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Oral Answers to Questions
(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)
Ross Thomson (Aberdeen South) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Karen Bradley)
On the first day of Lent, we continue our feast of Northern Ireland business.
I am working closely with the main Northern Ireland parties to restore devolved government. I met the five main political parties on 15 February, and again—with the exception of one party—on 1 March. Northern Ireland needs a functioning Executive and Assembly, and that is what the Government are determined to achieve.
Jack Brereton
I commend my right hon. Friend’s efforts. What steps is she taking to ensure that Northern Ireland has good governance and political stability in the absence of devolved government?
Karen Bradley
My hon. Friend has made the important point that in the absence of Ministers at Stormont, it is incumbent on the Government to ensure that, when necessary, steps are taken to ensure that there is good governance. Yesterday we legislated to put the 2018-19 budget on a statutory footing, and today we will legislate to set the regional rates and cost-cap the renewable heat incentive scheme.
Ross Thomson
Does my right hon. Friend agree that, as in Scotland, it is vital for us to respect the need for devolution in Northern Ireland? Does she share my concern about the fact that four of the five parties in Northern Ireland want devolution to work, and only one party is holding up the process?
Karen Bradley
I think that all parties and all politicians in Northern Ireland want devolution to work. We want to find a way through this. My hon. Friend is absolutely right: there is no alternative to power-sharing devolution that is good and sustainable in the long term for the people of Northern Ireland.
Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)
The Secretary of State knows, and the whole House knows, that there was violence on the part of dissident republicans even when we had devolution. However, given yesterday’s improvised explosive devices and the link to dissident republicans, can she tell the House whether there is any prospect of the security threat level being raised, and does she have any more information about the origins of those devices?
Karen Bradley
The threat level in Northern Ireland—the level of threat from Northern Ireland-related terrorism—is “severe”, and there is currently no suggestion that it will change. I had a conversation with the Chief Constable this morning. In respect of the specific incident to which the right hon. Gentleman has referred, these are the early days of an ongoing investigation, and it would not be appropriate for me to say anything further at this stage.
Nigel Dodds
I thank the Secretary of State for that information, but she will understand the concern that is out there about those devices being sent through the post. May I urge her to ensure that the lack of devolution does not hamper the introduction of any powers or resources that the Chief Constable may need in Northern Ireland—or, indeed, here on the mainland—for the purpose of combating such a terrorist threat?
Karen Bradley
I can assure the right hon. Gentleman of that. Despite the lack of a devolved Executive, we now have a fully constituted Policing Board to ensure that we have proper governance arrangements in Northern Ireland. That step was taken after the House passed the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation and Exercise of Functions) Act 2018. However, the right hon. Gentleman is right: we need to ensure that the police have the powers that they need, throughout the United Kingdom, in order to challenge and deal with the threat of terrorism.
Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)
Given that the majority of the parties in Northern Ireland want the Assembly to be restored, would the Secretary of State consider restoring an Assembly of the willing?
Karen Bradley
My hon. Friend has made a good suggestion, which has also been made by a number of parties. However, the Government are steadfast in their commitment to the institutions established under the Belfast/Good Friday agreement and its successors. I want those institutions to be fully restored, and that is what I am working to achieve.
Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)
One way in which the Secretary of State might rebuild some of the trust between the political parties that is necessary for the restoring of devolution would be to make political funding in Northern Ireland more transparent. Will she tell the House whether, and when, she will agree with the Electoral Commission, and backdate the funding legislation to 2014?
Karen Bradley
The measures that were taken in the House in respect of transparency of donations were taken with the support of the five main political parties in Northern Ireland, and with broad support across those parties. I will look carefully at the hon. Gentleman’s suggestion, but we must be clear about the need to ensure that such measures are supported in Northern Ireland.
Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)
The Secretary of State set herself a deadline of 26 March in the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation and Exercise of Functions) Act. Has she asked her right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to clear her diary so that she will be available to support that final push to restore devolution, as the Prime Minister was available in February 2018?
Karen Bradley
The Prime Minister takes a very keen interest in all matters in Northern Ireland; she has visited Northern Ireland on a number of occasions and regularly meets the main parties from Northern Ireland, both here in Westminster and in Northern Ireland. However, the hon. Lady is right to point out that the Act expires on 26 March and I am looking carefully at what we can do to ensure there is decision making after that date.
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (John Penrose)
The Secretary of State and I have frequent discussions and meetings with Northern Ireland businesses; in the last few weeks I have met Newry chamber of commerce and trade, Thales, and Willowbrook Foods, and tomorrow I will meet Bombardier. The Government have provided £3.5 million for Queen’s Belfast precision medicine centre, £700,000 for Randox diagnostics, and £1 million for Northern Ireland SME research and development. This afternoon, we will legislate to hold business rates at a 0% real-terms rise as well.
Tom Pursglove
I very much welcome that work, but what specific steps has the Minister taken to promote Northern Ireland internationally as a successful business hub and first-class place to invest?
John Penrose
The numbers speak for themselves: over 900 international companies have already invested in Northern Ireland, supported by Government investments such as the ones I have mentioned in global sectors such as biomedicine and defence. Political stability has been a key foundation of this success, which is why restoring devolved government at Stormont is critical.
Lady Hermon (North Down) (Ind)
How is the Minister going to reassure the business community today, after the very serious warning by the head of the Northern Ireland civil service, David Sterling, that there will be grave consequences if we have a no-deal Brexit?
John Penrose
I think a number of people will have raised their eyebrows at such politically charged comments from a civil servant. The point I would make is simply this: we have a meaningful vote coming up in this place next week where the Attorney General and the Prime Minister will be able to come back and tell us the fruits of their discussions in Brussels. The simple answer to avoiding any of the scenarios that people may or may not agree with which were being painted by David Sterling is to find a deal that will work and which therefore means we will not be in no-deal territory. That will, I hope, solve the problem for everybody.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
Is the Minister concerned about the possible impact on small businesses of the changes proposed to non-domestic renewable heat incentives in the legislation that we are about to consider, and is he particularly cautious about advice he may be receiving from the energy Department, because it was that that Department that got us into this fix in the first place?
John Penrose
Without wanting to prejudge this afternoon’s debate—as my hon. Friend the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee Chairman has said, we will be going through this in a lot more detail—he is absolutely right that the renewable heat incentive scheme has been the subject of a great deal of concerned commentary, because it has dramatically broken its budgets and is not a sustainable solution. I think everybody is treating any proposals with a great degree of concern and scrutiny because of that history, and I am sure we will have a chance to go through it in more detail, and we will try to ensure that any proposals that are legislated on do not suffer from the faults that existed in the previous version.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
I have been married to a lady from County Armagh for quite some time. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] Through my marriage I have come to know the image of Northern Irish food products, such as Black Bush, Tayto crisps and Flanagan’s most excellent sausage from the city of Armagh. Do the Government agree that marketing Northern Ireland’s special food could be one way to boost business in Northern Ireland, not just within the UK but to a world market?
John Penrose
Something that Britain and the UK have cottoned on to later than many other parts of the world is the notion of local food and its marketability, along with our ability to forge a local brand not just for food but for tourism more broadly as well. In congratulating the hon. Gentleman on his marital status, and his success in that regard, I am sure he is on to something important as well.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Karen Bradley)
Leaving with a deal on 29 March is our clear objective, and that is what we are working towards. It remains, however, the responsibility of the UK Government to continue preparations for the full range of potential outcomes, including no deal. As we do so, and as decisions are made, we will take full account of the unique circumstances of Northern Ireland.
Alan Brown
The reality is that, two days ago, a senior official with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs told the Public Accounts Committee that even if border processes were announced today there would be
“insufficient time for traders who wish to comply to get ready.”
It was also admitted that while HMRC has been working on possible trade processes, it “cannot tell” traders. With 23 days to go to Brexit is that lack of clarity not an absolute disgrace?
Karen Bradley
I disagree with the hon. Gentleman. The Government are taking appropriate and responsible measures in the event that we end up with no deal, but there is a way to avoid no deal, and that is to vote for the deal next week.
Mr Speaker
Order. Just before I call the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard), I hope that the whole House will wish to join me in congratulating him on a very special birthday today. I cannot believe that he is the age that I have been advised he is, but I suppose all things are possible. He seems in very good nick to me.
Tommy Sheppard
Thank you, Mr Speaker. Let me assure you that, contrary to popular belief, my political conviction has not been moderated or mellowed by the passing of the years. The latest Northern Ireland budget included £16.5 million for the Police Service of Northern Ireland to prepare for Brexit. Will the Secretary of State tell us how much of that money is being allocated to the policing of border infrastructure, either at the border itself or some distance away from it?
Karen Bradley
Mr Speaker, may I join you in wishing the hon. Gentleman a very happy birthday? I hope that he gets to enjoy it, and to enjoy some more Northern Ireland business later in the day, which he can come and join us for. He asks about spending on policing. The Government have ensured that the Police Service of Northern Ireland has the resources that it needs, but it is down to the Chief Constable to determine how that money is spent and how it is used operationally. I also remind the hon. Gentleman that we made it clear in the joint report that we were committed to no new infrastructure at the border and no related checks or controls.
Stephen Kerr (Stirling) (Con)
Once we have left the European Union, one of the important aspects of the economic make-up of our country will be how the UK shared prosperity fund works. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the fund will be run on a UK-wide basis, with the UK Government playing an important part on the ground in the devolved nations and regions of this country?
Karen Bradley
My hon. Friend is right to say that the UK shared prosperity fund will be an important part of our post-Brexit future. We are working as a Government to ensure that the UK fund is properly spent, and we will consult on it shortly.
Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)
The Secretary of State will have heard Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England, yesterday in the Economic Affairs Committee in the other place downgrading his concerns around no deal as a result of national Government’s preparedness. Does she have the same confidence in the preparedness of the Northern Ireland civil service?
Karen Bradley
The Northern Ireland civil service is working incredibly hard on no-deal preparedness. My officials hold regular meetings with civil servants in Northern Ireland. It would be better if we had devolved government, because there would be Ministers to whom those civil servants would be accountable, but I repeat that the best way to ensure that we do not need any of this preparedness is to vote for the deal.
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
Yesterday’s letter from David Sterling, the head of the Northern Ireland civil service, gave the honest assessment that it was apparent that businesses in Northern Ireland were not adequately prepared for a no-deal Brexit. Who could possibly blame Northern Irish businesses for that, if the UK Government are not prepared either? Just ask the Transport Secretary. Given this stark advice, why will the Secretary of State not support the calls to take no deal off the negotiating table now?
Karen Bradley
I disagree with the hon. Gentleman, for whom I have enormous respect, when he says that the Government are not prepared for no deal. We are working towards preparing for all eventual outcomes, but we want to leave the European Union with a deal. We want to ensure that we respect the result of the referendum and leave with a deal, and the best way to do that is to vote for the deal.
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (John Penrose)
We debated this point at some length in the Northern Ireland Budget (Anticipation and Adjustments) (No. 2) Bill yesterday, and the frustration from all sides at the lack of a Northern Ireland Executive was palpable. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State mentioned earlier, she has met representatives of the five main political parties in Northern Ireland and the Irish Government recently, and I can confirm that discussions have been ongoing since then.
Christian Matheson
Does the Minister share my concern at the increasing polarisation of politics in the UK, and particularly in Northern Ireland? Is he satisfied that there is sufficient diversity and pluralism within political representation there to make the re-establishment of the Assembly a success?
John Penrose
We elect the politicians we deserve. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that there are periodic calls for a greater variety of representation and range of representation in this Parliament and, I am sure, in Stormont. The difficulty in Northern Ireland is that Northern Ireland’s politics has been far more polarised for a long time. We are trying, collectively, on all sides, to usher it back towards the centre ground and co-operation at least.
David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)
Will the Minister acknowledge that the lack in re-establishing the Assembly is not down to this party? This party does not have red lines; one party is causing the difficulty, and that is Sinn Féin. Will the Minister acknowledge that?
John Penrose
I will quote the Labour party spokesman, who said yesterday that the existence of preconditions or red lines was frequently a facet of talks processes. The point is to get a process that allows us to overcome those preconditions. If we allow ourselves to be sidetracked in the first place by their existence, we will never get anywhere towards succeeding.
Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Karen Bradley)
The Government are carefully considering over 17,000 responses to the recent consultation on legacy. We are determined to replace the current system with one that is fair, balanced and proportionate, and which commands widespread support.
Dan Jarvis
I thank the Secretary of State for her reply. She knows that our ability to secure a lasting peace depends on the support of all the communities involved. Will she assure the House that, when working to address the legacy of Northern Ireland’s past, she will be considerate of our Army and armed forces veterans, many of whom are now pensioners?
Karen Bradley
I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. I am grateful to him, as we have been able to speak personally about this matter, and to hear his words of advice and wisdom, because he has great experience and expertise in this area, and I value his contribution. I want to ensure that what we take forward and legislate for—something that has been needed since the 1998 Belfast agreement—commands widespread support. It has to command support in this House, in the other place and in Northern Ireland, and it absolutely has to work for our veterans.
Emma Little Pengelly (Belfast South) (DUP)
Well over 90% of the murders and injuries caused during the troubles in Northern Ireland were caused by acts of terrorism. Very few prosecutions and investigations are under way and innocent victims are being left behind, with thousands of unsolved cases. When will the Secretary of State address that issue and put in place a mechanism to investigate the acts of terrorism—over 90%—that caused those murders and injuries?
Karen Bradley
The hon. Lady sets out the figures very powerfully—over 90% of the killings during the troubles were at the hands of terrorists. Every single one of those was a crime. The under 10% that were at the hands of the military and police were not crimes; they were people acting under orders and instructions, fulfilling their duties in a dignified and appropriate way. I look forward to working with her more to ensure that we can deliver the much-needed reforms and changes that we all want to see—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. I very much hope that the hon. Member for Barnsley Central is not indisposed. It is most irregular to beetle out of the Chamber before the exchanges on the question have concluded. The hon. Gentleman is normally the very embodiment of courtesy, so if he is not feeling well, I hope he gets well soon; if he is well, he had better get back into the Chamber sooner rather than later. It is an elementary rule that new Members must grasp: do not leave the Chamber until the exchanges on your question have been completed. I am sure you are all interested in the views that other people wish to express as well as in your own. I am sure I can say that without fear of contradiction.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (John Penrose)
My right hon. Friend asks what discussions the Secretary of State has had with Cabinet colleagues about the Irish backstop. The short answer is, a lot. The country and this Parliament seem to have been discussing little else for weeks, and it is the same with knobs on for the Cabinet.
Sir Edward Leigh
Surely, never has something so important, namely Brexit, been put at risk in preventing something that will never happen, namely a hard border in Northern Ireland. Why will the EU, the Irish Republic and the United Kingdom Government simply not attach an instrument to the withdrawal agreement, making it clear that we will never impose a hard border in Northern Ireland? That can be achieved in time and with good will, first with customs arrangements, then with a free trade deal backed by technology. It is so simple—let us do it.
John Penrose
My right hon. Friend raises a creative potential legal solution, which he discussed in an Adjournment debate two weeks ago. The whole House will know that the Attorney General is currently involved in detailed negotiations on how to modify the backstop in line with Parliament’s wishes. Ultimately, it must be for him to judge whether my right hon. Friend’s proposal gets him closer to a legally effective solution that will allow him to change his advice. I will make sure that the Attorney General is aware of the proposal so that he can incorporate it if it is worth while.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
From the Minister’s discussions with ministerial colleagues, can he indicate whether they are indicating to him that, at this very late stage in our discussions with the European Union, a sliver of light is beginning to emerge that the EU understands the need for a fundamental change to the backstop?
John Penrose
I suspect that is well above my pay grade. I am sure we would all want to hear what the Attorney General and the Prime Minister have to say when it comes to the meaningful vote next Tuesday.
Mr Ranil Jayawardena (North East Hampshire) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Karen Bradley)
The threat from dissident republican terrorism continues to be severe in Northern Ireland. This Government’s first priority is to keep people safe and secure. Vigilance against this continuing threat is essential, and we remain determined to ensure that terrorism never succeeds.
Mr Jayawardena
Can my right hon. Friend shed light on reports in The Times that my right hon. Friend the Defence Secretary plans to bring forward a limit on the prosecution of veterans in the Queen’s Speech? As my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) argued in The Daily Telegraph, we must stop gesture politics and start delivering natural justice.
Karen Bradley
My hon. Friend should not believe everything he reads in the newspaper. I assure him that I am working closely with the Defence Secretary, the Attorney General and Members on both sides of the House to ensure we can deliver a new system that works for the people of Northern Ireland, that works for the victims of terrorism and, very importantly, that works for our veterans and retired police officers.
David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
Where are we with the European arrest warrant in three weeks’ time?
Karen Bradley
The way to guarantee that the European arrest warrant continues in three weeks’ time is to vote for the deal.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
There has been a bomb attack in Londonderry; there have been various shootings across Northern Ireland; and we had three parcel bombs at Heathrow airport, London City airport and Waterloo station yesterday originating from the Republic of Ireland—at least the postage did. What discussions has the Secretary of State had with her equivalent in the Republic of Ireland to address these issues, which clearly show that the Republic of Ireland is a haven for terrorists?
Karen Bradley
We discussed the matters of cross-border security and east-west relations at both British-Irish Intergovernmental Conferences in the past 12 months. Close work between the Garda and the Police Service of Northern Ireland is imperative to ensuring the safety of us all.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
Would the Secretary of State care to take the opportunity from the Dispatch Box to thank my constituent Alastair Hamilton, the soon to be former head of Invest Northern Ireland, for the 10 years of great service he has given to Northern Ireland in attracting the highest levels of inward investment our country has ever seen?
Karen Bradley
I am sure the hon. Gentleman is referring to the contribution that investment has made to the security of Northern Ireland, and he will notice that I have my Invest NI pen with me.
Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)
The idea that the European arrest warrant should be left to the lottery of whether the Prime Minister gets her legislation through simply cannot be in the interests of the people of this country. Will the Secretary of State now get a grip, talk to the Prime Minister and insist that we get the European arrest warrant sorted, irrespective of the outcomes in this House next week?
Karen Bradley
I want to see access to the European arrest warrant, or a similar instrument, continue into the future. As a Minister in the Home Office, I worked very hard to ensure that we have access to the European arrest warrant as a United Kingdom, and I want to see it continue, but I gently remind the hon. Gentleman that there is a mechanism to ensure all these matters continue, and that is the withdrawal agreement—that means voting for the deal. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. Before I call the hon. Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd) to ask his second question, let me say that a lot of noisy private conversations are taking place, including on the Government Benches, where I am sure Members wish to listen to their illustrious Secretary of State as she replies to the inquiries put to her.
Tony Lloyd
Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Secretary of State knows that the security situation also depends on trust. When David Cameron was Prime Minister, he recognised the special circumstances of the Pat Finucane case and established an independent inquiry into those circumstances. The Supreme Court decided last week that that was a flawed process. What remedy does the Secretary of State propose, unless it is indeed a second public inquiry?
Karen Bradley
The judgment from the Supreme Court on the Pat Finucane case came out last week. It is a complicated matter, because although the judgment says that the article 2 obligations on the Government have not been thoroughly fulfilled, it does not suggest the next stage forward. I am looking carefully at the judgment and considering the next steps.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Karen Bradley)
The Government recognise the sensitivity of this issue and the range of views expressed by stakeholders on all sides of the debate. We take our obligations under the convention seriously, including having had positive dialogues with the committee very recently.
Alison Thewliss
On 25 February, at CEDAW, the Women’s Aid Federation Northern Ireland raised a series of concerns, including on the lack of a gender equality strategy and a violence against women strategy, on a gendered approach to post-conflict transition not being applied and on the disproportionate impact of UK Government policies such as the two-child policy and the rape clause. What is the Secretary of State going to do about this? Why will she leave women in Northern Ireland behind?
Karen Bradley
I absolutely disagree that that is what this Government are doing. We are determined to ensure that we fulfil all our obligations on human rights matters. Many of the matters raised by CEDAW need to be legislated for in Stormont, which is why we need devolved government in Stormont sooner rather than later.
Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson (Lagan Valley) (DUP)
The Secretary of State will know that in Northern Ireland many women believe that both lives matter. Does she agree that this is an issue to be dealt with by the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive and that we should respect the devolution settlement? It is disappointing that the Scottish National party wants to breach the devolution settlement.
Karen Bradley
I do agree with the right hon. Gentleman on that. Interestingly, even the majority of those people who say in polls that they want to see change to the abortion laws in Northern Ireland—about 64%—are very clear that they want those changes to be made in Stormont.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. Colleagues, we are joined for Prime Minister’s questions today—I know that the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) will be keenly interested in this announcement, rather than in his own no doubt fascinating private conversation—by the former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and the Australian high commissioner. They are both extremely welcome. We value our excellent relations with your country. We admire your nation. We respect your cricketers. And a lot of us have a particularly high regard for your illustrious tennis players. From this Speaker’s point of view, none was greater than the illustrious “Rockhampton Rocket” Rod Laver.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
The Prime Minister (Mrs Theresa May)
I am sure the whole House will join you in welcoming our Australian friends to the Gallery, Mr Speaker. I am reminded of the occasion when another former Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, visited this House. He watched Prime Minister’s questions and commented afterwards that however lively PMQs was here, it was a vicarage tea party compared with Australia.
The death of anyone through an act of violence is an appalling tragedy. A growing number of young people have lost their lives in a cycle of mindless violence that has shocked us all. Our thoughts and prayers are with the friends and families of all the victims. The responsibility for these crimes lies with the perpetrators of them, but we must all do more to ensure that justice is served and to tackle the root causes of this violence so that we can bring it to an end and ensure the safety of our young people. I will be holding a summit in No. 10 in the coming days to bring together Ministers, community leaders, agencies and others, and I will also be meeting the victims of these appalling crimes to listen to their stories and explore what more we can do as a whole society to tackle this problem.
I am sure the whole House will want to join me in paying tribute to Professor Lord Bhattacharyya who died, sadly, last week. His creation of the Warwick Manufacturing Group was truly a pioneering partnership between academia and industry. Our thoughts are with his family and friends, and I know he will be sorely missed.
This morning, I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall have further such meetings later today.
Tim Farron
I associate myself with the Prime Minister’s remarks and pass my condolences on to the families and loved ones of those who have been the victims of tragic crimes this week.
Britain spent £27 billion on bailing out the banks, and they have repaid us by closing down 3,000 branches since 2016, including the last branch in Grange this week. They have also failed to compensate innocent customers who have lost £2 billion in fraud. Does the Prime Minister agree that the banks have taken without giving for far too long, and will she meet me so that we can force the banks to compensate the victims of fraud and the communities that they have abandoned and prevent them from closing the last branch in town?
The Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman talks about banks closing branches; of course, as people’s behaviour in terms of their access to their finances changes, banks respond to that. They are commercial organisations and those are decisions that they take. He talks about compensation, which is of course an issue that has been raised across the House in the past, and it has been taken up and is being looked at by the financial services ombudsman.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
The Prime Minister
I thank my hon. Friend, who has put forward a positive suggestion for Members of this House, during Lent, to vote with the Government in the meaningful vote. Then, of course, across the House we would all be able to give up being a member of the European Union on 29 March.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
I join the Prime Minister in paying tribute to Lord Bhattacharyya, who died last week. As she said, he was a champion of the car industry and manufacturing in general, and he played a key role in saving Jaguar Land Rover, not only safeguarding jobs but, crucially, ensuring that international research is done in the UK. We thank him for everything he did.
Tomorrow is International Women’s Day, and I am delighted that for the Opposition the debate will be opened by my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby), who is herself the daughter of people from the Windrush generation. We will be making the case for closing the gender pay gap, as we are determined to improve the lot of women in our society. In that vein, may I congratulate the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) on giving birth to a son this morning?
I join the Prime Minister in sending our thoughts and prayers to the families of those who have lost young people. Yousef Makki and Jodie Chesney, both 17 years old, were the ninth and 10th teenagers murdered already this year. Two hundred and eighty-five people have been stabbed to death in the past year—the highest level ever. I welcome the fact that the Prime Minister has announced that Cobra is being convened, but what extra funding is being provided to address the root causes of both knife crime and the increasing levels of violent crime on the streets of all our towns and cities?
The Prime Minister
First, I join the right hon. Gentleman in congratulating the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) on the birth of her son. We are all pleased to hear that that has gone well. In relation to International Women’s Day, I am pleased that today marks the launch of the book by his hon. Friend, the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), “Women of Westminster: The MPs Who Changed Politics”. I hope that that book will be an inspiration to other women to come into politics and have a career in this House. I congratulate the England women’s football team, who last night won the SheBelieves cup, defeating Japan in doing so.
The right hon. Gentleman raises the specific question of knife crime, which I referred to in my opening comments. Of course, as I said, any death of a young person through an act of violence is a terrible tragedy, and we have seen too many young lives—too many lives of promise and potential—being cut short. Responsibility for these terrible crimes does lie with the perpetrators, and we will always stand with the victims to ensure that criminals are brought to justice. We will defeat the scourge of violence only if we understand and address its complex root causes. Yes, that does mean ensuring that all agencies, including the police, have the right resources and powers to do their jobs. It means tackling the drug crime that is fuelling gang violence in our cities and exporting it across the country, and it means intervening at every stage to turn young people away from violence, and that is exactly what the Government are doing.
Jeremy Corbyn
Many of us in this House will have sat in the living rooms of homes where a young person has lost their life through knife crime and will never forget that experience and never forget that feeling of hopelessness and loss that those families are going through. We owe it to those families and those young people who have lost their lives to do far more about knife crime and far more about ensuring that there are sufficient resources for the police to deal with it. Sara Thornton of the National Police Chiefs Council said:
“We think we need much stronger leadership from Government…and there needs to be more funding.”
The Metropolitan Police Commissioner said yesterday that, of course,
“there is some link between violent crime on the streets…and police numbers.”
A total of 21,000 police officers’ jobs have been cut. Violent crime is at the highest level since comparative records began. If there are sufficient police numbers, can the Prime Minister please explain why, yesterday, the Defence Secretary was offering to send in the military to assist with knife crime?
The Prime Minister
The Metropolitan Police Commissioner has recognised that the causes of knife crime are complex, and she has said:
“The police alone won’t sort this issue out, we can’t arrest our way out of this problem.”
I agree, which is why we need to tackle it across a number of fronts. We must continue to enforce the laws that bear down on violent crime. That involves the Offensive Weapons Bill in which we introduced the knife crime prevention orders. Those orders were asked for by the police, and we are introducing them. We will intervene early to stop young people going down into a life of crime and becoming involved in crime. We have published the serious violence strategy, and the serious violence taskforce is working. We have also put £200 million into the youth endowment fund, and our early intervention youth fund has already funded 29 projects working with police and crime commissioners. We do ensure that police have the right resources: £460 million more is available this year and nearly double that—nearly £1 billion extra—is available next year. We also need to ensure that we understand the different use and misuse of drugs that is fuelling much of this crime. That is why my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has set up the independent drugs misuse review, which will be led by Dame Carol Black.
Jeremy Corbyn
The police clearly do not have the resources to deal with the problem: safer neighbourhood teams have been cut and community police officers have been cut. Many areas see no police officers at all. There is nobody to supervise these special orders that the Prime Minister is talking about. Perhaps she will listen to Nazir Afzal, the former chief prosecutor of Greater Manchester. Tragically, his 17-year-old relative was recently stabbed to death in Birmingham. He said:
“When you reduce police numbers by 21,000…there isn’t the intelligence any more, there isn’t the neighbour policing any more”.
Does the Prime Minister now regret the cuts in police numbers, and in this review will she undertake to restore them to their former level?
The Prime Minister
As I have just indicated, we are putting more resources into the police. [Interruption.] It is no good Opposition Members standing up saying, “No, you’re not.” It is a fact that more money is being put into the police this year and that more money is being put into the police next year. The real question is not are we putting more money into the police, because we are, but why did the Labour party oppose that money going into the police.
Jeremy Corbyn
Violent crime has doubled under the Tories’ watch. I have had a letter from Mike in Gosport—[Interruption.] Yes, it is important; he has something to say. Mike says:
“The crime rate has run out of control because there is no police presence…it has become a really unsafe town to live in”.
I think Mike speaks for millions of people around the country. When are towns such as Gosport and others going to get resources for the safer neighbourhood teams, and the local police they need to tackle rising violent crime and to provide the intelligence from which arrests can be made of those who have committed these crimes?
The Prime Minister
As we make more resources available to the police, they are available to forces across the country, including Hampshire. Of course we look at the powers and resources that the police need. That is why we are not just putting more resources in, but increasing the powers that the police have. We introduced knife crime prevention orders in the Offensive Weapons Bill. That is an important step, which we have taken because the police asked us to. If the right hon. Gentleman wants the police to be able to do their job on the streets, he needs to tell this House why he voted against the measures we introduced to increase the powers of the police to deal with those carrying knives and to apply custodial sentences in the cases of those who are caught twice carrying knives.
Jeremy Corbyn
Crime went down when Labour was in office. We increased the numbers of police officers and the safer neighbourhood teams. Police officers are telling me that there are simply not enough of them to do the job. Hampshire alone has lost 1,000 police officers, and its funding has been cut by £70 million. Does the Prime Minister understand the scale of need here?
The Local Government Association says that local services face a funding gap of £3.2 billion this year. By the way, that is double—in one year alone—what the stronger towns fund is offering over seven years. The number of rapes, murders and other serious crimes committed by offenders on parole has risen by more than 50% since the privatisation of the probation service was introduced four years ago. At least one company wrongly classified offenders as low risk in order to meet Government targets. Do the Government now accept that privatising the probation service to profit-making companies has been a disaster that should be reversed, and that the probation service should be brought back completely into the public service?
The Prime Minister
When we are looking at issues of probation, we want to ensure that we are genuinely reducing the level of reoffending. That is about a rehabilitation method that looks at a variety of issues, including the home of an individual coming out of prison, their employment and their relationship with their family. This was not done fully under the last Labour Government, which is why we saw such a high level of reoffending rates and it is why we need to take action.
The right hon. Gentleman keeps raising these issues, and I welcome the fact that he is accepting that dealing with serious violence and knife crime requires us to act across a number of areas. For example, it is about the work that we are doing with young people, and supporting intervention in hospital accident and emergency departments. We are expanding our support to the charity Redthread, which has introduced its youth violence intervention work in hospitals in Birmingham and Nottingham, as well as in London. We are also supporting the £3.6 million national county lines co-ordination centre.
In just two separate weeks of law enforcement action, we have seen more than 1,000 arrests and 1,300 individuals being safeguarded. We commend all the police officers and other agencies involved in that work. The Government are giving them the support that they need to do their job.
Jeremy Corbyn
The problem is that violent crime has doubled. The rise has been driven by austerity—something that the Prime Minister told us a few months ago was over. Cuts to police and rising poverty; the police and the Home Office recognise the link, even if the Prime Minister does not. But the issues are wider: the privatisation of the probation service has been a disaster; mental health services are under-resourced; youth and children’s services are in crisis; more than 600 youth centres have been closed; 3,500 youth workers have lost their jobs; funding for colleges and schools has been cut; and exclusions are rising. The public services that were there to support young people have been systematically stripped away, and everyone can see the consequences. Can the Prime Minister not recognise that there has to be a holistic response? We cannot keep communities safe on the cheap, with cuts and privatisation. We have to invest in all our communities in every part of this country—something that this Government are incapable of doing.
The Prime Minister
We put more money into our local authorities; the right hon. Gentleman voted against it. We put more money into our police—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. There is a very discordant noise from Opposition Back Benchers. The question has been asked—and, broadly speaking, heard—and the answer will be heard.
The Prime Minister
We have put more money into our schools—£2.6 billion over these two years. We are putting more money into our local authorities—£1.3 billion next year, voted against by the right hon. Gentleman and the Labour party—and more money into our police: nearly £1 billion extra available to them next year, voted against by the right hon. Gentleman and the Labour party.
The right hon. Gentleman stands up here and talks about austerity. If he is that concerned about austerity, you would think that he would want to make sure that it could never, ever happen again. Let us remember why we had to take those measures—because of the state of the economy left by the Labour party. But what would his policies mean? Higher borrowing, higher taxes, crashing our economy, less money for our public services—he would take us right back to austerity, square one.
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
The Prime Minister
I recognise that this is an issue of real concern to many constituents. That is why we have committed to clamping down on those agents who abuse the system and protecting leaseholders and renters who are suffering at the hands of rogue agents, every day, from unexpected costs or from poor-quality repairs for excessive fees. We have asked Lord Best to chair a working group to look at regulating and professionalising property agents that will include reviewing the standards around the transparency of service charges and other fees and charges—how they are presented to consumers—and putting them into a statutory code for managing agents. But I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Communities Secretary will have heard the issue that my hon. Friend has raised and be happy to meet him to discuss this further.
Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)
Tove Macdonald is 87 years old. She was brought up under Nazi occupation in Denmark. She has lived in Scotland for 59 years. Why, Prime Minister, is she being forced to register in a country she has called home for almost the last 60 years?
The Prime Minister
We want to ensure that EU citizens who are living here have their rights protected. We want to be able to ensure that they have the necessary support that they need and, indeed, the recognition of their status here in the United Kingdom. If the right hon. Gentleman is interested in defending and protecting the rights of EU citizens here in this country, then I hope he will vote for the deal, which does exactly that.
Ian Blackford
What a disgrace—a woman who has lived here for almost 60 years, and the Prime Minister wants her to register to stay here. Tove has children. She has grandchildren. She has married in Scotland. She has friends here. She has built her life here. Why is the Prime Minister making Tove register after almost 60 years? Will she end this heartless policy? Will she tell Tove and all EU citizens who have come to the UK to work, live and love that the UK is their home, without precondition?
The Prime Minister
We have consistently said to EU citizens who have been living here for many years, as in the example that the right hon. Gentleman gave, and others who have come here more recently that we recognise the contribution they have made to our society and our economy, and we want them to stay. That is why we put EU citizens’ rights at the front of the negotiations with the European Union. It is why we have negotiated those citizens’ rights in the withdrawal agreement, and it is why this Government have given a confirmation and a guarantee that those rights will be protected even if we leave with no deal. That is the right way to protect the interests of EU citizens here in the United Kingdom. The right hon. Gentleman should recognise the commitment that this Government have given to all EU citizens in the United Kingdom. This is their home. We want them to stay, and they can stay.
Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)
The Prime Minister
The case that my hon. Friend raises is one of great concern, and I know that Members across the House will want to join me in sending our sincerest sympathies to Breck’s family. I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to Breck’s mother for her brave and powerful campaigning on the wider issue of internet grooming.
