Oral Answers to Questions

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vara]

Yes, I do agree with my hon. Friend, and we have made sure that legal aid remains available for victims of domestic violence who need it. We have also made recent changes making it easier to obtain legal aid in cases where domestic violence is a factor, and we have made sure that once legal aid is granted, no further applications need be made for the duration of the case.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

Chester is a city for the legal industry and the legal sector. I am told that numerous criminal legal aid solicitors have been forced out of business or forced to amalgamate with large national firms, while barristers on the Chester circuit are being forced to subsidise access to justice in legal aid cases because they are not getting paid enough through the current legal aid system. Will the Minister review his changes to legal aid, and perhaps deal with them in the same way as the criminal courts charge—by reversing the disastrous changes made in the first place?

[Mr Vara]

We have a legal aid budget of £1.6 billion, which is one of the largest in the world. By comparison with other common law jurisdictions such as Australia, Northern Ireland and Canada, we have double the expenditure per inhabitant. We have started a process and we will see it through. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that those in need of legal aid will be able to have it where it is necessary.

Transforming Rehabilitation Programme

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Wednesday 28th October 2015 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Kinnock]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. The purpose of a consultation is to listen to the experts. In this case, the experts have described themselves as being used as “bid candy” to dress up the bids, rather than being involved in a truly engaged fashion. I agree entirely with my hon Friend’s point.

Significant challenges were immediately obvious. First, the marketplace was not interested in taking over the management of high-risk offenders for the limited profits associated with managing that target group. Further, the Ministry of Justice had been heavily criticised by both the Public Accounts Committee and the National Audit Office for its poor management of previous contracts in courts, community payback, electronic monitoring and the quality of some provision in private prisons and detention centres. There was therefore limited political support for privatising the whole lot, hence the “split” solution.

Several probation experts argued that splitting the probation service into two distinct groups was a far riskier solution than selling all the service to private providers. The split in the service creates challenges, some of which, with great patience, effort and commitment from all stakeholders, could be managed, but a world full of good will is not going to address the insurmountable structural flaws arising from the split. These include, but are not limited to: local service delivery and management of clients; bureaucracy and inefficiency, with additional processes generated to manage the allocation of cases and accountability; substandard internal communications, especially those founded upon outdated and unstable technology within the National Offender Management Service; and inefficient management of staff due to internal competition, which undermines morale and professional unity.

However, the greatest flaw was rushing the whole programme through to meet a strict political timetable without any adequate testing or piloting. The MOJ also failed to establish workable, sustainable contracts with the CRCs. These are already the subject of significant challenge from the new CRC owners. Equally, in its haste to successfully establish the CRCs, all efforts and energy were focused on the contracts share sale, and very limited evidence emerged of any serious planning or risk assessment of the future management of the newly nationalised National Probation Service.

With no piloting or credible assessment of what the new work meant or involved, the allocation of budgets and staff was largely guesswork. Initially, NOMS stated that 70% of work was expected to be transferred to the CRCs as only around 30% of total clients would be classified as high risk. This was not a scientific experiment, and it quickly became evident that it did not translate. The staffing split soon became 50/50, with ongoing confusion about where some work should sit. Current staffing levels and reliance on expensive agency staff are simply not sustainable, nor value for money for the taxpayer. A case needs to be made to the Treasury for emergency support for the NPS.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that this sounds all too familiar? As with other privatisations led by the Conservatives in government, they privatise the profits and nationalise the debts, and long-term liabilities to the taxpayer become greater than they were before.

[Stephen Kinnock]

I do agree with my hon. Friend. It is important to put a system in place that works. The old maxim, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, applies. We absolutely have to be open to new forms of innovation, working in partnership with both the third and private sector, but that was already happening. The new system that has been put in place has unfortunately caused a great deal of confusion. I hope that today we can make some progress on sorting that out.

The contracts allow the CRCs to pass back tough cases and still get paid on a fee-for-service basis. A further problem concerns the additional redundancy costs. The probation unions have recently had cause to lodge formal disputes with the national negotiating council on account of one of the CRC owners—in this case Sodexo—refusing to honour the terms of voluntary redundancy under the national staff transfer and protections agreement. Staff terms and conditions should be honoured, and the MOJ should police this as part of its contract management.

