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Oral Answers to Questions
(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP)
The Minister for Health (Stephen Barclay)
NHS England, NHS Improvement and Health Education England are working with trusts on a range of recruitment, retention and return-to-practice programmes to ensure that the required workforce are in place to deliver safe and effective services.
Martyn Day
The nursing vacancy rate in England is more than double that in Scotland, with one in 10 positions unfilled. The Royal College of Nursing has welcomed the Scottish Government’s Health And Care (Staffing) (Scotland) Bill, which will enshrine safe staffing levels in law. Will the Minister now follow the Scottish Government’s example and bring such a provision into law for NHS England?
Stephen Barclay
I fear that the hon. Gentleman wrote his question before yesterday’s announcement. I thought that he might have started by welcoming the additional £2 billion of investment that Scotland’s NHS will be receiving. We are making historic investment in recruitment, which is why we are opening five new medical schools in England, training 1,500 new medical doctors, taking initiatives such as on apprenticeships and opening new pathways into clinical roles.
Mr Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)
While I welcome yesterday’s announcement and the workforce strategy that is coming out in the autumn, will the Minister comment on the Home Office’s new proposals to allow greater flexibility for professional clinicians coming to work in the UK, and on what impact that might have on filling vacancies?
Stephen Barclay
My hon. Friend is right to draw attention both to the Home Office’s welcome announcement on tier 2 visas and to the work on the workforce strategy, in which he played a key role. It will ensure that we have the right workforce for the NHS for the next 10 years.
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
But the Royal College of Nursing and the Nursing and Midwifery Council are both now so worried about Brexit’s impact on the staffing crisis that they have called for a people’s vote on a deal. Given their on-the-ground experience and the demolition of the myth of a Brexit dividend for the NHS, is it not becoming ever more clear that the dogmatic hard Brexit being pursued by the Government is already doing untold damage to our NHS?
Stephen Barclay
The right hon. Gentleman, as a former Minister of State, will not want to choose selectively from the data on European economic area recruitment into the NHS. He will know full well that there are 3,200 more NHS staff from the EU since the referendum, which shows that people are still coming. If he has an issue with the Brexit dividend, perhaps, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State pointed out yesterday, he will raise that with his party leader, who sees that there is a Brexit dividend.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Kettering General is a wonderful hospital with amazing staff, but one of its big financial problems is caused by its over-reliance on agency staff. What can be done to reduce the reliance of so many hospitals, including Kettering, on agency staff to populate their wards?
Stephen Barclay
My hon. Friend rightly points to the key issue of how we bring down the £2.5 billion of agency spend. That goes to the heart of the Prime Minister’s announcement yesterday. Up-front investment in our workforce will allow us to reduce that agency cost.
Mike Hill (Hartlepool) (Lab)
Mr Speaker
Order. The question should relate to the workforce, which is the matter we are dealing with now, but never mind. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is interested in hearing about the workforce situation.
Stephen Barclay
The two do go together because the mental health workforce is a key component of the NHS workforce. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will welcome the extra £1 billion by 2020 that the Prime Minister announced yesterday, as well as the Government’s prioritisation of mental health, which for too long has been seen as a Cinderella service within the NHS.
Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)
In 2015, the Secretary of State suggested that junior doctor rotas contributed to avoidable hospital deaths, but research shows that the most important factor is the number of patients under the care of each registered nurse. A 7% increase in mortality for every patient means that 36,000 nursing vacancies in England pose a real threat to patient safety. So with no announcement, and a 33% drop in applications since the removal of the nursing bursary, will the Government follow the Scottish Government’s policy and reintroduce the bursary?
Stephen Barclay
The hon. Lady will be well aware that there are 14,000 more nurses in the NHS than five years ago, but she is right to point to the wider issue of long-term workforce planning. That is why she will be aware that Audit Scotland criticised NHS Scotland for its lack of long-term workforce planning.
Mr Speaker
The hon. Lady’s second question will be a lot shorter, I am sure.
Dr Whitford
As the Minister heard, the Scottish Government have just passed a law on staffing. With an ageing population, social care is critical to the function of the NHS, but the charity Independent Age says that we will be short of 700,000 care workers by 2037. With no extra funding for social care announced yesterday, how will the Secretary of State make caring a real profession? Would not it be good to start with a decent wage?
Stephen Barclay
The hon. Lady’s supplementary question really reinforces the answer that I gave a moment ago: the essence of why we need a long-term plan is so that we anticipate these issues. We are addressing that through the Green Paper on social care, and that is part of the investment that the Prime Minister announced yesterday.
Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab/Co-op)
Yesterday the Prime Minister said that
“current workloads are not sustainable”—
is that any wonder after eight years of Tory cuts and austerity? The Minister knows that the number of health visitors in the workforce is falling, and that health visitors are vital to improving child health and wellbeing outcomes. No new public health money was announced yesterday; new money will come in 2020. Can the Minister guarantee that health visitor numbers will not continue to fall and that the public health budget will be ring-fenced?
Stephen Barclay
I am grateful that the shadow Secretary of State has drawn attention to public health because the Government have been making significant progress in that area. We have the lowest ever number of teenagers smoking and the lowest ever teenage pregnancy rate. Binge drinking is down and we are addressing child obesity with the sugar tax, which is among a number of measures that the Government have been bringing forward. We are making progress on public health and the hon. Gentleman is right to draw that to the attention of the House.
Jonathan Ashworth
This Government are breaking the Tory manifesto promise and raising taxes, yet they cannot even answer basic questions about health visitor numbers. The NHS workforce deliver the constitutional performance targets, including the 18-week referral-to-treatment target, and targets for accident and emergency and cancer treatment. Will the Minister reassure patients and the taxpayers whose taxes are going up that he will rule out dropping those essential targets?
Stephen Barclay
Once again—as we heard yesterday—there is no welcome for the announcement of additional funding for the NHS. Opposition Front Benchers are playing politics and talking down our NHS. The Prime Minister has set out a long-term vision to improve standards and raise mental health, which Labour Back Benchers highlighted. The hon. Gentleman should come to the House and welcome that investment in our NHS.
Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Jackie Doyle-Price)
We take a comprehensive approach to reducing health inequalities, underpinned by legal duties. This includes addressing the wider causes of ill health, promoting healthier lifestyles, and tackling differences in health access and outcomes. A formula is used to allocate funding to clinical commissioning groups, and health inequalities form part of this.
Liam Byrne
Birmingham has some of the worst health outcomes in the country. It is not a surprise, as A&E waits of over four hours are up by more than 127% in recent years, and waits of more than 18 weeks for treatment are up by 65%. Yet, according to freedom of information request responses I have received, our trusts in Birmingham have to make savings of £155 million this year. What are the Government going to do to save the health system in Birmingham, which is currently in a state of collapse?
Jackie Doyle-Price
It is disappointing to hear the right hon. Gentleman making such negative points about his local NHS when 86% of GPs in his area are rated good or outstanding. Everything about yesterday’s announcement will tell Members that we are not complacent about the health challenges facing us, and we will make the necessary resources available. It ill behoves Opposition Members to keep continually talking down our NHS.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that the best way in which to reduce health inequalities across the country is to continue to build a strong economy that offers good jobs and prospects to all the people of our country?
Jackie Doyle-Price
I could not have put that better myself—[Laughter.] Opposition Members can laugh, but the Government firmly believe that work is good for people’s health. We are committed to getting 1 million more people with disabilities into work so that we actually treat them as assets, and we are encouraging them to be more independent and to take control of their own lives. The only way to achieve that is by having a strong economy.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
When the coalition Government came into office in 2010, life expectancy began to stall for the first time in over a century. This, coupled with eight years of funding cuts, means that there are grossly disproportionate health inequalities across the country. For example, according to Northern Health Science Alliance, people in the north are 20% more likely to die early than people in the south. Is not it a failure of the Government’s funding deal for the NHS that it comes with no public health money to tackle these astonishing regional health inequalities?
Jackie Doyle-Price
No, it is not. Labour Members like to draw attention to north-south divides and so on, but the issues about health inequalities are much more complex than how money is spent and where. Within my constituency, for example, there are differences of 10 years in life expectancy depending on the particular locality. We need a much more multi-layered approach to tackling inequality, and that is what this Government will have.
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Mr Jeremy Hunt)
Last week the Home Secretary removed doctors and nurses from the tier 2 visa cap.
Layla Moran
In Oxfordshire, the situation with social care workers is at least as bad a problem. Of course we all very much welcome the removal of doctors and nurses from the cap, but what about social care workers? Why are we focusing on only half the problem?
Mr Hunt
Perhaps I can help the hon. Lady by pointing out that tier 2 visa cap is specifically for higher-paid workers. We do need to think about social care workers, but a lot of them are lower paid. That is why we are putting together a 10-year workforce plan for the health and social care sectors, both of which are very important. We will make sure that that goes hand in glove with the NHS plan that we announced yesterday.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The real effect of the cap is that there are not enough staff in the health service, as is shown by “NHS SOS”, a campaign run a few weeks ago in Stoke by The Sentinel that highlighted the lack of doctors and nurses. Realistically, what will the Secretary of State do to remedy that situation in Stoke-on-Trent? Will he meet people from The Sentinel so that they can present the evidence?
Mr Hunt
Let me tell the hon. Gentleman what we have been doing in the past five years: we have 14,300 more nurses, 10,100 more doctors, and over 40,000 more clinicians across different specialties. He will be very relieved to know that, on top of that, we are promising 50% more than his party did at the last election.
Kate Hollern (Blackburn) (Lab)
The Minister for Care (Caroline Dinenage)
Commissioning high-quality health and social care services is a local responsibility. The Care Quality Commission monitors, inspects and regulates services that people with a learning disability may use. Where quality and safety standards are not met, it will take action.
Kate Hollern
The Association of Directors of Adult Social Services warned this week that social care services are on the verge of collapse. Despite the announcement of £20 billon yesterday, there was no mention of social care. Cuts of more than £7 billion have left hundreds of thousands of elderly and disabled people without adequate support. What specific measures are the Government taking to ensure that the elderly and disabled are receiving proper care?
Caroline Dinenage
Adult social care was mentioned yesterday, specifically in the news that we plan to bring together the way in which health and social care interoperate. We need more collaborative work between health and social care to reduce the amount of pressure that one puts upon the other. We have set out very clearly that we will produce a Green Paper later this year to address how we will tackle the challenges that we face in adult social care, and we will look at how we fund that.
Julia Lopez (Hornchurch and Upminster) (Con)
Providers of day care services for people with learning disabilities are not currently subject to an inspection regime. Will the Minister consider bringing such services within the scope of the Care Quality Commission to reassure families about quality and safeguarding issues?
Caroline Dinenage
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw attention to the fundamental importance of being reassured that all services that are provided are safe and reliable. Since the CQC has been looking at services up and down the country, it has brought to them a level of transparency and, indeed, quality. We keep under review the services that it regulates, and this is certainly something that we can discuss with it.
Laura Smith (Crewe and Nantwich) (Lab)
Will the Government end uncertainty for people with learning difficulties who need social care by funding the historical liabilities associated with the sleep-ins crisis?
Caroline Dinenage
We are aware of concerns in the sector with regard to sleep-ins and we are looking very carefully at the options. We have been developing the evidence base very carefully. We have been engaging with the European Commission, the sector and other Government Departments.
John Howell (Henley) (Con)
Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust recently won a bid under the Beyond Places of Safety scheme to put in place IT support for users of learning disability services. Is that not a very useful way of taking forward such projects?
Caroline Dinenage
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. It is vital that when we look at how to move forward with both our health and social care services, we are able to capture all the latest technology to ensure that we improve the experience for all our service users.
Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
Much of the health and social care for people with learning disabilities in Plymouth is provided by Livewell Southwest, a social enterprise. The new pay increases for NHS staff will not be mapped over to social enterprise staff, so when they merge back into the NHS, we risk a two-tier workforce. Will the Minister consider extending the pay increases to support those who work with people with learning difficulties in the social enterprise sector so that we ensure that everyone doing the same job is paid the same amount?
Caroline Dinenage
The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. It would be terrible to see a health and social care sector in which people doing the same work are valued differently, so I will look carefully at the point he raises.
Luke Graham (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Con)
Alan Mak (Havant) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Mr Jeremy Hunt)
The life sciences sector is critical to the UK economy, which is why we support it with a £1 billion annual grant through the National Institute for Health Research.
Luke Graham
What steps is my right hon. Friend taking to further life sciences in Scotland? Will he meet me to see what the UK Government can do to support the forthcoming International Environment Centre in Clackmannanshire in my constituency?
Mr Hunt
I am happy to do that. The life sciences industry is critical to Scotland, and Scotland’s role is critical to the UK. We all remember Dolly the sheep being pioneered in Edinburgh University, and last week’s announcement of a new centre in Renfrewshire is another good example of the great things happening in Scotland.
Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)
Getting new drugs approved more quickly would not just be a big boost for the life sciences and medical research sectors, but would help my constituents and others across the country with cystic fibrosis who desperately need access to Orkambi. They have been waiting for years; it is not good enough. Why can the Secretary of State not sort this out, get a grip, get his officials and Vertex in a room, and force them to come to an agreement? People have waited too long for this.
Mr Hunt
That is exactly what we have been doing, but we need Vertex to be reasonable regarding the price that it offers the NHS. We need to pay fair prices. We have heard that it will be coming back with a new offer next week—we hope it is a reasonable one—but we urge Vertex to waive commercial confidentiality so that we can all see, in the interests of transparency, the kind of prices it is trying to charge the NHS.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Secretary of State consider West Yorkshire in particular? We have the universities, the science, the technology and the life sciences; all we need is a new teaching hospital in Huddersfield.
Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)
Further to the point made by the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin), we know that the UK is a world leader in research into rare conditions, but that does not always translate into timely access to those treatments. The Secretary of State will know that there are many CFTR—cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator—treatments in the pipeline that could benefit people who are living with cystic fibrosis. Will he meet me to see how we can ensure that those are available in a timely manner for the people who desperately need them?
Mr Hunt
Of course I am happy to meet my hon. Friend. I recognise that this is one of the things that we are not good at at the moment. We have fantastic research, with amazing new drugs developed in this country, but our uptake can be painfully slow, and that is of course something that we want to put right.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
ME affects approximately a quarter of a million people across the UK, and while there has been substantial psychological research into the condition, there has been very little biomedical research. What funding will the Secretary of State make available specifically for biomedical research into the treatment and diagnosis of ME?
Mr Hunt
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising that issue. She is introducing a debate on it in Westminster Hall on Thursday. I have met a number of families who have suffered very badly as a result of ME, and we would all like better research, so I hope that her campaign is successful.
Craig Tracey (North Warwickshire) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Steve Brine)
There is a strong body of evidence on the health benefits of participating in sport— possibly not watching it, if last night is anything to go by. Last year, a review by Sport England brought together evidence to show the association between sport and physical and mental wellbeing.
Craig Tracey
As the Minister may be aware, I co-chair the all-party parliamentary group for golf—a sport sometimes labelled, rather unfairly, a good walk spoiled. Does he agree that there are many positive health benefits associated with participation in golf, especially for people with long-term conditions?
Steve Brine
I certainly would, as someone who used to work in the golf industry before coming to the House. I was at Wentworth last month for the PGA, and a good example of what my hon. Friend refers to is a social enterprise that I met called Golf in Society led by an inspirational chap called Anthony Blackburn. He founded a project at Lincoln Golf Centre that works with people with dementia and Parkinson’s disease to show that golf is one of the best leisure activities out there, and gives people with those long-term conditions a sense that their life is not over and that they can still play golf, and play it rather well—probably better than me.
Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)
In 2016, Stoke-on-Trent was the European city of sport, but it faces some of the highest health inequalities in the country. The Stoke newspaper The Sentinel highlighted the power of exercise in its recent NHS SOS campaign. Will the Minister meet the editor Martin Tideswell and my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) to receive details of that incredibly important local campaign?
Steve Brine
I am aware of that campaign. Something that we want to see in schools across the country, including in Stoke, is the Golden Mile. I see good examples in schools in my constituency and across the country when I travel. We are interested to learn more about what Stoke has done on this subject.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Jackie Doyle-Price)
NHS England has a legal duty to commission services to meet local need, which includes people who are homeless, and we are very clear that a patient should not be turned away from a GP if they cannot produce any supporting documentation. If they state that they reside within the boundaries for the practice, the GP is expected to accept the registration. The same applies for dentistry, and training is in place to remind people of their obligations.
Stella Creasy
Mags Drummond is a Walthamstow woman on a mission, to try to help our many rough sleepers get decent quality healthcare, but she, like me, has hit a brick wall with our local dentists and doctors. It is little wonder that one study shows that 15% of homeless people have pulled out their own teeth because they cannot get access to services. Will the Minister meet Mags and me to look at what we can do to change that and make sure that her promises are not toothless?
Jackie Doyle-Price
Very good—I commend the hon. Lady for her wit, and I agree with her. Notwithstanding our expectations of GPs and dentists in this regard, it is quite clear that homeless people do not always have access to the treatment they should have. The hon. Lady will be aware of the work that we are doing to support rough sleepers, and I would be delighted to meet her and Mags Drummond to see what insight they can provide on how we can improve services in this area.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. It is of the utmost importance that we are ready for the one-minute silence, so I shall take a brief inquiry from Mr Nic Dakin, and a brief reply.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
There are homeless people in the Scunthorpe area who present with mental health problems. What are the Government doing to ensure that proper mental health support is there for people who present as homeless?
Jackie Doyle-Price
The hon. Gentleman is quite right. Mental health is both a symptom and a cause of homelessness, and we will tackle that as part of our work on rough sleepers.
Mr Speaker
Does anyone else want to come in on this? Apparently not. I do not wish to proceed to the next question because of the unpredictability of the time that it will take. Colleagues will want to prepare themselves for the one-minute silence that we are about to observe. I think I can say with some confidence that everyone who is in the House today will wish to observe that one-minute silence. Perhaps they will think it appropriate to stand. That one-minute silence is going to start very soon. The next question is grouped, so it would be highly inconvenient to take it. Any moment now we shall observe the silence. [Interruption.] There is much merit in repetition in certain circumstances.
Order. We shall now observe silence for one minute to remember those who died or were affected by the attack outside Finsbury Park mosque, I remind colleagues, a year ago today.
Sir Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)
Andrew Lewer (Northampton South) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Mr Jeremy Hunt)
I know that the thoughts of the whole House are with the families affected by the terrible atrocity a year ago.
Personal health budgets have a transformative effect on people with very complex health needs, and we plan for 50,000 to 100,000 more people to benefit from them by 2021.
Sir Henry Bellingham
I thank the Secretary of State for that reply. Does he agree that a key part of integrating health and social care is giving individuals more say and flexibility in how they use their entitlements? Will he consider extending his pilots to my constituency of North West Norfolk?
Mr Hunt
Absolutely, and not just to North West Norfolk, but to the whole country. We are currently consulting on giving a right to personal health budgets to people with the most complex health needs. That would be about 350,000 people and would include anyone with a continuing NHS need combined with a mental health need, a learning disability, autism or PTSD. Obviously, it would be hugely significant if we were able to proceed with that.
Andrew Lewer
Will the Minister ensure that the long-term NHS plan puts a major emphasis on empowering patients through the wider availability of personal budgets? May I also join my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (Sir Henry Bellingham) and make a pitch for my local area of Northampton for one of the next wave of pilots?
Mr Hunt
Absolutely, and technology will have a big role, because this year we intend all NHS patients to be able to access their health records through an app. That will be extremely empowering, but my hon. Friend is right that giving people with long-term conditions control over their health and care destiny is a potentially huge leap forward.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
While I agree with the philosophy and approach behind health and personal care budgets, will the Secretary of State acknowledge that the 21% fall in social care funding between 2010 and 2015-16 has caused a catastrophe in this area? Will he acknowledge that if this approach is to work in future, the funding has to be there?
Mr Hunt
I congratulate the last Labour Government on introducing direct payments, which were the first step in this process. The hon. Lady talks about cuts in social care, which I acknowledge, but, with respect to her, she never talks about the reason, which was that in 2008 we had the worst financial crisis in our peacetime history, and we had to take measures. It is as a result of creating 3.2 million jobs since then that funding for social care is now going up.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Bearing in mind that the number of bed days lost increased in the second quarter of 2017-18, with most of the patients subject to delays being elderly people, will the Minister outline a dedicated strategy for getting people out of hospital and back home with appropriate care as a matter of urgency, for the good of the patient as well as the public purse?
Mr Hunt
This is a huge challenge in all parts of the United Kingdom. In England, about 22% of bed days are occupied by people who have been in hospital for more than three weeks, and probably less than 20% of those people should be in hospital. We are taking urgent steps to rectify that, because it is very, very bad for the patients involved.
Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Jackie Doyle-Price)
The mental health workforce plan published last summer underpins our expansion of mental health services, as set out in the “Five Year Forward View for Mental Health”. We aim to create 21,000 new posts in mental health by 2021.
Mr Jones
I thank the Minister for her response. Mental health is one of the many complex drivers of rough sleeping, and can add to the complexity of getting rough sleepers off the street and into accommodation. Will my hon. Friend say how the new mental health employees in the NHS can help us to get rough sleepers off the streets and into accommodation?
Jackie Doyle-Price
I hope the expansion of mental health services will stop people becoming rough sleepers in the first place by bringing forward support earlier in the process. In January, we announced a £1 billion investment in mental health, part of which will be focused on crisis care and helping people who are experiencing crisis to stay out of hospital. The workforce plan backs that commitment by planning 5,200 posts to support those in crisis. We will be working with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government on a forthcoming strategy to make sure we honour our commitments.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
It is not just the size of the mental health workforce that is critical, but the pressures faced within those workforces. We have just learned that there was the highest number of out-of-area placements in January since records were first kept. Mental health doctors and nurses often spend hours hunting for out-of-area beds, taking them away from other patients. When is the Government’s pledge to reduce and eventually ban out-of-area placements actually going to start to become a reality?
Jackie Doyle-Price
The hon. Lady is right to raise this issue. We are determined to end out-of-area placements, but clearly that will require behavioural change on the part of commissioners, as well as making sure that the investment takes place. I know she will continue to hold me to account on this issue, because it is clear that out-of-area placements can cause harm and we must tackle them.
Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)
According to data from 48 of 56 NHS mental health trusts, 3,652 patients suffered an injury in 2016-17 through being restrained—the highest number ever. There are concerns that increased use of insufficiently trained agency and bank staff since 2013 is contributing to this increase. Employing 21,000 new staff by 2021 just is not good enough. What is the Minister doing now to ensure that wards are safely staffed and patients are not injured?
Jackie Doyle-Price
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her question. She will be aware that I have been working with her colleague the hon. Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed) on his Bill to limit the use of restraint, because we on the Government Benches also very firmly believe in that. An essential part of his measure will be to improve training for staff in mental health units. That will be a tool in making sure that restraint is minimised.
Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Mr Jeremy Hunt)
In the Budget we announced £3.9 billion of additional capital funding, and 77 projects have conditional approval.
Sir Roger Gale
Could my right hon. Friend indicate what implications that welcome statement might have for the much needed rebuilding and refurbishment of the A&E unit at the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Hospital in Margate?
Kevin Foster
Earlier this year, Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust was allocated £13.3 million of capital funding for improved urgent care and a new emergency department at Torbay Hospital. Will my right hon. Friend confirm what progress is being made to get those major construction projects under way?
Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)
Warrington desperately needs a new hospital to replace its old, out-of-date buildings, so in allocating future capital funding will the Secretary of State bear in mind the levels of health deprivation that exist in the area, and will he ensure that any new hospital is accessible to those in my constituency, which has areas that are among the most health deprived in the borough?
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
The Secretary of State knows that he has presided over a crisis in capital funding, with a £5.5 billion estimated maintenance backlog, £1 billion of which is classified as urgent. Yesterday’s statement hopefully goes some way to addressing that, although it was far from clear whether capital funding was included in that announcement. Can the Secretary of State confirm today whether any cash generated by the sale of NHS property under the Naylor review is in addition to the money announced yesterday?
Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Steve Brine)
My officials have regular discussions with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, of course, but we are clear that there is no fixed capacity in NICE’s HST programme. The number of drugs that it evaluates each year is driven by the pipeline of drugs expected to come to market, and we will refer any suitable drugs to it for evaluation.
Mary Glindon
There is a risk that new treatments for life-limiting conditions, such as Duchenne muscular dystrophy and spinal muscular atrophy, might not be approved by NICE, so will the Minister meet me and Muscular Dystrophy UK to discuss ways to facilitate access to treatments, as highlighted by the charity’s FastTrack campaign?
Steve Brine
NICE has recommended the drug Translarna for use in the treatment of Duchenne muscular dystrophy; it is now routinely available on the NHS. It is a disease that I grew up with—the friends that I grew up with did not, and I did, and this is a timely reminder of how terrible this disease can be. I would be really pleased, therefore, to meet the hon. Lady and the charity that she mentioned.
Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con)
Is the Minister aware of the recent NICE draft review regarding treatment of abdominal aortic aneurysms? Some 1,500 to 2,000 lives are saved yearly by NHS AAA screening. If the draft recommendations are adopted, a patient is likely to have an aneurysm erupt before treatment and 80% of patients are then likely to die. Will the Minister look carefully at this issue to avoid this unintended consequence?
Steve Brine
I am not the all-seeing eye, so all I can say is yes, I will look very carefully at the issue that my hon. Friend raises.
Paul Masterton (East Renfrewshire) (Con)
The Minister for Health (Stephen Barclay)
Community first responders play a valuable role in helping ambulance services. Support includes ongoing training, necessary medical equipment and occupational health support.
Paul Masterton (East Renfrewshire) (Con)
In just five years, the Neilston and Uplawmoor first responders have responded to over 1,300 calls, saving many lives, and earlier this month they received the Queen’s award for voluntary service. Will the Minister join me in congratulating all the volunteers and paying tribute to community first responder units right across the United Kingdom?
Stephen Barclay
I am very happy to join my hon. Friend in congratulating Stuart McLellan, Ross Nelson and the volunteers that play such a key role. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) also performs this service in his constituency. I have spoken to him about it and I know that it plays a very valuable role.
Mr Speaker
Ah yes, in the frame, we now have a dame—I call Dame Cheryl Gillan.
Dame Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)
The Minister for Care (Caroline Dinenage)
NICE is currently in the early stages of updating the clinical guidelines on the diagnosis and management of epilepsies in adults, and plan to go out to consultation on a draft scope in October this year.
Dame Cheryl Gillan
The UK’s autism research charity Autistica advises that up to 40% of people with epilepsies are, in fact, autistic, and that epileptic seizures are the leading cause of early death for autistic people with a learning disability. NICE guidance has never mentioned autism when referring to epilepsy, and autistic people have distinctive types of epilepsies that require different clinical approaches. Will the Minister please ensure that NICE includes autism in the guidelines on epilepsy?
Caroline Dinenage
At this stage, it is too early in the update process for NICE to say exactly what its guidance will cover. However, my right hon. Friend is chair of the all-party group on autism and vice-chair of the all-party group on epilepsy, and she was the driving force behind the Autism Act 2009. I think that NICE would do very well to heed her advice.
Mr Speaker
And that advice will be proffered on a very large number of occasions in this Chamber until the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Dame Cheryl Gillan) gets what she seeks—I think I can say that with not just confidence, but certainty.
Heidi Allen (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)
The Minister for Health (Stephen Barclay)
The workforce strategy we are bringing forward will include investment and an expansion in the number of medical schools— five new medical schools—alongside those 1,500 new doctor places.
Heidi Allen
I had wanted to ask the Secretary of State to get behind exempting nurses and doctors from the tier 2 visa process, but I do not need to do that; I just have to thank him for his support in doing that. Instead, for his next challenge, will he commit to looking again at the pensions cap, which I fear might be one reason some senior NHS professionals and doctors are retiring sooner than they might otherwise do?
Stephen Barclay
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s support on tier 2 visas. She will be aware that clinicians who reach the £1 million lifetime allowance limit can expect a pension of about £44,000, payable at age 60, increasing with inflation, plus a tax-free lump sum of about £132,000. Although these are ultimately issues for the Treasury, it is important that we ensure that tax allowances, two thirds of which go to higher-rate taxpayers, are fair to other taxpayers.
Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Steve Brine)
The Government are committed to ensuring that innovative healthcare products reach patients faster than ever before. We have established the Accelerated Access Collaborative to identify transformative innovations and help their route to market, and today we have appointed Lord Darzi as the new chair of the AAC to lead this work.
Nigel Mills
I welcome the fact that the Prime Minister in her speech yesterday announced much more funding for personalised medicines and new technologies that will transform care. On that basis, will the Minister update the House on when the groundbreaking CAR-T— chimeric antigen receptor T-cell—therapy might be made available to NHS patients suffering from cancer?
Steve Brine
Yes, indeed. As the cancer Minister, I consider CAR-T to be one of the most innovative and exciting treatments ever offered on the NHS. NICE is considering the first of the therapies this year and preparations are well under way. We are working closely with NHS England to make these transformative medicines available to cancer patients.
Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)
Patients with PKU—phenylketonuria—are awaiting progress on the approval of a drug called Kuvan. In the meantime, their illness is controlled by diet. Will the Secretary of State and other Members join me in Committee Room 21 after this meeting to hear about the “Diet for a day” challenge, which many Members across the House are taking up next Thursday?
Steve Brine
Having just dialled into the Secretary of State’s diary, I know that he is going right after these questions.
Mr Speaker
That is very impressive, up-to-the-minute information from the hon. Gentleman.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
Does the Minister have proposals for the reform of the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency? I hope so.
Steve Brine
We keep all our arm’s length bodies, including the MHRA, under review to provide best value for taxpayers, and we are working closely with Lord O’Shaughnessy, who is the Minister responsible for this area.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. Probably the most important recommendation in the new O’Neill review into antimicrobial resistance was the requirement for diagnostics prior to the prescription of antibiotics by 2020. Will the Minister update the House on progress towards that goal, and will he agree to meet me and colleagues, including Lord O’Neill, to discuss the establishment of an antibiotic diagnostics fund?
Steve Brine
Yes, the Government’s response to Lord O’Neill’s review in 2016 set out new ambitions building on existing progress, including ensuring that tests on epidemiological data are used to support clinical decision making and delivering high-quality diagnostics in the NHS in support of our other ambitions. My hon. Friend is right to raise this issue, and I am happy to meet him.
Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)
Johnny Mercer (Plymouth, Moor View) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Steve Brine)
We are delivering the most ambitious childhood obesity plan in the world, and we are already seeing results. We always said that our 2016 plan was the start of the conversation, not the final word. [Interruption.] Yes, it does say that here, but I have also said it everywhere else many, many times.
Justin Tomlinson
With one in three primary school children leaving either obese or overweight and more than 77% of children not doing the minimum requirement for physical activity, surely the Government’s priority should be getting children active by opening up school facilities after hours and in the holidays, not faffing around with political gestures on television advertising that children have long since stopped watching.
Steve Brine
I do not think that it is a binary choice. We recognise that child obesity is caused by many different factors, and that no one policy will work on its own. Yes, this is about tackling advertising, and yes, it is about tackling children’s activity and working with schools; and, as I said recently, we will present new proposals very shortly.
Johnny Mercer
As the Minister will know, perhaps the two biggest challenges that we currently face in relation to young people’s health are mental health and child obesity. Will he update the House on the progress of chapter 1 of his childhood obesity plan in reducing the amount of sugar in both food and drink?
Steve Brine
Since we published the plan, progress has been made on sugar reduction. The amount of sugar in soft drinks has been reduced by 11% in response to the industry levy, and Public Health England has published a detailed assessment of progress against delivery of the 5% reduction for the first year. Progress is good, but it is not good enough, which is why we have said that we will produce chapter 2 shortly.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
The Minister says that progress is not good enough, so why does he not introduce a levy on high-sugar food as well as the one on sugary drinks? Manufacturers would then reformulate the food that they produce.
Steve Brine
Because we believe that there should be a mixture of carrot and stick. We believe that the soft drinks industry levy has been successful, but we are also working with the industry on reformulation across the board. I recently visited Suntory, which makes Lucozade and Ribena. If we work with industry, we see transformative results for companies and for the people who buy their products.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
A few years ago, I initiated a debate on this issue in Westminster Hall. Since then, no progress has been made on childhood obesity. Would the Minister care to outline what he thinks will happen in the lifetime of this Parliament in terms of achieving the objectives that he has set out?
Steve Brine
We assess the plan all the time, and we make progress reports on it, as we did last month with the sugar report. However, when I addressed the Health Committee recently, I could not have made it clearer that we think there has been progress.
This is a world-leading plan. When we talk to other people around the world, they are very keen to hear about what we are doing and very interested, and we are interested in learning from them. If we do not take action, one of our biggest public health challenges will get worse and worse, and that will have implications for the health service and for all our constituents.
Rosie Cooper (West Lancashire) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Mr Jeremy Hunt)
When something goes tragically wrong in healthcare, the best apology to grieving families is to guarantee that no one will experience the same heartache again. Last week I accepted the recommendations of the Williams review of gross negligence manslaughter, and we announced a new national clinical improvement programme to provide NHS consultants with confidential data on their clinical outcomes. From next April independent medical examiners will examine every hospital death, and the learning from deaths programme will be extended to primary care.
Rosie Cooper
Will the Secretary of State encourage NHS England to respond to my freedom of information request of 13 March this year regarding Greater Manchester Shared Services and the likely failure of the NHS to correctly enforce guidance on recruiting agency staff in the reappointment of Deborah Hancox after her criminal conviction and two-year prison sentence for defrauding the NHS? How can we employ these people?
Mr Hunt
The hon. Lady has highlighted what is potentially an extremely serious issue. Obviously the FOI is a matter for NHS England, but let me reassure her that the Minister for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Stephen Barclay)—the hospitals Minister—met the chief executive of the NHS Counter Fraud Authority this morning.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
Mr Hunt
I thought that the report made powerful reading, and I know that my hon. Friend was associated with it. Yesterday the Prime Minister was straightforward about the fact that, if we are to preserve our NHS and make it one of the best systems in the world, the burden of taxation will need to increase, and she was willing to listen to the views of colleagues about the most appropriate way in which that should be done.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
The Association of Directors of Adult Social Services has reported a £7 billion reduction in adult social care funding since 2010, and Age UK has reported there are now “care deserts” in some parts of the country. There are 1.2 million older people living with unmet care needs, and one in five care services has the poorest quality ratings from the Care Quality Commission.
As well as a long-term funding solution for social care, we need the extra £1 billion this year and £8 billion in the current Parliament that Labour pledged before last year’s general election. However, all that the Government offer is a delayed Green Paper. When will the Secretary of State deal with the current crisis in social care?
Mr Hunt
No, that is not correct. Yesterday we made very clear our support for the social care system and our recognition that reform of the NHS must go hand in glove with the social care system, and we said there would be a new financial settlement for the social care system. It is also time that the Labour party took some responsibility for the financial crisis that made all these cuts necessary.
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Steve Brine)
Survival rates are high, but I am ambitious for more. That is why the Prime Minister recently announced £75 million to support new research into the early diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer. We will recruit 40,000 patients into more than 60 studies over the next five years, and further to this even more exciting is the rapid pathway that I was discussing yesterday with Cally Palmer, our national cancer director, which we are trialling across three hospital sites in west London as part of its local cancer alliance.
Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)
Mr Hunt
May I gently remind the hon. Lady that it was this Conservative Government who introduced the national living wage, and we did that on the basis of transforming the economy, championing policies that were by and large opposed every step of the way by the Scottish National party?
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
The Minister of State visited my hospital trust last month. Is he in a position to support its requests, and will he say whether he is satisfied with the progress it is making to remove itself from special measures?
The Minister for Health (Stephen Barclay)
I very much enjoyed visiting the trust with my hon. Friend. As he will be aware from our discussion during that visit a process for capital bids is under way. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State set out, the date for that is mid-July and I look forward to seeing the bid from my hon. Friend’s trust.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Jackie Doyle-Price)
I recently met the hon. Gentleman’s party colleague, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe), to discuss this matter with the facility. We are very clear: we expect all clinical commissioning groups to honour the NICE guidelines. I am very cross that CCGs tend to view IVF services as low-hanging fruit with which to make cuts. That is totally unacceptable and I will be taking steps to remind them of that.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
My hon. Friend has visited Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow and has acknowledged that it is not fit for purpose. Will he use the excellent £20 billion of extra NHS funding to ensure we get the Harlow hospital health campus we need?
Stephen Barclay
My right hon. Friend is right to champion this, as he did through the recent Adjournment debate, when he set out the case in more detail. We recognise, as we did at the last Health questions and in the Adjournment debate, that there are significant issues with the local hospital, and that is why it is working very actively on its bid for capital funding.
Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)
Jackie Doyle-Price
I reject that accusation; we are far from burying it. The Prime Minister is looking at responding to the interim report. I will repeat what I said to the hon. Lady when she last asked this question. We are quite clear that the child migrant policy was wrong. We have apologised for that policy, and we have established a £7 million family restoration fund. The response from the Government to that report will be laid in due course.
Kirstene Hair (Angus) (Con)
Can the Minister provide an update on the work being undertaken by the policy research unit on obesity to consider the relationship between the many streams of marketing and obesity, and can he tell us whether the unit is looking specifically at childhood obesity?
Steve Brine
The National Institute for Health Research—the policy research unit—is specifically looking at the impact of the marketing of products with a high sugar, fat or salt content on children’s food and drink preferences and consumption. The unit has already published a report on children’s exposure to television advertising, and it will be publishing further findings from other projects later this year.
Stephen Morgan (Portsmouth South) (Lab)
Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)
I am delighted that our NHS will be getting an extra £20 billion. This has long been at the top of my agenda, and the agenda of my constituents. Does my right hon. Friend agree that, to ensure that that money is always spent on the NHS, we need to consider a hypothecated tax as part of the funding plan?
Mr Hunt
As I say, there are compelling arguments in favour of hypothecated taxes, but there are also strong reasons why we have to be cautious—namely, the fact that tax revenues go up and down, year on year, while the NHS needs stable funding. Important arguments and discussions need to happen between now and the Budget, when the Chancellor will make that decision.
Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
Stroke is the fourth largest single cause of death in Britain. What action are the Government taking to prevent stroke and to raise awareness? And will the Minister meet me to discuss my GP surgery at Sutherland Lodge?
Steve Brine
Two for the price of one. Up to 70% of strokes are preventable if hypertension, atrial fibrillation, diabetes, cholesterol and other lifestyle factors are detected and managed earlier. The current national stroke strategy came to an end last year, so we are working closely with NHS England and the Stroke Association on a new national plan, which I hope to publish this summer.
Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)
The Minister for Care (Caroline Dinenage)
The fundamental issue here is that we need a social care system that works hand in hand with our health services—the two are umbilically linked. The key plank of the new NHS 10-year plan must be the full integration of health and care services. It does not make sense to publish the Green Paper before the NHS plan has even been drafted. We will bring forward a Green Paper, but in the meantime, spending on adult social care has gone up by 8% this year.
David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)
Like many others, I welcome the announcement yesterday of the £20 billion investment in the NHS. Will my right hon. Friend join me in seeking assurances that the £2 billion extra for the Scottish Government shall be allocated to spending on the NHS in Scotland?
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
What comparison has the Minister made of the cost of preventing children and young people’s mental health issues by tackling adverse childhood experience in the first few years of life, rather than letting them develop into much costlier issues for school-age children?
Jackie Doyle-Price
The hon. Lady will be aware that there is much work going on in this area. We are clear that we need to tackle these issues in schools, which is in the Green Paper, but more support also needs to be given in the early years. We are looking at how we can do that.
Peter Heaton-Jones (North Devon) (Con)
Northern Devon Healthcare Trust recently announced that it is to share the chairman and chief executive of the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust. Will the Minister meet me to ensure that the new arrangements will help to secure services in North Devon?
Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
Last November, the Health Secretary committed to ending out-of-area mental health placements by 2020, but the number of people placed more than 100 km from their home rose by 65% over the past year. The earlier response from the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the hon. Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price), was no answer, so what are the Government actually going to do to turn the situation around?
Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)
Mr Speaker, you will recall recently granting me a Westminster Hall debate on the HPV vaccine for boys. Will the Department update me on progress?
Steve Brine
I remember that debate. The matter was on the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation’s June agenda, and I am awaiting its advice with bated breath. As I said in the debate, I will turn that advice around as soon as I get it and get a decision. I know a lot of people are waiting on that.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. I am sorry, but we have run out of time. However, the person whom I think has been standing the longest is Rachael Maskell.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. NHS Property Services intends to sell the Bootham Park Hospital site, but reinvesting in that site would make such a difference to the health needs of our city. Will the Minister ensure that that happens?
Stephen Barclay
I have met the hon. Lady, and she made her case in a characteristically powerful fashion. The matter is being looked at actively.
Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab/Co-op)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker.
Mr Speaker
As I understand that the point of order flows from Health questions, I will take it if it is brief.
Jonathan Ashworth
Very brief, Mr Speaker. Yesterday, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care said that he would place the details of the funding settlement in the Library, but the paper has not yet been deposited. Mr Speaker, given the implications for higher tax and spending, will you use your good offices to ensure that that paper is deposited as soon as possible?
Mr Speaker
I dare say that it will be, but the Secretary of State has heard the hon. Gentleman and is nodding enthusiastically from his sedentary position, and I take the nod as an indication of good intent.
Mr Speaker
Forthwith. Splendid. The hon. Gentleman looks satisfied—at least for now.
We have an urgent question in a moment from Alison Thewliss. I advise the House that it is on an extremely important matter that warrants urgent treatment on the Floor of the House, but it does not warrant treatment at length. I do not intend to run it for any longer than 20 minutes, because there is other business to protect.
Glasgow School of Art
(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland to respond to the fire at the Glasgow School of Art.
The Secretary of State for Scotland (David Mundell)
As the House will be aware, a fire broke out at Glasgow School of Art’s renowned Mackintosh building on the night of 15 June. The building is one of Glasgow’s iconic landmarks and is regarded as Mackintosh’s greatest work. It is rightly of global architectural significance and a unique and irreplaceable building in the eyes of many people worldwide. The art school itself is a work of art—a jewel in a city that sparkles with architectural splendour. It is worth noting that the building next door, the O2 ABC music venue, has also been affected, and it is even older and has a colourful and varied history. The art school was never a museum piece, but a living, breathing, working art school—a powerhouse of creativity and a much-loved part of the fabric of Glasgow. We can be grateful, however, that the tragedy was not worsened by loss of life, and my heartfelt thanks go out to the emergency services, particularly the fire service, who attended the scene under such adverse conditions and in the heart of the vibrant city’s nightlife.
Many people, such as myself, are still in disbelief that this could happen again after the devastating fire of 2014, particularly given the painstaking and careful efforts that have taken place to restore the building over the past years. I visited the building on 1 June as the guest at the opening of the 2018 degree show and saw the restored library and the famous “hen run”. I was struck by the love and passion of those involved in restoring the building. I am personally devastated by the fire, a fact which I communicated directly when speaking to the school’s director, Professor Tom Inns, over the weekend. My heart goes out to the school, its students and supporters, who did so much to raise funds for the restoration after 2014.
At this point, we do not know the cause of the fire, but I note that the fire service has assured us that a comprehensive and professional probe will be carried out in due course. The UK Government previously gave £10 million to rebuild the school after the last fire, and we stand ready to help again. There was never a question about the need to rebuild and restore the building when tragedy struck four years ago. The situation is far worse after the weekend’s fire, but I hope we can start with that aim in mind.
Obviously, there are real questions about what will happen next. We stand ready to work with the school, the city council and the Scottish Government. I am visiting the site and meeting the head of the school on Friday, and I will update Members when I am in a position to do so.
Alison Thewliss
I thank the Secretary of State for his comprehensive response and for the support he has given.
The loss of the Glasgow School of Art, particularly in the 150th anniversary year of Mackintosh’s birth, is a very sore loss indeed for the city. As the Secretary of State mentioned, the building is internationally significant and is held very preciously in our hearts in Glasgow. All who have visited and studied there, and even those who have not been inside, feel that the building belongs to the city of Glasgow and to each individual.
It is a catastrophe to lose the building, and my heart goes out to the staff at the GSA, to Professor Tom Inns and his staff, to those who worked on the restoration and particularly to the craftspeople who put so much love, care and attention into bringing back skills that have gone out of fashion to bring the school back to its former glory.
The Secretary of State is right to mention the vibrant O2 ABC venue, which was very much part of the cultural scene in the city of Glasgow. That will also be a very sore loss to Glasgow.
Like the Secretary of State, I pay tribute to the Scottish fire and rescue service, which pumped water uphill from the Clyde to try to douse the huge flames of the inferno on Friday night; the police, who kept everybody safe; and the Salvation Army, which was on hand to provide rolls, sausages and Irn-Bru to the Weegie fire crews. They did a tremendous job in reacting to the fire, too.
Does the Secretary of State agree that speculation at this time about the future of the building and the cause of the fire is unhelpful and that we should allow the experts in the fire and rescue service to do their investigations and to carry out their very detailed work, which may take some time to reach a conclusion? It is important that we get the answers and that we learn the lessons of this fire.
Will the Secretary of State support looking at all options to ensure that traders and residents of the Sauchiehall Street and Garnethill area are supported through this and are given the financial support they need? Will he look at the further detail of whether sprinklers can be made mandatory in historic buildings?
Finally, I am glad to hear that the Secretary of State is offering support for the renovations, and I look forward to hearing more on that in the coming weeks. Can he confirm that he will give more support for donations coming from other sources and that he will use the Government’s efforts to bring in more money?
David Mundell
The House can hear the hon. Lady’s passion for the Glasgow School of Art, which is reflected across the city of Glasgow, across Scotland and across the world. She is right that speculation is unhelpful at this time, which is why I do not support calls at this stage for a public inquiry. The investigations that would normally follow a fire and the detailed investigations that are under way should be allowed to follow their course. Of course, some of those investigations will be into the structure of the building and will determine what can happen next.
As I have said, I want to work with the school, the city council and the Scottish Government once views are formulated on how a restoration can be taken forward. We stand ready to help, as we did in 2014. I will discuss the traders, businesses and residents around the Glasgow School of Art with the Scottish Government and the council.
Stephen Kerr (Stirling) (Con)
My daughter-in-law is a postgraduate of the Glasgow School of Art, which is a much loved institution. Will the Secretary of State undertake to come back to the Dispatch Box when things are much clearer, so that we can get a clear understanding of what the UK Government’s undertaking will be?
David Mundell
Yes, I am happy to do that. As the original questioner indicated, it is clear that it may take some time for there to be clarity about what will happen next, and I am certainly willing to come back to the Dispatch Box.
Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)
I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) for securing this urgent question. I fully support her efforts, and I am sure all Glasgow Members will stand in total solidarity to ensure we get the best outcome possible for our city.
Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Glasgow School of Art, that magnificent edifice that dominates the skyline of Garnethill, is the epitome of what it means to be a Glaswegian. It embodies the very essence of the city’s character and soul, and is a true example of human genius. The grief I experienced after the first fire in 2014 was profound; it felt like part of our city had died that day. Now to witness an even more severe conflagration consume this precious art nouveau masterpiece has left me both angry and incredulous that it could have happened again. What on earth has gone wrong here?
More generally, this fire represents a wake-up call for Glasgow and the entire country. We need to have a much more robust approach to protecting our amazing Victorian architectural legacy in Britain in the future or we will continue to see these tragic losses mount up as buildings of these ages continue to suffer degradation. Government at all levels—city, Scottish and British—needs to step up to meet this challenge with radical and imaginative measures.
The good thing about the Glasgow School of Art is that the past four years have seen a meticulous process of understanding the building take place. The work of the architects and craftspeople has been extraordinary. We therefore have a critical mass of knowledge and understanding of this iconic building and its construction that makes it easier than ever before to restore Mackintosh’s original vision. They are geared up and more than ready to take on that challenge, and I will be making the strongest possible case that they should be allowed that chance.
In the face of reckless calls to tear the building down, what plans do the Government have to support the safeguarding and renewal of such an iconic and important cultural asset for the world? What conversations has the Secretary of State had with the Scottish Government on the need to safeguard the building and ensure it is appropriately restored? Given that Glasgow needs a more preventive, comprehensive strategy for preserving its ageing stock of Victorian architecture, much of which is vulnerable to fire, what plans do the Government have to support a review of the way that heritage buildings are managed and safeguarded, with fire prevention policy as a priority? What discussions has the Secretary of State had with the Scottish Government on the need to set up an investigation into the safety measures taken by the contractors for the restoration works? All I would say in conclusion is that the people of Glasgow deserve roses as well as bread, and the Mack will rise again.
David Mundell
The hon. Gentleman raises important points, and I know that he has a strong personal connection with the School of Art. Like those people who have been part of it, he feels this tragedy, but, as the hon. Member for Glasgow Central said, people who have never crossed the threshold of the School of Art feel it, too. I feel particularly for those craftsmen who restored the “hen run” and the library, bringing back these crafts, and how they must be feeling this week, when their work has been decimated. I take on board the points he makes about safety issues in buildings. The Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis), who is responsible for heritage in the UK and is in his place, will also have heard what he said and we will respond specifically to that.
Paul Masterton (East Renfrewshire) (Con)
As a representative of many of the students and staff of the school, and as a former frequent visitor to the ABC, this fire was a real blow to me. When the Secretary of State meets representatives of the school on Friday will he talk about ways in which the community and alumni can most appropriately help with any fundraising efforts for future restorations?
David Mundell
I most certainly will do that. The effort to raise funds after the 2014 fire was tremendous. One way in which the Government can help is through Government funding, which can be a catalyst for other funding coming in. That was very much the case in 2014, and it is very much in my mind at this time.
Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)
This was a cruel and gut-wrenching blow to the people of Glasgow, coming just as the refurbishment from last time was nearing completion. Last night in this House we demonstrated our ability to disagree with each other and have a vigorous debate, but I am pleased that this morning we are seeing all shades of political opinion in Scotland come together in solidarity with the people of Glasgow as they deal with this great tragedy. I want to ask a couple of specific questions. Yesterday, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government said that it was a matter for the owners of buildings to determine whether or not to install sprinklers. What action does the Secretary of State for Scotland think the Government should take to ensure that sprinklers are installed in such public buildings? He mentioned the need for a thorough investigation. Does he agree that erroneous press speculation on the cause of the fire before that investigation is complete is unhelpful and undesirable?
David Mundell
I certainly agree with the hon. Gentleman’s last point: press speculation on the cause of the fire is very unhelpful. We need to let those people who are carrying out the professional investigation get on with it. I also agree that it is important that all levels of government—the city council, the Scottish Government and the UK Government—work together, and whatever our other differences, I absolutely commit to do that. The issue of sprinklers has been debated extensively in the House in recent times. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that a sprinkler system was in the process of being installed in the building, but sadly that process had not been completed.
Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con)
Glasgow School of Art has a base in Moray; I spoke to people at the Altyre campus this morning, and they asked me to express their sympathies and thoughts for everyone involved in Glasgow. What can our constituents throughout Scotland do to support the efforts to restore Glasgow School of Art?
David Mundell
When I visited the School of Art on 1 June, I met some of my hon. Friend’s constituents from Moray who had raised very considerable sums of money for the first restoration. Although those fundraisers will be as devastated as the rest of us, I am sure that, given the vigour and passion that I witnessed, they will stand ready in Moray and throughout Scotland to start the process again.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
As we know, highland chieftains are very good at getting rich clan members and estates to help to pay for repairs to the roofs of their castles and mansion houses. There are some extremely well endowed art-supporting funds out there, in the US and the rest of the world; what efforts will be made to see whether they would help to pay for the restoration?
David Mundell
I am sure that every effort will be made, because the School of Art has a world-class fundraising operation. It has alumni around the world and, indeed, campuses around the world—for example, I had the pleasure to visit the campus in Singapore. We stand ready to help and support the School of Art in any of those efforts, but one thing that the experience over the past four years has demonstrated is its skill and ability in respect of fundraising.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
What caused the fire four years ago? Does the Secretary of State share my general concern that, given modern safety standards, far too many fires are breaking out in large buildings in this country—for example, the London hotel fire last week—that are either undergoing or have recently undergone renovation?
David Mundell
The issue of renovations has been the subject of some comment in recent days, and it merits some attention.
Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
Prior to my being elected to this House, I had the great honour not only of being the bailie for Garnethill, in which the GSA is found, but of having done most of my postgraduate study in the bowels of the Mack building. In resurrecting the GSA, with its critical role as a place of artistic education, what work will the Secretary of State do in conjunction with my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), the Member of the Scottish Parliament for Glasgow Kelvin and the Lord Provost of Glasgow, who also now represents Garnethill?
David Mundell
One thing that was clear when I visited the School of Art on 1 June was the wish to get students back into that building to see it as a functioning building for students, and there were detailed plans about which students and courses would be taught there. I am absolutely sure that if a restoration can go ahead, the School of Art will very much want the building to return to being a living, breathing art-school building. I will certainly do everything that I can to support that.
Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s comments and the cross-party nature in which this tragedy is being approached. Does he agree that the craftspeople, artists and performers who often perform at the O2 ABC need to be supported with specific funding, along with local shop owners? In the short term, before the big fundraising efforts take place, what can he do to ensure that they are specifically supported?
David Mundell
I am happy to look into the detail of that specific point, because it is relevant. I understand that several events that were due to take place have been rearranged and will go ahead at other venues in Glasgow. I am happy to take forward any specifics that flow from the hon. Lady’s question.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
The sense of devastation is felt so keenly in Glasgow because Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s work has touched our lives in many different ways—for example, I have been to the weddings of my sister and some of my best friends at the House for an Art Lover. The Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society is based in another of his masterpieces, the Queen’s Cross church, which is just around the corner from my constituency office. Will the Secretary of State make sure that the society is included in any communications or information flows that the Government initiate?
David Mundell
Yes, I am happy to do that. As a previous contributor said, it is a great irony that Mackintosh’s 150th anniversary was only on 7 June, when we saw, through the worldwide celebrations, how relevant he remains around the globe.
Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)
Mackintosh once lived in a house just three doors down from where I currently live, but the Secretary of State will know that that is not the only place we can learn about Mackintosh: an exhibition is on right now at Kelvingrove Art Gallery, and it is open until the middle of August so that people can learn about his work. Will the Secretary of State encourage everybody to go and see it?
David Mundell
I most thoroughly encourage everyone to go along to that Mackintosh exhibition in Kelvingrove and, indeed, to visit any of Mackintosh’s other properties, if they have not done so, or attend the Willow Tea Rooms in Sauchiehall Street.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
I agree with and associate myself with the remarks that everyone has made about the heartbreaking scenes on Friday night. Does the Secretary of State agree that the creative arts and creative industries can find young people work in a way that conventional industry cannot? Will he take that into account when he considers what Government funding will be available?
David Mundell
I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. We do not always agree, but I do believe that the creative industries are a much undervalued part of our economy. They have played a huge part in Glasgow’s regeneration and are an enormous part of Edinburgh’s success as a global festival city, and they merit more attention.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
Last year, some Members from Glasgow were given a tour of the painstaking restoration of the Mackintosh building by the School of Art’s director, Professor Tom Inns, who told us how the team who had been involved in the restoration of Windsor castle had offered their advice. Will the Secretary of State join me in thanking the international teams that are appearing to offer their advice, both practical and financial? Like the people of Glasgow, we are not kept down for long, and nor will be the Mack.
David Mundell
The hon. Lady ends her question with a very good sentiment, and I echo it fully. The School of Art has been able to draw on worldwide expertise and to develop and see through skills that were not previously exercised, and it stands in a good position to know what would be needed in a future restoration, although the scale of this restoration would obviously be much greater than the previous one.
Hugh Gaffney (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)
I am someone who delivered to Glasgow for 25 years as a postal worker, and the Mackintosh building was one my favourite buildings to deliver to. Will the Secretary of State not only deliver on the promise that he has just given to re-fund the building, but bear in mind the students and workers in the building?
David Mundell
One of the issues that I will discuss with Professor Inns and others is students, workers and the current capacity, because although the Mackintosh building was in effect destroyed, the School of Art’s principal building was also badly damaged in terms of its operability. We want to discuss those issues and how they can be most helped in that regard.
Cannabis-based Medicines
(6 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sajid Javid)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the medical use of cannabis.
Over the weekend, I issued an emergency licence to allow Billy Caldwell’s medical team to access cannabis-based medicine to treat life-threatening seizures caused by a severe form of epilepsy. This was an emergency procedure, which was led by a senior clinician with the support of the medical director at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.
I am pleased to say that Billy has now been discharged from hospital. It is now for his senior clinicians to develop a long-term care plan. I am sure that the whole House would like to join me in expressing our sympathy for what Billy and his family have been going through and the very difficult time that they have faced.
The course of action in this case was unprecedented. There is strong scientific evidence that cannabis can harm people’s mental and physical health and damage communities. There are currently no legally recognised medicinal or therapeutic benefits. To date, under successive Governments, Home Office policy has been to permit the production, supply and possession of raw cannabis solely for the purposes of research with a Home Office licence. The cannabis-based medicine Sativex can, however, be prescribed in the UK because there is a proven case for its safety and efficacy. However, cases such as Billy’s, Alfie Dingley’s and others like them, have shown that we now need to look more closely at the use of cannabis-based medicines in the healthcare sector in the UK.
It has become clear to me since becoming Home Secretary that the position we find ourselves in is not satisfactory. It is not satisfactory for the parents, it is not satisfactory for the doctors, and it is not satisfactory for me. I have now come to the conclusion that it is time to review the scheduling of cannabis. Before I go into the detail of the review, let me be absolutely clear that this step is in no way the first step in the legalisation of cannabis for recreational use. This Government have absolutely no plans to legalise cannabis, and the penalties for unauthorised supply and possession will remain unchanged. We will not set a dangerous precedent or weaken our ability to keep dangerous drugs off the streets.
The approach that we will be asking the review to consider will be no different than that used previously for controlled drugs where there is evidence of medicinal benefits. The Government review will take place in two parts. Part 1 of the commission will consider the evidence available for the medicinal and therapeutic benefits of cannabis-based medicines. Professor Sally Davies, who also serves as the Chief Medical Officer, will take that part forward. It will then inform exactly which forms of cannabis or cannabis-based medicines should be taken forward to part 2.
Part 2 will be led by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. The ACMD will not reassess the evidence issued by Professor Sally Davies, but will provide an assessment, based on the balance of harms and public health needs, of what, if anything should be rescheduled. If the review identifies that there are significant medical benefits, we will reschedule. We have seen in recent months that there is a pressing need to allow those who might benefit from cannabis-based products to access them. It will, of course, take time for Sally Davies and the ACMD to complete their work and for the Government to consider their recommendations.
In the short term, my hon. Friend the policing Minister announced yesterday that the Government would be establishing an expert panel of clinicians to advise Ministers on any applications to prescribe cannabis-based medicines. This is intended to ensure that advice to Ministers on licensing in these cases is clinically led, based firmly on medical evidence and as swift as possible. The chief medical officers across the UK have already been actively working together on the panel, and the expert panel will start considering applications within a week.
Earlier today, my hon. Friend the policing Minister also spoke to Alfie Dingley’s mum, Hannah Deacon, and informed her that we would issue a licence for Alfie later today. All of the work I have outlined today is about making sure that we keep in step with the latest scientific evidence, and that patients and their families have access to the most appropriate course of medical treatment. I pay tribute to the Policing Minister for all his excellent and sustained work on this important issue.
As a father, I know there is nothing worse than seeing your child suffer. You would do anything to take away their pain. That is why I have the utmost sympathy for Billy Caldwell, Alfie Dingley and many others like them, and for their parents who have been under unimaginable stress and strain. I know that they are following a gut parental instinct to do whatever is in their power to alleviate the suffering of their child. Today I would like to say to this House that I will do everything in my power to make sure that we have a system that works so that these children and these parents get access to the best medical treatment. I commend this statement to the House.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
I thank the Home Secretary for prior sight of his statement. I am well aware of the damage that cannabis consumption can cause, whether it is the health of very young consumers or ganja psychosis. The newer forms of cannabis, notably skunk, are very much stronger than the cannabis available a generation ago. However, I am also aware, as the Home Secretary will be, that a former chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, Professor Nutt, has said that cannabis is less harmful than alcohol. I note that Baron Hague of Richmond is calling for complete decriminalisation.
The Opposition welcome the Home Secretary’s statement that he will look more closely at the use of cannabis-based medication in healthcare in the UK. We agree that this is the right time—if not long overdue—to review the scheduling of cannabis, and we are glad to hear that the policing Minister has spoken to Alfie Dingley’s mother. After the meeting in 10 Downing Street, she was very concerned about the length of time that it was taking to issue a suitable licence.
The Home Secretary has released some of the supply of medication that Billy Caldwell’s mother brought into the country, but does he intend to release the complete supply? Is he aware of the concern at the delays in the current process? Although we welcome the review, something must be done to manage the current process more effectively, including the use of an advisory panel. It is simply not acceptable that parents and families have to suffer, as they have been, as a result of the interminable delays in agreeing licences.
Cannabis and the drug issue generally are big issues of concern for the community. It is important that we base whatever we do on scientific fact and evidence, and we do not just bow to what might be popular sentiment. There are harms connected with cannabis consumption, but it is time to move forward and establish once and for all the potential of cannabis-based medicine to alleviate pain and suffering.
Sajid Javid
I thank the right hon. Lady for her comments and her support for my statement. I think she agrees with me that it is absolutely the right time for the Government to look at this issue. She will be aware that under successive Governments, policy in this area has not changed for a long time, but given what we have all seen and heard all too clearly on our television screens, on the radio, and given the many meetings that my hon. Friend the policing Minister has had with the families affected, it is the right time to look at this issue and act as quickly as possible.
There are two parts to our action. I wish to reassure the House—all hon. Members will appreciate that rules of this type cannot be changed overnight. The changes have to be based on evidence. If they are not and are not properly made, some people out there may have different views and may try to challenge the rules legally. They have to be sufficiently robust. That is why we have put in place this process and why we wanted to act as quickly as possible. Professor Sally Davies’ office has said that she can complete her work within a week. We are moving as fast as we possibly can, and I hope that the ACMD can then act within weeks.
At the same time, we do not want any other families to suffer, so we want to ensure that we have a process in place to act much more swiftly. That is why we have established the expert panel. The chief medical officers from all the devolved nations, including Northern Ireland, are involved in that, so we are co-ordinating and will work well together. The expert panel will be able to act very swiftly and Ministers will be able to take action very quickly based on medical advice, which is what we all want to see.
The right hon. Lady asked me about Alfie Dingley. As I mentioned, we will be issuing the licence today. Alfie’s mother has already been informed and is of course very happy with the decision. I am sorry that she has had to wait so long and go through all the distress that she has faced. I am grateful to the policing Minister for all the work that he has done, and to Alfie’s mother’s Member of Parliament—the Attorney General, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright)—for all the work that he has done.
The right hon. Lady asked me about Billy Caldwell’s situation. We are working very closely with the family. Now that the licence has been issued, we will ensure that the right amount of medicine is available for the right time. The situation depends somewhat on whether Billy Caldwell’s mother decides to go back to Northern Ireland, because licensing is an entirely devolved matter. We are working closely with the Northern Ireland authorities to ensure that, if she does decide to go, the move is seamless and does not affect Billy Caldwell in any way.
The right hon. Lady is interested in how quickly we acted. The first time we received a request from a clinician in the case of Billy Caldwell was at around 11.15 am on Friday just gone; by noon I had issued a licence and the drug was in possession of the family. I do not believe that we could have acted any quicker from the point at which we received a request from the clinician.
Once again, let me say that I really appreciate the right hon. Lady’s comments. By working together, we can bring to an end the suffering of all these families and help in every way that we can.
Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement and the rapid way in which he has gripped this issue. As co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for drug policy reform, let me say that this is a very welcome step forward. There is a substantial amount of medical evidence out there, including a 2016 paper on this issue—commissioned by my predecessor co-chairs of the APPG—by Professor Mike Barnes, who has been associated with the Alfie Dingley case. Will my right hon. Friend make it clear that Professor Sally Davies has been given two tasks, including one on the expert panel to advise on immediate applications for licences? Will he confirm that people will not be asked to pay the swingeing fees that were being asked of the Dingley family in respect of their licences? Finally, what is the expected timescale for the second task that my right hon. Friend has asked the chief medical officer to undertake?
Sajid Javid
I welcome my hon. Friend’s comments, the work that he has done in this area over a number of years and the interest that he takes in the issue. I can confirm that Professor Sally Davies is helping—first with the expert panel so that we can bring help before the review is complete, and then of course with the review itself. He also mentioned the important issue of fees, which I am looking at to see how we can help.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
I thank the Home Secretary for his statement. May I just gently say to him that it would be nice if the third party could have a little bit more advance notice than the statement literally being put in my hand as he gets to his feet? That said, I am pleased about the statement.
The Home Secretary is making significant progress in this area. I am particularly pleased for the individual families concerned, and to read about the review, but of course there are thousands of people across the United Kingdom who want to access these medicines for the treatment of conditions for which there is evidence that they can alleviate the symptoms and pain. These individuals and their families are worried about the bureaucracy and the hurdles that have to be crossed to access the medicines. Can the Secretary of State give me some assurance that his review will focus on removing bureaucracy and hurdles? Does he agree that this matter should eventually be seen as a public health matter that should be taken out of the Home Office and put into the hands of health departments across the UK?
In the meantime, I am pleased to hear that the chief medical officers of the devolved countries are involved, but will the Secretary of State confirm what other liaison there is—with the Scottish Government, for example—in relation to both health and policing, which has been mentioned, as these are devolved matters?
Sajid Javid
I thank the hon. and learned Lady for her comments. She is right to highlight that thousands of people may be suffering. No one knows the exact number, but it is estimated that at least 10,000 children in the UK have a drug-resistant form of epilepsy. That really puts into focus what a big difference these measures can make. I can also give her an assurance about bureaucracy and hurdles. Frankly, there has been a lot of bureaucracy and many hurdles in the way until now. The decision that we made on Friday was unprecedented, as are the measures that we are putting in place. The expert panel will make a huge difference. Its whole purpose is to make the process as smooth and quick as possible, based on medical advice at all points. I do not want to prejudge the review, but I am sure that the hon. and learned Lady can sense the direction.
Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)
As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on cannabis: harmful effects on developing brains, I thank my right hon. Friend for his assurances that any future medicinal use of cannabis will not be conflated with any weakening of the Government’s position on recreational use. Is he aware of the increasingly clear evidence of permanent psychosis and depression among young people who are users of what we see on our streets more regularly—skunk cannabis?
Sajid Javid
I am very much aware of that. It is perfectly correct for my hon. Friend to highlight this point. As I made clear in my statement and I am happy to make absolutely clear again, there are no plans at all to decriminalise cannabis. It is a controlled class B drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, and that will not change.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
All of us must want children—and also adults—to get the medical treatment that they need without additional hurdles that have nothing to do with medicine. I welcome the Home Secretary’s announcement that he will look at the scheduling of cannabis, because it is incredibly hard to explain the scheduling classification of cannabis compared to opiates, and the additional burdens that that scheduling poses for the health service if such products are needed for treatment. May I ask him again to look more widely at the barriers and obstacles in his review? Will he look at whether these kinds of scheduling or licensing decisions should be passed to the Department of Health and Social Care, and whether much more drugs policy should, in fact, be led by that Department?
Sajid Javid
The right hon. Lady makes a number of good points. She is right to highlight that there are currently drugs that are under schedule 2, meaning that the medical benefits are accepted, but which can be a lot more harmful than other drugs if they are used in the wrong way. She asked about the role of the Department of Health and Social Care in these kinds of decisions. This requires a cross-Government approach, with the Home Office and the Department of Health and Social Care working closely together, as we have seen. We have an issue in that these drugs are categorised as illegal under the Misuse of Drugs Act, but we need to recognise, where appropriate, that some of them have medicinal benefits, as has already been recognised with, for example, cocaine and morphine. It is therefore appropriate that the two Departments work together.
Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
I absolutely understand the Government’s review of this policy, and I welcome it for those who suffer and need this drug to make them better, but may I just say that, from my own life experience, I am delighted that the Government are not going to decriminalise the use of drugs. All too often, people start on cannabis and end on something far worse, and I have personally seen the devastation to families and the loss of children because of drugs.
Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)
I welcome the move that the Home Secretary has made, on behalf of my constituents. It is really important to me that the grandfather of Charlie Jones and the parents of Jace Newton-Sealey know how to go about applying for a licence. Will the Home Secretary and his Department make the process clear, so that people know how to access a licence?
Sajid Javid
Yes, I think that there is a need to make the process clearer. I have been quite open that I do not think that the current process is a friendly one at all. The decision made in the case of Billy Caldwell was unprecedented; no Government in the past had recognised the medicinal benefits of cannabis by making such a decision and issuing a licence. We need to make the process—even the interim process, through the expert panel—much smoother and more straightforward. Once the panel is set up, which will happen by next week, we will set out exactly how the process will work for the hon. Lady’s constituents and others.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
Clinical leadership may have its place, but for years the crying need has been for political leadership, so may I thank my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State and the Policing Minister for providing it?
Norman Lamb (North Norfolk) (LD)
I genuinely welcome this announcement, which does mark a significant shift, but is there not a dreadful hypocrisy in Government policy on drugs more generally? Probably most of the Cabinet drinks alcohol, the most dangerous drug of all. Probably half the Cabinet has used cannabis—maybe even the Home Secretary—unless it is a very odd group of people, but perhaps that is the case. Should not the Home Secretary follow the advice of the former Conservative leader, Lord Hague, who makes the case for a regulated, legalised market, which would be the best way to protect from harm people who, at the moment, buy from criminals who have no interest in their welfare at all?
Sajid Javid
This is about making sure that the best possible medical treatment is available for everyone in the UK, but especially our children. It is about medical treatment, not the recreational use of drugs, which can cause severe damage to people. I am afraid that I do not agree with the right hon. Gentleman on that point, and nor, on this occasion, do I agree with Lord Hague.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for very much humanising this issue. As chairman of the all-party group on multiple sclerosis, I welcome his announcement about the medical aspect of cannabis. May I offer the services of the MS Society in any inquiry and call for evidence that he might have? May I also associate myself with his remarks about drugs? I am frankly staggered that my right hon. and noble Friend Lord Hague—or indeed anybody else—could advocate such a thing. We will all have seen at first hand in our constituencies the devastation that cannabis causes. This is not recreational use—it steals lives and futures, and we must be robust in ensuring that it stops.
Sajid Javid
My hon. Friend is absolutely right on that point. He will know that Sativex, which has a cannabis base, is already licensed for those with MS, but today’s announcement is about how we can improve on the medical use of cannabis even further.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
I, too, genuinely welcome the licence for Alfie today, but what a scandal it is that it has taken three months since Hannah Deacon met the Prime Minister and was promised swift and compassionate action, and what an outrage it is that, frankly, it is only the press attention that has finally shamed the Government into action. With regard to the expert panel, what assurance can the Home Secretary give that there will be enough Home Office staff to deal with the thousands of applications that might well now come?
Sajid Javid
Let me say gently to the hon. Lady that in the case of Alfie Dingley, of course we are all pleased that we have been able to issue the licence today. She should know that before the application—the approach by his clinicians—no Government had even entertained the idea, given that cannabis is classed as a schedule 1 drug, of looking at this from a medical point of view. This Government have done that. I hope that she can join us in not just welcoming that, but working together on how we can end the suffering of so many other people, particularly children, who could benefit from these kinds of medicines.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
I commend the Home Secretary for his statement. I support the legalisation of cannabis for medical use. May I urge him to encourage the clinical review team to get on with it? There is already a mass of internationally accredited research available that they can draw on, so we do not need to reinvent the wheel. The research is there—it just needs to be studied and then a decision can be made quickly.
Sajid Javid
My hon. Friend makes a good point. One of the issues has been that our rules in this area have not kept up with medical research and evidence. At least 13 European countries, as well as Canada and over 30 US states, have recognised the medicinal benefits of cannabis. The World Health Organisation has also done work on this and pointed to evidence. We will be using and drawing on all that evidence. That is why I am pleased that Professor Sally Davies has said that she can complete her work in days.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
The Home Secretary says that he wants a system that works. I am bit concerned about the role of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs in the light of what has happened in recent days. Is it still fit for purpose?
Sajid Javid
Yes, it is. It has an important role to play, which is to advise Ministers on the scheduling of drugs. If we are to change a scheduling, it is important to listen to its point of view.
Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)
I welcome the fact that the Home Secretary set out at the start of his statement that
“cannabis can harm people’s mental and physical health and damage communities.”
I also welcome the fact that any change will be science-led. Will he also look at international examples? He mentioned Canada, where a law was introduced very recently. Will he see what works—and, importantly, what does not work—with that law, in particular, because the evidence is mixed?
Sajid Javid
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We will certainly be looking at international evidence. A lot has changed in the UK since the current rules were put in place, and we will take all that into account.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
I welcome what the Home Secretary has said today. I have long supported decriminalisation of the use of cannabis for medicinal purposes, not least having heard some really heartbreaking stories from my own constituents, particularly those with degenerative conditions, some of whom, sadly, passed away unable to get the pain relief and support that they needed. Given the speed at which this review will be undertaken, will the Home Secretary, the Policing Minister and the Attorney General be giving any guidance in the interim to police forces or the Crown Prosecution Service on the public interest in pursuing the impounding of material, or prosecuting individuals who are using it for medicinal purposes?
Sajid Javid
The current rules are clear. We have discussed today and debated in Parliament how we would like to see a change in the process, but until those rules change, they would have to be applied. The hon. Gentleman raises a perfectly good point about working with law enforcement agencies and making sure that they are taking emerging policy into account.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
I have long advocated the use of medical cannabis and therefore very much welcome the Home Secretary’s announcement of a review. May I have assurances that that review will be very much patient-centred and led by evidence of how the use of medical cannabis can help those with chronic conditions?
Sajid Javid
I can absolutely give my hon. Friend that reassurance. The review must have the patient at its very heart and must be driven by medical evidence.
Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
I welcome the statement, and particularly the news on Alfie Dingley. Of course, there is already evidence of the medical benefits of cannabis, because otherwise Sativex would not be available on licence. That is why it is so absurd that cannabis is still a schedule 1 controlled drug. I am therefore hopeful and confident that the review will lead to a recommendation to reschedule. Will the Secretary of State confirm that rescheduling could be carried out quite quickly and easily by means of a statutory instrument, meaning that we can get on with it?
Sajid Javid
First, Sativex was looked at for a particular condition. It is right that drugs are looked at the context of the condition that they are intended to help with. The hon. Gentleman makes a good wider point about whether, once the review is complete, we can get on with it, with any changes made quickly. That is exactly what I intend to do.
David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)
As chairman of the all-party group on 22q11.2 deletion syndrome, I know many parents of children who have a rare genetic condition that often goes undiagnosed and, when diagnosed, is not always appropriately treated. From that experience, I am sure that Billy’s family welcome today’s statement. I welcome the fact that elements of the statement show that the Government look to the evidence and respond to the public interest, as well as that of the patient at the forefront.
Sajid Javid
My hon. Friend is right. The process should absolutely be clinically led. We should listen to evidence from clinicians while drawing on international evidence, too. That is exactly what should feed into the outcome of the review.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
I think we all welcome the progress that is being made, but there are questions about people who need help now. My constituents Laura Murray and John Ahern have a one-year-old daughter, Bláthnaid, who has been diagnosed with Aicardi syndrome. She suffers very severe seizures throughout the day and her parents believe that these medicines could help. I will write to the Home Secretary with more details about that situation, but may I ask him how much discretion he still has, and how much he is willing to exercise?
Sajid Javid
As the rules stand, until the review is complete and changes are made, any use of cannabis for medicinal purposes will require a Home Office licence or, in the case of Northern Ireland, a licence from the Health Department there. I hope that what I have set out today has given reassurance that I recognise the need for action now, not tomorrow or in a few weeks or months. We need action now, and that is the purpose of the expert panel—to make this a much smooth, quick and clinically-led process.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
I welcome the Home Secretary’s announcement. I note that he is not going to reclassify cannabis, but will he look at how we deal with individuals in possession of a small amount of cannabis? To that end, will he look at Checkpoint, an alternative justice initiative by Durham police that aims to help individuals and to try to break the link between drugs and crime?
Sajid Javid
The right hon. Gentleman is right: this is not about the reclassification of cannabis. He makes an important point about the need for law enforcement to work with others, including the many good groups out there, to try to get people off drugs once they have a problem. It is important to do more work on that.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement. Those treating my constituent, Caroline, are firmly of the view that she is alive today and living a good quality of life because her brain tumour has been slowed by the regular use of cannabis oil, but she is having to import that at a cost of hundreds of pounds every month. When can she expect her doctors to be able to prescribe that treatment? Is there anything she should be doing in the meantime to benefit from what the Secretary of State has announced today?
Sajid Javid
I do not know all the details of that case, but it might be good to look at the work of the expert panel that I have talked about. As I say, we will set out more details on that. Any changes to the rules will be made after the review and, as the House has heard, we are trying to do that as quickly as possible.
Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)
The mainstream media have highlighted this week the heartbreaking cases of Alfie Dingley and Billy Caldwell. The Secretary of State has said that an estimated 10,000 children in the UK who suffer seizures could benefit from these medicines, as could many more people suffering from degenerative conditions. It has always been the case that he could grant a specific licence, but given his comments about the time that it will take the ACMD to reach a conclusion and to look at international evidence from Canada and the 13 EU countries, what is his estimate of how long it will be before we get a more streamlined system?
Sajid Javid
First, I reassure the hon. Gentleman that we will take the international evidence into account. I know that Dame Sally Davies will look at that too, as will the ACMD. I want that work to be done as soon as possible, but right now I want to streamline the process, which means that the work of the expert panel will be very important.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement. It will be particularly welcomed by my constituents the Gray family, as Murray Gray suffers from a similar condition to Alfie Dingley and Billy Caldwell. I also welcome the speed with which the Home Secretary will act, but I urge him not to be thrown off track or to allow anything to affect the rescheduling of cannabis, such as reactionary fear about its availability for recreational use.
Sajid Javid
I thank the hon. Lady for her comments, and I reassure her that I will not be thrown off track.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Home Secretary very much for his statement and the urgency he has given this. I also thank the Minister for Policing and the Fire Service for all his hard work, which should not be ignored. My constituents Darren and Danielle Gibson took their eight-year-old daughter Sophia to Holland so that she could receive these drugs. It was very important that they did so, as that had a clear medical benefit for their child. The Minister will know—
Mr Speaker
Order. I express the cautious hope—it would probably be unrealistic of me to say this with enormous confidence—that the hon. Gentleman, whom we all love dearly, is approaching his peroration, at the end of which there will be an unmistakeable question mark.
Jim Shannon
There certainly will be, Mr Speaker.
When I met the permanent secretary of the Health Department in Northern Ireland, he said that he would have some difficulty giving the go-ahead in Northern Ireland. He needs direction from the Home Secretary. What discussions has the Home Secretary had with the permanent secretary to facilitate this urgently for my constituent Sophia Gibson?
Sajid Javid
The hon. Gentleman will know that the decision to issue a possession licence is completely devolved in Northern Ireland, so it is outside the Home Office’s area. That said, we want to work closely with Northern Ireland. The permanent secretary in my Department has been working with the permanent secretary in the Health Department in Northern Ireland. We want to help in every way possible, especially in the case of Sophia Gibson, and that is exactly what we are doing.
Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde) (SNP)
I have to say that I am a little perplexed by this. The Home Secretary is saying that there are currently no legally recognised medicinal or therapeutic benefits of cannabis. I am wondering what we are giving to Billy Caldwell that has led to such a turnaround in his situation and what we are proposing to give to Alfie Dingley, if it has no therapeutic benefits.
Sajid Javid
Under the current rules, those are not recognised. To be a bit clearer, all drugs that may or may not have a medicinal benefit are scheduled, and drugs in schedule 1, which is where cannabis is at the moment, are not recognised to have medicinal benefits under the law. That said, we of course want to look at the evidence, and to be led by evidence and clinicians, which was exactly why I made today’s announcement and why I took action last week.
Points of Order
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Where is everybody? I hope, in the light of the extraordinary accusations of the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), they are not behind the bike sheds having a spliff.
Mr Speaker
That is a most unworthy thought. The right hon. Gentleman articulates it with his usual brio and panache, but I think he errs on the side of pessimism in his assessment of the character of his colleagues.
Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Yesterday I attempted to raise a point of order, which I do not think was a point of order, so I will try again today. I wonder how I can get on the record how thrilled I am, along with colleagues across the House, that it will no longer be necessary to go to Holland to get the drugs for Alfie Dingley. I was inundated with requests to come with me, but we will now not have to be put behind bars to get Alfie the drugs he needs.
Mr Speaker
That is a very heartwarming point of order by the right hon. Gentleman. I must admit that I had wrongly anticipated him. I did not know that he was going to make the very serious point that he just made, which is appreciated and respected. I thought he was going to use the occasion to make an entirely bogus but amusing point of order about Harry Kane’s two goals last night, which we all celebrate. I do not celebrate it when Harry Kane scores for Tottenham, although I know the right hon. Gentleman does, but I do celebrate it when Harry Kane scores for England.
Sir Mike Penning
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I would like to put on the record how difficult that announcement was for you, as an ardent Arsenal supporter. I am sure that we all, including those from other countries in the United Kingdom, support England when they are playing other countries outside the United Kingdom, and especially when Harry Kane scores two goals.
Mr Speaker
We conclude our points of order today, people will have noticed, in a spirit of amity.
Bill Presented
House of Lords (Abolition and Replacement)
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Mr Frank Field presented a Bill to abolish the House of Lords and make provision for its replacement by a Senate.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on 26 October, and to be printed (Bill 230).
Mr Speaker
For the benefit of others, the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) said, “26 October 2018, unless the Speaker can get him a better time.” That is a very novel interpretation of the procedure.
Frank Field
It is about the abolition of the House of Lords. They are overruling us.
Mr Speaker
I think the right hon. Gentleman may be investing me with powers that it be would joyous to have, but which I do not possess. The House seems to be in a good mood at the moment.
Representation of the People (Gibraltar)
Tuesday 19th June 2018
(6 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Representation of the People (Gibraltar) Bill 2017-19 View all Representation of the People (Gibraltar) Bill 2017-19 Debates Read Hansard Text
A Ten Minute Rule Bill is a First Reading of a Private Members Bill, but with the sponsor permitted to make a ten minute speech outlining the reasons for the proposed legislation.
There is little chance of the Bill proceeding further unless there is unanimous consent for the Bill or the Government elects to support the Bill directly.
For more information see: Ten Minute Bills
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide for the representation of Gibraltar by a Member of the House of Commons; and for connected purposes.
All 14 of the UK’s overseas territories are different; all are special. All share our monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, as their Head of State; most are internally self-governing. The overseas territory that now sits in a unique constitutional position post-Brexit is Gibraltar. It is the only territory within the European Union and will be leaving the EU with the UK on 29 March 2019. Its relationship with the European Union is quite different from any other part of the Union, in that it is a member of the single market, but not its customs union or Schengen, despite having a land border with the EU. Gibraltar is not to be confused with the Crown dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man, which have very different constitutional arrangements and are not in the EU, now or in the future.
Few were surprised that Gibraltar voted remain in the EU referendum. This reflected its residents’ concerns that the EU had played, at times, a role in balancing the often fractious demands of its giant neighbour. The good life and strong economy—a beacon in an area of high regional unemployment—I can but guess also played a part in its local vote for no change.
For over 300 years, Gibraltar and its people have played their part in support of Britain’s history as a global leader in commerce and an international player of influence. It occupies a unique geographical position as the gatekeeper to the Mediterranean and has one of the Royal Navy’s most important international bases. Whenever Gibraltar has been presented with a choice over its future, notably in the shared sovereignty referendum of 2002, Gibraltarians have rejected any change by vast margins. Gibraltar has been and continues to be an unwavering supporter of the UK. Its outstanding support during times of conflict has been continuous, and we have a close relationship built on trust and reciprocal loyalty. Similarly, the people of Gibraltar have strong support in this House. I salute the good work of my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell), as chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on the overseas territories, and my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), the chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on Gibraltar.
Since the decision to leave the EU, the people of Gibraltar and its Government have shown nothing but pragmatism and respect for the decision of the referendum. Nobody could fail to be impressed and reassured by the evidence given by the Chief Minister to the Select Committee on Exiting the European Union in January last year. The UK’s Brexit vote must make us think anew and re-assert once more that the Rock is British and will remain so. Brexit provides us with an opportunity to build further on our relationship and further protect the Rock’s rights and interests. That is best guaranteed by a closer electoral bond, which would also send a clear message to Madrid about the perpetuity of that bond.
Unlike other overseas territories, Gibraltar does not have the option of formal independence, which, however unlikely, would be available to others should they so wish it. The 1713 treaty of Utrecht ceded Gibraltar to Great Britain in perpetuity. The treaty had a sting, in that Gibraltar can only be British or Spanish. Its own unilateral independence is not an option. Whereas most overseas territories have their own currencies or shared currencies—the Eastern Caribbean dollar, under the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union—or use the euro in some cases or the US or New Zealand dollar, only the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar and St Helena, with Tristan da Cunha and Ascension Island, share sterling as their domestic currency.
Gibraltar’s truly unique feature, however, is that it already has electoral links with the UK, via its attachment to the South West region for representation in the European Parliament. That will disappear upon Brexit. The way to protect that attachment is for this Parliament to allow the people of Gibraltar direct representation in this House. There was a cogent argument given then that Gibraltar should be connected to the UK through electoral representation, and there is a clear argument now. Gibraltar’s population is a little light numerically to qualify as a constituency. It has a population of 33,000, with an electoral roll of 23,000. However, this is in the same ball park as—I may need help pronouncing this—Na h-Eileanan an Iar in the Outer Hebrides, a constituency with 21,260 voters.
Of course, we will always respect the devolution of powers that are in place, and having a Gibraltar MP in this House should not be an impediment to Gibraltar’s future constitutional development. Gibraltar’s constitution of 2006 is a tribute to the fact that it has a vibrant and responsible democratic system of government. That is why my Bill would not change the devo-max settlement of its 2006 constitution. If taken further, it would not impose a Westminster MP on Gibraltar. The decision whether to take up the offer of an MP in Westminster for Gibraltar must be made by the residents of Gibraltar alone and decided by their own internal procedures. The mechanics of how that might work would need to be discussed with Gibraltar’s leaders, but I reiterate that it would be for the people of Gibraltar to decide whether to have such representation here in our Parliament, which would become their own.
There is a local campaign group in Gibraltar, called the Representation in Westminster Group, that has been arguing for a number of years that a democratically elected MP in Westminster can only strengthen the Rock’s link with Britain and act as a permanent counter to any Spanish claims. The campaign says that it has already collected almost 9,000 signatures in support of UK Parliament representation, which it will deliver here once 10,000 signatures have been amassed. That is an impressive number—close to half the eligible voters.
As we leave the EU and forge a new global Britain, and given the Rock’s unique constitutional position with its membership of the sterling zone and rich historical links to Britain, there has never been a more appropriate time to cement our relationship with Gibraltar by offering it this constitutional bond. It would signal a perpetual and lasting link of shared interests. Gibraltar may be small, but its success is a matter of pride for the British people. Gibraltar’s constitution gives its citizens full powers of self-governance, other than over foreign affairs, defence, internal security and interest rate monetary policy. Gibraltar has always been and will continue to be a good and true member of the great British family. I very much hope that with this Bill we can reward the Gibraltarian people for their steadfast and loyal support for Britain.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Craig Mackinlay, Sir Graham Brady, Maria Caulfield, Sir David Crausby, Tim Farron, Daniel Kawczynski, Priti Patel, Andrew Rosindell, Sammy Wilson and Nigel Dodds present the Bill.
Craig Mackinlay accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 26 October, and to be printed (Bill 231).
Opposition Day
Confidence in the Secretary of State for Transport
(6 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
16:05 - The House having divided: - Ayes: 285 / Noes: 305 - Question accordingly negatived.
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has no confidence in the Secretary of State for Transport, the Rt Hon Member for Epsom and Ewell; notes the failed implementation of the May rail timetables which has left thousands of commuters without services and has drastically affected their everyday lives; believes Northern and Govia Thameslink Railway should have their franchises terminated; and regrets that the Secretary of State for Transport has failed to strategically manage and oversee the UK railway and take responsibility for his role in the crisis on England’s railways, whilst officials at other organisations have resigned and forgone bonuses.
Before I come to the topic of today’s debate, I would like to express my condolences to the families and friends of those who so sadly died as a result of being struck by a train at Loughborough Junction in south London yesterday. I also pay tribute to all the railway staff who attended in response, in particular the British Transport police. Despite the challenges we face, we can never forget the outstanding public service that tens of thousands of men and women provide every day. We owe it to them to do our very best for the industry.
I regret having to table the motion, but given the totally unacceptable state of the railway I felt that I had a duty to passengers. The latest chaos follows meltdown on the east coast, resulting in a £2 billion bail-out and huge cuts to promised electrification in Wales, the north of England and the midlands. This is not shaping up to be a distinguished legacy. In his resignation letter to staff, Charles Horton, the outgoing chief executive of Govia Thameslink Railway, said:
“In my view, this was an industry-wide failure of the timetabling process. But with leadership comes responsibility and so I feel it is only right that I step down”.
Why is it that the chief executive of a train company who is responsible only for the travel disruption on one part of the railway is able to recognise the responsibility that comes with his leadership role and resign, yet the person who is truly responsible, the Transport Secretary, remains in post?
Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that, ever since the collapse of the west coast main line franchising competition under a predecessor of the Secretary of State, the entire franchising system has become increasingly ridiculous and unworkable, and that the way in which we run our railways needs to be changed entirely?
Andy McDonald
I could not agree more. We are seeing instance after instance. It is evidence, if any more were needed, that the system has completely and utterly failed and needs to be completely revised. Why are train companies allowed to retain their franchise despite repeated failures? Northern and GTR should be stripped of their contracts. Labour said very clearly that franchise failure should mean forfeit. It is clear that the Department for Transport has failed to ensure that train companies fulfil the terms of their contracts.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is not only GTR that should lose its franchise? The Secretary of State should have his office removed as well because this is a façade of a franchise. We know that Ministers are behind it, and it is Ministers who should be held accountable for the fact that passengers in places such as Preston Park in Brighton are losing their jobs, cannot spend time with their kids in hospital and are having their lives wrecked.
Andy McDonald
I agree entirely. The Government seem to want to have control and intervene, but they do not want to take responsibility. GTR should have been stripped of its contract years ago for running the worst rail service in modern times. The company has repeatedly been found in breach of its contract as well as overseeing toxic industrial relations and poor customer service. Had the Government heeded Labour’s call to strip the company of its franchise, the recent disruption could have been avoided.
Huw Merriman
I thank the hon. Gentleman—he is always kind and courteous with his time. A month ago, I believe that he said at the Dispatch Box that the rail professionals should be allowed to get on and run the industry, but in this instance he is being critical of the Secretary of State for not intervening and stopping that very eventuality occurring. I would like some clarification.
Andy McDonald
I will come on to that. As an excellent member of the Select Committee on Transport, the hon. Gentleman knows that the DFT sits on those bodies—it has a presence—yet it did nothing when it was given those alarms or warnings that he knows all about.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
It is not many months since we had a problem with Southern, as has been mentioned by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas). From time to time there are problems on the west coast main line, yet the Secretary of State sits there like Pontius Pilate and abdicates responsibility.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a good speech. Yesterday, members of the Transport Committee sat for many hours interrogating leaders of the industry, both train operating companies and Network Rail, trying to find out who runs the railways. After all those hours, answer came there none. Does my hon. Friend agree that there are two scenarios? First, the Secretary of State is in charge, in which case he should take responsibility; or even worse, he is not, in which case he should be sacked?
Andy McDonald
My hon. Friend makes the point very well. We are talking about a dysfunctional railway that is completely and utterly fractured, and that has to be resolved.
