Cost of Living: Energy and Housing

Lord Randall of Uxbridge Excerpts

Thursday 5th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sir John Randall (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Con)]

It is always a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge). Tempted as I am to agree with her about HS2 and the island airport, I think I should move on swiftly.

Both my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition have mentioned the D-day anniversaries—it was also mentioned in the Gracious Speech—and it is right that we should all pay tribute to those who were involved. However, I should also like to mention other events. I have not done my research, but I think that it was in this very House in 1944 that a Member referred to those people fighting in Italy as the D-day dodgers. Seventy years ago, on his 21st birthday, my father was at the battle of Monte Cassino. Recently, there was a royal visit to Monte Cassino to mark the anniversary of the battle. While we concentrate on D-day, it is also important that we do not forget all those who fought elsewhere.

The right hon. Member for Barking was right to say that we need to look at housing, and I believe that we are making efforts in that regard. The other area of concern is that of immigration. There are genuine concerns about that issue, but I want to sound a cautionary note. A couple of weeks ago, I was privileged to have been asked to attend the 105th birthday celebrations of Sir Nick Winton. I am sure that many people in the House have heard of him, but if they have not, he founded the Abbeyfield homes system. In 1988, his wife came across a scrapbook in the attic of his house in Maidenhead and discovered that Nick Winton, as a young man in Prague at the outbreak of the second world war, had helped to get Jewish children out of Czechoslovakia into Britain. In fact, one of the people he rescued was a Member of this House and is now in the other place, Lord Alfred Dubs. I have discovered that, at that time, it was only Britain that was really prepared to help such children. Those who wanted to help had to have £50 and be able to find an address for the children to go to. What struck me was that the parents must have gone through hell being parted from their children, but they gave them up so that they could go off to find a life—literally, to find a life. Unaccompanied children arrive as asylum seekers at Heathrow, which is in my borough, next to my constituency. This is an issue that stirs us up. We have to remember that people are coming here not because they love the climate; they are coming because they are escaping from tyranny elsewhere, and we should always remember that.

There are some measures in the Queen’s Speech about which I have concerns. First, I am a director of the family retail business—furnishing, which is why I am keen on housing being improved, as long as everyone does not shop online—and I want to see some detail on the carrier bag measure. Although it is generally welcome, it is easy to talk about something happening, but the practicalities of it and how individual customers and retailers will be affected will have to be looked at carefully. It is good to have noble ideas but sometimes the practicalities have to be worked out.

[Nia Griffith]

Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise that the programme of paying for carrier bags has been a tremendous success in Wales? It has been remarkable how little correspondence any of us have had against the programme and, today, the Association of Convenience Stores has come out in favour of the measure.

[Sir John Randall]

I recognise that, and I have been following the issue for some time. In fact, the measure would save me money because I would have to give out fewer carrier bags. However, we might also be put in an awkward position. My family’s store is not a convenience store and we sometimes sell quite high-value items. If someone has bought something for £200 and we then say, “It is 5p for a carrier bag”, that puts the retailer in a difficult position. I recognise what the hon. Lady says, but we do have to think about such a measure. I am an advocate of it, however, because it is environmentally desirable.

Fracking is a more controversial issue and we need some detailed thought on it. I heard what the Opposition spokesperson, the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint), said. There is uncertainty on both sides of the argument. I agree that fracking is not the only answer to our energy problems, but some of the stories put out to frighten people about someone turning up outside the back door with a rig ready to drill through their garden are false. We have to get the legislation right. Strong environmental concerns about water and all sorts of other issues have to be looked at carefully. I do not want us to rush into this because it is a fundamental issue. I hope that we can look at fracking in as non-partisan a way as possible because it is important for the future of our country.

Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman), the one thing in the Queen’s Speech that I am most delighted about is the introduction of a modern-day slavery Bill. Like her, I pay tribute to Anthony Steen of the Human Trafficking Foundation—I declare an interest as a trustee of that organisation—and to the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field), with whom I have been privileged to sit both on the review that the Home Secretary asked him to carry out and on the scrutiny Committee for the draft Bill. For the past six months, since deciding to no longer keep an eye on my colleagues to ensure that they vote in the right way, I have devoted myself to that cause. As with so many things, modern-day slavery is something that people cannot ignore once they find out about it.

