disabled people”.
I turn now to the subject of taxis, which was also covered by my noble friend Lord McColl of Dulwich. A considerable success of the committee has been the promise to bring Sections 165 and 167 of the Equality Act into force. This will ensure that disabled people can access taxis and private hire vehicles at no extra cost. As, bizarrely, Section 166, which has already been in force, grants an exemption from Section 165—an exemption from a non-existent part of the law—the decision is to be warmly welcomed. However, while Section 165 alone may suggest all vehicles are covered, it imposes duties on drivers designated by a local authority to assist wheelchair users. The EHRC points out that Section 167 provides for a local authority to keep a list of accessible vehicles, but this is only optional.
Our recommendation 30 asks the Department for Transport to update the 2011 local transport note to give local authorities guidance on meeting disabled people’s needs in shared space schemes. The Government’s response is that they would rely on the Chartered Institution of Highways & Transportation to issue new guidance on shared space. The Department for Transport would, however, have some input into the steering group. The EHRC also plans to contribute to the CIHT guidance.
I now turn to the subject of the public sector equality duty, the PSED. Report recommendation 35 asks the Government to produce a cumulative impact assessment of budgets and other major initiatives on disabled people, supported by the GEO and the ODI. The Government’s response is that considering impacts is already part of the policy. However, they should draw upon the EHRC research. The EHRC says that this has already modelled the impact of tax, welfare and spending policies. Contrary to the Government, it concluded that the task is feasible.
On enforcement through the judicial process, our recommendation 38 asks the Ministry of Justice and its ongoing fees review to act on the strong evidence that tribunal fees are unfairly disrupting discrimination claims. The Government’s response is to consider this as part of the review. They have argued that fees have an impact but that other likely factors, such as changes in employment law, the improving economy, alternative dispute resolution services—and particularly the success of the ACAS early conciliation service—have all helped. The Government have a point here. The EHRC will use its strategic litigation powers to challenge the lawfulness of the new tribunal fees but will only use formal enforcement as a last resort.
Two final areas are commented on by the EHRC. First, our recommendation 44 calls for the Government to restore the EHRC’s power to arrange conciliation for non-employment claims. The Government responded that conciliation is not a core function of the EHRC and would need primary legislation. I tend to agree with the Government on this. The EHRC opposed the removal of this service.
Secondly, the EHRC examined our recommendation 53. The subject area of this is disabled children and children with special educational needs. We asked for the Equality Act 2010 (Disability) Regulations 2010 to be amended so that a tendency to physical abuse is no longer considered an impairment for the purposes of disability. I support the Government’s response, which says that strong public policy reasons remain behind the excluded behaviours. The EHRC supports our committee’s recommendation. However, I issue a note of caution: this must not be a licence for acceptance of certain types of intolerable behaviour by disabled children and children with special needs. The EHRC, in its response, supports the committee’s recommendation.
I believe this is a major landmark report. A former member of the EHRC told me off the record that she felt that the EHRC had become too unfocused on disabled people and was giving priority to other matters such as LBGT issues, which of course are important, but not at the expense of disabled people.
We have once again brought the needs and concerns of disabled people to the Government’s attention. The promise of enacting Sections 165 and 167 of the Equality Act shows that our committee has achieved results, and the EHRC’s encouraging response under its new chairman gives us high hopes for the future.
Lord Harrison (Lab)
My Lords, several speakers have already drawn attention to the fact that the Paralympics begin tomorrow, and we look forward to that sporting event. Interestingly, the resignation of one of the United Kingdom competitors on the grounds that they were competing against someone who was better abled illustrates an important general point, which is that as we grow older we recognise our increasing disability needs, especially when we sometimes succumb to illnesses as well. My wife and I are carers to each other, something which has already been referred to. Our expert on this, my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley, has always drawn to our attention the fact that many carers are themselves disabled.
As I say, my wife and I have begun to approach the disability that comes with old age. Recently we downsized our home in Chester and we had extra handrails put on the staircase. This in turn is an advantage not only to us as we live our lives there but also to others who come in after us. They may decide to keep these useful aids that make life just a little more pleasant. I bring this up because at some point a Government will grasp the nettle of building new houses in the way that Nye Bevan and Harold Macmillan did more than 50 years ago. When that happens, let us be sure that those houses are not only prepared for energy conservation, something that most of us understand, but are also ready for the people who will live in them over time.
Just as I said that there are grades among Paralympians, we might also ask: who are the disabled? As a type 1 diabetic who takes insulin, I survive in your Lordships’ House only because of the wonderful orthopaedic shoes that are made for me and which I am wearing now. They are made by NHS cobblers in Liverpool’s Broadgreen Hospital. Is the Prime Minister disabled? Her choice of shoes tends towards colourful kitten heels which are not my choice, but as a recently diagnosed type 1 diabetic, she has to adopt and adapt to a new lifestyle. Every time she sits down with President Putin or President Obama, I worry whether she has taken her pre-prandial shot of insulin to make sure that she stabilises her diabetic condition. The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, has already mentioned young diabetics in schools, who are sometimes prevented from taking their insulin at the appropriate time. Perhaps we should recognise them. Someone recently approached us after the publication of our excellent report to highlight the problems faced by the disabled in FE colleges, an area that I am familiar with; that is right and proper.
Talking of building new homes and restoring old buildings, I was listening to the campaigner Tom Shakespeare speaking on “A Point of View”. He expounded on the unsuitability of the Palace of Westminster and hence your Lordships’ House. Any Member of this House should be able to sit anywhere they like and constrain themselves in terms of political groupings if they wish, but that is not the case. The most dangerous place for a diabetic such as me, with neuropathy of the feet, is on the Back Benches of your Lordships’ House, and I have to say that my other Parliament, the European Parliament in Strasbourg and Brussels, was much better in terms of offering protection to those who wished to avail themselves of the ability to look at their papers.
I turn to the Equality Act 2010, which we studied. My noble friend Lady Prosser may be interested in this: I was taken with the idea of sharing back-office functions to service all the areas, but I have been convinced during the report that we have to make special arrangements for the disabled. I ask the Minister whether she agrees. Similarly, the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, made the point that we want more law-law and less jaw-jaw from the Government. That is not entirely true. What we offered in our report was law, but it was also non-legislative proposals. Again, I say to the Minister that many proposals could be enacted now if the Government put their mind to it with oomph and supported these matters.
I draw attention to the fact that we produced an easy-read version of the report, which has gone down extremely well. Indeed, my son, who is a local councillor in London, uses it for his work on the council to give people a better understanding of the needs of the disabled. I wonder whether the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, as a distinguished former leader of Trafford Council, will respond to those parts of our recommendations that are clearly non-legislative, but which can improve matters in the local council area.
The noble Baroness will also be drawn, with all the work with women and providing childcare, to recognise that bringing the disabled into the workforce is not only good of itself, but an advantage to the United Kingdom, especially as we now set sail in a very peculiar direction. We are told by Anna Bird of Scope that there are still innumerable barriers that should be removed in inaccessible workplaces. It is to our advantage to do that. I will say this: one of the reasons I am such a pro-European and support our membership of the European Union is that it always seemed to me that one of the best things the European Union does is to compare and contrast practice in other countries. The truth is that employment of the disabled is much better in our partner countries of the European Union. We should ask why and draw conclusions to our advantage.
I move on to the common parts of the let residential properties and commonhold properties. We made criticisms of those in the report. Too many of the disabled are prisoners in their own homes. I draw attention, as a member of the All-Party Group on fire and rescue services, to one of the reasons we press for sprinklers in new-build buildings. It is because too often older people get isolated in one room of danger. Often those older people also have some form of disability. There is every reason to plan ahead. This is the theme I take from the debate: so much could be done to improve the lives of each and every one of us, but especially of the disabled.
I will make a few other points. I am a great supporter of what the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, has done in terms of football stadia. If the Government can think about that, there is a win-win situation there for the clubs if something more could be done in that area. At the moment, when we are witnessing in the Premiership exorbitant sums being exchanged for footballers, is it not time for us to put by some of those funds to support the supporters of those clubs? I would like to hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, with all her expertise in football—coming from Manchester—about whether something more can be done.
Finally, on transportation, the noble Lord, Lord McColl, has already alluded to the disgraceful business of Crossrail being constructed with seven of the stations inaccessible to wheelchair users. That really is a very disappointing surprise. My wife and I regularly travel down from Chester to London and, I have to say, we have had outstanding support from Virgin Trains staff. Not only do they supply us with seats—we do not have to sit in any obscure parts of the train, which is the custom of some, of course—but they are very good if you phone up and say you have a disabled person with you; they make every effort.
I will conclude, as so many others have, by celebrating our clerk, Michael Collon, and his team, including Tansy Hutchinson and Catherine Casserley. We were guided by the very best chair this distinguished House could produce in the noble Baroness, Lady Deech. Well done to her, and a testament to that would be a response from the Government that puts some effort into something which will be of benefit to all of us.
