May Adjournment
Bob Stewart Excerpts(7 years, 9 months ago)
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Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
I wish to raise two matters in my short speech. The first is young criminal barristers and their existence, and the second is the advice being given to security personnel at the moment.
Let me start with the matter of young criminal Bar barristers. I have become increasingly concerned about the precarious way in which young criminal Bar barristers must exist, and in particular about the very small amount of pay and allowances they receive. Gone are the days when most criminal law barristers came from moneyed backgrounds and could exist on peanuts because they were extremely well supported by their generous families—lucky them.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
Forty years ago, I was an impecunious young criminal barrister. Typically, I was sent off to magistrates courts and Crown courts all over outer London and less salubrious parts of London, and I was paid £4 a day, four years in arrears. Life was tough then too. I did not come from a wealthy family. My father was a civil servant, and I had to live at home with my poor parents until I was 32. It has always been very tough for those starting at the criminal Bar.
Bob Stewart
He is not learned. I accept that point, but anyway, I am thinking of the young entering the profession now.
Mr Speaker
It may be that the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) is not, in the parliamentary sense, learned, but I think we can all agree that he is distinguished.
Bob Stewart
Mr Speaker, as ever, you put me properly in my box and, as ever, I take a spanking without any problem.
Bob Stewart
Indeed. I think this is one of those debates.
Let me get back to the main point, which is that it is a bad omen if young men and young women trying to be criminal law barristers are finding it very difficult. I am making this speech because earlier this week, I met a young barrister from my constituency who has had to leave the criminal Bar because she simply could not afford to live while working within the system. She was originally from the midlands, from a family of farmers, and she and her siblings were the first generation of the family to go to university. Her parents were totally supportive of her wish to be a barrister, a dream she told me she had had since she was 12 years old. She loved lawyer dramas on television, and her mother told her that her urge to be a lawyer had probably come from watching too much of the American law drama “Ally McNeal”, because she had a superb mobile phone.
Bob Stewart
I stand corrected. It is hard to keep going.
My constituent studied law at Liverpool University and then applied for the Bar exams. Fully supported by her parents, she reluctantly came to London because there were more pupillages here. In 2008 she took the Bar exams, which cost her £15,000 of debt, not including accommodation. I gather that only about a third of people who pass the Bar exam now manage to get pupillages, and it took her three years to get hers.
During that time, my constituent worked for various agencies and did paralegal jobs to get relevant experience to help with her application. For some of that time she was on the minimum wage, but she eventually managed to get a criminal paralegal role in north London that paid about £14,000 a year. She did that to gain experience and advance her chances of getting a pupillage. However, the experience that really managed to get her a pupillage was doing voluntary legal work abroad. She was able to get a scholarship to cover her flights from the Inns of Court—well done them—and she managed to get someone to help her pay the rent on her flat in London while she was abroad. That allowed her to exist on that money while she was out of the country, because she was in free accommodation.
The young lawyer finally started her pupillage in October 2011. Although she had been warned that she would receive very little money, she was ignorant of just how little it would be. She told me that, during her first year, she received £16,285.38, but her travel expenses of well over £5,000 were not covered, so in effect she had to exist in London on about £10,000. In that year she could take only five days of holiday, she could not be sick, and she worked late nights and weekends constantly. For a young person, she had little social life. She travelled all over the country to various courts, and on most days she had to represent two clients, often in different courts, working through her lunch break and preparing for further clients late into the night.
My constituent told me that there were simply no breaks at all, but it was her vocation and the job she really wanted to do in life. However, she found that she could not live at that pace and, with so very little money, it was just not sustainable. She had to look at a different area of law, rather than criminal work. To start with she thought she could use that to subsidise what she really wanted to do, which was working at the criminal Bar. However, when she moved to a different area of law, her salary tripled almost instantly and she had more time for herself. As a result, she now practises in that area, and has largely left criminal law. She never thought she would make such a decision, but it was largely forced on her by circumstances. She wants to have a family life and bring up children, and she honestly felt that there was little chance of that happening for her at the criminal Bar. How sad is that?
My constituent came to me earlier this week because she feels that what has happened to her is wrong both for individuals and for the profession itself. People who try to be criminal law barristers normally have a massive calling. They know it may not pay half as much as other parts of their profession, but they feel that it is where they can do most good and what they should be doing. Being paid £10,000 for working all hours that God sends, and having to worry so much about money, is simply wrong for someone with responsibilities like hers. Despite the fact that my learned friend—my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh)—existed on peanuts when he was a young barrister, if this continues we will simply not have enough criminal law barristers, and we will certainly not have ones of the quality that defending in the public arena deserves. Is it an exaggeration to suggest that the criminal justice system could collapse? It is certainly in crisis if my young constituent is typical.
My constituent asked colleagues to provide her with their financial experiences as they strove to get into the profession, and she gave me the examples of five of her friends. None made more than £20,000 in their first year, and they all had to spend a huge amount of that on travel. They also had considerable debts to repay. Young criminal law barristers often do not even receive the minimum wage. That is wrong for them and most definitely wrong for a profession that we need to be as good as possible. Justice will be best served when those who argue for it are also the best, and we need well-motivated, driven people who care that we get things right in our criminal courts. Someone needs to look closely at what is happening, so that we do something about it before it is too late.
Sir Edward Leigh
The problem is that compared with their colleagues in other legal work, criminal barristers are massively underpaid, which is all down to cuts in legal aid. The Government have to address that issue: do they want a first-class justice system—what is more important that defending people’s freedom?—or do they not? In order to have a proper justice system we need a proper legal aid system, and that means taking difficult decisions in other areas of Government spending.
