House of Lords Reform Bill
Debate between Angela Eagle and Angus Brendan MacNeil(12 years, 4 months ago)
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Ms Eagle
The difference between filibuster and debate is usually easy to see. The Opposition have said that we want the Bill to go to the Lords.
This is a historic opportunity to reform the House of Lords and I hope we achieve it, but Lords reform alone will not solve the big democratic challenge we face in the UK, which is the disengagement, apathy and cynicism that is such a notable feature of our society. Ours is not the only advanced democracy with that problem, but we must tackle the anti-politics mood. I believe passionately that politics can transform lives and help us to rebuild our society, but the corrosive cynicism of the anti-politics age in which we live is hard to overcome.
I fear that an elected second Chamber will not solve that. Lords reform is long overdue, but we face even greater challenges to our democratic system and values that we can meet only by believing more deeply in democracy and by having more and not less accountability. I do not underplay the profound impact that big constitutional change has on how we do government—it shows that we are putting our democratic values into action where it counts. We should seek to spread the light of accountability and democracy into all corners of our society and challenge the move to plutocracy that has been so evident in the developed democracies in the past 30 years. The Labour Government’s decision to devolve power to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland has had a beneficial impact on how we do government in the UK. Although Lords reform is unfinished business and business we must get right and get on with, it is only a small part of the answer to the more profound problems we face.
Every argument I have heard for the status quo runs up against the fact that the British people are shut out of the House of Lords. Each large new influx of coalition peers makes the ever more bloated House even more unsustainable—it now has 823 Members and rising. That is especially true as the size of the Commons is being reduced for narrow party political interest to its lowest number since the Great Reform Act of 1832.
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
The hon. Lady mentions the influx of life peers. Will she support a ballot of life peers, as was held for the hereditary peers, to bring their numbers down to something more manageable?
Ms Eagle
There are all sorts of issues with exits from and entry to the House of Lords, which we should debate in the time we now have available for the Bill.
It is plain that the Lords as constituted is absurd and unsustainable. We should propose to the British people replacing it with a wholly elected second Chamber. Except during the interregnum, the House of Lords has existed for hundreds of years, but never once have the British people had a say on whether it should continue to exist. Let us therefore reshape the Bill and reshape the Lords, and ask the British people for their endorsement.
Cost of Living
Debate between Angela Eagle and Angus Brendan MacNeil(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Ms Eagle
There is devolution in Wales, where they make the choices on the basis of the budgets assigned to them by this Government. We have been very clear that we abandoned flex and stopped it, and Lord Adonis made it clear that, because times were so tough, we were not going back to it. The current Government have reintroduced it, while pretending that they are cutting fares, which they are not. It is simply not true, as Ministers claim, that this is just an additional cost to the taxpayer. As the National Audit Office has said,
“there is a risk that the benefit of the resulting increase in passenger revenues will not be passed on to taxpayers fully, but will also result in increased Train Operating Company profits.”
This is a Government who are not just out of touch with the impact of these fare rises, but unwilling to stand up to the train companies and enforce even the cap they claim to have set. This is indeed a Government who are in hock to the TOCs.
The pressure on commuters is set to spiral over the next two years because Ministers have decided that next year’s fare rises are to be even higher—up to nearly 12% on the current rate of the retail prices index. That is nearly 12% in both 2013 and 2014, and the tender documents for the new franchises reveal even more pain on the way. Bidders are promised even more freedoms on fares, including the right to introduce a new super-peak fare at even higher prices, hitting hard-pressed commuters still further. Franchise bidders are promised that they can cut daily services by up to 10%. They are no longer required to improve performance over the life of the franchise and no longer required to maintain the same level of CCTV on trains.
As we exposed last month, a programme of ticket office closures has already been signed off by Ministers, but staffed ticket offices are not a waste or an inefficiency that can be cut out with no resulting impact on service. The impact will be passengers cheated out of the cheapest fares, which are not always clearly advertised or available at ticket machines. Those without access to the internet, often those seeking work or older people, are unable to get the better deals and are left to pay over the odds for their train tickets.
Ministers continue to deny that they have signed off these closures. At the last Transport questions, the Minister of State assured the House that “they are not happening”. That is what she said, yet we have seen the e-mail from the Department’s own rail fares and ticketing review, warning the Department’s press office not to deny that ticket office closures have been given the green light because
“the Minister has already decided to approve some ticket office closures…it’s just not been announced yet.”
I have a further leaked document with me. This is from London Midland, the company set to be the first to implement a closure programme—for the first of the 675 ticket offices across the country that we know have been earmarked for closure. This leaked document reveals that London Midland will save £1.25 million a year by closing 86 ticket offices—profits before passengers. It also refers to a payment of £200,000 from the Department for Transport. Perhaps the Secretary of State—or the Minister of State—can confirm when she closes the debate whether the Department for Transport is actually paying companies to push through these closures? A reference in this document suggests that that might be the case. The Minister of State can tell me now if she would like to intervene. She does not want to, so perhaps the Secretary of State will address the issue at the end of the debate. The future of rail under this Government will be higher fares, more overcrowding, less CCTV and fewer ticket offices.