Baroness Brinton (LD)
My Lords, I will add to that paean of praise and start with thanks. I will start with the person who had the original germ of an idea about the subject of this Select Committee, the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Winchester, who, a bit over a year ago, took me to one side and asked me what I thought about it. I thought it was absolutely excellent. She put it in and, fortunately for us, was successful.
Under the brilliant chairmanship of the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, for which I should say many thanks, and with the guidance both of our officers—Michael Collon, Tansy Hutchinson, Andrew Woollatt and Joseph Coley—and of our adviser, Catherine Casserley, we had an extremely robust few months, assembling evidence that was so overwhelming that the committee was totally unified in its response. I offer my personal thanks to all the many witnesses. I think we all, even those of us who are disabled, learned an enormous amount because of course our own expertise is different from the next person’s.
The breadth of evidence taken and the inevitably wide scope of our brief—apart from benefits—meant that we were left in no doubt about the difficulties that disabled people in the UK face on a daily basis and how important the work of the Select Committee has been to draw together all the different policy strands and departments. Sadly, as we have already heard from other speakers, often there is not one coherent place with authority to do that. That is why I particularly support the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Surbiton, about the Disability Rights Commission and the need for a disability committee.
The EHRC was meant to draw all matters of equality together, but disability is the one area that has suffered as a result. By the way, I am not laying the blame at the door of the EHRC. It is the issue that others have already talked about—the different nature of disability as a protected characteristic. Why is that? The first two chapters of the report set out the problem in such a strong evidential base that you cannot ignore it. First, there is the perception—I say this as a wheelchair user—that all disabled people are in wheelchairs, whereas the reality is that disabled people in the UK today come in many shapes and sizes, with a whole range of problems and disabilities. Being disabled in the UK today means a shorter life expectancy, a considerably harder route to getting and maintaining a job, and to a working life.
As the TUC said to us in evidence, employers and even sometimes members of the judiciary,
“seem to struggle with the concept of treating disabled people more favourably to achieve equality in practice”.
The Disability Law Service said to us:
“Many employers do not understand that they can, and should, treat disabled people more favourably than others when making adjustments”,
under the Equality Act. It went on to say:
“Many of our callers tell us that their employer has specifically told them that they cannot show any ‘favouritism’ to them, when altering working arrangements”.
This debate is timely: as others have noted, the Paralympics are about to begin in Rio this week. Part of the Government’s response to the Select Committee report is to say:
“Disability rights cannot be delivered by regulation alone”.
Yet in responding to recommendations, one after another, the Government will not even regulate—let alone legislate. Yes, there is a responsibility in the wider public realm and even among the general public, but the evidence coming from the 2012 Paralympics, when this country was absolutely captured by the idea of ability in disabled people, is that it has not lasted. While more than 80% of the public felt that the Paralympics are important for improving society’s perception of disabled people, recent research by Scope has shown that the effect has not lasted. Disabled people have reported that there are few outstanding areas where the effect has been long-lasting.
Much of the debate so far has been throwing brickbats, particularly at the Government, but I want to note one area that has been outstanding, and that is Channel 4 television. The comedy show “The Last Leg” is now one of the most popular satirical shows on TV and its catchphrase “Is it OK?” was initiated in a wry and irreverent debate about disability in the UK today. This was probably only possible because two of the three presenters have physical disabilities. It was also notable because the disability of its presenters was only the initial point; they then went on to parody and satirise the rest of the UK. Notable might be the wrong word; I suspect that they might prefer “notorious”. It is notable today as one of the best comedy shows on TV and the disability of the presenters, and the theme that comes up in every show, is almost irrelevant.
Channel 4 is not just responsible for commissioning that comedy nor indeed for its Paralympics coverage, which was excellent in 2012 and will be reduced this week in Rio not through Channel 4’s own choice but through the IOC and the deals negotiated there. Channel 4 has said that, according to recent research, 82% of UK adults agree that the Paralympics are important. It is worth noting that almost two-thirds of Channel 4’s on-screen presenters for Rio will be disabled, including four of its daytime presenters. In addition, 15% of the production team producing the live coverage are disabled people, most of whom are brand-new talent identified and nurtured through a ground-breaking scheme. As the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, referred to, “Channel 4 News” has been running a series of reports in the run-up, “No Go Britain”, to remind people about the day-to-day problems that disabled people face in this country. It is certainly worth catching up on those, if your Lordships can.
I want to focus for a time on transport because, to be honest, that is the biggest problem I have in my day-to-day experience as a wheelchair user, and as someone who is sometimes semi-ambulant with a stick. I travel by trains a great deal around the country and in the last two or three years, the train stock has noticeably improved on some lines. I welcomed the stronger emphasis in the coalition Government on improving disabled access in the franchise bids. However, rolling stock takes a while, if not decades, to replace. I long for the day when the wheelchair space is not automatically beside the toilets, whether they are working or not. Even today, I was placed in my usual place on the London Midland train and the ordinary, able-bodied passengers were complaining about the smells. I said, rather ruefully, that I would love to have the choice not to have that smell.
Others have noted that buses should have complied with the Public Services Vehicle Accessibility Regulations by 1 January next year. It has been a requirement for close to two decades, giving companies plenty of time to amend their stock. Earlier this year, there was outrage among some bus companies that had not modernised their kit. They have now been told that they must comply. This is where the Government’s response about preferring to do things by conversation just does not work if there is no enforcement, even if that enforcement is reminding companies—in this case, five years ago, three years ago and two years ago—that time is running out. The problem is that no Government of any colour was doing that to make it clear.
Bus travel in London is a joy compared to elsewhere, although perhaps my most public notable experience was having a dad with a buggy refuse to move for me. I take one issue with the speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Deech. We do not need to ban buggies because on most buses it is perfectly possible for the wheelchair to get in the space and the buggy to sit in front. What we have to do is to have training to educate bus drivers and conductors who can help guide passengers. What one does not want is a row between the disabled person and the passenger.
Recommendation 27 is about the importance of audio-visual announcements. Others have said that they are vital for people who are visually or hearing impaired. They are also important for people in wheelchairs. When you are sitting in a bus with your back to the driver, you cannot see where you are going. I sometimes have no idea where I am going. Without an audio announcement, I do not know when to get off. I have to rely on the driver remembering to tell me, particularly on a route that I do not know. That is why the most important recommendation on transport is about training. That is why I find the Government’s response:
“We remain of the view … that legislation is not the appropriate tool”,
extraordinary, bizarre and, frankly, lazy. Of course good companies will and do comply, but less good ones will not. The result of that has recently been in the Supreme Court, where it was not made clear to drivers how they should encourage people with buggies to move. We await the outcome of that case with particular interest.
Part of my frustration with the Government’s response is the announcement that Mott MacDonald has been appointed to review disability training. Mott MacDonald has virtually no—or, if you look at its website, absolutely no—experience in this area. The one thing that I have discovered over the years of my increasing disability is that people really do not get it unless they have full qualifications and understanding. I can tell instantly whether a bus conductor or driver or a taxi driver has had full disability training from the way they treat me and my wheelchair. It matters. It is significant. It is significant not just to me; it is also significant to the people trying to help me. People trying to pull my wheelchair will damage themselves much more than they will damage the chair, and they might even damage members of the public. Training is vital.
I now turn to taxis. At last, Sections 165 and 167 of the Equality Act will be brought in to ensure that wheelchair users are not charged more. My mother lived in Dorset—I will not tell the House exactly where for reasons that will become apparent. She lived three miles from the local railway station and the ordinary taxi fare, if you were not travelling in that rural town’s rush hour, was about £4, or perhaps £6 in the busier time. I was quoted £60 because the driver had to come from 20 miles away. There was no concept of the fare starting at the point at which I was picked up. Unfortunately, because these sections of the Act had not been enforced, I had no right of retaliation to say, “You may not do that”. As a result, for the last two years of my mother’s life, I did not take my wheelchair to her nearest station because it was ridiculous to do so. I also had to ask the station in London to make sure that the train came in on the only platform accessible to wheelchairs. When I went to my grandmother’s funeral in the New Forest, I actually had to cross the rails to exit the station. So while we talk about improved access on stations, it is happening far too slowly. It is really dangerous in some places and it certainly restricts many people in travelling.
How will the Government monitor enforcement not just of taxi charging but of training to make sure that things really change? The effect of enforcement is quite clear: London had black cabs long before it had TfL, and everyone knows that for the last 15 or 20 years a hackney in London has had to be able to take a wheelchair. Nowadays TfL is responsible for enforcement. However, that is not true of private hire cars in London. In evidence that we took from civil servants in the Department for Transport, I was told with great glee that Uber was going to introduce a wheelchair app. That is absolutely useless to people in a wheelchair because Uber has virtually no taxis available to take wheelchairs. As a result, prices get hiked up because of their rarity value. So the practical suggestion of a specialist app is no use at all.
