Charlie Elphicke
Main Page: Charlie Elphicke (Independent - Dover)Department Debates - View all Charlie Elphicke's debates with the Cabinet Office
(12 years ago)
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Edward Miliband
Opposition Members should calm down: I will give way later.
What have the Government got to say about those issues? Absolutely nothing. The energy Bill has nothing to help people struggling to make ends meet. No legislation this year on water or on train fares—nothing to relieve the squeeze on ordinary families.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
I, too, am concerned about utility bills—we are all concerned about utility bills—but let me remind the right hon. Gentleman that when he was Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change he proposed the renewable heating initiative that would have put £193 on people’s bills. Why was that not in his alternative Queen’s Speech?
Edward Miliband
I will tell the hon. Gentleman what we did in government: we introduced the winter fuel allowance and took action on prepayment meters—far more than this Government have ever done.
Let us talk about those at the top of society, executive pay and multi-million pound bonuses—[Interruption.] It is very interesting that Conservative Members are groaning about that, because a few months ago, the Prime Minister said that he was outraged about crony capitalism. He told us that he was grossly offended by it and that it was not what he believed in. Such was his strength of feeling that in the entire Queen’s Speech, the issue did not merit a single mention.
I have a suggestion for the Prime Minister. He should accept the recommendation of the High Pay Commission to put an ordinary worker on the remuneration committee of every company in Britain. I say, “If you can’t look one of your employees in the eye to justify that you’re worth it, then you shouldn’t be getting the salary.” Come to think of it, why not start with the Government? I have the ideal candidate to be the employee on the board judging the Cabinet. She stands ready to serve—the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Nadine Dorries). Let us remind ourselves why she is so well qualified. She said:
“They are two arrogant posh boys who show no remorse, no contrition, and no passion to understand the lives of others.”
She is only saying what so many people are thinking: it is high time the shareholder spring came to the Conservative party.
On the economy, on living standards, and on executive pay—
Mr David Amess (Southend West) (Con)
I congratulate the Government on the Gracious Speech and the measures in it. There are two proposals about which I am concerned—House of Lords reform and the televising of court proceedings—which I shall address in a moment. First, however, I have to say how lucky we are to have a monarchy in this country. We tried a presidency under Tony Blair, and what a disaster it was: indeed, we are still suffering the consequences of that presidency, which took us into an illegal war with Iraq, destroying the United Kingdom. How I wish that I and the other 17 Members of the House who wished to impeach him at that time had been successful. Now, he is going around not only our country but the rest of the world still earning money at our expense.
Charlie Elphicke
Has my hon. Friend noticed that as well as earning money at our expense Tony Blair does not seem to pay an awful lot of tax?
Mr Amess
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Of course, Tony Blair gave evidence at the inquiry last year and I hope that when the report comes out, the matter will be dealt with. To have him as a special peace envoy in the middle east is absolutely ridiculous.
So, I rejoice in the fact that we have a monarchy. I always think that Conservative Queen’s Speeches are better than Labour Queen’s Speeches and today is no exception. I am delighted that we heard today that the Prime Minister is determined to reduce the deficit and restore economic stability. I enjoyed the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) who was right to remind the House what a disastrous economic legacy Labour left us.
I absolutely agree with the remarks that a number of Members made about policies that we talk about in this House that are not mentioned on the doorstep by our constituents. Last Monday, some Conservative Members got together and had a party to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the election of a Conservative Government on 9 April 1992. At that party, which the Prime Minister attended, we were delighted to launch a pamphlet called “Basildon—Against all Odds”. The Prime Minister generously referred to the victory in Basildon, and I was delighted that he visited my old constituency yesterday and talked broadly about policies because I think we need to reflect on the things that took us back to government in 1992. There in Basildon, 20 years ago, voters locally wanted to support what were then the Conservative party’s policies. What were those policies? Giving every woman, man and child the opportunity to make the most of their God-given talents. I know that 20 years later our country and the world have changed but I say to my Conservative colleagues that we should reflect on the policies that brought us back to government in 1992 and I recommend that they read “Basildon—Against all Odds”, which is a very good pamphlet.
