Landfill (Maximum Landfill Amount) Regulations 2011
Lord Henley Excerpts(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Henley
To move that the draft regulations laid before the House on 15 June be approved. 25th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, considered in Grand Committee on 7 September.
Agriculture: Animal Feed
Lord Henley Excerpts(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Jenkin of Kennington
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the scientific basis for continuing the ban on feeding animal by-products and catering waste to pigs and chickens.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Henley)
My Lords, the basis for banning the feeding of animal by-products and catering waste to pigs and chickens is to prevent the spread of serious animal diseases for which these materials may be a vector. The European Commission is proposing to lift the ban on feeding certain processed animal proteins to pigs and chickens in the light of scientific advice that the ban is no longer justified. The Government are considering their position.
Baroness Jenkin of Kennington
I thank my noble friend for his reply. Can he confirm that if the EC relaxes the ban on non-ruminant ABP being fed to pigs and chickens; and if, following the consultations he refers to, the Government are satisfied by the scientific evidence that there are no public health risks, they will then lift the ban in the UK?
Lord Henley
My Lords, obviously we want to take the scientific evidence into account and consider it very carefully. We also want to take into account likely consumer reaction because we want to take consumers along with us. If that were the case, yes, we would be prepared to lift the ban.
Lord May of Oxford
My Lords, does the Minister agree that although there is remaining uncertainty as to exactly the origins of the rogue prion that caused BSE and how it hopped into cattle, the balance of opinion and evidence is that it came from the unnatural practice of feeding animal by-products to cattle? In the light of that, would it not be wise to continue the current precautionary legislation?
Lord Henley
My Lords, as a very eminent scientist, the noble Lord is right to draw the attention of the House to the scientific evidence. At this stage there is no question of lifting the ban on feeding to cattle. We are talking purely about non-ruminants, such as pigs and chickens, at this stage. Obviously we will look at the evidence and at what the Food Standards Agency has to say, and then make a decision.
Lord Grantchester
We must proceed only on a risk-based approach and, as the Minister said, the other element to be considered is the acceptance by consumers of food so produced. The supermarkets are the gateway to the consumer. Can the Minister tell the House the attitude of supermarkets to reducing food waste by this change of policy? What discussion has his department had with supermarkets and the Food and Drink Federation?
Lord Henley
My Lords, we will continue to discuss these matters with the supermarkets and others. Obviously, where it is appropriate, food waste can go to feed animals—already some food waste can do so, when it has been appropriately separated from meat and other such products. However, as I made clear earlier, any loosening of what is happening will depend on scientific evidence and consideration of these matters. I also think that it is important, as the noble Lord makes clear, that we take opinion along with us on this matter.
Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer
My Lords, would the Minister accept that traditionally fed pigs are very popular with the public in terms of the flavour of pork, and so on? They certainly were until the change in their food. Feeding pigs largely on soya has an unintended consequence, in that all the imports of soya are leading to the further destruction of the rainforests. We really must make clear that using our food waste as best we can to feed to pigs has important consequences much further away in the world.
Lord Henley
My noble friend is right to point to further consequences of feeding animals in this way, in terms of producing the amount of soya used. Again, I stress to her, we should not make any changes unless the scientific evidence assures us that that is right and proper.
Lord Whitty
My Lords, would the Minister accept that the Government and the European authorities are right to proceed with caution on this front? I speak both as the Minister who was allegedly in charge during the last stages of food and mouth and as a former consumer champion. The noble Lord, Lord May, has spoken about BSE and we still do not know how the foot and mouth virus entered the chain. While some relaxation may be possible, I advise extreme caution.
Lord Henley
My Lords, I am sure that the noble Lord was totally in charge, and not just allegedly. As he puts it, we will proceed only if the scientific evidence is right and proper.
Baroness O'Cathain
My Lords, it is very important we realise that the public perception is that the outbreak of foot and mouth disease in February 2001, which had such horrific consequences for the economy and everything else, was the result of feeding animals to animals. Although there is a suggestion—or at least the Minister has stated—that that will not happen with cattle, in the minds of the Great British public it does not matter whether it is cattle, pigs or poultry; they would still have this feeling. We must be awfully careful before relaxing the ban.
Lord Henley
My Lords, the ban in 2001 that my noble friend refers to was a ban on swill. We had already banned the use of processed animal protein as a result of the BSE problems. I reiterate what I have said in answer to every question: we will proceed with extreme caution and we will base any decisions, as will the European Commission, on the scientific evidence available to us.
Landfill (Maximum Landfill Amount) Regulations 2011
Lord Henley Excerpts(12 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Henley
That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Landfill (Maximum Landfill Amount) Regulations 2011.
Relevant document: 25th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments
Lord Henley
My Lords, the purpose of the instrument is to set new maximum amounts of biodegradable municipal waste that can be sent to landfill. They apply to England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and, obviously, the United Kingdom as a whole. The new amounts replace the maximum amounts set out in the previous set of regulations, the Landfill (Scheme Year and Maximum Landfill Amount) Regulations 2004, with which noble Lords will no doubt be familiar.
The EU landfill directive sets challenging targets for diverting waste from landfill. That is in line with its overall objective of reducing the negative effects of landfilling on the environment, including reducing the production of methane gas from landfills. This fits with the Government's view, as stated in the recently published waste review, that landfill should be the last resort for biodegradable waste.
The new targets and the definition of municipal waste set out in the directive were transposed into UK legislation by the Waste and Emissions Trading Act 2003—the WET Act. The Act also set up the landfill allowance schemes to deliver this reduction. At the time, the schemes and the definition of municipal waste applied only to waste collected by local authorities. However, discussions with the European Commission have led us to agree that the UK's existing approach was too narrowly focused. Our environmental objectives would be far better addressed by a broader interpretation. The United Kingdom has changed its interpretation of municipal waste so that more commercial waste collected by the private sector is subject to the diversion targets.
The revised targets reflected in the instrument have been agreed by the European Commission and the devolved Administrations. The reclassification of municipal waste and the revised targets are not expected significantly to change the amount of waste dealt with by local authorities and the private sector respectively. Furthermore, it is not necessary to introduce new measures to meet the new targets. Continued increases to the level of landfill tax and other policies to encourage the prevention, recycling and recovery of waste are sufficient. In fact, as announced in the waste review, the targets will be met while removing a burden on local authorities, as England's Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme will be ended after the 2012-13 scheme year. I commend the draft regulations to the Grand Committee.
Lord Knight of Weymouth
My Lords, these regulations are straightforward and well explained in the Explanatory Notes. Clearly, we need to do this. I am happy with the timetable, it all seems very sensible and if we do not do it, there will be infraction proceedings against us anyway. The Explanatory Note states at paragraph 8.1 says that consultation on the regulations did not ask for views on the interpretation or revised target, but on the policies needed to meet the targets. I do not wish to delay the Committee for very long, so my limited comments will be on the policy rather than on the new interpretation or revised targets, because those are straightforward.
Before I get into detail, could the Minister let us know what proportion of waste going to landfill is food waste? There is a question on the Order Paper tomorrow where these issues are pertinent to food waste fed to chickens and in pig swill.
As for policy, I know from the Minister’s comments during the Question in the main Chamber today that he is not a fan of targets. I understand that philosophical view. None of us is a great enthusiast for imposing targets on people, but if we are not going to use recycling targets to minimise the amount of waste going into landfill, I would be grateful if the Minister could set out what leverage he is going to use to ensure that it happens. I have heard, for example, stories about local authorities who, faced with funding constraints, are having to close recycling centres. What leverage is he going to have over local authorities to ensure that they meet their obligations so that England can play its part?
As he knows, because this was pointed out earlier in the main Chamber, other devolved Administrations are retaining targets and indeed setting more ambitious targets than those set out in the regulations. It would be interesting to know whether Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland overshoot their targets—which should be applauded—England could get away with undershooting, given that these are UK-wide regulations? Could it benefit from the more aggressive stance of the devolved Administrations?
I turn to my final question, and I apologise that I am not completely clear in my research on this. It has been suggested to me that it is possible to export material that would otherwise go to landfill without paying any kind of tax, despite a landfill tax being levied in this country. If that is the case, are any conversations going on between Defra and the Treasury to ensure that there is no incentive for local authorities to export their waste to avoid paying tax?
Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer
My Lords, I am pleased that the Government have met the previous targets. Although I do not want to take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Knight, I understand that this is all about targets and that they are driven from the EU—the final target, of course, being zero waste to landfill—so we are tied in. One of the benefits of the EU is that it keeps us to targets, however unpopular they may be; it forces us to take action, and the effectiveness of that is shown by the continuing progress here.
I am particularly pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Henley, was able to explain to us that municipal waste now includes commercial waste collected from, for example, catering outlets, restaurants and so on. Under this statutory instrument we are discussing biodegradable waste. It was difficult when there was one set of biodegradable waste collected from households and another stream that was regarded as commercial. The fact that those can now be regarded as one is a good step forward.
I am looking forward as well to the Question tomorrow. That is particularly pertinent when we are looking, for example, at traditionally fed pigs. Although we learnt a hard lesson through the BSE crisis, we need to move on and look at a much more constructive approach to what we do with what we may regard as waste—used vegetable matter, waste from the production of cheese and so on—and ensure that we are not importing, for example, soya that has forced further rainforest destruction, when we could have been using our waste to feed our own livestock that we then eat. That is the traditional way that it was done; people liked the taste of pork in those days, and there is no reason why we cannot go back to that.
