Panama Papers

David Lammy Excerpts

Monday 11th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

It is good that we are having this summit. As I am writing in a document that will be released before the summit, no country, no politician—no one—can claim that they have a perfect and unblemished record in this regard; all countries are battling against these problems, as we did in the House of Commons with the problems of expenses and all the rest of it. However, I want to encourage people, and the Prime Minister of Afghanistan and the President of Nigeria are contributing, and they are admitting that their countries are rife with corruption and it needs to be dealt with. The problem is that, if nobody actually stands up and talks about these issues and sets out the action plans for delivering on these issues, nothing will get done.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

At the last count, 36,364 properties in London were owned by offshore companies—that is one in 10 in one London borough and 7% in another London borough. We should know who owns those properties. Many believe that this is about dirty money from countries such as Russia and from the middle east. This is driving up costs, with a 50% increase since 2007. What is the Prime Minister going to do about dirty money propping up the London property market?

[The Prime Minister]

The first thing, which we have already done and which has had a huge impact, is to say that, if a company owns a property in a so-called envelope structure, so that we cannot get to the name of the person who owns that property, they have to pay an annual stamp duty charge of something like 15%. That has been a massive money raiser, providing money to spend on public services, and a huge disincentive for that sort of behaviour. However, I want to go further; as I said in my speech in Singapore, we need to have more information about who owns what in our country.

ISIL in Syria

David Lammy Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I would like to give way to my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy).

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Leader of the Opposition for giving way. Does he accept that the 70,000 moderate Sunnis who the Prime Minister claims are in Syria comprise many different jihadist groups? There is concern across the House that in degrading ISIL/Daesh, which is possible, we might create a vacuum into which other jihadists would come, over time. Surely that would not make the streets of Britain safer.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

For the sake of north London geography, I shall now give way to the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes).

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

My close school friend James Adams was blown up on the Piccadilly line outside Russell Square on 7 July 2005. Five of my constituents—Anna Brandt, Ciaran Cassidy, Arthur Frederick, Lee Harris and Samantha Badham—also lost their lives.

Terrorism needs to be defeated, and the whole House comes together in that effort. The Prime Minister is right to say that bombing might degrade ISIL; I am with him on that. He is right to say that a coalition needs to come together to challenge the force of Daesh. He is also right to say that there are moderates on the ground who might support our efforts after the aerial bombing. However, having listened to the Prime Minister and to this debate, and having reflected on Turkey’s attack on the Russians, I have come to the conclusion that I am not able to support the Government tonight, for three reasons.

First, having looked into the eyes of so many young Muslim men who might be seduced by extremism, I am deeply concerned that there remains a vacuum, because there is not a sufficient number of Sunni moderates on the ground. I remember this House saying we would deal with al-Qaeda, but in doing so we made way for ISIL. Given that there are 65 disparate groups—many of which are jihadists—this will result in future extremists.

Much has been said about the Parisian bombings being an act of terror. Of course, they were an extreme act of terror, but they were also an act of holy war. They were bait for us and others to engage in that holy war. We must tread very, very gently over the coming days and months.

The Prime Minister could have come to this House and committed to ground troops, but I know that no one would want to put boots on the ground. We simply cannot continue to expect aerial bombardment to do the job. It has become the sop—the blanket—of the west. The truth is that civilians—cousins, brothers, sisters—will die and a new generation of extremists will come up from the vacuum. That is why, unfortunately, I am not prepared to put my name to the Government motion.

Syria: Refugees and Counter-terrorism

David Lammy Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I obviously look forward to discussing this matter with President Obama, but let us be fair, the US is the largest aid donor to Syria, and I am sure we will go on encouraging it and others to do more, just as we have kept our promise about the 0.7%.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

I welcome what the Prime Minister has said today, but he will know that when Turkey invaded Cyprus, we took 50,000 Cypriots; that during Idi Amin’s reign in Uganda, we took 30,000 Asian Ugandans; and that we took more than 20,000 Vietnamese boat people in a short space of time. Why has he limited his help for Syrians to 4,000 a year?

[The Prime Minister]

We have said 20,000 refugees, which I think is the right response for Britain. We want to make sure we have the capacity to give these people a home and a welcome. Obviously, every year Britain takes asylum seekers from right around the world—I think last year we had some 25,000 applications. We have a large number of people from Eritrea and other countries trying to make their way to Britain and claim asylum. Our record on asylum claims over a 10 to 20-year period shows that we are a generous country which operates the system properly, and I think that 20,000 Syrian refugees is about right.

Debate on the Address

David Lammy Excerpts

Wednesday 27th May 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate and to follow the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell). None of us knows what the next five years has in store for us as Members of Parliament. He had a difficult time—on occasions unfairly—in the last Parliament, and I wish him the very best for this one.

I, too, recall being the seconder of the Humble Address, although I cannot believe it was 14 years ago, when I looked like a young Denzel Washington—of course, today I look far more like Forest Whitaker. Fourteen years have passed, I am a little older, my hair is growing white and, interestingly, I am now described as a senior Member of the House of Commons.

I am very grateful to the people of Tottenham for returning me. I was unusual in this general election in saying to my electorate that I wanted to be the MP for Tottenham, but only for a year, because I hope to follow the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) as the Mayor of London. He went into the election seeking to be the MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, while also wanting to continue as Mayor. I wish him the very best over the coming years as he endeavours, I suspect, to secure another job. I was returned with the biggest majority of any MP that has stood for Tottenham, and I am very grateful for that.

Let me speak to all Members about an issue I know my hon. Friends will recognise. On the Sunday after the election, I took my eight-year-old to his Sunday football league, and I was approached by parents living in Edmonton in north London. Many such parents are on the minimum wage. They might be cleaners, dinner ladies, minicab drivers, hospital porters and so forth. They remind me of my family and me in 1992 when we fully expected Neil Kinnock to become Prime Minister. Those people were pleased that I had won my constituency, but they were bewildered at the scale of the defeat for the Labour party, and they were genuinely worried about what was in store for them. When the issue of the £12 billion-worth of cuts to come is raised, I hope that the Government will remain true to their pledge to be one nation, but I expect that it will be down to all of us in the official Opposition to make sure that we hold them to that over the coming months.