Mr Amess
I suppose the get-out clause is that we did not have a solely Conservative Government, but a coalition, so there was a compromise. I certainly was never in favour of reform. In the other place, there are women and men of wonderful experience, who bring great value in a revising Chamber. I am totally opposed to having the second Chamber in competition with this place.
Charlie Elphicke
My hon. Friend is being extraordinarily generous in taking interventions. Is not part of the problem that the House of Lords used to be a brilliant revising Chamber but then Tony Blair, who is now to be found in various parts of the world making money and not paying tax, stuffed it full of cronies and wrecked the flavour and excellence of that House? He made it the broken place it is today because of Labour’s galactic incompetence in government.
Mr Amess
I agree with my hon. Friend that there are now so many peers that apparently they cannot all find a place for prayers. It is crazy. There are too many Members in the House of Lords—nearly 1,000. It is a complete mess and I do not want this Chamber to waste hours and hours talking about something on which we will never agree. It is certainly not No. 1 in the list of priorities of the British people.
I welcome the proposal for a National Crime Agency. My right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) is an expert in such matters and I shall not compete with him; I will speak in more simplistic terms. Phasing out the National Policing Improvement Agency is a good thing. Creating a National Crime Agency will help further to tackle serious crime in the UK. As we have seen over the past year, our border forces and urban police forces can be overwhelmed, so the establishment of the agency will help to ease the burdens and protect us against one of the most serious threats facing this country—organised crime. It costs the United Kingdom between £20 million and £40 million in social and economic terms, and affects the most vulnerable people in society. Only yesterday, we heard the judgment in the terrible case of girls who had been groomed. I hope that the Bill can deal with that sort of issue and tackle it head-on. I hope the whole House will come together to support such welcome measures.
On the defamation Bill, I do not know how honourable colleagues feel, but I am certainly libelled morning, noon and night and do not have the money to defend myself. A range of concerns have been raised about the detrimental effects that the current law on libel is having on freedom of expression, particularly in academic and scientific debate, the work of non-governmental organisations and investigative journalism, and about the extent to which this jurisdiction has become a magnet for libel claimants. I do not want to upset my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox), who is a Queen’s counsel, but the law has become so expensive in this country that I do not know how ordinary women and men can possibly defend themselves.
Freedom of speech is a cornerstone of our constitution, but it does not mean that people should be able to ride roughshod over the reputations of others. When someone writes to the newspapers these days, the letter is published on the internet and in no time at all there are very insulting comments posted on the website, particularly if the letter is about a politician, and we do not seem to have any legislation to deal with that. Therefore, our defamation laws must strike the right balance between protecting freedom of speech and protecting people’s reputations, and that includes those of Members of Parliament. I know that we are No. 1 on some people’s hate list, but the overwhelming majority of Members of Parliament are here for the right reason and do a jolly good job, and I am getting a little fed up with our being continually insulted and considered fair game, which I think is very wrong indeed. I want slander on the internet to be prevented. Her Majesty said that legislation would be laid before us. I know that we already have 14 Bills and four further measures, but I hope that there will be time to introduce legislation to deal with slander on the internet relating to comments on media articles. I think that there should be much tighter controls and more severe punishments.
There is no point in any of us being Members of Parliament unless we have some real power, and over recent years our heads have been down and we have lost so much of our power, so we need to reassert it. I hope that the Government will consider introducing a measure to enable far greater scrutiny of public bodies. I will give the House one example. I have been on a mission in relation to Essex police—two Essex colleagues on the Government Benches are present—because I knew from the outset that the chief constable of Essex was chosen from a shortlist of one, which is absolutely outrageous. It has happened and nothing has been done about it; we just accepted it because we are more concerned about hacking and reform of the House of Lords. How could the Essex police authority allow the chief constable to be chosen from a shortlist of just one? That is unacceptable.
Charlie Elphicke
Is that not why elected police and crime commissioners are such a good idea, because we can get the right chief constables and make police forces much more effective and responsive in cracking down on crime?
Mr Amess
My hon. Friend is absolutely right and that is what I was about to say. I hope that in November there will be a huge turnout in Essex and we will elect a very good commissioner.
