Water Bill

Debate between Alison Seabeck and Dan Rogerson

Monday 25th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Dan Rogerson]

It is my intention that they will be available for the Committee to look at as soon as possible, but we have to get them right and make sure that they deliver what the Government and my predecessor agreed with the industry, so that we deliver effectively.

[Alison Seabeck]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way; he is being very decent with his time. Will he confirm that the new clauses will be available for the witness sitting, which will take place before the Committee considers the Bill? Will he make it clear that they will be available for the witnesses and not just the Committee?

[Dan Rogerson]

We would be much further forward had the previous Government done some of this work before they left office, but we have had to act on what we inherited, which, sadly, was very little.

Members have raised a number of other issues, including the use of council tax banding. I hope that all Members accept that that is a way forward. It may have some problems around the edges, but fundamentally it is the right approach. It is not my intention to move away from what was originally agreed, although the hon. Member for Cardiff North (Jonathan Evans) has made a case on behalf of his all-party group and Members who have an interest in issues such as band H and the 2009 cut-off.

The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) made an impassioned plea, understandably, for her constituents and the issues faced by communities such as Hull, which is constructed in such a way that it has historically been subject to flooding. My hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Tessa Munt) pointed out similar issues with her rural constituency. The agreement takes forward the work that was already in place. The hon. Lady set out the argument—although she came to a different conclusion from ours—that we do not wish to incentivise more building in areas prone to flooding, which explains the 2009 cut-off. The Government will respond to any argument for change, but our current view and, indeed, our agreement with the industry—which is, crucially, at the heart of this—is that that is the right way to proceed.

Regional Pay (NHS)

Debate between Alison Seabeck and Dan Rogerson

Wednesday 7th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Dan Rogerson]

I agree with the hon. Lady up to a point, in that there has been a narrowing in the “distance from target” figure. Of course, it is much easier to get closer to target when there is more cash around and more money is being put into the NHS—in the good times. That is when the distance from target should have been tackled. We are obviously very much not in the good times in terms of the economic circumstances, for reasons that all parties would agree with.

If the trusts continue down this path, and create efficiencies by doing so—as well as making life much more difficult for their valued employees—we run the risk of what I call the boa constrictor approach. Snakes that kill by constriction wait until their victim breathes out and then tighten up, so they cannot breathe in again. My worry is that if trusts in Cornwall make these changes first, before other areas, they will make it easier for the distance from target funding to continue. The view will be, “Well, they don’t need the cash now, because they’ve dealt with the problem.” But the burden will have been borne by NHS employees, and that cannot be right.

I think this process is wrong because, as hon. Members on both sides have pointed out, there is an existing process for NHS employers and employee representatives to engage in to examine terms and conditions and pay levels, and see where savings can be made.

[Alison Seabeck]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the document that became public contains clear reference to the fact that the consortium had already been working with those staff-side organisations effectively to find some changes? We need to build on that rather than pursue this policy.

[Dan Rogerson]

That is exactly the point that I was going to make. Given the history of the two sides of the House, it is interesting to note that the motion tabled by the Opposition does not refer to the role of the trade unions in these negotiations. However, the amendment calls on the Government

“to continue to support employers and trade unions to work together for the benefit of patients and staff.”

I very much agree with that. I do not think that the approach set out by this consortium—or cartel, as others have called it—goes along with that, and that is why the amendment would send a powerful signal to those employers to get back round the table with the representative organisations, the trade unions. I do not join in the trade union bashing—talking about Labour’s paymasters and so on. Having met trade union representatives here, as the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View and others have, I know that some give a certain amount of cash to the Labour party and that others do not. That does not matter. They are local representatives representing their staff and doing the job that they are there to do. I have always supported, and continue to support, officials having time to do that job, as it actually saves the public sector a great deal of money. There will be accord from some parts of the House on that issue, too.

This is about market-facing pay versus a top-down, imposed regional pay structure. The Deputy Prime Minister has said that we will not have that. I am delighted that he said that, and I support him. I think that all hon. Members on these Benches—including many of our coalition partners—would say that that is not the way to go. We are not going to have a regional structure that mandates a different level of pay in different parts of the country. However, there is a risk with the market-facing approach, of which the hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) seems unfortunately to be a fan, that that could happen via another route.