The Ministry of Justice has assured me that it is urgently looking into this issue, and I am sure it will update my hon. Friend as soon as possible. I agree with him; we want social media companies to recognise the responsibility they have and to work with law enforcement agencies. I know that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has written to my hon. Friend, to meet him and hear more from the family. It has become increasingly difficult for UK law enforcement to access data containing information on threats to UK public safety if it is held or controlled in other countries. That is why the Government recently legislated—we passed the Crime (Overseas Production Orders) Act 2019, which will give law enforcement agencies the power to obtain electronic data controlled by providers outside the UK where an international agreement is in place. He mentioned the United States; we expect to establish the first such agreement with the United States.
Phil Wilson (Sedgefield) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
As the hon. Gentleman knows full well, we have been investing in the north of England. We have been investing in transport across the north of England. We have been investing in our public services. We are investing in the health service, and the north-east will benefit from that as well. Since 2010, in the north-east, there are over 35,000 more small businesses, more than 18,000 new affordable homes, and over 305,000 children are in good or outstanding schools. That shows that the hard work of this Government is paying off, and the people of the north-east are benefiting.
Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)
Earlier this week, the owners of the Westgate shopping centre in Basildon terminated Smart Parking’s contract after a disastrous nine months of operation. I have now discovered that Smart Parking has signed a shared business services agreement with the NHS. May I ask my right hon. Friend to ensure that, before any contracts are signed, the Department of Health and Social Care fully researches the impact that the practices of Smart Parking would have on its users, customers, clients and staff?
The Prime Minister
Obviously, my hon. Friend has raised an important issue, and the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care will be happy to meet him to discuss this further.
Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
I think the hon. Gentleman is a living example of devolution of powers from Whitehall out to the areas through the mayoralty that he is serving. We recognise the discussion and debate there has been on the issue of Yorkshire devolution. The One Yorkshire proposals did not meet our criteria for devolution, but my right hon. Friend the Communities Secretary has met Yorkshire leaders and discussions are continuing. However, the priority remains the implementation of the agreed Sheffield city region deal, which will bring £900 million of investment to the local area, which I am sure the hon. Gentleman will welcome.
Julia Lopez (Hornchurch and Upminster) (Con)
It was with profound sadness that I saw my constituency this week join the all-too-long list of areas across our country to have lost a precious young person to knife crime. The public do not want to see politicians throw blame at one another for these stolen lives; they want to see them take responsibility for what is within their control, provide resource if resource is necessary and then demonstrate a relentless and total commitment to snuffing out violent crime. I welcome the announcement of an emergency summit, but what action will the Prime Minister be taking after that constantly to drive performance on these issues until we get the result the public rightly demand—to keep children safe?
The Prime Minister
May I say to my hon. Friend, as I did earlier, that any death of a young person at the hands of violence is a terrible tragedy? I recognise, as she says, that her constituency has seen just one of the latest examples of a young life cut short far too early. I also say to her that, yes, as I said, what we are doing is bringing together Ministers, local government, police and others—other agencies. This needs to be a cross-society approach to deal with this issue, because it is not just about catching the perpetrators of the crime; it is about preventing the crime from taking place in the first place.
That is one of the reasons why the Government will be launching a consultation on addressing this as a public health issue. There has been excellent work done under what was Strathclyde police force, now Police Scotland, looking at and using the public health approach. What that does is ensure that all agencies—not just across Government, but in local government and elsewhere—are able to be brought together to deal with this issue. What I want to do at that summit is to hear directly from those agencies what further action the Government can take, which we can then put in place to deal with the issue.
Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
I think the hon. Lady has discussed the issue of delaying Brexit with me before, and I just simply say to her that this Parliament gave the people of the United Kingdom the decision to choose whether to leave the European Union or to stay in. They chose to leave the European Union. I think for trust in politics it is important that the Government deliver on just that.
Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)
Mr Speaker, you are right that the former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is very welcome here today. As he said in a lecture last night:
“If a state-sponsored adversary has enduring access to staff, software or hardware deployed into a target telecommunication network, then they only require the intent to act in order to conduct operations within the network.”
Given that Chinese law obliges all Chinese companies to assist the Chinese intelligence services, will the Prime Minister explain what the implications are for British Government policy?
The Prime Minister
We look at these issues very seriously. As regards the issue of 5G security, we are looking at the right approach that we need to take. We want to be able to benefit from that new technology, but of course we need to manage the risks closely and we are considering a full range of policy options. Our review into 5G is still ongoing and no decisions have been taken.
Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)
The Prime Minister
We entered the European Union as the United Kingdom; we will leave the European Union as the United Kingdom. I also say to the hon. Lady that the SNP has no mandate from the Scottish people to continue to pursue independence. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. Calm! [Interruption.] Difference of opinion is the essence of politics. There is an elaborate combination of finger wagging and head shaking going on, which may be personally therapeutic but is institutionally disadvantageous. In any case, we owe the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) a decent hearing. I call Rebecca Pow.
Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)
Mr Speaker, I am not sure who is in charge of the washing machine in your house, but were you aware that every time you, I or anyone else puts a load of washing on, 700,000 tiny microfibres get washed down the drain and into the marine environment, causing untold damage?
Rebecca Pow
The 68 million loads of washing done in the UK every week contribute a staggering 9.4 trillion microfibres to the environment. As many colleagues, including me, try to reduce their plastics use for Lent, in a campaign masterminded by my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford), will the Prime Minister agree that this is a great time to address the issue and carry on this Government’s great record on the environment?
Mr Speaker
I think that by now the wash would have been completed. [Laughter.]
The Prime Minister
Despite the laughter, my hon. Friend has raised a very important issue. May I thank her for continuing to be a champion of our environment? She did an enormous amount of work that led to the Government ban on microbeads, and she is now raising the issue of microfibres. She mentions that Members across this House are seeking to reduce their use of plastic during Lent. I think that it is incumbent on all of us to seek to reduce our use of plastic, not just during Lent but for the time to come.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
The Prime Minister
The hon. Lady has raised a specific issue with me, which I will look into, but she says we did not respond on the question about AggregateIQ. My hon. Friend the Minister for the Constitution has written to her about this and responded to her query.
Antoinette Sandbach (Eddisbury) (Con)
Women’s football is one of the fastest growing sports in the world. I hope you, Mr Speaker, and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will welcome the £70 million investment Cheshire Football Association is putting into developing a women’s football training centre in Winsford. May I invite the Prime Minister to come and open the facility—and take part?
The Prime Minister
I thank my hon. Friend for her invitation. Earlier, I was pleased to congratulate the England women’s football team. I am sure the whole House will recognise the important work being done by Cheshire FA. I think it is a very exciting project. I welcome its commitment to providing this new world-class facility for women and girls’ football in Cheshire. I will look very closely at her invitation. It sounds very interesting, but of course I cannot commit my diary on the Floor of the House.
Mhairi Black (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (SNP)
The Prime Minister
Obviously, the hon. Lady raises what sounds like a very distressing individual case. I will ensure that the appropriate Minister writes to her.
Ross Thomson (Aberdeen South) (Con)
Last week, MPs heard harrowing testimony from family members of a man who tragically committed suicide because he faced the loan charge, a 20-year retrospective tax facing thousands of families in my constituency and across the UK. On 9 January the Prime Minister said that the Government accepted the review into the loan charge, yet the all-party group on the loan charge was only advised this week by the Treasury that there is no such review. The Treasury has acted in bad faith, so will my right hon. Friend now personally intervene to ensure a genuine review and an urgent delay of the loan charge, so that the review, as promised, can be carried out?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend raises an issue which is of concern not only to his constituents but others’ across the House. I will ensure that he receives a response from the Treasury that sets out exactly what is being done in the review that is taking place.
Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)
The Prime Minister
We recognise we have asked schools to do more. That is why we recently announced an extra £350 million to support children with complex special educational needs. That includes an extra £250 million into the high needs budget across this year and next. That builds on the £6 billion in place for this year, the highest level on record. We have also put in an extra £100 million to create new school places to improve existing facilities for children with special educational needs and disabilities. That takes our total investment on that to £365 million through to 2021. The hon. Gentleman raises the question of the money actually going direct to the schools. I suggest that he needs to sit down—I am sure he has—with the local authority and discuss with it how it is using the money that is being made available to it.
Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con)
This week marks the beginning of Brain Tumour Awareness Month, and I bring the House’s attention to the event that is happening immediately after Prime Minister’s questions in Westminster Hall. Good progress is being made to find the right care and cure for people who have brain tumours, but will my right hon. Friend meet me and others to discuss how we can improve the life chances of children and young people who survive a brain tumour but are left with brain injuries? Essential therapies and support for children and young people in this situation is not consistent and often lacking, leaving them with significantly impaired life chances.
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend raises a very important issue and I thank the all-party group on brain tumours for all the work that it has done on this issue. It is essential to recognise the needs of parents and carers of children to ensure that the right support is in place when and where they need it. That is why those diagnosed with cancer, including children with brain cancer, will be benefiting from a tailored recovery package, individually designed to help them to live well with and beyond cancer. As my hon. Friend mentions, not just dealing with the cancer, but thereafter is an important element of this. NHS England is accelerating the roll-out to ensure full implementation by 2020, as recommended by the independent cancer taskforce. I understand that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care will be going directly to the event that my hon. Friend refers to, and I am sure that the appropriate Minister in the Department for Health and Social Care will be happy to meet to go through this in detail.
Paul Girvan (South Antrim) (DUP)
The Prime Minister
We have been clear that the current system for dealing with the legacy of Northern Ireland’s past is not working well for anyone. Around 3,500 people were killed in the troubles; 90% were murdered by terrorists. Many of these cases require further investigation, including the deaths of hundreds of members of the security forces. The system to investigate the past does need to change to provide better outcomes for victims and survivors of the troubles, but also to ensure that our armed forces and police officers are not unfairly treated. That is why we are working across Government on proposals to see how best we can move forward. We are carefully considering the very large number of responses that we received to the consultation on this issue. We will be publishing our next steps in due course and the MOD is looking at what more can be done to ensure that service personnel are not unfairly pursued through the courts, including considering legislation.
Colin Clark (Gordon) (Con)
The SNP Scottish Government have resurrected Alex Salmond’s call for a Scottish currency. Does the Prime Minister agree that this is reckless and risks destabilising the Scottish economy?
The Prime Minister
I seem to recall that, back in the 2014 referendum, the SNP were absolutely adamant that Scotland would keep the pound. There have been a few changes since then. They have looked at the option of the euro, then they went back to sterling, and now they are into an independent currency. This Government are working to secure a Brexit deal that protects jobs and our economy. The SNP should focus on that rather than continuing to pursue their independence fantasy.
Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)
Mr Speaker
May I gently say to colleagues that I am trying to accommodate as many Back-Bench Members as possible? This applies to both sides of the House: some extremely serious public purpose-focused questions are being put, but they are too long.
The Prime Minister
Thank you, Mr Speaker.
On the ESA underpayments, obviously mistakes should not have happened and we need to clear this up as quickly as possible. The DWP is taking the issue very seriously. It has about 1,200 people working on sorting it out. We have already paid out almost £330 million. The Department expects to finish correcting the majority of the original cases by April and it aims to process additional cases by the end of the year.
Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)
Yesterday, pupils from Tweedmouth Community Middle School won the national Modeshift STARS trophy for secondary schools for its amazing work to encourage more pupils to cycle to school. Will the Prime Minister join me in congratulating the school, its head, Mr Hulbert, and his team of staff, who are committed to creating a fitter, greener and more environmentally focused next generation of Berwickers?
The Prime Minister
I am very happy to join my hon. Friend in thanking and congratulating Tweedmouth Community Middle School on its excellent work encouraging pupils to cycle to school. It is clearly an excellent achievement. We all know the importance of keeping our young people active. I congratulate Mr Hulbert and all the teachers, but particularly the students who have taken this up and put it into practice. It is a very good example of what schools are doing across the country.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
The Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman has raised a distressing case about a constituent. We have taken steps to ensure that medicinal cannabis is available, but decisions on availability are taken by clinicians, as is absolutely right.
Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)
I welcome the publication of the draft Domestic Abuse Bill, and I hope it will pass successfully through the House. Does my right hon. Friend agree that, as well as tackling extreme abuse and violence, we should also raise awareness of the entry level acts of coercion, deceit and manipulation that lead to more extreme examples?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend has raised an important issue. People will obviously have seen distressing cases of coercion and indeed some instances where that has been taken through the courts. We all need to recognise the importance of dealing with domestic abuse and recognise that for too long the issue of coercion was not accepted or addressed. It is important. It is this Government who are doing that. As he says, we must be very clear about the entry level behaviours that lead to that distress.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
The Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman raises an issue that has been raised on several occasions. Of course, the Government have responded on this and I would be happy to write to him on it.
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
This Ash Wednesday, will the Prime Minister give strong encouragement and support to the 48 Conservative MPs who are taking on an environmental challenge because we have seen the devastating impact of plastics across the world? Will she give a big shout-out to all Members of the House taking on a plastics pledge and raising the good work of Tearfund and the Department for International Development in reducing plastic pollution?
The Prime Minister
I was pleased to see many hon. Friends giving up plastic last year, and I am pleased to hear that many colleagues are planning on supporting Tearfund’s plastics pledge. Through UK Aid Match, the UK Government will match donations of up to £2 million raised by Tearfund’s supporters for a project in Pakistan. We are committed to the UK being a world leader in tackling plastic pollution. Hon. Members are showing by their example the role that the UK is playing, and I congratulate and applaud them.
Sir Vince Cable (Twickenham) (LD)
The Prime Minister will recall the advice she received from her Conservative colleagues as well as mine about the dangerous folly of making landlords responsible in criminal law for immigration control. Following the High Court ruling of Mr Justice Spencer that her policy is now increasing the risk of racial discrimination, will she not accept that her policy is fanning the flames of racism in return for nothing but tougher rhetoric about immigration control?
The Prime Minister
It is absolutely right that the Government have taken the approach that we need to consider, when people are accessing different services, whether they have a right to be in this country. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has issued a written ministerial statement in response to the case in the courts and I understand that the Government are appealing the case.
Petition
Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)
My constituents are deeply concerned by proposals from the Post Office to close its large, accessible branch in Mell Square, in the town centre, and to replace it with a counter on the first floor of the nearby branch of WHSmith. An official public consultation on the move by the Post Office closes today. Although it invited residents’ views on many important questions, especially regarding site accessibility and the impact on the wider community, it explicitly did not allow them to pass judgment on the move itself. It is not right that a growing town such as Solihull is facing such cuts to important community resources such as our local post office. That almost 1,000 of my constituents signed this petition shows that their objection to the Post Office’s plans runs deeper than the fine details, and it is a privilege to put their concerns directly to this House today.
The petition states:
The petition of residents of Solihull,
Declares that local residents have concerns over the proposed closure and relocation of Solihull Post Office, Mell Square.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Post Office to re-consider the closure of the Solihull Post Office in Mell Square due to its size and accessibility.
And the petitioners remain, etc.
[P002434]
Points of Order
Mr Speaker
I will come to the right hon. Gentleman, but I think there is a point of order from Mr Ian Blackford. I hope it is a genuine point of order.
Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. It is disappointing that the Prime Minister, who was alerted that I would be making a point of order, has chosen to scurry from the Chamber. Mr Speaker, you will agree that what we say in the Chamber is important. In response to my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman), the Prime Minister said that the Scottish National party did not have a mandate for independence. Let me say unequivocally that is not the case. The SNP stood on a manifesto commitment to holding an independence referendum if there was a material change of circumstances. It might be a surprise to the Prime Minister, but we won the election. Perhaps more importantly, we took a motion to the Scottish Parliament, because there is emphatically a majority for independence in that Parliament, and we won that vote in March 2017 by 69 votes to 59. I wonder what mechanism is open to me, Mr Speaker, to make sure the Prime Minister comes back and corrects the record and accedes to the fact that the SNP and the Scottish Government do have a majority and mandate for independence.
Mr Speaker
I say to the right hon. Gentleman and for the benefit of those interested in this matter, first, that he has made his point with vigour and insistence, very much in the mould he has fashioned since his election to the House. No one could be in any doubt about what he believes; it is one the record. Secondly—I do not know if this will be welcome to him, but it is the honest answer from the Chair—there has been no procedural impropriety or breach of order. There is nothing untoward, in parliamentary terms, about how the Prime Minister has conducted herself. I recognise that it is disagreeable to and strongly objected to by him and his colleagues here assembled, but that, I am afraid, is in the nature of political debate and disagreement. As to when he will have a chance further to pursue his disagreement with the Prime Minister, I think that opportunity will arise ere long.
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker.
Mr Speaker
I hope the hon. Gentleman has a genuine point of order. He is certainly wearing a fabulous tie. Whether his point of order is of equal quality remains to be seen, but I will give him a chance.
Angus Brendan MacNeil
I accept the compliment about my tie, which is reciprocated.
The truth is that what the Prime Minister said is not the situation in Scotland. There is a mandate for independence. She said there was not a mandate, but there is. That is a fact.
Mr Speaker
I am not sure that greatly added to the intellectual quality of the exchange, but nevertheless the hon. Gentleman has made his point with some force, and it is on the record, but I do not think it requires a response from the Chair at this time. I am sorry if I have misunderstood, but I feel he has put his point, and it rests and will be assessed and evaluated by all colleagues.
Hilary Benn
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Next Tuesday, the House will vote again on the withdrawal agreement. The Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union was due to appear before the Committee yesterday but cancelled for perfectly understandable reasons—he was in Brussels with the Attorney General negotiating. We of course accept that, but we have offered him other times this week and next Monday afternoon, none of which have been accepted so far.
While we understand that negotiations will continue, I was very surprised to learn this morning, at a meeting of the Committee, that the Secretary of State’s office had offered times to individual members of the Committee for him to meet them later on Monday afternoon, but had not so far confirmed that he would be available to appear before the Committee. Given that next Tuesday we may well be considering further legal assurances related to the withdrawal agreement, the Committee is absolutely clear that we must hear from him before we vote on Tuesday.
I would not normally raise a point of order on such a matter, Mr Speaker, but given its urgency and the profoundly unsatisfactory state of affairs, what advice can you give the Committee so that we can secure the Secretary of State’s attendance—which is his job—before we vote next Tuesday?
Mr Speaker
My advice is simple: persist, persist, persist.
Let me say to the right hon. Gentleman, who is held in the highest esteem in, I think, all parts of the House, that if he, on behalf—and clearly with the agreement—of the Committee, seeks the presence of the Secretary of State prior to an important debate and attendant vote, the Secretary of State should appear before the Committee. That cannot be compelled, certainly not by the Chair, but it is manifest and, I think, incontrovertible that it is desirable in terms of the scrutiny and accountability process; from which something else follows.
Simply offering individual meetings with members of the Committee does not remotely pass muster. The fact is that the Select Committee is an established body in the House, established to scrutinise the Government’s Brexit policy, and it has a corporate character. Indeed, its members are operating not merely as individual Members of Parliament, but as part of a body politic—in this case, as part of that Committee. So my advice to the right hon. Gentleman is that he should persist, making it absolutely clear that it is the view of the Committee that the presence of the Secretary of State is desired. It is frankly, if I may say so, a point so blindingly obvious—[Interruption.] Be quiet, young man. In ethical terms, it is so manifestly fair, that that is what should happen.
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. This Friday I will attend the funeral of Charles Smith MBE. When he died at the age of 98 he had been a member of the Labour party for 84 years, which I believe made him the most long-standing member of the party. In paying tribute to him, may I ask for your guidance, Mr Speaker, on how I might use this opportunity to encourage everyone in Parliament to celebrate all those people who have given long service to our political parties, to recognise that the vast majority of them do so in order to support their communities and the country, and to recognise that our political parties are broadly a force for good and we should welcome their membership?
Mr Speaker
I do not dissent from that. The hon. Gentleman has made his point very well. It does not require anything further to be said by the Chair, but I congratulate him on taking his opportunity.
Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You have been extremely helpful in ensuring that Parliament can hold the Executive to account in respect of knife crime. Given the Prime Minister’s announcement today of a knife crime summit and given what the Home Secretary has done today in meeting various police chiefs, is there anything further we can do to ensure that, at the earliest possible opportunity, either the Home Secretary or the Prime Minister comes to the House to give us an update on this extremely important issue?
Mr Speaker
In terms of parliamentary opportunity on the Floor of the House, there is a chance tomorrow, and, indeed, there is a chance on Monday. The opportunities are there, and it is up to Members whether they seek to seize those opportunities. I hope that that is helpful to colleagues.
Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Will you please advise me on how I can best clarify the record in respect of a comment that I made during business questions on 20 December 2018?
On that occasion I highlighted the work of two campaigns in the city of Glasgow. One, Saving Lives, led by Duncan and Margaret Spiers, was started in the wake of the tragic death of their 28-year-old son, Christopher Spiers, in an accident at the River Clyde in 2016. Their campaign seeks to promote water safety, to ensure that vital life-saving equipment is provided on the banks of the River Clyde and across Scotland, and, most importantly, to ensure that throw ropes are attached to lifebelts. I also mentioned the Think Again campaign for emergency lifeline telephones to be installed on the Clyde to help those who are in urgent need of emotional support.
For the avoidance of any doubt that may have arisen at the time of my original remarks, Mr Speaker, I wish to emphasise that the two campaigns are separate, with distinctive objectives, and that both are doing excellent work in their respective ways to preserve life in the city of Glasgow and further afield.
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He asks me how he can best clarify the record in respect of what he said in the House in December. My response to him is that he has proved to be the architect of his own salvation. Through the device of his point of order, he has succeeded in clarifying the matter and putting the facts very clearly on the record. In the process he has highlighted again the excellent work of those two campaigns, and I thank him for doing so.
Social Security and Employment Support for Disabled People
(5 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab) (Urgent Question)
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if she will make a statement on the changes that her Department intends to make to social security and employment support, including the assessment process, for disabled people and people with health conditions.
The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Sarah Newton)
Yesterday the Secretary of State provided the House with a written statement, and delivered a speech to Scope that included, among other announcements, an announcement about changes in the delivery of health and disability benefits.
We are making significant progress in improving people’s experiences of claiming disability benefits by working through the recommendations made by several independent reviews of personal independence payments and the employment support allowance, but we need to continue to make improvements in order to give better support to people with health conditions and disabilities. The written statement set out a number of additional measures that we will implement to make improvements, now and in the future, in support for disabled people and those with health conditions.
We will improve and simplify people’s experiences by no longer undertaking regular reviews of PIP awards for claimants at or above the state pension age unless they tell us that their needs have changed. We will also transform the delivery of assessment services. We have established a health transformation programme to undertake the significant task of combining the currently separate work capability assessment for ESA and universal credit and PIP assessment services in one unified, integrated service from 2021. We are extending the contract for the health and disability assessment service, which includes the delivery of the work capability assessment, and aligning it with the duration of the extended PIP contracts. That will allow for a safe and stable service now, and as we make the transition to the new integrated service.
The Department for Work and Pensions will also be testing how we can increase engagement and build a trusted and strong relationship between work coaches and people who are awaiting assessments for universal credit or who are found to have limited capability for work. The Minister for Employment will take that forward.
The health transformation programme will be co-designed with disabled people. The Secretary of State and I will engage regularly with disabled people, disabled people’s organisations and charities. All of us, whatever our age or need, want an equal chance to live a life of opportunity and fulfilment. We intend to support disabled people during all the phases of their lives, so that the pursuit of equality is a shared goal.
Debbie Abrahams
Thank you for granting the urgent question, Mr Speaker. I thank the Minister for her response. I am, however, disappointed that the Secretary of State was not here to respond, and that the Minister has had to respond to an urgent question rather than making an oral statement, given the extensive scope of the proposals.
I welcome yesterday’s announcement that there would be no PIP reassessment for disabled people above the state pension age, but why are not all disabled people—particularly those with progressive conditions such as motor neurone disease, multiple sclerosis and cancer—being exempted from repeat assessments? I have a constituent with terminal secondary breast cancer which has gone into her bones, and she has been refused PIP.
The launch of a transformation programme whereby PIP and WCA assessments will be integrated by 2021 is interesting, given that the Government have previously said that that could not be done. How exactly will the two assessments be merged? Who is involved? I am grateful that the Minister has said they will be co-designed with disabled people, but will she commit to supporting the principle of “nothing about you without you”? Will there be a pilot? If so, where and when, and what would be the sample size? Will there be an independent evaluation?
Who will provide the new service? There are real concerns about the profiteering enabled by this Government at the expense of disabled people. There are also worrying reports in various GP journals this week that the medical records of claimants will be made available to the DWP or their social security support will be denied. So I will be grateful if the Minister can confirm that this is not, and will not be, Government policy. Obviously there are huge issues around privacy and ethics.
There is also strong evidence of the physical and emotional harm that these assessments are having on disabled people, over and above their condition. What is being put in place before 2021 to improve the poor quality, validity and reliability of these assessments?
On UC and the role of job coaches in determining limited capability to work, the detail was most unclear in the written ministerial statement. Can the Minister expand on it and confirm that work coaches may start an assessment to determine a claimant’s capacity to work? Can she also confirm a shift in the Government’s approach to sanctions and expand on her Department’s approach to conditionality?
I welcome the review into the inadequacy of social security support for disabled people and more widely. Poverty is a political choice, and 4.2 million disabled people have been pushed into poverty as a result of the £5 billion in cuts since 2010. So what form will this review take and, again, who will be involved?
On the Government’s more ambitious targets to get disabled people into work, again the pendulum is swinging back. The Conservative general election pledge in 2015 was to halve the disability employment gap, but it is actually 4.4% lower than 2015. Then in 2017 there was a pledge about 1 million additional disabled people getting into work, but there was nothing about access to work.
Finally, what is the Minister going to do about the cultural changes needed in her Department to ensure that disabled people and other claimants do not feel demonised, even dehumanised, as happens all too often?
Sarah Newton
I fear I will test your patience, of Mr Speaker, if I try to answer all of those questions at once, but I will do my best.
I welcome the hon. Lady’s tone and her welcome for the measures we announced in the written ministerial statement. Clearly we have been listening very hard to Members across this Chamber and, most importantly, to disabled people themselves about the changes they would like to see, and that is what has driven the changes we are going to be making. I absolutely want to confirm that throughout the process—in fact this is how we work now—we engage fully with disabled people, enabling them to help us develop the services which are for them.
The hon. Lady touched on a few points about people being repeatedly reassessed. I remind her that we brought in the severe conditions criteria so that people who have reached the highest level of support on PIP will not be routinely reassessed; we have introduced a 10-year light touch review so that many people with the sorts of conditions and illnesses the hon. Lady described will not be undergoing further reassessments. We also have a special process for people who are terminally ill. I undertook research in the summer—and I have been delighted to work with the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) on the work she has been doing—looking again at how the special rules for people at the end of life are working. We have worked very closely with the medical profession, which I think was not often aware of the special processes that could so easily be put in place to enable people to get benefits within days. I will shortly be announcing new guidance which is the fruition of the work we have been doing over the last few months.
I want to remind everyone that in the transition from DLA to PIP many more people with mental health conditions are now receiving support, particularly at the highest levels. Concerns have also been raised about work coaches and their ability to work with people with disabilities and health conditions, and I want to reassure the House that all of our work coaches are receiving extensive training and will continue to do so. Over 10,000 work coaches have already received training in mental health services, so I believe that that personal relationship that we want all people claiming benefits to have with their work coach is a possibility and is happening the length and breadth of the country.
We are looking at conditionality and have taken up the recommendations given to us. When people with severe disabilities and health conditions apply for UC there is no conditionality; that conditionality will be switched off, and then as the relationship develops with the work coach, if and when they are prepared to take those steps to work, they will be fully supported by their work coach and other resources that they have available.
As would be expected, we listened to and worked with a range of stakeholders before the announcement to develop the new service. I can absolutely commit to the House that the co-design will be ongoing and there will be plenty of opportunities for everyone in the House to be involved in how we take that forward. But the simple ideal behind it is to reduce the number of assessments people have to take and reduce the amount of information they have to give to the Department. We have all heard in our surgeries each week particularly in terms of people in receipt of both ESA and PIP that they can be asked to complete a whole number of forms where they give us the same information, and are going to assessments where they give the same information. The whole aim of this is to reduce that and to simplify it, so that people give us the information once and we are able to make the best decision we can right from the outset.
Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)
It never made sense to me for us to pay different contractors who compete with each other to recruit competent staff to carry out assessments which make many disabled people feel they are involved in a duplicatory process, which adds to the stress. So may I strongly welcome today the decision to combine the ESA and PIP assessments? That will make the system more efficient and hopefully provide more dignity for disabled people.
Sarah Newton
I thank my right hon. Friend for his question. This builds on some of the work he started when he was in the Department. It is very much based on listening to people and their experience of the current benefit system. I could not agree more that we need to have a much more streamlined, simplified process under which people tell us the information once, we gather it once, and we are able to make the best possible accurate decisions the first time.
Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) on securing this urgent question.
As we saw yesterday, the Secretary of State announced changes to social security, disability and health. By my calculations, she made no fewer than nine different announcements in her statement. The Government will now hand over more money to the Centre for Health and Disability Assessments, better known as Maximus, to continue to carry out the work capability assessments. This is despite the failure, year on year, to meet the Department’s own performance standards and no fewer than 36,000 ill and disabled people wrongly deprived of social security as a result of WCAs. Can the Minister therefore say why the Government have decided to extend the contract for another 16 months? Will the Minister finally consider bringing these assessments back in-house?
The Government have announced that they are looking to merge the assessments for PIP and ESA into an integrated assessment service and use a digital platform to do so. Does the Minister not agree that there is serious risk involved in combining both assessments when the standard of decision making for PIP and ESA is the subject of so many failures? Given the consistent failures with the online platform for universal credit, what confidence should ill and disabled people have that this will not happen to them when they go through a process to access vital social security support?
Over 1 million sanctions have been imposed on disabled people since 2010, and those sanctions have been shown to be counterproductive and cruel. But so far the Government have committed to only a small “test” review of conditionality and sanctions. Why will the Government not follow Labour in pledging to scrap the punitive sanctions regime?
The Government have once again moved the goalposts on employing disabled people. First they wanted to halve the disability employment gap and now they are going to review it yet again. It is time for the Government to consider expanding Access to Work, rather than simply reviewing their employment targets. There are currently seven reviews being conducted into disabled people being wrongly deprived of social security support. These changes are just a drop in the ocean, so will the Minister finally accept that there needs to be fundamental reform, not just tinkering around the edges?
Sarah Newton
I really would have hoped that, today of all days, the hon. Lady could have found it in her heart to welcome the changes that have been asked for by so many people inside and outside this Chamber, and to recognise the great work that has been done by disabled people, and those who work with them, to engage with us so constructively and enable us to move forward and tackle the issues that she is describing.
The hon. Lady is right to say that we said yesterday that we were going to be more ambitious in enabling more disabled people into work, because we have made such good progress. Since 2013, over 930,000 more disabled people are now in work. Over that time, the disability employment rate has increased from 7.4% to 51.5%, and the gap between the disabled employment rate and the overall employment rate has been reduced to 30.2%. I do not want to see any disabled person out of work when they would like to be in work, but we have made progress and that is why we have committed to reviewing our targets and to being more ambitious. Access to Work is a great scheme, as we all agree, and it supported record numbers of people last year, including more people with mental health conditions and more young people with learning disabilities. The Access to Work fund is demand-led, and it grows every year because every year we are seeing more disabled people into work, and that is what we want to do.
Returning to the hon. Lady’s questions about the contracts, it is really important to me that, while we are going through such a fundamental transformation of our assessment process, we have safe and stable delivery for people who are applying for benefits. That is why we have extended the contracts to 2021, to align with the PIP contracts. We have not just accepted the existing situation, as the hon. Lady knows, and I am grateful for the work undertaken by the Select Committee on this. We have been pushing for continuous improvement within those contracts. The new contracts have higher standards for service delivery, and I would be happy to put a letter in the Library so that people can see the terms of the new contracts and see that they are driving forward improvement. We all want to see the right decisions being made at the first opportunity. We do not want to see people having to go through mandatory reconsideration and then on to appeals in the courts, and we have a whole series of reforms to ensure that that does not happen.
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
I welcome what was in the written statement yesterday and what the Minister has reiterated about the more ambitious target to get more disabled people into work. As an aside, I also welcome what the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) said earlier. As a former Minister for disabled people, I am particularly attracted to the more ambitious target that we had in our 2015 manifesto. Indeed, I may have had a hand in writing it myself. On the substantive question, if we are going to get more disabled people into work, we need to ensure that the social care system—over half of whose budget is spent on working-age adults, not on older people—works better with our social security system and with the other means that we have of helping disabled people to become more independent. I urge the Minister to publish the social care Green Paper as soon as possible, and to start that much-needed debate so that we can deliver those policy changes that many disabled people across the country are crying out for and give them the opportunity to live more independent and fulfilling lives.
Sarah Newton
I very much thank my right hon. Friend for his contribution in the Chamber today and for all the work that he did when he had the privilege of holding this office. He is absolutely right to say that we want to be more ambitious. We will be looking carefully at how we can set ourselves really ambitious goals to ensure that everybody in our country has the opportunity to fulfil their potential in work, and that business, civil society and the public sector can draw on the talents of the very many disabled people who are unemployed at the moment. He is also right to talk about the importance of adult social care. It is of course the Department of Health and Social Care that leads on this, but I work closely with it and I have been encouraging it to go ahead and publish that very important Green Paper so that we can take forward those urgent reforms and enable more people to live independent lives.
Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
I cannot help but feel that this announcement was a missed opportunity to completely overhaul the punitive PIP assessment progress, which is deeply flawed and continues to be criticised by claimants and stakeholders. The latest PIP assessment tribunal statistics show that from June to September 2018, a staggering 72% of cases found in favour of the claimant. The Minister will be aware that Scotland is taking a wholly different approach, proposing to significantly reduce the need for face-to-face assessments, introducing rolling awards with no set end points, and ensuring that those with fluctuating conditions will not face additional reviews. That is what a system based on dignity and respect looks like. What are this Government doing to address the fact that claimants are still being wrongly assessed at such a staggering rate? Will she look at what the Scottish Government are doing to reduce the burden that is being placed on disabled claimants? Will she also agree to study carefully the responses to the consultation announced yesterday by the Scottish Government on delivering a fairer disability assistance benefit programme in Scotland?