I should like to contrast that with my experience in York, which I visit regularly. The council has, by talking, encouraged most of the taxi firms to increase their stock of disability taxis. They are not particularly large; they have gone for small ones where you enter in the back, but it works. I never have to worry about getting a taxi in York. But evidence that we took from disabled people outside the major cities was that they could not rely on getting a wheelchair taxi, especially not at school time and in the evening. That is another barrier to disabled people getting access to work because taxis can often be the only way they can make it.
Enforcement can be more subtle, as I have said. The council in my home town of Watford did a mystery shopper survey of its taxi service. It was so horrified by the result, with over 85% of the mystery shopper journeys reporting that taxi drivers were rude and did not know what they were doing, that that council has changed its entire way of working with taxis. But there needs to be a bit more oomph—just having an initial conversation is not enough.
Another barrier that is emerging is the new fashion for shared spaces in town centres. We received very strong evidence from people with a range of disabilities that these shared spaces can become no-go areas, from concrete balls that are difficult to manoeuvre around if you are visually impaired, to raised barriers. The cycle superhighway barriers in Parliament Square mean it is no longer possible to call a taxi if you are in a wheelchair in certain parts of the square because you cannot get to the taxi. I believe that the Government are abdicating their responsibility under the Equality Act by saying that the new CIHT guidance is sufficient. It is not.
I want to say something briefly about sports stadia, given that I contributed to the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner. I am astonished at the Government’s response that we should not proceed with the principles of the Bill because it was flawed. The evidence from young sports fans, particularly from Trailblazers—young people living with muscular dystrophy—shows that access to sports stadia is a real problem for the disabled. Affordable access to justice has also been part of the problem, because disabled people have been unable to challenge buses, taxis or football stadia to get their true rights. It is easy for Government to make guidance on sports stadia compulsory using the regulation-making power on what is or is not to be regarded as a reasonable adjustment.
In conclusion, other Members of your Lordships’ House have talked about the reference to the Red Tape Challenge. When taking evidence, we were astonished that the Government felt it was appropriate to say that the Red Tape Challenge was equivalent to not making a reasonable adjustment. I join colleagues on the Select Committee in hoping that the previous Government’s report back to us will be discarded. I have high hopes, because the evidence in the Select Committee report is so strong and will not go away. I call for the new Government to prove that they truly believe in inclusion by going back and rewriting their response.
Lord Low of Dalston (CB)
My Lords, this is an excellent report, and I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and her colleagues on it and congratulate the noble Baroness on the forthright way in which she opened the debate this afternoon. A welcome feature of the report is the way in which it interpreted its remit broadly, to encompass not just the technicalities of equality legislation but the way in which the Equality Act underpins and supports the delivery of services, the accessibility of the environment to disabled people and how those services are delivered.
I want to talk about four of those service delivery-related issues, but first I will allude to a couple of general points. First, many of the protections for disabled people that have been introduced in recent years have depended on regulation, either in primary or secondary legislation. All too often, the Government have characterised these, rather pejoratively, as “red tape”, which they have used as a pretext for getting rid of the protections, under the so-called Red Tape Challenge. A good example would be the questionnaire procedure which was formerly available to assist complainants in making claims of discrimination, and which the committee would like to see brought back. The report makes an important point when it says that these things should properly be seen as protections for disabled people rather than burdens on business, and that their removal under the Red Tape Challenge should be reversed.
The second point is the need for a cumulative assessment of the impact of the many changes which have affected the lives of disabled people in recent years. Since 2010, the Government have introduced a long list of measures that not only have a negative impact in themselves but often impact on each other so as to compound this effect, with those having the greatest needs often being hardest hit. Social security and benefits provision have been abolished, been reduced or failed to match inflation. Eligibility criteria and assessment procedures have been tightened. Social care has suffered from savage reductions in local authority funding so that often only those with the greatest needs qualify for help.
A third area concerns civil rights. In many areas, as I have said, the drive to reduce regulation and red tape has resulted in rules and provision that were helpful to disabled people being weakened or abolished. Disabled people have argued for an assessment of the cumulative impact of all these changes. This is surely ungainsayable. If we want to know the impact of a measure, it is not enough to know what its impact is in isolation: we need to know what its impact is in the context of everything else that is going on. The Government have been resistant to the idea of cumulative impact assessment. It is obviously the case that cumulative impact assessment is attended by considerable difficulty, but that is not the same as saying it cannot be done. The EHRC and the National Institute of Economic and Social Research think it can, and it is obviously necessary if the Government are to have a proper understanding of the effectiveness of its policies. The Government need to redouble their efforts in this regard.
I now turn to the service delivery and environment-related issues I want to highlight. I hope it will be of greatest help to the House if I highlight issues which are of particularly concern to people with a vision impairment. In doing this, I am indebted to the RNIB and Guide Dogs for their briefings, and I declare my interest as a vice-president of the RNIB. When the Equality Bill was going through Parliament, I was successful in having Section 20(6) inserted to make it clear that the duty to make reasonable adjustments included a duty to provide information in an accessible format where appropriate.
Recommendation 13 of the report states:
“All government departments, local authorities and official bodies should review their means of communication with the public”.
To help achieve this, we are told, the Minister for Disabled People has convened an accessible communications round table. Although this is welcome, as the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, said, continued reviews are not enough. The provisions in the Act requiring the provision of accessible information have been in place since 1999 as part of the auxiliary aids provisions of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. Disappointingly, after 17 years, public authorities still routinely fail to provide accessible information. The Government’s response stated that the DWP’s accessible communications are under review. They have been under review since 2014, but little progress has been made. Blind and partially sighted people continually report that the DWP fails to provide even the most basic information, such as appointment letters, decision letters notifying claimants of changes to their benefit and even sanction letters in an accessible format.
It is also disappointing that the Government’s response failed to address what appears to be a near-universal lack of accessible information provided by local authorities. RNIB regularly receives complaints from blind and partially sighted people that their local authority has failed to communicate with them accessibly on a whole range of matters, including registering to vote, registering for council tax and requesting information on local social care provision and recycling. The Government must act now to ensure that disabled people, including blind and partially sighted people, receive information in an accessible format from government departments, local authorities and official bodies.
Recommendation 30 states:
“The Department for Transport should update its 2011 Local Transport Note to offer guidance to local authorities on how shared spaces schemes can best cater for the needs of disabled people. Local authorities should review existing schemes in the light of that guidance, make changes where necessary and practicable, and base any new schemes on that guidance”.
It is concerning that the Government’s response stated that they had no plans to revise the DfT’s 2011 local transport note, despite the committee reporting that the guidance fails to address the difficulties that people with disabilities face in accessing shared-space schemes. The Government stated in their response that the Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation will produce new guidance on shared space. Coming on top of existing Department for Transport guidance with minimum input from disability organisations, this risks confusing local authorities with multiple sources of advice. It also fails to address the lack of consistency in the design of shared spaces across the country identified by the RNIB, with different schemes adopting different approaches to disability access issues. The Government must urgently review and update local transport note 1/11 to ensure that local authorities fully address the disability access issues posed by shared-space schemes.
The committee received more responses relating to accessible transport than on any other issue. This accords with the pattern of complaints received by RNIB from blind and partially sighted people. Recommendation 28 states:
“Training of all rail, bus and coach staff to a level agreed in consultation and set out in law is in our view essential … Ministers … should be prepared to use these reserve powers if necessary, and to enforce the Regulations they make”.
There is concern, however, that the Government’s response states that legislation is not seen as an appropriate tool for delivering disability awareness training in the bus and coach sector.
The RNIB believes that disability awareness training must be made a statutory requirement and must be regulated to ensure quality and consistency across different providers. The European regulation on the rights of bus and coach passengers requires all bus and coach drivers to undergo disability awareness training. The Government used a derogation to exempt UK drivers for five years; this is due to expire in 2018. With the UK due to leave the European Union, the future of this regulation is thus unclear, so we need an assurance from the Government about their plans for disability awareness training for bus drivers.
Finally, Recommendation 27 states:
“More resources should be devoted to providing annunciators on trains and buses which do not have them. No new vehicles should be put into service which do not have audio and visual annunciators. The Public Service Vehicles Accessibility Regulations 2000 should be amended accordingly”.
The RNIB was disappointed that the Government’s response failed to acknowledge the problem raised with the committee that many annunciator systems fitted on trains are not switched on. It would like to see spot checks on trains such as are already carried out on buses. The Government’s response acknowledged the benefits of AV information on buses but made the incorrect assumption that such systems are expensive to fit. Evidence submitted to the committee states that audio-visual annunciator systems add only 1% to the cost of a new bus.
