Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Lyn Brown

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 30th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Gwynne]

It comes back to the point about bots. Even the most tech-savvy person cannot beat the bots, and once those bots get going, they sweep away all the tickets and genuine fans cannot get them. That is so unfair—almost as unfair as the extortionate prices that these companies charge for the tickets they have swept up using those bots.

[Ms Brown]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have families struggling to buy tickets for their children who are desperate to go and see x band or y band, and then they find themselves ripped off and unable to have that treat, which was massively looked forward to.

I give huge credit to my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) for her years of dedicated campaigning in this area. Her work has helped to bring this issue to the forefront of debate, and to make it clear that legal change is necessary to protect our cultural industries and consumers from the touts. We on the Opposition Benches have a clear policy to stamp out ticket touting so that no one is able to charge a large mark-up on resold tickets.

Community Payback

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Lyn Brown

Tuesday 28th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. There is another bonus because, when community sentences are done correctly, they provide payback—the clue is in the name—to communities affected by crime and they provide a form of restorative justice to victims of crime. A price cannot be put on that. It is justice in action, is it not?

[Ms Brown]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Community sentences work because they include punishment while maintaining a link to the community and enabling progress on the problems that drive crime in the first place. The link to the community is perhaps the most important thing, because it helps people to maintain the hope that is necessary to change their life. Community payback orders can give people experience of work that helps their neighbourhood to thrive. The work can and should be hard, but it should also be rewarding, which can, in and of itself, create a motivation for further change.

What are the barriers to making this kind of sentence work well? A lack of investment in the probation service is part of the problem. When I was a shadow probation Minister, I frequently heard of probation staff taking on huge, extraordinary numbers of cases. Good, valued probation staff are not just an early warning system for when an individual is going off the rails; they are agents of hope, healing and personal change. That can only happen if professionals are given the time and resources to develop the real relationships that are essential if we are to turn lives around. It is about understanding the needs, vulnerabilities and risks of the people they are supervising. We need probation staff who organise unpaid work to have good links with employers, councils, colleges and local charities. They need a range of opportunities to be available so they can tailor the service to a person’s skills and needs. Most of all, they need the necessary time and trust to inform the courts of the most effective, most appropriate and fairest type of sentence.

Civil Proceedings

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Lyn Brown

Tuesday 29th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Many of the people who are classed as clinically vulnerable, clinically extremely vulnerable or immunosuppressed are looked after by members of the family or friends who will come into the house to look after them, rather than by paid carers. Were free lateral flow testing to be extended at least to the CV, CEV and IS communities—not for those people themselves, but for the people coming in to communicate and interact with them—it would at least give them some degree of confidence that coronavirus is not being brought through the front door.

[Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

I reiterate what my hon. Friends the Members for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) and for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) have said about the immunosuppressed community and the most vulnerable. I too have had numerous emails from those who are very concerned about the direction of travel. The lack of access to lateral flow tests is particularly concerning, not only for those people, but for those they come into contact with. My general practitioner has spoken to me about his concerns about antivirals. Does my hon. Friend agree that the limited cohort to whom antivirals are available is very small? My GP and I are concerned that the Government are missing a trick on this one: allowing GPs to prescribe antivirals where they think it is essential might help massively to keep people out of hospital.

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend hits on an important point for debate at some stage in the near future. There is a concern that the cohort that has been drawn up for access to antivirals is not as wide as it could be, and certainly not as wide as in other European countries. We must also think about how we provide the maximum level of confidence to those communities.

For me, an ideal package to protect the immunosuppressed and clinically vulnerable would be the availability of free lateral flow tests for people coming to visit those who are clinically vulnerable or immunosuppressed, a drug such as Evusheld that would give at least 70% confidence—similar to the efficacy of the vaccine—to those people who are not able to be protected by the vaccine, and then access to antivirals if they become symptomatic.

I have asked the Minister on a number of occasions when we can expect information on the eligibility for free testing and have not even received an approximate date for when it will be published. That is totally unacceptable. We urgently need that clarity, given that we are three days away.

I draw colleagues’ attention to the provisions in the motions relating to sick pay that are set to expire. Here in the United Kingdom, we have one of the worst levels of sick pay in the OECD. Statutory sick pay currently sits at just £96.35; that, I am afraid, is shameful. I could not live on that and feed my family, and I am not sure the Minister could either. The 2 million low-paid workers who earn less than the lower earnings limit of £120 receive nothing. That is before we consider self-employed people, who continue to remain ineligible for statutory sick pay. Self-employed people were badly let down over the course of the pandemic. A recent study by the Community trade union shows that a majority of self-employed people were rejected from vital covid isolation support payments. In suspending the temporary provision that allowed workers to receive statutory sick pay from the first day of their illness, the Government are stubbornly sticking to their regressive attitude to sick pay, which will continue to have a lasting negative impact on public health.

In recent remarks, the Prime Minister urged the public to exercise “restraint and responsibility” to avoid spreading the virus. This Government love to lecture us on personal responsibility while also pricing people out of making the right decisions. We should not be forcing people to choose between putting food on the table or infecting their colleagues. As well as being morally reprehensible, the sorry state of sick pay in this country will lead to more workers getting sick, leading to worse public health outcomes and, in the long term, costing the country far more in reduced productivity.

British Sign Language Bill

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Lyn Brown

Friday 28th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

I am here to support the Bill, but I am also here to support my friend. My hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire (Rosie Cooper) and I came into Parliament together in 2005. She has been open and generous in talking to us about her life and her life experiences—sometimes funny, often sad—and I know that her mum and dad will be so massively proud. God is indeed good. I know how personal the Bill is to her, and I was surprised that she managed to get through the entire speech without having us all in tears. I am really grateful to the Minister for enabling the Bill to come to the House today, and with such a good wind.