Sarah Newton
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his questions. I should like to reassure him that I do indeed work with my opposite number in the Scottish Government, and that we are working closely together as we go through the process of devolving PIP and other benefits to Scotland. Actually, we are testing and learning a great deal from each other. The UK Government are investing a great deal in health and work trials, and we work collaboratively on those. We are always prepared to learn from any part of the United Kingdom. I absolutely agree that too many people are having their decisions overturned on appeal—we want to ensure that we get all the decisions right first time—but it is worth keeping this in perspective, because 10% of all PIP claims go to appeal and only 5% are overturned. However, as I always say from the Dispatch Box, one person’s poor experience is one too many. We have been doing a lot of work with the Courts and Tribunals Service to bring down waiting times, and I hope that all Members will join me in welcoming the fact that we now have a new PIP online appeal service. Since November, people can resolve their appeals online, which is enabling far swifter resolution of those issues.
John Howell (Henley) (Con)
I produced a list of things that had gone wrong in the claims procedures of my constituents, and I provided it to the Secretary of State’s predecessor to help her to shape these reforms. Will the Minister undertake to dig that paper out and have a look at it, and to ensure that those reforms can be implemented?
Sarah Newton
I think I can go one better than that, because I would like to invite my hon. Friend in to meet me and go through his paper with me, given all the hard work that he has put in, to ensure that we get this right.
Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) (Lab)
We all support any improvement in the lot of disabled people, but my constituency has one of the highest percentages of disabled people, because of past industrial diseases and so on, and I remember the grief that was caused to so many people when they were forced to reclaim or to appear before various groups of people to be reassessed. There are too many people who are still in that category, and I hope the Minister will be able to assist with improving that situation. I also want to ask her about the situation regarding Remploy. We had a big fight in this Chamber over Remploy, as she may remember, and we were told that alternative jobs would be available, but can she give us the actual figures? I know that too many people in my constituency who were employed in Remploy are still out of work.
Sarah Newton
The right hon. Lady raises an important point about reassessments. Through a series of measures that we have taken this year, and through the ones that we have announced, far fewer people will be reassessed. We want to ensure that people are getting the support they need. Under the old legacy system, people were just parked on benefits for a very long time, and they were missing out. The evidence of that is the amount of people who get more money on PIP than they did on DLA. It is important that people are assessed to ensure that they are getting all the support to which they are entitled. Remploy in Wales is doing a great job as part of our health and work programme, and we have also introduced new supported ways of employing people, such as the intensive personalised employment support—IPES—programme. I would be very happy to write to the right hon. Lady to describe what is happening in Wales, and if she does feel that people who should be in employment are not in employment, she should please come and meet me so that we can look at those cases.
Kirstene Hair (Angus) (Con)
I warmly welcome the changes that my hon. Friend outlined. Last week, the Scottish Government announced their timetable for replacing personal independence payments, disability living allowance, attendance allowance and carer’s allowance, which will now not be completed until 2024, three years after they initially promised. Will she reassure me, my constituents and all in the House that the Department for Work and Pensions and the UK Government did all that they possibly could to ensure that the Scottish Government were set up for this and that actually there is resistance from the Scottish Government to taking the powers?
Sarah Newton
I thank my hon. Friend for that very important question. She is absolutely right about the absolute commitment of my colleagues in the DWP to ensure that the Scottish Government can take on those powers. We have not created any delays whatsoever; the delays are all in Holyrood.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
A few moments ago, in Prime Minister’s questions, the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) raised the case of a constituent who turned up for a disability assessment, was faced with a long wait and eventually had to rebook the appointment. The Prime Minister suggested that she or perhaps the Minister before us would look into the case, but it is not an isolated matter. I, too, have constituents with exactly the same experience, including a gentleman who last month at an appointment with the Centre for Health and Disability Assessments was forced to wait for an hour and 40 minutes, despite having told the CHDA that the nature of his condition meant that he would need to be seen very quickly.
I very much welcome the Minister’s offer to place in the Library information about the contract that has been issued to the assessment companies. We need to be able to scrutinise the performance standards and the rate at which the companies are achieving or failing to meet them. Will she repeat that commitment to the House, so that we can be absolutely clear that the information will be available to us?
Sarah Newton
I was not in Prime Minister’s questions to hear that particular example, but of course I will follow it up with great urgency. It is not acceptable for people to have appointments cancelled at the last minute or to be asked to wait. That is certainly not the service that we expect from our contractors.
I have made the commitment to publish the standards that we are insisting on in the contract. We monitor compliance with the standards very carefully, and there are penalties in the contract if people fall short of the high standards that we expect of them. Every person with a health condition or disability must be treated with respect and dignity.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend and her colleagues for listening so much and for making these changes, but will she look at the face-to-face assessments and at whether more could be done with paper-based reviews or home visits? It is pretty difficult for some people to get to the assessment centres, certainly from my constituency, and some people who have mental health conditions find the assessments incredibly stressful.
Sarah Newton
I thank my hon. Friend for his long-standing and passionate championship of the vulnerable people in his constituency and across our country. We have listened very carefully to what he has said and we have increased the number of home visits that can be undertaken but I definitely want to go further and, wherever possible, make decisions based on the information provided by the medical profession, the disabled people themselves or those people supporting them so as to reduce the number of face-to-face assessments. They are all undertaken by qualified healthcare professionals, whose training we keep under review. I want to ensure that we have only those face-to-face assessments that are really necessary.
Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) on securing the urgent question. I share the welcome for the exemption of those over state retirement age from routine reassessments. Will the Government look again at exempting all those with learning disabilities and progressive conditions, including all those who only secured their benefit—ESA or PIP—through the tribunals process? The Minister is right that some disability organisations will welcome fewer assessments, but the fear or anxiety for disabled people is that the high error rate in existing processes will be transferred. Will the Minister give more detail about how that process will be improved and how individual disabled people and disability organisations can help to shape any new process, and when that will begin?
Sarah Newton
I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that that work is all under way. There have been several independent reviews of PIP and ESA, including one by the Select Committee on Work and Pensions, which made the recommendations that we are working through now, to ensure that the assessments are as accurate as they can be. We are not waiting. The huge benefit of the transformed service is that the DWP will own the whole claimant journey—we are building a whole digital platform—and we will be able to use the medical and other information far more easily to make the right decision the first time. As I said at the beginning, the whole new process will be co-designed with disabled people.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
I welcome the announcements to bring in a better service for those seeking to make claims, in particular on the combination of assessments. An issue that is regularly picked up is a more independent record of some of the assessments. What further consideration have the Government given to things such as video recording of assessments, which might not only give confidence to the person taking part, but allow for quality-control reviews and an easier process in tribunal?
Sarah Newton
I thank my hon. Friend for raising video recording, because our hope is that that will bring a lot of transparency, trust and confidence to the assessments. We are reviewing the findings of a successful pilot. We remain committed to rolling out video recording.
Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)
The Minister should know that there really are serious problems with PIP and work capability assessments. I have lost count of the number of constituents who have come to see me in a desperate state because of the lack of understanding and awareness, in particular for those with fluctuating physical and mental health problems. The fact that 83% of people with multiple sclerosis who appeal their PIP case are successful shows how flawed the system is. On that specific point, how will the assessment process and the training and skills of those delivering it change to address such serious problems?
Sarah Newton
Inevitably, we want to ensure that we make the process better. Each time I come to the Chamber, I describe the steps that we are taking. Specifically on the case of people with multiple sclerosis, or cases brought to me by people who feel that their conditions are not properly understood by healthcare professionals, I ensure that the healthcare professionals meet those people, that they look at the guidance together, and update it and the training used by the frontline people doing the assessments. We get positive feedback from that.
Every year, we look at independent research into the experience of people at the face-to-face assessments. It is really important to me that they feel that they are being listened to, and 89% of people said that the assessor had treated them with respect and dignity. In the high 80s, people are saying that they had time and felt listened to, and that they were able to—[Interruption.] That is still not 100%, which we are working towards, but it is important, because we do not want people outside listening to this debate feeling petrified about going to have an assessment. We know that the vast majority of people have a positive experience when they go along, but we are working continuously to ensure that we improve the process for everyone.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
This is welcome news for many pensioners, who do not now have to undergo repeat appointments, but it does not address the fundamental flaw in the system to which the Minister herself has alluded: 72% of PIP and ESA appeals still find in favour of the claimant. Atos, Maximus and Capita are not doing the job properly. Rather than seeking to improve that, will she not consider bringing the assessment in-house so that it can be done properly?
Sarah Newton
I point out gently to the hon. Lady that 8% of people who apply for ESA go to appeal, and 4% are overturned. I do not want that to be 2%, 1% or 0.1%; I want us to get the decision right the first time, but we must use the information accurately. It is important that we are evidence-based policy makers. When it comes to who will carry out the assessments from 2021, the healthcare professionals doing so have always been clear that by creating this transformed service and our own digital platform, many more people will be able to come forward to say that they can undertake the services, and I would be particularly happy if NHS trusts said that they would do so.
Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)
I welcome the fact that Ministers are seeking to improve the accuracy of PIP and ESA assessments and to reduce the number of appeals, but it still takes 48 weeks for an appeal to be heard in my constituency. May I ask the Minister to look urgently at how people are treated while they are awaiting an appeal? My constituent had a serious heart condition, and his doctor said he was not fit to go back to work. The DWP said that that was its decision, not the doctor’s decision. My constituent died on his first full day back at work, which he was forced into. He was awaiting his appeal. It is too late for him, but his wife has asked me to take it up with Ministers to seek a better solution for people who are awaiting appeals, many of whom are rightly and justly appealing.
Sarah Newton
I pass on my sincere condolences to the hon. Lady’s constituent. Of course I will sit down with her to review the case in great detail, because it is a very, very sad to hear what happened to her constituent. Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service has employed hundreds more people so that cases can be heard sooner. I am particularly pleased that we have introduced an online resolution service so that, once people’s information is uploaded on to the system, DWP decision makers can look at that information. If we can make a decision earlier that could prevent people from having to go to a tribunal, we will do so. I am very hopeful that we will start to see waiting times reduce significantly.
Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)
My constituents in Glasgow North East have seen £2 million taken out of their pockets as a result of the transition from disability living allowance to personal independence payment, but that is not the full story. People are often claiming these disability-related benefits as part of a wider series of social security payments, which have been subject to a freeze since 2016. Child benefit, for example, has been subject to a 23% real-terms decline since 2010, so obviously those in receipt will be disproportionately harmed. What will the Minister be doing? Will she write to the Chancellor of the Exchequer about ending the benefits freeze and ensuring that benefits are at least tied to inflation so that people can maintain a level of dignity in our social security system?
Sarah Newton
It is not true at all that benefits for disabled people have been frozen. This House recently uprated those benefits by 2.4%, and this year we will spend £4 billion more than we spent 10 years ago. All the benefits supporting people with disabilities will continue to grow to 2020. They will be growing throughout this Parliament.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
At a recent surgery I held for carers, a woman came along with a case relating to her daughter who has disabilities, and we managed to get a back payment of £22,000 in disability payments. If I had not held that surgery for carers, and if the excellent local carers organisation had not put that lady in touch, her daughter would still be waiting for those payments. We cannot have a situation in which people rely on such fortuitous circumstances to get justice. What can the Minister do about that?
Sarah Newton
The hon. Lady makes an important point. We know that too many people have been missing out on billions of pounds’-worth of benefits. That is why I hope she will welcome the fact that universal credit and the personal relationship that people have with their work coaches will enable them to understand the full range of benefits available to them. Citizens Advice, working in partnership with jobcentres, will be able to signpost more people to get more support, and I hope Opposition Members will spend some time in their jobcentres to understand the range of services and signposting that is now available from work coaches.
Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)
These are very small changes in the right direction, but they recognise that the system does not work. To enable us to better understand the impact of Government policy on ill and disabled people, will the Minister commit to publishing constituency data on the number of UC50 forms that are issued to claimants and the number that are returned? Without proper detailed information, we will not be able to understand the impact on our constituents.
Sarah Newton
I will take that suggestion away and see whether we can collect that data and whether it is possible to provide it on a constituency basis. I challenge people who say that the whole system has failed because, from the information we have, we can see that millions of people are benefiting from these benefits and that more money is being spent every year. It is important that people have the confidence to come forward and access the benefits to which they are entitled. We remain committed to reforming the work capability assessment, which was brought in by the Labour Government in 2008, and we have taken a lot of time to consult a lot of people. Although everyone can agree that it needs to change, there is no consensus on how it can change. We are continuing that work, because I am determined to see these improvements made.
Hugh Gaffney (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)
I think we can all agree that social security staff are under a lot of pressure in dealing with the claimants we have heard about today. Does the Minister agree that those who administer social security should be supported in employment with adequate pay from this Government? Civil servants are receiving 0.25% to 1%—those who took the bribe—but such an increase, in real terms, is a cut.
Sarah Newton
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, because it gives me a wonderful opportunity to pay tribute to the fantastic, hard-working, dedicated and compassionate DWP staff, both in our operating centres and in our jobcentres. I understand from our lead officials in the Department that they have a very good working relationship with the trade unions and that they are listening very carefully. We are working very hard to make sure that people are fairly rewarded.
Leaving the EU: Protection for Workers
(5 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Greg Clark)
I would like to make a statement about workers’ rights when we leave the European Union. Before I do, as this is my first time at the Dispatch Box since his death on Friday, I put on record my deep appreciation for the life and work of Lord Bhattacharyya, a heroic figure in British manufacturing. His work attracted investment to which hundreds of thousands of working men and women owe their livelihoods. A Labour Member of the House of Lords, Kumar worked easily with Ministers and, indeed, Prime Ministers from all parties for the benefit of the people of the west midlands and the whole nation.
The United Kingdom and this Parliament have a proud record of improving the rights of working men and women: from Shaftesbury’s Factories Acts to William Hague’s Disability Discrimination Act 1995; and from the minimum wage, introduced by a Labour Government, to the national living wage brought in by a Conservative Government. Although the EU sets minimum requirements in many areas of workers’ rights and health and safety, Britain has time and again been in advance of those requirements and has chosen to exceed them.
The EU agency for the improvement of working conditions ranks the UK as the second strongest of all 28 member states, behind only Sweden, for wellbeing in the workplace. The UK offers 39 weeks of statutory maternity pay, compared with the 14 weeks required by the EU. We have given fathers and partners a statutory right to paternity leave, which the EU is only just beginning to consider.
Our national living wage is one of the highest in the EU, and the Low Pay Commission that advises on it is widely respected. Because we have not, in practice, been limited to EU standards, there is no reason why we should not maintain this record of leadership outside the EU. The Prime Minister has given a commitment that Brexit will not be allowed to erode workers’ rights.
Nevertheless, some hon. Members have advanced the view in previous debates that a parliamentary mechanism should be established to monitor and implement that commitment. The hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) introduced a private Member’s Bill to that effect, and the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) and the hon. Members for Bassetlaw (John Mann) and for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell), among others, proposed an amendment to a previous motion in a similar vein.
We have been discussing closely with Members on both sides of the House, trade unions and businesses how we can turn this intention into law. The Government are today publishing draft clauses for inclusion in the withdrawal agreement and implementation Bill to put these commitments into law. The clauses have two main features. First, a new statutory duty will be placed on Ministers introducing a Bill that affects employment or workplace health and safety that they should certify, before Second Reading of any such Bill, that it is compatible with the Prime Minister’s principle of non-regression. They will be required to provide explanatory information to Parliament in support of that statement, which will be drawn up following consultation with businesses and trade unions. That will ensure that, while respecting and upholding the sovereignty of this Parliament, Members of this House in future will be able clearly to consider the compatibility of every proposed measure with the non-regression principle, to which the Prime Minister has made a commitment.
The second aspect of the draft clauses concerns future EU legislation. Parliament will be given the opportunity, at least every six months, to consider any changes to EU workers’ rights, and health and safety standards in the workplace. This will be reported to Parliament through a document that has, again, been subject to consultation with employers and trade unions, and which will be scrutinised by the relevant Select Committees of this House, subject to their agreement. The Government will be required to table an amendable motion on their intended course of action on those new EU rules. For example, the Government may set out that they intend to legislate to give effect to those commitments or that they intend to give effect to them in a different way, or that they do not intend to give effect to them, setting out their rationale. There are a number of legislative proposals currently under consideration in the EU that have a deadline for transposition into national law which will be after the implementation period. We would expect them to be put forward for Parliament’s consideration under this new process. These draft clauses, published in a Command Paper today, combine well our determination to honour the commitment the Prime Minister has made not to see workers’ rights weakened and respecting the sovereignty of this Parliament.
A similar framework will apply to environmental protections as the UK leaves the EU, implemented through the environment Bill. On 19 December, we published the draft Environment (Principles and Governance) Bill, the first part of a much larger environment Bill to follow in the next Session. The draft Bill outlines our proposals to establish a world-leading body to hold the Government to account for environmental outcomes after the UK leaves the EU. The draft Bill also requires the Government to publish a statutory policy statement on the interpretation and application of nine environmental principles, including the four contained in EU treaties. The Government will also legislate to ensure that where future Bills could affect environmental protections, a Minister of the Crown will make a statement of compatibility to Parliament and provide explanatory information. We will also create a new statutory duty on the Government to monitor any strengthening of environmental protections and regulations by the EU, and to report regularly to Parliament about the Government’s intended course of action in those areas. That will give Parliament the information it needs to consider whether or not domestic protections need to be strengthened accordingly. Through these commitments, the Government will provide a robust framework for maintaining and strengthening environmental standards as the UK leaves the EU.
In addition to the measures I have described, I am announcing today steps that will strengthen the enforcement of employment rights. The vast majority of businesses operate fairly and treat their employees well, but I have been concerned, as I know many Members have been, about the practices in a small number of firms, in a small number of industries, where abuses of the conditions at work are used to the detriment not just of workers, but of reputable competitors, who suffer a disadvantage by comparison in those industries. I therefore intend to consult broadly on establishing a new body to bring together the relevant enforcement functions of the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, and the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate. As part of the forthcoming spending review, we will consider what level of funding is appropriate to ensure that it is adequately resourced to deliver a strengthened remit.
The measures that I have announced today reflect a process of engagement across this House, and with employers and trade unions. Not everyone will agree with every proposal, but if, as I hope, an agreement can be reached on the withdrawal process during the days ahead, it serves as a helpful guide as to how we might find and act on common ground across the House in the next phase of negotiations. I commend this statement to the House.
Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)
Let me, too, put on record my sadness at the death of Lord Bhattacharyya and my deep appreciation for his devotion to British industry and politics.
I must start by thanking the Secretary of State for his engagement with me over recent weeks, and indeed with trade unions and my parliamentary colleagues whom he mentioned: my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn), my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint); and my hon. Friends the Members for Bassetlaw (John Mann) and for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell). They have championed unrelentingly the protection of British workers as we leave the EU and continue to help us move the position across the House to one that we are all content with.
However, as the Secretary of State knows from our discussions in recent days, sadly the proposals, as drafted, do not yet provide a full guarantee or assurance for UK workers. I hope that this spirit of collegiality will continue and that we will work together quickly to address my concerns and provide the changes and assurances that I seek. As he knows, the TUC has stated today:
“In the face of a government determined to reduce rights, these measures would in no meaningful way compensate for the loss of the protections that currently exist”.
The assessment of less favourability will be decided by parliamentary majority and not by the objective standards of the UK courts. The provisions can easily be revoked by a hostile Government, and even without being revoked, they can be rendered fairly meaningless in practice. Indeed, as drafted, the content of the proposed statement of compatibility and irregular parliamentary assessment of less favourability are not capable of legal challenge by any UK worker. Of course, the process outlined in the draft clauses could be subject to a judicial review, but simply issuing a statement and laying a motion are hardly rocket science. What will not be possible, however, is a challenge to the contents of a statement of compatibility or an approved parliamentary motion to accept a Government assessment.
I think the Secretary of State implied in his statement that we should not automatically accept favourable rights solely because the UK Parliament has already set higher standards of employment rights. On that point, let me be clear: no one—certainly none of the colleagues I have spoken to—is seeking anything other than that UK workers should be entitled to no less favourable rights at work than their EU comparators, not that we should accept unfavourable ones. That point is simple to draft and it could be made perfectly clear, and I am happy to work with the Secretary of State on that point.
Of course, Parliament is always welcome to give more, but history is littered with examples of the UK bitterly resisting EU directives on workplace rights. A Conservative Government sued the EU Commission over the working time directive, claiming that there was no legislative base for the directive since working time had nothing to do with health and safety at work. Luckily for workers in the UK and the rest of the EU, that Government lost.
On the promise not to water down existing rights and protections, even if a Bill is found to be incompatible, there are at present no powers to stop the Government proceeding. In addition, the promise does not apply to secondary legislation, potentially allowing existing EU-derived rights to be watered down with ease. The bulk of UK legislation to implement EU law is actually done by way of secondary legislation—for example, working time regulations, TUPE, and health and safety regulations, to name but a few.
On the process relating to adopting future improvements in EU legislation, the proposals are equally in need of addressing. The only means of challenge is in Parliament, with a vote on an amendable motion, subject to the Government’s majority. Parliamentary procedure may not permit sufficient amendments to deal with all the additional changes to workers’ rights identified by MPs. In any event, resolutions of the House have recently proven to be an ineffective restraint on the Government. The Secretary of State seeks to provide comfort by stating that the Government will consult workers, Select Committees and employers’ representatives, and that sentiment is of course welcome, but, as he knows, there is no direct obligation on the Government to accept any recommendations.
On enforcement, I do welcome the commitments the Secretary of State has made to address funding deficiencies. I await further details in due course. On 1 April 2004, there were 1,483 Health and Safety Executive frontline inspectors; but by 2015 that had fallen to 972. In consequence, the statistically average workplace can now expect an inspection no more frequently than every 50 years.
I have conveyed to the Secretary of State in recent weeks the fact that for a guarantee of non-regression to be truly meaningful, it must be enforceable in the UK courts at the suit of any worker in the UK. Any dispute about whether or not the worker has less favourable rights than her EU comparator must be determined by the courts and not solely by Parliament, still less by a politically motivated Government majority in the House of Commons. Today’s proposals come nowhere near that and do not yet demonstrate that this Government take workplace rights seriously. I do hope, however, that, in this spirit of co-operation, we will work together to move towards more robust guarantees as a matter of urgency.
Greg Clark
I warmly welcome the tone in which the hon. Lady has approached this issue. We have different preferences on what would be ideal, and I know that both the TUC and her own Front-Bench colleagues would prefer EU directives automatically to take their place in UK law and to be enforced through the European Court of Justice, as they are now. She knows that we disagree with her on that—in our view, it would not be consistent with leaving the European Union or with the sovereignty of this Parliament—but I accept that that is her position and that she has said that, notwithstanding that, we should explore whether we can meet her perfectly reasonable observations. I am grateful for that.
What we are publishing this afternoon are draft clauses that have not yet gone into the Bill. I am open to working with all Members of the House—of course, continuing to include the hon. Lady—to see which of the observations can be accommodated, subject to the general approach we wish to take. I think that she recognises, and I hope other Members will recognise, that this is an important opportunity. If we are to pass a withdrawal agreement and implementation Bill, the chance to have on the statute book from the outset—literally within the next few weeks, I hope—some important protections for workers is one that I think we should all take.
The hon. Lady asked some specific questions, of which I shall attempt to answer as many as I can. She observed, in effect, that future Governments and Parliaments may take a different view from that which we intend. As we know, it is a fact that no Parliament can bind its successor, but it can express a clear intention, set up a test and provide mechanisms against which proper scrutiny of any proposal can be mounted, and that is what we are doing. I acknowledge her right hon. and hon. Friends’ contribution to and, in fact, origination of this idea.
The hon. Lady is concerned that the statements that are provided for could be ignored and may not be as effective as she intends. The case law clearly establishes that if a statutory consultation is provided for, it cannot be lightly swept aside. There is a requirement properly to engage with the recommendations that come from such a consultation, but I hear what she said about that process being open to workers as well as to people who might represent them. We can talk more about that.
The hon. Lady asked about the application to future changes to workers’ rights that may come outside primary legislation. Clearly, the big changes come through primary legislation, but in the spirit of what I said earlier, I am certainly open to exploring what assurances we can give on other significant pieces of legislation that might be in scope.
The hon. Lady mentioned the jurisprudence of the ECJ. It would clearly be inappropriate after Brexit for the ECJ to have a remit in the UK, but of course, as she knows as a lawyer herself, any court can have regard to the decisions of any court that it considers to be relevant in the case being considered.
The hon. Lady mentioned enforcement, on which we strongly agree. There are industries—sometimes concentrated in particular places in the country—in which what she described is correct: a calculation is made that employers who abuse the rights of their workers are unlikely to be detected and enforced against, which leads them to think that they can get away with it with impunity. The intention behind the strengthened enforcement body that I described, and our intention in terms of resourcing it, is to firmly remove that idea from the mind of any such employer. I will work closely with the hon. Lady on that.
It is appropriate to recognise in the House and draw some pride from our record of employment rights. We have a successful labour market that combines a reputation for high standards—standards that have been recognised throughout the EU as being among the best in Europe—while having what is the most important right for workers, which is the right to work. Many more people in this country are able to work as a result of the effectiveness of our labour markets. We need to preserve that while giving expression to the objectives articulated by the hon. Lady’s colleagues, to make sure that the commitment we have given to build on that strength in future is something that is not just a matter of words but has parliamentary force behind it. I am grateful for what the hon. Lady said about working together.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
I am assured that the Government and this Secretary of State want high standards of employment rules in this country, and I look forward to our having independence so that we can have our own domestically crafted high standards, which will be above the minimum EU standards, but will the Secretary of State please explain why he has proceeded with this statement? I thought its sole aim was to win over the Labour party, but it seems Labour is in complete disagreement with it.
Greg Clark
I was very much influenced by the exchange between my right hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) when the latter spoke to his amendment in January. As I recall, my right hon. Friend correctly intervened on the hon. Gentleman to reinforce his personal commitment to establishing and maintaining Britain as a place of voluntarily high standards. Because that represents a point of agreement in the House and is a reflection of our traditions—our reputation is as place of high standards, thanks to the accretion of steps taken by Governments of both parties—I think this is an opportunity to work together to see whether we can establish something that is rooted in the sovereignty of this House, which my right hon. Friend quite rightly insists on, but also provides assurance to those who want to see measures as well as words.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
The Secretary of State started by talking about his party’s record on workers’ rights. He will forgive me for questioning whether the political party that put into legislation the Masters and Servants Act 1823, which codified corporal punishment for workers, has a good record on workers’ rights. Indeed, to bring us up to date, his party also introduced the anti-trade union Act.
Rather than guaranteeing or protecting workers’ rights, the statement does no such thing; in fact, it would be a misrepresentation to suggest otherwise. The Secretary of State will be aware that the EU is currently discussing regulations on the gig economy and rights for working parents that are far better than what can be found in the Government’s good work plan. If those EU regulations come to pass, how will the Government deal with them in this Chamber? Given that we keep being told that the next election is in 2022, is the Secretary of State committing the Government to at least matching EU regulations until then?
Given that the statutory instrument process is being used to weaken workers’ rights, as we saw recently with the denial of access to European works councils, what makes the Secretary of State believe that we should trust the Government on this? Will he, as a gesture of good will, table an amendable motion on the Government’s good work plan that will allow Members to strengthen regulations, particularly around zero-hours contracts and their elimination and sorting out workers’ status?
Greg Clark
On the good work plan, we will be introducing an employment Bill and it will of course be amendable, in the manner of legislation. We are provided, though, with a more immediate opportunity: that Bill is for the next Session, whereas I very much hope that the withdrawal Bill will be available during the weeks ahead and provide that immediate opportunity to express our determination to apply the commitment that the Prime Minister made on this issue.
The hon. Gentleman mentions the measures on the gig economy that are being contemplated by the European Union. Actually, that is a fine example of what I said earlier: those measures follow the commitments that we have made in the good work plan, and they are now making their way through Brussels. We were in advance of that. As I made clear in my statement, both those EU directives would go through the procedure that I described and would be available to the House, if Members thought there was anything extra in them. Actually, though, we think the directives are in many respects modelled on our own proposals.
On the ability of this House to enforce high standards, I say that that been the tradition. My experience as a Minister at European Councils over recent years is that our record of high standards when it comes to workers’ rights, employment protection and health and safety is looked at with admiration by many of our counterparts across the European Union. This allows us to continue that leadership.
Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)
I welcome this statement and the proposed clauses therein. As my right hon. Friend has been touching on this matter, does he agree that it is often the UK rather than the EU that has led the way not just on workers’ rights, but on environmental standards, and that we should be proud of that? Will he confirm that today’s announcements will ensure that we continue with these high standards in both areas and that we give due regard to any strengthening of environmental protections and regulations by the EU once we leave?
Greg Clark
My hon. Friend is quite right. Again, the provisions adopted by the Climate Change Act 2008 were not required by the European Union. They were a set of decisions that were taken by this House, and that has been our record. The proposals that I have set out allow us to continue to do that, while making sure that the House is not only properly informed but required to make an explicit determination that, if there are new policies that are adopted and directives that are proposed, they are debated and considered in this House. That seems to me to be a good mechanism to ensure that we are always aware of what is being done in the European Union after we have left it.
Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)
Madam Deputy Speaker, you and I remember doing an all-nighter in this House when the Labour Government took through the national minimum wage. In fact, we were here all night long, until 9 o’clock in the morning, because both Conservatives and Liberal Democrats filibustered and voted against the national minimum wage. I am glad those days are behind us—at least the all-nighters. I do not need lectures from anyone about being wary of the Conservatives, but may I welcome the statement today by the Secretary of State and the response by the shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey), as we try to forge assurances enshrined in law to protect workers’ rights as we leave the EU? May I press the Secretary of State to say something more about how we will ensure that any changes on workers’ rights and health and safety are consulted on and that they are not cherry-picked by a future Government? May I also support the concerns of my hon. Friend about the right to judicial involvement for workers who want to make sure that those rights are upheld?
Greg Clark
I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for having initiated this conversation through her amendment to the previous motion, and I think a fruitful discussion has come from that. On the ability to cherry-pick those measures that are adopted by the European Union that might find favour with the Government but not those that do not, the requirement would be to report everything that the European Union has adopted during a six-month period and for the Government to have to make a statement in respect to all of those measures. The motion that would then be required to be put before the House would be amendable. The Government might say that they intended to implement one measure, to apply in a different way another, but to reject a third. That motion would be amendable, so the House could alter the Government’s intention and express its view directly. As for the direct access for workers to these procedures, I made a commitment to the hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey) that we would work together to see what can be done on that, and I am sure that the right hon. Lady will want to be part of those conversations.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
I actually whipped the minimum wage Bill through Committee on that occasion, so I well remember Conservative hostility to it.
What the Secretary of State is really promising today is future consultation and future opportunities for votes. Looking behind him, I do not see a great deal of commitment from those Benches to such measures. Why can he not go further? Why can he not agree to put a commitment into the withdrawal agreement and the treaty that the UK will never fall behind EU minimum standards on workers’ rights either now or in future? I know that he has mentioned parliamentary sovereignty and not binding future Parliaments but, historically, Governments have negotiated treaties and Parliaments have approved them and those treaties are binding on future Parliaments until they choose to withdraw from them. Why can we not have that sort of arrangement?
Greg Clark
We are talking about legislation here, not the treaty, and the withdrawal agreement has already been established. In the future economic partnership, there is a negotiation to be conducted—it is specified there—on our level of alignment when it comes to workers’ rights, but this is in advance of that. This provides an opportunity at the point of withdrawal to give Parliament the ability to make sure that it takes an informed view of whether it wants to continue to be aligned. That is a valuable opportunity. The hon. Gentleman says that we should do it now with the treaty. That is part of the next phase of the negotiations. It is taking all the Government’s efforts to conclude the withdrawal agreement, without being able to conclude the future partnership in the next few weeks. But this is an important opportunity to establish, in primary legislation, a requirement properly to consider all new regulations that would come from the European Union and to assess the compatibility of legislation that we make in this House with that of the rest of the European Union. That, it seems to me, is a valuable opportunity.
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
Let me start by echoing the warm words of the Secretary of State about Kumar Bhattacharyya. The Jaguar plant in my constituency is open, employing more than 2,000 workers, in no small way due to his herculean efforts over many years to turn around Jaguar Land Rover.
In my previous being, on behalf of the Transport and General Workers’ Union, I took the case of the Eastbourne dustmen all the way to the European Court of Justice because a Conservative Government refused to apply the acquired rights directive to 6 million public servants. We won and TUPE was extended to those 6 million public servants. In future, however, there will not be the same enforcement mechanism. The trade union movement has spoken with one voice today. Frances O’Grady said that this will not protect rights and that there is nothing to stop future Governments from tearing up the legislation. She added that no one should be “taken in” and that our rights are “still under threat.” Does the Secretary of State understand that residual concern and that, crucially, unless the Government go significantly further with regard to legally enforceable rights, not just depending on the whims of future Governments, she is right: these guarantees are worthless?
Greg Clark
These rights will be enforceable by the UK courts. I meet Frances O’Grady very regularly. As I said to the shadow Secretary of State, I recognise that the TUC has a different preference, which is to continue to embed European rights directly and to have them enforced by the Court of Justice of the European Union. That is a different approach. In my view, it is not compatible with Brexit. Therefore, we are looking for a way in which this House, this Parliament and the UK courts can provide the guarantees that I think everyone in this House wants to give.
Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)
Trust is a big issue here. In July 2016, the Prime Minister told the nation:
“I want to see changes in the way that big business is governed…we’re going to have not just consumers represented on company boards, but workers as well.”
Can the Secretary of State confirm that that promise to workers was broken?
Greg Clark
No, what the Prime Minister set out in that speech was to have the voice of workers represented in the boardroom. The action that we have taken in requiring businesses to establish a worker representative, or to have a non-executive director with the function of representing workers, or to have a works council with an influence on the board, was something that I was proud to set out in furtherance of the Prime Minister’s assurance.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
I am sure that the Secretary of State can see that there is a little bit of a credibility gap to close. He said in his statement that the Prime Minister has given a commitment that Brexit will not be allowed to erode workers’ rights, so can he explain why both he and the Prime Minister last week voted in favour of statutory instruments that do exactly that?
Greg Clark
I am very proud of the record of this country and this Government in advancing rights in the workplace. The “Good Work” report by Matthew Taylor established, way before many other countries, a means of ensuring changes to UK law around the platform economy and the gig economy to ensure that people are not disadvantaged by these new platforms. The Prime Minister and I have both given that commitment. In deference to some of the scepticism that the words of the Prime Minister should be sufficient, this parliamentary mechanism to enshrine a degree of scrutiny and give this House the ability to insist that that non-regression is abided by is the basis of the amendment that was proposed, and that we are accepting and acting on today.
Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) (Lab)
They say that the Secretary of State is a very nice man. I do not know him. I am sure he is. But I do not trust the gang that he is part of.