Given the limited nature of the statutory instrument, those are my only comments. Were it any wider, I would ask the Minister what further responsibility the Government intend to give to producers, because producer responsibility is also an important way to reduce overall landfill. However, I see this SI as a good step on the way to zero waste, and I welcome it.
Lord Henley
My Lords, I am grateful to both noble Lords for their comments. I hope to answer some of them. First, let us deal with the Question on pigswill tomorrow. Let us hope that we can have a rational discussion on it and that it will not turn into one of those Parliamentary Questions that appear on Radio 4 the next day where they try to mock this House. This House can discuss these things properly, and let us hope that we can.
Secondly, moving on to the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Knight, about targets, I gave my views earlier. In general, I am not a great fan of targets because they have a danger of distorting how people behave. Targets can play a part, though, and they appear here. We have to live with targets sometimes because they are imposed upon us, but I think we all accept that targets do not always work in exactly the way that we would like.
Thirdly, the noble Lord asked how much organic waste, food waste and all that went to landfill. Obviously, we would like to put somewhere else all of what we call in crude terms “smelly waste”, and get it out of the black bag. It is not good that it goes there; that is a bad thing; it creates methane that seeps out; and there are better ways to dispose of it. How that should be done is a matter that, in the main, is best left to local authorities to decide in their local areas, because different areas have different ways of collecting refuse and different priorities.
Fourthly, the noble Lord, Lord Knight, asked for my general view on the waste review. It is rather difficult to give a complete summary at this stage of what we are trying to do. Subject to the usual channels, we might have a debate on it. Perhaps I may put it in very simple terms: our view is that we want to make it easy for people to do the right thing because we believe that people want to do the right thing. We believe that institutions and local authorities want to do the right thing, but we want to make that easy for them, rather than regulating and forcing them into line. We will have to pursue that and see how it goes. The noble Lord can propose a debate on this subject in future, when we can consider it at greater length.
Fifthly, the noble Lord asked about local authorities closing recycling centres. I have seen comments about this in the press. Local authorities, as noble Lords will know, have a duty to provide the appropriate amount of recycling centres for their areas. As I understand it, those local authorities have been closing sites that they felt were superfluous. Obviously, it is a question of fact and the degree to which they are still meeting their obligations. We and others will look at that issue. It is important that local authorities continue to provide appropriate cover, as they are obliged to by statute.
The noble Lord asked whether it would be sufficient if Wales and Scotland did better than us and we did slightly less well, but overall the UK was within EU targets. I had better take advice on that before I properly respond, but one has to accept that England represents about 85 per cent of the UK and it is therefore unlikely that super performance by the three devolved Administrations would be sufficient to get us across any boundaries. We will see about that and I will write to the noble Lord, if appropriate.
The same is also true of the Treasury—that dread word that the noble Lord mentioned. I am always very wary when anyone mentions the Treasury. He mentioned exports of landfill. We will have a look at that point and I will respond in due course, if necessary.
I hope that I have dealt with most of the noble Lord’s questions. If I have not done so, I shall write further. I congratulate him because his colleague in the Commons took up all of seven lines on this subject and the debate was completed in seven minutes. We have now reached 15 minutes, which shows that the greater scrutiny of this House is, as always, working as it should be.
Environment: Litter and Waste
Lord Henley Excerpts(12 years, 8 months ago)
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Baroness Gardner of Parkes
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will establish recommended standards for dealing with litter and waste, adapted for different areas and needs and including labelling plastic carrier bags with the length of time they take to biodegrade.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Henley)
My Lords, the Code of practice on litter and refuse sets cleaning standards for local authorities which vary according to an area’s intensity of use and litter levels. The key to reducing the environmental cost of carrier bags is reducing usage, encouraging reuse and recycling. It is unclear whether labelling carrier bags with details of biodegradability influences consumer behaviour. It might wrongly imply that quicker-degrading bags have less environmental impact.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes
I thank the Minister for that slightly doubtful Answer. Has he become aware, or does he know, that the chemical additive d2w, in use since 1970, has now been developed to a degree of accuracy that almost the exact date of self-destruction can be built into plastic-bag manufacture? Would it not be an advantage for everyone to know this death date so that bags could be tailored for certain markets, such as the fast-food industry—blamed for bags clogging our waterways? Other bags intended for long-term storage would not unexpectedly turn into confetti. Is the Minister aware that some people are now beginning to hoard free plastic carriers because they are so fearful that they may become unavailable?
Lord Henley
My Lords, I was aware of the brief chemistry lesson that my noble friend has given me but I am grateful for that. Labelling plastic bags is not quite as simple as that. Some bags break down in different manners in different environments, according to where they are left, whether it is in the sea or on land. Some will break down into different things, whether plastic or, if they are made of some organic matter, in other ways. All things break down in different ways and labelling would not necessarily help the consumer. I am always prepared to listen to any further advice that my noble friend and others have on these matters. We want to deal with the long-term problem particularly of the single-use plastic bag.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff
My Lords, are the Government giving consideration to the decision taken by the Welsh Government to charge for plastic bags from 1 October, to encourage the reuse of bags and of good old-fashioned shopping bags?
Lord Henley
My Lords, I have not always been the greatest fan of devolution but one of its great advantages is that we can profit from lessons learnt in other countries. We will certainly look carefully at what they are doing in Wales and keep an eye on that. The noble Baroness is quite right to talk about what she referred to as “good, old-fashioned shopping bags” or the bags made available by supermarkets at a cost to encourage reuse of them. Often the problem with those is that one ends up buying too many. I have a very large stack of those bags at home waiting to be reused.
Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale
My Lords, are the Government aware of the example of Rwanda, where the Parliament and Government banned the use of plastic bags completely, leading to it being widely described as the cleanest country in the whole of Africa? The impact on litter pollution and also civic duty in Rwanda has been considerable. Will the Government look at international examples to deal with this horrendous problem?
Lord Henley
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord for bringing to the House the experiences of Rwanda. I recently met the Rwandan forestry minister on a completely different matter and unfortunately, because I was not briefed on this matter, did not have a chance to discuss it with him. Should I have a chance again, I will do so. That is an option that one could look at. We are not happy that the decline in the use of single-use plastic bags has not been maintained and that there has been an increase. When we got those figures in the summer, I made it clear that, if we do not see an improvement, we may have to consider additional measures in the future, and we will certainly learn from all other countries.
Baroness Eaton
Would the Government consider having their experts look at drawing up a recommended list of materials for recycling, which could be very helpful both to local government and to individuals?
Lord Henley
My noble friend is quite right to draw to the House’s attention the problems of the vast variety of different plastics that we use—I cannot remember how many there are—and the problems of recycling them. I think that currently we recycle some 24 per cent of packaging. We would like to get that figure up. Obviously it might be easier to do that if we could reduce the number of different forms of plastic, but that would take quite a long time, a great many behavioural changes and changes by the producers. Certainly, as my noble friend suggests, it is something that we could look at.
Lord Knight of Weymouth
My Lords, the Government’s waste review set out the noble ambition of a zero-waste economy. I ask the Minister, what role do standards and targets have in achieving that? The previous Government legislated to take powers to tackle the profusion of plastic bags, and we have heard how such powers are being used by the Welsh Assembly Government. Wales also has a recycling target of 70 per cent. Is this Government’s lack of action connected to the abandoning of any recycling targets in England?
Lord Henley
I am not always convinced that targets are necessarily the right way to go forward. Targets can very often distort behaviour and distort priorities and how people deal with things. We made clear in our waste review that we want to make it easy for individuals and organisations to do the right thing, because a great many of them want to do just that. We will continue that process, and I hope that as a result we will head towards that zero-waste economy that we are looking for.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, would my noble friend agree that, in the general area of litter and waste, and indeed offensive graffiti, localism really should reign and prevail? It is not up to central government to tell local people and local councils exactly what they should do and how they should do it. It is up to local people and local councillors to get together to make sure that their streets and areas are clean and that unsightly graffiti are removed. Would he agree that it would be wrong for the Government to take away any of the existing powers that local authorities have in this area?
Lord Henley
My noble friend is quite right to link graffiti with both litter and waste, and I am very grateful that he did that. I am also grateful for his stress on the importance of localism. I have made it clear the whole way through this process, particularly when it came to our recent waste review, that we believe that it is for local authorities to decide on these matters and that they can get them right. What is right in one borough, such as Westminster, where I happen to live, or Carlisle, where I also happen to live, will be different processes. The same will be true for Pendle, where my noble friend lives.
Lord Grenfell
Would it not be possible to reduce the use of plastic bags if more could be done to encourage the producers and manufacturers of goods that are sold in supermarkets to stop packaging them as if they were mothballing an aircraft carrier?
Lord Henley
Again, it is not as simple as all that. We do encourage them to reduce packaging as much as possible. However, the noble Lord will find that some packaging actually does end up reducing waste. If one takes something as simple as a cucumber, wrapping it in plastic ends up reducing the amount of cucumber that is wasted because it goes off compared to the cucumber that is unwrapped. This is a simple fact. So packaging can play its part in reducing waste, and we will work with the supermarkets and others to make sure that, while packaging is reduced, packaging can also play its part in reducing waste.