Several hon. Members rose—
Andy McDonald
I will make progress, as I have taken several interventions and I know that many speakers wish to contribute. It is not acceptable to allow companies to continue to run and profit from rail services following failures on this scale. Services should return to public ownership to be run as part of an integrated railway under public ownership.
I turn to the distressing situation that confronts us more broadly on the railway as a result of the calamitous introduction of new timetables across more than half the UK rail network. The changes were intended to be improvements to introduce much-needed rail capacity following public expenditure on new rail infrastructure, but instead of improvements passengers on Northern and GTR have experienced a nightmare of disruption, and there seems to be little prospect of their trials and tribulations ending quickly. Last week, the Manchester Evening News carried a number of personal testimonies about the impact of the chaos. Leigh Burke, 55, is a team leader at Royal Bolton Hospital. He commutes from Didsbury to Bolton and said:
“I’m late to work all the time, it’s affecting my job. It’s an utter shambles.”
Louise Kirby, who commutes daily from Bromley Cross to Victoria, added:
“It’s horrific. I keep having panic attacks because it’s been so crowded. I saw a man pass out.”
Tom Moss, 24, a PR manager who lives in Glossop and works in Altrincham, pays £104 a month for his pass and said:
“I just want the trains to be on time. I just feel angry. I can’t take much more of it.”
There are thousands more personal stories that I could describe: personal difficulties and struggles that have a significant social and economic impact. Businesses and individuals who rely on rail transport suffer consequences from this disruption that carry very real costs.
This is not just a one-off. Disruption of this scale and severity, particularly when passengers experience it endlessly over an extended period, destroys faith and trust in the railway and drives people away from rail into their cars. Last week, figures showed that rail passenger usage has fallen yet again—this time, the fall was the biggest in 25 years. Not only does that mean more congestion, worse air pollution and an increased contribution to climate change, but it threatens the very sustainability of the railway.
Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that, as well as appalling oversight by the Government, one of the main challenges facing the rail network is ageing and unreliable infrastructure? That is a particular problem for the east coast main line, which has not had any real investment since electrification in 1991, 27 years ago, despite its being one of the major national rail routes.
Andy McDonald
Indeed. The east coast main line is in need of investment, and my hon. Friend makes her point incredibly well.
Tim Farron
That is very decent of the hon. Gentleman, and I am grateful to him. He is making an important speech. Does he agree that there is something of the red herring about conversations suggesting the new timetable is the source of the current calamity? Does he also agree that strategic decisions by the Government have led to the problem, which predates timetabling, not least the decision to postpone or, in the case of the Lakes line, cancel electrification, and to award to Northern certain franchises that it should never have been given, including the Lakes and Furness lines in my constituency?
Andy McDonald
I agree with those comments, and I will come on to that in a little while.
Franchise agreements assume ever-growing fare revenues, so the downturn in rail use increases the likelihood of more failed franchises and further taxpayer bail-outs. Fares have soared at three times the rate of wages since 2010, pricing passengers off the railway, while disruption encourages more people to revert to driving. That is exactly the wrong modal shift that we need our transport policy to achieve if it is to fulfil our environmental obligations and remove traffic and fumes from our towns and cities. Polling conducted by Which? found that three in five respondents affected by the timetable changes said that those changes had a negative impact on both their work and family life, with four in 10 saying that they had a negative impact on their health.
Considering the scale of the disruption, I am sure the whole House will agree that passengers must be adequately compensated. Yet at present 72% of those affected by the disruption said they had not been informed, either on the train or at the platform, about any compensation they may be entitled to receive. The Transport Secretary should have ensured passengers were made properly aware of the compensation they are owed. In addition, considering the scale of the disruption, a compensation package that goes above and beyond what is currently available must be delivered. The Transport Secretary has indicated some such package is being considered, but he has not provided detail. I ask him to do so today to ensure that the amount of compensation is commensurate with the scale of disruption and, importantly, that it is funded by the train companies, not taxpayers and passengers. They should pay voluntarily. If they refuse, he should make them.
It is important to step back and review the key steps in how we have come to this sorry state of affairs. This year’s timetable changes, introduced on 20 May, are the most extensive and ambitious undertaken in decades. More than 50% of the network schedules have been revamped. Four million trains have been retimed: about six times as many changes as is usual for a timetable change. It was clear before Christmas that there were going to be difficulties in implementing the new timetable. In February, the rail industry body, the Rail Delivery Group, confirmed it would not be able to complete timetables 12 weeks ahead of travel from 20 May for about six months. That should have set off alarm bells.
Since 20 May, 43% of Northern’s trains have been delayed or cancelled each day. From 4 June, the train operator cancelled 165 trains a day, including all services to the Lake district. In the first week of the new timetable, GTR delayed or cancelled a quarter of its trains and announced the schedule for the next day at 10 pm each night.
Today’s industrial action on Northern is a reminder of the utter despair felt by the rail industry’s workforce. Both Northern and GTR have waged war on their staff for three years and four years respectively. They have done so at the explicit behest of the Secretary of State for Transport and his senior officials.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
How does the hon. Gentleman explain that the Labour Mayor of London has been unable to run strike-free transport in London, although he promised to do so? Did he also anger staff in this way?
Andy McDonald
We can have that discussion, but today I am dealing with these services and I am going to concentrate on them.
Senior officials directly interfered. Let us not forget that the managing director of passenger services at the Department for Transport, Peter Wilkinson, said two years ago:
“we’re going to be having punch-ups and we will see industrial action”
and that he wanted to run people “out of my industry.”
The introduction of the May 2018 timetable required change on an unprecedented scale. The process of managing change requires co-operation, dialogue, engagement and good will. The Government and the management of Northern and GTR have destroyed their relationships with their employees. Millions of passengers in the UK are paying the price for the belligerence and the antagonistic approach of the Secretary of State.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
I know the Secretary of State and I know his Ministers. I bet a pound to a dollar that the Secretary of State and his Ministers pulled in the people responsible for the railway companies and got assurances from them that this would work well. I really feel it is quite unfair, because I am absolutely convinced that the Secretary of State, who I know well, would have checked this out. He has been let down very badly by the railway companies.
Andy McDonald
The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point, but in support of my argument. He is demonstrating that that did not work. That was not a very good way of going about business, relying on people giving assurances rather than saying, “Show me. Where’s your evidence?” You do that before you go ahead with it. You do not rely on people telling you nonsense.
Ever since the timetable chaos arose, we have witnessed carefully crafted statements that try to ensure as little responsibility as possible can be attributed to the Department for Transport and the Secretary of State in charge of it. Let us consider the situation. This is a Government who refuse to recognise the accumulated evidence that their privatised structure of the railway is failing. Therefore, they refuse to accept a sensible and practical railway structure that can function properly.
David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for being so generous with his time. He is a big supporter of privatisation—[Interruption.] He is a big supporter of nationalisation, but that would cost each and every household in this country £6,500. Does he not agree that the nationalised side of the railway caused this problem in the first place? How does he account for that?
Andy McDonald
I do not know where the hon. Gentleman gets that figure from. If the Government take franchises back when they run out it costs diddly squat to take them back—zero—so he is talking utter nonsense.
No one other than the Government hold responsibility for their dogmatic stance. This dogma causes them to stand by and defend the rail structure that is manifestly not fit for purpose. It then falls to the Department for Transport to get involved to try to run the railway properly. It cannot do this. Today’s railway cannot run itself effectively because it was decapitated by privatisation and chopped into bits to facilitate private profit taking. Because there is no guiding mind overseeing the railway, the Department has to wade into the railway much more deeply than it should. Having taken this approach, the Government assume a greater deal of responsibility, but they have not shown themselves capable of discharging that responsibility.
The Department for Transport’s oversight has failed in three major ways. First, it appears that, when there was a decision on whether to press ahead with the timetable changes affecting Northern, the Department stood against allowing a deferral. Why did the Department not believe the professional advice it was given? Secondly, the Transport Committee heard from Network Rail yesterday that Thameslink phasing was first raised by the GTR readiness board in June 2017. Mr Halsall, the route managing director for the south-east, said the Department stood by and did not make a decision until November 2017—an astonishing five-month delay. What did the Secretary of State know and when did he know it?
The Secretary of State for Transport (Chris Grayling)
I can confirm that the decision to proceed with a slimmed down timetable was taken by me in July 2017.
Andy McDonald
Well, I am saying to the Secretary of State quite clearly that a competent Secretary of State would have known this right at the outset and taken the appropriate steps. He did not. He allowed the situation to unwind.
Thirdly, the Thameslink industry readiness board—readiness board, there’s a laugh—formally requested that the GTR timetable changes should be scaled back, yet the Department dithered for two months. GTR boss Mr Horton said the board did not have an executive role, so he could not explain who was responsible for the meltdown—no one accountable and no one responsible.
I do not want to personalise the issue and I do not expect the Secretary of State to know every detail of what happens in his Department—[Interruption.] No, it is just everything he does and everything he stands for; it’s nothing personal. However, the three points I have described are all important failures of the Department for Transport at a high level. Stephen Glaister from the Office for Rail and Road is not an appropriate person to conduct a review into the timetable failings. The ORR itself has failed in its regulation of Network Rail, so it cannot be expected to conduct an independent investigation. This is yet another bad judgment by the Secretary of State for Transport. A new rail timetable is due to be implemented in December 2018. What funds, resources and support will the Secretary of State provide to ensure Network Rail’s planning capability can deliver the changes due in six months?
Today’s Financial Times reports the managing director of Trenitalia complaining about Network Rail and, in particular, the lack of integration between Network Rail and the train operating companies since privatisation. Did the Italians not do their homework on the reality of the UK’s railway? Recent events demonstrate more than ever that our railway is not integrated. I am afraid that the breach of faith and trust is so great that the Secretary of State’s credibility will never recover. There comes a point when the publicly accountable politician in charge of the railway should step up and shoulder the blame. It seems to me, and I suspect to many rail users, that we have more than reached that point.
The Secretary of State for Transport (Chris Grayling)
Before I respond to the points raised by the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald), can I just say a couple of things? First, I saw the comments that he made yesterday, and I thought he was very brave on the whole issue of medicinal cannabis—I pay tribute to him for that. The other thing is that I echo his words about the tragic events at Loughborough Junction yesterday. Our hearts go out to the families of those concerned and, indeed, to all those who dealt with what was clearly a horrible incident on the ground. We owe a huge amount to the British Transport police in particular and to staff across the railway who deal with horrendous situations like this from time to time. I am very grateful to them for what they did.
For years, the Opposition have demanded that the railways be renationalised and run by the Government, and they have claimed that they would be run much better if they were. Now it appears that they think the railways are already run by the Government, and that if something goes wrong, it is down to us. Frankly, I am going to let their confusion speak for itself and concentrate today on what really matters: getting things back into shape for passengers.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State give way?
Chris Grayling
I will give way once or twice during my speech, but as you said, Madam Deputy Speaker, we need to make progress so that people get a chance to contribute. I am going to make some progress before I give way.
As I previously told the House, over the past weeks, passengers on parts of the GTR and Northern franchises have faced totally unsatisfactory levels of service, and I apologise to passengers that have experienced and are experiencing disruption. Since the timetable has been introduced, my Department and the industry have been working round the clock to restore the reliability of the service across the network. Hour by hour, my officials are in contact with GTR, Northern and Network Rail to work to improve the service to passengers.
As I told the House, I have commissioned an independent inquiry. This will be led by the independent rail regulator, Stephen Glaister, to examine why we are in this situation and to avoid it ever happening again. I have met the owners of the franchises and demanded that they improve their operational response, including, in the case of GTR, increasing its managerial capacity. Clearly, nobody wants us to be in the position we find ourselves in today, but let me be absolutely clear: everyone in my Department is as focused as we possibly can be on improving reliability for passengers.
Several hon. Members rose—
Chris Grayling
I will give way to the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron).
Tim Farron
The Secretary of State will be aware that for two weeks in my constituency, there were no services at all along the Lake district—the service into Britain’s second biggest visitor destination. It took a heritage charter train to provide any service over the past few days, and I very much thank all those who were involved in making that happen. Does he agree that this is perhaps a sign that Northern, which is such a colossal franchise across the whole of the north of England, needs to be looked at in a more micro way? For example, we need to look at Cumbria and decide whether the Furness line, the coastal line and the Lakes line could instead be a separate franchise run by a provider that actually wants to run trains on a train line.
Chris Grayling
At the end of all this, I rule nothing out as regards the future structure of franchises. I obviously want to see the Lakes line recover to a normal service as quickly as possible. It has been a disappointment, actually, that the working practices between the employer and ASLEF have meant that it has not been possible to run a conventional service. That may seem extraordinary, but the employer agreements require that if one driver is taken off for training, all the drivers have to be. That is a strange situation. The Labour party talks about wanting to help passengers; it could put a bit of pressure on their union friends to relax some of those agreements now, so that we get the services back into shape as quickly as possible.
Several hon. Members rose—
Chris Grayling
I give way to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Sir Oliver Heald).
Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)
My right hon. Friend will know of the misery—because I have told him—on my line, with five stations where people’s lives have been blighted over recent weeks, but does he agree that privatisation does have one merit, which is that we can get rid of the operator if there is a huge crisis, and if this is not sorted out very soon, will he take the necessary steps to attack the franchise?
Chris Grayling
I am absolutely clear that that is the case. Indeed, as I will say in a moment, I have started the process of review to make sure that all options are open.
Several hon. Members rose—
Chris Grayling
I will take two more interventions; then I will make some progress.
Peter Kyle
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way. The network is incredibly complicated, with a whole range of different providers, both publicly and privately owned. Does he understand that passengers look to the Government in their role of overseeing all the different providers? We do not have an independent board, with a chair and non-executives who scrutinise, challenge and support the network; we look to him as Secretary of State and to the Department. He is entirely reactive and not entirely proactive, which is what passengers need. Does he not accept some responsibility for what has happened—for the lack of oversight, the lack of scrutiny and the lack of challenge while this was happening, rather than just reacting afterwards?
Chris Grayling
I say very simply that the Labour party argues that the railway should be run by the rail experts. When the rail experts advise, as they did in early May, that they are ready for the timetable change—the train companies and Network Rail—it behoves Ministers to take the advice of those rail professionals. Labour is now saying that we should overrule the very people that it said, a few weeks ago, should be running the railways.
Several hon. Members rose—
Chris Grayling
I will give way one more time, to my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Sir Michael Fallon).
Sir Michael Fallon (Sevenoaks) (Con)
I am really grateful to my right hon. Friend. On the review, whatever the ownership, these are essential public services—in getting our constituents to work and getting their children to school—so will he consider taking stronger powers for himself in times of disruption that would allow him to direct the rail operators to work more closely together or to put in additional stops to help those who simply cannot get to work in the morning?
Chris Grayling
Absolutely; I agree with my right hon. Friend. This is something that we will have to look at very seriously indeed. There are many lessons to learn from all this, but most immediately, we need to get services back into place for passengers. I have been watching the issues at Eynsford and Shoreham in his constituency. It feels as though they are getting a better service than they were but there is still some way to go, and we need to make sure that that is covered.
Chris Grayling
I will make some progress before I give way again.
I would like to update the House on how the industry is working to improve the reliability of services. On 4 June, Northern introduced a temporary timetable, including a targeted reduction in trains by around 6% to achieve a more deliverable service. Even with this reduction in service, there are still more trains running across the whole Northern network than before the timetable change in May. That does not mean that there are not individual areas that still have very significant problems, and I am very conscious that many passengers are still experiencing significant disruption, but there are signs that the service is stabilising. Over the first two weeks of the reduced timetable, 80% of trains arrived on time and 4% were cancelled or arrived significantly late, which is a significant improvement. This is not nearly good enough, but it is an improvement on what was happening before the introduction of that timetable. Northern is planning to run the timetable until the end of July, when it will review and, we hope, significantly increase the number of trains running, while ensuring continued stability. Stability is the most important thing for passengers so that they know what is expected, when trains are going to come and that they are going to come.
Officials from the Rail North Partnership—it is worth reminding Labour Members that this franchise is managed as a partnership between my Department and the leaders of local authorities in the north. Decisions about it are taken by the partnership board of Transport for the North, and it has been considering how to respond—[Interruption.] The shadow Secretary of State says it does not exist. This is the most devolved franchise in England. Responsibilities for managing and overseeing the franchise are shared through the board of Transport for the North—[Interruption.] Labour Members do not like it, but that is the truth.
GTR is also working to increase the predictability and reliability of journeys on its network. It is working actively to reduce the number of on-the-day cancellations and is now updating its timetables a week ahead. There is clearly still a lot more to do. In too many places, there is very significant disruption, but we have to move things in the right direction. Alternative travel arrangements are in place—for example, for passengers on the Brighton main line, who can have their Thameslink tickets accepted on Gatwick Express. Next month, GTR will introduce a full temporary timetable across its network as the next step to improve reliability and performance for passengers. This will allow GTR to slowly build up services to the new full timetable.
Several hon. Members rose—
Chris Grayling
I will take two more interventions, and then I will make progress to the end of my remarks so that I do not take up too much speaking time.
Debbie Abrahams
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. He will remember that we met on 4 June, when I relayed some of the real issues that my constituents in Oldham and Saddleworth were facing. He said that we should be seeing improvements to the emergency timetable. I said that I would hold him to it, and he also said that he would look at contingency arrangements if there were not improvements. I went back to Greenfield station last Friday and spoke to constituents who use those trains. They said that they had seen only marginal differences, so will the Secretary of State now commit to bringing these franchises—Northern and TransPennine Express—in-house, and will he ensure that there is compensation for TPE passengers as well?
Chris Grayling
I will talk about compensation in a moment. I have been watching the performance carefully, and there have been some signs of stabilisation, as I say, but there is still a long way to go. [Interruption.] As I just set out, we have seen some stabilisation. I have been looking at the services day by day, and there is still a way to go, but the decline we saw after the timetable change has at least been arrested, and as the hon. Lady herself admits, there have been some improvements, although not nearly enough. I accept that, and I will take away her comments and look carefully at her line again, but there has been at least a stabilisation.
Mrs Miller
My right hon. Friend and I share a railway line, the Wessex route, which is under the stewardship of South Western Railway. It will be introducing a new timetable later this year. How will he ensure that the learnings from his independent inquiry are used to inform the implementation of the new timetable to avoid a replication of these sorts of problems in the future?
Chris Grayling
My right hon. Friend makes an important point—indeed, the shadow Secretary of State said the same. We will not go through with a timetable change in December that is not deliverable. A lot of working is being done right now to see what can and cannot be done. These problems cannot and will not be allowed to happen again. We also have new leadership at Network Rail. Andrew Haines, its new chief executive, stewarded the last major timetable change on the south-western network a decade ago, which went very smoothly. Andrew will be personally responsible for ensuring that any timetable change is deliverable.
I turn now to what happens next. We have seen some stabilisation on the Northern franchise, but I have yet to see any sign that GTR is getting to grips with the issue, so I have commissioned a formal review of the franchise to establish whether it has met and continues to meet its contractual obligations in the planning and delivery of the May timetable, including by ensuring sufficient capability and competence inside the group, and—importantly—to ensure that the owning groups invest sufficiently to minimise further disruption.
My main objective is to ensure there is a plan that I can have confidence in going forward. The review will inform my decisions about how to best use my enforcement powers and the next steps I can take with the owners of the franchise if they are found to be in breach of their obligations. Northern is a matter of ongoing discussion at the Transport for the North board. It has made progress, but not enough, and that is being closely monitored indeed.
The one thing on which I agree with the shadow Secretary of State is the need to put passengers first, and there are two areas where we have to work on that. I encourage all sections of the industry, including the trade unions, to put passengers first. Railway workers across the country are dedicated to providing a high level of service for their passengers and have been on the frontline facing the anger of passengers affected by the timetable disruption, and I am sorry they have had to experience that. I encourage trade union leaders to support their efforts and those of this industry to sort things out for passengers. It is a matter of great disappointment to me that the RMT has again today gone on strike on Northern at a time when the whole industry needs to work together to get the timetable back into shape.
The union makes spurious claims about safety, but trains have operated like this in the UK for more than 30 years. The London underground uses this system, as do trains around the network, and no one at Northern is losing their job or any pay. These changes will modernise the railway in the north and deliver better services for passengers and were signed up to by all the members of the partnership managing that franchise in the north. It is worth adding that on the Southern network, ASLEF, the train drivers union, reached a perfectly sensible agreement that should point the way forward. It is particularly disappointing, therefore, to see the Opposition acting effectively as a mouthpiece for a trade union that regards a Labour party led by the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) as too right wing to affiliate to. I urge him and his colleagues to urge his union supporters to back down from this dispute, stop calling strikes at a time of disruption on Northern and work together to sort out these problems.
I am clear that passengers on these lines have been severely affected by these issues and need to receive additional compensation. My Department is working closely with the TfN board, Network Rail, train operators and stakeholders to introduce the right compensation scheme as soon as possible. It will be funded by the industry. The Rail Minister has already recommended to the board that passengers who buy weekly, monthly or annual tickets on affected Northern and TPE routes will be eligible to claim up to four weeks’ compensation. As part of the scheme, the industry will provide financial support to TfN to deal with other costs that have arisen from the disruption, including on the Lakes line. There will also be a marketing campaign to encourage people to travel by train in the affected areas. I expect the TfN board to confirm the final details of the compensation scheme come its next meeting on 28 June and payments to begin in early July. I will confirm the full details of the compensation package for Thameslink and Great Northern customers on the affected routes at the same time. This will follow approximately the same approach as that on the Southern network. Because of the numbers of people involved, it will take a little longer to begin compensation payments, but I have told GTR that these need to begin before the end of July. Finally, we are considering options to further support the northern economy, and we expect Northern to fund a marketing campaign encouraging travel to affected areas by train when it resumes full operations, particularly on the Lakes line.
Political point scoring does not help passengers. We have seen that today. We need to work to deliver the best outcome for passengers and to improve services urgently. That is what I am focused on, what my Department is focused on and what the Government are focused on.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. Before I call the spokesperson for the Scottish National party, I need to tell colleagues that this is a well-subscribed debate, and we have another well-subscribed debate this afternoon, so after the SNP spokesperson, I will be imposing a six-minute time limit.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
Obviously, I echo the sentiments expressed by the two Front-Bench spokespersons about the accident yesterday and the workers who helped to keep people safe.
Another week, and here we are having another transport debate or statement. I am a little unsure of the Labour party’s tactics in trying to shift the Transport Secretary from his position, because it seems to me that the longer he stays in post, the more incompetent he shows the UK Government to be—and they, unlike the franchises, have real competition. He finished by saying there was a lot of political point scoring and that we should all work together, but it would be best if he took on board some of the criticisms. Any criticisms made—or even valid observations—are dismissed out of hand as political point scoring, when they are not, especially given that the franchise system is on its knees.
We have seen time and again that the Secretary of State is blinkered and ideological. He is a hardcore Brexiteer with the mantra, “Everything will be just fine. We just need to get on with it”, as illustrated by his proclamation that there will be no border checks post-Brexit and that lorries, just like on the US-Canada border, will not need to be stopped and checked. I have pointed out several times that that is wrong, but I have never had an admission of wrongdoing from the Secretary of State, and that is part of the problem.
The Secretary of State’s ideological zeal is at its most visible when it comes to the railways—private sector equals good, nationalisation or public ownership equals bad and inefficient—yet, under the current set-up, state-owned railway companies from all over the world run franchises in the UK. The UK franchise system, based on the premise that public ownership is bad, is subsidising railways across the world. Chiltern Railways, CrossCountry, Northern, and Wales and Borders are run by Arriva, which is owned by Deutsche Bahn. Essex Thameside is run by Trenitalia UK, which is owned by the Italian state railway. Greater Anglia and ScotRail are run by Abellio, which is owned by NedRailways, and Abellio is also involved with the West Midlands franchise, along with the East Japan Railway Company. Southeastern, Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern are run by Govia, which includes Keolis, which is owned by the French state rail operator, SNCF. Keolis is also involved in TransPennine Express and will be part of the re-let Welsh franchise later this year.
Italian, French, German, Dutch, Hong Kong and Japanese state rail companies are running franchises in the UK. When I weigh this up, I start to wonder whether the UK franchising system should be classed as foreign aid—because that is what it seems like. Money is flowing out of the UK to these other countries. It illustrates perfectly the pig-headed attitude of the Secretary of State and Tory Back Benchers.
Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)
Is the hon. Gentleman aware that many British firms operate railways in other countries? For example, National Express has just won a contract to run some railways in Germany.
Alan Brown
That misses the point. The German state railway company can bid for its own work in Germany. The whole point is that the UK Government refuse point blank to allow UK companies to bid for the franchises.
As I have said time and again, when it comes to the merits of privatisation and franchising, the Transport Secretary wrongly connects cause and effect. He has always played up the increase in investment in the railways since privatisation, along with the subsequent increase in passenger numbers, as if all that had happened magically just because of the sell-off and break-up of British Rail.
We know that British Rail had been struggling and had poor rolling stock, and that much of it was outdated, but that was because of the constraints imposed on British Rail by the UK Government, who did not allow any borrowing or investment. Once the Major Government had sold it off, the franchising allowed private borrowing to be levered in—borrowing that could be recovered only through fares or a Government subsidy. The fact that the current Secretary still does not acknowledge that shows a lack of understanding or an ideological blind spot. The fact is that the original sell-off was the private finance initiative on tracks, and that remains the case to this day.
Another myth, which we have already heard today, is that somehow the taxpayer pays no money to the franchises. According to the recent library briefing on rail franchises, all but two received Government subsidies in 2016-17, amounting to £2,330 million in that year alone.
A further indication of the failure of the franchise system to which the Secretary of State still adheres is the fact that by 2020, 12 of 16 franchise allocations will be direct awards. Where are the innovation and competition when three quarters of the franchises are direct awards to the companies themselves?
The Secretary of State’s blinkered attitude also permeates the failed East Coast franchise. He more or less shrugs his shoulders and says “Stuff happens: some franchises fail.” The reality is that private investors and companies either make money or they walk away. It has been argued there has not been a £2 billion bail-out of Virgin Trains East Coast, but the fact is that VTEC has walked away with a £2 billion IOU to the Government in its back pocket. It has not had to pay the money back, so if the Government do not want to call that a bail-out, it must be called a write-off. The Government have not tried to chase up the money, and it has not reached the stage of being a bad debt. The Government have simply let VTEC off straight away. I only wish that the Department for Work and Pensions and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs would do the same when things go wrong for my constituents. Those bodies are relentless, so why should VTEC walk away owing £2 billion?
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)
I agree with what the hon. Gentleman is saying. Does he agree with me that franchisees that walk away from a franchise should be banned from bidding for a significant period?
Alan Brown
Yes, I do. The Secretary of State says that there was a parent company guarantee of £165 million for VTEC, which is a lot of money, but if the parent company is picking up other money in franchises, including the direct award of the west coast main line, it is not actually losing that money. It should be penalised properly, and I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it should not be able to bid for other franchises. Its ability to bid for the east coast main line partnership has still not been ruled out.
The Secretary of State also justifies the predicament of the parent company by saying that it “got its sums wrong.” I remind him again that it is his Department that got its sums wrong when it carried out its due diligence and assessment. The Government are lucky that one of the other franchise bidders is not seeking redress from them, because they clearly got it wrong, and got the whole process wrong.
Huw Merriman
Will the hon. Gentleman bear in mind that private rail operators in Britain are paying money into the Exchequer, whereas in France, 20% of the running costs come from the Government? When it comes to sums, which other areas of public spending would he have cut in order to pay for the things that he is talking about?
Alan Brown
I do not think that the hon. Gentleman listened to the point that I made about the subsidy that is paid to the rail franchise companies. It is a circular process, which makes it more complicated and more expensive, because of the number of cost consultants involved, taking money from one direction and paying money in another direction, and then blaming Network Rail. All that money can then circulate, and there are still net subsidies for those companies, although they pay track rental fees.
As I have said before, Richard Branson came out fighting. He blamed Network Rail for the overruns, but we have heard that Network Rail was not really at fault. The Secretary of State should be more robust in attacking VTEC. Letting it walk away owing that money undermines his position.
In previous incarnations, the east coast main line service has proved that public ownership can work. When it was last in public ownership, it paid the track rental fees and made a nominal profit, which went straight to the taxpayer. That model can work, and it should be used again in future. The Secretary of State ought to consider that.
Also on this Transport Secretary’s watch has been the Southern rail shambles. He did not do enough to step in. When I highlighted some of Southern’s failings on another occasion, he intervened and said that he was not the Transport Secretary who had been responsible for the allocation of the franchise. That completely missed the point: he was simply saying, “It’s not my fault, guv.”
Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Lloyd Russell-Moyle
Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that the situation on Southern and GTR was so long-running that the Secretary of State should step in now, and that there should be not a review but an immediate revocation of the franchise, as happened with Connect Southeastern under Labour?
Alan Brown
I agree that the failed franchise should be addressed and immediate action taken. The Secretary of State has been too slow, and the ongoing review will take too long and kick everything into the long grass.
When Abellio took over the ScotRail franchise, there were teething problems, which made national news. Opposition politicians in Scotland were not slow in calling for the head of Humza Yusaf, the Transport Minister. However, he stepped in and agreed a detailed action plan with the Abellio-ScotRail franchise, which really turned things around. It was direct intervention that made the difference.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
More than 50% of the delays in Scotland are down to Network Rail, which the Secretary of State stubbornly refuses to devolve to Scotland. Does my hon. Friend agree that if he did that, it could make a big difference to rail travel in Scotland immediately?
Alan Brown
It could make a big difference to rail travel in Scotland, and it could also make a Treasury saving. The fact that the Secretary of State continues to refuse to do that defies logic.
We have also seen the railcard fiasco. The railcard has been put on hold because, apparently, no one wants to pay for it. Who would have thought the industry would not want to pay for a gimmick that the Government introduced in the Budget, when they said, “The industry will pay for it”? That is just another failure on the part of this Government.
GTR’s chief executive, Charles Horton, has resigned, Mark Carne and Network Rail’s chief financial officer are forgoing their bonuses, and we have seen plenty of other Government resignations. It is time for the Transport Secretary to consider his position, rather than awaiting the outcome of a review.
Commenting on delays in the Waverley station refurbishment, Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Tory leader, said:
“This cannot continue for much longer, and it’s not good enough for ministers to just shrug their shoulders and say they’re doing their best.”
Given the delays were the fault of Network Rail, will the Secretary of State do what the Scottish Tory leader thinks is correct, and what we think he should do?
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
We have been invited by the Opposition to debate a general motion of no confidence in my right hon. Friend the Transport Secretary. I have full confidence in my right hon. Friend. He inherited a difficult task from the last Labour Government and the coalition Government. I think that he fully understands the magnitude of that task and that he is coming up with a number of creative proposals to try to improve the position.
John Redwood
I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman that, for 13 years, Labour did not invest in our roads and railways to give us the capacity that we need. I fully accept that during its five years in government, the coalition was unable to invest on the necessary scale because of the financial disaster that it inherited from the outgoing Labour Government. We have had almost 20 years of totally inadequate investment in road and rail capacity. We now have a growing economy. Many more people have jobs and need to get to work, many more children need to get to school, and many more people want to go to the shops or need to go to hospital, so we are simply running out of road and rail capacity. My right hon. Friend is trying to use every method he can legally lay his hands on to address that chronic lack of capacity.
In my constituency, another 12,000 new homes are being built quite rapidly, and the pressures on our infrastructure are enormous. I witnessed some of the difficulties due to rail delays on Thursday and Friday when I was trying to use services in and out of Reading and there were disruptions. My right hon. Friend has asked the extremely well-paid leaders of the railway industry to get a grip on their services and ensure they deliver on the infrastructure available. But he has gone further than that: he has said to the railways that they will need much more capacity in the years ahead to deal with fast-growing places such as Wokingham, and he has therefore said that digital technology will make a big difference. I fully support his strong initiative. The very lengthy and expensive process of creating entirely new railway lines is not a feasible solution across the country, so the way to get more capacity out of our existing railways is to use digital signalling, meaning that instead of being able to run only 20 trains an hour on perfectly good track, we can run 25 or more trains an hour, giving a big boost to capacity for a relatively modest investment.
My right hon. Friend is also right to recognise that he will need private sector as well as public sector investment. I noted that the Scottish National party spokesperson, who clearly did not know the figures, was unable to respond to an intervention about how, in his party’s fully nationalised world, it would replace the large sums of capital and the considerable sums of revenue that the private sector tips into the railways as the partnership model develops.
The Labour party is with the SNP on this. It always denies that any fault rests with the nationalised section of the railway, yet in the latest set of problems, particularly in Northern rail, big errors were made by the heavily subsidised nationalised part of the industry. I am very glad that my right hon. Friend says there will be new leadership there, because new leadership is desperately needed to supervise the expenditure of the very substantial sums that this Parliament has voted for that industry and to make sure they are well spent.
Another reason why I have confidence in my right hon. Friend is because he recognises that we need road as well as rail capacity, because the overwhelming majority of all our constituents’ journeys are still undertaken by car or van or bus, and they require road capacity. The most welcome thing he has done so far is to say we need not just to expand the strategic national highways network, which of course we do, but a strategic local network so that we can beef up the A roads. That would mean that we could have more through traffic, meaning that vehicles would be taken away from residential areas and town centres, where we do not want conflict between traffic, pedestrians and cyclists. It would also free some of the blocks on the existing highways and provide better journeys.
I hope that as my right hon. Friend goes about selecting that strategic local route network with councils, he will look favourably on the bids from West Berkshire and Wokingham in my area. We have put a lot of thought into them and wish to make progress, but we will need substantial investment to create better access routes to the main cities and centres of employment, because the existing network is already well over capacity in terms of congestion.
I hope my right hon. Friend will also consider the interface between the rail and road networks. One of the big issues in my area is that we cannot get over the railway line. We rely on level crossings, but their gates are down for a lot of the time at busy periods for the railways, meaning that we get massive onward congestion in the road system. We therefore need money for bridges.
I also hope that work on the strategic local road network will involve looking at junctions. A modest way in which we could get much more capacity out of the current road network would be to improve junctions. It is often a good idea to have roundabouts rather than traffic lights, and another good idea is the better phasing of traffic lights. Traffic lights can be fitted with sensors so that if there is no traffic on an approach road, that road does not get a green phase. Roads should get a green phase only when somebody needs that.
There are many things that can be done. I have every confidence that my right hon. Friend wants to do them, so will he please get on with that, and will Parliament allow him to do so?
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
I wholeheartedly support the motion because somebody has to take responsibility for what is happening to my constituents who use the trains on a daily basis. This Government have history in terms of how they have treated my constituents. They interfered with the Thameslink project when they first got their hands on the Department for Transport, taking the Blackfriars Thameslink trains away from south-east London. They not only took the trains away, but wasted £50 million of public money in order to do so. As a consequence, they shortened the trains going through the centre of London to allow them to go on to the Wimbledon line. I am sure that had nothing to do with the fact that the then trains Minister represented Wimbledon—I make no accusation in that regard whatsoever—but that reduced the capacity of the Thameslink trains going through central London. I will be contacting the National Audit Office to ask whether we are getting value for money out of the Thameslink train service, certainly in south-east London, as a consequence of such decisions on that scheme.
Since 2009, my constituents have been suffering a great deal of disruption as a consequence of the excellent refurbishment of London Bridge. I pay tribute to everyone involved in that refurbishment, but my constituents have had to accept that their services have been cut to certain destinations in central London. There have been no trains to Cannon Street for a number of years, and no trains to Charing Cross as the work switched over on to another set of lines. My constituents were told all the time that, at the end of the process, the network would go back to the original train timetable, meaning that they would have Charing Cross, Cannon Street and Victoria as a choice of destinations.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle
My hon. Friend makes a good point. Does he agree that that is why many commuters, particularly in London and the south, have been so angry? They have had years and years of disruption due to not only repair works, but the disaster of the franchise, and now the railway collapses under their feet. The Government have a responsibility to take action.
Clive Efford
Absolutely; someone has to take responsibility. When my constituents were told they had to suffer this disruption, they accepted that, because a major refurbishment was taking place, but they were told that things would improve when the services were restored. They are now told that they will have fewer central London destinations to choose from because, apparently, it is very difficult to cross trains over on the western side of Lewisham station. We are told that because that creates too much congestion, we have to have a service cut. That is despite the fact that we have just spent £9 billion on this project, with £1 billion of that for the refurbishment of London Bridge. My constituents are incredibly angry.
However, as the project is coming to an end and the services are starting to be reintroduced—except those that are going to be cut, of course, under the new franchise, which is a direct decision of the Secretary of State—the infrastructure around the new project is starting to crumble. On 5 April, there was a broken rail and people were stuck on a train for five hours. The merest incident of severe weather leaves people stranded on trains for hours—on freezing cold trains with no electricity.
The franchise is run right at the cusp, meaning that whenever something goes wrong, it turns into a major incident involving a major delay. There are not enough drivers, there is not enough maintenance, and the infrastructure is crumbling around the new project at London Bridge. However, the Secretary of State allows Govia, which currently runs the franchise, to rebid. He now says that the person at the top of Govia has resigned—Charles Horton has gone—but that the company is apparently good enough to continue running the service. That is unacceptable and someone must accept responsibility.
Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)
Since the start of this crisis everybody has tried to pin the blame on someone else. The Secretary of State blamed Northern for not being prepared, and Northern blamed the Department for Transport. Yesterday, in evidence to the Transport Committee, David Brown admitted that Northern was not aware of the extent of the imminent crisis until two days before the timetable went live. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Secretary of State must finally take responsibility for this crisis, ensure that passengers get the compensation they deserve, and allow somebody who can handle the demands of his job to take over?
Clive Efford
I agree with my hon. Friend that the Secretary of State has to take responsibility. That is why I fully support the motion.
The Secretary of State really exposed himself by putting his particularly dogmatic approach to the franchise system ahead of the interests of passengers in a letter that he wrote on 24 April 2013 to the present Foreign Secretary when he was Mayor of London. His letter actually predicted the fact that the Tories were toast and that Labour was going to win the mayoral election. He stated that he did not want to see the London overground services in “the clutches” of a Labour mayor. That had nothing to do with what was in the interests of my constituents or anyone else who used the trains. It was pure political dogma. He was saying, “I don’t like the Labour party, so no matter how much it could improve the service for people who use the trains, we’re not going to let Labour take over the rail service.” So much for an open bidding process to run the best possible service!
Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a pattern of behaviour here? Before the 2015 election, when the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) was Lord Chancellor, Labour wrote to say that there should be no more privatisation contracts in the probation service. The right hon. Gentleman ignored that, because he did not want to accept that Labour was right about the disaster that the probation service now is.
Clive Efford
That is absolutely right. This is the first time that the right hon. Gentleman has got caught when everything has come home to roost while he is still in position. Usually he moves on and someone else has to sort out his problems—for example, by allowing prisoners to have books.
My constituents deserve a better service. Their services are being cut and they will have a reduced choice under the new franchise. They do not want Govia to be allowed to continue running the franchise, yet it has still been allowed to bid. They want longer trains, and I have lobbied many times in here to get extra carriages for the franchise but they have disappeared into the system. We still have eight-car trains turning up at peak times and there is not enough space for people to have a comfortable journey into town.
South-east London has been appallingly served by this Secretary of State. There has been a constant litany of letting us down, and the buck has to stop somewhere. He has never stood up to the franchise operators—the train operators—to ensure that we get value for money and the services we are entitled to in south-east London. For him, everything is fine as long as it is privatised. He has never made any attempt to take on the private enterprise that is profiteering at the expense of the people who rely on the trains. In south-east London we do not have direct access to the London underground, so anyone who wants to commute into London has to use the bus or the rail service. The rail service, as it has been run by this Government, has been appalling and it is getting worse. The buck stops with the Secretary of State, so I fully support the motion.
Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)
I am delighted to be able to speak in the debate this afternoon and to place on record my support for the Secretary of State, who I believe is doing a very good job in delivering what this country needs in incredibly challenging circumstances. That is particularly true from the point of view of the far south-west, where we are seeing record levels of investment in our transport infrastructure. After 13 years in which Cornwall basically got nothing whatsoever from the Labour Government, we are seeing hundreds of millions of pounds being invested in our transport system.
On our roads, we have at last seen the dualling of the A30 across Bodmin moor. I am sure that hon. Members will be delighted to experience that when they come to Cornwall on their holidays, but we have been waiting 20 years for it to be delivered. It has now been delivered under this Government, after Labour did nothing to help us. We are now putting our focus on the next bit of the A30, which will involve dualling the stretch between Chiverton and Carland Cross. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) is working closely with the Secretary of State to ensure that we deliver that as soon as possible.
Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)
May I suggest an additional area of progress that is needed for disabled wheelchair users? The hon. Gentleman might know that many operators require them to give 24 hours’ notice if they want to travel on a train. That is unacceptable. Does he agree that the Secretary of State should work with the train operators to ensure a more can-do attitude, to assist those people who might need to catch a train at the last minute?
Steve Double
I am not aware of the issue that the hon. Lady raises. It has never been raised with me by constituents—[Interruption.] I am happy to take it on board and look at it, but that is a new one; it has never been raised by any of my constituents.
In my constituency, the Secretary of State has committed to fund a new link road from St Austell to the A30. That is something that the people of St Austell have been waiting nearly 30 years to see delivered. Under Labour, we had no progress whatsoever on that, but it is now happening under this Secretary of State. We are also seeing progress on the A303, which is being dualled through Wiltshire. That is absolutely vital to the tourism industry in the south-west, and we are seeing real progress on it.
On our railways, we are about to see brand-new rolling stock being rolled out on the Great Western Railway into Cornwall to replace the 40-year-old trains that we currently have to put up with. The new state-of-the-art rolling stock will have far more seats for passengers and a much better driver experience. We have also seen the upgrading of our signalling on the railways through Cornwall. That will increase capacity and the frequency of the trains. Again, that is the result of more investment that this Government are delivering for transport into Cornwall.
We are also seeing progress on resilience in south Devon. I am sure that all Members will remember the damage that was caused by the weather at Dawlish and Teignmouth in 2014. That situation arose because of the lack of investment over many years, but this Government are investing and building resilience into the rail network throughout Devon. That is something that we desperately need. On aviation, this Government are supporting regional aviation and they have supported my local airport at Newquay with a link to London. They are also backing our bid for further connections into Heathrow in the near future.
So, from a local point of view in Cornwall, this Secretary of State is doing a very good job. He is delivering for the people of Cornwall like no one has ever done before. We need to understand that the current challenges that have provoked this debate have come about as a result of a combination of many complex issues, and to play political games and use this as an opportunity for political opportunism is not what we need right now. We need to resolve the issues, and changing the Secretary of State at this point is not going to help. We need someone in position who can bring us the answers that we need in order to address those issues, so I am happy to say that I will not be supporting the motion today and that the Secretary of State has my full confidence.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
One thing that the Secretary of State has managed to do is to unite those on both sides of the Pennines—which is actually quite remarkable—in our view that it is time for him to go. Lancashire and Yorkshire do not normally get on that well, but we are united in this regard. Ministers will know that in recent weeks the great newspapers of the north have been united on their front pages in calling for the Secretary of State to go. ITV has also joined in recently. The Yorkshire Post and my own newspaper in Hull, the Hull Daily Mail, have made it very clear that we cannot carry on like this and that enough is enough.
We have heard a lot in recent weeks about the timetabling fiasco, particularly in relation to Northern, but as a Member of Parliament for the north, I want to look more broadly at what this Government have said about their commitment to the northern powerhouse and to the connectivity between the eastern and western parts of the north to bring together the great cities of the north. We know that, despite all the words we hear every time a Minister gets up to talk about this, the reality on the ground is very different. We know that the investment going into the north pales in comparison with what is going into London, which gets five times as much. We know that Transport for the North, which Ministers always talk about, is only a consultative body. It does not have statutory powers. It cannot do what Transport for London is able to do to bring in investment.
In recent years, we have also had the fiasco of the electrification of the lines across the Pennines. Hull was actually missed off the first plan that was put forward, and we had to put together our own plan, using private sector funds, in order to be part of the electrification scheme. That proposal went into the Department for Transport and then, several years later under the current Secretary of State, it was refused.
There is confusion about future electrification across the Pennines. We thought the line was going to be electrified, but the Secretary of State seems to have just discovered bimodal trains, which have been around for quite a long time. In addition, when the House was considering commercial space travel recently, I noted that it seems there will be commercial space flights before the line to Hull gets electrified.
Timetabling has been discussed a lot today, and one of the big issues is that for some strange reason Hull was given slower trains across the Pennines when the new timetable was agreed. The whole idea was that the changes would speed things up and connect cities, but Hull finds itself with trains that take 15 to 20 minutes longer to get across to Manchester. When the new rolling stock comes in as part of the TPE franchise, Hull will get not new trains but refurbished trains. However, Scarborough—I am not casting aspersions on the fact that a previous Rail Minister represents Scarborough—now has new and faster trains across the Pennines. How come the great cities of the north are being treated like that? I remind the Rail Minister of the three things that we would have expected the Secretary of State to support in Hull: a half-hourly express service across the Pennines as part of the northern powerhouse; a direct train to Liverpool; and a direct train to Manchester airport. I found out last week that Llandudno has a direct train to Manchester airport—good on Llandudno —so why does Hull not have one?
We have heard the dogma as to why franchising is continuing, but I want to discuss open-access trains. We had to fight hard to get Hull Trains, an open-access operator, to provide a direct service to London, but it is in meltdown, and I have heard nothing from the Department for Transport or the Secretary of State about that. Our rolling stock constantly breaks down, we do not have enough spare capacity, and drivers are trained only on the class 185s, which are unfit for the route down to London. FirstGroup, the parent company, does not seem to be doing anything about the fact that Hull Trains’ reputation, which was good in the city, is taking a nosedive, with people feeling that it is no longer a reliable service, but there has been nothing from the Department on that.
Looking at the franchise that the Department and the Secretary of State are involved with, TransPennine runs the station in Hull and has spent £1.4 million on it, but we are still among the top 10 worst stations in country. It has managed to build some small, smelly toilets to replace the old ones and some new retail units, which have remained empty for weeks. Every morning, I walk through Canary Wharf to get to Westminster, and I see Canary Wharf station, which cost £500 million and has a roof garden. Of course, private money has gone into that project, but we cannot even get a toilet attendant at Hull station. I want to highlight to the Secretary of State and the Minister the stark difference between the north and the south. This is like a “Carry On” film; it is a farce. The Secretary of State must take responsibility. The buck stops with him and he should go.
Bim Afolami (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)
One thing that is often lost in debates like this is the practical impact of such issues on passengers. I urge the Minister, the Secretary of State and all Members to remember that, yes, this is about getting investment, improving stations and timetables and increasing capacity, but fundamentally the whole point of the system is to make life better for our constituents, particularly those who rely on trains to get to work. Many Members have talked about the difficulties of recent weeks, and the House does not need to hear any more from me about my disappointment in relation to my constituency or those of other right hon. and hon. Members.
Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)
My hon. Friend, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Sir Oliver Heald) and I have been working hard with Ministers and with Govia—we are in touch daily—because tens of thousands of our constituents have been massively affected every single day. We are trying to fix things so that our constituents can get to work. Although there are issues with the timetable in our area, things will be dramatically better when it works. The number of seats will be doubled, there will be 50% more trains from my constituency, and a whole variety of new destinations will be provided. When the new timetable is in place, there will be positives, but there are issues now, and they are what we are working daily to resolve.
Bim Afolami
I thank my hon. Friend. One point worth making—one that backs up his intervention—is that a real frustration as a Member of Parliament is knowing the intended improvements over the medium term, but constituents quite rightly not believing that the improvements will happen when the implementation does not work as hoped. It is therefore incumbent on GTR and Network Rail to do their best to get a grip not just on the medium and long terms, but on the emergency timetable.
I want to draw the attention of the House and the Minister to a private Member’s Bill that I will shortly introduce relating to enhanced compensation for passengers. I recognise that the Secretary of State has set out a compensation scheme specifically for the disturbances over past weeks, but the compensation in the Bill will be governed by the Government’s new rail ombudsman on an ongoing basis, providing automatic compensation for all passengers throughout the country. In addition, it will provide enhanced, more generous compensation for passengers throughout the country. Critically, it will ensure not just that passengers get a percentage of a single ticket for a train that is cancelled or delayed, but that we move towards a system with service levels and a contract between the operator and the passenger. Then, if that service level is not maintained, the passenger will receive compensation. I would like the Minister and the Secretary of State to consider that direction.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for flagging up his Bill and welcome what he describes. Will he confirm whether the compensation for the current timetable problems should be based on the new timetable that was expected to be introduced, not the reduced timetable, and therefore be much larger? Does he agree that there is a strong case for making train companies and Network Rail liable for consequential losses associated with train delays, not just the ticket cost?
Bim Afolami
On the right hon. Gentleman’s first point, that would depend on when the Bill could make progress and whether it would take effect in time. It is difficult to understand how the proposed compensation regime would interact with the special compensation regime relating to the implementation of the new timetable. However, on the right hon. Gentleman’s broader point about consequential loss, he will appreciate that that is hard to prove. I remember from my days as a corporate lawyer that consequential loss in contracts is one of the toughest things to prove. I am not saying that he is incorrect, but it would merit further consultation and I am happy to sit down and discuss the matter with him. If we can come to an agreement, hopefully the Liberal Democrats will support my private Member’s Bill.
A point that is often made to me is that many commuters do not have a good enough choice. On some lines, the operator is the only game in town, and where that happens, it is incumbent on the operator to do a significantly better job at getting on top of problems when they arise. My right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Sir Michael Fallon) made the point that the Secretary of State may need additional powers at times of crisis to direct what needs to happen at certain stations, and the House should consider that. I welcome the fact that the Secretary of State has said to me, both privately and in this House, that he is committed to improving the situation at Hitchin and Harpenden stations once we have got past the current difficulties—[Interruption.] I can see the Rail Minister nodding in approval, which is always good. My constituents—I was nervous about this before I came to speak this afternoon—are not particularly interested in rhetoric; they are interested in making sure these changes are introduced in the right way to provide real practical improvements to them and their lives. That is what I, as the local Member of Parliament and with the Government, will hopefully be providing.
Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab/Co-op)
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak in this important debate, Madam Deputy Speaker. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) for moving the motion.
Although the Secretary of State is no longer in his place, I thank him for meeting me last week to talk in detail about the reasons for the timetabling meltdown in Batley and Spen. I am grateful for his reassurance that, over time, things will settle down.
Last Friday morning, I spent time outside Batley railway station to speak to commuters about their experience of commuting and to hear how things are, we hope, getting better. Sadly, that was not the feedback I got. I was startled by how chaotic and unreliable the service between Leeds, Huddersfield and Manchester still is.
I heard from Mandy that her regular journey from Batley to Leeds, during the timetable chaos and beyond, is “the worst commuting experience I have ever had.” She went on to say that “to say there is only standing room is an understatement. Passengers are crammed into a limited number of carriages like sardines.”
I spoke to Dean, who uses trains every day. He said that travelling by train often adds two hours to his day due to delays, with “extra hours away from home on top of a long working day.” He went on to say that “the situation is threatening the livelihoods of many.” Dean wanted me to ask directly whether, if he were to lose his job due to mismanagement of the railways, the Minister and the Government would pay his mortgage and support his family.
I also met Rachael, who was forced to spend her journey standing in the toilet with six other commuters, as there was no space anywhere else. She told me that, as late as this week, her regular service left people on the platform, without opening its doors, as it was too full by the time it arrived in Batley. Seventy people were left waiting over 70 minutes for the next train.
Thelma Walker (Colne Valley) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that, as our constituents are paying some of the highest prices in Europe for train tickets, the minimum they should expect is for trains to run on time and to be modern and comfortable and for them not to be packed in like sardines? If the train companies are unable to do that, they should have their franchises taken off them and be brought back under public ownership.
Tracy Brabin
I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention, and I could not agree more. Given the cost of tickets, people should not have to stand on a daily basis. Beyond Batley to Leeds, the timetable is erratic and in chaos, and it still has not settled down.
I spoke to Alison, who told me how concerned she is about health and safety. Crowds of passengers are jostling and pushing to get on already overcrowded and delayed trains.
This is just a snapshot of what is happening twice a day, every day, at most stations across the north. My constituents still see no positive change in their commute, even after reassurances from the Secretary of State. What is the Minister doing to ensure that my constituents can travel to work and back without having to factor in delays and frustrations, which are adding to their stress?
People deserve a decent, reliable rail network, and, in all honesty, they deserve better leadership from the Secretary of State. If he cannot sort it, maybe it is time for him to hand over the responsibility to someone who can.
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
Madam Deputy Speaker, I am terribly sorry for stepping out of the Chamber earlier than I should have done. It should be me who steps down. I am grateful for being able to say a few words this afternoon, not least because I am a member of the Transport Committee.
I wanted to speak on this subject because I think there has been too much chopping and changing in the entire industry over the years. I recognise what the Opposition motion aims to deliver, but I ask them whether any more changes in leadership would actually deliver the stability that is required. I am not trying to make an argument that might play well; I absolutely mean it.
I have worked with the chief executive of GTR, Charles Horton, over a number of years, and I have tried to work between him and the leader of the RMT, Mick Cash, with whom I have a good working relationship, to try to find a way through the Southern industrial dispute. Charles Horton has now stepped down, which I know many people will celebrate, but, frankly, this is a man with years and years of rail experience who truly cares about putting things right. I am sorry because, frankly, I would rather see people stay in post to turn things around. If there are areas of responsibility, fine, allocate them, but then put that person under the spotlight to deliver the change that makes things better. I absolutely believe the same goes for the Government.
When the Government change position, it sometimes feels as though we have government by six-month fixed-term contracts; there is not enough stability and tenure in post. I support the Secretary of State. He has come to the Transport Committee and has been incredibly open and direct about, for example, where he sees the franchise system is not working and about the need for change.
Now that the Secretary of State has the opportunity to put new franchise agreements in place, it seems right that he should inject some of his ideas for change into those agreements. It is not as though he has constantly said that everything works well. He has admitted there are particular challenges.
Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that one way forward might be to follow the suggestion of my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Bim Afolami) to increase the availability of compensation to passengers who have been badly treated?
Huw Merriman
I certainly do, not least because my Automatic Travel Compensation Bill is awaiting Second Reading. The Bill is all about automatic and automated compensation, on which I have met the Rail Minister. It is fair to say that I have not quite persuaded him of the Bill’s merits, but it would place a duty on train companies that currently receive money from Network Rail where there have been delays. Only a third of passengers claim for such delays, so I contend that extra money is left with the train operators. My Bill would require the train operators to invest that money in technology so that my right hon. Friend and I could both tap in and tap out, which would tell us whether we had been delayed by more than 15 or 30 minutes, and if we had been, we would automatically be credited with the compensation we were due. That would be a good step forward, because passengers find it too complex and difficult to claim. Therefore, they do not claim, and as a result, they feel raw about the service. The Government could do more for passengers by making it easier to claim compensation, and perhaps passengers would then give us more support on some of the other changes we are trying to put through. That is a rather lengthy response, but I agree with my right hon. Friend. I hope that my Bill’s Second Reading will yield some success. If my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Bim Afolami) has a similar proposal, perhaps we could merge the two.
On the rail timetabling issue, my constituency has had an additional service—a fourth service each hour—in an incredibly congested network. I take my hat off to GTR and my rail user group, which came up with an ingenious solution to deliver the extra service without any new rolling stock. The timetable just changed when trains go back and forth between Ashford and Brighton, which has worked incredibly well.
I understand that we, as MPs, are less likely to hear about things that have worked well. Quite rightly, we hear about the challenges where things have not worked. I use the trains every day to come into work, and today I had the opportunity to talk to one of the conductors on my line, a guy called Giles. I was supposed to be reading through the Transport Committee’s draft report on rail infrastructure, but I put it down to have a chat with the conductor. We chatted for the entire journey about some of the issues he has, and his points were well raised. He is aware that, as technology advances, the workforce will need to embrace it, too. His concern on the role of the guard, conductor or on-board supervisor, as these people tend to be called, is that there will be fewer of them. That is a valid concern, because most passengers on trains want to see a second member of staff on board.
My point is that, where the system is inflexible, if the second member of staff is unable to join the train for any reason, that train cannot roll. I was a Southern season ticket holder for 10 years and we had one train every hour, so when that train could not go because the conductor was not able to board, there was a two-hour delay, which was no good for anybody. It certainly was no good for tackling congestion or for those who had mobility issues in the station. So I like the flexibility that has now been introduced in Southern whereby in all but exceptional circumstances there must be a second member of staff on board. Where such circumstances do apply—and this cannot be where Southern has not recruited enough conductors—the train can still roll, so passengers can get home. Of course that type of situation has existed on Southeastern for years and it also exists on 30% of the rail network, where the driver operates the doors.
There is another point to make about incidents that have taken place, including one in Liverpool. Where the driver and the conductor are performing different roles, tragedies can occur. A young lady died on the tracks and the coroner’s inquest made the point that if the control mechanism is taken by one person, we are less likely to see that eventuality occur. I often hear safety used as the reason why this is an issue. I was asked by the rail unions to see whether a safety report could be created. We got the rail regulator to deliver that, but it was then ignored, so I feel that all sides need to work a little more together.
Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)
It will not be a surprise to the Secretary of State or the Minister to see me standing up to speak in this important debate, as my office has been in daily contact with theirs over the past few weeks. I can tell them that things are no better in Bedford. Until 20 May, passengers in Bedford had two choices: they could travel on Thameslink trains, which were slow but made more stops, or they could travel in and out of London on a fast East Midlands Trains service. The Department stopped those fast trains last month. We were told in December that there was no choice but to do that. We were promised that it was only for two years and that we would have two fast Thameslink trains an hour and thousands more seats instead, but that was not true. What we have seen since 20 May has been absolute chaos. People are paying to stay in hotels all week, and some are driving into the city. People have run out of childcare options and their bosses have lost patience. These people are tired, angry and desperate. They have been crammed like sardines into the few trains that do run, and family life has been completely disrupted.
Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)
My hon. Friend’s constituents’ experience absolutely reflects those of my constituents. The two train stations in my constituency are the last two before the main Leeds city station. By the time the two-carriage trains come, they are full and my constituents cannot get on them. When they do, we have seen cases where people have fainted or been unable to breathe. Does he agree that we need to do something now, as the lack of investment and action is dreadful?
Mohammad Yasin
I agree with what my hon. Friend says, because I am a commuter and I see the trouble at Bedford station every day. Almost every hour, a train is either delayed or cancelled. This Government need to take control and do something about this urgently.
Two weeks ago, in this Chamber, I asked the Secretary of State to reinstate EMT peak rail services. His response was that that would be the logical solution to the problem, yet two weeks later those trains are still speeding through Bedford half empty and not stopping. On Friday, he finally wrote to me to tell me that he cannot make this happen after all, as, apparently, it will make some trains 13 minutes later further up the track. Tell that to my constituents who have to wait an hour or more for a train and do not see their children before they go to bed. Tell them that a 13-minute delay on a journey to Sheffield is a good enough reason for these services not to be reinstated. EMT says that these services are already overcrowded. In his letter on Friday, the managing director of EMT said that
“there are few, if any seats available”.
Yet EMT’s own guide to seat availability says that all but one of the peak-time trains travelling between Wellingborough and St Pancras have seating available. Most are running at 75% capacity or less; we can all see the empty seats, but we just cannot get on those trains.
I have no idea why there is such an absence of will to sort this problem, but this is a mess, and it is clear now that there was never any intention of bringing inter-city fast trains back after two years either, because if they cannot make it happen now, when Thameslink is not operating a full service, they are not going to be able to make it happen when it eventually is. All we have heard are excuses. The truth is the industry needs to work together to resolve this quickly. The Secretary of State should have a grip on this weeks ago—months ago, in fact. I warned him and the Minister many times that this timetable will not work for Bedford, but they completely ignored that and carried on regardless. He and his Department have spent a good proportion of the past few weeks putting together the invitation to tender for the new east midlands franchise. Is this farce not proof enough for him that rail franchising does not work? My constituents need solutions and they need them urgently. They need solutions before things get even worse. If the Secretary of State cannot fix this, he should resign and give the job to someone who can.
Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to take part in this debate and to support the motion standing in the names of my Front-Bench colleagues. I also wish to thank members of the Transport Committee for their informed contributions to the debate, and I am delighted that the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) is a supporter of keeping the guards on the trains—well done on that. [Interruption.] Perhaps it is qualified support.
As a member of the Transport Committee and a regular rail user, I have been following the recent regression of the rail service, particularly in my region, with great concern. The catastrophic May timetable changes seem to have been completely avoidable. The Secretary of State ignored warnings and failed to delay or phase in the changes.
Yesterday, my Transport Committee colleagues and I spent three hours asking questions of and taking evidence from representatives from Northern, GTR and Network Rail. I was quite interested to hear the Secretary of State say in response to a comment made by the shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald), that he made the decision to proceed with the changes in July 2017, because my understanding from what the witnesses said yesterday is that concerns were expressed at a meeting involving stakeholders and Network Rail in January, some six months before the ultimate decision was made. There was ample opportunity for the Secretary of State and his advisers in the Department to intervene and identify some mitigating actions, which could have included either delaying the implementation or phasing it in.
Andy McDonald
Given that GTR is a concession and is paid a management fee, could my hon. Friend cast some light on whether the revenue due to the DFT was a factor in the delay in the implementation of the decision?
Grahame Morris
My hon. Friend raises a good question. I asked the GTR witnesses yesterday whether revenue was a material factor, and their response was that all the revenue is collected directly. They intimated that there were no revenue implications, although I am rather sceptical that ultimately revenue may well have been a factor in the decision about whether to phase or to delay the implementation of the new timetable. Perhaps the Committee can pursue further whether that was the case.
We have heard from Opposition and Government Members about the impact of the terrible delays. In my area, at the worst times up to 43% of Northern trains have been cancelled or delayed each day. From 4 June, Northern cancelled 165 trains a day, including all services to the Lake district, as we have heard. Since 20 May, 11% of Northern trains have been delayed or cancelled each day.
Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)
Does my hon. Friend accept that although this issue is concentrated in the north, the east and London, it is a national problem? Great Western has been going through its own dramatic problems, with a huge number of cancellations, driver shortages and all the other problems that have been mentioned. It is a national problem.
Grahame Morris
I am grateful for that thoughtful intervention, and my hon. Friend makes a good point. However, although there are national issues with the training of drivers and ensuring that they have the appropriate skillset, industry stakeholders pointed out to the Department and, presumably, the Secretary of State that it would normally take 40 weeks to prepare, identify training needs and ensure that drivers were in place, but in this case only 16 weeks were allocated and, if my memory of yesterday’s evidence serves me right, it was not until around two days before implementation, when they were drawing up the driver rosters, that they discovered that they had the wrong skill mix and that the drivers were in the wrong places to operate the new timetable. So although my hon. Friend makes a good point, Ministers and the Secretary of State must ultimately bear responsibility for the decisions that were made.
Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)
It is quite simple in the industry: although experienced, train drivers need training on new routes and on the use of different rolling stock. Without that training, they cannot go into service.
Grahame Morris
Absolutely; that is a key point. I am kind of long in the tooth now, but I remember the dreadful train accident at Ladbroke Grove, where 31 people were killed and 500 injured; a dear friend of mine was killed in the Southall train disaster, in which seven were killed and more than 140 were injured; and I remember another accident at Clapham Junction. What with the complexity of the new signalling systems at places like London Bridge, with large numbers of tracks, it is safety-critical that the drivers are fully aware of which signals actually apply to them. It is a mistake for the Secretary of State to imply that ASLEF, representing the train drivers, should somehow make a concession on the training to which its members are subjected. When I get on a train, I want to be absolutely certain that it is completely safe and that the drivers are familiar with the track and the signalling system. I also want to know that there is a guard on the train, so that if anything happens—if anyone is attacked or taken ill—or there is a disabled or blind person or a woman with children travelling, the guard will be able to assist. That is reasonable in such circumstances.
I agree with the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle about the GTR chief executive, Charles Horton, who seemed like a thoroughly decent man. He said that he was deeply sorry for the timetable disruptions. It is a bit unfair that he seems to be carrying the can, when I suspect the blame should be apportioned further up the food chain. The witnesses yesterday were well schooled in collective responsibility, but ultimately the buck must stop with the Secretary of State. It is not good enough just to keep saying sorry.
Grahame Morris
I am sorry; I am running very short of time.
It is another failure on the Secretary of State’s watch. We have fundamental problems with integration, lack of planning and decision making. The franchising model is broken. It is time for a new approach and a new driver at the head of the Department for Transport.
Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)
The motion on the Order Paper is
“That this House has no confidence in the Secretary of State”
and we have already heard from the fourth and final Government Back Bencher who has come along to speak in support of the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State has not stayed in the Chamber to listen to the speeches today, but if I were giving advice to him or to Conservative Back Benchers, I would suggest that they go out and buy a plaque that says, “The buck stops here” and attach it to his desk, because that is what the debate is all about. It is about the public wanting to elect politicians to run a decent railway system. I congratulate my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State on standing up and confidently saying that he wants to be a Secretary of State who runs the railways and is held accountable.
The meltdown caused by the introduction of the new rail timetable in May is just the latest in a chain of crises on our railways. We have an over-complex and fractured rail system. It has too many operators and a complex web of contractors and sub-contractors. This patchwork of competing interests militates against effective planning and delivery of the railway, making Britain’s rail system one of the most expensive and now worst run in Europe. Since 2010, fares have risen three times faster than wages, and in January we had the highest fare increases for five years. That is not to mention the more than £5 billion of public money used to subsidise the private rail network every year.
It seems to me that incompetent rail companies have become too big to fail in the eyes of this Government. The rewards are privatised, but the risks are dumped on passengers and taxpayers, who always end up footing the bill. The public are tired of paying the price for a broken privatised and franchised model. Is that any surprise? What are they getting in return? Higher fares for a worse service; botched timetables and thousands of cancellations; and a policy of de-staffing the railways in the interests of profit, regardless of the consequences for staff and the travelling public.
One of the first campaigns I backed following my election in June last year, was the RMT’s campaign to keep the guard on the train, after Merseyrail announced that it was planning to axe all 207 guards from the service when the new fleet arrives in 2020. My constituents welcome the introduction of new and modern trains—long overdue and for which the unions campaigned—but they also value the safety and security of a guard on the train.
Private rail companies are making huge profits from the travelling public, and it is completely wrong that we are presented with false choices between embracing new technology and protecting secure jobs and public safety. It is nonsense. The campaign has enjoyed the overwhelming support of the public, despite strikes, and I am glad that Merseyrail has recognised that strength of feeling and that talks at ACAS are now taking place. Both the Scottish and Welsh Governments have agreed that there will be no extension of driver-only operation on services that they are responsible for, and I hope that Merseyrail will follow suit so that passengers in my constituency are afforded the same safety standards as are enjoyed elsewhere.
However, the RMT fears that since the Secretary of State was appointed he has been blocking any similar deals in an effort to “take on” the union. These fears were again confirmed when the Public Accounts Committee recently produced a report on franchising that concluded that the blame for the protracted Southern driver-only operation dispute lay squarely at the door of the Government for not engaging properly with the trade unions.
The franchising system fails to allow for industrial relations at all. Train operating companies have little interest beyond the terms of their franchise agreements, and changes are routinely forced through without any serious consultation. The introduction of the May 2018 timetable required changes on a huge scale. Change requires the co-operation, engagement and good will of the workforce, which has been undermined constantly by the rail companies and by the Government’s handling of the DOO dispute.
The rail industry lacks a clear chain of command and clear lines of accountability, so it is easy to blame others. Ultimately, though, the buck stops with the Transport Secretary. Not only has he failed on a managerial level; he has defended, at every turn, the systemic failure of rail privatisation. My advice to him is simple. First, take responsibility. Secondly, listen to the public, who by a vast majority support a return to public ownership and public control of our railways.
Mr Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op)
When Parliament returned on 4 June after the recess, I challenged the Secretary of State, telling him that he was in great trouble over this situation, not least because it would run on for months and months. There has been little to cause me to reassess those comments in the past three or four weeks. For me and my constituents in Luton who travel by train regularly, it is clear that this chaos is not going anywhere quickly, but we are yet to establish who is responsible for the chaos not only when the changes were implemented, but as it is sorted out. I am afraid that the attitude of the Secretary of State has led us to today’s position, whereby we will shortly vote on whether we have confidence in him.
We are now close to the sixth week of chaos on GTR, with the admission that it is going to drag on for months. The Secretary of State said today that GTR will develop a temporary timetable in time for the summer holidays, but that is not good enough. It is a complete abdication of responsibility. GTR’s chief executive has resigned. Network Rail’s chief executive officer and chief financial officer have turned down their bonuses. But there has been no acceptance of responsibility from the one person we ask to sort things out when they go wrong.
Let me be clear about my view on the franchise and who is responsible. I am open-minded on rail. I believe that a transformation project as vast as the Thameslink programme, with £7 billion of taxpayer-invested money, should always have been operated and developed under the direct ownership and accountability of Government Ministers. That is why I said that it should not have been issued on a franchise or management contract back in 2014. It is equally clear that, given its record of failure, GTR cannot be in charge of the major changes that are coming in December 2018. GTR should not be responsible for this franchise when we get to December.
It is clear that franchising is broken. The series of statements, speeches and debates in the past year clearly demonstrate that there is very little good news about the franchising system on our railway, and that is because of one simple reason: there is no clear accountability. Let us be clear: the current system and the decisions that had already been taken to award this franchise could have worked with creative, intelligent leadership from the Secretary of State. That was absent. He lacks the intellectual curiosity to participate and, as I will explain, he had every opportunity to win us round.
I want to talk about two things: structures and the decisions that have been made. Let us look at the institutions that the Secretary of State has chucked under the bus during this crisis; he cited Network Rail, GTR as the operator and the industry readiness board. Network Rail is an arm’s-length public body with one member—the Secretary of State. He is the shareholder and he appoints the chief executive. He cannot walk away from the crossover between his Department and Network Rail.
Secondly, the GTR arrangements are not a classic franchise. GTR gives all the ticket revenue to the DFT—about £12 billion over the seven planned years of the franchise. In return, it gets back £9 billion to run the railway. The DFT takes all the revenue risk. When the railway fails to perform, it is a black hole for taxpayers. Crucially, the DFT sets the specification for the timetable, which I will say a few more words about.
Lastly, there is the rail industry readiness board, chaired by Chris Gibb, who was appointed by the Secretary of State. The representatives on the board include Network Rail’s south-east route, Network Rail’s LNER route, Network Rail’s Anglia route, Network Rail’s Thameslink project team, the Network Rail system, and, crucially, the DFT. In the Secretary of State’s account, we are asked to believe that all these organisations assured him that everything would be fine, that there was no contradictory advice from the people within those organisations, and that three weeks before, the green light had been given to go. I find that very difficult to square with the reality.
I turn to the decisions that have been made and the opportunities to avoid this crisis. First, the initial timetable was set in the franchise ITT—invitation to tender—in 2014. We have no idea whether an operator can achieve 24 trains per hour through the Thameslink core, because the DFT assessed the four bidders and discovered that no one could design such a timetable. Even so, it gave this timetable planning task to GTR. Secondly, on rolling stock, the DFT ignored the warnings on financing trains, leading to a two-year delay in securing financing, instead of standing behind the decision. That resulted in late delivery, late trains, and a lack of training for drivers.
Thirdly, on the reliance on rest-day working, the Secretary of State is directly responsible for pouring fuel on the flames of the disputes when we could have moved to more modern working arrangements on the railway. Lastly, on the late timetable approach, the decision to downgrade the aspirations in July 2017 was made directly by him. There is no evidence that he did anything but stay asleep at the wheel when it came to seeing this through.
It is clear that the Secretary of State’s defence does not wash. Either someone is accountable for the railways or they are not. We need more than a ghost in the graveyard of the DFT.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State can be in no doubt from the contributions across the House today that the rail chaos is having a devastating impact on people’s lives and jobs and on the economy.
The meltdown in the timetable and the revised timetable is causing serious pain to commuters. We have heard from hon. Members north, south, east and west. The whole nation, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Dr Drew) said, is facing the pain. My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) talked about how promised improvements were yet to be delivered, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford), who highlighted that the £9 billion spent has led to more chaos. My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) reminded us that the northern press has united in its call for the Secretary of State to resign.
My hon. Friends the Members for Easington (Grahame Morris), for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden) and for Luton South (Mr Shuker) have all highlighted forensically how the buck stops with the Secretary of State. My hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Tracy Brabin) shared heartrending stories of her constituents sardined into trains and having their safety put at risk due to overcrowding.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
The Western Mail has said that the Severn tunnel will now be shut for three weeks as the rail electrification kit rusts before it has even been used. Does my hon. Friend agree that if true, this is shocking, and that there need to be further checks to ensure that this important infrastructure project will be fit for purpose?
Rachael Maskell
My hon. Friend makes the point so well—more chaos on our railways.
In the past 24 hours, hundreds of passengers have shared their experiences with me, including a relationship breaking down, trains so packed that people are standing for hours while paying more for their tickets, cancellations of trains for hours on end, and people leaving home at 5.30 in the morning to face a four or five-hour commute. One person had no choice but to walk home for four hours in the rain in the middle of their exams. There is lots of stress about getting to work on time and getting home to pick up the children, and lots of stress for those sitting exams and simply not knowing if they will get there on time.
A mother had to sing “Happy Birthday” to her child from Waterloo station because she would not make it home for their birthday.
We all know that the problem is much deeper rooted. Were Robert Adley alive today, he would have seen himself truly vindicated for his call to halt the Railways Act 1993, for he foresaw how fragmentation would eventually create complete chaos across the railways, as my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald), the shadow Transport Secretary, set out. Mr Adley dubbed that Bill the then Tory Government’s “poll tax on wheels”. The fate of the poll tax is a stark reminder of what happens when Governments continue to blame everyone but themselves and fail to listen to the public. The public now overwhelmingly call for the renationalisation of the railways, which Labour will deliver.
The failure of one part of the Secretary of State’s Department to talk to the other, with franchises promising one thing despite Network Rail not having the capacity to deliver on his promises, demonstrates that the buck stops with no one but the Secretary of State. No Government can sleepwalk their way through a crisis, and this weak and floundering Government most certainly cannot. To ignore the public, to ignore the industry and now to ignore Members of this House shows utter contempt, for which the public will not be forgiving—not least when people have lost their jobs, been unable to sit vital exams, or missed precious moments of family life. Passengers are exhausted from working very long days due to their uncertain commutes. Passengers are unable to plan. Passengers are unable to have any form of life as their short journeys have been replaced by waits at stations that are 10 times the length of their journeys.
It is clear that commuters are not just frustrated with this totally avoidable Government failure, but with their own MPs for not securing change at the top. Today, we all have the opportunity to make the necessary change. If it is not addressed today, it most certainly will be at the ballot box, and MPs who were silent today when they had the chance to act on behalf of their constituents will find that those constituents will vote accordingly come the next general election.
The problem is that all this rail chaos, which was well known in advance by the Secretary of State, was allowed to happen on his watch because he put his ideology of private interests ahead of public service, because he failed to co-ordinate franchises across the divides in his Department, because he did not intervene and stop the timetable changes when he had the chance to do so, and because he evidently has put himself and his career above passengers and theirs. He was warned time and again but failed to act.
This afternoon’s vote is simply about confidence. Voting against the motion or even sitting on your hands would not only highlight how hon. Members are complicit in the chaos that has ensued over the last few weeks, but show support for how the Secretary of State conducted his Department, his actions in the months preceding the introduction of the new timetable, and the way in which he has let the public down consistently over the last 30 days. Constituents who were late to work again this morning will want to know how their MP voted today—did they place their confidence in the Secretary of State, despite all that has happened, or were they willing to stand up for their constituents and vote for this motion? When constituents miss their family meal and time with their children tonight, will they look up to their MP for taking action through the first step of removing the heart of the problem—the Secretary of State—or will they remember that their MP, when given the opportunity to do something, sidestepped the issue?
Perhaps the Prime Minister will show her full support for the Secretary of State this afternoon by neither voting for the motion nor taking any action to replace the person at the heart of the crisis, thus tying her own leadership to this national public disaster, or perhaps she will start to distance herself from all that has happened and find someone who can respond to this crisis. Surely she cannot continue to back a Secretary of State who has not only failed rail passengers but will continue to preside over the chaos that, as we have heard, he will unable to resolve for weeks if not months. Anyone who understands the need to make a fresh start after a public disaster knows that they need to deal with those responsible, which in this case means pulling Northern and GTR back into public ownership with immediate effect. The public will not forget how the avoidable rail chaos was woefully responded to.
There is one more issue that I want to raise: public safety. Even as we speak, public safety is being put at risk. We heard the Secretary of State take a swipe at the unions—he always does—but they represent the very people who work relentlessly across the network and, in particular, have kept passengers safe over the past few weeks. They have taken action today because they fear for public safety as guards are removed from trains. They are right to do so. If anything makes the case for guards on trains, it is the experiences of the last month. The guards are the very people who help the public in times of need. Labour will never put ideology above safety, let alone public service.
There is another public service issue on which the Secretary of State is failing. In this chaos, I have heard reports of stations crammed with passengers and trains crammed with people. Those people are fortunate to get on board—disabled people have been left stranded at stations because they cannot push their way on to trains. This is a seriously unsafe situation. The country must remember above all that national disasters have occurred when people have been squeezed into spaces that are too tight to hold them. When they are not just standing for hours on their commute but physically restrained on trains, it is easy to imagine how someone could fall on the tracks or fall ill on a train, especially in this heat. If nothing more, all hon. and right hon. Members should vote with Labour to put down a clear marker that they urge the Government to address this very serious issue. The choice today is to stand up for passengers, or to stand up for the Secretary of State and his failure on the railways. I trust that I will see hon. Members from both sides of the House in the Aye Lobby shortly.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Joseph Johnson)
The disruption faced by passengers over the past three weeks on parts of the GTR and Northern franchises is unacceptable. That was reflected in the powerful contributions we heard from my right hon. Friends the Members for Wokingham (John Redwood) and for Sevenoaks (Sir Michael Fallon), and my hon. Friends the Members for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double), for Hitchin and Harpenden (Bim Afolami), and for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman). It was also reflected by Opposition Members, including the hon. Members for Batley and Spen (Tracy Brabin), for Luton South (Mr Shuker) and for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin), who spoke powerfully about the difficult travelling conditions that their constituents have faced in recent weeks.
I want to reassure colleagues on both sides of the House that the Department’s overriding priority is to restore the reliability of service across the network. The Secretary of State has left the rail industry under no illusion that it must urgently improve its operational response including, if necessary, by changing top management, as is now happening at GTR. He has commissioned an independent inquiry by Stephen Glaister of the Office of Rail and Road, the independent regulator, to examine why we are in this situation and to reduce the chances of it ever happening again.
Turning to the performance on Northern, passengers continue to experience disruption on some parts of the network. There is a long way to go until performance is where it needs to be, but we are beginning to turn the corner. The introduction of a temporary timetable by Northern on 4 June will help to rebuild passengers’ trust. The first signs are promising, as industry figures show that over the first two weeks of the reduced timetable, 80% of trains arrived on time, and 4% of trains were cancelled or arrived significantly late. In the previous fortnight, 66% of trains arrived on time and an average of 12% of trains were cancelled or were significantly late. That improvement must continue over the coming weeks.
Ian Mearns
That all sounds very nice—a real improvement. However, according to the BBC this morning—this is certainly the evidence that we have all heard from our constituents—11,000 trains on the Northern rail network have been either cancelled or delayed for more than 30 minutes. That is tens of thousands of constituents who have been really badly put out, often left without a route to work, school, college or training.
Joseph Johnson
The cancellation of services is now progressively more and more planned by Northern as it seeks to stabilise the timetable and to ensure that the travelling public—the constituents of hon. Members on both sides of the House—can plan their journeys with greater assurance. This improvement, and the stabilisation and increased reliability, must continue over coming weeks. Northern plans to run the timetable until the end of July, when it will review progress and take stock. At that point, it will hope significantly to increase the number of timetabled services while ensuring continued improvements in stability.
The crux of the performance issues, as hon. Members have recognised, is the availability of drivers with the correct training. I am happy to say that, as a result of Northern’s hard work with ASLEF on rest day working, they were able to announce last week that they had reached an agreement for the immediate introduction of a new rest day working agreement. This will allow for more training and a better service for passengers sooner.
Let me turn to GTR’s performance. GTR is also working to increase the predictability and reliability of journeys on its network. It is working actively to reduce on-the-day cancellations, and is now updating its timetables on a Friday evening for the following week, enabling passengers to plan ahead more effectively. Alternative travel arrangements are in place. For example, passengers on the Brighton main line can have their Thameslink tickets accepted on Gatwick Express, and next month GTR will introduce a full temporary timetable across its network as the next step to improve reliability and performance for passengers.
It is worth noting that some parts of the GTR network, including all of Southern, are now experiencing more train services and better performance than ever before. However, I do not consider the service to be anywhere near approaching one that I or passengers would find acceptable and, as the Secretary of State said, we are examining why GTR is taking longer than Northern to improve services. The review that has been commissioned will look at whether GTR has met and is continuing to meet its contractual obligations in the planning and delivery of the May timetable.
Joseph Johnson
That question will be addressed in the review, which is looking carefully at GTR’s performance and whether it has breached any of its contractual franchise commitments. That is not something that we can pre-empt. We are looking at it carefully in the review and, as the Secretary of State said in his opening remarks, nothing is off the table.
Clive Efford
The Minister says that, but why is Govia being allowed to re-bid for franchises or to bid for others?
Joseph Johnson
As the hon. Gentleman will understand, it is important that the Department acts consistently and treats train operating companies consistently across the industry. The Department is carefully reviewing whether GTR has breached any of its franchise commitments, and we will do that thoroughly, following all correct due processes, as everybody has a right to expect us to.
Let me turn to compensation. We are clear that passengers on the lines that have been severely affected by these issues will receive additional compensation. The Department is working closely with Network Rail, train operators and stakeholders to introduce a special compensation scheme as soon as possible. We have already recommended to the board of Transport for the North that passengers who buy weekly, monthly or annual tickets on affected Northern and TPE routes should be eligible to claim up to four weeks’ compensation. As part of the scheme, the industry will be providing financial support to Transport for the North to deal with other costs that have arisen from the disruption.
I expect the board of TFN to confirm the final details of the scheme by its next meeting on 28 June and for payments to begin for Northern in early July. The Secretary of State has also announced a compensation package for passengers who travel on affected Thameslink and Great Northern routes. As he said, it will follow the special compensation scheme for Northern and TPE. Finally, we are looking at options to further support the northern economy and expect Northern to fund a marketing campaign encouraging travel to affected areas by train, including the Lakes.
I hope that this has reassured right hon. and hon. Members of the seriousness with which the Government are taking the disruption facing passengers. We are taking action to resolve the problems as quickly as possible, to compensate passengers appropriately, and to learn the lessons that will prevent this happening again in the future.
Question put.
The House proceeded to a Division.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I am about to close the doors, as I normally do after eight minutes, but I understand that there is a problem with the lifts in Norman Shaw. I am acutely aware that some colleagues are coming by wheelchair and other, more difficult means. I am therefore purposely delaying the closing of the doors, not for those who are already here, who I trust will vote as swiftly as possible, but for colleagues who are struggling, especially in wheelchairs. It is hard to believe that a lift was full and a colleague in a wheelchair could not get into it.
I am looking hopefully to see if we have succeeded—we have almost succeeded, but not quite. I could describe the wheelchair—[Interruption.] Thank you, Mr Wishart. It is a long time since I sparred with you. I could do with a point of order right now, which of course I cannot take in the middle of a Division. You do not normally get a filibuster from the Chair on the matter of closing the doors, but I am now satisfied that all colleagues who had difficulty in getting here because of a lift problem have had a chance to vote. It is hard to believe that other colleagues did not vacate the lift and allow the lady in the wheelchair to go in first, but that is up to them. Lock the doors!
Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill: Committee Stage
(6 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
18:59 - The House divided: - Ayes: 284 / Noes: 299 - Question accordingly negatived.
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That, notwithstanding the provisions of Standing Order No. 48 and the practice of the House relating to the authorisation of charges upon the public revenue, the Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill Committee has leave to consider the Clauses of the Bill and any new Clauses that may be proposed to it; but the Bill may not be reported from the Committee before this House has passed a Money Resolution, for which the Queen’s Recommendation has been signified, in relation to the Bill.
Here we are again, debating the same issue: by all accounts, according to custom and practice and convention in Standing Orders, the position is, quite simply, that a money resolution follows a private Member’s Bill, but my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) has still not been given a money resolution for his Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill 2017-19. However, the motion makes a slightly different proposal, so I hope that the House can agree to it. It proposes that we can debate the Bill before the Report stage, at which point it will be given its money resolution.
Let me deal first with the Bill itself, and then with some of the objections that have been expressed by the Leader of the House and others. I hope that by the end of my speech, I shall have persuaded Members that the motion should be passed. The Bill fixes the size of Parliament at 650 MPs, it fixes the allocation in Northern Ireland at 18, and it keeps the areas as allocated in 2011. It allows for a 7.5% variation in the electorate. A report must be submitted before 1 October 2020 and every 10 years. It uses the register of electors from 2017, or the most up to date. How can anyone who believes in democracy not support that?
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
Perhaps I can give the hon. Lady a very good reason. She may be familiar with the e-mail that Members received on 14 June from the Boundary Commission for England, in which it confirms that it will report to the Leader of the House on or before 5 September, so that the Leader will have an opportunity to lay the orders in the House during that month. It plans to report in just four full sitting weeks’ time. I say to the hon. Lady: what is the hurry?
Valerie Vaz
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his speech. I will address that point later in my own speech.
The Bill had the support of the House, so it proceeded to its next stage; but then it was thwarted—not once, not twice, not thrice, but six times. The first issue raised was that of costs. The Leader of the House said that it would cost £12 million, but, as I have said before, the instructions to the Boundary Commission were flawed. It was instructed to make the electorate numbers fit the figure of 600, without being given any explanation or evidence for the use of that figure. To save costs, the Bill proposes that the commission should report every 10 years, but the Government want to scrub that and require it to report every five years.
I want to know why the Government consider 600 to be an appropriate figure on the basis of an old electoral register.
Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)
Obviously Ministers are drawn from Parliament. Does my hon. Friend agree that if the number of MPs is reduced but the number of Ministers is not, a considerable amount of power will shift from Parliament to Government? If the Government’s proposal were even-handed, the number of Ministers would be reduced so that power would not be transferred from Parliament to the Government.
Valerie Vaz
I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. I will be drawing on it. Let me add, however, that as early as tomorrow we will see the effect of an overbearing Executive, and will see why it is so important for Members to be able to hold the Government to account.
If the Bill were allowed a Committee stage as a result of the motion, the debate on my hon. Friend’s Bill could explore the reasons for it. The Government could table new clauses and vote against clauses in the Bill, as many Conservative Members have suggested. Amendments could be tabled, too. This motion would allow that to take place so that hon. Members on both sides would be aware of why the Government object.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) must be psychic as I am now going to touch on the point he made. I have asked this previously, but will the Leader of the House confirm in relation to the payroll vote whether there will be a reduction in the number of Ministers and what costs will be saved by a reduction in the payroll vote? There is more work to be done as we leave the European Union and post-Brexit both for Parliament and for the Executive, but this means that the Executive will dominate Parliament, and if costs were an issue, ministerial numbers would also be reduced. However, the Government are incurring more costs in Parliament. What are the costs of the peers? In the last seven years, 260 have been appointed.
My second point—[Interruption.] I do not know if that was an intervention. The Leader of the House refers to things being done on a case-by-case basis. What is that, and since when do the Government decide which Bills ought to be progressed? She seems to have come up with a new case-by-case basis Standing Order. I have checked the latest edition of the Blue Book—May 2018—and there is no entry for “case-by-case basis.” This means that the Government are twisting convention by saying they will decide which Bills are worthy of a money resolution. All Bills should be treated fairly, which is the basis of the convention.
Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)
Why is there this sudden interest in money resolutions from the Labour party? I cannot find a single instance of the Labour party in government looking to change the rules surrounding money resolutions, so is it simply for political expedience that this motion has been introduced today?
Valerie Vaz
The hon. Gentleman is an assiduous lawyer so he will know we are talking about the present. We are talking about money resolutions and about other Bills that are also stacked up, and it is a convention of the House, here and now, that the Government should provide money resolutions.
How can the Government justify picking and choosing which Bill gets a money resolution? This is not an elected dictatorship. It appears that the Government are acting in the same way here, by thwarting the will of the House, as in the abusive process that we saw last Friday on the upskirting Bill. I hope I can help: it is a bit like England finishing its qualifying round having won its league and FIFA saying, “I’m sorry, but we won’t allow you to go through; we’re going to deal with this on a case-by-case basis.” That would be an outrage: if England are at the top of the league, England should go through.
This is a serious issue because it goes to the very heart of our democracy. Some 2.1 million people have been left off the register and have not been included in the Boundary Commission’s dealings. This is an especially serious issue as the boundary changes appear to favour one party. We must remember that the current Government are a minority Government governing only with a confidence and supply agreement.
Mr Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham, Perry Barr) (Lab)
The Government have wilfully plucked a figure out of the air, have manipulated the electoral register and taken 2.5 million people off it. The constituencies have no basis, so the Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan)—[Interruption.] If the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith), Conservative Members wants to make a contribution, she can do so when I am not on my feet.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. The hon. Gentleman cannot interrupt himself when making an intervention while referring to a sedentary comment from the Conservative Benches, but I will allow him to finish his perfectly reasonable intervention.
Mr Mahmood
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker; I have gained further knowledge.
My hon. Friend’s Bill tries to address this issue. Does my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) agree that this is not about gerrymandering or taking powers away from this House, but about restoring those powers?
Valerie Vaz
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and he is right. This is about democracy, about using the old register and about fettering the Boundary Commission.
Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)
Does the hon. Lady not agree that the Boundary Commission is an independent body that is completely separate from any political considerations? It is not run by politicians. It is carrying out a thorough review, on the instructions of this House, in order to do the right thing for our constituents and for taxpayers. How can she suggest that there is any political consideration involved in the body’s work?
Valerie Vaz
No one is talking about political interference. We are talking about the initial instructions that were given to the Boundary Commission, which were based on flawed instructions.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
While we are still on the issue of the size of constituencies, does my hon. Friend recognise that there are a number of constituencies—mostly, though not entirely, inner-city ones—in which the population is far greater than the registered population? I declare an interest here, because my own constituency has a population twice the size of the registered population. This is only going to get worse with the arbitrary reduction to 600 Members, further reducing the connection between Members of Parliament and those they serve.
Valerie Vaz
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We deal with cases that go beyond those on the electoral register. For example, we deal with whole families, including children, following the cutbacks in advice services. We still have to deal with those cases.
Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend also agree that there are variations in the propensity of certain groups in the population to appear on the electoral register? For example, there is an 80% propensity for older women from the home counties to be on the register, compared with only a 20% likelihood for young black men in inner cities to be on it.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
Further to those last two points, would my hon. Friend acknowledge that the amount of constituency work required from a Member often bears no relation to the number of people on the electoral register? I dare say that about a third of the people who come to my surgeries for advice and support are not registered to vote.
Valerie Vaz
I absolutely agree. All hon. Members know that we deal with such issues and cases, and that we cannot turn people away, because we are often the last resort.
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
I believe that the hon. Lady is complaining that reducing the number of Members of Parliament will create an unacceptable workload, but when I look at the statistics, I see that British MPs each represent about 90,000 people, whereas Spanish MPs represent about 133,000, German MPs represent 116,000 and French and Dutch MPs represent 114,000. Why should we not be able to do at least as good a job as the MPs in other leading European democracies?
Valerie Vaz
I am not saying that this is just about an increase in workload. I am saying that the Boundary Commission’s ability to look at everything should be unfettered.