I was a Member of the European Parliament from 1979 to 1984. Before that, I took a petition to the European Parliament in ’77, arguing for equal rights for men and women. I then became a member of the employment committee in the European Parliament, and I am glad to say that some of the things in that petition became law because of the European Parliament, not because of this place. You will know very well, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I was a shadow Employment Minister when the Opposition were working on the minimum wage. I know how hard we had to fight every inch of the way, because we were told that that was not possible, that it would cost jobs, that industry would not be able to afford it, and so on.
When there were big job losses in steel and coal, I was an MEP for one of the affected areas, and I took a group of steelworkers to Brussels to meet the Commission. The big criticism of the Government at that time was that the situation here was unlike that in Germany, where steelworkers were also losing their jobs, but every man in the steel industry in the Ruhr had another job to go to. In this country, there was no safety net. The criticism then was that there was a lack of social policy in this country. Why should I have faith that things have changed when I hear that the number of factory inspectors has diminished? If we do not have factory inspectors, we do not have people looking at the limitations in the industries. I would like to believe the Secretary of State, but I am sorry; I do not.
Greg Clark
I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for the compliment that she paid me. I would reflect on the facts. She mentioned that introducing the minimum wage was a fight. This House is used to having fights and campaigns. The purpose of this Chamber is to have crusades that are successful. She will know that, far from that innovation having been rescinded, it was a Conservative Government who introduced the national living wage, which was the biggest pay increase for low-paid workers in 20 years. She should take confidence in that.
The right hon. Lady refers to drawing these protections from the European Union. Once we leave the European Union, the basis for a framework of workers’ rights will obviously not be there, and the alternative is that there would simply be no reference to what is happening in the European Union; that would be the default. We are responding to some helpful suggestions from the right hon. Lady’s colleagues that this House should keep a close eye on what is happening in the rest of Europe and that there should be an ability for the House to act on that. That is a good idea. I cannot say that it was my idea originally—it was brought to my attention—but when we recognise a good idea, I think we should back it.
John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
I recall, as an MP, taking a delegation of miners’ leaders to Brussels to argue for jobs and investment, but we were blocked by the state aid rules that the European Commission enforced on us under a Labour Government. That is why Harworth colliery in my constituency closed.
I welcome the Secretary of State’s openness in his statement—both to amendments from Labour Front Benchers over the next few days, if there are precise amendments and, if they are not agreed, to the ability to table amendments to the withdrawal Bill that can be voted on by Parliament.
I negotiated the derogation, under the Labour Government, for one section of workers from the Work at Height Regulations 2005 because of the way in which the Commission framed the legislation. When it comes to health and safety, will there be automatic harmonisation—in other words, we accept everything that comes, regardless of its suitability to specific industries and groups of workers? When it comes to health and safety and sometimes environmental standards, that has been a fundamental issue, and it would be one if we had direct harmonisation.
Greg Clark
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his work in crafting this proposal, and I repeat the commitment to continue to work together as the draft clauses become clauses that are laid before the House. The procedures of this House allow substantial debate of those clauses in Committee and on Report. I agree with his assessment. It is not the case that every regulation proposed by the European Union is ideal and well suited to our circumstances. From my experience in European Councils, there is a process that tries to apply a set of rules in many different countries and economies that may not actually be the best for the UK economy. The procedure that the hon. Gentleman has given us the ability to discuss today provides this House with a means by which to consider what the best form of regulation is, suited to our circumstances and respecting the sovereignty of this House and this Parliament.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
This is obviously an extremely important statement, but there is quite a lot of other business to get through this afternoon, so shorter questions and shorter answers might be in order.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
The Secretary of State speaks well and everybody wishes to listen to him. However, not all his colleagues are of the same mind. Before Christmas, the Attorney General stood at the Dispatch Box and boasted that the non-regression clauses in the deal are
“not enforceable either by the EU institutions or by the arbitration arrangements under the withdrawal agreement.”—[Official Report, 3 December 2018; Vol. 650, c. 559.]
So why on earth should we trust these clauses?
Greg Clark
The Attorney General was making a statement of fact that the provisions in that agreement are not covered by that arbitration mechanism. That is a statement that accurately reflects the reality, which is one of the reasons why availing ourselves of the opportunity to have a parliamentary mechanism to act on and see implemented that non-regression commitment—putting it in the hands of this House—is especially valuable.
Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)
The Secretary of State will accept that there is a lot of scepticism among Opposition Members about the Government’s integrity on this issue, and the fact that the trade unions were invited in so late in the Brexit process only fuels that. As he says, we have never solely relied on the EU for workers’ rights and legislation in this country, and when we leave the EU we will need a framework within which to work, so his statement is welcome. Other issues such as electronic balloting are important to the unions. Have they featured in his recent meetings with the unions? How would that demand, and others, fit into his attitude to discussions and communications with the unions in the context of his statement?
Greg Clark
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for what he says. Of course, I meet the unions—both the TUC and individual unions—very regularly. My responsibilities there go beyond the matters we are discussing today, which are expressly about the European Union. The issue of balloting is outside of discussions on the European Union. It is important to have a good relationship with trade unions. When good ideas are put forward, whether they come from his side of the House or from the trade union movement should not prejudice their ability to be considered fairly and taken forward.
Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)
The Business Secretary knows, as I do, that he has Conservative colleagues who would like to see workers’ rights diluted or swept away in the name of deregulation, and—who knows?—one of them could be Prime Minister before long. Will he therefore confirm that the mechanisms he has outlined could be repealed by a future Government passing primary legislation? Is it not true that exchanging enduring EU protections on the environment and workers’ rights for these flimsy mechanisms is like trading in a car that has a lifetime guarantee for a lemon without a log book just because the floor mats are thrown in?
Greg Clark
I disagree with the hon. Lady. I would say that there are far more of my colleagues who recognise the benefits for the UK of being a country and a jurisdiction that is associated with high standards rather than a race to the bottom, and that that is the way we will prosper as a country. I think she should have a little more faith in that.
The hon. Lady talks about the framework that the European Union offers. We are leaving the European Union—I recognise that she would rather we were not—so the choice before us is whether, in leaving, we have no reference to anything that is done, now or in future, in the European Union, or we create a mechanism that allows this House to see what is going on and to be able to act on it, bolstered by the statutory requirements on any Minister, now or in future, to pay due regard to the statements that are made in terms of compatibility.
On the hon. Lady’s point about a future Government being able to repeal the whole lot, she knows enough about the British constitution to know that that is available for every law, in every circumstance, by every House of Commons following every election.
Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)
I cautiously welcome the statement by the Secretary of State. I think that we owe it to him to recognise the sincerity with which he has approached the discussions with our Front Benchers, with other Labour Members and with trade unions to try to seek some form of compromise—because that is what this is. It does not meet the gold standard of my private Member’s Bill—I recognise that—but there is much to be welcomed, including the facility of an amendable and votable motion. However, there remains a fundamental issue of trust that he cannot have failed to notice, and I suggest that he may need to do further work to try to reassure more people, specifically, perhaps—this is one of the issues that the TUC has raised—on the fact that statements from the Government might be made only in relation to primary legislation, whereas many employment changes come through secondary legislation. What assurance can he offer to the TUC?
Greg Clark
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for what she says. As I said to the hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey), most of these rights derive from primary legislation. We will see whether there is an ability to provide the assurance that the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) seeks.
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for the contribution made by her private Member’s Bill. She has done the painstaking work of producing a great schedule of directives to which her Bill would apply. I propose—I hope she will not mind—that we plagiarise that and introduce it as the basis for our list of directives so that we can, if not replicate it in all respects, at least capture the spirit of her Bill.
Hugh Gaffney (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for saying that he recognises the abuse by “a small number of firms, in a small number of industries”, but I do not agree with the use of “small”. I think that should be “huge”, “large”, or “common practice”. Will he give a level playing field to the workers in these industries by stopping zero-hours contracts?
Greg Clark
I will not do that, because one of the conclusions of the Matthew Taylor report was that most people, of the small—and, indeed, shrinking—number of people on zero-hours contracts welcome that flexibility. The hon. Gentleman will know that many Labour councils up and down the country have casual workers on those contracts and say, in terms, that they are an important part of what their workers want.
However, I do agree with the hon. Gentleman on enforcement. A number of firms are doing such things, but they are not typical, by any means. Some of us will have read about some of the abuses in the garment industry in and around Leicester, for example. These simply cannot be allowed to continue without the steps being taken to restore confidence to those workers that their rights will be respected. That is the intention behind what I have set out in terms of strengthening and better resourcing our enforcement mechanisms.
Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)
Fresh in the minds of those of us who feel scepticism about the commitments made by the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister will be the fact that his party, in coalition with the Liberal Democrats, introduced employment tribunal fees, which were ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court, largely because of their hugely disproportionate impact on women bringing cases on maternity discrimination. Can the Secretary of State confirm that, contrary to comments made by the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Justice, his Government have absolutely no plans to reintroduce employment tribunal fees?
Greg Clark
The hon. Lady is a little churlish in ignoring some other examples. I would have thought she would welcome, for example, the introduction by a Conservative-led Government of the national living wage, which has made a big difference to many low-paid people across the country. Clearly, the judgment that was made by the Court struck down those fees. We will respect the judgment of the Court in the proposals that we make as we respond to it.
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
I listened to what the Secretary of State had to say, but the fundamental issues remain the same. This Government’s Brexit deal fails to protect jobs, living standards, and workers’ rights. I am sure that he will tell me otherwise, but if he is so confident that this is the right deal for our country, why will he not let the people decide and have the final say on it?
Greg Clark
I can report to the hon. Lady that employers, including in her constituency, are very anxious that we should get on and approve this deal because, as I said, the best right that a worker has is the right to work. The concerns that come from the uncertainty of not agreeing a deal that has been endorsed by employers is giving cause for concern to many workers up and down the country. I hope that in the days ahead, as well as advancing this package, which will provide a means for us to have regard to and take decisions on workers’ rights, and as we see what happens in the rest of the European Union, we will also act to safeguard the jobs of workers in her constituency and mine by approving the deal.
Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)
The Prime Minister previously told the House that one step the Government were taking was to abolish the so-called Swedish derogation, but can the Secretary of State confirm that in the regulations laid before the House today, agency workers will be forced to wait until 2020, at the earliest, for equal rights in the workplace?
Greg Clark
Having made the commitment to abolish the Swedish derogation, which previous Labour Governments signally failed to do, we have brought forward, at the earliest opportunity, a statutory instrument to do that. I have had representations from the trade unions as to the timing, and we will reflect on that. However, I think that the hon. Lady, being fair-minded, would acknowledge that we have brought forward the necessary legislation very quickly in response to the policy commitments that we have made.
Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)
As well as echoing other tributes paid today, I would like to pay tribute to Lord Davies of Coity, who died on Monday. He was a doughty champion of workers and workers’ rights for many decades.
Problems with enforcement of employment rights are not just in particular areas, but are widespread and particularly affect young workers, careworkers and catering sector workers, many of whom work in my constituency and have few other options for employment. I welcome the Secretary of State looking again to expand the enforcement of employment rights. Will he commit to group cases being taken to tribunal and to third-party representations being made to HMRC about the minimum wage?
Greg Clark
First, I echo the hon. Lady’s condolences. She tempts me to go beyond my jurisdiction. My portfolio is pretty broad, covering energy, industry and the industrial strategy, but she refers to matters that are, properly, for the Ministry of Justice. I am happy to talk to the Lord Chancellor and meet the hon. Lady if she would like to talk about such grouping of cases.
Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)
Has the Secretary of State secured the endorsement of any trade unions for his proposed course of action? If not, what does he propose to do to secure it?
Greg Clark
My ambition is not to secure the endorsement of trade unions. We have had fruitful discussions. As I said to the hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey), I respect the fact that the trade unions would rather things were done in a different way—namely, that we continue to import, as it were, directives and regulations from the European Union and have them enforced by the European Court of Justice. That is their preferred policy; I understand that. It is certainly not our policy. I do not think it is compatible with leaving the European Union. However, leaving the European Union and the opportunity to put in statute various measures, which will allow the House to consider actions that we take on employment rights, does not mean that we cannot establish agreement across the House and take the advice of the trade union movement, even though it might ultimately prefer a different solution.
Point of Order
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I have been contacted by residents in Camellia House in my constituency, who are distraught at being left without a lift for the last two months, which is causing great stress to many residents, and particularly those with young families or disabilities. The situation has now become more serious, with one of the residents, who has had a stroke, now being discharged from hospital. FirstPort has failed to provide any explanation for the delay or any compensation to residents. It has also failed to respond to inquiries from my office since the issue was first raised with the company on 25 January.
Madam Deputy Speaker, what advice can you give me on how to raise that matter in order to get Ministers’ attention, so that pressure can be applied to FirstPort to get the lift fixed and FirstPort can be held to account for its clear disregard for residents and their needs?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I thank the hon. Lady for her point of order and for giving me notice that she intended to raise it. I am sure we are all sorry to hear of the plight facing her constituents, but I hope she will understand that it is not a matter on which I can rule. However, she has placed her concerns on the record, which I am sure will be appreciated. As I am sure she knows, she could go to the Table Office for advice on the other ways in which she can raise that matter on behalf of her constituents.
Bill Presented
School Uniform (Gender Neutrality) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Layla Moran, supported by Jo Swinson, Wera Hobhouse, Christine Jardine, Caroline Lucas, Hannah Bardell and Mhairi Black, presented a Bill to require school uniform policies to be gender-neutral; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 22 March, and to be printed (Bill 350).
Charity Trustees (Time Off for Duties)
Wednesday 6th March 2019
(5 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Charity Trustees (Time Off for Duties) Bill 2017-19 View all Charity Trustees (Time Off for Duties) 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
Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Employment Rights Act 1996 to give charity trustees the right to time off work for the purposes of carrying out the duties of that office; and for connected purposes.
Charity trustees are the people across the length and breadth of our country who volunteer their time and expertise to provide governance for our nation’s charities, large and small. They deserve our thanks—I do not think anyone would disagree with that—but warm words on their own are not enough, which is why I am introducing this ten-minute rule Bill.
The Charity Trustees (Time Off for Duties) Bill has two clear purposes. The first is to value our existing charity trustees by giving them an improved status in law. The second is to provide the sort of support that might encourage a greater number of people from a wider diversity of backgrounds to take on this important but unpaid civic duty.
I am delighted that the Bill has been commended widely, and I would like to put on record my particular thanks to the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations, the Small Charities Coalition and the Wales Council for Voluntary Action for their support. I would also like to thank the Members from different political parties who are the Bill’s co-sponsors.
As the law stands, an employee can take a reasonable amount of time off work if they are a magistrate, school governor, local councillor or one of eight other categories of duty. Those categories do not include the role of charity trustee. This Bill seeks to change that. Let me be clear: this is the most moderate of Bills. I am not asking for a higher status in law for charity trustees than for those who undertake any of the other public duties already covered by statute. Under the existing legislation, one has the right to “reasonable” time off to carry out certain public duties. There is, of course, no requirement that it be paid time off.
“Reasonableness” decrees that the amount of time off must be agreed with the employer before taking it and that the employer can refuse a request if it is considered to be unreasonable. What is considered to be reasonable will depend on what duties need to be carried out, the time it will take, the impact on the employer’s business and how much time has already been taken. Moreover, staff cannot ask for time off work for public duties if they are agency workers, members of the police or armed forces, employed on a fishing vessel or a gas or oil rig at sea, merchant seamen, or civil servants if their public duties are connected to political activities restricted under the terms of their employment. The existing terms for “reasonable time off for public duties” would be totally unchanged by the Bill. The only change that the Bill seeks is to extend those terms to charity trustees, and that is not before time.
We cannot overestimate the importance of charity trustees in our society. Section 177 of the Charities Act 2011 defines trustees as
“the persons having the general control and management of the administration of a charity.”
Trustees are ultimately responsible for everything a charity does and can be held legally accountable for the decisions they make. Trustees freely give their own time, energy and expertise to help charities achieve their aims, and the contribution they make to civil society and our country is vital. While it is difficult—indeed, probably impossible—to put an exact monetary value on the contribution that trustees make to society, statistics from “Taken on Trust”, the 2017 report published by the Charity Commission, show that the estimated time value of trustee input per year is £3.5 billion.
Research from the National Council for Voluntary Organisations has found that 91% of charities rely solely on the work of volunteers. Many of these charities are community-based, and a significant proportion do amazing work to help tackle poverty and deprivation. Trustees often play both a governance and executive role. Without their trustees, these vitally needed charities simply could not exist. If these charities were not there, either the state would have to undertake the work, or no one would do so, with all the human and economic costs that that would entail.
The Small Charities Coalition asked its members if they would be supportive of this ten-minute rule Bill. The respondents were supportive and believe that the change would not only be beneficial to current trustees, but help small charities to attract new ones. This is something I believe we must aspire to.
The House of Lords Select Committee on Charities report “Stronger charities for a stronger society” expressed its concerns about the lack of diversity among charity trustees, which it saw as limiting the experience and knowledge of charity boards. The Charity Commission’s report “Taken on Trust” made a similar point when it stated that the average trustee is a 62-year-old white British male. Research by the Charities Aid Foundation—“Charity Street II”—found that young people and women are the most likely to use charity services, but there are double the number of male trustees as there are female ones, with charity trustees tending to have an above average income and level of education. A report from the agency Inclusive Boards found that the boards of charities in England and Wales are less diverse than those of FTSE 100 companies.
Today, I want to celebrate both our existing and our prospective trustees. If a 62-year-old white British male trustee is reading this in Hansard or watching BBC Parliament, I want to assure them that this House values their service. However, I would like that service to be enhanced by that of a wider range of people. Without this, I believe that charities will miss out on the huge range of skills, experience and perspectives that a wider pool of trustees could offer.
I also believe that we should take seriously the fact that whole swathes of the population are currently under-represented as charity trustees, and are losing out on the wealth of development opportunities that being a trustee provides. That is simply not good enough. Charities could greatly benefit from having young people on their boards, particularly in the ever more digital world we now live in, while being a charity trustee enables young people to develop key employability skills, interact with people outside their usual social groups and broaden their networks.
Trusteeships offer a rare opportunity for people to gain board level experience early in their careers or even before their career has fully begun. The best companies are already leading the way by supporting their employees as they take on trustee roles. They welcome the part that charity trusteeships can play in offering their staff vital board level experience. I believe it is essential that such experience is offered widely. John Gallanders, chief officer of the Association of Voluntary Organisations in Wrexham, makes the point that this experience should not just be for those who are on middle-management levels or above, commenting
“what is the difference between a parent who is a School Governor getting time off and someone who may be lower down in the staff structure perhaps wanting time for a playgroup meeting?”
I agree totally.
There was a time when the words “big society” were used quite a lot in this place, but I do not want us to get bogged down with the terminology of the day or the semantics of how we on different sides of the House sometimes use different words. Whatever words we use, I have no doubt that a society that values and supports its charity trustees is a bigger and a better one, so I commend this Bill to the House. I hope, too, that this House will support it, and that the Government will act.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Susan Elan Jones, Julie Elliott, Lilian Greenwood, Jo Stevens, Jeremy Lefroy, Tonia Antoniazzi, Mary Glindon, Victoria Prentis, Stephen Timms, Daniel Zeichner, Gareth Thomas and Wera Hobhouse present the Bill.
Susan Elan Jones accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 22 March, and to be printed (Bill 351).
Comptroller and Auditor General
(5 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Prime Minister (Mrs Theresa May)
I beg to move,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that Her Majesty will appoint Gareth Davies to the Office of Comptroller and Auditor General.
I would like to start by paying tribute to the outgoing Comptroller and Auditor General, Sir Amyas Morse, who has led the National Audit Office since 2009. The past decade has been a period of great change in the public finances, during which Sir Amyas has served with distinction, displaying the independence and professionalism that have been the hallmarks of his career. He has now reached the end of his non-renewable term, and I am sure I speak for the whole House when I thank him for his service and wish him the very best for his future endeavours.
Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Ind)
May I as a Back Bencher, but also as a Select Committee Chair who drew on Sir Amyas’s services, record one aspect of him that so struck me, which was his attitude to public service? He had a golden DNA that ran through him, with a knowledge and a certainty about how he should serve this House and, through this House, the public. However friendly one got with him—one might be on Christian name terms—one knew it meant nothing if he did not think something was the right thing to do.
The Prime Minister
As I have said, Sir Amyas’s professionalism and integrity shone through the work that he did and, as a Select Committee Chairman, the right hon. Gentleman knows that and has experienced it at first hand.
In line with the Budget Responsibility and National Audit Act 2011, the appointment of Sir Amyas’s successor, Gareth Davies, has been agreed with the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier). With three decades of audit experience, gained in both the public and private sectors, Mr Davies is eminently qualified to be our 17th permanent Comptroller and Auditor General, a position he will hold for a non-renewable term of 10 years.
I am sure that, under Mr Davies’s leadership, the National Audit Office will continue its proud history of rigorous and independent scrutiny of Government, and that the people of the United Kingdom can have every confidence that their taxes will continue to be spent in an effective and proper manner. Mr Davies will be a worthy servant of this House and this country. I am delighted to support his appointment, and I commend this motion to the House.
Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)
I rise to offer the Opposition’s backing to the appointment of Mr Gareth Davies as Comptroller and Auditor General. The position was initiated by William Gladstone, a Liverpudlian at birth who lived at Seaforth in what is now my constituency of Bootle and actually went to school in Bootle at one point.
The importance of the position is reflected by the fact that the Prime Minister is in attendance and has formally moved this appointment. Similarly, its significance is demonstrated by the rigorous vetting process undertaken by the Chair and members of the Public Accounts Committee. This reflects the central role parliamentary Select Committees play in modernising Parliament, ensuring that the appointments made by Governments of whatever colour receive proper parliamentary scrutiny.
As the chief executive of the National Audit Office, the work of the Comptroller and Auditor General cannot be overestimated. The NAO provides an indispensable role in independently auditing Government Departments, ensuring financial transparency and good value for money, as was mentioned by the Prime Minister.
I know that I speak for all Members when I say that the NAO’s work is vital in establishing an accurate picture of Government spending and in helping Members to properly hold Ministers to account. That work will be more important than ever as Ministers continue to spend increasing amounts of public money in preparation for no deal, with appropriate oversight from this House. I have no doubt that the new Comptroller and Auditor General will continue the forensic examination of accounts that we have all come to respect and that I hope the Government and their Departments—particularly those that have “Transport” in their name—will recognise, now and in the future. At this pressing time, the NAO’s workload will be made even heavier by the Government’s departmental spending review, which may put more strains upon services.
I echo the Prime Minister’s tribute to the outgoing Comptroller and Auditor General, Sir Amyas Morse. He has served with distinction under difficult circumstances, given that under his tenure the NAO has not found itself protected from cuts to resources and staffing.
Let me turn to the appointment of Mr Davies, who has more than 30 years of mixed experience as a public auditor, including work with local public services, central Government and the charity sector. The Opposition support the recommendation of the cross-party Public Accounts Committee and its satisfaction
“that Mr Davies has suitable audit and professional experience and demonstrates the necessary independence and resilience to make a success of the role.”
It goes without saying that Mr Davies is taking over the position at a difficult time and has an important task ahead. However, the Opposition are confident that he will perform his role with distinction and diligence. On behalf of the Opposition, I wish him well.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
I am delighted to catch your eye in this important but short debate, Madam Deputy Speaker.
I first served on the Public Accounts Committee between 1997 and 1999, under the chairmanship of my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis). Since September 2017, I have served as its deputy Chairman. There is probably only one other Member of this House—my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon), who is sitting beside me—who has served on the PAC during the tenure of both Sir John Bourn, the previous Comptroller and Auditor General, and Sir Amyas Morse, the current holder of that office. Of course, they were both very different. In some ways the job has evolved with changing circumstances, such as the review of the whole of Government accounts, but in other ways it has not; the NAO’s basic auditing function and its value-for-money reports are exactly the same as when I first joined the PAC. Each CAG and each Chairman of the PAC has different ways of working.
Under the excellent chairmanship of my hon. Friend—as I call her for this purpose—the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), the CAG and the NAO are much more available to give briefings to Members and answer their queries than they ever were in the old days. The briefing session before each PAC hearing and the appointment of lead members has made the Committee’s huge workload—with public sessions twice weekly—manageable for its members. It also means that they are able to specialise, so the Committee’s work is much more professional. Together with the excellent work of the NAO, those changes have led to the Government accepting approximately 80% of PAC recommendations.
Departments could and should make better use of the information that the PAC and the NAO provide. The PAC is probably the most important Select Committee in this House and it’s whole raison d’être is to scrutinise the entirety of Government expenditure. That is reinforced by the convention that its Chairman is always an Opposition Member.
The CAG is a parliamentary appointment that is then approved by the Government, as in the motion so graciously moved today by the Prime Minister. I thank her for being present, given all the multifarious and difficult responsibilities that she has at the moment. Her presence demonstrates just how important an appointment it is.
That brings me to the appointment of the 17th Comptroller and Auditor General, Mr Gareth Davies. Having chaired his pre-appointment hearing at the PAC on 21 January, I have no hesitation in endorsing his appointment. There was an extremely strong shortlist, but he emerged as the best candidate. The CAG is instrumental to ensuring that Parliament is able to carry out its financial scrutiny of the Executive via the PAC, with the support of the NAO, so the vacant post was advertised to a very wide talent pool. The shortlisted candidates then underwent a technical assessment with the Auditor General for Scotland and extensive interviews and testing with a diverse panel of NAO staff. The process was stringent, and I believe that it has found an excellent successor to Sir Amyas Morse.
There can be no doubt about how eminently qualified Gareth Davies is for the job. He has more than 30 years’ experience as a public auditor and has worked at a senior level both in public services and in central Government. A University of Cambridge mathematics graduate, he qualified as a chartered accountant in 1992 and then worked in audit for several local authorities across London and the south-east, as well as for the Department of Health. Since 2012, he has served as head of public services at Mazars LLP, before which he was a managing director at the Audit Commission.
It would be wrong not to record my thanks to the departing CAG, Sir Amyas Morse, for his unparalleled and invaluable work. Under his tenure, the National Audit Office has been at the forefront of scrutinising the Government’s preparedness for exiting the European Union, so it has been influential in shedding light on the scale of the task that lies ahead. Where necessary, Sir Amyas has been unflinching in his criticism of the actions of Government Ministers, or the Government as a whole. It has been an immense pleasure to work with him, and I wish him well in whatever he decides to do in the future. He was not only extremely technically qualified for the CAG’s work, but unfailingly courteous. He will be missed.
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
As other Members have done, I thank the Prime Minister for coming to the Chamber today to move the motion. It is a symbol of the importance of the Comptroller and Auditor General’s role that it is supported both by the Prime Minister and by myself, as a representative of the Opposition and as Chair of the Public Accounts Committee. I am honoured to chair the Committee, but it is only 157 years old, whereas there has been a Comptroller and Auditor General in some form for considerably longer.
The position that we are approving today is a constitutionally significant one, because the Comptroller and Auditor General has to deal with whichever Government are in power. They need to be fearless and strong in their attention to how the Government spend the taxpayer’s money, manage projects that deliver for the citizen and ensure that they are being done as well as they can be. It is therefore important that we appoint someone with backbone, robustness and serious experience. Interestingly, this is the only time in the position’s history that we have required applicants to hold a financial qualification—although the incumbent, Sir Amyas Morse, does have such a qualification.
I am reminded today of Sir Amyas’s comment that it is not his job to be popular. It is important that the Comptroller and Auditor General be able to stand up for what they believe is right, based on the facts and the numbers, and ensure that the House is provided with the real numbers so that we can debate the issues.
I am delighted that the hon. Members for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) and for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon) are present. They have both served as my deputy Chair, a role that I created for Members of the Government party. As parliamentarians committed to scrutiny, we recognise the importance of the Committee’s work, whichever party is in power. It is important that we have the decent information that the National Audit Office provides.
As my party’s Front-Bench spokesperson, my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd), noted, the Comptroller and Auditor General is also the NAO’s chief executive, so it is important that they have the ability to lead an organisation of some 800 people. In that respect, Gareth Davies also has my confidence.
I put on record my thanks to the outgoing Comptroller and Auditor General, whose term of office is limited to 10 years and will come to an end on 31 May; Gareth Davies is due to take over on 1 June, if his letters patent are issued. Sir Amyas has been a fearless advocate for what is good in the public sector and for challenging Governments of whatever party—he has worked under different Governments of different hues—to ensure that Parliament is provided with the information that it needs to engage in scrutiny.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
May I add a word of appreciation for Sir Amyas’s accessibility to me and other Back Benchers who are not members of the Public Accounts Committee?
Meg Hillier
I thank my right hon. Friend for that comment. It is certainly my ambition, as well as the NAO’s, that the information and support that it provides should be available to all Back Benchers, so that all Members of this House can properly scrutinise whichever Government are in power. With a 10-year term it is possible, as it has been with Sir Amyas Morse, that the new Comptroller and Auditor General will deal with Governments of different political hues. I am confident in his robustness, his steel, his ability and desire to call out what is right and truthful, and his straight approach to his profession. As others have mentioned, he has been an auditor for 30 years. He is highly experienced, highly capable and I highly recommend him.
Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier). I would like to make two quick points.
The first point is about Sir Amyas Morse, who has been Comptroller and Auditor General for 10 years. I was one of those who cross-examined him when he appeared before the Public Accounts Committee before he was appointed. He has done an extraordinarily good job over 10 years and built up the National Audit Office, from a good position under his predecessors, to a point where it is now without question one of the best supreme audit institutions in the world, if not the best supreme audit institution in the world. He is widely respected both here and internationally. It is quite fair to say that he really has done the state some service. We are all deeply in his debt.
My second point is about the consequences of the abolition of the Audit Commission and the fact that we are now appointing, in Mr Gareth Davies, an individual of the highest calibre who has spent most of his life at the Audit Commission. Following the abolition of the Audit Commission, there are concerns about the departmental understanding of the picture emerging from local audit work. Indeed, as Mr Davies said in his evidence, referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown), there is still a risk that, even when things are being flagged up by the local auditor, either the governance of the authority itself or the Department are not acting quickly enough to pick up and address those points.
My concern was that there might be, either in slow time or in quick time, a move to burden the NAO with a whole load of extra responsibilities, frankly swamping it with the work of local government audit. In fact, the work of local government audit is being done quite effectively. There is no evidence that it is not being done well. However, there is evidence that it is not being picked up quickly enough and, where local auditors are issuing qualifications, the Department of State concerned, in this case the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, is not necessarily responding quickly enough. Under the new Secretary of State, who has been in office for nine or 10 months, I am confident that changes are afoot, particularly since the debacle of Northamptonshire County Council. I just wanted to make the point that it is very important that we do not take an extremely good institution that is well-run and functioning extremely well, and try to extend its scope unnecessarily. I was therefore very relieved when I read Mr Davies’s other evidence where he said:
“When an organisation like the NAO demonstrates its capability, it is very tempting to give it additional tasks, and if you are not careful you can lose focus on your prime objectives.”
I was very gratified to see that he is extremely cautious about doing that. I commend his wisdom, evident in the evidence he gave to my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds, and I commend his appointment as Comptroller and Auditor General.
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
Madam Deputy Speaker, as you know I am a newer Member to this House. There is no better apprenticeship for being an MP than sitting on the Public Accounts Committee. I would like to start by placing on the record my thanks to the hon. Members for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) and for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) for chairing our Committee so ably.
Without the National Audit Office and without the robustness of its reports, we could not do the job we do quite as well as we do. I pay tribute to Sir Amyas Morse who, right from the get-go, has been—the hon. Member for The Cotswolds said exactly this—unfailingly courteous. That is the first thing one notices about him: that easy smile. Behind that, however, is an intelligence of steel. He has a knack for calling out obfuscation, fudge and imprecision in our civil service, but also a reputation for being completely fair. That is exactly what we in the Public Accounts Committee aim to do. I will genuinely miss him and I wish him all the very best.
I am looking forward very much to working with Gareth Davies. We grilled him. Believe me, we did not give him an easy ride when he came before the Committee for his appointment. I was interested to know in particular, as a trustee of Oxfam and Save the Children, what part he had played in their recent scandals and what he had learnt from them. I have absolute confidence that that and all his other experience will bring great things to the NAO. I very much look forward to working with him.
Question put and agreed to.
Point of Order
(5 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Karen Bradley)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Before I proceed to the main business, I wish to clarify the comments I made earlier today to the House during Northern Ireland questions in response to a question raised by the hon. Member for Belfast South (Emma Little Pengelly), which I believe may have been open to misinterpretation.
At oral questions, I referred to deaths during the troubles caused by members of the security forces. The point I was seeking to convey was that the overwhelming majority of those who served carried out their duties with courage, professionalism, integrity and within the law. I was not referring to any specific cases, but expressing a general view. Of course, where there is evidence of wrongdoing it should always be investigated, whoever is responsible. These are of course matters for the police and prosecuting authorities who are independent of Government.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I thank the Secretary of State for her point of order.
Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)
Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I thank the Secretary of State for her gracious clarification of her position. Will she take this opportunity to recognise that confidence in the judicial process is fundamental to all communities and all people across Northern Ireland? For those reasons, her clarification that those who have committed criminal offences will face the justice process is important and it emphasises the need to move on quickly with the legacy commitments brought about by the 2014 Stormont House agreement.
Madam Deputy Speaker
I thank the Secretary of State for her point of order and for giving me advance notice of her intention to make it. I am sure the fact that she has come to the House very quickly to make that clarification will be appreciated. I also understand the point made by the Opposition spokesman. I do not want to reopen the debate we had earlier. The point of order has been noted and the Secretary of State has made her clarification.
Northern Ireland (Regional Rates and Energy) (No. 2) bILL (bUSINESS OF THE hOUSE)
Ordered,
That the following provisions shall apply to the proceedings on the Northern Ireland (Regional Rates and Energy) (No. 2) Bill:
Timetable
(1) (a) Proceedings on Second Reading and in Committee of the whole House, any proceedings on Consideration and proceedings up to and including Third Reading shall be taken at today’s sitting in accordance with this Order.
(b) Notices of Amendments, new Clauses or new Schedules to be moved in Committee of the whole House may be accepted by the Clerks at the Table before the Bill has been read a second time.
(c) Proceedings on Second Reading shall be brought to a conclusion (so far as not previously concluded) four hours after the commencement of proceedings on the Motion for this Order.
(d) Proceedings in Committee of the whole House, any proceedings on Consideration and proceedings up to and including Third Reading shall be brought to a conclusion (so far as not previously concluded) six hours after the commencement of proceedings on the Motion for this Order.