I now want to turn to the report by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of probation. It is expected that Ministers will cite the latest report from Paul Wilson as evidence that it is too early to form a judgment about TR and that it will be another two to three years before the public can see evidence of the effectiveness of the reforms. Although not disputing the valuable work of HMIP, we believe this is a wholly unsatisfactory analysis that will assist the Government in their attempts to gloss over the reality that is the failure of TR. I do not believe we can afford to wait two to three years for the situation to resolve itself when the consequences of a failing probation service are so critical to public safety.

A further vital point is about transparency. In a letter written to the Select Committee on Justice, the Minister claimed he was putting measures in place to improve transparency. We fully support the need for the performance of the probation services and the CRCs to be properly monitored and for the results of that monitoring to be made public. As such, we strongly recommend that private probation providers are made to comply with freedom of information requests so that they, too, can be openly scrutinised by hon. Members and the public. We also call on the Government to place the details of the 21 private contracts in the public domain so that they are open to scrutiny.

Finally, I want to raise serious concerns about service delivery. The MOJ is proposing a reduction in the number of full reports delivered to courts and a greater reliance on oral reports. Oral reports by their very nature do not allow for a full risk assessment to be carried out by probation staff, nor for any information that is held by other agencies to be collected. As such, they should be used on low-level first-time offences only. However, the push to use these types of reports in the majority of cases will see them being used for wholly inappropriate offences.

We are already aware that, because of pressures on staff and staff shortages, oral reports are being used for sexual and domestic violence offences. Such cases are complex, and there are underlying risk issues that must be investigated fully prior to sentencing. Children’s services and the police should be contacted to see whether there are ongoing risks to children and victims. Without that information, it is impossible to manage the case effectively or safely, or to propose to the court the most appropriate sentence.

I will summarise the seven key recommendations that must be implemented urgently. First, there should be open engagement between the unions and senior MOJ and NOMS management and stakeholders to identify ways to resolve some of the urgent performance issues arising in the NPS. Secondly, there should be a full post-implementation review of TR and the contracts and performance of CRC providers since 1 February 2015.

Thirdly, the NPS should be properly funded, sustainable and effective at managing some of the most dangerous offenders, and there should be funding for information and communications technology that is fit for purpose. Fourthly, there should be effective contract management, including a full analysis of CRC operating models, to ensure a safe delivery of service that focuses on public protection and rehabilitation, not just on cost-cutting exercises. Fifthly, all CRC owners should be made subject to freedom of information requests, so that their performance can be scrutinised by MPs and the public.

Sixthly, there must be robust and fully open contract management to ensure that providers are adhering to staff terms and conditions as underwritten by Ministers. Seventhly, a mechanism should be put in place to enable those in CRCs who are made redundant to transfer swiftly to the NPS at the same grade as they were prior to the split. That would not only ensure that skilled staff are not lost, but help to reduce the pressures in the NPS caused by staff shortages.

A wise person once said that what matters is what works. It is crystal clear to all concerned that the transforming rehabilitation programme conceived by the coalition Government is simply not working. We in the Labour party are pragmatists. As such, we urge the Minister and his colleagues to remove ideology and dogmatism from this matter in order to enable common sense to prevail. We call on the Minister to listen to the experts and fix this broken system before it is too late.

Psychoactive Substances Bill [Lords]

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Monday 19th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

I warmly welcome the Bill, and I can say with a fair degree of confidence that many of my Chester constituents will share that feeling. I pay tribute to the Minister for Policing, Crime and Criminal Justice who has taken on this issue with his usual no-nonsense approach, which is to be applauded.

Members who know the city of Chester will know it as an historic city with great tourist attractions—the hon. Members for Winchester (Steve Brine) and for York Outer (Julian Sturdy) spoke in similar terms earlier—but one that has been blighted by a large usage of legal highs in the city centre. On a Friday a couple of weeks ago, I was on a walking tour around my constituency. I was on the road in a double row of shopping streets known historically as the world’s first shopping mall when we were disturbed by a paramedic and a police officer racing up with their blue lights on to attend an emergency. A young gentleman was splayed, arms akimbo, completely unconscious on the road, not 30 yards away from a legal high shop. It took no amount of medical knowledge to understand what had happened.