Let me deal first with the issue of devolution. As a member of an ethnic minority, I have always feared the prospect of nationalism. I understand the motives of SNP Members, but I believe powerfully in the Union and in the ability of all of us to take our place in that Union as British citizens. It is quite right to move towards the further devolution of powers to Scotland, but it is important to recognise the balance across our nation as a whole.

Let me remind Members of the important contribution of London to our economy, as it is providing a bigger share of our economy than at any time since 1911. The powers of a London Mayor in partnership with the local authorities in the 33 boroughs of London are, frankly, quite pathetic in comparison with the situation in other major cities across our planet. As we devolve greater powers to other cities and mayors and look to devolve further powers to Scotland, it is a matter of great concern that we are not seeing commensurate powers passed on to the Mayor of London or to those who lead the London boroughs. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West (Rob Marris) urges me to declare my interest. Of course I have an interest, but I believe that it is in the interests of London as a whole that the Mayor should have a greater say in the health and education of Londoners. We compete not only with other parts of the country, but with young people in Shanghai and Bangalore, so the Mayor should have more powers to convene and co-ordinate in order to drive up standards in this city.

Above all, we need to see implementation of the Travers review so that further fiscal responsibility can be passed to the Mayor. We need a much deeper relationship with respect, for example, to stamp duty, business tax and the ability to drive the infrastructure investment that London needs. There will be much debate about HS2, but, as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Crossrail 2, I hope to see that gather pace during this Parliament, and I hope to see devolution to London.

[Boris Johnson]

I wish the right hon. Gentleman every good fortune in his efforts to replace me. I commend what he is saying about devolution, but may I advise him to couch it less in terms of more powers for the mayoralty than in terms of more powers for Londoners to set their own priorities, and to ensure that they have the necessary funds to invest in Crossrail 2, as well as in the housing that they need?

[Mr Lammy]

The hon. Gentleman is right: the powers must sit somewhere. As he knows, however, I also referred to the 33 London boroughs. It is of huge concern that local government was stripped of so much during the last Parliament, and that the ability to deliver local services properly, with power where it should be—closest to the people—does not exist to the extent that most borough leaders would wish. Both the Mayor and those who lead our local authorities need to have that power and ability in the future.

Let me also remind the hon. Gentleman that he was involved in a report by Gerard Lyons which concluded that it would be a huge mistake for this country to exit Europe, and that London alone would lose £210 billion in revenue. The hon. Gentleman is known for his wit, but I hope that he is also known for his detail. The report concluded that it would be a disaster for us to go down that road. There is real concern about the fact that, as we head towards the referendum, big decisions in the City are effectively on hold because of the risk to our national economy. I hope that we reach a decisive conclusion as soon as possible, and that we opt to stay in Europe, because it seems to me that that must be in the interests of all of us.

[Mr Graham Allen]

Before my right hon. Friend moves on to all things mayoral, will he return to the core of the principles involved in devolution? Is it not contradictory that a Government that wish to devolve power should insist, from the centre, on the form of leadership that is to apply in the localities in question? Does my right hon. Friend agree that we should offer devolution options to the cities, regions, counties and other localities of the Union? If they wish to choose the mayoral model, by all means let them go ahead, but they may prefer another leadership model, or perhaps a committee model. Surely the decision should be made by those to whom powers are being devolved, rather than from the centre.

[Mr Lammy]

That is a very good point. Some people are using the phrase “hyper-devolution”, which means devolution to communities as they negotiate the power that must rightly lie with them.

Let me now deal with what I consider to be a major issue in the Queen’s Speech. Our country faces a huge structural economic problem in its housing market. We are failing badly the people beyond the House who are young and want to get on to the housing ladder, but who are also the working poor, unable to secure social housing or to buy affordable housing. It is of huge concern that the average age of a buyer in London was 39 this year, and that if we continue on the same trajectory, it will be 52 in a generation. It is also embarrassing and shocking that we built only 40 council houses in London last year. There is much talk about affordable housing, but all hon. Members will understand that rents at 80% of market value are not affordable for most Londoners, who on average earn £32,000 a year. It beggars belief that the Government should propose to extend the right to buy to the 1.3 million people in housing associations. We can look at the matter from a Thatcherite point of view. There is no other area of public policy where someone can get as much as £100,000 from the taxpayer for buying their council home. We are to extend that to people in housing associations. What will that do to supply? How will that contribute to the huge problem of affordable housing? What is our vision for social housing? It appears that there is no vision for social housing and that we are effectively saying we no longer believe in council homes and we no longer believe in social housing in housing associations.

[Mr David Davis]

Because it is low-cost, high-security accommodation, people never move out of it, so how is it the answer to the problem that someone in a housing association flat or house monopolises it for life and it never becomes available to other people who properly want social housing?

[Mr Lammy]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point in relation to the escalator that should be fundamental to the welfare system, but with respect that is not the point I am making. We are reducing the supply of social housing, and many people on a decent wage simply do not have the assets to reduce the demand for social housing. That seems wrong-headed. In the previous Parliament, we heard much about a council house being built for every one that came off the market. That has not happened and it will not happen with housing association properties either.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept, if the properties are not coming on to the market because tenants have security and stay in them all their lives, that if a mechanism could be found whereby the capital receipts had to be put into new housing, that would increase the supply of housing available for social tenants?

[Mr Lammy]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. That is related to the ability of local authorities to borrow in order to build. However, even if they were given powers to borrow in order to build, they would want the security that the house they had built would not come off the market three years later. We have therefore created a terrible vicious circle that will lead to tremendous hardship, I suspect, in the next five years.

