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Oral Answers to Questions
(8 years, 1 month ago)
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Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Amber Rudd)
I am in regular discussions with the Secretary of State for Education on all aspects of policy relating to international students. We will shortly be launching a consultation on changes to the non-EU work and study migration routes. I encourage all interested parties to participate.
Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)
The Government have previously suggested that tens of thousands of international students break the terms of their visa by overstaying. We also know, however, that international students contribute almost £11 billion to the UK economy and that about 30% of university revenues come from non-EU international students. Analysis conducted by the Home Secretary’s own Department shows that only 1% of international students break the terms of their visa arrangements. Will she confirm that the figure is 1% and, if so, what steps will she take to encourage more international students who are a benefit to our economy and our universities, particularly in places such as the north-east of England?
Amber Rudd
The hon. Gentleman is right. Student immigration plays an important role in supporting our world-class university system, which is a great part of the British economy in terms of exports. He refers to some very encouraging work from my Department about getting a more precise hold on the number of those who overstay. That work is at an early stage, so I would not put too much weight on it yet. We are, however, watching it carefully and hope it will be able to give us more confidence in the numbers of students who leave as well as arrive.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Is it not the case that post-Brexit we can design a student visa system that will attract the best and brightest from around the world, both within and outside the EU, while at the same time regularising the treatment of English students and EU students in Scotland, which is presently different?
Amber Rudd
I can reassure my hon. Friend that our policy will remain as it is, both post-Brexit and pre-Brexit. It is to encourage the brightest and the best to come to this country, where they contribute to our economy and cultural life.
Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)
Barely a fortnight ago, the Chancellor told the Treasury Committee that policy should be guided by public opinion in regards to the treatment of international students and the visa system. Does the Home Secretary agree with the Chancellor? If so, will she finally let common sense and public opinion prevail by removing international students from the net migration cap, which is what the Chancellor seemed to suggest?
Amber Rudd
I certainly agree with the Chancellor that international students make an incredibly important contribution to our economy and our cultural life. On whether international students should be a part of the immigration statistics, they are part of the Office for National Statistics’ stated statistics and it is not for me to change that arrangement.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
In my experience, some time ago when I was doing another job, I found that when I was setting up broadcasting stations, whether in New York city or Gaberone, Botswana, it often helped if I was dealing with people who had been educated in Britain. I therefore certainly agree with the thrust of the question from the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns). Is not the point that we, the United Kingdom, should decide who should come here, not Brussels? That will be the case after Brexit.
Amber Rudd
I agree with my hon. Friend that every student who has studied here can become an important ambassador for this country internationally. That is an incredibly important part of the soft power of this country, extending our influence. I would say to my hon. Friend, however, that international students are welcome now and we want to continue to attract the best and the brightest. We will continue to do so after we leave the European Union.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
Scottish business, the trade unions, the education sector and every political party in the Scottish Parliament, including the Conservative and Unionist party, agree that Scotland needs a return of the post-study route to allow talented students to remain and contribute to the Scottish economy. Similar views are shared by the all-party group on migration, the Home Affairs Committee, the Scottish Affairs Committee, the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee and the Cole Commission on UK exports. Can the Home Secretary explain which organisations advised against the return of the scheme? Indeed, were there any at all who gave such advice?
Amber Rudd
We think we have the right balance on welcoming the brightest and the best students to this country, and allowing them to stay where they can get a graduate-level job. We have to ensure that the system is fair in attracting people to our best universities and does not allow people to overstay where they do not have graduate-level jobs. If the hon. and learned Lady will indulge me, I will write to her regarding the particular question on what advice we have received.
Joanna Cherry
I would be interested to know what advice was received, but the truth of the matter is that, when compared with countries such as Canada and New Zealand, what the UK Government are offering students in Scotland is pathetic. Is not the real reason why the Home Office is picking on our universities in Scotland a result of the Prime Minister’s blinkered pursuit of her unrealistic net migration target? Is it not time to remove students from that target and recognise that one-size-fits-all immigration policies are neither necessary nor desirable for Scotland, nor indeed for the rest of the UK?
Amber Rudd
I do not share the hon. Lady’s view. I think our figures are pretty clear. When we talk about net immigration figures, we know that they take account of students coming in and students going out. We have the right way of measuring the number of students who come in, and I do not think it inhibits our appeal to international students, because the fact is that they do want to study here in the UK. We have two of the top 10 universities in the world—and long may that continue.
Ben Howlett (Bath) (Con)
The Home Secretary is aware that international students contribute over £7 billion to the UK economy and receive 60% approval ratings in the polls, too. Given those figures, is it not clear that in a post-Brexit world, we should split up the immigration figures better to communicate with the public what UK immigration looks like? Will she agree to meet me and colleagues to discuss this issue?
Amber Rudd
I am always delighted to meet my hon. Friend. There has been a lot of airing of this particular issue about the breakdown of the immigration figures, but I think there is a reasonable amount of clarity about which part of them are students and which part are not.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
Members of all parties agree that international students coming here to study is a good thing. Therefore, will the Home Secretary say something about how welcome they feel when hate crimes against black, Asian and minority ethnic people went up 41% in the month after Brexit? Many people over here as students report that when they are seen on the streets of our country, they are being told to go home. Should we not make our country more welcoming and deal with this post-Brexit problem?
Amber Rudd
I wholeheartedly agree with the hon. Lady, and I hope she will join me in spreading the word that international students are welcome here. There should be no hate crime here, which is why I launched my hate crime action plan at the end of July. I can give her some reassurance that the unpleasant and unwelcome spike in hate crime in August has now fallen off.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
To return to the question raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), we know that international students contribute £7 billion to export earnings, support 137,000 jobs across all regions of the UK and help to make us a world leader in the international knowledge economy, so does the right hon. Lady accept that we are not persuaded by her arguments not to remove international students from migrant totals, and will she undertake to look at the issue again?
Amber Rudd
I think that the hon. Lady and I are in danger of violently agreeing on the benefit of international students to the economy and to this country in general. However, I think she is tilting at the wrong windmill here by focusing on whether international students are part of the immigration figures or not. As I explained earlier, this is a net figure, so it takes account of the people who come and the people who go. The hon. Lady may be exaggerating the impact that she would expect from the removal of international students from the figures.
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Amber Rudd)
Following the request of the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign for an inquiry or independent review into the events that occurred at the Orgreave coking plant on 18 June 1984, I have today issued a written statement, setting out my decision. I have concluded that there is no case for either a statutory inquiry or an independent review.
Christian Matheson
This is an astonishing and, frankly, shameful decision by the Government. They have led those families up the garden path for the last two years. Does the Home Secretary not understand that the disinfecting light of a public inquiry is the only thing that will give those communities and those families the confidence they need in the South Yorkshire police force?
Amber Rudd
I urge the hon. Gentleman not to leap to anger quite so quickly. This Government have taken the time and looked at the documents. I have been in post for three months, and I have met the families and the campaigning MPs. The fact that I have reached a different decision from the one that the hon. Gentleman wanted does not mean that it is in any way dishonourable. This was a difficult decision to make. I have made it in consideration of all the facts, and I believe that it is the right one.
Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)
Once again, the name “South Yorkshire police” besmirches the brave officers on the front line. I have raised this issue in the House on several occasions, and I raise it again now. Will my right hon. Friend, along with my right hon. Friend the Policing Minister, meet me to have a serious discussion about whether South Yorkshire police and West Yorkshire police can be merged to become Yorkshire police, so that the name “South Yorkshire police” does not do an injustice to the officers who are bravely putting their lives on the line every day?
Amber Rudd
My hon. Friend has raised this matter with me before, and I can tell him that my right hon. Friend the Policing Minister will indeed meet him to discuss it. South Yorkshire police is under new leadership, and I am hopeful that it can make good progress. My right hon. Friend spoke to the police and crime commissioner today to explain the decision that the Government have reached.
Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)
Is the Home Secretary aware that her predecessor made it clear to my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) some months ago that there would be an inquiry into Orgreave? This decision is not really any different from the one that we suspected beforehand. Why have the Government—and it appears to be the Government—now made a decision that is contrary to the one that the previous Home Secretary, now the Prime Minister, announced in response to a question from my right hon. Friend several months ago?
Amber Rudd
I can tell the hon. Gentleman that I have taken this matter very seriously. I have spoken to the former Home Secretary about the decision, and I have ensured that all matters and papers have been carefully considered. We have taken our time to arrive at this decision. No commitment was made before; there was only a willingness to look at all the evidence—and perhaps the hon. Gentleman will acknowledge that there was no such willingness on the part of the Labour Government—in order to ensure that the right decision was made after all the information had been absorbed.
Mrs Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s decision. While public inquiries can be successful in some instances, too often they cost huge amounts of money, take many years to complete, and do not even answer the question that has been asked.
Amber Rudd
I thank my right hon. Friend for making that point. In a way, the easier political decision would have been for the Government to agree to an inquiry, but I cannot see that that would be in the public interest, given the substantial policing changes that have taken place since 1984.
Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)
Given that the Independent Police Complaints Commission found evidence of perjury and perversion of the course of justice, and given that in the last month new evidence of orchestrated violence and the mass manufacture of police statements has emerged from former police officers who were at Orgreave, are we not right to conclude that the establishment stitch-up that the Home Secretary has announced today is nothing more than a nakedly political act?
Amber Rudd
No. The right hon. Gentleman is entirely wrong. He chooses to politicise the issue when there are no politics here. As he knows, I had a meeting with the campaign group, and we had a frank exchange of information. The fact that he disagrees with the decision I have made does not mean that it is the wrong decision. I have made it honestly, and it is based on the evidence.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
If the Government have decided against a public inquiry, I wonder whether the House will have the courage to establish a Select Committee inquiry. I understand why the Government are dubious about setting up another public inquiry, involving wall-to-wall lawyers, costing tens of millions of pounds, and taking years. However, if the Government could free up an ad hoc Select Committee, as can be done under the Osmotherly rules when there is a head of steam behind an issue—a proper Select Committee, led by a senior Member of Parliament and able to interview all witnesses about matters including advice to Ministers—we could deal with issues of this kind much more cheaply than a public inquiry.
Amber Rudd
That is a very interesting suggestion. I believe that such a set-up would be a matter for the House, but I am sure that other Select Committees have heard my hon. Friend’s suggestion, and they may indeed take up the opportunity themselves.
Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)
There will be huge concern across south Yorkshire and further afield at the Home Secretary’s decision. May I therefore ask her specifically if she will meet with the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign to discuss this matter further?
Amber Rudd
I spoke to the head of the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign this morning, and I am not surprised that she was very disappointed. I set out my reasons and I have written her and the campaign group a six-page letter. I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that they be given a chance to digest its contents before we set up any meeting.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
I do not think the Home Secretary fully understands how disappointed and let down the Orgreave families and campaigners will be by her decision. A six-page letter does not compensate for the violence and injustice that occurred at Orgreave so many years ago. We know the South Yorkshire police lied about what happened at Hillsborough, yet only five years earlier the same South Yorkshire police, including many of the same commanders, behaved in a very similar way at Orgreave. The Orgreave families and campaigners need the same justice as Hillsborough had; they need the same type of independent inquiry to establish the truth.
Amber Rudd
I respectfully say to the hon. Lady that the Hillsborough situation was quite different from Orgreave; 96 people died at Hillsborough and it was right that we had an inquiry that analysed exactly what happened on the day. In this situation at Orgreave there were no miscarriages of justice, there were no deaths—[Interruption.] There were no convictions, the hon. Lady should be aware. Therefore Orgreave does not merit the same status as that needed for a public inquiry, which was required for Hillsborough.
Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)
The Minister for Policing and the Fire Service (Brandon Lewis)
As the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary have made clear, law enforcement co-operation with our European partners will continue after the UK leaves the EU. We will do what is necessary to keep our people safe. At the Home Office we are exploring all options for co-operation once the UK has left the EU, but it is currently too early to speculate on what future arrangements may look like.
Emma Reynolds
I thank the Minister for that answer, but may I press him? Have the Government decided whether they will seek to retain the European arrest warrant after we leave the EU, and has the Home Secretary had some stern words with the Brexit Secretary, who voted against it only two years ago? Also, have the Government decided to sign up to the new Europol regulations, and if not, when are they going to do so? If they miss the January deadline for that, there could be some severe implications for our membership; what would they be?
Brandon Lewis
The decision on whether we opt into the further Europol regulations will be announced to Parliament shortly. We will take that decision very soon; we are giving good consideration to where we are on that and will make an announcement to Parliament in due course.
The hon. Lady is right that the European arrest warrant provides a basis for a swift, and indeed cost-effective, extradition process across member states, but I will not presume what may or may not be in an agreement. We are in the early days of negotiations and will be going through that over the Brexit period.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
While some seem to want to water down the referendum result and drag us back into the EU, if not necessarily by name, does the Minister agree that co-operation on security, and particularly cross-border security, is important, and that when we take back control we must ensure that we keep that very important co-operation that keeps us safe and secure?
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend makes a good point. Our co-operation and membership of Europol will obviously continue in full with us as a full and strong contributing member of Europol, which of course predates the European institutions. We have been very clear that our co-operation with member states, and our determination to ensure the security and protection of the people of this country, will continue when we are no longer a member of the EU.
Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
After the Paris Metro bombing in 1995 it took 10 years to extradite Rachid Ramda from the UK, but after the London tube bombings in 2005 it took just 56 days to extradite Hussain Osman from Italy to the UK. The difference in time in bringing murderous terrorists to justice was a result of the European arrest warrant. I cannot believe that the Minister will not guarantee that, however Brexit is negotiated by this Government, there is no question whatsoever of our ending our commitment to the European arrest warrant. Can he please guarantee to the House today that the European arrest warrant will continue?
Brandon Lewis
I thank the hon. Lady for trying to tempt me into pre-judging what other EU member states may decide to agree to as part of the negotiations. We will be negotiating and I can guarantee that we will continue to put the security and protection of the people of this country absolutely first and foremost.
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
Craig Williams (Cardiff North) (Con)
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Amber Rudd)
This Government are going further than any before to protect individuals and communities from fraud. We have established a new programme through the Joint Fraud Taskforce to ensure that the most vulnerable in our society are protected. Individuals should also be supported to protect themselves. Many cyber-attacks could be defeated by simple best practice.
Huw Merriman
As the Home Secretary will be well aware, economic crime in Sussex disproportionately targets the elderly. My constituency has one of the highest dementia rates in the UK. If the number of pubs and bars can influence the police funding formula, could Ministers consider using dementia rates in the same way?
Amber Rudd
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that suggestion. In fact, our constituencies share the same county of East Sussex—the county with the third highest number of over-80s—so I am familiar with the problem that he highlights. We are redoing the police funding formula and I will take his suggestion as part of the consultation.
Craig Williams
My right hon. Friend will be aware of the concerns raised by my constituents in Cardiff about criminal activity within the financial system. With the Criminal Finances Bill going through the House, will my right hon. Friend update us on how we are cracking down on these criminals?
Amber Rudd
The UK is indeed one of the best places to do business, but the proceeds of organised crime and overseas corruption have for too long been able to move through the UK with considerable impunity. Significantly, the Bill will introduce new offences and measures to allow us to go after the money, the middlemen and the crime barons themselves.
Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)
Amber Rudd
My hon. Friend is right to raise this issue. The Joint Fraud Taskforce is focusing on helping individuals to spot such attempts by fraudsters. The new “Take Five” nationwide fraud prevention campaign, which encourages people to take five minutes to consider the motives behind a cold call, will help people not to be tricked in that way. I will certainly look at his suggestion.
Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sarah Newton)
The Government’s response includes law enforcement agencies taking action against online offenders, developing new capabilities to find and safeguard victims and working with the internet industry to remove illegal images. We have led the global response to online child sex exploitation through the WePROTECT Global Alliance, working with countries, companies and civil society organisations to develop a co-ordinated response.
Lucy Frazer
I thank the Minister for that answer. How are the Government supporting a multi-agency approach to assist local authorities in tackling child exploitation issues?
Sarah Newton
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. The child sexual exploitation response unit will ensure that local authorities with concerns about CSE can draw upon the support of specialist professionals. The unit will be supported by a soon to be launched centre of expertise run by Barnado’s, which will bring together best practice. Finally, a new system of multi-agency inspections is being delivered, the first of which focused on children at risk of CSE.
Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)
James Berry (Kingston and Surbiton) (Con)
The Minister for Security (Mr Ben Wallace)
We are taking robust action to tackle online radicalisation and to counter the poisonous ideology promoted by extremists. In 2010, the Home Office and police set up the Counter-Terrorism Internet Referral Unit to tackle and disrupt terrorism-related material. The Government are also supporting community-based initiatives that challenge extremists’ core communications and provide credible counter-narratives.
Nigel Huddleston
Will the Minister tell the House how much online material has been removed as part of this initiative?
Mr Wallace
Since February 2010, internet companies have removed 220,000 pieces of terrorism-related material following referrals from the CTRU.
James Berry
The Select Committee on Home Affairs has issued two reports calling on Twitter and Facebook to take much tougher action on extremist material, much of which breaches their own terms of use. Does the Minister agree that social media companies should do much more to prevent and remove this material voluntarily, without the need for a request from police officers, which is at the taxpayer’s expense?
Mr Wallace
Yes, I agree with my hon. Friend. Although the industry has taken some positive steps to address the issue, the internet is still being used to recruit, radicalise, incite and inspire. The CTRU’s relationship with the industry continues to be successful, but we would like internet companies to be more proactive and take more of a lead in tackling the global threat.
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
Some 12 months ago, Zack Davies was sentenced to life imprisonment following his attempt to behead an Asian citizen in a random attack in a Tesco supermarket in Mold, in my constituency. He was radicalised on the internet by neo-Nazi and Hitler-worshipping material. Will the Minister focus on that issue as well as on Islamist terrorism?
Mr Wallace
The right hon. Gentleman is right; interestingly, the Prevent strategy is seeing a growth in far-right referrals. In some areas of the country, these Prevent referrals outnumber those about the other parts we are worried out.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)
In what many see as a blow to the Government’s Prevent scheme, the Muslim Council of Britain has announced that it will be setting up its own anti-radicalisation programme. The Home Secretary appears to be losing the confidence of Muslims, so what does she intend to do to reverse that loss of trust?
Mr Wallace
I thank the hon. Lady for her question, but she is, of course, wrong. The Prevent programme set up by her Government in 2003 has had considerable successes throughout the communities. We should reflect on the fact that Prevent is about safeguarding vulnerable people from being exploited and saving many people’s lives, across the country and abroad. Repeating the echo chamber of people saying that this is about targeting one group or the other is a fallacy.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
The Minister for Immigration (Mr Robert Goodwill)
The latest figures show that our reforms to cut abuse across non-EU visa routes and our toughened welfare provisions are working, but there is no doubt that there is more to do. As we conduct our negotiations to leave the EU, it will be a priority to retain more control of the numbers of people who come here from Europe.
Mr Nuttall
Given that there is still some way to go, how confident is the Minister that the measures taken by the Government will result in our meeting the target of reducing net migration to the tens of thousands? Does he agree that ending the free movement of people principle imposed on us by the EU is essential if we are to stand any chance of meeting that target?
Mr Goodwill
There is no doubt that this is a challenging target, but I love a challenge. We are committed to bringing net migration down to the tens of thousands, and we have already taken significant steps to control immigration. The UK’s departure from the EU will give us control over EU migration, and we will shortly be publishing a consultation document on further changes to the non-EU work and study routes.
Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)
A constituent of mine is awaiting an appeal in respect of a spouse visa application. Correspondence from the tribunals service stated that the process would take 15 weeks, but we have now been informed that it could take up to 18 months. Why are appeals taking so long? Why does the information given to applicants not reflect these delays? The lack of clarity is causing undue stress to applicants and their loved ones.
Mr Goodwill
Although I cannot comment on an individual case, I hope that the hon. Lady will give me the details. It is, however, absolutely right that we took measures to stamp out sham marriages and other routes whereby people can use marriage as a way of getting fraudulent entry to the UK. That does mean that some of the hoops people have to jump through can be slightly smaller than before.
Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)
Many of my constituents would like illegal immigration stamped out, as well as there to be monitoring of how much migration there is. I was pleased to hear on the weekend reports of a Jetstream 41 turboprop plane being brought in to help control our borders. Will the Minister tell the House a little more about what he is hoping to achieve with that?
Mr Goodwill
We are determined to prevent illegal migration, from whatever route it comes. That can be through people getting on vehicles coming through the channel crossings, or through general aviation or general maritime routes. We are determined to clamp down on all of those.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
The policy to limit migration is at odds with the promise that we heard in the referendum campaign from the Secretary of State for International Development. She said that if we voted to leave, chefs from the sub-continent could have their visa restrictions relaxed to avoid a curry crisis. Was that pledge of the same value as the one that we saw on the side of a bus promising money for the NHS—meaning that it will never happen—or will the Government address the skills shortage in our economy rather than aping the UK Independence party?
Mr Goodwill
I will certainly take no lessons from Labour, as it was the party that allowed people to come in from outside the EU with no skills at all. Indeed, search parties were sent out to encourage mass migration. I lay down a challenge to the restaurateurs in our country to train our own people, because we have tremendously talented people in the UK who would love to train and work in that environment. We do not always need to bring people across from the sub-continent.
Mike Freer (Finchley and Golders Green) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sarah Newton)
The Government have introduced a range of new offences, including the offence of coercive or controlling behaviour. Victims who experience behaviour that stops short of serious physical violence but that amounts to extreme psychological and emotional abuse can now bring their perpetrators to justice. Every police force has published domestic abuse action plans, and new guidance and training has been introduced by the College of Policing.
Mike Freer
I thank the Minister for her answer, but in same-sex relationships and in orthodox religious communities domestic violence is often under-reported. What more can be done to train police officers to support victims and encourage them to come forward?
Sarah Newton
My hon. Friend is quite right that domestic abuse can take many forms and affect all groups in society. New police domestic abuse guidance explicitly captures the fact that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people may be abused by their partners in specific ways that are connected to their sexual orientation or gender identity. The Home Office is also funding the charity Galop to run a dedicated national helpline to provide emotional and practical support for LGBT people experiencing domestic abuse.
Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)
New reports suggest that nurses are three times more likely to be victims of domestic abuse than the general population. Will the Minister undertake to speak to colleagues in the Department of Health about what the NHS, as an employer, may need to do to support this group?
Sarah Newton
The Government have an absolute zero-tolerance policy for any sort of domestic abuse or violence. I will certainly take up the hon. Lady’s recommendation of speaking to my colleagues in the Department of Health to see what more we can do to prevent this awful crime from happening to our much-appreciated nurses.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Amber Rudd)
The Government have been clear that they want to protect the status of EU nationals already living here. The only circumstances in which that would not be possible are if British citizens’ rights in European member states were not protected in return.
Steve McCabe
My question was what estimate the Secretary of State had made of the numbers, because on 10 October her colleague the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union said that by the time we leave, five out of six migrants will have, or be entitled to, indefinite leave to remain. That is 2.5 million people. Is that the policy of the Government?
Amber Rudd
I saw those reports. They were based on existing public research, which estimates that around 80% of EU migrants already here will have been resident in the UK for up to five years by the start of 2019. However, it is too simplistic and too early to reach definitive conclusions about what the outcome will be when we do leave.
Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)
There are EU nationals who are working, contributing and paying tax and who have children at school in every parliamentary constituency in the UK. If it is not cynical using them as a bargaining chip, why on earth will she not finally do the right thing and announce that they will be allowed to stay in this country?
Amber Rudd
In answer to an earlier question, the Prime Minister has already said that that is the intention. It is only to ensure that there is a reciprocal arrangement that we have held back from giving that final commitment, which we sincerely hope will be made.
Sir Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)
The Minister for Immigration (Mr Robert Goodwill)
Where clear and credible documentary evidence of age is not available, criteria including physical appearance and demeanour are used as part of the interview process to assess whether a person is under 18. That can be followed, where necessary, by a local authority assessment in line with case law and approved by two social workers.
Sir Henry Bellingham
Does the Minister agree that this country has always been very compassionate and understanding towards children fleeing persecution? Does he also agree, however, that every young adult over 18 whom we admit means one fewer child in desperate need being allowed in, and that we could extend checks to social media and university records, for example, to ensure that our generosity is not abused?
Mr Speaker
Or that my generosity is not abused by a Member asking two questions, rather than one. It seems a bit rum.
Mr Goodwill
It is essential that a safe, lawful and efficient process to transfer eligible children is in place, but we must also ensure that the right safeguarding and security checks are carried out. Our focus remains to ensure that the minors who are eligible to come here arrive safely. This must be done through a proper process, with the agreement of the French in the case of the Calais children. The French have agreed to support the children in safe places in France while we carry out essential checks.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
The charities working with the children in Calais are reporting, first, that the UK assessment and transfer process has paused and, secondly, that there are 1,500 children and teenagers being held in the container camp, without proper water or food and without enough adults, social workers or youth workers to look after them and to prevent tensions and violence from rising. Will the Minister look into this urgently and make sure that the UK transfer system is restarted very quickly, and that the French urgently provide proper protection and support for these very vulnerable young people?
Mr Goodwill
I echo the points that the right hon. Lady makes. These are exactly the representations that I have received from many NGOs which are working very hard to assist us, and our own people are on the ground to ensure that that is done. It is very important indeed that, as we continue to process those children who are eligible to come here, that is done safely, and the French are determined to help us with that.
Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)
On the subject of refugees, may we focus on the real issue of the safety of children? As children are being transferred from the containers to specialist centres across France, can the Minister confirm that Dubs and Dublin children have all been identified, that they will be transferred as soon as possible to the UK, and that they will be kept safe under the close supervision of NGOs and Home Office officials?
Mr Goodwill
I can give my hon. Friend the assurance that we are working hard to identify children who would qualify under Dubs and Dublin. It is very important indeed that we ensure that the most vulnerable, particularly the children under 13 and those who may be vulnerable to sexual exploitation, are prioritised under the Dubs amendment procedure.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
Bashir Naderi, who is 19, was trafficked to the UK at the age of 10 from Afghanistan after his father was murdered by the Taliban. I understand that this afternoon he was on his way to Gatwick to be removed from the country but that that has now been stopped. Will the Home Secretary accept my plea and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff Central (Jo Stevens), whose constituent Bashir is, to intervene urgently to stop this removal?
Mr Goodwill
Although it would be inappropriate for me to comment on individual cases, I am aware of this case. It is on my desk at present.
Heidi Allen (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)
I thank the Home Secretary and the Minister for their dedication to the issue in recent weeks. I understand that children are now being moved from the containers to resettlement camps around France. When might we see all the Dublin and Dubs children being extracted from there and brought here?
Mr Goodwill
We are assisting with that transfer process, and once those children are in a place of safety away from the people traffickers who would seek to exploit them, we will be able to carry out that work in a more methodical way. We hope to have the process completed within weeks.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
Further to the question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), we know that there are currently 30 young girls, some as young as under 12, in the container camp in Calais. Can the Minister confirm that the Home Office staff left the site on Saturday? If so, when will they go back and restart the rescue of those children and their transfer to the UK?
Mr Goodwill
We must remember at all times that the camp is in France. We must work closely with our colleagues in the French authorities to ensure that children are removed from the container camp and taken to a place of safety where they can be processed in a more orderly way.
Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)
Although the House is raising so many genuinely felt concerns about the children in Calais, may I remind the Minister that by far and away the largest crisis involving children in the world at present is that in and around Syria?
Mr Goodwill
Which is precisely why the Government are determined to relocate 20,000 of the most vulnerable people from the camps in Syria and 3,000 vulnerable children from the region, which removes the pull factor that, of course, has meant that so many people have taken that hazardous journey across the Mediterranean or the Aegean.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
Instead of treating refugees as if they were broken-mouthed ewes, surely we should be working with the authorities and the Government in France to ensure that we never again see the shambolic and shameful treatment that we saw last week.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
I reassure the Minister that the Opposition do know that the camp is in France, but we are weary of French and British officials trying to pass the buck, even at this late stage, when desperate children’s lives are at stake. We know that there are more than 1,000 young people in the container compound at Calais without proper supervision and the help that they need. The Minister says that the assessment and transfer process has paused. Can he share with the House when it will begin again?
Mr Goodwill
The transfer process has been paused at the request of the French so that the relocation can take place and the children are not in the container camp, which so many people are critical of. We continue to work closely with our French colleagues to actually resolve this situation.
John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sarah Newton)
Recovery from drug misuse remains at the heart of our approach. More people are recovering from their dependency now than in 2010, and the number of heroin and crack cocaine users in England has continued to fall, with the number going below 300,000 for the first time since 2011. We are developing a new drugs strategy with other Government Departments and key partners, which will be published soon.
John Mann
With most drug services having been privatised across England in the past three years, the figures that the Minister has just quoted are fake, aren’t they? They are fake figures. Outcomes are no longer being measured on a health basis, are they? Will the Minister tell us what the outcomes currently are when it comes to heroin treatment?
Sarah Newton
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question—[Laughter.] Decisions about services and how they are commissioned are made locally, as he well knows. The figures are far from fake; they are independently reported. I would think that he, as a local MP, would actually be praising his local services, because the latest data I have show that people have quick referrals to their service—96% of people who need access to treatment are receiving it within three days. In fact, his local area has a really good track record of engaging with people, and making sure they do not drop out of treatment and get good results from treatment programmes.
Mr Speaker
I must say to the Minister, who is a very forgiving soul, that gratitude to the hon. Member for Bassetlaw is not always a commodity in plentiful supply.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister for Policing and the Fire Service (Brandon Lewis)
A judge must consider various statutory bars to extradition. It must be refused if a judge finds that it would be incompatible with a person’s human rights or an individual’s physical or mental condition, meaning that it would be unjust or oppressive to extradite.
Mr Sheerman
The Minister knows that the law has changed and the Home Secretary can no longer intervene in these cases. When young people are on the autism spectrum or suffering from mental health challenges, can we make sure that court officials, especially judges, understand their circumstances and challenges better? I am referring particularly to the case of Lauri Love.
Brandon Lewis
Without commenting on that particular case, which is before me at the moment—I will be making a decision by mid-November—the hon. Gentleman is right that those are the kinds of things that judges need to look at. They are the things that the judicial system does look at, and that is one of things that has come out of the change that was made when Parliament voted on this not that long ago.
Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Amber Rudd)
The Modern Slavery Act 2015 gave law enforcement agencies new powers, which must now lead to results. Progress is being made, but there is still much more to do. That was why on Anti-slavery Day last week, I announced an £8.5 million fund to transform our domestic police response. That will include funding for more than 50 additional analysts, specialists and investigators. Last week at the Vatican, I announced the £11 million modern slavery innovation fund, which forms part of the £33 million that we have dedicated to overseas aid. The fund will support, trial and test innovative ways of tackling modern slavery. These funds reflect the Government’s commitment to apprehend the perpetrators and protect the victims of these terrible crimes. I look forward to the first meeting of the prime ministerial modern slavery taskforce this week.
Alberto Costa
Leicestershire County Council is looking at how it can support unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. What assurances can my right hon. Friend give to Leicestershire County Council about providing full reimbursements of costs incurred under the national transfer scheme?
Amber Rudd
I pay tribute to Leicestershire County Council and all the local authorities that have stepped up and accepted unaccompanied children under the national transfer scheme. I assure my hon. Friend that the Government are committed to funding local authorities for the care of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. In July we significantly increased the rates by up to 33%. We will keep these arrangements under review.
Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)
We are experiencing a cut of over 30% to fire and rescue services funding, with 10,000 jobs lost. Rescues are at an all-time high, with firefighters carrying out, on average, more than 100 rescues per day. Speed is essential when responding, but with fewer firefighters and fewer fire stations, the possibility of a slow response could mean the loss of life. Will the Minister acknowledge that now is the time to invest in the fire and rescue services and stop the reckless cuts—to prioritise saving lives, not saving money?
The Minister for Policing and the Fire Service (Brandon Lewis)
First, I welcome the hon. Lady to her new position. I also take this opportunity to express my sympathy to all those affected by the recent devastating fires in Exeter, Birmingham, Doncaster and Cheshire, and to thank the firefighters for their efforts. They do save lives every day, as she outlined.
The hon. Lady should bear in mind that authorities still have more that they can do to reduce costs, as they say themselves. Over the past few weeks I have been talking at many conferences at which people have recognised the need to improve procurement and work collaboratively. She should also bear in mind that, since 2010, fire authorities’ non-ring-fenced reserves have managed to rise by 150%. There is still money so that we can ensure that authorities find future efficiencies.
Chris Davies (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sarah Newton)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this really important subject. It is absolutely crucial that we support our farmers to ensure that the UK maintains a thriving farming industry. I welcome the Dyfed-Powys rural policing strategy, which sets out the force’s commitment to work with the wider rural community and other agencies to prevent crime and enforce the law. The modern crime prevention strategy published by the Government in March supports this approach.
Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)
Amber Rudd
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and I have set out what we knew at the time and its relevance. It is really important that this inquiry continues. The hon. Lady asks questions that are for the head of the independent inquiry. It is essential for the authenticity of this inquiry that it is held independently. It is not run by the Home Office, and that is an essential part of its integrity. I urge her to stop knocking the inquiry and start getting behind it.
James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend is right that we are delivering on our manifesto pledge by allowing, through the Policing and Crime Bill, police and crime commissioners to take on the governance of fire authorities. There is also a statutory duty to collaborate, which applies to all the services that work together. It is important that our police and fire services work closely together, and I know that those in Essex are keen to be at the forefront of that work.
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
Brandon Lewis
The hon. Lady raises a point that is an aspect of our annual funding formula. This year’s decision will take place after the autumn statement and the House will vote on it in February. We have also delivered our manifesto pledge by announcing that we will review the police funding formula. I have written to, and am engaging with, all chief constables and, indeed, police and crime commissioners across the country.
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend makes a very important point, about which both the Home Secretary and I feel very strongly. We had an Adjournment debate about the issue the week before last. It is important that people acknowledge that police officers should be respected. They police by consent, which is unique to our country; we should be proud of that. My hon. Friend is right that sentencing should reflect the crime. I am in discussions with colleagues in other Departments, including on whether we prosecute for a criminal offence or under police Acts. There are some issues that we need to look at, but it is right that police officers should feel that they are respected and safe in their job.
John Mc Nally (Falkirk) (SNP)
The Minister for Immigration (Mr Robert Goodwill)
Pre-departure detention is always the last resort and we aim to minimise the number of those kept in detention. The new facility at Glasgow airport will facilitate the closure of Dungavel and will be a more purpose-built facility.
Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)
Mr Goodwill
As the Prime Minister has said, we wish to protect the status of EU citizens working here. At the same time, of course, we expect the status of British citizens living and working elsewhere to be respected as well.
Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)
Ten days ago, Allan Richards was convicted in Birmingham of the most horrific catalogue of offences against children, some as young as eight. I congratulate West Midlands police on the forensic investigation that brought him to justice, but he was a serving police officer for more than 30 years. Will the Home Secretary assure the House that the inquiry into what happened will be independent, that whistleblowers will be given protection and that, if other agencies, including the Crown Prosecution Service, made mistakes, they will form part of the investigation?
Brandon Lewis
The Independent Police Complaints Commission will take on this hugely important case which, by definition, will be an independent investigation. I reassure the right hon. Gentleman that the Policing and Crime Bill will go further by giving even more protection to whistleblowers and more powers to the IPCC to take on and lead such cases without the need for the involvement of, or a recommendation from, the police in the first place. I am happy to write to the right hon. Gentleman with more detail.
Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)
Amber Rudd
Since the removals from the camps started—they have largely been completed—there has already been a tremendous reduction in the number of clandestines and illegal refugees trying to get across to the UK. We hope that, working closely with the French, we will be able to continue to ensure that my hon. Friend’s constituents, as well as everyone else’s, feel better protected.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
Will the Home Secretary confirm that she is publishing new guidance on immigration and asylum claims from Eritrea today? In future, will the Home Office listen to concerns raised in the House about human rights abuses in countries of origin, rather than being forced into policy change by the immigration tribunal?
Mr Goodwill
It is certainly important that with Eritrea, as with other countries, we act on the best possible information. Although Home Office officials have been in country and we consider reports produced by other EU countries, we are looking at the results of the tribunal with interest.
Amanda Milling (Cannock Chase) (Con)
I am, like many of my Staffordshire colleagues and the Staffordshire police and crime commissioner, incredibly concerned about the business case for Staffordshire fire and rescue service’s proposed life skills centre. Will my hon. Friend the Fire Minister meet me and my Staffordshire colleagues to discuss and review the business case to assess whether it offers value for money?
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend has raised this case with me. I know that she feels strongly about it, as do colleagues around Staffordshire. I will happily meet her and Staffordshire colleagues to look at the matter. I have also asked the police and crime commissioner, and indeed the chief fire officer and representatives from the fire authority, to talk to us about this process and exactly how they are delivering on it.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
The Home Secretary said earlier that the lack of any miscarriages of justice was one of the reasons why she would not instigate an inquiry into Orgreave. She will be aware, of course, that 95 miners were charged, and that many were remanded in custody and went through difficult trials based on charges and evidence that later collapsed. Will she reconsider what she has said about injustice and, given her predecessor’s record of a whole series of inquiries and reviews in cases where injustice was suspected, will the Home Secretary think again about her decision?
Amber Rudd
I thank the right hon. Lady for her question. This Government’s record on inquiries is strong. We have not been shy about setting them up when they are needed. This was not an easy decision, and the fact that I made a decision that she and her colleagues do not approve of does not mean that I did not take incredibly seriously the matter or the meeting that I had with the families. When I weighed this up using a true public interest test, it did not meet that test. I urge the right hon. Lady and her colleagues to read the written ministerial statement that I have made today.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
Two of my constituents have been defrauded of in excess of £60,000, and their cases are not helped by the lack of co-ordination between Action Fraud and the local force. They are unable to get updates on the investigation. What can be done to improve that co-ordination?
The Minister for Security (Mr Ben Wallace)
Following my hon. Friend’s contribution at the previous Home Office questions, I will be visiting Action Fraud to take up his specific case, and more generally to discuss how Action Fraud deals with constituents and inquiries from Members, to make sure that the service is improved.
Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)
The Home Secretary’s decision is a slap in the face of the campaigners, the victims and their families, some of whom have lost their lives in the wait for justice. It is not just Labour Members who disagree with the decision; the police and crime commissioner, South Yorkshire’s chief constable and the Independent Police Complaints Commission all said that there was evidence to support a public inquiry. Will the Home Secretary ensure that all material pertaining to Orgreave is released, and at the very least the operational order of the day, which has never been made available to the IPCC?
Amber Rudd
The Policing Minister has spoken to the police and crime commissioner, who has agreed that he will work with South Yorkshire police to make sure that information that the hon. Lady requires is released. I repeat what I said earlier: I made this decision, and the Government made this decision, thoughtfully, having assessed carefully what the facts were and thinking about the families involved. The fact that we arrived at a different decision from hers does not make it wrong.
Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)
May I ask my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary to come to Middlemoor, the home of Devon and Cornwall police, and also to Clyst St George, the home of Devon and Somerset fire and rescue service, to thank them for their quite extraordinary work over the weekend in Cathedral Close in Exeter at an incident that saw the loss of England’s oldest hotel, the Royal Clarence?
Amber Rudd
We all saw over the weekend the dreadful scenes in Exeter. I would be delighted to come with my right hon. Friend to thank the police and the fire and rescue teams who did fantastic work dealing with such a difficult situation.
Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)
Just recently, two very brilliant human rights campaigners in Zimbabwe were refused visas to come to this country to speak not just in this House but elsewhere, despite the support of our ambassador in Harare. Will the Minister for Immigration please look into what is going on there? Quite honestly, we are letting in people who have done dreadful things, yet two decent, law-abiding, respectable, hard-working people—one of them has been given asylum in America—have been refused entry.
Mr Goodwill
I am more than happy to meet the hon. Lady in person to discuss this issue. I am aware of a number of cases involving Zimbabwe that we have under review.
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
As part of a comprehensive strategy to improve the resilience of our fire and rescue services, it is necessary to take all reasonable steps to stop fires from starting in the first place. Will my right hon. Friend therefore liaise with the Department for Communities and Local Government to ensure that the long-awaited review of building regulations takes place, and that our strategy on the installation of fire sprinklers is brought into line with those of other countries?
Brandon Lewis
I thank my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for his question. I will make sure that my colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government hear what he says. There are suppression products other than sprinklers that builders can use, but we are keen to make sure that homes continue to be safe. That is one reason why the number of fires is now, fortunately, pretty much at a historically low level.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
May I take the Home Secretary back to her answer to my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson)? She said that people should not “leap to anger”, but I can tell her that people have been angry about Orgreave for 30 years. Specifically, Margaret Aspinall has said:
“We will never have the full truth about Hillsborough until we have the full truth about Orgreave.”
Will the Home Secretary agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh), who asked for full disclosure, and will she please, because this is never going away, just think again?
Amber Rudd
I do not agree that there is an equality of seriousness between Hillsborough and Orgreave. Ninety-six people died at Hillsborough: it is a different situation. Two Hillsborough criminal investigations are going on now, and they have access to the Orgreave material. There will be no change in that respect.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. I am sorry to disappoint colleagues, but we must move on.
COMMITTEES
Mr Speaker
We now come to motions 5 and 6, which relate to new Committees of the House. I suggest that they be taken together.
Ordered,
Exiting the European Union
That Alistair Burt, Mr Alistair Carmichael, Maria Caulfield, Joanna Cherry, Jonathan Edwards, Michael Gove, Peter Grant, Andrea Jenkyns, Jeremy Lefroy, Mr Peter Lilley, Karl MᶜCartney, Mr Pat McFadden, Craig Mackinlay, Seema Malhotra, Dominic Raab, Emma Reynolds, Stephen Timms, Mr John Whittingdale and Sammy Wilson be members of the Exiting the European Union Committee.
International Trade
That Liam Byrne, James Cleverly, Mr Nigel Evans, Marcus Fysh, Mr Ranil Jayawardena, Sir Edward Leigh, Chris Leslie, Shabana Mahmood, Toby Perkins and Sir Desmond Swayne be members of the International Trade Committee.—(Bill Wiggin, on behalf of the Committee of Selection.)
Mr Speaker
We now come to motions 7 to 25. I understand that there is a wish to take motion 18 on the Justice Committee separately. With the leave of the House, we will therefore take motions 7 to 17 together.
Backbench Business
Ordered,
That Wendy Morton be discharged from the Backbench Business Committee and Dr Poulter be added.
Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
That Paul Blomfield and Jonathan Reynolds be discharged from the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee and Albert Owen and Anna Turley be added.
Communities and Local Government
That Liz Kendall and Jim McMahon be discharged from the Communities and Local Government Committee and Rushanara Ali and Melanie Onn be added.
Defence
That Richard Benyon be discharged from the Defence Committee and Jack Lopresti be added.
Education
That Stephen Timms be discharged from the Education Committee and Lilian Greenwood be added.
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
That Valerie Vaz be discharged from the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and Kerry McCarthy be added.
Environmental Audit
That Jo Churchill and Rebecca Pow be discharged from the Environmental Audit Committee and Glyn Davies and Matthew Offord be added.
Foreign Affairs
That Yasmin Qureshi be discharged from the Foreign Affairs Committee and Ian Murray be added.
Health
That Julie Cooper, Andrew Percy, Emma Reynolds and Paula Sherriff be discharged from the Health Committee and Heidi Alexander, Luciana Berger, Rosie Cooper and Andrew Selous be added.
Home Affairs
That Victoria Atkins be discharged from the Home Affairs Committee and Byron Davies be added.
International Development
That Mrs Helen Grant be discharged from the International Development Committee and Paul Scully be added.—(Bill Wiggin, on behalf of the Committee of Selection.)
NHS Funding
(8 years, 1 month 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.
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Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State if he will make a statement on NHS funding.
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)
Compared with five years ago, the NHS is responsible for 1 million more over-75s. In five years’ time, there will be another 1 million over-75s. Our determination is to look after each and every NHS patient with the highest standards of safety and care, but there is no question but that the pressures of an ageing population make this uniquely challenging.
I welcome the chance to remind the House of this Government’s repeated commitment to supporting our NHS. The NHS budget has increased in real terms every year since 2010. NHS spending has increased as a proportion of total Government spending every year since 2010, and is 10.1% higher per head in real terms than when we came to office. The OECD says that our spending is 10% higher than the OECD average for developed countries. At 9.9% of GDP, it is about the same as that in other western European countries, for which the average is 9.8%.
Given the particularly challenging current circumstances, in 2014 the NHS stepped back and for the first time put together its own plan for the future. It was an excellent plan, based on the principle that because prevention is better than cure, we need to be much better at looking after people closer to or in their homes, instead of waiting until they need expensive hospital treatment. The plan asked for a minimum increase of £8 billion in NHS funding over five years. It asked for this to be front-loaded to allow the NHS to invest in new models of care up front.
Following last year’s spending review, I can confirm to the House that the NHS will in fact receive an increase of £10 billion in real terms over the six years since the “Five Year Forward View” was published. In cash terms, that will see the NHS budget increase from £98.1 billion in 2014-15 to £119.9 billion in 2020-21. That rise is highly significant at a time when public finances are severely constrained by the deficit that this Government regrettably inherited. Because the NHS’s particular priority was to front-load the settlement, £6 billion of the £10 billion increase comes before the end of the first two years of the spending review, including a £3.8 billion real-terms increase this year alone. That £3.8 billion represents a 52% larger increase in just one year than the Labour party was promising over the lifetime of this Parliament.
Jonathan Ashworth
This morning the Chair of the Health Committee and her colleagues on that Committee said that the Government’s NHS spending claims were “inaccurate” and “false”. The Opposition agree with that analysis. Ministers—and the Secretary of State has just done this again—tell us that they are investing £10 billion more in the NHS, but it has now been confirmed that that figure is
“not only incorrect but risks giving a false impression that the NHS is awash with cash.”
Is not the reality that the Government have cut adult social care, the public health budget and the NHS capital budget? Now we learn that the average amount we spend on healthcare for each person in this country will fall in 2018-19. Does that not raise serious questions about the claims that Ministers, and, indeed, Prime Ministers, have been making from that Dispatch Box? In fact, the only way the Government’s figures could be further discredited is if the Secretary of State slapped them on the side of a bus and got the Foreign Secretary to drive it.
Will the Secretary of State admit that the Government have not actually given the NHS the money it needed? Will he give us an accurate account of spending plans for the NHS? Will he tell us when the Chancellor is going to respond to the Health Committee’s letter, and what representations he himself is making to the Chancellor ahead of the autumn statement?
We have also learned today from Health Service Journal that one in three local areas intend to close or downgrade A&E departments within 18 months, one in five expect to close consultant-led maternity services, and more than half plan to close or downgrade community hospitals. Will the Secretary of State confirm whether those reports are accurate? How many A&E departments, maternity units and community hospitals does the Secretary of State expect to close or be downgraded within the next year and a half? Our constituents want those answers.
Before the last election, the Secretary of State told us he was “confident” about delivering the money the NHS needed. Today that confidence has been exposed as utterly misplaced. Tory promises are completely in tatters. Rather than defending the Prime Minister’s spin on the £10 billion figure, why does the Secretary of State not stand up for patients and staff, and deliver the funding that the NHS and our social care sector desperately need?
Mr Hunt
I start by welcoming the hon. Gentleman to his first urgent question in his new role. As I am a relative old timer in my role, I hope he will not mind me reminding him of some of the facts about health spending.
First, the hon. Gentleman said that the Government did not give the NHS what it asked for. Let me remind him that Simon Stevens, a former Labour special adviser—I know for new Labour, but he was none the less a Labour special adviser—said at the time of the spending review settlement last year that
“our case for the NHS has been heard and actively supported”
and that the settlement
“is a clear and highly welcome acceptance of our argument for frontloaded NHS investment. It will…kick start the NHS Five Year Forward View’s fundamental redesign of care.”
I will tell the hon. Gentleman who did not give the NHS what it asked for: the Labour party. At the last election, it refused to support the NHS—[Interruption.] I know this is uncomfortable for the new shadow Health Secretary, but the reality is that the party on whose platform he stood refused to support the NHS’s own plan for the future. As his question was about money, I will add that the Labour party also refused to fund it. The NHS wanted £8 billion; Labour’s promise was for additional funding of £2.5 billion—not £6 billion or £4 billion, but £2.5 billion, or less than one third of what the NHS said it needed. Even if we accept the numbers of the Chair of the Select Committee—and, as I will go on to explain, I do not—Labour was pledging over the course of the Parliament only around half of what this Government have delivered in the first year of the spending review.
The hon. Gentleman used other choice words, one of which was “spin”. I will tell him what creates the most misleading impression: a Labour party claiming to want more funding for the NHS when, in the areas where they run it, the opposite has happened. Indeed, in the first four years of the last Parliament, Labour cut NHS funding in Wales when it went up in England—[Interruption.] Yes, it did. Those are the official figures. That is in a context in which the Barnett formula gives the Government in Wales more than £700 more per head to spend on public services, so there is more money in the pot.
The hon. Gentleman talked about social care. May I remind him of what the shadow Chancellor at the time of the last election—Ed Balls, who is now sadly no longer of this parish—said? During the election campaign, he said of funding for local councils “not a penny more”. We are giving local councils £3.5 billion more during the course of this Parliament.
The hon. Gentleman talked about other cuts that he alleges will happen in A&E departments and other hospital services. I simply say to him that we have to make efficiency savings. I do not believe they will be on the scale he talked about, but how much worse would they have to be if the NHS got a third of the money it currently gets?
If the hon. Gentleman and his party think the NHS is underfunded, they need to accept that the policies that they advocated in the past two elections were wrong —they advocated spending less than the Conservatives. Until they are serious about changing their policy, no one will be serious about listening to their criticisms.
Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)
I agree with the Secretary of State that prevention is better than cure, but he will know that achieving the aims of the five year forward view was dependent on a radical upgrade in public health and prevention. He will know that it was also dependent on adequate funding for adult social care. In addition, there are continuing raids on the NHS capital budget, and we need to put in place the kind of transformation that he and our sustainability and transformation partnerships wish to achieve.
Will the Secretary of State therefore confirm that he recognises the serious crisis in social care and the effect it is having on the NHS, and the effect that taking money from public health budgets is having? Although I accept that he does not agree with the Health Committee’s appraisal of the £10 billion figure, I am afraid I stick by those figures.
Mr Hunt
I have enormous respect for my hon. Friend. I respect her passion for the NHS, her knowledge of it and her background in it, so I will always listen carefully to anything she says. I hope she will understand that just as she speaks plainly today, I need to speak plainly back and say that I do not agree with the letter she wrote today, and I am afraid I do think that her calculations are wrong.
The use of the £10 billion figure was not, as she said in her letter, incorrect. The Government have never claimed that there was an extra £10 billion increase in the Department of Health budget. Indeed, the basis of that number has not even come from the Government; it has come from NHS England and its calculations as to what it needs to implement the forward view. As I told the Select Committee, I have always accepted that painful and difficult economies in central budgets will be needed to fund that plan. What NHS England asked for was money to implement the forward view. It asked for £8 billion over five years; in fact, it got £10 billion over six years, or £9 billion over five years—whichever one we take, it is either £1 billion or £2 billion more than the minimum it said it needed.
I think my hon. Friend quoted Simon Stevens as saying that NHS England had not got what it asked for. He was talking not about the request in the forward view, but in terms of the negotiations over the profile of the funding we have with the Treasury. The reason that the funding increases are so small in the second and third year of the Parliament is precisely that we listened to him when he said that he wanted the amount to be front- loaded. That is why we put £6 billion of the £10 billion up front in the first two years of the programme.
I fully accept that what happens in the social care system and in public health have a big impact on the NHS, but on social care we have introduced a precept for local authorities combined with an increase in the better care fund—[Interruption.] This is a precept, which 144 of 152 local authorities are taking advantage of. That means that a great number of them are increasing spending on social care. It will come on top of the deeper, faster integration of the health and social care systems that we know needs to happen.
On public health, I accept that difficult economies need to be made, but it is not just about public spending. This Government have a proud record of banning the display sale of tobacco, introducing standardised packaging for tobacco, introducing a sugary drinks tax and putting more money into school sports. There are lots of things that we can do on public health that make a big difference.
On capital, I agree with my hon. Friend about the pressure on the capital budget, but hospitals have a big opportunity to make use of the land they sit on, which they often do not use to its fullest extent, as a way to bridge that difficult gap.
Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP)
With some 80% of trusts in deficit and only 4% meeting accident and emergency targets, I am grateful to the Health Committee for flagging up the dire financial state of the NHS in England, as evidenced by its letter to the Chancellor. We learn from that document that the £10 billion figure is a bit of a fallacy. In Scotland, the SNP Government are committed to investing an additional £2 billion by 2021, but any reduction in new money for the NHS from the UK Government would have an impact on Barnett consequentials. Given that the UK Government have already slashed Scotland’s budget by 10% between 2010 and 2020, they need to be honest and transparent about what that reduction will mean for Scotland’s funding. With the Department of Health having accidentally not adjusted its books for an extra £417 million from national insurance contributions, and having broken its control total by £207 million, will the devolved Governments get any share of that additional £624 million?
Mr Hunt
Many people in Scotland will be somewhat surprised by the hon. Gentleman’s comments, because in the last Parliament spending on the NHS in England went up by 4%, whereas in Scotland it fell by 1%. The IFS confirmed that at the time of the independence referendum, saying:
“It seems that historically, at least, Scottish Governments in Holyrood have placed less priority on funding the NHS in Scotland…than governments in Westminster have for England”.
In this Parliament, the hon. Gentleman’s party has already lost a vote on NHS cuts in the Scottish Parliament and been criticised by Audit Scotland for its performance. When the SNP has the courage to increase NHS spending in Scotland by the amount we are increasing it in England, we will listen, but until then it should concentrate on looking after Scottish NHS patients in Scotland.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. Understandably, there is extensive interest in this subject. Accommodating anywhere near the number of would-be contributors will require brevity, to be exemplified—I hope and if he is true to form—by Mr Philip Hollobone.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
People in Kettering appreciate plain speaking. Can the Health Secretary tell the House what the NHS budget was in 2014-15, what it will be in 2020-21 and what the difference is between the two numbers?
Mr Hunt
I want to get the exact figures in order to live up to my hon. Friend’s reputation for plain speaking, which is second to none. The NHS budget in 2014-15 will be £98.1 billion and in 2021 it will go up to £119.9 billion. In real terms, that is a £10 billion increase.
Norman Lamb (North Norfolk) (LD)
Is there not an urgent need to be straight with the British public about the resources we will need to maintain both the NHS and the care system, and to confront the fact that we will all have to pay a bit more to ensure that our loved ones get care when they need it?
Mr Hunt
When the right hon. Gentleman and I worked in government, we both campaigned hard on many occasions for more funding for the NHS, including mental health—a particular priority for both of us. The answer to his question is yes, and that is why we are putting in more money in this Parliament. My own view is that in future Parliaments we will need to continue to increase the amount of funding going in to the NHS. The only point I would make is that what funds the NHS is a strong economy, so we have to make sure that increases in NHS funding are sustainable and compatible with a strong economy. That is something that this Conservative Government have a very good track record of delivering.
Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)
The plans to achieve savings from community pharmacies are causing a great deal of concern in my constituency. The patients group at the John Hampden surgery and residents in and around Prestwood believe that the plans may result in the closure of our excellent rural pharmacy in Prestwood. What reassurances can the Secretary of State give to my constituents today that no pharmacies will close that are more than a mile from any other pharmacy? Will he make sure that he takes into account the implications for GPs’ workloads when looking at pharmacies?
Mr Hunt
First, the people of Prestwood are lucky to have such an assiduous MP to campaign for their interests in Parliament today; indeed, my right hon. Friend always does so. I can give her that reassurance, because in the package of efficiencies we set out—it is right that we ask pharmacies to make efficiencies in the way they are run, just as we are asking the rest of the NHS to make efficiencies in the way it is run—we are protecting all pharmacies that are a mile or more from any other pharmacy. In that sense, we are absolutely determined to protect provision for her constituents and all our constituents who depend on rural pharmacies.
Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab)
If the Government had stood by their word and invested the promised £10 billion in the NHS, does the Secretary of State agree that the downgrade of Dewsbury A&E might not have been necessary?
Mr Hunt
First, may I welcome the hon. Lady to her place in this House? I am sure that she will make an extremely important contribution. Yes, she is filling very big boots, but, if I may say so, she has made a very good start.
On what happens with A&E departments, changes in the pattern of the services we provide have been a feature, both when the hon. Lady’s party has been in power and when my party has been in power, because the needs of the people who use the NHS also change. We therefore need to strike the right balance between reassuring people that services are provided near where they live, while ensuring that they receive the right care when they get there. For strokes, that does not always mean going to the nearest hospital, but somewhere with 24/7 stroke care and the greatest chance of saving the patient’s life. If the hon. Lady has concerns about Dewsbury hospital, I am very happy to talk to her further.
Michael Gove (Surrey Heath) (Con)
At a time when every Department, with the exception of the Department for International Development, has to reduce public expenditure, it seems a remarkable feat of political skill to have secured an increase for the NHS bigger than either the Home Office budget or that of the Ministry of Justice. Will the Secretary of State tell me whether there are parts of the United Kingdom where health expenditure is not rising as fast as in England? If there are, which political parties are in charge there?
Mr Hunt
I thank my right hon. Friend, whose passion and commitment to higher standards for the constituents he serves have inspired me in this job, just as I know they have inspired many others in the education field. There are indeed parts of the United Kingdom that allow us to make a very good comparison of the commitment to and funding of the NHS. In Wales, funding went down in the first four years of the previous Parliament. In Scotland, funding went down over the course of that Parliament. Both the Scottish National party and the Labour party like to talk about the NHS, but when it comes to writing the cheques, they are nowhere to be seen.
John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
Can the Secretary of State guarantee that every A&E department in north-east London, with a rapidly rising population, will remain open for the rest of this Parliament? If he cannot guarantee that, how many will close and which ones? What is his hit list?
Mr Hunt
What I can guarantee is that the decisions about the future of A&E departments will be taken locally by clinicians who have the best interests of their patients at heart. I think that the hon. Gentleman and I would be able to agree that these decisions are not best taken by Secretaries of State. It is much better that they are taken by people who do not have any party political axe to grind. Any decision to change service provision at an A&E has the opportunity, if it is so wished, to be reviewed by the Secretary of State when it goes through an independent process. That is exactly what would happen in north-east London, were the local community to wish it.
Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)
Under the previous Labour Government, Burnley general hospital lost its A&E department and a number of key services. Under the coalition Government, a new £9 million urgent care centre opened and just last week the trust submitted plans for a £15 million development of the hospital. Does that not perfectly demonstrate the unprecedented investment in the NHS since Labour left government?
Mr Hunt
It absolutely does. I much enjoyed visiting with my hon. Friend some health facilities in his constituency during the general election campaign. The difference between Conservative Members and Labour Members is that we recognise that every penny of the NHS budget has to come from a strong economy. We know that if we take that for granted, we end up having to cut the NHS budget, which is what has happened in Spain, Italy, Greece, Portugal and many other countries that have lost control of their national finances. That is something that Labour Members would do well to remember.
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
The Government have been well and truly found out on this issue. Rather than quote selectively from Simon Stevens, the head of the NHS, will the Secretary of State confirm that among the conditions that Mr Stevens put down to the Government as part of the five-year review was an increase in public health spending, not a 20% cut, and a policy of maintaining spending on social care? Will he also confirm—he was there in Simon Stevens’ presence before the Select Committee—that Mr Stevens made it quite clear that those conditions and others had not been met?
Mr Hunt
Actually, what Mr Stevens said—I was there—was that social care and, indeed, public health provision needed to be maintained. We are increasing the social care budget by £3.5 billion over this Parliament. Although I accept that difficult cuts are being made to the public health budget, we are doing other things that do not cost money to make sure that we continue to improve this country’s excellent record on public health.
Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)
We all want a well-funded NHS. I congratulate the Secretary of State on making sure that we now have record spending in England. Last night, the A&E department of the Queen’s medical centre was tweeting that it effectively could not cope. We all of course congratulate and thank the hard-working staff in A&E, but the problem was demand. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the NHS can do much more to improve the way it signposts people? It was urging people to go to the urgent care centre, which does stitching and mends broken bones, all of which was news for many people in Greater Nottingham.
Mr Hunt
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. That, of course, is why all parts of the NHS in England are embarking on the sustainability and transformation programme, which is designed to do precisely what my right hon. Friend says—to find smart ways to reduce demand. That will include, for example, better use of pharmacies, better use of GPs, more mental health provision—[Interruption.] Opposition Members are shouting, but why were they not prepared to put the money into the NHS to help us implement these plans? There would be no sustainability and transformation plans on the thin gruel that they promised for the NHS at the last election.
Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West) (Lab)
I was always against the private finance initiative. This Government have set up a £1.5 billion bail-out fund for PFI. I put it to the Secretary of State that that is to rewarding past profligacy and penalising frugal trusts such as the Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust. When will the Secretary of State redress this imbalance, stop rewarding profligacy and reward frugality?
Mr Hunt
I am getting more and more impressed with the hon. Gentleman’s questions. Last time, he accused me of being a Corbynista, and today he is criticising me for profligacy, when the general tone of most Members seems to be that we are being rather too parsimonious with the NHS. I completely agree with him that private finance initiatives were an utter disgrace, leaving the NHS with over £70 billion-worth of debt by 2010. Unfortunately, there does not seem to be a strong correlation between shiny new buildings and good care for patients, as can be seen in a number of Care Quality Commission reports. We are doing everything we can to unwind that very difficult problem.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. We require pithiness personified. I think that calls for Sir Desmond Swayne.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
How much more would the Secretary of State have had to spend per year by 2021 if the Chancellor had taken the Labour party’s advice?
Mr Hunt
If the Chancellor had taken the Labour party’s advice, the NHS would have had £5.5 billion less to spend every single year. I just ask Members who are worried about their A&E departments, worried about mental health and worried about GP provision on which of those services the axe would have had to fall if we had followed Labour’s spending plans?
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
Since the 2010 general election, we have lost over 1,500 mental health beds, there are 5,000 fewer mental health nurses and over 400 fewer doctors working in mental health. The pledge that the Secretary of State made at that Dispatch Box on 9 December—that every clinical commissioning group would increase its spend on mental health—lies in tatters. When will this Government’s rhetoric on equality for mental health be matched with adequate resources?
Mr Hunt
I will tell the hon. Lady when that rhetoric became reality. We now have the highest dementia diagnosis rates in the world, according to some estimates. We are treating three quarters of a million more people with talking therapies every year than we were in 2010. Every single day, we are treating 1,400 more mental health patients. By the end of this Parliament, because of our spending plans, we will be spending £1 billion more on mental health every single year, treating 1 million more people. I think that that is pretty good.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
Is not one way to help the NHS to deal with its financial pressures by focusing on improving quality and using proper data? Professor Tim Briggs’s report, “Getting it Right First Time” is already improving patient outcomes and saving the NHS money.
Mr Hunt
I thank my hon. Friend for bringing Professor Briggs to meet me. He is an extremely inspiring man. He has established that every time someone has an infection during an orthopaedic operation, it costs the NHS £100,000 to put it right, but that is happening 0.5% of the time in the case of some surgeons and 4% of the time in the case of others. Dealing with variation of that kind is a way not just to reduce costs, but to avoid enormous human heartache.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
NHS managers in Greater Manchester have made it clear that the pressures on the NHS are a function of pressures on the social care system and that costs are rising because of increases in the national living wage and the need to fund overnight cover. What is the Secretary of State doing to address those financial pressures on social care, given that the precept does no more than scratch the surface?
Mr Hunt
I agree that there are real pressures, although I should add that many Members were worried about some of the poor working conditions of people in the social care system and that 900,000 people on low pay in the system will benefit from the introduction of the national living wage. However, I agree that leaving people parked in hospitals when they should be being looked after in the community is financial nonsense. What is happening in Greater Manchester is one of the most impressive examples of health and social care integration in the country, and that must be the long- term answer.
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
I am very proud of the Government’s funding record, but does my right hon. Friend agree that it is also crucial to make the right strategic decisions? For example, it was a Conservative-led Government with a Conservative Health Secretary who delivered the urgent care centre in Corby, which has transformed health opportunities in our area and taken pressure off our A&E.
Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)
Representatives of the Department of Health and NHS England have appeared before the Public Accounts Committee eight times so far this year. We have taken a detailed look at the Department’s accounts, following the Comptroller and Auditor General’s unprecedented explanatory note, and I am glad that the Health Committee has said that it will examine the issue further.
The Secretary of State said that prevention was better than cure. The “General Practice Forward View” refers to a £2.4 billion increase in investment by 2020. Can the Secretary of State assure us that that crucial investment in primary care will be protected and not used to plug hospital deficits?
Mr Hunt
It is a vitally important investment. The first speech that I made as Health Secretary after the last election was made to GPs, and I said then that we wanted to deliver an extra 5,000 doctors working in general practice. It is vital that we eliminate hospital deficits, but we are making good progress in doing so.
John Howell (Henley) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that, when it comes to funding the forward view, the treatment of patients in their homes is not principally about cost-cutting but is part of a radical change in health provision for the future on which clinicians agree?
Mr Hunt
Absolutely. The simple principle for those of us who are not doctors is that it is much cheaper to nip illnesses in the bud than to wait until they progress. Treating someone at stage 1 or 2 of cancer is not only cheaper for the NHS, but much more likely to lead to a full cure. That is the whole foundation of the strategic change that we are making in the NHS.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
My constituents who are watching these exchanges will think that the Secretary of State is living in a parallel universe. The sustainability and transformation programme in Merseyside is reputed to be tackling a £1 billion deficit. The way in which it has decided to tackle it in Wirral, in my area, is to draw up plans to close Clatterbridge, our cancer hospital, to close Arrowe Park, our acute hospital, to close the Countess of Chester hospital, and to create some new hospital in Ellesmere Port at some time in the future. No one believes the blather from this Secretary of State.
Mr Hunt
I do not recognise the plans the hon. Lady is talking about, but I say to her that we do need to change our service provision; we are dealing with many more older people, and her constituents need better care at home and in the community than they are currently getting. Any big changes will be subject to a proper consultation, and would indeed go before the Independent Reconfiguration Panel and if necessary end up on my desk. I also say to the hon. Lady that setting her face against all changes may be—
Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that patients get better in a cosy environment in community hospitals, and can he give me an assurance that he will love and maintain them for as long as he is in post?
Mr Hunt
I am sure that no one could do a better job of loving and maintaining community hospitals than my hon. Friend. Community hospitals have an important role to play. I have three excellent ones in my constituency. At best, they represent the change we need to see in the NHS, which is personalised care closer to home, but that does also mean that they sometimes need to change the way they deliver services within a building even if the NHS logo remains firmly on the outside of that building.
Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)
I was proud to sign the cross-party letter to the Chancellor on NHS funding, in which we quote the Care Quality Commission saying that
“adult social care…is approaching a tipping point”
and that is having an impact on those who rely on it and on “the performance” of the NHS. Does the Secretary of State recognise that this Government’s cutting social care funding by over a third was a false economy, that there will still be a gap in social care funding even if all councils took up the precept and that, for as long as we have that, we will have hospital deficits and delays?
Mr Hunt
I do recognise the pressures in the social care system, but, in an era of very constrained national finances, funding for the social care system is going up by £3.5 billion a year by the end of this Parliament, which is a significant and important rise. I say to the hon. Lady that it is this Government who have set the CQC free to tell us the honest truth about the quality of care in our hospitals, GP surgeries and social care system, and it is because of that that we are able to have the kinds of questions and answers we are having today.
Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)
This Government have shown their commitment to the NHS, promising and delivering increases in funding, unlike the Opposition parties. My right hon. Friend recognises the connections between health and social care and is driving the integration of those two areas. May I urge him to continue looking at both the funding and performance of health and social care in the round?
Mr Hunt
I congratulate my hon. Friend on her excellent question. I absolutely agree with her, as someone who worked in healthcare before she came to this House, that it is vital to nurture the links between the health and social care systems if we are to deal with some of the issues that concern Members on both sides of the House. There are some very good examples of where this is working well, but it is not happening in as many places as it needs to, and we all must focus on that.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
The Secretary of State was in Cambridge on Friday. Did he have an opportunity to notice that at Addenbrooke’s, the hospital that serves Cambridge, the number of over-85s coming into A&E has risen by almost 12% year on year, and on Friday there were 100 over-85s in that hospital who should have been out in the community? Does he agree that that is proof perfect of the failure of this Government’s policies on social care, which are the root cause of the problems in our NHS?
Mr Hunt
The hon. Gentleman is looking at the record of this Government: we have 1,200 more doctors in our A&E departments, who are treating within four hours 2,500 more people every single day. We are also putting more money into the NHS and into the social care system. Addenbrooke’s is a hospital under great pressure, but it is determined to co me out of special measures and do its best for patients, and I salute all the staff, whom I much enjoyed meeting there on Friday. The one thing they would not want is the NHS budget to be cut from current levels.
Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)
The Secretary of State knows that over 50% of the deficit at my local trust, Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, and 25% of all its annual revenue goes on paying off its PFI premium. Will the Secretary of State take this opportunity to look again at my trust and others? Will he also remind the House which party left that toxic legacy for my constituents?