Bob Stewart
I think there will be a debate on these issues next Tuesday, and I might take part. I entirely agree with my honourable and very good Friend, and I thank him for raising that point.
My second topic is something that struck me as I passed by the television monitors this morning. If there is a terrorist incident in our wonderful building, we are told to “run, hide and tell”. I was slightly shocked by that, and I asked a policeman whether that is also the advice they are given. The police officer said, “Yes, but don’t worry, sir, that is the last thing we would do. We would not run, hide and tell.” If that is the way we are telling security personnel to conduct themselves, I am extremely concerned about what the implications might be if someone did not run, hide and tell, but instead ran towards the incident, put themselves in danger and was hurt. Does it mean that the Government might say, “Your advice and instructions were ‘run, hide and tell’ and you did exactly the reverse. Therefore we will not give you compensation”?
This issue concerns me a great deal. I do not believe for a moment that the people responsible for our security would do such a thing as “run, hide and tell”. I spoke with the Chair of the Defence Committee a few minutes ago, and he said that he wanted to comment on that point, so I will sit down.
Dr Julian Lewis
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and I am frankly surprised that common-sense advice from the point of view of an untrained civilian should be extended—if indeed it is—to those who are professionally engaged in maintaining the security of this place and those who work in it. Of course we expect people to rise to the occasion when they are on duty, and we expect those who are not charged with being on duty to keep out of the way of those who are. How concerned is my hon. Friend at the prospect that people who work in the security field are beginning to think that they might pay some sort of financial penalty if they do what most of us would admire, and tackle the danger rather than hide from it?
Bob Stewart
I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention, which I forced on him.
That is the worry. We cannot have our security personnel thinking, “If I do this and I am hurt, I might suffer financially.” That would be wrong. Actually, I think the advice is slightly wrong for everyone. If any of us see a situation where someone is in danger, I think we should think, “I’ve got to help.” That is the first thought that should go through our minds.
Mr Deputy Speaker, it is good to see you in the Chair. You are, I believe, an honorary colonel of the Royal Army Medical Corps. It is great that Members of Parliament are honorary colonels of regiments. I hope there will be many more.
I am amazed that people have put up with me here for eight years. [Hon. Members: “Nonsense!”] It is a real privilege to be here, and I think the staff of this place are second to none. I would like to thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, Mr Speaker, the Clerks, the cleaners and all the staff here who make this place run.
Chris Stephens
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the staff he talks about deserve a decent pay rise this year over and above 1%?
Bob Stewart
What a Pooh trap! I would love to give them a big pay rise, but thank goodness that decision is above my pay grade.
My father took me to Sandhurst when I was 17 and three quarters. He said, “Robert, remember that everyone gets a stomach ache.” He meant that I should never be impressed by people. His second point was his most important: “Always look after the people for whom you have responsibility.” We have a responsibility to the staff of this place, and we are very lucky that they are of much higher quality than someone like myself.
Jeremy Lefroy
My right hon. Friend may very well ask!
If we look at the World Health Organisation’s report on people’s perceptions of access to good quality healthcare in 2013, under a Conservative-led coalition Government, I am glad to say, we find that 82% of France’s population and 85% of Germany’s felt they had access to good quality healthcare, whereas in the UK the figure was 96%. For all its faults, and there are many, as I know personally from my constituency experience, our system is held in high regard and it provides almost everybody—96% is not 100%—with access to high-quality healthcare.
Bob Stewart
In my constituency, when an ambulance goes by with its alarms going off, this usually signals a heart attack or a stroke and someone being rushed to a really good hospital. The NHS is the place you want to go if you have a heart attack—private healthcare does not even start to deal with strokes and heart attacks. We are really well served by the people who do this.
Jeremy Lefroy
My hon. and gallant Friend is right about that. As far as I know, we will not find an accident and emergency department that is privately run in the UK. If there is such a department, we are probably talking about only one or two. It is not possible to do that because of the cost of running A&E departments. Parliamentary colleagues in France will talk about healthcare deserts in parts of rural France, where people cannot get access to the highest quality of healthcare that they want. I am not trying to play us off against France or Germany here; I am just trying to state a few facts, as we tend to run ourselves down sometimes.
I wanted to start by discussing the health service because it is now five years since the Francis report on the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, which is in my constituency and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Amanda Milling). That was a very difficult time for us all in Stafford. I am still very proud of the Stafford people and the Cannock people, who put so much into the work to preserve health services in Stafford and Cannock during that time. I am also proud of the work that has been done since then, and of the people who stood up and pointed out the real problems that were going on at the time, which needed to be corrected. If we consider what has happened since then, we see that patient safety has become an absolute priority for the NHS and for this Government, and I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for taking that on. If we look at the recommendations in the Francis report, we can see that most of them are now in place. When I talk to colleagues from around the country, they say, “You know, that Francis report made a huge difference for my local hospital”. It made a difference not just for Stafford or Cannock, but for hospitals throughout the country, where patient safety has gone to the top of the agenda.
I pay tribute to the staff of the County Hospital, as Stafford hospital is now known, for what they have done over the past five years. In the past couple of weeks, more than 96% of patients in our A&E have been seen within four hours. That is well above the national target. I am most grateful to the staff for achieving that. Other things must still be done—there are more services that I want to see back in the hospital, or brought to it and the Stafford area for the first time—but I put on record my thanks to everybody who has made that happen over the past five years.