Thames Tunnel
Lord Henley Excerpts(12 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Berkeley
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what are the environmental benefits of the proposed Thames Tunnel.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Henley)
My Lords, the Thames Tunnel proposed by Thames Water would reduce the frequency of spills of untreated waste water into the Thames from the current average of once a week during rainfall to three or four times a year, and reduce spill volumes from 39 million cubic metres annually to around 2.3 million cubic metres. This would meet the dissolved oxygen standards identified by the Thames Tideway Strategic Study and protect local ecology.
Lord Berkeley
I am grateful to the Minister for that Answer. I agree with him that the tunnel will help to clean up the Thames but in the process it could make a serious mess of London. One of Thames Water’s proposals is to concrete over most of Barn Elms Playing Fields and other greenfield sites and to remove spoil by road, involving some 500 trucks passing through London every day. Will the Government insist that Thames Water takes the majority of the spoil out by water down the river, because the line goes under the river? Secondly, will the Government safeguard the necessary brownfield sites, such as the Battersea power station site, to avoid the need to use greenfield sites in the construction?
Lord Henley
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for stressing the importance of the fact that it will clean up the Thames. That is very important, both in itself and in order to avoid infraction proceedings under the urban waste water directive. I note the noble Lord’s other points, which are really matters relating to planning issues. Thames Water will be consulting later this year on the route and where to put the various access points for the tunnels. After that, these are matters that should be left to the planning process rather than to Government.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes
My Lords, is the Minister aware that the London Group had the benefit of a presentation on this project? It said that one of the important features was to allow drainage in London, as the water level is now rising so high that it is becoming a problem, particularly with the development of more basements and sub-basements.
Lord Henley
My Lords, my noble friend is absolutely correct in talking about problems of drainage. We have seen, since Bazalgette built the original sewers some 150 years ago, a vast expansion of London, a vast increase in the number of people here, and a vast increase in the number of impermeable surfaces which allow water to drain off far quicker than it did in the past, creating serious environmental problems. As part of this process we need to look at all of those factors and all appropriate solutions.
Lord Aberdare
My Lords, in view of the fact that major projects such as the Thames Tideway Tunnel often fall short in delivering the environmental and community benefits expected, will the Minister consider encouraging Thames Water to establish an independent trust to provide a vehicle for ensuring that those benefits are achieved and maximised and that the tunnel project leaves a lasting legacy for London along the lines that Sir Joseph Bazalgette achieved with the original sewer project?
Lord Henley
My Lords, that is exactly what Thames Water is proposing in the plans. That is why it wants to consult on them and why it will have to go through the planning process in due course. At the end of that planning process we hope that it will be able to produce the right tunnel, in the right place, that will produce the right benefits.
Viscount Hanworth
In the 1960s when we were digging the Victoria line tunnel I remember that we caused minimal disruption around London and that the spoil was carried away directly. Can the Minister tell us why this cannot happen in the case of the Thames Tunnel when there is an easy way of carrying the spoil away—by the river?
Lord Henley
Again, it is a matter for the planning process and planning authorities to propose what conditions they think appropriate to impose on Thames Water. Since it is proposed at the moment that the tunnel should follow the river down, I would have thought it might be possible to have a lot of the access points close to the river. It should therefore be possible. However, it is not a matter for Government but for the planning process to consider using the river, rather than roads, for disposal of that spoil.
Baroness Kramer
I must declare an interest in that I live by the river and am a member of the Skiff Club in Teddington and therefore a supporter of the Thames Tunnel. Does the Minister agree that the reason why greenfield sites such as Barn Elms are at risk is that they are cheaper than the brownfield alternatives and that therefore it is a Defra issue? Will the Minister consider talking to Thames Water to make sure that environmental vandalism to sites such as Barn Elms does not take place?
Lord Henley
Obviously, we would want to encourage the use of brownfield sites, where possible, rather than greenfield sites. However, I do think that this should be a matter for the planning authorities and the planning process rather than for a diktat from Defra itself.
Lord Knight of Weymouth
My Lords, Defra is currently consulting on these sorts of projects becoming national infrastructure projects and at that point the Minister would have the leverage that he currently tells us he does not have. I understand the point that he is making. However, should he not take a lead, for example, from the Mayor of London, who is very happy to interfere and to pass comment wherever he sees fit? Should he not use his influence in this case and listen to what noble Lords have said about the importance of using the river to transport spoil in order to protect our greenfield sites and to preserve the brownfield sites? A meeting would be fairly straightforward and I am sure that Thames Water would want to listen to what the noble Lord has to say.
Lord Henley
My Lords, I would have thought that what I have said has given some idea of where Ministers in Defra stand on these matters. Again, I think that the planning process should decide the appropriate route, how it is done, where to dig the access tunnels and so on. In the end, we want the right solution for London and for the customers of Thames Water to ensure that we can get rid of that waste water and that we do not have, again and again, the kind of environmental disasters that we have seen, on a number of occasions, further up the Thames, with vast quantities of dead fish and other such things.
Lord West of Spithead
My Lords, I declare an interest as a waterman and lighterman. It seems to me that the Government have to take an overview of this. Leaving the matter to separate planning authorities can lead to things like the green aspects of using the river, which are dramatically less harmful to the environment, being forgotten. The Government ought to take an overview, if not pass legislation on it to make it happen. I notice that as regards the Olympics we have failed abysmally to use the river as much as was promised. That is a great failure and a loss to the nation.
Lord Henley
My Lords, I had a sneaking suspicion that a number of noble Lords in this House, who live further west up the Thames, would want to declare an interest in how these building works are to take place. Fourteen planning authorities are affected by this and it is one of the problems that has to be dealt with overall at government level. That does not mean that Defra should make the decision; the appropriate planning process should take place. Obviously, we will feed in our views and I have given some indication of a desire to use brownfield sites where possible rather than greenfield sites. In the end, we must leave this matter to the planning process.
EU: Common Fisheries Policy
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Baroness Parminter
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to achieve reform of the Common Fisheries Policy.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Henley)
My Lords, I welcome this Question from my noble friend; it is particularly timely given that the Commission published its proposals for the reform of the common fisheries policy earlier today. My honourable friend the UK fisheries Minister continues to encourage his European counterparts to support radical reform, and will be pressing our case for reform as negotiations develop, with further talks at the Agriculture and Fisheries Council next Tuesday.
Baroness Parminter
The common fisheries policy has one of the most dismal reputations of any European Union policy and is responsible for the fact that yields in our fisheries have diminished. Does the Minister agree that its reform must include the total elimination of discards, and maximum sustainable yields delivered by long-term management plans agreed at regional fisheries level?
Lord Henley
My Lords, I could be very brief in responding to my noble friend by saying that I agree with her entirely. Obviously we want to deal with the problem of discards. We have done a great deal within the United Kingdom about that matter. She is also right to talk about the need for regionalisation of the common fisheries policy and about rights-based management. However, we will discuss all that and continue to negotiate in Europe on these matters—and I think that we need support from all sides of the House, and throughout the entire country and Europe, to get a proper reform of the CFP.
Lord Sewel
My Lords, does the Minister accept that any reform of the common fisheries policy will fail if it just amounts to piling regulation upon regulation? That has been the trouble with the common fisheries policy from the very beginning. Surely the important thing is that we accept that fishermen themselves have to accept responsibility for the health of the industry. As the noble Baroness said, the best way to do that is to build on the regional management organisations that already exist.
Lord Henley
My Lords, this is becoming rather easy, because I think I can agree with the noble Lord as well in terms of the direction that we are travelling in. I think that we ought to continue to travel in that direction. We will continue to fight for a ban on discards and deal with that very serious problem. We will also continue to negotiate with other colleagues in Europe on the other matters that my noble friend and the noble Lord mentioned.
Lord Eden of Winton
Can my noble friend say, on the subject of discards in particular, whether the fisheries of any other countries within the European Union take a different line from that which our own fisheries have taken?
Lord Henley
My Lords, discards are a particular problem, not so much in Mediterranean waters but more in North Sea and Atlantic waters. That is why I stressed in my earlier responses the need for regionalisation on these matters. As my noble friend and as others have put it, discards are something that we all find abhorrent. The whole idea that such things should still be happening is wrong, and we will fight to end discards. We are already doing a considerable amount to reduce the amount of discards within the UK fleet.
Lady Saltoun of Abernethy
Is the Minister aware that the European Commission is now trying to take back the management of the common fisheries policy, which was to have been moved to the European Parliament?
Lord Henley
My Lords, I think the noble Lady has got that slightly wrong. As I understand it, following this report from the Commission, this will be a matter for the Council of Ministers and for the European Parliament. It will be a matter for co-decision, so it will take some time. As a result, it is very important that we build up the appropriate alliances in Europe and within the European Parliament to make sure that we can negotiate the best deal possible for a proper, radical reform of the common fisheries policy.
Lord Campbell of Alloway
My Lords, could the Minister answer my noble friend’s question, which is of crucial consequence and requires an answer?
Lord Henley
My Lords, I thought that I had dealt with that point in answering my noble friend on discards. We think that the wasteful practice of discarding fish should be brought to an end. We are doing a great deal already within the United Kingdom to make sure that it is being reduced by various practical measures relating to net sizes and other matters. We will also continue, in the negotiations for reform of the common fisheries policy, to make sure that we do all we can to bring it completely and utterly to an end.