The RNIB is very concerned that bus operators continue to procure new buses that are not fitted with AV announcement technology. For example, Leeds First bus service has announced that 37 new buses, which are expected to be used for at least 10 years, will enter service, none of them with annunciator systems fitted. The Government stated in their response to Recommendation 27 that vibrating wristbands have recently been trialled to improve the accessibility of bus travel. However, there is reason to be sceptical about that solution, as it is still only proof of concept stage. The RNIB believes that audio-visual technology is the most effective solution; the technology is tried and tested and is proven to make bus travel accessible for disabled passengers. It is already in operation on all buses in London, as well in many other regions, and can be introduced to new buses inexpensively.
The Bus Services Bill, currently awaiting Report in your Lordships’ House, is the ideal vehicle for the Government to legislate to ensure that all new buses are fitted with audio-visual technology. An amendment has been tabled to the Bill to require all bus operators to provide information to bus passengers in an accessible format. The Government are considering the matter sympathetically, and I very much hope that they accept the amendment to require operators to install AV on all new buses. It is gratifying that that recommendation has been highlighted by the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, the noble Lord, Lord McColl, and most recently by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. I hope very much that the Government have been listening and taking note.
Lord Shinkwin (Con)
My Lords, I too thank the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and her committee for the service that they have done not just the disabled community but also government and society as a whole in producing such a comprehensive, valuable and timely report, as the noble Baronesses, Lady Campbell of Surbiton and Lady Brinton, have already pointed out, coming as it does 21 years after the then Conservative Government’s Disability Discrimination Act. This begs a question, which I feel in truth has probably been hanging over this entire debate. Has that Act, at 21 years of age, truly come of age? Reading this report, and the various responses to it, I think it is fair to say that it has not. None the less, I will start on a positive note. Based on my previous work with Penny Mordaunt, I welcome with real hope the promotion of her role as Minister for Disabled People to Minister of State level. This is in line with recommendation 7 in paragraph 115 of the report.
I also welcome the Government’s acceptance that it is fairly reasonable to expect that some effort be made to establish the cost of making an adjustment prior to rejecting a request on such grounds rather than relying on arbitrary and potentially inaccurate assumptions about cost. This is in line with recommendation 17 in paragraph 225. I would have liked to be able to welcome the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s response to the crucial recommendation 8, in paragraph 137, that it engage with disabled people and their organisations to co-produce a disability-specific action plan, which other noble Lords have already mentioned. I regret that I cannot do so, because, as we have already heard, the commission has—mistakenly, in my view—said that it does not consider that a separate co-produced action plan would be the most effective way forward. I was a member of the National Disability Council, set up by my noble friend Lord Hague of Richmond when he was Minister for Disabled People and taking the Disability Discrimination Bill through the House of Commons. The council was only advisory, but none the less it had a disability-specific focus. So, like the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Surbiton, and my noble friend Lord Northbrook, I beg to differ.
I also do not understand the position taken by the commission on recommendation 9 in paragraph 144, rejecting the need to re-establish the disability committee as a decision-making body and to ring-fence specific resources for it. Surely both are essential if the commission is to enjoy the confidence of the disability community, an important consideration which I do not feel the commission has really taken into account. I therefore urge the commission to reconsider its response to both recommendations 8 and 9. I also respectfully urge the Government to encourage it to do so. The Conservative Government who brought in the DDA in 1995 were right to ensure a sharp disability focus then. Notwithstanding the amalgamation since that time of the different commissions—including, as we have already heard, the Disability Rights Commission—under the umbrella of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, this Conservative Government would be right to ask now that that sharp disability focus be maintained. This is particularly important given the Government’s laudable manifesto aim of halving the disability employment gap.
I am not sure I entirely share the Government’s optimism when they state in their response that,
“the concept of reasonable adjustment is now familiar to both employers and service providers”.
The concept may well be familiar but, if that is the case, then the old adage that familiarity breeds contempt remains all too often sadly true in my experience. Awareness of a concept is not the same as awareness of a legal obligation. I am all for maximising incentives, for using carrots rather than sticks where possible, but I wonder whether carrots in the form of yet more guides on how to make your business accessible have been on the menu for rather a long time. To paraphrase Teddy Roosevelt, smiling sweetly—in this case at service providers—is not going to get us very far if they do not understand that there is also a damn big stick behind that smile.
Might I suggest to my noble friend the Minister that the Government pursue a slightly more robust approach by introducing a scheme of tapered incentives for reasonable adjustments to be made? For example, businesses could be told that they had a certain number of years—I take the figure five at random; it could be fewer—to make the necessary adjustments. There could be a declining tax break for the first three years, no tax break in the fourth and a tax take—a penalty—levied by government for any non-compliance in the fifth year. Obviously the Government would also need to work in partnership with the relevant trade bodies, disability organisations and providers of ramps, induction loops and other disability aids to make service providers, particularly SMEs, aware that reasonable adjustments need not cost the earth. Might I also suggest that any guide produced to publicise the scheme has as its title the simple message: “The law is the law. It pays not to break it”? This report shows that 21 years after your Lordships’ House passed the Disability Discrimination Act into law we still need to join up the dots.
I welcome the Government’s stated commitment in paragraph 4 of the preamble to their response to improving attitudes. I also welcome their restated commitment to take steps to implement the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and the clear acknowledgement that such a commitment means that all government departments need to consider what the convention says when developing a policy that affects disabled people, including, in the case of the UN convention, disability before birth. This is particularly important because I am concerned that one department, the Department of Health, may be in breach of at least the spirit, if not the letter, of that convention as it relates to disability before birth. If this excellent report is to have a lasting impact and if we are committed to equality, we must allow disabled babies to have a future to enjoy equality. At the moment, many of them do not. The sad, shocking fact is that a diagnosis of disability in the womb means all too often that they are lucky to make it out alive.
Disability discrimination may have been outlawed after birth 21 years ago, but for disability diagnosed before birth, discrimination remains enshrined in 2016 in the law of our land. Take Down’s syndrome, for example. Some 90% of Down’s syndrome diagnoses result in termination, and that figure is likely to increase if the Department of Health approves the National Screening Committee’s recommendation that a test be introduced to make it even easier to identify Down’s. It is one thing to eradicate disability discrimination—and this excellent report powerfully shows the way forward on that. It is an entirely different thing to eradicate disability itself through termination. For that is what is happening, and not just on grounds of severe handicap, to use the terminology of the legislation—not that severity justifies discrimination. The Department of Health’s own figures for 2015 record that 11 terminations were carried out for cleft lip and cleft palate, which are easily rectifiable conditions.
I say to the Minister in good faith that, if the Government want to prove their commitment to tackling discriminatory attitudes, let them back my Private Member’s Bill. Let them make the time available so that my Bill completes its passage through your Lordships’ House and so that MPs, as the people’s elected representatives, have a chance to debate and vote on removing disability as grounds for termination.
We all know that some reports—not, I hasten to add, from your Lordships’ House—deserve to gather dust. This is not one of them. This report deserves to be a living document, to which we return on a regular basis and against which we measure progress. I look forward to doing everything I can to ensure that by eradicating disability discrimination in all areas of life both after and before birth, we do this report, Parliament and society justice in the years to come and help the Government embark on real, lasting and inclusive social reform.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)
My Lords, it has been almost as great a privilege to listen to this debate as it was to serve on the Select Committee. The debate has demonstrated the extraordinary range of experience that Members of your Lordships’ House bring to the subject of disability. I thank all noble Lords who have spoken and particularly those who have spoken from their own life experiences and brought that to bear on this subject.
Almost every speaker has congratulated the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, on the way in which she chaired the committee and introduced this debate today. I join them in that respect as well. It was a remarkable committee, which she chaired brilliantly. She should also be congratulated on persuading the usual channels to hold this debate in prime time, so early in the Autumn Session. I did not expect to see that happen, but that is a great achievement as well.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Winchester, said, we produced a good read, which is a good epitaph for the committee’s report. It was unanimous, hard-hitting and full of recommendations which, if they were all acted upon, would make a huge difference to the well-being and life experiences of disabled people across a wide range of activities. It was therefore a pity that the Government’s response was so feeble and unambitious. When it came out on 7 July—one month and 13 days later than the Cabinet Office’s guideline of two months for responses to Select Committee reports—the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, was quoted as saying that she was “dismayed, to put it mildly”, and that it was “a really unfeeling bureaucratic response, totally at odds with a real will to empathise and make life more productive for disabled people”. I concur totally with that view, and I support the calls made in this debate for that response to be withdrawn and rewritten by the Government—I am not sure they are a new Government but they are a new sort of Administration compared with the previous one.