My third point is that this is not another argument about not receiving an email. In the last debate on this matter, the Leader of the House said that an email had not been received and that this was just a matter for the Westminster bubble. This is not just about responsive democracy. My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton is proactive, and he saw a sense of unfairness. As with any Bill, we try to do something when we see something that is unfair or when we want to close a loophole. That was exactly the reason for my hon. Friend’s Bill. Yes, some constituencies should be equalised —some rural constituencies might not have the same numbers as inner-city ones—but that must involve a proper analysis, and the Boundary Commission’s ability to use the numbers in local areas in a way that fits must be unfettered.
Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)
I am listening with interest to what the hon. Lady is saying. Will she clarify something for me? Under the current instructions to the Boundary Commission and the principal legislation, a new review is carried out every five years and the number of seats allocated to each constituent part of the United Kingdom is adjusted according to the number of people on the register. Is it the purpose of her hon. Friend’s Bill to fix in perpetuity—or until such time as the legislation may be amended—the number of seats for Northern Ireland at 18?
Valerie Vaz
Under the Bill, the number would be fixed at 18. The seats would be allocated on the basis of the 2011 instructions, but nothing would be in perpetuity. No Parliament can bind another Parliament, so that could all change. The instructions could change.
Fourthly, what about the procedures of the House? I am sure you will agree that they are important, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Procedure Committee recommended in its 2013-14 report on private Members’ Bills
“that the Government be required to make a written Ministerial statement on the reasons for the delay if a money or ways and means resolution, where required, has not been put to the House within three weeks of a bill being given a second reading.”
The Government response stated:
“It is the responsibility of the Member in charge of the bill to make a request to Government to table any money or ways and means motions that may be required. It is the practice of the Government to accede to such requests… The Committee has not produced any clear evidence to suggest that current arrangements are not working or that a new rule is needed.”
However, the Government have not acceded to the request for a money resolution, and the current arrangements are clearly now not working. My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton has been thwarted six times. Will the Leader of the House join me in writing to the Procedure Committee to inform it that the Government are not following the procedure laid down by the Committee and rules of the House?
Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)
I was elected on a manifesto that called for a reduction in the number of MPs to 600. How can I look my constituents in the eye and spend the equivalent of 600 nurses’ salaries on something for which they did not vote?
Valerie Vaz
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I will write to him and place in the Library the list of things that the Government have reneged on since their manifesto.
More importantly, this matter is pressing because hon. Members will have received an email from the Boundary Commission, which says that it wants to report before the conference recess, so this is not about the Westminster bubble. Hon. Members were elected to be the guardians of democracy. Now more than ever, we need to stand as beacons of fairness, upholding democratic values and doing what is right. I hope that hon. Members will support the motion.
The Leader of the House of Commons (Andrea Leadsom)
I welcome the chance to respond, yet again, on the subject of the Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill. The House will be aware that I have already responded to both an urgent question and an emergency debate about the Government’s approach to the private Member’s Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan), in addition to responding to questions at business questions. Nevertheless, I am more than happy to outline, once again, our approach to private Members’ Bills, and to the hon. Gentleman’s Bill in particular, before turning to the specific terms of the motion.
The boundary commissions began the 2018 parliamentary boundary review in 2016 and are due to report the final recommendations to the Government later this year—within just a few sitting weeks. This Government have made a commitment to continue with that boundary review, which was voted for by this House, and it would be inappropriate to proceed with the Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill at this time by providing it with a money resolution. The Government have committed to keeping this private Member’s Bill under review, but it is right that we allow the boundary commissions to report their recommendations before carefully considering how to proceed.
As I said in the emergency debate on 21 May, progressing with this particular PMB would place a potential financial burden of £8 million on taxpayers. Given that Parliament —this House—has already committed to the 2018 boundary review, it would not be responsible for the Government to support such extra cost to the taxpayer at this point.
Mr Khalid Mahmood
To follow the Leader of the House’s reasoning about what this Bill will cost the public purse, what other Bills is she considering dropping to save money?
Andrea Leadsom
I will repeat it if the hon. Gentleman did not hear it, but I just carefully explained that the Government bring forward money resolutions for private Members’ Bill on a case-by-case basis. It is precisely because this House voted for the 2018 boundary review that we must wait until that work is finished before deciding how to progress with this private Member’s Bill.
With one review under way, plus an incomplete review from a previous Parliament, the review proposed by the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton would be the third review of boundaries and would push the total cost of reviewing boundaries towards £18 million. The Opposition may not have a problem with unnecessarily spending £18 million of taxpayers’ money, but the Government certainly do. That is our position, and we look forward to seeing the boundary commissions’ recommendations in the coming months.
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
The Leader of the House seems to be saying that one of the reasons why the Government will not table a money resolution is the amount of money the Bill would cost. I do not know whether she is inadvertently misleading the House, but the reality is that tabling a money resolution does not mean the law will pass. What then happens is that the Bill can be considered in Committee, on Report and by their lordships. The issue here is that the Government are running scared because they know a majority of Members of this House support the Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan), so they are trying to kill it in Committee. This is not about money; it is about parliamentary procedure being subverted.
Andrea Leadsom
I will come on to procedure, but the hon. Gentleman simply is not right. The Government are not killing this private Member’s Bill; we are saying that, until the boundary commissions have completed their work, which will be in a matter of a few weeks—the House voted for the review to take place—the Government will not take further action on a money resolution.
For the clarification of all hon. Members, this is not without precedent. During the 2014-15 Session, the coalition Government did not table money resolutions on two private Members’ Bills. At the time, the then Leader of the House said:
“it is unusual but not unprecedented for the Government not to move a money resolution. There have been previous instances of that under Governments of different parties.”—[Official Report, 30 October 2014; Vol. 587, c. 417.]
Mr Harper
On procedure, there is a wider point than just the money. The boundary commissions, as part of their review, have carried out a very democratic process. They have listened to thousands of responses, not just from Members of this House and political parties but from thousands of members of the public. Would it not be an abuse just to throw all that away and start all over again?
Andrea Leadsom
My right hon. Friend is exactly right. That is the whole point. The Government are saying we will not table a money resolution until we have had a chance to consider the review, which is currently under way and due to report soon. However, this debate is not about the merits of the Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill, and it is not even about the merits of the Government tabling a money resolution on the Bill. This debate is about whether a Committee may have leave to disregard the rules and conventions of this House. This motion seeks to undermine a fundamental principle that is a cornerstone of our constitutional settlement.
The financial initiative of the Crown is a long-standing constitutional principle that allows the Government of the day to initiate financial resolutions. Chapter 32 of “Erskine May” explains:
“It was a central factor in the historical development of parliamentary influence and power that the Sovereign was obliged to obtain the consent of Parliament…to the levying of taxes to meet the expenditure of the State. But the role of Parliament in respect of…expenditure and taxation has never been one of initiation… The development of responsible government and the assumption by the Government of the day of the traditional role and powers of the Crown in relation to public finance have not altered this basic constitutional principle”.
Either the Government of the day have the right to initiate financial proceedings or they do not. The Crown initiative is a binary issue, and this motion seeks to overturn it.
Nigel Dodds
There have been references to the boundary commission review as though there is just one review, but of course there are reviews in Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland. On a point of process, does the Leader of the House intend to table separate resolutions on each of those Boundary Commission reviews, or will they be taken together?
Andrea Leadsom
That is to be confirmed, but the right hon. Gentleman is correct that the boundary commissions of all four nations will be reporting imminently. It has been a huge and very expensive undertaking that absolutely upholds the principles of democracy.
Let us get back to what is under discussion today. The motion seeks to erode the fundamental principle that it is the Crown, through its Ministers, that has the exclusive right of demanding money and of defining the purposes for which that money is required. The core responsibility of the Government is accountability to the taxpayer. The Opposition may not understand that, but we on this side of the House most certainly do.
The motion would allow the Bill Committee to consider the substantive clauses of the Bill, amend the Bill and potentially introduce new material into the Bill. The conventions of the House are very clearly set out in “Erskine May”, which states that
“any financial provisions which”—
a Bill—
“may contain must be authorised by a resolution of the House, i.e. a money resolution, before they can be considered by the committee on the bill.”
The financial provisions contained in a Bill—in this case the money clause, which is clause 5—are there on First Reading to indicate that the Crown initiative is needed. The existence of these money clauses, or in other cases the existence of italicised provisions, is the practice by which it is indicated that Second Reading is contingent on a financial recommendation from the Government. This financial recommendation must come before the House or its Committees can proceed with detailed consideration of the Bill’s contents.
If a Committee is allowed to consider the substance of the Bill in the absence of a money resolution, the Crown, through its Ministers, loses its centuries-old right to initiate and define the purposes for which that money is required; putting the power of the Executive into the hands of the legislature.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)
The Leader of the House is trying to blow this issue out of proportion slightly by making it sound as though we are trying to overturn a years-old, decades-old, centuries-old convention. Is this motion not merely asking to allow a Committee to consider a Bill? If the money resolution did not come by the end of it, the Bill would not be passed. We are seeking to allow Parliament to get on with it. Is the point of an unwritten constitution not to allow flexibility and to understand that in times of need we can change procedure?
Andrea Leadsom
The hon. Gentleman walked in late and did not hear the start of the debate. If he read his own motion, he would realise that it seeks to overturn not years or decades but centuries of a very clear convention: that the Government initiate financial resolutions. It could not be clearer, and this Opposition motion, for purely party political reasons, is utterly irresponsible. May I ask: where are the previous Cabinet members from the Opposition? Clearly, they are not in this place because they, having been in government, recognise the constitutional settlement, where Governments decide on the money and Parliament consents to it and scrutinises it.
As I was saying, if a Committee is allowed to consider the substance of the Bill in the absence of a money resolution, the Crown, through its Ministers, loses its centuries-old right to initiate and define the purposes for which that money is required, putting the power of the Executive into the hands of the legislature. This questions the role of the Executive, whichever party is in power. The fundamentals of having a Government—of having any Government—are that they are there to take decisions and to be accountable for those decisions. Taxpayers want and require the Government to be accountable for the way in which public money is spent. That is what it means to be a responsible Government.
Rachel Maclean
Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is about a fundamental principle upon which our general elections are run: we set out our manifesto and the public vote on how they want their money spent? The attempt to change that is a fundamental undermining of our democracy in this country.
Andrea Leadsom
My hon. Friend is exactly right on that. This Government are responsible for initiating financial transaction resolutions, and the Opposition and Parliament are responsible for scrutinising, amending and reviewing; they are not responsible for initiating resolutions. It is disappointing to waste parliamentary time today explaining this point to an Opposition who really should know better and who, in their actions today, are showing no signs that they would act as a responsible Government.
The motion would set a dangerous precedent, but there would also be further potential consequences of allowing it to pass. First, the scope of any money resolution is one of the factors in determining whether amendments are within the scope of a Bill. The change in practice that the motion seeks to introduce would remove that restriction on what can be considered and voted on in Committee. The Committee would be pointlessly wandering through the Bill, agreeing to clauses —with or without amendments—that may not actually be permitted by any money resolution that may or may not be forthcoming in future. Why should the House foot the bill for whatever the Committee decides?
The House must first provide financial authorisation, if and when the Government are ready to initiate it, and the Committee must then work to agree or amend the Bill in the light of that authorisation. The Committee should not be asking for the House’s retrospective forgiveness; it has to wait for the House’s permission for its money resolution. Ultimately, I would be very concerned with the situation in which the approval of this motion would leave the Bill Committee itself. It would make discussions in Committee theoretical at best, and at worst it would make the whole process farcical.
Secondly, it is worth remembering that once the Committee has been through the Bill, agreeing its provisions clause by clause, the Committee cannot refine those decisions. The motion would not empower the Committee, as the Opposition might seek to argue; it would actually disempower the Committee, giving it a false sense of making progress while in fact damaging its ability to amend the Bill in the light of any developing circumstances that may in future give rise to a money resolution. I question whether all the members of the Bill Committee are fully aware of the terrible damage that the Opposition Front-Bench team are trying to impose on them.
This House runs on its conventions and on the assurance that centuries-old practice and procedure is there to protect the rights of all parliamentarians. The Government absolutely respect the right of the House to establish its own practices and procedures, but that respect must work both ways. A responsible Parliament must also respect the constitutional settlement, the relationship between Government and Parliament and the conventions that underpin the Crown initiative. By undermining all that for party political reasons by tabling this motion, the Opposition show how poorly they understand what it means to be responsible parliamentarians, let alone a responsible Government.
Financial responsibility is at the core of responsible government. Taxpayers have the right to see their Government held to account for how public money is handled, and it is Parliament’s legitimate right to hold the Government to account on that. However, Parliament —in the form of the Opposition or Back Benchers—does not have the right to undermine the Crown initiative on financial matters. Parliament does not have the right to propose taxation; that is a matter for the Government. Nor does Parliament have the right to bypass the need for the Government initiation of tax measures through, for example, Ways and Means resolutions. Parliament does not have the right to impose public spending; it is the Crown’s exclusive right, through Ministers, to propose increases in expenditure in a fiscally responsible way for which the Government are then held to account.
I am gravely concerned about the motion’s longer-term unintended consequences for the separation of powers between the Government and Parliament. Once the lines are blurred on decision making, the role of Parliament in scrutinising and holding the Government to account is put into jeopardy. Ultimately, a line does have to be drawn, and it is drawn under the historic practices of this House, under the constitutional rights of the Crown and under the long-established relationship between Government and Parliament. The line is there whether Opposition Members like it or not.
The Government are elected by the people, and the Government alone have the constitutional right and duty to initiate financial proceedings that are in the taxpayers’ interests, because it is the Government who are accountable to the taxpayer for their decisions and for defining the use of public money. Today, the Opposition are doing nothing more than abusing long-standing constitutional principles and seeking to manipulate the procedures of the House for political ends. At last year’s general election, the people of this great country had the opportunity to give the Leader of the Opposition the chance to be in charge of public spending. They did not take that opportunity. This Government will not allow the Opposition to take that opportunity by stealth, which is what is being attempted through this motion.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
Here we go again. Yet another debate on the Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill and yet another attempt from the Government to thwart it and stop any sort of progress. I listened carefully to the speech of the Leader of the House, and it was extraordinary. It was a sort of “Know your place, Parliament” assertion of the rights of the Crown, making the distinction somehow that this Government are not going to be accountable to Parliament in whatever this Parliament chooses to do. I have never heard a speech quite like it, and I hope that when the Leader of the House has a look at it in Hansard she will reflect on what she said. I have never known the House to be lectured in such a way about its rights and responsibilities. We are Members of Parliament, elected directly by our constituents, and we come here to make sure that their interest is properly and effectively represented. To be told just to know our place in the House and allow the Government to do whatever they want was quite disgraceful. I hope that the Leader of the House reflects on what she said today.
Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that providing a money resolution does not spend the money? All it does is allow Members to discuss the Bill line by line. That is what the Government are not allowing.
Pete Wishart
Absolutely. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) made that point to the Leader of the House. The money resolution does not commit the Government to anything in money terms. It allows the Bill to progress. At any point during that process the Government can come along with new clauses, and might have legitimate grounds for making sure that the Bill is delayed. I accept and respect that, but let the Bill progress for goodness’ sake.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. The Leader of the House said that the Opposition were given a chance last year to become the Government and did not get it from the electorate, but she should be reminded that she did not get it either. She mentioned the Crown and ancient conventions a lot in her speech. She should remember what happened to a king who defied Parliament.
Pete Wishart
That is a salutary lesson from the hon. Gentleman. He knows and respects his history, and knows exactly what is being debated here and the impact that that type of speech has.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
This is not an area where I have expertise, but my understanding was that the money resolution enabled money to be spent in preparation for the Bill becoming law. So there is a financial implication of passing a money resolution, even if the Bill has not proceeded to Third Reading and Royal Assent.
Pete Wishart
The right hon. Gentleman is right that he is not an expert on this particular issue; he has just demonstrated that by what he said. There is no obligation on the Government to commit money in a money resolution. A money resolution would allow the Committee stage of the Bill to be given the authority that the Leader of the House suggests this motion would not allow. I looked today at some of the proceedings of the Committee. It is like “Alice in Wonderland” meets “Groundhog Day”, without any progress. The Committee seems to come together and adjourn; as quickly as it sits to consider some of the issues, proceedings are abandoned because there is nothing for the Committee to do. What an absolute and utter waste of time.
The key point is not Parliament’s responsibilities and the distinction between Government’s and Parliament’s roles in the House. The key issue is that the private Member’s Bills system is broken. It may be broken beyond repair. This is the fifth Parliament I have been involved in, and I have never known a Parliament to obsess so constantly and continually about private Members’ Bills. Usually they go through without any real issue or difficulty. The Leader of the House mentioned a couple of Bills under the coalition Government for which money resolutions were withheld. In the periphery of my memory, I remember those Bills, but that was about the first time in my 17 years in this place that the Government withheld money resolutions. We are entering a new sort of territory with this Government weapon to stop the progress of Bills that they do not particularly like. The House should consider deeply the increasing use of this method as a blocking tactic for private Members’ Bills before we continue down such an avenue.
Mr Harper
I think I can help the hon. Gentleman a little by explaining why there have been several such examples. It is because private Members’ Bills have started to be used inappropriately by people trying to deliver significant constitutional change, which should properly be done in detail on the Floor of the House. Perhaps that is why the Government have reflected carefully on whether they should allow money resolutions at every stage.
Pete Wishart
I have a reasonably neat solution in response to the right hon. Gentleman. If the Government do not like private Members’ Bills—if they object to them on constitutional grounds or for whatever reason—they should get up, tell the House and put their case on the Floor of the House. If the House agrees with the Government and finds particular issues and difficulties with a private Member’s Bill, the House can vote against it. If the House says, “No, we do not accept the Government’s arguments”, Members can vote for the Bill so that it passes. That is called democracy. The right hon. Gentleman used to believe in that principle. It is certainly something that I still value.
Siobhain McDonagh
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) is underestimating the power of private Members’ Bills historically in this House? They have paved the way for very big social change. For example, the Abortion Act 1967 and the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970 by Lord Morris—both very powerful pieces of legislation —came via private Members’ Bills. They have always had a huge and significant impact, so what the right hon. Gentleman says is just nonsense.
Pete Wishart
The hon. Lady is absolutely right to remind us of some of the really important private Members’ Bills in the history of the House. She will remember her colleague, Tom Clarke, who got two private Members’ Bills through Parliament: one on international development and another on disability. We owe a great deal of credit to Tom Clarke for what he did to ensure that those Bills were brought before Parliament. The Governments of the day were not prepared to consider those Bills, but Members of Parliament thought they were important enough to bring to the House, and to spend time and effort on getting them through. There are also really important private Members’ Bills in this Session. My hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil) is not here, but his Refugees (Family Reunion) (No. 2) Bill is really important. Again, that Bill has been stalled by this Government refusing to provide a money resolution.
Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman accused the Government of having an aversion to private Members’ Bills, but he also said that he has been here for five Parliaments. In fact, 22 private Members’ Bills were passed in the 2005 Parliament and 31 were passed in the 2010 Parliament. If we include the 2015 and 2017 Parliaments together, more than double the number of private Members’ Bills have been passed than in 2005. That is hardly an aversion to private Members’ Bills.
Pete Wishart
I do not think that I ever made the charge that this Government have an aversion to private Members’ Bills. If the hon. Gentleman wants me to be accusatory, I will accuse the Government of blocking Bills that they do not like. That is what we are getting to here. There are lots of Government-sponsored private Members’ Bills, a couple of which I have personally sponsored and that I want to see progress, so I am not saying that they have an aversion to them. I think that they value them as much as possible, but the system is broken just now. The current way in which we do this business is not satisfactory, and every Member of this House should be concerned about that.
David Linden
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the reasons that the Government, under the current regime, are putting through so many private Members’ Bills is because they skip over the ones that they do not like. In the case of the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan), his Bill was 13th in the queue. The Government just decided that they did not like it, so they went to the Health and Social Care (National Data Guardian) Bill of the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), which was 92nd in the queue. We cannot have a situation whereby the Government decide just to skip over Bills. The Leader of the House spoke about overriding centuries-old tradition, but the centuries-old tradition is that we go to the next available Bill, so it is the Government who are riding roughshod over the procedures of the House.
Pete Wishart
That is right. I am trying to be helpful to the House, as always. You know me, Madam Deputy Speaker; if I can think of a way in which to bring the House together so that we can try to make satisfactory process, I will offer it to the House. I see it as part of my job, obligation and responsibility as a Member of Parliament to see whether we can broker a solution. I suggest to the Leader of the House that the system is not working. I think that she and I would agree on that. She can nod her head if she wants.
Pete Wishart
She is not nodding her head; she thinks that it is working satisfactorily. Okay, I may be on my own. In my view, and probably in that of most Members on the Opposition Benches, something is wrong. Something is not working with the system of dealing with private Members’ Bills. There is real disappointment and anger in this House about how all this is working out. This is the third time we have debated it, as the Leader of the House said, and it is not getting any better—if anything, it is getting worse. After her lecture to the House today, it feels a lot worse to Opposition Members.
If money resolutions are a sticking point, how about we try to design some sort of solution? I have tried to suggest this notion to Conservative Members: if they do not like something, they should come here on a Friday to oppose it and get their way; and if they do not get their way, they should accept the role of the House. We are going to have to try to find a way round this. We cannot continually come back to the point where Members secure support for their Bill from this House, believe that they are making progress with it, and then are ultimately blocked by a Government who do not like it and so are not prepared to give it a money resolution.
I do not know how we might do this, but may I suggest to the Leader of the House that we try to get a cross-party solution? I know that it has been suggested that the matter should be put to the Procedure Committee. That has happened twice in my time in this House. We have had the Procedure Committee consider private Members’ Bills, and maybe it should do so again. How about if all the parties got together and tried to see what we could do to ensure that we get round some of these very tricky issues? The current situation is not good enough.
I was out in my constituency campaigning over the weekend. Our constituents look at these sorts of issues and get more and more concerned. We have a particular issue in Scotland. People in Scotland are furious about the disrespect that this Government have shown to our nation in taking about 15 minutes to turn the devolution settlement on its head. However, they are also seeing some of these issues about private Members’ Bill going through. [Interruption.] I know that Conservative Members do not like it, but this perception is building up. I saw over the weekend that there is bewilderment more than hostility. What is the House of Commons doing? Why cannot we properly debate issues that are really important? Why cannot we consider private Members’ Bills?
John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)
What my constituents and most people in Scotland, I think, got frustrated with and annoyed by was the pantomime performance we saw last week of SNP Members storming out of the House, not representing the interests of their constituents or of Scotland. The Leader of the House spoke very well about the importance of the Government keeping control of financial resolutions. I would be interested to know if the right hon. Gentleman would advocate the same proposal for the Scottish Parliament with regard to how the Scottish Government manage similar matters.
Pete Wishart
First of all, I am not a right hon. Member. For some reason, Scottish National party Members are not made Privy Counsellors, regardless of how long we have served in this House. I thank the hon. Gentleman for the promotion, but I have never actually secured that position.
I wish that the hon. Gentleman had been on the streets in Perth, as I was, on Saturday. He would have seen the deep frustration and anger that there was with this House after the massive disrespect demonstrated to our Parliament—the Scottish Parliament—which secured 15 minutes of debate before its devolution settlement was turned on its head. There is a growing frustration with this House as more and more people, particularly in Scotland, are seeing—because they like watching us speak—how this House is treated. There is real bewilderment about what is going on.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
I hesitate to move the hon. Gentleman off one of his favourite topics, but does he agree that there is another fundamental point that is being missed? The current boundary review is inaccurate because its formulations do not include the many extra voters who have gone on to the electoral rolls since the Boundary Commission did its basic analysis. This needs to be done again, and that would strengthen our democracy.
Pete Wishart
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I know that a lot of people want to speak, Madam Deputy Speaker, so I will try to make a bit of progress if I could be allowed to do so.
I hear what the Government are saying. Of course, there is the news that we will have the report of the Boundary Commission before we come back in September. However, my feeling—perhaps it is just me again—is that what the House decided on the Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) trumps what the Boundary Commission is about to deliver, because it was a democratic decision of the House that favoured his Bill and wanted to see it progress. My understanding is that that should come first. I think that outcomes decided on the Floor of the House—
Pete Wishart
I will not give way. I have given way to the right hon. Gentleman before, and I know that Madam Deputy Speaker wants me to rush.
I believe that outcomes decided on the Floor of the House take precedence over anything that the Boundary Commission review will conclude. As hon. Members have said, there is not a majority for what the Boundary Commission is proposing. At some point, that will have to be tested in the House. The House will either have to agree that we should cut the number of our constituencies to 600 or say to the Government that we need 650 Members.
There are good reasons why the number should stay at 650, and they have been outlined. We will lose our 73 Members of the European Parliament in March next year, so all their responsibilities and duties will have to be prosecuted by Members of this Parliament. The point was also made about the relative imbalance that there would be between Members of Parliament and the Executive if there were 600 MPs, with more Ministers per Member of Parliament. That is a real point. Then there is the absurd circus down the corridor—the House of Lords. We are talking about reducing the size of Parliament, while there is one new Member of the House of Lords after one another. We have to be very careful about all those things.
The key point that the Leader of the House made today was that this is all about precedent, because it is in “Erskine May” and the Standing Orders of the House that the Government have the right to introduce money resolutions. Let us take that out of their hands. Another solution that the Leader of the House might want to consider is that once a private Member’s Bill passes its Second Reading, a money resolution should be put forthwith to the House. If the Government disagree with the money resolution, they should put forward their reservation at that point, which would allow the House to make a decision. What is the point of this private Member’s Bill purgatory that the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton is experiencing? It is not fair to him, for a start. Why can we not do that at the outset of the process?
Lastly, this is about the democratic outcomes of the House and how we do our business. We dispense with that at our peril. We have to look carefully at how we are organised in this House and how it is being observed. Private Members’ Bills are a feature of this House that our constituents like. The hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) mentioned the big, important pieces of legislation that have been passed as private Members’ Bills. We mess with them at our peril. They are broken just now; they are not working. Let us see if we can work together to find a solution that will allow us to continue to enjoy bringing pieces of legislation to the House as ordinary Members and make sure that they are not obstructed by Government. For goodness’ sake, surely we can achieve that.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. This is a well-subscribed debate. If colleagues stick to a maximum of nine minutes, we should be able to get everybody in. I call Mark Harper.
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
I am grateful, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will be mindful of your injunction and try hard to stick to it.
I am going to do something radical—I will try to stick to the motion—but first, since this is a debate, I want to deal with a number of points that Members have made. I should declare my interest as a member of the Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Public Bill Committee. We spend very pleasant Wednesday mornings in Committee Room 11, where civilised discussions take place between the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan), myself and the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) for the Scottish National party. We gambol around the issues as far as we are able to, staying in order of the motion to adjourn. It is certainly not purgatory.
I will repeat, albeit at greater length, what I said in an intervention on the shadow Leader of the House, the hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz). We have received a message from the Boundary Commission for England. I received it as a Member representing an English seat, and I presume that the other boundary commissions will write to Members who represent other parts of the United Kingdom, if they have not already, to confirm the process that they have undertaken. The Boundary Commission for England carried out a consultation that was widely publicised. It received more than 35,000 individual responses, which represents a great deal of interest from members of the public. The commission has confirmed that it will report its recommendations to the Leader of the House on or shortly before 5 September to give her the opportunity to lay the report in Parliament before the conference recess. I raise that point because it sits squarely with the timing issue.
I listened carefully to the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), but I have to confess that even when I was the Minister taking through the Bill that became the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011, I was not overrun by constituents grabbing me to discuss the finer details of that legislation. Clearly his constituents are different, taking a massive interest in these constitutional matters, but it was not my experience that people were hanging on to every detail of such matters.
Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank my near neighbour for giving way. If his constituency was emasculated, as mine was, a different number of issues might have been raised by those said constituents.
Mr Harper
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, but the point about the Boundary Commission review is that there has been clear public consultation, with 35,000 responses from participants, meaning that this was a democratic process. The Boundary Commission has undertaken a clear process in coming to its conclusions.
People outside the House may think that September is a long way away, but it is only four full sitting weeks away, so it is sensible that we do what the Government suggest and wait for the Boundary Commission reports to be produced, for the Government to have an opportunity to introduces Orders in Council, and for the House to make a decision. I listened carefully to the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire, who did not take an intervention from me, but he was factually wrong in saying that a motion in the House should trump what the boundary commissions are doing. I fundamentally disagree, because the commissions obey an Act of Parliament—the law of the land passed by both Houses of Parliament. I know that he does not accept the other end of the building as a legitimate part of Parliament, but it is until that is changed. Parliament passed an Act and that is the law of the land. That is what the boundary commissions are following, and a motion of the House does not trump an Act of Parliament; only another Act of Parliament can trump it. Fundamentally, I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman’s premise.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle
Is not the point that a previous Parliament, which does not bind this Parliament, passed a set of guidelines for the Boundary Commission that this Parliament thinks were not accurate and do not take in the right detail, and that that has bound the hands of the Boundary Commission? We are not complaining about the work of the Boundary Commission but, unfortunately, about the work of a previous Parliament. This Parliament, which is not bound by that Parliament, has agreed that a Bill that would change those requirements should go into Committee. All that we are asking for is a consideration of this Parliament’s views.
Mr Harper
I listened carefully to the hon. Gentleman, but he is not right. The previous Parliament passed an Act that remains the law until another piece of legislation changes it. That has not happened. A motion in the House has not in itself changed the law. I shall come on to the point about process.
Mr Harper
If my right hon. Friend will forgive me, I will make a little process because I am mindful of Madam Deputy Speaker’s injunction about trying to keep our remarks to nine minutes.
I want to gambol through some of the points made by the shadow Leader of the House, including what she said about numbers. As the Minister who introduced the original legislation, may I say that there is nothing magical about 600? I was asked the question at the time, and it was a manifesto commitment when we were elected in 2010 that we would reduce the size of the House to save money. It was a reduction of about 10%, but we settled on a sensible number rather than a random one. There was nothing magical about it. There was a huge suspicion among Opposition Members that that was some magical number with magical properties. It was not—it was a round number that was significantly lower than 650. The reduction would save a significant amount of money, but there was nothing particularly suspicious about the number.
The shadow Leader of the House mentioned the Opposition’s wish to move from boundary reviews every five years to every 10 years. There was a specific reason why we went for five. There is a choice to be made. My own view is that we can either have infrequent boundary reviews, which will be significant, because there will be a lot of population movement in between, or we can have more frequent boundary reviews which, by virtue of that fact, will be less disruptive because they take lesser population shifts into account. The decision made by the last but one Parliament was to have more frequent boundary reviews that individually would be less disruptive. Of course, the first one—particularly if moving from 650 Members to 600, and if there has not been one for 20 years—is clearly disruptive, but once that has taken place, subsequent reviews will be less disruptive. There is much to recommend in that approach.
Mr Harper
I took a lengthy intervention from the hon. Gentleman, so I will make a little progress.
The issue of the so-called missing voters was raised by the hon. Member for Walsall South and in a couple of interventions, including from the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith). Matt Singh from Number Cruncher Politics has done a significant piece of work on this, which was also validated by the Library. There would be an issue if the distribution of new voters who are not on the register used for the current boundary review was significantly different across the country. However, analysis shows that the distribution of new voters on the electoral roll is broadly consistent with the distribution of those on the existing registers. In other words, although the absolute number of voters is different, those voters are not significantly differently distributed across the country, which means that they will not make a material difference to the distribution of constituencies.
It is worth pointing out that we have to carry out a review and draw a line somewhere, and that as soon as we start a review, it will effectively be out of date. The Bill promoted by the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton refers to the register for the 2017 general election. That is already out of date because there has been another one. If we take his logic, we will never have a boundary review, because every time we start, a new register arrives and is out of date.
Mr Ivan Lewis (Bury South) (Ind)
Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that the new legislation to which he referred made it far more difficult for young people to register? That legislation was passed under a coalition Government. One party in that coalition supported an increase in tuition fees having promised that there would be no fees, and the other party knew that its support among young people was minimal to say the least.
Mr Harper
I do not agree with that at all. I would argue that the individual electoral registration system that we introduced, which addressed the accuracy and completeness of the register, as well as the fact that we enabled online registration made it much easier for people to register to vote. The vast majority of people who register now do so online, using a very straightforward piece of software that is particularly attractive to younger people. Before each of the last significant electoral events—the European Union referendum and the 2017 general election—significant numbers of people, particularly young people, seemed to have no trouble registering to vote.
I am mindful of your injunction, Madam Deputy Speaker. Given that I have taken a number of interventions, let me make my final argument for why the House should reject the motion and what we should do instead. The right way to proceed would be to allow the boundary commissioners to report. The Leader of the House could then consider those reports, bring forward Orders in Council and allow the House to take a decision. If the House decides to accept the Orders in Council, we are done. The boundary review will have been accepted, we will have new boundaries and the problem will be sorted out.
If, for some reason, the House chooses not to do that, there will be a debate about those Orders in Council and the Leader of the House will be able to reflect on that debate. If the Government decide to table a money resolution, we can then consider the Bill promoted by the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton in the light of that debate, but with one significant change. This is a constitutional measure. When the original legislation was taken through Parliament, it was considered in Committee on the Floor of the House, rather than by a Bill Committee upstairs, meaning that every Member from every part of the United Kingdom could take part.
We should allow such a debate to take place. If the House does not support the boundary reviews and decides that it wants a money resolution and to proceed with the Bill, it should be considered on the Floor of the House so that every Member can contribute, rather than in Public Bill Committee. That is why we should wait. We should look at the results of the boundary review and allow the Government to reflect on the debate that will take place, and if the House chooses not to adopt the proposals, we can then proceed on a more sensible basis. That is why it makes sense to follow the Leader of the House’s arguments, to reject the motion, and to allow the House to consider the boundary commissions’ reports in the usual way.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. Just before I call the next speaker, let me be clear. When I said everybody could take nine minutes, that does include interventions. Otherwise, I will have to impose a time limit.
Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)
We can all agree that boundary changes are needed. Our current boundaries are based on an electoral register that is 18 years old. There is, however, a question as to how we go about it. We have a boundary review going on at the moment, which is due to report to Parliament in September. The 2017 election gave us a minority Government who have spent the past year hobbling from week to week trying to keep themselves together. This weak Government do not have the support to win a vote in the autumn and push through controversial constitutional changes. The Tory-dominated Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee said as much in its recent report. It concluded that the Government “cannot be confident” that the House of Commons will support the implementation of the Boundary Commission’s proposals when they come before us in the autumn.
The question we are faced with now is this: do we let the Government continue in their delusion that if they put off addressing the issue until the autumn the enormous opposition to the current review will magically melt away, or do we deal with reality and put in place a realistic cross-party compromise that delivers new boundaries before the next election? My private Member’s Bill is a serious attempt at the second option, but it has been frustrated by the Government’s procedural manoeuvrings.
My Bill does three major things. First, it retains the 650 MPs we have at the moment. Secondly, it provides for boundary reviews every 10 years. Thirdly, it ensures that the 2 million people who have registered to vote since 2015 have their voices heard in the boundary review. The referendum and 2017 general election saw huge surges in voter participation, primarily among young people. I am passionate that they should be represented in the boundaries that will shape the result of future elections, but the Government are not interested in encouraging participation in our democracy. Recent voter ID pilots disenfranchised legitimate voters, many of whom already faced barriers to democratic engagement. All the while, the Government have been padding out the unelected House of Lords to avoid defeat on proposed Brexit legislation.
Mr Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his Bill. I think it does have some good points. First, on voter ID, in my Woking constituency the turnout actually increased and we had very strict voter ID in place. Secondly, I would like to ask him a question. During all the years the Labour party was in power over the past 40 or 50 years, was there any occasion when it supported a private Member’s Bill on a constitutional or parliamentary boundary issue from a Member of the main Opposition, or, if it passed Second Reading, gave it a money resolution? Any Bill at all over the past 50 years?
Afzal Khan
I am not sure how relevant that is to this discussion, but I am a new Member and I do not know the whole history.
The Government are happy to increase the size of the unelected Chamber, at greater cost to the public purse, while cutting the elected side and discouraging participation in what goes on here.
On the money resolution, many people are put off getting involved in politics and Parliament because it is so difficult to understand what goes on here. The private Members’ Bill process is arguably the worst culprit. The process is clearly broken. The public were rightly outraged by how easily the upskirting Bill was blocked last week, even when it had the support of the Government. Similarly outrageous is how easily the Government can block a private Member’s Bill, even when it commands overwhelming cross-party support. Today marks 200 days since my Bill passed its Second Reading unanimously. Our Committee has so far met five times. We have had discussions about money resolutions, the financial sovereignty of the Crown, “Erskine May” and the Bishop of Chester, but we have not yet discussed a single line of the Bill.
Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point about the difficulty of getting private Members’ Bills through. I will have a private Member’s Bill on 23 November—it is No. 21 of 23, with the House set to sit for only five and a half hours. There is absolutely no chance of the Bill being debated and we will then be in a situation where it has to come back another time. Is one of the solutions to have more sitting Fridays for private Members’ Bills to allow more time for them to become law?
Afzal Khan
I would be quite happy if the House decided to have more Friday sittings.
I never expected to become an expert in such a narrow aspect of parliamentary procedure, but unfortunately I have spent the last few months reading up on money resolutions, rather than working towards a compromise on boundaries. I have learned that there is a clear parliamentary convention that the Government bring a money resolution after Second Reading of a private member’s Bill. In 2015, a Government Minister reaffirmed this, saying that
“once the House has given a private Member’s Bill a Second Reading, the convention is that the Government, even when they robustly oppose it, always table a money resolution”.—[Official Report, 3 November 2015; Vol. 601, c. 926.]
Since their devastating failure at the general election, the Government have gone against their words. Despite money resolutions having been tabled for many Bills further behind in the queue, none has been forthcoming for this Bill. Too weak to defeat my Bill on a vote, the Government are hiding behind procedure. With complete disregard for democracy, this minority Government are abusing their Executive power to defy the will of the House. We have had business questions, points of order, an urgent question and an emergency debate on this already. These have surprised even me by the extent of cross-party agreement. Opposition parties were united in calling on the Government to table a money resolution. Conservative Back Benchers were lining up to condemn their own Ministers.
It is a shame that we have been pushed to table this motion today. It would be much better for the Government to respect procedure, the will of the House and the will of their party, and bring forward a money resolution, but, given the Government’s continued refusal, we have been forced into this position. The Government’s time is up; we must make progress on this important Bill. To honour the conventions of the House and the will of Parliament, Members must support this motion.
Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)
I find myself in an unusual position today, because it is a matter of record that I very much support the aims of this private Member’s Bill, but I am very concerned that the motion before the House sets a dangerous precedent that undermines the role of the Government and the Executive. We have heard a lot today about the respective roles of Parliament and the Executive, and it is very important that we understand and uphold the convention of that separation of powers and that those roles are understood and maintained. I may return to that point in a minute.
I do not believe that now is the right time to be cutting 50 Members of this House. I understand the reasons why the coalition Government made that decision. At the time, I was not a Member and I did not think that it was the right thing to do, but I understood why the decision was made. However, the fact is that the world has changed since that Bill was passed. We are leaving the EU. We will be losing 73 Members of the European Parliament and all their work—I understand that we could have a debate about how much work MEPs actually do—will be coming to this place. Therefore, I do not believe that it is a sensible move to reduce the democratic representation in this House by cutting the number of MPs. That is my position.
If we want to cut the size of Parliament, let us start by cutting the number of Members of the upper Chamber. That is where I would begin.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
I agree with my hon. Friend’s arguments, but I also think my right hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire West has found a good way forward. If we act in accordance with his suggestion, we could satisfy both courts.
Steve Double
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who has jumped straight to the conclusion of my speech. I will come to that point in a moment.
This is very much a local issue for me as a Cornish Member.
Nick Smith
I want to take up the point made by the right hon. Member for Gloucestershire West when he said the then Government were trying to bring down the cost of politics by reducing the number of MPs from 650 to 600. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that that argument is undermined by the fact that since 2010 more than 200 new peers have been created?
Steve Double
I understand that point.
In Cornwall, the proposed new boundaries will result in a cross-border seat between Cornwall and Devon. In many parts of the country, people might not understand why that is such a big deal, but it is felt very strongly in Cornwall, and is felt even more strongly now, because in 2014 the Government recognised the Cornish as a national minority under the framework convention of the Council of Europe, saying that doing so would afford the Cornish the same recognition as that enjoyed by the other Celtic peoples of the United Kingdom—the Scottish, the Welsh and the Irish—and no one would entertain a cross-border seat between Wales and England or Scotland and England.
Given the protection the Cornish now enjoy under the framework convention, I believe it was fundamentally wrong to have proposed this cross-border seat. If his Bill proceeds, I would ask the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) to consider a protection for Cornwall like that provided for Northern Ireland, so that the six Cornish seats might be protected and maintained in recognition of the minority status the Cornish now enjoy.
Mr Harper
I wish to make a public service announcement, Madam Deputy Speaker. In case other hon. Members wish to make interventions referring to me, I wish to let them know that my constituency is the Forest of Dean, not West Gloucestershire. It could possibly become West Gloucestershire if the current Boundary Commission proposals are voted in, but at the moment it is the Forest of Dean, and very proudly so.
Emma Hardy
The hon. Gentleman has my full sympathy when he talks about constituencies crossing boundaries. It might sound like a joke to Members, but the fact that the new constituency boundaries would cross over from east Hull into west Hull is felt very deeply by people in my area. There is a strong and long-standing division between the east and the west, yet the new boundaries would take a lump out of west Hull and add it to east Hull. The proposals do not respect the traditional areas.
Steve Double
I would not dare to comment on the sensitivities of Hull, but the hon. Lady has made her point very well.
As I said earlier, we have today discussed the role of the Executive in Parliament, but fundamentally it is the responsibility of Parliament to decide how many Members there should be. It would be wrong for the Executive to try to force through a cut when the new number does not enjoy the support of a majority in the House. It would be undemocratic. I accept the point that a Bill was passed in a previous Parliament to cut the number, but that should not be imposed on the House in the current circumstances. I ask the Government to consider allowing Members a free vote when the boundary proposals are brought before the House, so that we can express our views free from the Whips and look to our consciences in deciding whether this is right for our nation. It would be the right thing for the Government do.
Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)
I hope that my hon. Friend will agree that his point about Cornwall is shared in Wales, where the proposal is to reduce the number of seats from 40 to 29, which arguably would shift power from Westminster to Cardiff and so have significant consequences for devolution. The situation in Wales is similar to that in the constituency of the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy). Under the new proposals, there are seats where people cannot get from one end of the constituency to the other without driving through two others on route. Does he accept that this is not a desirable proposition?
Steve Double
The boundary proposals throw up many anomalies in various parts of the country, which, in my view, are very unhelpful and, in certain cases, unacceptable. That is why I think that it would be right to reconsider the proposals.
I will not support the motion, because I believe that it is the wrong way to address this issue. Although I support the Bill, I believe that passing the motion would undermine the Government’s role, for all the reasons that have already been given today. I am content to wait, as the Government propose, to allow the new boundaries to be discussed in the House and for us then to take a view.
If there is a majority in favour of the boundaries, so be it—I will have to accept that—but my hunch is that there will not be. If the House accordingly rejects them, one way to deal with that is to pass the money resolution, and we can then consider the Bill on that basis. I would prefer us not to have to go through all that, but I accept that the right way for the House to address the issue is to allow matters to take their course on that basis. Let us see what people’s views are at the time, and then decide how to proceed. If the private Member’s Bill does make progress, however, it will have my wholehearted support.
Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)
Before addressing the specifics of the motion, let me make a general point. I have no problem at all with the argument that constituencies should be of equal size. My concern relates far more to the fact that the Government are proposing that we reduce the number from 650 to 600, which is a completely arbitrary figure pulled, essentially, out of thin air.
Let us get one thing straight. The Government’s arguments for that reduction are completely spurious. They talk about the cost of politics, but we are already set to lose 73 Members of the European Parliament, which will deprive the public of the representation that they provide; and, of course, they are more than happy to continue stuffing the House of Lords to the brim. The whole process is, in essence, a bare-faced gerrymander.
Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)
Has my hon. Friend observed that there has been absolutely no word from the Government that they intend to cut the number of Ministers? What they are actually doing is proportionately increasing the size of the Executive as well.
Stephen Kinnock
My hon. Friend is clearly psychic, because that is precisely the point that I was about to make. The ratio between Front-Bench and Back-Bench MPs is, in terms of balance, vital to the way in which our democracy works. Back Benchers play a critical role in holding the Government to account. The fewer of them we have, in whichever party happens to be in power, the fewer are able to fulfil their public duty, and that will reduce, critically, the amount of scrutiny that is given to vitally important issues. Arguably the most important issue that our country has faced since the second world war is coming towards us, so the House will have an increased workload, and the role of Back Benchers in holding the Executive to account will become even more important. Workloads will increase for not only for Westminster, but for Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast.
There is also a compelling constituency reason to undermine the argument for reducing the number from 650 to 600. There is real concern about the impact of the reduction on the social and cultural dynamics of each constituency. It is crucial for MPs to represent areas with natural communities and shared interests.
Emma Hardy
I made a point earlier about Hull East and Hull West. There is also a proud fishing tradition among the Hessle Road community in Hull, which goes back for years. The new boundary will divide that community—a community that has existed for hundreds of years. Does my hon. Friend agree that that should be looked at again?
Stephen Kinnock
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. Some absurd things are being thrown up by this review. For example, in my constituency the proposal was to have a boundary line which separated the shopping centre from the high street. It is utterly absurd and ludicrous.
The fact is that wherever we draw the line on a map when driven by a rigid mathematical equation we carve up communities, force unnatural alliances and throw communities together in ways that do not make sense and that end up deeply alienating the people we are elected to represent.
Rachel Maclean
The hon. Gentleman is right to identify these critical issues that affect communities all over the country, as Members on both sides of the House have done, but does he not agree that this is precisely why the Boundary Commission is doing its work, during which he and all of us, and members of the public, have had the opportunity to put forward precisely such views, which the commission will consider and then produce proposals?
Stephen Kinnock
The fundamental problem with the logic of the hon. Lady’s argument is that this is about the terms of reference that the commission was given: it was given terms of reference based on 600 and on a very narrow quota of 5%. Based on that, the Boundary Commission had its hands tied and inevitably was going to end up with some of the completely absurd proposals we have seen.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle
Does my hon. Friend also agree with the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee in the previous Parliament, which said that the changes every five years will mean there is great disruption for communities meaning that they never settle down? It will also cost the Exchequer more because there is a five-year rotation. The Bill’s proposal would change that to 10 years, provide safety and security for communities to build, and save the Exchequer money.
Stephen Kinnock
I agree with my hon. Friend. It provides that stability and continuity and also, given the 7.5% quota, the changes would not be that radical even on a 10-year basis, so it is an incremental change.
Why are the Government ploughing ahead? The bottom line is that the entire boundary review process has been a bare-faced gerrymander, and that is combined with the use of procedural devices and backstairs manoeuvring to block the will of the House. That is further evidence of the Government’s willingness to abuse the power vested in the them. The Procedure Committee’s 2013 report concluded:
“Government policy is not to refuse a money or ways and means resolution to a bill which has passed second reading.”
The view of the Procedure Committee must be paramount in this case.
The Government clearly have no respect for this House or our democracy more widely: first, there was their £1 billion bribe to the Democratic Unionist party and now there is this. My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan), who unfortunately is not in his place now, is therefore absolutely right to push the Government to do right by our democracy and to bring forward his Bill.
It is essential that 2.1 million new voters are heard. It is essential that my constituents and many of the constituents across this House are fairly and properly represented. And it is essential that this Government are prevented from riding roughshod over our democracy.
Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), although I will be taking issue with some of the more lurid assertions he made in his speech.
I recognise the importance of this issue. I started my political career canvassing in 2009-10 and I vividly remember the expenses scandal and the anger of our constituents and voters on the doorstep. I remember, too, the calls at that time to reform this House and to look at some of these very important issues. It is therefore right that the Government at that time kicked off this process: they appointed the Boundary Commission and set about this important work as part of the wider work to reform politics and cut the cost of politics and bring transparency and decency back into this place. However, I have trouble with, and cannot agree with, some of the arguments that have been advanced in today’s debate. The debate seems to be based on a suggestion that the Boundary Commission’s original terms of reference were flawed—
Rachel Maclean
We have heard that a few times. Of course, I was not here at that time, but in my opinion, the arguments that have been brought forward today do not stack up. Did someone want to intervene on me?
Sir Desmond Swayne
I’ll have a go! The issue before us is that private Members’ Bills are determined by a queue which is the result of a ballot. The Government are accused of manipulating the queue by withholding money resolutions. Interestingly, what happened last Friday was an attempt by the Government to manipulate the queue by taking a Bill that was No. 8 and getting it a Second Reading on the nod, and my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) has attracted universal opprobrium for preventing that. That is the irony.
Rachel Maclean
Well, I think “Follow that if you dare” is an apposite comment. I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention, and I will proceed with my remarks.
The hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) is not in his place at the moment, but he is an honourable man and I respect his campaign on this issue. Of course he has garnered a lot of sympathy across the House. We have heard about the issues that our constituents have with boundaries, and they are valid concerns. It is right that we should be airing them in this House. However, the assertion seems to be that this private Member’s Bill is the best way of dealing with those issues, and I do not agree with that.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle
The hon. Lady says that she does not understand the flaws of the previous Bill. The only way to correct the flaws of a previous Bill is to bring forward an alternative Bill. Surely, taking figures not from an election but from a lull period in the electoral register, reducing the number of seats and not allowing the Boundary Commission to take into account census figures, demographics, community boundaries and county boundaries are all reasons why—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. Interventions need to be brief. There are plenty of people waiting to speak, and it is not fair if interventions are too long.
Rachel Maclean
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. It is not that I do not understand; it is that I do not agree. Those are two different things.
We have here an assertion that a private Member’s Bill, which was debated on a Friday, can better reflect this very serious issue than the Boundary Commission itself. The Boundary Commission has carried out thousands of hours of investigation and heard submissions from members of the public up and down the country. It has given all our constituents an opportunity to have an input on these important issues. That is the way to do democracy, and that is the way to deal with this important issue.
Steve Double
I am listening carefully to my hon. Friend, and she is making some very good points. On that last point, the overwhelming majority of the thousands of people in Cornwall who submitted representations to the Boundary Commission do not want a cross-border seat. However, the legislation as it stands does not allow for there not to be such a seat; there has to be one. The views of local people cannot be taken into consideration because the legislation does not allow it.
Rachel Maclean
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I would not dare to comment on the sensitivities of Cornwall and Devon, but I am sure that his comments have been heard and that they are very valid. He made some good suggestions in his speech about how to proceed—or possibly it was my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper). There have been some very good suggestions from people who are much more expert on this topic than me, and I think we should go further with those.
I would like to address the point about the lack of an ability for voters to register. That argument seems to have been used several times to suggest that we should stop the Boundary Commission’s work or that it is flawed, but this issue is always going to exist. However, we have recently seen some excellent work by the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith), who has brought forward a number of successful initiatives. Government money has been committed in order to get more voters on to the register, with hugely successful results. Surely this is the right way to tackle this issue. We need to look carefully at what is preventing voters from registering, and to make it easier for them. It is now possible to register online, for example, and I welcome that.
The work is bearing fruit, and it is the way to tackle the issue, rather than bringing forward private Members’ Bills to undermine something that has been going through Parliament for some considerable time. It seems that we are tying ourselves up in knots. My constituents would be surprised to hear that the Government are accused of gerrymandering or trying to undermine democracy when they have seen, week after week, attempts by Opposition Members to undermine Brexit—the biggest democratic expression of will that this country has ever seen.
I reject the assertion that has been levelled at the Government and the Conservative Members. Democracy needs to work through this process. Members have made many sensible suggestions as to how sensible concerns can be taken on board, but if we allowed today’s motion to pass, that would be an abuse of process and would set a dangerous precedent that I do not support. I will therefore not be voting for the motion today.
Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)
I hear what the hon. Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean) says, but I do not agree with her. However, I do agree with the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double). The problem is that the House needs an early indication from the Government of what they propose to do with the boundary review’s proposal, as laid by the Government, to reduce the number of MPs from 650 to 600.
I know that enough Conservatives feel unhappy with what the proposal implies. It was always going to be controversial, notwithstanding the fact that the Government thought that they had the majority of the House behind them. My contribution will be short, because I just want the Government to test the will of the House to see whether they have the support to reduce the number of MPs to 600. I do not believe that they have that support. It would be much better to clear that matter out of the way and avoid the boundary commissions ending up in a stramash, with them feeling that they have wasted a lot of time in trying to take forward something that is unacceptable to the House. I hope that they will be able to start again and carry out a process that they would find a lot easier without being under the imprimatur of having to reduce the number of MPs by a ridiculous amount.
The boundary review could not achieve the 600 figure without doing things to my seat and to that of the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay whereby we would end up with something that is fundamentally flawed. The House has always understood that the constituencies are based on not just number, but location.
Steve Double
I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s comments. I used to feel very much like him, but does he agree that we are now so close to the boundary commissions’ reports—only four sitting weeks—that we as may well wait? Voting on the commissions’ submissions will be the test that he talks about.
Dr Drew
That might well be true but, to be fair, the boundary commissions must to some extent try to pre-empt things and read into what has happened in successive debates and discussions—not necessarily just in the Chamber, but as result of what has happened in the Chamber. We should have an early vote and clear away some of the unnecessary disagreement.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) said, this is entirely based on the idea that we can just chop 50 people out of this House without making a difference, but that is fundamentally flawed. This is either gerrymandering for party political advantage or it is just about cost saving. As I said on Monday, the easiest way to save costs would be to get rid of the other place. That might be controversial, but it would be more democratically acceptable to many of our constituents who feel that this primary Chamber should be protected. Some of our constituents will unfairly end up in a constituency that they do not know, despite coming from one in which they had at least some idea of what the location meant, with the knowledge of who their MP was and that they could feel some confidence in them.
Let us get on with it and have an early vote, let us dump the notion that we can just chop 50 MPs, and let us go back to 650 MPs. We can then move forward. Whether we do that through the Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) or some other device, let us do it. That is the fair approach, and I think it is what the vast majority of our constituents want.
I hope that the Government will take notice and that we can have a clear system in which we stick to 650 MPs, with constituency boundaries that mean something, rather than what we would end up with if we went to 600 MPs. I think that everyone would be largely satisfied with that.
Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to take part in the debate and to follow the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Drew). He said that he agreed with my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double). If he follows my hon. Friend’s arguments exactly, he will be voting with the Government in the Lobby, so I look forward to seeing whether he agrees or not.
I have taken a keen interest in private Members’ Bills in my short time in the House. Some have accused me of taking a rather curious interest, but I blame my hon. Friends the Members for Torbay (Kevin Foster) and for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), neither of whom is able to speak in the debate because of their other duties.
My hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills promoted the NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Act 2016—Peter Pan and Wendy’s Bill—which was the first private Member’s Bill in which I participated on a Friday. I have successfully taken a presentation Bill, the Road Traffic Offenders (Surrender of Driving Licences Etc) Bill, through Second Reading and Committee, only for it to be objected to on Third Reading. Yes, there was a lone voice of objection, but it was not the voice of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope); it was another Member. I will return to that procedure in due course.
I entirely understand the passion of the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) and his concern for piloting his Bill through this place. Taking legislation through the House is a difficult and treacherous business, and perhaps it should be, because surely it should not be easy to place legislation on the statute book. The one consolation of losing my private Member’s Bill was that it would not have succeeded in any event, because a general election got in the way, although of course that is rather cold comfort.
The motion does not touch on the merits of the boundary changes, but it is important that I express my view, as other hon. Members have done, because it seems beyond argument that there should be an equalisation of the number of constituents in each constituency. Doubtless there will be exceptions from the south to the north, and both my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Seely) and the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil) would argue passionately for why their constituency should be of a different size.
At the moment, for example, we have Arfon, a constituency of about 41,000, whereas North West Cambridgeshire has more than 93,000 electors. I have an electorate of 65,000, and also in my county is the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin), which has an electorate of over 82,000. My other hon. Friends in Dorset have electorates ranging between 72,000 and 75,000. They may well think that I have an easy time of it and am slightly less busy than they are. I, of course, would argue that that is not the case, but there is a point about reorganising the boundaries to equalise the electorates.
Dorset, not unlike Cornwall and other areas, presents challenges. On the current iteration of the proposals, there will be a cross-county seat and we will lose a Member of Parliament. Be that as it may, I firmly believe that reorganisation and the equalisation of constituencies is beyond argument.
I have a novel point to make, which is not always possible for the last Government Back Bencher to speak. G. K. Chesterton is not quoted often enough in this place, and I think that I have time to read out the full principle of Chesterton’s fence—the principle that reforms should not be made until the reasoning behind the existing state of affairs is properly understood. I will quote this section in full:
“There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, ‘I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.’ To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: ‘If you don’t see the use of it…Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.’”
We would be well advised to take advice from that principle in this case, in two respects. The first is in relation to private Members’ Bills when one Member objects; the second is in relation to the financial privilege afforded to the Government of the day.
I was bitterly disappointed, of course, when my Bill was objected to by just one Member—I repeat that it was not my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch. When that procedure was raised in a point of order by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), Mr Speaker rightly noted that a single voice objecting to a Bill does not count just on a Friday. He said:
“I should point out, in fairness and for accuracy, so that no one is misled, that the rule about a single objection applies similarly to any other business before the House after the moment of interruption. —[Official Report, 18 June 2018; Vol. 643, c. 50.]
He then referred to Standing Order No. 9(6).
Before we look at procedures and say, “Let’s just get rid of that,” we should first look at what their purpose is, and then at whether they serve that purpose and, if not, how we should reform them. On reform, the second area to which all this applies is the financial privilege afforded to the Government of the day, whereby there is a clear constitutional right to initiate financial resolutions. That is my novel point: Chesterton’s fence, which should be spoken about more often. Perhaps Chesterton should also be quoted more widely in such debates.
Mr Harper
My hon. Friend’s point about objections relates to my point about the proper consideration of the Bill. One reason why we should not accept the motion is because this is a constitutional matter. If we were to proceed with the Bill’s Committee stage, that should be done not upstairs, where only a relatively small number of Members are able to participate, but on the Floor of the House. However, that should not happen until we have had chance to consider the boundary review proposals.
Michael Tomlinson
As so often, I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. What he says is right, and it links to my initial point that it should not be easy for us to make laws in this place—there should be challenge and full debate, both on Second Reading and in Committee.
We should look forward to the Boundary Commission bringing back its proposals. My right hon. Friend made another astute point when he said that that is only four sitting weeks away. We can wait that long for the commission to bring back its proposals so that they can be introduced and debated in this place. Let us then see what the consequences of that are. It would be rash and foolish—it is too soon—to support the motion today, and I will not be doing so.
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson), who recited G. K. Chesterton —that is a new one and I might try it tomorrow in the Public Bill Committee. I have the distinct pleasure of leading on this Bill for the Scottish National party. Although I am thoroughly enjoying our standing engagement to meet on a Wednesday morning to discuss a motion to adjourn, I really think it would be better for the Committee to move on to discuss the substance of the Bill brought forward by the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan).
The House will recall that this Bill was given a Second Reading, unanimously, on 1 December 2017, after the Government’s attempts to defeat the closure motion were voted down by 229 votes to 44. Hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole, will talk about how we have to wait only four sitting weeks, but they do not mention that this Bill passed its Second Reading last year. Frustratingly, it then took some 159 days to establish the Bill Committee, which has met on five or six occasions now. As you will know, Madam Deputy Speaker, the job of the Bill Committee is to scrutinise the proposed legislation clause by clause, line by line and, if necessary, to scrutinise any competent amendments.
As I set out on 1 December last year, the SNP broadly supports this Bill. However, it is not a perfect Bill and I am seeking to amend it in one specific regard. We certainly welcome the relaxation of requirements so that the electorate per constituency has to be to within 7.5% of the electoral quota to preserve local representation. However, I am concerned that the Bill contains a provision in clause 1 for a fixed number of MPs for Northern Ireland but not for Scotland. I shall certainly seek to table amendments to that effect in Committee but, of course, I am currently prohibited from doing so because the Government have not granted a money resolution. That is troubling, because when he gave evidence to the Procedure Committee in 2013, the then Leader of the House of Commons, Andrew Lansley, said:
“To my knowledge, Government has provided the money resolutions…whenever we have been asked to do so.”
A 2013 report by the Procedure Committee, of which I am a proud member, concluded:
“Government policy is not to refuse a money or ways and means resolution to a bill which has passed second reading.”
I understand that Conservative party policy is to cut the number of MPs to 600, and I am not questioning the Conservatives’ entitlement to hold that legitimate view, but we all know that there is a parliamentary majority in the House for retaining 650 MPs while committing to review what I accept are old boundaries. The current boundaries came into force when I was 11 years old and I am now 28. I do not think any of us contest the need to look at the boundaries again, but we do contest the concept of reducing the number of MPs from 650 to 600.
Trying to kill the Bill in Committee by grinding Members into submission or holding up the parliamentary process is not clever, and nor do I believe that it will actually work.
Michael Tomlinson
Will the hon. Gentleman accept that the Government are not trying to kill the Bill? As the Leader of the House set out clearly in her speech, we are waiting for the boundary commissions to come back in four short weeks. Thereafter, we will consider the Bill’s position. We are not trying to kill the Bill; we are waiting.
David Linden
No, the Government have essentially treated the Bill like the bins: they have put it outside and are waiting for it to fester. We all believe that Parliament is taking back control—that we are leaving the European Union and this is going to be a sovereign Parliament. On 1 December last year, Parliament gave the Bill its Second Reading and the House resolved that it should go into Committee. That is the issue. It is not for the Government to decide that they are just going to leave it there in some sort of political purgatory. That is the fundamental point.
Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)
I serve on the Procedure Committee with the hon. Gentleman and am always interested in what he has to say. He is making an interesting case, but is he against the idea of reducing the House’s size from 650 to 600 MPs? That is one of the two issues that really ought to be considered today.
David Linden
I fundamentally object to the number of MPs being cut from 650 to 600. My view is that we could cut 59 MPs from this Chamber by Scotland being independent, but until such a time as the people of Scotland vote for that in a democratic referendum, I believe that this House, which is taking back lots of powers from the European Union, should have MPs who are able to scrutinise the Government.
I am mindful that the terms of the motion do not allow for a rehash of last year’s Second Reading debate, and nor is it about the general principles of the Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill. The motion before us seeks the leave of the House to permit the Bill Committee to move from parliamentary purgatory to legislative scrutiny. Arguably, the motion is perhaps not the sexiest that the House has ever considered, although perhaps I think it is: right hon. and hon. Members will see that it is largely procedural. I must confess that when I saw the motion on the Order Paper, my initial reaction was to lament how disappointing it is that rarely allocated Opposition slots are being taken up to unblock the logjam of Back-Bench Bills, but the reality is that the Government have caused this problem.
Now, more than ever, Westminster has become a place of limited democracy, as perhaps best exemplified by the utterly broken private Member’s Bill system. On a point of principle, I fundamentally disagree with the notion that the main way for Back-Bench MPs to introduce Bills is via a lottery or a ballot. I have more chance of winning a raffle at the Garrowhill Primary School fair than I do of being able to introduce a private Member’s Bill through the route available.
Michael Tomlinson
The hon. Gentleman could always do what I did and queue up for the chance to introduce a presentation Bill. He would then have the opportunity to get his own Bill on the statute, as well. Many Members from different parties have followed the procedure.
David Linden
The hon. Gentleman is right, but the presentation Bill that he queued to introduce under Standing Order No. 57 was defeated—it was objected to —so there was not actually a way to get it on the statute book.
I do not agree with some of the tactics deployed, when it suits them, by what some in this place have dubbed “the awkward squad”. Over the weekend, the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) rightly found himself the centre of what I can only presume was much wanted public attention, after he objected to necessary English legislation introduced by the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) that would stop perverts taking photos up ladies’ skirts. The hon. Member for Christchurch appears to have a long-standing, albeit selective, view that private Members’ Bills should not receive parliamentary approval. I must confess that I was somewhat surprised when the House considered the Health and Social Care (National Data Guardian) Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone). During exceptionally short proceedings, the hon. Member for Christchurch did not object to the money resolution that evening, and I see that the Bill, which was 92nd in the queue for this Session, has now reached Report stage.
Perversely, Bills that have passed Second Reading on sitting Fridays but do not have the support of the Government have been kicked into the parliamentary purgatory that is Public Bill Committees. Indeed, some have not even got that far. The UK Government have failed to heed calls for reforms of the private Member’s Bill process, and now they break their own conventions and ignore the will of Parliament. The Procedure Committee issued reports calling for major changes to the process in September 2013, March 2014, September 2015, April 2016 and October 2016. I certainly hope that the Procedure Committee will hold another inquiry very soon. Their changes have largely been ignored by the Government. They have noted that the procedures
“disenfranchise Members who may wish to support a bill being promoted by a colleague and are misleading to the public and to the interest groups who seek to use it to advance legislative change”.
The problem is that this is a Government who are still acting as though they have a parliamentary majority. They do not appear to engage properly in Opposition day debates, and they certainly do not vote in the vast majority of them. If the House divides this evening, I will be very interested to see whether the Government take part. They have stuffed the Standing Committees of this House with a majority of their Members, even though they are a minority Government. They have done their level best to ensure that the Democratic Unionist party has been given £1 billion to ensure that some of their legislation gets through; and they have dealt with private Members’ Bills in a way that is exactly consistent with that approach.
Mr Harper
The hon. Gentleman and I enjoy our sparring on Wednesday mornings, and I look forward to doing so again tomorrow. I have just a couple of points to make. First, the Democratic Unionist party has not been given a single penny. That money is for the people of Northern Ireland, and it is important to make that point. Secondly, the House decided the composition of Public Bill Committees, not the Government.
David Linden
We all remember the photographs of the former Government Chief Whip, the Prime Minister and the leader of the Democratic Unionist party. I don’t know; maybe it was a coincidence that it was announced that £1 billion was going to Northern Ireland on the same day that the confidence and supply agreement was signed. I am no expert.
The way in which the Government continue to deal with private Members’ Bills makes a mockery of this place. In essence, the Government are treating the House with sheer contempt. The Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill is, I am afraid, probably just the tip of the ice berg. The Refugees (Family Reunion) Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil) is also still awaiting a money resolution. Indeed, it has not even gone into Committee. His Bill has not even got to the pleasurable stage of meeting on a Wednesday morning to consider a motion to adjourn, yet my hon. Friend has cross-party support. I think that the reason why the Government are stonewalling that Bill is that, again, they realise that there is a majority for it in the House of Commons.
I am mindful of time, and I will close by saying that the Government are playing fast and loose with the procedures of this House. They might think they are being big and clever, but they must remember that one day—perhaps sooner rather than later—they will be on the Opposition Benches and they could be subject to the same type of behaviour. The Government risk setting a precedent that may just one day come back to bite them on the bottom.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
I am not one of the awkward squad, I trust, in the Chamber today. I hope that I am a paragon of reasonableness, but today I really must protest because my constituency is the elephant in the room. It is one of the two largest constituencies in the United Kingdom. I have the honour to represent the counties of Caithness, Sutherland—a vast county—and part of Ross and Cromarty. It is a gargantuan, gigantic constituency. I would like to share some facts about it with the House.
The journey from Evanton in the south-east to John O’Groats is 103 miles; it takes me two hours and 21 minutes. It takes two hours and 49 minutes to drive the 115 miles from Lochinver in the south-west to Wick in the north-east. My constituency covers 3,675 square miles. To give hon. Members an idea of just how big that is—although I know that some already understand —we could fit all 73 London constituencies in my constituency, and have room left over around the sides.
Members might think that, although I am not in the awkward squad, I am mumping and moaning today. But I get about. I am young, fit and enthusiastic, but with the best will in the world, it is very hard to cover the communities within my constituency, even when driving hither and thither at maximum speed. The point is that constituencies and communities have a right of access to their elected Member. Despite doing what I hope is my best, if there is a shortfall in what I can do in terms of reaching out, why would I not suggest that there is a slight democratic deficit?
The hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), who is no longer in his place, said that the identification and identity of communities is colossally important. I can tell hon. Members that somebody speaking Gaelic in the south-west of my constituency and somebody living in Caithness not only do not speak the same language; the cultures are also very different indeed. It makes as much sense as putting Aberdeen city with Argyllshire. It just does not make sense.
The proposal of the Boundary Commission for Scotland would make my constituency even larger—massively larger. We can talk in this place until the cows comes home about money resolutions and private Members’ Bill, but when an idea is stark raving bonkers, like this one, it just has to be said loud and clear. We have heard a quotation from G. K. Chesterton, so let me give the House a famous quotation by P. G. Wodehouse, who said:
“It is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine.”
Well, today I do have a bit of a grievance.
In closing, I take comfort from the words of the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) and others on both sides of the Chamber. I do hope that some sense can prevail. My constituents talk about many things, and one of them is the prospect of making my constituency even bigger. I may not hold the seat, as I may be voted out, but whoever represents the seat will have a very difficult time representing those good people if the constituency gets any bigger.
Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)
It has been the honour of my life to represent the constituency in which I was born for the last 21 years. For all but a brief and unheralded period as a Whip, I have been a Back-Bench MP. I do not regard my job as second rate to any shadow Minister or Minister, as the role of constituency MP is a vital one in our democracy and political discourse. Everything that has happened over the past 20 years has made me feel that even more. Whether on Brexit, austerity and the huge effects of significant cutbacks in public expenditure that have fallen on the poorest in our constituencies, people who have had hard times finding work, people who cannot find homes or people who feel that the NHS is not meeting their needs, it is our job to represent those voices. Reducing the number of constituencies would make that job harder. It would make it more difficult to represent the voiceless and therefore to keep our political show on the road.
Under the first proposals from the Boundary Commission, my constituency of Mitcham and Morden was to be split across five different parliamentary constituencies. That is the fault not of the Boundary Commission, but of the rules that it was required to enforce. One fairly moderately sized London constituency was to be split between Streatham, Wimbledon, Tooting, Sutton and Cheam, and Carshalton and Wallington—a total of four different London boroughs. Whether I continue to be the MP for Mitcham and Morden or not is not the point. My constituency has deep and abiding ties that bind it, including hundreds of years of history in the parishes of Morden and Mitcham. People believe that they live in an area, that they are part of a community and that they know who to blame when things go wrong.
So why do it? Why reduce the number to 600? Why not 700? Why not 550? Why 600? People talk about equalisation. What do we mean by equalisation? We mean the numbers in the parliamentary constituency. But what about the people who live in my constituency, some 11,000 of them, who cannot vote in a parliamentary election but can vote in a local election? When somebody comes to my advice surgery, I—like, I am sure, all Members of this House—do not ask them, “Are you an EU citizen? Can you vote in a parliamentary election? Are you on the electoral register?” That is not my job. It is my job to represent my constituents, whatever their status, to the best of my ability.
Equalisation—what equalisation? What list, what community, and what factors? We know that young people are less likely to be registered than older people. We know that certain ethnic minorities are less likely to be registered. We know that private renters are less likely to be registered. We know all those things but we wish to exclude those people and have more of them living in some urban constituencies. Is a poor black boy not as entitled to be represented as an older woman from the home counties? Equalisation—what equalisation?
We hear about saving money. I have a suggestion: if we want to save public money, which is a perfectly laudable suggestion, why not introduce automatic electoral registration? Victoria state in Australia, with a population of 3.5 million, managed to get 95% accuracy on its register by employing five people. In my borough of Merton, there are currently 155,841 people on a register of some sort, and we employ more than five people to get that number of people on to it. So if we want to save money, we could get a better form of electoral registration.
But this is not about any of those things. It is not about representation. It is not about saving money. It is not about equalisation. It is about the profound effect of the American Republican party on the Conservative party. It is about issues of electoral registration, presenting ID at polling stations, gerrymandering boundaries and breaking up communities. I have had the absolute honour to fight for President Barack Obama, as candidate and President, in two elections. I have been to Ohio; I have been to Virginia; and I have seen where they deregister people, taking away their right to vote, and gerrymander their boundaries. That provokes anger and discontent, and people feel that they are not a part of legitimate society.
I urge one nation Conservatives to think about the impact of these reforms on our society at a time of great turbulence. Some things matter more than small issues of political expediency. This is about the way we run our democracy. The fact that our boundaries are determined by rules and not by party political preference is really important to us. We need to have a cold, hard look at what the impact of these boundary changes will be and what this says about us and our democracy.
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
We have heard today from G. K. Chesterton and P. G. Wodehouse, which is of course a pleasure. Nevertheless, it is a matter of regret that we have had to hold this debate because the Government should long ago have respected the wishes of this House and proceeded to move the necessary money resolution. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) for persevering in holding the Government to account.
The Public Bill Committee, of which I am a member, has now had six sittings to try to scrutinise this important Bill, which passed its Second Reading in this Chamber by 229 to 44 votes. However, we have been unable to consider a single clause because of the highly unusual step taken by the Government to refuse to table a money resolution.
Michael Tomlinson
I think it is in fact better than the hon. Gentleman stated, because those were the votes on the closure motion. I believe the House voted unanimously for the Bill’s Second Reading.
Christian Matheson
I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for correcting me, and he is absolutely right.
This has not only become a routine drain on parliamentary time and resources for everyone involved, but is deeply disrespectful to Members across the House who sent a strong message to the Government last December that they wanted the Bill to be considered in Committee. We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton that it is now 200 days since that vote took place. It is vital that we uphold parliamentary sovereignty, which is why I am pleading for all Members across the House to support the motion.
We are where we are, and I pay tribute to hon. Members for their participation in the debate. The right hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper)—or, dare I say it, West Gloucestershire?—talked about the fact that his constituency might become West Gloucestershire. Of course, he would also have to be adopted by the association to be the candidate, but I am sure that it would have no problem adopting him. He mentioned the 35,000 responses to the Boundary Commission’s review. I will hazard a guess that most of those responses were complaining about how daft the review was, based on the parameters set by the Government. I will say one thing about him: he has been an assiduous attender of the Bill Committee, even when only a motion to adjourn was moved, and I pay tribute to him for being one of the few Conservative Members who has taken that procedure seriously.
My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton, who is an old friend, told us that he has become an expert in parliamentary procedure. With that expertise, he reminded us that the convention is that the Government always table a money resolution on Second Reading.
The hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) gave a brave speech and said that the circumstances in the world have changed. He talked about the motion setting a dangerous precedent, but I put it to him that the dangerous precedent is surely the Government ignoring the will of the House by ignoring the Second Reading vote.
The hon. Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean) talked about her introduction to politics in 2009-10 and all the demands for parliamentary reform at that time. I suggest that those demands were for reform of the expenses system, which is what was causing all the difficulties around this place, not of parliamentary boundaries.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Dr Drew) presented us with an easy solution to the problem: an early vote, so that the Government could test the will of the House on a reduction from 650 to 600 seats, which would save time and resources. He made the important point that we need to remember that we represent place as well as simply numbers.
Then we come to the G. K. Chesterton fan, the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson), who talked about the difficult and treacherous business of taking forward legislation. He is right that legislation should be difficult and should be tested, but if there is any treachery, dare I say it?—I hope I am not being unparliamentary—it might lie on the Government’s side of the House, with Ministers not respecting the will of the House on Second Reading.
The hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) reflected on his experiences on the Procedure Committee and reminded us that money resolutions are always provided. The hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) said that his constituency is 103 miles one way by 115 the other—as big as London—and that the new boundaries would make it even more impossible to manage.
Finally, my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh), who represents the constituency of her birth, talked about the history of those parishes providing a real sense of community. She reminded us that our role here is to represent the voiceless, and she spoke of the 11,000 residents of her constituency who are not on the register but nevertheless need representation. It has been an excellent debate.
Mr Goodwill
People not being on the electoral register is not just an urban issue. In constituencies such as mine, many people have second homes and are not on the electoral register. They vote in local elections in many cases, but they require help from their MP if they have problems concerning the local authority. It is not just in inner-city constituencies that there are more constituents than the number on the register.
Christian Matheson
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention. Of course, someone who has a second home is perhaps registered elsewhere, but my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden was making a particular point about those who are not on any register but still require representation.
The Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton seeks to resolve a controversial 5% variation in the size of constituencies. As we all know, under the new rules outlined in the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011, all constituencies are required to have a quota between 95% and 100% of the national quota. The consequences of that rigid 5% threshold are that some communities will be split up, while others are merged and dragged into other communities. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) discussed that and spoke about the crazy effect on his high street, which would be split, with the shopping centre on one side and other shops on the other.
The Political and Constitutional Reform Committee recommended that that constraint be relaxed to 10%—a proposal rejected by the then Government in 2015—so I welcome the flexibility that my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton has shown. He has listened to Conservative Members who believe that the 10% quota is too large, and he has taken their views into consideration. Relaxing the quota to 7.5% would mean that a majority of constituencies would not change at each election, which would strike the right balance and mean that each boundary review would be less disruptive.
The reduction in the number of MPs from 650 to 600 runs contrary to good sense in many ways. At a time when we are planning to leave the EU—hon. Members made this point—and supposedly return control to the UK, we need to maintain numbers in the House. All that the reduction in numbers would achieve is a reduction in the ability of Parliament to scrutinise the Government—another point made in the debate. At the same time, the Government have appointed more unelected peers to the other place than any other Government, so it is absurd that they should reduce numbers in the elected Chamber.
The Hansard Society did not find any rationale for the Government’s decision, noting that there was
“real concern”
that the number had been
“plucked from thin air—600 simply being a neat number.”
Cutting 50 MPs represents a crisis of scrutiny—a concern expressed by the Electoral Reform Society and by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon. Finally, it is vital that constituencies represent the communities that they serve.
Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)
There is no better example of that than my constituency and the number of people I represent. Thirteen thousand people registered to vote in the 2017 general election, increasing the size of the electorate by nearly 10,000. Under the Government’s proposals, that community would be decimated because of the arbitrary point about numbers. The Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) absolutely rectifies that and puts the registration date at the right point.
Christian Matheson
My hon. Friend gives an example of communities that are not reflected in parliamentary constituencies. My fear is that there are plenty of examples across the House, not simply in Leeds, where that would happen. We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden and plenty of others that that link would be broken.
A major flaw with the boundary reviews is that they were based on the December 2015 electoral register. Since then, as we have heard, over 2 million people have been added to the electoral roll, following the increase in registration for the EU referendum and the 2017 general election. Some Government Members argue that the date for any boundary review is inevitably a snapshot. However, 2015 was not just any year. It was the year 600,000 people dropped off the electoral register after the Government’s decision to rush through the introduction of individual electoral registration, against the advice of the Electoral Commission.
Mr Harper
It is absolutely right that a significant number of entries were removed from the register, but the point was that many of them were not legitimate. Individual electoral registration was introduced to deal with accuracy and completeness. Having lots of people on the register who do not really exist is not a good thing—it is a bad thing—and it is good that we fixed it.
Christian Matheson
I have no doubt that electoral registers have to be cleaned up, but I cannot believe that there were 2 million people on the electoral register who simply did not exist. The right hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill) discussed people with second homes. I am on two electoral registers, as I have a place in London because of this job, but the numbers are few and far between, and I do not believe that 2 million have dropped off for any reason other than that when IER was introduced it made it more difficult to register.
My hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden referred to Republican party tactics that I would describe as voter suppression. I am not suggesting this of the Government, but I would be concerned if those tactics found their way to this side of the Atlantic and it became harder for people to vote and take part in the democratic process.
Rachel Maclean
I feel that I need to put it on the record that I completely refute any assertion that I, as a Member of this House, have been influenced by the tactics of the Republican party on the other side of the Atlantic.
Christian Matheson
I consider that point to have been put on the record.
London lost almost 100,000 voters, despite experiencing a rise in population. However, the bigger issue—bigger than the details of the flawed boundary review—is the relationship between the Government and this House. This House gave the Bill a Second Reading with a hefty majority; indeed, it did so unanimously, as the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole reminded us. It should not be for the Government to ignore the wishes of the House, which were expressed so clearly on Second Reading. If we are taking back control, that control should reside in this House, not with the Executive. Running away from debate by using procedural chicanery gives a dreadful impression of the Government, so our proposal tonight is to allow the Bill to continue its detailed consideration in Committee.
I know that, like me, many hon. Members across the House cherish the status of this House and its sovereignty. They might not agree with the aims of the Bill proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton, but they will understand that it is wrong to block its passage by anything other than a vote in this House. For that reason, and to stand up for the primacy of the House of Commons, I invite all hon. Members to join me tonight in supporting the motion and allowing democracy to thrive—not to vote against the Government, but to vote for this House.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chloe Smith)
It is a pleasure to close this Opposition day debate. I welcome the contributions from hon. and right hon. Members from across the House. May I take this opportunity to welcome the new hon. Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby), who I can see in her place? I hope she has enjoyed this afternoon’s debate, in the first of many weeks in which she will be participating in the House’s business. It is a pleasure to see her in her place. As a fellow by-election winner, I can sympathise with her, given her no doubt frenetic first week. I wish her every success in her work, as does the whole House.
We heard from the inimitable hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), who gave us a tour of his views on many things and who likes to paint himself as a peacemaker. I for one in the Government would welcome that role from him. I look forward to spending many more pleasurable hours in his company, talking about, for example, the frameworks that we will put in place on our departure from the European Union and how they will add to the powers of the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and a future Northern Ireland Assembly.
I also welcome the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), who helpfully reminded the House that the debate on the order relating to the current boundary review is but four sitting weeks away. Like him, I think that that is a reasonable period to be able to anticipate.
I thank the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan), who rightfully spoke on his Bill. May I say what a pleasure it is to spend time with him and the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) every Wednesday morning? We are endlessly entertained by the hon. Member for Glasgow East, who most recently did his best to list every single Member of the House of Lords. As you will know, Mr Speaker, it is not in order in any debate in this House simply to read out a list, so he was gently guided back towards a better form of debate.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double), who reminded us that Cornwall and the issues of the Cornish must never be shared and must never be split asunder. Only a few nights ago, we had a debate I remember very clearly, relating to another part of my portfolio, on the representation of the Cornish national identity, which I look forward to reprising with him.
We heard from the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), who I cannot see in his place at this moment and from my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean). She reminded us of the height of public opinion in 2009 and 2010, which was when I entered the House, arguably as a result of the expenses scandal, in the by-election I had the great privilege to win. We also heard from the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Drew), who put on record some very serious points, and from my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson). He was extremely helpful in enlightening the House about the rule of G.K. Chesterton.
Let me add to this list the comments of the hon. Member for Glasgow East, who I have already mentioned, and the hon. Member for Stone, who reminded us of what it means to fulfil constituency duties in a considerably larger geographical constituency than many of the rest of us. I thank the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh), who put some issues on the record with passion. I admire and respect that passion, and I am glad she came here today to do that.
Let me address some of the issues raised in the debate before returning to the motion. A number of points were made about the procedures of the House for private Members’ Bills. I will not go into that in detail, because it is not my place to do so. It is a matter of procedure. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House made a few remarks about that earlier on, but I think it is a matter for another day.
Remarks were made about reform of the House of Lords. The hon. Members for Glasgow East and for Stroud and I, with others, had a debate on this matter only yesterday in Westminster Hall—what a long time ago that already seems. In that debate, I had cause to remind Members, and I will do so again now, that the size of the House of Lords is smaller than when the current Prime Minister took office. To all those hon. Members who have said that the House of Lords has grown, I say in fact it has not; it has become smaller.
Afzal Khan
What is the Conservative party’s position in relation to the upper House? Why are you stuffing it with the unelected when you are trying to cut the elected?
Mr Speaker
I have not been stuffing the upper House for anybody. I am not doing that. The Government can answer for their own position, of course.
Chloe Smith
And nor are the Government. The key point, as I have just said, is that the other place is now smaller than when the Prime Minister took office. That is as a result of a policy of restraint, which she is showing in appointments, and of the Government policy, which the hon. Gentleman invites me to set out. I will take just a minute on it, Mr Speaker.
Chloe Smith
I am just in the middle of setting out the Government’s policy, which I have been asked to do.
We do not believe that reform of the House of Lords is the correct priority at this moment. There are many other things that the two Houses are being asked to consider. The House of Lords itself has set out a number of ways to reform without the need for primary legislation. We seek to support it in that.
David Linden
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. She talks about reform of the House of Lords and cutting the number of MPs in this House. The Bill received a Second Reading on Friday 1 December 2017. Since then, how many new Conservative peers have been put into the House of Lords?
Chloe Smith
The hon. Gentleman will remember from our debate only yesterday that the number of the most recent appointments made is 13. Let me repeat one more time, should it be needed, that the number of Lords has reduced since the Prime Minister came into office. In part, that is due to a culture and a new policy of retirement, which I welcome and which we did go into in some detail yesterday, so I will leave that there.
I want to respond to a couple of points that were made about the policy of individual electoral registration. I welcome the hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) to his relatively new position on the Front Bench—it has already been very good to serve with him on Bill and statutory instrument Committees—but I am afraid that he is wrong in his remarks about IER. He spoke about a drop in the register that he thinks occurred after it was introduced. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean explained, what we saw after the introduction of IER was that both accuracy and completeness were maintained. The crucial point is this: we expect the accuracy of the register to be able to be maintained at a higher level with the introduction of IER, because it encourages individuals to register themselves, individually—the clue is in the name. It is about accuracy.
The hon. Member for City of Chester conflated it with a second, separate issue, which is whether more have joined the register since. That is indeed the case. As the register currently stands, it is larger than it was in December 2015. That is a good thing. That is because our reforms to open up online registration, for example, and the occurrence of several major elections have encouraged many people to register. That is an unmitigated good thing. This Government are committed to helping more people to register to vote. That is what I stand for as the Minister responsible for electoral registration and other matters. I want to see it done with the security and integrity of the register foremost in mind. We have had debates in this place and elsewhere that suggest that the Labour party is not quite so committed to those principles. That is what we saw in some of the desperate slurs that have been made this afternoon. We have heard words such as “gerrymandering” and about the “manipulation” of the register from the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood. I think that is outrageous. I said so early on in the debate and I say it again: it is an outrageous calumny to say that the Government are gerrymandering or trying to manipulate the register. I am not. The Government are not—does he think we are, really?
Chloe Smith
I stand corrected, and I thank the hon. Gentleman. Let me move on to the ways in which this debate has been important this afternoon and deal directly with the motion in front of us.
Jamie Stone
I thank the Minister for her gracious reference to me a few minutes ago. I point out in passing that the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) and I are two exceedingly different people, and we would both be equally embarrassed to be confused. Does the Minister recognise my point that distance and geography have to be taken into consideration by the Boundary Commission for Scotland?
Chloe Smith
I stand corrected twice in a row on hon. Members’ constituency names—perhaps I need the help of the Boundary Commission to rearrange constituencies and thus learn them better. In all seriousness, I say to the hon. Gentleman that the Boundary Commissions are independent. This is crucially important, and he would not expect me in this debate to be able to prejudge their reviews, and nor would I try to do so. Although I respect the points that he came here today to make, it is not for me to answer the question that he just posed.
Mr Harper
The hon. Gentleman makes a very sensible point about the geographical size of constituencies. That was indeed considered when we looked at the rules that the Boundary Commissions were set. I accept that he may not feel that there was sufficient flexibility, but there are rules that govern the maximum geographical size of constituencies, thus giving the Boundary Commissions some scope to reflect the issues that he raised in the House today.
Chloe Smith
I very much welcome that reminder from my right hon. Friend.
Turning to the motion, the debate has been about a fundamental principle of how this House functions, but this is not about the Bill from the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton. It is about whether a Committee—any Committee—can be permitted by the House to disregard this place’s rules and conventions.
The Opposition motion seeks to undermine a fundamental principle and cornerstone of our constitutional settlement: the financial initiative of the Crown. It is a long-standing constitutional principle that the Government of the day initiate financial resolutions. I can only apologise to the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire if he thinks this another lecture—perhaps in his day students walked out of lectures if they did not like them. It would be regrettable if he felt the need to walk out of this discussion. The Government have to be responsible and accountable to taxpayers for the money they spend. The motion seeks to erode the fundamental principle that the Crown, through its Ministers, who are accountable to Parliament, has the exclusive right of initiation and of defining the purposes for which the money is required.
Mr Goodwill
The Minister drew our attention to the situation over the border. Do the Scottish Government delegate power to the Scottish Parliament to set spending, or do they protect the money as the UK Government do?
Chloe Smith
I welcome the opportunity to add to this discussion, but the question of whether we can learn from the mechanisms of other Parliaments and Governments might have to be a debate for another day.
The mechanisms of this Parliament are that a Committee requires a money resolution to go through the substance of a Bill. If a Committee is allowed to consider the substance of a Bill in the absence of such a resolution, the Crown, through its Ministers, loses its important constitutional right to define the purposes for which that money is required. That is not just about being able to make progress; it is not just about saying, “Don’t worry about the money. It’ll come later”; as my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House set out earlier, to do this to a Committee would strip it of the ability to consider matters properly. As she set out, without such a resolution, a Committee would just be aimlessly wandering through a Bill with or without amendments but not properly guided by a money resolution. At best, it would be theoretical, at worst farcical, and that is not what our constituents expect of us.
The motion questions the role of the Executive—that is regardless of what party is in power. The fundamentals of any Government are that they take decisions and are accountable for them—to taxpayers where it is about how public money is spent. That is what it means to be a responsible Government. From what I see on the Order Paper today, I do not think the Opposition believe in responsible government; they believe in political points scoring. The House runs on its conventions and the assurance that centuries-old practice and procedure is there to protect the rights of all parliamentarians. The Government respect those rights of the House, as my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House set out earlier. To undermine that for party political reasons by tabling such a motion compromises the idea of the Opposition ever being a responsible Government. The Government are elected by the people and have the right and duty to initiate financial proceedings in the interests of the taxpayer.
As my right hon. Friend made absolutely clear at the start of the debate, the motion has nothing to do with the private Member’s Bill of the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton. I am sorry about that. I am sorry that he has come here today, as he does every Wednesday morning, to talk about a Bill for which the House has not granted him financial authority. I am sorry about that because he is a lovely man—we get on well on Wednesday mornings—and clearly has the support of his friends around him in the Chamber, but I am afraid that his party is letting him down with the motion on the Order Paper tonight. They are suggesting a huge move in the procedures of the House, all hung around his Bill. His Bill has merits, and those could be discussed, but there is not the time to do so.
Afzal Khan
I thank the Minister for her kind words. For me, this is not the fault of the Labour party. Every week for five weeks we have come here, only for nothing to be done. Not a single word in the Bill has been dealt with. That is the issue. That is where time is being wasted.
Chloe Smith
If that is the issue, the hon. Gentleman should have had a word with his Front-Bench team about laying a better Opposition day motion. This motion did not allow him to have those issues out today, although many hon. Members have enjoyed going through related subjects.
Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)
claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).
Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.
Question agreed to.
Main Question accordingly put.
Business without Debate
Mr Speaker
With the leave of the House, we will take motions 4 and 5 together.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)),
Capital Gains Tax
That the draft Double Taxation Relief (Mauritius) Order 2018, which was laid before this House on 23 April, be approved.
That the draft Double Taxation Relief and International Tax Enforcement (Cyprus) Order 2018, which was laid before this House on 30 April, be approved.—(Rebecca Harris.)
Question agreed to.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)),
Police
That the draft Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (Codes of Practice) (Revision of Codes C, E, F, and H) Order 2018, which was laid before this House on 21 May, be approved.—(Rebecca Harris.)
Question agreed to.
Complex Regional Pain Syndrome
(6 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)
It gives me great pleasure to speak in my first Adjournment debate since being elected last year.
Complex regional pain syndrome—CRPS—is one of the most painful conditions known, registering a staggering 42 out of 50 on the McGill pain scale. That is worse than the pain of the amputation of a finger or toe with no anaesthetic, which registers as 40 out of 50, and it is worse than childbirth—the Minister may sympathise with me on that. CRPS is not a short-term pain that will heal in time. The most excruciating part is that the pain is long-term, and likely to be for life. In fact, CRPS is known as the world’s most painful incurable condition. In the United States, it is referred to as the “suicide disease” as it can lead sufferers to resort to suicide as the only means to escape the huge pain that they bear.