The argument has been made repeatedly that public sector pay somehow holds back private sector employment. That is absolute nonsense. The idea that the widget factory next door to the hospital is struggling to employ people, and that if we pay nurses less they might suddenly all decide to go and work in the widget factory, is absolute rubbish and I hope we can knock it on the head right here and now. However, if there are challenges facing the NHS, as there are in other public services, as a good employer it should get around the table and look at ways it can defend jobs and make sensible changes that have the support of the work force. Local government has done that in a lot of places. The challenges facing local government have been great, but in a number of areas that process has protected jobs, so it is possible. There is a national process under way to deal with that, as other hon. Members have said.

I am opposed to the process that is going on independently of national pay bargaining. The motion effectively states that the current system is encouraging that process and that the Secretary of State needs to step in and stop it. I would like a stronger message from the Secretary of State—do not get me wrong about this—and I hope that the Minister will listen to remarks from all parts of the House about the message that we would like the Department to be sending to the trusts. However, if I look at the motion and the amendment, it is the amendment that mentions the continued role of staff, employers and trade unions working together, and that is what I will be supporting tonight.

Water Industry (Financial Assistance) Bill

Debate between Alison Seabeck and Dan Rogerson

Wednesday 14th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Dan Rogerson]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hoyle. I follow the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), whom I customarily refer to as “Madam Chairman” in the Select Committee. Obviously, it is a delight still to be considering this Bill. We are doing so rapidly, in order to make progress and get it on the statute book, so that it can start delivering fairness for my constituents and those of other Members across Devon and Cornwall, and so that we can start putting in place the framework for the necessary works here in our capital.

Although the amendment and the new clause proposed by the hon. Member for Luton South (Gavin Shuker) present a number of opportunities for discussion, they will not necessarily take us that much further forward. The amendment makes a reasonable point: if in future the Secretary of State or any other Secretary of State wishes to use the enabling powers of the Bill to make a difference to another part of the country that seems to have been disadvantaged, that should be explained to the House. I would have thought that it would be extraordinary, however, for such a thing to happen without a great deal of public debate or decades of campaigning, such as that which we have experienced in Devon and Cornwall. Perhaps other parts of the country might have such a keen hold on the Secretary of State or any future Secretary of State that they could get it all pushed through within a matter of weeks, but I suspect that that would not be the case. The Treasury would want to know very plainly and in great detail why the money was required and why it was felt to be a priority.

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

From a south-west perspective, the money we are getting is clearly welcome. As the hon. Gentleman has mentioned, other parts of the country might have demands, and given drought measures and so on, there might be reservoirs or other very large schemes in small areas that might impinge on us as our water bill payers could be asked to pay towards the costs. That would not be unreasonable, as we are expecting the payment to go the other way. Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that, as the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) mentioned, the money is not ring-fenced and how it is spent in future will be at the discretion of the Secretary of State?

[Dan Rogerson]

The hon. Lady is referring to the money identified for the south-west, and the worry that it might, to use a watery phrase, be diluted and spread out across the country. I suspect that that could potentially happen, but I know that the coalition Government are absolutely committed to seeing this provision through for the people of Devon and Cornwall. Who knows what might happen under a future Government? I hope that they would take the plight of our water bill payers equally seriously and continue that level of support. The hon. Lady makes an interesting point.

As I understand it, the amendment seeks to ensure that if a Government wished to offer such support to further areas, a statutory instrument would have to be tabled and debated. I find it hard to believe that any Government would consider doing such a thing without a debate not only in this place but out in the country at large and, I am sure, a debate in the Treasury too, which would have to be conducted publicly as well as privately. I know that that has been the case with the programme we now have for Devon and Cornwall. Although I accept the logic of what the hon. Member for Luton South said, I will wait to hear what the Minister has to say in reply before I decide what approach to take. Naturally, I want to support the Government—as I would on every occasion, but particularly as regards the provisions in this Bill.