Timing of proceedings and Questions to be put
(2) When the Bill has been read a second time:
(a) it shall, despite Standing Order No. 63 (Committal of bills not subject to a programme order), stand committed to a Committee of the whole House without any Question being put;
(b) the Speaker shall leave the Chair whether or not notice of an Instruction has been given.
(3) (a) On the conclusion of proceedings in Committee of the whole House, the Chairman shall report the Bill to the House without putting any Question.
(b) If the Bill is reported with amendments, the House shall proceed to consider the Bill as amended without any Question being put.
(4) If, following proceedings in Committee of the whole House and any proceedings on Consideration of the Bill, a legislative grand committee withholds consent to the Bill or any Clause or Schedule of the Bill or any amendment made to the Bill, the House shall proceed to Reconsideration of the Bill without any Question being put.
(5) If, following Reconsideration of the Bill:
(a) a legislative grand committee withholds consent to any Clause or Schedule of the Bill or any amendment made to the Bill (but does not withhold consent to the whole Bill and, accordingly, the Bill is amended in accordance with Standing Order No. 83N(6)), and
(b) a Minister of the Crown indicates his or her intention to move a minor or technical amendment to the Bill, the House shall proceed to consequential Consideration of the Bill without any Question being put.
(6) For the purpose of bringing any proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with paragraph (1), the Chairman or Speaker shall forthwith put the following Questions in the same order as they would fall to be put if this Order did not apply:
(a) any Question already proposed from the Chair;
(b) any Question necessary to bring to a decision a Question so proposed;
(c) the Question on any amendment, new Clause or new Schedule selected by the Chair or Speaker for separate decision;
(d) the Question on any amendment moved or Motion made by a Minister of the Crown;
(e) any other Question necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded; and shall not put any other questions, other than the question on any motion described in paragraph (17)(a) of this Order.
(7) On a Motion so made for a new Clause or a new Schedule, the Chairman or Speaker shall put only the Question that the Clause or Schedule be added to the Bill.
(8) If two or more Questions would fall to be put under paragraph (6)(d) on successive amendments moved or Motions made by a Minister of the Crown, the Chairman or Speaker shall instead put a single Question in relation to those amendments or Motions.
(9) If two or more Questions would fall to be put under paragraph (6)(e) in relation to successive provisions of the Bill, the Chairman shall instead put a single Question in relation to those provisions, except that the Question shall be put separately on any Clause of or Schedule to the Bill which a Minister of the Crown has signified an intention to leave out.
Consideration of Lords Amendments
(10) (a) Any Lords Amendments to the Bill may be considered forthwith without any Question being put; and any proceedings interrupted for that purpose shall be suspended accordingly.
(b) Proceedings on consideration of Lords Amendments shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour after their commencement; and any proceedings suspended under sub-paragraph (a) shall thereupon be resumed.
(11) Paragraphs (2) to (11) of Standing Order No. 83F (Programme orders: conclusion of proceedings on consideration of Lords amendments) apply for the purposes of bringing any proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with paragraph (10) of this Order.
Subsequent stages
(12) (a) Any further Message from the Lords on the Bill may be considered forthwith without any Question being put; and any proceedings interrupted for that purpose shall be suspended accordingly.
(b) Proceedings on any further Message from the Lords shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour after their commencement; and any proceedings suspended under sub-paragraph (a) shall thereupon be resumed.
(13) Paragraphs (2) to (9) of Standing Order No. 83G (Programme orders: conclusion of proceedings on further messages from the Lords) apply for the purposes of bringing any proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with paragraph (12) of this Order.
Reasons Committee
(14) Paragraphs (2) to (6) of Standing Order No. 83H (Programme orders: reasons committee) apply in relation to any committee to be appointed to draw up reasons after proceedings have been brought to a conclusion in accordance with this Order.
Miscellaneous
(15) Standing Order No. 15(1) (Exempted business) shall apply so far as necessary for the purposes of this Order.
(16) Standing Order No. 82 (Business Committee) shall not apply in relation to any proceedings to which this Order applies.
(17) (a) No Motion shall be made, except by a Minister of the Crown, to alter the order in which any proceedings on the Bill are taken, to recommit the Bill or to vary or supplement the provisions of this Order.
(b) No notice shall be required of such a Motion.
(c) Such a motion may be considered forthwith without any Question being put; and any proceedings interrupted for that purpose shall be suspended accordingly.
(d) The Question on such a Motion shall be put forthwith; and any proceedings suspended under sub-paragraph (c) shall thereupon be resumed.
(e) Standing Order No. 15(1) (Exempted business) shall apply to proceedings on such a Motion.
(18) (a) No dilatory Motion shall be made in relation to proceedings to which this Order applies except by a Minister of the Crown.
(b) The Question on any such Motion shall be put forthwith.
(19) No debate shall be held in accordance with Standing Order No. 24 (Emergency debates) at today’s sitting after this Order has been agreed.
(20) Proceedings to which this Order applies shall not be interrupted under any Standing Order relating to the sittings of the House.
(21) No private business may be considered at today’s sitting after this Order has been agreed.—(Karen Bradley.)
Northern Ireland (Regional Rates and Energy) (No. 2) Bill
Wednesday 6th March 2019
(5 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Northern Ireland (Regional Rates and Energy) Act 2019 View all Northern Ireland (Regional Rates and Energy) Act 2019 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Committee of the Whole House Amendments as at 6 March 2019 (PDF) - (6 Mar 2019)
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Karen Bradley)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
I rise to ask the House to give a Second Reading to a piece of proposed legislation that delivers on this Government’s commitment to ensure good governance and stable public finances in Northern Ireland. The Bill seeks to achieve those outcomes by bringing forward two essential measures. First, it will enable the collection of regional rates in Northern Ireland. Secondly, it will ensure that fair and appropriate tariffs and cost-capping measures are in place for the renewable heat incentive scheme in Northern Ireland.
As we discussed yesterday, the Government are committed to devolution. I am working hard to restore devolved government in Northern Ireland at the earliest opportunity. I firmly believe that this is the best long-term plan for the people of Northern Ireland and I profoundly believe it is in the best long-term interests of the Union. Important local decisions should be taken by locally elected politicians in Northern Ireland. I share the frustration felt by some Members of Parliament and the public that taking forward important proposed legislation in this manner in this House is not the ideal situation. However, in the absence of devolved government I have made it clear that I will continue to take the urgent and necessary decisions to ensure good governance and to protect public services.
Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)
The Secretary of State will recall that during the passage of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation and Exercise of Functions) Act 2018, we raised an urgent issue that crystallises at the end of this month: the forthcoming resources available to our housing associations in Northern Ireland. Because of an Office for National Statistics definitional issue, they would not have been able to draw down on financial transactions capital tax. Will she confirm today that Her Majesty’s Treasury has agreed to extend the derogation on that definition and that legislation will be brought forward in this Parliament to resolve this issue satisfactorily, so that our housing associations and co-ownership and other schemes have the funding available that will not impact on our block grant, but will allow people to have a sustainable future home in the Province?
Karen Bradley
I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that important issue. It is clear that the derogation needs to and will continue, but that is not a long-term, sustainable solution. As he will know, the Northern Ireland civil service is putting together legislation and we await copies of that so that action can be taken.
Gavin Robinson
I am very grateful for that response. I understand that the legislation is there and is ready to be brought forward. Will the Secretary of State confirm that subject to parliamentary business, it will be introduced as soon as possible, and before the summer?
Karen Bradley
The hon. Gentleman may have more information than me. All I can say is that we know the Northern Ireland civil service is looking at that and we will act appropriately at the appropriate time.
The measures in the Bill are limited yet necessary interventions in Northern Ireland. They provide the certainty and support that Northern Ireland Departments and, indeed, the wider public need and deserve for the year ahead. I will now give more detail on the measures. Clause 1 addresses the collection of the regional rate. The UK Government have set the Northern Ireland regional rate in the absence of an Executive for the past two years. The level of rate to be applied this year was set out in my budget statement to Parliament last week. As part of the wider budget package of support to Northern Ireland for the 2019-20 financial year, the UK Government have set a 3% plus inflation increase on the domestic rate and an inflation-only increase on the non-domestic rate.
Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)
The Secretary of State outlined the percentage rise in the regional rate. I will say something about that in my speech if I am called later, Madam Deputy Speaker, but will the Secretary of State say something to the House about how the 3% was arrived at?
Karen Bradley
Throughout the whole budgetary process, we have ensured that we have liaised with the main parties in Northern Ireland and politicians to make sure that we reflect both the priorities of the programme for government that was in place before the Executive collapsed and the priorities of the politicians of Northern Ireland. Clearly, an increase in the regional rate was needed to meet the budget gap. It is quite right that, as well as the Treasury providing additional money to bridge the gap in the budget, the people of Northern Ireland should make a contribution towards the public services that they receive, and 3% was an appropriate number.
Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)
The retailers organisation, Retail NI, has expressed disappointment at the rates, and has argued that Northern Ireland businesses would be paying the highest business rates in the UK. Will the Secretary of State give some words of sympathy or encouragement to them?
Karen Bradley
I understand the concerns that have been raised; I have met Retail NI and others. Clearly, we are only increasing business rates in line with inflation, but a number of measures are available to businesses in my constituency that are not available to businesses in Northern Ireland. That is as a result of Northern Ireland not having an Executive to deliver those. This comes back to the point that we discussed at length yesterday: what we need is an Executive to deliver on the programmes, incentives and support that are available, as is right and appropriate for Northern Ireland. It may be that what is needed in Northern Ireland is not the same as the incentives in Great Britain.
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way; she is being very generous with her time. On the domestic rate—the 3% plus inflation; so 4%, there or thereabouts—clearly some residents in Northern Ireland will be able to afford that based on their income, but lots of people living in Northern Ireland are on the minimum wage, in low-income families, so will she set out for the House what support she will put in place so that there is some sort of relief to meet the costs of that rise?
Karen Bradley
What we are doing today is setting the rate. We are not setting any of the reliefs or allowances or support that is already available. Nothing that is there is changing and we are not able to change anything with the Bill. We are just setting the rate, but the hon. Gentleman is right that there may be things that people in Northern Ireland would like to see. Again, if there were Ministers in Stormont, they could do the right thing for Northern Ireland. It would be wrong to transpose the situation for councils in England, Wales or Scotland to Northern Ireland because it needs specific measures, and only Ministers in Northern Ireland can appropriately and properly deliver those.
This approach to regional rates, and therefore the measures in the Bill, represent an important contribution to delivering a sustainable budget for 2019-20. The second element of the Bill concerns the administration of Northern Ireland’s renewable heat incentive scheme. I must make it clear that the UK Government have not taken the decisions on the revised scheme. This remains a devolved matter and the Government are taking forward this legislation at the request of the Department for the Economy. It is crucial that that happens because without this legislation, there will be no legislative basis to maintain the current cost-control measures.
Lady Hermon (North Down) (Ind)
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for allowing me to intervene. I have received a large number of emails mostly, if not exclusively, from individuals who are not constituents of mine but who feel extremely aggrieved by the proposals in this legislation. They entered into the RHI scheme in good faith and feel that they are now being unfairly penalised. I would like the Secretary of State to address that issue this afternoon. Will she assure those people who have raised concerns and who feel very strongly aggrieved by the Bill that there is fairness in the proposals, and that they will not find themselves making their way to the local court to challenge the legislation, because it is in breach of human rights, for example?
Karen Bradley
I will come on to the details of why the decisions have been taken, the advice that we have received from the Department for the Economy and the request that it put in. However, I assure the hon. Lady that the measures we are taking today are the only legal ways in which any subsidies can continue to be paid to anybody on the RHI scheme. Failure to do this will mean the closure of the scheme and no subsidies at all. We need to bear that in mind when looking at this matter. I well understand that people feel concerned when they have entered into an obligation in good faith and then the subsidies that they receive are reduced. I will come on to explain why that is the situation.
Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson (Lagan Valley) (DUP)
The Secretary of State will be aware of our concern that there has been a lack of proper scrutiny of these proposals. While we await the report of the public inquiry in Northern Ireland, it may be that one of the issues on which it makes recommendations is how we scrutinise this kind of measure going forward. We would have hoped that Parliament could set an example for that, yet we are not getting that opportunity, so would she care to address that concern and the timing of this proposal, coming so close to the end of the financial year?
Karen Bradley
As I said, this situation has resulted from a decision by the European Commission on state aid rules, and failure to do this will mean no subsidies being paid to anybody. I fully accept the right hon. Gentleman’s point about scrutiny, but it comes back to the point we discussed at length yesterday: in the absence of an Executive, there is simply no way scrutiny can take place appropriately.
Conor McGinn (St Helens North) (Lab)
While we await the findings of the inquiry, would the Secretary of State agree that whoever’s fault the RHI debacle is—policy makers or politicians—it is certainly not the fault of the people who entered the scheme, and that, at a time when farmers in Northern Ireland are facing great uncertainty and huge challenges, this will be seen as hugely detrimental to them?
Karen Bradley
As I say, I have enormous sympathy for people in this situation. I have met the Ulster Farmers Union and my officials have met individual farmers to talk about it. I well understand the concerns but, faced with a choice between no subsidies at all and cost cutting at 12%, I think this is the right and only legal approach we can take.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
I thank the Secretary of State for at least acknowledging how grossly unfair this is to many people, but she must recognise that the Bill the Northern Ireland Office has put before the House today does far more than she has indicated. Less than half a page of the Bill deals with the regional rate. The rest—five pages—deals with the RHI scheme, and her proposal for the scheme will bring all renewable activity to an end for a generation. No one will ever again apply for a renewable scheme or a Government-backed deal in Northern Ireland. That will be the effect of her proposal.
Karen Bradley
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. I will come on to the detail of the renewable heat measures and the work undertaken.
The Department for the Economy in Northern Ireland undertook an extensive public consultation in the last year to ensure that revised measures could be introduced in time for new legislation to come into effect from 1 April 2019. The tariff levels set out in the Bill are based on an analysis of the additional costs and savings of operating a biomass boiler in Northern Ireland. The Department has also engaged with the European Commission in developing the long-term tariff. The Commission has indicated that it is not in a position to approve a tariff that delivers a rate of return higher than 12%. Recognising that a small number of participants with lower usage needs or higher capital costs could see returns below the intended 12%, the Bill makes provision for the introduction of voluntary buy-out arrangements.
I recognise that some scheme participants in Northern Ireland will be concerned about these new tariffs. Both the Department for the Economy and my own Department have heard their views in person and in writing in recent weeks, as I said earlier, and I empathise with those people and businesses across Northern Ireland.
Ian Paisley
I thank the Secretary of State for going into the detail. She mentions the 12% rate of return. Why can the rest of the UK set a rate of return on the same scheme fluctuating between 8% and 22%? Why are our officials being told that Europe will only accept 12% for Northern Ireland, but will accept a differential rate for the rest of the UK? Officials have a duty to tell the public why that is.
Karen Bradley
We cannot easily compare schemes: there are different set-up costs and fuel costs in different parts of the United Kingdom. Differences apply. The work done by the Department for the Economy with the Commission is thorough and has ensured that the recommendations it put to me and the tariffs we are legislating for today mean that the scheme remains legal. That is the important point. If we do not have a legal scheme, there will be no subsidies.
Ian Paisley
The Secretary of State says there are different set-up costs, but under state aid rules that is not allowed. State aid rules declare that the set-up costs are X for the provision of the boiler. In England, different set-up costs are being used, and our Department in Northern Ireland is changing those set-up costs according to its interpretation of what the law demands. Does that not ultimately reflect the need for more scrutiny? To rush the measure through the House is not right, fair or equitable.
Karen Bradley
There are differences in fuel costs and transport costs. There are differences between different parts of the UK. I am interested in making sure that the scheme in Northern Ireland remains legal so that people with boilers can continue to receive some subsidy. I know it is not at the levels they were receiving previously, but it is still some subsidy.
Maria Caulfield
I understand why there has to be a change, but for farmers who have borrowed £250,000 or £500,000 to install a boiler and went to the banks with a guarantee of 20 years of subsidy, a change from £13,000 to £2,000 a year per boiler is a real concern. Many will not be able to pay the money back and will go under.
Karen Bradley
That is why a buy-out scheme is available: so that boiler owners can choose individually. I cannot say exactly what the rate will be, because it will depend on, for instance, the subsidies that have been received to date. The calculations will be individual, but a buy-out will be available to boiler owners who do not believe that the subsidies now available will enable them to continue in business.
Karen Bradley
I do want to make some progress, but I recognise that many interests are involved. I will give way to the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) and to the hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson), but then I will conclude my speech.
Sammy Wilson
Does the Secretary of State accept, first, that the terms of the buy-out scheme are not clear and, secondly, that a large number of people—probably those who are most affected by these changes—will not be able to avail themselves of it?
Gavin Robinson
The Secretary of State talked about a 12% rate of return. She knows that participants in the scheme will be listening very carefully to what is being said today. According to figures that were given yesterday, over the 20-year period of the scheme the rate of return will be 60%, but whether it is 12% or 60%, officials were indicating that the money had largely been paid. Will the Secretary of State confirm that, and does she agree with those figures?
Karen Bradley
As I have said, the figures will all be individual, and it is impossible for me to give the hon. Gentleman a generality from the Dispatch Box. However, he is right to say that the subsidies that have been paid to date will, on the whole, be higher than the subsidies that will be paid from now on. The point is that unless those steps were taken, the subsidies that were being paid would breach state aid rules, and the scheme would be illegal and would be closed. This is the maximum level at which subsidies can be paid if the scheme is to continue to be legal.
Representatives of the Department for the Economy will meet other interested parties, such as the banks and those in the agri-food supply chain, to discuss the impacts and seek support for affected participants. The Department has also agreed to provide additional advice and technical assistance for participants. I know that this is a very difficult matter, but I believe that the measures proposed by the Department for the Economy are fair, and strike the correct balance between the rights of participants and the wider public interest.
To conclude—
Karen Bradley
I was about to conclude, but I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, because he is irresistible.
Gavin Robinson
I am very grateful to the Secretary of State. She says that I am irresistible; how could I disagree? She is very kind to give way for a final time.
I want to focus on the fact that the Secretary of State said there was a fixed rate of return of 12%. Participants can hear today that they will not receive that money in the forthcoming years under the terms of the Bill. Is it not the case that the Department for the Economy is saying that they have already received it?
Karen Bradley
As I have said, these are the measures that we need to take now to ensure that the scheme remains on a legal footing. These are the steps that need to be taken to ensure that any subsidies can continue to be paid from the scheme and allow it to remain within the state aid rules. However, I am sure we will debate this issue further at a later stage, and I do understand the hon. Gentleman’s points.
The Bill does two things, both of which are required for good governance and stable public finances in Northern Ireland. I hope that colleagues on both sides of the House agree that it is important for us to make progress now to protect the best interests of all people in Northern Ireland, and to that end I commend the Bill to the House.
Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)
The Bill is in many ways an abuse of the processes of the House. I hope that the Minister will take this seriously. There is no connection between the regional rates and the structure surrounding the renewable heat incentive scheme, and they should have been presented in two separate pieces of legislation. It is already obvious from the debate so far that there is massive concern about the RHI proposals on both sides of the House, and the level of scrutiny that we will be able to achieve this afternoon simply is not up to the importance of the Bill.
This is not a trivial matter. It is not trivial because in the end the concern expressed by the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) and others that there will be casualties of this process is real. My hon. Friend the Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn) makes the point that many farms in Northern Ireland—small firms, quite often—are in a parlous state. It matters enormously if we get this legislation wrong.
I hope the Secretary of State will consider that, and I hope that we will not see again an attempt to bludgeon legislation like this through the House in such a short space of time. This should have been taken in Committee; there should have been the opportunity in Committee for a much more leisurely but much more intense form of exchange between the Secretary of State, the Minister and interested Members. That is the right and proper way of doing something of this import.
On regional rates, I want to pick up the point raised about business rates. It is difficult to argue against business rates being uprated by inflation—I think even the greatest quibblers would resist that—but it is important to register that across the different towns of Northern Ireland in particular, there are businesses that are struggling. I do not pick as in a vendetta on the town of Ballymena. I know there is some good news that the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) has been involved in—there are some new jobs coming into the town—but I think he will accept that I make no criticism of one of his towns if I say that the Ballymena of today is not the Ballymena of my youth. It is a town that does need uplift; it needs its businesses supported and an injection of resource.
Ian Paisley
I appreciate the shadow Secretary of State making those kind and glowing references to Ballymena. It has a significant part of the industrial base of Northern Ireland, but that has of course been damaged by the loss of jobs and EU regulations, and to some extent just because of world economic factors. But the fact of the matter is that there is a spirit of change and a spirit of trying to get new jobs back, and I am delighted that today about 60 new jobs will ultimately be financed at USEL—Ulster Supported Employment Ltd—in Ballymena, which is a wonderful scheme that brings disadvantaged young people on and into the workplace and encourages the development of a circular economy.
Tony Lloyd
Like the hon. Gentleman, I very much welcome this piece of good news, but it has to be set against the fact that we do need to see renewal in many towns, and I want to return to a question I raised with Ministers yesterday about the stronger towns moneys. I did not get a response to the question I raised; there was no certainty on that. The Communities Secretary made it clear that the stronger towns moneys were available of course for England but also for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. In Wales and Scotland, I assume those moneys will be diverted through the devolved Administrations there, but with Northern Ireland, we do need some certainty that there is political process and there will be political decision making that can ensure that, whether in Ballymena or any other town, there will be access to the stronger towns moneys. That is important in the context of the debate we are having; yes, we welcome the relative capping of the business rates but we want a recognition that there is still need for legitimate support for businesses across Northern Ireland.
I want to pick up the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore). He made some interesting comments about the impact of the domestic rate increase. An increase of 3% plus inflation is perhaps supportable for many people, but it is interesting to compare with the Government’s proposed uprating for benefits: for universal credit, for example, that will be 2.4% in total. So 3% plus inflation is a bigger cost being imposed on the many families in Northern Ireland who struggle—for instance, low-income families or families on minimum wage. That kind of impact must be considered.
The Secretary of State says that the people of Northern Ireland should make a contribution as well as the Treasury, but let me make the obvious point that the people of Northern Ireland do make a contribution to Treasury moneys: they pay income tax, they pay VAT and they pay all the other taxes that are paid by people throughout the United Kingdom.
In those terms, this is effectively a redistribution from UK-wide taxation—which is perhaps not as progressive as I would like, but at least it has some sense of progression—to a more regressive form of taxation around regional rates. Nevertheless, the many sectors such as local authorities and, most importantly, education spend and health spend that depend on regional rates certainly need to see these resources coming in, so it would be hard to resist the case for this legislation being needed. It also has time import, in that the new financial year will not be long delayed.
However, that is not the case with the legislation relating to the renewable heat incentive. The consultation on the present scheme began last May and finished last September, and this legislation should have been brought before the House long before now if the intention was to implement it on the third parties on 1 April. It is unacceptable that we are now having to legislate at breakneck speed, just as we did yesterday. The legislation is being forced through the House without the opportunity for proper scrutiny. I have to say to the Secretary of State, although not unkindly, that I did not find her answers convincing when she responded to questions raised by previous speakers. I did not honestly feel that the House knew whether the legislation was necessary. I shall go into further detail on that in a moment.
Will the Secretary of State tell me when the Department for the Economy in Northern Ireland began to talk to the Northern Ireland Office about the need for an uprating? We know that there was an uprating last year, roughly 12 months ago, and it should have been obvious to everybody, particularly as this had gone out to consultation, that there would be a need for legislation, so why are we doing this so late on? Alternatively, why has it been necessary to do all this today? Could we not have had a Second Reading today, after which the Bill could have gone into Committee in the normal way and completed its progress later on, having had proper scrutiny throughout the process? This matters, for all the reasons that have already been given in exchanges with the Secretary of State. We have to be certain that the scrutiny is sufficient to reveal exactly what is happening.
On the specific details, I want to ask the Secretary of State some questions that are parallel to those already raised by hon. Members. An argument that is used to underline her case is that only by moving in this direction can we ensure state aid compliance and that this is the only legal basis, other than the complete abolition of the scheme, for reform of the RHI system. I do not know whether that is true. Nothing that has been presented to the House gives us any reason to believe that this is exactly what the European Union has said.
The hon. Member for North Antrim asked why the situation in Great Britain should be different from the situation in Northern Ireland. Why does one involve state aid compliance but not the other? Conversely, one of the proposals in the Ricardo review was to look at the introduction of the GB tariffs in Northern Ireland, and if those tariffs are legitimate for my constituents in Rochdale, why are they not legitimate for people in Northern Ireland?
Maria Caulfield
The shadow Secretary of State is making some good points. The financial difference is stark, because the amount in the rest of the UK will be £20,000 per year per boiler, whereas the amount that we will be moving to in Northern Ireland will be just £2,000 per year per boiler. That is not a small difference.
Tony Lloyd
The hon. Lady makes a valid point. Obviously, it is not a small difference; in fact, it is a huge difference to those on what could be described as the receiving end, those at the £20,000 level, or the non-receiving end for those at the £2,000 level. The details for a particular farm that I will come on to bear out exactly the point that she makes.
We need to know about state aid compliance, not only what lies behind it but how it has the system so circumscribed that we can do no other. I want to challenge Ministers on some of the things that they have told us. For example, the Secretary of State said that the cost of fuel might be different in Great Britain from Northern Ireland. I am told, however, that a lot of our non-home-grown fuel is imported from the Baltic states, where there is an awful lot of wood—I can assure the House of that, because I have seen it. Those pellets are shipped from the Baltic states to the UK generally, and I can recognise no enormous difference in the cost thresholds such as to produce a very different cost profile in Northern Ireland—a much cheaper one—from that in Great Britain. That we would have such different cost pressures does not seem logical. We need proper answers to such questions, although I fear that we will not get them today.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
I agree with much of what the hon. Gentleman is saying. The purported purpose of this legislation is to give certainty. I have rarely seen the Government produce legislation that is so obviously ripe for legal challenge on the basis of legitimate expectation. In such circumstances, at the end of the day, surely we will not even give the people concerned, the recipients of the subsidies, the certainty that the Government claim they want.
Tony Lloyd
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and to the extent that some of those affected were in court this morning. Specifically, I understand that the judge said that he will not rule on the request for judicial review today because the scheme has not yet been implemented and is therefore not yet in breach. However, he will ensure that any judicial review is expedited once the scheme is in operation. I was going to make this point later, but I will simply do so now, and the Secretary of State and the Minister of State need to address it. What will the Government’s position be if they face judicial review and a challenge that the measure is outwith the competence of our legal framework? There is real risk of that, given that people have signed up to things in expectation of a certain income flow over the years and decades to come, as hon. Members have said. Such issues are not trivial.
Ian Paisley
The shadow Secretary of State is absolutely right. Apparently, this morning, at the High Court in Belfast, a judicial review was not launched and the date for the hearing will be the first week of April. We therefore have to wait until a few days after the change to the new financial year to have an answer. Surely it would be far better to postpone a decision until we have an answer, keeping the current rate until then.
Tony Lloyd
That seems logical, but—I am not a lawyer, so the hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I am not right—the problem is that the judge has ruled that, because the scheme is not in operation, he cannot yet judicially review it. So we have to wait for the implementation of the scheme before the judicial review can be taken forward. One way or the other, that is not a satisfactory way of organising our affairs.
I now come on to the question of installation, which is important. The Secretary of State suggested that the buy-out scheme will protect people. I will use a specific example, which I have no reason to doubt. A Northern Ireland farmer installed a boiler and system in 2015, at the end of the scheme. He tells me that the boiler and the feed system cost just under £36,000 to install. On top of that he had to pay £8,600 for plumbing and electrical costs, so a total of £44,600. He also had to do necessary works to house the boiler properly. He talks about various different things. The total further cost was some £28,000. I will not go into the different costs, but his case to me is that, in total, he had to invest some £76,000 to make this system work for him and his farm.
When the Secretary of State tells us that the buy-out scheme will look at the cost of the boiler and so on, plus 12% for the expected return, what is the basis for the boiler costs that will be allowable? Is it simply the cost of the boiler, or is it the cost of the boiler, the necessary installation and those things necessary to allow the boiler to work? That is material because, in the real world, boilers do not sit in the middle of a field—they do not sit in isolation.
There are real issues in such cases. This farmer tells me that he is likely to have to find an extra £3,000 a year as a result of all these changes. That £3,000 is material to a marginal business, so we have to take into account the impact of real damage to individual farms. This farmer tells me that he took out a loan over 10 years at an interest rate of 3.5 percentage points over the base rate. The annual repayment costs are some £9,000. Those are material costs that he will continue to have to pay unless the buy-out scheme covers him on the impact of the change to the scheme.
Ian Paisley
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his generosity in giving way. Is it not a fact that the weight of what he says is that the scheme now operating here on the British mainland must therefore be flawed? It has to be in breach of the state aid rules, or else the Northern Ireland Office’s proposals are wrong. They cannot both be right, and that matter must be challenged and identified.
Tony Lloyd
I am not being generous with my time because we have to tease out these important issues, and we have to get answers to give us some certainty that the scheme is both necessary and sufficient to protect the interests of those who have acted in good faith.
Lady Hermon
It is crucial that we tease out the details before we give our approval—if we give our approval—to this Bill. In the wind-up, I would particularly like the Minister to give further detail on what the Secretary of State said about how the Department for the Economy will seek support for affected participants: those who invested in the renewable heat incentive scheme in good faith. She failed to give any details at all about the efforts of the Department for the Economy to get some support for those who will be adversely affected if we approve this Bill. They had a legitimate expectation of the tariffs that would be paid to them for 20 years, so I would like details from the Minister.
Tony Lloyd
That is a fair point. There is nothing in this Bill that talks about post-legislative scrutiny. We need some capacity to measure the impact of the legislation after it leaves this House, because it will have an impact. The scheme was a disaster from its inception. That is most certainly true. It is also most certainly true that controlling the overall level of cost is and ought to be a matter of public policy, which is in the interests of people in Great Britain as well as in Northern Ireland. Coming up with legitimate control is not something that divides the House, but we need to make sure that we measure the impact on those affected, and that is simply not there.
Maria Caulfield
The clause 4 powers to instigate the buy-out arrangements are to be exercised only in the period while there is no Executive. So this place would have a duty to scrutinise that, because under this legislation once the Executive are back up and running, the job of scrutiny would return to the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Tony Lloyd
That has to be right. We have a duty to ensure not only that we dispatch the legislation where it is appropriate to do so, but that we monitor its impact to make sure that no injustice is caused by the clumsiness of the legislation.
I will draw my remarks to a conclusion, but the point I have sought to establish all the way through is that the Secretary of State has not given answers with the level of detail that this House ought to demand if we are to say that this scheme is legitimate in terms of protecting the wider public interest, as it rightly and properly should do, and does no injustice to people who, in reasonably good faith—some may have seen a large amount of pound coins rolling in their direction—invested in a scheme that we as a society wanted to promote: a more environmentally sound system of heating. We need to insist that we get that balance right, but I am not convinced that I can see that in the Bill, the explanatory notes or the Secretary of State’s opening remarks
I repeat what I said at the beginning: the way the House is being asked to dispatch this legislation today is incompetent and unreasonable. I hope the Secretary of State will reflect on that, because even at this stage it would be possible for the Government to take part of the legislation back and say that the capacity to scrutinise could be done very differently.
Finally, I wish to make a slightly wider point. Once again, the House is being asked to do something that the Secretary of State talked about as being limited but necessary. There are many limited but necessary schemes that she is refusing to do. In response to the hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson), she made the point that she would be looking to legislate on providing the necessary support for housing associations in Northern Ireland. We would not want to oppose that, as it is necessary to have those housing associations working. Again, however, we come down to questions such as: who will make the decision on the medical school in the Derry and Strabane city deal; when will we see progress on Hart if we are still stalled on getting a devolved Assembly in Stormont; and what are we going to do about the important question of public sector workers, such as nurses, physiotherapists and others in the health service, who will not see the uprating in their pay that their counterparts will see in the rest of the UK? Such issues are within the Secretary of State’s capacity to address. It is difficult for us to see any longer when she will act. Yes, protecting public money and allowing public moneys to be spent by local authorities at the Northern Ireland level is important, but so are these issues. There is no clarity any more—
Emma Little Pengelly (Belfast South) (DUP)
Is the hon. Gentleman aware that, as far as we are aware, senior civil servants do have the power to give pay increases? In fact, many of them have done so, particularly for nurses, the police and those in the Prison Service—this has been recently announced. The senior civil service does have that ability because of legislation passed in this House previously. Does he agree that we also need to encourage those permanent secretaries to make those decisions earlier, because many of them have taken considerable time, and many people are waiting and are out of pocket? The power is there and we just need to get those decisions made by the senior civil service in a timely way.
Tony Lloyd
A guarantee that everybody in the health service receives the same uprate as their opposite numbers in the rest of Great Britain would be welcome. I think the hon. Lady knows, probably better than me, that the most senior civil servants are still traumatised by the judicial review that found that their level of competence to make decisions was limited. Although we brought legislation through the House, I think few people believe that that really did much more than to codify what was already there, rather than to expand their capacity to make decisions. I would love to believe there was a transparent and accountable decision-making process, and hence coming back to Stormont in operation, but we do not have that at the moment, so the only system of accountability for pressing matters lies ultimately in the House of Commons and the Department.
Emma Little Pengelly
Whenever that legislation was discussed by the House, it was very much part of the context that it should give clarity. I accept the hon. Gentleman’s point that because of the judicial review there was clearly apprehension among the permanent secretaries in some of the Departments about making decisions. The legislation was designed to give that certainty and that legal basis, but we are still seeing a reluctance in some Departments. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that guidance for all the Departments in Northern Ireland would perhaps be helpful, to tell all the civil servants exactly what types of decisions they could and should be making in accordance with the legislation passed by this House?
Tony Lloyd
It may be helpful to deliver that kind of guidance. The problem we all have to face is that, in the end, decisions made by senior civil servants without reference to a policy framework determined here, or in some logical sense determined when the Stormont Executive were operating, will be challengeable. Judicial review can and will take place, and if civil servants face such a review, that will make them cautious about making the wrong decision. Every Member of this House would face the same kind of reluctance. I am sure that some will by instinct be a little braver than others, but something still circumscribes such decisions. I do not actually think that the legislation we passed materially changed the boundaries. Perhaps that debate is for another occasion, but it is important.