Mr Hunt
I am happy to remind the House, as my hon. Friend requests, that we inherited this situation from the Labour party in 2010. Despite that toxic legacy, the people working in the Sherwood Forest hospitals have done an incredible job of turning the trust around since it was put into special measures a few years ago. I commend them on their progress, which I hope will bear fruit and allow the trust to come out of special measures soon.
Mr Speaker
I would like to conclude these exchanges by 4.30 pm because there is other pressing business. If people take a long time, they are preventing their colleagues from contributing. I am sorry, but it is as simple as that.
Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State believe that there is a need for additional funding for adult social care over and above that which has been already allocated?
Mr Hunt
We are putting extra money into adult social care, and local authorities have the ability to increase their funding to adult social care through the new precept. In an ideal world, everyone would like more money to go into the NHS and social care system, but Government Members know that those systems are powered by a strong economy and that we can increase our budget only at a rate that the economy can afford. The past six years show that if we take care of the economy, we can increase the NHS and social care budget, and that is what we are doing.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
Is it not the case that there will never be enough money to go into the NHS? Does the Secretary of State, like me, find the sanctimonious finger-wagging from the Opposition Front-Bench team utterly nauseating given that Carwyn Jones in Wales said that the Labour Government there would make an 8% cut to the NHS in Wales? That is the legacy of Labour.
Mr Hunt
That is absolutely the point. In Wales, people wait twice as long to have a hip replaced and the figure on A&E is about 10% lower than in England. The consequences for patients in Wales are horrific. That is why everyone watching today’s exchanges will take them with a big pinch of salt.
Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
The Health Committee has been quite clear that of the actual £4.5 billion being spent by the Government on increased funds—not the £8 billion or the £10 billion mentioned by the Secretary of State— £3.5 billion comes from cuts to public health and to education and training. The Secretary of State can come to the Dispatch Box and twist it all he likes, but he has been found out. Every health sector worker in this country has his number and knows him to a tee—we know exactly what he is doing.
Mr Hunt
I just do not agree with the hon. Gentleman. I stand by the numbers. I am afraid that, on this occasion, the Health Committee got its numbers wrong. The figure of £10 billion did not come from the Government; it was a figure that the NHS said that it needed. In fact, it needed less than £10 billion and we are delivering more than was asked for—something that the Labour party was not prepared to do.
Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)
The Secretary of State has taken an interest in the rurality and sparsity that hospitals in Lincolnshire wrestle with. Will he confirm that it is because this Government are spending half a trillion pounds on the NHS over the course of this Parliament that workers and patients at Pilgrim hospital, for example, can be confident about the hospital’s future?
Mr Hunt
All NHS facilities in my hon. Friend’s constituency and across the country can be confident that the NHS has a bright future. In fact, if we are to deliver the NHS plan, more rural and remote places are precisely where we must pay most attention to keeping people healthy and well in their homes. That is why not only community hospitals, but GP surgeries and all the places upon which rural communities depend are a vital part of the NHS’s future.
Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)
I wrote to the Secretary of State over the summer because trollies were bumper to bumper in the corridors of Royal Stoke University hospital. This was not mid-winter but high summer. Since then, there have been more hospital bed closures in cottage hospitals, so I repeat my invitation and ask the Secretary of State to come to Stoke-on-Trent and see for himself the crisis in the funding settlement, which is hitting some of those with the most chronic health conditions.
Mr Hunt
I am happy to visit the hon. Gentleman’s local hospital, as I have been concerned about it for some time. I know that things have been particularly challenging there in the wake of what happened in neighbouring Mid Staffs, which has created its own pressures on the hospital. I also know that its staff work extremely hard in very challenging circumstances, so, yes, I will visit that hospital.
Edward Argar (Charnwood) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that achieving improvements in public health comes down not simply to the amount of money spent by the Government on it, but to a range of factors, including how it is spent, regulation, education and individuals’ choices?
Mr Hunt
I absolutely agree with that. This House should be very proud of the fact that, according to the UN, when it comes to public health this is the fifth healthiest country on the planet—after Iceland, Andorra, Singapore and Sweden, if my memory serves me correctly. That is a record we want to continue.
Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)
A lot of figures have been bandied about today. For the record, when Labour inherited office in 1997 the amount spent on the NHS was £33 billion, whereas by the time we left office in 2010, 13 years later, the figure had gone up to £100 billion. It is an easy figure to calculate: three times more in real terms. We can contrast that with this Secretary of State for Health, who is coming here today fiddling figures and shutting Bolsover hospital.
Mr Hunt
I gently say to the hon. Gentleman that if he thinks his party was so right to increase funding during Labour’s time in office—and I think it was right—he should support the Conservative party when it is increasing NHS funding by three times more than his party is promising.
Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)
It is clear to me that the NHS cannot rely solely on the Government to achieve financial sustainability; nor should it be used by some as a political football. Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is a responsibility on all NHS stakeholders to work together to cut waste where it exists, and towards a long-term sustainable social care programme?
Mr Hunt
My hon. Friend is absolutely right about that, which is why we need to make difficult efficiency savings—around £22 billion during this Parliament. We made about £18 billion to £19 billion-worth of savings in the previous Parliament, so I think it is doable. It will not be easy, but she is right in what she says.
Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)
If things are as rosy as the Secretary of State is making out, why is the London Borough of Redbridge, where I am an elected Member, suffering from public health cuts and, even while charging the social care precept, is still barely able to cover the costs of wage increases, let alone improve the service? He should have been lobbying the Chief Secretary this afternoon, not painting this ridiculously unjustifiable rosy picture.
Mr Hunt
I do not think the hon. Gentleman was listening to my statement, which said clearly that the NHS is under unbelievable pressure. It does not really work for the Labour party to campaign for increases in the minimum wage, which we read about today, and then to criticise the increasing costs in the adult social care system caused by the national living wage that was introduced by this Government.
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
Will the Secretary of State look at splitting the Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust, so that the disastrous PFI deal at Halifax, where we will pay £700 million for a hospital that cost £64 million, will stop dictating the closure and downgrading of services at Huddersfield?
Mr Hunt
I salute my hon. Friend for the campaign he is leading at the moment, standing up for his constituents. He is right to point to PFI as one of the principal causes, and we now have to find a way to deal with that issue in a way that improves and does not detract from the quality of care offered to the people he represents.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
According to Sir Richard Sykes, the chair of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, “the problem is funding”, we are “killing” NHS staff by making them work 18 hours a day, and it is not in a position to close any more accident and emergency facilities in north-west London because there is not the capacity to do so. How is the NHS in north-west London supposed to save £1.3 billion over the next four years, as its sustainability and transformation plan proposes?
Andy Slaughter
Give a serious answer to a serious question—you’re a buffoon! [Hon. Members: “Ooh!”]
Mr Speaker
Order. I did not hear the offending term, but if it has been reported to me accurately, and the Clerks are invariably accurate in these matters, it seems to me to be a matter of taste, rather than of order.
Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)
It is regrettable that the Chair of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), has led this attack on a Government who are doing so much. Will my right hon. Friend tell me what more is being done to recoup the money that should have been clawed back from those who had health insurance and who should not have used our system?
Mr Hunt
My hon. Friend is right to point out that problem. For years, under the previous Government, there was a total resistance anywhere in the NHS to ensuring that the only people who received care free at the point of use were people paying for the NHS through the taxes that they or their families pay. That is something to which we will put a stop. There is much more work to be done. We have the second biggest aid budget in the world. That is the way that we help developing countries, but we cannot have an international health service.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
NHS trusts’ deficits are now the worst that they have ever been, with 85% of acute hospitals unable to balance their books. That situation will be made even worse as the falling value of the pound raises the cost of imported medicines and equipment. What assessment has the Secretary of State made of the extra funding needed to protect the NHS from the devaluation of sterling following the Brexit vote? What will he do to support trusts, such as Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, which are already in deficit?
Mr Hunt
There are indeed a number of cost pressures in the NHS, but the NHS also has the advantage of being the single largest purchaser of healthcare products—equipment and medicine—in the world, and therefore we have huge scope to get better prices for those things than we currently get. We are supporting hospitals such as the one in the hon. Lady’s constituency by centralising procurement and bearing down on the cost of agency staff and locum staff. Given that pay accounts for more than 70% of the typical hospital trust, that will help.
Chris Davies (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)
Labour in my home area of Wales has cut the NHS by 8%. Can my right hon. Friend confirm to this House that he will never follow its example?
Mr Hunt
It is not just the money that Labour has cut. It has refused to set up an independent inspectorate of hospitals such as we did in England, which is the sure way of knowing that we never have a repeat of what happened at Mid Staffs. I urge the Welsh Government to think again about their approach to that.
Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)
Darlington’s A&E is among the one in three earmarked for closure or downgrading. In his opening response to what is an urgent question, not a statement, the Secretary of State said that he did not accept that figure of one in three. How many A&Es will be downgraded, or does he not know?
Mr Hunt
Those plans come up from local areas. The NHS is not projecting that we will have significant reductions in the need for emergency care over the next few years. What matters is that we make sure that, yes, people can get to an A&E near them, but that when they get there, they get the right expert care, and that is what local areas are working on.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
In my constituency, a nurse-led practitioner service has been closed because of a lack of resources. Similarly, stroke rehab has been cut because of a lack of resources. Our A&Es are not meeting waiting times, and are now under threat because their orthopaedic services have been privatised and handed out to Circle, which may not contract back to their local healthcare trust, thereby undermining the capacity to maintain those A&Es. Does the Secretary of State accept responsibility for any of that?
Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)
I am particularly concerned that the Government are cutting supply in public health to create demand for a private healthcare market, which means that, like the United States, we will have a two-tier system. I was very concerned by the vague response that the Secretary of State gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle). Will he guarantee this afternoon that there will be no closures of Arrowe Park hospital, Clatterbridge hospital or the Countess of Chester?
Mr Hunt
With respect to local service provision, these things are decided locally. If the hon. Lady wants to dig up the old chestnut about the privatisation of the NHS, let me say that the outsourcing of services to the private sector increased much faster under her Government than under this Government. If we did have those malign motives for the NHS, increasing its budget by £10 billion over the course of this Parliament and increasing doctor training by one of the biggest increases in its history would be a strange way of going about it.
Improving Lives: Work, Health and Disability Green Paper
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Damian Green)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the Green Paper being published today by my Department, together with the Department of Health.
This Government are determined to build a country that works for everyone. That means an economy that serves the interests of ordinary, working people; it means a society where everyone has an opportunity to go as far as their talents can take them, regardless of their background. As part of that, it means creating a country where a disability does not dictate the path that a person is able to take in life.
Under successive Governments, we have made good progress in improving the lives of disabled people. Laws have been changed, old attitudes have been challenged, and understanding has improved. More disabled people are in work—half a million more than just three years ago. That is encouraging, but we need to build on that progress and do more to help disabled people reach their full potential.
It is clear that for many disabled people, the barriers to entering work are still too high, and that people in work who get ill too often fall out of work, lose contact, lose confidence and do not return to work. The impact extends far beyond the individual. Families suffer, the health service faces extra strain, and employers lose valuable skills, but most of all, it is a human tragedy. Potential is left unfulfilled. Lives are lessened. Of course, the health and welfare systems must support those who will never be able to work. It should offer the opportunity of work to all those who can, provide help for those who could, and care for those who cannot. It is the help for those who could that, through this Green Paper, we will transform—first, within the welfare system.
In 2010, we inherited a broken system, where there were too few incentives to move from welfare to work, and one where too many of our fellow citizens were simply taken off the books and forgotten about. Since then, we have brought control and the right values back to the system. I want to recognise my predecessors, particularly my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) for his passion and conviction over the past six years, to make that a reality. Through reforms such as universal credit, we have ensured that work always pays, while ensuring a strong safety net for those who cannot work.
Spending on disabled people will be higher every year of this Parliament than it was in 2010, but we need to continue to review and reform the system based on what we know works. One of those areas is the level of personalised and tailored support that someone gets when they fall out of work. In the past 12 months, half of the people who attended a work capability assessment were deemed too ill to work, or even prepare for work, at that time. They then routinely receive no employment support at all. It is not surprising, then, that each month only 1% of people eligible for employment and support allowance after an assessment leave. For a benefit that was meant to help people back into work, the statistics show that it is not living up to that original aim, so we will build on the success of universal credit and provide more personalised employment support by consulting on further reform of the work capability assessment.
We will also introduce a new personal support package for disabled people, providing better tailored support, including a new health and work conversation between someone on ESA and their work coach, focusing on what they can do, rather than on what they cannot do. We will recruit around 200 community partners into jobcentres, to bring in expertise from the voluntary sector, and we will give young people with limited capability for work the opportunity to get valuable work experience with employers. These are practical steps and support that the welfare system will provide for disabled people.
This Green Paper marks a new era in joint working between the welfare and health systems—between the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department of Health. Recognising that work and meaningful activity can promote good health, we will work with Health Education England, Public Health England and others to make the benefits of work an ingrained part of the training and health workforce approach. We will review statutory sick pay and GP fit notes to support workers back into their jobs faster and for longer. It is also about transforming the way services join up. We will be consulting on how best to do this, as well as boosting existing joint services—for example, we are more than doubling the number of employment advisers placed in talking therapies services. It is right that we focus on such services, as mental health conditions, together with musculoskeletal conditions, are behind many people falling out of work.
This is not a challenge for Government alone so, finally, I want to turn to the role of employers. Employers have so much potential power to bring about change, not just in their recruitment strategies, but in how they support their employees. We need all businesses—small or large; local, national or global—to use that power to deliver change. The fact is that, as well as being good for health, it makes good business sense; sick pay for workers who get ill costs business £9 billion a year.
Businesses are leaders in innovation and transformation. We need to harness that positive power of business to promote disability awareness, so we will create a “Disability Confident” business leaders group to increase employer engagement in looking after the health and wellbeing of their employees, and opening up opportunities to them. Now is the moment for every business to take a proper look at the relationship between work and health, and what that means for their business and productivity.
Over the coming months, we will be talking to disabled people and those who have health conditions. We will be talking to carers, families, professionals and a range of organisations that are so important to getting this right and, like us, want further change. Together, through this Green Paper, and building on our work since 2010, we intend to deliver just that—to improve the way the welfare system responds to real people with health conditions; to see employers stepping up and play their part; to see work as a health outcome; and to see a culture of high ambition and high expectations for the disabled people of this country, because they deserve it.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for his statement and advance notice of it. This is again kicking into the long grass the issue of support for disabled people and halving the disability employment gap. He is the third Secretary of State who has promised a plan, yet we have just talk, no action.
During his announcement today, the Secretary of State claimed he was confronting negative “attitudes, prejudices and misunderstandings”. The audacity of the statement is offensive. The Government have been more responsible than anyone for the negative attitude towards disabled people, with their shirkers grand narrative. Only this morning, the Secretary of State himself described disabled people as
“sitting at home living on benefits”.
The consultation itself demonstrates that the Government fail to understand the reality of many disabled people’s lives and the real anxiety those people feel about the coded messages in the consultation, yet further cuts are on the way.
I must challenge the Secretary of State for suggesting that the so-called reforms to social security have helped to make work pay. These claims are derisory. All the evidence shows not only that the introduction of universal credit has been an unmitigated disaster—with seven delays to date, the Major Projects Authority and the National Audit Office expressing concerns regarding the scheme’s governance, and the additional £3 billion the taxpayer is having to pay—but that cuts to work allowances signally fail to make UC help to make work pay. The Resolution Foundation has shown that, on average, 2.5 million working families will be over £2,000 a year worse off, so will the Secretary of State commit to reversing cuts to work allowances and universal credit?
On the Green Paper, if the Secretary of State is committed to helping disabled people into work, why has he cut employment support for disabled people from £700 million to £130 million? Will he commit to providing Access to Work support to more than the 36,500 disabled people who received it last year? Given that 1.3 million disabled people are fit and able to work, that is obviously a tiny proportion.
The Secretary of State referred to a review of statutory sick pay. Can he confirm that it is not a vehicle for further cuts to sick pay? Will he commit to maintaining levels of statutory sick pay, both now and in the future? On the plans to broaden the number of professionals who can provide a fit note—notes currently can be provided only by a general practitioner—will these people be appropriately trained clinicians? Given the Government’s use of so-called healthcare professionals under the work capability assessment, we know that weakening the role of the medical profession in assessment processes is an underhand tactic to force people into work before they are ready.
On changes to the WCA itself, why will the Secretary of State not commit to scrapping this discredited process completely, as I have? As it stands, this dehumanising system does great harm and is nothing more than a vehicle for getting people off flow. Will the Secretary of State explain why only employment and support allowance is included in the statement? What are his intentions for the personal independence payment? How much funding is meant to underpin the health and work programme? Will he commit to reversing the cuts in support for the ESA work-related activity group, as those cuts will do untold harm? Does he accept his own data showing that people on ESA are more likely to die than the population at large, and that some sick and disabled people will never be able to work? As a civilised society, we must ensure that these people are adequately supported and not plunged into poverty, left destitute, or worse.
Damian Green
I am disappointed by the hon. Lady’s tone because she seems to be completely out of touch with those who represent disabled people. Let me read her the words of the chief executive of Scope, Mark Atkinson, who said today:
“Disabled people are twice as likely as the general public to be unemployed. It is right that the Government has recognised this is an injustice that needs to be tackled. We welcome
the Green Paper’s
“publication, which recognises the need for real change and sets out some bold ideas for reform.”
Dr Liam O’Toole of Arthritis Research UK said:
“Today’s Green Paper offers a vital opportunity to better understand and then meet the needs of people with arthritis.”
The Work Foundation said:
“We have consistently advocated that good work and the benefits it brings to individuals, employers and society at large should be recognised as a positive outcome from a health perspective.”
I am afraid that her carping is out of touch with the sector comprising those who most represent disabled people.
Let me deal with some of the detail. The hon. Lady repeated her promise to scrap any kind of assessment system at all for people getting benefits. Let me quote one of my predecessors who, when the work capability assessment was introduced, said, “We want to have a system where virtually everyone who is getting benefits is doing something to prepare for a return to work. The benefits system is not there for people to stay on benefits but to help them get back to work.” I completely agree with that. It was said by Labour Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell in 2008 when introducing the WCA. I am afraid that, again, the hon. Lady is out of touch.
The hon. Lady said a lot about universal credit and described it as a failure. Let me give her the facts about universal credit. Under universal credit, people spend about 50% more time looking for work and move into work faster. For every 100 people who found work under the old jobseeker’s allowance system, 113 universal credit claimants have moved into a job. They are more likely to be looking to increase their hours—86% on universal credit compared with 38% on jobseeker’s allowance. They are more likely to be looking to increase their earnings—77% on universal credit compared with 51% on JSA. [Interruption.] I am afraid that despite all the shouting from a sedentary position, the hon. Lady is simply wrong about the effect of universal credit.
The hon. Lady asked me to make some commitments about Access to Work. Real-terms increases in funding under Access to Work will support an additional 25,000 people each year by 2021. Last year, more than 36,000 people were helped to take up or remain in employment, including 2,800 young people. Access to Work is doing very well for tens of thousands of people with disabilities.
The hon. Lady would also, I hope, welcome our personal support package, which includes the recruitment of about 200 community partners into Jobcentre Plus to bring in expertise from the voluntary sector. One of the key things about this Green Paper is that we will work closely with the voluntary sector and use its expertise to help people with a disability.
The hon. Lady talks about forcing people into work. I hope that underneath some of her rhetoric she recognises the fact—this is now recognised increasingly by medical practitioners and clinicians—that a good job is good for people’s health. Talking about forcing people into work demonstrates the wrong, old-fashioned mindset, and I genuinely hope she has moved on from that.
The hon. Lady asked about statutory sick pay. I assure her that there is nothing in this Green Paper about cutting statutory sick pay. We want to make it easier for people to move back into work, perhaps gradually, meaning that they take a few hours’ work in the early days and months of their getting back into work. The purpose of the useful changes to the fit note, which is given by a properly qualified medical practitioner, is so that the process does not simply write someone off work, but guides them into a system that will help them to get back to work, because in the long run that is the best way to improve their lives, which is what the Green Paper is about.
Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
May I unreservedly welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement, which builds on and elaborates previous work? I hope, however, that he will consider two issues during the Green Paper consultation. One of the greatest difficulties with the employment and support allowance is the binary choice that lies at the heart of its design, whereby it is deemed either that someone is too sick to work, or that they should work. We know that conditions can vary in many cases. Given that universal credit is now being rolled out, with this system forming part of that, would it be feasible to move away from that binary choice so that someone who moves into work can have that extra allowance before it tapers away? Given that universal credit is critical to this, will he look again at work allowances, particularly for those with limited capability for work, because they need to be increased to their original levels?
Damian Green
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his support. He is right about the binary choice that has obtained up to now under ESA and the fact that under the universal credit system, which he introduced, we have the capacity in the welfare system to make our approach much more flexible. That is precisely what the changes to the work capability assessment are designed to achieve—so that people are not simply put in one group or another and then left there. The much more personalised approach will mean that everyone should benefit from the assessment. We will be able to separate out the level of benefit that people should get from the level of support that they need to make the best of their lives. On the question of reversing previous changes in allowances, we have no plans to do so.
Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)
May I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement? I am glad that, at last, this long-awaited Green Paper will be published. I broadly welcome the Government’s commitment to reform, to more personalised support, and to consulting widely with disabled people, carers and those who represent them.
We will work constructively with all parties to deliver real progress for disabled people, but we need actions, not just words. The truth is that the burden of austerity that has fallen on sick and disabled people in recent years has caused severe hardship and pushed many people further away from the workplace. Sick and disabled people have been disproportionately sanctioned in the benefits system and disproportionately hit by the bedroom tax. The raising of the bar on personal independence payments has resulted in thousands of sick and disabled people losing their Motability vehicles, which in many cases are their only means of getting to and from work. From next April, sick and disabled people with long-term conditions will be deterred from going back to work, because if they do, but then have a relapse and need to go back on ESA, they will find their income cut by £30 a week. Far too many people who are manifestly too sick to work are still being found fit for work.
Earlier this year, the Government cut the budget for their Work programme from £2 billion to £130 million. Given its performance, I understand why they did that, but we know from more successful schemes to support disabled people into work such as Access to Work, and from voluntary sector initiatives such as the Moving On programme of Action on Hearing Loss, that tailored, personalised support does not come cheap. What additional budget does the Secretary of State envisage will be attached to the Government’s proposals? What discussions has he had with the Treasury ahead of the autumn statement, and will there be Barnett consequentials for Scotland?
I also want to ask the Secretary of State about support for employers. To date, efforts have focused on improving employers’ confidence, which is fine as far as it goes, but that can be fairly nebulous if there are no practical resources to back it up. Employers need concrete support to make this work. Will resources be attached to the rhetoric this time around? Finally, may I plead with the Secretary of State to hold off the impending cuts to the ESA WRAG until such time as the Government have got this right?
Damian Green
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her general welcome for the appearance of the Green Paper and her commitment to work constructively on it. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work was in Scotland last week discussing with counterparts what needs to be done. As the hon. Lady might know, I will be there later this week to talk to the Social Security Committee.
The hon. Lady makes a point about resources, and I am able to tell her that there will be additional support for new claimants with limited capability for work. That will be £60 million next year, with the figure rising to £100 million a year by 2020. There will be new money for the third sector—something like £15 million by Christmas this year.
The hon. Lady made a very good point about employers. I agree that we need more than rhetoric, which is why we will be rolling out a small employer offer to support the creation of more job opportunities for disabled people. It will provide support for employers and enable them to apply for a payment of £500 after three months’ employment so that they can provide ongoing support. That kind of practical help, particularly for small businesses, will transform the situation for many people. We know that small businesses are the biggest creators of jobs in this country. We absolutely want them to use the great talent pool of people with disabilities, whose levels of employment are much less than those of people without disabilities.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. Given extensive interest and the pressure on time, I am looking for single, short supplementary questions without preamble, and, of course, for pithy replies from the Secretary of State.
Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)
My right hon. Friend is exactly right to take on this challenge. Does he agree that one of the keys to success in ending the enormous waste of human potential is, for the very first time, to get health services and his Department working together effectively at a community level to ensure that people on long-term sickness benefits get meaningful employment support and effective health intervention? At the moment, the system too often provides neither.
Damian Green
I completely agree with my right hon. Friend, who did good work on the subject during his time in this job. He will see from the Green Paper that we will be carrying out large-scale consultations on precisely the issue that he raises. In specific areas, it is important that we get right the way in which the health system and the welfare system work together. The situation might well be different in various parts of the country, so we will be holding geographically based large-scale trials.
Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)
As a former Minister for disabled people, I welcome the Secretary of State’s intention as stated in the Green Paper. Does he agree that the extra-costs benefits are tremendously important in helping people to work? Under PIP, hundreds of people a week are losing their access to Motability cars. Does he realise how important it is for those people to have their car to get to work, and what is he going to do to stop people losing their right to mobility?
Damian Green
Of course, PIP is not a work-related benefit, as the hon. Lady knows. It is a benefit that is designed to meet the extra costs of those who have a disability, and it is sensible that people go through the appropriate assessment for it. As I have said, I completely agree that it is important to ensure that people have access to work, and that is why we are so keen on the Access to Work programme. There will be different ways for people to access work. As I have explained, the real-terms funding for the programme will increase through to 2021. I agree with her that this is an important issue, and we are doing something about it.
Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)
Will the revised system ensure that if somebody is found fit for work on the basis of receiving a particular level of support, the need for that support will be passed on through the system and that support will be made available?
Damian Green
Yes, that is exactly at the heart of what we are trying to do, because there have been too many gaps in the system. Health Ministers and I agree that we must get the systems working together much better so that individuals find the journey much more seamless than they ever have.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
Could the Secretary of State consider more carefully the role of GPs? With the work capability assessment, untrained people are sometimes overriding the advice of GPs. We do not want to see that with ESA regarding fit notes.
Damian Green
The hon. Lady makes a reasonable point. GPs will play a significant role in the system, and we want the role they play to be as constructive as possible. We have looked at ways of changing the system so that GPs can be involved earlier. The reason for the consultation on the changes to the fit note is precisely to find a way of making the fit note help the person concerned back into work without adding to the burden on GPs. We want everyone involved in the system to feel they are playing a part in helping someone to get back into work.
Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)
I too extend a warm welcome to the Green Paper. Within the next hour, we will launch, with the National Autistic Society, a report entitled “The autism employment gap”, which shows that only 16% of people on the autism spectrum are in full-time employment. That gap is bigger than the disability employment gap. I welcome the personalised support to which my right hon. Friend has referred. Will he say more about how he will tailor it to meet the individual needs of autistic people in particular?
Damian Green
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for her kind remarks. I congratulate her on all the work she has done over many years in Parliament for those on the autism spectrum. I am pleased to tell her that we will have 1,100 specialists in autism services in Jobcentre Plus premises. She is quite right that we should never assume that disabled people are in any way homogenous: people have different needs and different requirements. She will know better than anyone that the needs of those on the autism spectrum are specific, and that they therefore need to be dealt with in a personal and specific way.
Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)
On the disabled, may I tell the Secretary of State that at my surgery on Saturday I saw a man—he will be 59 in two weeks’ time, and walks with tremendous difficulty on two crutches—who has had his employment and support allowance removed and who, during the time I was speaking to him, broke down in great distress? What sort of situation are we in when a law-abiding person of his age and suffering from disablement goes to his Member of Parliament in such a state of distress that he starts crying? I consider that a shameful situation. The Secretary of State should be aware that it is just one of many, many cases throughout the country. I will certainly write to his Department. With what result, we shall see.
Damian Green
Obviously, if the hon. Gentleman wants to write to us about his constituent he should please do so, because we do not want any wrong decisions to be taken. I will happily look at the individual case, although he will recognise that I cannot possibly comment on it at the moment. The one point on which I would take issue with him is when he says that this is the tip of an iceberg. Actually, the number of successful appeals against ESA judgments has fallen very significantly, from 14% to 5% in recent months, so the figures suggest that the system is getting better at making such judgments.
John Howell (Henley) (Con)
Those with mental health conditions often require specialist support. What will the Green Paper do for people who suffer from mental health conditions?
Damian Green
It is particularly those with mental health conditions who will be helped by the Green Paper, with the more tailored and personalised support. Very often, people with mental health conditions have conditions that come and go, so they may work full time some of the time, part time some of the time and not at all at other times. The changes to benefits—particularly, perhaps, those to statutory sick pay—will make it much easier for such people to stay in touch with work, perhaps working part time for a period. All the evidence suggests that people with mental health conditions are disadvantaged if they are completely detached from the world of work, because their depression may get worse.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
I really welcome the Green Paper’s suggestion about the personal support package. It should be a significant improvement on the disastrous Work programme, which was a total failure for disabled people. Will the Secretary of State confirm that providers of such support will be adequately rewarded and incentivised to provide good enough support, because that was the difficulty with the Work programme?
Damian Green
Yes. I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her supportive words. I hope she will see the personal support package make a difference. I have already mentioned the 200 community partners that will come in, so we will engage the third sector very actively in this process. We will also extend the journey to employment job clubs to 71 Jobcentre Plus areas—those with the highest number of people receiving ESA—so we are trying new ideas in the areas where we think they will particularly make a difference.
Amanda Solloway (Derby North) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that in order to utilise the talent and enrich the lives of those with disabilities and ongoing health issues, including mental health issues, we need to make further improvements to reduce bureaucracy and personalise employment support for individual needs?
Damian Green
I do. On a day-to-day basis in our constituency work we will all have seen people who are frustrated by the bureaucracy. When my hon. Friend and other Members read the Green Paper they will see an emphasis on making the systems more human and more personal, so that people do not feel that they are being ground down by a very difficult bureaucracy. Bureaucracy always takes a long time to change, but we absolutely want to change it.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
It is true that the Work programme has been hopeless for people claiming employment and support allowance, with a pitifully small number of people getting into jobs, as the Secretary of State acknowledged in his statement. By how much does he expect the proposals to increase the proportion of ESA claimants getting into work, and how long will it take to halve the disability employment gap?
Damian Green
It would be premature of me to try to set targets on either of those. The sensible thing is to take practical steps. For example, we are more than doubling the number of disability employment advisers to help with specialist and local expertise for disabled people. Along with everything else I have announced, that will be a significant step forward in halving the disability employment gap. Of course, doing so depends on both ends of it, as the halving of the gap will depend on what the total employment level is, and we are in good shape on that, as 80% of working-age people who do not have a disability are in work. But as the right hon. Gentleman knows, only 48% of those with a disability are in work. I want to make steady progress towards halving the gap, but it may take some time.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
What discussions has the Secretary of State had with business to help people who can only work flexibly and at variable times but do not want to let their employers down?
Damian Green
Very many—I have spoken to a number of private sector employers who are leading the way in providing the equipment needed. But what happens in the public sector is to some extent more under the Government’s control, so I hope that by the end of this year every Whitehall Department will be signed up as a Disability Confident employer and that in the course of 2017 the rest of the public sector will have followed. The public sector is a very large-scale employer so that will be very helpful.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
I broadly welcome the thrust of the Green Paper, but I suggest that there are two things the Secretary of State could do for people with mental health conditions now. One is to ensure that assessors undertaking work capability tests are properly qualified. Secondly, can we stop the small number of people with long-term, enduring mental health conditions, who are never going to work, going round this merry-go-round, which is not good for them or for the taxpayer?
Damian Green
I am grateful for the expertise the hon. Gentleman brings to this. I will take both his points on board. In fact, on his second point, he may have seen that I have already announced that we are going to stop retesting those with a condition that already means that they cannot work and that will only stay the same or get worse. That seems to me a piece of pointless and fundamentally heartless bureaucracy that we can happily get rid of.
Heidi Allen (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)
I encourage the Secretary of State to apply his very human and welcome fresh pair of eyes to the whole system. Damage will be done to his very good intentions if he proceeds with the cuts to universal credit work allowances and the ESA WRAG. I urge him to personally understand the risks in proceeding with both of those cuts.
Damian Green
As my hon. Friend knows, we have had private discussions on this point, and I have heard her discuss it on a number of public platforms as well. I can only repeat what I said to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith): although we are not looking for new cuts in the welfare budget or welfare benefits, we have no plans to reverse anything that has already been legislated for.
Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)
I welcome the Green Paper in the broadest sense if we can have a dialogue about improving the lives of disabled people, but the point has just been made that we need to ensure that the funding is on the table to protect people going back into work and those who need support. Perhaps two words are missing from the document and the Minister’s statement: “compassion” and “dignity”. Let us hope we get them in the Government’s response.
Damian Green
I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman and am grateful for his general support. I absolutely agree that the system should show compassion at all times, and that those who deal with the system should feel that they are being dealt with with dignity, and that it is being preserved. We are at one on that.
Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)
I very much welcome today’s announcement. The chief executive of Scope, Mark Atkinson, rightly highlights that the assessment should be the first step for support. Therefore, will the Secretary of State set out how stakeholders and charities can not only shape future policy but help to deliver the expert tailored employment support so needed?
Damian Green
I am grateful for the support from my hon. Friend, who did excellent work when he was the Minister for Disabled People. I am happy to reassure him that there will be localised services, with facilitated pacts done at a local level so that in each individual jobcentre and area the appropriate type of support will be available after an assessment has been made.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
I welcome the assurances given by the Secretary of State on statutory sick pay, but does he realise that millions of people in this country are in work but do not qualify for it because they are classed as self-employed? As part of this process, will he agree to consider implementing the relevant recommendations of the Deane review of self-employment?
Damian Green
The hon. Gentleman is right that there are increasing numbers of self-employed people, and we want to ensure that they are treated as fairly as everyone else. Indeed, one of the successes of recent years is the new enterprise allowance, which has allowed nearly 20,000 disabled people to start up businesses. That is about one in five of business start-ups, so it is a significant part of the system, and it means that we are very alive to the needs of self-employed people.
Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement and the announcement of the Green Paper, but will he reassure me that he will also look at making further improvements to the work capability assessment to make it as smooth as possible for claimants, because that will make a big difference?
Damian Green
We have had five different reviews of the work capability assessment in the past six years, and the ideas I am bringing forward today are the latest response. There is no system so good that it cannot be improved, and I would welcome my hon. Friend’s input to make the system even better in future.
Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)
The Government’s target of halving the disability employment gap is very welcome. The Green Paper offers £115 million in funding for a new model of employment support. Will the Secretary of State confirm that that figure represents less than 5% of the total cut that disabled people have experienced in disability living allowance and employment and support allowance?
Damian Green
The hon. Gentleman is slightly confusing apples and pears. This is a support programme to get people with a disability back into work. The best route out of poverty for people with a disability, as it is generally, is to have a job. As a society, we have been much less good at allowing and encouraging people with a disability back into work than we have for the general population. The Green Paper is intended to address that problem.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
My constituents in Kettering want to know whether the Secretary of State thinks that the film “I, Daniel Blake” is an accurate portrayal of the benefits system. If it is, do the changes he has announced in the Green Paper address the problems raised? If it is not, what are the inaccuracies?