Lord Hughes of Woodside
My Lords, it is not quite as simple as saying that discards shall be abandoned. What happens to the undersize fish caught by fishermen at sea? Will they count against national quotas or regional quotas? Are we going to rely solely on changing net sizes? That is very important, but you cannot avoid discards if you fish in the sea.
Lord Henley
My Lords, we can never completely and utterly get rid of discards. We want to get rid of them as much as is possible. That is why we are seeking a reform of the CFP, and that is what we are negotiating to do. However, there are also practical measures relating to net sizes, to which the noble Lord referred, and practical measures relating to CCTV on the boats themselves that can help deal with the problem. It is going to take time and a lot of negotiation with other member states and with Members of the European Parliament, but we are committed to working towards that.
Lord Knight of Weymouth
My Lords, we very much welcome the Commission’s proposals today to end discards. In doing so, we pay tribute to the campaign, led by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall among others, to gather a petition of over half a million signatories to press for this change. Clearly it is in the long-term interests of the industry for fish stocks to be rebuilt and taken sustainably. With 75 per cent overfishing, a cut in the fleet looks inevitable if this new policy is to work. Can I ask the Minister how this will be managed, particularly in the coastal towns hardest hit? Will the decommissioning payments continue, and will there be extra investment in regenerating those communities?
Lord Henley
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for paying tribute to the campaign run by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall—to which I pay tribute—but I would hope that the noble Lord would also pay tribute to my honourable friend Mr Richard Benyon, who I think has done equal amounts in terms of his negotiations on these matters. I cannot give the noble Lord specific answers to these questions at this stage, as he well knows, because we are still negotiating on these matters. We have had the proposals from the Commission only today, so I have not read them in detail, nor has my honourable friend Mr Benyon. We will look at those proposals, he will be negotiating on them next Wednesday, and we will come forward with proposals that will be good for the United Kingdom’s fisheries industry, for fish in general and for the sustainability of our fish stocks.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
My Lords, given the success of the fisheries policies of Iceland and the Faroe Islands, and given the fact that 70 per cent of the fish in European waters swam in British waters before we joined the Community, why do we not take back our own fish management to the benefit of our industry? Why do we need a common fisheries policy at all?
Lord Henley
Oh dear. As I think I have said to the noble Lord before, we are where we are. We have a common fisheries policy and we are committed to renegotiating that along with the Commission, which has accepted that that policy does not work, and we are going to get that right. With the Commission and a vast number of other member states being on side, and with this country being totally and utterly committed to doing so, we can get that right. We will start that process next Tuesday and continue it as long as is necessary.
Higher Education White Paper
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Henley)
My Lords, I beg leave to repeat a Statement being made in another place by my right honourable friend Mr David Willetts.
“With permission, I would like to make a statement on the higher education White Paper. It sets out how our reforms will build on the changes to student support announced last year. We will put higher education back on to a sustainable financial footing. We will put students at the heart of the system, improving the academic experience, with universities and colleges more accountable to their students than ever before. We will also take steps to improve social mobility without compromising academic excellence or institutional autonomy.
We inherited an enormous deficit which required difficult decisions. We could have reduced student numbers, or spending per student, or provided less help with living costs. However, these options would have been unfair to students, to universities and to the country. Instead we are introducing a pay-as-you-earn system that provides more support for students, does not require reductions in student numbers and increases the cash flowing into higher education. We estimate there could be a cash increase in funding for higher education of around 10 per cent by 2014-15. Our reforms ensure that no first-time undergraduate will have to pay fees up front and asks them to contribute to the cost of their education only once they earn more than £21,000.
This increase in the repayment threshold—up from £15,000 under the current system—means that graduates will benefit from smaller monthly repayments than under the current system. For example, someone earning £20,000, the median starting salary for graduates, repays £38 a month under the system we inherited from the previous Government. In future they will pay nothing. At the moment, a graduate earning £36,000, the median salary for all graduates, pays £158 a month. Under our scheme, that falls to £113 a month. Our reforms also recognise that for many people higher education does not mean a full-time, residential degree. Some students want to work or take care of their family while studying. To support them, many part-time students and distance learners will become entitled to loans to cover their full tuition costs for the first time.
I can announce today that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Health and I have agreed that, for undergraduate medical and dentistry students starting their course in autumn 2012, the NHS bursary will be increased in years 5 and 6 to cover the full costs of tuition. For graduate entrants starting in autumn 2012, access to student loans will be made available so that there are no additional up-front tuition costs. We will consider arrangements for subsequent years. More information is being placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
These changes to higher education funding enable us to put financial power in the hands of learners. To make that effective we need to liberalise the system of quotas we inherited from the previous Government so that more students can go to universities that offer a good-quality, good-value student experience. The White Paper therefore proposes unconstrained recruitment of the roughly 65,000 high-achieving students who score the equivalent of AAB grades or above at A-level. Quotas for these students will be abolished and funding will go to whichever university offers them a place they accept. In addition, we will create a flexible margin of about 20,000 places to reward universities and colleges that combine good quality with value for money and with average tuition charge, after waivers, at or below £7,500 per year. This adds up to around 85,000 student places—roughly one in four places for new entrants—contestable between institutions in 2012-13. We aim to expand this further year after year.
We will also extend the scope for employers and charities to offer sponsorship for extra places, provided they do not create a cost liability for government and provided, of course, there is fair access for all applicants, regardless of ability to pay, and no sacrifice of academic standards.
These reforms put students in the driving seat. Putting this power to best effect means not just liberalising the quotas regime; prospective students also need to know far more about the academic experience on offer. We will therefore transform the information available to them about individual courses at individual institutions. Each institution will make available key items of information such as contact hours and job prospects. Information will also be available to outside bodies such as Which? to produce their own comparisons. It will lead universities to match their excellence in research with a high-quality academic experience.
We also want our universities to work with business to improve the job prospects of their graduates by providing the knowledge and skills that employers value. The sandwich course, which gives students practical experience of work, declined under the previous Labour Government. We want to reverse that. We have therefore asked Professor Sir Tim Wilson, who made the University of Hertfordshire one of our most business-friendly universities, to review how we can make England the best place in the world for university-industry collaboration. We want our universities to work with business across their teaching and research activities to promote better teaching, employer sponsorship, innovation and enterprise.
Student choice is more real if, as well as liberalising quotas and transforming information, there is a greater diversity of institutions to choose from. We will therefore remove the barriers to more provision from the Open University, further education colleges and private providers. We will simplify the regime for obtaining degree-awarding powers. We will also review the artificial barriers to smaller higher education institutions taking the title “University”.
We want students from a wide range of backgrounds to benefit from these reforms. We are increasing maintenance grants and loans for nearly all students. We are introducing a national scholarship programme and we will strengthen the Office for Fair Access to make sure institutions fulfil their outreach and retention obligations for people from disadvantaged groups. This will not be at the expense of institutional autonomy. The Director of Fair Access will continue to have a duty to protect academic freedom, including an institution’s right to decide who to admit and on what basis.
In order for universities and academics to focus on educating their students, we will strip back the burden of excessive regulation and form filling. We will explore whether it is possible to reduce costs associated with corporation tax returns. HMRC has today announced its consultation on the possibility of introducing a relief to remove some of the VAT barriers which currently deter institutions from sharing costs. We will reduce burdens from information collection. We will give power to students to trigger quality reviews where there are grounds for concern, yet cut back the burden of automatic review for high-performing institutions. The Higher Education Funding Council for England will be the lead regulator, taking on a new role as consumer champion for students and promoter of a competitive system.
We are now inviting people to comment on our proposals as part of a broad consultation. Subject to parliamentary time, this will be followed by a higher education Bill next year, to make the necessary legislative changes to deliver these reforms. This White Paper offers universities the prospect of more funding provided that they attract students. At the same time it saves money for the Exchequer by asking graduates to pay back more as their earnings increase.
Our universities already transform people’s life chances, and we expect them to do even more. We will protect their autonomy and reduce the regulatory burdens they face. Above all our proposals benefit students by driving universities to focus on the student experience. They will have real choice, with better information and a wider range of institutions to choose from. I commend this White Paper to the House”.
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
Lord Henley
My Lords, that address by the noble Lord on behalf of the Opposition was rather extraordinary. He started off by making allegations that this White Paper was allegedly “hastily put together”—I think that those were his words. I can assure him that it took a considerable amount of time, and haste certainly did not come into it. As the noble Lord will know, we were hoping to get this out somewhat earlier but, in our desire to get these things right, it was delayed until this day. That is often the way with these things.
The noble Lord then made allegations of cuts to higher education. Yes, we have had to cut the amount of money from the public purse going to higher education. We have had to make reductions in a large number of other departments, but again, as my noble friends and my right honourable friends in another place have done on many occasions, I have to remind opposition Members: whose fault is that? We inherited a deficit of quite stupendous proportions and we had to address that before we could even begin to start—we had to tackle the debt. We therefore had to find some sustainable way of funding higher education, which is a public good, and we have come up with a scheme that in effect, as was made clear in the Statement, will by 2015 increase by some 10 per cent the amount of money available to higher education.