I will not speak for long because I have seen the number of hon. Members who are present, and I am always worried that just a little bit too much enthusiasm for a Bill can cause it not to succeed. As a former Whip, I have used those tricks in the past, but I am sure that the Whips Office will be as good as gold today.

I think we in the UK should be very proud that our sign language has developed in the way it has over hundreds of years, through constant use and refinement by the deaf community. It is only right that British Sign Language be legally recognised, so that its tens of thousands of regular users are afforded the legal protections and equal respect that they are absolutely due. It is important that we all remember that for many people across this country, English is their second language and is used for writing and lipreading, while British Sign Language is their first language and primary language.

When public services and others do not recognise those facts and do not work together effectively to ensure that their communications and services are equally accessible to British Sign Language users, that is a major form of discrimination.

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful case in support of this excellent Bill. Our hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire (Rosie Cooper) gave her really personal experience of how, as a very young child, she had to communicate with adults and the adult world on behalf of her parents. That is a social justice issue for her parents and people like them, who have no other form of communication if British Sign Language is not provided by public services. The Bill recognises British Sign Language as an official language. Does that not push this agenda forward to ensure that public services serve all the public?

[Ms Brown]

I absolutely agree. The story about a child of a parent—we are all children of our parents—having to tell the parent about a terminal diagnosis when they are obviously coming to terms with it themselves, having heard it for the first time, is just so devastating. I genuinely do not think I would have been able to sit with my mum or dad and explain what a doctor had said, and tell them that their life was about to close. I just do not think I could have done it. To think that that is something that those in the deaf community have to experience often is tragic. It is unfair and it is discriminatory.

Discrimination in all its forms has to be tackled, because it harms us all. What my hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire talked about most eloquently was the fact that there is so much talent in the deaf community that is simply not allowed to be unlocked.

Local Government and Social Care Funding

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Lyn Brown

Wednesday 24th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Gwynne]

I will give way to my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) and then I need to make progress.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

I am grateful that my hon. Friend has mentioned children’s services. Clearly, the overspend on children’s services has hit a new high of £800 million—and of £12 million in Newham alone last year—and it is calculated that this funding gap will get to £2 billion by 2020. Is it not a complete and utter nonsense, and unsustainable for councils, to be told that they should be using what little reserves they still have to keep safe our very vulnerable children?

Disability Equality Training (Taxi and Private Hire Vehicle Drivers) Bill

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Lyn Brown

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 18th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to mention them.

Returning to the measures in the Bill, the Local Government Association is fully on board with my proposals, but we must ensure that local councils have the necessary tools at their disposal, so that they can properly administer the training scheme and ensure that the measures are being adhered to. Out of 297 visually impaired respondents to a Guide Dogs survey, 68% reported that they had not informed the authorities when an individual had refused them service. The most common reason they gave was that they did not believe anything would come of it. A freedom of information request and parliamentary questions that I have asked have made it clear that, since the practice of refusal became illegal in 2010, there were no convictions in 2011, there was one in 2012, one in 2013 and one in 2014. Yet we know that 42% of assistance dog users in any one year are refused a taxi service. There is a big problem here, and ignorance of the law is no justification. That is why training is absolutely crucial.

Let me be clear: those taxi and minicab drivers who are refusing to serve visually impaired and wheelchair passengers are breaking the law. The only exception for refusing someone with an assistance dog is on medical grounds, and for that they have to have a certified medical certificate permanently on display in the taxi. They cannot just turn up at a kerbside and decide that they will not take a dog because of some spurious allergy that they have just decided they have.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

I had not intended to speak on the Bill given the time, but I heard the Minister and I want to give my hon. Friend’s Bill good wind. Does he agree that training, which is covered by his Bill, is absolutely essential? Even when people want to assist and they know what their duties are under the law, they can still fall foul of it. For instance, there was a report of a dog that had to travel in the sealed boot of a car. That cannot be right; training is necessary.

Psychoactive Substances Bill [Lords]

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Lyn Brown

Wednesday 20th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Lyn Brown]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. Wales has a very impressive education programme, and I will come to that later in my contribution.

New clause 1 seeks to amend the Education Act 2002 to make personal, social, health and economic education include a focus on drugs and new psychoactive substances. It should be a foundation subject in any national curriculum. The Government’s drug education strategy contains some warm words about providing good quality education and advice so that young people and their parents are provided with credible information on actively resisting substance misuse, but these warm words are not, and were not, acted upon. The coalition Government reversed Labour’s plans to make PSHE a statutory requirement, despite that being recommended in the review carried out by Sir Alasdair Macdonald. They closed the drugs education forum, a source of expertise on drugs education in England which disseminated information to teachers across the country. The forum was closed as part of a drastic cut in drugs education spending. According to the Department of Health, drugs education spending was reduced from £3.9 million in 2009-10 to around £500,000 in 2010-11.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an important point about the need for PSHE to include these measures. Given that Five Year Forward view set out by Simon Stevens for the national health service assumes £5 billion-worth of savings coming from prevention, is this not exactly the kind of prevention we should be promoting in our schools?

[Lyn Brown]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If I remember my facts rightly, the Government estimated that having a comprehensive drugs education would cost approximately £500 for every pupil in England and Wales. If we offset that against the average of nearly £1 million that would be spent on a person misusing substances over the course of their lifetime, we can see it can be cost-effective to provide decent, comprehensive drugs education and so stop us spending at the other end, on people misusing and abusing substances.

Statistics provided by Mentor UK, the drug and alcohol charity, demonstrate that this was a disastrous set of decisions by the Government. Some 60% of schools now teach drugs education for one hour or less per year, and 59% of pupils say they cannot remember having a drugs education lesson in the last year. Paul Tuohy, former chief executive of Mentor, has told a national newspaper:

“We are probably in the worst situation for drug education for decades.”