The new clause concerns social tariffs and the next steps that we might want to take to help people who are under water stress, which, as the hon. Gentleman pointed out, will still be a significant problem for people in the south-west after the support set out in the Bill is delivered. Of course, water stress is also a worsening problem in other parts of the country.

I am delighted to see that the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) is in her place. On Second Reading, when we debated this subject, I intervened on her and made the point that any social tariff within a water company area presents problems as well as opportunities. If there is to be a social tariff at a significant level for those experiencing the worst problems in an area such as the south-west, despite the fact that many people will benefit we must be aware that within an area with a small population, a huge amount of the funding for the tariff will be provided by people just above the qualification threshold. I am very worried that in-region social tariffs will be unable to deal with the problem. When the hon. Lady set out where she would like the Bill to be improved, she said that she would do something about national water tariffs. It is a shame that we do not have such a provision and Devon and Cornwall MPs have put the matter before the Government. I understand that there are issues with the Treasury’s response, as that might be regarded as a tax, but we must consider how we can address that situation.

I do not see how a league table will help, however. Indeed, it might mean that water companies were under pressure to introduce the tables in such a way that it might disadvantage those people about whom I was talking—those just above the threshold who will not benefit from the tariff but whose water bills will increase to pay for their hard-pressed neighbours.

Water Industry (Financial Assistance) Bill

Debate between Alison Seabeck and Dan Rogerson

Tuesday 6th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

rose—

[Dan Rogerson]

I suspect we will hear more about people in Plymouth who are in that situation.

[Alison Seabeck]

Actually, I rose to talk not about people in Plymouth but about the additional costs that the water company has had to bear of placing pumping stations in places that will not spoil tourists’ views of a harbour or a beach. That is certainly the case in some places in Cornwall. People do not see those costs but South West Water bill payers have been burdened with them.

[Dan Rogerson]

The hon. Lady makes an excellent point, and we can set that against the background of what others have said in this debate and in our previous debate on this. People in our part of the world have low incomes and comparatively high housing costs—not as high as those of constituents here in London, but much higher than in the north-west or the north-east. When combined with a low income, those costs are a significant pressure on people’s spending power.

I am delighted that the coalition Government have recognised that this problem needs to be dealt with, but it is not easy. The previous Government looked at the issue for some time and I pay tribute to those who have previously campaigned on this, including many Members who are still in the House. Members from my party and some Conservative Members, as well as Linda Gilroy, who was very useful to have involved, along with the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck) and the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw), all helped to put pressure on the then Labour Government to take action. We got as far as getting the Walker review, so I suppose we should be grateful for that.

[Alison Seabeck]

Before the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) leaves the Chamber—oh no, he has gone—I wanted to draw attention to something he said earlier about the problem being partly due to the fact that there were only three Labour MPs in the south-west. Clearly, it is about quality, not quantity, but on that premise, given that we have a very large number of MPs from the Government parties in the area now, I assume that everything we want in the south-west will happen. That was a little churlish because the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) is right that there was complete cross-party effort on this.

[Dan Rogerson]

I think we can point to the time before the Labour Government, during the early days of the privatised industry, when, although there was a preponderance of MPs in the area from the Government party, we did not get anything. We have to recognise that there has been a problem and that it is being dealt with to some extent.

The company still has work to do, so we are not looking at a static position. We are looking at the fact that, as the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr Offord) said in his excellent contribution in our previous debate on this issue, raw sewage is still being washed out. That happens in London, as the hon. Member for Hammersmith has described, and in coastal locations such as Trevone, which I mentioned in an intervention. Water companies argue that that is a very rare event, happening two or three times a year, but the statistics show that it happens far more than that. Rainfall patterns are changing and development patterns have changed. We have, fortunately, got some affordable housing and market housing built in some of those communities, but that has added to the burden on the sewerage systems, which are just not up to the job. South West Water still has work to do and it also has to take responsibility for taking over the private sewerage systems. I welcome that change, but it will add to the costs going forward. The measures are long overdue and will, I hope, help to offset some of the burden on bill payers.

I have some concerns about the debt model that has been agreed between Ofwat and the water companies. The debt that has been taken on over previous decades to provide infrastructure is not being paid off to any significant degree. Under the debt model, those loans are repackaged periodically.