The local council in western Chester is seeking to implement a public space protection order, and the Cheshire police have recently introduced community prevention notices on three shops in Chester that have been selling these legal highs, asking them to desist from doing so. Members would be right to ask why, if those measures are in place, we need the Bill. Well, the Bill will put us on the front foot and enable us to tackle rather than just chase after the problems, giving us for the first time a proactive approach to combating them.

Members have raised questions about the advisability of forcing legal highs underground. With his permission, I should like to quote my constituent, Daniel Schott. He writes and blogs about life in Chester, and he is a recovering legal highs addict who is currently looking for work. I believe that in talking about his own difficulties and putting his own frailties on the line to prevent others from falling into the trap into which he has fallen, he has adopted a very brave approach.

Daniel said that a major part of the problem was the fact that the drugs were so accessible, because the shops were open from 10 am until 5.30 pm every day.

“It just spiralled out of control really”,

he said.

“We didn’t think it was harmless, we thought it was the Holy Grail because I could walk into the shop and pay on Switch. If I was smoking weed then I had to find a dealer. He might have some he might not, then we have to meet up, wait down a dark alley somewhere or wherever you get this sort of stuff from. This isn’t like a weed dealer. You can go from 10 am in the morning and pay by Switch.”

We may be forcing the supply of legal highs underground, but we are certainly making it a whole lot harder and a whole lot less normal for ordinary people to become involved with these drugs. That is why it is important to recognise that, whatever the complications, this is absolutely the right thing to do. I pay tribute again to my constituent Mr Schott for the way in which he has shared his experiences. He has urged everyone to back the Bill because he found himself in such a desperate circumstance.

In the spirit of cross-party consensus, I want to introduce a note of party-political criticism—criticism, that is, of the previous administration of Cheshire West and Chester council, which, under the terms of the public health contract, put the local drug and alcohol addiction clinic out to tender when it did not need to do so, and refused to allow the current NHS provider, Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, to go beyond the initial stage of bidding. That led to a hollowed-out and greatly diminished drug and alcohol service in Chester.

Members on both sides of the House have talked of the importance of education, but I do not want us to criminalise people with addictions. Addiction is a health problem, and should be dealt with through health policy. It is a shame that the provision for drug and alcohol support in Chester has been so diminished. I hope that at some point we shall be able to rebuild it, and that, as well as dealing with the criminal matters to which the Minister referred, we shall be able to implement a health policy along with the education policy that other Members have described. Chester is a small, historic city, which has been blighted by the three shops that are selling these products.

[Mike Penning]

I apologise for intervening—I know that my colleagues would like to go home—but I think that the issue of head shops is very important. When I announced this policy, one of the first newspapers that rang me was one in Falkirk. This is so moving that I think that the House should know about it. I was told that yesterday a gentleman and a 16-year-old girl—I shall not mention any names—went to a head shop and bought what they thought was a safe, legal product for a bit of fun. I do not know whether they paid with a credit card. The gentleman took the drug and died within two minutes. The girl was critically ill, and we do not know what the long-term effects will be. We know about the 129 people who died last year, and we have the other figures about people who have died, but we do not have figures that would tell us how many lives had been destroyed and how many people have lost their loved ones.

--- Later in debate ---

[Christian Matheson]

I absolutely understand the Minister’s point. As I said earlier, I believe that the Bill will put us on the front foot rather than chasing after the problem, and I welcome it. I am sure that a large proportion of my constituents will support it as well, because so many of them have seen at first hand, around the city centre, the effects of legal highs on people who are addicted to them and seriously damaged by them, and who are often found sprawled semi-conscious or unconscious, or being treated by paramedics.

Police Procurement (Motor Vehicles)

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2015 Westminster Hall

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered police procurement of motor vehicles.

I am grateful for having secured today’s debate in conjunction with my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders).

As the Government struggle to find an answer to their woes about Britain’s lack of productivity and as globalised corporations continue to send more British manufacturing and engineering abroad—not because build quality is better, but simply to boost their own short-term profits—we still have a lead in one sector, in which we are globally renowned. That sector is the automotive industry, where the UK is steaming ahead with a global lead based on design innovation, engineering excellence, manufacturing quality, investment in skills and a commitment by managers and employees alike to work together to achieve common aims of success and, crucially, to share the fruits fairly.