Where there is drugs education in our schools, the quality is questioned. Ofsted found that 40% of PSHE teaching was not good and needed to improve. A 2013 survey of teachers by the PSHE Association reported that 81% of respondents would like more classroom resources for drugs and alcohol education.

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[Andrew Gwynne]

I agree with my hon. Friend’s approach to this matter, as it makes a lot of sense. The Government’s approach could create uncertainty and send out mixed messages not just to the gay community, but to the population at large.

[Lyn Brown]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Let us look at the context and the evidence. Poppers have been used recreationally in Britain for more than 30 years, and, in all that time, no Government—not one—have sought to ban them. The word “poppers” is used to describe a group of different chemical compounds, some of which carry more potential harms than others. They are a popular substance in some sections of the gay community because, I am told, they enhance sexual experience. The National AIDS Trust argues that amyl nitrite and butyl nitrite are relatively rare in Britain because they are regulated by the Medicines Act 1968 and by EU law. As a result of that regulatory regime, the most common compound of poppers in the UK is isopropyl nitrite, which is weaker and does not pose a significant health risk.

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[Lyn Brown]

I agree that if we do not place poppers on the exempt list today, we are likely to replace a regulated market with a criminal market, which is in no one’s interest.

[Andrew Gwynne]

The situation is worse than that set out by my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn). What is likely to happen if we make poppers illegal is that a gay man who uses poppers to enhance sexual pleasure may well be tempted to go on the black market and use a Class A or Class B drug, which would increase the risk of unprotected sex and, as a consequence, sexually transmitted infections.

[Lyn Brown]

I totally agree. My hon. Friend probably puts it better than I could.

Psychoactive Substances Bill [ Lords ] (Second sitting)

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Lyn Brown

Tuesday 27th October 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Lyn Brown]

The amendment would specifically exempt poppers from the controls contained within the Bill. I am aware that the Home Affairs Committee, as the hon. Member for Midlothian stated, received plenty of evidence on the issue. It concluded that poppers ought to be excluded from the scope of the ban in the Bill. Organisations including the National AIDS Trust and the Gay Men’s Health Collective argued that harm from poppers was low due to the effective regulation of the compounds amyl nitrate and butyl nitrate. Not exempting poppers from the list of psychoactive substances would take the use of alkyl nitrates outside of any regulation.

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend is right to talk about the health of gay men in particular. Is she as concerned as I am that one of the unintended consequences of banning poppers could be the use of harder drugs and the risk from that not only in potential mental health problems of those that are using them but also sexual health because of the heightened risk of unprotected sex and sexually transmitted infections?

[Lyn Brown]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. One of the arguments against poppers is also that it could adversely impact on the sexual health of those imbibing. That argument can be used both ways. My hon. Friend is absolutely right; the Home Affairs Committee is quite clear that if we do not exempt poppers that could lead to increased health harms.

Dr Owen Bowden-Jones, a consultant psychiatrist and lead clinician for the Club Drug Clinic at the North West London NHS Foundation Trust, stated:

“As far as I can speak as a clinician, I do not think I have ever seen anybody come through”—

our clinic

“with harms related to poppers”.

Professor Iversen of the ACMD also stated that the ACMD had not seen

“sufficient scientific evidence”

that would prove harm in the case of poppers

“to justify a recommendation under the Misuse of Drugs Act.”

He was also not aware of any growth in the use of poppers.

I had supper last night with my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who told me that the long medical history of the former Member and Labour Foreign Secretary Ernie Bevin meant he took poppers around the Cabinet table quite regularly. Apparently, that was because his doctor told him he had no sound organ left in his 18-stone body apart from his feet, and the poppers kept him going.

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[Lyn Brown]

But there are other things that are moving us away from that, too. The Bill does not talk about criminalising possession, so its focus is clearly on the dangerous, nasty stuff sold in glitzy, pretty packets in head shops, which are targeted at teenagers and young adults in our communities. We might not be mirroring the 1971 Act, but we are genuinely attempting to tackle the real problem of the nasty stuff on our doorsteps. We want to get to the suppliers and get this stuff out of our communities, but we should not criminalise young people who may be completely unaware that the “legal highs” that they have been taking are in fact illegal.

[Andrew Gwynne]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. She makes an important point about personal gain, because there could be a scenario in which prosecutors would still be able to make a clear distinction for somebody who is clearly profiting from the sale of a currently legal high, even if they happen to know the person to whom they are selling on a social basis. That is an important distinction that prosecutors ought to be able to make.

[Lyn Brown]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend.

If the Minister cannot accept our amendments, I ask him at least to provide strong assurances that sentencing guidelines will be drawn up in a way that makes a distinction between social suppliers and suppliers for financial profit.

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[Lyn Brown]

I understand that we will come to that later in the Bill with an amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate, who has been testing my thoughts on the legislation. I look forward to hearing from him on that.

As I have stated, a similar notion to the one I have been expounding already exists in the guidelines for sentencing under the 1971 Act. I would like to be assured that the Minister will work with the Director of Public Prosecutions to ensure that prosecutions are brought only when there is a clear public interest, which I would suggest there is not in the case of many social suppliers. I would find some reassurance in knowing that the Government will do what they can to ensure that the Bill is intelligently enforced.

[Andrew Gwynne]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham, with whom I agree that amendments 46 and 52 are so similar as to be almost indistinguishable. I very much hope that the Minister will consider adopting them.

I welcome this moment of harmony between Labour Members and our colleagues north of the border. Both amendments make a pertinent point: although it is right that the supply of existing drugs is considered an offence even if the supplier is not supplying them for personal gain, we should be very wary of criminalising those who are simply part of, say, a small group of individuals who have conspired to obtain psychoactive substances. That point was well made by my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham.