The water companies and Ofwat argue that that is a great deal because it keeps the cost of borrowing down—if we were to start to pay off these things now, we would put bills up even higher. I see that, but I am concerned that, essentially, we are saying that the Government’s sensible proposal will have to continue for ever, because we will never, ever pay off some of the significant debt that has been arrived at to put in the infrastructure. I hope that Ofwat will continue to look at the issue, because my constituents come to me and say, “At least we must have paid off a lot of this money by now and we must be getting to the point where the bills will start to go down.” No we are not, because the debt is constantly repackaged. That issue perhaps needs to be examined.

Hon. Members have talked about national WaterSure, or social tariffs. I know that the advice from the Treasury is that that effectively amounts to a tax—we need to examine that—but any scheme that seeks to help those who are struggling the most ought to do so regardless of where those people live. Even after the welcome investment in tackling inequality in bills across the country, people in my constituency and in other constituencies across Devon and Cornwall—because of low income, high housing costs, and high water and sewage costs—will still be worse off than people in other parts of the country.

I accept that other hon. Members will say, “Come on, you are getting this and surely you must be satisfied with it,” but I will be satisfied when I think there is a fair deal for people in my constituency and in neighbouring constituencies. As I said in a Westminster Hall debate earlier this year—or perhaps at the end of last year; memory fails me—I hope that we reconsider having some sort of national tariff. If measures are kept within region, the pressure on the other bill payers will be so high that those measures will not be allowed to be significant enough to meet the need.

We also need to keep a close eye on the profits of the water companies. In an excellent contribution to the first part of the Second Reading debate, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) mentioned the sometimes arcane business models and the layers of companies that manage to pass on significant dividends. Ofwat could do more to look at the profits there. As my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives said, the leadership at South West Water is far better than it was and those people have engaged hugely with the campaign to deliver on this issue. They are being open and realistic about what is achievable, but all water companies need to consider the contribution that they, too, could make to perhaps providing a more generous WaterSure or social tariff scheme. We need to be vigilant about that.

Education Maintenance Allowance

Debate between Alison Seabeck and Dan Rogerson

Wednesday 19th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)]

I, too, will attempt to keep my remarks brief to allow as many hon. Members to speak as possible.

The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), the former Chair of the Select Committee, talked about the tough choices that face the Government. I welcome that, because although he has come to a different conclusion—he suggested bigger class sizes—at least it shows that he is thinking about these ideas and putting forward alternatives. Perhaps he has a firmer grasp on reality than his Front Benchers, who seem to be ignoring the pressures and pretending that we are living in an ideal world.

I certainly do not want to see changes that would lead to what Labour Members are intimating, which is that all the young people who could receive EMA will suddenly find themselves unable to go into post-16 education, but I do not believe that that will happen. Many young people are fighting hard to stay in education and to take the opportunities that are available to them, and there needs to be support for them in the form of the advanced fund that the Government propose. Support also needs to be given by working with local authorities to get them to face up to their statutory responsibilities to provide access.

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for mentioning the advanced fund. A constituent of mine who has two disabled children at City college Plymouth is unsure whether she will fall within the remit of that fund. Does he share her concern, and does he agree that it would have been helpful to see exactly what its criteria are before having this debate?

[Dan Rogerson]

The debate was called by Opposition Front Benchers. Perhaps if they had waited until we had that information, we could have had a more informed debate, but that was their decision.

EMA has undoubtedly made a difference to some people. The important thing is that whatever replaces it reaches those young people and keeps them in education, and empowers people who are in a similar situation in future. It is also clear that there are issues with EMA and examples of it not working, some of which were referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke). It is right for the Government to consider doing something slightly different, and I hope that that is better at reaching people and makes a difference to those who have not received the support that they need.

We are in an incredibly tough financial situation. It would be far easier for the Government, in terms of popularity, to ignore that, as the Opposition seek to do, and to carry on borrowing to fund spending that there is no money to meet, but we have chosen not to do that and to face up to some of these things. It is right for the Government to open up this issue and explore it, and for my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) to work on it and discuss ways forward.