Damian Green
I have not seen the film yet but have seen quite a lot of trailers. [Interruption.] I would point out to my hon. Friend and the hon. Lady on the Opposition Bench who is chuntering from a sedentary position that it is a work of fiction and not a documentary. It bears no relation to the modern benefits system. As I understand it, it is monstrously unfair to jobcentre staff, who are hugely conscientious people doing a job, sometimes in difficult conditions, and doing it very well indeed.
Ian C. Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)
If the Secretary of State believes that the disability appeals system is improving, will he explain why he is investing a further £22 million in recruiting more staff to assist the Department for Work and Pensions in defeating more personal independence payment and work capability assessment claims?
Damian Green
Because I always seek to improve systems. Even though the appeals system does appear to be producing better results, no system is so good that it cannot be improved, as I said a moment ago.
Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)
I welcome the Green Paper’s direction of travel. Will its additional, personalised and tailored support for disabled people reach them by April, when they will lose the WRAG payments—which was a condition of support for the ESA cuts for many of my hon. Friends?
Damian Green
I know that my hon. Friend has a deep interest in this area, and, when he reads the Green Paper in full, he will find that there are many measures we can take immediately so that help will flow through in the coming months to many people who have a disability but also have the burning desire to get back into work.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
The manifesto of the Secretary of State’s party set out an aim of halving the disability employment gap, but the Government now appear to have watered down that commitment to merely making progress. In his response to my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms), the Secretary of State rejected targets, but without setting out milestones and monitoring progress towards them, how will he judge the success of his Government’s actions?
Damian Green
I did not water down the commitment. The original commitment in the manifesto did not have an end date, so I am merely repeating the manifesto commitment. We will publicise all the relevant information so that the House and the public will know the progress we are making. There has been progress in the past few years. The percentage of disabled people employed has gone up in recent years, but I intend to improve on that progress in future.
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
I very much welcome what the Secretary of State has had to say this afternoon, especially in relation to greater support for those with mental health conditions. What steps does he plan to take to make sure that we engage properly with people affected by such conditions and the organisations that represent them to ensure that we get this right?
Damian Green
As I have said, we are doing large-scale, localised consultations, and that is the way to do it. There is a huge network of 750 jobcentres around the country, so the DWP has the power to get into local areas and know what local conditions are. That is by far the most powerful tool we have to make sure that the services we offer can be appropriately sensitive in every local area.
Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)
Despite some changes, the work capability assessment system is fundamentally flawed. Surely reform must ensure that, as well as the system judging whether people are fit for a job, the jobs are available for them. Will the Secretary of State look at whether a new assessment can include the jobs available in a local area as well as the claimant’s condition?
Damian Green
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will recognise that more jobs are available and being taken in our economy than ever before. General levels of unemployment are very low—4.9% is a rate that would have been unimaginable in previous eras, so we should be proud of that. The key is to make sure that those jobs—I agree with him on this point—can be matched to those who may have a disability or long-term health condition so that they can take advantage of the vibrant jobs market we currently have.
Nissan: Sunderland
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Greg Clark)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I wish to make a statement about Nissan in Sunderland. Last Thursday, 27 October, the Nissan Motor Company Ltd announced that, following a meeting of its executive committee, both the next Qashqai and X-Trail models will be produced at its Sunderland plant. The plant will be expanded through new investment to be a super-plant, manufacturing more than 600,000 cars a year. Some 80% of the plant’s output is exported to more than 130 international markets.
The decision is a massive win for the 7,000 direct employees and 35,000 total British employees in the plant and the supply chain. It is a stunning tribute to the local workforce, which has made the Sunderland plant, in the words of the chief executive of Nissan, “a globally competitive powerhouse”. We are immensely proud of it and proud of them. Of course, the decision is great news for the people of the north-east more widely, for our world-class automotive sector and for the whole British economy. This is but the latest in a series of exciting investments in the United Kingdom, which is proving to the world that we are open for business. Indeed, it is hard to think of more unambiguously good news.
My colleagues in the Government and I have been vigorous in ensuring that the Nissan board had no doubts about the importance of this plant and this industry to the British people. Through the many conversations I and my colleagues had both here and in Japan, it became clear that four reassurances were important to securing the investment for Britain. Three were about the automotive sector generally and one was about Brexit.
The first was that we would continue our successful and long-standing programme of support for the competitiveness of the automotive sector, including Nissan. This support is available to firms for skills and training the local workforce, research and development, and innovation, in line with EU and UK Government rules. Since 2010, the Government have invested £400 million in the UK automotive sector in this way. We will continue to invest hundreds of millions more over the coming years. All proposals from any company must be underpinned by strong business cases and tested against published eligibility criteria. All proposals are also subject to rigorous external scrutiny by the independent Industrial Development Advisory Board and are reported on to Parliament.
The second was that we would continue our work with the automotive sector, including Nissan at Sunderland, to ensure that more of the supply chain can locate in the UK and in close proximity to major manufacturing sites. In a previous post, I established the local growth deals and city deals, which, working with local enterprise partnerships, have provided a way in which local councils, businesses and the Government can upgrade sites, especially those brought into use from dereliction, and provide the infrastructure for the small and medium-sized businesses that can supply these major companies. I can confirm that this programme will continue, and with vigour.
The third that was we would maintain a strong commitment to research and development, in particular the take-up of ultra-low emission vehicles. The opportunities presented by bringing the Department of Energy and Climate Change together with the Business Department make us ideally placed to build on Britain’s strengths in low-carbon energy, the automotive sector, science, research and many other areas.
The fourth was that in our negotiations to leave the EU, we will emphasise the very strong common ground, especially in the automotive sector, that exists between ourselves and other EU member states in ensuring that trade between us can be free and unencumbered by impediments. A good deal for the UK can also be a good deal for other member states, and that is how we will approach the negotiations. Whatever the outcome, we are determined to ensure that the UK continues to be one of the most competitive locations in the world for automotive and other advanced manufacturing.
Last Thursday was a great day for Sunderland and for Britain, but the best is yet to come. Over 30 years, Nissan has invested more than £3.7 billion in our country and has created excellent jobs for a whole generation of world-beating British workers. Last week’s announcement means that a new generation of apprentices, technicians, engineers, managers and many other working men and women can look forward to careers filled with opportunity and success. This Government will always back them to the hilt. I commend this statement and Nissan’s welcome decision to this House.
Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for his statement and for responding to our repeated requests for clarification on the events of the past few days. I join him in warmly welcoming Nissan’s decision to keep production in the UK. It is fantastic news for Nissan’s 7,000 employees and the 38,000-plus employees who rely on its supply chain. It is fantastic news for Sunderland, and it is fantastic news for the whole country. It is a testament to the skill, productivity and ability of the workforce and management that Nissan has such confidence in its Sunderland operation.
Without detracting from that, we still have some concerns. The right hon. Gentleman has denied giving Nissan special treatment, but he has refused to be transparent about what he has offered to it. As our most productive car factory, Nissan’s Sunderland plant epitomises the strengths of the UK’s automotive industry. He knows that we simply could not afford to lose it. That is why, despite the assurances that he has given now and in his tantalising television appearances over the weekend, the nagging question remains: are we really to believe that Nissan is risking millions of pounds of investment and the success of its newest models on the basis of the Government’s good intentions alone? If that is the case, why have they kept their good intentions to themselves?
The overwhelming impression until now has been that the Government have no strategy for Brexit. Are we expected to believe that the Government now have not only a strategy, but a strategy so convincing that they have persuaded Nissan to stay without the need for any special guarantees? If so, why will they not tell us what it is? We are told in the media—the media is where most of last week’s revelations transpired—that the Government gave a commitment to Nissan that Britain would be as attractive after Brexit as it is today.
It would seem that the Secretary of State has discovered the Brexit equivalent of the Philosopher’s stone: tariff-free market access with no concessions, readily agreed by all 27 EU countries, including Wallonia. Surely, that is a feat worth sharing. So can he tell us whether he is committing to full single market access or to a customs union or to something else entirely—or do the Government simply not know? We all want all car manufacturers to keep their production in the UK—[Interruption.] Yes, we do. So why are they not privy to the same assurances as Nissan, and what about the many other businesses up and down the country—businesses that, like Nissan, are currently deciding whether to continue investing in the UK? Surely, they, too, should be told.
I have acknowledged that the automotive sector is hugely important to our economy, but it is not our only strategically important industry. Where were the Government during the crisis in the steel industry? They were blocking the EU from taking action against Chinese steel dumping—that is where they were. What are the Government doing for the aerospace industry, or for pharmaceuticals, and what about the service sector, which accounts for more than three quarters of our economy?
It seems that the Government are giving private reassurances to particular companies, while leaving the majority of businesses, the public and their elected representatives in the dark about their intentions. Piecemeal, back-room deals will not provide the active industrial strategy that Labour has long advocated and to which the Government now claim to be signed up. We Labour Members want the economy firing on all cylinders, not spluttering along on one or two.
As we embark on Brexit, Britain needs a Government who are visionary, not reactive, and strategic, not shambolic. As a start, we need a Government who are transparent and accountable, instead of secretive. Why not start now? If the right hon. Gentleman did not offer Nissan a sweetener, what has he got to hide? Show us the letter. If the assurances he gave to Nissan apply to all the automotive sector, surely all that sector should be given them? Show us the letter. If, contrary to appearances, the Government do have a strategy for Brexit, why will they not tell us what it is? Show us the letter!
Greg Clark
I welcome the hon. Gentleman to the Dispatch Box, but if that is the kind of spluttering old banger of an approach to these issues, I think he should upgrade to a new model. I would recommend a Qashqai; they are very good cars. I find it surprising that, in response to an announcement that has thrilled Sunderland and the north-east and provided a big boost to the economy, the Labour party’s demeanour is so miserable. Is it beyond the hon. Gentleman to put party politics aside and just celebrate and congratulate everyone involved on a success that is in all our interests?
I seriously ask the hon. Gentleman to weigh this issue up carefully. When I met Nissan, one thing it commented on was the continuity over 30 years of a very successful participation in the UK economy, with cross-party support and consensus over the Sunderland plant—reflected in what both Conservative and Labour Governments have done. It would be to take a wrong turn if the Labour party lurched away from the bipartisanship that has been so successful there.
As for the conversations that we had, one of the things that I have learnt over the years is the importance of getting to know, over time, the companies that are in this country and those that invest in it, and understanding what their investment decisions will be based on. We have taken the opportunity to do that, and the four reassurances that I was able to give Nissan and that have resulted in this investment reflected what Nissan had said to me.
I said that I would aim for the best possible ability to trade with other European Union countries. I said that I would pursue the negotiations in a positive and constructive spirit, mindful of the substantial common ground that exists between us. I said that whatever happened, we were determined to keep Britain’s world-beating motor industry competitive. Do Labour Members share those intentions? If they do, why on earth do they think that I would play games with the livelihoods of 35,000 working people in this country, the pride of the world in their industry, by not stating them clearly and transparently to Nissan? I welcome the decision that Nissan has made.
The hon. Gentleman asked me whether I would publish the correspondence. I have set out the information that I gave to Nissan. My responsibility, on behalf of the Government, is to encourage and attract investment in this country. When companies of all types and in all sectors share with me investment plans that would be of interest to their prospective competitors, it is important for them to be assured that those plans will not be disclosed to their competitors to their disadvantage. My objective is to obtain the investment, but I shall be happy to answer questions about every aspect of it, today and when I appear before the Select Committee—which I intend to do, at the Committee’s invitation.
The hon. Gentleman is a relatively new Member, and I hope that he will have a distinguished tenure here, but Members in all parts of the House—from Newcastle to Newquay, from Liverpool to Lowestoft—will know that whenever I work to attract success to our regions, towns, cities and counties, I do so on a cross-party basis. Party politics never feature in the way I work. I hope that, in future, we shall be able to work together on such common interests.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. There is much interest in this subject, and I want to accommodate it. Single, short supplementary questions—preferably a single sentence without preamble—and the Secretary of State’s customarily pithy replies are required.
Nicky Morgan (Loughborough) (Con)
The Secretary of State is to be congratulated on his announcement, which is clearly very good news for Sunderland, but I think that he will understand Parliament’s desire to understand the terms on which these and other negotiations are conducted. May I ask whether he has discussed this matter with the International Trade Secretary, and whether he will be in the driving seat of future trade negotiations? We all think that he is rather good at it.
Greg Clark
I am grateful for my right hon. Friend’s compliments. As she knows, we have a Cabinet Committee on Brexit, on which I serve alongside my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Trade.
Callum McCaig (Aberdeen South) (SNP)
I, too, thank the Secretary of State for his statement, although I think he may have said a little bit more to the BBC yesterday than he has to the House today. I hope that he is not joining the ever-growing list of Secretaries of State who have been slapped down by the Prime Minister for expressing their personal opinions.
I think it important that action has been taken to protect parts of the economy from the potential negative impacts of Brexit. It may constitute more than just a quarter of the issues that were on Nissan’s agenda, but that is for the Secretary of State to answer. He said to the BBC yesterday that
“our objective would be to…have continued access…without tariffs and without bureaucratic impediments”.
That has not been said today, but I think that it is correct. If that objective is not realised, however, what will be the cost to the taxpayer of a deal with Nissan? How much will it cost to make good those tariffs should they be imposed? That is the key question.
SNP Members will welcome the fact that an area of the country that voted overwhelmingly to leave the European Union has been given a special deal, and we look forward with gusto to the deal that will be given to Scotland in recognition of the fact that we voted overwhelmingly to remain in the EU. The Government are giving a flexible Brexit to the City of London and the north-east of England; I hope the Secretary of State will bring forward a flexible Brexit to protect Scotland’s economy and the 80,000 jobs that rely on our access to the single market.
The Secretary of State must recognise that the game here is a bit of a bogey: “Brexit means Brexit” will not cut it while he is going behind closed doors cutting deals with others without making this House or the public aware of what they are. While Nissan received a letter of comfort, the devolved Administrations got a hotline—a hotline that is so hot to handle that it does not get answered for 36 hours.
Greg Clark
The hon. Gentleman started well, Mr Speaker, although I certainly have not been slapped down, up, sideways or any other way by the Prime Minister, I am pleased to say.
The approach I have set out to the House and stated previously simply reflects what I would have thought is common sense: in an area—we have been talking about the automotive sector—in which there are substantial exports that come from Britain to the EU and from the EU to this country and components go backwards and forwards, there is a clear common interest in having arrangements that are free of tariffs and the bureaucratic impediments I mentioned. So it seems to me that when we embark on any negotiation, it is about finding the common ground and having a positive volition so to do. That is what I set out and that is what I described to Nissan, and indeed would do to any other manufacturer. It is on that basis, along with the other points I have made, that Nissan felt able to make this fantastic investment not only in the north-east, but in the United Kingdom.
Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
The Prime Minister surely has not slapped down my right hon. Friend, but has slapped him on the back as a gesture of congratulations on a remarkable deal. I ask my right hon. Friend to come clean on one other issue he left off his list, which I am sure he mentioned to Nissan, however. He will have reminded Nissan that the UK outside the EU will be able to set its own new trade deals—and guess which car manufacturers will benefit from free trade deals with the rest of world.
Greg Clark
I am grateful for my right hon. Friend’s endorsement. As the Prime Minister said, we are going to make a success of Brexit, and we want every sector of our economy, including the automotive sector, not to be disadvantaged by Brexit, but to reap the benefits and be more competitive in the future.
Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)
I commend the Government and the Secretary of State on this piece of great news; it is a welcome example of targeted Government commitment to a successful company in a strategically vital sector in the most important region on earth. However, will the same sort of targeted investment be available to other firms and sectors? If so, how will these be selected in the context of a proper industrial strategy, and will such companies and sectors be given similar reassurance and support to that provided to Nissan?
Greg Clark
I am grateful for the generous compliment the Chairman of the Select Committee pays me. I am certainly not going to disagree with him on what he said about the north-east, but I should say that Kent ranks equally. I am looking forward to coming before his Select Committee, not only to answer questions but to talk about the industrial strategy. The approach I not just intend to take but am already taking is to take time to meet the firms in our economy and understand the different needs of different sectors, so that we can be informed by them as we form our negotiating mandate. Those needs will obviously be different from sector to sector, and my commitment, which we will share when we meet in his Committee, is through our industrial strategy to make sure that we have confidence both for individual sectors and for individual places, because there is a very interesting confluence there. Investment in Nissan is good for the sector and good for Sunderland and the north-east.
Michael Gove (Surrey Heath) (Con)
I should declare an interest as a driver—albeit not a very good one—of a Nissan Qashqai. For years, we have had calls from across the House for an activist, interventionist Business Secretary who is prepared to do everything possible in order to secure jobs for working-class people in disadvantaged parts of the country. Now we have one, can my right hon. Friend explain why Opposition Members will not take yes for an answer? Was Oscar Wilde not right that there is only one thing worse than not getting one’s heart’s desire and that is getting it?
Mr Speaker
Order. The Secretary of State has no responsibility either for Opposition policy or for Oscar Wilde—although we always enjoy the poetic licence of the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove).
Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)
I welcome the announcement, but I want to ask the Secretary of State about the duties and rights of this House. Last Monday, the Prime Minister told the House that
“the Government must not show their hand in detail” —[Official Report, 24 October 2016; Vol. 616, c. 27.]
to Parliament in advance of the Brexit negotiations. At the very same time, however, we now know that the Secretary of State was telling Nissan the Government’s detailed negotiating stance for the automotive sector, including that there would be tariff-free trade and no bureaucratic impediments. Will the Secretary of State explain how those two positions are consistent?
Greg Clark
The right hon. Gentleman, for whom I have a high personal regard, exemplifies what my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) was saying: he looks so glum at this news. What I set out to the House, to Nissan and to any firm that is in this country is what my colleagues have said repeatedly: there is a great common interest among other European Union nations and ourselves in having a deal following the negotiations that maximises the benefit to both sides. That seems so obvious that it is hardly worthy emphasising. That is the demeanour with which we will approach the negotiations. It is the approach that I have always taken in negotiations, and it seems as though that is something that people are glad to hear.
Mr Andrew Tyrie (Chichester) (Con)
I congratulate the Secretary of State on providing a great deal for the north-east. His clarification that the Government wanted continued access to the single market without bureaucratic impediments is a significant extension and exposure of the Government’s negotiating position. Does the Secretary of State agree that the rules of origin that the UK would face outside the customs union would certainly constitute bureaucratic impediments?
Greg Clark
This goes beyond any discussions that I have had with any company here. Why would we not aim to avoid bureaucratic impediments as a matter of negotiation? That seems to be common sense and that is what I set out.
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
We all welcome the Nissan announcement, but Nissan is only one company that is making decisions now about its future investment in the United Kingdom. Given the persuasive reassurance that the right hon. Gentleman was able to offer the company, can he tell the House whether his offer of tariff-free access to the European market will be available to all other parts of our manufacturing sector? If I heard him right, he indicated a moment ago that the Government might take a different approach for different sectors. If that means that some might not benefit from tariff-free access, they would like to know pretty quickly.
Greg Clark
The right hon. Gentleman is wise enough to know that it is not in my gift to offer tariff-free access to the single market. I was describing what would be a positive outcome from the negotiations, which therefore relates to the demeanour that we should take in those negotiations. My right hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan) paid me a personal compliment, but my team shares my vigour in talking to companies up and down the land to ensure that we understand what is important to them and to inform our negotiations. That seems an eminently sensible thing to do.
Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)
I warmly congratulate my right hon. Friend and the Prime Minister on securing this fantastic new deal with Nissan, which will benefit not only the good people of the north-east. Thanks to the supply chain, the benefits will extend throughout the whole country, helping many tens of thousands of people and their families.
I met a constituent on Saturday who runs a small IT business employing 14 people and he, too, wants certainty on tariffs. He told me that if tariffs are imposed on his business, he will have to get rid of it, meaning that 14 people will lose their jobs. Big companies, small companies and huge companies from all sectors need certainty. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is right that this House has a debate and a vote on the underlying principles of our negotiations as we leave the EU in order to give the Government a true mandate?
Greg Clark
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for what she said. When she was a Minister in my Department —or its predecessor—she was vigorous in engaging with businesses and understanding what they need. I regularly meet small businesses and their representative organisations, having done so many times since my appointment. She rightly says that it is important that their views help shape our negotiating mandate. On the debates in this House, the Prime Minister and my Cabinet colleagues have said repeatedly that there will be many occasions to debate and have these things scrutinised in this House.
Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)
I warmly welcome the Minister’s statement and the kind words about my home city of Sunderland from somebody from Middlesbrough. There was palpable relief in Sunderland on Thursday at the announcement, but concerns remain about the supply chain, because if there is an automotive sectoral deal, these firms will not necessarily be included, as they supply other types of industry. There are also concerns about the wider manufacturing base in the north-east as we move forward with the Brexit negotiations.
Greg Clark
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for what she says. Middlesbrough has been doing a bit better in football terms than Sunderland this season, so it deserves a break when it comes to Nissan. The supply chain is incredibly important, and across the automotive sector, whether in the north-east or the west midlands or other parts of the country, there are businesses that are currently overseas that could locate close to the main plants. If sites can be remediated where, for example, they require better road access, it is in everyone’s interest if we work on that together. That was part of the discussions, and will particularly benefit the supply chain.
Jeremy Quin (Horsham) (Con)
I warmly congratulate the Secretary of State on the announcement. Will he assure the House that he will not jeopardise future fantastic announcements by revealing too much confidential information from discussions between him and the other parties?
Greg Clark
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. I am happy to answer any questions that the House has, and I am looking forward to appearing before the Select Committee. I have been pretty candid, describing each of the four aspects of the reassurances that I was able to give, but if companies that are considering an investment here describe commercial plans that they may not want to fall into the hands of their competitors, it is reasonable that they should have that confidence when dealing with the UK Government.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
As a fellow north-easterner, I am sure the Secretary of State will know that Thursday’s news buoyed not only Sunderland, but the wider north-east. Even I got a little teary-eyed at the plant on Thursday evening, knowing that the announcement had secured the livelihoods and future aspirations of so many families, who were all that night breathing a sigh of relief. The details of the letter are important, but may I, as the local MP for the plant, and on behalf of the workforce of almost 46,000 people across the UK, whose jobs are now more secure, just say thank you?
Greg Clark
I am touched by the hon. Lady’s statement; it is very kind and very good of her. When we were having these discussions, I always had in mind the fact that this is not a theoretical investment, and that we are talking about real people who work hard and do brilliant work. They are the best regarded in the world in the international system; they are the most productive in the world and go to Japan to help train some of the auto workers there. I am proud of that, as is she; the whole House should be proud of the workforce there.
Nick Herbert (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend. How can his reassurance to Nissan that there will be continued access to the European market without bureaucratic impediment be assured if Britain is outside the customs union?
Greg Clark
As I have said to other hon. Members, what I was able to say is how we would go into a negotiation, which seems to me to be to find common ground. We certainly did not get into any discussions of particular models, as my right hon. Friend would expect. One can overcomplicate these things; to be clear about one’s intention to find common ground and to pursue discussions in a rational and civilised way is not a bad thing to be able to convey.
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
I wholeheartedly welcome Nissan’s decision, which will protect thousands of jobs and many of the people whom I represent. May I press the Secretary of State again on the issue of the supply chain? He has talked about the supply chain of the future, but what more can he say by way of reassurance both to the existing supply chain and to the wider manufacturing sector in the region that he will do everything in his power to protect their interests and the medium-sized businesses that serve it?
Greg Clark
I certainly will do everything in my power. I look forward when I next visit Sunderland to meeting the existing supply chain. The hon. Lady will know that we have already done quite a lot in that regard. I helped to negotiate the Sunderland city deal and to establish the advanced manufacturing park near the Nissan site, precisely to provide better facilities. She will know about the new bridge for which we secured funding to assist with that. I know very well the importance of not just the major sites, vital though they are, but of the whole ecology of business around them. That is one reason why this investment is so important. Important though Nissan is, the investment gives another big boost to the existing supply chain and to those competitors that will join it in the future.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
This great news continues the work of this Government to rebalance our economy. It also provides an incentive to continue to improve skills and to encourage innovation. Does the Secretary of State agree that our catapult centres, including the Manufacturing Technology Centre in my constituency, have a big part to play in that role?
Greg Clark
I do indeed. One of the enticing things that we can offer companies looking to locate here is the excellence of our research and our science, whether it is in universities or, increasingly, in institutions such as catapults that help translate those skills into the wider market. Through our industrial strategy, we want to increase the focus on this very important area of strength, so that other firms can invest and see Britain as the go-to place for advanced manufacturing and for other sectors, too.
Phil Wilson (Sedgefield) (Lab)
The news about Nissan in the north-east is brilliant, but there are other strategic industries in the north-east of England. I include Hitachi Rail Europe in my constituency, which opened a £90 million factory last year, employing almost 1,000 people and hundreds more in the supply chain. Hitachi Rail Europe is here for the long term to have access to the European market. At the moment, it is building the Intercity Express Programme. Building the machines will take about three years, so it is here for the long term. In the spirit of this cross-party approach that the Secretary of State say he wants to take, will he meet me to see what we can do to ensure that the Japanese company will continue to invest in the north-east?
Greg Clark
I will indeed. In fact, I am meeting Hitachi tomorrow, and have the privilege of presenting an award at Asia House in commemoration of the very long and positive association that we have had with it. On one of my previous visits to Japan in this role, I had the great pleasure of meeting many of the Hitachi directors and seeing their innovation and their continued commitment to this country—very important.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
The desperate search for a commercial bung in this announcement by some Members of the Opposition is, frankly, insulting to Britain, Japan, Nissan and Sunderland. Does my right hon. Friend agree that, rather than talking the country down, we should be celebrating the recent inward investment successes, not least from the far east, which demonstrate that the Government are living up to their commitment to making a success of Brexit?
Greg Clark
As I said earlier, it is unambiguously good news, and I hope that the whole House will welcome it.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
Many people in my North Durham constituency work at Nissan, so I warmly welcome the news and thank the Minister for his involvement. If he has done a special deal for Nissan, good. I just look forward to many more for the north-east companies that rely on exports.
Greg Clark
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his words. I do believe in being active and vigorous and in meeting companies and understanding the challenges that they face; I make no apology for that. My whole ministerial team will be active in securing investments for this country.
James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)
This fantastic news makes us proud of British industry. Does my right hon. Friend agree that many factors make this country attractive to companies such as Nissan? A key one is our competitive rate of corporation tax. Will he ensure that in the coming autumn statement, our rate not only stays competitive, but perhaps gets even more competitive?
Greg Clark
My hon. Friend needs to direct that request to the Chancellor—I will pass it on when I see my right hon. Friend in Cabinet tomorrow—but he is right to remind the House that there is a range of attributes and strengths that makes this country attractive to overseas and domestic investors. It is important that, across the whole range, we get them right.
Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
I warmly welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. The news is extremely important to the north-east economy, including companies such as Nifco and Teesport in the Teesside area. Nissan is a massive buyer of strip steel in the United Kingdom. Earlier this year after the steel crisis, Nissan was hunting around for new suppliers, usually in the European Union, for that chain. We have had a disastrous experience in the north-east prior to this announcement, which stands in contrast to the SSI Redcar situation that has happened on this Government’s watch. Although it has taken six years for the Government to understand what new Labour-style industrial activism is, I very much welcome that and the statement today.
Greg Clark
I am grateful for the backhanded compliment. I am not sure that I would agree that this is new Labour-style industrial activism. The hon. Gentleman will know that it was a Conservative Government 30 years ago who secured Nissan for the UK, and I am proud that it is a Conservative Government who have secured its future in Britain.
Amanda Milling (Cannock Chase) (Con)
I, too, congratulate my right hon. Friend on the announcement. Does he agree that the commitment from Nissan is good news not only for the north-east and Nissan’s direct employees, but for the supply chain companies and their employees across the country, such as those who work at Gestamp Tallent, which has a manufacturing plant in Cannock?
Greg Clark
I certainly do, and my hon. Friend is right to point out the wave of benefits across the economy, one example of which was given by the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop). The consequences of such positive news extend to other important sectors. That is why it is important that we should be active and vigorous in attracting these investments.
Dame Rosie Winterton (Doncaster Central) (Lab)
This is an extremely welcome announcement, but there is a worry that it could be an isolated deal, rather than a clear strategy for the regions. When the situation is contrasted with the redundancies announced by DB Cargo UK in Doncaster, with Brexit being cited as one of the reasons, does it not point to why it is so important for the Government to conduct regional impact assessments of Brexit, and to publish them to demonstrate that there is a clearly though out strategy that will reflect the needs of regions, as well as sectors?
Greg Clark
It is nice to hear the right hon. Lady being able to speak from the Back Benches; she does so compellingly. As colleagues who know my interests in these matters would expect me to say, I believe that our regions, towns, cities and counties have an important role to play in our industrial strategy. I do not know whether she has been elected to the new Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, but I am sure she will be able to attend its sittings, because I hope that we will be discussing precisely this during the next few weeks.
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
It is Offshore Wind Week, so will the Secretary of State join me in welcoming this fantastic news for Nissan and confirm that it will play a key role in a low-carbon future for British industry?
Greg Clark
I am delighted that my hon. Friend has mentioned that. One of the great opportunities in industrial strategy is to combine our world leadership in offshore wind renewable energy with our commanding position in the automotive sector, and to bring them together so that when it comes to electrical vehicles and battery storage, we can lead the world, which is what we intend to do.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
The Secretary of State deserves credit for a significant and substantial achievement, but special deals for the car industry or the financial services sector offer little comfort to the thousands of small businesses the length and breadth of this country—which, incidentally, goes north of Newcastle—that depend on exports for their livelihood. What will the Secretary of State do to ensure that these small businesses, which are the lifeblood of so many of our communities, get the same access to him and his Department as has clearly been given to the big boys in the multinationals?
Greg Clark
I am delighted that the right hon. Gentleman asks that question because one of my first visits as Secretary of State was to Aberdeen, where I had a very successful and important meeting with its chamber of commerce. Small businesses in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire were talking about what they wanted to achieve from the Brexit negotiations. I think that I am the first Secretary of State in the Department to have appointed Ministers with regional and national responsibilities in relation to the devolved Administrations, which reflects the importance of building small businesses and every part of the United Kingdom into the industrial strategy.
Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)
I welcome this positive and proactive approach. Has the Secretary of State had a chance to meet Honda to discuss future opportunities?
Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)
I am glad that Nissan is continuing to invest in the north-east. Can the Minister give me in Liverpool some comfort—I would accept a letter—that I can pass on to Jaguar Land Rover, Getrag and the other automotive supply chain industries in my constituency to assure them that they will be treated in exactly the same way?
Greg Clark
I have been clear about maintaining the competitiveness of the automotive sector. The hon. Lady mentions some companies, and I am meeting Jaguar Land Rover again shortly—I meet it regularly. It is part of the development of our industrial strategy, and it is important that it should be. These are the companies, with their supply chain, that are succeeding and have contributed to our national success. We will work with them to build on that success and achieve even greater success in future.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on what is undoubtedly a huge personal achievement, and the people of the north-east on creating in the Sunderland plant a globally competitive powerhouse. Is not this deal a signal to those remainers who have become remoaners that they should recalibrate their doom and gloom and become far more optimistic about the future of this country outside the European Union?
Greg Clark
This is a day for celebration rather than debating such issues. We should all celebrate this big success, which shows that Britain is and can be competitive, and that some of the world’s biggest companies are backing us very vigorously.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
The Secretary of State obviously said the right thing to Nissan. He knows that there are many manufacturing industries with international supply chains, such as Glaxo in my constituency, so when he is sitting in the Brexit Cabinet Sub-Committee, will he impress on his colleagues the value of staying in the customs union?
Greg Clark
The approach that I have set out across our economy is to meet those businesses that are part of my responsibility and to have sensible discussions so that I understand from them what they need. That informs our negotiating mandate. That is my commitment to all the businesses—large and small—that I meet.
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
This announcement clearly shows the world that Britain is open for business. I hope that our supply chains will get a boost from this too, particularly UK steel. Will my right hon. Friend say a little about the wider involvement of the UK automobile sector in the forthcoming industrial strategy and how the announcement fits into that?
Greg Clark
I certainly will. With any industrial strategy, we should build on our strengths and not be complacent, but recognise that in order to continue to be strong, we need to look at the underlying conditions for promoting that. The presence of a vigorous supply chain is important for the automotive sector. It is important to be at the cutting edge of research and development, and to have skills in the workforce on which expanding companies can count in order to fulfil their order books. Those are all important enabling conditions, and the Government have a role to play by working with companies to make sure that they are all met.
Ms Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP)
Can the Secretary of State confirm whether the arrangement with Nissan is a one-off or part of a wider strategy to protect the economy from the impact of Brexit? If it is part of a wider strategy, what other businesses and organisations has he spoken to over the past few months on similar terms?
Greg Clark
It is certainly part of a strategy: it is part of our industrial strategy to make sure that Britain is competitive in the future, as it is now and it has been in the past. We are taking a strategic approach. As the hon. Lady might imagine, I meet businesses large and small almost every day of the week, and in all the conversations I have, we discuss what is important, what challenges they face and what their strategic ambition is, so that I can be informed about that.
Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)
I welcome the Nissan decision and congratulate the Secretary of State on his role in securing it. I especially welcome his comments about research and development, and innovation. Given that the developing industry-university collaboration is crucial to that, as is the role of foreign students and researchers, what assurances did he give the industry that the Government will reverse the drop we have seen in the numbers applying?
Greg Clark
The hon. Gentleman seems to think that my discussions went broader than they did, but with everything I have said about research and development, our universities are key to that. As a former universities Minister, and now once again with responsibility for science, I will do everything I can to promote our research excellence and make sure it continues.
Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)
Universities in Scotland have warned of an exodus of talent if we do not have a long-term plan for EU nationals. What confirmation can the Secretary of State give that EU nationals will have a long-term future in this country?
Greg Clark
As the hon. Gentleman knows, there will be lots of opportunities to discuss other aspects of the negotiations we will have—I think there is even a debate next week on these matters.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
I also welcome the announcement by Nissan and acknowledge the work of the Government, Unite the union, and others who were involved in this decision. One of the reassurances the Secretary of State mentioned related to support for the skills and training of the local workforce and for research. Does he expect any cuts in research and development and skills support from the EU to UK regions and businesses? What reassurances has he given that could also be applied to other sectors and regions to assure them that they will not lose out?
Greg Clark
As the hon. Lady knows, the Chancellor has already made a commitment to continue that European funding that has already been committed to but, of course, much of the support that we have given to training and skills development in the automotive sector is from our own resources, and one of the things that I was able to say was that we regard that as important and continuing.
Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)
We know that there are attempts to do a deal for the City of London and we now know there is a deal for Nissan. At the same time, however, the Fraser of Allander Institute tells us there is a threat to 80,000 jobs in Scotland. Why is it that, when our First Minister comes down here, she is shown the door? There is a deal for Nissan, but there is no deal for Scotland from this Government.
Greg Clark
I have had the pleasure of meeting the First Minister at least twice since I took up this job. What I have said to her, personally and directly, is that, as we develop our industrial strategy, Scotland will have a big place in that. Of course it is important that all parts of the United Kingdom need to benefit from our industrial success in the future. The hon. Gentleman may know that, in terms of the city deals that have been negotiated between the UK Government, the Scottish Government and the various councils, we have, and I personally have—I think he would acknowledge this—a track record in making those discussions work.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
I certainly welcome the news, and I am sure that the thousands of people who work at the Vauxhall car plant in my constituency would be equally delighted if a similar announcement could be made in due course. When the Secretary of State addressed the Chamber, he referred to different strategies for different industries, but does he also accept that, within the UK automotive sector, there are different challenges from plant to plant, and that a more specific approach may be needed from time to time? Will he agree to engage in an intimate dialogue with General Motors, as he has with Nissan?
Greg Clark
I am not sure I would describe the dialogue as intimate, but it was constructive at any rate. Of course I make that commitment to the hon. Gentleman.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)
Around 200,000 jobs in Wales are reportedly sustained by single market membership. With the UK Government so far picking the automotive and the financial sectors as their Brexit winners, how many of the aforementioned 200,000 Welsh jobs does the Secretary of State think will ultimately be safe after Brexit?
Greg Clark
We are at a point where we have not begun the negotiations with the European Union, much less concluded them, but the demeanour I think we should take is one of looking positively to find common ground and interests. That, always and everywhere, is the basis of a good deal—identifying that common ground and, through civility and patience, establishing relationships that can lead people to conclude something that is in their mutual interest. That seems to be a good way to approach these discussions.
Stuart Blair Donaldson (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (SNP)
The Secretary of State said that employees of Nissan could look forward to careers filled with opportunity and success, yet millions of young people throughout the UK are looking at futures with significantly reduced opportunities as a result of Brexit. What reassurance can the Government give to young people about what they will do to protect those people’s futures?
Greg Clark
We have been discussing a fantastic new investment that not only will safeguard jobs in Nissan and across the country, through the supply chain, but will, no doubt—especially with more of the supply chain coming to locate in the United Kingdom—create new opportunities. Those opportunities will be for young people right across the country. There will be apprenticeships, traineeships and careers available that would not have happened if we had not secured this investment, so the hon. Gentleman should welcome it.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
Nissan’s decision is brilliant news not only for the north-east, but for the whole UK. May I suggest to the Secretary of State that the exchange rate is a major and crucial factor in Britain’s competitiveness, and that maintaining an appropriate exchange rate is fundamental to future manufacturing success and investment? Will the Government be taking steps to make sure that the welcome depreciation of sterling since 23 June is maintained?
Greg Clark
As the hon. Gentleman knows, we have not targeted an exchange rate for some time. That policy is, first, not my remit and, secondly, not the way we approach the economy. However, it is true that there are many contributors to the competitiveness of the economy. What I need to do, and what I will do, is to take those things over which I do have influence and make them work for Britain.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
The Nissan announcement is not, of course, the only announcement of a good investment decision in the UK since the referendum. From GlaxoSmithKline to McDonald’s, thousands of jobs have been created, despite the predictions of the doom-mongers on the referendum deniers’ side. The Minister has indicated that he will take a sector-by-sector approach. Does he also reckon that there needs to be a region-by-region approach, and what plans does he have to meet the Economy Minister in Northern Ireland to discuss the problems there?
Greg Clark
I have already met the Economy Minister in Northern Ireland and had a very constructive discussion with him. I had that discussion to invite him to help us as we develop our industrial strategy so that it includes an appreciation of the different needs of different places to which the hon. Gentleman refers.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
I welcome the news that so many jobs in Sunderland will be protected from the consequences of Brexit but, as an Edinburgh MP, it is Edinburgh jobs that I have to think about. Many thousands of my constituents are employed directly or indirectly in Edinburgh’s financial sector, and Edinburgh’s economy is more reliant on financial services than that of any other city in the UK, including London. These people are worried about the consequences of losing their EU passport. Will the Minister give me a guarantee that he will advocate a special deal for Edinburgh in Cabinet?
Greg Clark
Of course financial services are of huge importance to our economy—to the UK economy and to the economy in Edinburgh. We need to make sure that, in all areas, we get the best possible deal by finding areas of common ground and negotiating constructively, through relationships that we have built up with our counterparts in the European Union, during the months and years ahead. That is the approach that we will take, and it is the approach that is most likely to succeed.
Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
On Friday, I am due to visit the Ford engine plant in my constituency, along with my local Assembly Member, Carwyn Jones, the First Minister of Wales. Can we be assured that we will be talking to Ford on the same lines as have been very successfully negotiated in relation to Nissan, and that the 2,000 jobs at the Ford plant and in the wider economy will also be secure following today’s statement?
Greg Clark
I do not know what the hon. Lady is going to say to Ford, but I hope that she will reinforce the messages that I have given in saying that the Government want to maintain the competitiveness of the whole automotive sector. We want to build on the strengths that it has in every part of the United Kingdom, including in her constituency, so that it can prosper in the future. I hope that that will be welcomed.
Ian C. Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)
As a former Labour Minister with responsibility for the automotive sector, I welcomed the investment by Nissan for the manufacture of the electric Leaf vehicle in Sunderland, although I did not give a statement from the Dispatch Box at the time because that was probably less of a surprise. How will the Secretary of State secure attendance in the emissions regulation discussions that are so vital to the low-carbon future of the UK automotive sector?
Greg Clark
They are indeed vital, and I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman makes that point. One of the advantages of having responsibilities for energy and climate change within the business and industrial strategy set of responsibilities is that these conversations can be joined up. The Minister for Climate Change and Industry and I share an interest in making sure that we maintain our leadership in green technology to the great advantage of our industrial future.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
How many of these unique, one-off, special, individual deals will have to be negotiated before the Brexit process is complete, and how many will it take before the Government realise that the better option for everyone would be to live up to their manifesto promise and keep us in the single market?
Greg Clark
It was not clear from the hon. Gentleman’s remarks whether he welcomes this deal, which has been a good conclusion to our discussions with Nissan. I would say to hon. Members on both sides of the House that if we all approach the prospect of investment—either by domestic companies or overseas investors—positively, try to understand what companies need, and make sure that the economy provides the backdrop, whether in skills, infrastructure or research and development, to keep us competitive, we can all prosper together.
Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Bill [Lords]
Monday 31st October 2016
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Act 2017 View all Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: HL Bill 3-R-I Marshalled list for Report (PDF, 65KB) - (2 Sep 2016)
The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Karen Bradley)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
It is a pleasure to introduce this Bill to the House. We have waited a long time to be able to ratify the 1954 Hague convention and accede to its two protocols. The need for this Bill is paramount. In recent months, we have seen the wanton destruction of cultural heritage in the middle east and north Africa. These tragic events are a reminder of how vital it is that the UK ratifies this convention and makes a strong statement about the importance we place on protecting cultural heritage. We fully endorse the steps taken at the International Criminal Court to prosecute war crimes relating to cultural destruction in Mali.
Heritage, monuments and cultural artefacts are part of what makes a country great, educating and inspiring people, and bringing them together as a nation. Sir Peter Luff, chair of the Heritage Lottery Fund, was once told, “History is what you learn about in schools; heritage is about who you are and where you come from”. We are lucky to have a highly professional and dedicated heritage and museum sector that works extremely hard to preserve our heritage and bring the story of our history to life. This work helps attract visitors to our shores too. We also have a duty to help protect the culture and heritage of other countries, for they are part of our shared inheritance as human beings.
Many in this House have called on successive Governments to pass this legislation since a commitment to do so was first made in 2004. I would like to make special mention of my hon. Friends the Members for Newark (Robert Jenrick) and for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) for their passionate advocacy. This Bill has already been subject to comprehensive pre-legislative scrutiny. The draft Bill published in 2008 was expertly scrutinised by the Culture, Media and Sport Committee.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
I am delighted that the Secretary of State is introducing this Bill today. Her points about destruction will have been brought home to everybody when Palmyra was destroyed very recently. Can she assure the House that after the 62 years we have waited since we signed the treaty, there will not be another 62 years until the Government bring it into effect?
Karen Bradley
I hope that we will get through this evening’s proceedings and the Committee stage with great speed, and that we will therefore have Royal Assent very shortly.
The Culture, Media and Sport Committee heard evidence from a variety of experts and stakeholders. The Committee warmly welcomed the Bill, and we carefully considered the recommendations made in its report.
The Bill is part of a wide package of measures that this Government have brought in to protect cultural heritage and become an international leader in this field. Earlier this year, we launched a cultural protection fund that is being administered by the British Council. Over the next four years, organisations will be encouraged to apply to this £30 million fund to support projects that will foster, safeguard and protect cultural heritage, particularly in global conflict zones.
In early 2014, the Army established a joint military cultural property protection working group that has been examining all issues concerning military cultural property protection. Earlier this year, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence confirmed that the armed forces would establish a military cultural property protection unit. The Ministry of Defence is considering what this unit might look like, taking into account international best practice. As the convention is likely to become an international treaty obligation by early 2017, the MOD anticipates that the recruitment of specialist Army reserves will start in the near future.
Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)
I warmly congratulate my right hon. Friend. Six years has been a long wait, but it has been well worth it, and we have now got there. Is it not ironic that part of the topicality of this Bill, and the reason for people’s enthusiasm for it, comes from seeing the horrors of Daesh in Syria and elsewhere, yet it does not fully cover the activities of Daesh because it covers only unlawfully exported cultural property from occupied territories? Without being too greedy, are the Government supportive of looking at future conventions to try to make sure that Daesh comes within the provisions, although the Iraqi and Syrian sanction orders cover the gap?
Karen Bradley
I again pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s work in campaigning on this issue. He rightly identifies the fact that sanctions regimes are in place regarding the Iraqi and Syrian conflicts, and touches on the question of Daesh’s standing in international legal circles. We must take great care that we do not deal with one wrong by creating more wrongs elsewhere, but I am happy to write to him about the specifics of the issue.
The convention was prompted by the widespread destruction and looting of cultural property in the second world war. It defines cultural property as movable or immovable property of great importance to the cultural heritage of every people, such as monuments, works of art, or buildings whose main purpose is to contain such cultural property. The definition is broad and the list of examples is not exhaustive. As well as traditional works of art, the definition could also include, as was made clear during discussions in the other place, modern or digital types of cultural property such as very rare or unique film or recorded music.
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)
On cultural property, I know that the Bill does not cover this issue, but does my right hon. Friend agree that we should have a discussion about religious and ethnic culture, including languages, poetry and other forms of art and heritage that have for so long been ignored but that are now being destroyed in Iraq? The Mandaeans in northern Iraq and the Yazidis in eastern Syria are struggling to keep any form of culture at all.
Karen Bradley
My hon. Friend makes an important point, but he will accept that it is beyond the convention and, therefore, the Bill.
The first protocol requires parties to seize cultural property that has been illegally exported from an occupied territory and to return it at the end of hostilities. The second protocol sets out violations that are to be made criminal offences and provides an enhanced protection regime for cultural property.
The UK signed the convention in 1954, but decided not to ratify because its terminology was considered to be insufficiently clear and it did not provide an effective regime for the protection of cultural property. The 1999 second protocol removed those concerns, and in 2004 the Government of the day announced their intention to ratify.
The ways in which we will implement the specific obligations of the convention and its protocols generated a great deal of interest in the other place. We have been looking carefully at implementation, particularly considering what categories of cultural property should be afforded general protection under the convention in the UK.
A previous Administration undertook a consultation on implementation of the convention and its protocols in 2005. Although the majority of the findings set out in the 2006 response to the consultation remain relevant, we will also hold discussions with key stakeholders, including from the devolved Administrations and from agencies, to ensure that those conclusions are up to date.
The Bill will introduce the domestic legislation necessary for the UK to meet the obligations contained in the convention and its two protocols. Part 2 makes it an offence to commit a serious violation of the second protocol to the convention either in the UK or abroad. The Bill also makes provision to ensure that ancillary offences committed abroad can be prosecuted and that commanders and superiors can be held responsible in appropriate circumstances.
Following debate in the other place, we made a minor and technical change to ensure that the Bill’s provisions relating to ancillary offences have the intended effect in Scotland. That amendment was tabled by the Government following consultation with the Crown Office and the Scottish Government.
We have also changed the headings of part 2 and clause 3 by replacing the word “breach” with “violation”. Concern was expressed in the other place that there was a lack of consistency between the language of the Bill and the second protocol, and we made that change to address that. I am grateful to Professor Roger O’Keefe of University College London for his work on that particular point and on the Bill as a whole. I appreciate all the advice and feedback that we have received from experts in the field, which has been invaluable in shaping the Bill.
The maximum penalty for those offences is 30 years. It is important to emphasise that that is a maximum penalty, and it will be for the courts to decide the appropriate penalty in any particular case. It is critical that the penalty reflects the seriousness of the violations of the second protocol and that it is consistent with other penalties for related offences.
Part 3 recognises in UK law the blue shield—the distinctive blue and white emblem created by the convention, which is viewed by many as the cultural equivalent of the Red Cross. The emblem will be used to identify cultural property that is protected under the convention, as well as the people tasked with protecting it. The blue shield will be protected from misuse by making its unauthorised use an offence.
Part 4 implements measures to deal with cultural property that has been unlawfully exported from occupied territory.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Clause 17 states:
“It is an offence for a person to deal in unlawfully exported cultural property, knowing or having reason to suspect that it has been unlawfully exported.”
There could be an unreasonable reason. Will the Government be open to suggestions to improve the Bill so that people are not unwittingly caught by the law?
Karen Bradley
That concern has been raised with me outside this place by a number of right hon. and hon. Members, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), the previous Secretary of State, and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier). The issue was not raised substantively in the other place but I understand that there are concerns, so the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), and I will meet concerned parliamentarians, with officials, to make sure that we have comfort in this regard. It is important that we are clear that the Bill will not hamper the way in which the art market operates.
It is important to note that part 4 applies only to cultural property that has been unlawfully exported from an occupied territory after 1956, when the convention and first protocol came into force. Clause 17, which the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) has mentioned, creates a new offence of dealing in unlawfully exported cultural property. That offence applies only to unlawfully exported cultural property that is imported into the UK after the commencement of the Bill, which ensures that the Bill will have no retrospective application.
Scrupulous dealers have no reason to fear prosecution or increased business costs under the Bill.
Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State accept, though, that, regardless of whether an item is legal or not, if a country falls into a war situation, suspicion will fall on every item of property that would previously have been dealt with perfectly legally?
Karen Bradley
I do not think that that will happen, and it is certainly not the Bill’s intention, but I am happy, together with my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, to speak to colleagues and to spend time with officials to make sure that we are all satisfied. We all want The Hague convention to be brought into UK law—62 years is too long. We want to get on with it, but also to make sure that we do so in a way that satisfies parliamentarians and means they are happy that it will deliver the desired effect.
Although dealers will need to satisfy themselves through due diligence that there is no reasonable cause to suspect that objects presented for sale have been unlawfully exported from an occupied territory, existing codes of conduct already oblige dealers not to import, export or transfer the ownership of objects where they have reasonable cause to believe that the object has been exported in violation of another country’s laws. Dealers will not be required to carry out any further due diligence beyond that which they should already be conducting. In order to commit an offence, a dealer must deal in an object knowing, or having reason to suspect, as the hon. Member for Rhondda has pointed out, that it has been unlawfully exported. If a dealer takes temporary possession of an object for the purposes of carrying out due diligence or providing valuations, they will not be dealing in that object, because they will not be acquiring the object.
The rest of part 4 outlines the circumstances in which unlawfully exported cultural property would be liable to forfeiture, and creates the necessary new powers of entry, search, seizure and forfeiture. Part 5 provides immunity from seizure or forfeiture for cultural property that is being transported to the UK, or through the UK to another destination, for safekeeping during an armed conflict.
Finally, part 6 ensures that if an offence under the Bill is committed with the consent or connivance of an officer of a company or Scottish partnership—for example, directors of private military contractors—that officer will be guilty of an offence, as well as the company or partnership.
There is already a legal framework in place that is designed to tackle the illicit trade in cultural property. The Dealing in Cultural Objects (Offences) Act 2003, the Theft Act 1968 and the Syria and Iraq sanctions orders enable the UK to take action where authorities suspect that individuals might be engaged in illicit trade. The Bill helps to strengthen that framework in relation to cultural property that has been taken illegally from occupied territories.
In addition to enabling prosecution, the existing legislation also has an important deterrent effect, sending out the message that the UK will not tolerate any illicit trade in cultural property. As well as providing teeth that can be used when required, the Bill will strengthen that deterrent effect.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
My right hon. Friend knows that I greatly support this Bill. She is talking about enforcement and greater teeth for the legislation. Why does she think there has been only one prosecution in this country since the Dealing in Cultural Objects (Offences) Act 2003? Should we not have done better by now?
Karen Bradley
My hon. Friend helps to make the point about the deterrent effect of the legislation. It is deterring dealers from taking cultural property that has been stolen from occupied territory. Clearly, law enforcement and others need to understand the legislation, the offences and the action that can be taken in order that prosecutions can be brought if there is evidence that a crime has been committed.
On passing the Bill, the UK will be the first permanent member of the UN Security Council to become a party to the convention and its two protocols. Given with the other initiatives we have set in motion in this area, we will have ensured, in the strongest terms possible, that the UK will be a champion for cultural protection in times of peace and war alike. I commend the Bill to the House.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
I welcome the Bill’s Second Reading, and I thank the Secretary of State for her introduction. As she said, the Bill has been a long time coming, as it will enable the 1954 Hague convention to be ratified. It has taken only 62 years. Back in 1954, Winston Churchill was Conservative Prime Minister; Gaitskell, I think—my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) will correct me if I am wrong—was leader of the Labour party; and the Liberals had only six seats in Parliament, so some things do not change too much even over 62 years.
The destruction and theft of cultural heritage goes back long before 1954 and even before the second world war, the events of which triggered the Hague convention in the first place. Hon. Members will remember that in 1700 BC the Assyrians invaded Mesopotamia—now called Ramadi and Falluja in Iraq—stole the stone gods of the Arab tribes and took them back to Nineveh to force the Arabs to negotiate to get their gods back. It is a sad fact that the treatment of cultural artefacts in exactly those locations has progressed so little in the intervening 3,500 years. Indeed, it is worse now because of the destructive potential of modern weapons of war.
The previous Labour Government, as the Secretary of State pointed out, put the ratification of the Hague convention on the political agenda in 2004 and published a draft Bill in 2008, which was scrutinised by the Culture, Media and Sport Committee. Unfortunately, the Bill ran out of time, but we are pleased to see that the Government agree on the importance of protecting cultural property and of making that priority known to the international community by introducing the Bill. We hope that the principles of mutual respect and co-operation will permeate all Government policies from now on.
Cultural property is targeted because it matters. My hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman), who is in her place, campaigned effectively—as did other hon. Members whom the Secretary of State mentioned—for the Government to introduce the Bill. As my hon. Friend has written,
“art, statues, architecture—these aren’t societies’ frills, but a fundamental part of the fabric.”
She is not alone in that belief. It is shared even by those whose first priorities might lie, correctly, elsewhere. Michael Meyer, head of international law at the Red Cross, has said:
“Why is the Red Cross worried about buildings and books when human lives are usually our focus? I will always argue that a human life is more valuable than a cultural object. But culture is essential to one’s identity. It’s an important factor for communities and nations.”
Karen Bradley
I want to put on the record my thanks to the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman). I failed to do so in my opening remarks, and I wanted to get that on the record.
Kevin Brennan
I thank the Secretary of State for doing so. It is characteristically generous of her, and I am sure that my hon. Friend and the House are grateful.
The Hague convention is based on the consensus that cultural property, moveable and immoveable, is central to identity. Such items embody a society’s past and encapsulate its ideas and often its ideals. Because of the consensus on the importance of cultural property, attacks on it in recent armed conflicts have drawn the attention of the international media. Daesh’s destruction of Palmyra and al-Qaeda’s demolition of mosques and mausoleums in Timbuktu have, quite rightly, sparked international outrage. For those who live in areas of armed conflict, the destruction of cultural property adds another layer of pain to the process of recovery in terms of both money and morale. Cultural property is a precious resource. When conflicts are over, monuments and their equivalents are key to kick-starting tourist-related industries, so cultural property can be crucial to economic regeneration.
Tom Tugendhat
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that although Daesh brutality is obvious in places such as Palmyra, a more common example might be the golden mosque in Samarra, or the ethnic cleansing and the destruction of churches in places such as Mosul? Does he agree that cultural destruction often goes in hand with forms of ethnic cleansing, whether religious or sectarian?
Kevin Brennan
I strongly agree with the hon. Gentleman on that point. Palmyra was visited each year prior to 2011 by 150,000 tourists, and a UNESCO mission to the site in April this year found that the triumphal arch and the temple of Bel had been smashed to smithereens. In such circumstances, preserving and sometimes restoring as much as possible of these ancient structures is crucial to rebuilding. The Bill aims to provide the ways and means to allow states to do so.
In that respect, the offences and subsequent sanctions created by the Bill for damaging cultural property are particularly welcome, as is the introduction of immunity from seizure for cultural property that is being moved to or through the United Kingdom from an area of armed conflict for safekeeping. It is important to note that the UK armed forces already abide by the terms in the Bill and respect cultural property during conflict. The impact assessment that accompanies the Bill shows that their behaviour would need to change very little as a result of the introduction of the Bill. However, ratifying the 1954 convention would send a clear signal to the international community of what we already know at home: that the preservation of cultural property is a priority for the United Kingdom.
As I have mentioned, there are consequences for morale as well as for money when monuments are destroyed and when stone is turned to sand. When it comes to art and architecture, we expect continuity and longevity—a bridge between what was and what will be. Hon. Members will be familiar with the words of John Keats, who wrote about a Grecian urn:
“When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man”.
Just as preserving culture is about projecting pride and history, so the destruction of cultural property is bound up in power and subjugation. Hon. Members might have seen an interview that was given to the BBC by Mirza Hussain last year. In 2001, when he was 26, the Taliban took over his city in Afghanistan and ordered him to destroy the Buddhas of Bamiyan. The Buddhas were up to 55 metres tall and were carved into a cliff face in the sixth century, but the Taliban believed that they were idols.
Among a group of prisoners, Mirza was fed very little, left freezing cold at night and saw his fellow prisoner shot. He was then forced to detonate trucks of dynamite below the Buddhas, and when that did not work, two or three explosions were carried out every day until the Buddhas were destroyed. He said:
“We drilled holes into the statue to plant the dynamite. We didn’t have proper tools. The whole process took 25 days.”
He went on to say:
“I regretted it at that time, I regret it now and I will always regret it. But I could not resist, I didn’t have a choice because they would have killed me.”
I am sure that that will bring to hon. Members’ minds the tragic death of Khaled al-Asaad, the archaeologist who had worked at Palmyra for 40 years and was brutally murdered by Daesh in August last year at the age of 82 for refusing to reveal the whereabouts of Palmyra’s treasures.
That leads me to one of the central concerns about the Bill. We will support it on Second Reading tonight and throughout its later stages. However, although the Bill has been brought forward in the context of the aftermath of the destruction of cultural treasures in recent conflicts, it does not, as I understand it, cover the actions I have described because they were carried out by occupying forces that are not recognised states. I hope that the Minister will correct me if I am wrong, but the Bill will not necessarily prevent extremists from intimidating people into complying. In her response to the debate, will she tell us whether that comes within the Bill’s scope or powers?
Tim Loughton
I am genuinely impressed by the hon. Gentleman’s knowledge of Mesopotamian and other archaeology. Indeed, his own party’s Ed stone at the last election could be seen as an homage to the stele of Hammurabi, the great lawgiver of Mesopotamia in the 18th century BC. I want to query his last point, because it may well take another change to the UNESCO convention to take into account the modern phenomena of ISIL and other terrorist groups. Would he support our negotiating internationally to try to get the law brought up to date?
Kevin Brennan
I am sure that the whole House would welcome any measures that were negotiated internationally to cover these horrific crimes. In speaking for the Opposition, I am sure that we would support the Government should they seek to negotiate further international agreements to that effect.
I am conscious of the fact that the Bill will bring the 1954 convention into UK law, as well as give effect to the 1954 and 1998 protocols. In that sense, it is limited in its scope. It is important to point out on Second Reading that, although we all understand the context in which the issue has become more and more pressing in recent years, particularly in relation to what has been going on in modern Iraq—ancient Mesopotamia—and modern Syria, the Bill cannot deal with the perpetrators of such crimes. We may be able to deal with such crimes in other ways. For example, if UK citizens engaged in this activity went to fight on the side of Daesh in Syria, they might well be caught—I am sure that they would be—by other aspects of UK law, but that does not mean that the penalties available would be the same as those available under the convention in the Bill, including the possibility of a 30-year jail sentence for any breaches.
Chris Bryant
We have focused on trying to stop further outrages. Does my hon. Friend agree that the British Museum plays an absolutely vital role—not only in this country, but in modern Iraq and Syria—in trying to protect many Mesopotamian antiquities? Indeed, the British Museum was in closer contact than anybody else with those who were summarily executed.
While we are being nice to Government Members, will my hon. Friend congratulate the hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) on the fact that, from the moment he arrived in the House, he has pursued this issue?
Kevin Brennan
It would my pleasure to do so, and it is always nice, as well, to hear my hon. Friend being nice to Government Members.
As I have said, the Bill has been introduced in the context of such events, but it is important to note what it will and will not do. It will not necessarily prevent extremists from intimidating people into complying in the way that Mirza was intimidated into doing in Afghanistan. However, we welcome the ratification of the 1954 convention. It is part of an international project to ensure that we are not faced with gaping craters where great statues once stood. When she sums up, will the Minister be absolutely clear about what the Bill does and does not cover, so that there can be no doubt?
My hon. Friend mentioned the British Museum, which is a wonderful institution. If we are candid, however, we should recognise that our own hands are not necessarily entirely historically clean in relation to the removal of cultural property. That occurred in Britain’s colonial history, and it was used to build British wealth and power at the direct expense of colonised nations. Recent speculation concerning the repatriation of the Parthenon marbles to Greece, as well as campaigns to return the Koh-i-noor diamond to India and the Benin bronze cockerel to Nigeria, shows that the removal of cultural property reverberates through the centuries. I notice that the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) is shaking his head.
Tim Loughton
The hon. Gentleman is revisiting an old canard. Will he not just acknowledge that, for example, the Elgin marbles would not exist had they not been saved by the people who endowed the British Museum? The British Museum is a world museum. It is visited by 7 million people, which is substantially more than the number who visit the Parthenon in Athens. These treasures of the world can be seen in the best possible context, rather than decontextualised and open only to the few who would have to pay an admission fee elsewhere.
Kevin Brennan
I will not get into a lengthy debate about the wheres and the what happens.
Kevin Brennan
I have spent my whole life starting fights and then running away from them. That is what happens when you are quite small.
Occasionally, when we get on our high horse about these things, we should remember that there have been times during the course of history when we have removed cultural property from others during warfare and, indeed, when we have destroyed cultural property. The convention applies only to events after 1954, so we fortunately do not have to revisit all those times in too much detail; otherwise, before we knew it, we would have SNP Members going on about the Stone of Scone.
Kevin Brennan
I think the hon. Gentleman is going to mention that in his speech.
In that light, the particular attention paid in part 4 of the Bill to the export of property from occupied territory is especially important. With Britain’s history in mind, the ratification of the first protocol could be said to indicate that we have at least learned something from any past transgressions and that the UK is committed to supporting other states in avoiding that sort of event.
I understand—the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—that no one has ever been charged with the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan. That brings me to some of the technical concerns about the Bill. Will the Minister say how, if at all, The Hague convention would apply to the conflict in Afghanistan and other such recent conflicts? Likewise, there are concerns that a convention written in the 1950s, of which the most recent component—the second protocol—was drawn up in the relatively early years of the internet, will not sufficiently protect cultural property in digital form. We have come a long way from the days of Keats’ Grecian urn. The success of the landmark legal case against Uber on Friday is part of an ongoing effort to bring legislation up to date in relation to digital advancements, and the Government must bear that in mind. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) and I have been busy working away in Committee on the Digital Economy Bill, which is meant to update legislation to reflect the digital revolution.
Lord Stevenson raised that issue during this Bill’s Committee stage in the Lords in relation to how cultural property is defined, and he received assurances from the Minister, Baroness Neville-Rolfe, that the wording was “flexible enough” to encompass technological advancements. If the Minister is willing to do so in her summing up, will she reinforce that reassurance that digital formats will equally be protected and included in the Bill’s definition of cultural property? As the convention dates from 1954, some of the definitions may seem slightly arcane, but some of the finest cultural objects in this country are things such as the archive of the British Film Institute—I have visited it—which can only be described as an absolute treasure trove of this country’s culture. Confirmation from the Government that such cultural artefacts are covered by the Bill, in bringing the convention into UK law, would be very helpful.
I want to ask one or two questions about how joined-up the thinking is. During the Second Reading debate in the Lords, Lord Redesdale mentioned the Ministry of Defence’s plans to create a squad of monuments men—and, presumably, women as well—whose focus would be to safeguard cultural property during armed conflicts. As I understand it, they would be soldiers with archaeology qualifications and the like. Meanwhile, the Department for Education has been campaigning against so-called soft subjects, leading to exam boards ending archaeology, art history and classical civilisation A-levels. The AQA explained its decision to cut A-level archaeology as follows:
“Our number one priority is making sure every student gets the result they deserve…the complex and specialist nature of the exams creates too many risks on that front”—
I am not sure how not offering an exam in a subject will make it any less specialist than it already is. On history of art, the AQA stated that the decision had nothing to do with the importance of the subject and
“won’t stop students going on to do a degree in it”.
That logic seems flawed to me. But it does not make a pretty picture overall, let alone a masterpiece, to have the Ministry of Defence wanting more soldiers with knowledge of art history and archaeology and the Department for Education cutting those same subjects from our classrooms, while the Department for Culture, Media and Sport is ratifying conventions and proclaiming that a national priority.
Tom Tugendhat
The hon. Gentleman is making a very fine speech, but had he spent any time in an officers’ mess, he would realise that art history surrounds people, archaeology is what they are equipped with and history of culture is often what they are eating. I do not feel that there is a need for much more qualification than that.
Kevin Brennan
I have spent a lot less time in officers’ messes than the hon. Gentleman, but I have spent a lot of time in the classroom as a teacher. The loss of those subjects undermines the Government’s stated aims. I will make this next point very carefully, but it seems to me that it should not only be those who have had access to those subjects through private education, who may well form a disproportionate number of officers in the armed forces—[Interruption.] I will allow the hon. Gentleman to correct me that score, but it should not be only those people who qualify for these jobs in the monuments squad that the MOD says is necessary and wants to recruit. Will the Minister therefore indicate which policy is the outlier? I am sure that she will produce a very creative argument to explain everything to the House.
I have outlined some of the issues that need to be clarified, but we support the principles behind the Bill because they firmly chime with our own. At the core of the convention is the belief that we must co-operate to promote human wellbeing. The 1954 convention states that
“damage to cultural property belonging to any people whatsoever means damage to the cultural heritage of all mankind, since each people makes its contribution to the culture of the world”.
The Labour party has championed those beliefs throughout our history—that everyone is entitled to their culture and heritage and their right to express it, that the success of one is tied to that of all society and that we must work in solidarity with each other because we are all the better for it when we do so.
Given the unfortunate and occasionally ugly tone of political discourse in recent times, the Bill is a welcome reminder of internationalist values and shared civilisation and culture. We have had an increase in attacks since the Brexit vote. In that context, the Bill recognises the importance of preserving our collective past and cultures and the fact that that is now more important than ever, whatever someone’s heritage and background.
The Bill is a signal to the international community not just of our national priorities but of the UK’s remaining willingness to co-operate on an international scale and a recognition that we can often enact change better together. It gives welcome hope that, although occasionally some Government rhetoric may shrink towards little England, Britain still has great aspirations to play a leading role in a rules-based world. The Bill may not be controversial, but it is a small beacon showing that the Government recognise that division is not the way forward, that we have more to gain through co-operation internationally and that we should extend to Syrian people fleeing conflict and seeking refuge the same respect that we give to their ancient architecture and monuments. We will not oppose the Bill; rather we hope the principles behind it will permeate through the Government’s principles.
Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)
I am delighted to welcome the Bill’s Second Reading. As has been pointed out, this is a Bill we have welcomed in the past; indeed, I chaired the Select Committee that considered the draft Bill in 2008, when we subjected it to pre-legislative scrutiny. At the time, we very much welcomed the Government’s intention to introduce it. We pointed out that then it was 55 years since the adoption of The Hague convention and that 118 countries had already signed it. Another eight years have passed since then, and I am proud that the Bill should finally go on to the statute book under a Conservative Government in their second Session in office.
When we took evidence, it was pointed out to us that there had been some examples of damage to heritage assets during the course of the Iraq war, particularly some in the city of Babel, that may have been caused by coalition forces. Although that was obviously not deliberate, it highlighted the importance of stressing the need to protect cultural assets.
Chris Bryant
I have a specific question on cluster munitions. The right hon. Gentleman just used the words “not deliberate” in reference to the fact that often some cultural objects are destroyed in war. Cluster munitions can be so indiscriminate and they spread across a wide area, and so their use is one reason why cultural objects are often destroyed. Is it not incumbent on us now as a country, having given up cluster munitions ourselves, to try to persuade all our allies to do the same?
Mr Whittingdale
I sympathise with the hon. Gentleman’s point. All signatories to the convention should certainly do their utmost to prevent damage to cultural assets and assets that have been identified as culturally important. I would therefore expect our allies who are signatories to adopt that approach as much as we do.
As has already been raised, however, there is a huge gulf between what may have happened as a result of actions by forces in the Iraq war and what we have seen being carried out by Daesh in Syria in recent years, in Palmyra in particular but in other places as well. The first priority has to be the humanitarian crisis and preventing loss of life, but the destruction of cultural assets is hugely damaging. As has been said, they are part of the history and national identity of a people. They are also, potentially, part of their salvation, for when conflict comes to an end cultural assets can represent economic assets from which one can rebuild an economy by attracting people to visit.