CRPS is a chronic neuropathic pain condition—a disease of the nervous system—and it usually starts with a minor injury or fracture to a limb. The major indicator is the huge amount of pain involved, which is out of all proportion with the original injury. The affected limb can swell, change colour and change in temperature and, instead of reducing in time, the pain just gets worse. It can lead to weakness of the limb, ulceration of the skin, wasting tissue and bone thinning. The pain caused by CRPS spreads over time and may even develop in the opposite limb or in other limbs. Patients with CRPS most likely live with anxiety and depression because of the amount of high-level pain they are in 24/7.
CRPS is not a well-known condition, although awareness of it is increasing thanks to the national charities that work hard to support sufferers and to promote the need for treatment. Six months ago, I was not aware of CRPS, so I want to pay tribute to my constituent Victoria Abbott-Fleming, whom I have met. Victoria qualified as a barrister, but six months after a minor accident at work, at the age of just 24, she received a diagnosis of CRPS. The symptoms included a burning, severe pain in her lower leg, a freezing cold sensation, and a stabbing feeling that she said was like 1,000 ice picks pushed into the skin and bone. Victoria described it as like having petrol put through one’s veins and set alight. Her other symptoms included major swelling, hair and nail loss, hypersensitivity, temperature change and stiffness that prevented her from walking.
Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)
The hon. Lady, through her constituent’s experience, is painting a vivid picture of the pain. Does she agree that hearing accounts such as that of my constituent Helena Stone—she said it was like barbed wire being tightened across one’s leg—give an insight into the viciousness of this debilitating condition and make it all the more important that we raise awareness of it?
Ruth George
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. While we can listen to descriptions of the pain, we can never really have any idea of what it is like. The worst thing about CRPS is that the pain is not occasional and something that a person knows will get better—they know it may be with them for the rest of their life.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I sought the hon. Lady’s permission to make an intervention before the debate.
Whenever I say in my office that I am in pain, my girls say to me, “You don’t know what pain is. If you had given birth, you would know what pain is.” The girls in my office tell me that chronic regional pain syndrome is even more painful than labour and giving birth, so I understand just how extreme it is.
We look to the Minister for support and help, as we always do—and we always get it, by the way. Does the hon. Member for High Peak (Ruth George) agree there is an onus on GPs to be more aware of the illness and to see how they can provide help in their surgeries? The Minister can give some direction to the NHS as a wee bit more needs to be done in surgeries and health clinics.
Ruth George
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I know that he has made inquiries and asked questions about CRPS over the years. All the sufferers thank every MP who raises the issue and helps them to feel that they have hope.
Apart from the physical and mental pain suffered due to CRPS, a severe part of the torture that my constituent Victoria experienced was the judgmental attitudes of medical professionals who did not understand or were not aware of the condition and the shame that she felt. She says, “The medical profession sometimes don’t believe your symptoms, or try to fob you off by saying, ‘Are you sure it is not in your head?’ or, ‘You look well. Are you sure you’re actually ill?’” Those problems are even worse now that we see children being diagnosed with CRPS, because children are often not believed when they say that they are in excruciating pain.
Alex Chalk
The hon. Lady is being extremely generous in giving way. My constituent experienced the problem of not being believed. Does the hon. Lady agree it is all the more galling that the NHS website recognises the condition and states that it is “poorly understood”? Does that not make the point that the situation needs to change?
Ruth George
The hon. Gentleman makes the pertinent point that CRPS is poorly understood, and that more understanding and awareness is needed from medical professionals.
After Victoria developed ulcers and total skin breakdown, she was told in 2006 that she needed to have her leg amputated above the knee at just 27 years old. Like many CRPS sufferers, she was unable to use a prosthetic limb because the prosthetic was too tight, pressing hard on the hypersensitive skin where she had had CRPS and inducing excruciating pain in her stump.
Victoria was left wheelchair-bound and unable to work as a barrister because many courts are completely inaccessible to wheelchair users, and because of her strong medication and her mental unwellness due to her situation. She pays tribute to her husband Michael, who saw her through the toughest of times and still supports her.
In 2014, Victoria received the even more devastating news that the condition had spread to her remaining leg, which she needed to have amputated. Amazingly, as a dual amputee, she has come through the experience and set up a national charity, Burning Nights, which offers support, understanding and explanation to CRPS sufferers. The charity offers a voice at the end of the phone, as well as very important advice when sufferers feel they cannot take any more.
The trouble is that we do not know how many people are living with CRPS. When I asked a parliamentary question, I was shocked to be told that the Department of Health and Social Care does not collect data on the number of people diagnosed with CRPS as it
“is not classifiable within the ICD10 clinical coding”.
That means that a box on an NHS computer cannot be ticked for CRPS. Various statistics have been suggested by the health profession and in the light of experience in other countries, but the most widely accepted figure is that there are about 26 people in 100,000 living with CRPS, which would equate to more than 15,000 sufferers in the UK. That means that CRPS does not even qualify as a rare disease but, as other hon. Members have said, many medical professionals have not even heard of it, let alone are aware of its symptoms and signs that would lead to diagnosis.
Too many patients are made to feel that they are making a fuss when they are actually in agony. That is not surprising, given that only 20 minutes during a medical degree concentrate on chronic pain—it is only 90 minutes for physios, who deal with people in pain all the time. Diagnosis takes an average of six months, but it may take even longer, especially for children, who are less likely to be believed when they are in severe pain. Once a diagnosis has occurred, it can take two years, or even three in some parts of the country, for a referral to a specialist pain clinic. I cannot imagine the pain of CRPS, let alone the added pain of knowing that nothing will be done to help for two or three years when every day, and especially every night, is agony—that does not bear thinking about.
Many treatments are effective only in the early stages of the disease, such as neuromodulation or DRG—dorsal root ganglion—treatment. Pain clinics usually offer medication and some physio for about six months, but sufferers are then usually discharged and told that there is nothing more that can be done. Unsurprisingly, they therefore may seek whatever they can, and in some cases that is amputation. I am afraid that private surgeons are offering amputations to people with CRPS at the knockdown price of £5,000 below the knee and £10,000 above it. People with CRPS are in such agony that they are prepared to undergo such an amputation because they think it may get rid of their pain. Unfortunately, as my constituent Victoria has told me, it does not, and often the pain does not go away. However, serious problems can arise when such amputations and major surgery are carried out by private surgeons. At the moment, the NHS picks up the bill for that. I very much hope that it will continue to do so, but this really makes the case that what we actually need is some hope, proper diagnosis and proper support, and a clinical pathway for people with CRPS that will see them through not only their diagnosis, but long-term and lifelong treatment.
I have various proposals for the Minister, as I am sure she was expecting. They are based on the parliamentary questions I have been asking over the past few months. The first and perhaps most important is for her to put that tick-box on the NHS computer so that we can collect data for CRPS diagnoses. Without data on diagnoses, it is difficult to make a proper case for research and for the increased training and awareness of the medical profession that is needed.
In response to my parliamentary question about research, the Minister said:
“The NIHR is committed to maximising the potential impact of research that it funds for patients and the public. Applications to NIHR for research funding are subject to scientific peer review, with awards being made on the basis of value for money, scientific quality and the importance of the topic to patients and health and care services.”
Unless we know the numbers of patients who are suffering, however, it is impossible to decide whether an application for research is value for money.
My second request is on the protocols for diagnosis. Yes, we need to raise awareness among health professionals, as other Members have stated, but we also need to introduce protocols such as the one used at Liverpool’s fracture clinic. CRPS is common after a fracture, and at Liverpool the limb is checked after a plaster cast comes off if it looks unusual, or if unusual pain is reported. In that way, a diagnosis can be made early.
My third request is for an increase in the capacity of pain clinics. It is not acceptable that people have to wait an average of two years, and up to three years, to get the support that they so desperately need. That would probably help to address my fourth request, which is for mental health support for CRPS sufferers, with a 24-hour helpline—the pain is particularly excruciating at night—to help them to get through without feeling that they have to resort to amputation or even suicide.
My final request is for the Minister to meet my constituent, Victoria Abbott-Fleming. In spite of the difficulty involved in travelling with her condition, she has come down from Derbyshire to hear the debate. She has done so much to support and fight for other sufferers. CRPS is not a diagnosis that we would wish on anyone, and I hope that the Minister can offer some hope to its thousands of sufferers.
The Minister for Care (Caroline Dinenage)
I congratulate the hon. Member for High Peak (Ruth George) on securing this debate on such an incredibly important issue. She has articulated quite beautifully the hell that people suffering from complex regional pain syndrome go through. The only thing that I can even slightly identify with is the pain of childbirth, but even after that it is unimaginable for us to conceive of the sort of day-by-day endurance and the relentless pain that people suffer. It is a devastating condition and can lead to an overwhelming impact on sufferers and their families, so I thank the hon. Lady for bringing this subject to the House.
The potentially extreme nature of the condition and its symptoms, some of which the hon. Lady described—the excruciating pain, burning, swelling and skin discolouration —can be totally disruptive to everyday living and destroy a person’s quality of life. She spoke very movingly about her constituent Victoria Abbott-Fleming, whose story is incredibly upsetting. I very much forward to meeting Victoria and assuring her that I will do everything I can to move forward on the issues that the hon. Lady mentioned. In circumstances in which extreme decisions have to be considered, high-quality care and support can sometimes make a huge difference to someone’s experience of our health and care services.
I hope that, as I am sure the hon. Lady intended, this debate will help to raise awareness of this very debilitating and extremely painful condition. It has actually been recognised as a medical condition for around 150 years, but problems remain with the diagnosis of CRPS in its very earliest stages. Diagnosis involves excluding a lot of other more common conditions—such as infection or things like rheumatoid arthritis—that can have similar symptoms, and the causes remain largely unknown. Precipitating factors can include injury or surgery, but there is no relationship to the severity of trauma and the development of the pain. In some cases, there is no precipitating trauma at all. It is considered likely that because of the complex nature of the condition, there is absolutely no one single cause. That means that it is difficult to estimate how prevalent CRPS is, as many cases may not have been correctly diagnosed in the first instance.
To improve public awareness, the NHS Choices website provides comprehensive advice on the causes, symptoms and treatment of CRPS. In addition to that, various charities work in this area. The hon. Lady mentioned Burning Nights, which was set up by her incredibly brave constituent; if someone is in unimaginable pain, I can only imagine what a comfort it is for them to be able to speak to or hear from somebody who has experienced it themselves. The charities do great work to support not only the patients who have the condition but their families.
As the hon. Lady says, general practice is where patients with CRPS are most likely to be seen in the first instance. CRPS is a key part of the GP curriculum; it is identified as a key area of clinical knowledge in the Royal College of General Practitioners’ applied knowledge test content guide. The test is a key part of GPs’ qualifying exams, and it ensures that they have the knowledge needed to work as a GP in the NHS.
To improve identification and management of the condition, in 2013 the Royal College of Physicians published best practice guidance for clinicians on the diagnosis, referral and management of CRPS. This guidance was developed with the involvement and endorsement of 21 key organisations involved with the care of people with CRPS, including the Royal College of General Practitioners, the British Orthopaedic Association, the British Pain Society, the British Society for Rehabilitation Medicine and so on.
The guidance, as the hon. Lady says, recommends prompt diagnosis and early treatment. This is to avoid the secondary physical problems associated with disuse of an affected limb and the incredible psychological consequences of living with undiagnosed chronic pain. It has been shown that an early referral to physiotherapy, for example, and encouraging gentle movement as early as possible, may prevent progression of the symptoms. Patients with CRPS are generally best managed in specialist pain management clinics.
Ruth George
Will the Minister look at the proposal to set up protocols in fracture clinics and clinics where carpal tunnel surgery is performed? Prevalence of CRPS following such surgery or an injury is particularly pronounced.
Caroline Dinenage
I will certainly look at that.
The hon. Lady mentioned delays in referral to a pain clinic, which is something that concerns me. Waiting times should be about 13 weeks once a GP has referred someone, but, as she says, some people wait longer. NHS England commissions the highly specialised pain management services for adults and children, and we will raise the issue with it. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has also published guidance for the pharmacological management of neuropathic pain, which includes CRPS. The guidance was updated earlier this year to reflect the latest available evidence.
Patients with CRPS will usually be managed through routine access to primary or secondary care. For patients with the most chronic and intractable pain, a referral can be made to a highly specialised pain service, commissioned by NHS England. Here, patients can receive multidisciplinary expert care and specialised treatment. Once diagnosed, patients can expect access to a range of other healthcare professionals for support and on-going treatment. This includes physiotherapists, occupational therapists, neurologists, a psychologist to help with the associated psychological problems caused by living with CRPS, and other healthcare professionals trained in pain relief.
The hon. Lady spoke about research. The National Institute for Health Research welcomes research funding applications for any aspect of human health, including CRPS. The CRPS UK clinical and research network was established in 2006. It is a research collaboration between a number of UK NHS trusts and academic institutions with an interest in the disorder. Its primary aim is to raise awareness and understanding among health professionals, patients and the general public. This year it is 10 years since the network established the CRPS registry, which now holds over 500 records and contributions and has contributed to seven different national and international research studies.
I thank the hon. Lady again for bringing this important debate to the House. I have attempted to answer as many of her questions as I can, but I will come back to her with anything that I have not covered. I hope that the debate has been helpful in raising the profile of this very difficult and distressing condition.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Official Statistics Order 2018
(6 years, 5 months ago)
General CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chloe Smith)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Official Statistics Order 2018.
It is a pleasure to be here today and to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. I shall begin with the purpose of the order and take the Committee briefly through what we are considering. The order updates the list of non-Crown organisations that produce official statistics, as defined in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007. Statistics are, of course, a pillar of democratic debate. They allow for a window on society and the economy and enable people to judge the performance of Government. They are fundamental to the decisions that people make in their lives every day, whether that is at home or at work or, indeed, when they are, quite rightly, scrutinising the Government, and in this House. The code of practice for statistics plays a very important role in ensuring that producers of official statistics inspire the public confidence that everyone wishes for by demonstrating trustworthiness and providing high-quality statistics that enhance public value.
The order revokes and replaces the Official Statistics Order 2013, updating the list of UK non-Crown bodies that may produce official statistics. Let me give the briefest of contexts for the order. From December 2007, the Statistics and Registration Service Act established the non-ministerial department the statistics board—known as the UK Statistics Authority—as an independent statutory body, to promote and safeguard the production and publication of official statistics that serve the public good. The Act’s definition of official statistics allows the flexibility to add non-Crown bodies to or remove them from the authority’s remit by order. This order provides an updated list of bodies whose statistical activities will be monitored, scrutinised and reported on by the authority.
The authority will work with those bodies designated as producers of official statistics to promote good practice for the production and publication of official statistics, including through the code of practice for statistics; to monitor and report on the production and publication of official statistics; and to assess the treatment by producers of official statistics against the code of practice and to publish the results of those assessments. If statistics comply with the code, the authority will designate them as national statistics.
It is important that the changes are applied to UK-wide and English organisations. There have been four previous UK orders, in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2013. Regularly updating the orders ensures that the scope of official statistics remains accurate and relevant in the light of the establishment, abolition or name changes of public bodies. Section 6 of the 2007 Act provides that Scottish Ministers, Welsh Ministers or Northern Ireland Departments can determine that statistics produced by non-Crown bodies are brought into scope. There have been equivalent orders for Wales in 2013 and 2017, for Scotland in 2008 and 2010, and for Northern Ireland in 2012. I can give details of those should the Committee need them.
I am sure that fellow Members will agree that it is an important move to designate these bodies as producers of official statistics to bring them within the scope of the code of practice for statistics. To return to my point at the outset, that will help to provide assurance that the statistics produced by them are trustworthy and are of high quality and public value. The purpose of this order is to specify the organisations subject to the code of practice.
Let me explain exactly what changes the order makes. It is important to note that although the order covers a wide range of bodies, which are listed in the schedule, the vast majority were already designated under the previous order, so this order is a very minor adjustment. It adds four new bodies to the list in the 2013 order. Those are Monitor, the National Health Service Trust Development Authority, the Office for Students and the Service Complaints Ombudsman. Monitor and the NHSTDA are the main organisations that make up NHS Improvement.
The instrument also alters the name of one body that was contained in the 2013 order, following a legal change to the body’s name: the Rail Passengers’ Council was renamed the Passengers’ Council by order in 2010. The instrument removes no bodies from the existing list.
The UK Statistics Authority was consulted in preparing the order, in accordance with the Act, and is content for it to be laid. My Department has laid the order on behalf of other Government Departments, in preference to each Department laying an order for the bodies for which it is responsible. That is intended to make best use of parliamentary time.
In conclusion, the order updates the list of bodies subject to the UKSA’s oversight. That is in order to capture the value of official statistics to society. Some, such as the authority’s inaugural chair, have likened the necessity of good statistics to clean water and sound money. I am sure the Committee appreciates both of those.
I thank all those who have worked on this and who work for the UKSA for their important role. I hope the Committee will join me in agreeing the order because it will play a vital part in maintaining public confidence in the code of practice, the UKSA and the statistics themselves.
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Paisley. Clean water, sound money, good statistics and fair chairmanship—you have certainly provided the last, Mr Paisley. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time; I earnestly hope it is not the last.
I thank the Minister for a clear interpretation and explanation of the order. We broadly welcome it and will not seek to divide the Committee. The order updates the list of applicable organisations in line with developments since the original legislation was passed and subsequent statutory instruments.
I have a couple of concerns that I ask the Minister to address. Will she confirm that there are no charities on the new list of orders and that these are all existing Government bodies of one sort or another? Since these statistics will now form the basis of official statistics, and therefore must be accurate, credible and reliable, will any additional support be given to the bodies concerned to ensure that they are able to meet the standards required, and that their core work of undertaking responsibilities will not be suffer as a result?
The current legislation is designed to ensure that we have an independent statistics authority that can challenge the use of statistics where necessary. If the body concerned is receiving Government grants or is in any way over-reliant on Government, will that reduce the capability to challenge the Government with hard-hitting statistics? Will the Minister provide assurance that the independence and credibility of these bodies are maintained? Dare I say it, the Government have some form in this area.
Finally, on a more general point, many of the public do not trust official statistics. The British Social Attitudes survey, conducted by NatCen Social Research, found that large majorities of people question the presentation of figures, ranging from unemployment to crime levels: 90% of people trusted the Office for National Statistics to produce accurate statistics, but just 26% said the Government would present those accurately.
We know that several hon. Members associated themselves with the bogus claims of the leave campaigns in the referendum, about £350 million being sent to the EU. The official statistics watchdog had to rebuke the Vote Leave campaign for those. As recently as March this year, Sir David Norgrove, the chair of the UKSA, rebuked the Prime Minister herself for the use of misleading figures on police funding.
In conclusion, we have a Government who, having changed the definition of poverty, are now using Government statistics to tell us that we are now a more equal society, despite the fact that food-bank usage has gone off the charts: 5,000 families in my own West Cheshire area alone are using food banks, while the Sunday Times “Rich List” tells us that the richest 1,000 people have increased their wealth by £466 billion since the crash. According to the TUC, the average worker will have lost £18,500 in income.
In that context, it is no surprise that folks do not trust what they are told by official figures. What will the Minister do to re-establish faith in the use of Government statistics?
The Chair
As I see no tsunami of people wanting to make a contribution, I call the Minister to respond.
Chloe Smith
Thank you, Mr Paisley. I welcome the Opposition’s support in principle for the order. I will endeavour to answer the hon. Gentleman’s questions, to give reassurance to the Committee.
On the question of the charitable status or otherwise of bodies in the list, hon. Members will have seen the following on page 3 of the order, in the explanatory note that follows it:
“The persons listed in the Schedule include a number of registered charities, but this Order does not impose any additional burdens on them.”
To throw a little more light on that for the Committee, I should say that the great majority of bodies have already been scrutinised by Parliament for being in the order. I do not believe that the four we are adding today, which I named earlier, are charities. The overall framework that we are operating is set out by the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007.
To make that distinction a little clearer, I should say that “official statistics” as a term already covers statistics produced by Government Departments or organisations at that level—persons acting on behalf of the Crown. The 2007 Act then makes provision for an order to specify such other statistics as may be included in that specification. That is what we are doing today: we are updating the order that does that.
On the question of whether that means that there is a genuine question for debate about the role of charities in the list, I dare say that Parliament has done that already by virtue of having looked at the order in the past. We are looking to get to a high quality set of information that is of public value. If it should be that organisations of various types come near that definition, that is the matter of our debate today.
The hon. Gentleman also rightly asked whether the independence of these organisations will be reduced by their being included in the order. The very opposite is true. As I hope I made clear in my remarks, we are talking about including bodies under the umbrella framework of the best quality statistics. We are talking about a code of practice—a proper framework—through which we can inspire public confidence by these statistics being of the best quality and being available, designated as official, for use for or against the Government or any other body or person in the land. That is the point. We are talking about the very stuff of independence and quality. That is what we are trying to achieve by bringing appropriate bodies into the ambit of this framework.
The hon. Gentleman also asked whether the bodies in question might require any additional support. Certainly, they have been consulted on these changes through the relevant Government Departments, so I am confident, in bringing forward the order today, that the bodies to be added are appropriate, that they will be able to manage this role and that the code of practice and umbrella framework provide the support and guidance so that we have statistics of the highest possible quality in a way that people can trust.
The UK Statistics Authority is the key because it is an independent body that has the right to intervene at its own discretion on matters of statistics. It is responsible for a huge range of material, and we can all take confidence in its independence and ability to head up the framework that we are looking at today.
I hope I have given the hon. Gentleman the reassurance he was looking for. I thank you, Mr Paisley, for the brevity and clarity that I hope we have been able to get to in the Committee and I commend the order to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Ministerial Corrections
(6 years, 5 months ago)
Ministerial CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
(6 years, 5 months ago)
Ministerial CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Claire Perry
I am told that the Territorial Sea Act sets baselines and that within 12 nautical miles is regarded as onshore. [Official Report, Second Delegated Legislation Committee, 4 June 2018, c. 8.]
Letter of correction from Claire Perry:
An error has been identified in my response to the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) in Second Delegated Legislation Committee on 4 June.
The correct response should have been:
Claire Perry
I am told that the Territorial Sea Act sets baselines and that within those baselines is regarded as onshore.
Education
(6 years, 5 months ago)
Ministerial CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mrs Lewell-Buck
The Minister is talking about fairness and equity in the system, but what does he say to a school in the north-east that, according to the National Education Union, is set to lose £8,000 per pupil? How is that fair?
Nick Gibb
What the NEU is doing with its school cuts campaign is misleading. It is taking the cost pressures that we have acknowledged and telling the public that those are funding cuts. I have been clear that no school has had a funding cut. School funding went up in real terms per pupil in the last Parliament, and that increase has been maintained in real terms.
[Official Report, 22 May 2018, Vol. 641, c. 326WH.]
Letter of correction from Nick Gibb:
An error has been identified in the response given to the hon. Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck) in the Westminster Hall debate.
Nick Gibb
What the NEU is doing with its school cuts campaign is misleading. It is taking the cost pressures that we have acknowledged and telling the public that those are funding cuts. I have been clear that no school has had a funding cut. School funding went up in real terms per pupil between 2010 and 2015. Since then, funding has been maintained in real terms.
The following is an extract from the Westminster Hall debate on the National Funding Formula: Social Mobility on 22 May 2018.
Layla Moran
Does the Minister understand the frustration not just of the teaching profession but of parents? I am a governor at one of the schools in Oxfordshire that he mentioned. Perhaps he is suggesting that the board of governors and I are not managing our money or resources properly. I assure him that we are doing everything we can for this issue not to affect frontline services, but it does. My question is simple: does the Minister accept that although he can spout numbers—it is true; these are facts—the reality on the ground in schools such as Botley Primary School in my constituency is that teachers are at breaking point, and parents are beginning to see the real effects of the cost pressures that are played off against the increases in funding that the Minister lists?
Nick Gibb
We have to live within our budget, and the Treasury has to work with the tax receipts it receives and deal with the historic budget deficit it inherited. Somebody has to lend the state that money, and they would not lend us £150 billion every year if we showed no sign of reducing that figure to something more manageable and did not plan ultimately to eliminate it altogether. That is what is happening. That is why we have a strong economy and the lowest level of unemployment for 40 years, why there are opportunities for young people to have a job once they leave our school system, and why fewer children are living in workless households. That is all part of how to manage the public sector in a serious way, which is what the Government have been doing since 2010. That is why we have been able to maintain school funding in real terms over that period, spend £23 billion on capital funding for schools, and fund an increase of 825,000 school places to deal with the increasing pupil population.
[Official Report, 22 May 2018, Vol. 641, c. 328WH.]
Letter of correction from Nick Gibb:
An error has been identified in the response given to the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) in the Westminster Hall debate.
Nick Gibb
We have to live within our budget, and the Treasury has to work with the tax receipts it receives and deal with the historic budget deficit it inherited. Somebody has to lend the state that money, and they would not lend us £150 billion every year if we showed no sign of reducing that figure to something more manageable and did not plan ultimately to eliminate it altogether. That is what is happening. That is why we have a strong economy and the lowest level of unemployment for 40 years, why there are opportunities for young people to have a job once they leave our school system, and why fewer children are living in workless households. That is all part of how to manage the public sector in a serious way, which is what the Government have been doing since 2010. That is why we have been able to maintain school funding in real terms over that period, invest £23 billion on capital funding for schools between 2016-17 and 2020-21, and fund an increase of 825,000 school places to deal with the increasing pupil population.
Ivory Bill (Fifth sitting)
Tuesday 19th June 2018
(6 years, 5 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Ivory Act 2018 View all Ivory Act 2018 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 19 June 2018 - (19 Jun 2018)
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 7 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
Sue Hayman (Workington) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 9, in clause 12, page 7, line 40, at end insert—
“(1A) For the purposes of subsection (1), a person facilitates a breach of the prohibition if he or she, whilst not directly engaged in the process of a sale, acts in such a way as to allow that sale, or other form of dealing, to occur.”
This amendment defines ‘facilitate’, which is not defined in the Bill, using the text from the Explanatory Notes to the Bill.
During the evidence sessions we discussed enforcement and implementation, and the potential for mis-selling and misleading behaviour. The exact definition of “facilitate” in the Bill was also discussed. The amendment is designed to clarify that. The explanatory notes give details on page 22. They state:
“This offence would apply to anyone who, whilst not directly engaged in the process of a sale, acted in such a way as to allow that sale, or other form of dealing, to occur. For instance, this could apply to the owners of an online sales forum if they were found not to have taken reasonable steps to ensure that an item was a) exempt from the ban, and b) had been registered as such. Further, anyone found to have advertised an item in order to facilitate a sale may be found to be in breach of this clause.”
We thought that it would be helpful to include the definition of “facilitate” in the Bill, and the form of words used in the amendment is based on the explanatory notes.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (David Rutley)
I thank the hon. Lady for her careful consideration of the Bill and for this amendment, which seeks to define “facilitate” in the context of a sale of an item of ivory in breach of the prohibition on sales of ivory. I would like to reassure her, and the Committee more generally, that the amendment is not required. No definition for facilitating a breach of the prohibition was provided in the Bill, as the term “facilitate” shall have its natural meaning.
The amendment would also be misleading, as it refers solely to the sale of ivory, whereas the Bill is concerned with the broader concept of commercial dealing in ivory. The facilitation of the illegal purchase, hire or acquisition of ivory for valuable consideration—that is, bartering—is also prohibited. The wording used in the amendment is taken from the explanatory notes, as the hon. Lady set out, but those are intended to provide guidance and steer on the meaning of the Bill, not to prescribe provisions.
I share the hon. Lady’s intention that the Bill should be as clear as possible, but on this occasion I do not believe that the amendment is necessary. The current wording in the Bill is sufficient to define when an offence of breaching the prohibition through facilitation has been committed. Furthermore, the Bill’s explanatory notes are not intended to set a direction in the prohibition on dealing in ivory; they are there to assist the reader. With that explanation, I ask the hon. Lady to withdraw her amendment.
Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)
During the evidence sessions I asked a number of question about cyber-crime and how we can ensure that people seeking to deal in ivory online are properly captured, with regard to enforcement and making it clear that attempting to sell ivory items on the internet will be covered. The wording suggested by my hon. Friend the shadow Minister would enhance our ability to capture that cyber-dealing and ensure that we do not allow the illegal trade to continue online. I know that is often a challenge, but I wonder whether those words would strengthen that ability.
David Rutley
I thank the hon. Lady for that point, and I understand her concerns. We all want to make sure that cyber-crime is cracked down on more generally, and specifically in the Bill. As I said to the hon. Member for Workington, the Bill as drafted will tackle the issue of facilitation, so we do not need a further definition. We will also debate later today the role of internet service providers, which is included in the Bill. We heard from non-governmental organisations that they are satisfied that there are strong measures in the Bill and that the ban will be strong. I assure the hon. Member for Blaydon that the provisions will tackle the concern that she rightly raises.
Sue Hayman
On the understanding that it is clear what “facilitate” means, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Sue Hayman
I beg to move amendment 10, in clause 12, page 8, line 1, leave out subsection (2).
This amendment would make the offences under section 12 strict liability offences. The defence of having taken all reasonable precautions and exercised all due diligence would remain, but the burden of proof would be shifted to the person on proving this, rather than on prosecutors proving the person knew the item was ivory.
I will spend a little longer on this amendment and go through the evidence from various witnesses. Chief Inspector Hubble raised serious concerns about her ability to prosecute if the Bill remains in its current form. She said:
“We also have some concerns that, as the Bill stands, we have to prove that it is ivory and that the person dealing in it knew, or ought to have known, that it was ivory. If you look on eBay at any given moment, you will find a number of items being offered for sale that are not labelled as ivory.”
The Minister might remember that in Committee we had a look at eBay, and it was extraordinary how many items were clearly being mis-sold. Chief Inspector Hubble continued:
“From an enforcement perspective, if someone is buying something that is not labelled as ivory, and they are selling it as something not labelled as ivory, how do I prove they knew it was ivory? With the Bill as it stands, that, for me, is a real concern from an enforcement perspective. The onus should be on them to prove that they did not know, not on me to prove that they did.”––[Official Report, Ivory Public Bill Committee, 12 June 2018; c. 35, Q59.]
I think that is very clear. There is no point in legislation if it cannot be enforced effectively.
Chief Inspector Hubble was then asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East whether adding a provision covering mis-labelling would help. Again, the chief inspector was clear that in order to prosecute under the terms of the Bill as drafted, enforcement officers would still have to prove that the seller
“knew it was ivory and that they had then mislabelled it, knowing that it was ivory.”––[Official Report, Ivory Public Bill Committee, 12 June 2018; c. 39, Q75.]
She then added:
“All the time that the burden of proof is on us to prove that they knew, that is difficult from an enforcement perspective. If the burden of proof was on them to prove that they did not know it was ivory, that would make enforcement much easier.”
Later she said:
“In general, we do not deal with the people who will apply for exemption certificates and who will register their items and apply for permits, because they are the responsible, law-abiding people. We deal with the ones who have a complete disregard for policy protocol legislation. We deal with the ones who are deceptive, who lie and who want to make money out of this. The burden of proof has to be manageable and has to be able to be enforced, otherwise it is not enforceable legislation.” ––[Official Report, Ivory Public Bill Committee, 12 June 2018; c. 39, Q76 and Q79.]
I am sure that none of us would want to pass legislation if the officers responsible for delivering it did not think that it was enforceable.
On Second Reading, the right hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson) raised concerns about the implications of the current burden of proof lying with the enforcement agencies. He said:
“The defence of ignorance in clause 12 is a real concern, particularly as it is well known that the illegal trade is fuelled by unscrupulous traders marketing ivory as a bone or as ivory sourced from other species, such as a mammoth.”
I know the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire is particularly concerned about that. The right hon. Member for North Shropshire continued:
“There should therefore be a basic sanction based on strict liability.”—[Official Report, 4 June 2018; Vol. 642, c. 104.]
When the ban on the sale of ivory is introduced, as I hope it will be shortly, if it is to have the outcomes that we all hope for, it will need to be vigorously enforced. As I said, it is no good introducing legislation unless we can enforce it vigorously. Deleting subsection (2) would shift the burden of proof and make enforcement more likely, and it would answer the request of enforcement officers.
Anna Turley (Redcar) (Lab/Co-op)
I want to reinforce what my hon. Friend has said. The evidence from the police was clear: the burden of proof is critical, particularly given how easily items are passed around on the internet. There is huge scope for people to plead ignorance.
We heard examples of ivory being called animal bone. I looked briefly at eBay during that evidence session and was shocked at the proliferation of objects listed as animal bone, when they are clearly ivory, even to my unknowing eye. It will be extremely difficult for the police to enforce this legislation. We also heard about their small teams and the cuts. The critical point is that we are making their lives more difficult. It is extremely serious when a chief inspector tells a Committee in evidence:
“The burden of proof has to be manageable and has to be able to be enforced, otherwise it is not enforceable legislation.”––[Official Report, Ivory Public Bill Committee, 12 June 2018; c. 39, Q79.]
We cannot in any circumstances pass legislation that is not enforceable. It is great to say that we will lead the world with our ban on ivory, forge our way ahead and set a great example. If it is not enforceable and the trade continues, we might as well pack up and go home. We know what we are here to do. If the evidence from the frontline is that the Bill is not enforceable, that is not acceptable. We have to push on that.
I would like clarification from the Minister on subsection (2), where it states
“if the person knows or suspects, or ought to know or suspect”.
Will he provide evidence of how someone “ought to know” and how that could be defined in legislation? It does not seem strong enough to me. Enforcement officers are clearly asking for a shifting of the burden of proof, and that is what is needed if we are to make the Bill remotely enforceable.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. I hear what the hon. Member for Workington has to say and can understand entirely the motivation behind it. However, if she pushes her amendment to a Division, I will not vote for it. Let me explain why. I want the Committee to think about the little old lady or gentleman who works in a charity shop selling items on a daily basis. They might come into work to find boxes of stuff when someone has done a house clearance after an aunt or uncle has died. They might sell something to somebody and then it transpires that an offence has been committed because the item is made of ivory.
I do not think that in those circumstances they should be found guilty of something because they knew or suspected, or should have known. Antiques dealers with an online presence, buying and selling all sorts of products, are precisely the sort of people who ought to know or suspect. I do not think the intention of the Bill is to have lots of officials running around trying to trace every single person who is doing something without prior knowledge, and certainly not maliciously or trying to get around the law. There has to be an element of common sense and balance.
I entirely appreciate that, in some instances, that evidence gathering can present a challenge to the enforcement authorities, but it is always a challenge for enforcement authorities to gather compelling evidence to bring a prosecution or levy a fine that is beyond challenge. I understand entirely why the Government have drafted clause 12(2) in this way, because they have to strike a balance and have a bit of common sense. It is right that there is that common-sense caveat in the enforcement clauses, and I urge the hon. Member for Workington to withdraw her amendment.
Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)
I think that this measure has to be strengthened, and we heard clear evidence along those lines from the experts. Like my colleague, the hon. Member for Redcar, I want to know what “ought to know” will be taken to mean in such a situation. Will it be based upon a person’s experience or history of dealing with such artefacts? I have concerns about how a person can prove that they did not know something. Proving a negative is difficult judicially. This measure should be strengthened, but I have concerns and would like to hear more from the Minister in that regard.
David Rutley
I thank the hon. Member for Workington for her amendment, the effect of which would be to make the commercial dealing of prohibited ivory items a strict liability offence. The hon. Member for Redcar and other hon. Members also made comments along those lines, and I will answer some of their questions in due course.
We all agree that the enforcement of the Bill should be rigorous, but I assure the Committee that the amendment is not required. Clause 12(2) makes provision for a person found to have breached the prohibition to demonstrate that they genuinely and reasonably did not know that the item was ivory. That could be, for instance, because they were unaware of ivory as a substance, or because the ivory in question could reasonably have been assumed to be something else.
If clause 12 offences were to become strict liability offences because of the amendment, the person accused of the offence would not be able to rely on the defence that they had taken all reasonable precautions and exercised all due diligence. The strict liability offences that would be created as a result of the amendment mean that, for the offence to have been committed, there is the need only for the actus reus—the act itself—to have been committed. There is no need for the mens rea—the intention. That would mean that subsections (2) and (3) would effectively be deleted.
It is good that clause 12(2) is in the Bill, because it allows for instances of genuine mistakes, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset said, where there is unlikely to be a malicious intent to breach the Bill. For instance, a member of the public might sell in a car boot sale an item they found in their grandmother’s attic without realising that the material in question was elephant ivory.
Anna Turley
I would like a bit more clarification on the point I raised about the phrase
“ought to know or suspect”.
When we pass the Bill, I hope the Government will share the news far and wide, because it will be a fantastic achievement. Surely everybody will think, even if they see something in their attic, “That could potentially be ivory.” Ivory is pretty distinct, and I would have thought that everybody—even a little old lady at a car boot sale or in a charity shop—would look at it, wonder what it is made of and think, “That could be ivory.” They will know, because hopefully the Bill will be widely heralded, that they ought at least to double check and find out whether it is something they should know about. I do not think the emphasis on
“ought to know or suspect”
goes far enough.
David Rutley
I thank the hon. Lady for that point, which was similar to that made by the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow. As currently drafted, the Bill gives a degree of discretion to the enforcement agency. It allows the officer to consider the position of the defendant and ascertain whether they should have knowledge of ivory—for example, an antiques dealer, which we will come to shortly—or whether they are a member of the public who has genuinely made a mistake. So there are points about proportionality and discretion.
An individual or organisation could, for example, show that they took reasonable precautions and exercised all due diligence through checking that the item had been registered prior to the purchase, or listed on an online platform, and that the registration or listing appeared to them to be authentic. Additionally, the enforcement bodies will consider the person’s position when taking a view about whether they should have known or suspected that an item was ivory. As I have explained before, there is a difference between a fully trained and experienced antiques dealer and a member of the public who could be young and inexperienced. The enforcement agencies need to have clearer discretion, as in many other forms of legislation. I will provide more details later. If we removed that provision, there would be no such defence. Further, doing so would place the sale of prohibited ivory in the same bracket as illegal transactions such as the sale of alcohol to a minor, where, as we know, a shopkeeper or a member of bar staff can be sanctioned for a sale on the ground of protecting public health. Strict liability must be used with considerable caution, and we do not think it would be proportionate to make these offences analogous.
Dr Cameron
Something has just come to my mind about how to strengthen the measure. It is about experience and having a connection to the industry. Might there be a loophole for unscrupulous people to try to engage the services of those who perhaps have no history of or direct connection to online sales? If someone is connected directly with individuals who ought to know, might we strengthen the legislation, because I would not like people to be able to use that as a loophole?
David Rutley
The hon. Lady makes a good point. Whatever people’s views are, nobody in Committee is seeking loopholes. We are trying to close them down. Her point would be covered by facilitation, which we have talked about previously.
It is very important in criminal law that we establish both the intent and the act itself, which need to be present for the offence to be committed. Strict liability is the exception as only the act itself needs to be present for the offence to be committed, for example, the sale of alcohol to minors and health and safety matters. With that explanation, I ask the hon. Lady to withdraw the amendment.
Anna Turley
I appreciate the Minister’s generosity in giving way. I want to push him on what the words “ought to know” or “suspect” mean in this context. In the case of a police officer trying to convict someone, how can they prove that someone ought to know? He gave the example of someone being an antiques dealer or in the sector, in which case we can say that they ought to know, but how otherwise can a police or enforcement officer prove that someone ought to know? Public awareness ought to be sufficient, but how will a police officer be able to prove that someone ought to know?
David Rutley
As I have already described, enforcement agencies do such work all the time. They work through quite tricky situations where they have to work out the intent as well as the act itself: for example, the difference between murder and manslaughter. I am no lawyer, but there are differences in degrees. The key thing is that the Bill will push forward strict legislation. The NGOs were clear that the ban will be tough. The provisions in the Bill will enable people to be held to account. The enforcement agencies will be able to do that. As I have said, an element of proportionality and discretion is required, and that is true for the vast amount of law that enforcement agencies need to enforce.
To give another example, a person might have inherited an ornament thinking it was bone, as family members had always said that it was. The person then sells it without realising it is elephant ivory. It is difficult to say that they should have known. The enforcement agency will need to test that and work through it. Over time, it will be able to work out, through precedent and judgment, how appropriate it would be to use the range of enforcement measures that we will discuss line by line. Those measures are there to help work out proportionately how serious that particular crime is.
Sue Hayman
I have listened carefully to everything the Minister has said, and I thank the hon. Member for North Dorset for his suggestions, but the idea of little old ladies being imprisoned for finding things in their attics is a little beyond the point I was trying to make. The National Wildlife Crime Unit will be directly responsible for investigating, and for enforcing the legislation once it passes, so we should take seriously what the chief inspector said. To remind the Committee, she confirmed that the unit had only 12 members of staff, so it is pretty limited in what it can investigate. She said that if the convention on international trade in endangered species brings something to the unit, it can tie them up for several months. She also said:
“We deal with the ones who have a complete disregard for policy protocol legislation. We deal with the ones who are deceptive, who lie and who want to make money out of this.”
It is not about people who find things in their attics. She continued:
“The burden of proof has to be manageable and has to be able to be enforced”.––[Official Report, Ivory Public Bill Committee, 12 June 2018; c. 39, Q79.]
We need to take seriously what she is saying. The Minister said that enforcement services should be able to take a view about whether someone should have known, but Chief Inspector Hubble said that was difficult from an enforcement perspective.
Earlier in our proceedings, the Minister committed to a rigorous education programme. If we have an effective education programme, people should know to check for ivory. We need a law that is enforceable and will make a difference. Otherwise, what is the point?
Question put, That the amendment be made.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
New clause 3—Assessment of enforcement resources—
‘(1) Within 12 months of section 12 of this Act coming into force, the Secretary of State must make an assessment on the resources available to enforce the prohibition.
(2) The report shall consider in particular—
(a) the resources allocated or planned to be allocated towards enforcing the prohibition,
(b) the potential impact of any change in resources so allocated or planned to be allocated, and
(c) the impact on other law or border enforcement activities of the resources so allocated or planned to be allocated.
(3) The Secretary of State shall lay a report of the assessment under this section before each House of Parliament as soon as practicable after its completion.”
This new clause requires an assessment to be made and laid before Parliament regarding the level of resources allocated or proposed to be allocated to enforcing the prohibition against ivory dealing.
David Rutley
The clause provides for the new offences to be created under the Bill. The new offences have been developed to capture the likely chain of actions pertaining to commercial dealing in ivory or that support commercial dealing. Directly breaching the ban, causing it to be breached or facilitating a breach are all offences under the Bill. In practice, directly breaching the ban would include dealing in a prohibited item or dealing in ivory without an exemption certificate or registration for that item. That applies equally to the seller and the buyer. Causing a breach would include someone acting under the discretion of another person, such as an auctioneer, or someone otherwise engaged on behalf of another—a person selling an item on behalf of a friend, for instance. That relates partly to the point that the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow raised earlier. The offence of facilitating a breach discussed under amendment 9 would apply, for example, to those responsible for an online sales platform if they were found not to have taken reasonable steps to prevent an illegal sale. It would also include anyone found to have advertised an item to facilitate a sale, for instance a newspaper.
Clause 12(2) ensures that it is an offence to deal in an item of ivory if the person knows, ought to have known or suspects that the substance is ivory, as we discussed at length under amendment 10. That will mean that it is less likely that a defendant can rely on a claim that they did not know that an item was ivory because the item was mislabelled. The enforcement bodies will consider the position of the person in taking a view on whether they should have known or suspected the item was ivory, for instance whether the person is an antiques dealer or a member of the public, as I have said several times.
Clause 12(3) ensures that actions taken by individuals and organisations to exercise due diligence and avoid committing an offence should be taken into account and can be used as a defence. For example, a buyer of a prohibited ivory item may be able to demonstrate that they checked that the item was registered and that the registration appeared authentic before they making purchase, and an organisation that listed a prohibited item for sale, for example online or in a sale room, may be able to demonstrate that it had taken steps to check that it had been registered and that the registration appeared authentic.
Recognising that offences committed under the Bill will vary in severity, a mixed regime of criminal and civil sanctions will apply. Clause 12(4) details the criminal sanctions that are applicable to the offences. We are committed to setting a high bar for sanctions for illegal wildlife trade activities and, as such, the maximum criminal sanction of five years’ imprisonment or an unlimited fine will be applied in line with existing sanctions under the Control of Trade in Endangered Species (Enforcement) Regulations 1997—COTES.
The clause also provides for summary convictions through a magistrates court to be applied in line with the maximum sanctions applicable in each of the devolved Administrations. The regulatory body, the Office for Product Safety and Standards, and the police will be responsible for identifying and investigating breaches of the ban. Criminal breaches will be dealt with by the police and the Crown Prosecution Service and the specific nature of the breach will be considered when a sanction is applied, to ensure a proportionate approach is adopted, as discussed earlier.
We recognise that the defences under existing legislation, such as the Serious Organised Crime Act and Police Act 2005 and the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, may apply to illegal dealing in ivory. The Bill will rely on the existing offences, where the appropriate criteria are met. For example, it would be an offence under the Fraud Act 2006 to make or use a fraudulent exemption certificate or registration.
New clause 3, which the hon. Member for Workington tabled, raises the critical issue of ensuring effective enforcement, a theme she has understandably been keen to raise this morning. I can assure the Committee that the issue is of foremost concern to the Government, as reflected in the strength of the powers we have conferred on the police, customs and the civilian enforcement body—the Office for Product Safety and Standards—to ensure compliance with the ban and to prosecute those who breach it. Effective enforcement is, of course, reliant on the appropriate resources, and I give credit to the police, including the National Wildlife Crime Unit and the Border Force for their efforts to date in tacking the abhorrent trade.
In the oral evidence to the Committee we heard that the CITES Border Force team is recognised as one of the best in the world at enforcing controls against the illegal wildlife trade. Moreover, both the Border Force team and the National Wildlife Crime Unit share their expertise with countries all over the world. It is paramount that the available resources are effectively used to enforce the ban.
Our proposals go further than the current regime by putting a civilian regulator in place to enforce the ban, alongside the police and the Border Force. The regulator will raise awareness of the ban and the compliance provisions and assess whether businesses are operating in compliance with the legislation. That will reduce the burden on the enforcement agencies by increasing compliance. The regulator will also be responsible for issuing civil sanctions, which are new in the Bill.
In developing and implementing the compliance processes necessary for the ban, the Government will assess the resources required and monitor their effective application over time. It will be a matter for the Home Office to allocate and monitor the police resources necessary for the enforcement of the ban, and the National Wildlife Crime Unit will play an important role. It will also be critical to assess the enforcement of the ban over time, including the number of cases successfully brought and the sentences applied.
We do not believe that the resources assessment should be included in the Bill. It would also be unhelpful for a single assessment to be made 12 months after clause 12 comes into force. That is because it is likely that different levels of resources will be required in the early stages of enforcement and as implementation progresses, for example, as awareness-raising exercises are carried out to improve awareness among those affected. Such an assessment would also not capture a sufficient period following the Bill’s coming into force. For example, it would not cover an assessment of court cases and rulings brought forward as a result of the ban.
The Government will assess the implementation of the ban over time, in particular its enforcement, as a matter of course. Much of this information will be in the public domain and open to civil society and to public scrutiny.
In summary, we do not believe this matter needs to be addressed in the Bill and a one-off assessment will not be sufficient. With this explanation, I ask the hon. Lady not to press her new clause.
Sue Hayman
First, I will make a few points on subsection (4)(a) to (c) on the sentencing guidelines. During the evidence sessions, we talked about the fact that the Bill is not just about enforcement; it is also a deterrent. We have the opportunity to introduce sentencing guidance for courts in the United Kingdom to make sure that magistrates and judges have proper information when hearing cases. We agreed that we need good sentencing guidance to ensure that appropriate sentences are given. I welcome the inclusion in the explanatory notes of a table setting out clear maximum penalties and the different sanctions, which are imprisonment or the statutory maximum fines. I may have misheard, but I thought the Minister said that there would be unlimited fines. Will he clarify that point?
Witnesses at the evidence sessions also stressed the need for significant awareness programmes to accompany the introduction of the Bill—I also mentioned that point during the discussion of amendment 10—not just for the judiciary, but for the general public. Education of the public, the judiciary and the enforcement officers is essential. Does the Minister have any further information about how his Department intends to roll out an education programme to inform the general public and the judiciary about exactly what is required and how the Bill is intended to work?
The witness from the International Fund for Animal Welfare said that he hoped that having consulted IFAW on the draft legislation, the Department would also be willing to consult it on the guidance notes. Has the Minister thought any more about that? Another witness, Alexander Rhodes from Stop Ivory, made an interesting and helpful suggestion about how we can learn from some of the African countries that are members of the Elephant Protection Initiative, which has been working hard to develop prosecution and sentencing guidelines for wildlife crime, particularly in relation to the ivory trade. During the evidence session, he said not only is this an area where we can learn from what African countries have been doing about the ivory trade, but our Government have paid for it anyway. He gave the example of Angola, where a challenge fund grant is paying to review a programme of legislative reform, and for prosecutor and judicial training. Has the Minister looked at how we can learn from that initiative? If good work is taking place in other parts of the world, it is important to learn from it to make the Bill as effective as possible. Will the Ministry of Justice or the Home Office be involved in developing the judicial guidelines?
New clause 3, as we heard from the Minister, is about the assessment of enforcement resources. We would require an assessment to be made and laid before Parliament on the level of resources allocated, or proposed to be allocated, to enforcement of the prohibition of ivory dealing. Clearly, unless we have effective enforcement, the Bill is toothless. Enforcement is a critical part of achieving the aims of the legislation. Chief Inspector Hubble stated that point succinctly during the evidence session, saying that
“any Bill has to be enforceable; if not, it is just guidance. It is not legislation if it cannot be enforced.”––[Official Report, Ivory Public Bill Committee, 12 June 2018; c. 35, Q59.]
None of us in Committee wants simply to produce guidance notes to guidance legislation.
During the progress of the Bill, Members in all parts of the House have raised the issue of resources necessary to enforce the Ivory Bill effectively. On Second Reading, the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) said that
“the ban will be meaningful only if it is properly enforced”,
stressing the need for the provision of
“a long-term settlement for the National Wildlife Crime Unit, as well as resources for the CITES Border Force team.”—[Official Report, 4 June 2018; Vol. 642, c. 111.]
The right hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson) asked for
“a strong, firm reassurance from the Minister that this legislation will need enforcing and will need the right level of expertise.”
Enforcement is not just about funding, but about the level of expertise required. He said that the National Wildlife Crime Unit should
“be beefed up and properly resourced for the future. On the same grounds, the CITES Border Force team at Heathrow needs sufficient levels of manpower and resources, as they will be our front line of defence against illegal imports and organised criminal activity coming into the UK.”—[Official Report, 4 June 2018; Vol. 642, c. 105.]
I am aware that the witness from Border Force at Heathrow said that he had the resources necessary for enforcement at the moment, but clearly the Bill might have an impact on that. It is therefore important to understand the potential increase in workloads, including the possible impact on the ability to enforce properly.
On Second Reading, the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire also mentioned the National Wildlife Crime Unit. She expressed her hope that
“that the Secretary of State will be able to announce permanent funding for the unit, as its existing funding expires in 2020.”—[Official Report, 4 June 2018; Vol. 642, c. 116.]
In the evidence session with the enforcement agencies, we heard how the Border Force CITES team and the NWCU work in partnership, and that the Border Force no longer has an investigation function but hands over all its intelligence from investigations to the NWCU, with a view to the unit investigating the offences. We heard from Chief Inspector Hubble exactly what that involves:
“We collate that intelligence, develop it and research it to look at the number of items that people might be buying, selling or trading. We look at their associates. We try to map a network of people that they are linked in with, and ultimately we produce an intelligence package that goes out to a police force in the area where the person is committing the offences.
We have four officers who provide an investigative function to support police forces on the ground, and they work with police officers throughout the investigation: taking statements from witnesses, linking in with experts, compiling prosecution files, assisting with search warrants, and attending court to provide evidence… One seizure by Border Force can result in months and months of investigation for us, and we can compile hundreds of intelligence logs from that one investigation. At the moment, we struggle to disseminate all that intelligence back out to Border Force, to close that loop, because we just do not have the resource to develop that. We have to be selective in what we deal with”.––[Official Report, Ivory Public Bill Committee, 12 June 2018; c. 34, Q57.]
I imagine that every single member of the Committee is impressed with the amount of work carried out by such a small team—only 12 in total. The team does not just carry out investigations referred from Border Force, but works right across all of the UK wildlife crime priority areas, which is a significant remit outside CITES, including domestic wildlife, bats, badgers, prosecutions relating to birds of prey, freshwater pearl mussels and poaching. All of those sit within the UK’s strategic priorities, and the work of the NWCU is split right across all those areas.
A strong commitment to future funding is vital if that important work is to continue. We have heard that the funding is committed to 2020, but beyond that, the NWCU has had no formal indication that there will be continued funding, which clearly causes concern. It is unable to plan or commit to long-term strategies. It is very difficult for any agency to form business plans when, in 20 months, it may well not exist at all.
Chief Inspector Hubble said about the morale of her staff:
“It is difficult for me to keep my staff motivated when they have no job security—a whole raft of concerns are caused by funding.”––[Official Report, Ivory Public Bill Committee, 12 June 2018; c. 37, Q67.]
She was also asked about the potential increase in the number of investigations once the Bill comes into force. She replied that
“if a member of the public sees something on sale that they think is ivory, inevitably they will report it, which comes back to the issue of resourcing and how we deal with the potential increase in the volume of crimes”.––[Official Report, Ivory Public Bill Committee, 12 June 2018; c. 44, Q93.]
Grant Miller, from the CITES Border Force team at Heathrow was asked about the future of the NWCU and the implications for enforcement if its funding were to be discontinued. His reply was clear:
“Our ability to take cases and offenders before the courts would be impacted on greatly. We would be pushed into going out to each constabulary, looking for a supportive senior manager to take on an investigation on our behalf. If we were not able to find that, our activity would be just to disrupt and seize, and the threat would just continue.”––[Official Report, Ivory Public Bill Committee, 12 June 2018; c. 40, Q82.]
On Second Reading, the Secretary of State said he would look to strengthen and resource specialised enforcement to combat illegal ivory dealing. Winding up the debate, the Minister agreed:
“The work carried out by the National Wildlife Crime Unit is absolutely critical.”
With regard to its funding, he assured me that the Government
“are looking at that vital issue ahead of the IWT conference, and I am sure that the Secretary of State would be working on it with the Home Secretary.”—[Official Report, 4 June 2018; Vol. 642, c. 133.]
In response to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh), the Secretary of State confirmed in that debate that
“in the run-up to the illegal wildlife trade summit this October we will be looking not just to ensure that we can continue to staff and support the officers who work in this field adequately, but to ensure that we go even further.”—[Official Report, 4 June 2018; Vol. 642, c. 98.]
Will the Minister give some more information on that commitment from the Secretary of State? When is the NWCU likely to hear about its future funding to support the delivery the Bill?
The Minister also confirmed that the Office for Product Safety and Standards will be the regulator. He spoke about that a moment ago, but will he elaborate on how the reporting requirements will work with the regulator? How does he see the regulator reducing the burden on the enforcement services, as he mentioned in his previous statement?
Anna Turley
I rise to support new clause 3. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Workington on that powerful and thorough speech. There is not much I can add; she made every point inimitably. We all heard the evidence in Committee about how overstretched the Border Force at Heathrow and the National Wildlife Crime Unit are. I come back to the point I made in the previous debate: if this Bill is to be groundbreaking and held up internationally as an example of how seriously we take this awful issue and how determined we are to stamp out the sale of ivory in this country, we have to put our money where our mouth is. That means we have to give the teams that do the enforcement the resources they need to undertake and enforce this Bill.
We heard that the CITES Border Force team has just 10 members. They carry out over 1,000 seizures a year and as my hon. Friend so clearly demonstrated, the months of work each seizure takes is hugely resource-intensive. We have also heard about how the National Wildlife Crime Unit has only 12 people across the whole country to undertake all the activities my hon. Friend so articulately set out. That is a very small unit.
At a time when, nationally, we have lost 20,592 police officers in just seven years and we have seen a 20% rise in violent crime, how on earth is the NWCU supposed to fight and press for its resources, when there are so many competing priorities within the police budget? We really have to take this issue extremely seriously. I wholeheartedly support the new clause because we simply cannot have this Bill, laud it and celebrate its passage unless we are going to put the money behind the teams that will make it a reality.
Dr Cameron
It is imperative that the new clause is accepted. We heard from the NWCU experts that the unit is a small team with limited resources for current demand, and it is unable to plan over the long term. This issue must be dealt with promptly, lest staff are lost because the unit cannot motivate them to stay. Staff in any job who know there may not be long-term funding have families and their own lives to think about, so they will move on to other roles. The expertise at the NWCU cannot be lost, particularly in making sure this Bill is enforceable.
Liz Twist
I return to the furrow of cyber-crime, as I believe this is a significant issue when looking at enforcement. Last week, I asked Chief Inspector Hubble about any measures that could be added to help with enforcement. She replied:
“I would love to have a dedicated cyber-team looking at this day in, day out, with real training and a focused effort. Lots of people in the NGOs we work with are doing work around cyber-related crime. We are in the process of setting up a cyber-working group to try to pull some of that effort and interaction together and to have that group as a priority delivery group alongside the priority delivery groups we have for the other six UK wildlife priorities. That is going to be a significant resource.” [Official Report, Ivory Public Bill Committee, 12 June 2018; c. 36, Q63.]
Chief Inspector Hubble says that she needs additional resources to deal with cyber-crime. I support my hon. Friend the Member for Workington on new clause 3, because it would demonstrate that we are taking on the new challenges, including those facing the NWCU in terms of the rigid timespan and a lack of certainty. I urge the Minister to think again and to accept the new clause, which would show that, not only are we saying that we are doing something but that we are putting the resources into doing it.
Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)
I, too, rise to support new clause 3 in relation to resources. The evidence from the NWCU and the Border Force was compelling. At the moment, they are unbelievably stretched, and when I asked what would happen if the funding were not continued, it was made clear that the whole operation would effectively cease and the work would just be about disruption, as my hon. Friend the Member for Workington said. In another country with a similar legal basis to ours—the United States—enforcement is carried out by the equivalent of our NWCU, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service Office of Law Enforcement, which has 383 staff. Were we to be equivalently resourced—our population is about a fifth of the United States’—we would have about 75 officers. We have 12, so it is not just an issue of retaining staff. We are at about a fifth of where we should be, in comparison with countries with equivalent laws and enforcement. New clause 3 is therefore vital if we are to do a proper and robust stock-take of where we are, and identify the resources needed to properly enforce the law that we will pass. Hopefully it will be a robust and world-leading law, but if we cannot enforce it, what point is there in having it?
David Rutley
I thank hon. Members for their contributions. The argument advanced by the hon. Member for Workington was characteristically thorough, and I will do my best to answer her questions, along with everybody else’s.
The first point the hon. Lady made was about clarifying the situation on fines. Hopefully I can do that. It is important to remember, because the Bill is new legislation, how it will be structured. First, there will be criminal sanctions. For a summary conviction in a magistrates court and so forth, the fine will be a statutory maximum of £5,000; for indictable offences, the fine is unlimited. That is under criminal sanctions. The other thing to remember is that we are also introducing in the Bill—I feel strongly about this, because we will be able to put in place a wide range of measures to take care of lots of different types of breaches— a fine of up to £250,000 under the civil sanctions. There are many different tools. Hopefully that answers the question.
I think we mentioned in our previous sitting that the form of the education programme is yet to be decided, but the focus will be on raising awareness in the most relevant areas. We talked last week about how we will need to work with the music industry; we will need to work with the antiques industry as well, and with members of the public. That is where the Office for Product Safety and Standards will play an important role.
The hon. Lady talked about the very good work being done in Angola. Sentencing guidelines are generally issued in the UK by the Sentencing Council. We are delighted with the work undertaken in Angola with the illegal wildlife trade challenge fund money, but we should note that that worked within the specific circumstances of Angola. None the less, we need to learn from best practice, which I think is the point that the hon. Lady made. We agree with that in principle.
Points were raised about guidance. The Secretary of State will prepare statutory guidance for offences imposed under clause 12. That means that there will be a public consultation on the guidance, which will include getting information from NGOs. The hon. Member for Workington was keen to see that happen. Of course, that would also involve the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office. All relevant parties involved in that process will want to make the guidance robust and appropriate.
Comments were made by the hon. Members for Redcar, for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow, for Blaydon, and for Leeds North West—almost a full house—about the role of the NWCU. Everybody is keen to sing the unit’s praises for the great work that it does. We fully accept that we need proper funding in place for regulatory and law enforcement agencies to tackle wildlife crime. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs currently co-funds the NWCU with others, including the Home Office and the police. Decisions on the ongoing post-2020 deployment of police resources are a matter for the Home Office and individual police chief constables.
Questions were raised about future funding. Clearly, we have the IWT in mind. We want to show people that we are serious about the work that we are doing; that is very clear from the feedback from the NGOs. However, the specific, longer-term funding, post-2020, will be part of the normal spending review process, notwithstanding ongoing dialogues. That is where the more sustainable approach to funding, or the future funding, of the NWCU can be reviewed. That process will be kicking off very soon. That will be an important way of engaging with that debate and looking at the resources that are in place.
We should not forget the role of the regulator. It is easy to focus on the things we know, but we are paving the way for a new regulator—the OPSS—to come into force. The funding for the additional work it will undertake as a result of the sales ban will not be an insignificant amount of money. It is important to note that we are appointing the regulator to enforce the Bill and issue the civil sanctions, which I talked about in relation to the fines. That will constitute the bulk of the work. We are focused on criminal sanctions, but the vast bulk of the work will relate to civil sanctions. That will constitute the work that the OPSS will do. We therefore do not expect the burden on the strategic intelligence-led NWCU to increase significantly. The OPSS is designed to take out the volume of activity. Given those explanations, I hope the hon. Lady will withdraw her new clause.
The Chair
I remind hon. Members that votes on new clauses come at the end.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 12 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 13
Civil sanctions
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 13, in schedule 1, page 31, line 22, at end insert—
“(d) the circumstances in which the Secretary of State would consider criminal sanctions more appropriate than civil sanctions.”
This amendment requires the Secretary of State’s guidance under paragraph 21 to state in what circumstances criminal sanctions are considered more appropriate than civil sanctions.
That schedule 1 be the First schedule to the Bill.
Sue Hayman
Amendment 13 is pretty straightforward. It was designed to clarify the circumstances in which the Secretary of State will consider criminal sanctions to be more appropriate than civil sanctions. We propose to insert it into paragraph 21 of schedule 1 in order to be absolutely clear about why a criminal sanction would come into play, as opposed to a civil sanction. The Minister said that the bulk of cases will come under civil sanctions, but what is the tipping point? We feel that anyone involved in this will need to understand properly the circumstances in which the Secretary of State would consider a case to have tipped into a criminal sanction.
David Rutley
I set out in our discussion on clause 12 that a mixed regime of criminal and civil sanctions will be applied to the offences under the Bill. In line with that approach, clause 13 ensures that civil sanctions may be applied to breaches of the ban. The civil sanctions are detailed in schedule 1. We recognise that offences made under the Bill may vary in severity. Overly harsh sanctions should not be applied in a way that could be deemed to be disproportionate. For example, where members of the public have genuinely made every effort to abide by the ban or are genuinely of the belief that the item is not ivory, it would clearly be inappropriate to levy criminal sanctions.
However, compliance with the ban cannot be seen as optional. Acts of non-compliance must be deterred and penalised with the appropriate level of sanction. That is critical if we are to meet our objective of ending the link between the UK ivory market and elephant poaching. The clause ensures that, where a criminal sanction is unwarranted, a range of civil sanctions may be applied. The regulatory body and the police will be responsible for identifying and investigating breaches of the ban. The regulatory body will be responsible for issuing civil sanctions, as I described earlier.
If an offender does not comply with a civil sanction imposed against them—for example, if they do not pay the monetary penalty imposed against them within the necessary period—they may be subject to criminal sanctions. The Government believe that the range of available sanctions reflects the seriousness of the ban, while allowing it to be proportionate. I commend the clause to the Committee.
Sue Hayman
I thank the Minister for providing that detail. Schedule 1 states that the Secretary of State must
“prepare and publish guidance as to”—
this is in paragraph 21(1)(c)—
“the circumstances in which the Secretary of State is likely to take any such action.”
Does that clearly explain whether he would consider criminal sanctions to be more appropriate than civil questions? Perhaps further clarification could be given in the guidance that accompanies the Bill, because it is important for people to understand whether these are criminal or civil sanctions. Could the guidance be elaborated to make that clear?
David Rutley
I understand the hon. Lady’s concern about getting this right. I can assure her that there will be further clarification on these points in the guidance. The point is well made, but it will be in the guidance.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 13 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 1 agreed to.
Clause 14
Power to stop and search persons
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
David Rutley
These clauses all refer to powers of stop-and-search to be conferred on police and customs officers. They refer to persons, vehicles, and vessels and aircraft respectively. Clause 14 confers on police and customs officers the power to stop and search persons. There is no power to stop and search where an officer suspects that a person has in his or her possession an ivory item that is not intended for dealing. In order to use the powers, an officer will need reasonable grounds to suspect that a person has committed or is committing an offence. That might include intelligence gathered about a planned sale of ivory, or information from the registration database that an item has been falsely registered. A police or customs officer may also detain a stopped person for the purpose of carrying out a search. The stop-and-search powers in clause 14 are exercisable in any place to which a police or customs officer has access, including any public place.
Clause 15 confers on police and customs officers the power to stop and search vehicles. Again, the power is engaged where an officer has reasonable grounds to suspect that a person has committed or is committing a “relevant offence”, as defined in clause 14(4). The power does not apply where the vehicle is a dwelling. A dwelling is not defined but is intended to be given its natural meaning—the exclusion would, for example, apply to a residential caravan. The power will apply to vehicles whether or not a driver or other person is in attendance of the vehicle.
Where it is impractical for a stopped vehicle to be searched in the place it was stopped, an officer may require the vehicle to be moved to another place before conducting the search. That provision would apply, for example, where a vehicle was stopped on a busy road and it would be safer to conduct the search in another location. Clause 15(4) places a duty on any person travelling in the vehicle, or the registered keeper, to facilitate the exercise of an officer’s power under the clause. For example, the driver of the vehicle may be required to open a locked glove box or boot. Again, those stop-and-search powers are exercisable in any place to which the officer has lawful access. That would enable a vehicle parked in a garage on premises that were the subject of a search warrant under clause 15(7) to be searched.
Clause 16 will confer on police and customs officers a power, analogous to that in clause 15, to board and search vessels or aircraft. A vessel is defined in clause 36(4) and includes any ship, boat or hovercraft. However, the power does not apply where a vessel or aircraft is used as a dwelling—a houseboat, for example.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 14 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 15 and 16 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 17
Powers to enter and search premises
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Clauses 18 and 19 stand part.
That schedule 2 be the Second schedule to the Bill.
Sue Hayman
The hon. Member for Cheltenham said during one of our evidence sessions that some people had raised concerns about the fact that accredited civilian officers at present have quite swingeing powers to enter premises, search, check and so on. He asked Anthony Browne, the chairman of the British Art Market Federation, whether he had any concerns about the scope and nature of those powers, and Mr Browne’s reply was that there were concerns and that he was very glad that the hon. Gentleman had raised the issue.
Mr Browne said that one of the federation’s members had been given legal advice—he said he was happy to make that available to the Committee, although I am not sure whether he has—that giving those powers to civilians was
“most unusual…if not unprecedented, except where public safety considerations are in prospect.”––[Official Report, Ivory Public Bill Committee, 12 June 2018; c. 49, Q105.]
I wonder whether Mr Browne has submitted that advice to the Minister. He did say that he had a memorandum that he was happy to submit for consideration. Has the Minister had any more thoughts on that? I thought that the hon. Member for Cheltenham made a very good point. He said that it is not entirely clear in the legislation who the accredited civilian officers would be, their qualifications and where they would be drawn from. I would be grateful if the Minister would clarify those points.
Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)
The hon. Member for Workington has put it very well. I have nothing to add but, for obvious reasons, endorse the remarks she has made.
David Rutley
The hon. Lady makes some important points. I will wait for a little inspiration to help with some of them. It is important to recognise that accredited civilian officers are members of the OPSS and already have powers of entry and search under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 in relation to products subject to trade.
It is about recognising the new role. The regulator is new and, therefore, we are trying to understand what it can do. They already have a pre-existing role and within that they have these powers to enter and search. They also have powers under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005. These are specific servants given a particular role and they do have pre-existing powers that they could use in trying to prohibit the sale of ivory, or commercial activity relating to it, that does not qualify for exemption. I hope that answers the hon. Lady’s question.
Alex Chalk
Will my hon. Friend be kind enough to indicate the training that takes place before someone is qualified to use these important powers? Bearing in mind that the individual would be entitled under the legislation to enter premises—albeit non-dwelling premises—and to search in an intrusive way, we need to ensure that the people exercising those important powers have been fully trained, so that civil liberties are protected.
David Rutley
My hon. Friend makes an important point. Of course, there will be a strong training regime to ensure that these individuals are able to carry out their current role and we want to ensure that they have adequate training to take on new roles related to the ivory prohibition. I will write to him with details of how that will be moved forward.
Sue Hayman
Further to that point, the situation has been described as possibly unprecedented. How often does the Minister see these civilian officers taking part in investigations? Would that be rare or a regular part of the enforcement process? That would clearly affect resources and training. I would be grateful for clarification on that.
David Rutley
The Bill is clear that the powers given to the body and its members will be strictly controlled. The relationship with customs officers and police officers is tightly defined. As for the number of times it will be used, we are putting more focus on civil sanctions. The key point is that officers or members of the OPSS will need these powers to carry out their work and move matters through. The hon. Lady will note that clause 17 requires the OPSS to issue reasonable notice of intent to enter. The move to enter premises is not just to search; it can also be to ensure compliance. It is important to remember that the job of the OPSS is to help educate and train as well as ensure compliance and enforcement. It is a matter of thinking about their role more broadly. In many situations, as set out in the Bill, reasonable notice will be required.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 17 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 18 and 19 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 2 agreed to.
Clauses 20 to 26 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Alex Chalk
I wish simply to underline a point that has been made already. Clause 27 creates offences of obstruction if anybody, without a reasonable excuse,
“obstructs an officer in the performance of any of the officer’s functions under sections 14 to 24.”
That includes an accredited civilian officer, so it is all the more important, given the potential criminal sanctions that can apply, that the individual who possesses these significant powers of search, seizure and requiring the production of documents is truly competent and capable of that task. I wanted to take this opportunity to underscore the point, given the severity of the sanctions, that this is not something that should be skimped.
David Rutley
I reassure my hon. Friend that we are not looking to skimp, and we must of course ensure proper training. I will write to him, as I have already promised. We are all getting our heads around a new regime, but I assure the Committee that it is not unprecedented for OPSS to exercise powers under legislation; it falls under the remit of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and, as I have said, it has these powers already in relation to the Consumer Rights Act 2015. We want to ensure that it has the proper powers and that there is proper training, because of the implications.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 27 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 28 to 34 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 35
Meaning of “ivory”
Sue Hayman
I beg to move amendment 11, in page 20, line 40, leave out “an elephant” and insert “a hippopotamus, elephant, killer whale, narwhal, sperm whale, or walrus.”
This amendment would include in the definition of ivory all the ivory-bearing species listed in an Appendix to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 12, in page 21, line 3, leave out from “subsection” to the end of line 5
This amendment would allow the Secretary of State to make regulations in the future that would include any ivory species, even if not listed in an appendix to CITES.
Clause stand part.
Sue Hayman
Amendment 11 would include under the definition of ivory all the ivory-bearing species listed in an appendix to CITES. We have discussed the definition of ivory at length at every stage of the Bill, so I want to consider some of the discussion that we have had.
On Second Reading, the Secretary of State said that there would be an opportunity in Committee to consider whether the scope of the Bill was absolutely as it should be. He said:
“A number of Members have previously indicated their interest in extending its scope to other forms of ivory, such as narwhal horns, and there will indeed be an opportunity to debate precisely that matter in Committee.”—[Official Report, 4 June 2018; Vol. 642, c. 92.]
With amendment 11, I am taking the Secretary of State up on that generous offer and considering it in more detail.
Sue Hayman
I know how the Minister appreciates it.
Several hon. Members, some of whom are members of the Committee and others who are not but took part in the Second Reading debate, have spoken about why they feel it is really important that we look at extending the Bill’s scope. They include my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East, who I believe is paired today, the hon. Members for Mid Derbyshire and for North Dorset, who are both here today, the right hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson), and the hon. Members for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith), for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena), for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan), for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), for Witney, and for Southend West (Sir David Amess). They all raised the specific issue of extending the scope on Second Reading.
Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)
Although I agree that we need to look at going beyond elephant ivory at some point, we need to get this Bill through quickly, even though it is narrow. I would have preferred it to be wider, but it cannot be because we have not consulted on that. Does the hon. Lady agree that it would be better to get the Bill through and to widen the scope at a later stage, as soon as we possibly can, rather than delay its implementation as it stands?
Sue Hayman
I agree that we need to get the Bill through very quickly, because of its important purpose. However, on consultation, I have taken professional advice from the Consultation Institute, and I declare an interest because I am an associate. Its advice to me, as a professional organisation that works with different Departments, is that consultation will not necessarily delay the Bill and prevent it from being ready before the conference that we are all looking forward to in October.
The Consultation Institute does not believe that it is illegal to move forward without further consultation, but if consultation was necessary, the Government could easily devise a quick consultation of no more than 14 days, by going back to the organisations that have already shown an interest in this matter through responding to the initial consultation. That could be done very quickly; there is no reason to delay the Bill by extending that consultation. The institute would be happy to work with the Department and endorse that consultation formally at the end, so that there would be no challenge. The Government have apparently done short consultations in the past as top-up consultations to something that has already taken place, as a piece of legislation goes through.
Anna Turley
I appreciate the helpful explanation of the consultation process, and I completely agree with my hon. Friend. I am quite confused about the point that has been pressed a number of times, that widening the scope slightly to include other animals would delay the Bill’s progress. The Opposition have tabled an amendment, which is being discussed. If we were in a world where we did not amend Bills during a parliamentary process because we had not consulted on the relevant issue from the exact outset, goodness me, hardly any legislation would be amended in this place and we would deal only with what was presented to us at the beginning of the process.
Sue Hayman
Clearly, we need to be able to crack on and we must not get too bogged down in consultation. However, we do not want at any stage for this Bill to be able to be challenged. That is very important. There are certain sections of the art market that wish to challenge the Bill. That is why I took that professional advice from the Consultation Institute, so that it would be happy to work with the Department to ensure that there is no opportunity for a legal challenge if another short consultation was held to allow the scope to be extended.
To return to the suggestions of other hon. Members in debates and evidence sessions, the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed spoke very strongly about the need to extend the scope. She said that this is a “one-off opportunity” to highlight the other mammals that would be affected. My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East said:
“We know that this will be the only time we have an Ivory Bill before this House for many years to come, so if we are going to try to protect those species, it makes sense for us to do it now, in this Bill.”—[Official Report, 4 June 2018; Vol. 642, c. 105.]
The right hon. Member for North Shropshire, who is a former Environment Secretary, raised an important point on Second Reading. He said:
“The Secretary of State should also be able to include other ivory-bearing species not listed in the CITES appendices”,
an important point made previously by the hon. Member for North Dorset. The right hon. Member for North Shropshire went on:
“As the Born Free Foundation has indicated, there has been an increase in the purchasing of hippo and other non-elephant ivory in the UK to replace elephant ivory in the internal trade. The BFF infers that the legal and illegal trades are targeting these other species, as the Government’s focus is on elephant ivory.”—[Official Report, 4 June 2018; Vol. 642, c. 104.]
It is important to keep the focus on elephant ivory, but we must not lose sight of what else is happening.
Simon Hoare
It is a pleasure to follow the shadow Minister. She will not be at all surprised to hear that I have a huge amount of sympathy with what she has said, but I also entirely take the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire. It is good and bad fortune that the timetabling of this is slightly hog-tied by the conference taking place in London this autumn. If we are to showcase to the rest of the world our seriousness about dealing with this issue, and to use the Bill as an exemplar of what other countries can do to bring pressure to bear on the ivory trade, it is imperative that we progress the measure as speedily and smoothly as possible.
The hon. Lady has made perfectly valid points, which many of my hon. Friends made on Second Reading. She was kind enough to refer to the remarks that I made in two interventions on the Secretary of State. Notwithstanding those points, I think we should focus on trying to move this forward. However, I hope she will agree, and I hope—in fact I am almost certain—that my hon. Friend the Minister will already be casting his mind to Report stage. We often think that in Committee we raise issues in more detail than on Second Reading, but Departments still have to go away and do further thinking, research and indeed inter-departmental consultation, rather than issues being decided with the flick of a ministerial pen. I certainly hold out much hope that when we come to our debates on the Floor of the House on Report, the Minister will have good or encouraging news, predicated on the remarks that many of us have made about the scope of the clause.
For the record, I am certainly keen to see the word “only” deleted. Of course we should use CITES as a foundation for the parameters of the clause, but we should have the scope to list animals that are not endangered. I am tempted to say that we list animals as endangered only when it is too late. If we are keen to de-commoditise the attractiveness of ivory as a tradeable item irrespective of its source, perhaps in 18 months to two years we might find a diminution in the value and volume of elephant ivory, but an absolute explosion in warthog ivory, and debates on that. I am rather fond of the warthog; I do not know why. I am a fan of Flanders and Swann, who had a charming song—I am sure it is available on YouTube or somewhere—about warthogs. Perhaps colleagues could listen to it during the lunch adjournment and understand the inherent beauty of the warthog. We might have scope on Report to hear about how we could base the clause on CITES, but also bring other species not covered by CITES as endangered into the list.
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire, I have an interest in seeing the Bill include mammoths. I am not persuaded by the argument that because a species is extinct, the still sellable product—the mammoth tusk—should therefore be excluded. I was grateful to the NGO representatives at the evidence stage who made the point about the need to protect and preserve the dwindling numbers of both the African and the Asian elephant. We know that there are tricksters out there who will try to find maintenance in the market for their wares, and will—I am told it is pretty easy if one knows how—convert elephant ivory into something that looks and feels like mammoth ivory. We create a lacuna in our aspiration of trying to de-commoditise ivory if we exempt mammoth ivory merely on the premise of its coming from an extinct species. My hon. Friend the Minister will be hugely relieved to know I am not a parliamentary draftsman. I simply suggest that perhaps on Report, were we to see a Government amendment moving the deletion of paragraph (b) from subsection (6), because the mammoth falls within the elephant family, that would neatly tie that up.
The shadow Minister knows I hold her in very high regard. With apologies to my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham, we live in a litigious age where lawyers grub around for every shilling and halfpenny—not my hon. Friend, of course, who stood primus inter pares at the Bar. However, one or two look to advance a case in order to make a little money.
I slightly challenge the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport. I heard what the hon. Member for Workington said, but were we, at the stroke of a ministerial pen in Committee, suddenly today to include in an Act of Parliament species that had not been consulted on, that would make the Government open to the potential for judicial review. While the direction of travel as set out clearly in subsection (4) might not be perfect, it is to be welcomed.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State responded to interventions about a real appetite to see a widening of the species included under the Bill, to be dealt with by delegated legislation, and all of us who are serious and focused on this issue—there is no division on that in the Committee—should feel that is the way to go. However, on the inclusion of mammoths, I hold out hope. It may be overly simple to delete subsection 6(b), the requirement for extant species on the day on which the Bill is passed—there may need to be concomitant knock-on amendments to other clauses—but that would clearly bring mammoths within the scope of the Bill. As a helpful way forward, we should consider basing the Bill on CITES but not restricting ourselves to that.
If the hon. Lady presses her amendment to a vote, I will, with regret, vote against it. My strongest drive may not have been that if I were not persuaded of the responsive tone of both my hon. Friend the Minister and the Secretary of State on the broadening and deepening of the clause. My strongest imperative is to be able to send a clear message to other legislators in October. Therefore, it may be regrettable, but on this occasion our main focus must be the timely progress of the Bill.
Alex Sobel
I rise to support amendment 11. I will restrict my comments to the narwhal as I do not have time to go into depth on the hippo, killer whale, sperm whale and walrus. Narwhal were known as sea unicorns for many centuries before exploration of the Arctic, and their tusks were one of the most valuable commodities in pre-industrial revolution Britain. Queen Elizabeth I is said to have spent £10,000—equivalent to £1.5 million today—on a narwhal tusk, which was placed with the Crown jewels. Although narwhal horns are no longer so valuable, they are valued at between £3,000 and £12,000, and a double tusk can fetch as much as £25,000.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature considers narwhal hunting still to be a major issue. In Canada and Greenland, narwhal hunting is still permitted, and between 2007 and 2011 an average of 979 narwhals were hunted a year. The Inuit as a native tribe have hunted narwhal for centuries, using them as a source of both food and income.
Numerous reports have been produced, and there is an evidence base from non-governmental organisations. CITES has said that there is a significant trade in narwhal tusks and parts but that there is not sufficient data to track it. The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society is concerned that the hunting of narwhal has already become unsustainable. Narwhals have been over-harvested in Canada and Greenland. The society said:
“The annual hunting in western Greenland…significantly exceeded the quotas recommended by those scientific bodies of regional and international organisations charged with narwhal management.”
Narwhals are significantly impacted by climate change. While I understand the need to make haste with elephants, narwhals face more than one threat, so it is important to agree to the amendment to include narwhals in the scope of the Bill.
I am not sure whether the Minister is aware that the Inuit people are permitted to sell narwhal derivatives, including the horn, within the European Union. There are restrictions on what can be imported without permits, and penalties for contravening import rules. Will the Minister give us some more information about that and about how we will deal with the issue if we do not agree to the amendment?
Anna Turley
I, too, rise to support the very important amendment 11. A phrase that is used with medical students is “first, do no harm”, and we ought to think about that all the time when passing legislation. I have a real concern, which is backed up by evidence, that when passing legislation such as this we can have a disproportionate impact on another species. We all support the Bill wholeheartedly; it is long overdue in protecting elephants, but we should be absolutely mindful of its potentially damaging knock-on effect on other species.
I rise to speak about the noble hippopotamus in particular. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!] I think everyone agrees what a beautiful and wonderful animal it is. The number of hippos in the world has crashed by 95% in 30 years, and that is widely acknowledged to be a knock-on effect of the increasing restrictions on the trade in elephant ivory. For example, in the Virunga national park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo there were 29,000 hippos and there are now just 1,300. The hippo is vulnerable and is on the red list of threatened species, and there is deep concern that it is being poached and hunted for its teeth, particularly as the loopholes close around elephant ivory. In 2014, 60 tonnes of hippo teeth were exported to Hong Kong from Africa, and from there they were sent to European countries. If the purpose of the Bill is to close markets that are driving that trade, there is clearly a strong integrated global trade in hippo teeth that has a huge effect on the species.
Different countries are taking different steps. Uganda has banned the trade in hippo teeth, and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo the hippo is a protected species. It is vital that we take this opportunity to send out the message that we in this country do not believe that hippos should be killed or poached for their teeth, and that our view is that our legislation on protecting elephant ivory will not have a damaging impact on the hippopotamus.
I close with a quote in the National Geographic by Pieter Kat, who is a conservation biologist in east Africa:
“What we need to realise is African wildlife conservation should not be guided entirely by a focus on elephants and rhinos. Many other species are being traded to extinction in Africa, and I would to have say hippos are probably one of the most obvious examples of this.”
We need to tread very carefully, so that in doing something fantastic to protect the beautiful species of the elephant we do not have a knock-on effect on that of the hippo.
Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
I rise to support the amendment, and to pick up on the point made by the hon. Member for North Dorset about the risk of parliamentary sovereignty being judicially reviewed. Unfortunately, I am not sure that the Clerk can intervene in Committee to clarify the legal position, but I reassure the hon. Gentleman that the courts are there to reinforce the will of Parliament rather than to police it.
Primary legislation cannot be judicially reviewed. That picks up on the point made earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar that no amendment can be made to any Bill, subject to consultation, if we have strict enforcement. However, given the fact that there is no risk of judicial review of primary legislation, and that the shadow Minister has provided a handy, quick, short consultation route, I do not see much problem with accepting the amendment.
Simon Hoare
The process by which the law is made is judicially reviewable, and one cannot put in, when making law on a whim—whether of a Committee or of a Parliament—something that has not been consulted on, under the regulations, with relevant bodies. For example, we know that we will ban flammable materials for high-rise blocks. The Government still have to consult on it, because we cannot just make law on the hoof. The process of suddenly including things that were precluded from the scope of the Bill when it was a Green Paper for consultation is, I am afraid, judicially reviewable. The hon. Gentleman is right about the outcome, but the process by which we arrive at it is judicially reviewable. That could delay the implementation of the Act. That is what we have to avoid.
Luke Pollard
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. As the Bill is called the Ivory Bill, it is well established that its scope can include ivory. The only definition included in the Bill refers to elephants. A clear opportunity is available to Members to expand that to include other species that are directly at risk from the precedent set by tackling only elephant ivory.
I am not certain that the hon. Gentleman is correct when he talks about the judicial review risk. However, I am certain that we all want elephant ivory to be banned and the ban to be extended to other types of ivory. Two possible routes have been laid out: the first is accepting the amendment proposed by the shadow Minister; the second is for the Government to take a short consultation period, after having accepted the amendment, to ensure that everything is in order.
I think we might be dancing on the head of a pin. We all want these species to be brought into the scope of the Bill, and we need to work out the best way of doing that. From my point of view, having, ahead of the conference, a piece of legislation that bans trade not only in elephant ivory but in that of other species would send a powerful message, and a stronger one than if the Bill included only elephant ivory.
Dr Cameron
I also rise to support amendment 11. It is imperative that there is no knock-on effect and endangerment of further species as a result of the Bill. We heard extremely clear evidence from experts that that is exactly what would happen. We must ensure that it is all-encompassing. We have heard already that expert opinion says that that can be done timeously and so as not to interfere with the announcement at the conference later this year. A short consultation period can take place.
Where there is a will, there is definitely a way in the case of the Bill. I also put on record that although announcements at conferences are extremely welcome and important, they are not as important to me and to the Scottish National party as protecting a number of endangered species for future generations.
Liz Twist
I also rise to support amendment 11. I am afraid I do not have the erudition about some of the species in question that other hon. Members have. However, I think it was clear on Second Reading and is clear from other evidence that there is widespread support for ensuring that the Bill encompasses the whole range of ivory, so that there are no knock-on effects and we can protect as wide a group of species as possible, with the aim of protecting wildlife. So I urge the Minister to—
Ivory Bill (Sixth sitting)
Tuesday 19th June 2018
(6 years, 5 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Ivory Act 2018 View all Ivory Act 2018 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 19 June 2018 - (19 Jun 2018)
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 7 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 7 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 7 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Chair
I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing the following:
Amendment 12, in clause 35, page 21, line 3, leave out from “subsection” to the end of line 5
This amendment would allow the Secretary of State to make regulations in the future that would include any ivory species, even if not listed in an appendix to CITES.
Clause stand part.
It is rather warm and humid in here—with humour as well, hopefully—so Members should feel free to take off their jackets. Members who have already spoken in the debate but wish to make comments on parts of the group that they did not address in their first speech are welcome to do so. If they wish to be called again, they should catch my eye by standing. I understand that Liz Twist was speaking before lunch, but she is not here. Would anyone else like to speak?
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
I feel that I have been slightly thrown into the middle here, because I was “slipped” for this morning and had not expected the Committee to have made such progress. Last week we took much oral evidence on broadening the definition of ivory beyond the tusk or tooth of an elephant to other ivory-bearing animals. It was disappointing that the consultation looked just at elephant ivory without the opportunity to consider narwhals, walruses or other animals. The hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire was particularly keen that mammoths should be included in the definition, although that would not come under a convention on international trade in endangered species definition, on the grounds that animals that are already extinct cannot be protected as endangered species. I suggest to the Minister that just because there was not a consultation on other species does not necessarily mean that they cannot be included in a definition.
We heard in evidence that the vast majority of trade is in elephant ivory. Exemptions for antiquities and precious items are nearly always concerned with elephant ivory; the new forms of ivory are very much secondary. There was a discussion about whether the Government would be subject to judicial review if a ban were to be implemented without consultation, and I will be interested to hear the Minister’s comments on that. My concern is that although the Bill makes provision to do things by statutory instrument, we will not have another ivory Bill for a long time. I therefore want reassurance that, if we are not to widen the definition in the Bill, those consultations and statutory instruments will be brought forward as soon as possible.
With regard to ivory-bearing animals mentioned in the CITES appendices, alongside African and Asian elephants in appendix I—those ranked as most severely under threat—are sperm whales, which are already under threat from ivory poaching. In 2013 the Spanish authorities seized 250 teeth, with a combined weight of 80 kg, which would have sold online for £1,000 each to be made into carved chess pieces. Appendix II includes narwhals, a single tusk of which can sell for up to $12,500. It has been reported that there are, on average, more than 200 trades in narwhal tusk every year. Although these species may not be at such an immediate and apparent threat of extinction as the elephant, they are at risk.
Anna Turley (Redcar) (Lab/Co-op)
We mentioned this morning the knock-on effect of some bans. Does my hon. Friend agree that, if we have such a small Bill, focused only on elephants, the knock-on effect for other species not currently endangered could escalate their endangerment? There would be purely a knock-on effect for other species.
Kerry McCarthy
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. We have heard that this is big business. There are organised criminal gangs involved in poaching ivory. We have seen in the past how they will move from one lucrative criminal activity to another. If the elephant trade is closed to them, which we hope it will be, they will move on and find new pastures.
I have mentioned a couple of species involved. Alongside those in appendix II there are also killer whales, hippos and certain types of dolphin. Appendix III includes the walruses. It is estimated that up to 3% of their global population are hunted and killed every year.
I want to make a final plea for the poor old warthog, which no one seems to care very much about—[Interruption.] Maybe it was discussed this morning. We have to look at why we are introducing an ivory ban. It is mostly presented as a conservation issue that threatens the survival of the elephant, which could be wiped from the face of the earth. We should look at it from the point of view that taking an animal’s teeth just for the purpose of ornamentation or to make money out of it has to be wrong, whether it is rare, precious and wonderful to look at, or an ugly old warthog, of which there are many running around. I argue that we should not hunt animals for ivory, whether they are endangered or not.
Sue Hayman (Workington) (Lab)
I will speak briefly to amendment 12, which I tabled following a suggestion from the hon. Member for North Dorset, who unfortunately is not in his place at the moment. He suggested that in clause 35(3) everything following the word “only” should be deleted, so that it would read:
“The regulations may amend subsection (1) so as to include ivory from an animal or species not for the time being covered by that subsection.”
That would allow us to look at non-CITES species, a point raised by a number of hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire. That would include mammoth, for example. There is obviously also the dear warthog. My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East missed a treat this morning when the hon. Member for North Dorset threatened to sing a song about the warthog in order to draw attention to its plight. She might like to have a word in private, to ask if he could entertain her.
Amendment 11 seeks to extend the scope of the Bill. Amendment 12 would allow us to consider any animal that might be affected in future by displacement or removal of other species from poaching, for example. This is an important area to consider. I hope that the Government will consider it seriously, because it is a simple amendment that would attract cross-party support.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (David Rutley)
I will speak to amendments 11 and 12 and clause stand part. I warn colleagues that this will be a lengthy contribution, but that is fitting, given the contributions we have heard. I will take interventions, and I know that the hon. Member for Workington will wrap up with her final thoughts. She made a few detailed points about consultation, and the fact that she is an associate of the Consultation Institute and is taking guidance and advice from it. We would be happy to look into that. As a Minister, I need to take guidance from other sources within Government too, so there are often different views on these matters. We will of course look at that.