Another point about Essex police is that I have had to resort to using the Freedom of Information Act to get confirmation that the chief constable was chosen from a shortlist of one. Why should a Member of Parliament have to use the Freedom of Information Act? Then there is the closure of police stations. When the Leigh-on-Sea police station was closed there was no consultation. The consultation took place in the car park of a large supermarket in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge), which is on the other side of town, and received about 20 responses, which meant that they could close the police station. That is not good enough, which is why I think Members of Parliament should get power back from some of these public bodies. I have been trying to find out more information about Essex probation service, the Crown Prosecution Service in Essex and a range of public bodies. Members of Parliament are scrutinised all the time and have to submit themselves to the electorate. Why cannot we have more scrutiny of at least the management of public bodies? I hope that the Government might consider introducing a Bill to deal with that matter.
I said earlier in my speech that I was concerned about the proposal to introduce the televising of sentencing in major criminal trials. I thought that the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd, who mentioned it earlier, was going to agree with me entirely, but he threw me when he said that it works well in Scotland. As far as I am concerned, once the TV cameras get into our courts it will not end there. Coverage will get wider and soon we will be like America, with coverage for the trial of the basketball player who shot someone, or whatever it was he did, and the cameras panning across to see the jurors. I think that cameras would be a very retrograde step.
John Cryer
I completely agree, and I see exactly the same experience. Owing also to the acute shortage of public housing in my constituency, people are being told, “You’ll have to move to Walsall,” “You’ll have to move to Derby,”—here, there, right across the country. One woman who was in emergency accommodation and had suffered a bereavement—her husband had died and her daughter was in a terrible state—came to see me, having been told, “You’ve got to move to Walsall, and next Tuesday, by the way.” That was on a Thursday, and she was being told that she had to move to Walsall the following Tuesday. In a civilised society, that is a pretty appalling way to treat somebody.
That brings me on to economic insecurity. Since the general election alone, 70,000 to 80,000 construction jobs have been lost in Britain, and in fact it is probably more than that by now; those are the latest figures I have. The stagnation of the economy is also an enormous worry to an awful lot of my constituents.
On the eurozone, the Government, rather than helping to prop up a currency that is clearly collapsing, should encourage countries such as Greece to leave the euro and get their economies moving again, because that is the best way to stimulate our economy—through exports to eurozone countries, which at the moment do not have the cash or resources to buy goods from this country or others, such as Germany and North America. The idea, which the Prime Minister reiterated this afternoon, that we are not bailing out the eurozone is simply a myth. We are giving increasing amounts of money to the International Monetary Fund, which then hands over increasing amounts of money to the eurozone, so the idea that we are not in one way or another bailing out eurozone countries is an absolute myth. It simply is happening.
There was also a line in the Queen’s Speech that quite disturbed me. It stated:
“My Government will seek the approval of Parliament relating to the agreed financial stability mechanism within the euro area.”
There must be elements of the fiscal compact within that stability mechanism, and as sure as eggs is eggs the fiscal compact will be included in the Bill that this place and the other place will have to pass. In reality, that too will go in the direction of the eurozone, meaning the centralisation of power in Brussels, increased austerity throughout Europe and increased poverty. I find it extraordinary that Governments in western Europe will do almost anything to prop up the euro.
Charlie Elphicke
The hon. Gentleman has long been known in this place for his passion on the matter of Europe. Does he believe that, with the elections in Greece and France and the problems in Spain, the euro is sustainable however much money is now pumped into it?
John Cryer
My own view is that, no, the euro is not sustainable, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, rather than helping to sustain what is effectively a broken system, should encourage countries such as Greece and Spain to find a way out and a way of exerting power over their own economies, because that is how the eurozone more disparately is going to move forward.
I remember listening to an interview with a European Commissioner on the “Today” programme a few months ago, just as Greece was being plunged into the crisis that it is still in. The questioner said that there was increasing unemployment and poverty in Greece—even then, there were reports of malnutrition among Greek children—and asked whether it was fair that the people involved should pay the price for saving the euro. The Commissioner said, “Well, life’s not fair.” That is extraordinary. She expanded on the comment, because she realised that she had made a mistake and let the cat out of the bag, but her initial comment was that life was not fair—in other words, that ordinary people had to pay the price for mistakes made by the wealthy and powerful.