The automotive sector in the UK presents an ideal opportunity for the Government to implement a positive procurement strategy. More than 600 automotive companies are based in the UK, employing just over 730,000 people and turning over more than £60 billion. The UK produces 1.6 million cars and commercial vehicles and over 2.6 million engines every year. We are now the second largest vehicles market and fourth largest vehicles manufacturer in the European Union. We are also the second largest premium vehicles manufacturer after Germany. Some 80% of all vehicles produced in the UK are exported and, for the first time since the 1970s, the UK has a trade surplus and a positive balance of payments for the auto sector. Take the Range Rover Evoque, built by Jaguar Land Rover in Halewood: demand is such that they cannot build the cars quickly enough. Think also of Nissan’s massive success with vehicles such as the Qashqai or the LEAF.

Yet for all its success, the automotive sector remains if not precarious, then never quite secure. Car firms are only as good as their next model, and the allocation of work to plants across a group will take place many years before production commences. In my former role as an official with Unite the union—I am still a member—and its predecessors, I twice joined in negotiations with the global management of General Motors to try to save the Vauxhall plant at Ellesmere Port. These are tough discussions with big global players that see local management and workers fighting together for their plant but often having to make difficult concessions on pay and working hours to remain competitive. Government assistance to support that competitive position is always welcome, because there is no such thing as long-term security in the car industry.

At this stage, the Home Office Minister may be forgiven for wondering whether it is he or I who is in the wrong debate, but we are sadly now at a point when the Home Office has a direct interest in the motor vehicle industry. Through the central purchasing system set up by the Government and administered by the Cabinet Office, a consortium of around 22 police forces, including my own in Cheshire, are on the verge of signing a procurement deal for police vehicles. Despite the abundance of quality in the UK car manufacturing sector, it is reported that the principal deal is likely to be with Peugeot. No other major EU country would betray one of its leading industries in this way. I challenge all hon. Members to go to Germany and find a police car that is not an Audi, a Mercedes or a Volkswagen or to go to France and find a police car that is not a Peugeot, a Citroen or a Renault.

We must recognise that the supply chain works right across Europe and helps both British companies and those who supply into the British-made market, but is not just the failure to buy British that is the scandal here. There is a double insult because Peugeot chose not to manufacture in this country. In 2006, it closed its plant at Ryton in Coventry and moved the work to Slovenia—lock, stock and barrel. It was not that Ryton was unprofitable or unproductive; it was simply that the global management of Peugeot believed that bigger short-term profits could be made by moving to a country where manufacturing costs are lower. That is its prerogative, even if it did put 3,000 skilled British workers out of well-paid jobs.

That being the case, why on earth, just a few short years later, are we considering rewarding Peugeot with a massive public sector contract, having seemingly forgotten its betrayal of a loyal British workforce?

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Had he not done so, we would simply not have been aware that the deal is about to be done. I support him when he says that we should always seek to buy British, but does he agree that, provided that they buy British, it is right that police forces should collaborate in order to procure?

[Christian Matheson]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. We must surely welcome collaboration between police forces if it leads to greater efficiency and greater savings. We cannot dismiss that process, but wider considerations must be taken into account in the police consortium’s discussions, and I will talk about that later.

In times of austerity, it cannot be right that we are potentially taking millions of pounds of British taxpayers’ cash and posting it across the channel. Does that really represent value for money for British taxpayers? Part of the problem has been with how the Government transposed the EU procurement directive. By transposing the directive into UK law in a weaker form than that adopted by our EU partners, the Government have left the British manufacturing industry at a serious competitive disadvantage. Article 1 of the new directive states the fundamental principle of the right of member states to define and run their public services in their own interests, and as such they are not subject to marketisation under EU law. However, the UK Government decided not to transpose that section and have excluded any reference to that principle within the regulations.

The mandatory considerations in article 18(2) lay down the labour law standards and working conditions that must be respected throughout the stages of the public procurement procedure. Additional social, economic, quality and environmental criteria are those that provide the flexibility to enable contracting authorities to promote sustainable and positive procurement policies. Unfortunately, the Government have taken a distinctly minimalist approach to implementing that article.