To return to the general point about the health service, it is quite true that they have a different system in Germany and France, and there are merits in that. It is a different system that requires co-payments: people have health insurance, whether it is largely state-funded, as in France, or done through private or co-operative health insurance systems, as in Germany. People still pay often several hundred euros a year on average to access healthcare when they need it. It is a serious issue and a political debate that we need to have. I am not necessarily saying that my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough’s points should be disregarded—not at all; they should be considered very seriously—but we have to look into what is sustainable.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) is one of the most decent and good-hearted Members in any part of this House. It is therefore a pleasure, as well as a privilege, to follow him in this short debate.
My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) and I are acquaintances and friends probably going back longer in our political association with one another than either of us does with any other Member of the House. We began to work together politically in 1981 and, as he said in the somewhat reflective part of his contribution, the issue on which we were working was to counter the dangerous and widespread movement for one-sided nuclear disarmament that was in its heyday at that time at the height of the second phase of the cold war. He rightly paid tribute to the work of Lord Heseltine, as he now is, and others who fought and won that battle. They not only won the argument but won the election on the basis of the strength of the argument, because of the commitment of the British people never to leave this country wide open to aggression from undemocratic and, indeed, dictatorial states.
At the time when my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough and I were waging that political campaign, my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) was engaged in somewhat more dangerous activities, fighting to defend the integrity of the United Kingdom and the security of its citizens in Northern Ireland. Some time ago, he and my hon. Friend the Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti) raised the question of the legal persecution of soldiers who had fought in Northern Ireland in an attempt to mount a successful security operation against enemies who were bound by no accepted rules, norms or laws of conflict. In that counter-terrorist campaign up to 40 years ago, they had to make sometimes life and death decisions in fractions of a second in a form of conflict for which, for the most part, they were entirely untrained. Now, up to 40 years later, as my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham and my hon. Friend the Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke have made clear, they find themselves in peril of being brought before the courts in relation to actions that have often been investigated over and over again without there being enough evidence available for any proper prosecution to be brought forward.
Bob Stewart
I thank my right hon. Friend and you, Mr Deputy Speaker—a colonel of the Royal Army Medical Corps, of course—for allowing me to intervene.
I was involved in fatality shootings in Northern Ireland in my time, but every single time there was a fatality, it was investigated. If it was considered right by the Royal Ulster Constabulary, it would send in an investigation team to check that we had acted legally. I tell fellow Members this: we were so constrained by the yellow card—the rules for opening fire—that we almost thought about it as we went to sleep. It weighed heavily on us in those milliseconds before we opened fire. So it is very hard on us, all these years later, to face the prospect of revisiting these incidents when they were properly investigated at the time and we were told that there was no case to answer.
Dr Lewis
Everything I have heard about the conduct of my hon. and gallant Friend, not only in Northern Ireland but in Bosnia and in other dangerous parts of the world, testifies to one single unanimous assessment: that he was an inspiration to the troops he led and that they would follow him anywhere. It is quite right that he has done so much in his time in this House to repay that admiration and to honour the trust that they rightly put in him. What concerns me is that we are not repaying the debt that we owe to servicemen, who in those days were very young who were put in an invidious position in a counter-terrorist environment in circumstances for which they had received no special training.
The Select Committee on Defence has looked into this matter in some depth, and we had an extensive debate on the subject on 25 January in Westminster Hall. I do not propose to rehearse the arguments made there. I just wish to remind the House of something that I have pledged constantly to keep reminding it of—that there will be no end to this process until the Government have the determination to bring in a statute of limitations for all terrorist-related incidents up to and including the date of the Belfast agreement. I have had many conversations with many people about this, including Sinn Féin MPs, who had their own concerns that also have some power and force to them. For them, there is the issue of many unresolved deaths for which inquests have not yet been held.
I believe that there is a basis for a comprehensive solution to that problem. People would be best able to get to the root of what happened to their loved ones if other people, on any side of this multifaceted and horrible conflict, could come forward to explain to the best of their ability what they remember of those circumstances so long ago, without fear of finding themselves in a state of self-incrimination. We have the example of what happened in South Africa and the lesson taught to us by Nelson Mandela.
In the course of the Defence Committee’s inquiry into these matters, we took evidence from eminent professors of law. They said that we could not have a statute of limitations that favours only one side in a conflict, because that could be interpreted as the state legislating for its own impunity, but they emphasised that if we were to combine a statute of limitations with what they call a “truth recovery process” for everybody, that could indeed be entirely legitimate in the face of any form of international legal regime.
The reason for my raising this issue yet again today is my concern about one particular point. The previous Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire), whom we all welcome back into the Cabinet in another capacity following his successful surgery, initiated a consultation exercise that is supposed to be going ahead. He specifically said that the option of introducing a statute of limitations on the basis I have described would be included in that consultation exercise. I do not expect the Deputy Leader of the House to be able to respond today, but I do expect him to take away my concern about the suggestions that that option may not now be included in the consultation when it eventually happens. That would be a retrograde step.
As we have seen with Brexit, we cannot always have our cake and eat it. Sometimes we have to decide whether we are going to have—in other words, keep—our cake or eat it, and we cannot put off the point of making that direct choice forever. If that is true of Brexit, it is also true of the ongoing problem of the vulnerability of our armed forces to one-sided prosecution. The Government need to grip this matter. They have an opportunity to, and I hope that they will.