Sadly, our Government are pursuing a slightly less frenetic version of the “Eurosadist” economic policy practised in Greece, Spain, Portugal and one or two other countries. Yet what we are seeing everywhere across Europe is a rebellion against that austerity. The latest example, obviously, is France, where Hollande has specifically rejected the austerity programme. In Greece, the party that came from nowhere to second in the poll has specifically rejected the programme and is now in the process of trying to form a Government.
What people told me continually on the doorsteps during the recent campaign was that those who caused the crisis and who made the decisions years ago—the bankers, the wealthy and the powerful—are getting away with it and that those paying the price are the most vulnerable and least able to pay during this crisis.
Increasingly, I see home repossessions, economic insecurity and less confidence in spending money because of that economic insecurity. Just to make the situation that bit more insecure, the Government now propose to attack rights at work, make it easier to sack people and reduce health and safety inspections at work. That will make people even less confident, because they will be worrying about losing their jobs. It will be easier to sack people and there will be fewer health and safety controls, particularly in the construction industry and other dangerous industries. The result will be an increasing turn in the downward spiral, further into recession—and perhaps, over the next couple of years, even into depression.
What really worries me, although not so much in respect of this country, is that in many countries across western Europe—particularly Greece, Spain and Portugal —we are starting to see the beginnings of the rise of the far right. Take Golden Dawn in Greece, for example. If we think that the British National party and the English Defence League are a dangerous bunch of fascists, we should see what Golden Dawn is like—it is 10 times worse. For the first time ever, Golden Dawn has representation in the Greek Parliament. That is a direct result of the appalling austerity measures unleashed on the Greek people. Unless there is a change of direction in the eurozone and this country, my fear is that right across Europe we will see the rise of the far right.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
It is a pleasure, as ever, to follow the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies), who gave a particular view of economic theory and how to get economies growing. He will not be surprised to know that I completely disagree with most of his prescriptions.
Charlie Elphicke
Yes, and no doubt five different views could be advanced.
We all agree about the key point of the Queen’s Speech and the challenge facing this country. When I talk to my constituents in Dover and Deal and ask, “What is your priority?”, they say, “It’s the economy, stupid”—President Clinton made much of that point in his first election campaign. The economy is the heartland, and it is essential that we have more jobs and money in Britain. We have had a very difficult time for the past four years, and the situation is challenging for many families in my constituency, who are struggling to get by and have not had a pay rise for a very long time. They are struggling to keep hold of a job while we seek to rebuild out of the mess that went before. I therefore particularly welcome the fact that the Government’s first priority is to reduce the deficit and restore economic stability.
The hon. Member for Swansea West has a prescription along the lines of saying that if we did not cut so far and so fast, all would be fine. The difficulty with that is that we would need to borrow more money. If we did that, we would threaten our economic credibility, which would mean rising interest rates on Government debt. If that happened, interest rates would increase for businesses and home owners.
We have been lucky because we have the same level of deficit as Greece, but the markets trust our economic policy and our cracking down on and reducing the deficit. That means that our interest rates are similar to those in Germany, while we still have a deficit the size of Greece’s, albeit one that is falling.
Andrew Percy
There is another point to be made. The Opposition position is almost like telling someone with a £10,000 credit card bill, “Go and get another £5,000 on the credit card because you’ll feel a bit better today.” However, at some time in the future, the credit card company will come knocking. The Labour party wants us to increase the £120 million in debt interest every day by borrowing even more, which would mean that we had even less to invest in the public services that our constituents want and deserve.
Charlie Elphicke
My hon. Friend is right. One does not fix a debt crisis by borrowing more money—it makes no sense. It is the economics of the madhouse, because we would have more debt to service over the long term. It would take us longer to pay it, thereby mortgaging our children’s futures for longer, and interest rates would rise. Under the Government, interest rates have fallen, and that has done much to ensure that we have more money to invest in public services than would have been the case under the previous Government.
Geraint Davies
Does not the hon. Gentleman accept that, because we do not have growth, deficit projections have risen by £150 billion? Secondly, interest rates are the same as those inherited from Labour. Under the previous Tory Government, they were 15%. The hon. Gentleman’s comments are simply factually untrue.