There are real concerns about asking the Metropolitan police to find another £700 million-worth of cuts. It took 2,500 officers to restore order to many of the streets of this country during the 2011 riots. That is exactly the number of officers we have lost over this last period. It is true that response times are good, but neighbourhood policing is disappearing and the crime that bedevils deprived areas is rampant. We should think again.

Higher Education Funding

David Lammy Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Binley]

I will allude to that problem, which I hope will be corrected when this place discusses—if it has the courage to do so, and I pray it does—devolution and the Barnett formula, because there is no doubt that Scottish students who attend Scottish universities get a much more helpful and lucrative deal than Scottish citizens who attend English universities. This is a matter not of English or Scots, but of devolution, which in this instance works very much against students in English universities. They are ill done by, as are citizens more broadly, on whom less per head of population is spent than on our fellow Scottish citizens.

The much discussed 50% target for participation in universities, although arbitrary, was entrenched in the need for change in the 1990s and was one of the motivators of the current situation. I was a secondary modern schoolboy under the tripartite system, which could have been enhanced and could have flowered in the extent of choice it gave to parents. I regret that, at a stroke, it was done away with. I fear that was to our great cost and genuinely feel that the extension of offers in education that is beginning to flower now is an important development. Most importantly, we must place apprentices, technologists and all those who are so vital to the well-being of our economy on an exact par with university students, and in the past I fear they have not been given that recognition. I want to see a more equitable division between those who have gone on to higher education in technical fields and those who have chosen the academic areas for which the universities are famous. I think that that is part of the answer and I am sure that the Government will take it on board.

The 2011 White Paper promised that higher education would be put on a financially sustainable basis. The Browne review established the principle that the beneficiaries of higher education would need to make a greater contribution towards the costs, and I agree with that. It was also proposed that graduates should pay a proportion of their salary only when they were earning more than £21,000 a year, and that was widely welcomed. That provides a part-answer to a previous question.

The Select Committee inquiry in the first Session of this Parliament, to which I contributed, drew two conclusions about the affordability of the loan system. We agreed that there should be clarity for students about the relationship between the burden borne by them and that borne by the taxpayer, as a function of the performance of the economy. That seemed to me to be vital, because we have turned students into customers and consumers, and consumers have a right to know that they are getting a fair deal. That fair deal will also have an impact on their children and grandchildren, which is why this matter is so important.

I genuinely believe that we are leaving a massive black hole for future generations to deal with, and I say to my right hon. Friend the Minister that I find that immoral and totally unacceptable. I know that he thinks of politics in terms of an ethical and moral base, and I hope that he will hear my plea. We have no right to lay so much danger and concern on to those who follow us. We are already doing it with a deficit that was built up to far too high a level. That is causing us problems now and will continue to do so for at least the next five, six or seven years. I do not want that problem to be added to by a black hole because we did not take the trouble to consider this issue properly.

That is why I am appealing to my right hon. Friend in this regard, and I do so not for ourselves. Of course the Government can hide the problem away, but if they do so, they will not be acting in the ethical and moral way in which the Minister and I would want them to act. I therefore hope that he will recognise this element of the problem. This is not about the accounting that the Treasury seeks to project; it is about what most Members of the House of Commons want to see. I have served here for almost 10 years, and I believe that Members consider morality, ethics and good practice to be massively important factors in their deliberations, and I hope that we can apply those factors to this issue.

I shall be leaving this place in three months and I want to make a heartfelt appeal to the Minister on behalf of my two children and three grandchildren. The problem could easily be shoved aside, but it will come back to haunt us in a big way in 15 or 20 years if we are not careful.

The Select Committee inquiry drew two conclusions. I have just outlined the first, but the second has greater significance. We stated:

“The affordability of the new system is dependent on a wide range of variables which are outside of Government control.”

The truth is that we doubted that they had been fully taken into account when the system was set up. That gives the Minister the opportunity to say that there is a need to revisit this issue to consider what the other variables outside the Government’s control are. We are not the masters of every issue we face—we are rarely the masters of any issue we face, but that is especially true of this one, which will leave a deficit for our children and grandchildren if we are not careful. This issue is not totally, by any means, within the Government’s control and we need to consider that aspect. If we do not do so, we will be letting future generations down. Consequently, I wish to focus my remarks on the second conclusion.

Let me repeat for the record the doubts I had at the time the reforms were introduced. My right hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Mr Willetts) will know of them, because of some friendly, courteous but relatively robust cross-examinations when he was on the Front Bench. He knows that we were deeply concerned at that time, and nothing that has happened since has changed my mind. I do not believe that proper regard was given in the first place to long-term sustainability, and I want to concentrate on that nub of this matter.

In October 2012, my right hon. Friend the Member for Havant, a wise and certainly highly intelligent Minister, was reported in The Independent—this was “reported”, so I cannot claim he actually said these things, as we all know the dangers that lie in that term—to have said that the RAB on students loans would not rise above 32%, with a 38% ceiling being the worst possible outcome for the taxpayer. In April last year, in response to a parliamentary question, he asserted that estimates at that time placed RAB at about 45%—in such a short time it had already risen way above what I believe were his genuine and heartfelt estimates. In my view, a level not far off 50% has been reached—perhaps it has already moved above that figure—and that simply highlights how important this matter is. To be totally fair, I should point out that he also stated that the Government had achieved significant savings for students, and increased income for universities. I believe he was right to say that, and I welcomed that view then and do so now. We pay tribute to the work he did in the Department, which will benefit my children and grandchildren. I hope I have given an even view of how I see the work of a right hon. Friend I am criticising just a little.

Looking at the reforms from a more detached perspective, it is far from clear that the Government can claim that these changes were a total success, not least on the RAB. A forecast drop in student loan repayments has raised existential questions about the true sustainability of the new system, and we could face a situation in which the effect of trebling tuition fees has resulted in a more expensive settlement for taxpayers, in the way that I have described. A report in March last year by London Economics found that if the charge increases beyond 48.6%, the cost of the reform

“will exceed the 2010-11 system that it replaced.”