Cultural assets are also part of the world’s heritage, and we all have a duty to do our utmost to safeguard that heritage. For that reason, I was delighted when the Government established the cultural protection fund, worth £30 million, and I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Mr Osborne), Chancellor of the Exchequer when the fund was established, and the Education Secretary, who was then Secretary of State for International Development, for their part in agreeing to that, as a large part of the fund can be classified as international aid. I also pay tribute to Neil MacGregor—he has already been mentioned—who was the driving force for the establishment of the fund. He and I launched it together, and, as the director of the British Museum at the time, he took responsibility for the first phase, a £3 million fund administered by the British Museum to send archaeologists into Iraq to advise and help in restoration where damage had taken place.
I was also immensely privileged to meet Dr Maamoun Abdulkarim, who is director-general of antiquities in Syria. He was the boss of Khaled al-Asaad, whom the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) mentioned. Dr Abdulkarim described the courage shown by his colleague, who did not wish to divulge where very valuable artefacts had been concealed and as a result was beheaded by Daesh.
The question of whether Daesh comes under the definition of occupying forces has already been raised. Even if it did, one has to admit that it seems unlikely that the passage of an Act will prevent it from carrying out such horrific atrocities. But it will send a very important signal. It will also have an effect on our own forces.
Tom Tugendhat
My right hon. Friend makes a good point. Although I appreciate his point that the Bill is unlikely to dissuade Daesh from its actions, it may affect its ability to support itself financially, because one of the ways in which it currently fills its coffers is by selling looted artefacts.
Mr Whittingdale
My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. Most of the attention has been on wilful destruction, but he is absolutely right that the trade provides finance to Daesh. We must do everything we can to stamp that out, which is why I support the principle that it should be unlawful to deal in illegally exported cultural property.
I pay tribute to the efforts already made by the Ministry of Defence and commanders in the field to abide by the terms of the convention, even when it was not ratified. When the Committee took evidence from the MOD, it said it would review and strengthen the commitment it had already given that training should take account of the absolute priority of abiding by the requirements of the convention.
The Committee heard concern about one aspect of the Bill: the offence of dealing in unlawfully exported cultural property. The first concern was about the definition of occupied territories. At the time, we were told that it was a very narrow definition, or that only a narrow group of countries or territories could be considered to be occupied. In 2008, the regulatory impact assessment identified the Golan heights, East Jerusalem and the west bank. Unfortunately since that time, the list of occupied countries has grown—I draw attention to Crimea. For the purposes of certainty for those dealing in cultural objects, it would help if we clarified exactly which territories we consider to be occupied.
The more serious concern related to clause 17, which makes it an offence
“to deal in unlawfully exported cultural property, knowing or having reason to suspect that it has been unlawfully exported.”
As has been pointed out by the legal advisers, there is a huge difference between “having reason to suspect” and “to suspect”, which is causing concern. If the definition of the offence covers “reason to suspect”, it gets into mens rea, as I understand lawyers call it. I will leave it to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier) to say more on that subject with considerably greater expertise.
The issue was flagged up for the Committee when we looked at the Bill eight years ago, which is why we suggested a clearer requirement of dishonesty. That is what currently applies in the Theft Act 1968, which carries a penalty of seven years, and in the Dealing in Cultural Objects (Offences) Act 2003, which also carries a penalty of seven years. The Bill introduces a penalty of seven years, and therefore it seems reasonable to ask that the same threshold should be required. I am delighted to hear from the Secretary of State that she is aware of that concern and will have further discussions.
Kevin Brennan
The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Is he aware how many people have been convicted under the 2003 Act? My understanding is that the number is very low, and perhaps even zero.
Mr Whittingdale
That point was made by my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) earlier. The fact that there have been no convictions does not necessarily imply that the Act is not working—it is important to have it on the statute book. I do not believe that this country is full of dodgy art dealers who wilfully ignore the law and deal in plainly illegally exported objects.
Sir Edward Garnier (Harborough) (Con)
Nor should we go around lowering the threshold in order to scoop up innocent people.
Mr Whittingdale
My right hon. and learned Friend makes a perfectly valid point and I agree with him. The art market is determined and supports the Bill. The last thing it wants is for this country to become a place where people can deal in unlawfully exported objects. It is worth bearing in mind that the market is hugely competitive and the third biggest in the world—it was worth something like £9 billion in sales in 2014. I would not like to see it inadvertently put at a disadvantage compared with other markets around the globe. I hope the Government bear that in mind. As I have said, I very much welcome their commitment.
Mr Whittingdale
If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I have finished my speech.
Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
The Scottish National party Members and the Scottish Government very much welcome the Bill and the purpose it serves. The Government can be assured of our support in getting this much needed legislation through Parliament so that we put in place the necessary domestic legislation to enable the UK to ratify The Hague convention for the protection of cultural property in the event of armed conflict, and to accede to both the 1954 and the 1999 protocols.
I share the concerns expressed by the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) that a 1954 convention that was last updated in 1999 may lack understanding of what is required in the 21st century, particularly the need to deal with the role of non-state actors in modern conflict in the destruction of cultural heritage. With that caveat, SNP Members are firmly of the opinion that, no matter where it is located in the world, we all benefit from a rich and diverse historical and cultural heritage, and that every effort must be made to protect it in a time of war—and, indeed, at all times. Although there has been widespread parliamentary support for that, going back many years, time has never been found—for whatever reason—to introduce primary legislation to ensure that the UK can fully meet its obligations as set out in the convention and subsequent protocols. Many hon. Members have said that the Bill has been a long time coming—it has been 62 years—and I fear that, had it been delayed any longer, it would be almost as old as some of the artefacts it is designed to protect.
We welcome the fact that that wrong is about to be put right, and that very soon the United Kingdom will join many other nations in tightening up its domestic law on the protection of cultural property in a time of conflict. I happily acknowledge that, despite the Government not ratifying the convention, UK armed forces fully comply with it during military operations, and recognise the blue shield—the emblem that identifies cultural property protected under the convention and protocols. In ratifying the convention and protocol, the UK will formalise the responsibility of its troops when they are operating in armed conflict overseas.
In 2008, when the subject was last debated in Parliament, one of the main concerns was whether such a Bill would constrain our troops on military operations by limiting their freedom to protect themselves should they come under fire from opposing forces based in a museum or holy place of worship. Back then, the Ministry of Defence appeared to be confident that the passage of the Bill would not be problematic. I was pleased when the then Minister for the Armed Forces, the hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt), repeated last year that the cultural property convention is upheld across the armed forces. We know that they currently act within the spirit of the convention and are fully compliant with their own statute. Given that the Ministry of Defence was so relaxed about the consequences of ratifying the convention—the ’54 protocol and the ’99 protocol—last year, I trust that nothing has happened to change its view.
If anything, that view should have hardened as the stories and images of the wanton destruction by Daesh of some of the world’s greatest and most important heritage sites in Iraq, Libya and Syria have become widespread. The destruction of temples, churches and mosques, as well as the ancient cities of Palmyra and Nimrud, can be seen only as deliberate and calculated attempts to erase our collective human experience. They were unspeakable and barbaric attacks on thousands of years of human progress and civilisation.
UNESCO director-general Irina Bokova was right when she branded the activities of Daesh as
“a form of cultural cleansing”.
What Daesh is doing, in willfully desecrating and pillaging the artefacts in those sites, is a shameful and inexcusable crime against all of humanity. But let us be clear, not everything that Daesh is doing can be dismissed as simply malicious vandalism or an attempt to eradicate all traces of a pre-Islamic civilisation, as there is irrefutable evidence that when Daesh seizes a new city, one of its first acts is to plunder the museums and cultural sites for artefacts to raise much needed cash. Its looting of priceless artefacts is done for profit, and the flood of stolen antiquities being smuggled into the open arms of collectors across Europe and America shames us all.
Michael Danti, a Boston University archaeologist who advises the US State Department on smuggled antiquities, said last year,
“What started as opportunistic theft by some has turned into an organized transnational business that is helping fund terror”.
Irreplaceable artefacts are being stolen from an already beleaguered people and are being sold on the black market to an unscrupulous but fabulously wealthy elite, whose money is funding Daesh’s murderous campaign.
I am delighted that the Bill will make it a criminal offence to deal in cultural property that has been illegally exported from a territory that has been occupied during an armed conflict. Such a measure is long overdue and very welcome. We urge the UK Government actively and vigorously to implement the measures outlined in the second protocol of 1999 and bring to justice those individuals who engage in and profit from the illegal and totally immoral trade in stolen ancient artefacts.
As the respected Lebanese-French archaeologist Joanne Farchakh told Robert Fisk of The Independent last year, antiquities from Palmyra are already on sale here in London. She explained that Daesh sells the statues, stone faces and frescoes to the international dealers. Daesh takes the money, hands over the relics and blows up the temples and buildings they come from to conceal the evidence of what has been looted and, presumably, to help to protect the identities of its paymasters—the dealers and collectors across Europe and America.
France Desmarais, the director of programmes and partnerships at the International Council of Museums, has described what has happened in the middle east as the largest scale mass destruction of cultural heritage since the second world war. That has to stop, and hopefully the Bill, by creating a new offence for a person to deal in cultural property, knowing or having reason to suspect that it has been unlawfully exported from occupied territory, will go some way to stopping it. We welcome that. The purchase of plundered antiquities in such circumstances is deeply immoral on so many levels, and if the Bill can stop the trade and bring those guilty of dealing in looted artefacts to justice, it will have served much of its purpose.
A people’s cultural heritage is a crucial part of who they are and what they were in the past. For almost all communities, anywhere in the world, it is a symbol whose importance cannot be overstated. What also cannot be overstated is the social and economic importance that that cultural heritage will have in helping Syria, Iraq, Libya and others to begin to recover, once Daesh is defeated. I sincerely hope that the Bill will ensure that, post conflict, plans are in place to repair as much of the damage that has been done to the cultural heritage of communities as possible. It is incumbent on us, and the rest of the world, too, to help them to regain those important and socially valuable, tangible reminders of their cultural identity, around which they can repair in peaceful times.
While The Hague convention is specific to times of armed conflict, the work of protecting cultural heritage must also continue in peacetime. In the spirit of the convention, we urge the Government to take this opportunity to return the Parthenon marbles—the Elgin marbles—to Greece where they belong. The passing of the Bill and the ratification of the protocols give the Government an excellent opportunity to lead by example and celebrate the ratification of the convention with a highly appropriate and long overdue gesture.
Finally, let me reiterate the position of the Scottish Government. It is for the UK Government to accede to an international instrument such as The Hague convention and it is important that the same or similar standards are applied across the UK. The UK Government’s Bill contains all the provisions that are necessary to enable implementation of the convention in the UK, while making appropriate provision for Scotland. It is the view of SNP Members and the Scottish Government that it is in the interests of the Scottish people and good governance that the provisions outlined within the Bill should be considered by the UK Parliament, and we will support its passage through this place.
Mr Edward Vaizey (Wantage) (Con)
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak briefly in the debate. As I have mentioned, I may not be able to observe all our conventions, as I will shortly host an event for the Holocaust Educational Trust. That may be pertinent, as it is worth reminding the House that the UK has been in advance of many other nations in dealing with spoliation—the unlawful taking of goods from the Jewish community during the second world war. That issue has been handled well in this country, which bodes well for how we will handle aspects of The Hague convention in the future.
One waits six years for a DCMS Bill and then, like buses, two come along at once. I am pleased that I have been able to speak in debates on the Digital Economy Bill and this Bill. I wanted this Bill for a long time as Minister. When I was an Opposition spokesman, I remember looking forward to its introduction by the Labour Government, but it fell by the wayside as the election approached. I argued vociferously for six years for the Bill, but for some reason the Government’s business managers did not see its importance. I am glad that, under the new Government, they do understand how important it is. Many officials have brought it to fruition, but I wish to mention Hillary Bauer, who originally brought the Bill forward. So long has the process been that she has now retired. Of all hon. Members who have an interest, I wish to pick out in particular my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), who has been vociferous about cultural protection. He has engaged with me and my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) about the issue.
I wish to draw the Minister’s attention to three issues for when she sums up. Having watched the video of her playing keepy-uppy last week, I know that her summing up will be something to behold. First, I hope that she will make it clear that our own troops will not be at risk under the convention. The convention and the Bill make it clear that it is the intentional destruction of cultural property that comes within their scope—something that our British troops could never be accused of doing. They already act within the terms of the convention, and indeed it is wonderful to hear that the Ministry of Defence is working with DCMS to set up a 21st-century version of the monuments men, made up of people from the Army reserves. I would welcome any information the Minister has on progress regarding that point.
Secondly, on the vexed question of clause 17, my understanding is that the convention has been in place in Germany for the past 10 years and I know of no cases in which art dealers have unwittingly been brought within its scope. The legislation is clear: there must be some degree of suspicion on the part of any dealer before they could possibly be brought within scope. Given the noble profession of art and antiquities dealers in this country, any dealer who had a suspicion that something had been looted or trafficked would immediately alert the authorities, so dealers have nothing to fear from the Bill.
My third point is about the cultural protection fund, which is close to my heart and something for which I campaigned as a Minister—wholly unsuccessfully—on the back of Neil MacGregor, the then director of the British Museum. He said to me early in my time as a Minister that the museum, and many of our other national museums, do extraordinary work in many jurisdictions to support the work of archaeologists and the preservation of antiquities. My campaign was unsuccessful until my hon. Friend the Member for Newark raised the issue. I think the situation in Palmyra also changed the Chancellor’s mind.
I am glad that the Department for International Development has, I gather, stumped up most of the money for the cultural protection fund. It is deeply frustrating that the terms under which DFID operates—the alleviation of poverty—seem to preclude it from helping out in these areas. The fact remains that our national museums do this work all over the world, and it seems to me wholly legitimate that international development funds should supporting the skilling up of people in developing countries in archaeological expertise, as well as the preservation of their culture. We should, without doubt, support that.
I urge the Minister and the Secretary of State to take the cultural protection fund as a starting point for the UK to become an international centre for the preservation of antiquities and the skilling up of archaeological schools around the world. Members in the other place have suggested that we could become a repository—a digital archive—for some of the great treasures around the world, as well as the centre for the blue shields. I urge the Secretary of State to take that up.
Finally, I cannot resist the bait from the Scottish National party spokesman, the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O'Hara). He talks about the Elgin marbles. I am afraid he does this great convention and the Bill a disservice by bringing up the Elgin marbles. They were, of course, purchased legitimately in the 19th century. Not only that, they have been preserved to the very highest standards possible in the greatest museum in the world which, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) pointed out, is a world museum that is open to all, free of charge. The Elgin marbles are seen in pristine condition by millions of people. Indeed, they were recently loaned to Russia for even more people to see, which goes to show that the British Museum preserves the Elgin marbles not for any national self-interest, but for the world.
Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to follow the former Minister. I am sure he recalls the many occasions I asked him about this very issue. He did tell me, in answer to a written question, that he intended to legislate as soon as possible, so he will be pleased that this day has now come. The Bill is very important not only for this country but for the protection of cultural property worldwide. We need to play our part to safeguard the centuries-old cultural and religious heritage of the world.
The UK is the only member of the UN Security Council that has not yet ratified the convention. The Bill seeks to change that. Ratification would be an important step towards the UK becoming the first permanent member of the UN Security Council to have ratified both the convention and its protocols. I am very pleased about that.
I am aware that the Opposition, when in government, published the draft Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Bill in 2008. Many of us regretted that that Bill was not passed then. As the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), said, the Labour Government simply ran out of time, and I am pleased that Labour supports this Bill. Back in January, I called on the Leader of the House to bring forward the Bill in the Queen’s Speech and I am pleased the Government have chosen to do so.
The destruction of cultural capital is a powerful propaganda tool and is part of a long history of demoralising communities. The Opposition spokesman mentioned the Nineveh period, but I have to say that in this country the Vikings started it. Recently, in Syria, we have seen the continued destruction of places such as Palmyra. Indeed, the Bill has been introduced as a result of that continuing catastrophe. It is, however, not the first catastrophe to have taken place.
The Government say that the Bill will ensure that the UK can act, and be seen to act, legitimately according to international law in response to such crises. Baroness Neville-Rolfe said in the other place that the Bill will mean that a UK national who is fighting with Daesh in Syria can be prosecuted in relation to
“theft, pillage or misappropriation of, and any acts of vandalism directed against, cultural property”.
I do not quite share her confidence. I recently wrote to the Home Office to ask how many UK nationals had travelled overseas to engage in terrorist activity and had subsequently returned to the United Kingdom. In response I was told that
“around 850 linked individuals have travelled to engage in the conflict since it began, and just under half of those have returned.”
I went on to ask how many people had been charged with terrorism offences committed overseas on their return to the UK in each of the last three years, and was told:
“The number of individuals suspected of involvement in acts of terrorism or criminal matters who are arrested and then formally charged is recorded and collated in the Home Office Quarterly Statistical Bulletin which was last published on 22 September 2016. These statistics do not disaggregate arrests, charges and convictions relating exclusively to overseas returnees.”
So the answer is that the Home Office does not know. I am not sure how it would be possible to identify a UK national fighting with Daesh in Syria and prosecute them in relation to
“theft, pillage or misappropriation of, and any acts of vandalism directed against, cultural property”
when the police are not able to prosecute jihadis returning from Syria.
The Bill is particularly important to me because it is very important to a large number of my constituents. Cyprus has witnessed its cultural and religious heritage fall prey to the policy of pillage, destruction and desecration instituted after the illegal invasion of the island in 1974, and during the subsequent and continuing occupation. Churches, chapels, monasteries, archaeological sites, libraries, museums and private collections of religious art and antiquities in the occupied areas of Cyprus have been systematically looted. The art treasure market of the entire world has for years been flooded with Cypriot antiquities from the occupied part of Cyprus. Sculptures, ceramics, figurines, statuettes, tools, weapons, frescoes, religious paintings and other works of art from Cyprus are routinely found at auction houses around the world, in particular here in London. I sought to intervene on my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) to gently remind him that London is not only a centre of antiquities; it is likely to be a significant place for illegal antiquities, too. Research undertaken by The Guardian found the illegal market to be flooded with antiquities, and there are various reasons why the Government have not been able to stop it.
Since the 1974 invasion of Cyprus, 77 churches have been converted into mosques after being stripped of all icons and church furnishings. The others have been pillaged, destroyed, used as stables, warehouses, garages, arsenals, mortuaries, hotels, art galleries and night clubs or simply abandoned to their fate. My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) and I know this very well, having visited many of these locations. That number, however, does not include 50 sacred buildings whose condition is still not known because they are located in zones under direct military control, and others that have been demolished. Numerous archaeological sites in the area have not escaped theft and despoliation either.
Other reasons for alarm are the removal and selling of mosaics, frescoes and thousands of icons, which are now practically lost in the international market of smuggled art works. This phenomenon is unfortunately common to many areas of the middle east, as they experience war and conflict. One of the more clamorous examples is the church of Panagia Kanakaria, which held a work of art of inestimable value. Its apsidal mosaic from the Justinian period was one of the few images in the eastern Mediterranean that had survived the fury of the iconoclasts. In 1979, it was removed, stolen and broken up. It represented Christ in the arms of the Virgin seated on a throne, surrounded by the archangels Michael and Gabriel and thirteen medallions with the faces of Christ and the apostles. Four pieces re-emerged in Europe in 1988. A Turkish art dealer, Aydin Dikmen, offered them to the American antique dealer Peggy Goldberg, who in turn offered them to the Paul Getty Museum in Malibu. The museum was savvy enough to realise there was something wrong and went to the American authorities. I am pleased to say that these pieces have now been returned and can be seen in the Byzantium museum in Nicosia, which my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate and I have also visited. That is just one example of destruction and illegal sale. At this point, I would like to congratulate my constituent Dortos Partasides on his work documenting churches on the island. His invaluable work documents the destruction that has occurred over many years.
Returning to the Bill, London is one of the world’s largest antiquities markets and is considered a natural destination for looted goods. There have been UNESCO conventions on antiquities since 1970. At the beginning of the year, the UN Security Council banned trade in artefacts illegally removed from Syria since 2011 and from Iraq since 1990 in an effort to stop the funding of terrorism groups. Enforcement in countries such as Syria is near impossible for obvious reasons, but in the destination countries, including the United Kingdom, it is up to law enforcers to establish when those objects left conflict zones.
Just as I am concerned about the prosecution of theft and vandalism of cultural artefacts, I am concerned about how the Government intend to legislate on what constitutes “an illegal antiquity”. A common practice by smugglers is to claim that an antiquity has been in their family for a long time, and so it could not have been smuggled. They also sometimes say, “I bought it at auction, and there is no paper trail.” Or they could say it came from a private collection in Jordan or Lebanon a couple of years ago. How do the Government propose to prove that any of these treasures were smuggled out during a conflict?
That said, I support the Bill, which will greatly assist in not only tackling further looting, but ensuring that stolen property such as that stolen from Cyprus will be returned to its legal and rightful owners, because it will make it an offence to deal with cultural property that has been illegally exported from territory occupied during an armed conflict and it will provide powers for the forfeiture or seizure of such cultural property.
Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)
Speaking as co-chair of the all-party group for the protection of cultural heritage, it is a pleasure to support the Bill. One of the main reasons for establishing the APPG was to support the ratification of The Hague convention and it is great to see the aim fulfilled in the passage of the Bill.
We MPs are probably creating an impression that seems far removed from watching a Formula 1 grand prix, but I would like to draw an analogy. We can share the same enthusiasm as is expressed in Mexico City when the grand prix takes place. Until this Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Bill is enacted, the UK is, let us say, at the back of the international grid. That is significant; that is what this is about. We are at the back of 127 countries that have already ratified The Hague convention. We are catching up with those already on the grid that have got away in the race, to ensure that we fulfil our international obligations.
We can recognise through domestic legislation, through our compliance with European legislation, through sanctions and through other legal forms that we have played our part in seeking to hold to account those who are illegally trading in arts and antiquities, but while we were out there seeking to take a lead, just as we did with the cultural protection fund, it was somewhat embarrassing that we were not ratifying The Hague convention. We had taken an international lead in this area in many circles, but we are now playing catch-up in this particular respect. Now we are on the grid, showing that we mean business.
We were at the back of the grid regarding the permanent UN Security Council members. That is particularly significant because the Government have in the past flirted with ratification. I would like to pay tribute to Members who have expressed cross-party concern which has helped to ensure that we have got where we are today. I pay particular tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), who got behind the wheel. He was there as poacher turned gamekeeper, scrutinising legislation and seeking to bring it to fruition. He responded to calls from across the House. From my limited experience as a Parliamentary Private Secretary in various Departments, I know how difficult it is to make progress in managing the business and get a Bill into a legislative programme in a second Session of Parliament. That is why we must pay my right hon. Friend a particular personal tribute for bringing us up to speed.
Over the passage of time, we benefit not only from the ratification of The Hague convention, but from inclusion of the first and second protocols. That has helped us to get into pole position on the grid with other Security Council members. I hope that speedy passage of the Bill will mean that we get there first—although 60 other countries have got there before us! Still, among the permanent members we will get there first, which is important.
I am not an expert in many things, including arts and antiquities, archaeology or history, but I have developed a particular interest in cultural property and heritage, as I have seen and started to understand the impact of the destruction of such cultural property—yes, in relation to recent scenes in Syria and Iraq, but also, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) said, what has happened in northern Cyprus. When we visited northern Cyprus, we saw that appalling acts of desecration and pillaging had taken place and not been properly taken account of. Given that it is an occupied territory, we should try to ensure that that happens if any objects come into this country’s jurisdiction.
I am concerned, as doubtless we all are, about human dignity. That is what gets my passions and convictions going. It is important to see the appropriate link between the trafficking of human beings and the trafficking of cultural property. There is the same disregard for people, for their faith, for their community and for their identity. Indeed, there is a cross-over from funds from trafficking providing further resources for exploitation—whether it be of property or of human beings. It is therefore appropriate that the Secretary of State introduced the Bill today, given that she guided the Modern Slavery Act 2015 through the House so well. She will fully appreciate the connections that I mention and the concern for human dignity.
As museums and other such places see architectural monuments, works of art and manuscripts mainly as aesthetically significant and pleasing, it is important to realise, as already mentioned, that the destruction and looting of these items is an offence to human dignity. The culturally unique way in which communities relate to their property demonstrates that a property can be much more than an isolated monument or piece of art. It can be very much part of a cultural narrative, authored by the people who live among that cultural heritage. This is what makes the whole issue of cultural property a wider project of concern for us all, particularly when we see the ravages of destruction. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon quite rightly said, within the ravages, the debris and the ruins, we must look at the hope and opportunity of restoration. That is why the cultural protection fund is so important. That is why within the second protocol, although the voluntary fund administered by UNESCO takes some hits from different commentators, it still plays an important role. The funds going into it are important for the future, so we should contribute.
I must pay tribute to Tasoula Hadjitofi. I got to know her through her concerns about her home in Famagusta, which is still frozen in time. With all the pillaging that has gone on, it is as though her whole identity has been frozen. Through the “Walk of Truth”, she looks at areas of conflict and sees examples of property being pillaged and destroyed, but she tries to view what has happened as a means of bringing the communities together. She provides routes to reconciliation, which is something that we should commend.
I welcome the fact that at last the UK will be able proudly to bear its international duty to protect. My interest, as already alluded to, is a constituency interest. A considerable number of Cypriots live here in the UK, who have seen for themselves wanton destruction and pillaging of their heritage. That is why it is so important that we join together and make sure that this long-fought battle to ratify The Hague convention comes to fruition. We look forward to the unification of Cyprus in the long term, but in the meantime, we must make sure that people are held to account when they seek to profit from the proceeds of crimes of destruction.
Let me touch on the Bill’s wording, which has been a matter of concern to the Association of Art & Antique Dealers and others. Clause 17 in part 4 needs careful attention, and we will no doubt hear more from Members about it. It is worth noting that the National Police Chiefs Council lead for heritage and cultural property crime, who should be commended and for whom resources for the enforcement effort are important, said that given that dealers in cultural property are expected to conduct due diligence checks, they would be unlikely to fall foul of the objective test of “reason to suspect”. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport impact assessment is in agreement with that, which is perhaps not surprising.
We could also look at precedents. Section 338 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 is relevant, and honest dealers have been able to rely on the same form of words: “reason to suspect”. It is not dissimilar to the Dealing in Cultural Objects (Offences) Act 2003, which makes reference to the terms “knowing or believing”. It is similar, too, to the sanctions order referenced in respect of Daesh, both the Iraq sanctions order and the Syrian sanctions order, while there is also the example of article 11c in the EU Council regulations. Again, the language is similar, mentioning “reasonable grounds to suspect”, so there is parity with the Bill.
Other countries have enacted the ratification of The Hague convention in their own domestic law, and the wording of section 17 of New Zealand’s Cultural Property (Protection in Armed Conflict) Act 2012 in respect of reasons to suspect someone of committing an offence is similar to the wording of clause 17 of the Bill. That is worth pursuing in Committee.
As has been pointed out, the Bill has limitations. For instance, it does not cover the international law definitions in relation to Daesh, because we do not recognise Daesh as a state. I appreciate that, and I appreciate that the gaps are filled by the sanctions orders and other legislation, but now that we are up to speed and in pole position in relation to the first and second protocols, I urge the Government to ensure that we work collaboratively, on a cross-party basis, to create a third protocol to deal with the activities of Daesh.
I pay tribute to the cultural protection fund, and look forward to seeing it do good work in the coming weeks, months and years. I also pay tribute to the work of Lieutenant Colonel Tim Purbrick, who has set up a property protection working group of so-called monuments men. He is doing fine work, and we must ensure that the Ministry of Defence gives his group all the support that it needs.
I could go on, Mr Speaker. I have a long night’s sleepout waiting for me at Lords cricket ground in support of the good work of the homelessness charity DePaul UK. However, I recognise that other Members probably do not want such a long night, and would prefer me to cut my speech short. Let me end by saying that I strongly support the Bill. We have waited a long time for it, but better late than never. It is certainly worth it, because it protects not only property but human dignity.
Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)
As such a lowly Member, I was not expecting to be called at this point, so thank you for doing so, Mr Speaker.
I warmly welcome the Bill. Eighteen months ago, a select band of us—a happy few—engaged in a Backbench Business debate. My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) made a particularly notable speech, which led to his being described as the Gertrude Bell of the House of Commons. I felt like a pupil sitting at the feet of the professor; the House may have the same experience later this evening.
During that debate, we called for three things. First, we asked that a great wrong be righted and that, after all these years, The Hague convention be brought into our law. Secondly, we asked for something to be done to enable us to make a practical contribution to staving off extremism in the middle east and to build capacity among those who were on the front line of protecting culture. We built on the idea of many others before us of creating a national cultural protection fund. Thirdly—this was equally important—we asked the Government to escalate the issue of cultural protection, tackling the illicit trade in antiquities and, more generally, to take seriously Britain’s role as a world leader in cultural diplomacy. That would of course include cultural protection, which is currently centre stage.
It is greatly to the Government’s credit that they listened, and just 18 months later, they have acted on each of those concerns in a way that no previous Government have done. I thank the former Prime Minister, David Cameron, and the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Mr Osborne), and my right hon. Friends the Members for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) and for Wantage (Mr Vaizey), who pushed these measures through when they were in office. I thank cross-party colleagues such as the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant)—continuing our earlier bromance—and my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham, as well as, of course, the current Secretary of State and Ministers.
I am grateful to persistent and eloquent supporters outside Parliament. The most notable, in my view, was the former director of the British Museum, Neil MacGregor, who was a superb supporter on all three of the fronts that I mentioned earlier. Indeed, he was the instigator of many initiatives.
When we first raised these issues two years ago, the legitimate retort from many, especially in the media, was to ask why we should be interested in the destruction of mosques, libraries, souks and documents, when the real tragedy in places such as Syria, Iraq and Yemen was an unimaginable human tragedy: the murders, the rapes, the starvation, the displacement and the ethnic cleansing. One answer, of course, was that the scale of the destruction in recent years was so great. It was the greatest in any era since the end of the second world war, and some of the greatest sites of our shared civilisation were affected: Aleppo, Mosul, Nineveh and Palmyra. We were facing one enemy, Daesh, that was doing more to destroy the world’s cultural heritage than any other group since the end of the second world war, if not before.
The destruction that we saw 18 months or two years ago has continued, if not escalated. Only last week, we were discussing the conflict in Yemen, and a corollary of that has been the destruction of much of the great city of Sana’a, with its wonderful tower houses, any one of which would be considered one of the great monuments of other parts of the Gulf.
The second answer to that question—which is, perhaps, more important to me and which is relevant to what we have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes)—is that there was a human dimension. That was brought home to me earlier this year when Nadia Murad, whom many Members will remember, came to Parliament on a couple of occasions to speak to us. When I talked to her afterwards, she surprised me, given all that she had been through—she had been raped and beaten, and her family members had been killed in front of her—by emphasising the destruction of the culture of the Yazidis as much as her own physical and mental torture. That, she said, was because she felt that there was a wider attempt to rob future generations of any connection with their past and that extremists were trying to impose their own contorted views on her and her people and eradicate their ancient culture.
We should bear in mind that some of the people who have been on the frontline of protecting our culture have faced a very great penalty for that in recent years. We have already heard about Professor al-Asaad, the wonderful creator and director at Palmyra, who lost his life while trying to defend treasures there. I have been told other stories over the last few years, and one in particular stuck with me. It concerned a guard who used to take money and open the gates at Nineveh and whom members of the British Museum had known for many years. He was a wonderful elderly gentleman who refused Daesh entry and was subsequently executed. To compound the tragedy, every male who attended his funeral service a few days later disappeared and was executed, including all the known staff of that wonderful site.
There are countless other stories. Only recently, when I had the pleasure of bringing to Parliament the first archaeologists and curators who had come here from Iraq, thanks to the cultural protection fund, and who were later given some press attention in The Times and The Daily Telegraph, they had to remain anonymous owing to the grave risk that, even when they returned to fairly safe parts of Iraq, extremists would target them because of the work that they were doing.
The last reason why I felt that this was important then—I think that it remains so today—was not just the destruction, but what was happening to the material that was being systematically looted and stolen. This is a revenue stream for Daesh, the Assad regime and others. As Neil MacGregor so eloquently put it, sculptures were being turned into tanks, which should worry us all. The channels used by that trade are at times very dark and very dangerous. As we have already heard this evening, they are interwoven with the drugs trade, the arms trade and human trafficking. The lines established in Iraq, from which much of the material is moved, were established by Saddam Hussein and his regime. Action here matters to us all, whether or not we care about the cultural aspects, because it is part of tackling extremism and part of tackling serious organised crime and the funding of terrorism.
While this cultural barbarism at times appears utterly hopeless, and we have to temper our remarks about what we can possibly achieve, I always believed, as did many others, that it was possible to do something and that we could make a modest national contribution while also, as part of that process, enhancing our reputation as a country in the region and around the world. That is what this Bill really does, and we have to see it in tandem with the cultural protection fund, which is an important aspect of our cultural diplomacy. It gives us above all a firmer foundation on which to speak on these issues of cultural diplomacy and protection. It makes practical contributions to those on the frontline who are already appreciating it thanks to the £3 million we have already given to the British Museum, with more on the way. Lastly, it helps to tackle the illicit trade through the offences in the Bill and in other ways, on each of which I shall say a few words.
This is not a panacea, of course, and it does not apply to some of the crimes happening in Syria and Iraq today, but it is very symbolic, not least because it rights an historical wrong that was a drag on our international reputation. The leading experts in this field, such as Neil MacGregor, who are really diplomats and ambassadors for Britain in the cultural sphere, felt it was a shame and a stain on the UK’s reputation that we had never done this. So purely by doing it we enhance our reputation in the world. That enables us to play a stronger role in cultural diplomacy, which has all manner of benefits in trade and in establishing cultural links with other countries —as we have seen with the British Museum, working with the British Council, lending art and artefacts to Iran and Russia in the past and doing things Governments struggle to do. I hope the UK will do more on this in a way we simply have not done in the past, along with other countries, including France, with a proper network of cultural attachés and Government links. People including John Kerry and François Hollande have made major speeches on this. I hope that we will seize on that and see this as the beginning of the UK adding another weapon in our arsenal of diplomacy around the world.
The cultural protection fund is a huge step forward. It is the first major fund of its kind. François Hollande has copied us and has supposedly created a €100-million fund, which is about to be launched. I am pleased we were in the vanguard of doing this and would like us to do more.
I am very pleased that what we have done was able to be ODAed because that makes a difference; it recognises that this is not just about art and architecture, but about economic regeneration post-conflict and healing the wounds of conflicts and bringing cultures together. We must view this as just the beginning, however, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey) said; I would like us to see it as seed capital for us to be bolder and for this to turn into a major lasting national achievement.