Charlie Elphicke
The hon. Gentleman supposes that if the previous Government’s economic policies had continued, the markets would have played along, and the music would have kept playing. Greece, Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Italy are evidence against that. We are very lucky that we had a change of Government. We had a close shave, but we have managed so far, goodness willing, to escape the position into which we would otherwise have fallen. Without a shadow of a doubt, the previous Government would have taken us the way of Greece and we would have been plunged into serious economic chaos. We would not be talking about a technical double-dip recession, but a minus 5 or minus 6 double-dip recession, of the sort and on the scale that is happening in Greece. I hope that when the Office for National Statistics reviews the figures in a few months, we will see that we skirted recession, but were not in recession. Many of us feel that confidence is already rebuilding. From other surveys, many of us suspect that the ONS figures will be revised upwards, and we will find that we did not go into recession and that we may just be starting to recover.
I hope that that is the case, because our constituents have had and are having a difficult time trying to keep hold of their jobs, get a pay rise and pay their bills, which have been increasing ever faster. The Government’s policies, which focus on the economy like a laser beam, are right. We need a more flexible labour market—not a right-wing, “Let’s have the ability to hire and fire at will” policy. The OECD growth project investigated the matter at length and in detail and concluded that a flexible labour market was a key driver of economic growth. It identified another key driver as lower corporation taxes, which the Government are delivering. It also said that a certain and credible financial services and competition regulation regime, which we are rebuilding, was another key driver.
I think that the House accepts that the Financial Services Authority system—the tripartite regulation system—was an unmitigated disaster. The brainchild of the former Prime Minister and the shadow Chancellor, when it was put to the test, it was found entirely wanting. The Bank of England managed to save the secondary banking system and our general banking system in the 1970s, but this time, we had to have massive state-funded bail-outs, which cost the taxpayer a fortune. That need not and would not have happened had the FSA and the tripartite regulatory regime not been in place.
The OECD growth project is also clear that increased competition to promote enterprise and fair markets is also important. Promoting competition, free enterprise, fair markets and a level playing field for market entrants is vital. We have pro-growth policies on all those. I make no bones about the fact that I should like the Government to be more pro-growth to get the economy moving even quicker. I should like them to lever in more private investment sooner so that we can grow more quickly. However, I recognise that all government is a negotiation, and it is clearly a challenge in a coalition to have everything that we would like. From a Conservative point of view, I would like a more pro-growth policy so that we grow the economy even more quickly.
I am realistic about what we can do, but I think that we are doing a lot, and as much as we can. I can look my constituents in the eye and say that we are trying to get the economy growing as quickly as possible, that we are focused on it and that nothing matters to us more than jobs and money.
It is real cheek for the Opposition to talk about youth unemployment, for two reasons. First, it rose massively under the previous Government. Although it has increased under this Government, it has done so at a much slower rate than in the previous Parliament. Secondly, when I knock on the doors in Dover and ask people what their key concern is, they reply, “Immigration and I want my kid to have a future.” They are furious that the open borders policy that the previous Government pursued means that their children are finding it harder to get a job.
Andrew Percy
When my hon. Friend talked about youth unemployment figures rising under the previous Government, he failed to mention that they increased when unemployment generally was falling. For youth unemployment to be increasing now is bad enough, but for it to rise when unemployment generally is falling is a national tragedy. We have heard no apology for that.
Charlie Elphicke
My hon. Friend is right. Not only that, but if we examine the figures for job creation since the early 2000s, we see that people from the EU accession eight countries had a massive increase in the number of jobs, that that also applied among foreign nationals—people born overseas—but that employment hardly increased at all for those born in the UK.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the previous Government’s biggest failures was to address the skills deficit in this country, and that they also failed to tackle apprenticeships? Is it therefore any wonder that, at the time, the jobs were not going to British-born workers?
Charlie Elphicke
I agree with my hon. Friend. That is the central point, which I was about to address. Employers’ difficulty is finding the right person with the skills for the job. It is incumbent on the Government to create a framework whereby people—particularly our young people—can get the skills so that they qualify and are eligible for a job, and that they have the skills that employers need. Instead of dealing with the skills deficit in our population, the previous Government thought it was easier to put a sticking plaster on it and have an open borders policy to enable employers to take people with the skills that they wanted from anywhere, rather than ensuring that our children and young people had the skills for the labour market and therefore a better future.