That is a startling fact and it ought to add not only to our concern, but to the need for an immediate review in the way the Select Committee is requesting. As I have said, the RAB index is perhaps already above 50%. No business could sustain, and no Government should be prepared to sustain, such a situation, because it is the worst kind of accounting. It is the worst kind of financial thinking about the future, and I reject it, not only as a business man, but as a parent.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

I hesitate to interrupt the hon. Gentleman during what is emerging as an outstanding contribution on the Floor of the House. Does he agree that, given the Government’s continued repetition of the need to balance the country’s books, this is an extraordinary outlier in relation to that clear view that we have to have a sustainable economy? The fact the RAB is moving beyond 50%, as he is indicating, should cause real alarm.

[Mr Binley]

I am most grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s remarks, and I add that this situation should cause real alarm to not only every Member of this House, irrespective of their position or party, but to every parent, business man and citizen in the land. At some stage their children and grandchildren will have to meet this charge if we do nothing about it now. I do not take the accounting answer given earlier by a man I respect, my right hon. Friend the Member for Havant, and I welcome the comments made by the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr Denham), a former Labour Minister, who, sadly, is leaving this place, too—that will be a great loss. He made the point that we cannot avoid debt of any kind and we cannot talk it off a balance sheet; it has to be dealt with at some stage. I would rather it be dealt with now than at some point in the future.

Any business would stem the flow of debt immediately, as it would be so damaging—it would threaten the very livelihood and stability of that business. Any business would be looking for ways of tightening up on credit control—it would probably have done that already, because it could never have afforded to have got into this situation. Any business would look for ways of increasing productivity within the system, and you will be pleased to know that I wish to say a few words about that relatively shortly, Mr Deputy Speaker, and then I will sit down. Does that reassure you?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr John Denham (Southampton, Itchen) (Lab)]

I welcome this debate and congratulate colleagues on both sides of the House on securing it. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West (Mr Bailey) and the hon. Member for Northampton South (Mr Binley) who opened the debate with their excellent speeches that summarised so well the situation and the conclusions of the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee. I will try not to tread the same ground, but I do wish to strike the same note as the Chairman of the Select Committee and query why the Government are refusing to review the system when so many organisations across higher education as well as in the business community are saying that changes are needed. Such complacency is very dangerous indeed.

It is clear why so many organisations are saying that something has to be done, even if they do not agree on the solutions. It is because English universities are boxed in. As the real value of fees erodes, the squeeze on university incomes threatens teaching quality and research excellence. Over the past few years, universities have done quite well out of the system, and have not faced the sort of pressures that our colleagues in health or local government have experienced. But everyone in universities knows that that will not last. The real value of those fees is now well below £8,500 and continues to shrink. The public finances cannot bear ever more debt write offs, but raising fees and graduate payments is still politically toxic. I would be surprised if any political party goes into the next election promising that. Indeed, I would be surprised if they are not forced to rule it out over the course of the campaign.

The idea of allowing universities to fund their own fees might have some role to play if current fees were much lower, but sanctioning ever-more eye-watering fees is likely to be controversial and socially divisive. All the solutions that people come up with essentially boil down to making graduates pay more, pay earlier, pay at higher rates of interests and pay for a longer period of time. The idea that we can simply solve a problem by going back to graduates and asking them to pay more money, however we dress it up, is clearly not right.

It is worth noting that concerns are coming not just from within the sector, but from a range of business and employer groups, including the CBI, which all claim that the system is not working. I will base my remarks around not one, but two observations. Yes, we need to reform the funding system, but we also need to reform the delivery of some of the higher education systems, to echo what the hon. Member for Northampton South has said. The second of those two points is as important as the first.

We have engaged in this debate for a year now and there is a marked division between those largely in the sector who say that there is nothing wrong with higher education just the way we fund it and those largely outside it who say that it is not just about funding but about the higher education on offer.

Before turning to funding, let us review the problem of delivery, which is intimately linked to it. There is now strong evidence that there is a mismatch between the education of many graduates and the needs of employers, society and the graduates themselves. According to the latest figures, which I got from the Office for National Statistics yesterday, the long-term employment prospects of graduates are continuing to deteriorate. The percentage of graduates not working in graduate jobs five years after graduation has now reached a record 34%, up 4% since 2010. The newest graduates are doing a little better in the sense that the percentage not in graduate jobs just after they graduate has fallen from a peak of 48% two years ago to 44%, but that is still much worse than in any year before 2010 and has happened despite the much-trumpeted increase in overall employment in recent years. Whatever sort of recovery is under way, it is clearly not using the skills and education of recent graduates in high value-added graduate jobs. These levels of graduate underemployment are a far cry from the aspirations of students who now borrow huge sums of money to go to university. At the same time, organisations such as the CBI continue to complain about the quality of graduates being produced.

[Mr Lammy]

Does my right hon. Friend agree, on that fundamental point, that not only is there underemployment among that group of graduates who are not working at the level that was expected, but those graduates have pushed out other young people who are unemployed—in London, one in four young people are unemployed and they are depressed because they are outside the market—who cannot get the jobs that they were hoping to get, often in retail, as a consequence?

[Mr Denham]

That must of course be the case if graduates are working in non-graduate jobs. That is a bigger issue than higher education, of course, but the failure to use a graduate work force in graduate jobs is a huge drag on the economy and is one of the reasons why the RAB charges and debt write-off charges are as bad as they are.

Let me be clear that if we understand an honours degree as giving not just knowledge but technical expertise and the capacity to analyse, think independently, exercise intellectual judgement, take responsibility and innovate, we certainly need 50% or more of our population to be educated in that way. We do not have too many graduates, but too many graduates who are not receiving the most appropriate degree-level education.