That must be a good thing, but we have to ask the serious question as to who should be paying for higher education as a whole. I got the impression—and I should be very interested to hear from the noble Lord or one of his noble friends whether this is the case—that it is now the policy of the party opposite that all the funding should come from the taxpayer and none from those who benefit from it. Under the scheme that we are proposing, a great deal of money will come from the students who benefit from the higher education they receive. However, in addition—because in the end we will get back only a certain amount of the money—a great deal is coming from the public purse. There is a balance between the public benefit we get and the private benefit that the individual students get. I was rather surprised by the tone of the noble Lord’s response, which seemed to suggest that all funding should come from the taxpayer. That was how I understood it and I imagine how it was supposed to be understood by most people listening to it. The noble Lord’s party did not do that when it was in government and I would be interested to know whether that policy has changed.
The noble Lord then asked a number of detailed questions. I will look at those in due course but I will comment on one or two of them. He pointed out regional differences in terms of access to universities. That is unfortunate. We have to look at the schools. Again I am grateful for everything that my right honourable friend Mr Michael Gove is doing in the Department for Education to improve education. It is by improving education before students get to universities that we will improve access to the universities. It is not by magically saying, “You must take in X, Y or Z, however badly educated they have been”. We must get it right at an earlier level, and that is exactly what my right honourable friend is addressing in the various reforms that he is bringing to education.
The noble Lord then talked about plans to allow universities to attract more of the AABs or equivalent. I think he slightly misunderstood what was set out in the Statement. We know that most people who achieve AAB or above, or the equivalent, will go to university, but we want the universities to be able to compete as to how many they can get. There should be no artificial cap on the numbers, and that is what the White Paper sets out.
I was rather saddened by the noble Lord’s attack on the private sector within education, which includes principally the private universities but also other institutions offering degrees. They offer a valuable service and we should not back away from that. We should continue to support them and I am very glad that my right honourable friend has found a means of doing that.
Lastly, the noble Lord alleged that the whole scheme was designed to depress demand for access to higher education. That is not the case. The Government are still committed to encouraging as many people as possible to go to university within the current restraints on the public purse—and we know whose fault that is. The noble Lord will know that things have changed a great deal over the years since he and I were at university, when about one in eight of us went to university. If we go back to our parents’ generation, the proportion was probably about 2 per cent—of course, it depends on the age of your parents. Now the percentage is in the high 40s. We believe that is a good thing, but obviously it does change the way one has to think about how university should be paid for.
There are other, more detailed points that the noble Lord put to me. I will look at precisely what he said later and, if necessary, write to him.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for repeating the Statement, which has been extremely useful. It clears up a degree of uncertainty that there has been around universities for a very long time. As the noble Lord said, it has taken a long time for the White Paper to come to us, rather than a short time. I also welcome a number of other aspects of it. The opening up of the university system and the creation of a far greater diversity of routes for higher education are thoroughly good things for this country. As many noble Lords around the House will know, I have for a long time advocated the facilitation of the part-time route so that those who want to earn and learn can do so and have access to support equivalent to that for full-time undergraduates. That is extremely important. The Minister will know that one or two minor issues arise here and I will raise them with him in due course. However, on the whole I think that this is a thoroughly worthwhile development. I also welcome the reintroduction of sandwich courses.
Can the Minister provide clarification about the AAB issue, which the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, raised? At the moment, as I recall, we provide somewhere in the region of 350,000 undergraduate places every year. As I understand it, 65,000 of those places are going to be put into a pot to be bid for by any university, according to what students want to do, and a university will then be allowed to exceed its quota if an AAB student wants to attend. The other 20,000 places are for institutions that charge less than £7,500 per year. This is not creating new places; they are existing places. In effect, as I said, 65,000 places are being taken out of the pot at one end and 20,000 at the other end. I worry about that slightly. The noble Lord is quite right that the problem is that our secondary schools perhaps do not produce enough AAB students. However, there is a real problem here. There was an experiment by King’s College in which medical students worked with local secondary schools in south-east London, bringing forward pupils who were not achieving at that level. However, by the time those pupils had been through the degree course, they achieved just as highly as the others, which shows what potential there is. Universities need to have flexibility in that sense. There is a danger that we shall expand the universities taking the top-achieving students, thus depriving some of the lower-achieving students. I confess that that worries me.
Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, referred to the cost. As the White Paper says, the Government reckon that by 2014-15 the scheme is going to cost more. As the Minister will know, the cost of loans is going to be very considerable, and it looks as though the Government may well end up spending more on the loan scheme than they are putting in at the moment in direct grants.
Lord Henley
My Lords, I am very grateful for the comments of my noble friend Lady Sharp, particularly regarding the fact that the White Paper has cleared up uncertainty, and for her emphasis that we—or, rather, my honourable friends in another place and in BIS—have taken time over it. I am also grateful for what she said about the need for diversity in higher education. We should always remember that higher education is not just hallowed colleges in Oxford or Cambridge but a whole range of different things. I was grateful that she mentioned part-time students at the Open University and matters of that sort. I think that something like a third of all students are part time, although I shall have to check that figure. I was trying to find it in my briefing pack but could not. I was also grateful for what she said about the fact that we want to put more emphasis on sandwich courses. We will certainly look to see what Sir Tim has to say about that.
On the AAB cohort which we were talking about and which I mentioned in the Statement, the figure that I have is of the order of 300,000 students coming in each year, not 350,000, but we will not quibble about 50,000.
Lord Henley
Well, we will try not to quibble about 50,000 but I can see the odd accountant sitting opposite me. Of those, 65,000 are AAB students. We are not creating new places for them but we are allowing the HE institutions to compete for them. Therefore, the University of X might want to expand certain courses by bringing in more of those students, but that would mean, by definition, that the University of Y might lose out. However, we think that it is necessary to bring in that element of competition. The 20,000 places that I added to that are not for AAB students but for those where universities offer value for money with their courses coming in on average, after waivers and so on, at or below £7,500. Again, it will be open to universities to compete for those places. It is not a question of creating new places at this stage. However, if matters were to become more contestable, we would certainly want to look at that in the future, and, as I made clear in the Statement, we aim to expand the scheme further year after year.
I noted what my noble friend said about the cost of loans. Obviously loans are expensive but they would be considerably more expensive if they were not arranged by the Government. The Government can, after all, borrow at considerably cheaper rates than individuals.
Lord Wills
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for repeating the Statement made in the other place. He will be aware of widespread concerns about the damage that these reforms pose to the position of the humanities in higher education. I wonder whether he shares those concerns and if so, what he will do about them. If he does not share those concerns, why not?
Lord Henley
I simply do not accept those concerns, as was made clear in the debate we had some six months ago when we debated the original announcement about student loans. It will be up to the universities to attract the right students. Those students will bring the money with them that will pay for the courses.
Lord Krebs
My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing the Statement. It will obviously take time to absorb the details. I declare an interest as the principal of Jesus College, Oxford, and say that from the perspective of those of us in the higher education sector the Government’s approach seems slightly schizophrenic. On the one hand we hear about creating a market, liberalising the university sector and deregulating, but on the other hand we hear of increasing constraints imposed on us in reporting, access and the level of fee that we can charge. As I said, there is a slightly schizophrenic approach.
I have a particular question to ask the Minister. If, as he has indicated, the aim is to place the student in the driving seat to create a market where student choice and wishes determine the outcome, that leaves open the question of where the university sector will end up. We know from the report from the Royal Society a couple of years ago that this country suffers from a serious shortage of students educated in engineering, the natural sciences and mathematics. Do the Government have a view on what proportion of students should study STEM subjects? If so, why are they leaving it to the market and student choice? Students may well choose to study subjects that do not require such a rigorous entry as mathematics, physics, chemistry and engineering, and universities may well choose to teach subjects that are cheaper to lay on. Do the Government have any view about the provision for STEM graduates, or is that simply a matter for the market?
Lord Henley
I accept what the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, said, and obviously much in this White Paper needs to be discussed. After all, it offers up the idea of consultation on a number of subjects, which is a matter that we will take on board. He then suggested that we had a slightly schizophrenic approach. I remember being castigated on many occasions by my late noble kinsman Lord Russell on the question of academic freedom and attacks that the previous Conservative Government were allegedly making on institutions. We are very anxious, as we make clear in the Statement, to preserve academic freedom and to leave the decision-making to universities. Obviously, when public money is involved—and considerable amounts are involved—it is right that we should make our views known.
The noble Lord then talked about the STEM subjects. He gave an example of the shortage of engineers and asked what our approach should be. We have to be very wary of government setting down specific targets for this or that number of engineers. The noble Lord will remember that the former Soviet Union produced a very large number of engineers, no doubt at the sort of central direction that some noble Lords opposite might like—but look where it got them. I seem to remember the expression, “Upper Volta with rockets”. That is not a route that we would want to go down. What we are setting out is probably a better approach.
The Lord Bishop of Wakefield
My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for his Statement and for the further thinking that the Government are clearly doing following the earlier Statements and papers on higher education. Perhaps I should begin my question analogically. In honour of the millennium, I was offered finance to pay for a stained glass window in the cathedral over which I then presided. Alarmed that I had already commissioned an artist, the donor asked me whether I had gone for three competitive quotes for the window as he had done in the previous year when he was repairing his garage roof—in other words, economics came before creativity. Value for money in higher education is obviously crucial, but can the Minister assure us that the pursuit of enterprise, competition and, indeed, a focus on business will not lead to utility triumphing over a liberal education, removing breadth of curriculum and marginalising not only the arts and humanities but other less obviously utilitarian disciplines?