It is important to have stronger border control in the UK. It is also important to skill up our children because the previous Government sold us a pass on the hopes and aspirations of our young people and people who do not have great skills to get a job, promotion, more money and more skills. The Government’s emphasis on apprenticeships is essential. That is what I hear on the doorsteps in Dover. For many in the House and in the metropolitan elite, that is a difficult message, but the opinion polls show that unemployment and immigration are linked, and we should be honest about that. We should be honest with people, and tell them that we understand their concerns and are acting on them. One of the greatest things about the Government is that we have taken such strong action on apprenticeships to ensure that our people have the skills to have a job and do well in life.
The Government are nothing if they are not about aspiration, but they are also about understanding the pressures of utility bills and the costs of modern life. One really important policy in that respect is the proposed reform of the electricity market to deliver clean, secure and affordable electricity and ensure that prices are fair. The Leader of the Opposition chooses these days to forget that he was Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, and that he planned, with the renewable heat initiative, to load £193 on to the bills of every household in this country. He chooses to forget that, with the electricity renewable energy obligation to which he signed up, he was going to increase our power prices by 20%, and those of businesses by 30%. He goes on about the costs of living and the pressure on households, and yet chooses to forget that the responsibility for much of the increase in the cost of living lies at his door, because when he was Secretary of State, he loaded bills and balanced our carbon commitments on the backs of the poor, which was a disgusting and disgraceful thing to have done.
We cannot balance our carbon commitments on the backs of the poor, as the Labour Government wanted. We need to ensure that our carbon commitments are executed in the most cost-effective way. That means not that we should back winners or favour this or that technology, but that we should favour technologies that reduce carbon emissions at the most effective and best possible price, regardless of whether we happen to like or dislike them. That is what we owe the least well-off in our communities, and our hard-pressed families and electors.
From the detailed list of Bills in the Queen’s Speech, I want to pick out the children and families Bill, which contains an acceptance of the important principle I proposed in a ten-minute rule Bill last year: that children have the right to know, and have a relationship with, both their parents following separation. I believe that that is right and in the interests of the child and their welfare, but let me explain why. The Bill does not set out with complete clarity reasons for that provision or for the shared parental leave provision, but they are linked, because families have changed. There is a new norm, and we need to accept modern families.
Let me set out how families have changed. One can have an “olde worlde” image of the family—a bloke goes to work while the mother bounces the child on her knee or does the washing up at home. That is perhaps how it was in the 1950s, but things have not been like that for a very long time. Just about everyone I know from my generation joint works. I looked at the figures, because many of our policies seem to be aimed at people who live that kind of traditional family life, rather than at families who joint work, which is the reality.
Some things jump out from the figures on parental employment rates. Back in 1986, half of partnered mothers were in the workplace; today, 71% of them are. Whereas 25 years ago five out of 10 partnered mothers went to work; seven out of 10 now do so. The overwhelming majority of couples with children under the age of 16 both work, which has led to a wider change in respect of juggling the work-life balance.
It is not just that there are more mothers in the workplace. What about the number of men who work part time? Some people go around saying, “Only women ever look after children,” but that is also old fashioned and archaic. Things have been changing. Notably, the number of all parents in part-time work has changed, which is basically accounted for by the fact that the number of men in part-time work has risen. Official statistics from the Office for National Statistics show that 25 years ago, 696,000 men were in part-time work. That number has risen nearly fourfold to more than 2 million today. To my mind, that indicates that parents are increasingly juggling work and child care, and that there has been something of a seismic shift.
Many think, “Mothers go back to work when the child is a bit older,” but let us look at the figures. When do people go back to work? Do they wait until the child is about five and going to school, or do they go back before that? Twenty-five years ago, 27% of partnered women went back to work when the youngest child was under three years of age. In other words, two thirds of women stayed at home and brought up the child until they were at least three, and then considered going back to work. That position has reversed. Now, 63% of partnered women go back to work when the youngest child is under three.