Other Members have spoken about parts of the report and the Government’s response where they have their own areas of expertise and knowledge. I shall concentrate briefly—because time is getting on in this debate—on recommendations 21 and 22 relating to disabled access to sports grounds, which are covered in paragraphs 245 to 249 of the report. I remind the House of my interest as a vice-president of the charity Level Playing Field.
The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, the noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, my noble friend Lord Harrison and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, all referred to the Accessible Sports Grounds Bill, which I took through this House in 2015. With the exception of the then Minister—not the Minister who will be replying tonight—whose approach in that debate can perhaps best be described as lukewarm, every Member who spoke in the Second Reading debate on 17 July was strongly supportive, particularly in respect of the principle that each stadium should follow accessible stadia guidelines and improve the experience for disabled people attending their matches.
While it was evident that the Bill would not make progress in the other place without government support, it produced one very positive consequence, and that was the response from the English Premier League on 10 September 2015, which stated:
“All Premier League Clubs have agreed to make their stadiums compliant with the Accessible Stadia Guide by August 2017. Clubs also agreed to ensure the appropriate number of wheelchair bays are located in their away sections (10% of their home provision)”.
If that commitment were fulfilled to the letter, it would represent a huge step forward by the best supported and most affluent clubs in British football, particularly if the lead given by the Premier League were followed by the other football leagues in England, Wales and Scotland, and sports with significant numbers of fans attending their matches.
In the report, our Select Committee quoted approvingly the comments of Justin Tomlinson MP, who was then the Minister for Disabled People. Sadly, he is no longer in that post. He told BBC Sport:
“Most football clubs in this country are behind when it comes to disability access to their grounds. It is my belief that football should be a game enjoyed by everyone, and someone with a disability should have as much of an opportunity to watch the game as someone without a disability”.
The following paragraph of our report said:
“On provision for disabled people, he”—
Justin Tomlinson—
“similarly confirmed his view that: ‘Frankly, some of it is disgraceful. There is not provision in some grounds. Supporters are split up or are put in with the away fans. I find that totally unacceptable. We are in the last chance saloon with those football bodies, saying, “You need to get your house in order”’”.
Had my Private Member’s Bill become law, clubs which failed to comply with the accessible stadia guidelines could have lost their safety certificates and their stadia would have been prevented from operating. However, without that sanction, disabled people will have to rely on the good will of the clubs to deliver what they have promised by the summer of next year. I am afraid that I am not holding my breath. I am advised that the long-awaited report from the Premier League regarding the progress of its clubs with one year to go was sent to the Minister, Penny Mordaunt MP, in early August and copied to the Sports Minister, Tracey Crouch. I am told it says very little and contains no detail about the real progress at each club.
It appears that at least seven Premier League clubs will not meet the pledge by August 2017, as had been promised. The excuses being put forward by clubs as to why they will not meet this are, frankly, unacceptable. Liverpool Football Club, for example, seems far more interested in providing general hospitality places than in installing sufficient disabled fans’ seats to comply with football’s own minimum standards. Those seats for disabled people would ensure that the club meets its pledge, but instead, its disabled fans are expected to wait for phase 2 of the stadium expansion—whenever that might be. Watford Football Club seems to be removing disabled fans’ seats at a time when we should be seeing an increase, and Crystal Palace believes that it needs only to come up with a plan by August 2017, rather than comply with a commitment.
It further transpires that newly promoted clubs will be given a one-year extension to meet the Premiership pledge, as they had not been part of the original decision and it is felt that they should be afforded the same two-year cycle. This misses the point completely. As other noble Lords have said in this debate, it is more than 20 years since the introduction of Part 3 of the DDA: it is law that they are required to provide that accommodation, and it is disgraceful that they have not done so.
It is clear that the Premier League appears to have no intention to penalise or sanction clubs that do not meet the pledge. So what happens next? Quite recently, the noble Lord, Lord Ashton, replied to a Written Question from me in these words:
“Ministers expect all sports, and all clubs, whose grounds do not make the reasonable adjustments to accommodate disabled spectators as set out in the Equality Act 2010 to take action to fulfil this legal obligation”.
Given the vast financial resources at the disposal of Premiership clubs, which noble Lords have referred to, the time has surely come for this action to be taken and in a much more drastic way.
It is so disappointing that, in response to the Select Committee’s recommendation 21 that the Government should include provisions similar to those of the Accessible Sports Grounds Bill in a government Bill, the Government have said that there are no plans to introduce one as existing legislation in the form of the Equality Act remains untested on access to sports stadia for disabled people. That is a truly bizarre excuse that completely ignores paragraph 247 of the Select Committee report, which states:
“The Equality Act 2010 has not succeeded in giving disabled sports fans the access to stadia to which they are entitled, and new measures are needed. A particular problem … is the law’s requirement that only individuals may bring actions against institutions which are failing in their duty to comply with the Act. The nature of the relationship between a football fan and his or her own club is often deep-rooted and passionate, and makes it hard”—
I would say impossible—
“for the fan to initiate proceedings”.
This is the reason for our recommendation 42:
“The Government should consider changing the law to allow charities and other bodies which do not themselves have a legal interest to bring proceedings in the interests of classes of disabled people who are not themselves claimants”
I hope that when the Minister replies she can give a convincing reason for not allowing charities to bring class actions. I also ask her to give the Government’s response to the Premier League’s report on progress towards meeting its August 2017 accessibility commitment and an indication of what they plan to do if the clubs let them, and their disabled supporters, down.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, as somebody who did not serve on the committee, I think that this debate has been an incredibly interesting look at its work. Indeed, the quality of the speeches takes away some of my irritation at not having managed to get on to the committee. However, even a committee doing this much work could not cover everything in the field of disability. I say that and make the first of my declarations of interest: I am a dyslexic and president of the British Dyslexia Association. Reading through the report, I discovered that there is more than one BDA involved in the disability field, as there is also the British Deaf Association—dyslexics are very bad with acronyms.
A series of themes come out of the report. The big theme is that you have got the law—implement it. Drive it forward. I am a veteran of the DDA. However, before we celebrate it too much, we should remember the pain of its birth. The noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, was outside the building and I was inside at the time of its birth, and it was a painful and prolonged labour. It was dragged out of a Government who did not want it, largely through the actions of their own Back-Benchers, and so the Conservative Party, if not that Government, can feel a degree of pride about that. The general theme was that it would destroy business—that it would be the biggest burden on us that we have ever had. When in doubt, people go back to that place and, to an extent, all parties and Governments have done so. Even in the internal structures of my own party I have at times bumped into people asking, “How do we do this?”. Let us take that as a position backed by history.
The noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, described the football premiership as an organisation awash with cash which is finding excuses not to do something that is morally acceptable and has the will of Parliament behind it. If it is not doing it, should we not at least allow the capacity we have for action to take place? If the Government are not prepared to sanction such action, they should allow someone else to. They should get out there and do something.
The last but one noble Lord who spoke—I am sorry, I am dyslexic and have difficulty with the pronunciation of names—got it right: unless you drive people towards the required conclusion, either with a carrot or a stick, they are not going to go. I declare an interest as chairman of Microlink, a company which helps find solutions for businesses to get the benefit of employing disabled people. I agree with the noble Lord that the Government have to both tell people what the solutions are and drive them towards them. It is interesting that the biggest companies with the biggest names and biggest responsibilities tend to be better at doing this. Our biggest clients are Lloyds and Ernst & Young, with which we have a long-standing relationship.
Companies which employ disabled people and support them correctly get a benefit—an employee who takes less time off sick, which kicks the stereotype firmly in whatever tender part of its body you choose. It is proven. The Business Disability Forum has done work on this. The employee tends to be loyal and does not change jobs. However, you have to take the action. We are one model of how to do this. I will conclude my commercial there.
The problem is that this committee has done what virtually all committees on disability do—it has gone to what I refer to as reverse battlefield medicine; it has gone to the worst and most obvious situations first. On the battlefield you patch up those who can get out of there quickly first to get a good conclusion.
When businesses are dealing with those who are disabled, they are dealing with people with degenerative or undisclosed conditions. Unless a firm has a reason to support them, the stick, and knows that something can be done to get a good return, the carrot, it will have a problem. The person becomes unproductive and is more likely to take time off sick. They are more likely to develop mental health problems because stress leads to them. That person is being placed into an enormously stressful situation.
Perhaps the great idea in this is talking about it, but no—companies have to be told that the solutions are out there and that they should look at them. The major offenders are small and medium-sized businesses because they are under pressure in terms of resources and they do not take proactive action. Unless someone says to them, “Here it is, come and get it”—I cannot think of a better body to do this than the commission, unless we are going to set up something else, which in the current political situation is highly unlikely—we will miss the opportunity and the dissemination of good practice will slow down. It will happen when people come upon it by accident or are forced to take action through individual law suits. That is not a good way forward; rather, it is taking tiny baby steps and occasionally going backwards. Will the Government take an aggressive approach towards showing the benefits of employing disabled people by giving them the correct support?