The hon. Member for Leeds North West spoke with passion and conviction about narwhals, and he made some good points. I will write to him with the details on imports. The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport talked about the risk of judicial review. Perhaps he could hold that thought, because in the main body of my remarks I will talk about the biggest risk here, which is of the European Court of Human Rights challenging the provisions in the Bill. We can answer questions as we go. I thank hon. Members for their amendments and would like to acknowledge the significant degree of support, in the House and from conservation organisations, for extending the scope of the Bill to cover other species.
Clause 35 provides the definition of ivory applied in the Bill. Ivory is defined as the tusk or tooth of any species of elephant. Subsection (6) defines elephant as any animal or species that is within the family Elephantidae and that is extant—meaning living—at the time the Bill is passed.
My hon. Friend the Member for Witney questioned whether we should be looking at the chemical composition of ivory, so let us put that on the table as well, as we are all keen to understand the situation. The chemical composition of ivory cannot be used here, or indeed in the CITES or EU wildlife trade regulations, to assist in defining elephant ivory. That is because the chemical composition of all mammal teeth is broadly the same, so this is not a helpful method for distinguishing between species. Instead, a range of other approaches is used to distinguish elephant ivory from other species and other materials such as plastic, including physical characteristics and DNA testing. Therefore, chemical composition or any other practical means of testing ivory cannot be used as a legal definition for elephant ivory, either in the Bill or in international restrictions on ivory, with which it is important that we align.
Many will ask why back in October we consulted only on the sale of elephant ivory. We have moved quickly—not just in this Committee but before—but the short answer is that that is where the clear priority lay at the start. As we heard so clearly from the NGOs last week, their primary aim is to see a world-leading ban on elephant ivory sales enacted in the UK. That is where the Government have acted quickly in response. Also, the UK signed up to a resolution at the last CITES conference committing to close domestic elephant ivory markets. We therefore wanted to do what was necessary to get this legislation on to the statute book as soon as possible.
Elephant ivory is the most commonly found and traded form of ivory. Indeed, during initial consultations with NGOs it was stated that their primary focus was on banning the sale of elephant ivory as it forms the vast majority of the trade. Amendment 11 seeks to protect other endangered ivory-bearing species by extending the scope of the Bill to cover hippos, killer whales, narwhal, sperm whales and walrus. I stress that we share these concerns about other endangered ivory-bearing species and want to do all we can to protect them. Species such as the hippo and the narwhal—the unicorn of the sea—deserve as much protection as the elephant, and the poaching of such creatures for their ivory is equally abhorrent. However, I cannot say what proportion of the UK ivory market concerns non-elephant ivory, as we did not seek that information in our consultation—that consultation was narrower.
That is why the Bill includes, in clause 35, a power for the Secretary of State to lay regulations to widen its scope to cover other endangered ivory-bearing species, such as hippopotamus, narwhal and walrus. That power is broad, and it is not dependent on demonstrating that the banning of elephant ivory has caused the displacement of the market to other species. The hurdle is low.
Clause 35(3) states that regulations may be laid only in respect of ivory-bearing species listed on an appendix to CITES. That is an important qualification. A listing in one of the three appendices to CITES demonstrates that the animal or species requires a degree of protection from trade, for example through restrictions on the trade in that species. Currently, the listed ivory-bearing species to which that may apply are hippopotamus, walrus, killer whale, sperm whale and narwhal. Unfortunately for my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset and the hon. Member for Bristol East, the Bill does not include walruses, but I will come to them in a second.
Anna Turley
The Minister is being generous with his time, but I refer him to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East. It is important that we look at this issue through the prism of endangered species, but there is also a moral obligation. How much has that formed part of the thinking behind the Bill? We ought to be driving out poaching and the hunting of animals for the use of their body parts for culture and marketing because it is a moral imperative.
David Rutley
I completely understand that. I think we need to pause for a moment, though, to reflect on the fact that we are trying to make a real difference with elephant ivory. There are provisions for all other forms of ivory and I will take away the hon. Lady’s point, but it is worth reflecting on the evidence we had from the NGOs, which was that they like the ban, that it is meaningful that and it is going to make a difference. It will also set a standard for others to follow.
I am sure Opposition Members as well as the Government will reflect on these matters. We will do everything we can to make these provisions as wide-ranging and impactful as possible. As I hope I have described, we need to get through a balance test, and at the moment we do not have enough evidence to support a balance review taking place.
Should warthogs become endangered and listed under CITES, the Bill provides the ability to amend the regulations to reflect that. With my rather lengthy explanation, I hope I have addressed most of the points to be made regarding clause stand part. I say to my hon. Friends and Opposition Members that I am committed to considering whether steps can be taken to use the subsection (3) powers as soon as possible after commencement so that all statutory instruments and guidance to enforce the ban on elephant ivory are in place. However, I am happy to consider the evidence and data required for a balance review.
Sue Hayman
I thank the Minister. During the discussion on amendment 11 and extending the scope of the Bill, it appeared that the Government’s main concern was about further consultation and a potential judicial review.
David Rutley
The key point is that this is not about judicial review. I know I am getting a bit techy, but the key thing is that it would be a challenge under the European convention on human rights. To satisfy the requirements of the ECHR, we need to review whether we have looked not just at the general interest in the ban but in the rights of individuals, in particular to do with possessions, that are enshrined in the ECHR. That is why we have to do the balance test. What I am trying to get across to the Committee is that we need to ensure that we have the evidence—we want to gather it as quickly as possible—but there is still a requirement to do the balance test.
Sue Hayman
We have talked about how we could do the consultation quickly, and the Minister has made a commitment to talk to the Consultation Institute about that. As far as human rights go, according to the legal advice I have taken primary legislation can be challenged only on human rights and EU law grounds. I have been informed that in the case of human rights, the argument would have to rest on article 1 of protocol 1, on the “peaceful enjoyment” of property, but that is subject to a public interest caveat. On those grounds, we can justify the inclusion of other creatures—such as on the grounds of endangerment—in the same way as we can elephants. That is the legal information that I have received, so I put it on the record.
David Rutley
I thank the hon. Lady for setting out her view. At this point, I think we strongly agree with each other. On helping to get people familiar with the provisions, that is exactly what the Government say—it is an ECHR requirement, so it is about getting the fair balance review in place. We are perhaps using slightly different language about what we are trying to describe, but we are saying the same thing.
Sue Hayman
The legal advice I have been given is that that need not mean that we cannot extend the scope of the Bill and miss the conference deadline in October, which the Government are clearly keen to meet. I would be keen to look at how to extend the scope now, because that is what most people would prefer from the Bill at the beginning, rather than coming back to it through secondary legislation at a later date—we do not know when that would happen.
In response to points made during the debate, including by the Minister, I would say that the most important thing is to get the Bill absolutely right and to get it into legislation as quickly as possible. However, I do not think a conference date should be the ultimate deadline. We need to get the legislation correct regardless of whether that means we miss the conference deadline by a week or two—it is more important to get it right. A lot seems to be about the Government having the will to make the Bill the best they possibly can. We are in Committee to work with the Government, genuinely, to make a positive and helpful addition to what can be achieved though this groundbreaking piece of legislation.
I am disappointed that the Government are not prepared to consider amendment 12, because we know that non-CITES species are already being affected and are likely to be further affected by the displacement that we all agree will occur, or is likely to occur, once the ban on ivory comes into effect. We know that mislabelling as mammoth is used to confuse or misrepresent potential purchasers. The Minister talked about Schreger lines—I am not even sure of the spelling of that, and it is something I have learned during the debate. I had not heard of them, I would not know what they looked like and I do not think that the average punter would either, so I think it is important to understand more about what is happening with the use of mammoth.
Finally, I reinforce what my hon. Friends the Members for Bristol East and for Redcar said. We do not want to wait for an animal to become endangered before we step in and do something about its persecution. I ask the Minister to look again at amendment 12, but in the case of amendment 11, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
I wonder, regarding the geographical extent of the Bill, whether it will include British sovereign bases on Cyprus and elsewhere, and what its geographical extent to overseas territories will be.
David Rutley
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. The answer is that it will not. I can write to him to give him a bit more detail as to why that is the case.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 40 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 41 to 42 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
New Clause 1
Reporting requirements: Exemption certificates
‘(1) As soon as reasonably practicable after the end of each calendar year, the Secretary of State must—
(a) prepare a report on applications for exemption certificates that have been granted during that year, and—
(i) lay a copy of that report before Parliament, and
(ii) publish the report.
(2) Subsection (1) does not apply in relation to a year if section 3 of this Act has not been in force at any time in that year.
(3) A report prepared under this section must include the following in respect of each exemption certificate granted—
(a) the description or descriptions provided in accordance with section 3(1)(b) by the person that applied for the exemption certificate,
(b) the photograph or photographs provided in accordance with section 3(1)(c) by the person that applied for the exemption certificate,
(c) when the certificate was granted, and
(d) any other information that the Secretary of State considers appropriate.’—(Sue Hayman.)
This new clause requires an annual report to be published with details and pictures of all items that are granted an exemption certificate under section 3.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
Sue Hayman
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
New clause 2 is about reporting on the international ivory market. We are asking that:
“Within 12 months of section 1 of this Act coming into force, the Secretary of State must publish and lay before each House of Parliament a report on the international ivory market.”
The idea is that the report would provide practical analysis of the impact of the Bill on demand for ivory in the United Kingdom and in other countries. Importantly, we would want it to consider the impact on nations or communities that generate income from ivory. We are also looking at the work of the Department for International Development in reducing the global demand for ivory and mitigating any negative impact that the provisions of this Bill would have on those nations or communities.
The reason for tabling the new clause is that it is important to keep a close, watchful eye on any implications of the Bill on the international ivory market and the communities that will be most affected by an ivory ban. During the evidence sessions, a number of hon. Members asked about the international ivory market and what contribution the Bill could make specifically toward deterring poaching and having a wider impact on the illegal worldwide trade.
Recent analysis has shown that the United Kingdom is the largest supplier to the world’s legal ivory market, with more than 36,000 legal ivory items exported from the UK in the five years between 2010 and 2015. It is also one of the largest importers to China and Hong Kong. As we also heard during the evidence sessions, seizure data shows that, alongside the legal market, the UK plays an increasing role in the illegal ivory trade in import, in export and as a transit country. The president of the Born Free Foundation, for example, said:
“Investment in wildlife law enforcement in Africa is really important.”
He also said that, in his view,
“there is a common linkage with our clear objectives in overseas development,”
which are to do with poverty and providing opportunities, and that:
“If we are not investing in the…areas where elephants and other species live, we are not doing a great service either…to the people who live…downstream from those protected areas.”––[Official Report, Ivory Public Bill Committee, 12 June 2018; c. 9, Q12.]
In the evidence session, the International Fund for Animal Welfare made reference to the discussion on Second Reading about how some of the Department for International Development’s budget might be used. I am aware that the hon. Member for Cheltenham also mentioned that on Second Reading. IFAW said that
“the impact of poaching on communities is not isolated from the illegal wildlife trade…There are good opportunities that exist with our overseas development budget to take a more integrated approach to delivering holistic aid and support and anti-poaching measures, to help build communities and tackle corruption...It is all part of a jigsaw that really helps, but our overseas aid is another part that we could potentially re-examine and look at, to provide better integrated aid.”––[Official Report, Ivory Public Bill Committee, 12 June 2018; c. 14, Q18.]
I do not know whether hon. Members saw it, but this morning CNN released a very interesting report on what has happened to the poaching of African elephants following the ban that the Chinese Government imposed on ivory on 1 January. CNN went to Mozambique specifically to see whether that ban was having an impact on poaching. I will just mention a few things about that report, because if we are looking to introduce our own legislation we need to look at the impact of other legislation on ivory from around the world, to see what areas we need to work in; perhaps that other legislation is not being as effective as it could have been.
One of the things that the CNN investigation found was that six months after that ban smugglers were still working with near-impunity. As I said, CNN went to Mozambique, to the Niassa reserve, which is one of the last great wildernesses in southern Africa. What the CNN team found was that the different officers who work there trying to stop poaching told them that corruption is the source of poaching. Looking to invest, along with DFID, to start to tackle that corruption will be really important if this Bill is to have the effect we want.
CNN said that the huge Niassa reserve should be home to thousands of elephants, but it is now thought that less than 2,000 are left there, which is really shocking. As part of its investigation, CNN also interviewed the people actually doing the poaching. Just as the drug lord obviously does not go and harvest his own cocaine, in the same way the people who are actually making money out of poaching do not go out and shoot the elephants themselves.
CNN went to a prison where there was a suspected poacher, and he said: “We were in the bush when we found a group of elephants. I shot the first one, then I shot the second one.” He then said that he had already spent a year in jail for a separate poaching incident. But his choices are limited; he said that he would do anything to help his family escape grinding poverty. He said, “I went poaching because I was suffering. I had nothing to survive on and I was desperate.”
So the poachers who kill elephants are usually poor and just looking for a way to feed themselves and their family, and often they do not have alternatives to wildlife crime. Poverty is causing poaching in Mozambique. Even if the Chinese ban had ended the market, or if the ban that we are putting place ended it, the poachers on the ground would continue this behaviour.
The new clause is designed to consider how we can do something to tackle that problem, take the focus of the Bill beyond just this country and do something to look at what causes poaching in the first place.
David Rutley
I thank the hon. Lady for tabling the new clause, the intention of which is clear, and it would potentially provide useful information. However, gaining such information could be a considerable and potentially expensive undertaking that is likely to require the engagement of outside experts or organisations, even though the full costs and benefits of this ban may not be fully known within the first 12 months of its coming into force.
As explained in the accompanying impact assessment of the Bill, no single comprehensive data source exists about the domestic ivory trade. Recent studies, including by TRAFFIC, the University of Portsmouth and Two Million Tusks have provided some useful evidence. However, each of these sources has its limitations with regard to generalising to wider regions or sectors.
Internationally, a key assumption is that other countries will be positively influenced by the UK lead and implement their own bans, which will reduce demand, prices, and therefore the poaching and killing of elephants. That is what we all want. However, while there have been many reports into various aspects of ivory and its trade—the UK has conducted some—I am not aware that there is a single comprehensive data source that would allow for the type of analysis that is being proposed.
Furthermore, I am conscious that such an undertaking may in effect duplicate some of the work being undertaken under the auspices of CITES, whereby reports on the illegal killing of elephants and the trade in ivory are presented every three years to each CITES conference of the parties. All countries implicated in the ivory trade, including the UK, appear in the cluster analysis of the ivory trade reports.
Those reports are “Monitoring of Illegal Trade in Ivory and Other Elephant Specimens” and the “Elephant Trade Information System”—ETIS. While the reports are the not perfect and have their critics, they are the best we have at this time.
I also believe that a report objectively analysing the effect of the illegal ivory trade on the UK would be best carried out by an organisation outside Government. That should probably be a conservation organisation experienced in analysing regulations on the illegal wildlife trade and in reporting its findings to the public and the Government.
Sue Hayman
I just make the point that, if we are serious about stopping poaching and having a real impact on the ivory trade with any legislation, it is important that we look at that global aspect, not just through the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs but through the Department for International Development and maybe through the Foreign Office, in order to have a clear and holistic approach. It is easy for us to sit here and pat ourselves on the back and be smug about this marvellous piece of legislation, but if it does not actually stop the poaching and does not do what we say it will, we do not have any right to feel smug or pleased with ourselves.
David Rutley
I understand the hon. Lady’s point. It was clear on Second Reading and in Committee that we have to appreciate the wider sense of what is going on and the wider global implications. We also have to recognise that the Bill is one piece of the co-ordinated approach that we are taking to tackling this problem.
Sue Hayman
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 3
Assessment of enforcement resources
“(1) Within 12 months of section 12 of this Act coming into force, the Secretary of State must make an assessment on the resources available to enforce the prohibition.
(2) The report shall consider in particular—
(a) the resources allocated or planned to be allocated towards enforcing the prohibition,
(b) the potential impact of any change in resources so allocated or planned to be allocated, and
(c) the impact on other law or border enforcement activities of the resources so allocated or planned to be allocated.
(3) The Secretary of State shall lay a report of the assessment under this section before each House of Parliament as soon as practicable after its completion.”.—(Sue Hayman.)
This new clause requires an assessment to be made and laid before Parliament regarding the level of resources allocated or proposed to be allocated to enforcing the prohibition against ivory dealing.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
Sue Hayman
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. The new clause is about internet services, about which we had quite a lot of discussion during the evidence sessions and on Second Reading. The new clause provides for the power to require service providers to block access to material that facilitates a breach of the prohibition. I will not run through all the detail—we have all had it in front of us—but under the new clause, internet service providers may be requested by the Secretary of State to block access to any online deal that facilitates a breach of the prohibition, and the Secretary of State may obtain court orders to ensure that the internet service providers comply with such a request.
The matter has been discussed in quite a lot of detail. I am aware that the Minister has said previously that he feels the Bill is robust when it comes to internet services, but I respectfully say that not every hon. Member and every person giving evidence has agreed with that. That is why we decided to table the new clause: to try to toughen up the rules on internet sales and the Secretary of State’s ability to step in if they felt the internet service providers were not behaving as they should.
During discussions, we had a look at a number of items being sold on eBay. On Second Reading, the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) talked about a recent International Fund for Animal Welfare report on wildlife cyber-crime and said that eBay had removed 25,000 ivory listings from its site in just one year. It is a huge number and it is a good start, but from what we have been made aware of during the evidence sessions, it is clearly only scratching the surface of the problem.
In response to one of my questions during the evidence session, Chief Inspector Hubble said:
“We would certainly welcome better self-policing and self-regulating by online auction houses with some responsibility on them for the items that they are making money from the sale of.”—[Official Report, Ivory Public Bill Committee, 12 June 2018; c. 43, Q92.]
By putting this responsibility on them through the new clause, they will know that if they do not take the ban seriously, action will be taken to shut them down.
We know, from having dealt in the House with issues around other internet providers and online digital companies, that they are not always the easiest to work with when it comes to looking at different legal aspects. It is important that they take responsibility for what they are selling. It is often a problem that they like to push what they are selling and what is said on their sites to one side. It is important to think about how they can be properly held to account.
During the evidence session, my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon asked a question of Alexander Rhodes and he replied,
“if it were possible the Bill should say that ivory may not be bought and sold over the internet because that would make it so much simpler for the enforcement guys.”—[Official Report, Ivory Public Bill Committee, 12 June 2018; c. 27, Q49.]
We know that that is not a practical solution either, so it is about how we can introduce proper enforcement.
Chief Inspector Hubble again said something that was worth considering:
“I would love to have a dedicated cyber-team looking at this day in, day out, with real training and a focused effort. Lots of people in the NGOs we work with are doing work around cyber-related crime. We are in the process of setting up a cyber-working group”—
that is with the NWCU—
“to try to pull some of that effort and interaction together”.—[Official Report, Ivory Public Bill Committee, 12 June 2018; c. 36, Q63.]
That will be a significant resource.
We have talked about resources previously and I do not particularly want to do that now, but it is important that the size of the problem when it comes to cyber-crime and managing the internet is properly recognised and that sufficient safeguards are put in place. We need to ensure that we pursue every single avenue we can to stop the trade in ivory. Tackling internet ivory trading will be the best way to stop this. We know that, right across the country, no matter what is being sold, more and more people are selling online, so we know that that trade is likely to increase. From what we have seen on eBay, it is also likely that that is where the illegal trade—items described as bone or as mammoth—will increase.
I am not convinced that the Bill provides for tackling the internet’s facilitating the global ivory trade sufficiently to make a real difference. That is is why we have tabled the new clause. I would like to hear the Minister’s views on that.
David Rutley
I thank the hon. Lady for tabling the new clause. Most people recognise that while the internet can be a helpful tool, it can also be used to facilitate and perpetuate criminal acts. In that context, I understand the intention of the new clause. Paragraph 5(1)(a) of schedule 1 allows the Secretary of State to serve a stop notice on a body such as an internet service provider to stop it displaying material that facilitates a breach of the prohibition. It is an important point. It is possible to serve a stop notice, and that in essence mirrors what the new clause seeks to achieve. The schedule could apply to an online sales forum such as eBay or an internet service provider, although in practice the latter, whether it be British Telecom or another internet service provider, would be a higher bar for the enforcement body. The better focus of attention through such stop notices would be the online sales forum itself.
Moreover, the Bill confers broad powers on the regulatory body, whose role should not be forgotten: the Office for Product Safety and Standards addresses online breaches of the ban. Clause 21, for example, allows a regulator to require the production of documents where the officer thinks they are relevant to an offence. This may mean documents or other materials from online companies and sales forums that provide evidence that an online company has facilitated a breach of the ban.
In addition, the NWCU is an intelligence unit that plays an important role in supporting police forces, as we have already highlighted. They have observed an increase in the use of the internet to enable and facilitate many types of wildlife crime. They have identified cyber-crime as a thematic threat area on which they are going to focus. Working with the OPSS will help with this task.
It is also worth considering this amendment with respect to the broader picture around the governance of the internet. The hon. Lady will know that this is a big, important question that is currently being addressed by the UK and Governments around the world. The way in which Government and society approach internet governance is a major strategic challenge, and it will not be tackled by this Bill alone. In January 2018, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport launched the digital charter. It is to be a rolling programme of work to agree norms and rules for the online world and put them into practice, and it should give confidence. In some cases it will involve shifting behavioural expectations. We will need to agree new standards, or we may need to update our laws and regulations. Our starting point is that we will have the same rights and expect the same behaviour online as we do offline. That is important. With that explanation, I ask the hon. Lady to consider withdrawing the motion.
Sue Hayman
I thank the Minister for that explanation. Schedule 1 states that a stop notice may be served on “a person”. It does not mention service providers or organisations; it specifically refers to “a person”, and the explanatory notes do not mention organisations, the internet—or online at all. I am not convinced that it covers what we are trying to achieve with the new clause.
David Rutley
It is my turn to scurry around. I cannot readily find the definition of “person”. All I can say is that we are very committed—[Interruption.] Inspiration has arrived. The definition of “person” is wide enough to capture businesses, and therefore ISPs. We can see that from clause 34. The definition of “person” is broad enough to satisfy that requirement.
Sue Hayman
Again, I thank the Minister for that explanation. It would help if it were properly laid out in the Bill that internet service providers are included, so that we have absolute clarity when the Bill becomes law and that people realise that that is not the best way of going about trying to sideline what the Bill seeks to achieve.
David Rutley
Excellent points have been made. We will certainly clarify that and put it into English—not just legal English—to help everyone understand what has been said. We can do that in guidance notes and by clarifying the scope of the Bill for people who are not so familiar with it. There is a real commitment to address this issue. I hope I have been able to reassure the hon. Lady that there are provisions in the Bill itself, but that we will explain that better. I hope that satisfies her.
Sue Hayman
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the Chair do report the Bill to the House.
The Chair
I thank the Committee Clerk, who has kept us all—especially me—on the straight and narrow, which is not easy. I also thank the attendants, who did such a great job of trying to cool us all down; the officials, who behaved themselves; the Hansard reporters, who are the unsung heroes of our democracy, and the broadcasting unit. Finally, may I say to all of you that you have been a lovely Committee?
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly to be reported, without amendment.
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Backbench Business
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UK-Romanian Relations
(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered UK-Romanian relations.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship once again, Mr Betts. I declare an interest, as I am the chairman of the all-party group for Romania. I welcome colleagues who were involved in a recent all-party group visit to Romania, and those who went there a couple of years ago under the auspices of the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
Before I talk about the current situation, it is pertinent to review the relationship between our two great countries, which has existed for more than 100 years. Our diplomatic relations with Romania were established on 20 February 1880, but there was a considerable period, particularly during the second world war and the cold war, when relations were not as friendly as they currently are, so 1990 is considered to be the start of the modern UK-Romania relationship. Our relationship has grown stronger and stronger over the past 28 years. The United Kingdom was a firm supporter of Romania’s joining NATO—I will say a bit more about that later—and the European Union, and we championed its calls to join both organisations. The strategic partnership that we currently enjoy was established in 2003.
Last summer, British troops undertook key exercises with Romania and other NATO allies in the Black sea region and the east of Romania. Our excellent ambassador, Paul Brummell, noted that it was the busiest period of activity in our bilateral defence engagement in recent memory. That demonstrates our shared history of defence and economic co-operation.
Our relationship is not limited to our diplomatic or economic relations. Prince Charles has a sprawling estate in Transylvania and visits Romania regularly—at least once a year. This year’s visit coincided with our visit to Romania, and many of the key people met him and went to see his estate. The other great relationship is that Michael I, the last King of Romania, was a cousin of Prince Philip’s, so we share a royal history. Colleagues perhaps do not know that Romania is home to virgin forests—forests that have not been explored or mapped, and which people have not gone through on trails—which could be opened up for conservation and tourism.
The all-party delegation visited Romania during the Whitsun recess. I was joined by the hon. Members for Keighley (John Grogan), for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry) and for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan), and we met many individuals from Romania, including the Deputy Prime Minister; Andrei Pop, the chair of the UK friendship group, who hosted us admirably during our brief visit; the vice president of the Chamber of Deputies; the president of the Senate; the chair of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee; and the long-serving Foreign Minister, whose description of the UK-Romania relationship was a tour de force. We also had a key joint meeting with the European Affairs Committee and the Committee for Foreign Policy, and visited the Ministry for Romanians Abroad—and I shall come on to one of Romania’s concerns about its citizens living abroad.
We were hosted by Angel Tîlvăr and the foreign affairs counsellor to the President. We had a large number of diplomatic meetings. We also had the opportunity to have detailed discussions with the Ministry of National Defence and its cyber-security team. We saw many aspects of the work they are doing to combat the problems they face from Russia.
During our visit, six concerns were shared in almost every single meeting we had. Romania will ascend to the presidency of the European Council in January 2019, which is a crucial time for us as we leave the European Union, and is also the run-up to the European elections and the appointment of the new European Commission. All the Romanian politicians we met expressed the desire for a smooth Brexit. They have no desire to punish the United Kingdom for leaving the European Union, and they hope that our strong bilateral agreements on the policy areas we have collaborated on over the past 28 years will continue.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. On our relationships with Romania and other nation states, does he agree that, after we leave the EU next year, we can continue to build the type of relationship he is successfully and eloquently outlining with nations across Europe, irrespective of our or their EU membership? That would be very productive for both sides.
Bob Blackman
Clearly, an important part of the UK strategy is to form strong bilateral arrangements with our friends and neighbours from across the European Union. However, I am keen to highlight the importance of this particular strategic relationship, which existed long before Romania joined the European Union and NATO. It is clearly exposed to Russia, particularly in the Black sea region, and there are very important things that we have to be clear about in relation to that. All the people we met said that NATO must address the challenges from Russia in the Black sea region. The excellent document produced by the House of Commons Library strongly outlines the Russian threat to Romania and the concerns that Romania has expressed for many years about that issue.
All the people we met said they were concerned that young people from Romania are leaving the country to go to not only the United Kingdom but other parts of the European Union, denuding the country of its workforce and of people who can provide professional services. People who provide labour, and people who are highly intelligent and well qualified, are leaving Romania to go to other parts of the European Union.
David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)
On that point about young people leaving Romania and going to other parts of the EU, including the UK, does he agree with me that over the next number of years, as the Romanian economy strengthens and grows—it has been growing very well—young people will instead stay, which will cause staff difficulties in the agri-food sector in our part of the world?
Bob Blackman
I shall come on to the question of the number of people leaving Romania and coming to this country in a few moments, but the clear concern in Romania is that the young people who leave are not yet returning in any number. They may return in future, and it is true that in certain countries, such as Poland, people have started to return and to invest. A number of people who are resident in the UK are investing in Romania, but the concern in Romania is still about the huge numbers who are leaving and, at the moment, not returning, which puts a great strain on the country.
Romanians are also concerned about the trafficking of Romanian women and children through the European Union, including the UK. People are being trafficked for the sex trade and other illicit purposes, such as the drugs trade. Clearly that is of concern to the Ministry for Romanians Abroad, and it is one of those areas that we as a Parliament need to examine, to ensure that people who come here have chosen to do so of their own free will and accord to contribute directly to our economy, as so many do.
Equally, tourism and trade provide both a challenge and opportunity. Such opportunities will grow dramatically over the next few years. Indeed, the Deputy Prime Minister of Romania, whom we met on our trip, is married to a British businessman— who I happened to see last week when he was over here. They have been married for a long time. There are also clearly strong economic bilateral relations, all demonstrating the strength of support for the United Kingdom and Romania.
One or two aspects of modern Romania and what is happening there are probably not widely known. We visited a number of Jewish sites in Bucharest. One synagogue is being turned into a holocaust museum, to commemorate and recall the tragic events in Romania during the Nazi era. In Bucharest and Romania, people are facing up to the damage done during the Nazi era and in the holocaust and to the terrible number of people murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators.
We also went to a Hospices of Hope centre, not only to meet the people who run the hospice there but to see their work which, in essence, is with children suffering from life-limiting illnesses such as muscular dystrophy and cystic fibrosis. The centre is funded almost entirely by voluntary donations from the United Kingdom. It also looks into the terrible treatment of children under the communist regime.
We saw historical stained glass windows depicting figures such as Vlad the Impaler who, if legend is to be believed, was the model for Count Dracula. He had a nasty habit of literally impaling his victims and drinking their blood, so not something we would necessarily accord with in this Parliament—[Interruption.] Not necessarily, I said. I wanted to make sure that everyone was listening. We also saw the remarkable architecture of Bucharest. It used to be known as a modern-day Paris, blending neoclassical styles with modern design, including the remnants of communist-era buildings.
Another key feature worth noting is that every meeting we had on our visit was held in English. The Romanians spoke brilliant English, and they were most accommodating. In many of the countries that we have the opportunity to visit, politicians and diplomats all speak in their own language and have a translator. In Romania, every single meeting was conducted in English, demonstrating the modern Romania—and our inability to speak another language.
I warmly thank the UK ambassador to Romania, Paul Brummell, whose term of office comes to an end this August after a number of years. He will return to this country after an extremely successful time there. He is extremely well respected and clearly does a brilliant job for us. I also thank the Romanian ambassador to the UK, Dan Mihalache, who was with us for the whole visit. He has formed excellent relations in this country for Romania. Finally, David Webster acts as the APPG secretariat and was the trip organiser, and I thank him for all the arrangements that he made for us.
Last year the Office for National Statistics put the number of Romanians in the UK at 411,000, which was an increase of 25% in a single year. The Romanians have now overtaken the Irish and the Indians to become the second most populous non-British nationality in the UK. The most recent figures I have seen for 2018 indicate that that number has now topped 500,000. The Romanian population is therefore growing, while the Polish population, which was 908,000 in 2017, has apparently started to dip as Polish citizens choose to go back to their country of origin, as I said earlier.
Romania joined the European Union in 2007, and any restrictions on the movement of Romanians were lifted in 2014. In my constituency, we have approximately 10,000 Romanians, and every single week I see more than 100 more arrive to live in the constituency. They are young people who come to work here, not only to invest their own resources in our economy, but to earn money—contrary to popular myth, not to depend on benefits applied for in the UK. These people are equally at home in the building industry and our service industry. Notably in London, in any restaurant, café, car or shop we are likely to be served by a Romanian citizen who speaks excellent English and provides excellent customer service.
The bilateral relations that I alluded to earlier come about in a variety of ways. Prince Charles going to Romania annually gives us an enviable opportunity to use those connections. Equally, the Duke of Cambridge’s cousin and the Romanian consulate recently set up in Scotland are other opportunities to enhance our soft power. In May, George Ciamba visited London. He was supposed to meet the all-party parliamentary group, but unfortunately that was not possible. I believe that he did meet our excellent Minister during his visit. He is a career diplomat, the Secretary of State for Political, Bilateral and Strategic Affairs in the Euro-Atlantic Area and, as such, leads for Romania on bilateral relations. Clearly, through him, we can build our soft power and the friendship that exists between our two countries. Furthermore, our excellent ambassador, Paul Brummell, and Andrew Noble, who replaces him in August, offer two more people with a shared relationship that can build soft power and improve understanding between our two great countries.
I mentioned the threat posed by Russia to Romania. Clearly, NATO and its members are expected to assist Romania against any and all Russian aggression. Reuters reported in February 2017 that a senior Russian official considered Romania’s hosting of elements of an American anti-missile shield as a threat to Russia. Clearly, Russia takes the view that NATO establishments in Romania are a direct threat to it. It is quite clear from talking to people in Romania that Russian aggression is deliberately calculated to cause trouble. It has up to seven active submarines in the Black sea at any one time. Russia accuses NATO of encircling it through its operations in the area.
One of the concerns being expressed for the forthcoming NATO summit is that Russia’s operations in the Black sea are not on the agenda. That is a concern to Romania. We need to send a strong message that NATO will not accept any position that threatens Romania or any other NATO ally. It is clear that in Romania’s view the purpose is peace, not war, but we have to always be ready for the ultimate possibility. The exercises last year were helpful in demonstrating our capability to assist Romania in its possible time of need.
I mentioned that Romania takes the presidency of the European Council from January until June of next year. It has outlined its mission statement: to look at the conclusion of Brexit, hopefully an appropriate and smooth Brexit; to prepare the new multi-annual financial framework, which will be a key challenge for the budget; and to deal with the end of the current European Commission and Parliament and the build-up of the elections thereafter.
The centenary of the great union of Romania is on 1 December 2018. It marks the unification of Transylvania, Bessarabia and Bukovina with the rest of the Romanian kingdom. The all-party parliamentary group will set up a stall in the Upper Waiting Hall in November, to educate MPs, their staff and any visitors on that significant event in Romania’s history.
I would like the Minister to answer some questions. Firstly, what discussions are taking place between the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and its counterparts in Romania in preparation for the Romanian presidency? Secondly, what discussions are going on to develop the strong potential for bilateral arrangements post Brexit? Thirdly, what actions are the Government taking to ensure that Russian involvement in the Black sea is discussed at the NATO summit next month, and not sidelined as envisaged by the agenda? Fourthly, what action is being taken to combat child and other trafficking of Romanian citizens, in co-operation with the Ministry for Romanians Abroad? Fifthly, what arrangements are being made to develop trade relations and to support UK businesses in Romania? That is particularly important because many businesses that operate from the UK say that they would appreciate more help. Finally, what help is being given to develop tourism between our two great countries?
Thank you, Mr Betts, and colleagues for allowing me the time to speak. I hope we will have an interesting discussion and that we can develop the relationships between our two great countries, for the benefit of not only Romania but the United Kingdom.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for setting the scene. In the main Chamber and across the House, he and I agree on a great many things. I am sure that on some things, we do not agree, but I have not found out what they are just yet. He takes forward issues that I am also concerned about. I am here to support him, but I also want to take the opportunity to speak about this issue, because a large proportion of my constituents are Romanian and I want to speak on their behalf.
Since I hail from a constituency with a thriving construction industry that employs a large number of EU nationals on sites—although nowhere near the scale of London—we have a job to do post Brexit to secure relations. We must reassure the Romanian nationals who have lived in my area for a great many years and those who are coming in great numbers. My hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson) referred to the factories and the important employment in the agri-food sector. That sector is very strong in my constituency and I have those issues in my area, too. The agri-food sector employees a large number of people and adds to the economic life of Strangford, Northern Ireland and, as a result, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It is important that we speak about these matters.
About a month ago I visited Romania for the first time. I had never been to Romania—before I became a Member of Parliament, I had been to very few places, to be honest. Being a Member of Parliament has given me the opportunity to enlarge my spectrum of knowledge of countries, which helps in this House. I was there to visit RAF’s Operation Biloxi as part of the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme, to see how the RAF squadron operates within NATO. It is important to remember that Romania is one of our NATO colleagues—the hon. Gentleman referred to that in passing, but it is important to remember the relationship we have with Romania in that sense.
We all remember the revolution. I have never been to a museum anywhere in the world like the museum in Constanţa, where a period of history has been excluded. Romania sided with Germany in the second world war, and it has blocked out that part of history, probably because it is embarrassing and something that they do not want to remember. We walked through its history to the beginning of the first world war, but then it was as if life stopped and restarted in 1944, when the communists beat the Germans and took the country back. Now it is a NATO ally. It is an important partner for us and we need to build our relationship from a defence point of view and make sure that the Romanian army, navy and air force are strong. Biloxi is important because there will be a new railhead, motorway and airfield, to make it a centre point for the distribution of NATO personnel. It is also not that far from Russia across the Black sea.
In the short time we were in Constanţa, we had the opportunity to see some of Romania’s great potential for tourism development. I hope that the Minister will look at that potential. Constanţa has not been developed as it could be. It is ripe for development and construction. The possibilities are great there; the town has been run down over the years but it has potential. The railhead and road and airport contacts will make a difference. We met the very personable mayor of Constanţa; he sells his city well. There is a lot of development in Constanţa, but they want more tourism contacts and links. We flew with Wizz Air, but Blue Sky also flies there and another company that I cannot remember. There is development, but there is potential for more. We should try to develop those contacts to a greater extent, for everyone’s benefit.
Mr Campbell
On tourism and trade, does my hon. Friend agree that there is scope for two-way development between Romania and the UK, as well the other eastern European nation states, to build a closer relationship that will help as a bulwark against Russia, to build that two-way trade relationship and to help the economies in both nations?
Jim Shannon
My hon. Friend is right—the contact is two-way. The advantage for us is that we get labour coming over, and we also have contact through people going back. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland should invest in Romania. There is potential for investment, for development and for making money—investors want to make money on their projects.
Those are just some of the things I learned in my very short time in Romania. I was impressed by the people we met—by their kindness, their hospitality and their eagerness to be friends. We want to ensure that those relationships continue. The fact of the matter is that we had a great relationship with Romania before we were instrumental in bringing it into EU membership, and it appears to me that there is a desire to ensure that that relationship is protected and enhanced post-Brexit. It is my firm belief that where there is a will, there is a way. I often use that phrase—it probably comes from my mother—but it is very important today, as it was many years ago.
In 2016, the UK exported £1.8 billion of goods and services to Romania, and imports from Romania were £2.6 billion. The UK therefore had a trade deficit of around £800 million. Romania is an important trading partner, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) illustrated, that means we can do more to get the deficit back in balance. The deficit is due mainly to trade in goods; trade in services is broadly in balance. Romania is the 18th largest market in the EU for UK exports, and the 19th largest in terms of imports. I can well believe that Romania’s will to continue that trade, in which it has the upper hand, will ensure that a way is found to do that, and that is my hope. The potential is there for all to see—we just need the will to make it happen.
I am pleased that we have such a good Library briefing for the debate. That briefing makes it clear that there are many reasons for the Romanians to stand up for a fair Brexit deal that enables us to keep working with them. In its most recent figures, the Office for National Statistics estimates that some 411,000 Romanians live in the United Kingdom, which means that they are the second largest non-British national group in the UK—I believe they are second only to the Poles. The ONS estimated in 2017, using figures from 2011, that 521 British citizens lived in Romania.
The migrant workforce from Romania has a significant role in the UK economy. More than one in six people working on house building sites across Britain comes from another EU country, rising to half of site workers in London. A survey of some 37,000 house building workers across Britain showed that 17.7% were from the EU. More than half those are from Romania. Around 95% of the 29,000 seasonal workers who pick fruit in the United Kingdom are from the EU, with most coming from Bulgaria and Romania. According to Universities UK, 7,200 Romanian students were enrolled in programmes at UK universities in 2015-16, and a further 370 students are studying for UK degrees in Romania through transnational education provision.
Let me be clear: I do not cite any of those statistics to drag up the Brexit question. That question was put, the answer was received and the deal needs to be done. I do not need to defend Brexit—the nation backed it and we are going to move on—but I want to highlight the good relationship between our nations. That must continue post Brexit for the sake of both nations, and I very much look forward to ensuring that that happens.
Northern Ireland has a very strong link with Romania. In 2014, more than 1,400 Romanians registered for a medical card in Northern Ireland, compared with only 200 to 300 in each of the previous four years. National insurance number applications also increased in 2014: in 2012-13 there were just 268 applications from Romanians, but that figure rose to 972 and 2,424 in the following two years. That shows a clear trend of people coming from Romania to Northern Ireland, and specifically to Strangford. I am pleased to have them there working, co-operating, socialising, taking their children to school and very much being part of my cosmopolitan constituency.
In conclusion, Romanians should be able to continue to live and work in the United Kingdom provided they have a desire to, but let me say clearly that there is an onus on Romania to speak up in Europe to allow that relationship to continue. We always hear, with respect to Brexit, about the negotiations and discussions that take place about our position, but the other countries in Europe need us, too. Romania needs us, as do all the other 27 countries. We need the partners we already have in Europe to speak up for us, as we speak up for them. We want our relationship with Romania to continue beyond 31 March 2019. I believe that would be beneficial to both countries: to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland—better together—and to Romania. We are better with them as well.
John Grogan (Keighley) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who is a fellow member of the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs. He made a typically extensive and interesting speech.
There are three reasons why I am delighted to take part in the debate, Mr Betts. The first is the fact that you, a fellow Yorkshireman, are in the Chair. The second is that today we are celebrating a great victory by an England squad with no fewer than seven Yorkshire-born members.
John Grogan
That is a minor detail, but yes.
The third reason is that the debate was secured by the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), who led our delegation to Romania with great diplomacy and distinction. It was a good group—we had two Scottish nationalists, one Labour Member and one Conservative Member. We were not quite representative of the nation, but he led us very ably and I learned a great deal from the visit.
I will not repeat the hon. Gentleman’s remarks; instead, I will try to choose five reasons to be cheerful about Romania, building on what he said. The first is democracy. We stood on the balcony of the Interior Ministry one afternoon and looked out at the same view that Ceauşescu, the dictator, had less than 30 years ago, in 1989. How well Romanian democracy has developed in that time. My first encounter with Romania was a few years ago, when I was not an MP. I looked at Leeds civic hall on a Sunday morning and saw a massive queue of people. I thought, “What are they doing?” I asked some of them, and they were Romanians who wanted to vote. Some of them had been standing there for three or four hours. Romania generally has been a success in that period. While we were there, a new political party was formed. There is a lot of intense political debate—I will come back to that—and women are very well represented in Parliament. We met some very bright young people who no doubt have great political futures.
The second reason to be cheerful about Romania is its economy, which the hon. Gentleman touched on. The Romanian economy is racing ahead. The growth rate has touched 8%, and I think it will be more than 4% this year. Sectors such as motor vehicles, electrical goods and IT all have great futures, and Romania gets an awful lot of foreign investment. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the English. As one person we met suggested, the development of English has definitely happened in this generation. There are obviously many long-standing French links in Romania, but there has been an adjustment in the past generation. We had extensive debates with people from the British Council—youngsters and young adults—and they had excellent English. One of the older students suggested that that was because Romania has always had a tradition of not dubbing foreign films but subtitling them, and that that made some difference to the learning of English, even in communist times. The Romanian economy is definitely a success story, and the United Kingdom needs a slice of it.
The hon. Gentleman referred to foreign policy. Romania has a long tradition of having an independent foreign policy—that was the case even under the Soviet Union. Reference was made to our memorable dinner at a restored synagogue. Romania has a role to play in the middle east. I learned that not only is there a Palestinian population in Bucharest, but there are long-standing links with the state of Israel. Many Jewish citizens of Romania went to Israel—in fact, Ceauşescu even demanded payments from Israel—in the period of communism. There is still a strong, small Jewish community there, and that certainly brought home to me the need continually to fight anti-Semitism wherever we are.
We look forward to Romania taking the chair of the Council of Ministers. Without prolonging references to the European debate, I envisage that if by that stage the United Kingdom were suggesting that we might stay in the customs union or even the single market, the Romanian diplomats would find a way of bringing that about. They are certainly preparing well for their period in office—they were keen to tell us about the number of people they have in Brussels for that—and they will have many options for us, should we need them.
The hon. Gentleman, who mentioned tourism, spoke about the Black sea in the important context of security, but it is also important for tourism. Many cruise ships and holidaymakers now go to the Black sea. Romania is now the sixth largest producer of wine in Europe, and we had a little Romanian wine—just half a glass.
A final reason to be cheerful: today we are all thinking about sport. Sadly, Romanian football is not as good as it used to be. However, Mr Speaker is always keen to mention the No. 1 men’s tennis player, and of course Simona Halep, the No. 1 women’s tennis player, deserves a mention, having recently won the French open.
Finally, it would be remiss for the debate to go by without mentioning corruption in Romania. It was raised at many of our meetings, and not many of the politicians were comfortable speaking about it. However, I want to do so, not least because their current Government are a sister party of the Labour party. Incidentally, corruption affects all Romanian political parties. Without going into all the details of Romanian internal politics, the position of Ms Kövesi, the state prosecutor, is under threat, and the President must rule on her future soon.
It is not good enough just to talk, as some Romanian politicians do, about the deep state and how everyone is against them. Corruption must be dealt with. It is important for all the existing and new political parties that Romanian politicians of all parties confront the issue. The new, young generation of Romanian politicians, many of whom we were privileged to meet, must make it clear that even if such ways of operation happened in the past, they will not happen in the future.
Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)
Mulţumesc, Mr Betts. May I say what a delight and pleasure this is? I am no national chauvinist, so you will not hear me banging on about the fact that both goals last night were scored by a Londoner, and you will not hear any of this Yorkshire chauvinism, even in reverse. What you will hear is my congratulations to my neighbour to the north—not the far north; barely north of Ealing—the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) on bringing this important subject to the House.
We are fortunate in who we have on the Front Bench for the debate: not only my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr Mahmood), who knows the subject very well indeed, but the Minister for Europe and the Americas, who is, if I may say so, one of the most impressive Foreign Office Ministers I have ever known. If I have one cavil against him it is that wherever I go, be it Belarus, Bucharest, Warsaw or anywhere, he will have been there before me and set a high bar. He will have set a standard for literacy, charm and intelligence that I can only aspire to. He represents our country extremely well, and we should be well aware of the pleasure of having him on the Front Bench.
May I cross swords with the hon. Member for Harrow East? When he spoke of the vast, untouched, untrodden forests of northern Romania as we approach the Carpathian foothills, where the wild boar and Balkan bear roam free and untrammelled, I thought to myself, “Some flipping travel agent somewhere will be noting this down and seeing it as an opportunity.” Those of us who have entered the foothills of the Carpathians as the Romanian moon flies high in the dark sky, remembering the great and glorious traditions of he who was known as Vlad Tepeş, will have looked around us and thought, “This really is the most glorious untrodden, unspoilt part of the world.” Is it any wonder that His Royal Highness Prince Charles feels so comfortable and at home there? Duchy Originals biscuits at 500 guineas a packet are fortunately absent, for which we can only be grateful. The food we were offered on my last visit to Romania was ample and delicious.
Can we, on the one hand, praise Romania and say what a marvellous country it is and, on the other hand, say, “let it not be ruined by tourism”? There is a balance to be had in what is happening in Constanţa on the Black sea coast, particularly with the cruise ships calling there. I was intrigued to hear that my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (John Grogan) enjoyed half a glass of wine. I suspect that it may have been a fairly large glass—do not forget that a glass can be any size, so half a glass could be a few gallons.
Romania is a wonderful country. In some ways, its past was cursed by its mineral wealth. Ploieşti has been mentioned, where some of the worst, most brutal fighting in the second world war took place, with some of the greatest losses. My friend the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) spoke about Romania’s part in that war, and we should not forget that after the coup of Prince Michael they were our allies, fighting with us against a determined and well-entrenched Nazi force particularly concerned with protecting the oil fields. We should be grateful for that. In fact, the history of oil exploration in Europe and the middle east could not be written without recognition of the advances made in Romania, going back 1,000 years. Axle grease for chariots was mined in Romania and became a well-known product throughout the region. We should be aware of that.
We should note our relations and close links, as mentioned by the hon. Member for Harrow East. I visited the Hospice of Hope and thought what an extraordinary building it was. It was created initially by two Englishmen who saw what was happening with paediatric illness in the country and decided that something must be done, so they raised the money for the hospice, where no other similar hospice exists. It is a testament to the close links between us.
In some ways, Romania has not had the best of all presses, but there are many things to be proud of. Reference was made to Mr Speaker, whose family originally came from Romania, as well as to tennis players. I have been privileged to have stood on the battlements of the great noble towering castle of Braşov and looked out over the glories of northern Romania in the company of the man who in 1975 was simply the most exciting tennis player the world has ever seen. Of course, I speak of he who is now Senator Ilie Năstase. We may talk of Adrian Mutu during his time with a team who should not be mentioned from the other end of the Fulham Road, but no one can hold a racket to Ilie Năstase. What an extraordinary player. That he is now a senator says so much about modern Romania.
The other thing that struck me when I went to Romania was the language. The hon. Gentleman touched on this. Many Romanian words have an extraordinary resonance with us. For example, when someone in Romania says “goodbye” they say “la revedere.” For “good evening” they say “bună seara”, and “good morning” is “bună dimineaţa.” I see the Hansard reporters looking a little worried. Phrases such as “la revedere,” so similar to the Italian “arrivederci”—“bună seara” is also similar to the Italian—show how Romania was such a crossroads between western Europe and the Black sea. In some ways, the country suffered from the constant tramp of military feet marching through, but equally it benefited in culture. It has an amazing music and theatrical tradition that has drawn from many sources to create a unique culture. Then there is the extraordinary language, so memorable and easy on the ear. It was right for the hon. Member for Harrow East to mention our ambassador, Paul Brummell, who is one of the finest representatives of our country, and has done very much for it.
Finally, let me address some misconceptions about Romania, which in some parts of the world—and some parts of the UK media—has had a bad press. I see the Romanian community in my constituency in a different light. I do not see a criminal confraternity or a group of people who are causing problems and difficulties for this country. I do not even see people who are unskilled labourers. Instead, I see IT professionals, doctors, dentists, cardiologists—people for whom we should be extremely grateful. I will not be drawn down the slippery slope into the ghastly foul nightmare of Brexit—it is too close to breakfast time even to talk about such horrors. However, we should be grateful that so many skilled and intelligent Romanians have done us the great favour of coming to work in our country.
If any Member would like to try some Romanian food, they should come to Ealing North. They should go straight past Harrow East—obviously, if they see a red light they should not stop; they should wind up the windows and come on down to Ealing North where they will find an extraordinary group of people who are industrious, hardworking, commercially astute and, if I may say so, an absolute credit to their country and my constituency. I am sure that other right hon. and hon. Members would say the same.
Romania is in some ways the victim of its past, which hangs heavy on the shoulders of that emerging nation. There are, however, many signs of hope, democracy and of a new, young and vibrant economy. One of the buildings of the Ceauşescu era had the second largest footprint on the face of the earth after the Pentagon. I remember asking what the planning permission was like, and what had been the consultation with the local community. How exactly did it manage to get built? Was there a proposal under a section 1 agreement? Was there a community infrastructure levy? I was looked at askance and they said, “Ceauşescu did not much bother with community consultation.”
We must consider that that is the recent past, and we spoke to people who had lived through that era. We have moved on from there to a young, hopeful, optimistic, forward-looking Romania, and it is so important that debates such as this take place. I do not wish to be otiose, but we must put on the record how we in this country appreciate, value and support our fellow Europeans in Romania, and hopefully we can work together and go forward. This debate will, I trust, put down a marker for future relations, and I look forward to hearing the Minister respond—indeed, there has never been a time in my parliamentary life when I have not looked forward to hearing the right hon. Gentleman. I know that in his heart he has heard our words, and that he will feel the same emotion that we feel, which is a huge affection for Romania, the Romanian people, and above all, the Romanian future.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)
Order. I now call the Front-Bench speakers. You have no more than 12 minutes each, because we need to allow time for the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) to respond to the debate.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I will try to keep my remarks within that time, but perhaps you could allow me some leeway because I was one of the members of the all-party group for Romania who went on the trip, so I have a bit more to say than just summing up the debate.
Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)
I ask the hon. Gentleman to keep to the time limit, because it is the same for all the Front-Bench speakers.
Drew Hendry
I have made the request, and I will try to accede to your request, Mr Betts.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) on securing this important and overdue debate on Romania, and the issues that affect it and its relationship with the UK. For a moment or two I wondered whether this debate was actually about last night’s England-Tunisia game, but let me congratulate England on its win and then move on.
You will notice, Mr Betts, that in honour of this debate I am wearing a tie made from Romanian tartan. I must make a non-financial declaration of interest because since 2012, which predates my election to this House, I have served as honorary consul to Romania for the Highlands and Islands. It has been an absolute pleasure to do that on behalf of my Romanian constituents. Indeed, all hon. Members would find such a job easy, because just as it is the work of an MP to look after their constituents, so is it the work of an honorary consul to look after those people’s interests—there is very little difference. On St Andrew’s day last year, as a result of my work as honorary consul, I was awarded the rank of “cavaler” of the Romanian Republic, for which I was very grateful and honoured.
The hon. Member for Harrow East spoke about the trip of the all-party group, and the range of meetings and visits that we undertook. Brexit and security were common and recurring themes throughout our visit. People acknowledged that the UK had guided Romania through its accession to the EU, for which they were very grateful, but at every single meeting there was also an expression of sadness and some confusion about why the UK is leaving the EU. They also underlined how committed they are to the EU27 and to it continuing. As the British Romanian Chamber of Commerce said, people are looking for a human approach to Brexit, and in all our meetings we heard that they are keen on seeing an expansion of the EU. They also spoke again about the security threat from Russia, and the feeling that Russia is creating a buffer of influence using hybrid methods—political propaganda and military.
I commend the hon. Member for Harrow East for talking about the publicity that Romanian people get when they work in the nations of the UK. They are clearly not here to claim benefits, and statistics show that they are not causing any problems with crime. Indeed, statistically they are likely to behave better than our own indigenous citizens in the UK.
The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) mentioned the importance of Romanian workers in his constituency, and underlined the importance of the NATO relationship. As was pointed out, in fairness it is important to remember that Romania did change sides during the second world war, and it worked with Soviet forces to drive the Nazis back. I also echo the hon. Gentleman’s remarks about opportunities for investment.
The hon. Member for Keighley (John Grogan) spoke about five reasons to be cheerful, and gave a comprehensive list of some of the reasons for optimism that we should have for Romania. He spoke about his feelings regarding the change since 1989, and recalled standing on the balcony then—I will come back to that in a moment or two. He also underlined Romania’s growing economy, which I will also return to shortly.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned the joy of the British Council debates. They were probably the most fun that we had in Romania, working with students of all ages in the British Council, who were a delight to engage with. He rightly raised the issue of corruption and the need to challenge that at every level. Wherever corruption exists, and in whichever political system, it is the duty of all elected Members to raise the issue and point out measures that can be taken to tackle it.
Finally, in an enjoyable speech—well, they were all enjoyable—the hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound) tried to dampen the expectations of tourists by saying how beautiful, unspoiled and untrodden Romania is. He laboured on about how great the food and drink is, all to keep people from going there. He does not want Romania to be ruined by tourism, but he did a fabulous job of attracting people there, which I will try to emulate. The hon. Gentleman might be interested to know, with regard to the long relationship between Britain and Romania, that the Romans used Dacian—Romanian—troops to build Hadrian’s wall; so it is a long connection.
Importantly, the hon. Member for Ealing North spoke, as did other Members, about the bad press given to Romanian people. Romanians in the UK have had a terrible time from the press here; they have been exploited for dramatic and grossly unfair headlines. As the hon. Gentleman said, we should take into account the fact that those people are doing us a favour by working here. We should all pause to think about that. Finally, the he talked about how exciting that new, young, hopeful and optimistic country was—those were very good words from the hon. Gentleman.
I want to talk about the visit by the all-party group. We visited the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and stood on the balcony over Revolution Square. It is an eerie feeling for someone who stands there to realise that they are in the place where Ceauşescu made the speech when his dictatorship exploded in real time. Footage can still be found on YouTube of that speech during which things disintegrated—from the orchestrated, disciplined crowd to the ludicrous concessions and promises to raise wages immediately by 20% because he could feel the crowd going away. It followed a pattern that happens when people see the end coming. We see a leader who is paranoid and unable to trust anyone, disconnected from the people and famed for using wooden language, seeing their support disappear and desperately throwing out uncosted off-the-cuff promises and abandoning long-held strategies to try to stave off the inevitable—but let me get back to Ceauşescu.
How Romania has moved on. Its fast-growing economy has been mentioned. Real GDP growth is in the region of 78%, and the IT sector is undergoing a meteoric rise. It is now 9% to 10% of GDP, and it is so impressive that the London stock exchange is moving its back-office operation back into the EU from Sri Lanka. Romania is a nation of 22 million people with enormous potential for trade and the exchange of cultural ideas. As has been mentioned, the countryside is fabulously beautiful. The cities still bear the scars of the Soviet era, but they are rapidly improving. A lot of interesting development is going on, including in urban areas.
On a visit before I was elected to this House I went to Argeş county. I was struck by the similarities that I saw between the highlands and Argeş. I visited its folk museum and struggled to see the differences between it and the one in my constituency, so similar were they. I am delighted that High Life Highland will undertake an exchange visit this year with the folk museum, to discuss the opportunities for cultural exchange. As to opportunities for Scotland, clearly two sets of welcoming and engaging people are involved, and there are huge opportunities for the massive food and drink industries of Scotland and Romania. There are high-quality products, and opportunities to work together.
In the minute or so I have left I want to reflect on the pleasure of being able to work as the honorary consul in the Highlands and Islands. I thank Mihai Delcea, the Romanian consul general in Edinburgh, and the ambassador, Dan Mihalache, who has been mentioned in the debate, and who has been very supportive. Romanian Scots are well integrated and welcomed into our society. We are glad of them, and their contribution to modern Scotland, as we are of all people who come to work, and to add to our society. Given the shared history that we have with the people of Europe, including Romania, this is a special time to be saying that we appreciate both what they have done in coming to assist our economy and the relations we have with them.
Mr Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham, Perry Barr) (Lab)
It is always a pleasure to serve under your stewardship, Mr Betts. I thank the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for bringing this important matter to our attention, particularly at this time. One thing that he said slightly perplexed me, and that was his notion of a smooth Brexit. I hope he means something constructive, and that he will vote for such a smooth Brexit in the Chamber when the matter comes before us again tomorrow, so that we will have some sort of accountability in Parliament on moving things forward. I look forward to walking into the same Lobby as the hon. Gentleman on that question.
The UK established its first diplomatic mission in Bucharest in 1803, 77 years before formal diplomatic relations between the two countries were established in, as the hon. Member for Harrow East said, 1880. Also quite significantly we share royal blood, as Queen Marie of Romania was British by birth and the granddaughter of Queen Victoria; so there is a long historic relationship, certainly through the royal family, and I think that the UK wants a long working relationship. As was mentioned by the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry)—it is quicker to call him the hon. Member for the rest of Scotland—Hadrian’s wall was built by Dacian troops. Despite all that, his taking on the role of honorary consul shows what support there is for the people of Romania. The first and second world wars were mentioned, and the fact that Romania changed sides dampened the relationship somewhat; the cold war with Russia also created difficulties. Since those times, as has been said, our excellent ambassador Paul Brummell has done excellent work. He will move on in August, which is a shame, but that is what must happen in such posts. I am sure that he will be replaced by an equally brilliant ambassador, because we need to work with Romania.
The security issue, including in relation to Russia, has been mentioned a number of times. There is also a question of the relationship of Moldova and Romania and how, because of their shared history, the two need to work together. Of course, Moldova is not in the European Union at the moment, although it is striving to join—an issue that it is important for us to consider. We need to see how a bilateral relationship, and a continuing relationship between those two countries, can have a strengthening effect. The involvement of the Russian Army in Transnistria was mentioned. It is still there, so there must be a lot more work to resolve those security issues. Our role will be limited by leaving the EU, but it should not be a reason for us to stop working on the matter. It is all the more reason for us to continue our relationship, and our NATO commitment should allow us to go further in working together. It is hugely important to keep a relationship with Romania and strengthen our role in that regard. I think that in security terms, doing that will stand us in good stead in the region.
As to cultural exchanges, the British Council has done a phenomenal amount of work on cultural exchange for a long time—since 1938. It does good work across the world, and the relationships it builds through education are everlasting; there should be continued support for that.
The role of the Prince of Wales was mentioned, as was the fact that in Romania he has a foundation, which again is about education and supporting what we do. The best way of working with any country is through education. Talking about the role of education overall, I hope that we will allow more students to come in to the UK—qualified in proper universities—who want that sort of support to be able to move forward.
The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) mentioned the statistics from the Office for National Statistics. Those statistics are important because they show the number of people who are here, but also the types of work they do for us, and the types of support they give us, to move things forward. They play a huge and fundamental role. He also mentioned the role of the agricultural and seasonal workers who have come across. The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has already mentioned the role those seasonal workers play and the support they give. There is a question for the Minister later about how we support that industry to continue post Brexit and how we deal with that. It is extremely important for us to see how we move forward.
An increasing number of students are coming into our universities, which is very welcome as far as I am concerned. I believe the Government need to look closely at that, to see how we can support more students coming to this country. Our continued relationships will always exist if we have a better relationship through the education of people coming to this country, which will provide a much longer, deeper and further relationship in support of those combined countries working together.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound), as always, was right in praising the Minister for his great work. The fulsome praise he gave is well deserved; the Minister is respected across both sides of the House for the work he does. I will not go into whether people should cross traffic lights when they are red. My hon. Friend’s views on the great work done by the Romanian community, and the skills and support they provide to our country in doing it, are noted.
My hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (John Grogan) mentioned the significant issue of corruption. For a member of the European Union, corruption must be dealt with. It is extremely important that we do so, and we should work much more strongly on that; if we want to move forward with our relationship, it should be based on anti-corruption. It is crucial to work on that.
It has been an excellent debate, but I will just ask the Minister about the status of Romanians post-Brexit; the status of seasonal workers, whose support is much needed in this country; and also, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North said, the skilled people who come to support us in our hospitals, on our building and construction sites and on all the sites we have available. As I have already asked, what regional relationship will the Minister ensure with the heritage of Moldovans and the Romanians on security, with the 14th Brigade there? What further work can we do through NATO to secure that relationship and see that that is not in any way a flashpoint for further instability in that area? This has been a good debate, and I thank the hon. Member for Harrow East for securing it.
The Minister for Europe and the Americas (Sir Alan Duncan)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for securing the debate, and for his hard work as chair of the all-party parliamentary group for Romania. I am grateful for the feedback on the all-party parliamentary group’s visit to Bucharest last month from the hon. Members for Keighley (John Grogan), for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) and for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry), two of whom have spoken today. I am grateful for the contributions of all hon. Members and I will try to respond to all the points raised.
I will say at the outset that I welcome this opportunity to illustrate the strength of the United Kingdom’s relationship with Romania and our commitment to deepening our ties. I am still blushing from the kind words of the hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound), slightly echoed, for which I am thankful, from the Opposition Front Bench. I sense that after the paean of praise from the hon. Member for Ealing North I owe him a sizeable bottle of Romanian wine—a magnum at the very least. We thank him for his special speech this morning on Romania. It was interesting, informative and entertaining, but most importantly it caught the flavour of our relationship with Romania, a sentiment that I think is shared by everyone participating in this debate.
The UK shares a close and long-standing partnership with Romania. Our diplomatic relations stretch back nearly 140 years, spanning two world wars and, most importantly, Romania’s emergence from under the yoke of Communism. Today we have close connections at every level—Ministers, officials and parliamentarians. As we have heard, His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales also makes regular visits to Romania, as the highly respected and popular patron of numerous charitable organisations in the country, and as someone who has property there and takes a deep interest in many aspects of the country’s life. I was honoured to accompany him to the funeral of King Michael of Romania last December, joining friends from Romania and around the world to pay tribute to an extraordinary and distinguished monarch who stood up to both communism and fascism in his lifetime. The popularity of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales was clearly evident from the warmth of the reception he received from the gathered crowds.
In recent years we have significantly strengthened our security co-operation with Romania to help to address threats in the region that are a concern for Romania and its neighbours. Last year was the busiest in recent memory for our defence engagement. The British military presence was seen on land, in the sea and in the air, and senior British representatives visited on a number of occasions. We plan to maintain that level of engagement in 2018 and beyond.
Last month, four RAF Typhoons returned to Romania to resume air policing activity, and the significantly named HMS Duncan docked at the port of Constanţa for the second time this year. In fact, I have been following my Type 45 destroyer namesake around Europe for the best part of 18 months, but always seem to be two days behind or two days ahead. I look forward one day to coinciding with HMS Duncan; they probably have enough Duncan tartan on board, but I will think of something appropriate to give them when I board.
Our successful defence co-operation benefits both Romania and the United Kingdom. It also demonstrates the key role that the UK’s world-class military and security capabilities continue to play in helping to protect our European neighbours. As the Prime Minister has made clear, our commitment to European security will remain steadfast and unconditional after we leave the European Union. I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East that I am confident that Russia’s activity will form part of the discussions at the NATO summit next month.
The same is true of our co-operation on law enforcement to tackle serious and organised crime. We have joint operations under way right now to tackle illegal immigration and financial crime. Combating modern slavery, forced labour and human trafficking is a key focus of our work together. There are 16 active joint investigations in progress to tackle modern slavery, more than between any other two EU member states. We also share the hon. Member for Keighley’s concerns about the maintenance of proper efforts to tackle corruption within the Government.
As an outward-looking nation, we also remain committed to supporting peace and security in the rest of the world. I take this opportunity to put on record my concern at recent suggestions by some Romanian politicians that their embassy in Israel might move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. We very much hope that Romania remains with the rest of the EU in believing that this would be unhelpful to the prospects for peace in the region; in any event, it is against the terms of United Nations Security Council resolution 478 of 1980 and others.
Our economic partnership with Romania continues to strengthen. Last year, direct British investment in Romania increased by more than £1.3 billion, and trade in goods between our two countries increased by nearly 5%. That is now worth £3.5 billion to the UK every year, while our trade in services is worth almost £1.8 billion. Again, to answer the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East, we have a strong post-Brexit plan for bilateral trade.
Those security and economic ties are important and growing, but it is the daily interaction of our peoples that forms the bedrock of our relationship. Some 5,000 British people now live in Romania and make a positive contribution to the country they have made their home. Our charitable and educational links are particularly strong—numerous British charities make a real difference to the lives of individuals and communities—and this year the British Council celebrates 80 years of promoting education, language and culture in Romania.
Last month, the Office for National Statistics reported that Romanians are now the second largest group of foreign nationals in the UK, as we have heard. They are renowned for their hard work and entrepreneurship, and they make a hugely valuable contribution to our society and to every sector of our economy, be it finance, business, agriculture, engineering, healthcare or education. Many Romanians also choose to study at our universities; they are welcome here and we want them to stay. In the same spirit, we want to encourage greater tourism to Romania among UK citizens, but perhaps not for them to traipse through the virgin forests we have heard mentioned this morning.
Jim Shannon
The Mayor of Constanţa said he would like to see more tourism contacts, particularly involving airlines. Does the Minister have any thoughts about how we can help him to achieve his goal and therefore, I believe, build greater economic ties between our two countries?
Sir Alan Duncan
I hope that in building the sort of bilateral relations that we want with all the EU27, we will see a cross-Whitehall approach to encouraging increased activity in all sorts of areas, including tourism. I very much hope that the afterlife, as it were, will deliver what the hon. Gentleman seeks.
In common with other EU citizens in the UK, Romanians want clarity on their rights after the UK leaves the European Union, which is why the Government have made safeguarding citizens’ rights a high priority in our negotiations. We are confident that the agreement we have now reached with the EU provides those citizens with the certainty that they need. Earlier this year, working closely with the Romanian embassy, the Foreign Office organised two widely publicised events, in London and Manchester, for the Romanian diaspora to explain the agreement reached on citizens’ rights. We want to ensure that Romanians feel safe and welcome here, and we hope to run more such events in the future.
Looking to that future, particularly after Brexit, we are working with the Romanian Government to develop a new strategic partnership that looks far beyond March 2019. We welcome their commitment to our future relationship and look forward to strengthening our collaboration across a range of issues, including foreign policy, trade, security, culture, education and defence.
I was specifically asked if there have been any discussions about the coming Romanian EU presidency. I can tell hon. Members that we are already working closely with Romanian colleagues, and the British embassy in Bucharest has been discussing Romania’s developing plans for the presidency with Government officials for some time now. On 8 June, Lord Callanan, the Minister of State for Exiting the EU, met the Romanian Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry for Romanians Abroad to discuss preparations for the presidency in the context of our exit from the EU. We also maintain excellent relations with the Romanian embassy in London, and we very much value and appreciate our working relationship and the attention it pays to us, which I sense is endorsed by all hon. Members here.
Many elements help to strengthen the partnership between the UK and Romania. The successful collaboration between our Government Departments, Ministers, parliamentarians and armed forces are all essential components of that good relationship. They are all underpinned and reinforced by the relationships between our peoples—the British citizens living in Romania and the Romanians living here, whose rights we are working hard to protect. We should be proud of the vibrant relationship between our two countries, which the Government, and I personally, intend to nurture and strengthen in the years ahead.
Bob Blackman
I thank every hon. Member who has participated in this welcome debate—particularly the Minister, who was widely praised even before he spoke. It is important that we send out a strong message to our citizens in the United Kingdom, to Romanian citizens in the United Kingdom and to our friends in Romania that we want a strong bilateral arrangement and relations going forward and that people who have chosen to come and live in our country are welcome. We congratulate and thank them for the service they give us and we want to make sure that they continue to contribute to our economy. Equally, we want to make sure that we stand shoulder to shoulder with Romania in our defence relations and, looking forward, in our trade relations and in tourism, even if that tourism is promoted by Pound Associates, that well-known travel agent in Ealing North.
It has been a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. We have had a warm and welcome debate, with speakers from across the nations of the United Kingdom, which demonstrates the great force and the great opportunities around Romania. We are also grateful for those Romanian footballers who have come to our country, including, notably, two who came and played for Tottenham and demonstrated their great abilities on one or two occasions to overcome the other team that plays in north London.
It is a pleasure to sum up the debate, and I look forward to the various activities in the rest of the year to promote the excellent relations between our two countries. We can look forward to a solid future.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered UK-Romanian relations.
Rail Services: Hassocks
(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Nick Herbert (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered rail services in Hassocks.
I welcome the opportunity to raise the subject of the rail services provided for villagers in Hassocks in my constituency, and for others who use the station there, which is on the Brighton main line and which offers Southern, Thameslink and Gatwick Express services. Hon. Members may wonder why I am talking about rail services to a village. Although it has a population of only 7,700 people—making it the largest settlement in my constituency—Hassocks is nevertheless the 10th busiest rail station in west Sussex and is used by many people who do not live in Hassocks itself. It is a commuter village.
Many people move to Hassocks specifically because of the rail links that it provides to London and other places. In fact, 1.3 million passengers a year use Hassocks station. Therefore, my first and key point—I know that my hon. Friend the Minister has taken it on board, because he very generously met me to discuss this issue before the new timetable was introduced last month—is that this is not a small issue. A large number of people use the rail service from Hassocks in my constituency, and the Minister knows that they are very angry indeed. They have put up with two years of disruption because of the problems with the Southern service and the London Bridge upgrade. They fully accept that the London Bridge upgrade will ultimately be of benefit to passengers, but they are certainly not seeing that at the moment. Just as it looked as though we might be moving towards a steadier state for rail services in West Sussex, which over the past two years have been absolutely dismal, we have serious disruption again.
This all started with the introduction of the new timetable last month. I should say straightaway that I fully appreciate that the new timetable provides more peak trains to Victoria from Hassocks and the same number to and from London Bridge—theoretically; I will come to the actuality shortly. Theoretically there are more such services, but—here is the “but”—there are no longer any direct services to Clapham Junction, the busiest rail station in Europe, from Hassocks. Despite the size of the village and the numbers of people commuting from there, the direct services to Clapham Junction have simply been withdrawn, and I am talking not about the disrupted timetable, but about the new timetable, which was meant to offer an improved service to everyone.
Four peak-time morning trains to Clapham Junction have been removed, and Govia Thameslink Railway admits that three of those journeys will now be slower by up to 10 minutes because of the need for my constituents to change services. Six peak-time return trains from Clapham Junction to Hassocks have been removed, and GTR admits that four of the journeys will be slower by up to 10 minutes. GTR has told me that it appreciates that
“passengers will need to change trains,”
but
“the journey time is only increasing by an average of 7 minutes.”
Commuters dispute that: they say that changes at Gatwick or East Croydon are rarely quick or easy, because of overcrowding. I know that GTR is giving figures based on a four-minute change time at Gatwick. I defy the Minister, GTR executives or anyone else reliably to be able to change at Gatwick at peak time, even if the trains were operating properly, based on only a four-minute window.
Jeremy Quin (Horsham) (Con)
I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend for the work that he is doing. Many of us in West Sussex are working together on this; it is a huge problem across the county. On his particular point about a changeover time of four minutes and with crowded platforms and mass disruption, commuters in my constituency are very concerned about the safety aspect. I am sure that that is a concern for his commuters as well.
Nick Herbert
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention. We have indeed been working together in West Sussex and we have been working closely with our right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames), who is also very concerned about the disruption to services on the line. We are all concerned about the unfeasible interchange times and the safety implications, the implications for disabled passengers and so on. It is no good producing figures that show a theoretical benefit or not much of a change or not much of a problem for commuters, because of course it is actually very disruptive for people to have to change when they had a direct service before. These are busy working people. They often cannot get a seat once when they have changed. Their working patterns are disrupted, and they are just very irritated by the claim that somehow the service is nearly as good as it was before. It really is not.
There is a mismatch between demand and train routes. Gatwick Express trains, which stop only at Victoria, are relatively empty, whereas Thameslink trains have been severely overcrowded. I have raised before with the Minister whether it makes sense for Gatwick Express trains not to stop at the busiest station in Europe, Clapham Junction. If they did, that would offer more choice to people flying to and from Gatwick. The demand that those trains run direct from Gatwick to Victoria is problematic anyway, but it is certainly disadvantaging my constituents at the moment.
The Minister will tell me that only 9% of journeys in relation to Hassocks are to, from or through Clapham Junction. It sounds like very few when we hear that only 9% of my commuting constituents are affected, but actually it is 9% of a large number. It is 9.45%, to be precise, of the nearly 595,000 journeys that are being made to London. That means that more than 56,000 single journeys a year from Hassocks to Clapham Junction, in either direction, have now been withdrawn, in terms of the direct service, so that is not a small impact. It is impacting on the village, and people are very upset about it. Hassocks is a growing village—the number of houses will increase by one third in Hassocks alone, never mind the surrounding area—so to pick on one of the biggest stations in West Sussex and withdraw entirely the direct service to Clapham Junction simply does not make sense. I would therefore be very grateful if I could repeat to the Minister the request that I have made to him, to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, to GTR and to Network Rail, in so far as it is a matter for that organisation: will they please reconsider the new timetable, which has withdrawn what was an essential service for a large number of my constituents?
All this would be one thing, and I might not even have raised it in this Chamber, if it were not for the fact that these are theoretical new services anyway, because the disruption that has resulted from the new timetable has worsened the service not just for the commuters who have seen their service withdrawn, but for hundreds—no, thousands—of others. Frankly, the service since the introduction of the new timetable has been completely intolerable. I said at the beginning of the debate that my constituents were angry about it—they really are angry. This disruption is happening on a daily basis. It is deeply ironic that before the new timetable was introduced, GTR told me:
“We hope that with the introduction of this timetable, we will be in a position to provide…much more reliable services for all passengers travelling on our network.”
That would produce a very hollow laugh indeed from my constituents. The Minister knows that there has been widespread withdrawal, cancellation and delay of services.
The important thing for the Minister to note is that the situation is not getting better; in fact, it is just as bad as it was when the new timetable was first introduced. In the week before the timetable change, to 19 May, there were 18 train cancellations. That was a “normal” service. “Normal” service in West Sussex appeared to mean that my commuters had to accept that level of cancellations. Can people imagine an airline being run on the same basis? But never mind; there were “just” 18 cancellations in that week. In the first week of the new timetable, 245 trains were cancelled, and I am talking about trains to and from Hassocks. In the second week, there were 267 cancellations, in the third week 312 and in the fourth week 290. We are now in the fifth week and still nearly 300 trains a week are being cancelled. Might we have expected that after one month of the new interim timetable, which is resulting in services being withdrawn altogether, there might be some improvement? I am afraid not.
On Monday morning I received an email from a despairing constituent, Mr James Read, who lives in Hurstpierpoint. He said:
“I feel I must write to express my dismay at the current situation which appears to somehow deteriorate further everyday. This morning for example, I have never seen so many people waiting for a London train on the platforms at Hassocks. This morning, the 0623 was virtually full before it reached Hassocks. Then there were additional stops at Hayward’s Heath and Three Bridges to compound matters. It is totally unacceptable for people to be standing on a train service at 0630!”
I agree with that. I have a simple question for the Minister: when will this shambles come to an end? We are now four weeks on and it continues to be appalling.
I have here a timetable for rail services from Brighton and Hassocks in 1905, well over a century ago. The fastest of three direct trains from Hassocks to London Bridge took just one hour and 17 minutes. Those were steam trains. Theoretically, we now have direct services from Hassocks to London Bridge that are 23 minutes faster, but the reality is that we have a completely unreliable service. My constituents would be grateful to be transported back to the days of 1905, when they had three reliable steam trains that took them to London every single morning, compared to the chaotic, shambolic, disrupted, withdrawn and cancelled services that they are facing now.
What will be done about this? There is the issue of redress. I am grateful to GTR for at last recognising that tickets that are valid on one of the services should be passported to the others. I specifically asked for that and am grateful that it has been introduced. If a passenger has a ticket for a Southern service that is cancelled, they should be allowed to use it on a Thameslink or Gatwick Express service, or whichever service is available.
Then there is the issue of compensation. Of course, we must compensate passengers, but the compensation system is simply not good enough. It is not direct enough, immediate enough or sharp enough. It is too complicated for constituents to use. It just increases their irritation even more. We need a modern, sharper form of compensation system that is better than delay repay, so that the rail operating companies feel real pain when they are providing a shambolic and shoddy service like this, and passengers are compensated on a much more immediate basis. We need that not just because it would be fair to customers, but because it would introduce greater accountability.
Who will be accountable for this shambles? We have seen the resignation of Charles Horton, the chief executive of GTR, but what about Network Rail’s responsibility for this matter? It has admitted that it has some responsibility for the problems with Thameslink services, because of its failure to deliver in the north, which meant that it did not have enough staff to manage the new timetable. GTR says that one of the reasons it was in such trouble is that it was not given enough time to introduce the new timetable. The blame game is being played a lot. Who is being held accountable at Network Rail for this shambles? Yes, other projects may have been delivered on time and London Bridge might be wonderful, but that is not the point. My constituents want to know that people are being held accountable for these problems, so that they will not happen again.
Those were unforced errors, frankly. This is not the same situation as we are seeing in the north with union disruption. It is not the same as the situation over the last two years with the disruption to Southern services, which, we all came to realise, were largely driven by the unions manipulating problems that already existed with the lack of track because of the London Bridge upgrade and the shortage of drivers. There were other responsibilities, but the unions were driving it particularly. That is not the case with these Thameslink services now. We cannot lay the blame at the door of the unions for this. The blame has to be laid with the managers, whether in Network Rail, GTR or the Department for Transport, who presided over this shambles.
Why was there not an early warning system or risk register? Why were red lights not flashing, because this was a major change and could result in problems? We were still being told right up to the introduction of the new timetable that it might have minor teething problems, but it would be all right on the night. I am afraid it has not been all right on the night. We have to learn the lessons. I know that there will be an inquiry into that.
I am being placed—as my hon. Friends are—in a position where we are constantly having to apologise for the performance of the rail industry in our constituencies. It is difficult to explain to our constituents why more drastic action has not been taken to deal with this franchise.
Jeremy Quin
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. He is making a speech of great passion and he is spot on with every point. As he knows, we are facing the same issue in Balcombe. I have discussed it with the Minister before. Balcombe is a small village with a huge number of commuters who come into it. They pay a fortune every year in order to get to and from London. The least they can expect is to be able to do so reliably.
I like my right hon. Friend’s tone. Does he agree that an inquiry is one thing, but we simply need to know when these drivers will be trained and when the timetable will be working? Those are two simple questions, to which we need to have the answers as soon as they can be provided.
Nick Herbert
I agree with my hon. Friend. He has made the point directly, and I am sure the Minister will have heard it.
We will have to look at the size of this franchise again. It is too big. It was meant to deliver benefits in economies of scale, but it has only given us problems from the moment that it was introduced. We also need to look at the franchise holder. I appreciate that that is a legal process, but my constituents cannot understand why GTR is still running this franchise. There are longer term questions about the level of investment necessary in these lines. Hon. Members representing West Sussex constituencies will be very supportive of an increased level of investment, but that does not deal with the short-term issues.
In conclusion, my constituents in Hassocks are paying in excess of £5,000 a year for their season tickets. They rely on these rail services. I would, therefore, be grateful if the Minister would, first, look again at the question of whether direct services to Clapham Junction from Hassocks can be restored and, secondly, if he can tell us when normal, reliable services are likely to be restored.
I am grateful to the Minister for his attention to these problems, and I know how hard he has been working on them. His door has been open to us, and he has been receptive to the points we have been making. I certainly attach no blame to him or his colleagues. He has been badly let down indeed. I am sorry to address him in such tones, but it is important that I do so, because it is important for him to understand just how angry our constituents are now about this perpetually bad service and how despairing they are that there seems to be no end to it. They just want a normal, reliable rail service. In the 21st century, is that really too much to ask?
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Joseph Johnson)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert), who, as we have just seen, is an extraordinarily powerful champion for his constituents, on securing this important debate on rail services in Hassocks. At the outset, I assure him that it is the Department’s No. 1 priority to ensure that his constituents and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Jeremy Quin) get the rail services to which they have every right to feel entitled as soon as possible.
He is under the impression that services have not been improving in recent days. I am disappointed to hear that. I will look into the statistics and the picture he painted of performance to and from Hassocks. Passengers travelling on those services already should have started to see improvement in their performance since GTR started cancelling services in advance, rather than on the day.
During the week beginning 28 May—some time ago now—there were several days with just three morning services from Hassocks to London Bridge. The other scheduled services were cancelled on the day, meaning that passengers could not plan ahead. Last week, by contrast, there were no on-the-day cancellations and five services ran in each morning peak period. I grant that performance is still far from being at the level that my right hon. Friend or we in the Department would find satisfactory, but I hope that passengers seeing that change feel that improvement is starting to happen. It must now accelerate and that is the priority for the Department.
On the Hassocks to Victoria route there are still too many delays. I should add that in the morning peak last week, 12 services ran each day, compared with the seven scheduled services before the timetable change. Even if there is much more room for improvement on the Victoria line, even there we are starting to see things move in the right direction.
Network Rail and GTR are urgently developing and delivering plans to do more to reduce the disruption, and to give passengers the greatest possible certainty of train services so that they can better plan ahead. As I have mentioned, GTR is removing services from its timetable in advance, rather than on the day, and reducing weekend services to pre-May timetable levels. It is now updating journey plans on Fridays with the information about which services are being cancelled for the following week being all loaded up there and then, so that passengers can get a sense of what the travel patterns will be like for the coming week. That should bring about a more stable service than we have seen in recent weeks and will be in place, to answer my right hon. Friend’s question, until a full replanning of driver resourcing can take place. GTR also aims to publish an amended timetable across the whole network. Once that is in place, the promised improvements of the May timetable will be introduced incrementally, rather than as a big bang, to reduce the risk of further disruption.
Let me turn to the questions about the future timetable, once we are over this difficult period of disruptions following the implementation of the timetable. When it is fully implemented, the new timetable will deliver improvements to as many passengers as possible while balancing the competing and often contradictory demands of different passenger groups.
As my right hon. Friend noted, peak-time services from Hassocks no longer stop at Clapham Junction. That is because all peak services between Hassocks and Victoria are Gatwick Express trains coming from Brighton, which cannot stop between Gatwick airport and Victoria. However, there can be a single change at Gatwick airport. We can examine his view that a four-minute positive interchange was an unrealistic ambition; I will certainly go back to Network Rail and GTR to see whether four minutes is a realistic interchange time. However, if we assume for a moment that it is possible to interchange in that time, Hassocks passengers can make the journey to Clapham Junction with an average journey time that is roughly the same as before the timetable change, with some journeys being faster and, I grant, with some being slower.
It may be helpful if I explain the reasons behind the change. Since the end of the industrial action to which my right hon. Friend referred in his remarks, the main cause of disruption on the Southern network has been trains and train staff travelling on different lines during the day. That has meant that when disruption has occurred, it has often spread rapidly across the network because if a driver or a train were caught up in disruption on one route that can impact very quickly on their availability for the route on which they are next meant to be working.
The new timetable keeps trains and train staff working on the same route throughout the day, containing any disruption on that specific route. In addition, work has been done so that the timing of services does not conflict with that of other services on the network. This work has included separating Gatwick Express services and Southern services on the Brighton main line.
The net result is that Hassocks now receives a consistent four Gatwick Express trains per hour on the route from Brighton to Victoria during the peak, and two Southern trains per hour from Littlehampton during the off-peak. Previously, as my right hon. Friend knows, Hassocks was served by a combination of Southern and Gatwick Express services coming from Brighton or Littlehampton at all times.
I appreciate my right hon. Friend’s point that a considerable number of passengers are still being affected, but I believe that they are now in a position where they are able to choose between Southern and Gatwick Express services. Passengers from Hassocks will benefit from the performance benefits that will come in time from the full separation of Gatwick Express and Southern services.
I also emphasise that the vast majority of passengers travelling to London from Hassocks are being well served by the timetable change. None the less, I recognise that 9.45%, or somewhere under 10%, of weekday journeys represents a significant number of my right hon. Friend’s constituents who use services from Hassocks. However, it is also worth remembering that more than 90% of passengers using Hassocks are going to Victoria or are on Thameslink services. Overall, connections from Hassocks into London are much improved.
Hassocks now receives 12 direct services to Victoria in the morning peak, compared with seven before the timetable change. This provides a significant capacity increase for those passengers going to Victoria. As this is a Gatwick Express route during the peaks, it is run with new trains that have air conditioning, wi-fi and power sockets. On average, the journey from Hassocks to Victoria in the morning used to take more than an hour. Now it takes, on average, 51 minutes, which is significantly better than the amount of time that services took in 1905, the timetable for which my right hon. Friend produced and referred to.
Nick Herbert
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. Before he experiences the fate of politicians and other public figures in Sussex who have particularly infuriated us and is burnt in effigy, may I ask him to reconsider his comment that services are “much improved”? I think what he meant was that they might be much improved when the new timetable is finally introduced and works properly, but he cannot say, and nobody can say, that the current level of service is much improved.
Joseph Johnson
Indeed. I prefaced all my comments by saying that this was about what would happen once we are over this hump—the current difficulties—and once the timetable is fully bedded in and working to the levels that it should. Of course my right hon. Friend is right and I repeat what I said earlier: there has been improvement, as I hope he acknowledges, but there is significant room for further improvement, so that services are of the standard that his constituents and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham have a right to expect.
On average, the journey times for trains into Victoria from Hassocks will be reduced by 10 minutes in the morning, when the service is operating at the level it should be operating at.
Jeremy Quin
I appreciate that there is an ongoing inquiry. Will my hon. Friend confirm whether this situation is attributable purely to the retraining of the drivers, so that when that training is concluded the new timetable will operate properly, or are there other issues to be got to grips with as well? As I say, I appreciate that there is an inquiry ongoing, but I would be most grateful for any light that he can throw on this situation.
Joseph Johnson
Yes, the sheer magnitude of the timetable change affecting GTR, which is one of the biggest changes that the railway industry has ever seen, and the late delivery of the timetable as a consequence have meant that GTR was substantially behind where it should have been on driver training and on getting in place all the appropriate train diagrams. That driver training and reorganisation work, which should have been completed in time for 20 May, is now being done at pace. Once that has worked its way through, we anticipate being able to move progressively back to the full May timetable.
There are the same number of services going from Hassocks to London Bridge as there were before the timetable change. I grant that for a temporary period Hassocks will receive fewer peak services to Blackfriars compared with the situation before the timetable change. However, that is a temporary result of the rephasing of the timetable and this route will receive an extra service each hour from December this year. Average journey times to Blackfriars and London Bridge are now between five and 10 minutes shorter than before, providing passengers with quicker direct access to London Bridge, Blackfriars, the City, Farringdon and St Pancras.
The new Thameslink service also offers passengers different options for getting to their final station. For example, people who interchange at Clapham Junction for Waterloo will instead be able to interchange at London Bridge for Waterloo East. The opening of the Elizabeth line through Farringdon in December will offer further journey opportunities.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs mentioned compensation. As ever, passengers are encouraged to apply to their train operator for delay repay compensation for affected journeys. We are seeing increased take-up of that compensation, as awareness of it and the ease with which people can access it grow. We have also announced a special compensation scheme for GTR passengers. It is to be funded by the rail industry and it will ensure that regular rail customers receive appropriate redress for the disruption they have experienced. I encourage passengers to apply to GTR for delay repay compensation. GTR operates the scheme for all of its passengers and under it passengers can claim compensation for each delay of more than 15 minutes, whatever the cause of the delay.
I conclude by thanking my right hon. Friend for bringing this subject to Westminster Hall. It is an important subject and it is absolutely right that his constituents get the services they deserve as rapidly as possible. I remind the House that in time the vast majority of passengers will end up being well served by this timetable change, once it has bedded in. Those travelling to Victoria from Hassocks will have an extra five additional services during the morning peak; for those travelling on Thameslink, journey times will be between five and 10 minutes quicker than before. In time, I hope that he will agree that rail services into Hassocks will be much improved once those services are fully bedded in.
Geothermal Energy
(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Nigel Evans (in the Chair)
Before I call Helen Goodman, let me say that Members may, in view of the Ascot weather, remove items of clothing as they deem appropriate.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the potential for geothermal energy resources in the UK.
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Evans. I am pleased to have the opportunity to open this debate on what is a huge carbon-free energy resource for this country. I hope we can use the debate to highlight the potential of the resource and to encourage the Minister to act, so that we fully realise the opportunities.
In Britain, geothermal energy comes in two forms: that which occurs naturally in the geological structure in some places, and that in old mine workings. I first became aware of that when I was a trustee of Auckland castle, which sits on the Butterknowle fault. At that time, the trustees looked—I understand they are still looking—at the possibility of using the geothermal energy there to heat the castle, and perhaps for a district heating scheme.
The Butterknowle fault runs across my constituency. It is a geological feature where coal was mined from the time of the Romans to the mid-20th century. Now the coal is exhausted but scope for geothermal has been discovered. At a depth of 500 metres, the heat is 30° C, and at 1.5 km there are rocks of about 73° C. It would be really good to exploit that, particularly because some of the villages on the fault—Evenwood and Cockfield—are off the gas grid, meaning that fuel bills and, in turn, fuel poverty are high. I met a woman whose winter oil bill one year was £3,000. I know that such a system exists in Southampton, and I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead), who was the leader of the council there when the project began—indeed, I think he was instrumental in beginning it—will tell us more in his Front-Bench speech about how that works. Maps show that there are considerable areas of the country where it is a possible source of energy.
The second kind of geothermal energy we have is warm water in old mine workings. At about 30° C, the water is generally not so hot, but it is nearer the surface and therefore easier to extract. The Coal Authority has completed maps of 23,000 former collieries and has a very good understanding of the geology, the engineering and the feasibility of such schemes. The former mine workings are treated as a £3 billion liability for British taxpayers, because they must be kept safe, but they could be turned into a massive stream of income for them instead. Durham University’s Durham Energy Institute, in particular Dr Charlotte Adams and Professor Jon Gluyas, has done, and continues to do, a lot of work on this, and it has shown that the scale of the resource is phenomenal. Currently in this country, 80% of people heat their homes with gas. Durham University believes that the deep geothermal—the geological—could provide 100 GW of power, which is 16% of the electricity we consume.