I have come to the end of my remarks, but I wish to emphasise that we would not want to oppose the passage of the regional rates legislation, because it is timely and it is important that there is certainty at the beginning of the new financial year. However, I repeat that the Secretary of State should not have allowed these two separate items of business to be conjoined. It forces the hand of those in the House of Commons and in the other place in an unacceptable fashion. It forces us not to scrutinise properly the legislation she has put before us. She has to think seriously about whether this is the right way to take this legislation through the House. I suggest to her that, even at this stage, she should think about whether she can technically decouple these two pieces of legislation and allow a slower process and more time for the consideration of the RHI.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
These are unusual times for Northern Ireland and this is an unusual Bill. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that what we have today is something of an essay crisis; that is to say, something presented as being urgent and in need of consideration by the House in one day that could in fact easily have been considered more electively.
It has been said that we should decouple the two elements of the Bill. In truth, most of the Bill relates to the renewable heat incentive. The regional rate issue is largely unobjectionable and would pass with the greatest of ease through the House on a bipartisan basis, but we have to accept that politically the renewable heat incentive is an extremely toxic issue. After all, it has brought us to the sorry pass that we are currently in, with the collapse of the Executive and the Assembly. It is absolutely central to the political chaos that currently afflicts Northern Ireland and that is adversely impacting on the lived experience of people in Northern Ireland, so it demands that we look at the legislation closely and in a considered and measured fashion, of the sort that usually involves a proper Committee stage. That is not being offered on this occasion. I share the surprise expressed by the hon. Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd) that these two completely different issues have been conjoined in this rather unusual Bill. I have sympathy with his suggestion that the two might be separated so that we can pass that which is unobjectionable and straightforward and consider on a more elective basis those bits—those clauses—that are more complicated.
A 12% return is pretty good by any standards. A casual observer of our proceedings would wonder, I suspect, what the fuss is all about—I would love to have a 12% return on my investments—but the fact of the matter is that those small businesses that invested in this technology did so on the copper-bottomed understanding that they would get a different rate of return. The institutions that lent on that basis would have been similarly advised, and the investment would have been procured on that basis. We now have to unpick something of a disaster on the part of the Department for the Economy in Northern Ireland, and I understand the Secretary of State’s dilemma. This is not easy; something has to be done. However, when Bills are before us in this place, we must consider those people who will be inadvertently disadvantaged. Like most hon. and right hon. Members in this House, I have been lobbied by such people who point out that they invested in good faith and that their small businesses might be brought to the edge because of the change in circumstances over which they have no control.
Mr Carmichael
Does that not go to the heart of the matter? The existence of a voluntary buy-out scheme seems an implicit recognition to me that exactly the situation that the hon. Gentleman identifies is one that is likely to occur. That surely means that the legitimate expectations of the recipients of the subsidies are so adversely affected that any legal challenge would be successful.
Dr Murrison
I share the right hon. Gentleman’s concerns in that respect. As a lawyer, he will know better than me that there is every prospect of a judicial review in this matter. It would be very surprising, given the propensity of individuals and organisations in Northern Ireland to seek judicial review on a range of things, if that were not the case in this instance. Indeed, that includes their representative organisations. Clearly, the Government need to do everything in their power to ensure that they are protected against such an eventuality, including, I suggest, ensuring proper scrutiny of this Bill, as inadequate scrutiny will surely be cited as a reason for such a review to result in a judgment that is in favour of those bringing the case forward. However, fear of judicial review is one thing, but what we need to do in this place is to ensure that individuals are not disadvantaged. That means scrutinising this Bill properly and trying to ensure that, if possible, those hard cases are avoided.
I understand the rules on state aid and I understand that the buy-out is a mechanism of trying to be generous to those who may be disadvantaged, but within the rules that have been set. I also have concerns because the Department that has advised on this matter—the Department for the Economy—is, of course, implicated in the mess in the first place. I would be worried if the Secretary of State were being overly reliant on the advice that she is receiving from that Department and, in all candour, I suggest that she needs to be extremely careful about that.
Scrutiny—challenging advice—is what we do in this place. It worries me that this controversial Bill on this most toxic of issues is not undergoing such scrutiny. It would seem to me to be entirely sensible for Ministers to ensure that this measure has all possible scrutiny to hedge against the possibility that what it is doing, on advice from the Department for the Economy, is in fact erring in some important respect, as indeed the advice to Ministers has been from that Department in the past.
I also worry—this has been touched on already—about what confidence institutions will have in these sorts of Government schemes in the future, given that they will have assumed that anything backed by or instituted by Government is copper-bottomed, safe and triple A rated. They now find that that is not the case, and that any loan they may have made on the basis of an expectation of, admittedly, fantastically high returns—nevertheless, backed by Government—will in fact result in a return much less than that. Indeed, in the event that some of these businesses go to the wall, these investments may have to be written off.
We have to reflect on the fact that many of these businesses are marginal concerns. Many of the 1,800 businesses are farms, and we know that farming in Northern Ireland is quite different from farming in the rest of the United Kingdom. They tend to be small, marginal farms. The people from those farms who have invested in this scheme may find themselves embarrassed financially by this particular decision. It is quite possible that we might be able to design some sort of scheme that is based around hardship for special cases. There is no recommendation to that effect in this Bill other than the buy-out scheme. I commend the Secretary of State for that, as it is absolutely right to bring such a scheme forward within the constraints of state aid, but there is very little beyond that, and there will be cases of hardship. In the context of Northern Ireland—a small place with lots of small businesses and small farms—would not it be tragic if we found some of those businesses going to the wall as a result of this change in policy?
Of course, this legislation has to go through because if it does not, on 1 April people will be faced with getting nothing, but I gently suggest to Ministers that this is an imperfect Bill that needs further scrutiny and input. I hope very much that my new clause 1 will catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker, and that we may debate this matter further in Committee. It would be extremely good if we could do so, because the new clause makes some sensible recommendations about how we can ensure that this difficult part of a Bill that is otherwise unobjectionable is given the scrutiny that it deserves so that people can therefore have greater confidence in it.
In general, the Secretary of State is quite right to bring this legislation forward. It is a pity that we have not had the scrutiny of the whole Bill that it really deserves. Given the issues that currently apply at Stormont, we need to be particularly careful in this place that we give matters that relate to Northern Ireland all the scrutiny we can possibly can. This represents something of an essay crisis that was absolutely avoidable had we brought the measures forward in a more timely manner and decoupled these two very different elements of a particularly unusual Bill.
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
I rise to speak briefly in this Bill on devolved Northern Ireland business. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) can rest assured that there will be no green cheese in today’s remarks; and these will be remarks, as they will hardly be a speech.
As the Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee said, it has been over two years since the renewable heat incentive brought down the Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly, grinding all decision making to a halt. Since that occurred, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and the UK Government have simply not done enough to restore Northern Ireland’s political institutions and restore confidence in power sharing while championing Northern Ireland’s devolution settlement.
We have just passed yet another fast-tracked budget Bill that, by rights, should have been debated and decided on in Belfast. Today we will fast-track yet another Bill—this one on rates and the renewable heating scheme, albeit a scheme with huge and unintended political consequences, but the criteria of which were designed in Northern Ireland, for Northern Ireland.
I reiterate one of the central points that I made yesterday as we debated the Northern Ireland Budget (Anticipation and Adjustments) (No. 2) Bill: these debates should not be ours to have and these decisions should not be ours to make. Decisions on devolved issues must only be taken in devolved legislatures or by Ministers of devolved Executives and Governments—not in this place and certainly not in Whitehall. Of course, Stormont’s politicians need to start serving the people they were elected to represent, but this Government must up their game to get the two sides round the table—and if they cannot, as I said yesterday, they should bring in a third party who can. I accept that this Bill must be passed, but we cannot continue passing such legislation in this place—that is not how devolution should ever work.
I promised to be brief, and brief I will be. I very much hope that this is the last time that I, or anybody else in this place, makes a contribution on a matter like this that is for other devolved legislatures.
Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)
The reason we are here is that the Assembly has not been sitting for over two years now. There are many members of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee here this afternoon. In our public evidence session this morning, the leader of the Green party in Northern Ireland said that she thought that the Assembly would not be up and running for the rest of this year. It is therefore likely that we will be returning here in the next few months, or maybe even this time next year, with similar Bills looking at the budget, as we did yesterday, and rates. I hope that is not the case.
Many of us are putting pressure on all political parties to get back around the table and get the Assembly up and running because, as we now start to scrutinise devolved issues, we hear week in, week out, about the impact that that is having. We have heard from headteachers in Northern Ireland about issues of procurement. Even simple, basic supplies are not being procured properly and effectively, and money is being wasted on them. We have heard from the Commissioner for Children and Young People that the Salisbury review of education has meant that some funding reforms that should be taking place to enable money to be better spent in small rural schools are not happening because there is no one to take that decision. It is not just about not getting the money to spend; scrutiny of the decisions on how it is spent is not happening either. Both are equally important. The RHI is a classic example of why we need that scrutiny. The RHI was a significant factor in the fall of the Assembly in the first place. The fact that we are now making decisions on it without any real scrutiny apart from a couple of hours in this Chamber is significantly worrying given the impact that it will have on small businesses in Northern Ireland, particularly in the farming community.
I have sympathy with the Secretary of State, and I agree that we have to make a decision this afternoon, or else any subsidies will stop completely, which would be a huge disservice to the people of Northern Ireland. However, the fact that it has been left to the last minute to make this decision will have a real impact. As a member of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, I have been contacted by Northern Ireland businesses telling me that many of them—some have 10 biomass facilities on their farms—have gone to the banks to borrow £250,000 or £500,000 in the expectation that they would get a guaranteed subsidy over a 20-year period. In any other walk of life, someone who breached that agreement would be in court having to defend that or having to pay compensation.
It is not the fault of anyone here in this Chamber that we are in this position, but neither is it the fault of farmers or businesses who took these decisions. Many will go under if we do not address this issue. To add insult to injury, people in the rest of the United Kingdom will be getting £20,000 per biomass incinerator, whereas farmers, or whoever else has installed them, in Northern Ireland will gain only £2,000. That is a real concern. The Ulster Farmers Union has rightly raised that issue; I know that the Secretary of State has met its representatives to listen to their concerns. They point out that this is happening at a particularly difficult time for Ulster farmers with Brexit day looming.
We should not be making these decisions, and that is a great reason why we need the Assembly back up and running. The decision was made to set up the scheme, and it should be the Assembly taking responsibility when the budget has spiralled out of control and tough decisions are required. It is frustrating that, once again, people in Northern Ireland have gone to the polls and elected representatives but have no representation in Stormont. Some communities have no representation here so are completely at the mercy of politicians such as me, who have an interest in Northern Ireland but are not at the coal face, experiencing the impact of the decisions. It is down to Northern Ireland politicians to get back round the table and sort this out.
I have a few questions for the Minister to respond to when he sums up. Can the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee have ongoing scrutiny of this issue, so that we can look at how the buy-out system is working and the impact of the reduction in subsidy and take quick action if it is having a devastating impact, as some fears suggest? What happens if the Executive are restored in the meantime? We heard this morning in the Select Committee that that is unlikely to happen soon, but if it did, there would be an impact on clause 4 in particular and how the budget would be set. We cannot set in place a system today that will be overturned in, say, six months. That would be really unfair on those affected.
Can we have clarity on why there is such a difference between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom? A number of Members have raised that, and it would be helpful to understand it. Can we have further scrutiny of how buy-out payments will be achieved? I have grave concerns that it will be based on the cost of biomass installations, but far greater costs, such as interest payments on loans, will have to be taken into consideration.
I share Members’ concerns—we should not be in this position. It is not this Government’s fault that a scheme was set up that was never going to work financially, but we have a responsibility to the people of Northern Ireland to ensure that the solution put in place is fair and does not have a detrimental effect on those who invested in all good faith.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield). I thank her for her genuine interest in Northern Ireland affairs and for contributing to the debate.
As has been pointed out, this Bill contains two totally unrelated pieces of legislation. The reasons for that have been given, although I am not convinced that this is the best way of dealing with the issues at hand. Let me deal first with rates. I accept what the Secretary of State said; it is important that people in Northern Ireland contribute through their rates to some of the public expenditure required to keep services going in Northern Ireland. But when we impose those additional charges, whether on domestic or business rates, it is important that we bear in mind two things: the ability to pay and the impact that any taxation has on either the businesses or households concerned.
I have reservations about the level of the domestic rate increase, which is above the rate of inflation—it is the rate of inflation plus 3%. That will cause difficulty for households, as some people will not qualify for housing benefit on their rates but are still in low-paid employment and want to stay in employment. That will cause difficulty, but it is nothing compared with what was originally proposed. Let us not forget that the original proposal was 10% plus inflation. I am glad that the Secretary of State did not pursue that. The party of government, like my party, believes in leaving people with as much of their money to spend as possible. People know how to spend their money better than the Government. It would have been a travesty if the Government had proposed an 11.8% increase in the rates that people pay for their home, especially given the Government’s boast time and again—one they ought to be proud of—that they are seeking to bring down the level of taxation. I am pleased that my colleagues and I had a role to play in knocking that figure down.
On the issue of business rates, this is really a 0% increase in real terms. Nevertheless, business rates in Northern Ireland are, for a number of reasons, some of the highest in the United Kingdom. The Chancellor has announced some business rates relief schemes—incidentally, we did have a Barnett consequential for that in Northern Ireland—but because of the non-functioning of the Assembly, it was not possible to revise the small business rate relief scheme in Northern Ireland. While that money was made available to the general purse, it was not translated into reductions for businesses.
In the long term, I think we need to look at the whole issue of business rates. It is of course a tax that is not related in any way to the ability of a business to pay. It does not reflect the buoyancy of the business or, indeed, the income from the business; it simply reflects the size of the premises and the rateable value of the premises that businesses happen to be occupying. For some people, that will lead to under-taxation because they could afford to pay more, but for many businesses it leads to over-taxation because their overheads go up or stay the same even though their income and their ability to pay are going down, which affects so many.
I suppose it is not just an issue for Northern Ireland, but this is one of the reasons why we have so many vacant premises on so many of our high streets. As businesses have come under pressure from online retailing and from the changes in the way consumers spend their money, they find their revenues going down, but the overhead of rates still remains the same. In the longer term, I think we need to have a review of business rates. I am pleased that at least there has not been a real-terms increase in rates for businesses, although I know many of them will struggle even with the inflationary increase in this piece of legislation.
Let me turn to the second part of the Bill on the changes to the renewable heat incentive payments. I do not think anyone can say that this scheme has been a success by any means. In fact, it has been a disgrace, and the way in which it was set up and has been abused required there to be a change. However, I must say that when it comes to subsidies for renewable heat, I do not think that some of the practices instigated through this Parliament and in this part of the United Kingdom would stand up to scrutiny any more than the renewable heat incentive stood up to scrutiny in Northern Ireland.
We have a situation at present that makes the subsidy in Northern Ireland disappear into insignificance. At Drax B power station, the subsidy has climbed from £250 million a year when the Liberal Democrat Minister introduced it to £800 million this year, and it is going to go up to £1,000 million a year, when coal could be mined two miles down the road. And what do we do? We bring in wood pellets from America. We chop down trees in America, put them in a boat, bring them to England and burn them in a power station, and we pay a subsidy of £800 million a year for it. I wonder how many houses in the south of England are having their outdoor swimming pools heated with boilers for which people get a renewable heat incentive payment. Is that a good use of public money? The renewable heat incentive has not received the same level of scrutiny in other parts of the United Kingdom as in Northern Ireland, where it was seen to be abused. However, there are big questions to be asked about the scheme, not just in Northern Ireland but in any other part of the United Kingdom.
I have several points to make about the need for review. We have been told that the legislation has to pass today instead of being given the level of scrutiny required. Many hon. Members have asked detailed, probing and important questions, but we are told that if the Bill does not pass today, no subsidy regime at all will be available at the beginning of the next financial year, and that if we continue with the existing subsidies, we will be subject to infraction proceedings from the European Union.
Why was all this brought forward at the last minute? It is not that the review of the scheme has been forced on the Department in the past three or four months; it was initiated by the last Minister for the Economy before the Assembly fell, more than two years ago. What has happened in the meantime? Why has it taken two years, with a rush to pass the legislation at the very end? The joke in Northern Ireland is that evolution works quicker than some of our Departments. However, given that the review was initiated more than two years ago, I have to ask why, at the last minute, we are suddenly being presented with a piece of legislation that raises a lot of questions, instead of being given time to carry out the proper scrutiny, in Committee and so on, that the hon. Member for Lewes and the Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee have suggested.
Maria Caulfield
It strikes me, as an MP who is still fairly new in this place, that the attitude is often, “It’s only Northern Ireland, so we can whizz it through in a day.” It should not be right for any Bill to pass Second Reading, Committee and Third Reading in one day without any suitable scrutiny.
Sammy Wilson
The hon. Lady makes her point well, as she did in her speech.
Not everyone abused the scheme. Some did, and it is right that their subsidies were cut, but many people had the scheme sold to them by the then Sinn Féin Minister of Agriculture and by the Minister in the Department for the Economy. It was sold to farmers and many other businesses as a subsidy for heating their premises because they were using the kind of energy that was in vogue with the Department, which wanted to cut down on CO2. I am not really sure how burning wood cuts down CO2 emissions—I am told that it puts as much CO2 into the air as coal, and some of the pellets are imported from miles and miles away—but that was the thinking at the time.
People undertook in good faith to install the boilers. They borrowed money, expecting a certain level of return and a flow of payments. They could have put in gas boilers and got cheaper energy, but because of the hysteria against fossil fuels, it was decided to subsidise wood burning, so people installed a more expensive boiler and expected to get money in return.
We are told that the sudden and very substantial reduction in the subsidy happened because the EU said that it was required to keep us to the average 12% level. There has been some dispute, in discussions with officials, about whether the rate of return can be between 8% and 22% so long as it averages out at 12%, or whether it is a maximum of 12%. If we had had the time or a mechanism to bring forward officials we could have probed into that, but we are told it is 12%.
In England, the subsidy per boiler is about five times higher than the subsidy per boiler in Northern Ireland. The scheme in the Irish Republic pays about six times more per boiler than in Northern Ireland. The question is this: how can you pay a subsidy five times more in England and still be within EU state aid limits? You can pay a subsidy that is six times more in the Republic of Ireland and still be within EU state aid limits. In Northern Ireland, however, it has to be at the level of £2,000 per boiler to stay within the state aid limits.
The explanation given—I cannot question it as I do not have enough information—is that, “Oh, the cost of boilers and the cost of fuel is different in Northern Ireland from the cost in England”. I could believe that if we were talking about, say, a 10% difference, but we are talking about a percentage difference in the hundreds here. Why does a boiler cost substantially more in England than it does in Northern Ireland? You might argue that it is because of transport costs, but then why does it not cost more in the Irish Republic? If a boiler has to come from England or another country, it has to be transported across the sea to the Republic of Ireland. Why should fuel cost substantially more in Northern Ireland than it does across the border in the Irish Republic? There might be some explanations as to why it costs less than in England, but why should there be such a huge difference between the two jurisdictions on the one island?
There could be perfectly good explanations for that, but given that the Department for the Economy got its figures so wrong for the initial scheme, you can understand, Madam Deputy Speaker, why people in Northern Ireland are sceptical about any figures that come out of the Department. The Department did not spot that the subsidy was substantially more than the cost of fuel and got its figures so wrong that there was a massive overspend. Figures for any scheme it brings forward need to be scrutinised properly. There is no opportunity to do that, despite whatever questions we ask Ministers today. A lot of these things come out through discussion, not through a question and a quick answer back from a Minister.
Those are the kinds of issues that need to be addressed. Unfortunately, I think we will have to vote for the Bill tonight, because there really is no alternative and it would be far worse to leave people with no scheme by voting against it. However, the Chairman of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee suggested that there ought to be a commitment to allow the Committee, even after the Bill is passed, to have the opportunity to bring officials and anyone else necessary along, so that it can question them on the figures. If those figures are shown to be wrong, the scheme has to be amended to ensure that the level of subsidy paid reflects the true costs of the scheme. That is the one assurance we have to give to those who have been badly bitten.
I welcome the intervention and the fact that there was also some discussion on the budget, albeit late in the day. I think it was only two or three weeks ago that we were first given sight of what was proposed in the budget, but because the decision had to be made internally—purely by the Northern Ireland Office and the Department of Finance—there was time to revise the enormous increase that was being proposed initially for the rates. In the case of the renewables scheme, it had to go back to Europe. Thank goodness that after 29 March, we will not have to worry about state aid rules. We can make our own decisions. That is a good thing and another reason why the House should make sure that we get out on 29 March, so that we can decide on the kind of support that we want to give industry or the lack of support—
Maria Caulfield
May we ask the Minister if—when we leave the EU on 29 March—we could look again at the subsidy issue, given that state aid rules will no longer apply?
Sammy Wilson
I agree with the hon. Lady. One of the reasons why we need scrutiny of the legislation, even after it has gone through, is so that we have a chance to revise it if we see that the figures are wrong. Since people have bought the boilers and had the infrastructure installed, would it be better to find a level of subsidy that enables people to continue to use them rather than just buying them out? The fact that we have a buy-out clause in the Bill shows that the Government and Department know that there will be hardship for people, although I suspect that the terms of the buy-out will be so draconian that it will not be worthwhile people doing that.
We will be supporting the legislation, albeit reluctantly, but on the basis that there will be an opportunity for the good questions that Members across the House have asked today to be looked at in more detail.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Before I call the next hon. Gentleman to speak, I have to announce the result of today’s six deferred Divisions on questions relating to regulations on exiting the European Union. In respect of the question relating to financial services and markets, the Ayes were 303 and the Noes were 250, so the Ayes have it. In respect of the question relating to electricity, the Ayes were 302 and the Noes were 44, so the Ayes have it. In respect of the question relating to gas, the Ayes were 300 and the Noes were 44, so the Ayes have it. In respect of the question relating to food, the Ayes were 303 and the Noes were 44, so the Ayes have it. In respect of the question relating to electronic communications, the Ayes were 301 and the Noes were 257, so the Ayes have it. And, in respect of the question relating to road traffic, the Ayes were 301 and the Noes were 251, so the Ayes have it.
We will recommence the Second Reading debate with Mr Vernon Coaker.
[The Division list is published at the end of today’s debates.]
Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), who, apart from the last couple of sentences, I thought made a really good, interesting speech.
I make these points very seriously. I agree with virtually every comment that has been made in the Chamber. It is particularly important, given the fact that the devolved Assembly has not been meeting for over two years, that we in this Parliament, without moving towards any sort of direct rule, are seen by the people of Northern Ireland to be joining others who take an interest because they represent Northern Ireland to scrutinise properly the legislation that has a massive impact on the people who live there. In that context, I will make a couple of points—first, about regional rates and more generally, about the RHI.
The majority of Members of this United Kingdom Parliament would consider it quite inadequate to be given information that makes bland statements of the sort the Secretary of State made in her introduction. That is why I intervened. She basically announced that the Government were going to increase the regional rate by 3% plus inflation. There is no explanation of how they arrived at that figure. What debate was had? I am not talking about the ability to amend the figure or take on the civil servants in Northern Ireland, but that figure was not plucked out of thin air. There have been discussions. There have been discussions—quite rightly—with representatives here, and we now hear that 10.5% or 11.5% was suggested. The vast majority of Members, given the absence of the devolved Assembly, would have been completely unaware of that.
Whatever the rights and wrongs, what is the consequence of reducing the rate to 3%? Somewhere along the line, the Northern Ireland Office, in consultation with representatives in Northern Ireland—business and so on—arrived at 3%. Was there an option to go lower? The right hon. Member for East Antrim rightly made the point that for some families even 3% plus inflation will be a significant cost. No information has been given to Parliament, yet we are set to agree the rate. I am not suggesting we should not agree it, but what reasons were given for a lower increase?
In her written ministerial statement, the Secretary of State said:
“This budget position has been constructed on the basis of a 3% (plus inflation) increase on the domestic regional rate, and 0% plus inflation on business rates. I consider that this is a necessary and important step to continue to support public services”.—[Official Report, 28 February 2019; Vol. 655, c. 24WS.]
In any other public debate, the Secretary of State or Minister would explain how they had arrived at that figure. I am not saying it is wrong; all I am saying is that I have no idea from the information I have gathered—from a few media reports and from what Northern Ireland Members have said—how it was arrived at. Since we are making this decision, in the absence of the devolved Assembly, the Government should be making more information available, while respecting the fact that we are in circumstances none of us wishes to be in.
Paul Girvan (South Antrim) (DUP)
The regional rate will make up roughly 46% of the overall domestic rate in household bills from April. Most local authorities have struggled to maintain below-inflation rate increases, and they will be impacted because the public will not understand that a large percentage is a regional add-on to the rates bill. They will not see that the 5.8% is a regional add-on.
Vernon Coaker
That is an interesting point. The hon. Gentleman has shared with the House another important piece of information that will no doubt be reported and on which it is important that Parliament reflects. Nobody is saying this is wrong or that the Government are in a state of confusion, but where is the information that would allow us to consider this in a much more measured and informed way?
I know it is unrelated to the Bill, but we were told time and again in yesterday’s debate, “It’s been agreed we should spend more on education and health and that necessarily means less on other areas”. It is stated, not argued. The House is given no information for why it is. It is just asserted. In the present circumstances, I would suggest to the Minister, the Secretary of State and the Northern Ireland Office that they consider much more carefully how they inform the House of how decisions have been arrived at. That is not to usurp the functions of the civil service in Northern Ireland or to seek to replace the devolved settlement, but if we are being asked to make decisions, we should have much more information.
I have a similar view about the business rate. The business rate increase is 0%, but plus inflation, so it is not 0% as such. Again, the right hon. Member for East Antrim outlined some of the difficulties for business. Notwithstanding the investment that is taking place in Northern Ireland and the success stories there, there are issues surrounding the business rate. Those who google or read the Northern Ireland press will be able to see some of what businesses are saying about what they perceive as the unfairness with which it operates. It is not necessarily for the House to say that it should be changed, because that is not our function, but if it is 0% plus inflation, it is certainly our function to consider it.
Why was it necessary for the right hon. Member for East Antrim, rather than the Secretary of State or the Minister, to outline some of the problems that businesses were identifying in respect of the increase? The Secretary of State, and the Minister, when he responds to the debate, should say something about this, to demonstrate to the people of Northern Ireland that we understand what is going on, and that the decisions that are being made in the present circumstances reflect that. The hon. Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield) said something very similar, unless I misinterpreted what she said. As I have observed on numerous occasions to various Secretaries of State, we seem to be rubber-stamping things without proper scrutiny and without being given any proper information.
Let me now make some comments about the RHI scheme. No one would want us to be where we are now, but the seriousness of this is simply astonishing. As has been said by the right hon. Member for East Antrim and others—including, I think, the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison)—the House has not much alternative but to pass the Bill as it stands. According to the explanatory memorandum, 1,800 small and medium-sized businesses—about 100 per constituency, on average—will be affected if it is not passed, because no subsidy arrangements will be available to them. This is a phenomenal problem. No wonder the people in those businesses will be looking at what is happening here and, in many cases, will be in despair. As we all know, small businesses depend considerably on cash flow. Many are already struggling, and people are working hard to make ends meet. Of course some sort of scheme must be in place, but I agree very much with the Chair of the Select Committee. It does come to something when, essentially, we are approving this scheme because it is a case of “Oh my God, if we don’t, we will be in trouble.”
Ian Paisley
The hon. Gentleman has put his finger on a number of issues. We have been told that it is the legal opinion of the Department that that is the case, but we are not able to see or challenge that legal opinion. That is why a judicial review has been launched. It could actually be that the legal opinion that the Department is proffering is wrong, and that we could, at the end of the month, revert to the original payment scheme.
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We are caught in the headlights. The threat that is being made is that if we do not do this, we will be responsible for ensuring that farmers get zero. That is not right.
Vernon Coaker
I cannot really add to what the hon. Gentleman has said, other than to agree with it. That sums it up. Members of the public will be looking at us—they will not be distinguishing between the Government and the Opposition—and wondering how on earth we have let it come to this. All I can say to the Minister is that, notwithstanding the fact that it looks as if we will have to pass the Bill otherwise people simply will not know what the position will be after 1 April, I think there is a great deal of merit in what the Chair of the Committee said. I think that the Minister—I hope he is listening to what I am saying—needs to take account of what has been said by every single Member on both sides of the House. They are saying even if it is necessary to pass this legislation for the reasons that we have heard—to give that certainty—notwithstanding the fact that there is a legal challenge and notwithstanding the fact that we seem to be doing this because we have no choice and we are caught in the headlights, the Government must recognise the strength of opinion about this. They must take up at the very least the very reasonable suggestion by the Chair of the Select Committee and check—particularly if there is a legal challenge, in which case they will have to—whether the statistics are right and whether the Committee can look at this. If it is found that there is an alternative to what is happening at present the Government can perhaps review the legislation.
I know what will happen in the civil service, with all due respect; it will say it is not possible. My experience of Government is that if there is a will everything is possible, and it is perfectly possible for the Secretary of State and the Minister of State—two of the most senior members of the UK Government—to take responsibility and say they are not prepared for 1,800 businesses to be treated unfairly, because by and large those people are totally innocent. In totally good faith, they took on the RHI, and they should not pay the price of a public policy failure. If that means that as a result in a couple of weeks, a month or six weeks, the Government have to review what has happened, I think that will be a price worth paying, because that will be fairness. People expect the Government to operate in a way that is fair to all.
I hope that the Minister heard what I said about information that should be made available to this Parliament on how things like a regional rate are decided, not in order to disagree, but to have greater information to understand how a decision has been arrived at. On the RHI, can the Minister reassure the House whether something can be done in a few weeks should it prove possible to do that and should it prove to be the case that the statistics were wrong?
I hope—as I know the Minister, the Secretary of State and every Member of this House does—that in the longer term, whatever that means, we can see a restoration of devolved government. I gently say to all of them that what might need to happen is, rather than just wishing it, we should try to see whether there is something new we can say or do that will hasten the restoration of devolved government in Northern Ireland.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
It is good to follow the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker). When he said, “Where there’s a will there’s a way,” I thought he was going to get into the Brexit debate, like my right hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), and say, “If there’s a will, there’s a way,” and we hope that in the next few weeks we find that will from our negotiating partners and then find a way out, truly, of the EU. But I digress by straying on to the Brexit debate.
The debate on the Bill has largely been masked by the debate around RHI, and it would be remiss of me not to pass some comment on clause 1 and what has been achieved. My right hon. Friends the Members for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) and for Belfast North (Nigel Dodds) and my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) have been heavily engaged for the last number of weeks on that point. As has already been alluded to, we would have been facing a massive rates hike if it had not been for that negotiation. If only it had been the same for the second part of the Bill: that we had had early sight of it and could discuss and challenge and probe it and therefore see a much more beneficial change than the one that has come forward on RHI. We must, however, congratulate our colleagues on their hard work in trying to significantly improve the rates issue.
The shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd), made some very kind remarks about the situation in Ballymena. I believe that there is an agreement today to see new opportunities created there by USEL, an employer that has set up a site on the Woodside Road industrial estate, and that is leading directly to the employment of 60 new workers in the constituency. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the opening of that site because of duties here in Parliament, but I know that the Gallaher charitable trust, which I chair, led with key financial support to that building and that employer and that that has directly resulted in the employment of those people. Where did that charitable trust money come from? It is a legacy fund left over from when JTI Gallaher had to close its doors, and I am delighted that the first thing we have been able to do, through paying out money and resources, is to help to create 60 new jobs in the constituency. I hope that in the next few years we will see not only the charity that I chair but other employers adding to the local economy and creating new jobs and skills, leading to a revival in local employment.
I hope that the measures on the city deals will shortly come before the House, as they could apply very beneficially to the Mid and East Antrim Borough Council area, as could the Heathrow hub scheme. All those projects could see a huge increase in the employment and opportunities coming to my constituency, and I am delighted with the work that will be done in that regard. I want to ask the Secretary of State and her Minister to challenge Translink to hurry up and create more orders for the local bus building company in my constituency. It is great to see it getting orders from places all over the world, including Latin America and Hong Kong, but I would love to see more orders coming through to it from Translink, and I encourage the Secretary of State to push for those orders to come forward.
We now have to turn to the perplexing issue of the renewable heat incentive. The shadow Secretary of State was absolutely right to say that we are being presented with an amalgamation of two Bills. That is wrong; there should be a stand-alone piece of legislation on the RHI, because it is so controversial and far-reaching, and because the consequences of the issue will be felt by a lot of people in Northern Ireland for a very long time—indeed, probably for the next 20 years. Instead, these measures have just been stapled on to the back of this Bill, and we are now being expected to nod it through without serious, appropriate scrutiny. I do not believe in nodding through legislation; nor do I believe in the emergency process by which we are taking through this legislation. Northern Ireland deserves better, and this House has to demonstrate to Northern Ireland that we are going to give it better.
Officials in Northern Ireland have handed us these proposals, and I believe that they think we should accept them without challenge or scrutiny. That would be wrong, because it would be unfair on the people we represent. I think that people will understand and accept our caution, given that these are the very same officials who brought forward the first flawed scheme. We are now expected to accept the evidence they are giving us today as being good, beneficial, tested and rigorous and to accept that it will be all right on the night. That is not the case, however, because there are flaws in what is being put to us, and even in the manner in which it is being put to us, and they should be properly challenged.
Those in the Department are privately telling us that they would welcome the opportunity for further scrutiny. They do not want the debacle of the past to happen again; they want to learn from the mistakes of the past, rather than to repeat them. I believe that any such extra scrutiny would be very beneficial. A new clause has been tabled to the Bill—it stands in the name of the Chairman of the Northern Ireland Committee, the hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), and several other Members from across the House—and I hope that the you, Madam Deputy Speaker will be kind enough to select it and allow us to debate that issue properly.
Two wrongs never make a right. The obvious historical problems with the RHI tariff are the subject of an ongoing inquiry, and it would not be right to press those matters here today. However, the future ought never to be held to ransom by the past. Unfortunately, the Bill that the Secretary of State has brought to us today will hold the future of the RHI to ransom because of what has happened in the past, and that is wrong. We need to treat people fairly and honestly going forward. No matter what the RHI inquiry throws up, which will have to be dealt with on its own terms, we have a duty and a responsibility to treat the RHI owners in a way that is respectful, honest and fair, and equitable with the rest of the United Kingdom.
Everyone can look at the measures and the proposed cuts in support—from as much as £13,000 to about £2,000 per annum—and then at those same people who have bank loans signed up to on the basis of the original business plans and legal arguments. The banks, however, will not go back on the original plans. They will not say, “We’ll just forgive all that debt; it’s all over.” Banks do not operate like that, and why should they? They were given business plans guaranteed by the Government—legal guarantees—and they expect people to honour the payments agreed.