One of the effects of Government policy over the past four years has been to undermine employer-based higher education. Foundation degrees, usually employer supported, have declined by nearly a half under this Government and employer-funded part-time degrees fell from 40,000 to 25,000 in one year. Out of the hundreds of thousands in university, fewer than 20,000 full-time students across the entire higher education system in all years of study are being funded by employers to do their degrees. The work force development programme, created when I was a Minister, was shut by the coalition, even though it alone was creating 20,000 employer co- financed degrees a year by the time of the last election.

There is much that is good and much that is excellent in the English higher education system and we do not need to change all of it, but we need to make changes that increase the diversity of routes to study and enhance employer engagement with delivering higher education. When we talk about funding higher education, we need to think about how we deliver a better system.

Let me make one point about the long-term sustainability of the system. The Business, Innovation and Skills Committee has done an excellent job and I will not go over that ground, but since then we have had the latest fiscal responsibility report from the OBR, which makes interesting reading. Ministers justified heavy cuts in teaching funding as part of a deficit reduction programme, arguing that we should not put the costs on to future generations. The Chancellor said in 2010:

“If we do not deal with these debts and do not have a credible plan, it will be our children and grandchildren who are saddled with the debts that we were not prepared to pay.” —[Official Report, 20 October 2010; Vol. 516, c. 989.]

The leader of the Liberal Democrats said:

“This strikes me as little short of intergenerational theft. It is the equivalent of loading up our credit card with debt and then expecting our kids to pay it off.”

The recent OBR report underlines just how the debts we are building up now will hang around the necks of graduates and non-graduates in years to come. The OBR estimates that additional net debt arising from new loans will reach nearly 10% of GDP in the late 2030s and 2040s. That debt brings cost. Some debt will have to be written off after 30 years and after 2046, when that kicks in, it will leap dramatically to 0.25% of GDP. Graduates will be making cash repayments of about 0.45% of GDP in the same period and the Government will be paying interest on that stock of debt that the Library estimates at 0.3% of GDP. Many of those costs fall on taxpayers as a whole, not just on graduates.

There is a lot of uncertainty about the figures, but those are the best we have. They tell us that in about 30 years, the public and private cost of paying for the regulated debts will be around 1% of GDP. None of that will fund anybody going to university. According to the OECD, in 2010 the UK spent only 1.3% of GDP from public and private sources on higher education and at that time little was being spent on the cost of debt. The simple conclusion from the OBR is that the policies of the Government are pre-empting a massive share of future national wealth being used to pay for their high-fee, high-debt priorities and not being available to fund future higher education. It is the opposite of what Ministers claimed and it is loading debt on to future generations in a way that is unfair and unsustainable. That is my answer to those who say that we should not worry about RAB charges as they are all technical: there comes a point at which these debts have to be paid and when they do, they will take money out of the national economy that will not be available to pay for higher education.

As for the alternative, I have set out my views over the past year on a number of occasions and, given your remarks, Mr Deputy Speaker, I shall make just two brief observations. Let us not deny that this started under the Labour Government, but it has accelerated under this Government, and we have developed a one-size-fits-all higher education system that is entirely focused on 18-year-olds studying for three years away from home for a residential degree. That has been at the cost of part-time education, at the cost of employer co- sponsored education and at the cost of mature student study.

In a constituency such as mine, where even today relatively few young people go to university, we are closing the door on every single person who did not get a chance to go to university by saying that if they did not do it when they were 18 or 19, they cannot afford it, it will not be flexible, it has to be done over three years, they cannot study part time, they cannot do it intensively and all the rest of it. That is a bad thing for social mobility. Of course, the fact that the move towards younger people from deprived backgrounds going to university has continued is welcome, as many of us said at the time, but we must consider the whole picture if we want to see what is happening.

Of course, we have a difficulty in that there is no new public money for higher education so we will have to do something within the skin that we have. The good news is that money, public and private, is wasted hand over fist in the current system. Every year, billions of pounds are borrowed with the intention of writing it off. The RAB charges essentially mean that almost £1 in two is written off. We have the most wasteful, or at least the most expensive, model of higher education in the three-year residential degree. We are by far the outliers in the OECD as regards the extent to which our higher education system is based on a three-year residential degree for young people. Nobody else graduates so many young people so expensively in that model at the moment.

Debate on the Address

David Lammy Excerpts

Wednesday 4th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sir Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

Unlike the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), I welcome this Queen’s Speech, which contains some very constructive measures, but we need to recognise the mountain that we have been climbing and continue to have to climb. The economy collapsed by more than 7% in 2009, and we inherited a public sector deficit that was bigger in percentage terms than that of Greece. Lord knows that Government Members have had to take some very tough and difficult decisions at a time when our trading partners have also been trapped in recession, which has made it even more difficult to get the economy growing again.

Now that we can, at last, see strong sustainable growth across all sectors, it is to be hoped that from this year on, people will at least begin to feel the benefits of recovery. Having gone through such a long period with no growth, we know that getting growth going again does not happen overnight; it will take time for many people. As a Liberal Democrat, I would stress that this is a coalition Government and that Liberal Democrats have shaped many of the key reformist policies. If we do not say this, nobody else will, but it is important for people to understand how coalition works.

The Queen’s Speech pledged to deliver a stronger economy and a fairer society, enabling everyone to get on in life. It is a Liberal Democrat mantra that the Queen uttered this morning—although I do not know whether she realised that—and it has underpinned our approach to government. I want to give the lie to the idea that the Government’s key achievements could or would have been secured without the Liberal Democrats. I want to make it clear that this is a coalition, in which we share the responsibility, the decisions and the policies.

The fact is that many of the things that have happened would not have happened without the Liberal Democrats. Let me explain what I mean. First, there seems to be a theory out there that the coalition was not even necessary, but there is a real likelihood that, had we not entered the coalition in 2010, there would have been a run on the pound, a great deal of market uncertainty, and a sharp rise in interest rates.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

I do not know whether I misheard the right hon. Gentleman. Did he really suggest that there would have been a run on the pound had the Liberal Democrats not been part of the coalition?