There has been a massive social change, and we need to understand modern families and how they live. If most women are going back to work when the child is pre-school age, there is a lot of juggling and work-life balancing. Who takes the kid to school or nursery? Who collects the kid? Who looks after the child? Who takes primary responsibility in the workplace and in the home? Increasingly, most people whose children are grown up will know from their children’s lives that there is much more of a juggle and a balance of work and life.
The rate of increase of lone parents has been very great. In 1986, 15% of lone parents went back to work when their child was under three; by 2011, that had doubled to 32%. We can therefore see substantial change in families, which has consequences for family policy. The flexible parental leave provision in the children and families Bill is justified because it is necessary. It is a recognition that families juggle work and child care. It is not just a case of saying, “The mother has a baby, therefore she has maternity leave.” The situation is much more complicated, and provision should be balanced so that men and women in a family can balance that equation.
More work needs to be done on child care, for two reasons. First, the number of child care places has been broadly static for years. In 2001, there were more than 300,000 places with child minders and about 300,000 day nursery places—about 600,000 places in total. The number of places with child minders stayed static, but the number of nursery places—full day care—increased to about 600,000. In 2001, there were 600,000 places in total, but in 2008, there were around 900,000 places. The number has remained static since.
What does it mean if there are now 900,000 places? Are we catering for all the children in the country who are in need of child care? I did some back-of-the envelope calculations, and it struck me that there is potentially a shortage of child care places. There are about 13 million children in the UK, of whom roughly 3 million are pre-school age. The numbers indicate that 55% of children at pre-school have parents who both work. In other words, about 2 million children need child care, but there are only 900,000 child care places. What is happening to the other 1 million children? Who is looking after them? Is it grandparents or neighbours? There is a kind of child care apartheid. On the one hand, there is a system of nurseries that are so heavily regulated that most people cannot afford them, and on the other hand there is a system of child care for the other half that is completely unregulated. We know nothing about what is going on in that half. The right balance would be to reduce the regulation on our nurseries, increase the number of places and bring the cost of child care down so that more people can access it, because one of the biggest pressures on modern families is affording the cost of child care for pre-school children. It is an absolute nightmare—
Andrew Percy
My hon. Friend questions whether grandparents are doing the caring and, as I said a few moments ago, they are increasingly involved in families and are the unsung heroes of child care. Does he share my hope that additional rights for grandparents will be introduced in the next Session?
Charlie Elphicke
My hon. Friend is a passionate campaigner on behalf of grandparents. When grandparents are constructive, they can make a powerful contribution, but a balance inevitably needs to be struck. Some grandparents like to interfere and meddle, and they can be really annoying. All parents know that some grandparents are not quite the saints that my hon. Friend suggests. Nevertheless, if grandparents play a constructive role in a child’s life, there is a lot to be said for them. My hon. Friend has been a passionate and trenchant campaigner in the cause of constructive grandparents—as opposed to destructive grandparents, who we could all do without. We all know people who know them—I hope my hon. Friend understands where I am coming from on that point.
We need more availability of nursery places and deregulation of the system. The figures show that dads are more involved in children’s lives than ever before. Father is no longer sitting behind a newspaper at the breakfast table, oblivious to the world: instead, dads are deeply engaged in children’s lives. So when it comes to separation, the question is what is in the interests of the children. What best serves the child’s welfare? I think that it is stability and the continuation of what they have known. So if a parent who has been heavily involved in the child’s life—as they are in the overwhelming majority of families—suddenly disappears off a cliff edge, it makes no sense. That is why the Government are right to enshrine in legislation the principle that children have the right to know and have a relationship with their parents. The way in which modern families live indicates strongly that that is what best serves child welfare.
I recognise that the judiciary and the legal system are, as always, about 30 years out of date and are astonishingly weak-kneed when it comes to ensuring the rights of children to know both their parents. That is wrong, and we need to send a clear legislative message, not just to anti-dad social workers but to the court system, that society has changed. We in Parliament get that society has changed. We get that we need stability for our children and that child welfare is best served by having minimum disturbance to that which they have been used to. If we send that message, real and positive change could be made.
Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)
The hon. Gentleman mentioned that in some way the status quo might be maintained. Does he agree that in fact there is evidence that one parent is often excluded from the life of the child by the parent with care, and that therefore the status quo may become a pattern of one-parent family life as opposed to two-parent? Does he therefore agree that the Government should say that children have an absolute right to life with both their parents unless that is unsafe?