We are still in the early stages of controlling psychoactive substances. We should start from a presumption of ignorance for those not seeking to profit from the flow of such substances. My hon. Friend is absolutely right—I am sure that she does not speak from personal experience; she keeps protesting, so we will take her at her word—that the reality of drug experimentation, I am led to believe, is one of shared experiences. There is a qualitative difference between a group of young people procuring substances for shared use and a profiteer on the high street. The way in which clause 5 is currently drafted makes no distinction between those people and large-scale commercial suppliers; I have to say that that is just wrong. It is true that sometimes friends can be part of a supply chain, but they are right at the end of it. We should not, at this stage at least, impose a criminal record on a young person who gives some of these substances to their friends.

The Labour party is fully supportive of the principle of criminalising those who seek to make money from this pernicious trade. When someone is in the business of selling dangerous substances, we can assume they will be following developments regarding the illegality of their work, so I am firmly behind clause 5 in a general sense. Nevertheless, I urge the Minister to consider very carefully the fact that the amendment is intended to adopt a principle included in the 1971 Act: one of “personal gain”. Prosecutors could then still make a distinction regarding somebody who quite clearly profits from this trade, even if, as I said in an intervention, they happen to know the customer in a social capacity.

I note the reasoning behind subsection (3), and I approve of it. It must be made clear that the substance not being of a psychoactive nature is not a defence in itself if the supplier intimated that the substance would have such an effect, notwithstanding the fact that he or she would have no doubt trading standards on their case.

I urge the Minister to think carefully about this. The point made by my hon. Friend and, indeed, echoed by the SNP amendment is that we need to tread very carefully, so that we do not end up criminalising young people for the sake of it. We want to tackle the real issue, which is the supply of the psychoactive substances we want to ban.

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[Lyn Brown]

The greatest benefit of the amendment is that it would formally recognise that someone ought not to receive the same sort of punishment for supplying a relatively harmless substance as someone supplying a substance which they ought to know could be very dangerous. It keeps the traditional link between harm and sentencing, which is an important principle, without wrecking the Bill.

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend makes an important point on the issue of harm and sentencing. We probably all agree in the Committee that it should be the intention of the law that the more harmful the substance being supplied, the harsher the sentence should be for that supply.

[Lyn Brown]

Absolutely. I think that were this included in the Bill it could have a deterrent effect on those involved in supply and change the nature of the market towards less harmful psychoactive substances. I note that the Scottish National party has an alternative amendment which seeks to achieve a similar end. I will repeat what I said when we found ourselves in the same situation when discussing how to exclude social supply: I am very happy to work with other parties and with the Government in order to ensure that our shared goals are reached. I hope that they take this offer in the serious manner in which it is intended.

I look forward to the Government’s response with interest. They will know that this is an issue which has exercised supporters and opponents of the Bill alike, and that if a way round the problem can be reached, we ought to grasp it. Our amendment has the potential to bring even more consensus to the Bill.

Psychoactive Substances Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Lyn Brown

Tuesday 27th October 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s flattering remarks. The United Kingdom is a world leader in research of this kind. Does my hon. Friend share my concern that the unintended consequence of parts of the Bill may be to inhibit some of that research? We need to ensure, therefore, that the Bill is absolutely tight, so that that research can continue.

[Lyn Brown]

I certainly agree. On Second Reading, my hon. Friend said:

“Would it not be a tragedy if the United Kingdom, one of the leading research nations in the world, avoided finding a cure for some awful psychiatric disorder due to our failure to include the appropriate exemptions for scientists?”—[Official Report, 19 October 2015; Vol. 600, c. 779.]

Thanks to pressure exerted on the Government, Lord Bates, who led the Bill through the Lords for the Government, wrote to Lord Rosser and other peers to state that the Government were actively considering the issue and were in discussion with the ACMD. He pledged that the Government would table amendments addressing concerns about medical research during the Commons Committee stage. His colleague, Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen, stated that the Government have no intention of stopping “bona fide research”. I am glad that the Government listened to Labour’s concerns and have delivered on Lord Bates’s promise by introducing a new clause that will specifically exempt academic activities. I absolutely support the amendments.

However, I cannot help but feel that the Government could have avoided the need hastily to draft the amendments and table some significant information if they had properly consulted the ACMD before they produced the first draft of the Bill. This has been a very quick—I would not say rushed—Bill. We had Second Reading in the Commons a week ago and here we are in Committee, and there are still issues that are yet to be completely ironed out in Committee to make the Bill enforceable in our courts of law.

We need to take into consideration organisations such as the ACMD, which consists of leading experts on drugs, many of whom work in academia. If they had been consulted on the original draft of the Bill, they would undoubtedly have spotted the problems with the Government’s original plans. The amendment could have been in the Bill from the beginning, and parliamentary time could have been spent more productively in looking at the goals of the Bill and how well the Bill will help the Government to achieve them.

[Mike Penning]

At the outset, I want to say that legislation is passed in Parliament by introducing a draft Bill, which is then scrutinised. I welcome the scrutiny that took place in the Lords. The reason why the Bill started in the Lords—this is probably above my pay grade—is that there are so many genuine experts there. Perhaps if it had started in this House the same amendments would have been introduced by colleagues on both sides of the House. I do not mind that; colleagues who know me well enough know that I am pragmatic.

I have a couple of points about the shadow Minister’s comments. This should have been done years ago under previous Administrations—I think we all know that. For every day that we do not do this, people are dying. I accept that it is rushed, to a degree—there was a huge gap between the Bill being in the Lords and coming to us—but it is right and proper for this House to expedite the Bill, while doing everything possible about any anomalies that generally concern groups of people, in particular on the research side. If there were any such anomalies in the legislation, I would let no one prevent us from changing things. That is why we have tabled the amendments. Unashamedly, I have already mentioned belt and braces. If we need to amend things further as we go on, we will do so, so that we do not prevent research in such an important area.