Anyone who has watched and been appalled by “12 Years a Slave” must realise that almost the same sort of conditions exist for some people today—being kidnapped, having no escape or being too frightened to find any way out. If nothing else were to be done in this Session, we could still be a world leader with this Bill. It is the most important measure. There are things that the scrutiny Committee has advocated that were not in the draft Bill, and I look forward to seeing whether they will be incorporated—no doubt some will and some will not. I will reiterate a few of those recommendations.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden mentioned the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 and things that we could be doing. We want not only increased penalties, but to ensure that the activity is simply not lucrative. As with a lot of crime, but particularly modern-day slavery, one of the problems is that by the time of conviction the criminals have moved all their ill-gotten gains around the world. In Italy, where the authorities have experience with the mafia, they now freeze assets on arrest. I hope that we can go some way down that line. It does not mean confiscation; it is simply freezing. People are allowed something to exist on, because they remain innocent until proven guilty, but we have to look at such a measure in order to stop the goods and money being taken away. Otherwise, for some of these people, five years in jail is nothing, as long as they have the billions when they come out. During debate on the Children and Families Bill, some Members in the other place were advocating guardians for trafficked children. Such a measure has to be included for child victims of modern-day slavery—I think the Government will do so, because they said that they would.

[The Minister without Portfolio (Mr John Hayes)]

I thank my right hon. Friend and the other members of the pre-legislative scrutiny Committee for their work. Does he acknowledge that the role of the new anti-slavery commissioner will very much be to co-ordinate the law-enforcement process, including internationally, where international co-operation plays the part that he describes? Clearly, in consideration of the Bill, the role of the commissioner can be looked at in some detail in that regard.

[Sir John Randall]

I agree with my right hon. Friend. I am a little cautious, for understandable governmental reasons, about ensuring the independence of the commissioner. No one likes to give up power entirely. The commissioner’s role will be important, but we have to recognise that to a great extent, the commissioner will have to have independence from Departments. That is another aspect.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden talked about the supply chain and ensuring that businesses have due regard. I am sure that that theme will be raised on Tuesday when we are discussing home affairs and certainly when we debate the Bill itself. It is one of the most controversial issues, but it is essential. How far that is put into legislation will have to be discussed. I know that the Government, rightly, do not want to burden businesses with unnecessary regulation, but I think that most businesses, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden said, will want such provision for their own reputational advantage, so that they are seen not merely to pay lip service to having no slavery in their supply chain but to ensure that they do not. Nobody can be sure at any particular stage and some of the evidence we heard over recent months has put me off purchasing all sorts of items. For example, many of the prawns we get in this country, from Thailand and elsewhere, are produced in conditions, which, if we knew more about them, would make us very wary of buying them.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

The right hon. Gentleman is making a very good point. Does he agree that buyers in the UK can play a significant role unilaterally in this regard? There are half a dozen significant buyers in the garment and food sectors and should they choose to lead the field by saying that they will ensure that they are paying people what they need right down the supply chain, whatever part of the world they live in, so that they can live in dignity and bring up their families, that could go a long way.

[Sir John Randall]

To a great extent, they are doing that. The problem is that when their suppliers in another country tell them that everything is okay and not to worry, they accept that. It is sometimes very difficult to get right down to the problem and that is why many of us think that one director or the chief executive should have a legal responsibility, not to penalise that person but to help the company. In other words, so long as they are doing their very best they will not be hauled in front of everybody and publicly shamed if something is found to have gone wrong. The idea is to help businesses.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend also acknowledge the excellent work that has been done through the Department for International Development’s support in places such as Bangladesh, where the garment industry has been encouraged to improve its terms of work and the conditions for its staff? UK companies that take supplies from Bangladesh are being encouraged to work with DFID on that.

[Sir John Randall]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his work in this field. He is a very strong advocate and he is absolutely right. We have to work on this and must also increase public awareness. There is always a problem—I remember discussing it as a furnisher in the context of sustainable timber—in that some people, sad to say, do not care as long as a product is cheap enough. That is true of a lot of items. We must make it unacceptable to have available products produced by slave labour so that people will be unable to say, “Well, it’s cheap.” There should be no choice. We in this country should be free of the problem and we should set an example.

There are always things that I would have liked to have seen in the Queen’s Speech and things that I am delighted to see. If we can get a modern slavery Bill of which we can be genuinely proud onto the statute books in the 10 or 11 months left to us at the end of this Parliament, we will all be able to say that we were here when that happened.