Charlie Elphicke
Yes, I do. If I understand her correctly, the hon. Lady refers to the concept of shared parenting. I am personally a fan of that, but it is a difficult argument to advance at the moment because the Norgrove report looked into what happens in Australia and managed to become completely and utterly muddled about the difference between quantity of time and quality of time. Every parent knows that quality of time is what counts. In Australia, it seems to have become an issue of quantity of time and an insistence on 50:50 time, but that misses the point altogether and, therefore, misled the entire Norgrove report. Before the report was published, I spent an hour putting that case passionately to members of the panel, but they published it anyway. It will therefore be difficult to persuade the legislature that shared parenting is the right way to go, but the social changes in modern families will mean that it is almost certain to end up that way in five years’ time.
For now, the best win that can be had is to ensure that children have the right to know, and a right of access to, both their parents. If the parent with care tries to subvert that, they are not having a go at the parent without care but undermining their child and attacking the rights that their child should have. If we frame it that way, parents with care will more quickly understand that they need to think about their children, rather than themselves.
Tessa Munt
Does the hon. Gentleman agree, therefore, that the courts have the ultimate solution in that, if a parent with care prevents a child from accessing his or her other parent, the care can be taken up by the parent who is excluded, and that that is the ultimate sanction and might encourage parents to stick to the rules and ensure that their children have absolute access to both parents?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. May I remind the hon. Lady of Mr Speaker’s announcement at the beginning of the debate about parliamentary convention for this Session and the need for interventions to be brief, not substantive speeches or long points, interesting as they may be?
Charlie Elphicke
I thank the hon. Lady for her interesting intervention. The full tool box needs to be available to the court system, but the legislature also needs to send a strong message to the court system, social workers and everyone involved in child care and child care access about what we expect it to look like, which is that people who stand in the way of their children’s rights should have the book thrown at them and should not be allowed to do so anymore.
I want to make a brief point about the education of children with special educational needs. These children have been badly let down for too long. They find it very hard to access the right school. I chaired a summit recently to which, I am delighted to say, came the leader of Kent county council, a cabinet member for Kent county council and a group of parents of children with severe special educational needs—many of them high on the autistic and Asperger spectrums—who have had a very difficult time. It is wrong in principle that parents facing the significant challenges of looking after a child with special educational needs should, on top of that, have to battle the education system to get the right education for their child. It is wrong in principle that, in many cases, it has taken two or three years for those parents to find the right school for their children.
Several things became clear to me during the summit. The statementing process is too slow and cumbersome. That is wrong. It should be more fast-tracked, efficient and effective in looking at children’s needs and diagnosing them correctly. Once that is done, each county council or education authority needs to maintain a decent database of which schools in their authority area can cater for which needs. Too often, it seems, there is muddle and confusion in the bureaucracy over which schools can cater for which needs. The whole system should be fast-tracked so that parents are offered schools appropriate to their child’s needs, rather than schools that are not appropriate. That happens in many education authorities. Everyone knows that. It is wrong and needs to be dealt with.
Furthermore, on special educational needs, there must not be an apartheid between the state sector and the private sector. We need to put the children first. If a private, independent school caters best for the special needs of children, parents should be offered that school and not just told that a maintained school has to take yet more pupils because the education rules and laws are such that pupils can be shoved into a school, whether the school likes it or not or does not have enough places. In my constituency, there is the perverse situation in which one independent school catering brilliantly for special educational needs has 20 spare places, while another special needs school doing an outstanding job in the maintained sector needs a portakabin in the playground to cater for the number of special educational needs children, because it has been told by the education authority to take yet more children. We need to strike the right balance: we need to give parents much greater say and choice, use the places available in the system most appropriately and ensure that the statementing process is as quick as it can be. In education, when it comes to looking after our children, we need to put the parents first. We need to ensure that they can make the decisions that are right for their children, because, broadly, they know best because they know their children best of all.
I am delighted to support the Queen’s Speech. It focuses on the economy, on utility bills, on the cost of living and on helping hard-pressed families. It focuses on families and children, and on helping families to bring forward the next generation.