Most of the Bill is about the illicit trade, and we must shrink the demand for these works in the world today. Contrary to some of the remarks made in passing this evening, the UK is very good in this regard. We are not the epicentre of the illicit trade in art and antiquities; that is to be found in the Gulf states, in China, in Russia and in other parts of the world. The UK is actually at the forefront of having responsible dealers and major auction houses who care about their reputations, but that is all the more reason for us to do this and lead the world in enforcement.
I want to say a few words about the offence of dealing unlawfully in exported property. We must tackle this issue, and I would like to think that the Minister would give this further thought on Report. This matters because, if we want to shrink the illicit market, we have to defend the legitimate market. The great auction houses such as Christie’s and Sotheby’s actually have very little interest in maintaining their antiquities departments; antiquities account for 1% or less of the turnover of such auction houses. It would be very easy for them and for experienced legitimate dealers to walk away from this trade, and that would matter because it would push more objects on to the black market and on to smaller auction houses that lack the compliance and legal and regulatory structures to do due diligence properly, and it would push out good dealers and give trade to those we are more concerned about.
Essentially, there is no right or wrong answer when doing due diligence. The way an auction house assesses property is by making a judgment. A whole range of material comes forward for any piece being sold in antiquities sales. Some will come from blogs that are emerging; others from states such as Egypt that automatically challenge the sale of every piece being sold in the UK. An experienced professional—whether a dealer, a specialist in an auction house or someone in an auction house legal department—has to weigh up the factors and make a judgment. I would not want this Bill to criminalise people who ultimately make honest mistakes. That would set us back in our task of shrinking the illicit market and empowering the people at the forefront of getting this right. The Minister kindly reassured me in a letter she sent to Lord Judge that answers some of these points, but I would like this to be further considered on Report. It is extremely important that the due diligence being carried out is proportionate and does not dissuade legitimate businesses from participating in the market.
We have heard from other Members that no law is worth legislating for if it is not properly enforced. Sadly, enforcement in this area is very poor. The Met police have a small art and antiques squad. At different times, it has had between one and three members, and at present has, I think, one and a half people. They are excellent individuals; I have met some of them and my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) and others know some of them, and I do not want to criticise their professionalism, but they are very constrained. This has been viewed as a sort of Lovejoy area of the criminal market that does not really matter; it is considered to involve harmless rogues in a barn in Suffolk. However, this is serious crime that is linked to human trafficking, the drugs trade and the funding of terror, and the policing needs to match that. I hope the good intentions set out in this Bill will lead to a prod to the Met police and others to beef up their policing as soon as possible, or else our efforts in this Bill will ultimately be in vain.
I welcome the Bill and am grateful to the Government for doing this. It is to their huge credit that we have finally done this. In debates such as that last week on the conflict in Yemen, we hear of cities of enormous value such as Sana’a being destroyed and of cultures under threat, and we realise why this matters. It matters because it is about protecting our shared international heritage and ensuring extremists never win.
David Warburton (Somerton and Frome) (Con)
It is a pleasure to talk on this subject, and on this Bill which, as have heard, has been a long time coming. It is of great cultural and symbolic significance. I know the debates in another place have been conducted in a constructive bipartisan spirit, and it is nice to see this debate conducted in the same vein. I am delighted that the Government have found parliamentary time for this type of measure, which has not been achieved in the past. It shows a welcome recognition of the significance and symbolic power of the measures in the Bill.
As the Government have rightly been at pains to point out, it is important to say that although the UK has so far failed to sign up to The Hague convention or the 1954 or 1999 protocols, our armed forces already act absolutely as if they were bound by them; in fact The Hague convention and its protocols form a framework today for both training and armed conflict.
The establishment of the £30 million cultural protection fund, our sponsoring of UN resolution 2199 designed to stop Daesh from transforming cultural destruction into financial profit, and the work of the joint military cultural protection working group all bear witness to the UK’s ongoing commitment to protecting cultural property in spheres of conflict. It is worth emphasising that the successful passage of this Bill would make the UK the first permanent member of the UN Security Council to ratify the convention and accede to both its protocols, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) pointed out. As the House has heard, that has been in the offing for more than 10 years, so it is perhaps a good time to recognise the work of those who prepared the original draft Bill, which bears a striking similarity to the one we are considering today.
As I said, this is a timely moment to be passing such legislation. We recently saw the first person be charged by the International Criminal Court for damaging mankind’s cultural heritage in Timbuktu. Our minds are also concentrated by Daesh’s appalling targeted destruction of cultural sites in north Africa and the middle east, including St Elijah’s monastery, historic libraries and pretty much any other representational art that it comes across.
To talk about the importance of cultural property in conflict is obviously not to undermine in any way the essential truth that the preservation of human life will and should always be the prime motivating factor in the conduct of military operations. That truth is enshrined in the doctrine of military necessity that formed a vital part of the original convention and is strengthened in the second protocol, which we will also be approving should we pass the Bill. The Bill will make a strong statement about the UK’s commitment to the future at a time when such protection is more necessary than ever.
Finally, the Bill, and the convention it ratifies, deals largely with state-to-state conflict. In offering my support, I would be grateful to hear more from the Minister about how the Government will continue to work to provide a similar level of protection in more asymmetric conflicts involving non-state actors such as Daesh. The states and groups that destroy monuments and artistic expression are trying to hide. They are trying to destroy pluralism, thought, inclusivity and diversity in order to reimpose a childishly simplistic, inverted form of good and evil. I do not need to tell the House that cultural heritage enables all peoples to see themselves clearly both as individuals and as members of an historically coherent and culturally significant whole. The House will remember the words of Heinrich Heine, now engraved into the ground where the Nazis burned thousands of books in 1933:
“where they burn books, they will in the end burn people”.
Sir Edward Garnier (Harborough) (Con)
I am delighted to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (David Warburton) but, with all due respect, if there are two speeches to which the Government should pay particular attention, they are those of my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) and my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick). Despite the excellence of the other speeches from both sides of the House, they are the two that really hit the problems on the head.
The Bill is welcome and I wholeheartedly support it, subject to one or two concerns that I shall touch on briefly. The first relates to the definition of cultural property, as mentioned by several hon. and right hon. Members. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport also touched on the topic in her opening remarks. The definition in the Bill lacks sufficient clarity. I accept that the Bill refers us to article 1 of The Hague convention for the protection of cultural property in the event of armed conflict but, taking the example of the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), film and so on were I suspect not considered when the convention was drawn up in the early 1950s. New forms of heritage—if that is not a contradiction in terms—have emerged since then, and the Government need to give the definition of cultural property a little more thought. That is not an aggressive point; I simply want to point out something that it would be sensible for the Government to look into.
The other area that also needs more thought is the absence of any definition of an occupied territory. My right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon mentioned that when he was Chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, the west bank, the Golan heights and perhaps another place—
Sir Edward Garnier
East Jerusalem—they were designated as occupied territories. However, the world has moved on and, as my right hon. Friend correctly pointed out, there are now other parts of the world that could, either as a matter of fact or as a matter of law, be considered occupied territories. The Government must be more open, or at least clearer, about the definition of an occupied territory.
There is, however, perhaps an even more important matter that needs resolving, which involves the level of criminal intent for the offences described in clause 17. In framing my remarks, I am grateful for the help I have had from the British Art Market Federation, the British Antique Dealers’ Association, Mr Hugo Keith QC, and Professor Janet Ulph of the University of Leicester school of law. I stress, however, that what I shall say is my interpretation. If I have got things wrong, that is my fault and not the fault of those who valiantly tried to explain the matter to me. You will be glad to hear, Mr Speaker, that I cannot for reasons of time go into the detailed legal analysis undertaken by them, but I sent the Secretary of State a copy of Mr Keith’s opinion, which carefully explains why the use of “reason to suspect” in the context of this Bill is unwise and unfair.
Clause 17(1) makes it an offence to
“deal in unlawfully exported cultural property”
that the dealer knows or has
“reason to suspect… has been unlawfully exported.”
So far, so good. No one can support the dealing in unlawfully exported cultural property when they know it has been unlawfully exported, but the mens rea—criminal intent—required under the provision has caused concern in the London art market. The worry is that “reason to suspect” will place an unacceptable and stifling burden on the market. That aspect of the Bill was touched on only briefly in the other place but was not taken up by the Government.
Clause 17 creates an offence of dishonesty, carrying with it a sentence of imprisonment of up to seven years, as well as the destruction of reputation. The problem that worries me arises from the provision that relates to the state of mind, which must be proved before the defendant can be convicted. Dealing in prohibited property knowing that it has been unlawfully exported, the first offence created by clause 17, is simple, easily described, uncontroversial and comes within well-established and clearly understood principles of criminal law. Dealing in such prohibited property believing that it has been unlawfully exported would also be an equally straightforward offence. “Knowledge” or “belief” identify the mens rea, or criminal state of mind, accompanying the prohibited activity. To establish guilt, the prosecution would have to prove that at the time when the prohibited activity took place the defendant knew or believed that he was dealing in prohibited property.
That, however, is not what the second offence created by clause 17 provides. Rather, it defines the criminal activity—dealing in prohibited property—but by relating the criminal state of mind required for the offence to “suspicion” it introduces an unusual concept into the ordinary law that applies to offences of dishonesty. Indeed, it does not even provide that the offence is proved if the defendant personally suspected that he was dealing in prohibited property.
Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)
Can my right hon. and learned Friend think of any other examples of mens rea of this type that are in use?
Sir Edward Garnier
One often sees the type currently drafted into clause 17 when a defendant has to rebut a presumption—the possession of certain items in sexual offences or drugs offences. It is also to be found under certain rarely used disclosure offences, such as under section 119 of the Companies Act 2006—something that we speak about so frequently in the clubs and bars of Market Harborough. As regards the substantive criminal law and the making of a substantive criminal offence, my hon. Friend is right to say that this is a rare and wholly unusual distinction, and I quietly urge the Government to think again.
As drafted, this provision abandons the principle that it is the defendant’s state of mind that must be “criminal”, whether defined in terms of belief or even suspicion, for an objective test: whether he had reason to suspect. What may arise from an offence defined in that way can be quickly described. The defendant may be offered property which, because of the circumstances, he may have reason to suspect may be prohibited. Just because he wishes to proceed with caution, and to avoid committing a criminal offence, after sensible inquiry and investigation he may in good faith decide that his suspicions have been allayed and proceed to deal in the property. For a defendant acting in good faith to be convicted of an offence of dishonesty is a novel proposition. It may be suggested that the offence is not intending to apply to such an individual, but only to the individual who, notwithstanding any investigations he may make, turns a blind eye to reasonable grounds for suspicion, but that is not what the clause says. The offence can and should be defined in terms of the defendant’s belief or suspicion, and currently it is not.
Surely the question to ask is whether the defendant did or did not believe, or did or did not suspect. The more powerful the evidence that he had reason to suspect, the more likely it is that the jury would conclude that he did indeed believe or suspect, and that the offence is proved. In short, where the defendant did indeed have “reason to suspect”, that would provide the evidence to establish that he did indeed believe or suspect that he was dealing in prohibited property. That however goes to the evidence available to prove guilt; it should not define the offence.
It would be unusual for an offence of dishonesty to be created that did not focus on the defendant’s personal state of mind. It would also be unusual to create two offences in a single provision which make provision for separate and distinctive forms of criminal intent: knowledge, which is entirely subjective; and reason to suspect, which is not. Any summing up in an indictment which alleges the two offences as alternatives would not be straightforward. Worse still, it would be unwise, and it would make for significant complexity in any trial for two statutes with the same objective—the protection of the cultural heritage of every nation—not to define criminal intent in exactly the same way.
Section 1 of the Dealing in Cultural Objects (Offences) Act 2003 states—
Mr Speaker
Order. I do apologise to the right hon. and learned Gentleman, but when he leant down like that, I thought it was because he was approaching his peroration. That may have been a triumph of optimism over experience.
Sir Edward Garnier
Ms Bell, I think, has spoken on my behalf. I was just advising you, Mr Speaker, about section 1 of the 2003 Act, which I know you want to hear about.
Sir Edward Garnier
At least I am right about that. [Laughter.] It states:
“A person is guilty of an offence if he dishonestly deals in a cultural object that is tainted, knowing or believing that the object is tainted.”
This Bill says that it is
“an offence for a person to deal in unlawfully exported cultural property, knowing or having reason to suspect that it has been unlawfully exported.”
For the reasons that I have been briefly explaining, I suspect that the 2003 Act provides the better wording. The provision in this Bill is not following well-established principles relating to the prosecution of offences of dishonesty. I am concerned that the Bill, which is concerned with the same issues, fails properly to take into account that set of principles. As drafted, it may result in the prosecution and conviction for an offence of dishonesty of a defendant who has, or may have, acted in good faith.
It is one thing for a defendant to be convicted of handling stolen goods where they have been shown to have known or believed the goods were stolen—the law is clear and the defendant knows when he is convicted that the jury was sure he knew or believed the goods were stolen—but under this Bill, as currently framed, a convicted defendant cannot be sure that his conviction reflects his actual state of knowledge or belief and that he was not convicted simply for lacking curiosity. Absence of curiosity may be regrettable and sometimes stupid or negligent, but it should not lead to a conviction, with all the reputational damage that flows from it.
Beyond that, I urge the Government to consider what effect this provision will have on the art market here in London. As was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Newark, who speaks with the advantage of being not only a lawyer, but a former director of Christie’s, this will have a stifling effect. It may be that there will not be many convictions or many arrests, but the mere threat of the reputational damage caused by this possibility is enough to put the mockers on this valuable and entirely legitimate aspect of the London art market. The art market will go elsewhere and the crooks will get away with it. If we want to catch the bad boys, and if we want to inhibit this wrong and immoral market, why not stick to the 2003 wording or something similar to it, rather than allowing this Bill to contain an error of principle which could confound the interests of all of us who wish to see the destruction and the dealing in cultural objects that have been stolen brought to an end?
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
I am delighted to follow my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier), peroration and all. I declare an interest, as the chairman of the all-party groups on archaeology and on the British Museum, and as a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.
As we have all agreed, the Bill has been a long time coming—it is 62 years old. As I glance around the room, I hazard a guess that that makes it older than anybody in the Chamber, now that my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames) has left.
Tim Loughton
I am delighted to be put right by my right hon. and learned Friend, although we would never know it, Mr Speaker.
I also pay tribute to what is left of the Labour Opposition and the remarkable dexterity of the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) who, in a debate on cultural artefacts, managed to mention Keats, Uber taxi drivers, the temple of Bel and an attack on private education. He certainly gave us his money’s worth, even if he does not have many mates with him to support this excellent Bill.
I very much welcome the Bill. We know that the original protocol and convention were passed in 1954, largely as a reaction to the destruction of cultural artefacts of the second world war. We know that the second protocol, which came about in 1999, mostly followed in the wake of great destruction in the former republic of Yugoslavia. We recall the familiar scenes at the UNESCO world heritage sites such as the Mostar bridge, which really brought home the futility of war and the destruction of our culture, which we just do not get back. That protocol recognised that the desecration of cultural property could become a war crime and identified the blue shield scheme, which many Members have referred to. It also set up an international non-governmental organisation advisory body to the intergovernmental committee for the convention. There were therefore great hopes in 1999 that we might follow suit. We have made reference to the heritage Minister Andrew McIntosh, who brought forward in 2004 a commitment to ratify the convention. That led to a Bill in 2008, which was scrutinised by the Select Committee, led by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale). The Bill was supported by the Ministry of Defence and the whole heritage sector, but the excuse given for what happened was that it became overshadowed by the financial crisis and ran out of parliamentary time. Then in 2011, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey), as a Minister, reconfirmed the Government’s commitment to ratification at the “earliest possible opportunity”.
In 2014, there was another great body blow when the Cabinet Committee said that it had not been able to grant drafting authority for a Bill—not even a handout Bill. The commitment of successive Governments was in question when their warm words were not followed up by definitive action. At long last, that earliest possible opportunity has arrived. I particularly pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon—he is not in his place at the moment—whose personal commitment to this matter and lobbying of the powers that be at No. 10 has made this Bill a reality.
The announcement in last year’s autumn statement of the £30 million cultural protection fund together with a summit of heritage experts really gave flesh to that commitment. The legislative wheels grind frustratingly slowly, and, as with the second protocol, it has taken the cultural cleansing atrocities in Syria and Iraq to concentrate the minds of those in a position to bring forward this ratification today.
I do not want to be churlish, because I really welcome the Bill and the commitment behind it. I absolutely praise all those who have played an integral part in this. Many of them have been mentioned today. I am talking about Sir Neil MacGregor, the former outstanding director of the British Museum, and my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) who, in his relatively short time in this House, has made a big impact in this area. It is really important now that we get on with it. We need to gain the moral high ground and become the only one of the five permanent UN Security Council member countries to ratify both the protocols and the convention.
Why is this important? At a time when we are seeing horrific scenes of women, children and men being bombed, murdered and executed in the most grotesque fashion by Daesh in the tragic conflicts in both Syria and Yemen, why should we be concerned about a bunch of old rocks and relics? My hon. Friend the Member for Newark described just a couple of examples. Let me mention Professor Assad, the director of antiquities at Palmyra, which I was privileged enough to visit just before the civil war in Syria—it is the most magical archaeological site imaginable, and I speak as someone who studied Mesopotamian archaeology and who has visited many sites—and the guards at Nineveh. These people gave their lives because they appreciated and understood the importance of protecting culture as the spirit of a nation, and that it makes mankind what it is and is what separates mankind from savages. As the Heritage Alliance put it:
“The destruction of cultural capital is a powerful propaganda tool and is part of a long history of demoralising communities by destroying the symbols of their nationhood.”
As Irina Bokova, the director general of UNESCO, said, this is “cultural cleansing”, and we must view it as such and in the same terms as trafficking.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Many antiquities can be purchased on the black market. Does the hon. Gentleman think that Governments should—either directly, or indirectly through a third party—try to purchase some of those antiquities and keep them for posterity for the years to come?
Tim Loughton
It is an interesting prospect, but I would much rather track down and prosecute the people who benefit from trafficking these antiquities. We do not want to set up a legitimate market, with Governments paying money to criminals. There are other ways of tracking down some of these important antiquities. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Newark that London has, by and large, a very legitimate market in antiques and antiquities. Obviously there are a few people who are the exception to that, but London has an excellent reputation compared with many other parts of the world. Hopefully, this Bill will prompt the United States Government to ratify the protocols, as it is suggested that they have been looking for a lead from a significant military ally.
We have heard several examples of recent high-profile tragedies involving cultural terrorism: the 2015 looting of the Mosul museum; the vandalism of the Nergal Gate at Nineveh; and the destruction of the temple of Baalshamin at Palmyra—separate to the triumphal arch of Palmyra, which the hon. Member for Cardiff West conflated it with, but an important monument to that civilisation. All those tragedies were at the hands of Daesh. Indeed, Palmyra should be treated as a crime scene, given the damage that was done there. Fortunately, there was not as much damage as Daesh might have inflicted on it had it been given more time.
In other continents, shrines were deliberately destroyed by Boko Haram in Nigeria. We have heard one bit of good news, which is the first prosecution in the International Criminal Court of Ahmad al-Mahdi for his destruction in Timbuktu, the centre of Sufi Islam. He directed the destruction of 15th and 16th century Sufi tombs and the burning of the library in Timbuktu. His verdict just last month gave out a nine-year prison sentence for that cultural vandalism. That sends out a very important message, and we need to see many more people being brought to justice to emphasise just how important a crime against humanity this is.
Tim Loughton
May I continue a little, because I know that the Minister will want to respond on this?
There has also been mention of Yemen. Again, I was fortunate enough to be able to visit Yemen just before the civil war broke out—I am not a precursor to these civil wars, but I was in the country when it was a slightly less dangerous place to be. There are four UNESCO world heritage sites in Yemen: the historic town of Zabid; the old walled city of Shibam, the Chicago of the desert, with 16th century skyscrapers—the earliest skyscrapers in the world—made out of mud brick rising out of the desert; the magical walled medieval city of Sana’a itself; and the natural world heritage site on the island of Socotra. These sites are going largely under the radar. We hear more about the carnage being waged in Yemen, but little about the important cultural background to that country. Those are just a few of the sites that we know about.
Jim Shannon
May I take the hon. Gentleman’s mind back to when he mentioned Mosul? When we visited Iraq, and Irbil in particular, we had the opportunity to meet Archbishop Nicodemus of the Orthodox Church. He was archbishop in Mosul, and he informed us that his church had been destroyed and the cross taken down. Where there was a church is now a car park. When Mosul is liberated, does the hon. Gentleman think that those responsible should be made accountable for their dastardly deeds?
Tim Loughton
Those people should absolutely be held accountable and brought to justice. I am sure that when it is safe to do so, that important religious establishment will rise phoenix-like again, and I am sure the people of Mosul of all faiths will want to see that happen as that city gets back on its feet after the terrible things it has been through.
Across the world, spread across 165 countries, we have 1,052 UNESCO world heritage sites, of which 814 are cultural. I have mentioned some of the sites, but those are just the ones we know about. Some 90% of archaeological sites in Iraq have yet to be excavated, and many will have been looted over recent years. There is also the issue, as we have heard, of how cultural looting by Daesh and others finances terrorism.
The destruction of Syria’s archaeological sites has become catastrophic. There are unauthorised excavations going on, and the plunder of and trafficking in stolen cultural artefacts is an escalating problem. Many of the objects have already been lost to science and society, and the context in which many of them are being dug up in unsupervised conditions will be lost forever. The trading in looted Syrian cultural artefacts has apparently become the third largest trade in illegal goods worldwide. It is big business. It is estimated that looting is Daesh’s second largest revenue source after oil sales. There are around 4,500 archaeological sites including UNESCO world heritage sites which have been under the control of Daesh. Hopefully, fewer or none of them will continue to be, as the counter-offensive against Daesh succeeds in Iraq in particular.
Iraqi intelligence claims that Daesh alone has collected more than $40 million from the sale of artefacts. It is the equivalent of what the Taliban were doing in Afghanistan through the cultivation and sale of heroin to feed markets in the west. We took that very seriously and it was a priority for the invading and occupying forces in that country, yet the devastation and profit involved in the plundering of these archaeological sites and the sale of antiquities does not seem to register nearly as clearly on the world’s radar. This is an important part of putting that case firmly on the world’s agenda.
We are facing a quadruple threat. First, jihadists are looting these sites, claiming some sort of religious reason for doing so. They are entirely hypocritically profiting from their destruction on international black markets. Secondly, it is alleged that President Assad is knowingly selling antiquities to pay his henchmen. There are videos showing Assad’s soldiers at Palmyra some time ago ripping out grave relief sculptures and smiling for the cameras as those are loaded on to trucks. Thirdly, the Free Syrian Army in its various guises is looting antiquities as a vital source of funding. Fourthly, an increasingly active part of the population is involved in looting. Ordinary people are looting Syria’s cultural heritage because they have no jobs, income or tangible economic prospects and are increasingly turning to age-old plundering techniques, in some cases looting to order.
As a result of the activities of those four different parties, the fantastic culture of Syria and Iraq in particular is being systematically plundered, yet that hardly features on the west’s radar. We also have to face the consequences of the financing of terrorist organisations through the plunder of antiquities. We look forward to a day in the future when peace in some form comes to this region, but the looting also threatens to deprive Syria in particular of one of its best opportunities for a post-conflict economic recovery based on tourism which, until the conflict started, contributed more than 12% of national income.
It is important for the United Kingdom to be passing this legislation, as we have one of the most professional and strategically thinking heritage communities in the world. The Bill will enable the UK’s soft power and diplomacy agendas to position the UK as an international leader in demonstrating a supportive and facilitating approach to the protection of cultural property. Post-Brexit—something that has not been mentioned this evening—we need to promote our extensive cultural wealth and network of contacts through world museums such as the British Museum to re-forge new relationships beyond the EU. The respectability and gravitas of having signed up to the world’s protection protocols gives us considerably more strength and credibility in doing so.
We have heard about the £3 million which has been given to the British Museum to bring Iraqi archaeologists and restoration experts to the UK to help train them in how to reconstruct their country after the war and the conflict are over and ISIL has been driven out. London hosted the unveiling of the replica of the Palmyra arch, which then went on a world tour—a fantastic example of rescue archaeology and how, in the face of the cultural vandalism, we will rebuild these important heritage sites. I particularly welcome the proposed property protection unit in the Army. The Foreign Secretary and I have already said that we would willingly volunteer to be part of such a force and go out to the middle east to help the new monuments men and women, but they will be much better than the original monuments men.
I gave this example once before, but the extraordinary figure of Colonel Matthew Bogdanos, who came to the House 10 years ago, led the hunt for the treasures looted from the Baghdad museum in 2003, after the allied invasion. He led an investigation into the looting of the Iraq national museum, from which many thousands of priceless treasures disappeared. Probably the most priceless of those was the 5,000-year-old Warka vase—the first representation of the human face in an art form in stone. After the good works of Colonel Bogdanos, a clapped-out red Toyota appeared outside the Baghdad museum, the boot was opened and in a box was a vase in 20 pieces, which turned out to be the Warka vase—what people had forgotten was that, when the German archaeologists dug up the Warka vase, it was in about 20 pieces and was then glued together. Extraordinary work by an American reservist lawyer with a small team of people reconstructed so many thousands of the important artefacts that had been taken from the museum in Baghdad. We can do even better, and we have the expertise in the British Army, British academia and our museums to play a role even greater than that played by the heroic Colonel Matthew Bogdanos.
May I end, or approach my pre-peroration, Mr Speaker, with a few questions for the Minister? I welcome the £30 million cultural protection fund, as everybody else who has spoken today has. It will help to build capacity to foster, safeguard and promote cultural heritage in conflict-affected regions overseas, but what sort of projects does she envisage it being used for? We know about the £3 million for the British Museum. What happens after the three years to which that £30 million has been devoted?
What about more proactive protection measures than just retaking sites, tracking down looted artefacts and carrying out reconstruction? Can we do a lot more to try to prevent these things from happening in the first place? There were tales in the middle east of the residents of a town, in the face of ISIL, linking hands around some of their important monuments to try to protect them—huge bravery in the teeth of such savagery. Surely we could do more to make sure that we get there before the terrorists and that the terrorists are deflected.
When will we hear further about the Army working group? How many people is it likely to include? The excellent Lieutenant Colonel Tim Purbrick, who gave a presentation to the all-party group on archaeology, is hugely impressive and hugely keen, and he wants to get on with it. Perhaps the Minister can give us a progress report on when we might see some tangible results.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe, in the other place, told peers that work was going on in the Department to consider
“what cultural property should be covered in the UK”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 6 June 2016; Vol. 773, c. 584.]
Perhaps the Minister can update us on what progress has been made on that, and on when we can expect a definitive list.
Then, of course, there is the thorny issue of when cultural property is attacked by terrorist organisations such as Daesh or Boko Haram that are not covered in the Bill because they are not covered by the protocols to the convention. Effectively, we are asking whether the Minister will pursue the possibility of a third protocol. I know we are only just about to sign the first and second protocols and the convention, but if we are to bring the convention up to date, that will require international co-operation to counter those terrorists who are not part of states.
Penultimately, the heavy workload on the excellent Metropolitan police art and antiques unit has been mentioned. If the Bill is to be effective, that workload will be increased, yet there has, as I mentioned, been only one prosecution to date under the Dealing in Cultural Objects (Offences) Act 2003. Will the Minister give some assurances that that unit, which is the responsibility of the Home Office, will be properly resourced so that it has enough people with the skills and training to track down the minority of criminals who should have been tracked down before now?
Then there is the issue of scheduled ancient monuments —archaeology in the ground. There are some 20,000 scheduled ancient monuments in the United Kingdom, but they are not included in the proposed list because they are not graded in the same way as listed buildings, for example. What added protections are there for those monuments, given that they are not specifically covered in the Bill?
What is the future of the blue shield scheme, which the Secretary of State described as the “cultural equivalent” of the Red Cross, as it is currently a completely voluntary organisation that is also, to some extent, undermined by the lack of a central team to co-ordinate its activities and avoid duplication? I think she is supportive of the excellent work by Professor Peter Shaw of Newcastle University, who has done so much to champion this whole cause.
Finally, I cannot resist echoing a point raised, slightly impertinently, by the hon. Member for Cardiff West: how does it help to find the archaeologists of the future, who may go into the Army to be part of the new team of monuments men, when we are about to lose the A-level in archaeology? How are we to find the expertise that is so essential to carry out the terms of the legislation that we are belatedly but thankfully scrutinising today? Will the Minister, as a result of these deliberations, have a conversation with her colleague the Secretary of State for Education to see what can be done to keep that important subject on the curriculum? I studied archaeology at school to A/O-level. I did not, however—I am sorry to burst the hon. Gentlemen’s balloon—go to a private school. It was an important subject then and it is an important subject today, across so many areas.
This is a really important Bill. It may be specialist in nature, but it has been pored over, in various forms, for the past 62 years, in expectation of this day. We now, at last, need to get on with it.
Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to rise to support the Bill. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) said, the previous Labour Government put this issue on the political agenda in 2004 and pushed a draft Bill in 2008. The Bill is long overdue, 62 years after the convention was first brought forward. As has been made very apparent during this debate, cultural property is not just bricks and mortar—it is the very fabric and soul of society and our history. It deserves our prioritisation, our attention and our protection. As has been elucidated, unfortunately we do not have to look too far, even today, to see examples of wilful cultural destruction, from Daesh’s destruction at Palmyra and al-Qaeda’s demolition of the mosques and mausoleums in Timbuktu, to the destruction and churches in Mosul, which, as the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) said, goes hand in hand with ethnic cleansing.
We have heard some excellent speeches. The right hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale)—who is, I believe, particularly to be congratulated on bringing this Bill forward—gave a moving account of the courage of Khaled al-Asaad, who laid down his life in the protection of the Palmyra site. Not only is there wilful destruction of such cultural property, but Daesh and others are profiting from the proceeds.
The right hon. Gentleman, among others, made a pertinent point about clause 17 and the difference between “knowing” and “having reason to suspect” that cultural property was illegally acquired. He called for a clearer requirement on dishonesty that exists in similar provisions in legislation such as the Theft Acts. I am sure that the Minister will provide us with an assurance that the threshold is not low to scoop up innocent people but rather ensures that prosecutions are brought against anyone who has not conducted their due diligence. Only a single prosecution has been brought under the Dealing in Cultural Objects (Offences) Act 2003, and it has been criticised for its low threshold. I hope that the Minister will stick to her guns on that.
The hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O'Hara), who spoke on behalf of the Scottish National party, made some excellent points about the plundering of cultural artefacts by Daesh and the role of the European art market.
The right hon. Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey), who is not in his place, was full of self-deprecation about how unsuccessful he was as a Minister in introducing the proposed legislation, but he welcomed, as we do, the cultural protection fund. He was right to point out that the British Museum is free to visit, and that is thanks to the last Labour Government, who acknowledged that there should be no class barrier to accessing and participating in culture. Unfortunately, he showed none of the humility that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West called for in recognising some of the less desirable aspects of our history with regard to our colonial past.
The hon. Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) made an impassioned case for the Bill in relation to illegal antiquities from Cyprus that turn up in London, the biggest art market in the world. It is vital that we enforce against that here, because it is so difficult to do so in war zones such as Syria and in Cyprus.
Similarly, the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) said that it is important that we ratify not only the convention, but the two protocols, to bring us into line, finally, with other Security Council members and to ensure that we are at the front of the pack of the five permanent members.
The hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) was rightly praised by a number of hon. Members for the role he has played in the Bill’s progress. He pointed out that a great wrong is finally being righted, and he is to be congratulated on his persistence. He spoke in particular about those on the frontline who risk their lives to protect their living histories and about why our cultural diplomacy and how we back it up through our legislation and the cultural protection fund are so important. He was also right to say that the Bill is symbolic.
The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (David Warburton) pointed out that protection is more necessary than ever and that there should be similar protection in conflicts that involve non-state actors. I hope that the Minister will address that in her response.
The right hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier) called for greater clarity on the definition of cultural property and pointed out that many new forms of heritage have been developed since the 1950s. Greater clarity is also needed on the definition of occupied territory, given that there are many different forms of it in the world, with Crimea being an interesting example.
Last but by no means least, the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) praised the renowned dexterity of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West in his opening speech. The hon. Gentleman said that it was important that we hurry up and get on with the Bill, so that we can lead the way and be the first of the five permanent members of the Security Council to ratify the convention, not only to secure and promote London’s reputation as the centre of the international art market, but to prompt other states to ratify the convention and to prosecute those who hypocritically profit from trade on the international black market and, in some cases, as he pointed out, loot to order.
We welcome the Bill and the fact that the Government have finally made time for it. The ratification will put the UK at the forefront of international cultural property protection. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West has asked me to thank Ministers for allowing him to meet the Bill team in preparing our response.
Will the Minister assure us that legitimate art dealers will not be caught up by clause 17? In her opening remarks, the Secretary of State said that she did not think that that would be the case, but can the Minister be more explicit?
Will digital formats be protected? My hon. Friend Lord Stevenson said in the other place:
“Who could, these days, expect to understand, debate and discuss the culture of any country or time without having regard to the moving image?”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 28 June 2016; Vol. 773, c. 1476.]
We appreciate how tricky it is to capture the spirit, purpose and language of an instrument that was drafted more than 60 years ago, while creating a relevant and effective regime for the present day, but we would appreciate the Minister’s comments on that.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West will probe further the issues raised by several Members about mens rea, but we are generally supportive of the Government’s position, which would require effective due diligence by art dealers in relation to clause 17. Finally, we ask the Government to think again about the removal of art history, archaeology and classical civilisation A-levels, for which my hon. Friend has passionately made the case. They are vital if we are to enforce the measures in the Bill and promote our cultural diplomacy across the globe. We are pleased to support this Bill on Second Reading.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Tracey Crouch)
It is with great pleasure and pride that I close the Second Reading debate on the Bill. This piece of legislation has been a long time coming, and I pay tribute to the former Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) for his success in securing a slot for the Bill this Session. The debate has shown us that there is cross-party consensus in the House, as there was in the other place, on this Bill, and that we are all working to achieve the shared goal of protecting our cultural heritage.
I thank Members of the House who have, over a number of years, pushed for the Government to ratify the convention and accede to its two protocols. I would like to give a special mention to my hon. Friends the Members for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes), for Newark (Robert Jenrick) and for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), and to the work of the all-party group on cultural heritage. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) for her campaign when the Labour party was in government.
I thank all the stakeholders who have helped the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to bring the Bill before this House, particularly Professor Peter Stone, Professor Roger O’Keefe, Neil MacGregor, and Michael Meyer of the British Red Cross, who have all worked closely with the DCMS for many years on the subject. In addition, I thank the police, the Ministry of Defence, the armed forces, and Historic England and its counterpart agencies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland for their support in bringing forward this Bill. The art market and the British Art Market Federation have also been effective in working with the Department to highlight the Bill’s impact on an important sector of our economy. The Government appreciate and support the work of all those stakeholders to keep the Bill in the spotlight, enabling us to have this well-informed debate.