Lord Henley
My Lords, in the debate before this Statement, the noble Lord opposite castigated my right honourable friend Mr Pickles as a Gradgrind figure. We obviously want to be wary of aiming just for value for money, but we have to be very careful to make sure that public money is spent appropriately. I do not think, bearing in mind what I said about preserving academic freedom and the ability of higher education institutions to decide for themselves how to do things, that the approach we are setting out does that in any way at all. We want to make sure that any public money is spent appropriately.
Lord Lucas
Does my noble friend agree that the practice of cross-subsidisation must now end? It may have been acceptable, when it was just government money, to take £5,000 from the money provided for a humanities course and give it to a student doing an engineering course. Now, when we are asking a humanities graduate to pay £9,000, it is surely totally unacceptable to take half that money and spend it on an engineering student.
Lord Henley
Again, I want to leave this as a matter for the higher education institutions themselves. It is up to them; they do not have to charge the same amount for each student if those students are doing different courses. If students are doing a humanities subject, there is no reason why the institutions should not charge less than for other, more expensive subjects. It must be a matter for them.
Lord Young of Norwood Green
I, too, thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. I will respond to a couple of points that he made in reply to my noble friend Lord Stevenson. We do not deny the deficit; our counteraccusation to Her Majesty’s Government is that they are dealing with the deficit too far, too fast. Of course, we have not retreated to the position that all funding should come from taxpayers; we recognise the challenge of expanding higher education—indeed, we introduced student fees. This is about the level of them. I share the welcome given by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, to support for part-time students, and I hope that we will see an expansion of sandwich courses—and that response from business.
In the beginning, when the Government responded to the Browne report and put the figure of £9,000, there was a lot of confidence that not all universities would rise to that figure. Yet currently more than 80 per cent of universities have indicated their intention to charge £9,000. I was interested in the response to the previous speaker that there might be a variation, but the current public position is charging £9,000. Will that be a deterrent to potential graduates when they see the potential size of their loan increasing so much—figures of £40,000 are not exaggerated? I know the response will be that there is no upfront payment. Nevertheless, people will see a loan that eventually has to be repaid.
Lord Henley
I am very grateful for the noble Lord’s admission on behalf of his party that it does not deny the deficit. I am also grateful that he has recognised that funding must come from the beneficiaries of education as well as from the taxpayer—from both sides.
The noble Lord turned to the Browne report which, as noble Lords will remember, did not recommend a maximum. However, we felt that it was probably right to fix it at £9,000, particularly as the noble Lord, Lord Browne, suggested that he did not see why universities could not provide a good education for a figure of, I think he said, round about £8,000. The noble Lord, Lord Young, says that the reports are that virtually all institutions are going for the maximum of £9,000. We will not know the final figure until it has all been confirmed next month, but I can assure him that although a lot of them are going for £9,000, that does not mean that everything in that university, that institution, will be £9,000. There might be different rates for different courses and, as the noble Lord knows, there are a number of waivers, and they will be offering bursaries and other things that will help to bring the cost down, particularly for some of the less well off.
The noble Lord also asked the very valid question: are we worried that the perceived level of debt might put off a number of individuals because they see themselves ending up with a debt of £27,000-plus? That is a genuine fear and we must address it. That is why only last week my right honourable friends Vince Cable and David Willetts sent a letter setting out what we are doing to get information across. They have set up a new independent task force on student finance information, headed by Martin Lewis and Wes Streeting, a former president of the National Union of Students, to try to get the information over that it should not be looked at as a debt but, in effect, as a sort of graduate tax, except that it is not a graduate tax; you start paying only when you start earning above a certain amount and you pay at quite a low rate over a long period of time. It is not the burden that people have when taking on other forms of debt.
Lord Butler of Brockwell
If I heard the Minister aright, he said that the purpose of strengthening the role of OFFA would be to ensure that the universities fulfilled their obligations about outreach. That will create no difficulties for the universities because I am convinced that all the universities I know want to widen the area of society from which they draw children of talent. However, he also said, if I heard him correctly, that there will be no interference in the academic freedom to make that selection on the basis of merit. Can he therefore assure us that the quotas that have been talked about for students to be drawn from different areas of society or different backgrounds in education will not now be pursued?
Lord Henley
My Lords, I am very grateful for that intervention from the noble Lord, who speaks with considerable authority as a former master of University College, Oxford. I must add that I have enjoyed his hospitality there on a number of occasions; I declare that as an interest. I am also grateful that he welcomes the fact that there is encouragement to fulfil greater opportunities for outreach, which is what all institutions should be doing. I also stress that there will be no interference in academic freedom. As I said earlier, I bear on my back scars from the late Lord Russell about alleged attacks on academic freedom, and I do not want to reincur them. Quotas are not the right way to set about this. Each institution in discussions with OFFA, after it has proposed a level of fees above £6,000, should look at what it can do to try to improve fair access to all areas of society.
Baroness Brinton
My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for the Statement. I want to ask two specific questions. The first is on simplifying the regime for obtaining degree-awarding powers and making sure that the qualifications and assessment process for FE colleges and private providers will be the same as it is for universities. One of the strengths of the sector at the moment is the qualification assessment basis, and it would be a shame if it were lost in a diversification of the sector. Secondly, I declare an interest as I was bursar of a Cambridge college for a decade. I am delighted to hear that HMRC is consulting on changing the VAT regime. I am slightly concerned that the Statement refers to “some of the VAT barriers”. That has been a considerable issue to higher education institutions over the years. It has cost them a lot in administrative terms, and the accountancy profession has earned an enormous amount of money by advising universities. Can we be assured that there will be real change in the VAT regime for universities?
Lord Henley
I shall be very brief, bearing in mind the time. I think I had better write to the noble Baroness about what we want to do about simplifying degree-awarding powers. As for HMRC’s consultation on VAT, I am always very wary of ever making any commitment that involves the Treasury, so again I think it would be wise if I wrote to my noble friend on that matter.
Biological Diversity
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Lord Knight of Weymouth
My Lords, I start by congratulating the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, on the Question that stimulated this excellent debate and on his fine opening speech. The Convention on Biological Diversity is a key plank of the international community's commitment to protect our environment. I was fortunate to attend the 2006 conference of the parties in Curitiba, Brazil, as the UK ministerial representative, and I have retained a strong commitment to this agenda as a result. Last October's conference of the parties to the convention in Nagoya, Japan—as the noble Earl said—was described by the Government as “historic”. None of us can disagree, and it was an important statement of intent from the new Government that the Secretary of State herself attended to take part in the negotiations.
The outcome was positive. The 190 countries agreed a refreshed vision that by 2050 biodiversity will be valued, conserved, restored and wisely used, maintaining ecosystem services, sustaining a healthy planet and delivering benefits essential for all people. The parties also agreed a shorter-term ambition to:
“Take effective and urgent action to halt the loss of biodiversity in order to ensure that by 2020 ecosystems are resilient and continue to provide essential services, thereby securing the planet's variety of life, and contributing to human well-being, and poverty eradication”.
The five strategic goals are particularly significant in focusing our minds. They are: to address the underlying causes of biodiversity loss by mainstreaming biodiversity across government and society; to reduce the direct pressures on biodiversity and promote sustainable use; to improve the status of biodiversity by safeguarding ecosystems, species and genetic diversity; to enhance the benefits to all from biodiversity and ecosystem services; and to enhance implementation through participatory planning, knowledge management and capacity building.
This is the right response from Governments to the challenges facing the planet—not just for the sake of biodiversity but because of the importance it has for human prosperity and well-being. The national ecosystem assessment, commissioned by the previous Government and published by this one, gives examples of that importance to humanity. It states that the benefits that inland wetlands bring to water quality—here I pay tribute to the speech of my noble friend— are worth up to £1.5 billion per year to the UK. Pollinators are worth £430 million per year to British agriculture. The amenity benefits of living close to rivers, coasts and other wetlands is worth up to £1.3 billion per year, and the health benefits of living with a view of a green space are worth up to £300 per person per year. It is clearly in the public's interest for the commitments made in Nagoya to be translated into action here in the UK. Indeed, they can serve as the benchmarks to test the success of the Government in delivering on their commitment to the natural environment.
I do not want to appear too cynical, although that is the burden of opposition, but while UN conferences meet every two years and agree important words—the noble Earl suggested this—and while we have in the past made commitments, for example, to the IUCN's Countdown 2010 target, targets are serially not met by Governments of whatever complexion and words too often do not turn into action. I have therefore looked at the new White Paper, The Natural Choice, with great interest. It was not published with much of a fanfare. I heard about it via word of mouth. I am sure that is not down to the new shyness of Mrs Spelman, the Secretary of State, to be heard in the media. I am happy to believe that the media had little appetite for something as uncontentious as a policy paper on the natural world.
Lord Knight of Weymouth
It is good news, as the Minister says from a sedentary position, but it does raise my first question for him. If we are to realise the aims of Nagoya, we need to raise the profile of these issues and their importance with the public. How is the department going to achieve this? A genuine cynic might say it has already done a remarkable job. At the same time that Mrs Spelman was in Nagoya, her department was busy trying to privatise the forests. It is a novel approach, but privatising trees was certainly an effective way of getting the public engaged on the importance of protecting biodiversity.