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

What I said was that had there not been a coalition delivering stability in Government, there would have been a run on the pound, or it is likely that there would have been a run on the pound, and there would have been a sharp rise in interest rates—and as the only coalition possibility was the one that actually happened, yes, I am saying that had we not entered the coalition, that would have been a real risk.

There is also a presumption that, a short time after the 2010 election, there would have been, or might have been, a second election, which might have produced a similarly indecisive result because the economy had been seen to deteriorate even more, but which, in some people’s opinion, would have produced a Conservative majority Government. I can only say that if that had happened, we should have heard a very different Queen’s Speech from the one that was delivered today. For instance, I do not believe that the Government would have delivered the raising of the tax threshold to £10,000 this year, and the further increase to £10,500 next year. That was not in the Conservative manifesto, and the Prime Minister said that it could not be done, but it has been done, because we were there fighting for it. It has been popular, and of course Conservatives want to be associated with it, but it was and is our policy. It will cut income tax for 24 million people by £800 annually from next year, and it has taken 2 million people out of tax altogether.

If there had been a Conservative majority, we would certainly not have introduced the latest round of the most radical reforms of our state and private pension arrangements since the days of Lloyd George, who, as some Members may recall, was a Liberal. Our pensions Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Steve Webb), has secured a legacy as a great reformer. He is probably the best informed, best qualified pensions Minister that the country has ever had, and I believe that the measures he has introduced will serve as the foundation for both public and private sector pensions for decades to come.

Those two measures in themselves represent huge and positive reforms that have happened only because Liberal Democrats have been in government, but Liberal Democrat Ministers have also been the driving force behind the growth of apprenticeships, and we are on target to achieve 2 million by the end of the current Parliament. Liberal Democrats, led by the Deputy Prime Minister, have secured extra child care support, free school meals for every infant, and targeted support for disadvantaged pupils. Those measures have made a significant difference to families and others living in deprived circumstances, and are having, or beginning to have, a qualitative effect on the outcome of education.

Liberal Democrats have led the way towards a reform of the electricity market which, unlike the measures proposed by the Opposition, would keep the lights on, keep bills down and promote green energy. Liberal Democrat Ministers have secured a commitment to zero-carbon homes and to international agreement on climate change. Numerous other Liberal Democrat measures pepper the Queen’s Speech, including restrictions on plastic bags, support for garden cities, protection for pub landlords, a definition of child cruelty through a Cinderella clause, tough powers to tackle female genital mutilation, and legislation for the recall of Members of Parliament. None of those measures would have been in the Queen’s Speech if Liberal Democrats had not been in the coalition.

There are other parts of the speech which I warmly welcome, too. As I represent a constituency in the north-east of Scotland, I welcome the fact that maximising North sea resources is committed to in the Queen’s Speech, as is implementing the proposals of the Wood review, which the Government—indeed, the Liberal Democrat Energy Secretary—commissioned and which was supported by the Prime Minister. This will be achieved first through co-ordination between the Government and industry and also by maintaining a tax regime that encourages development. I hope the Government can simplify the tax regime over time, because it is becoming complicated. That is serving to unlock investment but it is also making it very difficult for businesses to assess that against international comparators. We also need to stimulate exploration, which is essential for future development.

I should say in passing that the industry has a concern. It will support this co-operation between Government and industry to maximise returns and to co-ordinate the use of infrastructure, but the regulator that is required to achieve that could be costly and it believes that if there is shared co-operation the costs should be shared, not imposed entirely on the industry. However, this calculation has, in the end, to be made: whatever is done has to enable the industry to make the investment that will ensure we get the maximum returns in the long run.

I also welcome the implementing of new financial powers for the Scottish Parliament. It is the essential next step in devolution. The right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) has left the Chamber, but he was right to say that if—or when, as I believe—Scotland votes to stay in the United Kingdom, the further transfer of powers to Scotland and what is happening in Wales and Northern Ireland will lead to a demand for devolution within England. I recognise that that is a matter for English MPs, but I personally think it would be a welcome development, leading to decentralisation and more localism.

This is the reality in Scotland: the coalition Government had to tackle the recession and the hole in the finances and had to take all the tough decisions, whereas all the Scottish Government had to do was spend the block grant, but they have done that while hurling abuse at all the difficult measures which, frankly, any Government would have to take, and while having no responsibility for those decisions. Giving the Scottish Parliament the responsibility to raise its own revenue and not just spend the block grant will increase transparency and accountability.

Tributes to Nelson Mandela

David Lammy Excerpts

Monday 9th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

I am sure all hon. Members will understand the emotion of an eight-year-old or nine-year-old child growing up in what feels like a very local or parochial context, be it in a village, a town, a hamlet or a street in a constituency such as mine. Having listened to this afternoon’s debate, I want to begin by reflecting on young people during the late-1960s, 1970s and 1980s growing up in places such as Tottenham, Brixton, Handsworth in Birmingham, Chapeltown in Leeds and St Paul’s in Bristol. It is sometimes dislocating when you arrive in a country and you are the child of immigrants. Thinking back to the 1970s and 1980s, I hope that all hon. Members will recognise the difficulty felt by many young people, particularly young boys from West Indian backgrounds, the challenges we were having with the police and the huge challenges that this country was having with throwing up role models we could land on and aspire to—we still have that debate in this House today.

As one of those young people, who was also growing up in the context of not having a father in my house—broken, to some extent, by two successive recessions and some of the discrimination of that age, he left us when I was 12—I am truly grateful for the role model that was Nelson Mandela. For me and so many like me, he provided a tremendous dignity and courage, which perhaps was the reason why during the very difficult 1980s we did not pick up Molotov cocktails and cause chaos on our own streets—we chose another path. He was that role model: as an articulate lawyer; as a freedom fighter; as a prisoner—it is important to land on that period in prison, because none of us knew what he looked like and he was just that image of a boxer that we had to hold on to; as a man who walks out of prison so many years later, with grey hair and his wife; as a politician; as a leader; and as an elder statesman. Like so many others becoming aware of our own context, I could have felt very small in that context, in the face of poverty and sometimes discrimination, but he and so many others helped me to feel very large and very big.