Easter Adjournment
Bob Stewart Excerpts(7 years, 10 months ago)
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Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
This afternoon, I should like to talk about a subject that has been much in the news recently—namely, chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear defence. I also want to talk about the Royal Air Force Regiment, which currently has key responsibility for protecting us in the United Kingdom. I gather that the RAF Regiment was hugely instrumental in cleaning up after the Salisbury chemical weapon attack recently. Since the second world war, the RAF has had the service lead for defending us against nuclear, biological and chemical—NBC—attacks. In 2002, the collective term was widened to include radiological attacks and thus became chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear—CBRN—defence. The RAF NBC defence capability has always been vested in 27 Squadron of the RAF Regiment. Coincidentally, that squadron was once commanded by Jock Stewart MC, who happens to be my father. I am proudly wearing an RAF Regiment tie today, because I have the real privilege of being an honorary companion of the RAF Regiment officers’ dinner club.
Apart from EU countries, states in all other continents have often sent delegations to the UK to view our RAF Regiment’s specialist capabilities with a view to replicating them in their own countries. I will not attempt to name them, as there might be security implications. RAF Regiment specialist CBRN personnel provided unique assistance to the Japanese Government and other national embassies and agencies in radiation monitoring during the Fukushima nuclear incident in 2011. As I have mentioned, their expertise was also deployed to Salisbury recently.
Following the strategic defence and security review in 2015, the decision was taken to transfer the specialist CBRN defence capability to the Army. To me, that decision lacks logic, and I hope it can be stopped. The current modernising defence programme—a mini-defence review in any other terms—provides for a timely reassessment of the required specialist CBRN defence capabilities and the opportunity to challenge the SDSR 2015 decision. The RAF Regiment has amassed considerable CBRN defence knowledge, skills and expertise over many decades, and it is the acknowledged leader in CBRN defence operations in the international community.
I will lose many Army friends by saying this, but I think that the transfer of the specialist CBRN capability from the RAF to the Army could introduce significant risks to the UK’s defence and security during a time of extreme uncertainty. I believe that the Ministry of Defence may wish to reconsider the wisdom of the planned transfer from the RAF to the Army and I very much hope that this capability will stay with the Royal Air Force Regiment, which has long-term proven expertise. Also, it is the one organisation that is judged to be a world leader in its class. Mr Speaker, I want to say thank you to you, your Deputy Speakers, the Clerks and all the staff of this great establishment for putting up with me for so long. I will now give you a break by going away and shutting up for two weeks. Thank you.
Mr Speaker
The hon. Gentleman represents no burden so far as the Chair is concerned. That was very self-effacing of him, and I wish him a very good break. I thank him for his characteristic courtesy.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
Mr Speaker, may I start by wishing you, the House staff and all Members a very enjoyable Easter break? May I encourage Members to visit the highlands, and indeed to come to my constituency, where tourism comprises 20% of the economy? It is no surprise that people choose to go there, as we have one of Europe’s fastest growing cities, surrounded by stunning countryside. The growth of direct flights from Inverness airport has delivered record-breaking numbers of passengers and stays in our fabulous hotels, and our excellent restaurants are being used as well.
Why would not you, Mr Speaker, come to Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey to enjoy the snow sports in the Cairngorms or the golfing in Nairn? You could go on a cruise along Loch Ness with Jacobite Cruises. You might even choose to visit Tomatin distillery, Dalwhinnie distillery or indeed Speyside distillery, which has ambitious plans for expansion, starting with a new shop and visitor attraction in Aviemore.
We encourage cycling and walking in my constituency, and we have fantastic biking and walking trails. I pay tribute to Grantown Grammar School. Its approach to outdoor education includes fully integrating mountain biking and other activities into the school day.
Bob Stewart
I wish to help the hon. Gentleman by saying that my uncle was at school on the edges of Loch Ness as a boy and saw the Loch Ness monster. As a consequence, tourism expanded hugely—it was in all the Scottish newspapers. It was only at his funeral that it was allowed that that was a fake.
Drew Hendry
I was initially grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention, but that is a scurrilous attack on what is quite clearly one of my constituents. I will not have that and hope that he will withdraw that comment.
While in my constituency, Mr Speaker, you could pop along to the Highland Wildlife Park to congratulate the highly trained staff on the UK’s first and only polar bear cub—a born highlander. Or you might take a trip to the Landmark Forest Adventure Park, which was recently awarded the Travellers’ Choice award by TripAdvisor and named in the top 1% of visitor attractions worldwide. In the city, we have exciting plans for Inverness castle and the launch of a truly world-leading augmented reality app, which will put Inverness history into perspective and enable people to grasp it with their own hands.
My constituency is internationalist, diverse and welcoming. We have welcome friends, neighbours and colleagues from all over the world. The children at Central Primary School in Inverness speak 21 languages. We are pleased to welcome Inverlingo, a new meet-up group for internationals living in Inverness so that they can be linked to EU nationals and we can share their value in our society. We will soon have the opening of the honorary Polish consulate in Inverness, too.
Our people care deeply about supporting others who need help, and I wish to thank just some of the organisations involved. Mikeysline, which recently opened the Hive in Inverness, offers a place for people aged 17 and over to drop in when they are feeling low or depressed, or when they simply need some space or support. The volunteers there do incredible work. Birchwood Highland recovery centre is the first and only mental health residential recovery centre in Inverness, and recently celebrated its 10th anniversary.
In World Autism Awareness Week, a special mention must be given to the Highland One Stop Shop and all the fantastic people who fought to keep that service open. They are delighted with the Scottish Government funding and the private donor who has committed to help them.
I thank the community transport groups that work wonders in Merkinch and Badenoch, and pay tribute to the contribution of the volunteers there. The Badenoch and Strathspey community transport group has an innovative project that matches up school kids with elderly people so that they can learn from each other skills such as IT.
The Boat of Garten community centre, and Emma Macdonald and team at the hall, put in huge effort to make sure that there is always something going on, from “Boat Reel” film screenings to family fun days and “Showboaters” theatre productions. Boat of Garten was featured on Channel 4’s “Village of the Year”.