Turning to the mine workings, a quarter of homes in this country sit on the old coalfields—7 million homes that could use mine-water heat instead of gas. In business terms, that represents a business or a sector with an annual turnover of about £2.5 billion and profits of £250 million. The net present value of the resource is £72 billion—I am using these numbers because I know that the Minister is financially literate and will understand their significance—and the net present value of the profits is £7.2 billion, so the Minister should look to turn the current £3 billion liability into a £72 billion asset.
Furthermore, the heat source is virtually carbon-free. It is estimated that enabling a quarter of the homes in this country to move over to it would save between 10 and 15 million tonnes of carbon a year. The current warm water would supply heat for 100 years, but if pumping technology were introduced to recycle the heat, that period could be extended almost indefinitely. I am told that by Durham University, which says that to meet our next carbon budget, it is essential to decarbonise heat. The Government’s current strategy is to do that by shifting people from gas to electricity heating, but electricity generation is only about 35% efficient, whereas I understand that for geothermal the figure is 75% or 80%, so the loss during production, transmission and distribution is much less. Geothermal would, therefore, be a much better route to pursue to hit our carbon targets. Some 40% of our carbon emissions are produced by fuel for heating, so if we decarbonised a quarter of the country there would be a reduction in our carbon emissions of 10%. That would be fantastic. It represents a really large reduction that is really worth having, and it would give us more flexibility in other areas of life.
There are considerable other policy advantages of using the mines in this way. First, this source of energy would improve energy security. Geothermal energy is not intermittent, unlike wind and solar, and it would reduce our dependency on unstable foreign regimes.
Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)
I do not know if my hon. Friend sees Iceland as an unstable foreign regime, but another idea is to have an interconnector through to that country, which gains enormous power from geothermal energy. Would my hon. Friend say that that fits into her debate in some way?
Helen Goodman
My hon. Friend has just inserted it into the debate, so it obviously fits. Yes, that is a country that is already using the resource, as are others, and I will come on to that in a moment.
As I said at the outset, there is significant fuel poverty in some parts of the country and using geothermal energy is a way of tackling that. The sector could also be a source of jobs, especially in the former coalfield communities, which still suffer economic decline and need regeneration—in 2004, the Department of Trade and Industry estimated that it could create a million jobs. That is a very big number, and it might not be as many as that. If we compare it, however, with the 300,000 jobs in the oil and gas sector, we can see that it is obviously a significant number of jobs. Moreover, the skills and supply chains used in the oil and gas sector would be similar to what is required for geothermal. It would provide a useful transition for those businesses as the North sea declines.
Fourthly, geothermal could help to improve food security. That warm water would facilitate horticulture in parts of the country where it does not currently exist. Fifthly, mines can be used to store heat and therefore to balance power across the grid. We would be developing an industry that could be a source of exports. My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Dr Drew) suggests importing heat from Iceland. I do not know whether an interconnector across the very deep waters of the north Atlantic is feasible, but I know that in many areas of renewables, this country has done a lot of innovation and research and then not seen through the development. In the case of wind, we did a lot of the basic science and initial work, but the industry has flourished more in Denmark, Norway and Germany than it has here. We must stop making that mistake. We need a different approach for geothermal, because we could be exporting engineering services for geothermal.
Another advantage is that there is no nuclear waste with geothermal, which compares well with some of the other power projects being promoted. It also does not produce the environmental damage that fracking produces, yet in the Government’s 160-page clean growth strategy, there is not a mention of geothermal. I want to understand why that is. The strategy says that the Government wish to ensure that they can
“deliver affordable energy for households…decarbonising ‘harder to reach’ parts of the UK economy”,
particularly heating. The strategy says that it is important to have “concerted joined up working” across Departments. It wants to see innovation to minimise costs. I agree with all those things, and geothermal is a policy area where they could be put into practice.
I know the Minister well. When she puts her mind to something, she is a very effective operator. She is a formidable figure. Officials in her Department have told me that they have found her leadership on renewables inspirational. I know she is not a paper shuffler. I want her to pick up the baton and run with it, because I have confidence that if she wanted to, she could make a difference here. The time to do that is now, using the skills and know-how of the petroleum industry. I am going to give her a few practical suggestions as to what I would expect to see in a policy for geothermal.
First, the basic science is strong, but we need more demonstration projects. The Coal Authority needs more resources to do those, as well as to provide advice for commercial actors.
Secondly, in the medium term we should probably have regulation and a licensing system that would bring in money for the taxpayer. For now, it would be sensible to extend the contract for difference to heat. At the moment, it operates just for electricity. In the Netherlands, the Government introduced a form of risk insurance. In five years, the scale of their geothermal sector has doubled.
Thirdly and finally, my concern is that we should see reform to planning and building regulations. The resource is being lost and opportunities are being wasted. One of the studies that Durham University did was into some old mine workings in Spennymoor in my constituency. It found that it would be feasible to have a district heating system for a new development of 300 houses. The local authority had no powers to require the house builder to consider, let alone implement, sustainability factors or renewable energy sources.
We all know that the large national house builders want to minimise risk and maximise profits, which, on being interpreted, means that they are lazy and greedy. They are not going to innovate unless they are required to do so. It has been suggested to me that we need a return to code 6 for sustainable homes. That gave us targets for achieving carbon neutrality in house building. Just as with the transition from oil and gas, the time to reform the building regulations is now. We are trying to build a lot of houses, so now is the time to raise the standards.
Everybody knows that retrofitting is more costly, so this is the moment to raise the quality of the housing stock for the next 100 years. We are in danger of making exactly the same mistake that was made after world war two, when a lot of prefabricated buildings were built. If we are going to build a lot, we need to build high-quality buildings for the long term, not the slums of the future. I suggest to the Minister that she organises a seminar for the national house builders and experts in the field to educate them. Will she write to or meet her colleague, the Minister for Housing, the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab), to persuade him that he needs to incorporate the changes into the building regulations? He is going to make big changes to the building regulations, so he may as well do a proper, comprehensive job.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) on securing this debate. On the issue of asking the Minister to try to convene a seminar, does she agree that in doing that, it would be an idea to have mapped out the most productive areas and the likely benefit to be derived? That would act as a harbinger for extracting the maximum amount of benefit for the minimum amount of input.
Helen Goodman
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We need two maps. We need the map of the geological possibilities and the map of the former coalfields. The Coal Authority has done a lot of work on that. I am sure it has shared that with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, but we need to give these things more currency than they have at the moment. It is also important that we have a national scheme. We do not want a system where builders are required to explore the possibility in, for the sake of argument, Derbyshire, but not in Norfolk. That will mean that they are encouraged to go and build in Norfolk, but not in Derbyshire. That is why we need a national approach. We need to go beyond a strategy to having a plan.
I thank Jeremy Crooks from the Coal Authority and members of the Durham Energy Institute and Durham County Council’s planning department. They have all helped me understand this important issue.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) on bringing forward this important debate. She brings incredible energy and enthusiasm to any subject matter, whether it is here in Westminster Hall or the Chamber, and I thank her for that.
To digress slightly, hailing from Strangford and having lived there for all but four years of my life, my initial interest in this subject began with the sight of the UK’s first SeaGen tide turbine, which harnessed nature’s resources. The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland referred to that with regard to geothermal resources, but in a passing way I want to explain why the first SeaGen tide turbine was interesting to me. I live on the edge of Strangford lough. At the entrance of the lough, at the narrows, the tides rush with an almost nervous but very strong force. The SeaGen project was able to harness that energy. My interest in that came about when I was wearing my former hat, a long time ago, on Ards and North Down Borough Council.
The world’s first commercial-scale tidal turbine was commissioned in Northern Ireland’s Strangford lough in July 2008. The project had two 600 kW turbines and required a total investment of £12 million. The energy produced equalled the power required by 1,500 households annually. That milestone indicated the completion of the demonstration phase of the project. We recognised that if natural resources were there, we could generate energy from them.
The subject of today’s debate—geothermal resources—is clearly slightly different, but the SeaGen project, right on my doorstep, gave me a real interest in this area. I was, and am, passionate about that project because I saw its potential. That interest led me to enjoy the research for today’s debate and learning that in Iceland—some hon. Members have intervened along these lines—geothermal energy provides around two-thirds of the country’s primary energy demand. I am not sure about running a pipe from Iceland to here, or whatever the proposal may be. Nothing in this world is impossible, but whether it is cost effective is the issue. However, Iceland’s achievement is incredible and less reliance on fossil fuels can be only a good thing.
It is time that we started to look at those things. The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland has generated the core of interest in the debate to enable us to focus on it and give the Minister time to prepare a detailed and comprehensive response, which I am sure the Minister and her staff are doing at this moment. We can then rely less on insecure middle-eastern trade and influence, and stand on our own two feet.
If someone drives a car or lives in the countryside their petrol and diesel bills will be bigger than most. Some people heat their house with oil. We do not have to worry about that much at this time of year, but at other times we do, and the price of oil is extreme. The countries that resource and supply oil will have a meeting this week, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) mentioned, and there is some indication that the price may be reduced. The fact is that we are experiencing the highest oil prices for some four years. When I go to fill up with diesel on a Saturday morning at 131.9p per litre, that gives me an idea of it. Not too long ago, it was under 107.9p, so that is quite an increase.
The Library briefing paper indicated that the geothermal potential of the UK was investigated by a programme funded by the UK Government and the European Commission that ran from 1977-94. It identified the key heat flow areas of potential in the UK and, in May 2012, a paper by consultants Sinclair Knight Merz in association with the Renewable Energy Association, an industry trade body, argued that geothermal power could provide 20% of the UK’s electricity and all of the UK’s heat demand. Subsequent reports may have put the figures lower, but the common theme is that there is scope for further investigation of how we can harness geothermal potential in a cost-effective way.
I understand that in Northern Ireland we have some potential for geothermal interest—perhaps in North Antrim and Mid Ulster. There was also talk at one time of potential for development along South Down. I understand that this is not directly the Minister’s responsibility, but has any contact been made with the Northern Ireland Assembly, which is unfortunately not working at the moment in the way that it should, to see what part Northern Ireland can play in the strategic policy for the whole United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?
In 2017, a study estimated that the UK theoretically had enough resource available to surpass easily all UK energy demand in 2015. However, the amount that was technically available was much smaller than the theoretical resource, and recovery would depend on depths drilled and areas targeted. Although there might be some potential there, the costs of extraction might be such that doing so would not be financially feasible. Can the Minister throw any light on how we can play our part in Northern Ireland?
I am not an engineer—far from it. If a hammer cannot sort something out, I do not know what can, but that is just me being the DIY man around our house. When it comes to doing simple things, if it is easy and a hammer can do it, I am your man. When it comes to the concerns highlighted in today’s debate, it is our duty to commission reports from those who have the ability, who are experts and who know what they are talking about. I believe that renewable energy resources are very much worthy of investigation. The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland is really saying, “Let’s look at that—let’s see what we can do.” Is it possible to provide 20% of the electricity needs of the whole of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland? If we can, it will be time well spent, and I support the hon. Lady in trying to achieve that goal.
I support the Government and the Minister in their pledge of £300 million to invest in district heat networks over the next few years as an important way of ascertaining the best way towards a self-sustaining ability to harness a power source that can address the entire UK’s needs. The £300 million seems like a lot, but when spread across the United Kingdom it might not be as much as we would think. However, if it initiates interest in the subject, it is something we should try to do.
In conclusion, I congratulate the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland on introducing the debate. I look forward to the speech of the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead), and to the Minister’s response. We in Northern Ireland want to be part of the strategy, and are keen to see how we can play our part to make that happen. I am keen to see how we can take advantage of nature’s best, and perhaps nature’s worst, for energy provision. If we can do that, I think it will be time well spent.
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans—with your strong and long Welsh history, I hope you may even know the community that I will talk about today.
Geothermal energy has tremendous potential, and I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) on securing the debate. It was very interesting to hear her informed view on why such projects can be of huge benefit to Durham, and to the whole of the UK. I will focus my remarks mainly on the Caerau project in my constituency.
Bridgend County Borough Council, which serves two thirds of my constituency, has commissioned a survey to ascertain whether water held in the former Caerau colliery, in the Llynfi valley, could provide a sufficient heat source for a project. If the survey results are positive, there are proposals for a geothermal energy project to generate energy for nearly 1,000 homes across the Llynfi valley. That could provide safe, reliable and cost-effective heat and build a green energy industry in the heart of the south Wales coalfields.
If the project is successful, that will catapult Caerau to the forefront of the UK’s energy revolution. The project is a clear example of effective collaborative working, and I pay tribute to the Labour leadership of Bridgend County Borough Council, including Councillor Huw David, the leader, and the Welsh Labour Government. They have worked tirelessly with the private sector to secure the necessary EU funding for the scheme to get the go-ahead.
At its core, this is about moving towards a clean energy mix that the UK can rely on, but it is about much more than that in my opinion. Across the coalfields, many communities are still feeling the effects of the end of the mining industry. At its peak, the Caerau colliery once employed more than 2,400 workers. ln the village, the working-age population today is just over 4,000. The end of the industry was disastrous for that community. Even today, the unemployment rate remains stubbornly above the national average. Those communities need funding, employment and industry. Geothermal energy projects can provide that much needed injection.
I am chair of the all-party parliamentary group for coalfield communities and the representative of one of Wales’s most prominent coalfield areas, and this is an issue that I care deeply about. Geothermal energy is an opportunity to help regenerate our coalfields, and we must grasp that opportunity to build on the history and tradition of our collieries with a new industry that is clean, safe, and can provide energy and jobs where they are needed.
Of course, such projects have their benefits, but we must take care to listen to those who live close to the collieries and ensure that they have as much support from local residents as possible. In addition, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland has already said, we must ensure that local residents get the potentially lucrative benefits of the projects, and reap part of the economic and social rewards the developments bring, whether that be through employment opportunities, community funding or receiving a benefit through their energy bills.
I know from speaking to residents in Caerau that there is a lot of optimism and promise for the project, but there is some concern too. It is vital that residents are informed as much as possible about the positives that such projects can bring. Through the design, construction and maintenance process, they must be fully engaged and represented. Their opinions should take priority and it is they who should be the focus of such projects.
Needless to say, geothermal energy is not the silver bullet for solving our energy insecurity as a whole and can only form a part of our future energy mix. It will come as no surprise to the Minister if I take the opportunity to mention the Swansea Bay tidal lagoon as part of that energy mix within Wales and across the United Kingdom. While I am delighted to see the Welsh Government, local government and other authorities supporting projects such as the tidal lagoon, it is for the UK Government to come forward with a long-term proposal that gives us energy security. In my opinion, which again will come as no surprise to the Minister, that should include the Swansea Bay tidal lagoon.
Juggling the trilemma of meeting our climate change targets, improving our energy security and keeping tariffs down for consumers is a difficult task. I accept that, but I would like to stress that we need effective and radical action from the UK Government to address baseline power alongside our work to advance local renewable sources of energy. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland that the Minister is not a paper-pusher; she is a proactive Minister. I would like to believe sincerely that she will do all she can to deliver energy security for the UK using mixed sources, including geothermal energy and the tidal lagoon. I still have faith that the Government will deliver that.
Geothermal energy is a unique opportunity to build industry in communities where it is often missed most, by many people who still remember with great pride serving in collieries and who still face the cycle of unemployment two or three generations after the closure of those heavy industries. Of course, we should take caution and understand that that alone it is not the solution to all of our energy woes—but it is a hugely positive opportunity for our coalfield communities, and for building a future energy mix based on renewable energy. It is one we must give serious consideration to.
I end with an invitation to the Minister. I appreciate that some energy policy is devolved to the Welsh Government, but if she would like to see the Caerau project, I would very much welcome her to my constituency to see in action the innovative work that Bridgend County Borough Council is doing, along with Cardiff University and the Welsh Government.
Luke Graham (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans, and I apologise for my late arrival to the debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) on securing this debate. I was lucky enough to secure an Adjournment debate on geothermal injury in my constituency in Clackmannanshire a few weeks ago on 4 June. The Minister was very generous in her response then and I hope she will be even more so today.
Geothermal is a fantastic opportunity and, as we have heard from different Members today, it could breathe new life into areas that have been without a key industry and key employment opportunities for a long time. It is important that as part of the industrial strategy, which looks at the entire United Kingdom, we use the powers in this place—energy is of course reserved—to make sure that every part of the United Kingdom benefits from geothermal initiatives and that the United Kingdom remains a leader in renewable energy and shows the way, as we have in other areas, such as wind. As I said in that earlier debate, there are a number of international partners and friendly countries that are already far ahead of us, such as El Salvador and Costa Rica, which already bring in 15% of their energy from geothermal sources. We are leading the way on wind and we want to lead the way on geothermal too.
Energy is a reserved function. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who is now not in his place, mentioned the district heating fund—obviously heating is devolved in different parts of the United Kingdom, and that is £300 million. I hope the Minister and the Treasury could apply a little flexibility on how that fund is applied for, especially when it is linking to geothermal energy projects across the United Kingdom, so that all parts of the United Kingdom can benefit.
My Adjournment debate was very much about Clackmannanshire, an important part of my constituency. It has a long history of mining and milling. We have mines filled with water that is sitting at around 40° C. Geothermal energy enables us to use technology to tap some of that warm water to help with heating and to generate power. That could help not only build new homes, but slash energy bills. In my constituency, in Clackmannanshire, about one in three suffer from fuel poverty. Introducing a new form of energy could help tackle that, as well as slashing up to 50% off the energy bills of the local council. As we know, every council in the country faces funding challenges and that would be very welcome.
Geothermal is not a total solution, but it is an important part of our future energy mix. The leadership that the Government have shown through the industrial strategy highlights the fantastic opportunity we have. We have grasped that with both hands with wind, but we can lead in geothermal energy throughout the United Kingdom. I hope that through this debate and the Minister’s support we will be able to move that agenda forward and deliver for our constituents.
John Mc Nally (Falkirk) (SNP)
It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans, and I thank the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) for securing this debate. Many interesting points have already been made on geothermal energy; it has been quite an education. The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland enlightened me that we have an MP in our midst who delivered projects on geothermal energy and I will make reference to that later on. Her points on disused coalmines are absolutely relevant, as were those raised by the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Luke Graham) about the coalmines in Clackmannanshire.
My ears pricked up when the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland mentioned fracking. I would inform those here today that the Scottish Government have won their fracking case. The Court of Session has today rejected a petition by Ineos Upstream Limited and Reach Coal Seam Gas Limited that sought to challenge the Scottish Government’s action in relation to unconventional oil and gas. I am absolutely delighted by that.
John Mc Nally
I can handle anything at all, but I want to get on with what we are talking about, which is extremely important. With the demise of coalfields, the potential for communities to benefit from new energy possibilities is endless. My home town of Denny in Falkirk is built on coalfields. The whole Falkirk area is built on coalfields and the potential that we have there should be realised. I hope that will happen over time.
As has been mentioned, geothermal energy is the heat stored in the Earth’s crust. The term brings to mind large geothermal energy plants exploiting volcanic sources of heat, such as those found in Iceland. As we heard from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), geothermal energy satisfies around two thirds of Iceland’s needs. To add to that mix, there is also a vast non-volcanic geothermal heat resource—the top 10 to 15 metres of the Earth’s surface act as a heat sink, trapping the sun’s heat.
As we have heard, estimates of the UK’s geothermal power potential vary. There are credible estimates that we could supply 4% to 20% of the UK’s electricity demands, and all of its heat, which is indeed good news, especially if the energy were used to combat fuel poverty. Why people in this energy-rich country suffer from fuel poverty totally escapes me and probably everybody else here. Given the huge potential of this fully renewable resource, why is it not being widely deployed? Will the Minister tell me if any geothermal projects have been awarded to contracts for difference during either of the allocation rounds to date?
There are mature geothermal renewable technologies providing heat and electricity that should and must play their part in the decarbonisation of our energy networks. Then there are ground source heat pumps, where water is pumped through pipes laid within the top 10 to 15 meters of the earth. The pipes absorb heat from the soil, which is then extracted to provide heat. They are cheap to run and are typically small installations, servicing homes, individual buildings or small-scale industry. Ground and water source heat pumps accounted for 6% of non-domestic accredited installations and 15% of domestic accredited installations under the renewable heat initiative between 2011 and April 2018. We surely need to be more ambitious than that.
Deep geothermal plants draw heat from rocks or aquifers heated by the earth’s core, and the UK certainly has geological features suitable for that, especially in Cornwall, northern England, the English midlands and Scotland. As the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire said in a geothermal energy debate on 4 June, there are only nine geothermal energy projects in operation or being planned in the UK: four in Cornwall, two in the north-east of England, one in Southampton and three in Scotland. That is hardly the uptake we would expect for a reliable form of renewable energy that poses few big engineering challenges.
The UK has a poor track record of supporting deep geothermal projects. The UK first showed interest in mapping the country’s geothermal potential during the 1970s oil crisis, but funding was withdrawn as oil prices fell. The practice of short-termism and lack of vision had begun. The first commercial deep geothermal project in the UK started life as a Department of Energy research and development project in 1980 in Southampton, as has been mentioned. The Department of Energy abandoned it as being not economically viable. With a lot more vision than the Department of Energy—perhaps thanks to the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead)—Southampton City Council took over the project and developed it into a commercial district heating system, supplying more than 1,000 residential properties as well as hospitals and commercial and civic buildings. I applaud the council for taking that forward and for its courage and vision.
The UK deep geothermal energy challenge fund was set up in 2009 and £4 million was allocated to projects in 2009-10. However, the then Department for Energy and Climate Change halved that in 2010-11. What was it playing at? An early-day motion was lodged by a cross-party group of MPs expressing regret about the decision and 46 MPs signed it. Will the Minister tell us whether I am right in thinking that no further funding has been provided by the fund? I look forward to her answer.
In 2013, the Government withdrew a £6 million grant allocated to the United Downs geothermal power station project in Cornwall on the basis that the project could not attract enough private investment. However, the project went ahead in 2017 after the company was able to crowdsource nearly £4.5 million in private investment using debentures sold by the renewable energy and crowdsourcing specialist Abundance Investment. There seem to be an unending series of obstacles facing projects because of the Government.
The UK’s regulatory landscape and renewable heat initiative create structural barriers to investment in geothermal energy. There is no joined-up approach to licensing geothermal energy in the UK. Developers must navigate the planning system plus a number of environmental permits and consents, and a lengthy, complex process involving local planning authorities, the Environment Agency, English Heritage and other bodies. Unlike a licensing system, a system of permits cannot secure investment in the geothermal sector. As far as I am aware, there is nothing to prevent another developer drilling next door to an existing development once a company has demonstrated a successful well. Will the Minister confirm whether that is the case?
Arrangements for geothermal energy under the RHI actually prevent investment. Asset-based lenders and finance companies do not regard future RHI revenues to be security against lending risks as they would in the case of physical assets. The physical assets of a geothermal energy project have poor portability, since so much of them are stuck in the ground. Asset-based lenders and finance companies do not view the assets as security because they are difficult, if not impossible, to liquidate. Projects cannot lock in to an RHI tariff at the pre-accreditation stage, which adds uncertainty, particularly for projects with long lead-in times. RHI asset ownership rules are complex and prevent companies using an operating lease model, since under the present arrangements the asset finance provider would have to be the applicant receiving the RHI revenues.
It is interesting that a third of the operations are in Scotland, where there is consistency of support. Following a feasibility study of the potential of geothermal energy to provide a renewable source of heat in Scotland, published in 2012-13, the Scottish Government set up their geothermal energy challenge fund. In 2015, the fund invested nearly £250,000 in five feasibility studies. The projects are an important step towards demonstrating how geothermal energy could cut the estimated £2.6 billion a year spent on heating by householders and the non-domestic sector. They are in the Aberdeen Exhibition Centre; Guardbridge in Fife; Polkemmet in West Lothian; Hartwood in North Lanarkshire; and Hill of Banchory in Aberdeenshire. A small investment returns very large benefits.
A further four proposed projects were invited to contact the Scottish Government’s low carbon infrastructure transition programme team to discuss possible early development support to help them in their proposals. Scotland’s first deep geothermal heating system, the HALO 2 km deep borehole being drilled near Kilmarnock, received a £1.8 million grant and is under way as we speak. The Scottish Government’s investment in renewables is underpinned by a coherent decarbonisation strategy and is in turn underpinned by an all-party agreement. The political certainty, and the consistent political and financial support for that and for renewable energy as a whole, sends a message to businesses that the Scottish Government and Parliament are a friendly environment for investment in geothermal technologies.
Today Scotland may have a third of the UK’s planned or operational geothermal energy plants, but it seems that proportion will increase steeply in the near future. As with onshore wind and wave energy, the UK Government could learn much from the Scottish Government’s approach to supporting geothermal energy development. We are at a privileged moment in time developing renewable energy. The Scottish Government and Parliament are realising that ambition on behalf of all our communities.
Finally, I have been clear that any threat to Scotland’s distinctive and ambitious approach to environmental standards and climate change is completely unacceptable. The best way to ensure our environmental ambitions is to ensure that Scotland’s devolved powers continue to be respected.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) on securing this important debate and on putting her case with such clarity and precision. After what she found out about geothermal during her research for this debate, I am sure she will agree with me that it is indeed Britain’s forgotten renewable. It is not forgotten because it is not feasible or because it does not bring tremendous benefits. It is forgotten simply because no one has done much about it, even though that resource is under our feet in many parts of the country and is relatively easy to access. When that resource is accessed and developed, it provides potential free heat and power, probably for 100 to 150 years, as a result of a single borehole drilled down into the ground to unleash it.
Why it should be forgotten is a source of puzzlement to me, because it is a universal and beneficial renewable. Some people may regard deep geothermal as not quite renewable, in that if there is drilling into a deep geothermal aquifer, the aquifer, in theory, depletes over time. However, if water is being raised from the aquifer at the typical temperature level in the UK of about 73° or 74° Celsius, that resource will deplete at only 1° in heat per 100 years. Yes, it depletes a bit, but it is not exactly calamitous—unlike, one might say, drilling a fracking well, where the well depletes after about eight years.
The Minister for Energy and Clean Growth (Claire Perry)
Such a fact-free debate.
Dr Whitehead
No, it is a very factual debate—that is the difference.
The geothermal potential of the country is enormous, and the hon. Member for Falkirk (John Mc Nally) set out what the potential would be, in electricity and heat, for the UK were we to proceed seriously with geothermal energy. Perhaps a limiting factor is the fact that geothermal energy is not available everywhere in the country. We need to be clear about the fact that deep geothermal is available on the basis of three different kinds of site. Basins with very ancient water at the bottom are one kind of site. Another kind, which require slightly different technology, are areas with radiothermal granite batholiths. I believe that the Minister, as a first-rate geographer in her time, will know all about batholiths and lopoliths and various other things. We have quite a lot of radiothermal batholiths in the UK, with naturally occurring radioactive-based heat coming from deep within the earth’s crust. Another kind of site relies on the availability of technology to release heat by putting water down one pipe and up another, giving geothermal as a result.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland mentioned, lower-temperature geothermal resources arise from abandoned mine workings. With heat-concentration techniques that is not a problem, in terms of concentrating the heat to get into production either for heat distribution or, indeed, for making steam to generate electricity.
As hon. Members have kindly mentioned, I have an interest in the debate because I think I can claim to be the only sitting Member of Parliament who has directly set up a geothermal energy scheme. I know a little, therefore, about how it all works. That scheme is based, as has been mentioned, in the middle of Southampton in a not particularly prepossessing shed, with a small wellhead in the carpark of the former Toys R Us store. That unprepossessing setting hides a well, drilled to about 1,800 metres. Water comes up at just over 70° Celsius and is converted into the material for a district heating scheme by a heat exchanger and concentrator. Now Southampton has a city centre district heating scheme with some 17 km of pipes, covering the university, the civic centre, the country’s only geothermally heated hypermarket and a five-star hotel. In other words, there is a complete city centre arrangement, heated substantially by geothermal energy. Not only that, but it has been heated in that way on an untroubled basis since 1987, and will continue to be so until 2087 on present estimates of what may be available. That is the potential, in practice, for geothermal energy.
Dr Dan Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman speaks with great knowledge, and I pay tribute to his work promoting geothermal power in his constituency. What are his thoughts on the potential for geothermal power in more rural areas, where there is great reliance on oil central heating, often at great cost and with a high carbon footprint? Does he believe that more could be done to incentivise and encourage developers in rural areas to look at geothermal power for new developments and homes?
Dr Whitehead
I have to tell the hon. Gentleman that he is the only Member present for the debate who does not have a geothermal resource under his constituency. I have mentioned the different types of geothermal resource, and the large Mesozoic basins are in East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, around the whole Wessex area, in Southampton and Worcester, and in Cheshire. The radiothermal batholiths are in the eastern highlands, across the north-east and north-west of England, and in Cornwall. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) will be delighted to know that about half of Northern Ireland is covered by two Mesozoic basins, giving most areas a strong resource.
The problem is, first, that that resource is not available everywhere and, secondly, that because of the capital cost of the borehole, geothermal energy is probably best suited to larger district schemes. One of the key issues is that because of the immediate availability of the resource, if an area—particularly a rural area—is capable of receiving it, it can be used for relatively small district heating schemes, or for local plant producing electricity in the area with a combination of a relatively small heat take-off. There is considerable potential, but I am sorry to tell the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter) that drilling under his constituency at the moment would be fruitless, as far as I am aware. However, it is possible to do it in some rural constituencies where the resource is more available.
Dr Poulter
A number of new, larger homes—particularly barn conversions, which are very popular in Suffolk—have invested in the technology as a means of heating. My question is more about how we can do more to incentivise developers on small-scale developments, perhaps on the edge of rural villages and towns, to look at similar schemes, and what suggestions the hon. Gentleman may have to bring forward those incentives.
Dr Whitehead
I think that the hon. Gentleman is referring to vertical hole shallow geothermal ground source heat installations. They are perfect for rural homes, as he described. They will provide sufficient heat, from a relatively shallow penetration into the earth, for heat exchangers to heat a home to a regular temperature of 60°-plus. Although I do not think that that is an essential part of this afternoon’s debate—it is more to do with ground source heat pumps—the hon. Gentleman is right. It is a technology that I would strongly recommend for off-grid properties in which, in the past, the alternative heating might have been oil. It can absolutely reliably replace that form of heating. I join the hon. Gentleman in recommending to the Minister and the Government that efforts to secure the installation of ground source heat pumps for off-grid properties in rural areas would bear considerable fruit and ought to be strongly supported—rather more strongly supported, I suggest, under the renewable heat initiative than is currently the case.
I hope that I have set out the potential for geothermal energy, and stated how it can be done in practice and what its benefits are. I was leader of Southampton City Council at the time that the scheme I described was initiated, but provided that it had the resource, almost any local authority in the country could pilot and undertake such a scheme relatively easily. The main issue is how to raise the initial capital funding up front to get the scheme under way.
Let me say one or two words about what the Government ought to be doing—in addition to the constructive and sensible suggestions made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland—to start using this resource. Capital grants will be required up front for the essential drilling of the well. The Government have underwritten several such schemes in various parts of the country to the tune of about £2 million a time, and we should extend the availability of those initial grants. Currently, the money available through the non-domestic renewable heat incentive is not sufficient to get those schemes under way from a capital point of view. As far as deep geothermal is concerned, the RHI currently provides 5.38p per kWh. That does not compare favourably with funding for ground source heat pumps, which comes out at 9.36p.
At the moment, the incentives to get such a scheme going properly in any area are not sufficient. That is particularly unfortunate; geothermal energy ought to be considered a different form of renewable energy, because of its known longevity. When we invest in a geothermal energy plant, we are investing in a capacity that will give us free energy for 120 years—we cannot say that about pretty much any other renewable energy source, except possibly the Swansea tidal lagoon. I therefore think that the criteria under which geothermal energy is considered should be based on that kind of payback and that kind of timeframe.
Helen Goodman
My hon. Friend tempts me down a path that will be familiar to many colleagues. His point raises the question of whether it is appropriate to use the same Treasury discount rate for something that is so long-run as we would for a project that would last for 25 years. That would be another way of squaring the circle.
Dr Whitehead
My hon. Friend makes an interesting point—that might be her seventh recommendation for the Minister this afternoon.
In conclusion, all hon. Members who have contributed to this debate have made clear their support for the potential of this form of renewable energy, and they have given examples from various parts of the UK. I particularly applaud the Scottish Government’s initiative to bring forward real funding for geothermal schemes, and I hope that in the not-too-distant future Southampton will no longer be the only geothermal plant in the entire United Kingdom that operates in the way I described. There are glimpses of progress here and there, but it is by no means continuous or anywhere near to fulfilling the enormous potential that geothermal energy offers.
My request and suggestion to the Minister is that she might like to come to Southampton and have a look at the little wellhead in the Toys R Us carpark and the shed in which the scheme is housed, so that she can see for herself just how much comes from that little site, how much good it has done for a whole community and city, and how much good it will do for many years to come. We should consider geothermal energy in that way, and if we do, we will go a long way towards understanding how good it could be for the UK. I hope that we will then put our resources where our hopes are and ensure that geothermal energy has a bright future in the UK, just as it already does in other countries.
The hon. Member for Falkirk said that 66% of Iceland’s overall energy requirements come from geothermal energy. Indeed, a project called IceLink is currently considering the possibility of an interconnector between Iceland and the UK, in partnership with National Grid and Landsvirkjun, the state-owned generator in Iceland. That is a real possibility for the future. We could be in the position of having home-grown geothermal energy and bringing into the country someone else’s geothermal energy to complement that, so that together we would have a completely carbon-free source of energy that would last the UK for a century. I think that is a prize to be worked for.
The Minister for Energy and Clean Growth (Claire Perry)
It is a great pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans. We have had a brilliant and fascinating debate, and I commend the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) for an extremely thoughtful, excellent, fact-filled and numerical brief. It is always music to my ears to hear about net present values, particularly when they involve a £7 billion greater turnover for an industry, and the opportunity to create billions of pounds of gross value added and provide many jobs. I thank her for putting the debate in that context. I also thank, as she did, the Coal Authority and Durham University for providing an excellent backdrop to the debate.
As the hon. Lady pointed out, 25% of housing stock in her constituency sits on top of coal workings, which were dug out at exceptional, personal cost by men working in the most horrific conditions, with heat often being one of the worst things they had to deal with. It should therefore come as no surprise that the areas that have been allowed to flood are hot areas, and it would be great to think that at the Durham miners’ gala on 14 July, the topic might be how the legacy that was so painfully won by the shovels and picks of so many men could be used to create something positive for our low-carbon future.
The hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) is always good at explaining these issues. I will not run through the batholiths argument again, but we have a long history of exploiting our various deep-geothermal sources. Like many other places, Bath, which is close to my constituency, was built on the thermal springs that were a happy by-product of those hot-spots. It was a pleasure to hear the hon. Gentleman describe the scheme in the city of Southampton, which was the first of its kind in the UK. The important thing about that example is that it shows when it works. This sort of heating works well when there is year-round take-up. One of the issues with such schemes is that they do not work terribly well when people need heating at just one time of the year, because the economics are not attractive. The hon. Gentleman said that an entire ecosystem was constructed around that heat, so that is a really good example. Of course, the water is 76°, so it comes up pretty hot. As the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland knows, the Eastgate renewable energy village, near her constituency, is the first eco-village in the UK. It was funded as way to explore this technology, and it provides heat from geothermal sources.
This is an incredibly exciting time to come together to talk about this issue. In 2013, we commissioned a review of the opportunities for geothermal, both heat and energy—I will talk about the distinction in a moment—and we mapped out the relevant parts of the UK. We have to pick through the issue of geothermal for energy and heat carefully. Iceland sits on the spot where the mid-Atlantic ridge breaks apart, which is not necessarily the most geologically stable place to be, so massive amounts of geothermal energy come to the surface, and islands are created overnight. I am very interested in the Icelandic interconnector project, which has the opportunity to create jobs in a cable factory where the interconnector makes landfall, and is a very interesting opportunity to bring in power generated by high levels of geothermal energy.
Unlike Iceland, we have relatively few opportunities to generate geothermal energy easily and cost effectively. The hon. Member for Falkirk (John Mc Nally) asked whether any projects have received a CFD, but none have bid in. Given what has happened to the cost of renewables—we have led the world in developing an offshore wind industry, and we are buying renewable energy at low prices that we could not have imagined even a few years ago—it is difficult for geothermal electricity to compete for CFDs. Arguably, the opportunities for heat are much more local and interesting.
Hon. Members have talked about the challenge of shallow geothermal, and we think that the most promising area is the low-temperature applications, such as district heating schemes. As the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland said, the water in her constituency is 30° C and shallow, so we do not need an incredibly difficult boring process to get it. We have heard from all parts of the UK, which is refreshing, about the opportunities for such heat schemes. I found the hon. Lady’s point about creating an export industry fascinating, because of course it was the mining industry that created the beam engine. The newcomer Watt engines, which pumped water out of the mines, led directly to the industrial revolution and our global leadership in technology. It is fascinating to think about how we can extract heat from those mines and create export industries across the UK.
The British Geological Survey, which is a marvellous institution, has surveyed the UK. We know about the opportunities both for deep geothermal heat and for shallow geothermal heat extraction, which is very widely distributed. Every investment we make has to pass a triple test: it has to deliver decarbonisation, it has to be deliverable at the right cost for consumers, and it has to create economic value added, as the hon. Lady expounded eloquently. That is the filter through which we review these schemes.
The hon. Member for Falkirk asked me several questions, which I shall try to answer. One was about the CFD—hopefully he is satisfied with my answer. Secondly, he said that the Government are not doing anything, but I am afraid I have to reject that. Heat is a devolved matter in Scotland, as he knows, but that has not prevented the UK Government from providing £4.5 million for the deep geothermal challenge scheme. The £250,000 he referred to was a welcome addition, but most of the funding was provided by UK-wide taxpayers. He talked about the HALO project, which I believe has been funded to the tune of £1.8 million by the Scottish Government and £3.5 million by the UK Government. I do not like to make political points; I find it much better to talk about investing in our UK-wide resources for the benefit of UK consumers and taxpayers. We have to go through the technological process and ensure these projects are economically effective so we do not burden taxpayers and bill payers unnecessarily, and we have to innovate.
Most houses—although not in rural areas—are on the gas grid, so when we invest we have to think hard about the cost trajectory vis-à-vis the fully costed position of being on gas heating. On the issue of rural homes, I am pleased to see my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter) here because, like him, I represent a very rural constituency, in which more than 40,000 homes, including mine, are not on grid. The challenge of decarbonising those homes and reducing our dependency on heating oil, which the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) mentioned, is live. In our clean growth strategy, we set out our intention to ensure that no new buildings in rural areas use fossil fuel sources of heat by 2025. We are determined to get to that level and to encourage innovation of the kind that my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich talked about.
How do we innovate, drive down the cost of extraction and use that heat to the maximum effect to ensure that these projects are economically viable? We are working with the Natural Environmental Research Council and the BGS, and are funding a £9 million geothermal research facility—the UK geoenergy observatory—to study low-temperature geothermal energy in former mines in Glasgow. We also have a number of other innovation programmes and are working with the industry.
I want to flag up a possible route to funding, because I want to ensure that some of these schemes are developed. Phase 7 of the industrial strategy challenge fund, with £10 million of funding, is open for bids. The launch event for it is on 4 July. It would be great to see whether we can create a bid for an innovative scheme to produce a working, cost-effective scheme. As the hon. Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore) said, we have the heat networks investment project, with more than £300 million of funding. I commend the Welsh Government, Bridgend County Borough Council and the hon. Gentleman’s efforts in creating that scheme, which has bid into the heat networks scheme. Although this is a devolved matter in Wales, as always I think we are better when we work together. This is an opportunity to bring forward innovation and create a scheme that can be incorporated into heat networks. I would be absolutely delighted to meet the Coal Authority or anybody else who is willing to help us think about how we can pull such a scheme together, because I want to see innovation proceed. Given the constituency interest of the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland, perhaps she is the person to lead that delegation.
We have the innovation route to market and the heat networks scheme. I have been given a number of “go away and look at them” actions, including looking at risk insurance and planning. As I said about the clean growth strategy, our building regulations must ensure that we do not put up new builds in off-grid areas that are dependent on current forms of fossil fuel heating.
We have an opportunity to make this very large latent resource, which was won so painfully over many years, part of our low-carbon future. We have spent tens of millions of pounds in this area. The UK is in a fortunate situation, because our renewables industry is powering ahead. Other countries look with envy at what we have delivered through other renewable sources of energy. We are one of two countries in the world doing enough to meet even a 2° rise in climate, due to what we have done in our energy industry. The opportunity to decarbonise heat, create local productivity and resource, and generate innovation that we can export elsewhere in the world is incredibly interesting.
Once again, I congratulate the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland on securing this debate. I thank all other Members who spoke—we had a marvellous conversation about the opportunities in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Luke Graham). This is a very opportune time: there are routes to innovation, such as the heat networks investment, and I am in the lucky position of being able to make investment. I would like to see some of this innovation coming forward.
Helen Goodman
I am pleased that we have had this debate, and I am grateful to all hon. Members who have taken part, because the subject is extremely worthwhile and important. I am grateful to the Minister for her positive attitude to geothermal. She does not need to worry: we shall come back to her and pursue this, because geothermal is important and could be very productive for this country.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered potential for geothermal energy resources in the UK.
Mortgage Interest
(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered support for mortgage interest.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Hollobone.
When people develop disability during their working life, it can disrupt those lives in profound ways, often making it impossible for them to work. Disability will not always take a person’s life plans into account, and the Government have a responsibility to stabilise people’s lives in new circumstances. Recent changes to the Government support for mortgage interest scheme mean that the safety net to help such people to keep their homes is being eroded.
Taking out a mortgage over several decades is of course always a risk. Most people would never dream, on signing those papers, that a disability might one day affect their ability to pay the mortgage. Yet with about 170,000 claims for support for mortgage interest as of 2016, the issue is clearly widespread and affects a significant percentage of home-owning families in the UK.
Until 5 April 2018 the Government had offered support for mortgage interest as a benefit to homeowners in hardship. That covered only the interest payments on their mortgage. The amount borrowed, insurance policies and arrears were to be paid by the homeowner, but for disabled claimants that in practice would mean scraping the money together from their employment support allowance and personnel independence payments.
Since April, the Government have stopped mortgage interest support, instead offering a loan to be paid back with interest. It is repaid when the home is sold, ownership is transferred or the homeowner dies, making the sale of the house more costly and difficult for the claimant or members of the family. Many people are wary of taking out a loan due to that aspect of the policy, and the effect it might have on a future house sale.
Figures contained in the Office for Budget Responsibility’s “Economic and fiscal outlook” reveal that although all existing claimants have been contacted about the change, only about 10,000 have so far agreed to take up the loan. According to the document, that is
“90 per cent short of the 100,000 expected by the end of 2018-19.”
Many constituents have also approached me about the fact the loans will be delivered by Serco, a company exposed in the Paradise papers as having
“a history of problems, failures, fatal errors and overcharging”.
Problems with the policy may cause many people to sell their unaffordable homes and move into the private rented sector. In doing so, many would be eligible for housing benefit, but that would in fact create additional expense for the taxpayer: the average support for mortgage interest claimant under the pre-April rules received about £1,800 per year, whereas the average housing benefit claimant receives about £5,000 per year.
The Government have labelled the change a cost-saving exercise, and claim that it is done in the name of fairness. The Minister stated in a letter that
“the Government believes that it is right that, when they can, homeowners should repay this financial help they receive from taxpayers to accrue an asset, which may increase in value over time,”
However, it comes at the cost of forcing people to take on repayment of a new and unforeseen loan. At the same time, housing benefit can be paid to private landlords, who are able to pay their mortgages from taxpayer money given to tenants in receipt of housing benefit, without any of the associated requirements to repay. Even the Government and the Minister may agree that that is slightly hypocritical—it is not in keeping with the new term, the loan. The change in policy is causing extreme stress to already vulnerable individuals, in addition to forcing them to pay interest out of benefits that are designed to cover basic costs of living.
That was the case for my constituent, Alistair Dickson from Stonebyres, who was in receipt of the support for mortgage interest benefit. Mr Dickson was registered as blind at work and, as a result, had to leave his job. He receives employment support allowance and disability living allowance, and has been paying his mortgage and home insurance from those payments. As a result, his household budgets are extremely tight, and it is very important to him to be able to stay in his own home. This is where he has adapted to his new circumstances as a blind person, and where he feels safe. My constituent is unable to leave the house as often as he used to as a result of his disability, so that is where he feels most comfortable. He is aware that, financially, it would be easier for him to move into rented accommodation, but that would not offer the same security, comfort or familiarity as his own home. That is therefore not an option for him. I do not believe he is alone.
Tens of thousands of disabled people, people with long-term illnesses, and pensioners who had previously claimed support for mortgage interest but who have declined to take up a loan, are in the same position. They do not know where they will scrape together the money for their mortgages. They do not know if they should pack up their homes, downsize or go into rented accommodation. They do not know whether their only option is to take out a questionable Government loan. All they do know is that that terrible policy decision has been made, putting into jeopardy their ability to maintain their own home. On their behalf, therefore, I ask the Government to pause and reconsider an ill-designed policy change to ensure that they do not penalise homeowners.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
My hon. Friend gives an excellent constituent example. Does she agree that many constituents across the UK found themselves getting a surprise letter from Serco, which caused fear and alarm across the board in people affected by this policy?
Angela Crawley
The Government’s decision to have Serco institute this policy seems rather absurd given its recent bad press. Again, I must ask the Government to pause and reconsider this ill-designed policy change, and make sure that we do not penalise homeowners for changes to their circumstances that are beyond their control. Will the Government consider that?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Kit Malthouse)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I am pleased that the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) has raised the question of support for mortgage interest and I congratulate her on securing the debate. However, she seems to have developed a number of misapprehensions about the scheme, how it operates, and, in particular, how the system works.
It is worth restating the principles behind the change in the policy. Back in 1948 when the policy was introduced, the housing market was a different place and mortgage products were a different thing. In those days, it was unheard of for people to take mortgages into retirement, there was no such thing as an interest-only mortgage and the average house price was about £1,700. In the intervening decades, the housing market has changed significantly, yet this part of the benefits system remained unreformed and unchanged to reflect the reality we now face.
Back in 2015, when the reform was announced in the Budget, it was deemed to be appropriate and fair to reform the system to reflect the fact that there had been significant changes in the housing market and, as the hon. Lady outlined, to transfer this payment from a welfare payment in the benefits system to a loan. It was also decided that from a cosmetic point of view, as far as possible, there should be no change in how people see the scheme operate. It was recognised that the original scheme was designed to maintain people in their own homes and, exactly as the hon. Lady says, to ensure that they did not go into the private rental sector or lose their homes because of temporary unemployment. Back in 1948, this was meant to be something temporary for a few months or perhaps a couple of years, not the 20 years for which some people have been on it.
It was decided—we have carried this out in the execution of the scheme—that there should be as little disruption as possible to the recipients of these payments in the reformed new system. On a day-to-day basis, recipients of support for mortgage interest should see no difference between the old and new scheme.
The only difference is that when the property is sold or transferred at the end, perhaps even after the owners of the house have died, the amount of accumulated loan is recovered from that property. That is the only difference. On a day-to-day basis, the payments will still be made at exactly the same rate, with the same frequency, in the same way and with the same purpose of maintaining people in their own homes.
Let me cover some of the issues that the hon. Lady raises. On numbers, there is a significant acceleration in the number of people deciding either way. The bulk of people have now made a decision in principle. Large numbers of people are now in payment of the new support for their houses and quite a lot of people are in the process of getting through the system. The numbers are looking better and better. We expect to be on timetable for the transition to be complete later this year. We will publish statistics on SMI on a regular basis to keep the House updated.
Secondly, the hon. Lady raised Serco’s involvement. Let us be clear: Serco is not administering the loan. It was contracted only to provide information to individuals.
Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)
The sitting was suspended for 11 minutes, so the debate can last until 4.41 pm. I call the Minister.
Kit Malthouse
Thank you, Mr Hollobone. I was going through a number of the issues that the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East raised about support for mortgage interest, and I had reached the involvement of Serco, about which she raised concerns. Let me be clear: Serco does not administer the loan scheme. Serco was contracted merely to provide some of the initial information about the scheme—the initial correspondence, the follow-up phone calls to give people information about it, and the booklet to inform people how it works.
Ged Killen (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the Minister not accept that the issue is with the timescales and the lack of notice? Have the Government learned no lessons from the changes to the state pension age? What assessment has been made of the number of women affected by those changes who are also affected by this change?
Kit Malthouse
I do not accept that there has been a lack of communication. If anything, we have over-communicated about the scheme. We went out of our way as a Department to ensure that literally hundreds of thousands of letters were sent and hundreds of thousands of telephone calls were made. We are still trying to contact some people, given the lack of clarity about the data we need to make those contacts. We are taking this in a very steady and sensible way.
Everyone is given plenty of time to make a decision—everyone is given up to six weeks from the loan offer to decide whether they want the loan. Once the loan documents are issued and sent off and a loan offer is made, people get six weeks to make a decision. We signpost people to the Money Advice Service or Citizens Advice if they need any kind of financial advice, because neither Serco nor the Department for Work and Pensions can offer such advice. As I said, there is a communication phase, which Serco handles, and the execution and administration of the loan is done entirely by DWP operations.
Angela Crawley
Does the Minister accept, though, that six weeks is in real terms quite a short time in which to get the relevant and necessary financial advice? Relying on services such as Citizens Advice—voluntary, third sector services that are often financially strapped—to give people the necessary financial advice about their future seems a bit irresponsible on the Government’s part.
Kit Malthouse
I do not accept that sending people to Citizens Advice or the Money Advice Service for advice is irresponsible. That is exactly what those organisations are there to do, and they do it very well on a daily basis. Do not forget that the six weeks are from the loan offer—the point at which someone says in principle that they would like to have a loan. They then have six weeks in which to decide, execute the documents and send them back. There is a whole period before that in which people gather information and discuss the matter with their financial advisers and, indeed, with Serco if they need more information on which to make a decision. Do not forget that the communication process started in July last year, so it has been ongoing for quite a while, and tens of thousands of people have successfully made a decision either way.
Chris Stephens
The Minister seems to indicate that affected individuals receive correspondence from his Department before the Serco letter. That is not what my constituents tell me, so will he place that correspondence in the Library for us to review?
Kit Malthouse
No, people do not receive correspondence prior to the Serco letter. An initial letter and an information booklet are sent out by Serco to warm them up to the change that is coming, and there is then a variety of follow-up information. Once someone has had all the information and thinks they are in a position to make a decision, they are in effect handed over to the operations people in the Department, who proceed to execute the loan—or otherwise—and load them on to the system for payment. As I said, tens of thousands of people have successfully made the transition, and many people are now receiving payment of the new support for mortgage interest.
I want to move on to a couple of other issues. The hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East mentioned vulnerable recipients. We have taken particular care over those who are vulnerable and those who might not have the mental capacity to make financial decisions on their own. In those cases, the timeframe for execution, resolution and transition has been significantly extended. We are working with people either who we know are vulnerable or who were identified during the process as vulnerable to ensure that they have an appointed financial adviser, deputy or whatever it might be to make those financial decisions for them. That process is much longer; we are able to extend it to be pretty much as long as they need to make the position clear.
The hon. Lady raised a particular constituency case. I urge her to reassure her constituents that the new scheme is designed to maintain them in their home. On a day-to-day basis they will see absolutely no change whatsoever. They can stay in that home for as long as they like—for the rest of their natural life. The only change for them is if they sell that house or it is inherited by someone following their death and there is any equity in the house, the accumulated loan will be recovered from the proceeds. If there is no equity, we write the loan off. Do not forget that it is a very low-cost loan: the interest we charge is the same as that charged to the Government on their debt. It is in statute that it is a low-rate loan. We recognise that this is a disruption and change for people, but as we take the scheme forward we will try to make it as painless as possible.
We expect that a number of people will decide not to take the loan but to try to go it on their own, making their own mortgage payments. We are hearing anecdotally that people are either managing to make the rest of their mortgage payments or turning to family for assistance. However, if in three or four months’ time they do not think it is manageable, they think they have got themselves into trouble or they are in arrears on their mortgage because they have not been able to make payments, it is open to them to come back to us and reapply for SMI. If they are in trouble, we will be perfectly willing to backdate that to the date of change for them, to 6 or 7 April, to clear their arrears and ensure that we do not put anyone in a difficult position.
I stress that this change is about increasing sustainability and fairness, balancing the interests of the taxpayer against those of someone who is in extremis and needs assistance but nevertheless is in ownership of what could be a very valuable capital asset. In other parts of the benefit system, we do not necessarily allow people to accumulate capital assets. If someone applies for housing benefit, we look at their assets and if they have between £6,000 and £16,000 in cash in the bank, whatever it is that affects it. SMI is specifically about protecting people’s homes and ensuring that they are maintained in those homes for the long term.
Angela Crawley
Does the Minister accept that through housing benefit most people forced into the private rented sector are paying someone else’s mortgage? Is it not a tad hypocritical to say that someone in hardship or who will not otherwise be able to work again should not have their mortgage paid when those in the private sector, often renting from private landlords, are paying mortgages through housing benefit?
Kit Malthouse
I do not accept the equation the hon. Lady is creating between the two. Those on housing benefit are being supported by us with a legally enforceable rental liability. It might be to a private landlord, a housing association or a council—who knows? They have a rental liability and we want to maintain them in their home, so we will support them in that through housing benefit.
Through SMI, if someone gets into extremis, we want to maintain them in their home and support them in their mortgage, subject to capital limits. All we are saying is that if someone stays on SMI for some time and therefore profit accumulates in their home, once they sell it some or all of that very low-interest, low-cost loan should be recovered so we can recycle that into support for other people in search of housing, in need of support and housing benefit or, indeed, in need of SMI. That seems only fair and reasonable.
We reckon that the overall saving for the taxpayer will be £150 million, plus or minus—we will see where we get to. Overall, in fairness, given how the housing market has changed and that SMI was only ever meant to be a temporary support—only for us to find people who have been on it for decades, and about half the people on SMI are pensioners, so there is likely to be significant equity locked into the property being supported—it seems reasonable that, when that house is sold, the taxpayer should recover some or all of the money advanced to maintain that person in their home.
Critical for us is that the scheme achieves exactly the same objective as the old benefit payments. People who need support for their mortgage can rely on the state to support them while they get back on their feet, or whatever it might be, and maintain them in their home. The hon. Lady’s constituent can be reassured that SMI should not change their status at all. If they take the loan, we will do our best to support them to stay in their home for the foreseeable future.
Question put and agreed to.
A120 Dualling
(6 years, 5 months ago)
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James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the proposal to dual the A120.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. A line in my maiden speech to this House in 2015 was a request of the Government. I said that I would fight for the Government to
“help relieve congestion on the A120, a road so regularly and heavily congested that many drivers cut through Braintree in order to bypass the bypass.”—[Official Report, 10 June 2015; Vol. 596, c. 1287.]
It got a chuckle at the time, if not today. The point was that much of the town of Braintree, after which my constituency is named, is regularly blighted by heavy congestion and long tailbacks. My commuters and residents experience frustration because the A120 is regularly backed up to both the east and west of Galley’s Corner, a major interchange. To the west, people trying to get to the major retail site at Freeport are often stuck in traffic, as are people coming home from work. To the east of that junction, a number of small villages that straddle the A120 are brought to a standstill because of the tailbacks.
For those who are unaware of the geography of the A120, the section we are speaking about starts just to the south of Braintree and stretches across to the junction with the A12. It is part of a major east-west arterial route in a significant part of the country in both cultural and economic potential terms. Stansted airport is on it, and at the other end is the seaport of Harwich. There is a natural flow from an airport to a seaport, yet in the middle—the section we are speaking about—it reduces to an unsegregated minor road with one lane in each direction.
James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend, who has been a doughty campaigner on this issue, on bringing the debate forward. Does he agree that the A120 is a road of national significance because our region is a net contributor to the Exchequer and that, if it wants that to remain the case, we need the infrastructure in East Anglia and the south-east that supports Essex, Suffolk and the whole region?
James Cleverly
I thank my hon. Friend for that point. He is right, and he invites me to come on to what I think is a credible pitch for why this road needs improvement. I am certain that my parliamentary colleagues who have constituencies along the route will enhance and reinforce some of the points that I will briskly make, to give time for others to speak.
I have already mentioned having a major airport and a major seaport at either end of this section of road, but ambitious plans have been discussed by local government at both district and county level to unlock the economic potential of this part of Essex and, in doing so, reinforce the economic potential of one of the few net contributory regions to the UK economy. The east of England is one of the net contributors to the UK economy. We want to contribute more, and we would be able to if we could unlock the entrepreneurialism and business acumen of the people who live and work in our part of the country.
Both at district and at county level, there are ambitious plans for business investment and housing investment. Housing is interwoven with the necessity for good quality infrastructure—transport infrastructure, as well as digital and water infrastructure, and social infrastructure such as schools and doctors’ surgeries. It is absolutely key. The road is currently well out of date; it is at best a 1950s or 1960s road, dealing with a 21st-century level of traffic. Improving and dualling this road, rerouting it and taking away the pinch point at Galley’s Corner will not just benefit my constituents in Braintree—although as their representative here that is what I am passionate about—but it will benefit the county as a whole and the country as a whole.
The reason I talk about residents, local government and businesses is that we speak with one voice on this issue. It has been incredibly important to us that local residents, local small businesses, local businesses, Members of Parliament, district council and county council are all on the same page. We are keen not to miss the chance to get funding from Government in the next few years to relieve the pressure on a congested and often dangerous road.
I conclude by saying to the Minister that at this time we need to ensure that the whole of the UK economy is optimised. We have a fantastic opportunity ahead of us. We are now talking about international trade really, for the first time in a generation. For a road in the home counties, with an airport and a seaport, to still be so under-resourced is no longer acceptable. I ask Government to look seriously and sympathetically at the route that Essex County Council has put forward as its favoured option, because if the Government are able to support it, we can help the Government to pay the bills.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I thank my colleagues for securing this important debate. It is a debate that gives me déjà vu, as I have previously held and spoken in a number of debates on this very road and on strategic infrastructure in Essex over the last eight years, in 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015. Once again, the walls of Westminster Hall are about to hear the economic case for the A120.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (James Cleverly) has already outlined, the A120 is an economic corridor stretching from the international port of Harwich in the east, which has trade links across northern Europe and serves around 700,000 passengers a year, to Stansted airport in the west, an important international airport that is growing and expanding, and is a huge employer both in Essex and now also in parts of Hertfordshire.
The A120 is important to our economy; in my view and, I think, all our views, it is even more important to the United Kingdom because of the connectivity for the east of England. Research from the brilliant Essex chamber of commerce, a great champion of strategic infrastructure improvements across Essex that has campaigned and worked with the business community, has shown that 56% of Essex businesses that responded to its survey regularly use the A120. Only the A12 at 82% and the M25 at 72% were used more than the A120. However, the Government know, and have heard not just from me but from successive Members of Parliament from the east of England over the last decade and more, that the A120 is not fit for purpose. It needs investment to unlock future economic growth and jobs.
The A120 is also a dangerous road. I remember standing here in this Chamber in 2010, denouncing the A120 for being the 10th most dangerous road in the country. The number of fatalities and road accidents that take place on the A120 is simply appalling. In particular, the 12-mile stretch of carriageway between Braintree and Marks Tey has the greatest number of problems. This stretch of the road, which runs mostly through the Witham constituency, is one of the 10 most dangerous in the country. The accidents and fatalities are appalling. Figures produced in 2005 showed up to 25,000 vehicles using that stretch of the road every day, when single-carriage roads should usually carry up to around 20,000. Data published by the Department for Transport in 2010 on annual daily traffic flow suggested that 14% of vehicle movements on the A120 are accounted for by heavy goods vehicles, compared with an average of 6% across Essex. Too many people are getting hurt and injured on this road.
Likewise, too many businesses are haemorrhaging money while they are stuck in delayed traffic. The Minister will know—I do not think anyone in Government needs to be reminded—that Essex is an economic engine and the county of entrepreneurs. Since 2010 the number of entrepreneurs in the county has risen by 25%, from 52,000 to 64,000 and, as the county contributes £40 billion in gross value added to the economy, the economic case for investment in the A120 more than stacks up.
Back in 2008, proposals were put forward to dual the A120 so that we could meet new demands and sort out its dangerous nature; but as the last Labour Government trashed the economy they also spent a lot of time ignoring Essex, and the scheme was scrapped. Since then, colleagues and I have been campaigning with the Essex chambers of commerce, local businesses and the county council to get this back in the Government’s in-tray, so I was delighted when the Government and Essex County Council agreed a joint funding package to examine once again the feasibility of upgrading and dualling the A120.
Earlier this month, after route option selection, consultation and considerable analysis and assessment, Essex County Council announced its favoured route, known as route D. This route provides the best benefit to cost rate, at 3.75, of the options considered, and is less disruptive to the environment and existing settlements than other routes. It will also help to take traffic out of villages in my constituency, including Silver End and Bradwell, and could save travel time between Colchester and Braintree in the rush hour. Importantly, it will also be a safer route.
The proposal will bring the A120 from the location known as Galley’s Corner—we call it something else that I will not repeat here—through to a new junction with the A12 south of Kelvedon. I appreciate that the favoured route may still have its critics and that, as the proposals progress further, many other issues will need to be addressed, but our county has waited too long for road investment, for this road to be invested in, and for this strategic improvement to take place. We want to see clear action and leadership when it comes to investment in the A120. That means including the A120 in the second road investment strategy process, RIS2.
To make further progress, more work by Government and further work by Highways England is required. It will come as no surprise to our colleague the Minister that I will continue to press this case, as will all colleagues. While I appreciate that the Minister cannot prejudice the RIS2 process and the selection and prioritisation of routes for investment, the Department will have files, which I have no doubt are substantial, on the economic benefits of investment in the A120 and of the gross value added and the return from investing in Essex.
In discussions with the Treasury over the funding envelope of RIS2, it is fair to say that the Department for Transport can be confident in the economic case, which is part of a strong business case. The current cost estimate is around £555 million, which is an enormous sum. However, we do not speak enough about aggregate returns on investments, and we are talking about a strategic location that supports exports, trade and investment. Upgrading the A120 at the earliest opportunity will bring greater resilience to the economy, to the region and to our country.
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that, when making the business case, it is important to look not only at Essex but at Suffolk? This road is vital to my constituency—connectivity is vital in attracting inward investment—and investing in it will very much help to attract investment to Suffolk, where significant plans are afoot for investment in the energy sector, both at Sizewell and in the offshore wind farms.
Priti Patel
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Delivering route D will provide £1.1 billion in GVA through new jobs, businesses and housing. It is important that, when looking at the work that we do on transport across our region—on rail, for example—we put forward a coherent business case to the Government for that very purpose. We are an attractive part of the country and we have different sectors that are expanding and growing.
To be up front about this, when we think about our trading options and the economic benefit to the eastern region post Brexit, investing in our roads will enormously benefit Suffolk, Norfolk and Essex. That brings me to asking the Minister to look into not only the A120 but the widening scheme for the A12, which is linked to the A120—these roads cannot be seen in isolation. A failure of successive Governments in the past has been to look at transport and roads as a singular and not a plural, in terms of having an integrated transport strategy.
The Government have already committed to widening parts of the A12 in a three-lane carriageway scheme. Most of the first section to be upgraded—the stretch between the junction 19 Boreham interchange at Chelmsford and junction 25 at Marks Tey—runs through the Witham constituency and is parallel to the great eastern main line. That widening scheme was subject to a consultation by Highways England last year and we are expecting an announcement of the route and the sections to be re-routed.
However, Colchester Borough Council has unfortunately put a spanner in the works at the last minute, as part of its local plan process. I am mindful that I, other colleagues, Highways England and local councils put forward proposals for the A12 widening scheme—announced back in 2014—that would not be compromised by any work taking place with the local plans. We had that assurance from Highways England and the Department. That widening scheme needs to be re-established alongside the configuration with the A120, and all the councils must be clear with Highways England and the Department. We need to ensure that we again have an integrated approach to the development of our road transport links across Essex and to the facilitation of transport investment across the eastern region.
Essex needs the A120 to be upgraded and the A12 to be dualled. I hope that the Minister can answer fully today. As I said, her Department will have plenty of detailed engagement, work, correspondence and all the files from over the last decade on this, so there is no excuse for the Department not to put forward a coherent approach. The point to make today is that, when it comes to the A120, this is a huge, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to use RIS2 to be much more strategic and to have an integrated roads strategy for the east of England and for Essex.
Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. The A120 has long been in my heart as something needing improvement since well before I became involved in local or national politics.
Driving from my constituency—where we have wonderful beaches; it is a great tourist venue—and going westbound, as my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (James Cleverly) said, it becomes completely blocked up at the section between Marks Tey and what we call cholesterol corner. I am sorry that I have to iterate that. Going from my constituency along the A120 has been a regular commute of mine. It sort of peters out beyond Bishop’s Stortford, where it goes back to being a two-way road, and then it peters out altogether in the middle of the countryside. The section between Stansted and Harwich is an absolute nightmare and has been for years.
We are now celebrating the decision on a preferred route, in which the A120 will be dualled between Braintree and Marks Tey—or south of Kelvedon, I should say. That is not ideal for me, but it is light years ahead of what we have to put up with now. I commend the application for RIS2 funding for this and I hope the Minister will take it further. It also should not be forgotten, as my hon. Friend mentioned, that the A120 is trans-European network route. It is a curious thing—all the major cities are supposed to be linked, east to west, from Moscow to Dublin. This section of the A120 is part of that, and it is a two-way road. It is nonsense. This is a major step towards realising that ambition.
I take this opportunity to call for further work, further down the line, to complete the A120 in an area that does not go through my constituency but that affects it hugely. My hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) knows all about it. It was built in the ’70s and it is now crumbling and beginning to fall apart. It needs a renewal, so why not get the whole thing done, from Harwich all the way to Stansted, and finish the job?
Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that part of the A120—from Horsley Cross to Parkeston— which is vital for the economy of north Essex and is crumbling, as he says. However, I believe the Government should be able to say something this afternoon about the Highways Agency activity on that bit of the road and the resources that will be committed to it in the short term, if not the long term.
Giles Watling
My hon. Friend is right. I am delighted to hear that the Government can say something about that section, because it is still holding us up. Cars can still bowl along it at about 55 mph most of the time, but it is still a single lane on either side. It takes forever.
I look forward to our delivering a new, world-beating infrastructure across Britain, east to west, which we need now more than ever. We have not had that over the years. The A14 was improved many years ago, and it is about time the A120 was brought into line, so let us get that infrastructure in place. While I am standing here, I might as well mention that we ought to improve the railways in our area, too.
James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)
It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I again congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (James Cleverly) and all hon. Members who have spoken.
It is timely that my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) has arrived, along with me, to underline that this is about not just Essex, or Suffolk, but the whole of East Anglia. The A120 is a critical road for the eastern region’s economy. As I said when I intervened on my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree, we are a net contributor to the economy, and if the Exchequer puts up a cheque for this road, it will get its money back and then some. That is critical to the case that we are all making.
I will just pick up on a few specific points. My right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) made the point about the A12, which I wholeheartedly agree with. It would be good to get an update on that. The two roads have to be seen as an integrated project, not least because once trebling has occurred from Chelmsford to Colchester, the next stretch is in south Suffolk, where I can safely say we have possibly the worst junctions to be found in the United Kingdom. Drivers join a very sharp bend at national speed limit, probably in first gear. All I can say is that drivers should check that they have life insurance before they do so. I actually took the Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman), to see that, and he was struck by the danger it presented. I think we often underestimate the safety issue for all these projects. My hon. Friend the Member for Braintree made that key point—this is dangerous; it is not just about the economics.
However, the business case will be about the economics, and while there is obviously an understandable focus on housing, we have to emphasise the extent to which the road can drive serious industry, exporting and services—not least with the airport. I do not want young people in my constituency just to get on a train to London to try to find a good job; I want them to have opportunity at home, in the local region. At the moment, to go from Sudbury, the biggest town in my constituency, to Stansted is just beyond commuting distance. If we improve the road, we can get it within commuting distance and the thousands of vacancies can be filled with people from the local workforce. I therefore endorse what has been said so far. The economic case is strong, and I urge the Government to consider it wholeheartedly.
Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone, and to follow my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge). I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (James Cleverly) on securing this debate on a hugely important topic—a stretch of road that is hugely important to so many of our constituencies across the eastern region.
The A120 does not, in fact, touch my constituency at all, yet it is hugely important to it and to its future prosperity. In the past few years, tens of thousands of homes have been built in Colchester, but without adequate or appropriate transport infrastructure to support them. We have had the housing but we have not had the roads, locally or regionally, to support that massive growth. In fact, ours has been the fastest-growing town in the country for some time.
My hon. Friend made a very valid point when he asked whether there could be another road in the country that links a growing international airport and an international port, which is also growing, by a road that is single track in some parts. It gets so congested that people can get stuck behind a slow-moving vehicle and it can delay their journey by a considerable amount of time, and yet the road is of major strategic importance.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) made a valid point about the economic case. That is not in question. My hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk so eloquently made the point that the Government will see a return on this investment and then some. We know that because Essex and the eastern region are already powerhouses for the British economy.
James Cleverly
Does my hon. Friend agree that not only will there be an economic return on investment in this road, but, because of the particular nature of the local and regional economy, the return on investment in the road will be greater and quicker than those on similar investments in other road projects around the country?
Will Quince
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention; I could not agree more. I have touched on the international airport and the port, but there is so much more. Colchester, which is sandwiched between those two important infrastructure projects, is hugely important in terms of business growth. The University of Essex, which is just across in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) but hugely important to both our constituencies, is growing and contributing to huge amounts of business growth; it is attracting businesses to the area.
We know that this is coming. There are plans, as part of the garden settlement movement—that is a debate for another day—for a business park larger than the biggest business park, in Cambridge. If we get it right and if we get the transport infrastructure piece right, this will be a prosperity corridor, stretching from Stansted airport to the port of Harwich, and we can benefit from that.
Priti Patel
Does my hon. Friend share my view that there is an opportunity through investment in the A120 but also our wider road network—and, in fact, our railway lines—when it comes to the wider transport and infrastructure approach, and that Departments should be working in a much more joined-up way? He has already touched on planning; this is a question of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, the Treasury and the Department for Transport working on a holistic and coherent case.
Will Quince
I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention. I could not agree more that we do not have a holistic approach at the moment and, as a result, people are not seeing the bigger picture and the prize that is on offer.
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend for letting me make this point. On joined-up thinking, does he agree that resolving the issues on the A12 is also part of the bigger-picture solution? Unlocking the issues on the A120 is key to unlocking the improvement on the A12, which we also need in order to ensure that Essex is better connected.
Will Quince
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. It is almost as though she has read my mind, because in my response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham, I intended to make exactly the point that the A120 cannot be seen on its own, in isolation, as the panacea. It is not the whole answer, but it is part of an overall picture that includes the A12; that is why the extra lane is so important between Chelmsford and Colchester—and beyond, up into Suffolk. This is also about our rail line, and we need to get this right. We have a whole fleet of new trains starting to arrive next year on the Great Eastern main line. If we start to unlock the additional capacity that will come with the digital railway—if we start to see that investment from the Department for Transport via Network Rail in our rail line—all of a sudden we will become a real powerhouse, because through transport infrastructure we open up economic opportunities and business growth. In particular, Colchester, but also wider Essex and the eastern region, will be the place to invest and the place to relocate a business to. The size of the prize is so great—it is a huge opportunity—and the Government really should sit up and listen to us about it. If Departments work together on housing, transport infrastructure and beyond, and if they work with us, the opportunities are huge.
My final point is not just about the economic case, but about why this scheme is so important to the region. That is clear to see, because of the overwhelming and clear support from everybody—and I mean everybody. Borough, district and county councils, the local enterprise partnership, businesses and business groups—such as the chambers of commerce—are absolutely invested in it. They have been so invested in it that they have put in money, resource, time and effort. We all know from our postbags the number of people who contact their Member of Parliament about issues with the A120 and how keen they are to see those issues resolved.
Whether it is about the economic and business case, the social impact on our constituencies or just the fact that we need to connect a major international airport, a major international port and a very important town in the middle—Colchester—we have to ensure that the A120 scheme goes ahead. I encourage the Government to stump up the cash to make it happen.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under you as Chair, Mr Hollobone. I thank all hon. Members for their considered contributions to this important debate, and not least the hon. Member for Braintree (James Cleverly) for initiating it. I think we can agree that the case made by all hon. Members was very compelling. The link between the port and airport serving Essex is at the heart of the economic strategy presented today. The economic opportunity that such an enterprise corridor could deliver, in terms of real growth in the region, has been cited by some to be worth as much as £1.3 billion, I have read, and all for a cost of £555 million in its creation. It is clear that domiciliary development is occurring, and that brings an opportunity to see industrial investment to provide jobs for those communities as well as the wider economy. Clearly, where such development takes place, there has to be well developed transport infrastructure, but that certainly is not currently the case, especially at some of the pinch points on the A120 route where there is significant congestion.
Giles Watling
Does the hon. Lady agree that it is not only industrial development—manufacturing and so on—that would benefit from this scheme and that there is a massive tourism offer? I am thinking of the wonderful beaches of the east coast. At Parkeston Quay, we have so many cruise ships that come in every year. It is a pity that the people who arrive there have to struggle with our dreadful infrastructure to get to other parts of the country such as London and across to the central midlands.
Rachael Maskell
I agree that tourism is a really important consideration when we are looking at infrastructure investment. It should be at the heart of the wider discussions and seen as an economic piece all by itself.
The debate on how the A120 can be improved to alleviate much of the congestion has been a long time coming. Five options were originally presented. I appreciate that those have been whittled down to four, and option D has been favoured by Essex County Council as the preferred route for the new A120. I also note that option C, interestingly, would see approximately one third of the route bifurcating Bradwell quarry and therefore would relieve some of the environmental impact should that scheme go ahead. We must also note the importance of farmland and agribusiness. In the Government’s planning of development, whether rail or road, they should take on board the need to ensure fertile land is maintained for the purposes of growing our food. I know there is much debate on that point.
The second compelling case made by the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel) was about road safety. With 53 fatalities and 325 serious injuries on this stretch, it is clear that not intervening would allow those risks to continue. That is a serious consideration.
It is worth saying, however, that we cannot look at road improvement without looking at intermodal and alternative modes of transport, and seeing the improvements that can be brought in from other schemes—particularly our rail, but also other forms of transport—in serving communities. While I understand that all hon. Members are trying to promote their local scheme for RIS2, I say to the Minister that we need to look at intermodal options before we look at road. It appears we have shifted to a road-first policy, as opposed to looking at public transport as the preferred option. Evidence from Newbury, Blackburn, Lincoln and other similar cases has shown how induced capacity is having a serious impact on their local economies, so we have to be careful as we make these decisions and look at them in an integrated-transport way.
James Cartlidge
Looking at alternative modes is a fair point, which I hear about all the time. The issue we have is lorries. In our modern economy, all our goods have to go through lorries, from Felixstowe or whatever port. It is coming down on HGVs. It is very hard to get that on to rail when it is at capacity, even though we have a good freight service. Does the hon. Lady agree that that is where there is a shortcoming in alternative forms of transport?
Rachael Maskell
I agree, there is a challenge with the use of freight. It creates an opportunity, however, to put the focus back on putting freight on to rail. We are already 45,000 lorry drivers short in our economy. How we expand rail freight, therefore, is a serious consideration, in order to see that fast through-put of freight. That is something to which we have given much thought and attention.
Where there have been road-widening schemes, after 20 years we have seen induced capacity building congestion again, with an increase as high as 45%. Out of 25 projects only five have delivered the economic benefits that were promised. We need to ensure that everything is thoroughly tested before investment is made.
Will Quince
I apologise for the slight delay in jumping to my feet, but I was a little surprised by what I think the hon. Lady might have said. Did she say that under a future Labour Government, the A120 development would not go ahead?
Rachael Maskell
I most definitely did not say that. The hon. Gentleman must have misheard me. I emphasised the focus we need to put on intermodal transport in particular, looking at issues such as increasing capacity on our rail networks, because we know other serious challenges are afoot across our freight industry. It is important we take those considerations on board.
Vicky Ford
I have campaigned for rail freight for many years. Is the hon. Lady aware that Chelmsford is the busiest two-platform train station in the country and there simply is not additional space to take additional freight down the great eastern main line in the timeframe involved? Digital networks may add a bit more, but we need to resolve the freight by mending this road and our road networks, not just by saying, “Let’s get it on the trains.”
Rachael Maskell
There are choices to be made. I am saying that we invest either in road or in rail. Looking at investment is part of what is called for by the freight industry.
Several hon. Members rose—
Rachael Maskell
If I may, I will finish my point. The Rail Freight Group, which I meet with regularly, has identified how those east-west connections need serious investment. If we want to develop Harwich as a port and see Felixstowe thrive as well, in order to take freight from the east into the west, it is important that we do not dismiss those opportunities and see that proper investment.
Will Quince
The hon. Lady is being gracious in giving way. It is not a binary choice between rail and road. We can and must have investment in both. She said that intermodal schemes should be a priority over roads. This is not an intermodal scheme. Therefore, is she saying that the Labour party would not prioritise the dualling of the A120?
Rachael Maskell
I have already answered the hon. Gentleman. I said that we would have an intermodal approach to all transport systems. It is crucial that we look at the opportunity that public transport can provide.
Rachael Maskell
If I may move on a little, we will see what time there is left. It is important that our approach to strategically developing economic growth, transport planning and housing development brings all development and planning together. We have seen a piecemeal approach to planning, which has not looked at how to serve economic or residential communities and ensure that there are sufficient transport mechanisms to provide that support. We believe that truly sustainable economic and residential hubs need to work together with the integrated transport system in order to best serve communities. We know that in the developments that have taken place, 81% of people living in those areas drive to work, as opposed to having wider options and intermodal choices. That is what I am arguing today.
Vicky Ford
The hon. Lady said the Labour party would invest in either rail or road. This Government are committed to investing in both. Which is she planning to cut?
Rachael Maskell
The hon. Lady is again taking my words and not using them in the way they were said. We will look at intermodal first and at the wider options of ensuring properly integrated transport. Any Government should do that, to ensure that we have the most sustainable and usable rail, bus, active travel and road system that there is. Intermodal integration will give us the best transportation system. Talk to anyone across the transport sector: they would agree with that approach, as do many Government Ministers, who say that they want to see an intermodal shift, too. I have heard such words many times from the Government. I am sure they would agree that is also important, if they are looking at proper economic and residential investment, such as is being suggested by the scheme presented today. That is the approach Labour would take.
We need to ensure that improvements made today do not call for further improvements and widening just a few years down the road, as has happened in many of these schemes. We need long-term solutions and investment put in place, to ensure there is not chaos in the future.
Giles Watling
The hon. Lady is being gracious in giving way. Is she suggesting that people would give up taking their cars to their holiday destination? That is an essential part, in many cases, of a holiday in the UK, so that people can explore the countryside.
Rachael Maskell
I am not suggesting that at all. I am talking about intermodal choice, which is important. Going forward, people need to have real options in how they travel, whether for work or leisure. We want to see those choices expanded. Many people at the moment, as I highlighted, have such limited choices that they have no option but to use the car. If we truly are to make the intermodal shift, we need to see more options being made available for commuters and people travelling for leisure.
James Cleverly
Unfortunately, the hon. Lady has missed quite a fundamental point and I will reinforce it, if not for her benefit then for the ears of the Minister. This proposal is not about taking existing transport patterns and just making them happen on an improved road. What this proposal is about is unlocking residential and employment opportunities within the region, so that people are not forced to drive or take the train to London, for example, to get good-quality work. So the idea behind this proposal is to develop sustainable communities and sustainable economic activities in and around the region itself, reducing the need for long and polluting journeys, and increasing the opportunities for people to work close to where they live, where their children go to school and where they have amenities around them.
Rachael Maskell
I fully understand the scheme; I have read it in much detail. That is why I am making the case that it is so important that we give people real choice.
In my closing remarks—
Sir Bernard Jenkin
I am extremely grateful to the hon. Lady. Will she just give an assurance that the Labour party supports the dualling of the A120 all the way from Colchester to Parkeston, which is a stretch of road that is long overdue for dualling?
Rachael Maskell
I think I have made myself perfectly clear in today’s debate, with all due respect. What I have said is that we believe that we should have a fully integrated, intermodal approach to transportation, which, as I have—
Rachael Maskell
I will not take the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. [Interruption.] No, it is not a no.
As I have said—
Rachael Maskell
As I have said in this debate, we need to look at that intermodal option and that has not been presented in the case that I have read. Clearly, we need to see investment across all our modes of transport, so that hon. Members’ constituents have real choice over how they travel and so they do not have to take the car if it is their preference to take a bus or train. That is what I am saying. We have got to see integrated—
Rachael Maskell
May I finish my sentence? So that we can see an integrated approach to how we assess transport projects in the future, rather than looking at the silos of rail over here, and road over there, which is the approach taken at the moment, as we know, because the RIS process is completely segregated from the control period, and we want to see a real integrated approach. That is the point that I have made throughout the debate.
Rachael Maskell
I see two hon. Members. If it is going to be a completely different point that will be made—[Interruption.] If it is not a completely different point, I will not give way. I will not keep repeating what I have said, so I will just bring my remarks to a close.
It is really important that we consider how we can build sustainability into the long-term future. That is why we want to put the resources and support behind a truly intermodal approach to transportation, but not just transportation in isolation. We want to integrate that across all planning, including economic and residential planning, so that all of our constituents have real choice as to how they travel to work and for leisure.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Mr Hollobone, it is an honour to serve under your chairmanship.
No doubt my colleagues have realised that I am not 6 feet 4 inches, so I am not the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman), who is the Minister with responsibility for roads. However, I will do my best to respond to all the questions put today and no doubt Department officials will write to answer any questions that are not responded to.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (James Cleverly) on securing this debate about upgrading the A120 in Essex. He has made a strong case for the economic benefits of upgrading the A120. Other hon. Members, in particular my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) and my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), also spoke, about not only the economic benefits that would be opened up but the business case, the residential case and the case for tourism, which was also mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Clacton (Giles Watling).
We know that transport is a key driver of the economy and an improved network will provide better journeys and boost local growth, productivity and opportunities. I agree with all of the representations that have been made here today and no doubt the Department is listening very closely, especially to the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham, who has been banging this drum for eight years—nearly a decade—and I do not doubt that there are reams of paper about the correspondence and meetings that she has had with the Department over those many long years.
James Cartlidge
I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for giving way and for her support. Was she shocked, as we all were, that today the Labour party was unable to commit to supporting explicitly the dualling of the A120? Does she agree that we can talk about choice, but in the real world, where our constituents live, they do not have a choice? We cannot move goods, other than a small proportion, down rail; they will continue to be moved on HGVs for a long time. People may not like that, but that is the real world in which we have to plan our roads today.
Ms Ghani
It has been a very passionate debate and I was also slightly startled that the Labour party representative today, the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell), could not bring herself to recognise that Essex is a gem of a county in economic development and somehow was taking away choice, by removing the opportunity to invest in road infrastructure, let alone in tourism, business, residential or economic development in the future. However, these debates sometimes bring out surprising results.
Will Quince
Perhaps my hon. Friend the Minister could outline, in response to some of the comments made by the shadow Transport Minister, the urgency of this situation, because if this road is not in the next road investment scheme or RIS2, and goes back to the drawing board, how long would that set us back? More than that, does she think that that would be a slap in the face for all of those people who have worked so hard together, over years, to put this road scheme forward, and to promote it and push it? It would be a slap in the face for all those people to say, “Back to the drawing board—not good enough”.
Ms Ghani
My hon. Friend mentioned the phrase “slap in the face” a number of times; I am not sure how I can respond to that. However, the Labour party is not even putting this scheme on the drawing board; it will not even consider it. No doubt, that will be absolutely frightening for hon. Members’ constituents to hear.
I do not want to prejudice the outcome of the road investment strategy 2 process, but I hope that what I will go on to say later in the speech will provide some succour to the Members who are here today and their constituents. However, I was surprised just as much as my hon. Friend was that the Labour party will not even consider this scheme in the future.
In December 2014, the Government launched the first road investment strategy—RIS1—which outlines how £15.2 billion will be invested in our strategic roads between 2015 and 2021. This is the biggest upgrade to our strategic roads in a generation. It includes the widening of the A12. Many Members said we need to approach this work holistically: my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham; and my hon. Friends the Members for South Suffolk, for Braintree, for Colchester (Will Quince) and for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford). They understood that both these schemes—for the A120 and the A12—need to be linked, so I will just touch on the A12 first.
The proposed work will include the widening of the A12 between junction 19 at Chelmsford and junction 25 at Marks Tey, where the A12 currently joins the A120. We have also provided funding for smaller scale safety improvements. On the A120 east of the A12, at the Hare Green junction with the A133 to Clacton, Highways England has commenced construction of a new £3 million roundabout to improve road safety. Work there is expected to be concluded by the end of this year.
The Government continue to invest in improvements to rail infrastructure in Essex and Department officials continue to work closely with local partners to identify local transport improvements. The South East local enterprise partnership, which includes Essex, has secured £590 million from the three rounds of the local growth fund, supporting projects, including transport schemes, that facilitate economic growth and housing. It has enabled key schemes in the county to be taken forward, such as an investment of £16 million towards improvements on the A127, and an investment of over £70 million towards the widening of the A13 in Thurrock. Both those routes are seen as key routes in Essex.
We recognise the importance of the A120 as a key part of the wider transport network, including all the other benefits that it brings, such as tourism, housing and business. The A120 is a key east-west route connecting areas across the region from the port of Harwich to Stansted airport. It links the east of England to the midlands and the north, so is of national as well as regional importance.
The single carriageway section between Braintree and the A12 near Colchester is currently a bottleneck on the route. Heavy traffic is a burden on the towns and villages that it passes through. That is why we have provided £4 million to Essex County Council as a contribution to the development work for the proposed improvement scheme. I am very grateful to the council for the excellent work it has done to develop these proposals and take them through a non-statutory public consultation on a range of options.
The proposed scheme would support the plans for new housing and growth in the area, in particular the proposed development at Marks Tey. This will boost the economy in Essex and beyond. It will complement the widening of the A12 between Chelmsford and Marks Tey, which we are currently developing as part of RIS1.
Priti Patel
I thank the Minister for being very generous both in her remarks and in giving way. She touched on the A12 widening scheme, and I want to re-emphasise my earlier point on that. That road’s development has been put on hold because of the development of the local plan in Colchester. We were told that categorically about five weeks ago, having previously been told that all planning factors had been considered. I know that the Minister responding to the debate is not the Minister for roads, but perhaps her officials will take away that I would like a meeting with that Minister and with Highways England to find out what on earth is going on. It seems crazy to advance the A120 without the A12. We need to integrate much more this whole way of working, and I again make my plea that all three Departments I named earlier come together on the issue.
Ms Ghani
My right hon. Friend has been a strong campaigner for her constituency, particularly on this issue, and I do not doubt that her request for a meeting will be respected and taken forward. I understand that there was a delay and that the notification of it was made most recently.
The favoured option for the A120 scheme that the council announced on 8 June is supported by a strong analytical assessment and has gained support from both the public and the business community, providing a good case for its consideration as a candidate for inclusion in the second road investment strategy. I cannot comment enough on the strong representations made not only by those Members of Parliament here today but by others who have met repeatedly with the Department for Transport: my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) and my hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Mrs Badenoch). Strong cases have been made, not only within this debate but behind the scenes, in lobbying the Department for Transport.
We are currently developing an affordable, deliverable investment plan for the strategic road network—the SRN—for the period 2020-25. The work draws on two years of research and public engagement. For example, Highways England has refreshed its 18 route strategies, which cover the whole of its network and present a high-level view of both performance and constraints on the existing road network. The route strategy for the east of England identified a number of capacity and safety issues on the A120, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham mentioned.
In December 2017, Highways England published its initial SRN report, which set out its proposed priorities for RIS2 and looked at the strategic road network as a whole rather than suggesting specific enhancements. The Department consulted on the document over the winter and we are using the responses to shape our thinking as we develop the next road investment strategy. Essex County Council’s work in developing the A120 scheme is also feeding into the process.
Our consultation on RIS2 has confirmed the considerable competition for the funding available for new schemes. A great deal of evidence arguing for a range of investments was received, including responses in favour of the A120 upgrade, among other things. There was also support for the schemes that were included in RIS1 for development for RIS2—the A12 Colchester bypass widening and the A12/M25 to Chelmsford improvement. All those proposals are being considered for inclusion in RIS2, alongside others from across the country. I cannot prejudice the process and the outcome, but the Government will announce their final decisions on RIS2 in 2019. Strong representations regarding the business case, as well as the cases in support of homes, the social environment and tourism, have been made today.
I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree and other Members are reassured that the Government understand the importance of the A120 scheme, both in the region and nationally, and that we see the need for investment in transport infrastructure to provide much needed economic growth. We will take that into account as we finalise our plans for the next road investment strategy.
James Cleverly
I thank the Minister for her comments. What I take away is that although she was careful not to prejudice her Department’s decision, and we completely understand that she is duty bound to go no further than she has, I think I speak for all Members representing the A120 route and the region when I say that we are pleased to hear that, on behalf of the Department, she recognises the strategic importance of the road, the economic opportunity that improvements would unlock and, perhaps on a personal note, the passion of all of us in the room. Although it is always iniquitous to single out individuals, I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) and my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) have been fighting this fight for a very long time. If for nothing more than their sanity, I urge the Minister to take back the message to the Department that the passion overflows among regional MPs.
It is disappointing beyond belief that where we have geographical unanimity we seem not to have been able to get as reassuring a set of noises from the shadow Minister. To say that her response was lukewarm would be an exaggeration beyond my capabilities. Therefore, we rely on the good offices of the Minister and the Department to turn what I believe is a genuinely held recognition of the road’s problems—the congestion, the danger and the negative impact on the ability of businesses to maximise their potential in what is already a great part of the country to do business but which could be so much better—into a relatively modest investment in the A120.
I thank the Minister for listening intently and for what I know she will do next, which is to take the passion of the Members present back to the Department and reinforce the case that has been made by us, by local government at both district and county level, by local businesses and by groups such as the A120 campaign, to which we all subscribe and give our energies. If ultimately we are successful in securing the funding to improve the road, I give the Minister our collective guarantee that we will personally hand over the large bags of cash that will inevitably flow from the investment into Treasury coffers, to be deployed in the great work that public expenditure does around the country.
Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)
There have been no hold-ups or congestion today, and we are finishing within the scheduled time.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the proposal to dual the A120.
Written Statements
(6 years, 5 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Media
(6 years, 5 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Matt Hancock)
On 5 June I made a statement to the House in which I set out my decision in relation to the proposed merger between 21st Century Fox and Sky.
I announced that having considered the CMA’s report, I agreed with its findings on the public interest grounds and its finding that undertakings to divest Sky News to Disney or to an alternative suitable buyer could potentially remedy the adverse plurality public interest concerns identified.
I also noted that there remained a number of issues with the undertakings that had been offered and that these would require discussions between my officials and the parties in order to reach agreement on an acceptable form of the remedy.
Following the successful conclusion of these discussions and the resolution of these issues, I am today publishing updated undertakings offered by 21st Century Fox along with new undertakings offered by Disney for the divestment of Sky News to Disney.
These undertakings are offered on improved terms and will include:
a commitment from Disney to operate and maintain a Sky News branded news service for 15 years rather than 10 years
a restriction on Disney from selling Sky News for 15 years without the consent of the Secretary of State
an extension of the funding commitment from 21st Century Fox from 10 years to 15 years
an increase in the total funds available to Sky News, to at least £100 million per year, with operating costs protected in real terms; and
a formal commitment from Disney to preserve the editorial independence of Sky News
In my view, these revised undertakings meet the criteria that I set out to the House on 5 June and will help to ensure that Sky News remains financially viable over the long term; is able to operate as a major UK-based news provider; and is able to take its editorial decisions independently, free from any potential outside influence.