I am truly grateful to have been born and raised in, and to represent a seat in, the London borough of Haringey. Haringey was one of the centres in London of the Anti-Apartheid Movement. We are very proud of a house on Windermere road—the house of Oliver Tambo and the house where Mbeki came and stayed. It is a house now owned by the South African Government, because it is so important to them. It was an enclave for many who surreptitiously campaigned, found money and supported what was originally an underground movement that was moving to be an overground movement.

It would be remiss of me if I did not pay tribute to my predecessor, Bernie Grant, who endlessly, and unpopularly at the time, campaigned consistently, first as a local councillor in Haringey, then as the leader of Haringey council and then in this place, for Nelson Mandela’s freedom. He was hugely proud to be with Jesse Jackson in 1990 when Mandela walked out of prison.

I am also grateful to Mike Terry, who led the Anti-Apartheid Movement from the London borough of Haringey—he was a teacher at Alexandra Park secondary school at the time—and to many others in this Chamber. As teenagers, we would all have been aware of the work of my right hon. Friends the Members for Neath (Mr Hain), for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) and of Richard Caborn, the former Member for Sheffield Central, all of whom pushed the cause on behalf of many others.

This is not a time for rancour. It is hugely important to be inspired by the manner in which Nelson Mandela conducted himself. A word that has often been lost in the context of these times is “solidarity”. Who will stand with me even though they are different from me? I joined the Anti-Apartheid Movement long before I joined the Labour party. I joined it to stand with others who looked like me, but who were experiencing the most pernicious discrimination and nastiness across the world. I proudly boycotted Barclays bank, Cape apples, avocados and a whole stream of other things to join in that solidarity. I was incensed when Mike Gatting took a team to South Africa to play cricket because of the brutality that I saw in front of my eyes.

We have arrived now at a different place, and that is why, for me, Nelson Mandela is the seminal figure of the 20th century. If the story of the 20th century can be summed up in one word, that word must be “freedom”. I am talking about the freedom for people to be who they want to be in their own lifetime. We take it for granted that in that century, women could not be who they wanted to be and working people could not always be who they wanted to be, whatever the colour of their skin. The same goes for black people and people of colour. More recently, we have faced those battles on behalf of gay men and women. That is the legacy of Nelson Mandela. Perhaps he has that legacy because, unlike Martin Luther King, Gandhi and, before them, Abraham Lincoln, he was not shot and killed. Yes, he was in prison for 27 years, but I think that Members will recognise that in making it to 95, he was free for more years than some of us will be on this planet. That is a great thing. He was a great man whom we will remember and whom history will remember.

When we think of Mandela, it is also important that we do not forget those other young men and women from countries such as India, Nigeria, Guyana, where my parents are from, Jamaica and so many other places who were fighting against a colonial power that effectively took the view that a small minority can govern a majority. It may not have been as pernicious and nasty as what we saw on our screens in the 1970s and 1980s, but sometimes it was. Mandela sits with those other figures such as Nyerere, Kenyatta and others who fought for liberation. That is why he meant so much in my small house in Tottenham.

Syria and the Use of Chemical Weapons

David Lammy Excerpts

Thursday 29th August 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

A few days ago, I found myself rushing to switch off the television because my five and seven-year-old boys were in front of the news when it was showing images of men, women and children who had been gassed and were lying on the floor dead—they were in front of our eyes. It is impossible to have watched events unfold in Syria in the past few years and to have thought anything other than, “If not now, when?”

It is impossible to have watched the footage in the past week and not to have felt the instincts of liberal interventionism pulsating in our consciences. That instinct tells us that we cannot be isolationist, and turn a blind eye to mass murder and wash our hands of the responsibility to act. It is impossible not to think back to the difference that British intervention made for the people of Kosovo, Sierra Leone and Libya and wonder how it can be replicated for the people of Damascus, Homs and Aleppo. However, the tempering of those instincts should be a resounding message seared on the memories of many Members: liberal intervention can fail—and it can fail badly. It can fail if we have no vision of the outcome, no definition of success and no route map to the exit; it can fail if we allow our thirst for justice to trump the patience to secure the greatest possible legitimacy for our action; and it can fail if we forget that our first responsibility is not to make matters worse.

Iraq is not a reason to absolve ourselves from our responsibilities in Syria, but it is a reason to exercise caution, invoke clarity and define a conclusion. This Government seek a blank cheque to use British armed forces in Syria without convincingly and coherently answering the most crucial questions. What constitutes success for a military intervention? If a negotiated settlement is the goal, will military intervention make it more or less likely? Are we comfortable that our intervention is limited to punishing the use of chemical weapons, rather than explicitly to protecting the lives of the Syrian people?

Is it fair for the Prime Minister to imply, as he did today, that this is a humanitarian intervention, when his only ambition is for Britain to be the dispassionate referee of a brutal civil war? If a short and limited military intervention leads not to the cessation of the use of chemical weapons but to an escalation of hostilities or, even worse, retaliation, do we further escalate our involvement or back away entirely? If we escalate, are we comfortable with the slow creep that will place the lives of more war-wary members of our armed services at risk? We need to know the scale of our intervention, the limit of our commitment and the nature of our involvement before we can be asked to affirm it. Parliament cannot be expected to vote on pure sentiment; it needs to vote on specifics.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

My right hon. Friend, like me, is sickened by the number of times we have voted for war, sometimes to my great shame. What is the hurry? The civil war has been going on for two years. Is it not time that we got on with negotiation and diplomacy?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. I know that hon. Members turn away because they think I might not stop them if their intervention is too long. I remind Members that they should address their comments through the Chair so that I can sit them down if they go on too long.