The Government have to accept that the way in which the issue has been brought forward tonight is not fair to 2,020 boiler owners in Northern Ireland. The vast majority of them, as the hon. Member for Gedling said, have done nothing wrong; they followed the rules, totally and absolutely, yet tonight they are being held to ransom by the system. Most of those RHI users are not abusers of the system, but they will all be punished by the system that is to be introduced now. Again, that is grossly unfair.
People can look across the channel to see the English system, or south to see the RHI system that has been proposed but not yet introduced in the Republic of Ireland, where support will be significantly higher than even here on the British mainland. The Bill will not only punish but in effect end for the next 20 years all renewable energy plans and damage forever anyone who claims a copper-bottomed guarantee from the Government, no matter the shade of that Government, because they will look back at this scheme and say, “Look how we were done over, treated shabbily and given no answers to our questions. This will lead us to a situation in which we are treated badly.”
Today, I tabled questions about levels of support and Barnett consequentials for RHI payments in both Scotland and Wales. The proposals in the Republic of Ireland will be so much more generous even than what will be made available here in England, as well as in Scotland and Wales. The only part of the United Kingdom that will therefore be treated unfairly is Northern Ireland. The cuts are to the bone, and through it.
The argument presented by the Department yesterday in a 15-minute presentation was that this would stop a breach of state aid rules. That simply is not good enough. We have to be given more substance and the legal arguments to demonstrate the precise nature of those state aid requirements, which do not appear to apply to another European Union member state—namely, the Republic of Ireland—or to the rest of the United Kingdom or any of its regions, whether Scotland, Wales or England. State aid rules are supposed to apply in the same way, yet Northern Ireland has been singled out to be treated differently.
The Department has a duty to make the case in public. It and the Secretary of State cannot give a 15-minute briefing to the shadow Secretary of State or us as Members of Parliament in a conference, and then expect us to sell it to the public. Do they think we are mad? That is not acceptable. The Department has a duty to stand up in public and to defend itself. Will the Secretary of State make herself and officials available to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee for us to ask them the difficult questions? Let us at least have the opportunity to put those questions to the Secretary of State, because so far today we have had no answers to any questions.
For example, how did the Department come to the figure for the average cost of boilers in Northern Ireland? What was the basis on which that was done? The Department has given us a figure for the average cost, and are we just to accept it? We are not equipped to challenge that figure unless we see the evidence, but we are not allowed to see that evidence. We are just told that we have to accept it. We have the great sword of Damocles hanging over us—“If you don’t accept it by the end of the month, farmers will not be paid.” Blackmail is all that is, and it is wrong.
What is excluded from the cost assumptions in Northern Ireland? Are those same exclusions made to the cost assumptions here in England? We did not get any of that answer. We asked three or four times during the 15-minute presentation, and there were raised eyebrows, buts and tuts, and, “Ask someone down the video line. He might be able to tell you.” We were not able to confirm whether the £2,500 plumbing costs or the £1,000 electrical costs are included in the English scheme but excluded from the Northern Ireland scheme. If so, why? If they are, I am not the one to sell it to the general public in Northern Ireland on the basis of a 15-minute presentation; it is up to the Department to sell it.
When a person applies for one of these boilers, they have to seek planning permission, which is a costly exercise. They have to pay a lawyer and, usually, an architect. Is all that included in the English scheme but excluded from the Northern Ireland scheme? Apparently, it is included in the English scheme but excluded from the Northern Ireland scheme. If it is excluded from one on the basis that it is against state aid rules, I can tell the House there is an express train coming down the tracks towards those who try to include it in the English scheme. We have to address those issues.
Do the cost assumptions differ from what is permitted in England? If so, why do they differ? The Department and, indeed, the Secretary of State need to answer that question. If 12% is the rate of return, why can the rest of the UK work on a rate of return of between 8% and 23%, as my right hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim said? Why is there that differential? We were given an excuse yesterday. We were told 16 times that the European official had told the Department for the Economy that it could not move from 12%. Why can it not move from 12%? It is up to the Department to reveal the answer, if it has one. Why should I go out and sell it to my constituents when the Department told me that Europe has said it cannot do it? That might have been all right for the past 40 years, but from 29 March it will not be acceptable. Europe cannot tell us all those things, and it is therefore wrong, 23 days before we leave, that the EU is allowed to hold us to ransom on that point.
When we ask whether the state aid rules will still apply after 29 March, some lawyers say they will and others say they will not. Why should I make the case in public? It is up to departmental officials and the Secretary of State to make the case, and they have to answer those questions. Officials say that the EU does not allow them to stray from 12%. Why is that the case? A judicial review was lodged this morning, and the appeal will be heard in April. Is it really appropriate for us to change the tariff about 30 days before that judicial review hearing? I do not believe it is. I think that in itself could constitute knowledge that we were doing something wrong, and I think the Department needs to move.
The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) made the point well that the buy-out scheme is an admission that this scheme is flawed. If that is the case, the Government will pay out even more compensation if it goes to judicial review. Will the state aid rules apply after 29 March?
If we were successful in voting against the Bill tonight, would the payments stop on 1 April? The Secretary of State made that case. When we asked yesterday for evidence to back it up, we were told that it is just a legal opinion, but that legal opinion is being tested in the courts today because there is another equally valid legal opinion saying that it is a wrongful interpretation. We will know the outcome in the first or second week of April.
All those questions need to be answered in advance of our taking a decision. We are not being given the proper time to scrutinise this properly. It is little wonder that we have been inundated by calls, emails and personal visits from hundreds of constituents, businesses and farm families who are affected because this touches more than 2,000 owners in Northern Ireland. If those businesses go out of existence, that would be the equivalent of 60,000 or more small businesses closing here on the British mainland. That perhaps gives a sense of the proportion of what has been affected; we are talking about tens of thousands of families who would be affected if this was transferred over here. We have to address that matter properly. The Department has a duty to make that case in public. It is not our duty to make the case for it, because it is sitting on the evidence. I would therefore welcome the opportunity to scrutinise it properly; the Secretary of State and officials should come before the Select Committee. They should make themselves available instead of expecting us to nod this matter through.
I agree that if Stormont was in place tonight, this debate would be better placed there—that is where it should be taking place—but we have to deal with the cards as they are currently, and Stormont is not in place. It would therefore be a dereliction of our duty to do this in what we would describe locally as a “half-baked way”. Frankly, what we are doing here tonight is half-baked; this is not proper scrutiny, with Parliament at its best, but Parliament doing something and taking shortcuts. That will result in problems down the line. I fear that in a matter of months something will come out and people will say, “You really should not have taken that decision on 6 March 2019. It was a huge mistake.”
We are therefore right to be cautious about supporting this part of the Government’s proposal tonight. This House has a duty to carry out scrutiny, in the absence of the Assembly, and to do it properly. The Department, whenever we met its representatives, outlined how it came to its calculations, but the only conclusions I can draw is that if the Department for the Economy is right in what it has told us, the scheme currently operating here in England is unlawful. If that is the case, an even bigger question is raised. I have asked that very question of officials and looked at their answer. If officials know that that system was unlawful, they are on notice today that they had knowledge of it and, in effect, they let us know that they had knowledge of an unlawful system operating on the mainland. If that is the case, the scheme being proposed for the Republic of Ireland would, similarly, be unlawful under state aid rules. So the Government have a duty to allow us to scrutinise this properly. I welcome the fact that an amendment has been tabled, which we will get to debate later, and I hope the Government will be able to concede some of the points we have put to them and that we will be able to address those issues fairly.
I wish to end my remarks by referring to a couple of emails that I have received out of those from the hundreds of people who have been in touch with us. Whenever we boil things down to the actual person and family involved, we actually see what is happening. Jacqui and Thomas are from a farm family in my constituency. They said that the Department for the Economy has been “ignoring” them for months. They said that they have been emailing the Department, trying to make contact with it and sending it their questions about these matters when the consultation originally came out, but it has been ignoring “genuine RHI users”. Jacqui says:
“I totally object to be financially punished for adhering to the requirements of the Scheme and blame this department for putting my farming business at risk.”
That will have been repeated up and down the country, not just in my constituency, but across County Tyrone and in all of County Antrim, where we are a major food producer for these islands.
We must remember that this is largely about producing poultry that is sold in supermarkets up and down the UK. Most of the poultry eaten on this side of the channel is grown in County Antrim and County Tyrone. If this puts farm businesses at risk, it damages our food security and our biosecurity and everything is now at risk. That is the consequence of what we are doing; it damages businesses and it damages what we actually feed to our children. So let us address it and address it properly.
Sammy Wilson
Does my hon. Friend not think it is rather ironic that we have had all these debates in the House about the impact of Brexit on supply chains, yet here is a measure that, as he has rightly pointed out, could have a massive impact on the supply chain of the agri-food business in Northern Ireland and throughout the United Kingdom?
Ian Paisley
The consequences of and ripples out from this are so significant. It is not about cheap energy; it is about how we run our economy efficiently and effectively. What is our economy in Northern Ireland? It is principally small businesses that produce the best viable, traceable, tastiest food in these islands. We are putting that at risk, and we are putting those jobs and farm families at risk. We really need to pause, and the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for South West Wiltshire gives us that opportunity to try to get this right. I look forward to the second part of proceedings.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is always a pleasure to speak in this House at any time, whether it be first or last—whatever the case may be—and I relish the opportunity to do so today. I wish to follow on from the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley), my right hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) and others, but I wish first to touch on the regional rates. Come 1 April, when many people get their regional rates bill, they will wonder exactly what it is that they are getting for their rates. They will ask that question because of the degree of increase, and I can understand that.
I definitely very much appreciate the city deal relationship that the Government have put forward, in association with my party and my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson), my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast North (Nigel Dodds), my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast South (Emma Little Pengelly) and those further afield. The advantage of the city deal is that we in Strangford, North Down, East Antrim and South Antrim will also get some of the benefit, because it will ripple out to the towns and villages.
What can we do for the high street? I ask primarily because in just the past fortnight several shopkeepers in Ballynahinch, Newtownards and Comber in my constituency were asking whether there is any help for the high streets at this time. The initial reason for this debate was the rates, so perhaps the Minister or Secretary of State can give us some indication of that.
I was very pleased about the stronger towns scheme, which was referred to in last night’s debate and which will ripple across and affect every region of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. We are not yet sure what the figures are going to be, but there is potential to help the high street and those from all over the United Kingdom.
I wish to dwell on the RHI issue and scheme. I thank the Secretary of State for moving the motion. The RHI scheme has been an issue of tremendous difficulty in Northern Ireland, although I must make it clear from the outset that it has been used as a weapon by abstentionist Sinn Féin to strong-arm and foist an Irish language Act, among other things, on the people of Northern Ireland. They used it for their own purpose—for what they wish to achieve. They are not holding out for the inquiry conclusion and report on RHI to come back to do their job. They are using an opportunity to circumvent democracy and impose their will on the people of Northern Ireland. That cannot be borne and nor should it be allowed.
I was not overly au fait with RHI. We were never asked directly to help a constituent to apply and I was not in the Assembly at that stage, so the articles I read in the paper were the foundation of most of my knowledge of the scheme. Of course, as time has passed, I have been contacted by genuine businesses in my constituency—those people who applied legitimately, honestly and fairly, who never abused the scheme at any stage, and who have used it appropriately. Pastors and ministers of churches applied for the scheme. Farmers, too, applied for the scheme for their chicken houses and so on. Many of them invested tens of thousands of pounds in the equipment to qualify for the scheme and it is for those people that I feel extremely aggrieved—those people who did it right but who now find themselves in a very awkward place.
There is no doubt in my mind that the scheme has been massively abused by some people who do not even keep the livestock or the broilers in the sheds as the heat is far too much. They leave the windows open and are burning to make a profit. These people must realise that this cannot be acceptable and that they should not profit from this. They must be held to account.
However, by the same token, there are people who have loans based on an appropriate use of the scheme who may well not be able to pay those loans back and who will lose their businesses—not because they were greedy, but because they are using, and not abusing, the scheme. Let us be honest, when most of us have taken out a mortgage to buy a house or a new car, the bank manager will have always asked us how we would repay it. He would ask for a business plan for repayment or a direct debit. If the house is much more, he would look for collateral as well. Decisions to loan money—whether it be to a business or for a mortgage on a house—are based on a proven business plan, endorsed and agreed by the banks and, in this case, agreed by Government as well.
I wish to read out a letter from one of my constituents—I will not mention their name or where they are from in my constituency. Over the past few weeks, I have been contacted by many constituents—those who applied for the scheme and legitimately joined it on an honest basis. My constituent said:
“I am emailing to inform you of my circumstances as a poultry farmer in Co. Down in the constituency of Strangford. I have legitimate need for heat and I joined the scheme to make my business more sustainable, with the assurance of the 20-year RHI payment guarantee. Under this agreement, I took out substantial business loans. Although these boilers are significantly more expensive to purchase and install, and six times more expensive to service, I could budget for this knowing that RHI payments were secure for 20 years. I had confidence in the scheme when I entered it because the scheme was Government run”—
and so you would have—
“I now feel outraged that my business will suffer as a result of the lack of competence of some decision makers. It is not my fault that the rate was set too high, yet my business suffers as a result. I feel that I am being discriminated against; Northern Ireland is part of the UK so tariffs should have been set the same. I am already feeling the financial pressure to meet repayments and costs associated with running these boilers due to the 2017 amendments, but further cuts proposed by the DfE will leave my business under real threat.
Realistically, in order to keep my business running I will have to purchase oil boilers whilst still repaying off debt associated with the biomass. I don’t know where the money is going to come from. I therefore fear business closure. I would not have entered the scheme if the tariff was set at this proposed level! It is not financially viable! In addition, businesses from both communities in NI have joined the scheme”—
businesses from all parts of the community—
“I don’t understand why this has become a political issue. I hope you will support my business and do the right thing for the economy of NI by voicing my objection to the tariff cuts.”
That is one constituent of many who, under the deal that the Government introduced, went to the bank and got their loan with the tariffs. They did it the right way, yet they find themselves in a very serious position. These people have farmed all their lives. Their businesses are successful. They are family businesses; Northern Ireland is full of family businesses. These small and medium-sized enterprises across the whole of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland do great things for people and for their families. I despair that, through no fault of their own, my constituents find themselves in such financial difficulties.
Let me be clear that I am wholeheartedly behind a cut to the scheme, so that people burning ash to get cash cannot do so. However, the genuine people—the person I just spoke about and many others—will take a closer look at the 2019 GB scheme and see that alignment with this scheme would ensure that businesses, although not able to profit, will be able to survive. We want businesses to survive and to contribute to the Northern Ireland economy. That includes family farms. Individuals from churches and others also took out these schemes. The 2019 scheme is substantially lower than the original Northern Ireland scheme, and rightly so, but it also allows those who have invested more to recoup some of the running costs. My hon. Friend the Member for North Antrim and the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) referred to the buy-out scheme. That scheme indicates a certain legitimacy.
I stress again that this is not about retaining the current scheme or ensuring that people who abuse the scheme continue to do so; it is simply about a sensible UK-wide alignment that will not put genuine people out of business, while halting the systematic abuse. The Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee has tabled an amendment, which others have signed. It is important for us to give that amendment an opportunity so that we can see what can be done about the scheme. Hopefully, it will bring us a bit closer to finding a system for the honest people who have found themselves in great difficulty. We must have more time to consider this issue, and the amendment would give us that opportunity.
I urge the Secretary of State to give consideration to alignment with GB at this time, and to understand the dire straits that some of my constituents are facing due to the machinations of unscrupulous people and a scheme that we now realise was not fit for purpose when it was initiated. This situation is not of their making, and it seems grossly unfair for them to pay for it when there is a UK-wide answer.
Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)
During the wind-ups, it is customary to say that we have had a wide-ranging debate, but we have not. We have had a very narrow debate with very wide-ranging agreement, and there is a great deal of sadness at the fact that we are having to implement these measures.
I think we would all agree that it is a basic principle of any democracy that there should be no taxation without representation. As my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) said, we do not really know how this 3% increase has been arrived at and we do not know the implications, yet we are being asked to agree to it. We are all facing rate increases in our local areas, and local taxation is a subject of great debate in our constituencies. Rate increases are a controversial matter that generally need to be justified and accounted for by local councillors, and reported to local people. As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) expressed well, the impact on our high streets concerns most of us, yet again we are not really able to dig beneath the figure to see the implications of this decision.
The Government are once again cherry-picking what can and cannot be discussed, and what should and should not be done, here in Westminster. There has been no assessment or mitigation of the impact of this decision and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore) said in an intervention, there is no information about any support for those who face the impact of this decision, especially people on low incomes. As I said yesterday, we will of course support these measures this evening so that businesses can continue, but the situation really is highly unsatisfactory.
We all know that there is huge interest in the renewable heat incentive, particularly in Northern Ireland. Anyone following the inquiry will know how damaging this issue has been, further eroding confidence in Government and Government’s ability to deliver. I have been a member of the Public Accounts Committee, and I looked at some of the schemes operating in Britain, largely as a result of initiatives under the coalition Government. I think it was the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) who said that we must learn from the now rather large body of evidence across the United Kingdom about how incentives work in these sorts of schemes, and I agree with him. However, I do think—perhaps disagreeing with him—that these schemes have the laudable policy aim of reducing our dependence on fossil fuels.
Let me turn to how we have been considered in this process. The consultation closed in December. In that consultation, it was stated that legislation would be needed, so it was known by officials and the Secretary of State that we would come to the point at which someone would have to take legislative action. I ask the Minister—this has been raised by many other hon. Members—why we were not involved in those discussions before now, and why, as the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) said, we are again rushing through another important piece of legislation. I welcomed the opportunity, on behalf of the Opposition, to attend a briefing yesterday morning, although we were initially approached about it only on Monday evening. My hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd) was not available for that briefing; many of us made ourselves available. We knew that legislation was coming, but there should really have been some sort of opportunity for pre-legislative scrutiny before we got to this point. I think that many of us would have made ourselves available for that, and then many of the questions that we rightly have could have been addressed.
Hon. Members have highlighted how this situation impacts on many good, genuine people who put their trust in Government. We have heard some examples today, and we have also received emails about the real impact on families and family businesses. It is fair to say, however, that the majority of individuals are not affected—and for the greater population, a decrease in the reliance on oil or fossil fuels is a good policy aim that we would support. There is not an awful lot of sun in Northern Ireland, but a fair amount of water and wind in order for renewable energy to play a really important role in future. It would be very unfortunate if this sorry episode blighted that developing agenda. This is important for the Department as it considers how to rebuild trust in any future schemes on renewable energy.
The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (John Penrose)
I will try to address a series of specific points that various Members have made during the course of this debate. I will also try to address some of the broader questions, some of them quite fundamental, about the RHI scheme and its many and manifest problems and shortcomings. That is partly because those issues were raised in the debate, but also because we are going on to consider an amendment in Committee and it may help to have a bigger shared fact base. This will not answer all the questions that will, quite rightly, be raised in Committee, but it may at least lay the foundations of that debate and help us to address them at that stage.
As the hon. Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) rightly said, we have had quite a narrow debate although with widely shared views across the House. I strongly agree with one point that she made at the end of her remarks, which is that it is easy to forget, amid all the concern about the flaws in the RHI scheme, that it was introduced for a very noble purpose as part of an attempt to decarbonise our economy by increasing the amount of renewable energy in Northern Ireland. That is part of a broader tapestry of other initiatives that are being introduced right across the UK and, indeed, in other countries around the world. We clearly should not lose sight of that—it is a vitally important point.
Sammy Wilson
Does the Minister agree that it is rather ironic that a scheme that is meant to decarbonise—for some people that is important; for others it is just an expensive burden on the economy—finishes up with wood being put into pellet form in North America, brought in ships across the Atlantic ocean, and then burned in boilers here in the United Kingdom? Does he really think that is a way of cutting down on carbon emissions?
John Penrose
The right hon. Gentleman said that he was not quite sure why burning wood was any better than burning other things, because the emissions are similar. If my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) were here, he would make the point that we have to be extremely careful about how we calculate the carbon footprint of some supposedly renewable fuels, because if we cut down virgin rainforests to grow things that are then pelletised and burned, the overall genuine carbon footprint is much worse than people like to pretend.
However, my hon. Friend would also make a sharp distinction between what I think is called long-cycle carbon—in other words, fossil fuels, where carbon has been locked away for millions of years, are a net release that makes an overall difference to the level of carbon—and short-cycle carbon, which is a sort of short-term recycling whereby things are grown in the course of our lifetime and burned. I will not try your patience, Madam Deputy Speaker, by going into the detail of the level of greenery, but I hope we can all agree that this scheme, with all its manifest flaws, intended to pursue a noble purpose.
Before I go on to the details of the RHI scheme, I will address a few other points. The hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) asked a series of questions about Northern Ireland housing associations and, I think, was hoping to pin us down on when a piece of legislation might be introduced. I want to reassure him—my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made this point, but I will repeat it—that the Government will take that forward as soon as parliamentary time allows.
The hon. Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd) asked about the stronger towns fund and said that he did not feel he had enough of an answer yesterday; I want to ensure that we try to provide that today. He will be aware that the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government made an announcement yesterday. The Treasury will apply the Barnett formula in the normal way and confirm the funding for each region in due course. We do not know that yet, but it will come out, and we will seek to ensure that towns in Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland can benefit, building on the success of the Government’s growth and city deals.
The hon. Gentleman also asked about the applicable costs of the RHI scheme. I will address that specific item before coming on to the broader points. The scheme guidance, which I am sure we are all itching to go through in huge detail, has been published, and it sets out clearly the eligible costs. They are primarily the costs of the boiler. He mentioned costs to do with installation, pipework and the like, and some of those are included as well. Interest costs on borrowing are apparently not included as an eligible cost in this scheme. I wanted to share that with everybody, so that we have a shared fact base before we go into Committee and discuss the detail of the amendment tabled by the Chairman of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison).
Questions have been posed about the up-front payments and how they would be calculated for people who wanted to opt out of the scheme because they felt that if they remained in it, they would lose out too badly. Straightforwardly, an individual’s costs—that means the cost of installation, the capital cost of the boiler and other eligible installation and running costs—will all be included, and they will be reimbursed up to the 12% target rate of return for the revised scheme. All the additional costs of the renewable technology above a fossil fuel one will be reimbursed. That is crucial, because a number of Members have raised questions about what happens to people who are worried that they are going to lose out. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) read out an email he received from someone with precisely those concerns. If they are concerned that it will no longer be economic for them to stay in the scheme, they can opt out. It will be a free option for them, and they are guaranteed to have made 12% on their money if they decide to opt out at that stage.
Lady Hermon
The Minister needs to address the point raised by a number of right hon. and hon. Members about those who entered the scheme in good faith with the legitimate expectation that it would last for 20 years on a particular tariff. How do the Government square that and address that really key point?
John Penrose
I am very happy to address that point. There is one thing that I know a number of people have found shocking. In fact, the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson)—I am probably slightly misquoting him, but this is broadly speaking what he said—was right to say that the RHI scheme as originally conceived has turned out, in spite of everyone’s best efforts, to be both a failure and a disgrace. Very sadly, he absolutely accurately describes what has happened.
It is also true to say—the hon. Member for Strangford was quite right to make the point—that very many did not go into the scheme with the intention of abusing it. Some of them were pastors in churches, and so on and so forth. The scheme was introduced for a good reason and, in the vast majority of cases, people entered into it for good reasons.
I therefore found it pretty shocking, and I am sure other people will share my shock, that of the participants involved—many of them with all the right intentions, as I have just described—80% have already, by today, received a 12% return for the entire 20 years of the scheme. If they did not get another penny piece, they would already have received a 12% return on their money. Even if there were another 14 years or however many years of the scheme left to run, since the day they entered it they have made a 12% return. The hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) is absolutely right to raise the question of legitimate expectations, but the participants have done incredibly well.
John Penrose
I will come to the hon. Gentleman in a minute, if I may.
I remind Members that although the scheme as it was originally conceived was supposed to have an average return of 12%, the actual rate of return on average for people has been 50%—a 50% return on their money. That is extraordinary, particularly when we consider that that money comes out of taxpayers’ pockets. Quite legitimately, people have asked why provisions on the rates and on the RHI modifications have ended up in the same Bill. It is fair to say that there are only five substantive clauses in total for both those issues, but it is worth remembering that one of the reasons they are together is that the costs of this extraordinary bounty are not just magicked out of thin air or paid for by nobody.
John Penrose
I will take interventions in a moment, but I want to finish this point.
The costs are paid for by taxpayers, and by rate payers in Northern Ireland as much as by anybody else. It is important for us all to remember the fundamental injustice that this unintentional, but none the less very serious, miscalculation has caused. I will go on to talk about what the miscalculation was in a minute, but a number of colleagues want to intervene and I will go to the hon. Member for Strangford first.
Jim Shannon
I gave the example of one of my constituents, whose legitimate expectation was to have repayments over a 20-year period. He negotiated the loans accordingly at a bank—the bank is very strict when it comes to borrowing money—and invested somewhere between £250,000 and £500,000, as did some other constituents. Given the expectation of a 20-year roll-out, the impact on these small businesses and family farms will be extensive. Is it not right that the 20-year long-term plan should be delivered?
John Penrose
Some people will have done very well out of this scheme, but I think the House will have a great deal more sympathy with those who have received below the average. I think that is the point the hon. Gentleman is making. The average may be extremely high and some people have done extremely well, even including those who have not run their boilers all the time, lived with the windows open and so on, and he gave examples of people who have not done that. Those who have received well below the average and are worried that they are going to lose out because they are well below the 50% average rate of return that has been achieved so far will still be able to opt out and will be made good. None of the historical payments they have received will be counted if they decide to opt out, and they will basically be told, “You will have a 12% return based on the money you’ve invested so far.” There is a route out for people who are worried; they will still be made whole and should not lose out. They may not make out extraordinarily or become rich, but 12% is a return that many of us would be very happy to earn on most other investments.
Tony Lloyd
I am grateful that the Minister is being so generous with his time. None of us has any brief for those who have done extraordinarily well out of all this; they should not have been allowed to be so lucky, but we should not let that delay us. The reality is that it is accepted as part of the scheme that there may be losers, as is recognised in the buy-out clause that the Secretary of State and the Minister pray in aid. A 12% return seems quite a good rate, but the fundamental problem is that the cost that the Minister tells us will be allowable as the basis for that return is not the same as the cost of the boiler plus installation. We need a guarantee that the problems faced by the potential losers will not be compounded by an incompetently designed buy-out scheme that cannot work for them financially.
John Penrose
I am delighted to be able to set the record straight. I think that I have already mentioned this, but perhaps I can expand on it: the point about the buy-out scheme is that it will be a 20% return—sorry, it is minus payments already made; I misspoke. It is a 12% return on the capital costs of the boiler and the other eligible installation and running costs that I mentioned in my reply to the hon. Member for North Down. It will be tailored to individual circumstances, and obviously people will need to produce receipts and so on, but if they have ended up paying slightly more for their boiler, they will not lose out. The hon. Member for Rochdale raises a perfectly valid question, but people who might otherwise lose out should be made whole, as the hon. Member for Strangford pointed out.
Ian Paisley
I appreciate that the Minister is making the case that has been given to him by the Department, but the crucial thing is how we set the average, because that is the basis of the calculation. The shadow Minister cited a cost to a constituent of £76,237, which suggests that the average cannot be £35,000. The more general average cost of the scheme in Northern Ireland appears to be settling at £44,607, but the Department in Northern Ireland has set the average at £35,900. If that average is set wrongly, the Minister’s figures go out the window. The trouble is that we have to rely on what the Department is telling us, but—as the Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee points out—we have no evidence for it. We should be able to challenge the figures, but we have not been given the evidence to enable us to do so.
John Penrose
We will have to come back to the question of how to get more evidence into the room, as it were, but I will try at least to answer some of the questions that have been raised today. I appreciate that I will not be able to answer every one—the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about that—but I will try to cover as many as I can.
The averages that I am describing are average rates of return, which are calculated according to a whole range of things. Capital costs differ, because some people have bought bigger or more expensive boilers and because all sorts of other costs are involved, such as installation and fuel, but the target number is the average rate of return. As we have heard, the rates of return that are actually achieved will be distributed around that average; some people will do better, while some will do worse. That is why the buy-out scheme for those who will potentially lose out is so important. It is also worth while pointing out that the average rate of return is directly comparable across the rest of the UK. It will become 12% in Northern Ireland and it is 12% in Great Britain. As I understand it and for what it is worth—I appreciate this is of tangential relevance, but it is perhaps interesting information—the intended return of the Republic of Ireland scheme is 8%, not 12%.
Lady Hermon
The Minister, in response to a number of interventions, has repeatedly relied on data and detailed figures. Can he confirm that they are not in secret documents held in confidence within the Department for the Economy, and that they could be made public tonight and put in the House of Commons Library? I ask for the calculations to be published in the House of Commons Library within the next 24 hours. It is outrageous that we are being asked to approve a Bill tonight based on facts and figures that I certainly have not had sight of—perhaps others have—and I would like them to be made publicly available to the House within 24 hours.
John Penrose
There is an old saying that if you want something to be kept secret, you announce it on the Floor of the House of Commons and nobody will pay a blind bit of attention. I am trying to put some of the facts in, but I take the hon. Lady’s point. I will see if inspiration strikes me later on in my remarks as to whether that can be done, or whether my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State can help in that regard. It is clear from everyone’s remarks on Second Reading that there is not just a thirst and an appetite but a genuine democratic need for proper scrutiny and for more details to be understood. That is what I am trying to do by what I am laying out now, but I take the hon. Lady’s point. Other Members have made a similar point. We had comments to that effect from my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire the Chairman of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) the SNP spokesman, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield), and the hon. Members for Gedling (Vernon Coaker), for North Antrim, for Strangford and for Bristol South.
I hope we have dealt with quite a lot of the points that were raised. The one point that I think remains at this stage—I am sure we will go into more detail in Committee in a moment—relates to process. Before I go any further, I should mention that a number of colleagues—there is clearly a political movement in North Antrim and in East Antrim—are pretty leery and worried about state aid rules. The hon. Member for North Antrim and the right hon. Member for East Antrim both raised this point and asked whether the state aid rules would continue after we leave the European Union. I am not sure if I am pleased or sorry to disappoint them both, but the answer is yes they will. We have agreed to port across, to begin with at least, all EU rules into UK law, including, obviously, state aid rules. They are both absolutely right to point out that it will then be up to this Parliament, rather than anybody else, to change them if we want.
However, we all need to be a little careful about what we wish for. For those of us who are free marketeers and free traders, or even those of us who are not but just want to see fair play, the changing of state aid rules needs to be approached with great care, because it can easily either slant the playing field in favour of foreign firms trying to export into Britain in ways that are unfair for British manufacturers and British producers, or alternatively create political favouritism and lobbying games. So we would need to approach that with a great degree of care. I know that it would be approached with a great deal of care on both sides of the aisle. It is theoretically possible, but on day one, I am sorry to tell the hon. Gentlemen from Antrim, they will not be changed and they will still apply.
Inspiration has just struck. I understand that the figures the hon. Member for North Down was asking about have already been published. They were published last May. We are trying to track down precisely where they are in order to make sure that they are properly available. I will come back to her, or my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will come back to her, with the final version of the figures and make sure they are properly available. If we cannot track them down, we will try to come up with duplicates if we can.
Lady Hermon
The Minister said that the figures have been published. What I would really like are the calculations underlying those figures. We need to know how the figures were arrived at. Are those calculations in the public domain or can they be put in the public domain? That is what I would like to see.
John Penrose
I think the answer to the hon. Lady’s question is yes. I have not actually seen the figures—the ones published in May—but we will endeavour to clarify that and get them out there for her as soon as we can.
Let me finish by saying that there is a link between the decisions that have been taken by the Executive and where we are today. A number of colleagues asked whether the sunset clause will apply if we do not take a decision today. I remind people that back in March 2015, the Executive at the time took the decision to introduce some caps. Those were renewed roughly this time last year and expire at the end of March this year. That is the reason why we are so concerned about the timescale. I appreciate that this does not answer some of the questions about why we are having this conversation today rather than two weeks ago, or whenever it might be, but I reassure people that this is not something that someone has plucked out of the air. It has been extended on an annualised, fixed-term basis and is therefore due to expire at the end of this month. That is why this needs to be dealt with and sorted out, so that roughly 1,800 of the people who currently receive money can at least have the legal option of continuing to receive that money in future.
I should just say to the hon. Member for Gedling, who was muttering in concern, that when I said I had not seen the figures, I was talking about the precise figures that were published back in May. I have not seen those particular documents and therefore do not want to speak to what may or may not be in them at this stage rather than the broader point.
With that, I will sit down and let us move on to a more detailed conversation in Committee about the RHI scheme because there is clearly a material appetite to do that, and I do not want to stand in anybody’s way.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time.
Northern Ireland (Regional Rates and Energy) (No. 2) Bill
Wednesday 6th March 2019
(5 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Northern Ireland (Regional Rates and Energy) Act 2019 View all Northern Ireland (Regional Rates and Energy) Act 2019 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Committee of the Whole House Amendments as at 6 March 2019 (PDF) - (6 Mar 2019)
The Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
I must inform the Committee that I have selected the amendment and the new clause tabled by the hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison).
Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 2
Introductory
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chairman
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Clauses 3 to 5 stand part.
Amendment 1, in clause 6, page 5, line 26, at end add—
“(4) Section (Regulations) comes into force at the end of the period of 3 months beginning with the day on which this Act is passed.”
Clauses 6 and 7 stand part.
New clause 1—Regulations—
“(1) The Secretary of State may make regulations by statutory instrument amending any provision within sections 2 to 5 of this Act or within the Schedule to this Act.
(2) Regulations under this section may not be made unless a draft of the statutory instrument containing them has been laid before Parliament and approved by resolution of each House of Parliament.
(3) The Secretary of State may lay draft regulations under this section before Parliament only if the draft regulations take account of any relevant recommendations made by any select committee of the House of Commons.”
The purpose of this new clause is to ensure prior consultation, and full and proper scrutiny, of proposed changes to the renewable heat incentive scheme in order to ensure that current participants are not disadvantaged by changes to the scheme.
That the Schedule be the schedule to the Bill.
Karen Bradley
We have had significant debate on this matter on Second Reading and I do not wish to prolong proceedings any further at this stage. I look forward to hearing from right hon. and hon. Members.