Under the legislation, I am required to consult formally for 15 days on the undertakings, which I propose to accept. Views as to whether these proposals are sufficient to remedy the adverse plurality public interest concerns raised by this merger are sought by 5pm on Wednesday 4 July 2018. The consultation can be found at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/sky-fox-merger-proposed-undertakings-by-21st-century-fox-inc-and-the-walt-disney-company.
[HCWS7758]
FCO Services
(6 years, 5 months ago)
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The Minister for Asia and the Pacific (Mark Field)
FCO Services operates as a trading fund of the FCO. I have set it the following performance targets for 2018-2019:
A return on capital employed of at least 3.5% (statutory commitment).
An in-year surplus before financing and dividend costs.
A productivity ratio of at least 80%, measuring actual billable hours vs. available billable hours.
A customer satisfaction result of at least 80%.
A Your Say score for “Employee Engagement” measuring above 58%.
A Your Say score for “My Manager”, measuring above 62%.
FCO Services will report to Parliament on its success against these targets through its annual report and accounts for 2018-2019.
FCO Services is a trading fund of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). It provides a range of integrated, secure services worldwide to the FCO and other UK Government Departments, supporting the delivery of Government agendas. Services include protective security, estates and construction, cloud computing, communications and monitoring, logistics, translation and interpreting. This is combined with a portfolio of global maintenance work. FCO services also manages the UK National Authority for Counter Eavesdropping (UK NACE), helping protect UK assets from physical, electronic and cyber-attack.
[HCWS773]
Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict
(6 years, 5 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Boris Johnson)
My noble Friend, the Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon), has made the following written ministerial statement:
On the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict and as the Prime Minister’s special representative on this issue, I wish to inform the House of the next steps for the UK’s preventing sexual violence in conflict initiative (PSVI) ahead of a UK-hosted international meeting in November 2019.
Four years on from the UK hosted global summit to end sexual violence in conflict in June 2014, the scale of these crimes remains truly appalling. UK leadership since then has secured the international political attention that preventing sexual violence in conflict rightly deserves. Our collaboration with partners is essential to ensure this remains the case. Recent examples include a joint visit I made with UN special representative of the Secretary-General Pramila Patten to Iraq in February to shine a spotlight on the need for accountability for survivors of sexual violence and an end to the stigma they face. During a visit to Mosul, I saw for myself the awful devastation Daesh has had on people’s lives and livelihoods, especially for women and girls, including through sexual slavery and forced marriage.
Our political drive has also been backed up by wide-ranging practical support, through ground-breaking work such as the development of the international protocol on the documentation and investigation of sexual violence in conflict. Its second iteration, launched last year, is now being used by the International Criminal Court, the UN and in countries as diverse as Syria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Colombia, Burma, DRC, Iraq, Sri Lanka and Uganda. Since 2012, £44 million of UK funding has been allocated to support over 70 projects in 26 countries to provide capacity building on advocacy, protection, survivor support, evidence gathering, judicial reform, prosecution and reparations work. We have also seen our team of PSVI experts deployed more than 90 times to provide support and training on a range of issues from documenting crimes to rehabilitating survivors. We know this support and assistance has had real impact and is delivering real change on the ground.
Implementing and galvanising effective action to bring perpetrators to account, to tackle stigma and to prevent sexual violence in conflict remains a high priority for the UK. We will continue to use our influence to rally sustained international action and push this issue up the global agenda.
Therefore, the UK will host an international meeting on PSVI in 2019, marking five years since the global summit to end sexual violence in conflict. This meeting will seek to achieve a number of outcomes. These include progress on accountability and tackling the culture of impunity; addressing sensitive issues such as support for children born of rape and male, LGBT and disabled survivors; the role of media organisations and faith leaders in tackling survivor stigma; and, working with armed forces to prevent conflict-related sexual violence.
To deliver on this ambition, the UK will work to strengthen both our bilateral and multilateral levels with international partners to secure commitments and make progress on this agenda between now and November 2019. This will include an event at the UN General Assembly in September and a PSVI film festival this November. We have already engaged with a wide range of stakeholders, including PSVI champion and focus countries and fellow Commonwealth member states. International organisations remain key partners, such as the office of the UN special representative of the Secretary-General, Pramila Patten; UNFPA; OHCHR and the ICRC. We will uphold the spirit of PSVI and reach out to British and global civil society, parliamentarians and the public. Staying true to the principles for global action on tackling stigma, we will place survivors at the heart of our collective work.
In 2014, we told the world that it was time to act, now is the time to deliver upon that pledge.
I will keep the House informed of progress on this work.
[HCWS772]
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe: UK Delegation
(6 years, 5 months ago)
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The Prime Minister (Mrs Theresa May)
The hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) has been appointed as a full member of the United Kingdom delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in place of the right hon. Member for Birmingham Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne).
[HCWS774]
House of Lords
Short-Term Holiday Lets
(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Gardner of Parkes
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to make it a legal requirement for those offering to let their property as short-term holiday lets to establish that they are legally entitled to do so and to encourage local authorities to set up registers of those landlords.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con)
My Lords, while declaring an interest, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and Wales Office (Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth) (Con)
My Lords, landlords already have legal routes to enforce agreements with tenants where permission is required to sublet. Where short-term lets breach planning controls, responsibility for enforcement lies with local authorities. I would encourage the noble Baroness to meet the Short Term Accommodation Association to discuss her concerns, and would be happy to facilitate that.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes
I thank the Minister for that reply. At last there has been a breakthrough in the brick wall facing this issue. Does he agree that when he spoke last week, on 13 June, at col. 1726 of Hansard, he gave me cause to believe that, at long last, his view is that people should not get away with this criminal activity?
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, laws on crimes are enforceable in the normal way. I am not sure what the noble Baroness is referring to. As I say, there are avenues for enforcing agreements and planning controls which local authorities can enforce. The Short Term Accommodation Association is making great strides and I would encourage her to meet up with it.
Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)
My Lords, short-term holiday lets, including Airbnb, can now be classified as business premises. Under the small business rates relief scheme, if the rateable value is under £12,000 a small business pays neither business rates nor council tax—effectively it pays no tax—a system that can be abused. How many properties fall under this category and what is the cost to the public purse of this concession?
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, there is no specific Airbnb concession nor one for Short Term Accommodation Association members. They have to pay tax in the normal way, just as the noble Lord and I have to do, and if they are not paying tax that is illegal. However, in defence of Airbnb, it is operating within the law. In London it cannot go further than 90 days. It is prohibited from doing that by the system which it has introduced, which I have seen.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, at about this time last week my noble friend the Minister did refer to firms acting,
“in a risky and nefarious way”.—[Official Report, 13/6/18; col. 1726].
One did rather draw from that the inference that some action was being contemplated. Can he give the House some idea of what he has in mind?
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, the position regarding the short-term letting area of activity is that it is very much something that the Government encourage. We have a 90-day limit in London, while outside of London there is no restriction in the UK. It is something that operates totally within the law, but if there is a breach, the law should be enforced by the relevant agency. That agency is often but not always the local authority.
Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)
My Lords, is the Minister concerned that setting up a register of holiday lets would further encourage more short-term lettings which, without long-term residency, can cause greater problems with anti-social behaviour, overcrowding, and the breaking of leases and insurance terms? That, I suggest, is the crux of the Question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner—the fact that short-term lets make for bad neighbours.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, like anything else, short-term lets have to operate within the law. I share the noble Lord’s belief that setting up a register would be of no assistance. Issues such as gas safety, fire safety and environmental protection all apply to short-term lets, just as they do to anything else.
Lord Clark of Windermere (Lab)
My Lords, not only do short-term lets pay no local tax, they basically pay no general tax. Is the Minister aware that, unlike owners of longer-term rented properties, those with short-term lets can claim 100% tax relief on mortgage repayments and 100% tax relief on improving the fabric of the property, while at the same time killing scores of villages across the country by buying up ordinary houses purely to make a short-term profit?
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, I recall that I did offer the noble Lord the facility to discuss this further in relation to the Lake District and I restate that offer. I will be happy to look at the position. Businesses have to operate within the law. If they do not do so, they will have the rigour of the law applied to them. Short-term accommodation lets are in the same category and if any noble Lord has reason to suppose that they are not paying tax in the correct way, they should let me have that information. I will ensure that it is passed to the appropriate authorities.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, I refer the House to my relevant interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. The noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, has raised this issue many times and we are grateful to her for that. Is the noble Lord satisfied that the law in respect of short-term holiday lettings is being adhered to generally, or is it being flouted?
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, I can only restate that if the law has been flouted and if noble Lords are aware of that, and that certainly applies to the noble Lord opposite, I will be very happy to look at the particular situation. In so far as any information has been brought to me, I have absolutely satisfied myself that, in those very few cases, the law had not been flouted. Of course these people have to abide by the law, including the 90-day limit. They would be wise to ensure that they are acting within the terms of their lease, but if they are not, that is a contractual matter and it is for the other contracting party—the landlord—to ensure that they abide by those rules.
Lord Tebbit (Con)
My Lords, if people have a social housing tenancy and they sublet their property at a profit, are they committing an offence and should they be punished, or do we let it go by?
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, my noble friend will be aware that such action would almost certainly be a breach of the tenancy agreement and, once again, it would be for the relevant landlord, be it the local authority or a housing association, to ensure that the rigour of the law is applied.
Lord Campbell-Savours
My Lords, in the question that I asked I made a statement about the position of short-term lets and the payment of business rates. Is the Minister suggesting that I am wrong? If he is doing that, I think he should check his facts.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, far be it from me to suggest that the noble Lord is ever wrong. If business rates apply in a particular situation, they should be paid, but if they do not apply, they should not. It is as simple as that.
Road Maintenance
(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Berkeley
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the funding they provide to Highways England and local authorities to ensure that roads are maintained in a safe condition.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Sugg) (Con)
My Lords, over £12 billion has been provided to Highways England and local authorities to maintain and renew the road network in England outside London in the six years up to 2020-21. This is a significant increase on previous years. It is of course for each authority to assess which of its roads need repair, based on local knowledge and circumstances, but the Government believe that the sums allocated are ensuring that roads are maintained safely.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
I am grateful to the Minister for that reply, but many organisations will think that even that increase is nothing like enough. The RAC reckons that potholes cost drivers £100 million a year in damage to their cars. Cycling UK notes that in 2016, 64 cyclists were killed or seriously injured because of potholes. I nearly joined that rank when I fell into a pothole, which was under water, outside your Lordships’ House. The repair consisted of a white line painted round the pothole—and it is still there, three months later. On 13 June the Government issued a British road safety statement, which included measures to improve the safety and reduce the deaths of vulnerable road users such as cyclists, pedestrians and motorcyclists. Will the Government put that into practice, with more commitment? One idea would be to put an extra 3p per litre on the price of petrol, ring-fenced for potholes on local roads.
Baroness Sugg
My Lords, we must certainly do all we can to reduce deaths and injuries on our roads. According to Cycling UK, over half of people say that they would cycle more if they were not so worried about the state of our roads. Potholes and poorly maintained roads are a menace for all road users—including noble Lords—which is why we are taking action to improve the condition of the local road network. In particular, the Department for Transport has allocated £296 million to the Pothole Action Fund, on top of existing funding. Noble Lords will know that fuel duty is most definitely a matter for the Chancellor, but I will certainly pass on the noble Lord’s suggestion.
Lord Lexden (Con)
Potholes or not, how can pedestrians on the pavements alongside these roads maintain themselves in a safe condition when cyclists refuse to equip their machine with a bell and curse those, like me, who politely ask them to mend their ways? Could they possibly be in league with those who will stop at absolutely nothing to reduce the size of this House?
Baroness Sugg
My Lords, we absolutely want to improve the safety of cyclists and all other road users, including pedestrians. Obviously, we are in favour of cycling. It improves people’s health, cuts congestion and is good for the environment. Among employers, it has been associated with fewer sick days and improved productivity. We are keen to support cyclists, as I said. Last year, we published our cycling and walking investment strategy, which included £1.2 billion of funding to encourage more people to travel by foot or by bike—but I will certainly see whether there is anything we can do to ensure that cyclists put a bell on their bicycle.
Baroness Randerson (LD)
My Lords, Local Government Association analysis shows that, over a five-year period, the Government plan to spend £1.1 million per mile on the strategic road network but to provide local authorities with just £21,000 per mile for local roads. Of course, local roads make up 98% of the road network and bear the brunt of congestion, which is made worse by pothole problems and the lack of money to invest in modern road networks. There is a serious knock-on effect on emissions. Does the Minister accept that the Government need to redress the balance on funding?
Baroness Sugg
My Lords, local road maintenance funding is rising, but I accept that we need to readdress the balance. It is right to concentrate spending on where it is needed most. While the strategic road network includes only 2% of all roads by length, it carries one-third of traffic. However, we know that other important roads have long gone underfunded, and that is why we are introducing a major road network from 2020 and will provide a share of the national roads fund to invest in bypasses, road widening and other road improvements.
Lord Sugar (CB)
My Lords, will the Minister comment on the fact that utility companies seem to dig up our roads, and three months later another utility company digs the same hole? Would it not be a good idea to get some form of licensing, with the authorities giving permission for these holes to be dug, and for the utility companies to contact other utility companies to make sure that there is no common ground there?
Baroness Sugg
I certainly agree with the noble Lord on that. We have introduced the lane rental scheme, which has encouraged utilities to work together at weekends and in the evening to reduce congestion and the inevitable annoyance to motorists. We saw disruption to drivers cut by half in Kent and London, where we ran a pilot, and we are looking to extend that across the country. On licences and permits, we absolutely encourage local authorities to use permit schemes for works on the roads, which will help with planning. They will also ensure that utilities work together. Around 65% of local authorities use permit schemes now, and we encourage others to join.
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, will the Minister tell us whether Her Majesty’s Government believe in value for money? If the answer is yes, will she explain how patch and mend delivers value for money on a whole-life basis? If the answer is no, does she accept that Her Majesty’s Government are storing up a massive bill as roads self-destruct under the present policy?
Baroness Sugg
My Lords, I can certainly confirm that this Government believe in value for money. We are spending a record £23 billion on the enhancement, renewal and maintenance of our roads up and down the country, and will continue to invest in that to provide better journeys for motorists and to cut congestion. We have seen improvements and that our investment is making a difference. A, B and C roads combined have seen a gradual improvement, with fewer roads being considered for maintenance.
Lord Lang of Monkton (Con)
My Lords, in her reply to my noble friend Lord Lexden, the Minister seemed to imply that she could do nothing about bells on bicycles. If the law does not require the fitting of bells on bicycles, does the Minister agree that it would be a very good idea, and will she consider whether the law should be amended?
Baroness Sugg
My Lords, as I said, we have introduced cycling and walking investment strategies. We are also looking at cycling safety and I will certainly feed in that suggestion.
Baroness Hayman (CB)
With respect to bells on bicycles, perhaps the Minister would like to go back to 1998, because I seem to remember that, when I was a very junior Minister in charge of road safety, I found myself on the front page of every tabloid newspaper for saying, when answering a question, that all new bicycles should have a bell.
Baroness Sugg
My Lords, I do all I can to avoid being on the front page of tabloid newspapers, which is why I am not committing to it now—but, as I say, I will certainly take that back.
Personal Independence Payment: Assessments
Baroness Thomas of Winchester
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they intend to take to improve the outcome of Personal Independence Payment assessments in the light of the increasing number of successful appeals.
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
My Lords, we want assessments for PIP to be right first time, every time. This would certainly negate the need for appeals. You might say that this is a tall order, but that is what we must go for. Of the 3 million decisions made since the personal independence payment was introduced, 9% of all decisions have been appealed and 4% of all decisions have been successfully appealed. We are determined to continue learning and making improvements to ensure that decisions are right first time. For example, we introduced 150 presenting officers who provide valuable feedback from tribunals, and we intend to make video recording of PIP assessment a standard part of the process.
Baroness Thomas of Winchester (LD)
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that reply, but the latest statistics show that nearly two-thirds of initial decisions are overturned by appeals, which are very stressful, not to say very expensive. Therefore, either the process is flawed or the assessors are not good enough—both, probably. Will she agree to hold a meeting with stakeholders from relevant charities to discuss the way forward?
Baroness Stedman-Scott
I completely understand the stress that people have to go through in an appeal. I heard somebody say last week that they were dreading their PIP reassessment. That is clearly unacceptable, but we are working all the time to improve the assessments to ensure that the assessors are up to the job. It is often in collecting the evidence and information at the final-stage appeal that material comes forward that has an impact on the outcome of the appeal. We have to make sure that information is available sooner rather than later.
In preparing for the Question, I also discussed health professionals being written to for clarification on matters during the appeal process. Large numbers of them do not respond, which is most unhelpful. I cannot give you numbers, but it is certainly something that I will take further with officials. The noble Baroness will know that I will meet anybody, but I am afraid that the Minister for Disabled People has got there before us and is committed to hosting a session where she and officials will take the Disability Charities Consortium through how we can improve and increase satisfaction in the process. I suggest that the noble Baroness makes sure that she has a seat at that table.
Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)
My Lords, we know that the current PIP and ESA contracts are drawing to a close. In both cases, the decision to contract out was driven by a perceived need to introduce efficient, consistent and objective tests for benefit eligibility. Given that none of the providers has ever hit the quality performance targets required and that many claimants experience a great deal of anxiety during the process, is it not time to consider whether the market is capable of delivering assessments at the required level and of rebuilding claimant trust? Does the Minister not think that these assessments are better delivered in-house? For how much longer can we allow the system to fail sick and disabled people?
Baroness Stedman-Scott
The noble Lord raises very valid points; he is right to raise them. Extending the contracts does not mean accepting past poor performance—in fact, the DWP Select Committee accepted the extensions as the correct thing to do—but there is a need for stability to support continued improvement. Just to disband those contracts would certainly not give us that stability. We have to work with suppliers to ensure that they build on progress during any extension. We are looking at a two-year extension, which, if I have understood it correctly, will give the department time to look at the possibility of an in-house service.
Lord Shinkwin (Con)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for saying that improved performance is important. Does she agree that it is quite difficult for non-disabled people who do not have direct experience of living with a disability to fully appreciate the challenges that can come with it? I would be grateful if she would write to me to say how many PIP assessors are disabled and what plans her department has to increase their number.
Baroness Stedman-Scott
That is a very important question and a good point to raise. I do not know how many assessors are disabled, so I will find out and write to my noble friend. I can say that the assessors are recruited because of their competence in identifying people’s needs with the conditions they have. All of us pay tribute to people who have to live with their conditions; I sometimes have no idea what it must be like to live with those conditions.
The Lord Bishop of Durham
My Lords, personal independence payments make a significant difference to those living with mental health difficulties. Sadly, Mind found that only 8% of the 800 it surveyed felt that the assessor understood their mental health and 90% felt that the claims process itself had a negative impact on their well-being. Will Her Majesty’s Government require assessment providers to ensure that they hire more assessors with proper experience of working with people with mental health issues, and audit the quality of the mental health training?
Baroness Stedman-Scott
I will certainly pass on the point that the right reverend Prelate raises in relation to assessors having an understanding, directly or indirectly, of mental health issues. On DLA, 6% of recipients received the top rate, while with PIP that has gone to 30%. The issue of mental health is on everybody’s agenda and we are doing more to help people get the support that they need.
Baroness Brinton (LD)
My Lords, I am grateful for the Minister’s response on the introduction of recording of interviews. When is that planned to start? A number of people have asked if they can record their own assessments and have been told recently that they may not do so, which means that the power is very much in the hands of the assessor. We know that many appeals happen because people have been misrepresented in the written assessment reports, which has resulted in successful appeals.
Baroness Stedman-Scott
My understanding is that pilots of recording will start in the summer. We are trying to make sure that we encourage companions to attend and participate at the assessment—you have somebody with you at the appeal, and we want to make sure that they are there sooner. The facility for verbal recording exists now and there is a pilot to do video recording, so that the whole thing is on record.
European Union Referendum: Alleged Russian Interference
(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Tyler
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will conduct an investigation into alleged Russian interference in the European Union referendum, including the Leave.EU campaign.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My Lords, the Electoral Commission is the independent regulatory body responsible for ensuring that elections and referendums are run effectively and in accordance with the law. The Government are committed to defending the UK from all forms of malign foreign state interference, whether from Russia or from any other state. To date, however, we have not seen evidence of successful interference in UK democratic processes by any foreign Government, but we remain vigilant.
Lord Tyler (LD)
My Lords, do the Government not recognise that this piecemeal approach is potentially quite dangerous? Given that it is the considered judgment of the chairman of the DCMS Select Committee—the Minister’s Conservative colleague—that the leaders of the Leave.EU campaign have been lying, and given that there is ever-rising evidence of illegality, with even Mr Banks admitting that there was Russian collusion in the leave campaign, is it not now urgent that the Government should authorise a comprehensive investigation into what exactly happened? After all, this calls into question the very marginal outcome of the referendum, where for every 17 people who voted leave, 16 voted to remain. Does that not, in turn, raise real questions about the whole Brexit process?
Lord Young of Cookham
On the first question, the noble Lord will know that it is for the Electoral Commission to investigate any alleged irregularities concerning the referendum. It has already published a decision on Leave.EU and fined that body £70,000. Investigations continue into allegations that Vote Leave avoided the cap on election expenditure on the referendum by channelling resources into another, linked organisation, and that is a matter for the Electoral Commission to resolve. As far as the outcome is concerned, 1.3 million more people voted to leave than to remain, and I am not sure that one can attribute that fairly substantial margin to the activities of the Russian bots or, indeed, any other outside agencies.
Lord West of Spithead (Lab)
My Lords, there is absolutely no doubt that the Russians are behaving in a dangerous and threatening way in cyberspace: we know that and it is a real threat to Europe. The noble Lord was no doubt celebrating yesterday the victory of 203 years ago, when we thrashed the French, in conjunction with the Prussians, at Waterloo; and the victory of 100 years ago this week, when, with the French, we thrashed the Germans at the second Battle of the Marne. We have expended a huge amount of blood and treasure on European security. Does the Minister not believe, in view of that, that the decision on Galileo is quite extraordinary?
Lord Young of Cookham
If I may focus on the first part of the noble Lord’s question, which is about Russian involvement in covert activities, he may know that the Intelligence and Security Committee, on which two noble Lords sit, is currently investigating Russian involvement in the 2016 referendum and the 2017 general election. It makes sense to allow that important inquiry to be completed, and then we will have a clearer view of the impact, if any, of Russian involvement in the election, which is the subject of this Question. So far as Galileo is concerned, I commend the noble Lord’s ingenuity but I have listened to fellow Ministers give very adequate answers on Galileo and I will not attempt to rise to that level.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, will the Minister say whether the Government are satisfied that the Electoral Commission has access to all the rather complex means—obviously, I do not want to go into intelligence matters in this House—that foreign Governments have to interfere in our affairs? Is the Electoral Commission really equipped to carry out that inquiry in all its aspects?
Lord Young of Cookham
The noble Lord makes a very good point in that, obviously, it makes sense for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, not the Electoral Commission, to have overall responsibility for our relationship with Russia. It makes sense for the DCMS to have overall responsibility for “fake news” and for the Information Commissioner. It makes sense for the Cabinet Office to have overall responsibility for electoral law and a dialogue with the Electoral Commission. Where all these things come together, which I think is the noble Lord’s point, clearly, we need a collective view. It makes sense to await the outcome of the ISC inquiry that I mentioned a few moments ago, the DCMS inquiry into fake news that is currently under way, and the Electoral Commission inquiries into the referendum campaigns. When we have all that, we can stand back and see whether we have the right resources and the right information in the right place and come up with a collective view on the serious issue raised in the original Question.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Earl Howe) (Con)
My Lords, it is the turn of the Liberal Democrats.
Lord Clement-Jones
My Lords, Cambridge Analytica was using so-called online political microtargeting, which involves collecting, often illicitly, huge amounts of personal data, creating personal profiles for voters and delivering specifically tailored, often false messages. Irrespective of the question of expenses—and I have no doubt that this could form part of the many inquiries that the Minister has mentioned—is this not exactly the kind of secret online targeting which is a threat to our democracy? Should it not be made transparent and be highly regulated under our electoral law?
Lord Young of Cookham
The specific case that the noble Lord mentions—the alleged misuse of data provided by Facebook to Cambridge Analytica—is currently being investigated by the Information Commissioner. So far as the impact of social media is concerned, research shows that social media consistently ranks as one of the least trustworthy sources of information—along with politicians. By contrast, the public continue to see national and regional television, news websites and broadsheets as the most reliable sources of news. This may help put in context the concern just expressed by the noble Lord.
Long-term Plan for the NHS
(6 years, 5 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord O’Shaughnessy) (Con)
My Lords, with permission I will repeat the Statement made yesterday in the other place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care about the Prime Minister’s announcement of a new, long-term funding plan for the NHS. The Statement is as follows:
“The NHS was built on the principle that good healthcare should be available for everyone, whatever their background and whatever their needs. Seventy years on, it remains this country’s most valued public service—an institution that is there for every family, everywhere, at the best of times and the worst. No one in this House underestimates the importance of putting the NHS on a steady financial footing, not just for the sake of their constituents but for their own families and loved ones. That is why I am proud today that this Government have announced their commitment to a long-term funding settlement for the NHS.
From vaccinations and IVF to radiotherapy and next-generation immunotherapies, the NHS has always been at the forefront of excellence in medicine. However, as only the sixth universal healthcare system in the world, it has also come to symbolise equity both at home and abroad. Despite pressures in recent years, the Commonwealth Fund rates the NHS as the best healthcare system in the world; cancer survival rates are at a record high; stroke mortality is improving faster than almost anywhere else in the OECD; and heart disease mortality rates continue to fall. All this is thanks to NHS staff, who continue to work tirelessly day in, day out, to make it the world-class service that it truly is.
However, alongside advances in medicine, demographic pressures pose a potentially existential threat to the NHS as we know it. With the number of over-75s expected to increase by 1.5 million in the next 10 years, these pressures, far from reducing, will intensify. So in March the Prime Minister made the bold decision to commit to a 10-year plan for the NHS, backed up by a multiyear funding settlement. Since then I have been working closely with the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, and I can announce today that the NHS will receive an increase of £20.5 billion a year in real terms by 2023-24—an average of 3.4% per-year growth over the next five years. The funding will be front-loaded, with increases of 3.6% in the first two years, which means £4 billion extra next year in real terms, with an additional £1.25 billion cash to cope with specific pension pressures. Others talk about their commitment to the NHS, but this settlement makes it clear that it is this Government who deliver, and the details will shortly be placed in the Library of the House.
This intervention is only possible due to difficult decisions made by the Government, opposed by many, to get our nation’s finances back in order and our national debt falling. Some of the new investment in the NHS will be paid for by us no longer having to send annual membership subscriptions to the EU after we have left. But the commitment that the Government are making goes further, and we will all need to make a greater contribution through the tax system in a way that is fair and balanced. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister said that we will listen to views about how we do that, and my right honourable friend the Chancellor will set out the detail in due course. I pay particular tribute to the Chancellor, whose careful stewardship of the economy, alongside that of George Osborne before him, is what makes today’s announcement possible.
The British public also rightly want to know that every pound in the NHS budget is spent wisely. It is therefore critical to the success of the plan that the whole NHS improves productivity and efficiency; eliminates provider deficits; reduces unwarranted variation in the system so that people get consistently high standards of care wherever they live; gets better at managing demand effectively; and makes more effective use of capital investment. We have set the NHS five key financial tests to show how it will play its part in putting its service on a more sustainable footing, and I expect the NHS to give this work the utmost priority. The tests will be a key part of the long-term plan.
However, this is more than just a plan to get finances back on track. In its 70th year, we also want our NHS to make strides towards being the safest, highest-quality healthcare system in the world. That means making a number of improvements to the treatment and care currently offered, including getting back on track to delivering agreed performance standards, locking in and further building on the recent progress made in the safety and quality of care, and transforming the care offered to our most frail and vulnerable patients so that we prioritise prevention as much as cure. It also means transforming our cancer care, where we still lag behind France and Germany despite record survival rates. There is no family in this country that has not been touched by cancer, so the whole House will want to know how the NHS intends to make our cancer treatment and care among the best in Europe.
Many of our constituents worry about the mental health of their loved ones, families and friends. Again, I am proud of this Government’s record here: investing more in mental health than ever before and legislating for true parity as part of one of the biggest expansions of mental health provision in Europe. A critical part of the plan will be to decide what next steps will enable us to claim not just that we aspire to parity of provision with mental health but that we are actually delivering it.
For our most vulnerable citizens with both health and care needs, we also recognise that NHS and social care provision are two sides of the same coin. It is not possible to have a plan for one sector without having a plan for the other. Indeed, we have been clear with the NHS that a key plank of its plan must be the full integration of the two services. As part of the NHS plan, we will review the current functioning and structure of the better care fund to make sure that it supports that. While the long-term funding profile of the social care system will not be settled until the spending review, we will publish the social care Green Paper ahead of that. However, because we want to integrate plans for social care with the new NHS plan, it does not make sense to publish it before the NHS plan has even been drafted, so we now intend to publish the social care Green Paper in the autumn, around the same time as the NHS plan.
Finally, there are two further elements crucial to putting the NHS on a sustainable footing. Alongside the 10-year plan, we will also publish a long-term workforce plan, recognising that there can be no transformation without the right number of staff, in the right settings and with the right skills. This applies to both new and existing staff. As part of this, we will consider a multiyear funding plan for clinical training to support this aim. Similarly, we know that capital funding is critical for building the NHS services of the future and, again, we will consider proposals from the NHS for a multiyear capital plan to support the transformation plans outlined in the long-term plan.
Given the national economic situation, yesterday’s announcement is bold and ambitious. For the first time, national leaders of the NHS will develop a plan for the next decade that is clinically led, listens to the views of patients and the public and is backed by five years of core funding. We want to give the NHS the space, certainty and funds to deliver a comprehensive, long-term plan to transform health and care and to ensure that our children and grandchildren benefit from the same ground-breaking health service in the next 70 years as we all have in the first 70. That is the Government’s commitment to our NHS, and I commend this Statement to the House”.
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating this Statement. I also declare an interest as a member of a local clinical commissioning group.
It would indeed be churlish to say that an injection of funding into our NHS is not welcome right now. However, the 70th birthday present is an uplift in funding of below the 60-year average—from 1948, the birth of the NHS, to 2010, it is just on 4%. Of course, we would all, not least the patients and staff, welcome not having to face another winter crisis like the one we have just had. After what, I suspect, were some serious tussles within the Government about quantum, timing and explanation of where the funding will come from, the Minister and his colleagues must be a little disappointed in the headlines that have been generated so far. The IFS said, with respect to the Brexit dividend that,
“over the period, there is literally zero available”.
Sky News has done a data poll which suggests a majority of people do not believe there will be a Brexit dividend to help to boost NHS funding, a reaction made more unpalatable to the Government because the same polls show that a majority of people, 54% to 38%, say that they would be happy to pay more tax to fund the NHS, which we in the Labour Party have known for quite some time. In 2002, when the then Prime Minister Tony Blair made a commitment to massively increased funding to the NHS, he also announced an increase in national insurance to pay for it. He and then Chancellor Gordon Brown had spent two years preparing for that announcement and preparing the plans for the investment in the NHS that was necessary to turn it round from the previous 18 years of Conservative neglect and underfunding and to deliver the waiting list targets, cancer treatment targets and A&E targets which then followed. So when Theresa May says, as she did over the weekend, that Labour spent only half of the increased expenditure on patient care, that is completely misleading and plain wrong. If she means that replacing falling-down buildings and worn-out equipment, paying staff decent wages, and investing in massively increasing the number of doctors and nurses available is in some way not spending money on patient care, one has to question the right honourable lady’s understanding of what the NHS is and what it does.
Leaving aside the issue of how the £20 billion will be raised, we do indeed need to address how it can best be spent. We recognise that it will take time and planning to work out how to make the best use of this funding over 10 years. The challenge is huge because the prevailing state created by a combination of cuts for both health and social care, and the overcomplex bureaucracy of the NHS as a result of the Health and Social Care Act, make this a serious challenge. Waiting lists of 4 million last winter in the NHS were so severe it was branded a humanitarian crisis. Some 26,000 cancer patients are waiting more than 60 days for treatment. There have been billions in cuts to local government and social care.
My questions to the Minister start with three basic ones about the legal obligations of the NHS. These were also asked by my honourable friend Jonathan Ashworth. Will the waiting list for NHS treatment be higher or lower this time next year than the 4 million it is today? This time next year, will there be more or fewer patients waiting more than 60 days for cancer treatment? This time next year, will there be more than 2.5 million people waiting beyond four hours in accident and emergency or fewer—a target not met since 2015?
If the Secretary of State wants, as he says he does, to transform the health and social care system, how will he do this when every economic expert, from the Institute for Fiscal Studies to the Health Foundation, tells us that with a growing ageing population—which the Minister mentioned—increasingly living with long-term conditions, this announcement will do nothing more than see the NHS stand still? As my honourable friend Liz Kendall put it yesterday:
“We cannot put the NHS on a steady financial footing without a proper funding settlement for social care, yet the Secretary of State now says that that will not happen until the spending review, which in reality means no substantial extra money for social care until 2020 at the earliest. We cannot transform care for older people or reduce pressure on the NHS until we look at the two together”.—[Official Report, Commons, 18/6/18; col. 63]
Why are the Government still ducking that vital integration issue?
Why is the social care Green Paper delayed yet again, and how can this funding be used to mitigate the £7 billion in cuts and 400,000 people losing care support? How will the Government bring together health, social care, parity in mental health and the essential preventive work of public health, when they are scattered across different delivery bodies, often with differing commissioning regimes and accountable sometimes to different regulatory regimes? How will that be done under the proposals for the 10-year plan? Will this injection of funding ensure that we have a service with new models of care fit for the 21st century? Finally, we have a £5 billion repair bill facing our NHS right now, and outdated equipment. When will the Government start investing in the fabric and equipment of the NHS?
Baroness Jolly (LD)
My Lords, I too thank the Minister for his Statement. I welcome any increase in funding. Should the Chancellor be wondering how to pay for it, we on these Benches would be quite happy to see a 1% increase on income tax, for starters. The IFS has said that increases of close to 4% are needed for social care, as well as a funding boost for the NHS. Yet the Statement had nothing to say on this vital issue. We all know that the NHS cannot function efficiently unless social care is working well too. Many local authority leaders are indignant that the Green Paper has been moved further down the track, so when the new funding does arrive there is already a sizeable deficit to claw back. They are extremely anxious about the situation with adult social care funding being insufficient for this financial year.
What conversations have been held with the LGA, local council leaders and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government in advance of these statements? We are also dismayed about the silence on mental health, public health and community health funding. One in four of us will be affected by mental illness, there is an obesity epidemic among our children, too few health visitors, and we are critically short of psychiatric social workers. Is the Minister confident that these issues can wait until the autumn NHS plan and the Budget?
Lord O'Shaughnessy
I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Thornton and Lady Jolly, for their questions. I think that our debate on the report of the Lords Select Committee on the sustainability of the NHS and social care was revealing, in that we got a hint that, while the settlement would receive a broad welcome across the House, the party opposite might not be in quite the same positive mood, and, unfortunately, we have had that confirmed today. Perhaps that might generously be described as a cautious welcome.
The noble Baroness asked about the funding of this settlement. We were very clear yesterday that it will come, effectively, from three sources: from taxation, from economic growth, and from the fact that, as we are leaving the European Union, we will not be paying annual subscriptions any more. It will be a combination of those factors that determines the spending. Indeed, the Treasury is confident in that, and it would not have signed off this deal if it had not been.
On the noble Baroness’s specific questions about the legal obligations under the NHS constitution, actually the money that was given to the NHS at the Budget was to help it to get back on target—in the case of A&E, by the end of this financial year and, for elective procedures, to halt the growth in the expansion of the waiting list. Clearly, one of the reasons for this settlement, which is set out explicitly, is to get back to those key standards, which we know are the yardsticks by which people judge their everyday experience of the NHS.
On the point about there not being enough money, there can always be arguments for more, but it is instructive that two former Health Ministers, one from the Labour Party and one from the Conservative Party—my noble friend Lord Prior and the noble Lord, Lord Darzi—set out last week that they felt that 3.5% was the right figure, which we have got very close to. We should take the suggestion of those two very experienced and knowledgeable former Health Ministers as a good yardstick for our achievement.
The noble Baroness asked about social care funding, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly. The intention behind the delay in the Green Paper—which I recognise is a source of regret for people in this House and elsewhere—is to make sure that integration, which we all agree has got to be at the heart of this 10-year plan, actually happens in planning terms and policy terms as well as in announcements and delivery. That is why there is that co-ordination between the two. Again, it is worth stating that, over the current three-year period, at previous Budgets an extra £2 billion was put into the social care budget, which is rising now for the first time in a number of years, and that is obviously important as we put together that long-term solution.
Finally, let me deal with two other points. On the repair bill and the capital settlement, again at previous Budgets the Chancellor has pledged £10 billion through a number of sources towards the capital settlement for the NHS, but we are expecting the NHS, through this process, to come forward with long-term, multi-year capital proposals, because clearly that underpins so much of the transformation.
In terms of the impact on other elements of the broader health budget, mental health is included in there, including a clear commitment to deliver on parity of esteem within this period. Public health and community health will be dealt with in the next spending review process, which will be happening in the next year. Again, there are clear commitments that there will not be additional pressures, if you like, created for the NHS by what happens to the public health and social care budgets in the future. Ahead of a spending review process, that is a clear indication that there is not a desire to create trouble, if you like, in those budgets that would land at the feet of the NHS.
Lord Warner (CB)
My Lords, could the Minister say something about the economic literacy of this announcement? As I understand it, the Conservative chairman of the Health Select Committee, Dr Sarah Wollaston, has said that the Brexit dividend idea is “tosh”. If we write that one out of the script, can he say something about what economic assumptions the Government are making on the growth of GDP in each of the next five years?
Lord O'Shaughnessy
I know that the noble Lord no longer serves the Labour Party, but he might be interested to know that the Labour leader said in February that,
“we will use the funds returned from Brussels after Brexit to invest in our public services”.
Clearly, we are not alone in believing that, once we leave the European Union—and, as a party, we are committed to leaving the European Union—we will no longer be sending subscriptions to Brussels but using them for the NHS. For further detail on the funding settlement, the noble Lord will need to wait until the Budget, when the Chancellor will outline the plans.
Lord Ribeiro (Con)
My Lords, I welcome this report, but note that the Statement refers to the number of over-75s increasing by 1.5 million, which will prove a challenge in the future. One of the recommendations of the long-term sustainability report was that we should look at other methods for ensuring funding. I was very pleased to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, say that the review suggests that the public are prepared to pay more towards the NHS. I suggest that if we look at the experience of Japan, where people over the age of 40 start making contributions towards their long-term care, we may well have an opportunity to resolve this problem. If the public are willing, the Government should look seriously at this in the context of social care.
Lord O'Shaughnessy
We have in this debate just started the lively conversation that we will be having on taxation in the next few months. Clearly there are a number of ideas; they have been voiced by Members on the Liberal Democrat and Labour Benches as well as those on my Benches and the Cross Benches. We know that there are a number of ways that this could be done; the Prime Minister has shown incredible leadership to admit that this is necessary. These are very difficult decisions: in polls, people say that they want to pay more tax but when it comes to the crunch they often feel slightly differently. True leadership is being able to take us through that situation, and that is what the Prime Minister is showing.
Lord Clark of Windermere (Lab)
I thank the Minister for taking the trouble to repeat the Statement made yesterday in the other place. Of course we welcome the money, but let us not get carried away. Every health trust charity believes that the increase needs to be at least 4%. Secondly, this still leaves only one country in the G7 paying less towards healthcare than we are.
May I ask the Minister three very brief questions? I saw a report saying that the training costs of doctors and nurses were not included in these figures. Is that correct? Secondly, when we pursue the Government’s concept, which is right, of bringing the NHS and social care together, hence delaying the plan, will the extra costs of social care come out of the 3.4%? Finally, when it is discovered that there is no exit bonus when we leave the EU, will the Government guarantee that that shortfall will be made up from elsewhere?
Lord O'Shaughnessy
The noble Lord mentions the figure of 4%. I have looked at a number of think tank reports and their assumptions on what is required. They make some very cautious assumptions of the productivity improvements that the NHS is making, based on historical performance. The improvements in productivity over the last five years are very healthy—in fact, in the last year the NHS became more productive at a rate of 1.8%. If you add that to the 3.4%, that gives an increase of more than 5% in terms of bang for your buck. It is incumbent on us during this process not only to put in more money but to make sure that we are driving those productivity gains that we have seen in the last five years. If that then gives a 5% effective increase in funding, that is what we will need to deal with the long-term pressures that the noble Lord has quite rightly highlighted.
On the three questions, there is an explicit commitment to deliver this workforce strategy that the NHS comes up with as part of its plan. On the extra costs of social care, we clearly need a social care settlement that delivers the funding for those rather than their being covered by the NHS. That is what we mean about the commitment not to create extra pressures. As I have said, the funding will come from three sources—whatever the mix, the funding will be there.
Lord Willis of Knaresborough (LD)
Will the Minister accept that in terms of productivity, one of the issues that is holding us back in developing things at speed is the overregulation of the whole of the health system? We have two systems regulators and seven professional regulators; we were promised in 2014 that there would be legislation to simplify the regulatory system. Can the noble Lord assure the House that we will have a bonfire of regulations and put the right regulations in place to move this agenda forward?
Lord O'Shaughnessy
The noble Lord speaks with great insight and makes a very important point. There is broad agreement on the need to simplify the structure of the health system but there has not to date been broad agreement on how we should do so. We are expecting in the next few months to explore the potential for the kind of streamlining that he is talking about. I hope that that can be done as a collaborative effort and, if it comes to primary legislation, that we can deliver it as a collaborative effort too.
Lord Kakkar (CB)
My Lords, I declare my interest as chair of University College London Partners Ltd. Although this substantial increase in funding has quite rightly been welcomed, important questions remain. It is essential that real progress is made in integrated care—integrated care between the community and secondary and tertiary sectors, and integrated care between hospitals and social care. It is vital that progress is made in the rapid adoption of innovation at scale and pace across entire health economies. It is also vital that a programme is put in place to ensure that there is a transformation of the healthcare workforce so that those who have committed themselves to being healthcare professionals can continue to be developed and serve their fellow citizens across an entire professional career. How do Her Majesty’s Government propose to achieve this? There has been much good intention and great commitment in this area over the past two decades, but we are now at a critical moment where a failure to deliver the transformation required will result in failure to achieve the long-term sustainability to which we are all committed.
Lord O’Shaughnessy
The noble Lord makes excellent points. It is right at this moment to applaud the wisdom and far-sightedness of the Lords Select Committee on the long-term sustainability of the health and social care system. It called for, among other things, funding of growth in line with GDP, delivering integration, a 10-year workforce strategy, a commitment to reduce variation and a joined-up Department of Health and Social Care, all of which, if we were not able to deliver it in time for our response to the report, we are delivering in short order afterwards.
One of the first ways in which we shall do it is to draw on the wisdom that resides in the NHS, in Parliament and elsewhere in the profession. In the Statement given by my right honourable friend, I point again to the commitment to take on integrated care, that being one of the tests of success. Equally, there is the commitment to transformation of the workforce, to make sure not just that we have enough people but that we have enough flexibility and digital skills, for example.
The final point, on innovation, is very close to my heart—and indeed the Secretary of State’s. We know that doing things in the same way will not deliver the standards we need. We really need a transformation in how we deliver healthcare, much greater digitalisation of the entire sector and the ability to take the amazing innovations that we develop in our laboratories and universities, such as the noble Lord’s own, and get them into use across the NHS. That is one reason why I was so delighted that we were able to announce today that the noble Lord, Lord Darzi, will be chairing our Accelerated Access Collaborative. It is hard to think of anybody more committed to this agenda than him.
Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)
My Lords, I seem to recollect that some years ago there was a royal commission on social care. Is there any wisdom to be gained from it? I do not think much action was taken on it when it reported.
Lord O’Shaughnessy
My noble and learned friend is quite right: these commissions do not always produce action. I realise that there is some frustration in the House over the delay to the social care Green Paper. I hope noble Lords will respect the fact that it is sometimes difficult to fight battles on many fronts. We have made some progress on the NHS and the army moves on to win the war on social care as well.
Lord Turnberg (Lab)
My Lords, I for one from these Benches welcome the influx of funds. We have been waiting quite a while for it so it is well received. Everyone knows, however—we have heard today—that without changes and improvement in social care, this 3.5% will go down the drain as well. It is not just that we need to do both together; we need provision for social care at the same time as, if not in front of, the influx of funds for the NHS.
Lord O’Shaughnessy
I agree with the noble Lord and thank him for his welcome. We all agree; indeed, the Statement sets out clearly that the two must go hand in glove. I should point out that additional money for social care in the short term was put in a previous Budget by the Chancellor—£2 billion extra over three years, a budget that is now growing. Clearly that was a short-term measure. Now we need to find that long-term settlement that goes hand in hand with the NHS and ensure that we have true service integration as well.
Baroness Walmsley
My Lords, first, the Statement mentions £1.25 billion cash to cope with specific pension pressures. Is that because so many doctors are retiring early, and therefore drawing their pensions early, because of the pressures of the job? I know three GPs who are retiring far too early because of those pressures, so will the NHS be able to spend some of that money to relieve those pressures? Secondly, the Statement mentions that the Government want to prioritise prevention and that the NHS should get better at managing demand effectively. There are two factors that limit its ability to do that: social care has been mentioned by many noble Lords but I would also mention prevention. Can the Minister assure us that, when we get the spending review, the amount of money that goes to local authorities co-operating with the NHS on the prevention of ill health will not just be enough to make up for the cuts they have suffered over recent years but enough to really go forward and transform prevention measures?
Lord O'Shaughnessy
To answer the noble Baroness’s first question, I believe that changes in actuarial calculations were the driver of that change. However, it is a technical issue and I will write to her and place a copy of the letter in the Library so that other noble Lords can see the rationale for it. Regarding her question about public health funding, obviously it is not for me to make predictions about exactly what will be in the spending review, save to say again that there was a clear commitment in the Statement that we would not create further pressures for the NHS through the settlements delivered for social care and public health.
Baroness Hollins
My Lords, there is much concern in this House about social care. Can the Minister confirm that the now-promised social care plan will address not only the needs of older people but the needs of all vulnerable people of all ages? It is a little-known fact that the cost of meeting the needs of people with learning disabilities will soon overtake the cost of care of the growing number of older people. It is really important to address that.
Lord O'Shaughnessy
The noble Baroness is quite right to highlight the care for this vulnerable group of adults. As she knows, there has been a parallel work stream alongside the work for the Green Paper. Those are two allied but separate pieces of work. At this point in time I do not have a specific date for when that work will emerge into a report or a review, but I will write to her with the details because the Government agree with her that this issue is of equal importance.
Lord Higgins (Con)
My Lords, given the Administration’s traditional objection to the hypothecation of revenue, does my noble friend agree that the Chancellor is likely to be reluctant to say that he is putting up taxation specifically for the NHS? In any case, would it be more acceptable to the public for the money to be raised by way of an increase in national insurance contributions rather than through general taxation?
Lord O'Shaughnessy
I should not like to put any words in the mouth of my right honourable friend the Chancellor. What I do know, as was evident yesterday, is that he has committed to deliver the finances required to fulfil the plan that the NHS puts forward. Clearly, as my noble friend points out, there are a number of ways that we can do that. Polling suggests that some forms of taxation are more popular than others, and we know that technical challenges are associated with hypothecation. As I said, this is a very important and valuable conversation in which this House has a leading role to play in making sure that we get the right outcome.
Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)
My Lords, this otherwise very welcome announcement was accompanied by quite misleading and—I hope the noble Lord will agree—deplorable PR spin about a Brexit dividend. Does he accept that the OBR, which provides the government economic statistics, has said that there is no such thing as a Brexit dividend? There is a Brexit penalty, because the reduction in tax revenue as a result of lower economic activity than would otherwise have taken place is significantly greater than the saving of our net contribution to the Union. Is it not the case that, in trying to pretend that there is a dividend, the Government have actually tried to mislead the public, and is that not something that, on reflection, the noble Lord would agree is most unfortunate?
Lord O'Shaughnessy
I would not agree with that because it is clearly the case that once we have left the European Union we will not be paying for membership of it—and it is those funds which will, in part, go towards helping us solve the funding challenge that we have set ourselves for the NHS.
Baroness Manzoor
My Lords, we have plenty of time. It is the turn of the Lib Dem Benches.
Baroness Ludford
My Lords, further to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Davies, is it not true that the OBR forecast budget deficit is twice our net EU contribution? We will also be making continuing payments for participation in EU programmes and agencies, let alone the £39 billion divorce Bill. Is not the Brexit dividend claim on the No. 10 website—which is a government website, not a Tory Party website—a breach of the Government’s duty to ethics, truth and accuracy?
Lord McColl of Dulwich
Does the Minister agree that the obesity epidemic is costing well over £25 billion a year? Would he consider having an all-out campaign— including every man, woman and child, every institution, school and government department—not to tell people what to do but to tell them the truth? For instance, there are 4 million people with type 2 diabetes due to overeating. If they ate less the savings would be terrific and most of them would be cured of their diabetes.
Lord O'Shaughnessy
My noble friend sets a tremendous personal example in this case. He is a fearless and tireless campaigner on the causes of obesity. He knows that it is our hope and intention that we will return to this topic so that we can start to reduce this plague on children and adults.
Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab)
My Lords, in the Statement the Minister referred to full integration between health and social care. Does he mean full integration of services, workforce and budgets? If so, is he confident that it can be done without the kinds of reorganisation that all of us dread?
Lord O'Shaughnessy
The noble Baroness makes a good point from her experience. There is agreement across the House—and, indeed, across both services—that there needs to be an integrated service. It is clearly not satisfactory to delineate in the way that we have done historically. How we get there will obviously be difficult. We need the NHS and local government to take the lead and to come up with proposals. If we believe that those proposals will deliver what we want without creating upheaval, it is incumbent on us all to get behind them.
Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (CB)
I welcome this additional contribution to the health service. However, have there been overoptimistic algorithms on improving productivity? We know that staff are currently stretched, and to expect continued productivity increases before we invest in modern technology will result in more staff leaving, and that would not be rational.
Lord O'Shaughnessy
The noble Baroness makes an excellent point. We know that NHS staff do a wonderful job and work incredibly hard. In talking about productivity it is wrong to think of it only in terms of getting more out of the same people. The wage bill, I think, makes up around 40% of the total NHS spend, a great deal of which is on buildings, on items and on technology. We need to use more technology so that we can deliver the productivity gains that we need.
Rating (Property in Common Occupation) and Council Tax (Empty Dwellings) Bill
Tuesday 19th June 2018
(6 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Rating (Property in Common Occupation) and Council Tax (Empty Dwellings) Act 2018 View all Rating (Property in Common Occupation) and Council Tax (Empty Dwellings) Act 2018 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 107-I Marshalled list for Committee (PDF, 75KB) - (15 Jun 2018)
The Earl of Lytton
“( ) Any change made in the 2010 Rating Lists to the existence or extent of a hereditament by virtue of this section applicable on 31 March 2017 must also be given effect by the Valuation Officer in the 2017 Rating Lists, unless physical circumstances affecting the constitution of the hereditament changed on 1 April 2017.”
The Earl of Lytton (CB)
My Lords, I know that after Brexit, the question of business rates and council tax must be one of the high points of your Lordships’ week. With that in mind, I start by declaring my interests as the owner of business property and the occupier of business premises, my professional interests, and the fact that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association. Although business rates, the subject of this amendment, do not quite have the pull of Brexit, they are nevertheless of great significance to businesses. I suspect that, like Brexit, they will be a matter that we will still be debating long after the initial dust has settled. Moreover, the issue will be debated whatever the outcome of our relationship with Europe.
I pay a brief tribute to my two external advisers who have been helping me with these amendments, and to staff in the Minister’s department for their willingness to discuss, both formally and informally, matters to do with business rates that have concerned me over many months. I have a sort of private pact that I have just agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, to keep things brief, and I will do my best in that regard.
I hope Amendment 1 will be seen for what it is: a means of preventing unfairness and an aid to streamlining. I should explain that the Bill provides for business rate payers to seek to amend principally the 2010 list and later assessments, to which the Bill applies, affected as they were by the Supreme Court case of Woolway v Mazars. However, while under the Bill the facility to amend appears on the 2010 valuation list, a successful application under that list does not automatically translate into the assessment in the 2017 list. To me, this seems an oversight. In the absence of a material change of circumstances, the 2017 list should use the same general basis, valuation levels apart, as that which applied to the 2010 list.
This matters to ratepayers, billing authorities and business rates administration more generally. Amendment 1 seeks to remedy the matter by allowing the automatic carryover of an adjustment made pursuant to the Bill on a 2010 list assessment or assessments into the 2017 list. Without this provision, the business rate payer will have to make a de novo application under the 2017 list using the government portal that operates the system known as “check, challenge, appeal”. Noble Lords will know that I have raised significant concerns about the “check, challenge, appeal” procedure, principally at the end of last summer in a debate I secured for the purpose. Although it has improved, and I acknowledge that improvements continue to be made, for appellants it remains a barrier to fair access in terms of both the need to register the timeframes and the complexity of sorting out the various stages, especially if the matter is not considered clear-cut or is contested by the Valuation Office Agency. I once had the privilege of working for its predecessor organisation, the Inland Revenue Valuation Office, for nearly seven years.
I do not believe it should be necessary to jump through these hoops under the 2017 “check, challenge, appeal” process where a simple administrative adjustment would suffice. That is the purpose of the amendment and I beg to move.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, briefly, the amendment in the name of the noble Earl raises an important point and I am happy to support it. As he said, this is a simple administrative change that could help people.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and Wales Office (Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth) (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, for his amendment and the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, for his contribution.
The measure we will deliver through Clause 1 has been welcomed by stakeholders. It will return the practice of the Valuation Office Agency back to the position that applied before the Supreme Court decision in Woolway v Mazars. As highlighted by the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, it is important that we still consider how this measure will be implemented. In December last year, my department issued a consultation document that contained a draft of Clause 1 and set out how we plan to implement this change in the law. As we explained in that consultation, to protect ratepayers from unwanted backdated bills on the 2010 rating lists, we will allow ratepayers to choose whether they want their bill changed before 1 April 2017. We will achieve this by allowing a new right of appeal on the 2010 rating list for those ratepayers affected by Clause 1. I understand that my officials are already working with the Rating Surveyors Association and other professional bodies on the regulations to deliver this new right of appeal on the 2010 rating list.
For the 2017 rating list—about which I think the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, is concerned—the Valuation Office Agency will update the list as it becomes aware, through ratepayers and local authorities, of assessments impacted by the change in the legislation. Keeping an accurate rating list in this way is a normal part of the business rates system. Where appeals on the 2010 rating list mean that the valuation officer believes that the 2017 rating list also requires changes, I assure the Committee that these will be resolved by the Valuation Office Agency as part of its normal duty to maintain the list. Ratepayers will also be able to request a prioritised check of their 2017 rateable value if they believe it has been affected by the ruling.
From the consultation, we have seen widespread support for this approach to implementation. The amendment before us would require the valuation officer to make consequential changes to the 2017 rating list after they have resolved a case on the 2010 rating list. As I have said, it is the intention of the Valuation Office Agency to make these necessary changes. What is more, the requirement of the Valuation Office Agency to correct the 2017 rating list is already captured in primary legislation. That is significant. Under Section 41 of the Local Government Finance Act 1988, the valuation officer is required to compile, and then maintain, local rating lists. Therefore, if through the settlement of an appeal on the 2010 rating list the valuation officer concludes that the 2017 rating also needs to be changed, they are duty bound to make that change. I can offer that legislative assurance. With those assurances, I hope the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, will agree to withdraw his amendment.
The Earl of Lytton
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that very helpful reply. From what he has said, I appreciate that making these consequential amendments is a matter of the general duty of the Valuation Office Agency, as it deems necessary. I certainly did not intend to press my amendment at this stage. I will simply say this: resources that are destined to continue being cut year on year as part of a planned resource reallocation are of concern to practitioners who have to deal with the Valuation Office Agency. I hope these cuts will not mean that it is unable to make these sorts of consequential changes. On the basis of the Minister’s reassurance, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
The Earl of Lytton
“( ) Any refunds payable by a billing authority by virtue of assessment alterations directly consequential upon this section must be reimbursed to that authority by the Exchequer.”
The Earl of Lytton
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 2, which is grouped with Amendment 4. In a sense, it is covered partly by subsection (2)(d) of the proposed new clause in Amendment 4 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy. I will let him speak to that at the appropriate moment.
I fully expect the Minister to say that under no circumstances will the sort of refunds that I am looking for be refunded to billing authorities. As I understood it—perhaps I used a somewhat extreme example at Second Reading and I will not use that one again—it is assumed that immediately after the Supreme Court case of Woolway v Mazars, billing authorities somehow swept into action like avenging angels to deal with all the various assessments that would have qualified under that, and therefore it is supposed that they might have made some sort of gain. I do not believe that has actually happened, or that billing authorities banked this dividend to any significant extent. That is a matter that perhaps warrants further investigation as to exactly what the situation is financially, but they might none the less find, as the effects of the Bill work their way through the system under the 2010 valuation, that they face some sort of deficit. I felt it was unreasonable that billing authorities should suffer a material loss in that respect, so that is what Amendment 2 would deal with.
I support the noble Lords, Lord Kennedy and Lord Shipley, on Amendment 4, which is grouped with my amendment, because one of the points made to me by the Institute of Revenues Rating and Valuation was that there has been very little assessment of the precise impact of much of this. That is a mistake and a lacuna. Local government finance—from what I can gather, not being directly involved with it myself—is in many cases in a critical situation. Budgets are on a knife edge and even seemingly small amounts—we do not really know what the magnitude is of all this—need to be dealt with. I therefore support that amendment, and in doing so I must declare that I am an honorary member of the Institute of Revenues Rating and Valuation, having been, for much of my working lifetime, an ordinary subscribing member. I beg to move.
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 4, on which my name appears, and remind the House that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association. The case was very well put by the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, a moment ago. I am struck by the fact that this amendment, in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, and myself, seems to contain a reasonable set of proposals. I am particularly concerned by the noble Earl’s assertion that the professional bodies are saying that there has been little assessment of the impact and that we ought to know more. I have a particular concern about the authorities that are piloting the 100% retention of business rates. I very much hope that they will not be put in a position of having to refund more money than they originally gained. So this amendment—a probing amendment, in my view—seeks to ensure that the consequences of the Bill are well understood and reported to Parliament.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
My Lords, I remind the House of my relevant interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. Amendment 2 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, goes to the heart of the first part of the Bill, namely the positions some local authorities find themselves in—having to make refunds and potentially being out of pocket. In the 2017 Autumn Budget we heard the Chancellor of the Exchequer announce, following the decision of the Supreme Court, a return to the previous practice, and Clause 1 does just that. Business would further be allowed to ask the Valuation Office Agency to recalculate valuations so that business rate demand would be based on the previous practice, backdated to April 2010.
The Budget papers confirmed that the Government would fully compensate local government for loss of income—but then they had a change of heart and decided that if they had the extra money it was an unexpected windfall. The council would be very pleased about that, but if it had to pay anything back there would be no compensation for the authority concerned. The noble Earl’s amendment would require the Government to do exactly what they said they would do in the first place, and it has my full support.
Amendment 4 in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, would place in the Bill a requirement for the Government to undertake a review of the impact of the provisions in Clause 1. That seems a sensible and proportionate thing to do. The amendment would require the Government to have a review, sets out what it should cover and requires that the Government should lay it before both Houses of Parliament—but nothing beyond that. They would have to do nothing other than lay the review.
I hope that when the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, responds to this probing amendment and the noble Earl’s amendment he will see the point that we are trying to highlight. We are trying to give the Government the tools to do the analysis to make sure that they have got this right.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, I am most grateful to noble Lords who have spoken on this amendment and for that very considerate point from the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, that he is trying to help the Government. I shall ensure that that is underlined when I get my copy of Hansard, and I appreciate his general approach on these issues.
I am grateful to noble Lords for raising this matter. The amendments before us would require a review of the impact of Clause 1. I agree with the point made many times by the noble Lord opposite; we probably have rather too many reviews, and this can sometimes get a little top-heavy. However, such a review would require compensation to be paid to local authorities for any refunds made to ratepayers as a result of Clause 1.
To assist the Committee in considering this, I will explain a little about how Clause 1 will be implemented by the Valuation Office Agency. Before I do, I remind the Committee that, as the noble Earl quite correctly anticipated, the Government do not intend to compensate local government for the reductions in rateable value that will flow from the implementation of Clause 1. This is not because we cannot estimate or measure those impacts—although there are considerable challenges in doing that. We are not compensating local government in this instance because the revenue it might have received from the Supreme Court decision in Woolway v Mazars was unexpected. Indeed, all professional bodies involved with rating, including the Rating Surveyors’ Association, viewed the Supreme Court’s decision as a surprise and an aberration: indeed, neither party to the case was arguing for it. It came as a surprise to political parties, too.
The decision disturbed the settled practice of rating as understood by valuation officers and ratepayers alike for decades. Therefore, any additional income was indeed a windfall. The noble Earl seemed perhaps to suggest that, if there had not been a refund or reduction, there was still the prospect of some obligation to repay. That is not the case. If the money has not been expended, there can be no question of any repayment. We are merely returning this windfall to ratepayers—something that I think is widely welcomed. In some cases these ratepayers have also lost small business rate relief as a result of having their property split. We do not believe that it is fair for these hard-working small businesses to be hit by large backdated bills, and we do not believe that it would be right for local government to benefit from revenue accrued in this way.
The amendments would require a review of the impact of Clause 1 and compensation for any refunds under it. Put simply, the impact of Clause 1 is to return the law to what it was always understood to be before the decision of the Supreme Court. It follows that, taken together, the combined financial impact of the Supreme Court decision and Clause 1 will therefore be neutral. So, in looking at just the impact of Clause 1 we are, in fact, looking at only part of the picture.
For those businesses whose rateable values were not adjusted by the Valuation Office Agency following the Supreme Court decision in Woolway v Mazars, there will be no change. The only situation in which there will be a repayment of business rates as a result of Clause 1 is where the Valuation Office Agency has amended rateable values to reflect the Supreme Court decision. That will be reversed.
The Bill will also allow those rateable values to be changed so that they once again reflect the practice of the Valuation Office Agency before the court decision. The way in which this will be implemented in practice by the Valuation Office Agency will be different in respect of the previous 2010 rating list compared to the current 2017 rating list. I will go into that in a bit more detail in a minute. I will ask the Valuation Office, because it does seem reasonable, to publish information as a consequence of Clause 1. I will make sure that any information that is readily to hand is published, that noble Lords receive a copy and that we leave a copy in the Library—because that will not involve any unreasonable burden at all.
Since 1 April this year the Valuation Office Agency has been unable to amend the 2010 rating list, other than as a result of an outstanding appeal. These rules protect ratepayers against very long periods of backdating, but they mean that, in this instance, ratepayers would see the benefit of the Bill in respect of the 2010 rating list only if they still have an outstanding rating appeal. Therefore, we will, through regulations and existing powers, allow a new right of appeal on the 2010 rating list for those ratepayers affected by the Bill. I assure noble Lords that it will be possible for local authorities and the Valuation Office Agency to identify these new appeals made as a result of the Bill and see the resulting change in the rateable value on the 2010 rating list. As I say, I will endeavour to ensure that information on that is passed to noble Lords.
These new 2010 appeals will, in part, provide the information sought in this amendment. However, they will not provide a complete picture of the impact, as some ratepayers will choose to use existing 2010 appeals, some of which may also deal with other, unrelated changes to the property or valuation. Therefore, the resulting change in rateable value will not always be an accurate reflection of the impact of Clause 1 alone—it is not necessarily that straightforward. Nevertheless, local authorities will be able to identify the new appeals on the 2010 rating list and see the resulting change in rateable value, and we expect these new appeals will, in part, give a reasonable guide to the impact of Clause 1 on the 2010 rating list.
I fear that it will be much more difficult to track the impact of Clause 1 on the current 2017 rating list. The Valuation Office Agency will implement Clause 1 on the 2017 rating list in the normal course of its business. For example, it may apply the new rules in Clause 1 in the course of putting new properties into the rating list, when correcting rateable values or when reflecting improvements or demolitions to the property. It may do this following a request from a local authority, following a check made by the ratepayer or using its own notices to amend the rating list. Within these different types of cases and different reasons for altering the rating list, the Valuation Office Agency cannot statistically isolate those which are due to Clause 1 alone. To resolve this, the VOA would have to manually examine each change and each valuation and calculate how much was due to Clause 1. Bearing in mind comments made with some justification about the financial impact of some of this on the VOA, this is not something we would want to do: it would be extremely resource intensive. Since this is an organisation responsible for clearing a backlog of 2010 appeals—something it is doing—implementing a new check, challenge and appeal system and delivering a revaluation in 2021, I am sure noble Lords will agree that we should not add to its burden in this way.
I fully understand that local government and others want an accurate view of the impact of Clause 1. I share that desire and have explained to noble Lords why this is so difficult on the current 2017 list. I hope I have reassured the Committee that some information will be made available in respect of the new appeals on the 2010 rating list that will be allowed once the Bill receives Royal Assent. As I said, I will ask the Valuation Office Agency to publish that information.
With regard to the Government’s stance on compensation, this does not signal any departure from the normal approach to compensating local government for changes to business rates introduced through the Budget. In this year alone, we expect to compensate local government to the tune of £1.5 billion for changes to the business rates system announced in previous Autumn Statements and Budgets. I hope the Committee will recognise that the circumstances of the Mazars Supreme Court decision and Clause 1 are very different in respect of so-called compensation. With all this in mind, I hope the noble Earl will agree to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
Is the Minister saying that the Chancellor did or did not say in the Budget that the Government were going to reimburse local government on these matters? I understood that the Chancellor had announced that the Government were going to reimburse local government but then the Government changed their mind.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, I say this with some hesitation because the noble Lord seems relatively certain about what he is saying, but I think I am right that in the 2017 Budget the Chancellor said that we were not going to reimburse local government in relation to this. I do not think that statement had been made before; or if it had, it was only shortly before. But I think in the 2017 Budget he made it clear that we would not be doing so. But that can be checked. As I say, I might be wrong on that.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
That would be very helpful. Does the Minister have any estimate of the amount of money involved for local government? I accept that people have had the benefit of these sums of money for a period of time but, equally, everyone was surprised by the judgment of the Supreme Court. What are the sums of money involved for local government? They may be negligible or huge. We all know that local government is really pressed in terms of budgets and finance, and things are very difficult, with many competing demands. If it was a large amount of money, that could cause problems.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, from what I can gather—admittedly, it is anecdotal, from speaking to local government and getting a feel for this—this position is relatively evenly spread across the country, although focused more in the urban areas, as your Lordships would expect. Again, I cannot give a precise number but I do not think it is a massive one. If I can give a more precise indication, perhaps I will do that in a letter to noble Lords ahead of Report. I do not think it is a massive number, from what I can gather.
The Earl of Lytton
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken, and the Minister for his response. In defence of any appearance of lack of numeracy on my part, I say in connection with whether or not billing authorities have gained some windfall that the point outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, is correct; namely, the budgetary process does not arise evenly or as an even offset or indeed even in a comparable year. But I do not proclaim to be an expert on local government budgeting and finance—thank goodness. I am only a humble valuer and therefore doomed to perdition for having only managed to get an O-level in ordinary maths. With that in mind, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 2.
The Earl of Lytton
“( ) The Valuation Office Agency must forthwith upon the coming into force of this section publish on its website such advice and guidance as to the provisions of this section, and such means of identification of the hereditament, as to enable a ratepayer by accessing the online Rating Lists readily to check the status of their assessment and whether the provisions of this section apply to it.”
The Earl of Lytton
My Lords, this is another tidying-up amendment, which is really to ensure that there is adequate publicity for people wishing to avail themselves of the facility under the Bill, bearing in mind that there are a number of very complex matters involved in business rates. The amendment is intended to ensure that the Valuation Office Agency places on its website adequate,
“advice and guidance as to the provisions of this section”,
and the means whereby a business rate payer can make the necessary identification so that they can ascertain whether—and, if so, how—the provisions apply to this.
The wording is deliberate in setting out the publication process,
“forthwith upon the coming into force of this section”.
The reason why I say so is that at the end of last summer, when we discussed matters to do with business rates, I was given to understand that there would be guidance—for instance, on the question of how fines would be applied for misdeclarations of fact in going through the “check, challenge, appeal” process. I have not seen that information yet and I do not know whether it is available. I am not voicing this as a criticism; I am just saying that because of the particularly time-limited nature of the way in which the provisions will apply—particularly looking back into the 2010 list—it will be important that this information is published in a timely and reasonably prominent manner and, I hope, written in plain English. That is the purpose behind Amendment 3. I beg to move.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
I fully support the noble Earl in his Amendment 3. I think we all deal online very much more now in our work and in terms of official and unofficial things, so this is a very sensible amendment.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, with the indulgence of the House, I would like to pick up a point from the last group. I failed to address a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, on the pilot business rate retention issue. We are speaking to the Local Government Association and others about that. It is not straightforward but we are not convinced that there is any loss. Still, I shall seek to address that in more detail in the letter. I apologise to him for not picking that up earlier.
I thank the noble Earl for moving this amendment, which would require the Valuation Office Agency to publish on its website guidance and advice on the effect of Clause 1. I understand and appreciate the motivation behind the amendment, backed by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy. Business rates can be a complex area and confusing to ratepayers, and of course we support ideas that would give ratepayers more information to help them to plan for their business rates liability.
On Clause 1, I agree that it is especially important that the VOA provide clear guidance to ratepayers on when they may be affected. Clause 1 concerns contiguous properties that are assessed for rating in more than one part, but there are many reasons why a ratepayer may have seen their property split into two or more rating assessments. That will include properties whose rating assessments have split because of the Supreme Court decision in Mazars, but will not be limited to that. Clause 1 will change the law to mirror the practice of the VOA prior to the Supreme Court decision. Those ratepayers may therefore fall within Clause 1. However, there will be many other reasons why a rating assessment may have been split into several parts. A property may have seen physical change requiring it to have more than one rating assessment, for example, or part of the property may have been sublet. These splits are unlikely to be related to the Supreme Court decision, and those ratepayers will not be affected by Clause 1.
It is therefore important that we explain this to ratepayers. The VOA already has clear guidance on its website explaining in simple terms how the law currently applies under the Supreme Court decision, including some clear examples. I assure the Committee that once the Bill receives Royal Assent, the guidance will be quickly changed so that it explains the operation of the new law under Clause 1. I further assure the noble Earl that the VOA will share that guidance in draft with the professional bodies, including the Rating Surveyors’ Association. The noble Earl will therefore have the opportunity to consider this guidance from his expert perspective before it is published. I appreciate that we are very fortunate in having him look at this legislation in some detail because of his professional understanding of it. This, together with the information that ratepayers can already access about their own property on the VOA website, will provide ratepayers with the information that they need to decide whether they fall within Clause 1.
I hope that with these assurances the noble Earl will agree to withdraw his amendment.
The Earl of Lytton
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply and the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, for his support. The Minister probably credits me with a great deal more expertise than I feel I actually possess, but that is probably because, the more one knows about something, the more one realises one does not know. That seems to be one of the facts of life that one has to face. But I am reassured by what he said in terms of making sure that the information is readily available on the Valuation Office Agency’s website. Obviously, I am aware of some of the advice generally on that website, which for the most part seems to me to be clear. I thank the Minister for the assurances that he has given and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Pinnock
“(1) Section 11B of the LGFA 1992 (higher amount for long-term empty dwellings: England) is amended as follows.(1A) In subsection (1)(b) (maximum percentage by which council tax may be increased), leave out “of not more than 50 as it may so specify” and insert “as specified in subsection (1A)”.(1B) After subsection (1), insert—“(1A) If a dwelling has been empty for—(a) between two years and five years, the percentage is not more than 100;(b) between five years and ten years, the percentage is not more than 200;(c) more than ten years, the percentage is not more than 300.””
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
My Lords, I remind noble Lords of my entry in the register of interests as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and a councillor in the borough of Kirklees in West Yorkshire.
As I made clear at Second Reading, we are broadly supportive of the measures in this Bill. Clause 2 gives powers to local authorities to increase the financial incentive to owners who have empty properties to encourage those same owners to take action so that their empty property can be brought back into use. This financial incentive can, of course, also be seen as a financial penalty. The purpose is clear: to ensure that the many thousands of long-term empty homes become homes for families once more. As there is a crisis in the supply of housing, we think that penalty is justified. Indeed, local authorities have the discretion as to whether to take advantage of the powers in this Bill, and there are exemptions to safeguard owners where homes are empty for wholly understandable and legitimate reasons.
Nevertheless, we want to explore more variation of the additional powers in the form of an escalator. The proposals in the Bill provide for the power to impose a 100% premium for homes left empty for two years or more. The proposal in this amendment is to increase that premium up to 200% for properties that are empty between five and 10 years, and up to 300% for those properties that are empty for 10 years or more and do not obviously fall within the exemptions already described in the legislation—in other words, to increase the financial penalty or incentive, whichever way you look at it, the longer the property is kept empty. This amendment is tabled to explore the potential of this approach. Can the Minister indicate whether increasing the council tax premium in this way will have the desired effect of bringing more long-term empty properties back into use?
One reason for this approach is because previous government legislation has not been anywhere near as effective as it was hoped to be. The empty dwelling management order of 2006, then amended in 2011, is far too complex and costly for local authorities to implement, except in extremis, so it has been used on very few occasions, considering the extent of the problem of long-term empty properties. Local authorities have tended to use other less legalistic methods of tackling the scourge of empty homes. It is apparent from the statistics of longer term empty homes that more needs to be done—hence the proposals in the Bill and hence our amendment. We support the council tax premium way of doing this, but are proposing in this amendment to extend the variation to take account of the length of time in which a property has lain empty. I beg to move.
Lord Stunell (LD)
I will speak to Amendment 7, which looks at the same issue but with a different point in mind. The intention of tackling the issue of empty homes is laudable. I support the proposals in the Bill—I could hardly do otherwise, having been the Minister who introduced them in the coalition Government. The test of time over the last few years has shown that the escalation proposed here is a legitimate and practical measure and it is a good thing to expand it.
I support the amendment in the name of my noble friend on the Front Bench as well, but this amendment has a different perspective. It is a way of supporting improvement in the energy performance of buildings. The general aim of the Bill is clearly to get homes back into use as quickly as possible. That produces a risk of short cuts and of doing things the quickest and cheapest way possible, in order to avoid the penalty—or, as my noble friend said, the incentive—of the increased council tax payment by getting it done and let or sold as quickly as possible. That is the Bill’s general and laudable aim. The amendment aims to mitigate that risk in the situation where somebody is prepared to increase the energy performance of the home. It limits the additional payment that a local authority can charge if the developer or owner improves the energy performance of a property in refurbishing or redeveloping it.
That is the principle; Amendment 7 is just one simple illustration of how that might be done. The amendment says that there would be a 25% reduction in penalty if the energy performance of the home was going to be increased by at least two energy performance levels. In other words, if it is raised from level E to level C, or from D to B, there would be only a 75% increase replacing the numbers in the Bill. There are clearly plenty of other options. I have played around with a few of them, but just bringing forward the most simple and basic version allows the Committee to consider the general principle. I would be more than happy to discuss with Ministers the best way of introducing this approach before Report. It avoids, or at least lowers, the risk of cutting corners to get work finished at the expense of energy performance. It nudges those doing refurbishment to have more ambition in reaching energy performance without, at the same time, having to look at their back pocket and what might be lost if they take an extra few weeks to do the work.
More widely, this is a plea for joined-up legislation. The Government have decided not to proceed with the Green Deal or zero-carbon homes. On the other hand, they have introduced new rules for energy performance standards for lettings. This is a simple mechanism to produce a good outcome. I urge the Minister to adopt it, if not in the detail which I proposed then on the principle, which we can work on before Report.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
My Lords, this is an interesting group of amendments. My amendment in this group is Amendment 6, which simply seeks to increase to 200% the amount of extra council tax that can be levied on an empty property. We all agree that we want to bring long-term empty properties back into use, and these amendments would give local authorities the discretion to use these powers.
Having said that, I very much like Amendment 5, moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock; it provides for an escalator, which I think works very well. The longer a property was empty, the more you would potentially pay, and that could be a good incentive to get people to bring their empty property back into use. I also like Amendment 7, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, which would take account of whether people had spent money on their property to make it more energy efficient. The increase would be discounted or reduced to take account of that, and that seems a very sensible thing to do. Amendment 10 is just a tidying-up amendment.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, that these are interesting ideas. Perhaps if we could all get together and have a discussion and we brought something back on Report, the Government might support it. I think that there is something here that could improve the Bill dramatically.
The Earl of Lytton
My Lords, I have some mixed feelings about the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock. In my own mind, I cannot quite get my head round whether this is to be a charge to discourage long-term empty properties as defined in the Bill or, in effect, an escalating fine. It seems to me that the two are slightly different.
At Second Reading, I highlighted the fact that there is a general lack of information about the reasons for long-term vacancy, and the high probability is that it varies quite a lot from one area to another. For instance, in some former industrial cities, whole streets of Victorian housing may have lain empty for some time because no one wants to occupy them.
On the definition of “empty dwelling”, it is a moot point, as far as I can see, as to the ease or difficulty of chasing the sums of money involved, as is the likelihood or otherwise of the “empty dwelling” label simply evaporating. I think that I may have used the example of an itinerant with a van load of cheap second-hand furniture going around populating odd properties that might otherwise be subject to this. The point is made not entirely in jest, because there is no plumbing the ingenuity of people who wish to avoid some impost or other.
Another point is that there is a reputational risk if one is not careful here. I seem to remember that, not very long ago, one local authority was said to be investigating the contents of people’s refuse bins, and I would hate to think of local government being again painted into that sort of scenario. One needs to be careful to ensure that there is a justifiable reason for an escalator.
If we are talking about what is in effect a fine, there would need to be a clear and justified framework as to how that would apply, possibly with provision for making an appeal against the charge. Now, I am not clear what happens about appeals against things like this. I am clear what happens with an appeal against one’s business rate assessment, and I am clear what happens with an appeal against a council tax banding. What I am not clear about is, where something like this comes in by dint of this type of legislation, if someone thinks that it has been unfairly applied, where do they go? I hope that a noble Lord, or a noble Baroness, with better knowledge than I have will tell me what the situation is.
I rather took to Amendment 7 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stunell. As we heard at Second Reading, there can be a number of different reasons why vacancy and long-term empty property status can apply. I think of the minimum energy standards regulations which came into force only a couple of months ago, making it impossible to let a property with an EPC of less than E. I think of the many hard-to-insulate properties—those Victorian properties with nine inch solid walls or suspended floors, where it is difficult to get insulation to the required standard.
In essence, the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, is right: there is often a local need to take a differential approach. I would appreciate the Minister saying how differential he thinks that that needs to be, or can be: whether it is endless or will be circumscribed in some way. I think of areas I know well in national parks, where you occasionally come across properties that are long-term empty, but also in former industrial cities, to which I referred. One needs to be careful about that. I do not have a solution, but I simply flag up those issues for further consideration.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have participated in the debate. I am most grateful to those noble Lords and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, who tabled the amendments on the level of the empty homes premium, as they allow us to discuss the factors we have to consider in deciding the maximum charge on empty homes in setting the framework for local authorities. I reiterate that, once we have set the framework, this is a discretionary measure for local authorities: something we are giving local authorities discretion to administer, according to their local needs and personalised or very localised factors affecting particular properties.
I think we all agree that there is a clear case for increasing the cap on the premium that applies to long-term empty properties. The noble Lord, Lord Stunell, gave distinguished service in the coalition Government—I think in my current role—and rightly referred to the importance of the issue. We have borne down on it. My noble friend Lord Patten, who is not in his place, referred at Second Reading to how the number has reduced—we have squeezed it very effectively—but there is still more to do.
The debate is about the level to which we should take this charge and the circumstances in which it should apply. These are the difficult judgments we face. We propose through the Bill that owners of long-term empty homes should see their council tax bills double. This is a major step in allowing local authorities to incentivise such owners to bring their homes back into productive use.
One amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, would mean that owners of empty homes would be paying triple the level of council tax payable on occupied homes within two years, or within one year if his other amendment were to be enacted. In fairness, that is from the Labour Party manifesto. Perhaps it is all the more surprising that nothing happened in the other place on the Bill: no amendment was proposed, still less debated. That said, it is something we should discuss.
Under the amendments supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, and the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, properties empty for between five and 10 years could face premiums of up to 200%, and those empty for more than 10 years could be subject to 300% premiums. I of course understand the rationale behind the amendments, and as homes are remaining empty for longer and longer, the logic of that is obvious: the figure goes up after five years and after 10 years. In addition, empty properties can be a nuisance to local residents, and potentially sites of crime or squatting. I share the concern about the need for robust measures to tackle what may become, and often are, blots on the landscape, to the benefit of those seeking a place to live as well as of local communities as a whole. I think we all understand that.
Baroness Pinnock
I thank everybody for contributing to this debate. The escalator idea was a bit of a shot in the dark and it has generated some useful comments. I am grateful to the Minister for responding relatively positively to the idea.
I absolutely support the energy performance amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Stunell. It is a pity that the Minister thinks that it will be too difficult to pursue further. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, for his supportive comments.
The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, said this was complex. He asked whether the escalator is a penalty and whether the 300% premium that I have proposed for very long-term empty properties goes too far. Right from the outset, it can be viewed as a penalty, because it is not related to service provision or the rateable value or banding of your house in the way that other council tax is. In that sense, it is a penalty—or it could be seen as an incentive because we are trying to bring more empty homes back into use.
Other methods have been tried—I referred to the empty dwelling management orders—and have not been successful in bringing empty homes back into use. There is a scourge of long-term empty properties across the country. My gut feeling is that local residents would support an escalator on the grounds that very long-term empty homes are a blight on their community. I have them where I live. There is such a property at the end of a terrace of homes. Everything is overgrown, with grass and trees beginning to grow out of the gutters. It has not been used for years. Nobody seems to know where the owner is. There is a problem that we ought to try to address, because from local residents’ point of view it is not just the blight on their community but the fact that they are seeing their usually much-loved green spaces built on to provide the homes this country needs, when at the same time they can see properties that have been empty and nobody seems to be able to do anything about it. Any measure that will provide greater incentives for owners to bring those dwellings back into use would be generally supported by council tax payers.
I think I have covered all the issues that have been raised. I thank the Minister for saying this is worth considering. As I said at the beginning, this was a bit of a shot in the dark. Let us have a think about an escalator rather than a set time limit, because the longer homes are empty, the worse they become for people who live around them. There should be a penalty in order to get some action to bring such dwellings back into use, so that people can live in them and the community in which other people live is not blighted in that way.
Given all that, and the fact that we are in Committee, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
“( ) In section 11B of LGFA 1992 (higher amount for long-term empty dwellings: England), in subsection (8) (definition of a long-term empty dwelling), for “2 years” substitute “1 year”.”
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
My Lords, this amendment, which has already been referred to, seeks to change the length of time specified in the definition of a long-term empty property from two years to one. As with the amendments in the previous group, it is an attempt to improve the situation by reducing the number of empty properties and get more properties back into use by incentivising owners. It is in that vein that I move this amendment. In short, this probing amendment seeks to halve the amount of time required before a property can be considered a long-term empty dwelling.
The amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Bird, who is not in his place, is grouped with mine. It is an interesting amendment because it requires local authorities to determine what constitutes a long-term empty property in their areas. Perhaps we can return to it on Report when the noble Lord is, I hope, in his place. I beg to move.
The Earl of Listowel (CB)
My Lords, I missed most of the earlier debate and the commencement of this one but I have two or three questions that the Minister might be able to help me with now or, if not, to write to me about. My questions arise after listening earlier to my noble friend Lord Lytton. I know of men, for instance, who care for their mothers who are getting frail and elderly, and I can imagine a man in a rather unattractive rental area in the north who has a property which he vacates so that he can live with his mother and look after her. It is all a bit too much to manage as money is short and there is not much demand by people wanting to use that property. I would not want someone like that to have to pay a fine. Local authorities are very tough on those who do not pay their council tax. I imagine that that may well have been dealt with in earlier debates, and I am sorry that I could not be here for those. However, that is an example of something that might happen.
I guess that this discussion brings up the question of how we make the private rented sector attractive so that there are not areas in the north of England where it is difficult to find people to rent properties.
Baroness Pinnock
I am just a bit concerned that we seem to think that all these problems are in the north of England, where I live. I would rather that we were all a bit more careful about how we describe the north of England. There are some wonderful places there in which to live and, like everywhere else, including this great city of London, there are some not so pleasant places in which to live. I hope that noble Lords do not mind me saying that we should not always use the north as an example of an area where there are difficult places to live.
The Earl of Listowel
I thank the noble Baroness for her intervention and I very much take note of what she says. I will try to be a bit more careful. There are certain places in this country where it is more difficult to let private property, and that is what I might have said.
What comes out of the debate is the question of how we make private rented property more attractive in those areas where it can be difficult to let. This might be a bit off the board but, as there are not enough properties to buy, it seems very important that rental property is made a more attractive option. I believe that the Government had been thinking of introducing new tenure arrangements so that tenants could have a minimum of three years’ security of tenure. If the Minister can say what progress there has been on that, or perhaps write to me with the information, I shall welcome hearing from him.
It also occurs to me that the private rented sector might benefit from some sort of arm’s-length body to oversee security of tenure and fair rents so that the winds of politics do not intervene in the market too much, making long-term investment unattractive and putting people off becoming tenants. That is another issue on which I would be interested to hear from the Minister, and, again, he might like to write to me about that rather than respond now. The Government are introducing an ombudsman with responsibilities in these areas, and people might have recourse to him or her if they experience unfair treatment. Perhaps the Minister can respond on that as well.
Finally, I might not have declared my interest as a landlord, as listed in the register.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
I thank noble Lords very much for their contributions. I appreciate that the noble Lord, Lord Bird, is not in his place at present but he lobbed in a hand grenade, as it were, before departing the scene. I appreciate the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, and will try to address some of the suggestions from the noble Lord, Lord Bird. He is always worth listening to on this area in particular, but he always has some innovative ideas.
I am grateful to noble Lords for raising the question of how the legislation will apply. The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, is suggesting a one-year vacancy. I am also grateful for the cross-party support that we have received in both Houses for the measure that we are bringing forward, and I appreciate the points about possible refinements.
We are not seeking to alter the circumstances in which the premium is applied. Ninety per cent of local authorities applied a premium in 2017-18, and we are not aware of widespread concern that the two-year period is inappropriate. I feel that one year might be far too short a period in many circumstances. There are some exceptions where the premium does not apply, one of which is people going into social care, which the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, raised. However, situations that are not exceptions include that of people who might be adapting a property and trying to sell it. I fear that in those circumstances a year would be too short a period, and I have no doubt that there are other situations where that would be the case as well.
I understand the rationale for decreasing the qualifying period at a time of great concern about empty properties, but I remind the House that we have squeezed the number of empty properties down to a low level—a level that it has not been at for a long time, if at all. We have to make a judgment about how long the timeframe should be. I know from correspondence that the department has received that some home owners take longer than expected to sell or rent out their properties in a challenging local market. In such circumstances, retaining the two-year qualifying period therefore strikes the right balance. I understand the point that the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, made about his desire to strengthen the incentive.
The amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bird, would allow councils to decrease or increase the qualifying period as they see fit. Local authorities would be given complete freedom to remove the requirement that a property be substantially unfurnished in order to be considered empty. I am happy to address those points. Although we should support giving councils as much discretion as is reasonable, the noble Lord’s amendment could lead to a confusing situation where the property, depending on where it is located, could attract premiums after just a few months or after quite a few years.
The principle of specifying that an empty property is one which is substantially unfurnished is well understood, and we will come on to amendments addressing that issue later. The risk of the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Bird, is that it would give local authorities an open door to extend that definition to types of properties that are not genuinely empty. Premiums could be applied to furnished properties that are periodically occupied either because they are someone’s second home or a job-related home or simply because the owner is away on holiday. I know there are views about second homes and properties that might be considered to be underoccupied, but this legislation is about long-term empty properties, which is a different matter. The design of the system already provides the right balance of flexibility for local authorities.
On the points raised by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, about the impact of these provisions, I remind the House that local authorities have a discretion they can apply either in relation to excluding properties along the energy-efficiency line suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, or in terms of something highly personalised which relates to a particular property and the person in it. That is why it is best left to the local level to determine this issue.
The noble Earl also asked about the private rented sector and three-year leases. We are committed to dealing with this issue, which has strong support from the sector, and we are making progress. He will be aware that the private rented sector has grown significantly, and continues to grow. We are putting in place a framework that will apply in a reasonable way, with tenant fees proposals—which we will be looking at shortly—and that addresses the control of deposits, requires client money protection and so on. I will cover that in the normal write-round letter that I will issue to pick up the points made by the noble Earl.
With the comments I have made about how we are not persuaded of the need to alter the minimum period from two years to one year or anything below two years, I urge the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this short debate. I am happy to withdraw my amendment at this stage. This amendment and those in the previous group were designed to explore whether we have got this right. I may wish to come back to these amendments—particularly those in the previous group—on Report, but I am happy to withdraw this amendment given what I have heard from the noble Lord.
Baroness Pinnock
“Definition of long-term empty dwelling
In section 11B of the LGFA 1992 (higher amount for long-term empty dwellings: England), after subsection (8) insert—“( ) The Secretary of State must by regulations provide guidance to billing authorities on how to determine whether a dwelling is “unoccupied” or “substantially unfurnished”, under subsection (8).””
Baroness Pinnock
My Lords, this amendment seeks definitions of the terms “unoccupied” and “substantially unfurnished” dwellings. On the face of it, the descriptions pose no difficulties of interpretation—but in practice that is far from the position. Is a dwelling unoccupied if it is used for, say, all but two or three weekends in a year? Does that usage enable the property to be classified as, for instance, a second home? What does “unoccupied” mean? Under the Bill there would be a significant financial cost to the owner if the dwelling is deemed to be unoccupied—one that a homeowner might well challenge if there is no clarity as to the definition.
There is a similar fog around the meaning of “substantially unfurnished”. There must have been calls for clarity from the local government sector, because in September 2014 the DCLG, as it then was, sent a letter to local authorities headed:
“Council Tax Information Letter: Council Tax—Definitions of Empty Homes and Second Homes”.
In my view, the letter does little to clarify the definitions. It states, unhelpfully, that it,
“outlines the current situation and the Department’s informal view on these matters”.
In other words, the descriptions provided have no basis and are open to challenge. For instance, it states:
“There is a misconception that the premium”—
on council tax—
“is easy to avoid by simply placing some furniture into a property. We do not have evidence that this is the case. ‘Substantially unfurnished’ is not defined in council tax legislation, but is used for the purposes of the empty homes discount regime and the empty homes premium”.
So it says that, while there is no evidence that people are putting furniture into property, “substantially unfurnished” is not defined. I am seeking a definition. If these penalties or premiums on council tax are to be raised significantly, local authorities require further guidance on what “substantially unfurnished” means.
The letter further states:
“Local authorities will have formed their own views on the definitions”—
which of course may result in a multitude of definitions of “substantially unfurnished”, and that could lead in turn to disputes. I quote again from the letter:
“A property which is substantially unfurnished is unlikely to be occupied or be capable of occupation. A property which is capable of occupation can reasonably be expected to contain some, if not all, items from both of the following categories: furniture such as bed, chairs, table, wardrobe or sofa, and white goods such as fridge, freezer or cooker”.
Noble Lords will recognise that properties which are left unoccupied often contain such items as are listed, as they are nowhere near as valuable as they once were and so are not worth removing.