I could go on and on about what is happening in my constituency. I congratulate the Inverness chamber of commerce on its 125th anniversary. I also congratulate Inverness BID—the business improvement district—on the renewal of its mandate to operate in the city.
Paul Maynard
That point is certainly well made. I was not aware of that announcement, because I have been in the Chamber for a while, but I will make sure that we raise it with the relevant Department and get him a response. When we come back after Easter, I am sure that that will be a matter for discussion in the House in some way, shape or form.
To go back to Inverness, I will have to pay a visit, if only to hunt for Nessie, about which I have been inspired by my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham.
Bob Stewart
For the sake of clarity, my uncle, Gregor Bartlett, was at prep school alongside Loch Ness in 1931. He was late back to school, and he and another boy claimed that they were watching the Loch Ness monster. This grew big—The Scotsman, lots of pictures, and he was stuck with it. Only at my great uncle’s funeral was he allowed to declare that actually he had not seen the Loch Ness monster all those years ago as a boy. But I say to the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry): I believe there is a Loch Ness monster!
Paul Maynard
The shocks from my hon. Friend never cease. I had assumed that he would be visiting the many distilleries in the constituency of the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry), rather than the Loch Ness monster. People say that, as Catholics, we should try to give up what we most value during Lent. I always try to give up politics, but I fail hopelessly after about a day.
European Affairs
Bob Stewart Excerpts(7 years, 11 months ago)
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Peter Grant
I have raised them all. If it were possible for me to speak quickly enough to debunk even half the nonsense on Brexit that we get from Government Members, I might be able to speak about some of the other issues. The record will show that the Scottish National party has made a number of attempts to raise these issues including, for example, the situation in Catalonia, but we have been pushed back by Her Majesty’s Government at every opportunity.
Having made bad worse by inserting red lines on the customs union and on the single market, the Prime Minister decided to waste three months of negotiating time and six months of parliamentary scrutiny time by having an election to guarantee a three-figure Conservative majority, so that everything else could just be steamrollered through without opposition. That worked even better than the referendum that the Government had to bring the Conservative party together.
As I said, this would be funny if the consequences for 60 million people on these islands, and potentially for several hundred million people in other parts of Europe, were not so grave. They are so grave that the Government still do everything in their power to prevent us and the people we represent from knowing just how bad their own analysis shows that the situation will become. Before the most recent Brexit papers had been fully published, one of the reasons we were told not to be too worried about them was that they only talked about the direct impact of different Brexit scenarios and did not take account of the massive benefit of all the new trade deals we were going to get. Supposedly, everybody would be falling over one another to trade with us after Brexit.
As the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) pointed out, the Government’s analysis indicates that maybe we can increase GDP by as much as 0.75% because of those deals. We could be looking at a Brexit deficit of between 7% and 9% of GDP, depending on just how hard the hard Brexiteers are able to push Brexit. A 0.75% mitigation of that will not do an awful lot of good in the communities that will be devastated by this downturn in our economy.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
May I ask the hon. Gentleman where he got those figures from?
Peter Grant
I got them from Her Majesty’s Government. If the hon. Gentleman wants to tell me that we should never believe anything that Her Majesty’s Government’s civil servants tell us, that is a debate in itself. Those were the figures that were released, with significant protest, by Her Majesty’s Government to the Brexit Committee. I highly recommend the document to him.
Having had the analysis done at significant expense, those who instructed it to be carried out now seem to want to downplay it—to discredit it. I am pleased that we are no longer hearing, certainly from Ministers, any suggestion that there was anything incompetent, unprofessional or negligent in the performance of those who produced the figures. Of course, those who think that the Treasury’s figures are wildly too pessimistic have had the opportunity to produce their own. We might even find somebody who produces figures that give the lie not only to the Treasury but to the Scottish Government and to any number of other professional bodies. Those bodies do not always agree on the exact figures, but few, if any, are producing a scenario that looks anything other than deeply, deeply damaging for our economy and for the social cohesion of our four nations.
During the Minister’s speech, he took an intervention from one of his colleagues about an article in The Times. Interestingly, his answer seemed to suggest that it was only when they read it in The Times that the Government knew that there had been some softening of the attitude in Brussels towards our ability to negotiate trade deals. Perhaps the Minister could clarify that when he winds up. Would it not be typical of the shambolic nature of the Government in conducting these negotiations if they were getting their information from the front pages of Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers rather than from direct face-to-face contact with our European friends and allies?
When the Government were asked to name a single country that is saying that it would give us a better trade deal out of the EU than within the EU, yet again not a single country was named that is willing to do so. There is a lot of ambitious and grand talk of all the countries that want to trade with us—a wish list, a pie-in-the-sky list. There is, as yet, absolutely no reason to believe that any of these countries will give us a better deal than we could get by staying exactly where we are. We need to remember that what the Government ask for ain’t necessarily what they are going to get, because there are 27 other Governments over there who are just as determined and just as entitled to look after the interests of the people they represent.
The hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) used the tired old argument that we have a trade deficit with the EU and a trade surplus with the rest of the world, and we should therefore concentrate on the rest of the world. I leave aside the fact that some of us do manage to have a trade surplus with the European Union. The logical consequence of that argument is that, if the rest of the world has a huge trade deficit with us, why in the name of goodness would they want to continue trading with us? It is not because Europe is bad at industry and manufacturing that it has a trade surplus with us—it is because it is better at it than we are. The cradle of the industrial revolution has allowed others to overtake us in investment and reinvestment and improving manufacturing efficiency.