I wanted to touch on the scrutiny work done in the other House. I sat in on the debate on Second Reading and Report, on the steps of the Throne—it is a great honour to be able to do such things—and it was fascinating. One group of people was fundamentally opposed, as in our House, but it was a tiny group. We got around bits such as “Will this affect people in churches with incense?” and, once we had got rid of that stuff, we could actually ask, “Does the Bill do what it says on the tin?” and “Does it allow the research to continue to take place?” which is absolutely vital. New clause 3 would improve the Bill, and that is why we can take out clause 10. That is because we were listening, and this is the way forward.

Amendment 2 agreed to.

Question proposed, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.

Apprenticeships and Skills (Public Procurement Contracts) Bill

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Lyn Brown

Friday 1st November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Gwynne]

Were that to succeed, then yes, but the hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do that some Government Departments, public bodies and local authorities would still be saying “We cannot do this.” Introducing legislation giving them the power to ask to be allowed to do it, if it is what they want to do, will make the position clear to all. The Bill is not prescriptive; it does not compel those bodies to act. On the contrary, it empowers them.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

When I read the Bill, I thought to myself “This is a wonderful Bill. It is all motherhood and apple pie. It is fabulous.” Now I am struggling to understand why there is so much Conservative resistance to a Bill that will simply give our young people a decent start in life. What can possibly be wrong with that?

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head. I am confident that by the end of my speech and those of other Labour Members, the sceptics sitting opposite me will be won over to the cause of young people in their constituencies, which is equal to that of young people in Newham, Tameside, Salford, Hull, Newcastle, Liverpool, Birmingham, Scunthorpe and Scotland.

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[Andrew Gwynne]

For a young person. That can be carried out in a variety of ways, one of which the hon. Gentleman outlined. Of course, however, it would be incumbent on that company or group of companies to explain what it is doing as part of the bid process. It would then be down to the public body to determine whether that meets its aims and ambitions for its local economy, but he is right in what he says.

Through the Tameside apprenticeships scheme, the local council has committed to helping small companies such as the ones the hon. Gentleman mentioned to take on apprentices, in response to feedback received about the difficulties they may experience. Those difficulties relate particularly to the construction sector, and some other sectors, where an employer cannot guarantee that contracts will last for the full 12 months or more of the apprenticeship. Tameside apprenticeships, a partnership between Tameside council, Tameside college, New Charter housing trust and the Tameside learning provider network has set a target to achieve 100 additional apprenticeships in the borough in the next 12 months.

If the employer has to withdraw from the agreement, the council has undertaken to pay the apprentices’ wages for a month while a replacement employer is found. As I have already said, the 50:50 scheme set up by Tameside council also provides up to 50 apprenticeship grants of £1,000 each to employers who take on 16, 17 or 18-year-old Tameside residents. It has been a huge success.

Good apprenticeship opportunities are also offered by the local housing association, New Charter housing trust. During apprentice week this year, it showed its continued support for apprentices with a pledge to take on at least 20 people from April, doubling the number of apprentices from the previous year. The trust has apprentices in a range of roles across the company including in administration, domestic gas engineering, painting and decorating and plastering—all good apprenticeships that can offer a ladder to a future career. New Charter has also taken on a role as lead partner in a new housing apprenticeship scheme for Greater Manchester called “Foundations in Housing”, working with other housing associations across the county.

In the Stockport part of my constituency, there is the 100 apprenticeships in 100 days initiative. Stockport council, which, incidentally, is Liberal Democrat controlled—I do not often have good words to say about the Liberal Democrats but today I will break the habit of a lifetime, even though it is noticeable that no Liberal Democrats have turned up to support the Bill—has worked with local employers to get them to take on more apprentices. Within the 100 days, the scheme’s target of 100 apprentices was soon reached and the campaign will now run until mid-November. It has been such a success that it has secured about 152 extra apprentices so far.

I also want to consider some of the good work being done by central Government. We know that since July 2011, the Department of Work and Pensions has been operating its apprenticeships and skills requirement contract schedule, which requires:

“The Contractor shall and shall procure that its Sub-contractors shall take all reasonable steps to ensure that 5% of their employees are on a formal apprenticeship programme.”

We can see from that initiative how the same formula could be applied directly elsewhere and in other Government Departments beside the DWP. Many more apprenticeship places could be created if the Government really wanted to expand apprenticeships in the public sector and through public procurement. I believe that my Bill can help the Government to facilitate that.

What better spur to action can there be for the two thirds of businesses that still do not offer apprenticeships than the knowledge that they are crucial to the Government and to working with the Government? Government, whether local or national, realises that it must be the responsibility of public procurement to do all it can to give young people a chance to get experience as an apprentice. Having an hands-off approach is simply not good enough and I commend the Government for recognising that in at least one of their Departments.

As I said in my opening remarks, all Members of this House celebrate the value of apprenticeships in providing opportunities and developing the skills of our work force and our future work force. We need to have more quality apprenticeship opportunities, however, particularly for young people at a time when nearly 1 million young people are out of work. I believe that my Bill would be useful and helpful to the Government in promoting that. It is common sense that the Government and public authorities are uniquely placed to use the leverage of the money that they already spend on procurement of public services to promote skills training and to provide new apprenticeship opportunities. That should be part of the procurement process.

The Bill is a relatively simple idea. Every supplier winning public contracts worth more than £1 million may be required to offer apprenticeship opportunities if that is the desire of the relevant public body. The Bill is not prescriptive and it does not compel, but it does empower. It would mean that companies applying for certain public procurement projects could be asked to include and offer quality apprenticeships as part of their bid if the public body wants that. My Bill would ensure that all apprenticeships offered as part of a public procurement contract would have to be advertised to all local workers, ensuring that those looking for a job would have a chance to apply and to be successful.