Returning to the point that I made in response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), all this means that the only consideration that ever seems to be taken into account is one of bare cost. I simply cannot understand why the Government, or other public authorities such as the consortium or police and crime commissioners, are so keen to open the doors to foreign corporate bidders and hand over huge public sums to globalised corporations that hold no loyalty to the UK, given that other corporations of similar size and stature have made a commitment to this country by choosing to site and manufacture here. One thing is for sure: it was not due to some Damascene conversion to the European ideal that the Government chose to water down the directive.

Returning to my right hon. Friend’s point, I accept that cost must be a central factor in procurement decisions, as is the question of whether the chosen equipment can actually do the job it is being purchased to do. However, in addition to those two principles, there must surely be a cost-benefit consideration for the British economy more widely.

We must support skilled employment, retain skills and provide opportunities for real apprenticeships, which the Government are keen to promote, as opposed to the more cheap and cheerful training courses. The automotive industry has led the way in providing quality training and apprenticeships, and in bringing real skills and design innovation into this country. It has given real value to the country, and we should be supporting it in its success. Instead, we appear to be failing to stand up for British jobs and skills by intending to reward a firm that specifically chose to turn its back on this country.

There is still hope, however. I ask the Minister to urge the police and crime commissioners to review the decision. He must urge them not to sign the contract with Peugeot—if there is still time—and to consider other British bidders. He must save the PCCs from shame and obloquy by preventing them from handing over huge quantities of taxpayers’ cash to a foreign corporation, when British firms would not have had the chance to do the same in other EU countries, which actually fight for their manufacturing base and as a result have a much more balanced economy.

I doubt whether, when the Minister took the Prime Minister’s call and accepted a position in the Home Office and the Department of Justice, he realised that striking a blow to Britain’s car industry would be at the top of his agenda within a matter of a couple of months. He has the power to call a pause to what I believe is a crazy, crackpot scheme. I urge him to use it and to fight for British jobs, British skills and the British working people, whom the Government claim to be so fond of championing. Now is the time to stand up for Britain. I ask the Minister to step up and meet the challenge.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keith Vaz]

I am happy to do so. That is the second thing that I have learned this afternoon. I did not know that, and I think that Leicestershire should be part of a consortium or collaboration because that is the best way, working together among the various police forces, that we can get the best possible deal for taxpayers.

We have not yet reached the Scottish situation outlined by the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Richard Arkless) in which there is one police force and one chief constable who can work with the national Government to procure the best deal. Who knows whether we may be looking in that direction? I have just been looking at the evidence that the permanent secretary at the Home Office gave on Monday to the Public Accounts Committee. He hinted at economies of scale with reference to mergers. I do not say that we are going to consider mergers, because that always causes a lot of concern among hon. Members, who are all keen to preserve their local police forces. However, value for money is an important criterion.

My second point, and I suppose a more important one for the present debate, is what kind of vehicles we would like our police officers to be in. Of course as British citizens we would like them to be in vehicles manufactured in our country. When we considered the issue of value for money, we found that cheapest is not always best. Of course we would want the best possible deal. I am not sure how the bidding process happens—whether by sealed bid or open negotiations; but I think that if there were a way for the consortium to put to a British manufacturer the deal that it had got with a foreign one, to see whether it could be matched in this country, that should be done.

The only way that can be done, of course, is if what has happened is properly examined. I promise my hon. Friends the Members for City of Chester and for Ellesmere Port and Neston that I will write to whoever is the lead in the consortium—as the Minister has made it clear that he will not be signing the contract, at the end—and ask the reason for the decision. Buying British is not always the best option. We are not the ones who sit at the negotiating table, in the end. However, both my hon. Friends have made a compelling case for the matter to be looked at carefully, and of course we want the police to use vehicles made in this country, if that is possible.

[Christian Matheson]

My right hon. Friend makes a good point about the importance of buying British. Does he accept that there may be occasions when the model that would best meet the specifications is not made in the United Kingdom, but is made by a manufacturer that has made a commitment to the UK by manufacturing other models here? Perhaps that would not be ideal, but we might at least consider such manufacturers that have made a commitment to UK jobs, skills and prosperity.