RBS Global Restructuring Group and SMEs
Bob Stewart Excerpts(8 years ago)
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Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
My constituent Dean D’Eye and his family and friends have been terrorised by insolvency professionals working for GRG and Dunbar bank. Mr D’Eye’s life’s work has been taken away from him. He had a development company in south London that had a value of £140 million, as well as a thriving youth-hostel business that employed 100 people. Dean D’Eye’s father and step-mother, Derek and Ann D’Eye— 82 and 71 respectively, and also constituents of mine—have been evicted from their home, and numerous other family members and friends have been attacked using predatory litigation tactics. The whole D’Eye family faces complete wipe out.
It all started 16 years ago when Mr D’Eye became a customer of the Romford lending division of NatWest, which is now part of RBS. NatWest funded his investment business and he was mentored on business development by Dunbar. During the third quarter of 2008, GRG started to hound him, despite his never having missed an interest payment and at a time when interest rates had plummeted. GRG thus managed to get him into insolvency by 1 June 2009.
The loss of a large proportion of the group’s cash flow started to cause issues with Dunbar bank, which was by early 2010 starting to experience significant problems itself. The Zurich group moved the bank to its centrally managed business division, which was headed by Mr Colm Holmes. Mr D’Eye, who is present in the Public Gallery, has described the business division as an extortion racket. As is evident from this debate, the GRG’s tactics are becoming well known, but I wish to highlight Dunbar’s far more aggressive actions and the systematic destruction of its clients’ former loyal staff, long-standing suppliers and valuers. I am pleased that the Treasury Committee is looking into the matter.
Mr D’Eye describes the current situation with respect to small business lending in the UK as utterly unsustainable, and I think we all agree. Financial institutions have been allowed to run riot with demands for personal guarantees in all aspects of business, and the limited-liability company may well soon head into extinction. If we combine that with the fact that banks do not seem to be trusted and have not been brought to justice for their actions, we have the perfect storm for SMEs. UK productivity cannot improve without a thriving SME sector. We have some of the best entrepreneurs in the world, but we must sort out the banking infrastructure on which they rely—as well as getting justice for those poor devils who have suffered so much as a result of the banks’ actions.
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (John Glen)
It is a privilege to stand at the Dispatch Box in my new role as Economic Secretary to the Treasury. I think we all feel the privilege of being Members of this House, but listening to today’s debate I also feel a great responsibility—to respond fully to the many serious examples that have been given of how the banking sector, and this group in particular, has failed so many of our constituents. I want to make it clear that in doing this job and in addressing the issues that have been raised today, I will stop at nothing in making improvements.
I begin by thanking the hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) and the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) for initiating the debate, and the Backbench Business Committee for granting it. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) for his work in the all-party parliamentary group on fair business banking.
What we all care about—it has been made very clear in today’s debate—is that businesses form the lifeblood of our economy and they need a reliable mechanism to deal with disputes with banks. I am vividly aware of that, because I grew up not in a bank but in a small business. I know the risks, the anxieties, the sleepless nights, the pressures on family life and the lack of assurance over salary, so I understand that the experiences of small businesses and their relationships with banks really matter. The Government have always maintained a commitment to support and engage with businesses both small and large, and that commitment will continue unfettered.
The Government recognise that access to finance, which is the crux of the debate, is necessary for businesses to grow organically. We have a strong record of supporting businesses large and small, for instance, through measures in the Budget. The competitive tax regime—corporation tax was cut from 28% to 19%, the lowest rate in the G20—is a significant part of that, but what is really important is that businesses have access to money at a reasonable cost, with reasonable assurances on the terms of securing those funds.
A fantastic range of evidence has been presented to us today. We heard about Mr Smith’s engineering business in Bridgend and Mr Topping’s business in Hazel Grove. We heard vivid personal testimony from my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr Jack). My hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton gave the striking example of a monthly interest rate payment that rose, almost inexplicably, from £6,000 to £17,000 a month, leading to catastrophic losses. The hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Ged Killen) gave examples that went back eight years. There were further examples from the hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) and my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr), the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady), who spoke about Mr Mitchell, the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick), and the hon. Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore), who mentioned Mr Richards. In those cases, tortuous processes were necessary to secure redress or a meaningful dialogue leading to an outcome. My hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Mims Davies) has told me about the Sayers family, who have also suffered. We heard further powerful testimony from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who used uncharacteristically strong language—legitimately so.
I too have been contacted by constituents and I have been saddened to hear the stories of many former RBS customers. The Financial Conduct Authority is reviewing the situation; it has said that it is considering the matters arising from the report it commissioned and considering whether there is any basis for further action within its powers. It would not be appropriate for me to comment further at this precise time, but I will say that although, on day seven of my job, I have not yet met the head of the FCA, this will be the first topic that I will be raising with him.
Bob Stewart
First, I congratulate the Prime Minister on having the extremely good sense to appoint such a wonderful new Minister—a great friend, and someone who is really going to sort this problem out. May I ask on behalf of everyone present for the Government to be onside to ensure that the people who have lost so much are recompensed properly? We are not talking just about the future; we are taking about dealing with the past.
John Glen
I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words. Of course we need to reach a stage where we have some answers. We need to know what went wrong, and we need to secure an outcome that is acceptable to our constituents.
It is important to recognise the fundamental need for financial providers to act in accordance with the rules of the FCA and the spirit of its principles. When they do not act in accordance with those principles, we need to have confidence in the mechanisms that exist to resolve disputes.