The letter goes on to explain further checks that can be made. For instance, it suggests that,
“it will be reasonable for the local authority to cross-check with the electoral roll, or ask for evidence, such as utility bills showing usage of services, driving licence as proof of address, or receipts or other proof of moving costs”.
Of course, that means that the owner can be traced—but in my experience of properties in the neighbourhood where I live, certainly long-term empty properties, that is often not the case. I am sure that the Minister knows that many property owners now live abroad and are difficult to contact. Certainly, my experience of the electoral roll is that it is not a sure test of occupancy in either direction.
In our view, the Government have a responsibility through regulations to provide guidance to billing authorities on how to determine whether a dwelling is unoccupied or substantially unfurnished. The financial cost to an owner of a dwelling that has been classed as unoccupied could be significant, so natural justice demands that local authorities have that legal guidance. Failure to provide such guidance may result in local authorities not using the powers provided for in the Bill, for fear of a legal challenge and the inability to get the supporting evidence. This would undermine the whole purpose of the Bill, the direction of which I support: namely, to try to get empty homes back into use by families, whether in the relatively short term or the very long term, and to cut the need for the building of even more homes on greenfield or green-belt land. I beg to move.
Lord Shipley
My Lords, this part of the Bill is about empty dwellings. My noble friend Lady Pinnock asked some important questions about the meaning of “unoccupied” and “substantially unfurnished”. I want to address a crucial, related issue: second homes that are substantially, although not completely, unoccupied. The Minister may be aware of a parliamentary petition to close the loophole that allows second home owners to pay business rates rather than council tax. The petition states:
“In England, second home owners can avoid council tax by claiming to be a business if they say they are available for letting for 140 days a year—they do not have to actually let at all. As their rateable value is below £12k, they also qualify for 100% small business rate relief—so pay nothing”.
In Southwold on the Suffolk coast, where many houses are second homes, research by Liberal Democrat colleagues suggests that this loophole may cost the local council about £500,000 a year in lost revenue. Crucially, second home owners in England only have to say that their properties are available for letting to qualify as a business, even if they are not actually let.
However, in Wales—the Minister will know that many good ideas come out of Wales—it is a requirement that any house designated as a business, rather than being liable for council tax, must be let for a minimum of 70 days. In one sense, that number is comparatively low, amounting to just over two months a year. However, it is a very important figure because it effectively prevents a second home owner avoiding paying council tax by registering the house as a business and then falling below the small business threshold.
In discussion on the Bill, the Member of Parliament for Totnes, Sarah Wollaston, asked:
“Will the Minister also use this opportunity to ensure that those who own second homes are contributing their fair share through council tax, and that they are not able to sidestep that by opting to pay business rates and then claiming eligibility for small business rate relief?”
Dominic Raab, the Minister of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, replied:
“We have also made changes on holiday homes in the context of council tax and stamp duty. We will keep the point she raises under due consideration”.—[Official Report, Commons, 23/4/18; col. 649.]
Indeed, the Government have done that, but I hope that they will review this issue in much greater detail because the impact of both the reforms I mentioned—council tax and stamp duty—has been limited. I also hope that, when the Minister said that the Government would give it due consideration, it was not an attempt to push the issue into the long grass, but rather an acknowledgement that the department is indeed giving it due consideration.
Returning to Suffolk for a moment, I want to pay tribute to the work of local campaigners there for what they have undertaken so far. The Suffolk coastal communities embrace some of the largest proportions of second home owners in the United Kingdom. This impacts on the cohesion of these communities and pushes up house prices, reducing the available housing stock for local people.
I want to acknowledge that many second home owners do pay council tax. They can contribute to community life and they might hold a property as part of their future retirement plans to live in the area. However, business rates relief exists to help struggling businesses, not second home owners. Will the Government look at this issue in much closer detail and order an urgent review of the whole system? It is not that I am against second home owners: I am not against them. However, it does seem to be unfair that people who can afford two homes are subsidised by people who cannot afford to own one home.
Lord Deben (Con)
My Lords, I support the comments that have just been made. As the former Member of Parliament for Suffolk Coastal and as someone of whom, if you asked him where he really lived, the answer would be in Suffolk—although not coastal Suffolk—I am the owner of a second home. It is a situation in which I am happy to pay my council tax in full, as I do in on my small flat in London. That is how we operate, and I think that is right. One just has to recognise that there are circumstances in which people have to work in one place and live in another, and that is absolutely acceptable.
I emphasise the point about the coastal communities of Suffolk, which I represented for so long. I saw the change; it was fascinating. Southwold was but latterly added to my former constituency—as they moved me closer and closer to the sea, people said that they were trying to tell me something. It has very largely become a place of second homes, and so has Aldeburgh and, increasingly, many other villages round about. It is a real problem for community cohesion; I understand that, having committed myself to the view that people should be allowed to have—and very often need—a second home. However, I do not support the idea that people can avoid their proper contribution to the community by using what has elegantly been referred to as a loophole. It is worse than that, because they are telling a direct lie. They are not running a business; they have no intention of running a business. They are trying to get the business rate and then not to pay it because they have the small business special arrangement. Of course, however, you can be a small business even if you do not let anything. It is not difficult. We could all be a small business if making nothing were the purpose of being a small business. With my family, I own and run small businesses, but we intend to make a profit, otherwise there is not much point in us doing it. However, to run a small business in order not to make a profit and to get the profit from the community is entirely unacceptable.
I want to make some difficult comments. I have now been in one or the other House of Parliament for a very long time. It does not matter which Government are in power—or which mixture, as sometimes it is a coalition—when they want to avoid dealing with something, they always promise the most careful consideration and the most urgent assessment of the real issues that may well arise. They warn that there may be other unintended consequences, meaning that one should not move too quickly. Sometimes they suggest that, although they have looked at it, they have not found quite the right answer, but the House can be assured that such an answer will be found, but not yet. I say to my noble friend, whom I respect enormously, as he knows—I have told him so from time to time—that Wales is right on this. Wales is right on quite a number of things in the climate change committee. I have to remind the United Kingdom Government how much better in some things Wales and Scotland are at moving on climate change. It is not surprising that Wales is right on this.
We have to deal with this for a reason that is not just about equity—although that is very important—or the resources of Suffolk Coastal District Council; I do not have to declare an interest there because I live in the Mid Suffolk District Council area. That reason is social cohesion, in the sense that it annoys, upsets and very often angers people that their neighbours are not paying what they are paying for local services. I do not think it is acceptable or reasonable and it seems something very simple to change. All we have to do is what the Welsh have done. It would be jolly nice to acknowledge that the Welsh got there first and that we in the rest of the United Kingdom are following suit.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
My Lords, briefly, I endorse the comments made in the debate so far, particularly those from the noble Lord, Lord Deben. He is absolutely right. Suffolk is a beautiful part of the world. I know that as well as him; I spend a fair bit of time down there. It is a wonderful place. He is absolutely right that people should not be allowed to pretend to have businesses and to take advantage of these things to avoid paying what they are supposed to pay to provide for local services. That is completely wrong. I hope that when the Minister responds to the debate he can give us some comfort that the Government will look at this. It is totally out of order. If someone lives in an area they should contribute to the services provided by the local authority.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
I thank noble Lords very much indeed for what has been an interesting and diverting debate on this amendment. I will seek to deal with all the points that have been made. I will deal with the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, relating to the definitions of “unoccupied” and “substantially unfurnished”; then I will seek to deal with the issues relating to second homes brought up by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, reinforced by my noble friend Lord Deben and briefly addressed by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy.
The definitions are clearly important to the successful operation of the premium. Indeed, they are already important to its successful operation because it already uses these terms. It is something that more than 90% of local authorities are already doing. In so far as I can see, none of them is having difficulty interpreting these terms. If anyone can come forward with some issue they feel needs addressing I would be very happy to look at it. It is of course right that local authorities must understand the meaning of these terms and that they are applied consistently across England, as I said on an earlier group of amendments. I certainly share that view.
It might assist noble Lords if I explained a little about these terms. I do not want to repeat what the noble Baroness said about the information letter of 2014, although the more she said the more I felt that we have covered these points. You cannot produce a 100% reliable definition by saying how many cups and saucers you can have left in a cupboard or how many forks and spoons can be in the drawer. To say that these furniture items would normally be there—a bed, chairs, a table, a wardrobe, a sofa, and white goods such as a fridge, freezer or a cooker—is as good as it gets for guidance.
I think that the noble Baroness said at one stage that it was not always possible to have utility bills and that some people were overseas and so on. If that is the case, it will be very difficult for them to reinforce the fact that the property is being used. That is the whole point: these people might seek to have their property as occupied so that they do not have to pay the empty home premium. If they cannot establish it, because they are overseas or so on, that seems absolutely correct. As I say, I am very happy to engage with the noble Baroness and others to look at this issue if they can bring forward evidence that local authorities are having particular difficulties with this. However, in the light of the letter and in the light of case law, I do not think that this is an issue.
Lord Shipley
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Deben, explained what could happen. It is not complicated to do; the question at issue is probably simply whether the law in Wales is working effectively. At 70 days proof of letting, that ought to be easy to demonstrate, because evidence will have to be produced. I hope that the Government will speak urgently to the Welsh Government and assess what evidence they have, and, as a consequence of that, possibly organise a meeting of all parties involved in this issue to see whether legislation could be introduced in both Houses which would help to solve this problem. To help this along, I plan to table a set of Written Questions later this week, because securing an even better evidence base than we have at the moment would be helpful. This is not a problem just of east Suffolk, parts of Cornwall and one or two other places. I think it is quite a general problem now, or at least it seems to be, in many parts of the country which are attractive holiday areas.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
I thank the noble Lord very much for putting down lots of Questions: my officials will be doing cartwheels at the news. However, there is a serious point behind what he is putting forward and I absolutely accept that this is a national issue. Our officials will certainly be speaking, if they have not already—I suspect they may have done—to Welsh and Scottish officials to see what is being done there. We are taking it urgently. I will cover this in more detail in a letter: it is certainly very much on the radar though I had not expected that it would come up in this context—and I should have. I will make sure that we get some more detail in the letter and I thank noble Lords for raising this. I realise now that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, who is not in his place, raised a similar issue in Questions today. I could not quite understand what he was getting at but I understand now and I apologise to him. We will make sure that he gets the letter as well.
Given that, and the fact that I and my department take this seriously, I ask the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Pinnock
I thank everybody for a really interesting and stimulating debate. My noble friend Lord Shipley raised some issues. I am glad that my proposal has gained support because this affects all areas of the country that have large numbers of second homes, including in the north—the Lake District, for instance. We have all noted the new definition of “seriously considered”. I look forward to this being seriously considered.
I brought the definition of “unoccupied” and “substantially unfurnished” to the attention of the Committee because, with the rise in the premium, it is more likely that there will be challenges from owners that their homes are furnished and all the rest of it. Therefore, it would be helpful to local authorities to have more definite clarity on this, rather than an information letter. I think that could be achieved. I know that from time to time the department sends guidance notes to local authorities, which have greater import than information letters. That would give them something to fall back on if they are challenged, as I think may well happen. Those are the reasons for my endeavours this afternoon but I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
“Impact of the charging of a higher amount for long-term empty dwellings
(1) Within 24 months of the date on which this Act is passed, a Minister of the Crown must undertake a review of the impact of the provisions contained within section 2.(2) The Minister of the Crown must lay the review before both Houses of Parliament.”
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
My Lords, the previous couple of debates have highlighted why this amendment is needed. We have talked about the effects of the Bill—although it is a small Bill—particularly with regard to council tax payers and empty properties. I think it is worth having in the Bill a clause that enables the Government to review—my amendment suggests within 24 months—what has happened in respect of Clause 2 and the impacts of the decision. My amendment also requires that after the review a report is laid before Parliament.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock and Lady Thornhill, have tabled a very similar amendment. Subsection (2) of their new proposed new clause suggests that,
“the Minister may also consider the impact of any penalties imposed on persons for failing to register their dwelling as empty”.
I am happy to support that as well. Considering the debates we have had on the previous groups, having a mechanism whereby the Government can look at the effects of the Bill, small though it is, is a good thing to do. I beg to move.
Baroness Thornhill (LD)
My Lords, I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I fully support the words of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy. I thank the Minister for the very detailed and informative letter he sent all of us after Second Reading; in particular, his response to my comments on fiscal incentives and deterrents with regard to empty homes. I really appreciated that and took on board what he said. Perhaps he will indulge me by allowing me to hang on to the one measure that he did not elaborate on—that is, the matter of penalties.
It is probably little known that councils actually have the ability to levy a civic penalty on an owner for not informing councils that their home is empty. It is not surprising that it is little known; the maximum penalty for doing so is actually £70, so it is no surprise that it is rarely, if ever, used, and that the general public are oblivious to it. In fact, I suspect that if we talked to the general public we would find they believed that by informing the council that their home was empty they would actually pay less or no council tax, so that shows that we have a long way to go. As the average council tax, the band D monthly payment, is now around £165 a month, a penalty of £70 is nothing—it is neither a penalty nor a deterrent. So this is a small matter but I feel that the two should have been taken together. If we are going to, justifiably and rightly, hike up council tax premiums, the penalty that goes with not informing the council should send the same level of message—£70 is, frankly, derisory.
I see both these measures—the penalty and the increased premiums—as really important in motivating councils to move this up their agenda. I say this with a degree of experience in local government, particularly in district councils where this is not a priority, largely because of costs. At Second Reading we heard a lot about powers not being used because of costs, but I think that together these two things would encourage councils to publicise the need to not leave homes empty, and to make it a publicly unacceptable issue so that people would be enraged by it and want us to do something about it. If there were to be a review, would we also review penalties in this regard, as I feel that it would be a missed opportunity if we did not? I beg to move.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, for their contributions on this group of amendments that relate to how we seek to address the penalty point just covered by the noble Baroness and the issue of the review, which was raised by the noble Lord.
The amendments would require the Government to review the impact of the increase in the maximum permitted level of the empty homes premium. I pause briefly to say that I think I am going to organise a list of all the things that the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, has asked us to do reviews on. I know that he very often says that we have so many things out for review and then we have a critique of that, but we have had a couple of issues today at least where he has asked for reviews. I am only teasing.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
I am very happy that the department does this. My issue with the reviews is that the Government never come to a conclusion.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
I think the noble Lord’s issue has been that there are so many of them that there is a bit of a logjam. Anyway, we could perhaps debate that on some other occasion.
The amendment tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock and Lady Thornhill, would also require the Minister to determine whether the review should also consider the impact of any penalties on council tax payers who fail to tell their local authority that their property is empty. The review would need to be undertaken within two years of the legislation being enacted, with a report laid before both Houses of Parliament.
I am afraid that the Government are unable to accept the amendments. First, the Government are clear that the use of the premium and the consideration of its impact and enforcement are best undertaken by local authorities. As I have said, we are giving a discretion to local authorities; some local authorities do not apply the premium at all while others apply it in its totality. We have provided local government with complete discretion on whether to introduce the premium. Noble Lords will recognise that local government has been running the empty homes premium now since 2013, with a steady year-on-year growth in the number of councils making use of the power. Fewer than 30 councils have no premium in place at all. That gives a very clear indication that councils across the country consider this to be a useful power to drive behavioural change in owners of long-term empty properties.
In considering the Bill’s proposal to increase the maximum level of the premium from 50% to 100%, I have been struck by the widespread support from across the House—admittedly with variations, but there has been support for that increase. There is clear confidence that this is a sensible step to take. Given that, I am not persuaded that we should introduce uncertainty into the process by committing the Government to a review within two years. That could be perceived as demonstrating a lack of faith in the measure which, of course, is not the case.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
I am very happy with that explanation from the noble Lord and very happy to withdraw my amendment.
Upskirting
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat in the form of a Statement the Answer given by my honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice to an Urgent Question in another place. The Statement is as follows:
“I am very pleased to have this opportunity to respond to the Urgent Question asked by the honourable Member for Bath because she and Gina Martin have campaigned tirelessly for upskirting to become a criminal offence. I am delighted to have met both of them on a number of occasions to discuss how we can progress this important legislation, and to have worked with them to support the honourable Lady’s Private Member’s Bill—the Voyeurism (Offences) Bill. I welcome Gina Martin to the House today. We will continue to build on their efforts to ensure that this activity becomes a criminal offence because upskirting is an invasion of privacy, and a humiliating and distressing experience. The Lord Chancellor and I were disappointed when the Private Member’s Bill did not make progress on Friday.
Although there are existing offences that can be used to punish upskirting in some circumstances, there is a gap in the law. The offences of outraging public decency or voyeurism may be used to capture upskirting. However, the public order offence is limited, as the offence needs to take place in a public place and two people need to be present. Conversely, the voyeurism offence needs to be a private act and must take place in a place where one would expect privacy. There may be activities, such as photographs taken in schools, that are not caught by either provision. This law will close that loophole, and ensure there is no doubt that this activity is criminal and will not be tolerated. For the most serious sexual offences, we will ensure that the offender is also placed on the sex offenders register.
Upskirting is an invasion of privacy that leaves victims feeling humiliated, so we will bring legislation before the House, in government time, to ensure that this practice becomes an offence. We will introduce the Bill in the House of Commons on Thursday, with a Second Reading before the recess. The leadership of the honourable Member for Bath and the outstanding campaign of Gina Martin have shown how it is possible for individuals to make a difference. I am looking forward to working with colleagues from across the House to progress this matter and make upskirting an offence”.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
My Lords, I am incredibly grateful to the Minister for that Statement and for her prompt and unequivocal assurance that the embarrassment inflicted on this Palace in recent days will be corrected without delay. Does she agree that, far from being a constitutional outrage, Private Members’ Bills can perform a vital function, especially in areas of broad cross-party agreement, particularly in relation to positive human rights? The Executive need not have the complete monopoly in instigating progressive legislation. Does she also agree that our feminism is to be judged by deeds, not words—not only statues but statutes protecting all women’s bodily integrity and dignity?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
My Lords, this statute actually protects all men and women and their bodily dignity, as it includes kilt upskirting, which I only recently became aware of. The two Houses have different PMB systems. It is not for me to comment on the processes of the other place, but from my point of view the system can work very well. I am working on the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill and the Parental Bereavement (Leave and Pay) Bill. These are extremely important measures and it will be good to get them on the statute book.
Baroness Barker (LD)
My Lords, Private Member’s Bills are, by their nature, about narrow issues of intense concern to a small number of people and to minorities. It is therefore particularly galling to watch the behaviour of a few privileged—largely white—men who seem to treat the shooting down of Private Members’ Bills as some kind of sport. I hope that, like me, and like the majority of members of the Conservative Party in another place, the Minister will ask her colleagues to reflect on that behaviour. What procedure will the Government now use to reintroduce this Bill, which we all agree is important? How will they protect what is proposed from further intervention by those who would seek to frustrate this business?
Will the Minister also undertake to discuss the draft legislation with the Opposition Front Bench? If this measure is to reach the statute book quickly—and we are all agreed that it should—it is important that it does not become a vehicle to which there might be attached a whole load of related matters. It should be a small, defined measure on which we can command broad, if not total, agreement.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
I think the vast majority of people in my party condemned the actions of that individual last Friday, and it is certainly not reflective of the way that our party wants to be seen in terms of these important issues.
We will publish the Bill on Thursday, in the House of Commons, and it will be substantially similar—the noble Baroness will notice—to Wera Hobhouse’s Bill. It will go through as a government Bill and, as such, will have full engagement with all the Opposition Front Benches. Indeed, there will also be Back-Bench meetings so that noble Lords can learn as much as possible about the Bill, so that we can get it through our House as quickly as possible and in as appropriate a state as possible.
Lord Dykes (CB)
My Lords, there is no collective view on the Cross Benches on any matters at all, by definition, but I am sure that in speaking from the Cross Benches I will be speaking for other individual Members in saying a warm word of thanks to the Government for their powerful initiative in responding to the most unfortunate set-back to the Private Member’s Bill on Friday last and for the Government’s apparent determination to bring in proper legislation. We thank the Minister very much for that and for repeating the Statement from the Commons.
I just want to mention one thing, and that is the total depravity of this practice. I do not think that that is too strong a phrase, because although it may be regarded as a bit of a joke among some late teenagers or whatever—though I am not sure about the evidence on that—this awful insult to women and humiliation of women really does need drastic action. I am very glad that it appears that the Bill the Government will introduce will be couched or constructed in very strong terms to avoid what is often the sad result of legislation, which is the creation of new doubts, objections and exceptions.
Also, can the Minister enlighten the House whether there are any indications that, unfortunately, because of the perverted publicity about this awful behaviour, there may have been an increase in the number of such incidents? That often happens when bad things happen and they are relayed through the press.
Finally, having listened to the wise words of the Liberal Democrat spokesman, and speaking with some psychological authority, having been in the House of Commons for 27 years, may I ask the Minister whether the Government could not, at long last, look at this absurd practice on Fridays whereby just one person can shout out “Object”—as Sir Christopher Chope did, who is not known for his wisdom and good practice, I am afraid, as an MP of many years’ standing? Is it not time that that was got rid of? That could be done easily, because there would be huge support, I am sure, in the House of Commons if that was destroyed. Will the Minister try to look at that longer-term problem as well?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, for his kind words. I think it showed extraordinary leadership by the Prime Minister over the weekend to take this issue by the scruff of the neck and to lead on it.
On Private Members’ Bills procedure in general, that is for the House of Commons to structure and is not really for the Government, but of course we will do what we can, working with the Commons, on improving the procedures.
On the other questions that the noble Lord raised, I completely agree with him that it is absolutely not a joke. Upskirting is and can be a serious sexual offence. For that reason, the Government have taken the Wera Hobhouse Bill and have added to it notification so that, for the most serious sexual offences, offenders will need to go on to the sexual offenders register. It will mirror the existing voyeurism offences.
Lord Beecham (Lab)
My Lords, I join others in congratulating the Government on their rapid response to the fiasco of last Friday. Is the intention to include in the Bill provision to make it an offence to disseminate pictures of that kind through social and other media? If it is not—it may very well be—perhaps she will undertake to look at that issue.
The Answer refers to activities such as photographs taken in schools. Will the Government look to develop with the Department for Education an approach for ensuring that students at schools are firmly informed that such behaviour is unacceptable but also that those who may be the victims of such activity in schools are given support?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Beecham. Dissemination of images would fall outside the scope of the Bill, but we are looking into the role of technology in distributing images—upskirting or, indeed, any images. That is a much broader issue that must be considered.
I am sure that the noble Lord is aware that most—probably all—schools teach children about the rights and wrongs of using modern technology and what to do with it. We have to be extraordinarily careful that we do not unnecessarily criminalise children in the Bill, which I hope will be enacted. The police will take a similar approach to cases of sexting, where Outcome 21 is used: the crime is recorded but no action is taken, so that the children are not criminalised but can learn from their poor behaviour.
Drugs Licensing
(6 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, with the leave of the House I will now repeat a Statement made by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary in another place today. The Statement is as follows:
“With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a Statement on the medical use of cannabis.
Over the weekend I issued an emergency licence to allow Billy Caldwell’s medical team to access cannabis-based medicine to treat life-threatening seizures caused by a severe form of epilepsy. This was an emergency procedure that was led by a senior clinician with the support of the medical director at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. I am pleased to say that Billy has now been discharged from hospital. It is now for his senior clinicians to develop a long-term care plan.
I am sure that the whole House will join me in expressing my sympathy for Billy and his family, who have been going through a very difficult time. The course of action in this case was unprecedented. There is strong scientific evidence that cannabis is a drug which can harm people’s mental and physical health and damage communities. There are currently no legally recognised medicinal or therapeutic benefits. To date, under successive Governments, Home Office policy has been to permit the production, supply and possession of raw cannabis solely for research purposes under a Home Office licence. The cannabis-based medicine Sativex can, however, be prescribed in the UK because there is a proven case for its safety and efficacy.
However, cases like Billy’s, Alfie Dingley’s and others like them have shown that we need to look more closely at the use of cannabis-based medicine in healthcare in the UK, because it has become clear to me since becoming Home Secretary that the position we find ourselves in currently is not satisfactory. It is not satisfactory for the parents, it is not satisfactory for the doctors and it is not satisfactory for me.
I have now come to the conclusion that this is the right time to review the scheduling of cannabis. Before I go into the detail of the review, let me be absolutely clear that this step is in no way the first step in the legalisation of cannabis for recreational use. The Government have absolutely no plans to legalise cannabis, and the penalties for unauthorised supply and possession will remain unchanged. We will not set a dangerous precedent or weaken our ability to keep dangerous drugs off the streets.
The approach that we will be asking the review to consider would be no different from that being used for other controlled drugs where there is evidence of medicinal benefits. The government review will take place in two parts. Part 1 of the commission will consider the evidence available for the medicinal and therapeutic benefits of cannabis-based medicines. Professor Sally Davies, who also serves as the Chief Medical Officer, will take this part forward. This will then inform exactly which forms of cannabis or cannabis-based medicines should be taken forward to Part 2.
Part 2 will be led by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. The ACMD will not reassess the evidence issued by Professor Sally Davies but will provide an assessment, based on the balance of harms and public health needs, of what, if anything, should be rescheduled. If the review identifies that there are significant medical benefits, we will reschedule. We have seen in recent months that there is a pressing need to allow those who might benefit from cannabis-based products to access them. It will take time for Professor Sally Davies and the ACMD to complete their work and for the Government to consider their recommendations.
In the short term, the Policing Minister announced yesterday that the Government will be establishing an expert panel of clinicians to advise Ministers on any applications to prescribe cannabis-based medicines. This is intended to ensure that advice to Ministers on licensing in these cases is clinically led, is based firmly on medical evidence and is as swift as possible. The Chief Medical Officers across the UK have been actively working together, and the expert panel will be able to start considering applications within a week.
Earlier today, the Policing Minister also spoke to Alfie Dingley’s mum, Hannah Deacon, and informed her that we will issue a licence for Alfie today. All the work I have outlined today is about making sure that we keep in step with the latest scientific evidence and that patients and their families have access to the most appropriate course of medical treatment. I pay tribute to the Policing Minister for all his excellent and sustained work on this important issue.
As a father, I know that there is nothing worse than seeing your child suffer. You would do anything to take away their pain. That is why I have the utmost sympathy for Billy Caldwell, Alfie Dingley and others like them, and for their parents, who have been under unimaginable stress and strain. I know that they are following a gut parental instinct to do whatever is in their power to try to alleviate their child’s suffering. Today I would like to say to this House that I will do everything in my power to make sure that we have a system that works so that these children and these parents get access to the best medical treatment. I commend this Statement to the House”.
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
Lord Rosser (Lab)
I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement made earlier in the House of Commons, and endorse the views expressed in it of sympathy for Billy Caldwell, Alfie Dingley and others like them, and for their parents, who, as the Statement says, have been under unimaginable stress and strain.
With yesterday’s Urgent Question in the other place on the medical use of a cannabis-based medicine uprated to today’s Statement on drugs licensing, this appears to be another example of the Government making decisions on the hoof, in a flap and in response to embarrassing media stories, rather than being a proactive Government who make measured, fully thought-through proposals to address developing issues before they hit the national headlines. Despite this, we still welcome the Home Secretary’s statement that the Government will look more closely at the use of cannabis-based medication in healthcare in the UK, and that they will review the scheduling of cannabis. As the Minister said, what started this off was the case of a 12 year-old boy suffering from severe epilepsy, whose cannabis-based medication was confiscated on arrival at Heathrow from Canada—a decision now modified by the Home Secretary. It contains THC, the primary psychoactive constituent of cannabis, which is illegal in this country but not in a number of other countries, including Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and much of America.
Yesterday, the Government said that the Chief Medical Officer for England had been asked to establish a panel to advise on an individual-case basis on when medicinal cannabis-based products should be prescribed. How many such cases per month do the Government anticipate the panel having to adjudicate on and advise, and against what criteria will that advice be given? What fresh instructions have been issued to officials over allowing through or confiscating cannabis oil and other medicinal cannabis products as from now at our borders and entry points in the light of the Billy Caldwell case? Through what procedure and process will an individual case reach the expert panel? How many instances have there been during the past 12 months of cannabis oil needed for medical use being confiscated at our borders and entry points, and how many of those cases were reviewed by the then Home Secretary, and with what result, under the powers which have apparently just been used by the current Home Secretary? What is the Government’s estimate of the time it will take for the two-stage review just announced by them to conclude its work?
The Statement says:
“If the review identifies that there are significant medical benefits, we will reschedule”.
In other words, the Government do not yet know whether there are such significant benefits. In which case, against what criteria or evidence will the expert panel of clinicians being set up to advise Ministers on any individual applications to prescribe cannabis-based medicines—based firmly on the medical evidence, as the Statement says—make its judgments? I ask that because the Government believe that a two-stage commission is needed to decide whether there is even a case for any change on scheduling in the light of the available evidence.
I come back to the Statement and the words:
“If the review identifies that there are significant medical benefits, we will reschedule”.
Would that apply if the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs came to the conclusion that there were also significant harms from rescheduling, which is what the ACMD is apparently being asked to consider under stage 2?
Finally, a recent report in Private Eye, under the heading “Pot and Kettle” and referring to the Alfie Dingley case as does the Statement, stated:
“A UN report this month found that the UK is in fact the largest producer of legal cannabis in the world—responsible for almost half the global total … As … the drug reform think tank Transform, said: ‘The government is denying that cannabis has medical uses but at the same time licensing production of the world’s biggest medical cannabis production and export market”.
Is that report correct?
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, I, too, welcome the Statement and thank the Minister for making it. I thank her also for her efforts in this cause and those of her noble friend Lord O’Shaughnessy, who is in his place. I welcome the fact that Professor Sally Davies will now review the mountain of evidence for the medicinal and therapeutic benefit of cannabis-based medicines. She will undoubtedly find that the fact that there are no legally recognised benefits is quite wrong and must change. By what means will Professor Davies hear evidence from the many patients who already know about the benefits? Their doctors know the benefits, too. If she does not already, I am quite sure that Professor Davies will soon know them as well.
I also welcome the fact that the Government will reschedule cannabis when Professor Davies demonstrates those benefits. It should never have been scheduled as a drug without any medical benefits in the first place. Can the Minister estimate how long this process will take, as thousands of patients await the outcome in pain and discomfort?
While we wait for this to be done, it is very welcome that the Government have set up an expert panel to advise Ministers on any applications to prescribe cannabis medicines. It is outrageous that the Dingley family’s heroic doctors should have been put through the wringer by the inappropriate processes which the Home Office has imposed on them during the past four months.
I cannot say how delighted I am that Alfie Dingley and Billy Caldwell will get their medicines at last. However, it should not have taken four months since the Prime Minister promised Alfie’s mother, Hannah Deacon, when she visited No. 10 with me and a group of Peers and MPs, that her son would get a licence for his cannabis medicines on compassionate grounds and speedily. During that four-month period Home Office officials were trying, mistakenly, to operate a system for licensing which was not intended for such cases but was intended for normal clinical trials. It became clear very quickly that the system they were trying to use was not fit for purpose, yet they persisted. I would like to be assured that a system that is fit for purpose will be put in place. Will the Minister give me that assurance? It should not have taken a child, Billy Caldwell, being put in a life-threatening situation for the Government to take this action but I am delighted that they now have.
During the campaign I have been convinced of the Minister’s good faith in this matter but, frankly, although she is always welcome in her place, it should be a Health Minister standing there at the Dispatch Box. I am delighted to see the noble Lord, Lord O’Shaughnessy, in his place listening to this debate. Drug licensing is a health matter, not a Home Office matter and clearly the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care agrees with that, so how will the Department of Health and Social Care be involved in the new arrangements outlined in the Statement and those that will inevitably follow?
Yesterday the Prime Minister said a system is already in place for the medicinal use of cannabis and that government policy would be driven by “what clinicians are saying”. The system has failed thousands of patients, but it is good news that the Government are now trying to put that right, and I thank the Minister for that. Can she say whether expert evidence from countries such as the Netherlands, where cannabis medicines have been safely used for some time, will be heard during the review?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I did not do it yesterday, but I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, back to his place. It is such a pleasure to be debating with him. The first question he asked me was about whether we are doing this on the hoof given the Alfie Dingley case. We are not. One of the noble Lord’s further questions was about why it took so long between Alfie Dingley’s family coming forward and him being issued with a licence today. That is because the correct process was followed. Noble Lords would expect the correct process to be followed. The reverse of this is that a child gets given the wrong drug and becomes very ill. The correct process was followed here. The Home Office and the Department of Health and Social Care have worked extensively together over the past three months to ensure that Alfie has been well cared for, and the licence for his drugs was issued today.
The noble Lord asked how many people would be on the panel. I cannot say. It was announced today, and numbers and people will be announced in the coming week. He asked about the criteria the panel will use for who will be issued with drugs. I assume that there will be clinical experts on the panel and that they will base their criteria on their clinical judgment of the benefits.
On stuff being confiscated, I hope that people do not present at the border with drugs that are not yet licensed, and will come forward to the panel for consideration and for drugs to be issued if that is appropriate. The noble Lord asked how long the review will take. Cannabis is a very complex substance, as noble Lords probably know. It will be a complex review, but the Home Secretary expects an interim report to him within three months.
The noble Lord asked about the expert panel and the advice that it will give. Again, the proper process will be followed. It will be a scientific process with clinical judgment at its heart. He also made the Private Eye point about the UK being the largest producer of cannabis. I do not think that the Government are saying that there are no benefits to be had from cannabis; they are saying that cannabis as a whole plant is currently classified as a Schedule 1 drug, as we have discussed previously. However, as we have seen, constituent parts of it have huge benefits, particularly in the areas of MS and, now, epilepsy.
The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, asked for details of the review. We are working through those. I certainly know, because my noble friend has just told me, that Sally Davies will be carrying out a literature review. There are findings from across the world. Much work has been done on this and that will be very informative.
The noble Baroness also made the point about the Dingley family being put through the wringer. Again, it was important that the proper process was followed, and it was. A licence application needed to be made. It was made and I am very pleased to say that Alfie Dingley’s licence was issued today. She asked for an assurance that a system fit for purpose will be put in place. The answer to that is firmly yes: the system has to have longevity. This has been a very big and important step for the Government today.
Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)
My Lords, the noble Baroness has listened sympathetically to representations in this area in the past, and that has been much appreciated. Does she accept that the issue of cannabis-based medication for children with severe epilepsy, which has aroused intense sympathy and concern on the part of the public, should be part of a wider review? Does she agree that that review should look at the substantial body of existing evidence that cannabis-based medication might have significant and, in some cases, unique benefits for people suffering from cancer, multiple sclerosis, Tourette’s syndrome, chronic severe pain and other distressing conditions?
Will the noble Baroness recognise that the Government’s position on rescheduling that she has described creates something of a Catch-22 situation? The categorisation of cannabis as a Schedule 1 drug of no medicinal value has, in the past, proved to be a considerable impediment to the advancement of research. Therefore, will the Government straightaway reschedule cannabis to Schedule 4 in order to unblock the barrier to research? May we take it that the involvement of Professor Dame Sally Davies that she described is indeed the prelude to the transfer of lead responsibility from the Home Office to the Department of Health?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
Of course, Sally Davies will be advising on the review. The scheduling of cannabis will be looked at with a fresh pair of eyes, being mindful of the international research on this subject. In talking about the benefits of cannabis-based medication for epilepsy and multiple sclerosis and as pain relief in some forms of terminal illness, the noble Lord has precisely laid out the point of the review. It will look at all the benefits to be gained in all areas of medical consideration, but it will be clinically and scientifically led. As I said, I think that today the Home Secretary has prompted a first in the consideration of cannabis and its medical benefits.
Lord Winston (Lab)
My Lords, perhaps I may take odds with my noble friend Lord Rosser on the Front Bench because there are times occasionally when members of the Opposition should congratulate the Government on what they are doing. This is a good decision which is urgently needed. To be fair to the Government, 20 years ago I chaired the Science and Technology Select Committee when we had an inquiry into the medicinal purposes of cannabis and, before our report was even published, the then Home Secretary in a Labour Government refused to take any notice of what we had said and published his comments in the newspapers. So we are making progress here.
It is good to see that the noble Lord, Lord O’Shaughnessy, is also on the Front Bench with the Minister because this is an important issue which the Department of Health should also consider. I am glad that there is joined-up government in this consideration.
Given my experience from that committee, it might be worth while looking at our original report, which is still relevant. The people that we saw again and again who were suffering from these terrible conditions were absolutely clear that they did not want to get high. They were all suffering from spasms and other problems and wanted relief of their serious symptoms. That can be regulated through the medical profession because, after all, sensible medical practitioners have access to all kinds of drugs which, if used wrongly, are dangerous.
I hope the Government will continue with their plans and that the review will not take an age to complete.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I thank the noble Lord for his words of congratulation. The history that he tells is interesting. Successive Governments have not done this and today is an historic day in the advancement of a substance that may prove to have huge benefits for all kinds of conditions. I worked with sufferers of multiple sclerosis for 10 years and the use of cannabis-derived products—and now Sativex—helped to ameliorate some of their spasms. They did not want to get high; they just wanted to stop the spasms that happened day and night.
I recommend that we look at the original report because I bet there will be a bit of déjà vu when we do. I thank the noble Lord for his comments and his sound advice.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, it would be appropriate to draw a parallel with opium. The fact is that heroin—a derivative of opium—is a dangerous and addictive illegal drug, whereas morphine has a medical use derived from opium. Here we are talking about the medical derivatives of cannabis—which it would be helpful to move to a different schedule—and not about the legalisation of recreational use.
The Statement says that there are currently no legally recognised medicinal or therapeutic benefits, but it also says that the Home Secretary has issued an emergency licence to allow Billy Caldwell’s medical team to access cannabis based on medicine to treat life-threatening seizures caused by a severe form of epilepsy. As a consequence, Billy has now been discharged from hospital. Can the Minister explain why the clear medicinal and therapeutic benefits of cannabis are not legally recognised?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
The noble Lord underlines precisely why we are where we are today. Clearly, for those two little boys it has had obvious benefits and—once the doctors and the clinicians who are treating them are satisfied that those benefits of the cannabis-based medicine are real and that without them they would go back to their previous suffering—that entirely underlines why this review is well worth doing.
The noble Lord is right to make the point about opium, which of course is schedule 2—which states that it has medical benefits—but is class A in terms of control. Cannabis is schedule 1 but class B. He is also right that this review is well overdue and I look forward to some of the work that will be done over the coming months. It will take time because cannabis is a complex drug and it is important that the proper process is followed and sound clinical judgments are arrived at.
Viscount Ridley (Con)
My Lords, further to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, and having taken a little advice from the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, can I ask the Minister whether the Government will review not only the schedule but also the regulations to ensure quality standards so as to set out the conditions for which prescriptions should be made available? Does she recognise that if cannabis is widely prescribed, it could save the NHS billions of pounds? Will she also look at the report on this subject prepared for the APPG by Professor Michael Barnes which collates a great deal of evidence on this topic?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My noble friend has read out the question of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, very well. I knew that there was mischief going on behind me. The answer to those questions is yes.
Lord Judd (Lab)
My Lords, I feel that we should certainly put on the record our appreciation of the steps the Government are taking. I declare an interest in this because for some time my daughter and her partner worked with drug addicts. They would never leave me in peace on the issue of how soon we could move to an understanding in our society that drugs are primarily a health issue, not a crime issue. They used to berate me about the amount of resources used for anti-criminal activity and how they could have been deployed so effectively in positive work, not least education in and around the subject.
I should like also to put on the record our deep appreciation of the courage of the parents and families who are standing by these two boys, but I hope that we are now beginning a process which will have its own self-generating logic within it so that we can reach a more enlightened and effective—that is the important word—policy on drugs and their use in medical treatment.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
As my right honourable friend the Home Secretary said today, this is not about the recreational use of cannabis. This is entirely about making medicines available to very sick children as well as adults, should they need them. We are not going into the pros and cons of the recreational use of drugs because this is an entirely separate matter. I take on board what the noble Lord has said, but I think he will appreciate that I will not go there today.
Bee Population
(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to encourage a recovery in the population of bees and other pollinators.
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
My Lords, I begin by thanking noble Lords who are supporting this debate and I look forward very much to hearing their contributions. In many ways, the debate is a perfect antidote to the divisive EU withdrawal Bill, being on a subject that will affect us and future generations long after the world has forgotten what the initials “EU” even stood for.
I confess that I was generally pretty ignorant about bees and pollinators until around a year ago when a remarkable young woman, Polly Birch, who had such a passionate commitment to spreading the word about their importance, reminded me and many others about just how much we rely on them and how their numbers are in decline. This debate is timely as the Private Member’s Bill tabled by Ben Bradley MP to make provision for the protection of pollinators started its passage through the other place on 8 May.
I have only now discovered that bees are the second most written about species after man. There is even a whole body of law relating to honey bees, most of which has its basis in Roman law. A swarm still belongs to you even when it has left its hive, as long as you can still see it, and allegedly one may trespass on a neighbour’s land in order to retrieve it. Somewhere in my consciousness was the threat repeated last week by David Attenborough that should bees disappear from the face of the earth, man would have only,
“four years left to live”.
The quote is wrongly attributed to Einstein, but it is the sort of thing that he might have said. We probably would not starve because wind is a good pollinator, but there is no doubt that our diet would become very dull and getting our five-a-day would be very tricky.
This Government and the coalition before them have already done a great deal to encourage the habitats of the 1,500 or so species of insect pollinators that we have in this country. Although we may think of bees as the primary pollinators—there are 250 different varieties of them, 35 of which are currently in danger of extinction—we also have hoverflies, butterflies, beetles, moths and even bats. Most of these live in the wild, with the exception of the headline-grabbing honey bee. The NFU estimates the economic value of their pollination services at £690 million per annum but they also support a small but thriving industry of some 250 bee farmers, as well as thousands of amateur beekeepers.
The report also highlighted progress in a number of areas including habitat creation, public engagement and the protection of honey bee health, all as a result of many different sections of the community—not just the bee farming industry and the farming community, but schools, universities, charities such as the National Trust, Buglife, BeeConnected and the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, and central and local government—working collaboratively. Productive beehives at Defra’s offices in London and York now produce Defra honey, as do hives on the roofs of Fortnums, Coutts and the Garrick Club.
Funding has also been provided for a range of primary research projects covering everything from genetic sequencing and the taxonomy of insect pollinators to the relationship between pollinators and pollination services in crop production. I know that the Bee Farmers Association hopes that more funds will be directed to the National Bee Unit in the Food and Environment Research Agency once the Green Paper on nature and harmony is published.
Despite all this, bees and a variety of pollinators are in decline. Clearly, much more can be done, not only by government but by us all. Let us stray into the area that is most likely to cause controversy—the use of insecticides—which I am sure will be covered in more depth by my noble friend Lord Ridley. Integrated pest management is central to this Government’s approach. The objective is to reduce the overall use of pesticides by using them in a more targeted way, to reduce resistance, and supplementing them with improved crop husbandry and the use of natural predators.
The EU recently banned the use of neonicotinoids on all field crops, not just those that are attractive to bees, as had been the case since 2013. Neonics are a group of insecticides that have been linked to a sharp reduction in bee numbers. Environmental groups welcomed this move but, interestingly, the Bee Farmers Association was agnostic about the ban. Perhaps we should be cautious. Bees in Australia, a large user of neonics, do not appear to be adversely affected and the research by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre on which this policy was based concluded that the ban may be counterproductive. It has resulted in an increased use of more damaging pesticides, mainly pyrethroids, which are sprayed rather than seed-treated; that is worse for non-pests. The study found that UK farmers have more than quadrupled the number of insecticide applications on oilseed rape but pest pressure has still increased. The JRC report has not been made public and although I urge the Government to ensure that the regulation of pesticides continues after we leave the EU, it needs to be developed on the basis of independent and verifiable scientific research.
An undeniable cause of the declining number of pollinators has been the destruction of their habitat. Over 97% of all flower-rich grasslands have been lost in England since the 1930s, whether through transport, infrastructure, modern farming methods or housebuilding. The habitats that exist have become particularly fragmented; the southern margins of their distribution are shrinking northward, while the northern margins are static. Buglife, a charity that works closely with the Government on strategy, has developed the award-winning concept of “B-Lines”, a series of insect pathways running through our towns and countryside. Along them stretch a series of wildflower-rich stepping stones, linking existing wildlife areas into a network. Much work is being undertaken to identify areas suitable for grassland habitat restoration and creation. The proposed Bill will encourage local authorities to include such considerations in area plans since the creation of a channelled pattern of habitats is the most effective way of promoting species dispersal.
Since there is a need to restore pollinator-friendly habitats, and to establish wildflower recovery areas, this could perhaps link with the aim to replace the countryside stewardship payments from the CAP with a scheme that will incentivise farmers to look after the environment. Perhaps it could also be tailored in such a way that it favours pollinators and the bee farming industry, as is the case already in Germany.
We, the public, whether city or country dwellers, can all play our part by growing a range of bee-friendly plants that will provide pollen and nectar for all pollinators. I suggest that we avoid rhododendron ponticum, whose nectar is toxic to bees, and the silver lime—Tilia tomentosa—which uses caffeine to trick bees into visiting empty flowers, whereupon many die of starvation. Moreover, although farmers and bees alike love oilseed rape, I am told that it is not ideal for honey production.
There is so much to say about bees, and I shall end by sharing what I have learned from noble Lords who have passed by my desk in the Library over the past week or so. Bees measure distance by the way the hairs on their backs flatten as they fly from the hive; they prefer trumpet-shaped flowers; they are colour-specific and will not go from a blue flower to a red one to a yellow, and they dance on the hive to direct their fellows to nectar-rich areas. And my favourite fact: it was one of St David’s missionaries who introduced bees to Ireland in the sixth century.
Lastly, there is also, perhaps, much to be learned from the way bees organise themselves. The cleric and philosopher Samuel Purchas, in his Theatre of Political Flying Insects, written in 1625, observed:
“Bees are political creatures, and destinate all their actions to one common end; they have one common habitation, one common work; all work for all, and one common care … ”.
That is not a bad dictum for this House.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist, for securing this debate. I am in awe of the research that she has carried out for this debate. She confessed to me a few months ago that she did not know quite what was in her mind when she put her name down for this debate: she did not seem to know very much about bees, but she certainly may have more than made up for it in the last little bit. I will have to go around my garden eradicating rhododendron ponticum, which I have just planted in large numbers. I had no idea that it produced poisonous honey for my bees. I am also looking forward to contributions from other noble Lords.
We have been building up to a bee event on a biannual basis since I joined the House eight years ago. In fact, I decided that my maiden speech was going to be on bees—that is the arrogance one has when one first comes into this House—and then, of course, I discovered that that did not actually mean that there was going to be a debate ready for me to speak in. I had to adapt what I wanted to say to a rather esoteric discussion about special education, although I was rescued by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, who very kindly saw what I was trying to get at and came to my rescue and said some nice things about my speech. It is best forgotten.
I should declare, of course, that I am a beekeeper myself, although in truth I am a bit nervous about that name “beekeeper” since it implies some sort of role that I certainly do not have in relation to my bees. Bees are independent: they may well be on one purpose and a model for one aspect of this House, but they certainly do not do what I want them to do. I think that they keep me, rather than that I keep them and I am very nervous about them. I have a very good breed at the moment, however—they come from Buckfast Abbey, but I do not think that that means anything about their religious behaviour, although their Irish connection is very strong—and they are a joy to work, or were a joy to work until I moved them two years ago, whereupon they turned vicious. I have been stung so badly in the last couple of years that I was almost at the point of giving it up, but I went back there last weekend in view of this debate and went through them comb by comb, the sort of thing that only a very dedicated beekeeper can do. I did not get stung and had a wonderful time and they are thriving. I am delighted to report that to your Lordships’ House, and I am sure they will want to have some honey when it comes later in the year.
My neighbours in West Cork, though, have not been so lucky. That area was very badly hit by the storms. Storm Ophelia made landfall about a mile from where we have a house and a number of local farmers and others who have bees have lost a huge number of hives and most of their stock over this period. Indeed, I have been trying to find a nucleus to build up my bee collection but I have not been able to find anybody who has anything for sale this year. I just have to hope that a swarm appears in the next few weeks, although it is very late in the season for that.
There are 25,000 to 30,000 beekeepers in this country, a significant number of people. It is interesting, however, that we have a very different model of industry here compared to the rest of Europe. In most of Europe beekeeping is carried out by professional beekeepers and bee farmers. We have a slightly different situation compared with the EU as a whole, but it is broadly the same pattern: we do not produce nearly enough honey to meet our demands. Just think of the savings we could make if we could generate more activity around beekeeping and more of our own honey.
It is a very strange industry. There are a few industrial producers in this country—I think the figures were given by the noble Baroness—and a very large number of amateur keepers like me. Their numbers have grown in the last two years. Indeed, we have seen a surge of interest in urban beekeeping, as I think has been referenced. It is good to hear that the drones of the Garrick Club have a hive on their roof. I hope that they are more liberal with their use of the honey from the women who are doing all the work there than they are with their guests. I will pass on quickly from that.
As has been said, honey bees are a very important part of our agriculture: some £650 million per annum. But the survey that was recently carried out by the BBKA—the British Beekeepers Association—shows that the amount of honey per hive has decreased again this year, down some 10% from last year. We are worried about the number of hives, mainly because of the bad weather, as I said. Taken with the weather, we have to think about pests and diseases, loss of habitat, and possible pesticide effects, all of which have been mentioned. It is a very interesting and complex matrix. I look forward to the Minister’s comments when he responds. I do not expect him to wave a magic wand over the weather—I will forgive him that—but it is worth pointing out that the sort of climate we are experiencing at the moment is very bad for bees. They can cope with cold and are not too bad in snow, but they do not do wind and rain because it gets into the hives and they cannot get rid of it. It is really problematic for them when we have the sort of weather we are having in this period.
On health, there are still real problems with how we deal with our bees and how we provide effective medicine. The Varroa mite, which was the subject of a lot of discussion in the previous bee debate, has not increased very significantly. It seems that we are able to cope with it, but we cannot treat for the foulbroods, which are difficult to eradicate. There is a disease called nosema, which is likely to become more prevalent because the medicines used for it have been withdrawn.
The questions I have for the Minister are first on neonicotinoids, or neonics, which is easier to say. The Government are to be congratulated on their decision. At the time of the previous debate there was some doubt about whether the Government would follow the evidence, but it is very good that they have done so. The evidence was very convincing. I accept that there are problems about switching to other insecticides, but we should do what we can. Although the Government’s decision is welcome there is still a problem because these chemicals are not completely banned. They can be used to treat sugar beet and seed for winter cereals. I would be grateful if the Minister could tell us whether any further work is being done on that and whether there will be action should the evidence prove it to be necessary.
Agricultural production has a significant impact on bees by affecting the quality and diversity of habitat within the landscape. I hope the Minister will say something about what the Government can do to provide more support for those who wish to make fields a little more readily accessible for bees and pollinators. Is there any research they can do about what type of pollination is the most helpful? For example, it is widely thought that tomatoes are fertilised by bees, but in fact it is bumble bees that do that job. It is done by vibration, not transmission through the pollen. It is important that we better understand what goes on when pollination takes place.
Agri-environment schemes have great potential and I hope there will be some news on them. More generally, habitats around the country need to be thought about as not just passive areas of land, but important forage and nesting resources for bees. Could the Government think about ways to strengthen protection for the sites by designating more with priority habitats of bees, perhaps reforming the environmental impact assessment regulations and improving cross-policy co-ordination to deliver stronger benefits for bees over the whole landscape?
There is a link here to planning. Maybe the planning system should also be looked at carefully to see whether it has sufficient protection for bees and their habitats. At the moment we think only in terms of houses and infrastructure, but surely it is important to make sure that we have the right approach in law to how we deal with the insects that we rely on. Some bees are recognised as national conservation priorities but, as a group, bees have received very little formal monitoring and conservation effort. I hope that the biodiversity strategy and the other work being done on long-term thinking in the department will allow bees to feature. I read the documents that are available at the moment, but they do not seem to mention bees in particular. I look forward to the comments of the Minister.
Finally, I talked about the workforce involved in bees. It is largely amateur and elderly, I fear, although there is a growth in the number of younger people who work with candles and other artefacts that come from bees. Are the Government thinking of creating a statutory beekeeper register, which might at least give us some fix on what the issue is? Are there any schemes, such as apprenticeships, that might be available in this area? Perhaps the Minister would think about that.
Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)
My Lords, first I warmly congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, on her very informative and excellent introduction. It is wonderful that she has such an appropriate name for this debate. She outlined really well that it is a toxic mix of habitat loss, parasites and pesticides that is affecting our bee population. The only thing to be said for the drastic reduction in some of the numbers is that it has motivated government and the public—and, indeed, industry, the farmers—into doing far more to counteract whatever it is that is affecting bees so adversely. Because it is a toxic mix, it has been very complex to establish which part of that mix, whether it is the pesticides, the habitat loss or the parasites, is responsible for the decline in which species.
The thing that continues to slightly confuse our debate is the terminology. We use the term “bees” when we mean honey bees, but we also use the term generically, as the noble Baroness said. There are 250 species of bee in the UK: 25 are bumblebees, one is the honey bee, and there are 224 species of solitary bees. Of course, the solitary bees are equally important in pollination and they have suffered something like a 50-year decline in diversity. Undoubtedly, a lot of that is due to habitat loss. Particular bees focus on particular plants, and I say to the Minister that it is important to bear this in mind when developing wildlife corridors. Wild flowers, as he knows, are not just generic. We sometimes find in seed packets in garden centres that just say “Wild Flowers”, but specific plants grow in specific geologies and at particular altitudes.
I think it is widely accepted that bees are declining—but, in fact, according to the last House of Commons research, 7.7% of species were said to be declining, 12.6% were stable and 0.7% were increasing, yet we know nothing about 79% of these bee species because the research has not been done yet. I particularly welcome the fact there is going to be research across the EU, known as PoshBee—it was mentioned on “Farming Today” this morning—looking at exactly what is affecting all these various pollinators. I congratulate the Government on endorsing the proposal to ban the outdoor use of the three sorts of neonics. Research is undoubtedly very important. We have organisations in this country, such as the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology and the Natural Environment Research Council, all applying their minds to it.
I hope and expect that when the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, comes to speak, he will be a bit less excoriating than he has been in the past about green groups and a bit less defensive of neonicotinoids, because the fact is that research proves that there are a lot of unknowns in this area—so it is quite right that these questions are asked. I know it makes for lively reading on his blog to be dismissive of many pieces of research that have been done, but I think that probably, as somebody who has done so much work in the area of science, and exploring it, he can accept that there is a lot still to be explored in this area.
I welcome the fact that there is going to be a new Bill on a national network of pollinator corridors. We definitely need species-rich wildflower habitats. I am sure that many noble Lords speaking in this debate will have read The Moth Snowstorm by Michael McCarthy, in which he makes the very good point that we really need to engage our natural wish to nurture nature and our natural propensity to take joy in nature. That will be far more motivating to people than sustainable development policies. I am not dismissing the policies, because there is a need for government action and policies, but there is a huge need for public motivation.
For example, we could say that it is not just pesticides but herbicides that are a threat to pollinators. Weed killing can take out all sorts of the food elements that a bee will depend on. There is also the close mowing of lawns, because clover in a lawn is a rich source of nectar, as are dandelions and thistles. I am worried about the herbicides which wipe out every bit of food that a pollinator might hope to find. Lawns made of Astroturf are the final straw: they will not provide anything for any pollinator. So there is lots of action that the public can take. I have seen many designs of bee hotels, which are really interesting. I am looking forward to building one over the summer out of pellets, old flowerpots and so on.
When it comes to farmers, there is also much going on that we can welcome. The Crop Protection Association sent a helpful briefing on its BeeConnected scheme, which talks about how the responsible farmer or grower will be obliged to tell beekeepers when they are going to spray. That is a great step forward that will allow beekeepers to take the necessary precautions—what about the 249 other species that are not looked after by a beekeeper? They will be out and about, soaking up the pesticide. That is an issue on which I hope the Government and industry will work together and will think about.
In vineyards, which I know a bit about as I have one, pyrethrum use is allowed under the organic regime but it is actually more toxic than many of the modern mite-focused sprays. Again, organic regulations need to be looked at to make sure that they are as up to date and pollinator-friendly as possible.
Finally, I ask the Minister for some clarification about protection for local wildlife sites, which will be really important in this pollinator corridor work. Protection status was called into question under the new planning policy framework. When I asked a Question on this—HL7636—the Answer said that the Housing Minister had written to all Peers and MPs clarifying protections for local wildlife sites. Well, I have not had a letter. Perhaps other noble Lords have. Perhaps the Minister can say that he will make this letter publicly available and clarify that the Government do not intend to change planning protection for local wildlife sites.
Viscount Ridley (Con)
My Lords, like others, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Bloomfield on securing this debate and join her in paying tribute to the Hymenoptera and other pollinators. I declare my interest as the owner of a farm. Actually, this is a bit of a humble brag of a declaration because I am proud of having created, at my own expense, the largest new wildflower meadow in the north-east of England—about 50 acres. Last week it was a riot of honey bees, bumble bees, solitary bees, hoverflies and butterflies, feasting on vetch, trefoil, daisies, buttercups and other flowers. It was indeed, as the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, said, a blooming field. There you go.
Our farm and others that I know have also started creating flower-rich margins around arable fields as part of high-level stewardship schemes. That is my first point: farmers are doing a lot for pollinators these days, certainly much more than they once did. That is a huge change from 10 years ago, and one on which we can surely build.
Yet we are told that bees especially are in peril and that farmers are, at least in part, the cause of that peril. Is this true? Let us start with honey bees. Globally, there have never been more hives of honey bees; there are about 90 million in the world compared with about 60 million 50 years ago. In Europe and the UK, too, we are near to a record number of hives. There are of course continuing problems with Varroa mites, as the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, said, and Nosema and other pests, but there is no evidence of a decline in honey bees. It is true that there was colony collapse disorder 12 years ago, mostly in the United States, but it was a brief episode and is now reckoned to have been something to do with diseases or pests, not farming.
Presumably, that is why the opponents of neonicotinoids stopped talking about honey bees a few years ago and started talking more about wild bees. But where is the evidence that any decline in wild bees is recent or related to pesticides rather than to land management and habitat change? One recent study found that wild bees declined significantly before 1990 because of agricultural intensification but that the decline has since ceased or possibly reversed. I quote from that paper:
“these negative trends became substantially less accentuated during recent decades, being partially reversed for certain taxa (e.g. bees in Great Britain and Netherlands)”.
Even the 2016 Centre for Ecology and Hydrology modelling study by Woodcock et al showed that the most prolific crop pollinators among wild bees, which are the bumble bees, are not declining and some are increasing.
I am sure the Minister is aware of an important study published in Nature in 2015 that was conducted by 58 researchers across five continents. It found that,
“the species that are the dominant crop pollinators are the most widespread and abundant species in agricultural landscapes in general”.
It found that only about 2% of wild bee species are responsible for 80% of the crop pollination performed by wild bees. These are of course the wild bees that would come most into contact with neonicotinoid pesticides, yet the study finds that these 2% of species are actually ones that are thriving. Is the Minister also aware that leaf-cutter bees, which should be especially vulnerable to neonics because they eat leaves and because they are non-social, are thriving in neonic-treated canola fields in North America? Indeed they are used as commercial pollinators in western Canada.
I turn to the neonicotinoid issue. Neonicotinoids can kill bees; of course they can. They are insecticides—the clue is in the name—so lab studies showing that they can kill or harm bees are beside the point. Every farming system, as the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, said, uses pesticides, even organic systems—neem oil, nicotine, spinosad, pyrethrin and copper sulphate are all used on organic farms. So it is a question of which insecticides do the least harm to non-target insects such as bees. Here, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, said, neonicotinoids have one advantage over their main alternative, pyrethroids: they are almost always used as seed dressings, not sprays, so only an insect that eats the plant gets poisoned. When I raised some of these points with an official from Defra, I was told that the persistence of neonics in the soil is a new worry that we have to take into account. However, I have researched the literature and can find no evidence to support that point, so I would be grateful if the Minister could enlighten me on it. Is he also aware that some 18 major field studies and nine review articles published over 10 years have overwhelmingly shown that under realistic conditions neonicotinoids have no effect on honey bees at the hive level, and that the EU’s bee guidance document was effectively constructed so that tier 3 field studies, which show no negative effects at the hive level, have been discounted or dismissed?
On my own farm we stopped using insecticide sprays almost entirely after the introduction of neonicotinoid seed dressings. We also stopped using slug pellets because, again, neonics are good for protection against slugs. We may now have to go back to using both to prevent slug damage and to prevent barley yellow dwarf virus, which is spread by aphids. If so, we will be using pyrethroids, which are probably worse. Even the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety—ANSES—says that of the 130 uses for neonics, 89% will be replaced by other pesticides, often pyrethroids. It said that it,
“has not been possible to identify substances or families of chemical substances that generally have a less unfavourable risk profile than neonicotinoids”.
In other words, the replacements will all be worse than the environment. So please will my noble friend the Minister promise that a proper unbiased study is done to check whether the ban on neonics makes things better or worse for bees? As the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, said, we just do not know the answer to that.
Of course, the environmental movement would prefer that we used fewer insecticides altogether—and so would I—so why on earth does it still oppose the introduction of genetically modified crops? That is the one proven way in which to farm with fewer insecticides and still produce competitive yields. Twenty-five years of increasing GMO use all around the world has shown that they unambiguously and undeniably reduce insecticide use. Wherever the Bt GMO technology has been applied, in maize, cotton, soybean and canola, it results in less insecticide use. We now know that we made a huge mistake in listening to the greens on this issue; they shot themselves and us in the foot. Had we developed insect-resistant GMO wheat, by now we would be using far fewer insecticides in the British countryside. Why are not the Government saying that out loud? Why is not Buglife saying it out loud? Why is not the organic movement saying this?
Since others have done so, I end with a little bee story. I was sitting on a river bank about a month ago and noticed that there was a very big colony of solitary mining bees digging holes in the bank. I lay down and watched them for a happy hour in the sunshine; then I noticed that there were also some very pretty little wasps hanging around—like ordinary wasps, except smaller and with red legs and red antennae. They were not digging their own holes but just hanging around the mining bee holes. I went back and looked them up and found that it was not a wasp but a bee called the nomad cuckoo bee. It sneaks in when the mining bee is not looking and lays an egg which eats the mining bee baby and then takes over the hole. I do not know what lesson I am drawing from that for your Lordships’ House—none, I hope.
Lord Marland (Con)
My Lords, I must confess that a smile plays on my lips as we are about to enjoy this debate with Brexit raging around our ears, and we discuss the most calming and generous of insects. I congratulate my noble friend on tabling the debate. It is also appropriate that we should be discussing this in National Insect Week, which was opened yesterday by the Royal Horticultural Society. So well done to my noble friend—very good timing and top of the class, as you always were at school, of course.
Over the last 10 years or more, I have been a keen but not always diligent beekeeper. As someone who is not noted for his patience, beekeeping is for me a life lesson in how to control one’s impatience and intolerance. Some people say that my best look is when I am behind the visor of my beekeeping unit. It all started when I suffered from hay fever and was told that, if you eat your own honey, you do not suffer any more. How true that was—it immediately vanished when I produced my first crop. I am a proud garden owner and part-time gardener, and the work of bees and cross-pollination of my plants has had a splendiferous effect on my garden, for which I appreciate their presence.
For those of us at the moment who are, shall we say, tense with Brexit, what a marvellous life example bees and their colonies give to us. Their hierarchy is somewhat awesome—and the discipline of their roles and the energy and productivity of these insects is quite remarkable, whether it is the solitary bee, like the bumble bee, or those that form colonies, whether they be masonry bees, of which I have many, or the common honey bee. For the honey bee, what a life it is. The drone is basically a lazy man who, for a short period, impregnates the queen and sits back with the equivalent of a big cigar and a deckchair and lets the women do the rest of the work. The worker bees are, of course, infertile. They create the hives and make the honey. Twice a year, if I am lucky, I can take honey off my hive; I hope to do it this Friday. I will put it into my new electric spinner—the lesson is always have an electric spinner—and the fruits of my labour, and theirs, will be satisfied.
As noble Lords across the Chamber have enunciated so beautifully, it is not as easy as it seems. It has been a struggle for these great insects. My own hives have suffered from Varroa mites and were reduced from five to two. Happily, we are now back up to three. The problem of pesticides from neighbouring farmers has been mentioned. My noble friend Lord Ryder told me, as I came into the Chamber earlier today, that he had found 24 bumble bee nests in his neighbourhood destroyed by the badger. If you live in the countryside, those are the perils for the bee.
I am happy to see that the population, including mine, is on the increase again. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say about preservation and the Government’s plans for helping us humble beekeepers to create the most beautiful and delicious product.
Viscount Falkland (CB)
I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, for the opportunity to speak on the wonderful subject of bees. I came across her by chance in the Tea Room and she said she was going to speak on this subject. I was particularly upset that day by some acerbic remarks in a Brexit debate and I thought this would be a gentle outing. I then suddenly realised that I did not know much about bees. I am afraid I have been rather a bore to my friends, and people who are not necessarily my friends, by stopping everybody and asking, “What do you know about bees?” I went to one or two authoritative sources. My former noble friend Lord Taverne introduced me to the head of the staff who look after insects at the Natural History Museum. He started our conversation off with the rather alarmist term—I think it is American—“colony collapse disorder”, which made me rather nervous.
I was also nervous about, but looking forward to hearing, the speech by the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley. I was rather fearing it. I do not know why—perhaps I had been listening to the wrong people. Yet I was vastly reassured by it; it dispelled a lot of my fears. I was in my club today and sat next to a young man whose father I know. He has recently come from Nottingham University, from where he has a very good degree in biology. I asked him, like I ask everybody: “What do you know about bees”? He said that he had learned, either at university or not, the alarming fact that the human race could survive a kind of Armageddon of bees for 50 years—the noble Baroness mentioned that. He added that there had been an article on this subject in Science Today some time ago which said that the world would then be a better place for non-humans, because we are the biggest polluters. That is an interesting thought.
I am a great honey eater. I eat it in the morning with a bit of turmeric. For those who have not heard of that fine spice, it is excellent with honey and porridge. The noble Lord, Lord Marland, alluded to the health properties of honey, particularly that grown in one’s vicinity. I understand that there is a reason why that is better for health—if you can get it—than relying on honey bought in a shop. I was convinced by an article written some years ago by Rose Prince, the excellent food writer in the Daily Telegraph. She wrote very informatively about honey and bees. I wish somebody else would do something similar now, so that people can have some of their fears allayed, like I have today, and learn about the health effects of honey.
I am told that the throat in particular is an area of the body which, if you have problems, is improved with honey. However, it should be crystallised honey. I understand that in crystallised honey the water content is reduced, but that is something you can do yourself—you can also buy it, but it will be more expensive because it has been done for you. Then, all that you do, rather than put it into your cocoa at night, is take a lump of the crystallised honey and put it in your throat and swill it around a bit, and your throat discomfort is gone, I am told. So I have learnt a great deal—I do not suppose many people will learn a great deal from my speech—and I am very glad to be able to speak in the debate today.
Initially, my major interest in the bee was from having been an arts spokesman in the House who is still rather keen on the arts. The bee is an astonishing creature, in that over centuries it has caught the imagination of rulers and others. One thinks of Napoleon, who chose the bee as his emblem because he thought that Charlemagne, who was his great guide before he became the emperor that he did, had a great fixation with the bee. Napoleon did not understand the image; it was in fact the cicada that Charlemagne had.
Actually, if you look up bees on your computer or iPad, you can get the most wonderful definitions in works of art and so forth. One of the most remarkable escutcheons is that of the Barberini family, one of whom became Pope Urban VIII. Although he was always at war with Galileo, he was nevertheless a force for good. The Barberini family, who were Tuscan by origin, became part of baroque Rome, and there were many reproductions, in carvings and so on, of the honey bee. The honey bee lends itself to gilding, particularly in the baroque world, because it has a remarkable shape, with remarkable eyes. It was also taken up by many others—in ancient Greece, and also in ancient Egypt I understand, there was the same fascination with the shape and the nature of the bee in terms of creating images.
Having said that, I do not think that I have anything very informative to say, other than to thank the noble Baroness for allowing me to spout on like this, which I rarely do these days—I think I am too old but, since I can ride a motorbike, surely I can get up in the House and talk about something from time to time.
Viscount Falkland
I am very cheered by the reception that I got there—whether it was honest or not, or just good banter, I do not know. I am very much for banter, particularly since the House was advised to discourage banter among the staff. I actually rang up the company involved, which had been consulted at great cost, which said that banter must be discouraged. Mainly—I do not know why I have gone on this bifurcation of subject—it is discouraged “Not because of what you say in your banter, but because of what people may overhear and understand from it”. Apparently, that is why the staff are not supposed to banter. I encourage them to banter, because I think they are happier in doing their work and we have a wonderful staff.
Having said that, I would just like to say thank you very much for giving me the chance to speak briefly on this subject. I have really enjoyed it, and I will come back at future dinner break debates.
Lord Framlingham (Con)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland. I thoroughly enjoyed his speech, which widened our debate hugely. We are all learning so much this afternoon. I am trying to work out which is the better image of him: eating his honey or riding his motorbike. It was a tremendous contribution.
I, too, compliment the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, on tabling this debate. Again, I learned an awful lot from her. I think she will learn a little from me, but I learned an awful lot from her. I am now anxious about rhododendron ponticum, which I fear I have quite a bit of as well. Hers was a comprehensive coverage of the topic and set the scene wonderfully well for the debate today. If the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, is looking for a swarm, he knows the old adage: a swarm of bees in June is worth a silver spoon, but a swarm of bees in July is not worth a fly—so he will have to get cracking if he is to get his swarm organised.
I cannot tell you what joy I found as a schoolboy in simply understanding and marvelling at the life history of Apis mellifera, the honey bee. It was explained to me just once in great detail. I was immediately enthralled and have never forgotten it. The role of workers, drones and queens, the mystery that is royal jelly, and how workers run the hive, find their food and communicate with each other is all quite magical.
This leads to the crucial part they play in our lives: for the most part unnoticed and unheralded. Without their pollinating efforts, our fruit and vegetable production, which has been touched on several times today, would be devastated and our world would be a very different and darker place.
Our bees are constantly under threat, and it is vital that we do all we can to make everyone aware of their importance and vulnerability, in both countryside and town. I commend all the organisations such as Buglife, which has already been mentioned, involved in this work.
Although there has been an overall decline in different kinds of bees over the past 50 years, recent trends in our managed population are better. The Varroa mite did terrible damage to our hives in the 1990s, but now the number of hives and the number of colonies is significantly increasing. I commend the Government on their positive approach to this issue. Both the present Secretary of State and our Minister are showing real understanding, concern and readiness to act.
I particularly commend the Government’s national pollination strategy, which brings together all those people and organisations able to influence the landscape and habitats, which are so precious. I am also glad that we will be tougher on the use of neonicotinoids—although, after the contribution of the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, I am a little wiser and will give it some more thought. But I am sure it is right to be tougher on them and I firmly believe in the precautionary principle.
The noble Baroness, Lady Miller, mentioned a campaign called BeeConnected, run by the Voluntary Initiative, which in turn is funded by the agricultural sector. Time does not allow me to elaborate, but, put simply, it is a system that allows crop sprayers automatically to notify beekeepers that spraying will take place where they have hives to allow them to take appropriate action. To me, that sounds very sensible.
We must be—and I know that the Government are—ever alert to the threat of invasion by dangerous species. In trees, we keep a wary eye on Xyllella fastidiosa and the emerald ash borer, which threaten our shores. We have already had an incursion by the Asian hornet, which eats bees. Fortunately, so far, it has been kept at bay.
I end, therefore, as someone who loves both trees and bees, by telling your Lordships that the tree bumblebee, which has the wonderful Latin name Bombus hypnorum, has arrived here under its own steam and has spread quite rapidly. It does not appear to be damaging any of our native bee population, and it is a very effective pollinator—so, as far as I am concerned, it is very welcome.
Lord Robathan (Con)
My Lords, I rise to speak in the gap and shall be very short, perforce, not least because I have been threatened with pain of death by my Front Bench. I apologise for speaking in the gap; it is only because I am so hopelessly inefficient. I lost my password for the Whips website, which I needed to put my name down for this debate, took part in the debate yesterday and voted, and then arrived 30 seconds after 6 pm, when they had closed the speakers list for today. I declare an interest in that I have a diverse, small mixed farm in south Leicestershire, and I will talk about my experience. I do not want to be self-congratulatory, but it paints a relatively good picture of what can be done if one cares about the environment.
When I was at school, some 50 years ago, I had a hive of bees. I was scared of them and I was a hopeless beekeeper, and the result was that they all died, so I did not think that I would try that one again. But I now have six hives, I think—the number varies a bit—on my farm, which are kept by a local retired GP. He says that it is the best place he has hives, and he has them scattered around south Leicestershire. I also have bumble bees—humble bees—masonry bees and solitary bees in abundance. Do not ask me about species, because I am not an expert, but there are stacks of them: all sorts of different types buzz around. As a result, we also have a lot of insects, which means that we have fantastic birdlife. We have a lot of swallows at the moment and—something which particularly pleases me—a pair of curlews, which I think may have chicks in a hayfield, because they were bombing me and calling at me last weekend.
The question I wish to put is: why is this? The reason is that we have a very diverse habitat—it is a mixed farm. We have some maize and winter wheat at the moment, and we also have largely grass. I planted stacks of trees and hedges—courtesy, I might say, of the British taxpayer via the CAP, and agri-environment schemes. I congratulate this and other Governments and, indeed, the European Union, on their encouragement of agri-environment schemes, because that has enabled me to plant trees and hedges. I also go round on fallow—which used to be called set-aside—scattering wildflower seeds like they are going out of fashion. I am delighted to say that, after about a decade, I have established good cowslip populations all the way down the drive. My children laugh at me, but I am thrilled about it. The reason I am able to do it is because of the Countryside Stewardship Scheme and the HLS, in which I now find myself. My reason for saying this is that we need to realise that it is not all gloom and doom. There are lots of bees, and we can make productive farmland environmentally friendly and good for conservation. That is my message today.
Before I sit down, after my four minutes, with regard to neonics, of course we should reduce pesticides and herbicides—that is sensible. Farmers want to do that, because it is rather expensive to use herbicides and pesticides. I am not sure that neonics are not better than the alternative. My neighbour has a huge field of rape on the other side of our stream, which has certainly been treated in the past with neonics, and yet the bees flourish. We should rely on empirical evidence rather than emotion in this case. Finally, nitrate fertilisers have to a large extent reduced the diversity in our grassland and our fields. We should look at reducing their use, because I can see that where people have used nitrate fertilisers there are no longer the wildflowers that I spend my life trying to encourage.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, on the debate, and I particularly enjoyed her stories about bees. I point out to her that lime pollen makes bees drunk, so they die happy, and that once a swarm is out of sight of the person whose hive it came from, if you can collect it, it is yours, and you can decide where to put it. I have benefited from that, because my gardener found one in someone else’s garden and brought it to me; they did not want it anyway. I too am a beekeeper, and I keep Welsh Black bees, not Buckfast bees. They came and squatted in an empty hive. I am very pleased with them because they are very strong.
It has been lovely to hear stories from fellow beekeepers. The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, should get a new bee suit. If he is being stung so often, it obviously has holes in it. The noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, was right about hay fever—the noble Lord, Lord Marland, mentioned it as well—but the honey must be raw and not overfiltered or heat-treated, so that you get the pollen from your local garden. It certainly works for me as well. By the way, I am very jealous of the noble Lord, Lord Marland, and his electric honey extractor. I am afraid that I have the manual kind. When it is time to harvest my honey, I have to call on the strong right arm of my husband, my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford. I think that he will be wondering whether I am going to raid the family coffers and buy an electric extractor. His strong right arm would certainly be grateful.
As a beekeeper, I am well aware of the need to conserve all our important pollinators as well as our honey bees and wild bees, many species of which are endangered. The mouth parts of different insect species are adapted to reach the nectar in different-shaped flowers, so we need the whole range of insects to pollinate our crops. I am afraid that wind will not cut it because of the shape of the flowers.
I must congratulate the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, on his species-rich wildflower meadow and the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, on his cowslips, because they are important. I want to mention the many groups of volunteer gardeners such as my daughter and her colleagues in Altrincham in Bloom, who, with permission, have sown species-rich beds of wildflowers and other flowering plants in public places in the town. These have provided not only beauty for residents but a corridor of forage for a wide variety of bees and other pollinators. Such voluntary activity is to be encouraged and not discouraged, as happens when council workmen strim down the lot. I hope that most local authorities will encourage and co-operate with this sort of voluntary group who give so much of their time in the interests of our pollinators. It is also important that verges of major roads and motorways are left to flower and not strimmed to within an inch of their lives at the earliest opportunity. Does the Department for Transport have a policy on this?
Gardeners can play their part. As a keen gardener myself, I have a wide variety of plants in my garden. In fact, it has often been commented that I have less of a garden and more of a plant collection, but a wide variety of plants is important because of the need for a wide variety of pollinators.
Of course, beekeepers make a big contribution to pollination by protecting honey bees. Beekeeping is an excellent hobby, combining biology, physiology, history, horticulture and pharmacy. However, it is a big commitment and there is a great deal to learn. I have made some terrible mistakes in the past, from which I hope I have learned. It makes sense for new beekeepers to join local beekeeping associations and make use of the courses they offer and the advice so freely given. I am very grateful to my own bee mentors, Lloyd Roberts and Dell Hannaby. Does Defra provide supportive funding for these groups that are so valuable, particularly to new beekeepers?
Bee inspectors provided by the National Bee Unit are important, too, because they check the health of bees and help prevent the spread of disease. They also give good advice, as I can testify. It is sad to see that Defra, which runs the NBU at arm’s length, is not replacing bee inspectors. I heard recently from a bee inspector in Wiltshire that when he retires at the end of this year Wiltshire may not have an inspector. This is very dangerous for the health of bees in the county—we have heard all about the various diseases that are rampant. Can the Minister tell me whether this situation is happening in other areas of the country and what, if anything, is being done to replace these valuable officers?
One of the biggest hazards for bee colonies is the use of certain pesticides. The Government’s code of practice, which is due to be updated shortly—perhaps the Minister can tell us when—states that certain pesticides which may harm bees will be labelled as “harmful” or “high risk”. The person responsible for a spray operation is obliged to tell local beekeepers, or the British Beekeepers Association’s local spray liaison officer, 48 hours before the use of an insecticide at certain times of the year, giving beekeepers time to take the necessary precautions. The SLOs act as go-betweens, informing beekeepers when the farmer is going to spray.
However, this process has not always been effective, so a new initiative, which has already been mentioned by two noble Lords, has been set up by responsible farmers and growers. It is called BeeConnected and aims to help reduce pollinator exposure to insecticides by alerting beekeepers electronically before spraying. As my noble friend Lady Miller mentioned, BeeConnected has been developed in conjunction with the BBKA to replace the need for SLOs and instead inform beekeepers directly. It is a simple process whereby the person responsible for the spraying registers on the website and identifies the fields using Google Maps. The system automatically informs local beekeepers when someone intends to spray a particular field. Beekeepers who have plotted the location of their hives on the system will then receive a notification ahead of a spray event. This is as an excellent initiative, and I intend to go on the website and register my hives.
Such initiatives are important in the light of the risk to bees if we exit the EU and are no longer bound by the ban on neonics and other substances, unless the Government take similar action. Can the Minister assure us that the Government will continue to protect our pollinators if, unfortunately, we leave the EU?
Finally, the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, made a point about how crop-pollinating insects are thriving. If we grow more crops to feed the world’s growing population, it occurs to me that we are providing more food for their pollinators, so I am not surprised that they are thriving. I wonder whether the noble Viscount agrees. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, for giving us the opportunity to debate this issue and to all noble Lords who have contributed their considerable expertise and understanding. Like many other noble Lords, I have learned an enormous amount from listening to this debate. It seems to me that in this Chamber we are doing more than our fair share to nurture the habitats and the hives of our insect population.
It feels as if policymakers are having to relearn the importance of biodiversity and ecodependence, which was known instinctively to previous generations of our forebears, who would probably have known that rhododendrons were poisonous and other things that we are having to learn again, but so be it. Nevertheless, the reality is beginning to sink in. Defra’s research tells us what we can see for ourselves: that the number of insects in our fields and gardens is dropping, and that that decline includes the rather crucial pollinators. As noble Lords have said, there are a number of reasons for this decline. Disease, habitat loss, climate change and pesticides have all played their part.
Noble Lords have described the fantastic communication and navigation systems that bees have, but a simple change in a habitat can disrupt a bee’s memory and route finders and prevent it reaching sources of pollen. Very simple things in the ways bees operate can make an enormous difference to their effectiveness. This matters not just for those of us who care about the environment, but because the vast majority of food grown for consumption worldwide is pollinated by bees and other insects and we are rather reliant on them.
First, I pay tribute to the work that Defra is doing to raise awareness of this issue and to put policies in place to tackle the problems. For example, we very much welcome the Government’s announcement of a total ban on neonicotinoids. That has been our party’s policy for some time. We know that when neonicotinoids are used on one crop, residues of the pesticide can be found right across the wider habitat and can remain in the soil for many years. It is our belief that they have undoubtedly contributed to the decline in insect colonies.
Does the Minister recognise that more needs to be done to address the damage caused by pesticides? The fact is that non-neonicotinoid pesticides can cause just as much harm. A much more fundamental review of their use is needed—a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Miller. I agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, that we should always follow the science on this. That is why we need to make sure that our knowledge is as up to date as possible so as to apply the latest scientific information. With that in mind, I echo the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley: what has happened to the review of the UK National Action Plan for the Sustainable Use of Pesticides, which George Eustice promised would take place in the first half of 2018? Try as I might, I cannot find any evidence of it, but I am sure that the Minister can put me straight on that.
Secondly, when I looked again at the 25-year environment plan, I was disappointed that there was only a passing reference to bees and pollinators. That is not to say that the Government are not taking the matter seriously but it would be good to see some more joined-up policy development in that area.
I hope that the Minister will agree that in future we should move away from chemical-intensive farming and focus our research on less damaging ways of tackling persistent weeds and pests. We should aim to work with and not against nature’s inherent defences. Whoever commented that pesticides are quite expensive made a very good point. If we can only harness nature’s own defences and the benefits of inherent ecodiversity, we will be all the better for it.
Thirdly, interestingly, a 2016 study in Germany found that bumble-bee abundance and the pollination of wild flowers were higher in urban than in rural areas. Is the Minister able to say whether that is also the case in the UK? If it is, on the one hand it tells an alarming story about what is happening in the countryside, but, on the other, does it not also underline the importance of involving urban gardeners and public authorities in maintaining and cherishing our insect population in urban areas? This is where there is a need for better cross-government thinking on the issue.
The point was made that local authorities can play their part in sowing grass verges and parks with wild flower seeds. I take the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, that volunteers, not just local authorities, can play their part in that. The noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, mentioned B-Lines. Plymouth City Council, for example, has taken that idea further and created city-wide bee corridors. The development of those sorts of activities should be welcomed.
Transport authorities also have to play their part. Network Rail needs to recognise its responsibility to maintain biodiversity on its land. So much more could be done to encourage the planting of wild flowers and pollinators on motorway verges, instead of the sterile scrubland that we so often have to tolerate. The Department for International Trade needs to fully understand its responsibility not to facilitate trade with countries that contaminate our food and our pollinators with the use of pesticides which are banned in the EU. How far are these cross-departmental discussions going to ensure that all departments, not just Defra, take the threat to our food supply and our biodiversity seriously?
Finally, on a more upbeat note, I pay tribute to the army of beekeepers in the UK. I take the point made by my noble friend Lord Stevenson that “beekeeper” is probably a misnomer to describe dealing with what is essentially a very independent and untameable species. Nevertheless, the volunteers who keep bees play a very important part in helping biodiversity. Their numbers have doubled in five years, with nearly 130,000 colonies registered in the National Bee Unit’s database, which is to be welcomed. As noble Lords have said, the quality of their honey and their individual flavours is one more reminder of our rich biodiverse heritage, which we squander at our peril. The noble Lord, Lord Marland, made the point that beekeeping, in addition to making a huge contribution, also helps their own sanity.
Will the Minister take this opportunity to say what more his department is doing to support the beekeepers so that wild and honey bees can both play their part in sustaining our unique but dwindling ecosystem for the future?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Gardiner of Kimble) (Con)
My Lords, my noble friend Lady Bloomfield is undoubtedly to be congratulated—as your Lordships have done—on securing this debate which, as ever, has been enriched by your Lordships’ own experiences. I agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland. Many of us here come to this afresh and have learned a great deal, whether it is through references to literature, history, politics, architecture or health. In particular, I shall take away the practical advice of my noble friend Lord Marland and the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, with her Welsh blacks—which I always thought were cattle until this evening—and the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara.
The well-being of bees and other pollinators has been in the public consciousness a great deal over the last few years. People value bees and other pollinators in their own right but they are also vital for the growth of our wildflowers and our crops. I was struck by what the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, and my noble friend Lady Bloomfield said about the 1,500 species of pollinators’ annual contribution to UK oil seed, fruit and vegetable crop production, which is, to my understanding, valued at up to £700 million a year.
For many reasons, protecting bees and pollinators is a priority for this Government, and I particularly welcome the generous remarks made by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, and my noble friend Lord Framlingham about the national pollinator strategy and the wider biodiversity strategy. I, in turn, commend the more than 30 members of our Pollinator Advisory Steering Group—representing conservation groups, farmers, beekeepers and researchers—for their supreme efforts and expertise in helping us to deliver the strategy’s successes thus far.
The noble Baroness, Lady Miller, referred a great deal to research in her speech and we are fortunate that outstanding scientists help us monitor our collective efforts, including the Pollinator Monitoring and Research Partnership of academics and NGOs which Defra has helped to establish.
My noble friend Lord Ridley and the noble Baroness Lady Miller referred to the numbers. My understanding from the Government’s own indicators is that the confirmed long-term decline in the abundance and distribution of pollinating insects at a national scale has stabilised in recent years. However, we are clearly determined to continue working to see ever more positive results. Local level data collected by volunteers is also available, supported by public bodies, including the Joint Nature Conservation Committee and the research councils.
A number of your Lordships, including my noble friend Lady Bloomfield and the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, referred to our 25-year environment plan setting a goal to create or restore 500,000 hectares of wildlife-rich habitat outside the protected site network. What we have heard from my noble friends Lord Ridley and Lord Robathan is an example of two noble Lords giving a personal lead in this matter. Government research shows that increases in pollinator numbers and diversity follow such increases in habitat.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, rightly asked whether the Government are playing their part—an important point, given the considerable land holdings in the public estate. In 2016 the Ministry of Justice created more than 20 hectares of wildflower meadow, and now manages more than 50 sites with native habitats for pollinators. The Ministry of Defence has established areas for pollinators to thrive, collaborating with organisations that include Plantlife, National Parks, the Wildlife Trust and indeed its tenant farmers. These are but two of a range of areas and it is very important that the Government are joined up and that we collaborate as one in a common purpose.
My noble friend Lord Robathan raised the particular issue of agri-environment schemes. Since 2011, these schemes have played a huge role in helping landowners already to establish more than 100,000 hectares of land for restoration to flower-rich habitat. The Countryside Stewardship scheme is often woven into partnership initiatives such as Buglife’s B-Lines, referred to by my noble friend Lady Bloomfield, as well as through farmer clusters, which have been developed by the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust with support from Natural England for farmers, landowners, managers and foresters to help develop shared plans for nature. For example, at Martin Down National Nature Reserve, 36 farmers have linked grassland habitats so successfully that since 2016, three new colonies of the scarce small blue butterfly have been established. The Bumblebee Conservation Trust, through working to reintroduce the short-haired bumblebee, has created more than 1,300 flower-rich hectares and has already seen other bumblebee species arriving on site which have not been seen for 40 years. Defra’s “Health and Harmony” consultation on agricultural policy gives us the opportunity to explore how farmers can continue to benefit pollinators and wider biodiversity, and of course contribute to successful food production.
I turn now to honey bees. We are protecting honey bees through the Healthy Bees Plan and the National Bee Unit. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, my noble friend Lord Marland and the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson—the beekeepers of this House—stressed the importance of education. The educational output of the National Bee Unit last year increased to 190 courses, benefiting 9,000 beekeepers. It is aided by partnerships with the British Beekeepers’ Association, the national diploma in beekeeping and the Bee Farmers Association, to whose apprenticeship scheme Defra last year gave around £20,000. The beekeepers of the House may be particularly interested in that. Having sampled it, I can thoroughly recommend what is known as “noble House honey” from the two beehives just along the way here.
I should have said in response to points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, about habitat that, in line with the Housing Minister’s May statement, there is absolutely no intention of watering down wildlife protections. The NPPF is out for consultation and before it is finalised, we will make sure that the protection of local wildlife sites is crystal clear. Defra officials continue to work closely with MHCLG to address the issue, and of course we will share the letter not only with the noble Baroness, but with all noble Lords who have spoken in the debate.
Perhaps I may make a number of points in response to the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, on NBU inspections. These are important in helping us to manage pests like the Varroa mite, keep endemic diseases like foulbrood at low levels, and ensure that exotic pests such as the small hive beetle are absent from the United Kingdom.
My noble friend Lord Framlingham quite rightly raised the issue of the Asian hornet. It is an insect for which I have zero tolerance. It requires constant vigilance, immediate containment action and public engagement via the Asian Hornet Watch app. We are absolutely fully seized of the threat of the Asian hornet. There is every opportunity to raise awareness, for example through important collaboration with beekeepers and the app. A number of people have reported their concerns about Asian hornets—thankfully, almost all of them were not Asian hornets—but that collaboration will help us to ensure that we keep Asian hornets at bay and ensure biosecurity at all times.
Many of your Lordships have expressed opinions about pesticides. I thought that my noble friend Lord Ridley would express the views he had. I want to say, candidly, that as far as pesticides, which include insecticides, are concerned, the Government will always base their decisions on the best scientific evidence available. I say to the noble Baronesses, Lady Walmsley and Lady Jones of Whitchurch, that we will draw advice from the Health and Safety Executive and the UK Expert Committee on Pesticides.
My noble friend Lady Bloomfield cited a report by the European Commission Joint Research Centre. To my understanding, the report was published in August last year in the peer-reviewed journal Pest Management Studies. The report looked at a small number of sites and crops in Europe and spoke about the increased use of pyrethroids and changes to cultural practices, such as sowing densities or seed-bed preparations. It is worth noting that increases in pyrethroid use have not been detected in national pesticide usage surveys in England. Again, pyrethroids are subject to rigorous regulation and authorised for use only where scientific assessment finds no unacceptable effects on the environment. However, I agree with my noble friend Lord Ridley that we should continue to monitor the consequences of the neonicotinoid ban and help farmers to adapt. I could say much more but it is not possible with the time I have. We will always base our decisions on the scientific evidence that we receive from our expert committee.
With the time I have left, I want to say that Defra’s annual “Bees’ Needs” campaign encourages us all to provide food and a home for pollinators. I will ensure that all noble Lords receive further information on it. This year, with immense gratitude to Shaftesbury plc, London’s Carnaby Street—part of Shaftesbury’s Carnaby urban wildlife haven—will be renamed “Carnabee Street” from 9 to 15 July. I hope to encourage your Lordships to be part of that. Importantly, we will also celebrate the next generation of pollinator protectors such as Saint Alban’s CE Primary School and its “Pollinator Promise”, which asks people to dedicate a square-metre plot to grow plants for pollinators. So far, pupils, parents, neighbours, churches, companies, civil servants and this Minister have signed up.
I very much hope that the message in this exceptional debate from your Lordships, whether from experience of being stung or otherwise, is an example of what pollinators bring to us. I will answer in full the many questions that I have not attended to because of the time limit, because it is important that this is carried forward. Pollinators are an essential part of the ecosystem; they are also essential for food production. I cannot think of a better cause to unite us than this matter. I thank my noble friend Lady Bloomfield for gathering us together in such harmony.