Dr Murrison
I am grateful to you for calling me to speak in this stage of our proceedings, Sir Lindsay. The complexity of the Bill, apart from clause 1, has been demonstrated by the level of discussion that we have had. That really underscores the need for full and proper scrutiny of this Bill. Forcing this through all its stages in a day is a challenge, and I fear we have not explored sufficiently the complexity of this matter. It is a matter that bears on the lives of many people in Northern Ireland and we must get it right. I know the Secretary of State is as keen as I am to ensure that that happens.
I am grateful to the parliamentary draftsmen for their assistance in crafting my new clause, which is available in manuscript form. It turns what I thought would be a simple matter—that of dividing the largely uncontroversial part of the Bill from the more difficult bit on the RHI—into something that, in my mind, is really quite complicated, but that is the nature of this place and of parliamentary draftsmanship. We cannot consider these two parts separately and be sure the matter will be finalised in time for people to get their money on 1 April, so in consultation with parliamentary draftsmen, we have devised a new clause and an amendment to clause 6, which is the commencement clause.
I am grateful to the members of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee who have co-signed the new clause and amendment. I have appended to the new clause what I hope is a helpful explanatory statement. It explains that the new clause is essentially a patch-up job that I hope will help to facilitate consultation and fuller and better scrutiny of proposed changes to the renewable heat incentive scheme to ensure that current participants are not disadvantaged by changes to the scheme. I appreciate that this is imperfect—I would have preferred for it to be dealt with separately and for the Bill to have been divided into two parts to allow for a proper debate on the RHI clauses and schedule—but I accept that we are faced with the choice of supporting the Bill or not and that if we do not support it many people will be financially disadvantaged, which is not acceptable. I hope that the new clause provides a mechanism for scrutinising this matter, albeit imperfectly, and for making recommendations that the Secretary of State might implement to ensure that as few people as possible are disadvantaged.
I am not in the business of job creation, and I gently point out that my Select Committee is the most productive in the House of Commons, according to figures I have seen—we are pretty busy, particularly at the moment—but it might be thought a proper Select Committee to undertake this work. If so, I will discuss it with my Committee, but I make no prescription. I am quite clear that this complicated element of our business needs proper detailed scrutiny and that we need to see and examine the data produced.
Several right hon. and hon. Members have been a little critical of the Department for the Economy. It is after all implicated in this situation, as the informatics it produced and the advice it gave are partly to blame for where we are, and that means we are doubly obliged to examine closely any material it has produced. That is fair and proper scrutiny. I gently suggest that whichever Select Committee undertakes this work focus heavily on that information so that we can be clear what is being recommended to the Secretary of State and are better able to make recommendations to minimise the hard cases that we are all concerned about in the course of this legislation. I hope she will consider the amendments carefully, and I look forward to hearing what she has to say.
Tony Lloyd
In his closing remarks, the Minister, who I believe was trying to be helpful, talked about the further exchanges that might take place in Committee. However, I think it would be remarkably difficult to prolong this debate in any meaningful detail, because of the granularity that was drawn to our attention by the hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison). It will be about real-life cases of “winners, probably not, but losers, almost certainly”, which will become apparent only following the passage of some time. In that sense, I think the hon. Gentleman made an intelligent proposal when he said that we should consider how to proceed with pre-legislative scrutiny, and, indeed, I called for that on Second Reading.
In that context, I strongly support the new clause. As the hon. Gentleman said, it is not the perfect way forward, and it is probably not the best-structured way of achieving his ambitions and the wishes of other Members for adequate scrutiny, but it may well be the best that that we can achieve. I have confidence in the members of his Committee—I must have confidence in those colleagues of ours—because they do at least have a legitimate track record of both interest in the affairs of Northern Ireland and a determination to use the power of the Committee not only to hold the United Kingdom Government to account but increasingly, in this period of non-devolution, to raise matters that cannot be properly scrutinised in the context of Stormont. Ideally, if the world were different, there would be the equivalent of our Public Accounts Committee at Stormont level, but, although it existed in a functioning Stormont, it does not exist in the current circumstances.
I do not think I need to say any more, except that we support the new clause, although I am sure that if the Secretary of State has ambitions to take such action in an even better way, we will listen to her proposals.
Ian Paisley
It is always an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Lindsay.
I support the new clause. It has the overwhelming support of the parties here and of the Select Committee, which has been rightly identified as the Committee that should try to organise the scrutiny. I approve of the requirement in the new clause that the Secretary of State should bear in mind
“any relevant recommendations made by any select committee of the House”.
A number of points were made on Second Reading but, in particular, Members asked where the evidence came from and on what we were basing this, and my hon. Friend the Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) asked whether we could see the material. Yesterday was the first time that I, and many of my colleagues, were able to see the material on which tonight’s discussion is based. I have it in my hand. There is not a lot of it: it contains 300 words and three graphs. On the basis of a 300-word document with three graphs, we are being asked to agree a multi-million-pound subsidy cut in Northern Ireland. That is not right.
This requires scrutiny. Those 300 words may have convinced some people, and the Minister made a very good fist of making the case, but they are not a compelling argument. We need to be able to see the evidence that has convinced the Department that it is doing right and the rest of the United Kingdom is doing wrong, and that, if the Irish Republic comes on stream, it too will be doing wrong. We need to see the evidence for those claims.
I asked a few questions that need to be answered by the Secretary of State or her senior officials. That can happen only in a Committee, because they have not been answered on Second Reading, and I do not know if they will be answered in Committee. I welcome the new clause that has been tabled by colleagues; I hope that it attracts support and that the Secretary of State can demonstrate to us, if she does not want us to accept it, that she will take cognisance of what a Committee will say and of scrutiny that will actually take place.
Karen Bradley
I recognise the concern of Members and the spirit of this amendment, which seeks to provide for additional time and scrutiny. As I have said, I empathise with the participants in the scheme. I have been very clear, during discussion both of yesterday’s legislative measures and today’s, that this situation and this process are far from ideal. What I and I think everybody in this Chamber wants to see is scrutiny of Northern Ireland policies by locally elected politicians. Nevertheless, I am committed to bringing forward measures on behalf of Northern Ireland where they are critical to good governance, as these two Bills are. I remind Members about the point I raised yesterday about the normal estimates process: by taking this legislation through as primary legislation in this House, rather than subordinate legislation, as it would have been in the Assembly, we are affording a higher degree of scrutiny and accountability to these measures.
My hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), the Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, is right that full and proper scrutiny is what we need, and he is right to challenge us. He is also right to say that we must get this right, and I appreciate that his amendment would afford more time for scrutiny and offer a mechanism by which more scrutiny could be delivered.
The Northern Ireland RHI scheme has probably received more public scrutiny than any other. I have already mentioned the public inquiry into the scheme, which has interrogated myriad aspects of the scheme in detail, but additionally and specifically on these new tariffs, the Department for the Economy held an extensive public consultation from June to September 2018. That included making public the evidence base used by the independent experts who generated the tariffs. I believe that information is on the Department for the Economy website and we are looking to see if we can find it quickly and provide a link to it as soon as possible.
The Department held pre-consultation events for stakeholders, including all the local political parties and key representative groups, including the Ulster Farmers’ Union and the Renewable Heat Association Northern Ireland. Following the closure of the consultation, the Department set out its analysis and response in January 2019 and said that final proposals for the revised tariffs would be delivered in February this year. The Department and my officials have in recent weeks briefed parliamentarians and local parties on the new tariffs and the new legislative measures before us, including the new buy-out clause. My hon. Friend’s suggestion that there may be a role for further scrutiny in either his Committee or another Committee in the House is very welcome and I certainly would appreciate that.
With regard to the timing of the legislation today, it is important to recognise the comprehensive and technical nature of the work involved. As I have mentioned, the Department for the Economy engaged independent experts to carry out a painstakingly detailed review of the scheme, went through a full public consultation exercise and more recently an extensive discussion with the European Commission on state aid. These discussions only reached a conclusion at the end of January, meaning the Department for the Economy could not finalise its position any earlier. The current legislation is sunsetted and a failure to enact the clauses before us will mean more than 1,800 participants will not be able to be paid by 1 April.
Ian Paisley
On that point—I think this is critical and is probably subject to the judicial review at the present time—is it the case that payments stop? Is that the opinion of the barristers advising the Department? Or is it the case that this reverts to the original payments scheme? There is contrary advice on this and the Secretary of State must be clear with us which advice she is taking and why.
Karen Bradley
The advice I have received is that the payments will stop, because there will be no legal basis on which to make any payments. The payments that are currently being made have been found to breach state aid rules, so there is no legal basis on which to continue to make payments. The payments with the cost-capping involved expire on 31 March. The Department cannot go back to the original payments, because they would be illegal payments, and we will not have any other mechanism by which legal payments can be made after 31 March. I recognise that this is far from ideal, but the facts of the situation have meant that an expedited process is required.
Ian Paisley
The Secretary of State says that we cannot go back to the original payments, but I do not think that anyone is asking for that. However, the payments were stepped down, and I understand that she could continue with those stepped-down payments.
Karen Bradley
I cannot continue with those, because the advice that I have is that to continue with them would be illegal. Under the ministerial code, I cannot, as a Minister of the Crown, legislate for something that I am advised is illegal. So I am left in a very difficult situation. I understand how people feel about this. I empathise with people and I understand the implications for them of a reduction, but as Secretary of State, legislating for something that none of us wants to be legislating for in this place, I am faced with the choice of legislating for something that is legal, to allow some subsidies to continue, or not legislating, which would result in no subsidies happening after 31 March. The legal basis on which the reduced subsidies, as set out by the Executive, are paid expires on 31 March.
Dr Murrison
I appreciate the Secretary of State’s dilemma. She is having to act on the basis of advice that she is getting from the Department for the Economy, a Department whose advice has been shown to be flawed in the past. Does she understand that we need to examine this closely? She has been told that, legally, she has to do this, and we in this place have to accept that, but we also have to scrutinise the legislation. I hope that she can give me sufficient reassurance that she will note our examination of this matter and our recommendations on it, and that she will not take at face value the advice that she has been given from a Department that has erred in the past. I very much hope that she will be able to tailor her remarks accordingly, and I am all agog as to what commitment she can give to providing the scrutiny that I have described in my amendment.
Karen Bradley
I thank my hon. Friend for his questions, and I will come on specifically to those points in a moment.
I want to come back to the question of whether there is an option to delay. I agree with the principle and intention behind the amendment, but it is not the solution to the wider problem. As I have said, the tariffs set out in the legislation are the only tariffs available that will bring the returns on the scheme into line with the 12% approved by state aid. The tariffs strike a fair balance between the interests of scheme participants and the wider public interest, in ensuring that the Northern Ireland budget and public services are protected and that taxpayers’ money is spent to achieve value for money. The only lawful alternative would be the closure of the scheme.
Paul Girvan
In relation to the figures that are being presented, I have done a very simple back-of-the-envelope calculation—perhaps not a very wise thing to do—of the payments that would have been received in the early stages at the maximum permissible amount. If we calculate that in, then take the reduction over the next couple of years that has been calculated in, then multiply by the factor that has been put forward, it comes out at 3.1 times less than what the rest of GB is getting on the average tariff.
Karen Bradley
I hope that the scrutiny that the Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee has offered will help to address a number of those issues. I know that there is concern about the differences between the scheme in GB and the scheme in Northern Ireland. I am not using a visual aid here, but I can assure Members that we have a copy of the document that is on the Department for the Economy website. It is available for download, and we would be happy to send a link to all Members here today, to ensure that they have an opportunity to see the very detailed information, tables and calculations, which I am sure they will absorb and enjoy.
To resume, delay of the legislative measures, such as the amendment would achieve, would serve only to put at risk payments to all the participants in the scheme. For there to be a lawful basis for the RHI scheme come 1 April, the legislative process and Royal Assent need to be completed by 31 March. The current tariffs are designed to pay the maximum 12% rate of return to a typical participant, so there is no lawful way to introduce higher tariffs to the scheme. A delay would not change that fundamental issue.
Karen Bradley
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
I thank everyone who has participated in this debate and the one yesterday. We have had a good discussion. We are all dissatisfied with the level of scrutiny afforded to these measures in the absence of an Executive, but I think it is fair to say that the debates in this Chamber yesterday and today have meant that there has been scrutiny and that we have aired a number of the issues that right hon. and hon. Members wished to air. I thank all who have participated and look forward to the work that the Select Committee has set out it will do.
I thank my Minister of State, the Minister in the other place, the Whips, the Opposition, the Scottish National party, the Members from the Democratic Unionist party and the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) for their participation over the past two days. Finally, I thank the Bill officials because, if it were not for the people who spend hours and hours coming up with the very technical points and working incredibly hard through that, we would not be able to deliver in this place in the way that we do.
Tony Lloyd
I reiterate to the Secretary of State that these proceedings are not satisfactory. Everyone recognises the legal imperative to make sure there is a scheme in operation, and therefore there is time pressure, but none of us accepts that this is the right use of the parliamentary process. It would still have been undesirable had we separated the two very different strands of the Bill, one relatively non-controversial and the other significantly controversial. To be honest, we are still lacking in adequate answers to the many questions that have been raised on the Floor of the House, including in Committee, today.
I appreciate the efforts of the hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), the Chairman of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, to move forward on the question of scrutiny. I accept that he understood the need not to press the amendment, but that was on the basis that the Secretary of State is committed to making sure that she listens carefully and closely to any recommendations that come from that Select Committee, which is now most important.
It may well be that the Secretary of State and the Minister are right in their ambition that there will be no losers. I think everyone in this House wants a scheme that does not see winners racing away to the bank in quite the luxury they did before. Equally, there is a determination to ensure that, if there are people who lose out, we are not putting viable businesses and people’s livelihoods and incomes at risk. In that sense, I recommend that the Chairman and the members of the Select Committee now take forward the work of proper scrutiny in a way that simply has not been done up to this point.
Dr Murrison
I thank the Secretary of State for listening to the concerns expressed and articulated through my amendments. I note her remarks from the Dispatch Box that she will carefully consider the result of further scrutiny of this Bill and any recommendations that my Committee, or any other Committee, might make on how to ensure that this necessary measure does not disadvantage businesses in Northern Ireland. I look forward, if my Select Committee agrees to undertake this work, to the scrutiny that the Bill deserves, so far as we are able to provide it, and to making recommendations to her in very short order. I particularly look forward to her response to any recommendations that we might make.
Ian Paisley
The shadow Secretary of State put his finger on it when he said that this is not a satisfactory process by which to scrutinise legislation. We have kicked that one around a lot today, and there is general agreement that the process could be better, whether through a functioning Assembly or through Northern Ireland business not being conducted in this truncated manner—either would be very beneficial.
It would, however, be remiss of me not to thank the Secretary of State, the Minister of State and their officials for helping us in recent days, especially on the non-controversial aspects of what we have debated today, namely the rates bill. Of course, we would like to see some elements tweaked further but, by and large, it has been a success story. It could have been a very different story. We could have been looking at a 12-point rate hike, which was averted largely down to the hard work of officials and Members of this House. We welcome that, and it would be remiss of me not to put that word of thanks on the record.
I agree with the hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), the Chairman of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, that we look forward to scrutinising this matter further. I hope the Secretary of State will make herself, the Minister or, indeed, senior officials available to whatever Committee ultimately considers the Bill so that the probing questions asked here today can be properly scrutinised. We look forward to hopefully finding something that allows us to go back and give some hope and satisfaction to genuinely needy people in Northern Ireland.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.
Business without Debate
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
With the leave of the House, we shall take motions 6 to 14 together.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)),
Exiting the European Union (Merchant Shipping)
That the draft Merchant Shipping (Passengers’ Rights) (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 17 January, be approved.
That the draft Merchant Shipping (Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 29 January, be approved.
Exiting the European Union (Designs)
That the draft Designs and International Trade Marks (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 31 January, be approved.
Exiting the European Union (Agriculture)
That the draft General Food Hygiene (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 31 January, be approved.
Exiting the European Union (Food)
That the draft Contaminants in Food (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 31 January, be approved.
Exiting the European Union (Agriculture)
That the draft Specific Food Hygiene (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 31 January, be approved.
That the draft General Food Law (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 31 January, be approved.
Local Government
That the draft Greater Manchester Combined Authority (Functions and Amendment) Order 2019, which was laid before this House on 30 January, be approved.
Constitutional Law
That the draft Forestry and Land Management (Scotland) Act 2018 (Consequential Provisions and Modifications) Order 2019, which was laid before this House on 11 February, be approved.—(Amanda Milling.)
Question agreed to.
Closure and relocation of Solihull Post Office
Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)
My constituents are deeply concerned by proposals from the Post Office to close its large, accessible branch in Mell Square, in the town centre, and to replace it with a counter on the first floor of the nearby branch of WHSmith. An official public consultation on the move by the Post Office closes today. Although it invited residents’ views on many important questions, especially regarding site accessibility and the impact on the wider community, it explicitly did not allow them to pass judgment on the move itself. It is not right that a growing town such as Solihull is facing such cuts to important community resources such as our local post office. That almost 1,000 of my constituents signed this petition shows that their objection to the Post Office’s plans runs deeper than the fine details, and it is a privilege to put their concerns directly to this House today.
The petition states:
The petition of residents of Solihull,
Declares that local residents have concerns over the proposed closure and relocation of Solihull Post Office, Mell Square.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Post Office to re-consider the closure of the Solihull Post Office in Mell Square due to its size and accessibility.
And the petitioners remain, etc.
[P002434]
Special Educational Needs: Wiltshire
(5 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
Society can be judged by the quality of the provision it makes for its most vulnerable members. I therefore welcome this opportunity to raise the situation of vulnerable people in my constituency, particularly those who have special educational needs.
Last week, the consultation ended on Wiltshire Council’s plans for a dramatic change to the provision for children with SEN in the county, and I would like to begin by highly commending Wiltshire Council for prioritising special needs and for being prepared to pledge serious money—£20 million—on a root-and-branch upgrade to provision for children who have complex and severe learning and physical disabilities. That does Wiltshire Council a great deal of credit, and I pay tribute to the councillors and officials involved in trying to make things better for some of my most vulnerable constituents.
However, the edge was taken off that for me when I was summoned at the end of last year to hear precisely what the council was planning to do with the money it wants to spend. I wish to take some time this evening discussing that and impressing upon the Minister how important it is that the council thinks again. Survey data shows just how unpopular the council’s approach is, closing, as it does, two well-loved schools that are at the very heart of their communities in order to create a very big one in a relatively remote location. I hope the local authority will listen to concerns expressed and adopt a different model for my most vulnerable young constituents that retains at least one of the threatened schools.
I want the Minister to help, because the Government have already been quite helpful: they have helped with £350 million in new funding for SEN announced in December; they have helped through the dedicated schools grant, with an 11% uplift in real terms for high needs between 2014-15 and 2019-20; and they have helped through the Children and Families Act 2014.
A key feature of that legislation was the SEN “local offer” that local authorities are now required to make. The offer has to be developed in partnership with the children and young people involved, their families and the relevant professionals. The attached code of practice is clear: it expects the local offer, from birth to age 25, to be developed and revised over time through regular review and consultation. Indeed, that collaborative, consultative approach runs through the legislation like a vein through granite. It is mandated; it is not an optional extra; it does not mean the local authority making up its mind and presenting users with faits accomplis. It suggests a collaborative, consultative approach that does not waste public money on working up a case that is so clearly contrary to the wishes of its intended beneficiaries.
Wiltshire Council has for some time wanted to close smaller special schools. We got wind of a warming-up exercise last year, when a member of the council made some adverse remarks about the inadequacy of hoists at Larkrise School in Trowbridge—claims that were incorrect and had to be retracted. It all runs contrary to the approach encouraged by the 2014 Act and its associated code of practice. Wiltshire Council’s vision for special education in Wiltshire is in many ways an exemplary document—it says all the right things—but at its heart it would close two schools, one in my constituency and one in that of my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan): Larkrise in Trowbridge and St Nicholas in Chippenham.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing this issue forward. As Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, he will know only too well the experiences we have had in Northern Ireland in relation to special needs education. The increasing demands on special needs education are exceptional. In England, some 1.3 million children are in special needs education and needing it. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we need sweeping reform of the support available to pupils and schools to ensure, as he, I and everyone in the House would agree, that a pupil is not prevented from reaching their potential because of a lack of support services available in their postcode? What he needs in Wiltshire, we also need in Northern Ireland.
Dr Murrison
I of course agree with the hon. Gentleman. I was once a governor at a special school, before I was elected. If I reflect on the provision then and the provision now, I am quite clear that matters have improved, but that does not mean to say that we should be complacent. What the hon. Gentleman said is correct: we need to ensure that every child has the ability to reach his or her potential. That is as true of a mainstream child who is going to become a doctor or a lawyer—or even a politician—as it is for a child at a special needs school whose horizons, in a classic sense, are necessarily going to be rather more limited. They are equally important and their potential needs to be maximised.
The proposition before the council is that it closes two schools and builds a big school on the site of a third one. That would be a very big school by SEN standards, and many of us have concerns about that, because this particular subset of the school population undoubtedly benefits from a provision that is more intimate than perhaps would be necessary for their mainstream compatriots. That would necessarily not be the case were this big school to be created in place of the ones it would replace. The council refers to the big school as a centre of excellence, but my contention is that we already have a centre of excellence in my constituency—it is called Larkrise School.
The claim is made that Larkrise is bursting at the seams and that its facilities and equipment are insufficient, but there is more to a school than bricks and mortar, and there is more to a special school than hoists. The school community understands that, which is why it is so opposed to the local authority’s prescription. It is clear that, being strapped for cash, the council has to balance the books. Rightly, it worries about the financial deficits that have been projected for each of the special educational needs schools, but deficits are projected at several mainstream schools, too, and nobody is suggesting that the solution is to close them.
The county’s financial position is not helped by its having to place 300 special educational needs pupils outside Wiltshire because of the long-standing insufficiency of in-county provision. Those of us who represent seats in Wiltshire will be well used to people attending our advice surgeries to discuss that. The council wants to remedy this out-of-county placement situation by creating a new school with 350 places serving the north of the county. Although the way that the numbers are presented in the consultation documents makes comparison very difficult, 350 places seems inadequate to cope with the planned closures, the out-of-county placements and the growth that is projected given local population increases, housing demand, and the recently announced moves of the residue of the British Army in Germany largely to Wiltshire and the need to accommodate them. Even by its own arithmetic, the council appears to be set on under-provision. That means that out-of-county provision is bound to continue, that projected spend on the new school will be greatly exceeded, or that the new school will very quickly become overcrowded, or, more likely, a combination of all three.
The plans anticipate no sixth form. Instead reliance will be placed on the county’s further education college, Wiltshire College, for 16 to 19 provision, together with a vaguely defined private provision. No further details are given. For example, we do not know how many days a week pupils aged 16 to 19 will have.
All this is of great concern as SEN pupils across the UK have been let down historically in our system in the transition from school to adulthood—from school to life as supported young people in the community. Provision for 16 to 19 is absolutely crucial in this transition. Wiltshire Council’s consultation document asserts that the new centre of excellence will be able to provide what is called
“outreach capacity to support mainstream schools.”
It is not clear what is meant by that. On the face of it, there is a risk that resource will be diverted from the severe and profound to the milder end of the SEN spectrum. That is surely not what is intended. If it is, it needs to be stated in plain terms. The perception is not helped by the confusing terminology used in the text and the apparent misunderstanding of which schools currently offer what, in what is admittedly a complex and overlapping needs mix. Response to the consultation has rightly honed in on that.
Last month, I took part in a march in Trowbridge in support of the threatened schools. Predictably, there were children, parents and teachers, but what struck me was the number of ordinary citizens with no direct link to the school. The orthodoxy is that society wants people with disabilities of the kind that special schools deal with to be hidden away. The orthodoxy is that society is embarrassed by them and that they make it feel uncomfortable. Well, that may be the orthodoxy but it is not true in Trowbridge. Larkrise has a very special ethos. It does not believe in the hiding away of kids with the most profound difficulties. Its students are part of the local scene, out and about in the community. Nobody gawps at them, looks away or crosses the road, because they are an accepted and expected part of the community. They are recognised, welcomed, and helped in the shops, and that does not happen by accident.
We must not hide special needs children away in remote large, impersonal facilities, miles from their homes and communities. That is the very opposite of inclusion. It is segregation. Now I know that that is not the intent of the council, but it would be the consequence of its plans as drafted. Mobility today means that, like as not, children in mainstream schools will make their adult lives away from the towns in which they grew up, but children with special educational needs are much more likely to remain. Where they are is where they will be. Larkrise understands that, which is why its staff, ably led by headteacher Phil Cook, have put so much effort into local involvement and ensuring that their children are integrated in the community. I know that a similar situation applies at St Nicholas.
It is not surprising that, in its latest report, Ofsted rated Larkrise as “good”. It is surprising that the council believes that shutting this good school in Wiltshire’s county town should be part of its plans for raising standards. That is particularly so, as the council’s own task group stated that
“it would not be appropriate to combine all three schools into one site”,
and its “School Places Strategy” document says that children are best educated at the heart of the community—absolutely.
Over the year, parents with statemented children, and now children with educational health and care plans, have been to see me in my advice surgery. Invariably, the issue is not directly about care or education, but about transport.
James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate and speaking out so passionately for his constituents in Trowbridge. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan) on speaking out for the parents from St Nicholas. Does my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) accept that there are a great many children with special educational needs throughout the county for whom Rowdeford would actually be a great deal more convenient than either Trowbridge or Chippenham, and that what the county is proposing—a £20 million investment to build a really state-of-the-art school—might well be welcomed by children with special educational needs across the whole of the northern county, leaving aside his own town of Trowbridge?
Dr Murrison
I am particularly grateful for my hon. Friend’s presence here today, and the presence of my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham. I join my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (James Gray) in welcoming the extra money that is going into special educational needs, and I commend the council for that, but it is counterintuitive to suppose that the replacement of effectively three schools with one at Rowdeford would reduce travel times.
It has been a constant throughout my 18 years as a Member of Parliament that transport is the overwhelming preoccupation of parents with children at special needs schools. It is difficult for many of us who do not have direct contact with children with special education needs to understand how important it is. For the parents of a mainstream schoolchild, getting their child to school may be difficult, but for the parents of a child with special educational needs, it can be a preoccupation. It can be the cause of anxiety, distress and behavioural difficulties, and it can be the key focus of the parents’ day. Sometimes we forget how vital it is to ensure that the impact of travel-to-school times is minimised in order to enhance the quality of these young people’s school experience. That is why the council needs to think again about the plan to replace the three schools with one school, as it seems intuitive that that will increase the trauma that travel to school causes.
The council has made great play of getting more therapists into the proposed new school, and it is right to want to improve the level of service for children in school, but it is not clear how that will happen, since the principal difficulty with therapists right now, as I am sure my hon. Friends will agree, is a county-wide shortage of suitably trained staff. How will the council magic up physios, occupational therapists, and speech and language specialists at the new establishment when it cannot at existing schools? To what extent has it taken into account the disincentive introduced by increased travel-to-work times for them? As a rule, therapists are not wealthy people. They tend not to live in premium price market towns such as Devizes and associated villages. They do live in larger settlements such as Trowbridge and Chippenham.
Local campaigners have produced a helpful map to evidence precisely that. Wiltshire Council is rightly concerned about the number of SEN out-of-county placements and the cost, but it is not clear that the new mega-school will help. By the council’s own figures, it will be inadequate to satisfy demand. The council has not published evidence that it has consulted with other local authorities to see whether a model based on collaboration might be possible given that the administrative borders hold very little interest for a mum or dad trying to get their child to school.
In many ways, Wiltshire Council has been showing the way. It has grasped the 2014 Act imaginatively and worked on its version of the local offer, from birth to 25, all the way to placement in the community. I applaud it for that—I really do—but I also believe that it has temporarily lost its sense of direction. Its plans to close Larkrise School and for a new super-school are plain wrong. Its action and its conduct in this matter is wholly out of character. I expect the council to respond to the consultation fully and openly—
Dr Murrison
I expect the council to respond to the consultation fully and openly, and I expect it to be prepared to change course in accordance with the intent and the ethos of the 2014 legislation.
I extend an invitation to the Minister to visit Wiltshire to see the good work that has been done and to better understand the SEN vision of service users, their families, and staff. I invite him, furthermore, to visit Larkrise School—a good school, according to Ofsted—and to view the council-owned site next door on Ashton Street that is the very obvious place to spend some of the £20 million to expand provision in Wiltshire. I hope that he will apply his good offices to assist the council in matching its very good intentions with a plan that genuinely improves the lives of the vulnerable young people I have the very great privilege to represent.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) on securing this important debate. He has spoken eloquently and passionately about Larkrise School and about special educational needs and disability—SEND—provision in Wiltshire. I also commend my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan), who is unable to speak on behalf of St Nicholas School in her constituency because she is a member of the Government.
As my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire will know, SEND is a key part of my ministerial portfolio and an area where this Government have made significant reforms in recent years. I am sure that he would agree that all children, whether or not they have special educational needs and disabilities, should have a good start in life. We want them to achieve well in school and in later education. As adults, it is important that they find employment and lead happy and fulfilled lives. The reforms that this Government introduced in 2014 were put in place so that those ambitions could be achieved.
We have done much to help to implement these reforms. We have invested £391 million in local areas to support implementation since 2014, and £252 million has been provided direct to local authorities. We have also invested in supporting families. For example, in November 2017 we confirmed two further years of funding for parent carer forums—£15,000 per forum per year, or £4.6 million in total. Those forums started modestly nationally with about 500 individuals, and over 90,000 are now involved. Between June 2018 and March 2020, we are providing £20 million to improve the quality of local information, advice and support services and to provide a national helpline and online support services for families who have children and young people with SEND.
Local authorities such as Wiltshire County Council are critical in ensuring that the SEND reforms succeed. In this respect, as my hon. Friend said, Wiltshire is a council that has done much of which it can be proud, and there is significant evidence for this. In early 2018, Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission conducted a local area inspection of Wiltshire’s SEND provision. The report of that inspection, published in March that year, stated that the senior leaders were working together constructively to deliver and improve services and demonstrated ambition to deliver high-quality outcomes.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (James Gray) for reminding us of the great work that Wiltshire has done. Other strengths identified in the report included effective joint commissioning arrangements, children achieving well in early years, the local area’s website for the local offer providing a wealth of information and guidance, and safeguarding being a priority for the council, where concerns are swiftly acted upon.
The latest figures from January 2018 show that 3% of pupils attending schools in Wiltshire had an education, health and care plan or a statement of special educational needs, which is just above the national average of 2.9%. In the latest figures available, from 2017, Wiltshire’s performance on issuing education, health and care plans by the statutory deadline of 20 weeks was 91.8%, which is well above the national average of 64.9%. In 2017, the number of appeals to the SEND tribunal was 0.8% of appealable decisions, which is much lower than the national average of 1.5%.
Wiltshire is doing excellent work on engaging with local parents in strategic decision making in relation to special educational needs and disabilities. Working with families in that way is a central theme of the SEND reforms that we introduced. By the end of its 10th year, in March 2018, the Wiltshire Parent Carer Council reported that it had grown its membership to 2,448 parents. Sixteen parent carer representatives sit on strategic boards and are involved in tasks groups across health, social care and education. Both the local authority and the local health authority provide funding to support the WPCC, on top of the £15,000 per year that the Government provide.
I had the pleasure of meeting representatives from Wiltshire Council and the Wiltshire Parent Carer Council in October last year. They demonstrated a number of things that they were doing in co-production to improve SEND arrangements in the local area. For example, they told me that a new short breaks scheme designed by parents led to increased take-up from families of this important service. Fewer than 100 families were accessing short breaks schemes in Wiltshire before 2008, and that has risen to more than 1,500 families over the years. Importantly, over 98% of those families said that they were happy with the short breaks they accessed.
All this is evidence of a council that is embracing the SEND reforms and making a success of them. Like many other councils, Wiltshire faces significant challenges, but it is clearly making considerable efforts to overcome them. This strong track record is very much to Wiltshire’s credit, as my hon. Friends have pointed out, and I am sure it is appreciated by local families.
Local authorities have a duty to ensure that there is sufficient provision in their area to meet the needs of children and young people with SEND. I am aware of the council’s proposals published for consultation in November 2018 to close two schools for children with complex needs and disabilities and create a single so-called super-special school. That proposal has been challenged locally, and I understand that the grounds of challenge include failure to properly consult before publishing a notice of closure, breach of public sector equality duties, breach of statutory provisions for the welfare of children and appearance of predetermination. I note the concern that if the change proposed by the local authority is implemented, it could have implications for some children who may need to travel further to school. That point has been made forcefully to me by my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire tonight and by my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham, on behalf of children in her constituency. I must, however, be clear tonight that I cannot intervene in or comment on this decision; this must be left up to the courts and the local authority.
We recognise that local authorities, including Wiltshire County Council, are facing high needs cost pressures. In response to these pressures, we have allocated an additional £250 million of funding for high needs over this year and next year—I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire for commending us for this further funding—and this is of course on top of the increases we had already promised. Wiltshire will receive £2.3 million of this additional funding.
Of course, our response to these pressures cannot simply be additional funding. That is why my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State wrote in December to local authority chief executives and directors of children’s services to set out our plans. These plans include reviewing current special educational needs content in initial teacher training provision and ensuring a sufficient supply of educational psychologists trained and working within the system.
We will shortly be issuing a call for evidence on the financial incentives within the current arrangements, in particular on the operation and use of mainstream schools’ notional special educational needs budgets up to £6,000. We of course want to continue to engage with local authorities, along with schools, colleges, parents and health professionals, to ensure that children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities get the support they need and deserve.
I am enormously grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire for raising this important issue. I am particularly grateful to be able to offer praise to a local area through the work not only of the local council and other statutory authorities, but of local families and the voluntary and community sector organisations that make such an important and positive difference to the lives of children and young people with SEND and to their families and friends. The collective efforts they are making to implement these important reforms will have a lasting and positive impact on families locally.
I am pleased to see that, while there is clearly still much to be done, many other areas across the country are also making strong positive efforts, and they are to be applauded. The Government will continue to play our part in supporting all local areas to succeed. I hope that my hon. Friend is content that the Government understand the issues he has raised in this debate.
Question put and agreed to.
Deferred Divisions
That the draft Transparency of Securities Financing Transactions and of Reuse (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 28 January, be approved.
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That the draft Electricity and Gas (Market Integrity and Transparency) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 30 January, be approved.
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That the draft Gas (Security of Supply and Network Codes) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 30 January, be approved.
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That the draft Nutrition (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 30 January, be approved.
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That the draft Mobile Roaming (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 4 February, be approved.
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That the draft Motor Vehicles (Compulsory Insurance) (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 24 January, be approved.
The House divided: - Ayes: 301 / Noes: 251 - Question accordingly agreed to.