[Keith Vaz]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point, and I support it. I have not heard it before. As to whether we should have a system of contract compliance for public sector contracts, I am quite attracted to that. I think a commitment to this country would be a good idea. I do not have enough knowledge of the detail, unlike my hon. Friends, but we need to consider that carefully. Even at what sounds like the 11th hour, I hope that those concerned will pause and consider what is happening. In bringing the matter before the House my hon. Friends have brought to my attention, and that of the Select Committee, something we did not know about before.

My final point is about the nature of the private sector’s relationship with the public sector. We examined that in the context of Olympic delivery, when a large Government contract was outsourced to G4S and we found that it was at fault; what it was prepared to deliver was wanting. That was the eve of the Olympics and there was not much chance to do much; we had to accept what G4S said. However, very large companies such as G4S and Serco, which are not necessarily British but may be global, with headquarters here and paying taxes elsewhere, may try to get the Home Office and other Departments over a barrel because of their size. I am sure that the Select Committee will want to look at that in the future, especially when we examine Mark Sedwill and his role as permanent secretary.

Those things come to Ministers at the end, and there is a lot of pressure on them to settle for the best possible deal, which sometimes means the cheapest. However, we know that in the present case the decision will not be made by the Minister who is here today. We will have to look at the issue again, because the private sector is powerful and has enormous sway over Government decisions. I hope that in future the Select Committee will look at what this afternoon’s short debate has opened up—the way in which private sector organisations deal with the Home Office, in particular—because that is our remit. That might have wider implications for other Departments.

I hope that my hon. Friends the Members for City of Chester and for Ellesmere Port and Neston will be successful in getting a short pause to allow people to think again before the deal is signed. As we know, once a contract is signed—as we found with e-Borders and the cost to the taxpayer of, in the end, £750 million—there is nothing we can do. It is better to stop and consider carefully before signing the deal, and I urge those involved to do that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Christian Matheson]

Thank you, Mr Brady, for presiding over the debate. I thank right hon. and hon. Members for joining in, and pay tribute to the Minister for his characteristically forthright and honest approach. He asked us to look at his experience and track record, which suggests that he understands at least some of the issues we have raised, and I am grateful for that. The one question I would like him to ponder after the debate is why, if he has been advised that my proposals would be illegal, the same is not the case in our partner states in the EU, such as France and Germany.

[Mike Penning]

We have some time, so it is important that I respond to that. As I mentioned earlier, when I go to ministerial meetings and meet ministerial colleagues from Europe, they often have a very different attitude to their membership. I will try to find out how they have done it. Someone mentioned Saab earlier; sadly, it went out of manufacturing and stopped producing cars. I love Saabs. I used to drive them, and they are great, fun cars to drive. I am a bit of a petrolhead, so I do get in trouble when I talk about these sorts of things.

I will find out about the legality issues relating to procurement, and I will write to Members, copying in the Chair of the Select Committee and the shadow Minister. If I have misled the House in any way, I did not mean to. I am not a lawyer, but I am trying to be as honest as possible.

[Christian Matheson]

I thank the Minister for that intervention and the interest he is taking in this issue. I am extremely grateful to the other right hon. and hon. Members who participated in the debate. The Minister mentioned future contracts; I can tell him and others present that with, I am sure, my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), I will be taking a very close interest in that process—hopefully from the start of the process this time.

[Richard Arkless]

Before we embark on that process, will the hon. Gentleman and, perhaps, the Minister commit to looking at the other side of the coin? I am not saying whether or not this is the case, but do our European partners procure items, such as vehicles, for their public services from the UK? Would it not be wise to investigate that possibility before coming to a decision?

[Christian Matheson]

It is absolutely the case that—I think that the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) referred to this fact—the supply chain in the United Kingdom does supply to businesses across Europe. I say to the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Richard Arkless): go to France and find a police car that is not a Peugeot, a Citroën or a Renault, and go to Germany and find one that is not made by a German manufacturer. This problem appears to be peculiar to the United Kingdom.

In conclusion, I thank you, Mr Brady, and other hon. Members again. The UK automotive industry is very successful and is always looking to the next model, but it is never quite as secure as it appears and needs support from the Government to maintain its success. I shall maintain my vigilance on the contracts in the coming months.

Question put and agreed to

Resolved,

That this House has considered police procurement of motor vehicles.