Returning to the White Paper, I accept that it makes clear that the Government's detailed response will be in a new biodiversity strategy for England, which has been referred to,
“to follow this White Paper”.
Can the Minister assure us that, unlike the water White Paper or the waste policy document, this will not be delayed? Will it be published this month, as the noble Earl suggested? Can we expect Ministers touring the studios to promote it this time? What about the money? I note that over the five-year period Defra will lose £2 billion in cash terms from its budgets. There are around 70 commitments in the White Paper. How much will be spent on meeting them? How much has been committed to fund meeting the new commitments made in Nagoya? The press release the department published at the time suggested new money of £2.6 million over four years for international biodiversity. Can the Minister assure us that that is enough?
In the mean time, there are some other questions to ask in relation to action at home and abroad to address the five strategic goals that I took the time to read out. I very much welcome the renewed commitment in the White Paper to the Darwin initiative. I have been fortunate enough to visit Darwin projects in three continents of the world and have seen the very positive effect on animal and human populations alike. Darwin is part of the UK punching way above its weight internationally on these issues. The world genuinely looks to us to help broker conservation agreements such as the GRASP agreement I signed in Kinshasa in 2005 to protect great apes. This sort of work is the result of remarkable work by civil servants in the Minister’s department. Can he tell us whether staffing and resources in the tiny international wildlife division are being protected?
At home, in my time, I was pleased to insert in the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act the duty for public bodies to have regard to biodiversity loss. Whitehall took some persuading that that was justified and was not a costly burden on services such as the NHS. Can the Minister tell us, in the course of meeting the first of the five Nagoya goals, what bilateral discussions have taken place since October between Defra Ministers, Ministers from other departments and Ministers from devolved Administrations that have included biodiversity protection on the agenda? If he cannot tell me off the top of his head, perhaps he will write to me. How will the Government ensure that action is taken across departments, in devolved Administrations and in all tiers of Government to secure the commitment to halt biodiversity loss?
Finally, the other strategic goals all need biodiversity to be a key consideration in land use. How will this be achieved? I was pleased in my day to agree PPS9 with the then Office of the Deputy Prime Minister to secure this as a material consideration in the planning system. The planning system is currently going through massive changes via the Localism Bill, which is in Committee today in this Chamber, and measures such as PPS9 will be absorbed into the national framework and the regional tier of planning protection will disappear altogether. Conservation groups have rightly expressed concerns that the Government's approach to growth will damage the environment. In that context, can I ask the Minister how the Secretary of State is getting on with Mr Pickles? They appeared to have a bit of a set-to over waste collection. Have such arguments been consigned to the dustbin of history or is there a danger of them being recycled over the burden that councils, developers and planners will have to bear in playing their part on halting biodiversity loss? Given that the Chancellor said in his Budget speech that planning will now have jobs and growth as the priority, can the Minister give us reassurance that this will not squeeze out biodiversity and the goals of Nagoya?
To conclude, this has been a useful opening debate in what I hope will be ongoing scrutiny by your Lordships' House of the implementation of the Nagoya agreement. The ambition is to be applauded, but it is against the actions of the whole of the Government that the Secretary of State and her Ministers will be judged.
Lord Henley
My Lords, I start by offering my welcome to the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, on what is, I think, his first appearance at the Dispatch Box back as a spokesman on Defra matters. The noble Lord started his ministerial career, some years ago, as a Minister in this honourable department, and we welcome him back as the opposition spokesman on this. He brings a wealth of experience, and I was particularly grateful for the fact that he reminded us that he had attended earlier conferences on this matter. He will bring great expertise to this subject.
The noble Lord asked me quite a number of questions, as did all the other noble Lords who spoke. I think that all noble Lords will understand that, in the 12 minutes that I am allowed, it will barely be possible for me to answer a mere tithe of the questions. I will try to do my best, but I make it clear that I will respond by letter in due course in good time. I would also like to thank my noble friend Lord Selborne for bringing forward this debate—in the dinner hour, admittedly, when we are limited to merely an hour. I would also like to echo a point made by an opposition spokesman and say that this might have to be the first of many debates where we can explore these issues in good time.
I was very grateful to my noble friend for referring with praise to the natural environment White Paper, as did others, just as I was grateful for his references to Kew, to which he has given honourable service in the past. Kew is close to all our hearts and I imagine that the noble Lord, Lord Knight, was involved with Kew back in his ministerial days. Again, that is something that we would want to look to.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hilton, asked a number of detailed questions but started off by mentioning that she was a trustee of a freshwater trust, and referred to the drought. I remember the last time we had a fairly serious drought. One can only say that in this House—not in another place, but we are all somewhat older—we can remember Denis Howell and how, soon after he was appointed Minister for Drought, we had a lot of rain. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State has pointed out to me that ever since she announced that there was a drought in one part of the country, we have had some fairly consistent rain. However, the noble Baroness quite rightly referred to many rivers not being in good condition, and she wanted to know what we were going to do about that, whether our work on freshwater science was adequate and what monitoring there was of our various agri-environment schemes. Again, I will write to her.
On the larger questions of drought and water shortage, again I would refer back to the Climate Change Act and the work that has been done over the years since then in terms of adaptation to climate change by a number of bodies. I was recently at Rutland Water where I saw what Anglian Water was doing in terms of announcing its adaptation to climate change. There is much we can do, much that is already being done and we should be grateful for that.
My noble friend Lady Parminter referred, among many other things, to problems relating to the sustainable use of fishery resources. Again, this is something very close to my honourable friend Mr Benyon’s heart, particularly the problems of discards. We will continue to work on this, and I know my honourable friend has made considerable progress, but this is something we obviously have to work very hard on in our negotiations with Europe.
My noble friend Lord Gardiner, among many other things, referred to the particular importance of achieving both economic growth and greater biodiversity. The important thing to remind all noble Lords is that these are not opposed to each other—they are matters that we can achieve together and certainly want to. Again, I was very grateful for what my noble friend said about heather moorland and the grouse moors. I remind him, as I think he was reminding the House, that they are really the only businesses in the upland areas that survive without subsidy.
The noble Lord, Lord Knight, as is right and proper for all opposition spokesmen, asked a whole range of questions, particularly about the importance of raising the profile of these matters. We can achieve that to a very small extent through debates in this House, but it is something that we should all try to do. He asked about the timing of a future White Paper on water. Again, that is something for which he would not expect me to give a conclusive date at this stage, but I can assure him that it will appear in due course at the appropriate time. We want to make sure that we get that right.
The noble Lord also asked about the importance of bilateral discussions, not just between Defra and other departments but between Defra and the devolved Administrations. I can assure him that we will continue to discuss matters with all other departments, as the Government are increasingly good at doing, but we shall also continue to discuss these things with the new devolved Administrations. I can assure him that, with new Ministers being in place in all three of the devolved Administrations, we have already established relations with them and we will make sure that we discuss these matters more importantly.
I want to devote my closing few minutes to Nagoya. As the House will be aware, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State played a key role in securing those milestone agreements at Nagoya. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Knight, for his remarks about her attendance there. Since then, officials have been working very hard to ensure that those key decisions from that meeting are implemented and that we prepare for the next conference in Hyderabad in 2012.
There were 47 decisions made at the Nagoya meeting and we have identified five key strategic priorities for implementation, as my noble friend Lord Selborne made clear. The key strategic priorities are: first, implementing the strategic plan for biodiversity from 2011 to 2020; secondly, pursuing the objectives of the resource mobilisation strategy; thirdly, stepping up the process to integrate valuation of biodiversity and ecosystem services into financial processes; fourthly, making progress on reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, which is, I should say for the sake of Hansard in case I get a further chance to talk about it, what we now refer to as REDD+; and, fifthly, establishing the intergovernmental platform on biodiversity and ecosystem services.
As well as that, we have been working, as other noble Lords have made clear, with the European Commission to develop the EU 2020 biodiversity strategy, which was published on 3 May. The noble Baroness, Lady Hilton, and my noble friend Lady Parminter, said that tomorrow the Environment Council will consider these matters. I very much hope that an agreement can be reached, but I note the queries from some noble Lords about how we will achieve that. We recently published—again, I am grateful to all those who have spoken about it—our natural environment White Paper for England and our national ecosystems assessment for Britain, and I welcome what the noble Lord, Lord Knight, said about that.
In the few remaining moments, I should like to say a little about the five strategic priorities and explain the work that is underway to ensure that the United Kingdom both meets the demands of the Nagoya agreement at a domestic level and achieves the greatest influence internationally. Implementing the strategic plan for biodiversity was one of the main areas for United Kingdom leadership at Nagoya and now offers opportunities to show our leadership role. That plan set 20 targets in all areas of biodiversity. The United Kingdom led in the preparations for the strategic plan and it is therefore appropriate that we should now lead in the development of meaningful, proportionate and realistic indicators for these targets for use by the global community. This week, the United Kingdom is doing just that by hosting an expert workshop to develop such indicators. To inform the work of this workshop, the United Kingdom commissioned an international review of the use of indicators for assessing biodiversity at the national level, which will be a key reference document for the experts.
The resource mobilisation strategy is intended to be the main means of providing support to developing countries to implement the strategic plan on global biodiversity. At Nagoya, there was agreement to indicators of biodiversity spend and we are already engaged in the process of establishing baselines and targets for those 15 indicators. We are also identifying options for innovative financial mechanisms for biodiversity through our work in the EU.