We have a wonderful scheme called Access to Work, which has been described as one of the best-kept secrets in the entire system. It helps some 35,000 people a year. More than 5 million people of working age in this country are disabled. The waste that is intrinsic in that figure is incredible. Although we do need that stick, it is also an admission of failure. We have had legislation for more than 20 years and we still do not have a pattern of reflex behaviour that says, “Let’s deal with it”. It is still something that leads to periodic bouts of fear every time something comes up and people realise that no one is enforcing the changes needed. Unless we put together the two operations, we are going to have problems.
I want to emphasise the fact that many of the problems we are talking about, particularly in those with developmental difficulties and so on, are usually fairly minor and cheap to deal with. If someone has a back problem as the result of a degenerative condition through an old sports injury or simply because of wear and tear, they can be given a supportive chair. If the process is made easy and quick, the person can continue to function. If someone who is mildly dyslexic is promoted into a job where they are under stress, simply give them the assistive technology that we have been using in the Disabled Students Association for 15 years. It costs a couple of hundred pounds, including the training in how to use it because it is now so easy to use, and you can say, “There you are”. Unless people are told about these solutions correctly and aggressively, nothing will happen. Holding little forums and so on will not make it happen. We have to educate in an assertive manner.
It is said that talking and persuasion are better. That does not mean just saying that there is the odd little scheme here that you will find if you look for it hard enough and giving out another pamphlet. More has to be done. We want to get more of those 5 million working-age people with disabilities into jobs but, unless we get on with these activities, it will not happen. We know also that unless there is an enforcement procedure which states that action will be taken, even if it is not used most of the time, people will not go and look for it. That is because we are all busy and have pressures put on us. We know that we are terribly busy and cannot do anything more. Who here willingly does something that they do not have to most of the time? There will be around two virtuous souls in the place but the rest of us have to look at our shoes in shame. That is the situation we are in.
When we consider the selfish gene of our society, I want to comment on what has already been said about transport issues. The right idea is that you will enhance your service and make it run more smoothly if a bus or a train tells the passengers when it has arrived at a station and displays a sign saying that they have arrived. Anything else is utter idiocy. How often has a perfectly able-bodied person using a route for the first time or simply reading their book been saved by such an announcement? These aids help the whole system. In the same way, if transport is wheelchair accessible, it helps the person who walks with a slight limp and uses a stick. An example that goes against it can probably be found, but usually that is the case. It also helps if you are moving something, or if you have the aforementioned baby buggy or the case on wheels—the thing that tends to trip you up when you are not expecting it at any major station. All these things are helpful to you if you bring them inside. Unless the Government take an active approach of saying, “This is beneficial, we will do it and we will encourage you to do it”, they will miss a trick—they will miss the stick and the carrot. We currently have a rather pathetic, weedy stick and a carrot that is hidden in a cupboard somewhere. We do not bring them together or co-ordinate. Unless we are prepared to do so, the benefits that would be available to us with very little effort at the moment will be missed.
To try to bring my comments together, the last thing I will say is that we have to look at this in the round, because when we look at this subject it expands into everything else. Indeed, the next commissioner will say, “Is it possible to remove disability matters from the rest of society?”. It is not, because the two are too interlinked. We here have to start pointing out to the rest of society that it will benefit by taking this appropriate action. If we make people with disabilities more economically active and more socially included, we will save ourselves hassle and trouble. Let us encourage the selfish gene to go on here, but let us not pretend that it will happen without aggressive action.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)
My Lords, the House’s committee system is an important part of our work that allows us to bring together expertise, knowledge and information in a way that is very unusual in our public life. It is a part of our processes that we should support as long as we can. We should cherish the good examples of it that we have, including the report we are discussing, which, as many people have said, has been an exemplary exercise.
The committee is a well-timed initiative, led by the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Winchester, but picked up quickly by those who saw the importance of a review centred on evidence that could be provided not just by those in this House, but by a wider community prepared to come in and share with us the experiences they have had of the Equality Act 2010. It is not just an ordinary review of another piece of legislation, but a real, living exercise in trying to understand the experiences people go through when they face disability, in a way many people do not. I am not one of those who has a disability that would qualify in any sense for this activity, but I have learned so much, as the noble Lord, Lord Addington, said, by listening. It has been a pleasure. I hope the report of this debate will reach a wider community and convince people of the value of the exercise we have been listening to.
I give my thanks, which have of course already been given, to the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, not only for chairing the committee, which was obviously a brilliant exercise in which everyone seems to have had a good time, which I am sure is not always the case in committees—we will pass over that—but also for her speech, which introduced the report so well and highlighted the key moments we need to focus on. Those who have spoken have largely been members of the committee, including the mobile Bench, which is a wonderful term for them, but the debate has brought in others who have also contributed. That is very good. The debate is well-timed, as has been picked up, because it is just before the beginning of the Paralympics, four years after London 2012 transformed our understanding in this country I hope for the longer term—although the evidence from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is that that is not the case. It certainly did for those of us who were there. I think I shared with the House before that one of the most interesting experiences in my life was being asked to present prizes for a couple of races in the Paralympic stadium. It was an astonishing experience that I will never, ever forget.
We have had a very good debate based on a good report, which has been described as being of a very high standard and a good read. It is important to recognise that. But the key thing is that it is evidence-rich. The report is not just the views of the committee members; it is informed, transformed and transmuted by what they have heard. It is in that sense that the Government’s response, which has come in for a fair amount of criticism, is such a disappointment, particularly the prologue, which reads more like an apologia, with a sense of doom and gloom surrounding it and the inevitability of disaster awaiting as you turn every page. The Greeks did it well. We should not learn from them in this respect. The Government owe more to the House and the community that the committee was serving, and should provide a response that at least engages with the issues, even if it does not necessarily always agree with them. If the Government really believe that they are going to build a country that works for everyone, in which we all benefit and there are no barriers or assumptions of exclusion, they have to do more than simply hold conversations and return to consultations which, as has been said, have already been carried out to exhaustion.
The noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, in a very powerful speech, and others pointed out that what you read in the Government’s response is that discussion and consciousness-raising is the way forward, when all the evidence and all the messages received by the committee and all the information that it gathered—which really cannot be ignored—is that the Government just need to get on with implementing the will of Parliament by bringing forward outstanding sections of Bills; by funding the EHRC properly to do what it was set up to do and making sure that it can do that without red tape or other considerations being brought to bear on it; and by ensuring that all those who already have responsibilities under the Acts that provide the underpinning of our approach to disability are made to deliver them. The Government must challenge what the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, called the insouciance of those who will not comply or who use the reasonableness test to evade doing the right thing. They must challenge them and force them to do what is needed. That is the role of government and one that they should be proud to exercise. It will be for the benefit of all.
Before I deal with some of the recommendations, I will make two positioning points, which struck me on reading the report and the response and listening to the debate today. The first is on the numbers. I do not think it is well recognised that there are as many as 11 million disabled people in the United Kingdom. Of course, that number is complicated by the fact, which a number of people mentioned, including the noble Baronesses, Lady Deech and Lady Brinton, that not everybody who is disabled is visible in the sense of being in a wheelchair. We ignore that point at considerable risk to the policy-making process. Eleven million people is a huge constituency and we do not do ourselves justice if we ignore them. As the report says:
“Disability affects us all—as disabled people ourselves, and as the carers, family, friends, employers, colleagues, and educators of disabled people—and it is the task of all of us to remove the barriers that prevent some from participating fully, and equally, in society”.
As has been pointed out, if that requires positive discrimination, so be it. We should do it.
Secondly, we still do not really know enough about the conditions under which those who are disabled have to operate and live. The point was made in the report and echoed by a number of speakers that more and better collection of data, and an evaluation of the cumulative impacts on disabled people, are desperately needed. Trying to bring that about would be the right place for the Government to start.
The report is full of recommendations but we have time for only a few of them. The ones I have selected are the ones where I think that more bangs would be achieved for the bucks that might have to be invested. The report refers to “20 years of inertia” in transport. So many people have raised that, I do not need to spend time on it. The Government have a huge opportunity with the need to move forward on taxis, even if they will not go back and look again at the implementation of the outstanding issues, with a Law Commission bill on taxis in the wings, I think, ready to be brought forward this year or next year. There really is no excuse for not dealing with all the issues to do with taxis. Significant points have been made about buses and trains. There are also questions about ships and hovercraft, which have not been picked up yet but are important. Because the regulation there has been repealed, with the possibility that the regulation that is currently there underpinning an EU directive not being effective after 2019, it is really important for the Government to think harder about how they are going to make the Equality Act apply so that there is accessibility, for instance, in bars and shops.