If Ministers are out of the loop when it comes to what is happening to rail fares and ticket office closures, they are even more delusional when it comes to bus services. Last month the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Lewes, told the House that what had been said about bus cuts was “entirely untrue”, and claimed that
“there have not been the cuts that the Opposition are so keen to talk up.”—[Official Report, 19 April 2012; Vol. 543, c. 485.]
It is not the Opposition who are talking up bus cuts, but the major operators. Arriva told my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) that
“with the 20% reduction in BSOG, the ongoing cuts to the concessionary fare scheme, and a reduction in tenders across the UK, this has put enormous pressure not only on Arriva, but the bus industry as a whole.”
These are real cuts. Evening and Sunday services have been withdrawn on Route 32 in Wycombe. The Saturday service has been withdrawn on Service 84 in Maidstone. Route 1 in Watford, Route X9 in Milton Keynes and Service 50 in Guildford have all been cut. In fact, one in five of all supported services have been lost, and fares are spiralling. The Under-Secretary of State should stop coming to the House and claiming, as he did during last week’s Transport questions, that there have not been any bus cuts, because there have.
The Government need to understand that not just buses but lifelines are being cut: lifelines connecting young people with colleges, parents with child care, and older people with shops and services. The loss of a bus service can have a devastating impact on those without cars, and on those in rural areas in particular. It can have a devastating impact on their lives, their chances, and their capacity to get out and about.
Like the train fare rises, the bus cuts are a direct consequence of the Government’s decision to cut the councils’ funds for local transport by 28%, and their decision to remove any requirement for what is left of that money actually to be spent on transport. At the same time, the Government have cut the subsidies given directly to bus companies by a fifth. The result is that not only are there additional pressures on family budgets, but young people are simply unable to reach their full potential.
Ministers need not take my word for that. They can listen to the Association of Colleges, which has warned of a drop in further education enrolment. They can listen to the 60% of colleges that report a drop in transport spending by their local authorities. They can listen to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which has revealed that 40% of young people say that their decisions on post-16 education were influenced by transport, not by courses. When students travel, on average, between nine and 35 miles to get to college, and when 72% of them rely on the bus to get them there, it is no wonder that the loss of bus services will hit them and their life chances hard.
The hon. Member for Lewes told the House that he had held discussions with bus companies about the costs of travel for young people. No doubt they delivered the same message to him as they have delivered to me when I have raised our own proposals for a concessionary fares scheme for 16 to 19-year-olds in education or training. I believe that the bus companies want to be helpful, but Brian Souter of Stagecoach told me—
Fuel Prices and the Cost of Living
Debate between Angela Eagle and Angus Brendan MacNeil(13 years, 8 months ago)
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Ms Eagle
I have given way to the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth.
That statement shows that this Government are run by a Prime Minister who does not do detail and who appears to be at odds with his own Chief Secretary. The OBR has shown that a temporary rise in oil prices generates a £100 million surplus in the first year for the Treasury, but that that turns rapidly to a net revenue loss of £700 million the year after. What the Government gain from higher oil tax revenues, they lose from the effects of higher prices on consumption and the requirement to spend more on indexing pensions and benefits. A permanent rise causes permanent losses to the public finances. The Prime Minister has to stop pretending that there is a windfall in rising oil prices that he can share out, because it simply does not exist. [Interruption.]
Mr MacNeil
I am not sure what the hon. Lady thought about living standards in the Outer Hebrides when, time after time, she stood at the Dispatch Box as a Minister and said what she could not do and why she could not do it. Does she, in her quieter moments, regret not approaching the European Commission for a rural fuel derogation for the Hebrides and other islands in Scotland?
Finance Bill
Debate between Angela Eagle and Angus Brendan MacNeil(14 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr MacNeil
I am listening to the hon. Lady talking about transparency. In the spirit of transparency, will she honestly, openly and transparently tell the House whether she regrets allowing a rural fuel derogation to the islands of Scotland? Will she be transparent and honest on that simple point about her time in office?
Ms Eagle
I have—and had—a great deal of sympathy for the issues that the hon. Gentleman had raised, which are particularly relevant in the context of the islands that he represents. When one considers extending any potential fuel duty derogation for particular areas to the mainland—that is what was asked about in this case—there are other issues that arise and there are difficulties, as the Chief Secretary will know. We certainly look forward to seeing what he might come up with in his review.
However, I want to return briefly to the OBR and what on earth has been going on there. A great deal has been made of the independent forecasts that the Office for Budget Responsibility published before and after, and which appear in the Red Book. Today, the Treasury has been saying that Sir Alan was only ever going to stay for three months. However, at the event when he was appointed, the Chancellor said:
“Whether I thank him again in a couple of years’ time is another matter”.
The Chancellor clearly felt that Sir Alan was going to stick around for years, yet he is now running off and has resigned within three months. Why has he chosen to leave so quickly, right in the middle of our consideration of the Finance Bill, when so many of the judgments in the Bill are based on his forecasts? Even today, the Chief Secretary was making much of Sir Alan’s forecasts to justify some of the Government decisions that appear in the Bill.