We are also putting natural capital at the heart of government accounting by working with the Office for National Statistics to fully include natural capital in the United Kingdom environmental accounts and will establish an independent natural capital committee reporting to the Economic Affairs Cabinet Committee chaired by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The committee will advise the Government on the state of English natural capital.
Finally, turning to REDD+, my department is working closely with the Convention on Biological Diversity to help develop advice on applying biodiversity safeguards, which are operational guidelines and standards that should be applied to prevent harm and enhance biodiversity in forests and linked environments from REDD+ activities, as well as indicators for REDD+, through research, finance and by leading expert discussions. This will also inform negotiations on safeguards in the climate change convention and, in turn, will help to achieve other linked benefits for developing countries and the global environment, including effective carbon storage and poverty reduction.
The International Climate Fund supports these multiple goals under forestry and REDD+, helping countries’ wider efforts on climate change mitigation and adaptation, and sustainable low-carbon development. My department has £100 million allocated to support REDD+ over the next four years but that is only part of the £2.9 billion coming from the United Kingdom through DECC and DfID.
I would like to go on speaking for some time, but obviously there are constraints on that. What I can say is that I would like to offer an assurance that I will write to noble Lords about a range of the points they have raised, and to make it clear that the Government take their biodiversity commitments very seriously indeed. Officials within Defra are working hard to ensure that we continue to show leadership both internationally and within the country as regards biodiversity, and we are committed domestically to ensuring positive and real change.
Again, I thank my noble friend for raising the matter and I welcome the opportunity I have had to outline, albeit briefly, some of our approach to the commitments made at Nagoya.
Universities: Admission
Lord Henley Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Benjamin
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what measures they have put in place to ensure that people from ethnic minority backgrounds achieve admission to top universities.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Henley)
My Lords, universities are responsible for their own admissions policies and decisions. The Government are establishing a new framework with increased responsibility on universities to widen participation, including to the most selective institutions, as set out in our guidance to the Director of Fair Access. Ethnicity is one factor which will be considered in access agreements. The proportion of black and minority-ethnic undergraduates in higher education has grown from 16.4 per cent in 2001-02 to 20.4 per cent in 2009-10.
Baroness Benjamin
I thank my noble friend for that encouraging Answer. I am sure he will agree with me that many more children from BME backgrounds, and white working-class boys, need to be encouraged to start thinking of their education path to top universities from as early as primary school. The numbers of BME students going to university have increased, but research by the Runnymede Trust has shown that BME students predominantly do not apply to the top 20 leading universities.
At the University of Exeter, where I am chancellor—I declare an interest—very few British-born BME students apply. Research shows that only 8 per cent of BME students who do go to university attend Russell group universities, resulting in less prestigious degrees and lower employment opportunities. Can my noble friend the Minister tell the House what is being done proactively by the Government, by schools and by universities to inspire BME students to apply to top-class universities, as exemplified by Michelle Obama during her visit to Britain last month?
Lord Henley
My Lords, I agree with my noble friend that the process ought to start at the earliest possible stage, at primary schools and throughout schooling, to encourage all children to consider this option. I am also grateful to my noble friend for mentioning that other group who ought to be addressed—white working-class males, who are again, sadly, very badly underrepresented.
I would not entirely accept her figures for the more selective universities. The figures I have for the Russell group show that something like 14 per cent of those attending come from an ethnic minority background. Obviously that varies from one institution to another: for fairly obvious reasons, at Queen’s University Belfast it is as low as 2 per cent whereas it is over 50 per cent at the London School of Economics. It varies throughout, but the overall figure for the Russell group is some 14 per cent.
Lord Winston
My Lords, I declare an interest as a professor at Imperial College London. Is the Minister aware of the outstanding work done in getting children from ethnic minorities and impoverished backgrounds into that university, a Russell group university, in particular the work of the Reach Out Lab, which allows children aged seven to 18 to do practical work in all forms of science as a way of training them to think about aspirations for a great university? Does the Minister agree that universities could do more to make the relationship between schools and universities seamless by opening their doors and making this kind of work possible across the country?
Lord Henley
The noble Lord answers his question for me. The institution to which he refers and to which he is attached has a very good record indeed. I have the figures in front of me: the figure there is some 45 per cent. We offer congratulations to Imperial College on what it is doing. What he said about the work that the higher education institutions themselves should do plays very strongly indeed and I would commend his words to the House and to the entire higher education sector.
Lord Elton
To put the answer that my noble friend has given in context, could he very kindly tell us what is the proportion of the population formed by ethnic minorities in the same definition that he has used in relation to the academic world?
Lord Henley
It depends what you mean by the same definition. If one takes the general working population, the figure is some 11.1 per cent, compared to that 20.4 per cent that I gave; if one just takes the under-30 age group, which is obviously nearer to those who are at university, the figure is 13.4 per cent. I am afraid I cannot break the figures down any further.
The Lord Bishop of Exeter
My Lords, I very much welcome the Government’s recent campaign to inform people of the exact nature of the new fees system and the help that will be available to students. However, it would be helpful to know what steps the Government will be taking to assess how effective that campaign has been in reaching all sections of the community, not just ethnic minorities but other unrepresented groups as well, and what steps will then be taken to communicate with those found not to have been reached by the recent campaign?
Lord Henley
My Lords, we accept that many people have not quite understood what the Government are proposing. We wish that they would and we will try to educate them in that process, so that they understand that eligible students will not be paying upfront or paying more than they did in the past. They will pay for longer but they will not pay more per year. Obviously, we will do research into what we have done to see just how effective that has been.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
Your Lordships’ House will recall that the recent report by the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Madingley, recommended that graduates would begin to pay their loans back only when their earnings reached £21,000 and that interest would be charged at the cost of borrowing to the Government. Will the Minister confirm that the Government are now proposing that the interest rate to be charged after earnings reach £21,000 will be as high as 3 per cent plus RPI? Will he indicate what studies have been carried out on the impact that this will have on admissions from people from ethnic minority backgrounds?
Lord Henley
My Lords, the noble Lord asks a large number of questions, which I propose to answer simply. We have broadly followed the recommendations by the noble Lord, Lord Browne, but not entirely, and we draw our own conclusions. But he is quite right to say that we decided that no one would pay until they were earning at least £21,000 a year and that there should be an appropriate level of interest beyond that rate. That was set out in a Statement some six months ago, which was repeated in this House, and is what we shall be ensuring comes to pass with the passage of the relevant clauses in the Education Bill. The noble Lord can also wait for the introduction of the higher education paper which will be published shortly.
Dog Control Bill [HL]
Lord Henley Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Richard
As the noble Lord was kind enough to refer to me, perhaps I may briefly respond. I have to say that I do not think that this is a very well-drafted, apposite or timely Bill, but on the other hand I think that the thrust of it is good. What the noble Lord is trying to achieve on the whole might be a desirable thing. However, the one thing he will not be able to do is legislate in this way by means of a Private Member’s Bill. He has done a service to the House in exposing both sides of the argument, and it is now for the Government to decide whether they wish to pick up this issue and deal with it. As far as I am concerned, it is an issue that the Government ought to deal with. I know that we are considering a specific Private Member’s Bill—as your Lordships may have gathered, I am not too keen on the actual Bill itself—but, nevertheless, it does seem to me an issue that the Government ought to take seriously and look at.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Henley)
I was rather hoping that I would be able to get away without intervening at all. The Government have made their views fairly clear at both Second Reading and in Committee, when my noble friend Lord De Mauley dealt with this Bill. I will say very briefly again that we cannot give our support to this Bill, but we are well aware of the problems that it is addressing and are prepared to consider moving forward in due course.
As my noble friend Lord Redesdale mentioned, the House will be aware of the consultation issued by the previous Government towards the end of their 13 years in office—I think it was issued in about March 2010, just before the general election—and that concluded in June 2010. There were some 4,250 responses to that consultation, which Ministers are still considering. We published a summary of those responses in November 2010, and, as I said, we are still considering the right way forward. It is a matter that we want to discuss across government, because these matters are not just for Defra but for the Home Office and others. In due course, I hope that we will be able to have something to say, but we will not offer support to this Bill. It might be that, when the noble Lord seeks a Third Reading and moves that the Bill do now pass, that might be a moment when I might be able to say a little more. However, as I have made clear and as we made clear on earlier occasions, we cannot offer support to this Bill.
Lord Richard
Before the Minister sits down, can I ask him to clarify that, with regards to this Bill, “in due course” means that we will hear something on Third Reading?
Lord Henley
Depending on when Third Reading happens, that in the course of the debate on whether the Bill do now pass, I might be in a position to say something. That depends very much on when my noble friend seeks the Third Reading of the Bill. I make no guarantees, and the noble Lord will well know that “in due course” can be a rather flexible form of time, and he will just have to wait and see.
Lord Redesdale
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Richard, for coming in and eliciting a response from the Government. I also thank the Minister for the fulsome proposal that the Government will bring forward such useful information at the point of Third Reading. On that basis, I will wait probably until after the summer for Third Reading, although I realise that “after summer” means September rather than, in the Government’s parlance, somewhere nearer March. However, on that basis, I hope that this amendment will be acceptable.