On providers of services and the duty to make reasonable adjustments, it was incredible to hear the story about the planning of Crossrail and that there was not to be step-free access to it. What will happen with HS2? Can the Minister remind us whether it will be a requirement on those responsible for building HS2—if it is still the Chinese, then we perhaps should know a bit more than we otherwise would—that proper access will be provided on that route?
In a powerful intervention, the noble Lord, Lord McColl, who is not in his place, went through the issues about taxis and raised the first point about disability training, which has been picked up so many times that I will not list your Lordships’ names. There are obviously two sides of the same coin. Without the proper investment in disability training, so many of the issues that arise in transportation in the practical sense will be ineffective. We heard further examples which were almost too difficult to listen to. There is a very easy solution to the question of audio-visual notifications, which has been picked up in legislation currently before the House.
The noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, raised the possibility that air carriers would evade responsibility to cover the full cost of the damage that they cause to wheelchairs or mobility devices, because those can be treated as freight and not as essential parts of people’s lives. The Government could easily resolve this and I hope that the Minister can confirm that she is in discussion with the noble Lord on that point.
A number of noble Lords raised football stadia. We have in this House had the experience of seeing a Bill which would resolve that issue go through with unanimous support. Indeed, I do not think that any amendments were even put down for its final stages. As the report says:
“Many of the pleasures which most of us take for granted are denied to disabled people”,
simply because access is not made in the ways that it should be. The law is clear on this. Yet it is absolutely appalling to hear that, despite the Premier League’s commitment and undertaking that,
“its clubs will comply with the accessible stadia guidelines by August 2017”,
this is not the whole story. I think the figure given was that seven clubs may not make it and those that are promoted will not have to make it. What about those clubs in receipt of public funding? I do not want to name names but can the Minister confirm that if any football club in the Premier League is in receipt of public money, that money will be paid to it on condition that the stadium is made accessible? That should at least show the way in which power could be exercised under appropriate arrangements.
The noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Winchester, mentioned restaurants, pubs and clubs that are difficult to access, with many not providing basic facilities such as disabled toilets. She also suggested an easy amendment to the Licensing Act, which would resolve that. Why could the Government not take that up? The designs of dwellings and common areas are processes where tenants are prepared to pay for improvements. These things could happen simply by requiring that as a condition of having that sort of common approach or in the design and planning arrangements. The Government would not have to invest heavily in it or need to carry out reviews. The research in this area is available to them and reasonable adjustments are part of the process which we all need to support.
A very important point was made that disabled people appear to be worse off than others in getting access to justice. The figures on appeals and tribunals are very significant, because of the mixture of the introduction of fees and the reduction in legal aid. Again, the Government are currently thinking about these issues and I hope that there will be something in the Minister’s response on that.
The broader issue of communication was raised, particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Low, and the need to pick up on reports from the professional bodies is worrying. At a time when we are thinking about digital issues and the Digital Economy Bill is before the House, I would have thought that the Government might look at the opportunities there and see whether they could respond to them.
In conclusion, the needs of disabled people are many and complex. Much more could be done with additional resources and, as has been made clear to us tonight, the resources needed are not significant in these areas. A lot can be achieved for very little investment. It may be that the time of austerity measures is passing and therefore there will be more consideration of investment, but the recommendations should be at the top of the list. The changes listed in the report that have been turned down by the Government are quite simple and often cost-free to the taxpayer. We need the Government behind them. The time for buck-passing and evasion has gone and, as we have heard so many times, raising awareness will not be sufficient. We need action. We need law-law not jaw-jaw, as has been said. As the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, put it so well, the challenge to the Government is that if they wish to prove that they believe in inclusion for everybody in the country, they should reconsider their present response.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, first, I take the opportunity to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, for securing this important debate on the eve of the Paralympics, as the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, said, and on the 21st anniversary of the Disability Discrimination Act. I also thank her for coming to see me today. I understand she will be meeting the Secretary of State later this week.
I am also grateful to other noble Lords who have spoken very thoughtfully on this subject. I am particularly grateful to the mobile Bench. I did not know the noble Baronesses were called the mobile Bench or bunch, but they are certainly a very formidable line-up.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and her colleagues on the now-disbanded but certainly not forgotten Select Committee on the Equality Act 2010 and Disability for their wide-ranging report which was published in March. It is timely and comprehensive and highlights the continuing challenges and obstacles which disabled people face on a daily basis. Many examples have been given today.
I hope noble Lords will be happy—or at least less unhappy—on leaving the debate than they have been in recent months about some of the things that I am to say, which I hope will bring a bit of cheer. The committee’s report rightly focused on a number of important issues, such as how adequately we imbed disabled people’s needs into the first steps to plan services and also when we construct premises. I take the point about Crossrail incredibly seriously. I almost could not believe it when the noble Lord raised it, but so many noble Lords repeated it that I will look into the issue and find out why such a huge construction project was built without step-free access. That theme on the construction of premises has now, as noble Lords have said, been taken up by the Women and Equalities Select Committee in the other place for its own inquiry.
The report also fairly examined whether both public and private sectors have been sufficiently proactive in meeting the needs of citizens with a disability and whether there is still a tendency simply to react to problems once they have arisen or to be forced into action when pressed. We further acknowledge the importance of two-way communication between government and disabled people and their representatives, something that the report says we can improve on, in turn improving access to justice and how services are delivered.
For the bulk of what I am going to say, I now turn to points that noble Lords have raised. The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, spoke about court fees, and I will also talk about qualified one-way costs. The Government’s post-implementation review will report in due course, and we will consult on any subsequent proposals for changes to the fees or the remissions system. Lord Justice Jackson recommended the introduction of qualified one-way costs in public injury claims, but the Government will consider the possible extension of qualified one-way costs shifting to other categories of law, including claims made under the Equality Act, in due course, once there is some experience of the regime in personal injury.
The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, also talked about legal aid. We have made sure that legal aid continues to be available to provide access to justice for people in the most serious cases. It includes, subject to statutory means and merits tests, legal aid for disputes with local authorities about community care services for disabled people and for discrimination claims relating to the contravention of the Equality Act.
The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, also talked about the PSED amendment to ensure that public authorities take steps towards equality rather than having “due regard”. The due regard test is well established and the courts have recognised that difficult decisions by elected politicians should not be second-guessed by the courts where all the relevant facts have been considered. The due regard requirement helps to ensure that public bodies remain conscious of equality issues throughout the process of exercising their functions. As soon as a requirement becomes more specific—the noble Baroness and I talked about this today—or task-oriented, there is inevitably the risk that many public bodies may start to think of short cuts or ways out of fulfilling their duties. That is an important point.
The noble Baroness and a couple of noble Lords talked about disabled people losing out now under the PSED. We disagree, first and foremost because two of the leading cases brought under the PSED on the spare room subsidy and the independent living fund were brought by, or on behalf of, disabled people. We feel that if public bodies were under separate duties to have regard to each of the protected characteristics in the Equality Act, we would have a more complicated and bureaucratic scheme than at present.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Deech and Lady Thomas, and other noble Lords talked about the culmination of the change of Ministers and Ministers not being in any one department. There was also a suggestion that the Minister responsible for disabled people might be of a higher rank and a full member of the Cabinet Social Justice Committee. Following the ministerial reshuffle, I requested that I remain as a Minister in the GEO, so as far as the House of Lords is concerned, there is continuity—at least for the moment. The Government have always been clear that regardless of rank, whenever Ministers, whether for faith and integration or for disabled people, speak on disability issues, they speak on behalf of the Secretary of State. Being rank-oriented is probably not entirely helpful.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
There is a double issue about ministerial positions. The point that the Minister has made is correct but there is a question about whether there would be a greater effect on policy activity if all the Ministers could be in one department—for instance, one in DWP implies a disability focus whereas there is a bigger concept of equality and human rights. The other issue is what would happen if there were to be a British Bill of Rights as there may well be; there has been one from the Ministry of Justice.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I totally understand the noble Lord’s point. Having been in government for a very short time, I believe that if all the Ministers are in one department the attitude can be that it is another department’s responsibility. Issues on disability, race equality and women’s equality should be cross-governmental; every department should take ownership of them. We could argue about that till the cows come home, but our thinking is that it should be a cross-government approach.
The noble Lord, Lord McColl, as well as the noble Baronesses, Lady Campbell, Lady Brinton and Lady Deech, talked about bringing into force all sections of the Equality Act regarding taxis. We talked earlier on outside the Chamber about the best and the worst stories about taxi drivers. I had a very good experience the other week, when we spotted a disabled man whose wheelchair had run out of batteries. The taxi driver could not have done more to assist this man, who would have been helpless in the middle of the street without him. But there are terrible stories as well, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, outlined her experiences in different parts of the country.