My Bill focuses on advanced and higher level apprenticeships, at levels 3 and 4, to ensure that we have apprenticeships that can rival university degrees. We should consider that point, given that in my constituency 68% of young people—and no doubt a similar proportion in the constituencies of other right hon. and hon. Members—or 50% of young people across the country do not have the opportunity to obtain a higher education qualification.

[Lyn Brown]

My hon. Friend is most generous in giving way. In my constituency, a firm called Kesslers has an amazing apprenticeship programme. It takes young people from the local area and trains them up to a high level. Its biggest problem is that it cannot get the higher education sector to hear its needs so that it can take its apprenticeships even further up the educational tree. Does my hon. Friend agree that higher education has a part to play in apprenticeships and we must encourage the providers to supply the courses that are needed to allow our young people to go as far as they possibly can?

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the consequences of the provisions in my Bill will be a snowball effect. If public bodies, in particular, demand higher and advanced level qualifications as part of the apprenticeship deal more often, the greater the likelihood that higher education institutions will offer the qualifications that are relevant to the industries concerned. I think that from small things big things will grow. I am encouraged that my hon. Friend is in the Chamber today, because she speaks passionately about the job and work opportunities for her constituents. Like me, she represents a deprived community where educational opportunities are often the best route out of poverty. We know that in our communities public procurement is often the big spender. Using that money more wisely to help lift the job opportunities, skills and ambitions of young people in Newham and in Denton and Reddish is the best way of giving them opportunities for the future and of boosting the local economy.

As I said, many local authorities are already leading the way in their use of procurement to boost apprenticeship numbers. Not only my council, Tameside, but Knowsley, Sheffield, Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool and many others are developing strategies to use procurement contracts to create local apprenticeship opportunities for young people. Other authorities such as Plymouth, Bury—the authority of the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) —Reading and Stockport are engaging actively with local employers to boost apprenticeship opportunities more generally.

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[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

First, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) on introducing such a Bill. I have never been so lucky as to be successful in the ballot, but perhaps if I am here for another year or so I might finally get the success that has eluded me.

My hon. Friend has also been lucky in the Minister who is on the Front Bench today—the Minister of State, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd)—as he is a decent and good man. He and I sat here for many Friday mornings putting the Sustainable Communities Bill through the House. I hesitate to suggest, because I realise that I might be damning his career badly by this, that he truly does understand this kind of soft regeneration issue. If one took the Sustainable Communities Bill down to its last detail, one could have argued that it was not necessary because we could have done all the things in it without having to pass legislation. However, it was an empowering Bill and it meant a lot to the third sector. So my argument is that not only is this Bill a good one in its own right, but it follows the trajectory taken by the Minister in his own private Member’s Bill that was passed under the previous Government. I therefore have a lot of faith that his response will be hopeful and positive, and will allow this Bill to progress to the next stages, to allow my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies)—I hope I may call him that—to table his amendments. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish would welcome him on the Committee.

I wish to draw on the experience of the London Legacy Development Corporation, which is undertaking excellent work in my constituency and neighbouring constituencies to transform the legacy of the Olympic games into an enduring benefit for local people. I hope that that legacy will endure for generations to come. Since October 2012, the LLDC has been delivering a large programme of construction works at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic park to clear the games-time overlay, including temporary venues, walkways and roads. It is connecting the park with the new roads, cycle paths and pedestrian paths that criss-cross over the site, connecting it to the surrounding area. It is also completing permanent venues, bridges and parklands for their legacy use.

The scheme is a £229 million transformation programme and it has presented the LLDC with its first opportunity to deliver against its strategic aim of being a catalyst for regeneration and convergence in east London and its public commitment in terms of the employment and skills benefit during post-games construction.

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend is making a compelling case about how public procurement can lever in those skills and training opportunities for young people in quite a deprived part of the country, but is it not the case that too few public bodies in her constituency in east London are making use of those opportunities? Would my Bill not help to lever in those extra training opportunities as an enabling power for those public bodies?

[Lyn Brown]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The reason I so want to talk about the LLDC is that it has an innovative way of delivery, which might help him in his arguments with our friend on the Government Benches about the issue of small companies not being able to deliver on this scale. We are talking about a new vehicle to achieve my hon. Friend’s aims.

May I say to my hon. Friend that I think he has missed an opportunity, but I am hoping he will correct that as we go on this afternoon, which is to draw attention to the wonderful Minister and encourage him, through our warm words and congratulations, and the heartfelt faith that we have in his abilities, to support the Bill today?

[Andrew Gwynne]

I do not wish to pile even more praise on the Minister, but I have every confidence that he shares our ambition to raise the skills and job opportunities of people in places such as Newham and Denton and Reddish and I am confident that when he comes to the Dispatch Box he will have lots of nice things to say about the Bill. We are not too far apart and what differences we have can be ironed out in Committee.

[Lyn Brown]

Indeed they can, and the Minister knows just how exciting such a Committee can be, having been through that process himself.

The LLDC’s focus has been on the creation of job and apprenticeship opportunities in legacy for local people, especially for young people and underrepresented groups who face significant barriers to entering or returning to the labour market. The principal vehicle for delivering those benefits has been embedding them as a requirement in procurement.

Through its social and economic policy, the legacy corporation has developed an approach that uses its procurement processes to assess a bidder’s track records and proposals for securing local social and economic benefits. I remind hon. Members that the LLDC is not some socialist organisation capturing the regeneration opportunities in east London. It is, in fact, a vehicle of the Mayor of London, who would not wish, I think, to be called “one of these outrageous socialist types”. He might possibly rail against such an accusation. It is his programme that has determined that the LLDC will use its procurement in this way.

One of the arguments made by the hon. Member for Shipley, who, sadly, is no longer in his place—I know that he has not left the Chamber because I am speaking—was that it would take too long to go through an assessment process for each of the preferred contractors to prefer the contractors who delivered on the apprenticeships. The gentleman who runs London obviously disagrees, because his processes are clearly about assessing a bidder’s track record and proposals for securing economic benefits and determining a contract based on those assessments. He also wishes to embed those commitments contractually and works in partnership with the contractors, operators, tenants and development partners to deliver them.