Christmas Adjournment
Bob Stewart Excerpts(8 years, 1 month ago)
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Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
Happy Christmas everyone, especially to my friend the hon. and brave Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown), who sometimes speaks in such debates on the subject of hysteroscopy procedures, which far too many women have had to undergo without pain relief. I wish to put on record my full support for her campaign to sort that out.
Personally, I would like today to raise the matter of central Government funding on behalf of my constituency, Beckenham. We live in the London Borough of Bromley, which is represented in this place by three Tories and one Labour MP. In 2017-18, Bromley had the fifth smallest settlement funding of the 32 London boroughs, but it has the seventh highest population. Actually, Bromley is the largest London borough by geographical size. It also has one of the highest proportions of older people and, most certainly, the most extensive road network. Yet the associated cost implications of these factors are not reflected in our settlement funding, which is the second lowest per head in London, despite which Bromley has dealt with its finances extremely efficiently. Our council tax remains relatively low considering the local services provided and our low central Government funding settlement. But it has not been easy.
Bromley Council has been hugely innovative in tackling its tasks: it has created as low a cost base as possible, pioneering many measures to balance cost, value and outcomes; it has outsourced whenever that makes sense and, within reason, where it gets most efficiency at a low cost; and it has created leisure trusts that work. It does all this by maintaining relentless cost control measures on all its activities. However, most of the cost-saving measures that many other boroughs have yet to take have already been implemented in Bromley. The obvious implication is that there is little scope to achieve many more savings. Our flexibility on further cuts is hugely constrained without reducing our statutory requirements.
Bromley’s core finding has been cut more than the London and England average continuously since 2010. This will have been reduced by 75% in real terms over the decade. By 2020, Bromley’s central Government funding will have been reduced in real terms to a quarter of what it was in 2010, although I accept that it has new methods of raising money. Bromley has managed to generate savings of £90 million since 2010, but, as is obvious, the mid and low-hanging fruit cuts have now been taken. Bromley Council, with reluctance, has no choice but to put its statutory requirements in the firing line.
By 2030, Bromley’s population is expected to increase by considerably more than the national average, but future funding is unfortunately not currently assessed on population growth. Using Greater London Authority central estimates, the population of over-65s in Bromley is expected to increase by about 44% between 2017 and 2037, and the population of over-90s is expected to increase by 123%, with an overall population increase in Bromley of 18% during that period. Surely that must be considered when looking at central Government funding.
It is now widely recognised that, in all areas of England, there is an urgent need for a fairer system of central Government funding. It seems that decisions on this issue may be delayed until 2020 or 2021. In the meantime, Bromley could be punished for being an ultra-efficient council. That is not only unfair but wrong.
For their part, councillors in Bromley feel that our efforts at keeping costs down and making efficiencies are largely unrecognised by the Government. The efficient running of local government should be encouraged, not penalised, so I ask the Government to reconsider the situation in Bromley, recognise what has been achieved and ensure that the borough is properly supported in the interim with another transitional grant of the kind the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government has previously provided to help us out.
I repeat: happy Christmas to everyone—in this Chamber and throughout the land.
Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
As the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) said, I often use this debate to talk about women’s health matters in a way that can make grown men wince. I have to say that he and other hon. Members on both sides of the House have been very generous in their support for the hysteroscopy campaign. I am very happy to report that, following a meeting this week with the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price)—it was a very good meeting—I really hope some progress can be made. I thank him and others for their support.
Bob Stewart
Is the progress that the hon. Lady mentions pain-free for ladies who have to undergo this treatment?
Lyn Brown
The woman Health Minister I met has read the women’s testimonies I presented to her, and she was horrified by them, as the House has been when I have read them out on previous occasions. She and I are very clear that this is about choice—informed choice—and about making sure that women get what they need, rather than what is cheapest. I do not want to put words in her mouth, but I think we are both on the same page, and it was a very happy meeting. I therefore have only three, not four, issues that I want to raise today.
First, NewVIc—Newham Sixth Form College—is a great further education institution that regularly sends more young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to university, including to Russell Group universities and Oxbridge, than any other sixth-form college in England. Newham is a massively deprived area, and research tells us that 13 out of 20 children in Newham live in poverty, and that it is currently second worst of all local authorities in England for social mobility. The fact that our young people are doing massively well at our FE institution is therefore testimony to them, their teachers and their parents. However, NewVIc’s budget has been cut by £770 per student, and that includes £200 per student from the deprivation allocation. How on earth can that be justified?
I would be very grateful to the Minister if he liaised with the Department for Education on my behalf to secure a meeting about this with NewVIc and me so that we can help NewVIc to continue to be a much-needed engine of social mobility in my community and that of my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms).
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes), and I will come on to the point he made a little later in my remarks.
I also extend to all those working on our behalf over Christmas and the new year, whether in the private sector or public services, my grateful thanks. They give up their family time on our behalf. In my constituency of Stafford, I particularly think of the workers at General Electric, some of whom are facing an uncertain future, with a consultation going on over the loss of 500 jobs. I assure them of my commitment to see that, if there are other opportunities locally or regionally, they are made aware of them and that all support possible is given to them.
I want to tackle three subjects, the first of which is health and social care. I have spoken often on this subject, particularly in respect of Stafford Hospital, now County Hospital. It is great to be able to say that the care at County Hospital, formerly the Stafford Hospital, has improved tremendously over the past few years. I pay tribute to the workers there, who have gone through a very difficult period, both at the time of the Francis public inquiry and then at the time of the trust special administration—the only trust special administration under the Health and Social Care Act 2012.
Bob Stewart
I should like to pay tribute to my hon. Friend. He has worked tirelessly to sort out that hospital, and he has been a great advocate of getting it fixed.