We have had a good debate that has covered many aspects of the Bill, and I would like quickly to address some of the key points. The two main themes of Syria and the mens rea clause were raised by many. I will deal with some of the specific issues that Members have raised, but some will need to be dealt with beyond the Chamber, so I hope that colleagues will bear with me.
Syria is a complex matter, and we need to remember what the Bill does and does not do. The Bill enables the UK to ratify the convention and both its protocols, delivering a strong message that the UK will not tolerate illicit dealing in cultural property. The Bill applies to the situation in Syria, although its application is limited in part because the UK does not recognise Daesh as a state and because Syria has not ratified the second protocol. However, UK nationals fighting with Daesh could be prosecuted for serious violations under clause 3, because article 15(1)(e) of the second protocol covers property protected under the convention, which Syria has ratified.
Many Members raised concerns about clause 17. It is important to note that the Bill will not require the art market to change how it operates. The matter was not raised on the Floor of the House during scrutiny of the Bill in the other place, but I understand that there is concern in the House. As such, I would be happy to have a meeting with anyone who wants to discuss the matter further. In addition, the Secretary of State and I will meet the chairman of the British Art Market Federation on Wednesday.
If I may, I will explain the Government’s position on clause 17. As dealers should be carrying out due diligence for any piece of cultural property that they wish to buy or sell, in accordance with industry standards, we do not consider that the legislation imposes any extra burdens on those in the art industry. In order for a criminal case to proceed, the prosecution must be satisfied that there is enough evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction, and that there is enough evidence that prosecution is needed in the public interest. Where there is credible evidence to suggest that an object may have been unlawfully exported, we consider that a dealer would not be acting in good faith if they proceeded in a deal involving that object unless further due diligence were undertaken to rebut that evidence. On that basis, we do not believe that honest dealers should be concerned about the risk of prosecution.
A question was asked about whether the definition of the mens rea exists in other legislation. The answer is yes. The Iraq and Syria sanctions orders create similar offences with similar penalties, using as the mens rea the very similar standards of “reason to suppose” and “reasonable grounds to suspect”. The art market has continued to operate successfully while complying with the Iraq and Syria sanctions orders, so we see no reason why that should be any different in relation to the offence under the Bill. The Government’s view is that the sanctions orders provide the most appropriate models for the offence created under the Bill, given the particular and very serious risk posed to cultural property during times of armed conflict. However, we have listened to the concerns that have been raised, and we are very happy to meet anyone to discuss this matter further.
I will turn to the specific points that colleagues have raised. The hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), like the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) in her summing up, mentioned the issue of digital forms. The reassurance that the noble Baroness Neville-Rolfe gave in the Lords remains true—this was repeated by the Secretary of State in her opening speech—which is that the rare and unique film or music can be included in the scope of the Bill. The hon. Member for Cardiff West also mentioned the issue of recent conflicts, including about how the Bill will apply in Afghanistan. That country has not yet ratified the convention, so the Bill’s application there will be limited.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon and other hon. Members mentioned the cultural protection fund. Typically, he was incredibly understated about the role he played in securing the fund. In fact, he did not mention his role and that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey) in the establishment of the fund. I reassure him and other hon. Members that it is making good progress. My right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon rightly paid tribute to the MOD. The MOD has operated as though bound by the convention, so the Bill will have no material effect on the conduct of UK military operations.
The hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O’Hara) raised some interesting points. I just want briefly to say that we welcome his contribution and the support of the Scottish Parliament for the Bill.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Wantage started this Bill, so I will finish it for him. He raised the issue of the monuments men. The Bill continues to enjoy the full support of the MOD and the armed forces with regard to the monuments men and women. The MOD has consulted international partners to identify best practice, and it has tasked the Army with examining the best means of delivering the unit. Initial thoughts suggest a small unit of up to 20 personnel from across all three services. I look forward to updating colleagues further in due course.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) raised the question of Cyprus. I think we all agree that the division of Cyprus continues to cause difficulties across a range of issues, and that the most effective way to resolve them is through a just and lasting settlement. It remains important to ensure that the illegal export of cultural property is tackled and the property returned to its legal owners.
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate for his support, and I welcome his sporting comparison with Formula 1. As he knows, I am hugely competitive, and the idea of our being the first permanent member of the UN Secretary Council to ratify the convention and the two protocols thrills me enormously. To keep the motorsport analogy running, we in the Department are the drivers on that grid, but the car has very much been built and developed by the Members of this House, including by my hon. Friend.
My hon. Friend the Member for Newark has been rightly praised by all colleagues for his role on this Bill. He made the point that we are not the epicentre of illicit trade; nor do we want to be. He spoke with great knowledge about our art market, and about how the Bill may have an impact on auction houses. He will be aware that the market is very much self-regulated, and that is how it should remain. He will also be aware that the art market itself, through its codes of due diligence, sets the common principles of practice in dealing, with a checklist for dealers. The Bill will not change that. Regardless of whether they are large or small houses, dealers should always be concerned about whether cultural objects have been lawfully exported from any territory. Let us be clear that the dealing offence applies only to a very small but very special category of cultural objects—those which are of great importance to the cultural heritage of every people.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (David Warburton) and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier) for their comments and support. My right hon. and learned Friend raised two additional points about the definitions of cultural property and of occupied territories. On occupied territories, it is for the Foreign Secretary to decide on a case-by-case basis. On the other definition, article 1 of the convention defines cultural property, but we will shortly hold a round-table meeting of experts to consider what cultural property should be covered in the UK.
Finally, my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham was right to pay tribute to the International Committee of the Blue Shield, a voluntary organisation made up primarily of cultural heritage experts keen to mitigate damage to cultural heritage during and after conflicts and natural disasters. My Department is grateful for the support the ICBS has given in shaping the Bill.
The cultural protection fund is work in progress. My hon. Friend asked some specific questions about its future application. I will ensure he gets updated on that on a regular basis.
This debate has shown how important cultural heritage is to all world citizens. The Bill offers the UK the chance to demonstrate its world leadership in the protection of cultural heritage. Through formal ratification we are sending a clear message of condemnation to those who intentionally destroy cultural heritage in times of conflict and those who seek to profit from the illegal trade in the cultural property and heritage of occupied territories. Combined with the cultural protection fund and the existing legislative framework designed to tackle illicit trade and terrorism-related activities, the Bill is another positive step towards ensuring our cultural heritage is protected for future generations. I commend it to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time.
Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Bill [Lords] (Programme)
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83A(7)),
That the following provisions shall apply to the Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Bill [Lords]:
Committal
(1) The Bill shall be committed to a Public Bill Committee.
Proceedings in Public Bill Committee
(2) Proceedings in the Public Bill Committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion on Thursday 17 November.
(3) The Public Bill Committee shall have leave to sit twice on the first day on which it meets.
Consideration and up to and including Third Reading
(4) Proceedings on Consideration and any proceedings in legislative grand committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour before the moment of interruption on the day on which proceedings on Consideration are commenced.
(5) Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on that day.
(6) Standing Order No. 83B (Programming committees) shall not apply to proceedings on Consideration and up to and including Third Reading.
Other proceedings
(7) Any other proceedings on the Bill (including any proceedings on consideration of any message from the Lords) may be programmed.—(Christopher Pincher.)
Question agreed to.
House of Commons Commission
Ordered,
That Dame Rosie Winterton be appointed to the House of Commons Commission in place of Mr Nicholas Brown under the House of Commons (Administration) Act 1978, as amended.—(Michael Ellis.)
Business without Debate
Justice Committee
21:18 - The House divided: - Ayes: 203 / Noes: 7 - Question accordingly agreed to.
Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)
I beg to move,
That Chris Elmore and Dr Rupa Huq be discharged from the Justice Committee and Kate Green and Keith Vaz be added.
This motion is the decision of the Committee of Selection. It respects the wish of the Labour party in electing those Members to this Committee.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
I rise to object to the appointment of the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) to the Justice Committee. I informed the right hon. Gentleman’s office this afternoon of my intention to do so.
I am aware that this is not a conduct debate and will therefore try to limit my remarks to why I believe the right hon. Member for Leicester East is at this time unsuitable for a role on the Committee to which he has been nominated, and to matters already on the public record and in the public domain. I am sure that should I cross the line or if my remarks are out of order, you will be as quick as always to advise and correct me, Mr Speaker.
I put on record that I have no objection to the appointment of the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green). In my view, it is unfortunate that her appointment has been linked with that of the other Member in question.
Mr Speaker, since I have been in this House, and on almost a weekly basis—from memory, it is usually on a Wednesday around about noon—you have reminded us how important the public perception of the workings of the House and the behaviour of its Members are in fashioning the public’s opinion of Parliament and our whole democratic system. You were quoted only last week, following the hugely successful Nottinghamshire event, as saying:
“There is a lot of evidence that people have a low opinion of politics and politicians”.
I agree, Mr Speaker, and that is unfortunately true. I do not believe that the right hon. Member for Leicester East joining the Justice Committee will do anything to enhance the reputation and perception of Parliament among the public; indeed, it will do the opposite.
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
I am a member of the Justice Committee. I am also a member of the Labour party. As the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin) said, it is the Labour party’s choice to put my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) on the Committee. What right does the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) have to tell the Labour party who to put on our Committees?
Andrew Bridgen
If that is the right hon. Gentleman’s belief, I suggest he speaks in the debate on behalf of the right hon. Member for Leicester East. Representing a Committee of the House reflects on this House. As a Member of the House, I have a right to object.
Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I wonder whether you could clarify to the House what the rights of Members of other parties—parties that do not have nominating rights—are in these matters now that we have changed our rules so that each party selects and nominates its preferred candidates.
Mr Speaker
It is the House that appoints to the Committee, and it is for the House to decide. It is on that basis that these matters are brought to the House and subject to motions moved by the Committee of Selection. Of course, as the right hon. Gentleman’s long experience will tell him, it is normal and commonplace for these matters to go through without objection, but it is perfectly orderly for someone to object if he or she so wishes.
Mr Speaker
Order. I will come to the hon. Gentlemen —he will continue his speech in a moment. He himself anticipated the possibility that the Chair might take an interest if he were to cross the line between what was legitimate and orderly to say and what was not. Thus far, the hon. Gentleman has observed that distinction and, on that basis, I am content for him at this stage to continue.
Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. It is absolutely right that we have procedures, but we also have conventions, which evolve. The convention that has evolved in the House, as far as I am aware, is that each of the parties, within their own ranks, decides their members of the Committees, although the whole House votes, rightly or wrongly, on who the Chairs of the Committees should be. Therefore, gratuitously for a Member to try to disrupt that convention is extremely unfortunate, even if it might be just the right side of the Standing Orders.
Mr Speaker
I entirely understand what the right hon. Gentleman is saying. I am not insensitive to him or to his point, which he has made with his usual force and eloquence. That said, a convention is one thing and a binding rule is another. I must simply make the point that, at this stage, the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) is in order. He may have offended the sensibilities of the right hon. Gentleman, and indeed departed from what is normal convention in this place, but he is at this stage in order.
Andrew Bridgen
Thank you for that clarification, Mr Speaker. I am pleased that so far the speech is so good.
An allegation in the Sunday Mirror, with supporting video footage, implied that the right hon. Member for Leicester East had offered to purchase class A drugs while using the services of escorts.
Mr Spellar
It is very interesting that the hon. Gentleman should cite the tabloid press which has, from time to time, taken an unhealthy interest in his activities.
Karl MᶜCartney (Lincoln) (Con)
That got disproved, and he is not the one who is up for the Justice Committee.
Mr Speaker
Order. Mr McCartney, calm yourself. Be quiet, young man. We do not need to hear from you. You add nothing and you subtract from the proceedings. Mr Bridgen is perfectly capable of addressing these matters to the best of his ability and according to his own lights. He does not require a sedentary interjection from you.
Andrew Bridgen
I am here to try to address matters pertaining to the reputation of this House. If the right hon. Member for Warley (Mr Spellar) wishes to make light of that, it is for his conscience, not mine. I am here to make my speech and force a vote, in which he will be at liberty to make his opinion known.
In July this year, the Home Affairs Committee published a report calling for the decriminalisation of soliciting by sex workers and of sex workers sharing premises. It also looked at the use of poppers. The Committee, at the time, was chaired by the right hon. Member for Leicester East. Following the much publicised exposé in the Sunday Mirror, he decided—belatedly, in my view—to resign from his position. But here we are, only a relatively few weeks later, and the same Member seeks a position on the prestigious and influential Justice Committee while matters relating to his recent resignation remain unresolved.
I wrote to Scotland Yard on 5 September to establish whether a crime had been committed by the right hon. Gentleman with regards to the allegation of conspiracy to supply a controlled substance. I received a letter, dated 9 September, from Commander Stuart Cundy of the specialist crime investigation unit, stating that an assessment of the information had commenced and that, following that assessment, a decision would be taken on the most appropriate course of action. No course of action has yet been determined by Scotland Yard, so a possible police investigation still hangs over the right hon. Gentleman.
Also on 5 September, I wrote to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards with regard to the right hon. Gentleman. An investigation was instigated and then immediately suspended, as is the procedure, pending the results of the police assessment. Should Scotland Yard decide in due course not to investigate the said Member with regards to potential criminal activity, the parliamentary standards investigation will commence immediately.
It is fair to say that the right hon. Member for Leicester East has quite a history regarding parliamentary standards. He was subject to extensive inquiries by Elizabeth Filkin, the then commissioner, into allegations of misconduct in 2001 and 2002. He was suspended from the House for one month in 2002 for breaches of the MPs’ code of conduct. I do not intend to list all the right hon. Gentleman’s brushes with parliamentary standards as I do not wish to detain colleagues longer than necessary.
Further to my letter to the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, in which I urged Scotland Yard to liaise with Leicestershire police, it has been stated that four witnesses have confirmed that they were recently interviewed by Leicestershire police and that their inquiries have been going on for at least a year. Those inquiries concern allegations that the right hon. Member for Leicester East abused his position in public office—
Mr Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman will resume his seat. He will know that I take advice on these matters. Having treated of matters that are very much within the public domain until now, his speech has strayed from there. I have consulted on the matter and he is now treating of matters that are not in the same category. He must desist.
Andrew Bridgen
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I have raised concerns with you about the conduct of the right hon. Member for Leicester East historically—
Mr Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman will resume his seat. Let me say clearly to the hon. Gentleman, and in terms that brook no contradiction, that he would be unwise to go into those matters. He has written to me and I have written back to him. I explained to him factually—factually—in a manner that cannot be disputed or gainsaid that it is not for the Speaker of this House to seek to persuade someone to step down as the Chair of a Committee because of suspicions that some people might have about him. That is not the role of the Speaker of the House of Commons. If the hon. Gentleman were a more experienced Member, he would probably be aware of that fact. I urge the hon. Gentleman to focus on those matters which it is proper and legitimate for him to raise, and not upon those which it is not.
Andrew Bridgen
Thank you. Mr Speaker, you have often said that this place must reflect the society for which we make the laws—I agree with you. I respectfully point out to the House that in any other sphere of activity, a candidate with so much hanging unresolved over him would be very unlikely to be considered for such an important office. If the right hon. Gentleman were in the Chamber today, I would ask him to stand down from his nomination, but he is not, so I ask the House to reject his appointment. Otherwise, we cannot blame the great British public for having a low opinion of its politicians and its politics; we can only blame ourselves.
In conclusion, I will leave the House with this question. If the right hon. Member for Leicester East thought himself only last month not fit to be a member of the Home Affairs Committee, and given that the matters relating his resignation are, as I have explained, unresolved, what makes him think that he is a fit and proper person to be a member of the Justice Committee this month?
Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)
Before my hon. Friend draws his remarks to a conclusion, some correspondence has been referred to this evening. I wonder if he will say whether it is possible to publish that correspondence to ensure that hon. Members on both sides of the House have an opportunity to consider all of the facts.
Mr Speaker
Order. That is nothing to do with the debate, as I have just been advised by the Clerk of the House. Don’t frown at me, Mr Berry. I know the facts and you’re about to learn them. That is nothing to do with the debate tonight—point one. Secondly, there is no uncertainty or dubiety whatsoever about the correspondence between the hon. Gentleman and me. Indeed, I do not think there is any uncertainty at all about the advice that was proffered not just by me but by the Clerk of the House. Whether he wishes and is astute enough to take that advice is another matter.
Andrew Bridgen
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thank my hon. Friend’s failed attempt to help in this debate.
It is clear that the right hon. Member for Leicester East felt the need to resign last month from the Home Affairs Committee. I think it would be a huge mistake for this House now to place him on the Justice Committee when he has so many questions to answer. I urge all right hon. and hon. Members to vote against his appointment this evening.
Question put.
Mr Speaker
With the leave of the House, we will take motions 19 to 25 together.
Ordered,
Petitions
That Ian Blackford be discharged from the Petitions Committee and Martyn Day be added.
Procedure
That Jenny Chapman be discharged from the Procedure Committee and Melanie Onn be added.
Public Accounts
That David Mowat and Mr Stewart Jackson be discharged from the Committee of Public Accounts and Charlie Elphicke and Kwasi Kwarteng be added.
Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs
That Oliver Dowden, Mr David Jones and Tom Tugendhat be discharged from the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee and Marcus Fysh, Adam Holloway and Dr Poulter be added.
Transport
That Mary Glindon be discharged from the Transport Committee and Clive Efford be added.
Treasury
That Mark Garnier be discharged from the Treasury Committee and Kit Malthouse be added.
Work and Pensions
That Jeremy Quin and Craig Williams be discharged from the Work and Pensions Committee and James Cartlidge and Luke Hall be added.—(Bill Wiggin, on behalf of the Committee of Selection.)
Social Housing: Regulation
Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)
I am delighted to have secured this debate. I called for it to voice my concerns about the regulation of social landlords and how they manage their properties. First, I want to pay tribute to the hundreds of my constituents who have campaigned, with me and their councillors, to draw urgent attention to their plight. The focus of my contribution will be how we can ensure that social housing tenants have the proper protection they need and can live in security and safety. This applies in particular to repairs and maintenance services, which if not done speedily and to a high standard can be devastating, and in some cases life-threatening.
At a time when local authorities and housing associations have been facing significant funding pressures, it is vital that the Government and regulators pay particular attention to the experience of social housing tenants. Housing associations are a critical part of the solution to Britain’s housing crisis; they provide affordable, quality rented and shared ownership accommodation, and the best ones are anchored in their communities. Many provide specialist housing services—for example, for people with disabilities. Some housing associations have historical roots in the 19th century and the mutual and co-operative traditions.
Tower Hamlets has many excellent community-based housing associations which have worked well in partnership with the council to look after residents and to be genuinely responsive to the needs of local people, but in recent years I have become increasingly concerned that these progressive aims are being subverted and the not-for-profit ethos of housing associations is being undermined in some cases. Old Ford Housing, which was established in 1998 as the successor body to Tower Hamlets Housing Trust, was widely regarded as one of the best housing associations in east London. It was originally a subsidiary of Circle 33 Housing Group for financing purposes, but it was accountable to its own board of tenants, leaseholders and independent members. In 2005, it merged with Anglia Housing Group to form Circle Anglia. Other associations then joined to form Circle Housing Group.
The quality of maintenance has progressively worsened since the merger. Circle Housing has systematically failed local people. Local councillors and I have had to deal with hundreds of complaints from residents, as have other MPs with housing in their constituency that is managed by Circle Housing. Last winter, it failed to manage its heating repairs properly, meaning that many tenants had no heating or hot water for days. Many other examples have been brought to my attention of missed appointments, repairs left undone, poor-quality work by contractors, and failures to communicate with residents. Tower Hamlets Council has taken the rare step of dropping Circle Housing altogether as a preferred partner for housing development in the borough.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the hon. Lady for bringing this important issue to the House for consideration. Does she agree that social housing regulations, in particular the right to repairs, must be further protected? Some people do the repairs themselves and then cannot get the money back from landlords, finding themselves in a precarious situation. Is it not time for the Minister to respond and to address that issue?
Rushanara Ali
I could not agree more. I will ask the Minister to address that point, because it is unacceptable that housing associations in receipt of public money are leaving some tenants to fend for themselves. I hope the Minister will address that and consider how to strengthen the regulatory framework.
Returning to the issues affecting my constituents, local ward councillors Rachel Blake, Mark Francis and Joshua Peck have been working tirelessly to support the hundreds of residents who have been treated disgracefully by Circle Housing. Some of the cases are heart-breaking, including residents carrying umbrellas indoors because of leaking ceilings, a heavy heater falling off a wall near small children playing on the floor, lifts breaking down on a weekly basis, and 30 flats left without light for weeks. No one should have to live like that.
One of my constituents called the Circle Housing office 40 times over a three-month period to fix leaks that left them using an umbrella when using the toilet. Another of my constituents, who was eight months pregnant, slipped on water leaking from her toilet, which she had reported on 88 occasions. Another couple had a boiler that broke down repeatedly for nearly six months. A disabled resident was left without heating for the best part of two months. Another family had to sit with bowls on their laps and towels on their heads because of unrepaired leaks from above. In another case, repair workers failed to attend four pre-agreed appointments organised since May this year to fix damaged walls and ceilings.
In other cases, leaks from bathrooms that have damaged the ceilings below have been left unrepaired for years. Another family’s unresolved piping problems have left them filling the bath with hot water from the kettle after asking for help for months. An elderly pensioner in her eighties went without heating and hot water for 17 days. Another elderly resident had to live with no hot water or heating for eight weeks. When he informed me about the situation, I asked Circle Housing’s CEO if he could tolerate being treated like that and had to threaten to inform the media about the appalling treatment before my constituent’s boiler was finally fixed. It cannot be right that we have go to such lengths to make Circle do its publicly funded job properly. It demonstrates incompetence and a dereliction of duty by Circle Housing.
Circle’s poor quality management was recognised in 2015 when the Homes and Communities Agency found evidence of serious detriment to tenants and downgraded Circle Housing Group from G1 to G3, which means there are issues of serious regulatory concern. Circle’s response to such a damning ruling was to close down its subsidiaries, including the Old Ford Housing Association, and centralise services, moving most of its staff to a new call centre in Kent. That has made matters worse.
In the spring, Tower Hamlets councillors reported further failings to the social housing regulator, whose role is to investigate whether there has been a breach of the home standard, which amounts to “serious detriment” to tenants. I could not imagine more cut and dried examples of serious detriment than leaving dozens, and possibly hundreds, of tenants without heating and hot water for extended periods. The provision of heating and hot water is one of the most fundamental of landlord functions. In response to that complaint, the HCA simply said it was satisfied with the progress Circle was making in improving its services. Earlier this summer, the HCA announced that Circle’s governance rating had been increased again to G2.
My constituents have now had enough. Earlier this year, I received a petition from nearly 1,000 local residents calling on the mayor of Tower Hamlets, John Biggs, to report the continuing service failings to the social housing regulator and initiate legal action against Circle for its failure to honour the promises it made to tenants back in 2005. It also called on me to raise their concerns with the Housing Minister, which I did in writing earlier this summer and as I did to his predecessor—I have not yet received a response. I hope that the Minister will therefore make sure he addresses these urgent matters today.
Given this context of the appalling record of the merger and growth of Circle Housing, it is not surprising that the recent proposal for Circle Housing to merge with Affinity Sutton has raised further alarm bells among residents. If this merger goes ahead, it will create one of the largest housing associations in Europe. Nearly half a million people across London, from Bromley to Brent, from Chelsea to Chingford, will become tenants of this new social landlord, which will own and run more than 127,000 properties. Residents are also rightly concerned that the merger and the centralisation of services, including repairs and maintenance, will see services deteriorate even further.
What we have seen is a complete failure to be locally accountable, with locally accountable board membership having been cast aside. Circle has completely failed to honour the promise it made when the Old Ford transfer happened that that would be maintained and there would be proper accountability. The merger with Affinity Sutton will make matters worse, and my constituents do not want any part of it, nor do residents from other London boroughs who have had similar experiences.
Housing associations receive billions in public subsidy from the taxpayer. Between 2010 and 2016, Circle Housing alone received more than £250 million of Government funding. It must be held to account properly if we are to prevent others from suffering in the way that many of my constituents have over the past few years at the hands of Circle Housing. Will the Minister provide an assurance that there will be more robust systems to process complaints, adjudicate in disputes and provide redress quickly when things go wrong? Will he assure us that he will ensure the HCA urgently investigates why Circle’s management board retained a failing contractor, Kier Gas, to provide its gas safety maintenance, and whether that decision, which left many tenants without heating and hot water for weeks, amounts to serious detriment? With the HCA review due to complete soon, will the Minister commit to empowering the HCA to investigate examples of neglect of repairs responsibilities? Will he think again about the HCA losing the power to give consent to housing association mergers, as set out in the Housing and Planning Act 2016?
I have no doubt that some housing associations and their representative body dislike the old regime from the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008 and its predecessor legislation, but this case shows that some housing associations do not always make decisions in the best interests of their tenants. The Government should be empowering regulators, not making them even more toothless and unable to act and therefore inept at standing up for the very people whom they should be serving.
In conclusion, I do not believe for a moment that Circle is alone in providing a shoddy service, or that this is the only proposed merger in the UK that is problematic. Instead there may well be a trend towards bigger, more remote and less accountable housing associations with multi-million pound turnovers and substantial assets and reserves behaving like companies that are not serving their communities. This is the antithesis of the founding principles behind housing associations and the opposite of what is needed now to fix the housing crisis.
I commend the work of the many housing associations in my constituency and up and down the country. It is right and proper that we hold to account those that are letting them down—in this case, it is Circle Housing Group—so that the reputation of good, hard-working housing associations that are responsive to their local communities is not damaged by the actions of the few.
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Gavin Barwell)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) on securing this debate on local authorities and the regulation of social housing and on raising the wholly unacceptable conditions that some of her constituents have been experiencing as tenants of the housing associations to which she referred.
Let me start by setting the scene. I am sure that all Members will agree that everybody needs the security and stability of a decent, affordable home, and nowhere is that need greater than in our capital city, which both the hon. Lady and I have the privilege of representing in this House.
As a Government we have gone some way to try to address the problem. In 2014-15, we saw a record year for London house building. Some 27,000 homes were delivered, including more than 18,000 affordable homes—the most since records began in 1991—but we need to do much more. That is why the Government are doubling the housing budget to more than £20 billion over the next five years to support the largest housing programme by any Government since the 1970s.
We are also building a strong working relationship with the Mayor of London’s team to deliver our shared goals to build more homes and to help more people to own their own home. Indeed, I am due to speak to the Mayor about that tomorrow.
As the hon. Lady acknowledged, the housing association sector has a strong track record on house building. It has delivered nearly 300,000 affordable homes since April 2010. That equates to about a third of all new housing in England every year. To help the sector to continue to build more homes, the Government have already committed £8 billion to deliver a range of affordable housing starts by 2021, and we have made it very clear that we will prioritise housing in London.
In April this year, we published the prospectus for the shared ownership and affordable homes programme. The bidding round closed in September, and the Homes and Communities Agency is currently assessing bids. We expect to announce successful bidders in December. This programme will get more homes built and help some people take the first step on to the housing ladder.
Building new homes is only part of the picture. One of the key roles of housing associations is to manage their existing stock. I wish now to turn to the role of the regulator, on which the hon. Lady touched during her speech. It has a strong regulatory framework to make sure housing associations are well managed, provide good-quality homes and serve the needs of their tenants and communities.
The hon. Lady may be aware that the Government are committed to deregulating the sector. She touched on that and asked us to rethink our policy. There are two reasons why we are taking such action. The first reason, with which she will not have a great deal of sympathy, is to do with the deal with housing associations to deliver the voluntary right to buy. The second reason, with which I hope that she and the shadow Secretary of State will have a lot of sympathy, is to allow the Office for National Statistics to return the sector to the private sector where it belongs. If we want to deliver more housing through the housing associations, it is very important that we end this decision to treat housing associations as if they are part of the public sector.
To help achieve those aims, a package of measures was included in the Housing and Planning Act 2016. They include the removal of the regulator’s disposals consents regime, so housing associations will no longer need the regulator’s permission to sell their own stock or to charge it for security. The regulator’s constitutional consents regime will also be abolished. That will remove the need for housing associations to seek permission before they make organisational changes.
What will not change is the strong regulatory framework. The regulator’s monitoring powers will remain unchanged and it will continue to take action where necessary. It will also continue with its vital role in encouraging and challenging the sector to improve efficiency and asset management. Its role is to help maintain a viable and well governed sector that attracts commercial lenders to continue to invest at preferential rates, so that we get the new housing that we need, and crucially to do a good job for the tenants whom those housing associations serve.
Rushanara Ali
I am concerned by the Minister’s response. I cannot understand how that helps to deal with my constituents’ concerns and how they are being treated. It is complacency yet again and does not address the effects on the public. On his point about privatising housing associations, they have received billions in subsidies, so deregulation must go with responsibility and accountability to the public because of that public investment. Surely, the Minister can understand that.
Gavin Barwell
I understand and share the hon. Lady’s desire to ensure that, in return for the very significant public investment that the Government are putting into the housing association sector, we not only get the new homes that we so desperately need—I do not think there is any difference between us on that—and that the housing associations do a good job for their existing tenants. If she will allow me to make a little progress, I hope that I can provide her with some reassurance.
The new freedoms that come with the deregulation measures will undoubtedly bring new challenges and may alter the way that the sector approaches decision making and business planning. The sector has a long history of meeting housing need. The majority of housing associations are still charitable and non-profit making organisations. Although some of them are running very large businesses in terms of the money involved, the hon. Lady was right to allude to the key social value that they provide. They must not lose sight of that, and I am confident that housing associations will continue to be responsible social landlords, acting in the best interests of both their current tenants and those in housing need.
Housing associations must have a process in place for tenants to have a say in how the organisation is run and to deal with complaints when tenants think their service does not come up to scratch. The housing ombudsman has the main role in dealing with complaints where tenants feel that matters cannot be resolved directly with their housing association. However, the regulator considers all the information it receives to determine whether there has been a breach of its standards and serious harm to tenants—as clearly happened in the case that the hon. Lady brought before the House tonight—and acts where it judges that to be the case.
I hope that the hon. Lady will understand that, as the regulator is independent and that independence is very important, I cannot directly intervene in individual cases. I am confident that the regulator takes all complaints seriously and investigates where necessary. I apologise to her for the fact that she has not yet received a reply to the letter that she wrote to me in August. If she has any concerns in future, she should speak to me in person. I want to be kept informed of exactly what the situation is and whether the progress that we both want to see is being made.
We heard a lot from the hon. Lady this evening about her concerns in relation to Circle 33 and Old Ford, two of the housing associations in the Circle group. As she may know, the regulator found that Circle’s long-standing poor emergency repairs service for two of its housing associations, Circle 33 and Old Ford, put its tenants at risk of serious harm. That is a very serious matter. The regulator took decisive action in April last year and downgraded Circle as it judged that Circle fell far short of the required standard and ordered it to make urgent improvements. That is not a decision that the regulator took lightly. I am pleased to say that Circle did take action to improve its performance. The hon. Lady referred to Kier, the contractors. My understanding is that that contract was terminated. The regulator has now upgraded Circle’s rating to compliant standard—so-called V2— but that is not good enough. It still has not reached the level that we all have a right to expect, and I will be monitoring that situation carefully.
The hon. Lady referred in her speech to the proposed mergers. As part of Circle’s drive to improve its governance arrangements, it plans to merge its nine separate housing associations, including Old Ford, into one. It believes that this will create a more efficient organisation. Housing associations need to take the views of their tenants into account before making such organisational changes. Indeed, it is one of the requirements of the regulator that they must do so, along with consulting their local authority—Tower Hamlets in this case—and lenders.
Old Ford will need to make its case for this change as part of that consultation. Until the deregulation measures come into force, it will need the regulator’s permission to make this change. The regulator’s criteria for taking a decision include whether the change will lead to simple, clear governance structures and whether it will deliver improved services to current and future tenants. I understand that the regulator has yet to receive an application from Old Ford in this regard. Again, as befits the regulator’s independence, the Government—that obviously includes me—do not have a role in such decisions. It will be up to the regulator, and the regulator alone, to carefully consider the application and to make its decision.
The hon. Lady referred to the merger of the whole Circle group with another housing association, Affinity Sutton. This merger would create a new organisation, to be called the Clarion group, which would manage about 128,000 homes. That would make it the largest housing association in the country. Circle has said this will help to deliver better services to tenants and build it more homes. In this case, I am told it has already consulted tenants, and I am told—the hon. Lady clearly believes otherwise—it did not receive many responses to that consultation. The regulator has given conditional approval to that merger, but it has not yet taken a decision on the nine associations in the Circle group.
I hope that the new organisation will continue to house and protect its tenants in a transparent and accountable manner. The regulator’s job is to ensure that it does. The hon. Lady clearly has real concerns about that. I would say to her that Affinity Sutton’s performance in relation to the repairs service is significantly better than Circle group’s, so there are clearly signs that Circle is merging with an organisation that is doing a much better job for its tenants, and the hope must be that that improved service will be brought to bear for Circle’s tenants. However, it is clear from the hon. Lady’s speech that she does not share the confidence the regulator has in that, and I am happy to discuss with her in detail after the debate the reasons for her concern.
I acknowledge that there has been a lot of change in the social housing sector in recent years. It is becoming increasingly complex, and it continues to diversify into a range of new commercial ventures and relationships. The hon. Lady referred to the internal review the Government have conducted of the Homes and Communities Agency. We will publish the results of that review shortly, but I want to reassure her that foremost in my mind in considering that review is making sure that, when we look at the functions the HCA has at the moment—parts of it increasingly resemble a bank that is making commercial lending decisions—we have a strong, clear and robust role for the regulator to look after the interests of tenants.
It is important that housing association boards’ skills and governance structures continue to evolve to match this increasing complexity. Overall, I believe the sector is rising to this challenge, indicating ambitious plans for building the homes this country desperately needs. It continues to invest in increasing supply to help the Government achieve our commitments.
As independent organisations, it is up to housing associations themselves to explore options thoroughly and openly and to make well-informed decisions about what is best, given their particular circumstances. Mergers will not be the answer in every case, but it should be of concern to us all if associations do not explore options that would help them to make better use of the resources they have and to provide an improved service to their tenants.
Finally, I thank the hon. Lady for securing this debate on a very important issue. I have, as Housing Minister, received correspondence from some of her constituents, who are very concerned about the service she has received. I want to apologise again that she did get a reply from me in timely fashion. I mean what I say: if she has ongoing concerns, she should feel free to come and talk to me in the House or to make an appointment to come and see me at the Department, because I would very much want to work with her to ensure that her constituents get the service they have every right to expect from their landlord.
Question put and agreed to.