[Andrew Gwynne]

I do not wish to take the name of the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) in vain as he is not in his place—although he has left his presence in the Chamber in the shape of a lone copy of the Daily Mail. So let me ask my hon. Friend: is she aware whether the Mayor of London has had any problems with the European Commission as regards public procurement?

[Lyn Brown]

I am not. I would assume that we would have heard if there had been any particular difficulties with said establishment and the procurement processes for London.

As the Bill is not, as my hon. Friend said, about forcing people to do things, the important point is that the Mayor and his offices are working with contractors to develop and deliver his aims. It is not about forcing, but about enabling and empowering.

The Mayor also wants to focus on early intervention with contractors, so that they understand their requirements and co-ordinate delivery. That makes perfect sense to me.

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[Andrew Gwynne]

Is it not a good thing that my Bill would give the Mayor of London the ability to say to those contractors, “As Mayor of London, I expect a certain proportion of the apprenticeships that you are providing to be of a higher or an advanced level”?

[Lyn Brown]

It is indeed, but the dialogue with the contractors is clearly what is essential in this process, and my hon. Friend’s Bill provides the Mayor of London and others with a vehicle to say to them, “See? It is here in black and white. It is law. I am entitled to do this. This is something I am enabled to do by Parliament, but I would like to work with you as a contractor, to get the best from you and from the programme.”

The Mayor also delivers and develops interventions with the borough partners, so all the London boroughs are enabled to be in partnership with the programme. He works with Jobcentre Plus—let us face it, that can only be a good thing—and he works with the Greater London authority to embed best practice and partnership working to support contractors in fulfilling their obligations. How can that be a bad thing? The Bill provides the Mayor of London and his organisations with the opportunity to show contractors that they are not acting illegally by undertaking this process.

[Andrew Gwynne]

Does my hon. Friend think it is a good or a bad thing that her constituents in West Ham will have access to job adverts in their local jobcentre, rather than having to guess where such opportunities are advertised?

[Lyn Brown]

I absolutely do think it is important that we are working with jobcentres. In Newham we have an excellent programme called Workplace, in which local employers work with the local council and Jobcentre Plus to advertise local positions locally before they are advertised regionally or nationally. That can only be a good thing in an area with the deprivation indices that we have. It is one way of embedding into the area an economic and social legacy for the people that I represent.

The other good thing about what the LLDC is doing is that it adds value and avoids duplication with the existing employment and skills provision of the London boroughs. We are not talking about something that becomes unwieldy, or that is not welcomed by the other host boroughs. When we are recreating infrastructure and targeting delivery according to the needs of the park, we ensure that it is done in the most cost-effective way.

The LLDC is tailoring its approach to the specific needs of the contracts in the programme. We are not asking employers to take on apprenticeships and to have apprenticeships that are not consistent with what they are contracted to undertake. That is another good thing. The Bill would not require the LLDC to change its modus operandi at all; it gives a platform on which the LLDC can base its apprenticeship programme. Obviously, it promotes best practice in recruitment and promotes the London living wage or the construction working board agreements—whichever is higher. I am sure that every Member in the Chamber would applaud that.

There is a strong client commitment to delivering jobs and apprenticeships, which means ensuring that these elements are sufficiently weighted in the pre-qualification questionnaire and invitation-to-tender evaluations. The Bill sends an important message to bidders about the importance of this agenda to the LLDC. The need for apprenticeships is there. It is in the pre-qualification questionnaire. If you want to—I am sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker; I know that you will not want to qualify as a contractor at the LLDC, although you could should you wish to, of course.

Any company that wishes to qualify to take a contract with the LLDC has to submit a completed questionnaire. One of the questions in it is, “Are you prepared to offer apprenticeships?” If the company is not prepared to do so, it might get a bit cross. It might think to itself, “Why should I have to?” The Bill will point to the fact that the LLDC is entitled to place that requirement in its pre-tender questionnaire.

The LLDC makes sure that contractors are aware of everything in its procurement pipeline, and uses the principle of relevancy to identify appropriate evaluation questions and weighting. Externally, the LLDC ensures that bidders are clear about the regeneration aims and objectives of the LLDC—convergence and so on. I know that we all understand what that means.

Crucially, the LLDC provides contractors with enough information to know what kind of commitment they are making. It specifies the commitment that companies will have to make in order to get the contract. It is clear that companies will be monitored, evaluated and held to account for what they deliver or fail to deliver. The Bill will make sure that those companies understand that the LLDC is not asking anything of them that it is not entitled to do.

The LLDC asks bidders to set targets for apprenticeships for under-represented groups such as black and minority ethnic communities, disabled people, previously unemployed people, people who have been unemployed for a very long time, and women. I hope you do not mind, Madam Deputy Speaker, if I digress for a moment and say that one of the things that I liked about the apprenticeship programme for the building of the Olympic sites was how it encouraged women into construction industries.

One of the things I learned from sitting in a digger truck and trying to excavate the earth at the Olympic park was that employers liked women using their equipment, because we are gentler on it and the equipment lasts longer if women are employed to use it. I know this from my own experience of driving a car and using the clutch, but my husband disagrees somewhat.

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[Lyn Brown]

Indeed they do.

The LLDC also seeks a firm commitment to this approach in the procurement by its contractors, so not only is the LLDC looking at its own people, but at the secondary chain. The expectation of apprenticeships goes further than just the one tier. We know that a big contract is let to a contractor, who lets to subcontractors. The LLDC has ensured that procurement for apprenticeships goes further down the line than the initial contract. In future, should anybody ever query its right to do so, the LLDC will be able to point to the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish to show that it is quite entitled to ask for that commitment.