Jeremy Lefroy
I am most grateful, but I think my hon. Friend perhaps exaggerates my own part in this. It is really the workforce at the hospital who have done it, but I accept his thanks on behalf of all those at the County hospital and in Stafford who have fought for it.
I want to talk about the forthcoming Green Paper on social care, and my remarks will include both health and social care. It will provide a really important opportunity for us to change things in health and social care for the better and for the long term, but it will need cross-party working. The area of social care and health has been blighted too often by infighting between the parties. We also need to take an integrated approach.
We score highly, internationally, in regard to people’s opinion of their access to good healthcare. In a survey carried out not so long ago, 35% of people in the USA said that they did not have good access to good quality healthcare. In France, the figure was 18%, in Germany it was 15%, and in the UK it was only 4%. That is the glory of our national health service: by and large, it gives people access to high-quality healthcare, whatever their income and wherever they live in the United Kingdom. However, it is also generally accepted that more money is required. I do not have time to go into the detailed figures, but something between 1% and 2% more GDP needs to be spent on health and social care. The question that needs to be asked in our contributions to the Green Paper next year is: how is that money to be raised?
I have always said that we need a ring-fenced health and social care levy, on top of our present budgeted expenditure on health and social care. It needs to be a broad-based levy, and it needs to be income based, so that it is fair across the country and the population. Such a levy would not provide for everything that we need to do, but it would help to ensure that the £10 billion to £20 billion of additional resources that we need to put into the health and social care system as a minimum in the coming years, on top of what we already spend, was available. What is more, I think that it would be accepted by the general population. If the money were ring-fenced for health and social care, they would know that it would be spent on things that they really cared about and needed. Let us not forget that the national health service is one of the biggest sources of cohesion in our country; it is something that we all rely on.
I want briefly to touch on the European Union negotiations, which are incredibly important to all of us. The Prime Minister has said that she wants the best possible deal, and I absolutely support her in that. We need a unique, long-term deal that is the best possible for our jobs and tax revenues, and also for bringing back control to this country in certain areas. The deal must include goods and services—not just goods—and it must be frictionless. It must fully respect the Belfast agreement. It must also respect the people of Gibraltar. It must cover security, aviation, data and many other areas, including agreements with other countries, of which there are dozens.
There has been discussion over whether we should be closer to Norway or Canada—mention has been made of “Canada plus-plus-plus”—but I simply make the observation that geographically, and probably in spirit, we are closer to Norway than to Canada when it comes to this type of agreement. I urge the Government to look closely at that matter. I also suggest that we look at the European Free Trade Association. It is not perfect, and it might not be something for the near term, but I believe that in the medium term we cannot stand on our own. We need to work together with other like-minded nations, which might include Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and perhaps others. When it comes to negotiating agreements and working together on trade, it is better to work with a number of countries rather than just on our own.
We also need to consider the idea of associate European citizenship, on a voluntary basis, for all those United Kingdom citizens who want to retain strong, close allegiances with our friends and neighbours in the European Union. It has been raised as a possibility by Guy Verhofstadt in the European Parliament and by others. Let us take it into consideration in the negotiations.
Finally, but in some ways most importantly of all, I want to touch on humanitarian work. There are possibly more refugees across the world now than at any other time since the end of the second world war. Whether from Syria, Yemen, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, Burma or Burundi, there are possibly up to 50 million refugees, not including the people who are suffering within their own countries.
I welcome the recent news about Hodeidah in Yemen, and the fact that the port has been opened up for a minimum of 30 days for humanitarian and relief supplies. I pay tribute to Her Majesty’s Government for their work on that, but we must keep an eagle eye on the situation over this Christmas and new year recess. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 1.7 million have had to flee their homes this year—more than in any other country in the world—yet it sadly receives hardly a mention in the news and even in this place. Four million people have been displaced, and 7 million people are struggling to feed themselves. In 2018, it is absolutely vital that the UK maintains the work that it is doing all over the world on humanitarian affairs, in which we lead in so many cases. With that, Mr Speaker, I wish you a very happy Christmas.
Oral Answers to Questions
Bob Stewart Excerpts(8 years, 6 months ago)
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Andrew Jones
Again, that is a question that will have to go to colleagues in another Department. I will make sure that they hear the hon. Lady’s comments.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
5. What assessment he has made of how to balance the needs of (a) business and (b) the Exchequer in setting the corporation tax rate.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mel Stride)
This Government believe in a tax regime that is fair and competitive. Since 2010, we have reduced the headline corporation tax rate from 28% to 19%, allowing companies, big and small, to invest in expanding their business, boost wages, create jobs and lower prices. Onshore corporation tax receipts have also increased by over 50% despite the rate being lowered.
Bob Stewart
Does the Minister agree that if we raise corporation tax, it is normally passed on by business to customers, and that if we lower it, we hope that prices will come down?
Mel Stride
My hon. Friend is entirely right. It is important to remember that the burden of corporation tax does not just fall on shareholders. If we were to follow Labour’s policy of increasing corporation tax, we would see less investment, lower growth, lower productivity and, as the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said, lower wages and indeed higher prices.
Mr Philip Hammond
The hon. Lady, I think, knows that there can be no definitive answer to that question. We do not yet know what the form of our agreement with the European Union will be and we do not yet know what arrangements will be in place for any kind of interim or transition period, so she is speculating. What I can tell her is that the Government are 100% focused on getting the best deal for Britain and delivering it in a way that protects British business and British jobs.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
T6. Several of my Beckenham constituents have suggested that the winter fuel allowance might be a taxable benefit. Is that being considered?