[Mr Lammy]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who is precisely right: there is nothing in the motion that could not have been debated next week. We should be very concerned about the speed and haste that is indicated beyond this place.

We should remember that conflicts do not take place without context. This conflict will not take place without history, without suspicion of our intentions or outright hostility to our presence. Syrian Government assertions that French, British and American agents launched the chemical attacks to pave the way for intervention might attract ridicule in this Chamber, but let us not be so naive as to think that there will not be many willing subscribers to this conspiracy theory across the middle east. We must never underestimate the cynicism that surrounds our motives and those of our allies. We must never underestimate the fact that even the most humanitarian of objectives can be misconstrued as a nefarious attempt by the west to project its power. We must never underestimate the fact that we must first win the battle of perception above all else.

Any intervention needs to be demonstrably scrupulous, must involve more than just the usual suspects and must be the last resort of a process that has visibly exhausted all diplomatic means. The recent ratcheting up of rhetoric has come at the expense of reason and has eschewed responsibility. The cacophony of tough words and the insidious indication that attacks could take place as early as this weekend have not facilitated diplomacy or the forging of alliances.

We need cooler heads rather than broader shoulders. The Government must abandon the march for “war by the weekend” and assure the House that any military intervention will be countenanced only after the weapon inspectors have been given time to investigate, free from external pressure. The process might be long and arduous but it is necessary and right.

We are holding this debate on the anniversary of the speech that Martin Luther King made, but he made another speech in 1967 against the Vietnam war. We should reread his words.

Tributes to Baroness Thatcher

David Lammy Excerpts

Wednesday 10th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to pay tribute to Baroness Thatcher and to associate myself with the remarks of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. It is an incredibly long way from Broadwater Farm, via the Bar, to being here as a Member of Parliament. I think it is an even longer way to go from a grocer’s shop in Grantham, through Oxbridge and the Bar, to leading one’s country as a woman. For that single reason alone, it is appropriate that we come together to pay tribute to Margaret Thatcher.

I look at her legacy from the vantage point of being a young person growing up in Tottenham, with a single parent occasionally reliant on the state and on benefits, during a difficult time for our country. It would certainly be the case that for most of my youth Margaret Thatcher was not somebody I admired, and there were occasions when I actually felt quite scared by much of what she said and what her Government seemed to do. Some 25 or 30 years later, I feel slightly differently. My political generation, which includes the leaders of our political parties, coincides with a period in politics of 24-hour media, presentation, soundbite, spin and polling. All of us in this House have met politicians who seem to not really know their own mind. We have met politicians who say one thing one minute and then, when they have met someone else, seem to say the last thing they heard. Some of us have even met party leaders like that. In that context, I have tremendous respect for someone with conviction and courage, someone who is willing to stand their ground and who is clear on their values. At this time in our history, when things are so hard and there is so much deep concern about our political class, we could do with more conviction from all parts of this House.

I said that I was basing my remarks on growing up in Tottenham, but for the second part of my youth I spent seven years in Peterborough. There, I came across a different kind of working class attitude to Margaret Thatcher. These were people who had left London and gone to a new town. They were making their way and wanted to forge ahead. They were enjoying holidays and owning their homes for the first time. I would go around to their small houses and on their coffee tables they would have the “Tell Sid” brochure, so keen were they to take part in the experiment of buying shares in British Gas. I have to say that my mum got one of those brochures for her coffee table, but that was just to appear as though she was able to buy shares in British Gas.

There were two quiet revolutions of the 20th century that have given us the country and world we have today. The social liberal revolution of the 1960s is perhaps best personified by the quest for freedom and human rights that we associate with another great elder statesman, Nelson Mandela.

The second liberal revolution must most definitely be the economic liberal revolution of the 1980s. Margaret Thatcher was obviously at its epicentre, and for that reason she is a giant figure in our history, and it is right that our country comes together to pay her due respect. However—[Interruption.] I am afraid there is a big however, because we also live with the consequences of a hyper-individualised society—consequences that we see in materialism, consumerism, over-corporatism and a sense that unemployment is fine and that those on benefits can fend for themselves. I remind the House that for people in Handsworth, Brixton, Tottenham, St Pauls in Bristol, Moss Side in Manchester and Chapeltown in Leeds, it was a desperate time, with tremendous suffering, and we stand in solidarity with colleagues in the north, particularly in our mining towns and former steelworks, who bear the scars today of that period of social adjustment.

No one has mentioned the Commonwealth, which is an important institution. Despite the advice of Rajiv Gandhi, Oliver Tambo and others who urged economic sanctions, Margaret Thatcher said, “No, I will go it alone.” That is a great scar on the history of the Commonwealth.

The history will be chequered for many years. It is right that we pay tribute, but it is also right that we reflect on young people growing up at that time, particularly in our tower blocks and estates, and the suffering they are still going through—not a feral underclass, but workless poor. It began in that period and today it still continues for successive generations.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

Oral Answers to Questions

David Lammy Excerpts

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I should be delighted to visit my hon. Friend in Rugby. He is absolutely right to say that we need to build more houses in our country. That is because, unless they have help from their parents, first-time buyers are now, on average, in their thirties. We need to build more homes in order to allow people to achieve the dream, which so many have already achieved, of getting on to the housing ladder.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

Q2. In 2010 the Prime Minister and his party said it was lying and scaremongering to suggest they would reduce family tax credits for families earning less than £31,000, but we found out last week that the threshold will, in fact, be £26,000. Will the Prime Minister apologise to families he has failed to protect and has made poorer while he has been in government?

[The Prime Minister]

This Government have had to make difficult decisions on public spending and welfare, but we have protected those on the lowest incomes and we have made sure there have been increases in some areas. That is what we have done with child tax credits, and it is a record we should support.