The LLDC will also evaluate its contractors on the proposals for working with boroughs to make sure that they are getting the most from those apprenticeships. I, like most hon. Members present, have an active third sector in the provision of training opportunities for young people. Community Links in my constituency is continually involved in finding young people who have become particularly disaffected at school or thereafter, helping to put them back on track. It will be able to refer to the LLDC a young person whom they think is right for an apprenticeship. That kind of partnership has real ramifications for our communities. If we ramp them up properly and use procurement in this way, and if we demonstrate by law that we, the LLDC and public bodies are entitled to use procurement in this very socially acceptable and socially manipulative way, we can see—

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend is making a superb contribution today. I commend to her the work of Stockport Engineering Training Association Ltd in my constituency, a training company that has been established by industries in the north-west, mainly engineering, railway and nuclear industries, to provide training and apprenticeship opportunities for young people. It is concerned that the number of schemes coming through its centre has fallen in recent years. Should we not address that through public procurement?

[Lyn Brown]

I agree with my hon. Friend. Giving local authorities and procurement authorities the confidence that they can use procurement in this way to create apprenticeships and use it for the benefit and betterment of our communities can only be a good thing. I am sure that the Minister will not close his ears to our entreaties to allow the Bill to continue into Committee.

Surely it is in everybody’s interests that contractors deliver jobs and apprenticeships and make the commitment to them, as the LLDC has, as a key partner in east London, bringing significant locally based employment and skills infrastructure to support recruitment needs. It encourages an open and regular conversation with contractors and their supply chains, beginning immediately upon the contract being signed. As we know, it begins before that, because that is what good relationships are about, but, make no mistake, when the contract is signed, it is expected that the companies will deliver and honour the commitments that they have made to the apprenticeships in those local areas.

We need to ensure that the changing trends in the construction industry, such as the higher levels of subcontracting and shorter construction programmes, have made it difficult for some firms to offer traditional apprenticeships. In response to that issue, and to ensure delivery on the public commitments, the legacy corporation has commissioned REDS10. I want hon. Members to remember that name. I do not want any Government Members to have palpitations; this is not a socialist programme. REDS does not refer to the colour of its politics—

[Andrew Gwynne]

Shame.

[Lyn Brown]

It is indeed. It is merely a descriptive word that the LLDC has chosen to deliver the transformation job and apprenticeship brokerage project.

[Andrew Gwynne]

The more my hon. Friend goes on, the more I warm towards the Mayor of London.

[Lyn Brown]

I am afraid that my hon. Friend is encouraging me to sit down, but I will continue.

REDS10 is a National Apprenticeship Service-approved apprenticeship training agency—isn’t that a mouthful? It is contracted to work with prime and subcontractors to broker apprenticeships and job opportunities for local people in the Olympic park transformation programme. REDS10 takes on the apprentices, pays their wages, provides their training and then places them with the subcontractors, allowing them to complete their training across different projects and under the guidance of multiple firms. Therefore, we do not need to disadvantage firms in a supply chain that are unable to provide a full-scale apprenticeship. Instead, they can contract their part of an apprenticeship scheme from REDS10 and make a contribution, which is agreed in the contract with LLDC. Smaller firms are then enabled to participate in the supply chain. Is that not a great idea? Yes.

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[Lyn Brown]

I am happy to tell my hon. Friend that the LLDC has reported that its targets for BME communities, women and people who have been unemployed for a long period have all been met. It did say that employment for disabled people had been slightly under target, mainly due to non-declaration at the point of induction; people are not recorded as disabled in an apprenticeship because they do not self-identify at the point of application. The LLDC has done a sterling job.

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend is making a compelling point. Apprenticeships are not a silver bullet in respect of employment; there is no guarantee of a job at the end of them. However, the real benefit is that upskilling the work force, giving them experience, skills and more advanced qualifications, opens so many more doors for them.

[Lyn Brown]

That is absolutely true, as many of us will know from people we meet in our surgeries and at our tea and coffee mornings. We also know it from the history of our own families. That has become of great relevance to me since I began to research my family tree following the speech I made in this place about the match-women’s strike. I was absolutely convinced that my mother must have had personal knowledge of the strike through oral history given the amount of detail she gave about it. I am still trying to get there, but I am absolutely sure that I am going to find that one of my family had at least a connection with those amazing and heroic women. So yes, I do agree that, as we know from our own experience in our own families, apprenticeships can be the essential first step on the rung of a ladder to a successful career.

In July 2013, the LLDC carried out an on-site survey that asked over half the work force—780 people out of 1,555—what their length of residency in the borough was, and 85% said that they lived in the London borough of Newham and had been for over a year. Even if they had come to the host borough only to participate in the games, to find a job through the games or because they had got a job or an apprenticeship at the games, they were still there a year later. I realise that a year is not a massive commitment to a community. I have traced my family back to the 1880s, and they have been resident in my constituency since then; I have to say that that is not bad. I am not expecting that of the trained apprentices who came through the LLDC, but their being there for a year indicates some kind of commitment to living in the area in which they were trained and given an opportunity.

Using this model of procurement to support and sustain good-quality apprenticeships strikes me as an absolutely excellent and commendable example for other public bodies to follow. This Bill is very much needed in order for the bodies involved to be able to be confident in their interaction with their supply chain. I am so grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing it to us today.

I urge the Government—the really decent Minister on the Front Bench and other hon. Members—to support the Bill and ensure that we can provide more opportunities, more training and more apprenticeships, and get more companies involved in the regeneration of our communities. That is what we are being asked to do today, and I ask the Government please to listen. I know the Minister may have been given a brief that tells him that he should not support a Bill such as this. We went through this with his Sustainable Communities Bill. If he had followed such advice, his Bill would not have got through. I urge him to be brave: support the Bill, support apprentices, and let us do the decent thing.