Among the provisions in Part 12 of the Act, which concerns access to taxis and private hire vehicles for people who are disabled, those relating to the carriage of assistance dogs are now in force, while those relating to the assistance provided to wheelchair users will be commenced very soon. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, talked about enforcement—how do we make sure these people do this. It will be a criminal offence for drivers of designated wheelchair-accessible taxis or private hire vehicles to refuse wheelchair users assistance or to charge them extra. The fine will be up to £1,000. The noble Lord, Lord McColl, asked whether the Government will introduce guidance and training to supplement the introduction of the duty on taxis to take wheelchairs. The answer is yes: guidance will be produced by the Department for Transport to coincide with the introduction of the duty.
The noble Lord, Lord McColl, and the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, also asked about bringing into force Section 36 of the Equality Act. We are conscious that a small number of those sections of the Act that have not been commenced are of particular relevance to disabled people. Accordingly, we are currently reviewing the position on Section 36—even though the noble Baroness might sigh at that response. The duty to make reasonable adjustments to common parts, as our response to the committee makes clear, is a complex issue, but the Government hope to conclude the review by the end of this year, and I am sure I will be taken to task if that does not happen. We will of course report our decision to the Women and Equalities Committee.
The noble Lords, Lord McColl and Lord Low, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Deech and Lady Brinton, talked about the crucial role of audio-visual on all new buses. Building on the Public Service Vehicles Accessibility Regulations, which provide a step change in accessibility for many disabled people, the Bus Services Bill makes specific provision for equipment to be fitted on vehicles that will provide all audio and visual information where the majority of operators in an enhanced partnership agree, and franchising authorities will be able to make similar requirements for the operators of their services. The Bill’s open data provisions will also help to ensure that all passengers have the information to make informed choices about their travelling options. We understand the frustration about the lack of progress in the provision of accessible information outside of London and are actively considering how its uptake can be encouraged.
A number of noble Lords asked about the cumulative impact assessment of cuts et cetera on disabled people. Considering the impact on people with disabilities and those with other protected characteristics is an integral part of the Government’s approach to their policy work. It includes measures taken at all Budgets and other fiscal events and reflects the Government’s principal commitment to fairness as well as their legal obligations.
There were a number of questions about G4S. The noble Baroness, Lady Prosser, expressed concern about the contract with G4S, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Deech. I have to say that G4S was the winner of a thorough, competitive tender process for this contract to run the Equality Advisory and Support Service. We believe that the G4S group has a good background for taking on the EASS functions. During the last three years it has successfully run Child Maintenance Options, a helpline for the Department for Work and Pensions involving many of the same factors that may be present in EASS contacts: callers who may be distressed or emotionally vulnerable and cases that may be complex and span a number of calls or contacts, sometimes with people whose first language is not English. We believe that G4S’s ability to engage positively with this type of case and type of customer provides a good basis for the delivery of the helpline. More generally, it is committed to fulfilling its responsibilities in all its companies around the world by applying the UN’s 2011 Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. I hope noble Lords will be able to see beyond the immediate reaction of some NGOs and lobby groups. The Equality Advisory Support Service is an essential service that we are aiming to continue operating on a seamless basis and to the same standards as before.
The noble Baroness, Lady Prosser, talked about training for G4S staff, which clearly is essential. We agree that training for the new G4S staff will be necessary and undertaken; in fact, it has already begun.
The noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, and the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, made the point that the Government say the EHRC did not want to run the EASS but the EHRC’s response contradicts that. The EHRC did not bid to operate the helpline itself, nor did it propose operating it in discussions with the GEO. The EHRC proposed to manage the tender process but acknowledged that, because of the value of the contract and EU procurement requirements, there was insufficient time to conduct the procurement outside a preapproved framework. That was the approach that the Government used.
The noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, asked why there was a difference of view between the Government and the EHRC over the EHRC taking back the EASS. To be clear on this, the EHRC’s proposal to the Government was that it wanted to reshape and retender the EASS helpline. Its proposal did not involve running the service itself. In retendering the service, the EHRC would have had to have worked within the same contractual framework as the Government, and it proposed to use the GEO resources and support to do so. That was not a cost-effective option for the Government.
The noble Baroness also talked about the EHRC’s disability committee being retained, and whether the Government would hold a meeting with the EHRC and members of that committee to discuss this matter. Now that the order to dissolve the committee has been made, the EHRC’s arrangements for its disability work are essentially a matter for the commission itself. I note that the EHRC rejected the relevant recommendation in the committee’s report. None the less, Ministers meet the EHRC chair and the chief executive from time to time, and I know they would be happy to discuss at a forthcoming meeting their plans for ensuring that its disability work remains effective and well supported by evidence.
The noble Baroness also talked about commencing Section 14 on dual discrimination. As was said in the Government’s response to the committee’s report, we are considering the future of a number of uncommenced provisions in the Equality Act 2010. Unlike, say, the uncommenced reasonable adjustment provisions, we do not see dual discrimination as a particularly well-tailored measure for disabled people.
I am running out of time so I will try to move as quickly as possible. The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, asked for technical guidance from the EHRC to be laid before Parliament as codes of practice. We are yet to be persuaded that codes are the solution when technical guidance can often do an effective job, and we are certainly not aware of any concerns from those for whom the statutory code are intended—the courts, tribunals, employers and service providers—that EHRC guidance on a few areas on the Act appears in a technical non-statutory form rather than as codes. We will, however, continue to bear in mind whether codes might in some circumstances have more to offer.
I turn to sports grounds, which many noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, talked about. As has been said, the Government did not support the Accessible Sports Grounds Bill because legislation already exists in the form of provisions in the Equality Act 2010 which require providers of services such as sport stadia to the public to make a reasonable adjustment—for example, a gangway—so that disabled people are not placed at substantial disadvantage. It was felt that the blanket approach adopted by the Bill departed from the careful balance achieved in the Equality Act. We note that, to date, no disabled spectator has brought a case under the reasonable adjustments provisions in that Act.
Moving on to the Premier League’s pledges for 2017, we are disappointed, as are noble Lords, by its progress and will be asking it for a far more detailed report giving a club-by-club breakdown setting out what work has been done and what is planned to meet the August 2017 deadline. The pledges were made publicly by the Premier League on behalf of clubs and we look forward to its taking action against clubs that have failed to meet their targets. If Premier League clubs fail to meet their accessibility commitments, we will expect the Premier League to take appropriate action against all non-compliance.
The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, made an interesting point about clubs in receipt of public money and how we can hold their feet to the fire. Off the top of my head, I would imagine that clubs would be caught by state aid rules. I thought about Section 106 money being used better to enforce their obligations under the Disability Discrimination Act when work is done by clubs. Perhaps we could take that up.
I have absolutely run out of time. I should have liked to have gone through some of the things that the Government are doing. Perhaps I may put a note in the Library to outline that. There will be questions that I have not answered but, on that note, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate.
Baroness Deech
My Lords, we are all deeply grateful to the Minister. I know that her heart is in the right place and she has listened very carefully and responded warmly to contributions from Members, to whom I express deep gratitude on behalf of my committee. However, I believe that our new Prime Minister has an agenda that goes beyond the concessions that the Minister has made. Obviously, we are grateful for her understanding and for the issues on which she has said that there will be action, but I am convinced that the Prime Minister’s new agenda goes further than that. When I see the Minister, Justine Greening, I will put it to her that there still needs to be a fresh look at this response in the light of the Government’s agenda, because our report fits that new agenda so well.
Our report is not just about disability. We are all on a spectrum of disability at some stage; we will all get there. Our report is talking about making society inclusive, following the Government’s agenda of getting more people back into work, making them less reliant on the state. We still need a champion at the centre of government to keep an eye on that, to make sure that everyone can participate to the best of their ability—exactly as the Prime Minister has said. So while we are very grateful for the concessions, if I may call them such, that the Minister has made, I retain—and I think I speak on behalf of the committee—concerns about not going further with PSED. Complications are not an excuse. Having due regard does not mean second-guessing—it should go beyond that; it means that throughout government and public authorities progress should be made towards the goals that we all agree on. Licensing, too, needs to take on board all the requirements of the equality legislation. So I think that we have not gone far enough.
The United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has its eye on us. The Government have said that the provision adheres to the UN convention, but it may be found to be lacking. We live in a diverse society—that is what this report is about—and we want the Government to give a green light to all these recommendations, which cost so little, or nearly nothing, to make the whole of society work properly, everyone to the best of their ability. I and the members of my committee will continue to push for this at every level of Government, because we believe that this is what we all want and this is what the Prime Minister wants.
Again, I reiterate my gratitude to my hard-working members and reiterate all of our deep thanks to those who have spoken and in particular to Mr Collon and his team, who did a wonderful job. We will continue to move forward with this in every way that we can while at the same time expressing appreciation to the Minister, who has listened carefully and given us some hope.